Summer Project has come and gone! This is a two week event that every PCV must complete between the first and second year of service. This year, all volunteers from Gansu province were sent to small-town Lixian together, to teach primary, middle, and high school teachers Oral English.
Some 300 students (teachers) took part in this annual lovefest of learning and intercultural exchange. In other provinces, the volunteers were split between five sites, so each volunteer had a monstrous teaching load- we lucked out and all 17 of us were all thrown in one town.
More volunteers = more fun = less teaching = happy Teacher Cheng. The gansu volunteers all stayed on the same floor of the hotel we were at, and i felt like a college freshman again (that was 10 years ago!) with some rooms designated for netflix, or nintendo, or just “drink wine and chill”. a few of us frequented the spa downstairs, despite the water in the hot tub never being filtered, and only drained every other day..
Lixian is a pretty laid back town, and you see a lot of the card playing/ chess/ mahjong in the streets that might no longer be common in larger cities. everything moves a little slower here, and you dont risk your life walking across the street in the same way you would in Lanzhou
We had a day to settle in and then classes began the next morning But, first things first…
Jess’s Birthday Bash!
I don’t think anyone dreams of celebrating their 30th birthday in Lixian of all places, but that exactly what happened to my Peace Corps BFF Jess! We got a nice cake (interesting choices included sponge bob cake, bra and panties cake, and a Barbie cake from Angel Bakery) and went to a beer garden near the dried creek that intermittently reeked of urine or worse. Despite the unusual aromas that wafted through the night, we had a great evening together.
Jess said turning 30 in Lixian just puts everything into perspective – its really just another day in your life, and in the end, everyday is what you make of it – the world is full of surprises and you just learn to roll with it. Plus, ten or fifteen years from now when people ask what you did for your 30th, it’s way more meaningful to tell a story about Peace Corps than “I flew to Paris for a week”
My Lesson:
Each morning, around 9:30 AM – after an unnecessarily long, self-centered introduction in which I make the class guess where I’m from (China! Japan! Korea!), show a dozen photos from the many countries I visited (you just *have* to see Uzbekistan with your own eyes! The empanadas in Colombia were amazing!) – we packed our invisible suitcases and started on an imaginary tour of America.
I reused a good – but not great – lesson plan about Travel, a lesson I had taught in the previous semesters that barely lasted 90 minutes, let alone the THREE HOURS I needed to fill each morning. I’ve also become a master of talking really slowly without sounding condescending, a guru of walking up and down the two aisles that divide the classroom, repeating hard to pronounce words with a V (Vacation! Vacation! Vacation!) or stressing the difference between “Customs” and “Customer” that so many teachers struggle with.
After the first few classes, it occurred to me the men in the class always said “NBA!” whenever I asked what they would see or do in the States, and seemed disappointed that I had nothing to say on the subject. I quickly revised the PowerPoint and pulled up a list of highest paid NBA players and grabbed their photos for the below slide:
The guys in class knew all of the players by heart, so in this aspect they definitely recognized more about American culture than I did. Lixian Teachers: 1, Mr Cheng: 0.
Next, the teachers had to work in groups, select a country to visit, and list important information they needed to know before embarking on their imaginary trip. Some highlights, which warmed my icy heart:
- The Emperor of Japan: Shinzo Abe
- Population of the UK: 6,564 billion (translating numbers from Chinese to English is very, very difficult because of the different ways in which we categorize sets of 0s in large numbers)
- Australian pop star: “Kyty Perry”
- South Korea’s famous hobby: face-lifting
- Interesting Fact about Russia: Vodka
- Favorite food in North Korea: dog soup
- Things to do in Thailand: ride elephants and ladyboys
Overall the teams did really well with this assignment, considering none of the teachers had ever left the country (or even province for some), and they had to rely on the limited access to media and Baidu to guide them through their travels.
Cui Feng Mountain
We were lucky to have an easily accessible mountain range Cui Feng Shan (翠峰山) just a few miles south of the town of Lixian, which I took full advantage of. I went on two separate days, as we had perfect blue skies for two weeks- and it would be a waste not to see some more green before I return to brown and dusty Lanzhou.
The view was phenomenal, probably the most beautiful mountains I have seen yet in China, and certainly the most beautiful in Gansu province.
On my first climb up, I ran into two other volunteers and some of our students. The students were so friendly and invited us to eat dinner with them, and we later visited their apartment in central Lixian.
This was easily the highlight of my time here: it was unexpected that the students were so eager to treat us like old friends, and take us to meet all of their family, including their 94 year old grandmother with bound feet – a relic from pre-republic culture.
We were so, so touched by their hospitality and warmth, for the green tea and watermelon, for the handshakes and smiling eyes.
Sally
Sally is one of my students from the first semester of classes I taught – way back in September 2016. She lives in Lixian country, and we were able to meet up for a few hours after I was done teaching one day.
Good news! Sally, as with most of her classmates, will be heading to Hotan (FAR west China, near the border of China and Pakistan) in XinJiang to work as a volunteer Mandarin Chinese teacher for a semester, starting in late August!
This was one of my proudest moments yet as a volunteer – to see my students grow and transform into teachers in their own right. Sally remembers all the best games from class that will keep the kids moving when the class need a little boost. I am so happy for her and will be keeping in touch with all my former students as they take on their own mini- Peace Corps adventure!
harry rubacuori 