Monday 29 October

The evenings here are alive with people. Around the college, even at 9pm at night there are students in classes or study groups, others playing music and rollerblading or just chatting around the campus – I even saw a skateboarder. Couples head towards the river for some privacy and to walk together.

I haven’t been out much at night, usually just around the campus district. I’m generally pretty tired at the end of the day, and always get up around 5:30 for tai chi. The last couple of nights though, I’ve started walking a bit further afield.

Dancing by the riverside

I don’t know much about the rest of China, but here in Quzhou, both sides of the river are pubic spaces with landscaped gardens, civic sculptures with spaces for people to enjoy the surroundings. In the evenings they are filled with people out socialising. I’ve already mentioned the large dancing group in another post. This is only part of the story.

In the evenings the spaces that are used for tai chi and exercises in the mornings are used for other activities. This mainly involves dancing, and usually only women. There appears to be different ‘schools’ who have slightly different dancing routines, but there are others that are markedly different, for example one I saw tonight  was a group of younger women doing fairly aerobic routines that look like they came from video clips. Who needs gyms when you have this?

One group playing and singing in the
foreground and another group in the
 background

On the other side of the river there is an area where there were people singing what sounded to be traditional songs with live accompaniment. Because everyone likes things loud here, the voice and music were amplified, if a little distorted.

Interspersed between groups there are pairs or individuals doing all sorts of exercises – mainly men, but also some women. The range and diversity is incredible, many seem to have there own personal favourites not shared by anyone else. probably the most common (after walking backwards, arms in the air, clapping front and back as you walk) is chi gung. These are static tai chi type exercises that increase the flow of chi.

I watched one man repeat the same movement for over 5 minutes. On another occasion I saw men practicing ‘push hands‘, a technique where two people circle their arms and try to get to opponent off balance.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling of just being able to walk around the city in the evening and be surrounded by people out and about just enjoying themselves in these social activities.

This short video is of the group playing and singing traditional songs.

Sunday 28 October

Almost no-one turned up for tai chi this morning. With Ren Zhou Kun off for a month caring for her granddaughter, and me being sick for a week, the people in our small group have drifted away. It was also overcast and a little windy. By 6:15 there was only Xue Gong Ling, the male student who had started learning only recently, and me.

Snake creeps through the grass

A while later a couple of other experienced women (in stunning tai chi outfits) passed by on their way to practice with the large group that I met on 7 September. Ren Zhou  also arrived (with her granddaughter in tow) and convinced the younger woman to stay and give us some instruction.

She was embarrassingly good, and spent over an hour with us, making minor corrections and explaining more about the movements and how to do them properly. I don’t know here name yet. Names are not exchanged here until a relationship has been established.

Xue Gong Ling receiving
instruction

Again I got the impression that there is so much to learn, so all I can hope to do is achieve some minor improvements and become more familiar with the main forms that they practice. On the way back, in discussion with Xue Gong Ling, he talked about wanting to be a teacher as he thought that would be something that he’d really like to do.

He was worried though that he may become bored and start to become like some of his teachers that have lost their enthusiasm and are basically going through the motions. I suggested that he could take a break as I have and do something else for a while, or have a career change, but he reminded me that this is China. People just don’t do that, and he said that if he left teaching, he would never be re-employed as a teacher!

As usual, I’ll be spending most of the remainder of the day in lesson preparation.

Below is a demonstration of part of the 42 form we were working on today (it was quite windy).

Saturday 27 October

Observation post and the bridge
across the river

View across the river to the college
(white building)

Today I explored the northern part of Quzhou. After crossing the bridge from the college, I slowly walked north along the river.

At irregular intervals there are some sort of observation posts which are quite cute. The majority of buildings on this side are fairly new apartment blocks. Just as in Australia, everyone likes to live near the water.

Fishing in the river

Fishing in a lunch break?

The Qujiang river looks fairly murky but that doesn’t stop people fishing along the riverbank.

The preferred system seems to be to throw in a number of lines and then relax while the bait does its job – reading the paper or playing cards.  Some people even look like they’ve thrown in a line during a lunch break.

Preparing for wedding photographs
near a fishing boat

The happy couple

There are some fishing boats that are moored along the shore, so there is some commercial fishing of sorts. I don’t think the catch is large.

The day was quite hazy and warm, so I’ve ‘punched’ up the photographs to give them a bit more dynamic range. Speaking of photographs, there was a wedding couple today posing for their formal photographs near the fishing boats.

Just as in Australia, wedding photographers are always looking for photogenic locations. Loved the jacket.

Walking with arms up

One person walking backwards and
another doing high-kicks

The local community makes good use of the riversides. Although not crowded, there are always people either fishing, walking or exercising. There are any number of types of exercises people do here.

A very popular one is walking backwards – this is supposed to be good for you back, however most people are craning their necks at the same time to see where they are going. This may also help the neck muscles!

Another popular one is walking with arms in the air. This seems to be more preferred by women than men. There are also many variations on what we would have called PE exercises in our youth – touching toes, bending backwards, sideways and forwards, etc.

Pagoda alongside the river

Pagoda detail

Near the apex of the river bend (topmost point) there is a large pagoda which could be used for special functions, just as pavilions in our parks.

It’s quite massive in construction with a dynamic stone sculpture featuring fish in the foreground.

 There are quite a few new apartment buildings being built near the river as part of the expansion of the city – upper right of the map.

Building luxury, transcending life art

Next to the Second School means
district room (?)

The promotional billboards were interesting, similar to those in Australia where the sell the promise of an improved lifestyle. The language just as meaningless.

From this point I headed back towards the city centre. After a short distance, I was back into a shopping district, with the usual assortment of food stores, household goods and eateries.

I  found it interesting that was there were four wine shops close together - this is unusual as there are very  few wine shops. most sell imported wines and Chinese liquor. These ones specialised in Californian, French and South American wines. They are quite expensive for locals, 100-200 Yuan ($15-$20 AUS) and probably only intended as gifts, not drinking at home or with friends. When a meal in a local cafe costs around 10 Yuan, that’s quite a lot of money.

Another view of the game

Intense street-corner game of Chinese 
checkers

On the way I came across a group of men playing Chinese checkers. I was undecided as to whether they would mind if I took a photograph, but they were all so engrossed in the game that no-one even noticed me.

This was very unusual, considering that whenever I walk anywhere, people nearly always turn and look, especially away from the central areas like this.

Rebirth CD

Nearby, I came across a small DVD, VCD, CD store and thought I’d try to buy some music that is used for the street dancing. The discussion with the saleslady was very animated, with neither of us understanding each other, but I eventually came away with a triple CD that has tracks with a very heavy beat, but similar to the music I was looking for.

The cover had some interesting English:  ZERO, REBIRTH, Build perfect car stereo space, Top Slow, Wave Day the Chinese dish, Popular DJ album thermal recommended!

Friday 26 October

Students heading to classes
from the dormatory buildings

View from level 7 over the campus entrance, across the river
to apartments in the city

What’s life like at Quzhou Technical College?

We are two months into the semester and things have settled into a routine. The first year students can be seen taking morning runs around the college grounds; the campus is filled with the ebb and flow of students in 45 and 95 (double periods) minute intervals; the classroom bell rings 24 hours at 45, 5 and 20 minute intervals for the period starts, finishes and breaks in between. I’m almost used to this bell ringing at all hours of the day and night. Even during the holiday week of the mid-Autumn break it kept ringing – a reminder of where we are, and why.

First Year students in military fatigues
on their morning run

Dawn - the sun rising in the east above
the city across the river

Then there’s the not so gentle sounds in the dormitory building; of the students bouncing basketballs in the corridor, rollerblading, yelling loudly, talking on mobile phones and slamming doors.

I am constantly amazed how loud the students can be on campus, in the canteen and in their rooms,  and yet be so quiet when I ask them to speak in class.

The nicely tiled floors also very effectively transmit sounds from the floor above, so I never feel alone. We had two power blackouts in the last week which has been slightly inconvenient, especially when trying to print out class material – although the class bell never stopped ringing!

The classroom media control panel 

I’m now familiar with my timetable and classroom routines. Fortunately most of my classes are in the one room which makes it a bit easier.

The teacher's desk and control panel

I’ve almost memorised the media control panel (all in Chinese) and the equipment has been very reliable which also makes it easier to run the classes. I’m still probably spending too much time on preparation, but it really helps the classes run smoothly.

I’m now using a combination of the college workbook and other ESL (English as Second Language) resources to keep the students engaged, especially during the afternoon classes. I also had a cold this week which didn’t really help.

The video below shows the First Year students on their morning run.

Saturday 20 October

One contestant making her presentation,
judging panel in the second row

Another contestant's presentation

This has been an interesting week. I have been a special guest at two English speaking competitions.

These are held each semester to enable students to practice their English and be judged for regional competitions.

My main role was to ask the contestants a question and to present certificates at the end.

The judging panel

The first night was for non-English majors and had 50 contestants. The format was for them to speak for 3 minutes on about a graph or chart that they had been given 15 minutes beforehand.

Although not complex, they were beyond comprehension for most of the students and they struggled through to varying degrees. Only 2 or 3 managed to make a reasonable presentation and again it highlighted for me the difficulty they face in learning English.

The differences are not just in the alphabet and grammar which is vastly different, but also the pronunciation, intonation and speech pattern. Mandarin Chinese is spoken quite quickly and in very short, clipped phrases. Mandarin is spoken in most of China, and Contonese is spoken only in the South-East in Guandong and Hong Kong. The written language is identical, but the spoken language is completely different. 

The the same word (they are mostly monosyllabic) can be pronounced at least 3 ways with different intonations to create different meanings. So if the word is written in Pinying (English alphabet), it also needs accent marks (rising, falling or rise-and-fall) so that you know how to pronounce it.  This must be done as there is no punctuation in Chinese. Quzhou (衢州) where I’m living is pronounced (Choo-jo) with the ‘jo’ very clipped. Just as we have sounds (like ‘th’) that do not exist in Mandarin, they have  sounds that do not exist in the English language.

So, as difficult it is for Chinese people to speak English, it is just as difficult for English speakers to master the intricacies of Mandarin pronunciation.

My presentation

Award winners of the
English Speaking Competition

But back to the competition. The first night, with 50 contestants speaking for 3 mins each took over 3 hours with the presentations at the end.

As a time-filler during the results tabulation, I gave an impromptu presentation using one of the graphs which received a standing ovation. I did have a distinct advantage though, in being a native English speaker. The contestants were pretty hyped, but by the end of the evening I was exhausted.

Award winners and judges of the
English Majors competition

The second night was for English majors, and thankfully with only 15 contestants so it was much shorter, although the level of English was only marginally better. Following these evenings I will give my classes some training in how to tackle these events in future.

The singer at the English Corner evening

Later in the week I was guest of honour an English Corner evening at the adjacent University. The main purpose is to practice English, but I found that the students were very reluctant to speak, maybe due to shyness, and so it was difficult to draw them out and do much speaking themselves.

I must say that I felt a lot like a travelling curiosity being paraded before an astonished audience. The students themselves were very nice and one with a really fantastic voice sang a song in English at the end of the evening.

In addition to preparation and teaching every day, this made it a very long week.

Sunday 14 October

Stadium for the Shanghai Masters 2012

Just been watching the Shanghai Masters live on TV, a fantastic tennis match between Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic, the eventual winner.

Unfortunately the commentary was all in Chinese, so a bit difficult to understand, but not really a problem.

Novak Djokovic

I must say watching it while in China had a special significance as I actually felt the atmosphere more strongly. The huge audience were suitably partisan, strongly supporting each of the finalists.

The Chinese love a good event, and the awards ceremony was suitably officious – plus giving more than ample coverage to the sponsors. It was a good example of the growing pride the Chinese have in their country, and it’s place on the world stage.

Friday 12 October

A typical group of local women
practicing tai chi and chi gung

One of the reasons I wanted to teach in China was to have  the opportunity to improve my tai chi. There are four main styles (Yang, Sun, Wu & Chen) and many different forms within each, and some forms that incorporate more than one style.

A form is a set of movements that are developed by a particular school or governing body. I’ve found tai chi to be great for mental and physical relaxation and also good for balance, and strengthening the lower back and legs.

Ren Zhou Kun and her friend

The group I regularly practice with
just after dawn

While in Australia I was trying to learn some of the Chinese forms plus the Vietnamese  Chiu Chuk Kai form. Of course I am not proficient in many of them as it takes quite a while to learn them in depth, and I only had limited time.

Unfortunately, teaching full-time, I’ve found the same situation here in Quzhou. Most days though, I practice with Ren Zhou Kun and her friends from 6-7 am, before classes which start at 8 am. Some of the women in the group are over 70 years old

One of the most universal forms has become the Beijing 24. This form was the result of an effort by the Chinese Sports Committee in 1956 which brought together four t’ai chi teachers to create a simplified form of t’ai chi as exercise for the masses.

Tai Chi on television

Due to this official promotion, the 24-form is probably the one with the most practitioners in China and the world (Wikipedia). This is the one we practice most, along with the 40 form which is a combination of mainly Yang and Sun styles.

Enclosed below is a (slightly shaky) video of  Ren Zhou Kun (in purple), one of her friends and me practicing the Beijing 24 form in park near the college.

As you can see, they are much better than me although both are almost 60 years old.

Monday 8 October

Great moments in marketing…

Nothing that I’m doing is anywhere as interesting as what’s happening with Facebook.

Chairs are like Facebook

You’ve probably heard about the ‘chair’ ad Facebook made to celebrate their 1 billionth user (none of whom are in China) and how they completely got it wrong. It’s heartening to know that huge technology corporations like Apple (with the iPhone 5 maps) and Facebook can really get it wrong.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote of the commercial in a blog post that ‘for the first time in our history, we’ve made a brand video to express what our place is on this earth.’

“We believe that the need to open up and connect is what makes us human. It’s what brings us together. It’s what brings meaning to our lives,” he added.

As Jeff Bercovici from Forbes magazine says ” this spot was directed by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, who also made Babel, a movie about how all of humanity is united by overpowering, unrelenting pain. He forgot about chairs, and so he made this ad.”

Sunday 07 October

The Arch Cafe in Xiaoximen Street

Spent most of the morning in preparation for the week of teaching ahead.

I’m trying to make the classes more interactive to get the students more involved and increase participation.

Richard in the Arch Cafe

In the afternoon I caught up with Richard, a native English speaker teacher from Britain with a heavy Yorkshire accent who is teaching English at the adjacent University.

He has been teaching here for almost 2  years and is spending a lot of time  working on his PHD on Russia and also doing Russian-English translation.

Young girl with maths
homework in the cafe as
she waits for her music class

Together, Richard and I headed into town to the Arch Cafe in downtown Quzhou.

The cafe is quite close to the river in a relatively quiet street and really nicely decorated.

The quietness of the cafe has is attractive for all sorts of reasons. For example a young girl was doing her maths homework in the cafe as she waited for her music class nearby.

Silas, proprietor of the
Arch Cafe

It serves coffee, tea, drinks, beer and snacks. It could easily be in King Street, Newtown, except it was quite spacious and not cramped at all.

 
The cafe is run by Silas, another Britain, who studied Chinese and speaks Mandarin embarrassingly well. I took an instant liking to him because he had a tea towel over his shoulder as he was clearing the bar – as I usually do when cooking.  As Rocky (our homestay student from Yongkang in the same province as Quzhou) has told me, typically in China, only farmers toss small towels over their shoulders.

Richard and I spent a pleasant afternoon in the cafe, chatting and exchanging teaching tips while we each worked on our class preparation – there’s WiFi internet  available in the cafe. Because of  his teaching experience here, he provided some very useful tips that I can apply in class.

 Later we headed off to one of the local ‘refrigerated display’ restaurants for a meal. We made a selection of some chicken kebabs and assorted vegetables and a short time later the dishes started arriving, and we started eating. In this region of China, one of the most common "people's" dishes is a stir-fry of tomato and egg.

We ordered rice, expecting it to arrive at the end as is usual here, but it never actually arrived by the time we finished everything. I have discovered that rice is only served as a "filler" for poor people and that is is not normally served as part of a meal. Any carbohydrates here are either presented as noodles or dumplings.

Chicken kebabs and the local
traditional tomato and egg dish

A dish of taro (very similar to potato)
and scallions

Saturday 06 October

The college is starting to come alive again as students arrive back from their Autumn Festival holidays – mostly spent with families. The restaurants are beginning to fill up and the street food stalls are reappearing.

I’m still doing tai chi every morning, and during the break, it’s been good to spend more time practicing with the locals in the morning without the need to worry about preparing for the day’s classes.

Me with Xiaowei Ma
on the tennis Courts

This morning I played singles tennis for 2 hours with a student, Xiaowei Ma. He is a programmer who is now a junior manager in a software company and travels to other cities in China with the marketing manager. He’s a native of Suzhou, now living in Quzhou because as he says, “the air is better”.

The college tennis courts

Very few students play tennis, because basketball and volleyball are far more popular. We were introduced through the P.E. staff and were about evenly matched so the games were enjoyable.

The courts however are hard, smooth cement, and with a fine layer of dust it means that they can be very slippery, especially off the most used sections. 

I’m being a bit cautious with running, as I’d hate to fall and break something – especially with my record on holidays. Cement is very unforgiving.

Friday 05 October

The restaurant

The refrigerated food display cabinet

This evening I caught up with Xu Liang and his friend Ada (who were at the KTV night) and they offered to take me to a local restaurant (across the road from the college) which is one of their favourites.

It’s typical of many of the small local restaurants found everywhere here. There are only a few tables, seating around 24-30 people and no menus.

The refrigerated food display cabinet

Shrink-wrapped crockery

Instead of menus they have large refrigerated display cabinets in which their ingredients are on show. This is similar to the very first restaurant that I ate in with Ben and the driver on the way to Quzhou from Hangzhou airport.

Xu Liang and Ada chose a selection of vegetables, some fish and pork and we waited for the food to arrive. Meanwhile we received our cutlery (chopsticks) and crockery shrink-wrapped in plastic.

Apparently this is fairly common as a sign that they have been properly cleaned before being provided to customers. There are many more down-market restaurants where this is not done and the hygiene standards can be suspect.

Xu Liang and Ada under a
street lamp

The meal was very good, although for me the pork (although tasty) was too fatty and we spent some time spitting out fish bones. The total cost of the meal was not high, but it is for students surviving on an allowance and part-time work. In larger restaurants you can pay from 200-300RMB ($30-$45) per head.

After dinner we decided to go far a walk along the city side of the river as it was a very pleasant balmy evening with reasonable humidity.

Some of the city features, such as bridges, landmarks and buildings and are colourfully lit at night so it was quite beautiful. Although interesting for me, it’s pretty dull for young people who see the city as pretty lifeless.

Main bridge over Quaintang River

Crossing the major roads in the dim street lighting however was a risky process given the fact that pedestrians have no right of way anywhere.

Riverside civic sculpture

Part of the reason to walk down this side was the possibility of encountering people either practicing tai chi or dancing. We weren’t disappointed.

After a while we heard music and shortly encountered almost 200 people dancing to music from a huge sound system near one of the ancient city gates. The music itself sounded like pop versions of classical music with a very strong beat – haven’t heard anything like this before. Apparently this type of street dancing is very popular.

Dancing by the riverside

The dancers were mostly women (there was one guy in a white tai chi outfit) and everyone danced in a grid pattern, keeping within their space. It’s probably not unlike line dancing in Australia and the USA which I’ve never tried – but the music was quite different. As usual, when I hear dance music it’s hard to not get involved.

The boys would never be seen dead doing this! After a little persuasion the boys introduced me to the master who insisted on teaching me a few steps.

By now it was a bit late and I was tired from the previous day so after learning a few steps we left, but I intend to return for another lesson. Below are a couple of short videos.