Cake gratefully provided by Zhejiang Sci-Tech University

It was the big 49 on September 8th for Cindy. All in all it was a pretty relaxed
type of day and we went for dinner with two of the FT’s. Stephen and Pauline, as
we have told you before, are from Canada and going on their fourth year teaching at ZSTU. They suggested a new (5 days old) restaurant in our local area called C’ Straits and since they had gone to the one in the city of Hangzhou and enjoyed it we said, “sure, why not.” By the way, this Taiwanese franchise has a number of them throughout China. Now remember, this new restaurant opened its doors about a week ago but has been in business in China for a couple of years now. So, we had heard good things, were celebrating Cindy’s birthday and had high expectations. Sad to say it was a no go and Cindy has called for a re do on her celebration.

There were four of us and Michael’s meal (Chinese) came first after waiting 30 minutes. Then Stephen’s meal of pork tenderloin in wine sauce (Cindy ordered the same thing) came about 45 minutes later. Then Pauline’s Norwegian salmon arrived about 10 minutes after that, and finally, Cindy’s meal arrived. The problem was that it wasn’t what she ordered and, it was over cooked to the point of being rubbery. Cindy wants, and will get, her re do. For all of you who know Cindy you know it was also her twin sister's birthday but because we are in China Cindy turned 49 a day earlier....Happy Birthday Sandie.

Overall, it’s been pretty uneventful the last couple of days. At least the hot and humid weather has broken and now we have cool days with lots of rain. That’s no big deal and a welcome relief. What each of us has been doing mostly is preparing for our class today, Monday, September 11, 2006.

All in all, we both feel that they, the students, responded to us and our prepared materials. First we want to cover the biggest cultural difference between Chinese students and American college students. They, our lovely students, are generally, and painfully, shy. They feel shame if they make any mistakes so in order not to feel shame or embarrassment they don’t open their mouths. You’ve all heard about this but the way to best explain it so that you all have a very clear picture is to ask you to close your eyes for a moment.

Now, picture yourself driving on a country road at late at night when all of a sudden, you come upon a deer in the center of the road. Picture those big beautiful scared shitless eyes. Now you can picture our students when we ask them a question. And that is when they even look at us (or any of the other FTs) because mostly, they keep their heads down thinking they won’t be called upon.

Another cultural aspect of teaching in China and in universities is that these students have studied very hard to get to this point. Their main concern, and that of their parents, is to get them those fantastic grades to get into the top universities. Once there, or here as the case may be, the students have almost no more incentative to study. We hear that it is almost impossible for them to fail out of school. We most assuradly are not expected to fail them. This is beside the fact that last year, China graduated almost four million students from universities around the country. Do you think there are that many new jobs here?

Where is the motivation for these young people to learn? Most probably do not see themselves using English. Many we know don't see the need for this ability. But those that do see the possibilites, and well, those are the ones who will benefit from the FTs who come here to teach.

As we’ve said, our first Monday was like those lovely deer in the headlights but with some hard work on our part we have each warmed them up a bit and really feel like they responded better this week. With a little more extra work we hope to open them up even more down the road and since our Chinese friends have told us that it could take a couple more classes for the students to really open up we’re feeling just fine.

Two more weeks of easy going and then we start with the other seven classes we have to teach. We're betting that we’ll be mongo busy with prep and teaching and English Corner then.

For all of those who sent birthday wishes a big thank you.

Later, Cindy & Michael