Rookies

This was baseball week in Western Culture class. It sounds fun, but actually, baseball has a lot of rules and if you haven't grown up watching and playing the game, it really is confusing. Chip did his best to teach and reteach and reteach.

Some students hit better than others.

But I'm not sure we ever found a good pitcher.

The outfielders needed a little motivation.

But with every run, there was much cheering!

Best moments:
1. Sunny running with the ball to second base and then handing it to the second baseman. To which I yelled, "Sunny, it would be faster to throw the ball."
2. Chip getting frustrated every time a student called a "run" a "point."
3. Jack running all the bases past his teammates on base (who were oblivious to the fact that they should be running, too).
4. Poppy getting almost to first base and realizing she was still holding the bat.

Chip's Chewables: Forced Adpotions

Chew on this:  "Families in a poor mountainous region have had children seized, and apparently sold, in the name of China's one-child policy"  (Please click on the link to read the entire article)

Teaching Beyond the Classroom

Beijing is a world of culture that we simply do not have in small town Qufu. So when we had some spare time during the debate competition, I was able to share some experiences from Western culture with the students.

#1: Western Food


The girls are eating sandwiches for the first time at a Subway restaurant in Beijing.

Cold Stone is really too expensive to buy, but I took them inside, showed them how it all works, and then took a picture of us eating the sign.

Cheese. I mean, they didn't even know there were different kinds.

Magnum bars. Thank you, Belgium, for making good chocolate.

We also went to Jenny's Wang's (an import grocery store where I showed them a cereal aisle), smelling at Starbucks, and Tex-Mex for dinner!

#2: Swimming

These students don't own bathing suits and have never been in a pool in their lives. Sophie was convinced she couldn't breathe as soon as she got in the water. In her words, "The water is crushing me." Not to mention the fear of drowning in spite of the fact that her feet could touch the bottom. I tried to give her some basic swimming lessons, but to be honest, her grip never left the rim of the pool.

#3: Bowling

They have seen it in movies, but never experienced it. The weight of the ball was daunting at first, but they got the swing of it. The humor in this is really just that I, Mallary, was teaching them bowling. I am proud to say it's the first time in my life that I have won a game of bowling!


#4: Art

We went to the 798 district in Beijing which is mostly old warehouses converted into art studios. In this particular case, I wasn't really teaching them, we were just enjoying the art together.









I was proud that they all recognized him.


And last but not least, teaching them how to be gangstas.

Breaking Night Party

The Breaking Night Party at the debate competition is when the 128 teams find out who "broke" into the top 32. We knew we didn't have a chance, but we still enjoyed the party!



Back row: April (a sophomore who came along as a timer for debates), Felecity (JR), Me, Cathy (Xingtan coach), and Sophie (SR)
Front row: Gen and Alex (debaters from Xingtan college)

All the ladies!

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.