Day 19: Typhoon Warning (And Other Stories)

Hints of a typhoon, though for today we only had rain.

Because of the aforementioned typhoon (warning), we aren't teaching English tomorrow, so today was our last day. We didn't find this out until about halfway through this morning's session. I was teaching my students the names of the months as well as the first few ordinal numbers (i.e. first, second, third...), but once we found out that this was our last day, we decided to do something fun. The kids asked us to teach them how to sing an American song. Because of our earlier karaoke experience (from a couple of weeks ago) the only song that we all knew the words and melody to was "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys. The kids of course insisted on hearing us each sing it individually, so that was interesting. But we managed to get them to learn the melody, as well as get the appropriate alternate pronunciations ("wai-ee" as opposed to "why," etc.), while of course making sure to point out that the lyrics were incorrect grammatically ("ain't nothin' but a heartache" is a double negative, as well as slang). It was quite an odd experience, listening to a classroom full of young Chinese students with severe accents sing a quintessential American pop song, but the experience can at least be described as fun.

After lunch, we made the 25-minute walk out to the "waste management facility" that Eric's father built. It is essentially a large incinerator, and may not look like much to us Westerners, but it is a fairly crucial service, as disposing of refuse is important, and often quite difficult for locals. The walk itself was absolutely stunning, as we came down the mountain on whose side Gaoxiang rests, and walked on a road that meandered between two others. The green was all around us, and the intermittent rain and fog provided a serene aesthetic. We also saw a buffalo by a small creek near the side of the road. It was a great, hulking, creature, and it stared right at me (just like the locals do) as if it too acknowledged that I was an outsider. This is not really an exotic experience, as buffalo exist in the U.S., but I had never been so close to one – we were only about five feet away, which gave us a wonderful (or terrifying) perspective on its size.

Upon our return, we set to work helping with the park, fulfilling our tasks of cleaning up the worksite and hauling stones for them to place in the path. We worked through the rain, and the work that the locals did, placing the rocks into the path, looks quite good, and it almost made me feel that the many hours we spent picking those rocks was worth it. We were interrupted by a visit from one of our students, who brought us each a gift for teaching her English. I haven't opened it yet, but I was again taken aback by the generosity of the villagers, and I feel glad to have developed a personal relationship with some of them.

After dinner, we went into town to buy water, and ran into another student (who lives next to the convenience store). We bought him a coke, and he invited us into his home (the first floor of which is a barber shop as his father is a barber). We were brought watermelons and we hung around to talk with him and his father. It was very interesting for me as an outsider to observe how different socializing is in China. Food is always involved, and it is much less casual than in the U.S. We in the barber shop, no door to the street, so that anyone we knew might come in and join us (and a few of our students did).

We only have a couple of days left here, and I can say that many parts of me are ready to return to the comforts of home, but I already know that I will soon feel the twang of nostalgia, as this experience has been one so totally outside any other I have heretofore experienced. With that, I must go to bed, so I have the energy to make the most out of my last two days. Good night.