heaven 0, Santa 1 (and, How I almost ruined Christmas in China)

I live on the 5th floor of the school dorm (the kidlets inhabit the 2nd floor at night).

One day, I came downstairs to find the other teachers decorating the wall opposite the lower entrance. They had found some pretty stick-on decorations online and decided to put them up on the dorm wall – two large sheet of plastics with little cutout images depicting ‘home sweet home’ birds in a tree and also a flower-filled cart that you can peel and stick to the wall. I stopped to help for a while and to try to snag 王老师 with a question afterward.

Cute stick-ons for the dorm walls, minus a few words

The flower-filled cart had the words ‘Sweet Love’ printed on its side and also came with the phrase ‘To love is to catch a glimpse of heaven.’ I noted the teachers looking uneasy, and then 王老师, whose English is excellent and who has a generally good understanding of things from American English culture asked me, “What does this mean?”

I figured that she was trying to decide if the use of the word ‘heaven’ was appropriate to display on the wall of a school dorm. I tried explaining, “To be able to love is like being able to see heaven.” I figured this would be adequate for them to decide on since as far as I can tell, all the teachers are appreciative of love and sentimentality. “天啊 tian1a heaven” (I think) she said, using the phrase that seems to be the Chinese equivalent of “Oh my” or “Good heavens!” or “Holy Smokes” or “Oh my goodness!” or “Lordy Lordy” or whatever. Then the teachers exchanged a few short words in Chinese which was a decision that the phrase was not good and they would exclude it from the wall. Besides, the cart still said “Sweet Love,” and that was nice enough.

Then we all returned to the office (2 buildings away) together.

It makes sense. A couple people have told me that Chinese people are told from day one that there is no god, so I’m sure it would be considered out of line for an institution to display any words to the effect of saying something about a god or heaven or something.

But Christmas and Santa are a whole different subject.

Merry Chistmas from the 'Woerma' mall

Christmas and New years seem to have something to do with... Hawaii?

Christmas 'cheer' in the Walmart (Woerma) mall

… complete with workers in many stores wearing Santa hats. I felt weird trying to take a picture of them though, so I didn’t.

‘Christmas’ in Chinese is 圣诞节 sheng4dan4jie2 Saint-birth-holiday, but the internet tells me that 耶诞节 ye1dan4jie2 Jesus-birth-holiday can also be used. I haven’t heard anyone say the latter yet, though.

In October, I’d seen a couple of shops here and there that had a few Halloween-themed decorations, so I expected I’d probably see some Christmas-related things popping up. The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I took a quick trip to the mall that contains the Walmart (because that’s the only place I knew where to get a toilet plunger on short notice) and was immediately beset by Christmas and New Years banners and pennant-flag things where the mall once had banners celebrating it’s “1th Anniversary.”
(China has thousands of years of history, but here in the economic development zone, everything is essentially 1 year old)

I entered the Walmart section and was met by santas, santa hats, and two different versions of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer songs playing at the same time. I guess China may not be religious, but it is still a marketplace. (I later bought a cheap (50 cents) santa hat because it might be fun, and I figure as the 外教 wai4jiao4 foreign teacher I might be expected to have one)

The kids are very aware of 圣诞节 and got excited when I put it on the calendar. The kindergarten English curriculum has a few sections on Christmas related words while the Elementary school curriculum seems to try to smush Christmas and New Years (Jan 1st) into the same thing. Example 1) an activity depicting making a stand up pine tree and decorating the boughs with Happy New Years cards; Example 2) matching and word search activities centered around the gifts that kids are asking for or buying for New Years.

The kindergarten curriculum section “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year” instructed me to teach the kids words like “santa claus, shining, angel, bell…”
Ugh.
Next week’s lesson is to teach 2 phrases, including “I like the shining bells.”

I decided to organize the lesson around decorating a tree and include other words two like “snow” and “snowflake” and “star” to put on the tree. I brought the santa hat with me and figured we could all say “Merrrry Christmas! Ho Ho Ho!” all jolly-like. Because like, whatever there is to say about Santa, that’s at least a legit American cultural reference.

After having stuck the hat to the board and drawn a beard and mustache under it, I thought that the idea of this weird old man wearing a hat saying ‘Ho ho ho’ might be getting a little creepy, so I wanted to indicate that that this was sort of an American folk story. … so, I accidentally said “他不是真的 He’s not real” This caused one of the more alert and loudmouthed boys to jerk up straight, “What?”

Oops. I guess maybe parents in China also tell kids that Santa comes to give them presents. Or, if not them, to give someone presents. I am not really sure if Santa comes to China or how he gets into peoples’ homes when he does. I just feel like I would rather have people know that their gifts are coming from people who love them and to take on their own role of sharing gifts with others. If I become a parent, I think I would rather have my kids know from early on that the gifts are coming from their family… without this being horribly disillusioning or something.

Anyway, I ‘accidentally’ said that Santa wasn’t real…in Chinese, and one kid seemed a little distraught. I tried to sail through it with the old “I’m a foreigner and I don’t understand what is going on” expression and continue the lesson. None of the other kids were getting worried, so either their parents said something different or they just weren’t paying attention … probably the latter. The teacher, who had been helping me manage the class from behind their little semicircle of mini-chairs this whole time didn’t look at all phased, so I figured no great error had been committed. However, this one kid was getting a little louder and turning to look at me, then the teacher, then me again, seeking the truth. “圣诞老人是真的还是假的？ Is Santa Claus real or is he fake?”

I never know how to tell kids things when their parents seem to have told them something else. I fell back on the explanation my mom once gave me for fairies … but in Chinese: “有的人说他是真的。有的人说他是假的。Some people say he’s real. Some people say he’s fake.” … I didn’t know how to finish it with You’ll just have to decide for yourself, but I figured that was enough. It made the kid quiet down a bit, and the teacher smiled at me, so I figured that was ok.

Just before the end of class, I tried to hastily describe to the teacher how this day (it was Dec 6th – St. Nick’s Day) was a mini holiday in Europe and America. The night before, children could put out shoes or stockings and in the morning, you guessed it, little gifts. I had baked tiny versions of the Christmas cookies with chocolate kisses in the middle and wanted to give them to the class. I wore the santa hat while distributing cookies and letting the kids practice saying ‘Thank you’. So, I guess maybe acting Santa-like while obviously not being the Santa Claus can be how I make my commentary on that.

So there you go.
China.
Where heaven and god don’t exist, but Santa Claus does.
… I guess that’s really not much different …

Dorm slogans: feedback opportunity!

王老师 asked me last week for typical sayings that American children see on the walls when they go to school.

The second floor of the dorm building, where some of the kids sleep during the week, is due to be decorated. Since the building is only about 3 months old, it’s still got its smooth white walls. 王老师 had a batch of Chinese sayings that are going to go up, but also wanted straight-up original American sayings and not just translations. She doesn’t like ‘those Chinglish translations’.

Here’s what Chinese kids are going to see in their hallways:

1.上下楼梯靠右行，你谦我让脚步轻！
2.捡起一片纸屑，美了校园也美了你。
3.助人使你快乐，谦让使你大度。
4.排队学大雁齐齐的，走路学小猫轻轻的。
5.墙壁穿新衣，请你要珍惜。
6.用爱去呵护温馨的宿舍之家。
7.微笑的你最甜，健康的你最棒，文明的你最美！

I don’t recognize most of these words, so I just ran them through a translator widget:

1. 上下楼梯靠右行，你谦我让脚步轻！
The high and low staircase depends on the right side, you are modest I to let the footsteps be light!
(I think this one is cute because it rhymes in Chinese. Many Chinese sayings are very regularly-rhythmic and chant-y sounding)
My suggestion:
Be polite! Keep to the right! Please don’t run or push or fight! (I made that up because I liked how the Chinese one rhymed)

2. 捡起一片纸屑，美了校园也美了你。
Picks up paper scraps, beautiful the campus was also beautiful you.
My suggestion:
Clean up, Clean up, Everybody Everywhere
Clean up, Clean up, Everybody do your share!

3. 助人使你快乐，谦让使你大度。
The helping others cause you to be joyful, modestly declining causes you to be magnanimous.
My suggestion:
To have a friend, you have to be one.

4. 排队学大雁齐齐的，走路学小猫轻轻的。
Lining up study goose Qi Qi, walks study the cat gently.
My suggestion:
Single file in the hallways

5. 墙壁穿新衣，请你要珍惜。
The wall puts on the new clothes, please must treasure.
(the ‘new clothes’ of the wall means ‘paint’)
My suggestion:
…i don’t remember what I suggested. Maybe ‘Please respect the new dorm and keep it clean for everyone!’ or something.

6. 用爱去呵护温馨的宿舍之家。
Goes to protect the family of warm dormitory with the love.
My suggestion:
I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family!

7.微笑的你最甜，健康的你最棒，文明的你最美！
Smile you are sweetest, healthy you are best, civilized you are most beautiful!
My suggestion:
Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference!

Trying to think of sayings I remember from elementary school was proving to be difficult, even though I remember walking through my old elementary school on my way up from a low point in life and observing that the positive ‘be yourself’ sayings all over were absolute gold.

I emailed one of my old teachers and we agreed that most sayings around schools seem to be along the lines of having a positive attitude and a good personality rather than instructions on politeness or reminders to walk single-file in the hallway. Those kinds of things were usually just told to us. Maybe it would be different if I’d lived in a boarding school. The only thing along those lines (both instructional and written down on a poster) that came to mind was “Clean up after yourself, your mother doesn’t work here.”… As this school is a boarding school, I figured that might make some kids sad.

Any more ideas? I don’t think the dorms are decorated yet. 😛

Today’s English Test, and 5 other stories about Chinese kids and pressure.

This post is a bundle of observations with reflections on topics relating to kids and the kinds of pressures I see them working under here at the school. I feel like much of it falls in with some stereotypical images of Chinese kids and teachers. Therefore, I feel like it is worth noting that probably for every stereotypical or expected image of the kids, there are positive and unexpected ones. Also, some of the things I write about here might be observations I made because I have already been exposed to a set of stereotypes, and am in some ways seeing what I expect to see or being biased towards reporting on things that seem to conform with the stereotypes while omitting things that don’t. With that in mind, today’s post is a giant one composed of 6 separate stories/observations that my mind seems to be categorizing in the same general concept.

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Story one: Today’s English test (英语口试)

Today there was an English oral exam. I might have missed out on it except that I followed the kids when they were lining up to go take their exams. I think I miss out on a lot of things by not knowing what is going on unless someone makes a very clear announcement. Anyway, today I followed some of the first graders to an English oral exam…

taking and preparing for oral English test

Winter (冬天) is here

冬天 dong1tian1 ~ winter
Well, it’s winter.

And, here I was just starting to wonder if Suzhou being one of the two heavens-on-earth of China meant that maybe the weather was going to be warm enough for mosquitoes all year ’round. The school building is an open campus – there aren’t really any internal hallways or rooms. All rooms have a window to the outside and the hallways pretty much have classrooms on one side and a courtyard area on the other. The doors are almost always open. In the back of my mind, I remembered 王老师 telling me in October that it was an unusually warm fall (which I was happy for because fall in this area is a wonderful temperature – almost like constant warm September days, sometimes getting a little too cool at night – I haven’t really noticed trees becoming notably colored though). But, the kids all have school uniforms and I figured their uniforms had slowly bundled up to the most warmest – a cozy-looking light blue sweater. School open to the weather? Kids wearing sweaters? Construction going full-bore 24-6.7? I started thinking, maybe it really doesn’t really get cold or rainy here…

Nope! Got cold yesterday. Today it was 6 C. I don’t know what that is in Fahrenheit, but it’s above freezing. Kinda windy too. I’m pretty sure I heard someone in the office say something like “冬天来” (dong1tian1 lai2), which I think is “winter has arrived.” Teachers just wear puffy coats all day. I tottered through the cold wind over to dinner tonight (served in a room with open doors) to see all the kids decked out in their standard-issue classroom winter overcoats (dark blue with a nice bold yellow inside the collar!).
At least I think this will end all worries about mosquitoes.
… maybe I will have to figure out how to shut the bathroom window all the way.

USA redoubles effort to no longer be the USA by the time I get home

So, in addition to the short-sighted and dangerous Protect IP act and Stop Online Piracy Act (You could be in a filibuster! click here to maybe be in a filibuster! You’ll be recorded ‘forever’ in the records of Congress!), it seems that the Senate has approved a bill – the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) – that would allow American Citizens to be arrested and detained indefinitely without due process of law – it seems that being suspected of being related to terrorist activities is all that it would take.

Besides this sounding a lot like the ol’ Salem witch trials and various secret police activities in mid-1900s Europe that I think they taught us about for reasons including not having history repeat itself or something like that, if this law gets through the White House, then we won’t have to imagine very hard to see the conflicts between liberty and security – it actually comes down to whether we actually get to keep the 5th Amendment or not.

This exact question is going to Obama in the next few days. He has already threatened to veto it, but I sure hope that’s actually what happens. If you want to use your individual (non-corporate) opinion (without being disappeared) while you still can to tell Obama that you support the veto, there’s a href=”http://act.demandprogress.org/sign/ndaa/”>petition that you can sign <a here just by giving your name and zip code:

The Senate thinks these measures are necessary because the battlefield is “right outside your window”… because ladies and gentlemen, that’s what a battlefield looks like. Something tells me that the Senate is getting a little dramatic what with not having any wars tearing up our own soil.
Read more from the ACLU article (note, the article was written before the Senate rejected the Udall amendment that would have removed the dangers of the NDAA)


Oh, by the way, the NDAA bill was drafted in secret, which strikes me as sneaky.