Today we had our LPI's (language proficiency interview) as the beginning of the end of training. We are all required to achieve a level of Intermediate Low, though I was lucky to come in at around that level, so I was hoping to reach Intermediate High. I think the interview went really well though, so I'm actually even hoping for an Advanced rating, though I don't know if that would really be accurate in terms of my functional communicative ability. Tonight we're throwing a big appreciation dinner for our hostfamilies. We've put together a slideshow with tons of photos of them, of us with them, and of us all over Chengdu. I think they're going to love it. We have the weekend free, though between starting to pack up and planning for classes, I have lots to do. On Tuesday we move out of our homestays and into a downtown hotel for 3 days of final info sessions, meeting with bigwigs, and swearing in.

Things have been pretty relaxed over the last three weeks though the heat and humidity has shot back up now that the students have come back (so ironic -- the only bearable weather was while they were gone on break). As John, one of the other trainees, said: "I think the population of China just doubled... last week everyone had babies and they grew up to be 20 and this week they all decided to enroll at Sichuan Normal!" The campus feels so different with all the students back for the fall semester, and it's really psyching me up for getting back to Lanzhou and getting to know my own students.

Last Sunday around noon my hostfamily asked me if I wanted to go to a park that afternoon with them and and another trainee's family. I figured it would be a nice hour or two long stroll and told them to count me in. Two months in and I can still be so foolish.... An hour later they called me: "Kexin! Kexin! Maybe we go soon." I said, sure, I'll be down in a few minutes. They replied "Okay get in the car now." Okay. We drove for a while and met up with another car where Derek, another trainee, was sandwhiched in the back between his host brother and host brother's little friend, who we christened BobDog for all the BobDog children's boutique clothes he was rocking. Derek didn't know where we were going either. Hostmom told me we were going to a place where the modern peasants were, and when we arrived, it turned out that we were going fishing! In a small concrete pond that I'm willing to swear had nothing but minnows in it. After 2 hours we tired of fishing, and then we played MaJiang for about 3 more hours until the hostfamilies were ready to roll. The Chinese play MaJiang incredibly fast as a rule, and Derek's poor hostdad would let out these huge yawns & put his head down on the table while waiting for us Americans to make our moves. We felt the same way. There was also a children's huge blowup fort behind which they would completely inflate and then deflate in between individual children coming up and wanting to play on it. The air inside smelled like ass as it was released directly at those of us bucolically playing MaJiang, and they would frequently deflate the fort while children were still on it. We tried to rescue a few of the children from being swallowed by the mammoth and foul-smelling collapsing toy, but the waiguoren (foreigners) were far scarier to the children, who ran away back into the depths of the fort.

Not much has been going on as we wrap up training. I think the only reason we have these last two weeks of training after site-visits is for continued language study, which is an important thing, I know. In the afternoons, however, we have trainee-led technical sessions which basically consisst of groups of us researching how to teach specific topics (such as literature, speaking, listening, culture) and then presenting to the others: not the most productive hours we've spent in China.

Our VF's (the china 10's who ran our training as their final service project here) have left us, which was hard!! They were our teachers and good friends -- saying goodbye to them makes the whole two years from now thing seem a lot shorter somehow.

We've also lost one of the trainees at our hubsite, bringing our total to 4 gone out of the China 12's as a whole.

Today I went with the other two people in the advanced Chinese group to a private preschool across the city from us. We taught a class of 4 year olds the Hokey-Pokey and how to give us high-5s... they were adorable. And so bright, storytelling and dancing and singing for us!! They have english class every day, with powerpoints and everthing. They learn lots of vocab, though I have no idea what their comprehension level actually is. A picture will pop up of a warm-up suit and the teacher would call on one of the kids who would stand up and announce "Track!Suit!"

A week from today we'll have a big host-fam appreciation event (we'll have a slideshow and and some performances for them), and then the next week we are all moved into a super-posh hotel for a few days to have a final conference, and be officially sworn-in as peace corps volunteers by the ambassador. On thursday, September 8, I move up to Lanzhou officially, and the next Monday my classes begin.

much love,
Kristen

On Tuesday, we met with the head of the English department and one of the vice-deans to talk about our classes next semester. I will be teaching two sections of senior english majors an advanced, practical-skills based, oral English class. The curriculum is totally up to me, and I have visions of debates in my head... Each class meets once a week for a three hour time block. I will also be teaching one class of sophmore english majors as well. I'll be teaching the third of a four semester sequence that all English majors in China must take, based on listening and speaking (Note this is not considered oral english. Regarding listening and speaking: "Must not teach them together please!"). They have a very important certification exam to take at the end of their Sophmore year called the CET4, so while I'll have less freedom with this class, I'm considering it teaching bootcamp, because it is very important that I help the students prepare well. That class meets with me twice a week for three hours each time (!!!). All of my classes will have about 35 students. And that's it for this semester! Just the twelve class hours.
In the spring, however, I'll be teaching British Literature (a lot of AP english material), and possibly a critical thinking class as well! Also next semester, the school will be undergoing extensive examination by the Chinese government in hopes of receiving an A certification, and our bosses hinted broadly that a lot may be asked of us at that time to help out with the semester-long show that the school will be putting on for the officials. As for now, we've just been cautioned to keep extensive paperwork of our lesson-planning. We have to have a broad semester outline for each class before we start the semester, so that will be my big job for the next few weeks. Model School was all fun and games compared to this -- these are real, honest-to-god college classes and there aill be a lot of professional demands on us. To be perfectly honest, I'm a little scared.

After meeting with our supervisors, we sat around for a solid two hours waiting. We wait a lot here. Suddenly, Driver shows up and says there has been a sudden change of plans (all I could catch was that there was a change of plans, no idea from what to what)! So our pint-size foreign affairs guide, his wife, Driver, my site mate and I all pile into the little car and head out for...... Qinghai, another province 300 km west of here! There, we put up in a hotel in the capital, Xining, and head out for another mutton meal. Man oh man are grilled mutton sticks delicious (try saying mutton 10 times in a row. Nonsense!). Then we took a looooong walk to digest. It was a gorgeous clear, cool night, and we popped Peptobismal as we strolled past pink-lit massage parlors, KFC's, a big kareoke-filled town center, chinese medicine shops starring dried lizards, and some cool Tibetan markets. We also saw a lot of cowboy (yakboy?) hats. This is definitely China's wild west.

This morning we got up early and headed to a large Buddhist monastary just outside of the city. It is one of the 6 main Tibetan Buddhist monastaries around (4 in the TAR proper, one called Xia He, southwest of here, and this one, Ta'er Si). It was absolutely chock-a-block stuffed with a very special breed of travelors, the chinese tourist group. I think the highlight for me was when two guides were wedged face-to-face in front of an altar, each waving their little flags and screaming information at their groups who were bunched up behind the wrong guide, respectively. It was especially awesome how they got in the way of the pilgrims and monks trying to do their prostrations. Frustrations aside, it was an incredible place, with various prayer halls and altars filled with yak-butter candles and sculptures wind their way up the mountain side. This is where the yellow-hat sect of Buddhism was founded.

The ride home was through harsh, dry, hilly landscapes broken by a few green valleys where a river might run by. Often beautiful, the land was tarnished by infrequent but enormous cement factories which spewed black and bruise-green smoke into the air. You all know that I am not one for environmental posturing, but it hurts the soul (and the lungs!), to pass through valleys completely obscured by the waste being belched from these plants.

Now we're back at our hotel, and stuffed from yet another incredible meal (I may never eat this well again in the next two years!). Tomorrow afternoon we hop back on the train back to Chengdu. Hopefully the train-trolls in the dining car will remember that we bonded on the way here and be friendlier on the ride home!

Today we got to see the campus(es) which are great. This university is huge! 20,000 students altogether, & all undergrad I believe. The main campus is really pretty and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll do a lot of our teaching on this campus instead of commuting to the west campus too often. The west campus is out on the very edge of the city, and getting out there really kind of looks and feels like a city out of the wild west... it's crazy, man. Not just the construction that's all over China, but literally entire roads which are ripped to shreds. That campus is enormous and sort of in the middle of nowhere... particularly without the students there, it's the most open space I've seen since I got to China!

We also got to see Pierce's apt. today, but not mine... there's a sort of confusing mix-up right now, though I'm still hoping to see it sometime later this week. Mine's a few buildings over but supposedly exactly the same. It's really cozy: two bedrooms, a little living room and sunny glassed porch spot, dining spot and kitchen. And there's a desktop + printer in each of our places which is soooo great! Neither of us had brought computers with us, but since we teach at a technology university, we were a little afraid of not being able to keep up with our students! There are some dirt basketball and tennis courts right by us, a row of little restaurants and a market right in front of my place, and this cool mini-mountain right behind us. It's really just a very big hill, but it's owned by the university and is covered with little paths, tea-houses, and benches to relax on. The main campus is also in a section of the city with slightly cleaner air, which is nice. While I don't meet with the Dean until tomorrow, the word that I've gotten is that I'll be teaching mostly English majors, and largely literature and linguistics classes, which I'm psyched about!

So this afternoon our foreign affairs liaison took us downtown to have a little look around the city. We ended up climbing up to a Pagoda overlooking the Yellow River, which cuts right through Lanzhou by the way. On the way up we climbed many stairs, passed beautiful pavilions, stopped in at a buddhist temple, visited a carnival-mirror funhouse room, gawked at two kiddie amusement park rides, and were tempted by 3 different shoot-the-target prize booths. At the top we had tea and sat enjoying the breeze, the approximately blue skies, and the blissful lack of humidity. After we came down, our friendly WaiBan representative bought us a bunch of peaches and then started haggling with the boat men over taking us on a ride along the Yellow River. Neither of us were particularly set on said ride, particularly when they started gesturing at some rickety looking rafts as the price started to come down. Abruptly something was agreed upon however, and we were handed life vests and ushered towards the small speed-boat dock. ::whew!:: no wooden ladders lashed across piggy-looking inflated goat skins for us!

Except, there was.

The boat took us up river a mile or two and then left us on a little island where we hesitantly boarded a raft after the owner helpfully reinflated a few of the goat-skins by blowing into them... the raft barely fit the three of us and looked for all the world like a few sticks criss-crossing a bunch of pigs floating along feet up in the air. Pierce wants me to note at this point that he was just about pissing himself and quite certain we weren't going to make it back. I was a bit calmer because, afterall, I wouldn't really be on a good adventure unless something ridiculous involving boats & bodies of water was happening to me (ohhh shades of panama and nica).
Actually, it was a lovely float back down river with only a few hairy moments crossing other people's waves. The smog had been burned off hours earlier, and the light was beautiful and the temperature mmmm so comfortable.

After a long walk which included a stop by some ancient waterwheels that they originally used for irrigation out here (totally cool -- the history major in me was staring for a while), we made it to dinner at a "mutton place." As far as I can tell, sheep-meat is all this place really serves, and MAN is it some good mutton. We tore through some necks and some other body part which I declined to ask about, as well as some amazing baozi and a veggie dish. This was quite possibly my favorite dinner so far in China and 3 hours later I'm still stuffed.

okay, I've got to go check on my site mate who ran out of here an hour ago and hasn't been back (ohhh when you're running into first, and your butt's about to burst... diarrhea).

we'll be out of town the next two days, and then heading back to chengdu, so I'll be back online at the end of the week. miss y'all.

love, kristen

Greetings from Lanzhou!

Today around noon our train pulled into Lanzhou and Pierce (my sitemate) and I were swept off by a member of our school's foreign affairs organization. He told us our apartments are not usable right now (though we'll get to go see them tomorrow!!), so they're putting us up in a hotel about 15 min from the University. Then he took us downstairs to the restaurant and ordered us a FEAST of yum chinese food. In Sichuan, if you bring up Gansu, everyone loves to talk disparagingly about the food & weather here. While I am fully prepared to be eating the noodles here at least one meal a day for the next two years, THIS food was amazing. And there was sooooo much of it. Definitely no room for dinner tonight! We're here until thursday and we can apparently get whatever we want at the hotel restaurant and just sign for it. It's a sweet deal to be so well taken care of, though both my sitemate and I balk at being SO looked after. Re: the weather, all anyone elsewhere in China talks about is how dry it is here, but I am thrilled to report that I have not been drenched in sweat in over 24 hours now! It feels almost cool today, and the air feels light instead of like another layer of clothing. The pollution is certainly present, but today it doesn't feel so bad unless you're right behind one of the smoke-barfind motorcycles which often serve as family cars around here.

After our late lunch, we were free for the rest of the day and took a long walk along the railroad tracks (don't ask how we got there, but we were not lost I say). Tons of families, almost entirely Muslim, live along the railroad tracks. Lanzhou has a huge Muslim population, and lots of beautiful Mosques. Also, from the faces I've seen just walking around the last few hours, not much more than half of the population here is Han chinese. There are many people here with more middle eastern features, and many who look most like the indigineous people I saw in the highlands in Ecuador, with darker skin and ruddy cheeks. I love seeing more diversity around me, and it's interesting... the non-Han people definitely seem to stare far less. At the same time, total staring is definitely up here, since Lanzhou, while a big city, is less cosmopolitan than Chengdu. I think I'm going to like it here -- it's cool to walk around not knowing much of anything, but knowing that in the future I WILL get to know this city really well. Afterall, it's my new home!

Tomorrow we'll get to see our apartments, walk around the campus & get our bearings, maybe do a little site-seeing outside of Lanzhou as well. The next day we'll be meeting with the Dean of the Foreign Affairs department to talk about what courses we'll each be teaching and what our schedules might look like for the upcoming semester. On thursday, probably sometime in the afternoon, we head back to the train-station for the 22hour return trip to Chengdu to wrap up the last three weeks of training.

On wednesday we found out our site placements!!
I will spend the next two years teaching at the Lanzhou University of Technology in a slightly secluded area of Lanzhou (capital of Gansu), about a half hour out from city center. The student body is a little over 18,000 kids, on two campuses (I'll be teaching at both). I'll be living on the main campus, in the teachers neighborhood. I've heard from some of the China 11s that my apartment is really great, but I don't know much about it yet. The two campuses are supposedly only about 15 min apart (though I'm skeptical about this, have heard that it may be much farther), and also there is supposedly a shuttle bus that the school runs to ferry between the two campuses. Lanzhou is about a 22hour train ride from Chengdu, where PC HQ is.

It looks like I'll be teaching some upper-level classes, including comparative literature, intro. to english speaking countries, european culture/history, etc., as well as the standard oral english classes. I might even teach some oral english to post-grad students! I'll see how that pans out once I get to site and can negotiate with my Dean. I'll be teaching in the Foreign Languages school, as a member of the English department.

There are actually about 12 peace corps volunteers total who are scattered through Lanzhou, and a couple more just a few hours outside of the city, so we have a really awesome support system ready-made. I leave tomorrow (saturday) to visit my site for about a week, so I'll know lots more when I get back...

Outside of that, it's been a pretty haphazard week. On monday we were given a mid-PST evaluation based on what all of our traineers had to say about us... I think most everyone was very pleased. With model school over, our afternoons have been filled with tech sessions and with visits from China 11s who have been cycling through Chengdu. Wednesday was pretty exciting because they brought us all back together to make site announcements -- I hadn't seen people from the other training sites since that first week! Evenings have been sweaty but fun: badmitten, pingpong, cards, and beer fill up most evenings.

Okay, so students could come to model school classes if they wanted, but they weren't actually told that, so while some students did stay in town, outside of the 7 classes over in the college where I teach, most people had no students. Things were shuffled around (several times actually), and I ended up with one of the other trainees, Laura, as my co-teacher. It's worked out just fine though it's a little difficult on each of us since while we have a good working relationship, the fact that they are my kids and my class has kind of stuck. The day that Laura came into my classroom, last wednesday, I also had another new arrival: Bob. Just the day before, I had been saying to some of my fellow trainees that I really wished I had named one of my students Bob, because I'd like to have a Bob in my class. From my mouth to God's ear because the next day, I have a new boy in my class who announces that his name is Bob. His favorite adjective is "perfect", and every day he leaves me a note that I am perfect, or class was perfect, or thank you because he feels perfect from class today. We're still working on constructive criticism.

It's been a great last week and a half of class though. All last week I taught a unit on Small Talk, culminating in monday's class when I taught them how to gossip and we did a huge mingle activity. It went perfectly, and since that was sort of the last day I taught, I was definitely on a huge high. The next day Laura taught a class, yesterday the kids gave presentations, today we're doing final interviews with each students, and tomorrow is a just-for-fun day. And that's it for model school! Next wednesday we find out our sites, and even though we're only half-way through training, I think that at that point our heads will be more in our new homes than here at training. I'm guessing right now that I may have a site in Langzhou, the capital of Gansu and one of the most polluted cities in the world, with a China 11 as a sitemate, but it's just an educated guess. I can't wait to see how we all get scattered and who our sitemates will be.

Outside of model school, we've still had lots of chinese class and I've learned how to play mahjong (sp?) and a popular card game here called Beat the Landlord. Last saturday I went to Wuhuo temple which is a really cool buddhist monastary commemorating hero-warriors of The Tale of Three Kingdoms -- there was a beautiful garden attached. Sunday I visited the famous thatch-roofed cottage of Dufu, one of the three greatest Tant Dynasty poets and something of a poetry saint here. The memorial to him is also located in a huge commemorative park. We brought picnic with us, but forgot a knife to cut the water melon. Now to have a snack here at all, much less a picnic, without watermelon is really sort of a ridiculous proposition, so a helpful passer-by cut it open with his credit card for us.

Monday night we had a big suprise going away party for one of the China 10's who has had a particularly big impact on all of us at my training hub. We had it at Pete's, a "tex-mex" place downtown -- I had a whole pizza and finished off my friend's waffle and it was incredible. Last night my host fam took me out to a big hotpot dinner with some of their colleagues. Hot pot is the most distictive of Sichuanese foods. It is literally a boiling pot of oil and peppers that you dip various foods into to cook, and then chow down. Highlights of my meal last night included octopus stomach (super chewy), duck stomach (my new favorite part of a duck!), and pig's feet, which are as weird to eat as they sound. There was also a LOT of toasting, which I got the rough end of since every other person at the table wanted to drink with me (a traditional toast specifically to one other person -- "and now we drink together! gan bei!").

It's been a very happy month already. I'm loving the work & the company & China.