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Teacher. You teach MATH.

A kid yelled this at Benji today. And I gave a loud guffaw and burst out laughing for five straight minutes.

He was doing the surface area of a rectangular prism equation on the board and was simplifying the numbers.

He ended up writing that 50 x 20 was 100.

“one thousand”  “ONE THOUSDAND” the kids started yelling.

“Noooo,” said Benji “What’s 15 time 30?” He had moved on to another part of the problem.

“One thousand, one thousand” they kept yelling.

I leaned over to look at the board. “Oh, 20 x 50 is 1000. You wrote one hundred.” And I added a zero.

“Whoops” he laughed as the kids stared on.

“Teacher. YOU TEACH MATH” yelled John from the back row.

Oh John. You have just articulated what I thought SO MANY TIMES.

I just looked at Benji, yelled “HAH” and then stuck my head in the corner of the room as I started cracking up. My-eyes-were-tearing-up cracking up.

Which made the kids crack up. Which made Benji crack up.

Which made me retreat again to my corner of laughter.

When I finally stopped laughing, I wiped the tears from my eyes, gave another unprofessional giggle, and went on to explain part of the worksheet.

By the way he told me I could make a blog post about this. And lest you think I am a math genius, I constantly make subtraction mistakes in front of the 7th graders who think I’m an idiot. Last week I subtracted 19.5 from 65 and thought it was 44.5 instead of 45.5. It just so happens I’m much better at multiplication times tables. #only7thgradethinkI’manidiot #6thgradethinksBenjiistheidiot

In fairness to us, the US education system doesn’t emphasize arithmetic beyond 4th grade or 5th grade, and we were Asian Studies majors in college.

but still.......there’s not a very good excuse.

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Professors: how we wait for students to take makeup exams

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I truly think these are some of the cutest drawings we’ve done together. Very collaborative. They started out with Adrianna teaching me and Tiana (the American Girl doll) how to draw. And then we colored. And switched and colored.

Kids are great.

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We’ve been drawing a lot of princesses lately. It started out with me teaching her how to draw a princess, and then she “suggesting” that we switch drawings for coloring. Then later she played the role of the instructor, and we still switched for coloring.

Also the blue hair was me. She told me I couldn’t do it. I gave her a lecture on artistic freedom.

kids man.

The american girl doll also “draws” but one of us draws for her.

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Sometimes I feel super fly, and I take selfies.

9/9 of these are work clothes, but I bet you can guess which day I worked from home.

also, appreciate the mix and match.

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Toyotaland

“Liz! What’s the model on the car?”

“Uhh...Carolla Altis”

We’d just gotten off the Skyrail from the Bangkok airport and flagged down a taxi to go the hostel. And what was the FIRST thing I noticed about Bangkok? ALL THE TOYOTAS.

They were everywhere.

I couldn’t get over it. I became the crazy girl who every 10 minutes said “wow, I just can’t get over all the Toyotas. And look a Honda, and look a Toyota.”

Now if you know China, you’ll know that they historically have a complicated relationship with Japan. Actually, it’s not that complicated. If China was a pimpley, nerdy, high school boy, Japan would be the jock who is China’s self declared “arch nemesis” because the jock (Japan) is going out with the prettiest girl in school and gave China many wedgies and swirlies back in middle school.

Consequently because of China’s enmity for Japan (because of WWII injustices and the Diaoyu/ Sentaku Islands kerfuffle) there aren’t a lot of Japanese made cars in China; re: Toyota and Honda. But as a proud Toyota Prius household, I’m particularly sensitive to the Toyota brand and I notice it’s presence or lack thereof.

(Insert Benji saying, “NEEERRRRD”)

So while in the past two years the number of foreign brand cars in China has grown immensely (based on my own personal observations), there is a noticeable scarcity of Toyota amongst the Volkswagon, BMW, Saab, etc.... I swear I see more Ford and Chevrolet cars than Toyota...

The rest of the world doesn’t notice this. Liz and Emily believed me, but were less enthused by the car brand. Liz made the mistake of saying “There’s not that many more Toyotas here than in China.”

“Are you kidding me?” I exclaimed. “At a busy Chinese intersection with cars stopped you maybe see one or two Toyotas at best. Look at this intersection: Toyota, Toyota, Toyota, Honda, Toyota, Toyota.....”

I ashamed to admit I kept doing this at the next several intersections in an overly enthusiastic desire to prove my point. Sorry guys. You traveled with the crazy Toyota girl.

I was even worse when I saw a Prius. I started taking pictures of them.....until I realized that there were going to be too many and I just had to except that people would believe me without photographic evidence.....

(Reinsert Benji saying “NEEERRRDD”)

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In Which I Become Overly Enthusiastic About Geometric Solids

Did you know that there are five geometric polyhedrons with all regular congruent faces? The Tetrahedron (triangular based pyramid), the Hexahedron (Cube), the Octahedron, the Dodecahedron and the Icosahedron. They’re called the “platonic solids.”

upon discovering this fun fact, I said “if these are the platonic solids, then what are the romantic solids?”

Benji face-palmed and sighed “Oh my god. That was a dad joke.”

I have no shame. I’m in love with basic geometry.

I introduced “triangular prism” and “rectangular prism” to my seventh graders. I also introduced that there are other prisms, for instance : pentagonal prisms, irregular hexagonal prisms.

“You have to remember triangular and rectangular prisms because they are very common,” I said. “But you don’t have to remember pentagonal or hexagonal prisms. I just think they’re interesting.”

“Interesting? Interesting?” my students echoed incredulously. The look on their face quite literally said “Lady are you kidding me? You expect me to find the word “pentagonal” interesting?” I think some of them were so incredulous that they though they were translating “interesting” incorrectly. 

“Yes!” I said. “Interesting. Right?”

Silence.

Benji said he had to resist braying “NEEERRRRD” for the whole class.

Then we did a hands on activity where the students cut out and folded different geometric solids from templates on paper. I was really excited.

“Ooooh, Peter you have rhombic pyramid!” Peter could have cared less.

“Quella! You have a trapezoidal prism!” Quella, like Peter, did. not. care.

“Oh look. Tim, you have an irregular concave hexagonal prism!” They were enjoying the cutting and folding, not the nerdy teacher trying to teach them.

I’m such a nerd I even get excited about 2-D shapes. Neither my students nor Benji appreciate my enthusiasm for quadrilaterals and how they all relate to each other. Rhombuses/rhombi and squares are technically kites! (two pairs of equal adjacent sides)

And if you want to know why I’m teaching advanced geometric solids to Chinese seventh graders it’s because it’s hard to teach abstract math concepts and I’m running out of other math vocab to teach. And prism is a useful word.

but back to me being a giant nerd. specifically about prisms.

Things about geometric solids that make me impossibly happy:

1) Cylinders are essentially circular prisms. Or infinitely sided-polygonal prisms.

2) Likewise, cones are infinitely sided-polygon based pyramids. Even a 20 sided polygon based pyramid looks remarkable conal.

3) The fact that “ovoid” is a word. It’s not an egg, it’s an ovoid.

4) ANTIPRISMS: discovered through the wikipedia page on prisms, their bases are two congruent and parallel polygons connected by an alternating band of triangles. AND THEY’RE AWESOME. Also their name: antiprism 

5) Oblique Prisms vs. Right Prisms: I’d never thought of this before but while a right prism has the two base polygons aligned directly above each other (and thus connected with rectangles) the oblique prism bases are still parallel but off set, meaning that their connecting sides are parallelograms. Why does this make me happy? I’m not sure...but I had to resist teach my 7th graders about the dual use of the word oblique as it applies one’s abdominal muscles.

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This is zao cao: morning exercises. They start out much slower and then gear up into this pace. In the winter time the P.E. teacher made them run laps around each other.

I find the music extremely entertaining. And the part where the recording yells "zuo yundong- 做运动" which means "do excercise" but I like to think of it as "put your back into it"

I affectionately call this "Cardio Communism"

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Grow a pair and stop quibbling over political linguistics!

This is what I wanted to yell at a student today.

We were talking in class about the American education system and one of the things I mentioned was how America consistently ranks sub-par against other developed countries on math and science testing (specifically the PISA).

You can see the results of the test below and you may notice that China is not listed in the results. As the foot note at the bottom of the page says --China is not included in these results because only Shanghai took the test. So I wrote this in the paper.

So this student calls me over and say “Teacher, this article says that China is not listed on the test, but Hong Kong and Taiwan are listed and they are part of China.”

I gritted my teeth and smiled, “Yes, but Hong Kong and Taiwan have different education systems” AND WHEN THE REST OF THE WORLD REFERS TO “CHINA” WE MEAN MAINLAND CHINA BECAUSE WE DON’T BELIEVE IN THE UNBELIEVABLY PERSISTENT INSISTENCE THAT “CHINA” MEANS ANYTHING THAT THE CCP THINKS BELONGS TO THEM. Get over it.

How I would have loved to say that.

Yes, it is true the the relationship between Mainland China and Hong Kong and Taiwan is not as simple as three independent sovereign nations. But it’s also not as absolute as the fact that they all belong to China. There is a grey area. While the UN recognizes HK and Taiwan as part of China, Taiwan has their own president for heaven sakes.

Also, Benji’s argument:

What do you need to go to a foreign country? A visa and a passport.

What do Chinese people need to go to HK or Taiwan? A visa and a passport.

See? Not clear cut. Is there economic dependence that entwines them? yes. Are Taiwan and HK clearly defined as “China?”.....

For some reason this last student’s comment was just particularly irksome to me, but it is by no means the first. Here are some ways I’ve incorrectly used the word “China”

Roommate: So have you been to any other countries?

Me: Just Taiwan and Japan.

Roommate: Oh, but Taiwan is part of China, so just Japan.

Me: So what do Chinese people think of Taiwan’s new president, Tsai Ing-wen?

Friend: Well, we say Taiwan’s new “leader” because calling her the president would mean Taiwan was its own country. And Taiwan is part of China.

Me: Yeah, the way Chinese people talk about Taiwan is so interesting. For instance, I went to Taiwan before coming to China...

Friend: Oh, you should say I went to Taiwan before coming to the Mainland. Taiwan is part of China, so you can’t say I went to Taiwan before China.

Dear China,

I get that the issue is more complex than my little American brain likes to think it is. I get that you’ve had patriotic education stuffed down your throat since the 1990s that reinforces the canned statement “Taiwan is China’s. 台湾是中国的.“ BUT FOR HEAVEN SAKE. STOP CORRECTING MY ENGLISH.  I’m not trying to convince you that Taiwan is independent. I’ve accepted that it is a 1) unwinnable argument 2) politically sensitive and 3) to each his own.

BUT STOP IT.

WHEN THE REST OF THE BLOODY WORLD COLLOQUIALLY SAYS “China” WE MEAN THE MAINLAND. except it and move on.

Sincerely,

a very annoyed Laowai

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Don’t eat cold things on your period...and other advice from Chinese people.

Don’t eat cold things on your period.

I first found out about this in Taiwan. All the counselors had been served this delicious desert of shaved ice covered with mango. We were all eating, and one girl wasn’t eating. 

“Why aren’t you eating?” I asked. “You don’t like it?”

“No” she smiled coyly. “Its my time of the month.”

what.

“I don’t understand.......” All the other Americans around me likewise looked confused. The Taiwanese girl looked embarrassed.

“Because it’s cold. It’d bad to eat cold things on your period”

I have since double checked with other Chinese women and this is indeed a tradition on the mainland and Taiwan.  No cold foods when Aunt Flo visits.

edit: My young female Chinese friend said her modern medicine doctor also told her this. Apparently, eating cold foods does create adverse physical symptoms for her.

Ginger is good for women on their period.

When telling a friend about my tea preferences, I mentioned that I enjoy putting chunks of fresh ginger in my hot water. “Oh,” she said. “That’s actually really good for you. Especially when you’re on your period.”

Who knew?

better yet, who believes?

Dried red dates are good for women on their period

Another period remedy.

I first encountered this in Beijing. My Chinese roommate had gotten a care package from her mom with dried red dates in them. They’re about the size of a grape tomato, with a wrinkled dark crimson outer skin.

They didn’t look like my cup of tea. So when she offered one, I politely declined.

“Are you sure? It’s really good for women. It gives you more iron in your blood,” she encouraged.

“Really?” I was skeptical. In the states everyone totes spinach and red meat, but I’ve never heard of dried red dates.

She continued to insist that it really was good for boosting iron in your blood.

Skip to two years later, I’m talking with Fan about Chinese food that is meant to “boost your blood” and I mentioned that I had red dates was supposed to boost iron.

“Ah HA” says Fan. “Very interesting. This is a very popular idea. Many many people eat red dates, especially women to give their blood more iron. But do red dates actually have a significant amount of iron......no they don’t.”

At this point Fan was working up to a big conclusion. You could see the sparkle in his eyes. “SO, why did people think that red dates have iron? BECAUSE they’re RED. Ancient Chinese people thought that since blood was red and red dates were the same dark red that eating the dates would rejuvenate the blood.”

Maybe color coordination isn’t the best way to determine nutritional benefits of food. 

edit: my young female friend said her doctor legit told her that red dates were good for her blood.

Always drink hot water. No matter what ailment.

If you tell a Chinese person you’re not feeling well, they will almost assurdly recommend drinking hot water. “duō hé rè shuǐ  多喝热水“

After singing with the first graders, our classroom helper always tells me to drink hot water.

If my students hear me sneeze, drink hot water.

Always hot water.

My friend was given a cupping massage treatment and they told her not to drink anything but hot water for the next day.

And Fan mentioned that in hospitals when recovering from treatment, people always drink hot water. Old Chinese people who have to get operations in the USA are dismayed to discover that the only available water is cold.

Spicy food makes your skin break out.

My friend Lucy says her doctor told her this. The spicy food creates too much “heat” in your body and it comes out in the form of acne. This is a Chinese traditional medicine concept that has apparently infiltrated modern medicine in China.

 I explained that the typical attitude of American dermatologists was that food didn’t affect your skin, that hormones and antibiotics were to blame/use to create solution. According to the literature I’ve read, the lack of clinical trials about diet means that doctors are unconvinced of the effect of certain foods. That said, there are some doctors convinced through their personal experience and collected knowledge that dairy products are bad for the skin (because they contain the cow’s hormones) and foods with a high glycemic load (like sugar and refined carbohydrates) are also bad. They never mentioned anything about spicy or not spicy.

In response to this, my Chinese friend said that her doctor told her dairy products were good for her skin.

Honey is bad for small children cause it contains hormones that could start puberty early.

The result of an interesting conversation with Fan and Zhang. Apparently, they don’t want Adrianna eating large amounts of honey. I have no idea if this idea has a scientific consensus. 

GMO food could make you infertile. Don’t eat it if you want to have babies.

This is apparently a common misconception among some people. There is actually quite a lot of suspicion against GMO food in China, despite no scientific proof to show it effects human health.

Coca cola will make men infertile?

This a favorite. Benji’s girlfriend say this is apparently a thing.

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ZAO CAO part 2: revenge of Wednesday

Today’s ZAO CAO drawing is brought to you by the lovely Alice X. Zhang @alicexz and her Legend of Korra fanart portrait.

Full disclosure: I started this portrait in the 5 minute break between class 1 and 2 and continued in the zao cao 15 minute break between class 2 and 3

Total time: 20 minutes Medium: 13 markers bought at super market Soundtrack: Communism cardio

Is mine perfect? LORD NO. But it’s all about the fun of figuring out what I can do with 13 markers in 15+ minutes.

Here is Alice X. Zhang’s beautiful version that I copied and you can see the full sized image at this link to her tumblr: http://alicexz.tumblr.com/post/8573747743/finished-legend-of-korra-painting-based-on-the

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So every day at the middle school the students have a morning excercise a break period that it 15 minutes long, where they all run outside to line up with their class and do aerobics to the voice of a Chinese man energetically counting to some sort of Latin inspired bull fighting ring music.

It’s called: ZAO CAO 早操

So during this last period of zao cao I decided to use the markers I had on hand to make student name tags to draw, and why not Elsa who I had a picture of on my phone?

15 minutes later, this was our result.

Is it perfect? Far from it. Is it pretty darn good for 15 minutes drawn directly with marker? You bet your [expletive of choice] hat it is!

So I bring you a new tradition for Wednesdays and Fridays: ZAO CAO DRAWINGS

#zaocaodrawings #早操画

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My Egalitarian Vegetable Lady

The lady who runs the little vegetable market where I buy the healthy part of my diet is hilarious. She rapidly talks to you, and then will turn around and wander off while still talking to you, but you’re never quite sure if she was talking to you to begin with.

First let’s clarify. This market where I buy my veggies is a hole in the wall along with a series of other hole in the wall random stores. The vegetables are all stored in bins or cardboard boxes and when it’s below freezing a dingy towel covers the leafy greens. You select your vegetables, put them in bags, she weighs them on a scale and tells you how much money it is.

There are no prices posted anywhere.

Though you can ask. How much is this per jin? (Jin = approx 500 grams)

So today I asked her about a bundle of asparagus. It was 18 yuan for a bundle of asparagus. I made a face and she laughed asking if I thought it was expensive. “It’s a little bit expensive, but I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Well I give everybody the same price here. Many markets give different prices to foreigners than to Chinese people. But NOT HERE! Here I give the same price to everybody. I don’t care where you are from.”

Halfway through talking to me she had transitioned to giving her attention to another Chinese woman, while I wandered off to eye the spinach.

She continued talking to the Chinese woman, “Once I had a black man come by, A BLACK MAN! and he said that he had paid 20 yuan for three bananas!  Yeah, the lady who sells fruit out on the main road charged him 20 yuan for THREE BANANAS. Not me, I told him. I charge everybody the same.”

Interestingly, this story left quite the impression on her because she told it to Benji and I all the way back in September. She was quite justly scandalized by the highway robbery that was taking place out by the front gate. For reference, when I bought three LARGE bananas tonight, they cost me 4 yuan.

The fruit lady out front charged that poor black dude FIVE TIMES AS MUCH as what she probably should have charged him. For 20 yuan I can get a full meal plus rice OR a coffee. (Yes coffee is priced like liquid gold).

But my vegetable lady is right. The fruit lady out front does charge the living pants off you, which is why I vowed to stop buying fruit from her in November. Sadly it took me until November to realize just how badly I was being robbed. Though I never paid 20 yuan for three bananas. Six bananas….probably, but never three.

However, foreigners in China will often get the laowai price on many goods, whether at a small market or food stand or bargaining at the large fabric and fake goods markets. Chinese sellers see a foreign person and know two things. 1) that person is less familiar with valuation of goods in China and probably is unaware of just how badly they are being ripped off and 2) many foreign currencies are valued above the Chinese Yuan so the sellers feel justified in charging “rich foreign people” more. And sadly, black people in China are even more likely to get worse treatment than white people (for reasons somewhat unclear to me–> a more depressing conversation for another day.)

So kudos to my vegetable lady, who quite honestly charges me, Benji and the hypothetical black people the same price as Chinese people.

Ladies and Gentlemen, my vegetable and fruit haul for the night:

A head of broccoli, 3 bananas, a cluster of spinach, a hunk of ginger AND five carrots for my 180 lb rabbit named Benji.

All for 18.2 yuan   or     2.78 US dollars.

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AVOID SKEEZY RUSSIAN PICKUP ARTISTS

WARNING TO ALL FEMALE TOURISTS IN THAILAND (or Southeast Asia)

NOT A JOKE.

IF YOU SEE MEN WEARING SHIRTS THAT SAY “SEX ANIMATOR”....LEAVE.

Specifically: Pattaya, Thailand. It’s a tourism area 2 hours from Bangkok with nice beaches and a sex industry driven night life. Also, an incredible amount of Russian tourists.

We took the ferry out to Koh Larn (Island nearbye) and while on Tiem beach saw this large group of young Russian men--most of whom were wearing bright white t-shirts with red lettering that said “Sex Animator” with a black arrow pointing down. The back of the shirt said something in Russian and had a URL: lesley.ru (this leads to a website all in Russian with a book summary of a fellow named Lesley who wrote about picking up women)

We had seen them the day before getting into a cab, and then before getting on the ferry. We were mildly amused.

On the beach, they formed a line and began chanting and dancing a little down the beach from us. A couple of them filmed the line. They had two chants, one of which was a little indistinguishable, and “SEX, SEX, SEX ON THE BEACH” ....and repeat.

Then they broke and started running up to women on the beach, talking to them, coaxing them, and then eventually helping the women up from their towels and having them join in the dance and chant as they were recorded for round two. So far, skeezy, but consensual.

Dance and chant: Rount 2.

At this point they were on our part of the beach, we were standing in the back, looking on with bemused skepticism.

And then they broke and started running all over the beach, and three of them ran for us.

One said something to us in Russian, Liz smiled politely and shook her head “no thanks”

AND THEN one of them bent over AND PICKED LIZ UP.

“Hey, put me down,” she yelled! Did he put her down and apologize for this HUGE violation of personal space? No. He started running down the beach with her, all the whilst the 6 foot woman in his arms was screaming and HITTING HIM IN THE FACE.

AND HE STILL DIDN’T PUT HER DOWN.

I ran after him, while yelling “DUDE PUT HER DOWN.” I finally reached them, and he put Liz down, and straight up yelled in his face “NO, LEAVE. NOW.  LEAVE.”

and all the while he looked amused.

Liz and I stalked back to our towels, shaking with post-confrontation adrenaline (Liz more than me.) Emily thankfully was already gathering our stuff and suggested that we leave the beach. We did.

Later that night when I saw one on the street, I tried to take a stealth photo of him to give you (the internet) a image of the shirt to avoid at all costs. Sadly I was not remotely stealthy and he saw me and blocked my path whilst speaking in Russian and touched my arm as a squeezed past him. The hair on my arm is STILL CRAWLING.

learn from me. Don’t engage them. They don’t speak any English, have an over inflated sense of self, and are VERY AGGRESSIVE WITH NO REMORSE.

All I can say if you are a woman traveling in tourist beaches in Thailand, BE CAREFUL. I’m so grateful I had friends with me, cause none of the people on the beach seemed alarmed that he’d physically accosted Liz.

But these guys skeezed me out so bad, that I quite literally felt safer the moment we got back to Bangkok, and even safer the moment I got back to Shanghai.

Let’s be clear:

DO NOT PICK UP WOMEN WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION.

DO NOT TOUCH WOMEN WITHOUT THEIR PERMISSION.

ALSO, if you’re stupid enough to pick up a woman without her permission, PUT HER DOWN IMMEDIATELY WHEN SHE STARTS PUNCHING YOU IN THE FACE.

preferably, don’t bother women on the beach. It’s incredibly unnerving to have multiple men stand over while you’re on a towel in your swimsuit. Reading. Just trying to relax.

And I was stupid enough to be mildly amused by a large group of men running around with the words “Sex Animator” on their shirts.

Never again.

If men in a group are all wearing shirts that seem to indicate they think they’re little sexy stud muffins, GET OUT. Because the sorts of men who wear those shirts are not the kind who respect women.

You have no idea how much I wanted to (and still want to) blister their ears with a detailed description of how inappropriate their behavior was, but sadly I can’t do that because I don’t speak Russian.

So dear Internet, I’m warning you. Stay away from the “Sex Animators” BUT if you speak Russian and feel up to giving them a lecture on consent and respecting their fellow human beings...BE MY GUEST.

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Long ago we drew a butterfly. I can’t remember the start of the conversation. I think She wanted me to draw her and Tiana (her American girl doll) as princesses flying kites. I decided the kites should be morpho butterflies.

Anyway, being me, when we started talking about butterflies I started talking about their metamorphosis process. She knew the word caterpillar, but didn’t know about chrysalis (or cocoons). So we talked about it and I drew this picture to try and explain the process.

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Differences in Educational Standards for Minority Students

While talking with Fan this Saturday, we discussed some interesting things.

One of which was the “Affirmative Action” of China

Apparently, China has a law that requires universities to let in a certain quota of minority students. If you don’t know, China has about 52 defined minority groups, most of which live in the middle or west of China. The majority Han population also happens to be heavily concentrated in the East (where most of the population is concentrated).

Additionally you may or may know that China has a HUGE range of wealth and education levels. The 1st tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai live at a very high standard of living, a high level of modernity, and generally pretty high public education (especially Shanghai whose students have tested very high on an international test called PISA). However, the interior of the country has a lower level of education and especially rural areas are still considered “third world” areas. Thus, education in rural provinces can be QUITE poor.

But, China’s college entrance process is based almost entirely off of student’s scores on a test known as the gao kao  (translation: high test). So if students have a lower education level, it’s difficult to get a score as good as a student from a big city. Not only are the fundamental education levels lower, but the poorer family lacks money to send students to extra tutoring for the exam.

So, all of this background brings us down to the fact that Chinese universities are required to except a certain amount of minority students and the students don’t have to have the same scores as their majority peers. For instance, if the regular standard is 800, the minority students could get a 600 and still get admitted. (Numbers are example only. The disparity is not clear.)

Okay. This is pretty standard. Trying to compensate for unequal distribution of societal resources by giving students with these lower circumstances a break. We essentially try to do the same thing with Affirmative Action in the USA.

Fan said that while he thinks the policy makes sense on a societal level, it’s really hard as a professor to have students with drastically different levels of ability.  Which makes sense.

But this is where it gets really interesting.

The standard stays different in college for their graduation requirements.

While majority students have to have a 70% to pass a class, minority students are allowed to pass with a 50%.

Think about this. Minority students are allowed to graduate while not having succeeded as well in their classes.

I asked Fan. I said, aren’t universities worried about sending sub-par students out into the workforce and having some companies not respect their quality of student?

Short answer: No.

Why? Because most of minority students are expected to go back to their home provinces and work. The idea is that even a sub standard education from a really good university in Shanghai or Beijing is better than a “normal” education at a university in their home province. Apparently, even only passing all your Shanghai university classes by 50% still gives you a better education than passing all your lesser universities classes by 70+%.

My second question was: why do you need this double standard. Can’t you just expect the students with a lower education level to have to study more? No, says Fan. The education disparities are so large that the students can’t necessarily compensate for it. He says some of the information that they should have learned in middle school is not the same, not information that can be fixed with some extra time in professor’s office hours. While interesting, this is frankly extremely sad.

So there you have it.

[erinsinchina]

The Curse of PPT (and APP)

You have no idea what I’m talking about do you?

HA.

When I was in college, my somewhat elderly Chinese professor would refer to PowerPoints as “ppt”s which is the file abbreviation for power points.

For instance: Erin Final Speech.ppt  or (post 2008)  Erin Final Speech.pptx

I thought he was just confused about the right name for Power points. Wan Laoshi......we don’t call them “ppt’s” we call them powerpoints......

And then i always wondered how to say “powerpoint” in Chinese...cause all my professors called them “ppt.”

I get to China, and study with IES in their langauge intensive program (GREAT PROGRAM) and sure enough, when my teachers tell us about our presentations, they say we need a ppt.

I’m starting to catch on to the point that Chinese people seem to call Powerpoints “ppt” .......so I understood what they were talking about but still was resisting calling them “ppt”.

Senior and junior year of college, I had to give more and more presentations in Chinese class (and less and less essays) so I got really good at asking my professors “Do I need a ppt? Xu yao ppt ma? 需要ppt 吗？”

Great. but outside of my Chinese classroom I never said “ppt.” Whenever I talked to my classmates it was “Oh, do we need a powerpoint for our speech?”

Alright. Great. Get on with the story Erin.

SO NOW I’M IN SHANGHAI TEACHING AND EVERY SINGLE CLASS I TEACH REQUIRES A POWERPOINT

and guess what? In order to communication effectively we with people around me, I have to say “ppt”

When I tell my students they need a powerpoint for their speeches, I say “you need a ppt”

When I send our lesson materials to the middle school, I say “here are the 7th and 6th grade ppts.”

But the kicker is, that when Benji and I talk to each other WE SAY PPT.

“Have you made your ppt yet?”

“Do we need a ppt?”

“Making ppts takes so long”

It’s a disease. The curse of the PPT. I feel ridiculous, yet because I how I have to communicate my own personal language has adapted. (more on this later).

And this extends to another word: app. As in iPhone app.

My Chinese students say “a-p-p” instead of pronouncing it like a sound. When I say “app” they don’t understand me, so I’ve had to start saying a.p.p.

This however, has not infected my own personal speech. But there is time left and I’m scared.