Okay. So I want to brag on my students a little bit.

On Monday, I judged the ZJUT Zhijiang College English Speech Competition. As I rolled up to the auditorium, I didn’t really know what to expect. How many speeches was I going to hear? Who was giving them? What were these alleged speeches even about? Was anyone even going to show up for an English speech competition? I had nooooo idea.

I arrived to a packed house, with students filling all the seats, the aisles, and lining the walls along the sides and rear of the auditorium. Wow. Intense.
Turns out there were 31 speeches for the first round of the competition. Yes, just for the first round. These were to be given by students from all majors and all grade levels. And they were all going to be discussing the same general topic, that topic being “Why China is Awesome.” For each speaker, the judges (that’s me!) scored the speech according to fluency, pronunciation, presence, and all that jazz. The top 10 scoring speakers moved on to an extemporaneous speaking final round. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners were to be determined by averaging each speaker’s scores from both rounds.

So, I have to admit. The first round wasn’t super thrilling. One can only listen to the same speech about how “the most beautiful sentence in the world is ‘I love you, China’” so many times.

But, the final round was very exciting. Even more so for me, because five of my freshmen students made it into the final 10! Fivvvve of my freshmen, who were competing against seniors! I was so proud (And noooo, it wasn’t because I was inflating my students’ scores—I was only one out of five judges. It’s just that my students are that awesome). One of my students even became the crowd favorite for her hilarious extemporaneous speech on the topic of “loneliness.” Her speech went something like this:

“When I got this topic, I have to admit I was very confused, because loneliness is seeming to me like a sad thing, which I don’t understand, because I am always so very happy! Am I right!? Am I right!? (at this point, the crowd goes “Yeah! You’re right!”) So, I don’t know what loneliness is, but I have advice for anyone who is lonely. If you are a boy, you should go talk to pretty girls, like our foreign teachers, Candle and Wendy (Wendy and I are simultaneously blushing and dying with laughter). And if you are a girl, you should go shopping! You don’t have money? I will give you money!”

Needless to say, the crowd loved it. She ended up being one of two third place winners! But my pride does not end there: two of my other students (pictured here) won the two second place prizes! So, so proud of my little chickadees that night!

Who Says English Parties Can't be Legit?

Since arriving in Hangzhou, it’s been a goal of mine to have my students actually enjoy taking my class. Being a student for the vast majority of my life, I realize how painful a class can be if there aren’t good vibes flowing between the teacher and his/her students. So, to this end, I’ve been overzealously wacky, weird, strange, and entertaining during class in hopes that this will win me “cool” points from the kiddies.

--A small, illustrative example: This week, I’m celebrating Halloween in my classes by showing the movie Casper. (Yes, this means I’m watching Casper five times this week. Oh, joy of joys.) Anyway, I had a great time explaining Halloween customs to my classes beforehand, the best part being illustrating how we silly Americans like to scare people. I did this by hiding by the classroom door at the beginning of class and screaming “Boo!” in the ears of students who were walking in late. I succeeded in getting a few girly screams out of the late boys, and howls of laughter from the rest of the class. Hollaaaa.--

But, I digress. My main point is that I think I have finally succeeded in winning over the hearts and minds of the majority of my students. Case in point, the English party we held on Saturday.

So, Wendy, Roger, and I (the lone three foreign teachers at our college) decided to throw our students an English Party, where they could hang out with foreigners, play games, and practice English. So, we invited most of our classes, not expecting very many students to actually give up their Saturday afternoon to hang with teachers.

Fast forward to Saturday morning. Wendy and I leisurely walk over to the designated meeting place on campus, from which we are going to travel to the party locale. On the way, I receiv a phone call from one of my students.

“Candle! (yes, they call me Candle. It’s the closest they can get to Chandler.) Candle! It’s Monica. There are too many people here for one bus, so I am taking 25 students and leaving now. See you there!”

…Umm…what? Too many people to fit on one bus? Taking 25 now?

We were expecting 25 total.

So, I turn the corner, now infinitely more intrigued/anxious to see the turn-out.
There are about 70 students milling about in front of the English building. As Wendy and I approach the mob, they all start waving excitedly and pulling out their cameras to snap photos of us. (Nope, the photo-taking has not ceased, two months in.)

Woooow. So I’m shocked. Are we this popular? Are the students that bored on a Saturday afternoon? Did we buy enough Sprite?

These are irrelevant questions as Wendy and I automatically shift into Tour Guide/Recruitment Counselor/Teacher Mode and start herding the students out of campus, across the street, and to the bus stop.

“OK! Get on buses Y5, K504, or K308 to Song Cheng! Any of those! Got it! Okay!”

The poor, unsuspecting bystanders quietly waiting for their respective buses eye us curiously/incredulously/warily. I don’t blame them. Who would want to get on a city bus with about 75 boisterous college students?

So, Wendy and I valiantly lead our army of students to the party location, which was woefully unprepared for so many guests. But, I have to hand it to the guys there—they rose to the occasion: moving around furniture, setting up drinks, and throwing cards and mahjong sets at various groups of students to get them occupied and having a good time.


It turns out to be awessssome. The boys had a great time filling up water balloons and throwing them onto the girls from the balcony. And a big group of students whipped up some awesome dumplings in the kitchen. It was also so great to be able to talk to my students in a more relaxed, natural environment outside of the intimidating confines of the classroom. In fact, I found that the students who were most eager to approach me during the party to chat were the ones who seldom do so in class. I had an absolute blast getting to know them a little better! All in all, a great success.

So, at the end of the day, as the students were packing up and heading out, a group of students came up to me and said “Candle, Candle! Thank you so much. No teacher has ever done this for us before!”

Operation “Get My Students to Think Somewhat Fondly of Me”: Accomplished (for now, anyway).

Oh, China. You are too good to me.

Yikes. It’s been a while. I had every intention of writing a nice, introspective post in honor of my “monthiversary” last week, but life got in the way. I’m all for that. Vikki Lee keeps telling me that I need to stop thinking so much and just start living. Not bad advice.

I have to admit, I’m really happy here. It’s not an “Ahhh I’m –so-excited-I’m-going-to-scream-and-flail-my-arms-about-in-a-fit-of-unbridled-joy” kind of happy; it’s more of a quiet, unexpressed satisfaction with the way my life is unfolding. The friends I’ve made thus far are some of the most positive, flexible, happy, and interesting people I’ve ever met—and I need friends like that so I can learn how to be more flexible and open-minded.

A big lesson that I’m also learning is the value of being comfortable in your awkwardness. In China, I’m awkward pretty much 24/7. I’m the only laowai on a bus packed with Chinese, and the only one who seems to fall over when the bus lurches around corners. I’m the silly foreigner who stares dumbly at a waitress when she asks me something in Chinese too quickly and I have no idea what she said. I’m the mentally insane tourist who weaves through a stampede of oncoming bicycles in pursuit of an snapshot of an adorable Chinese child (yes, I’m that creepy). I’m the bizarre English teacher who pantomimes and overdramatically gestures in attempts to make myself understood to my students (and I oftentimes only succeed in making them cry with laughter, not understand my English). Yep, all signs point to helplessly and irrevocably awk.

In the States, I was very awkward-averse. I purposely avoided situations in which I felt uncomfortable or unsure. Here, it’s impossible to avoid these kinds of circumstances. And that’s becoming more and more okay with me. I’m learning that making a life in a foreign country requires a kind of fearlessness—a willingness to roll with the punches and to be vulnerable; to be comfortable with your abilities and your (increasingly apparent) limitations. I think I’m coming to know myself better here than I ever did in the US, and that’s a really cool feeling.

Another awesome thing about China is that I get to hang out with monks. Well, as close to hanging out with them as I can get as a non-practitioner of Buddhism. A quick story: so, the other day, I woke up at 3am to watch an unmentionable college football game (don’t ask). Anyway, by about 7am, I was feeling pretty stressed out and tense, and I needed to let off some steam. So, I pulled on my running shoes and headed out the door in the general direction of a Buddhist monastery nestled among a crop of mountains that line the western edge of Hangzhou. And I jogged, passing monks in their gold and silver robes on the way to meditation, and stopping to chat with a few who were enjoying a morning cup of tea in front of the monastery gates. Being surrounded by the serenity and beauty of a crisp, clear fall morning in the Buddhist hills made the ill-fated football game seem like a distant and hazy memory. Oooh China, you are too good to me.