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 …

Brilliant English

The Brilliant English Program is a specialty of Wujiang Pearl School. I know, because I am creating it.

Just before the recent National Holiday, 王老师 asked if I would design a cover for the special program binders that Brilliant English students would get. I don’t think I have a copy of my original design, since I gave it to 王老师. She needed a design fairly quickly, and I am a little slow at computer-generating art (and I thought my Inkscape was broken). So, I sketched a design inspired by the sort of chest-swelling accomplishment that I imagined a ‘Brilliant’ English program ought to achieve, on the understanding that the concept would be turned over to someone else who would use it to make the actual final cover design. My concept design included a title hastily written in Italic calligraphy, credit to the school, and an earth with a gloriously beaming sun rising up out of the east. Lacing the bottom edge were a banner made of flags of English-speaking countries, to symbolize international connections.

Getting to know you

Yes, like the song from The King and I

Yesterday, instead of hurrying off to whatever task or errand or document-checking or lesson preparations I usually tended to after lunch, I wandered through the sunny courtyard area between buildings where the kids play during post-lunch recess. Chinese kids have to get pretty serious pretty fast in school, so they don’t have much free play time. The time they do have is probably precious.

Surprise Day

So, today was Saturday. The previous week was off of school for the National Holiday. I was told previously that we would have work this weekend to make up for the holiday time off. I sort of assumed this would take the form of some kind of teacher in-service day.

So, I was a little unprepared to hear the sounds of small children in the morning when I walked over to the office. I didn’t even bother to get breakfast because I assumed the cafeterias would be closed since there were not masses of children to feed. Oops.

School Assembly: One Month Celebration

(I finished writing this October 11th, but I started writing it on Friday, Sept 30th)

I found out yesterday, when Ms. Xu invited me to come, that the songs, dances, and chants that the kids have been practicing every day were meant to be performed at an assembly which happened today.

Routine morning exercises? ...or secretly learning choreography?

I was almost late due to an unsuccessful last-minute venture to get a Chinese bank account.

Feedback please? Phrases for Kindergarten Teachers

A question for all of you:
The kindergarten teachers here want to make a list of English phrases to use with the children, I assume for the purpose of creating some English learning environment. The children don’t have to learn to say the phrases, but they should learn to follow directions. We’re talking about things like “Please go back to your seat”, “Be careful”, etc – the kids don’t need to say or use them, but they should understand what is meant. And, when I say kindergarten, this includes 3-, 4-, and 5- year old preschoolers who aren’t actually in kindergarten yet.

First Things First: Breakfast

Ok, I have some catching up to do.  I’m into my third week of being the Foreign Teacher (外教) for the Suzhou Experimental Elementary School at their brand-new Wujiang Pearl Elementary School (and Preschool/Kindergarten) branch, and I’ve only just gotten around to establishing some kind of web-presence.  More explaining and flashbacks later – I figured I’d start y’all off with the same thing I start myself off with each day: Breakfast.

School breakfast: boiled egg, congee (rice porridge), pickled somethings, and two cute little mantou.

Yep, every day that I go to work, that’s what I eat. It never changes. I rather like it. The bowl of white stuff is plain congee. Congee is rice porridge/gruel. Kind of like watery oatmeal, except with rice instead of oatmeal. It’s not just rice in water – the watery part is smooth and has some substance from the starch of the rice. It’s a good cushion food for my stomach to hit first thing in the morning. It always comes with a hard boiled egg, and some pickled somethings. I usually mix both of these into my congee (after peeling the egg) to give it some more flavor. Finally, the dessert of my breakfast, there are the two adorable little mantou. They are just little rice dough rolls. They taste a teeny bit sweet, but I’m not sure yet if they have sugar added (probably) or if I just happen to think that rice dough tastes a little sweet. Anyway, this is what I eat every single morning that I go to work. Ok, I guess there is one thing that may vary. Sometimes one of my little mantou has … I think a sweet lotus paste … inside. Surprise :3 !

mmm... lotus paste...

Although, if you look at a filled mantou and an unfilled one, you can see that one is a little rounder.

Breakfast is served while the kids and teachers roll in between 07:30 and ~07:55, so every day I make sure that I’m at least moving around by the time the pleasant music comes on over the intercom system. Then the dorm bells ring, I imagine driving the boarding kids out of their rooms and propelling them towards the classroom buildings. I haven’t actually witnessed this yet, though. I live in one of the four large buildings on the brand-new primary school campus. I live on the 5th floor, and I think that one of the staff people also lives there, but I haven’t seen them yet. The boarding students live on the 2nd floor of the same building. Not all of the students live at the school. A large percentage are retrieved by their family every day and delivered again in the morning. Also, even the boarding students go home for weekends.

Today is Friday, the last day of my third week here. The students go home early on Fridays. Tonight’s activity will probably be to forage for food downtown because with the students gone for the weekend, the school won’t be serving dinner. But, dinner and lunch and school and downtown and all those other things will have to wait for later posts. This one’s just supposed to get us started.