FLTRP Cup

I just had the most amazing, internationally overwhelming, intellectually exhausting week of my life! I spent the week in Beijing at a national debate competition supported by the FLTRP (Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press). The adjudicators traveled from all around the world to judge the competition and teach Chinese teachers about British Parliamentary Debate. I passed the adjudicator test and was privileged to serve on panels as a judge with adjudicators from Sweden, England, Israel, Scotland, Venezuela, Thailand, and of course, China and the US.

I took two students to the competition and we traveled with another team from our city (see the photo above). Our students really performed well, but the competition was fierce as they competed against students from top universities across China.

The two Qufu teams

Me and my students, Felicity and Sophie, with our awards.
Funny story: Chinese people kept accidentally calling Felicity by
"Facility" all week which made her annoyed and made me laugh.

While some debates ranked better than others,
I am overall really proud of how both teams debated.





Me and my new friend, Cathy--the coach from Xingtan College in Qufu


The Grand Final
Tsinghua (in Beijing), Nankai (in Tianjin), University of Macau, and Beijing University of Technology
And the grand prize went to: Nankai!

Motions from this year's debates:

Round 0

China should use taxpayers’ money to compensate the entertainment industry for losses due to piracy.

Round 1

Prisoners who agree to donate their organs should receive lessened prison sentences.

Round 2

China should require students to learn “red songs”(Hong ge) at all levels of education.

Round 3

China should establish military bases abroad.

Round 4

China should allow international adoption to homosexual couples whose union is legally recognized in their home jurisdiction.

Round 5

The Arab League should take the lead to achieve the regime change in Libya.

Round 6

China should provide financial incentives to rural families who bear and raise daughters.

Round 7

China should require all foreign direct investment projects in Africa to hire least 50% of their workforce locally.

Round 8

Contestants who have undergone cosmetic surgery should be prohibited from competing in beauty pageants.

Octo-Final

The United States was justified in violating Pakistan’s sovereignty to assassinate Osama Bin Laden.

Quarter Final

The Chinese government should require corporations to provide compensation to families of employees who commit suicide.

Semi-Final 1

China should establish an inheritance tax on the rich intended to prevent the transference of wealth between generations.

Semi-Final 2

Chinese local governments should abolish housing purchase restrictions that require local Hukou for buyers.

Grand Final

China should criminalize academic dishonesty.

Twilight

Last week in Listening, the class leader came to my desk and said, "Roy will be late. He is at Twilight."

Interesting. This really struck my curiosity. "Is this a club?" I questioned.

"Twilight," she quickly reinforced.

I must have looked baffled. For the life of me, I could not figure out what she was talking about.

She was searching within her own vocabulary to explain this to me.

Then she responded, "poop."

It quickly all came together. "You mean Toilet."

"Oh, yes." she said.

And that was more than I really wanted to know about Roy.

Candies

One of my freshmen told me she bought me some candies. I thought that was sweet. She said she would bring them with her to class the next day. I told her with a grin that I would probably eat them during class.

She looked at me with much concern.

Her friend elbowed her and whispered a correction, "candles."

Oh. . .got it. I probably won't be eating those in class.

Look-Alike

When people say I look like Amy Adams or Chip looks like Colin Firth, we really don't mind. But recently a student that I know pretty well told me she thought I looked like the person from "The Social Network" facebook movie.

I told her I was confused because I couldn't think of any lead female role. To which she responded, "No, the lead male, you know, the Mark Zuckerberg character." I was flabbergasted.

Turns out, it's because I wear a hoodie and have a boy haircut.

Bi Sheng Ke

Last night we went to Bi Sheng Ke, but you probably know it as Pizza Hut. There's no Pizza Hut in Qufu, but we found a driver to take us about an hour to Jining, a nearby city with a few more Western options. We had heard rumors of a Pizza Hut in Jining, and we felt that we should confirm the rumors.

Simply going to Pizza Hut as foreigners would have been a welcome relief from Chinese food, but we brought along a couple students who had never eaten pizza and that made the trip truly memorable.

And there was a free Peach Propel giveaway outside!

Clearly pizza virgins, they asked great questions like, "So this white stuff is cheese?"

NOTE: Pizza Hut in China isn't exactly the same as Pizza Hut in America.
Yes, that is corn on the pizza.

Verdict: They loved it! That or they were humoring us because we had hyped it up so much.

Sports Day

Universities in China have annual sports meetings where departments compete against one another in track & field events. Thursday and Friday were sports days here in Qufu.


When we arrived at the stadium we wondered how we would ever find our students. . .

but they roared with excitement when they saw us, so it was pretty clear where we should sit.

Sports Day has a lot of rules for students. For instance,

1. Freshmen and sophomores are required to attend.
2. Must sit in the stands from 7am-5pm (with a lunch break) for the two days of the events.
3. Must turn in ID to use the restroom. . .and you only have 3 minutes.
4. May drink water but may not eat anything (and there are people policing the stands to check)
5. May not read or bring textbooks.
6. Must wear your department jacket (even though it's hot).

Good thing there's not a rule against these cool hats!

The girl in orange is running for the Foreign Language Department. Our department came in 9th place overall out of 11 departments. There was much celebration.

And every department does a massive dance which is pretty entertaining if for no other reason than that some dance teams are as large as 400 people.

Easter Eggs

Easter Egg Hunt! We were a little short on eggs, but that didn't stop the fun. We had about 30 plastic eggs from America filled with candy (for about 50-60 students) and the rest were dyed boiled eggs. The college students raced outside in excitement for their first ever Easter Egg Hunt--complete with Easter Bunny Mallary.



And one egg had a special note inside. The lucky person to find this egg won a big stuffed rabbit. Everyone was in awe of this lucky girl.

Egg Toss--and inevitably, somebody gets messy!

Egg Toss Champions!

"Balance the egg on the spoon" relay. We told them to go fast, but no one did. They were extra careful. Out of five teams, there was not even one broken egg.

After the Egg Olympics, the students came inside and watched a short clip about the true meaning of Easter, learned more about Easter traditions, and our teammate beautifully sang, "My Redeemer Lives."

Chip's Chewable: Inside China's Olympic 'system'

Chew on this:  "Sunday is normally a day of rest in China - but not for the country's top divers.  While many people might be contemplating a good lunch or a visit to the cinema, divers Wu Minxia and He Zi are in the gym."  (Please click on the title to read the entire article and watch the short video)

Birthdays Rock!

I have always been a huge lover of birthdays, both others and my own. I think birthdays are a great reason to celebrate with friends and family! And my first China birthday didn't let me down.

I received packages from my parents, Chip's parents, and my grandparents. So on my birthday I was able to wear a new shirt from my mom. I talked to most of my family on my birthday, including a Skype call with my sister & her two cute kiddos.

For dinner, my team made delicious Mexican food and carrot cake (complete with 28 candles).

Then at 10pm, me and my teammates, Alison and Tarah, went out for foot massages!

The most memorable part of the day was my Sophomore Culture class. They surprised me with a crown, cake, singing (in English and Chinese), flashing powerpoint of appreciation, and a scrapbook of photos with one page for each of the 37 students in the class. They all wrote meaningful and loving words. You can check out some examples below:

And then, some students made me a birthday video. It is silly, but I absolutely love it.

I also received many Facebook birthday wishes.
If you sent one, thanks for making my 28th birthday stupendous!