Our school had a ceremony (speeches, fireworks at the end) on Friday morning to celebrate its status change from training school to college. Up until this year, all of Xinyu College's students were 3 year students. Although I'm not sure about other departments, the foreign studies department where I teach was basically a vocational school. There were three majors: English Education, Business English, and Business Japanese. So all the students were expected to find fairly permanent jobs in those fields following graduation.

Now the college also has an English major for 4 year students. These are the students who did better in high school. And with a major in English I guess some of them might go on to graduate school instead of getting into a career right after college. So the school's reputation has jumped up a bit this year.

We were allowed to leave school without having to attend any post-ceremony lunch parties. That was lucky given the extreme likelihood that we would have been made to drink 白酒 (baijiu, liquor), the drink of choice for any lunch or dinner gathering of more than 3 people.

Later that night Bleisha, Fujii, and I went to a massage parlour just up the street where Bleisha and Laura have gone a few times this semester. I had already heard from Laura that it hurts pretty bad but that I would feel better the next day. Most of it did hurt pretty bad but I didn't really feel much better the next day. I was mostly just sore in my shoulders and lower back. But it was pretty funny, I guess. Me, Bleisha, and Fujii all in one room, lying as quietly as we could as the three masseuses slapped us and yanked us and kneaded us until one of us would say ouch or "痛" (tong, pain). All in all I might do it again some day.

A Pictureless Post

Sorry for having not posted any pictures recently. I'd like to but my camera huai le'd (done broke) so I'm going to have to stick with text this time. Since Thanksgiving ended I've been going to school but mostly to observe other teachers since I'm now down to 2 classes a week. It's been good though, I've come up with some ideas for lessons and I've also picked up on some teaching methods that work and some that don't.

I've also been tutoring quite a bit, four times a week usually. It's almost always at night since that's the only time when Michelle doesn't have class, so I've been taking a taxi over to her house at around 6:30 and stay there for 2 hours each time. During the first hour we usually talk about what she's been doing and then watch a TV show (usually Friends) for the second hour with me explaining slang or cultural references made during the show. I think the TV viewing is helping her. Maybe, I hope.

I met a couple guys from Britain who teach at the Number 4 middle school across the street from the old campus. They're here for a gap year teaching English before they will return to England to start college. Myself and the other foreign teachers have gone out with them a few times to a couple restaurants and a bar where we were the only customers on a Saturday night. It was a pretty nice bar nonetheless.

I was going to go to a tennis tournament in Nanchang this weekend but it was rescheduled, I think, due to bad weather. But I still play every now and then with various people around the city.

I've learned a lot about the Chinese education system from Michelle, and what I've learned is basically that it's extremely intense. First, from middle school to high school the students have class 7 days a week. Monday through Friday they have morning, afternoon, and night classes, on Saturday they get the night off, and Sunday they get the morning off. There also doesn't seem to be a clear start and stop date for the school year. They just keep studying and going to class and taking tests until the teacher tells them they can take a break, which is sometime around the Spring Festival in early February, and then come back to school until sometime in June. They officially have a summer holiday of about a month but I think a lot of the students still go to classes of some sort, most likely at private English language schools. At the end of high school, they take their college entrance exams. If they do well, then they go to college, and if they don't do so well, they either go to a less reputable college or stay on in high school for another year to study and prepare to take the test again. So there's a ton of pressure on kids to do well in school and study all the time. They're not all sad or really angry or that sort of thing. I guess there's a lot of camaraderie amongst the students. Plus they basically have no choice, it's the only way for them to have the chance to get a higher-paying job. It's just very different from, say, ol' Avery High.

I think that's all I've got for now. I'll be coming home in a couple weeks.