An Average Sunday Night

Future President of China?

Max and his friends are entered into an English-speaking competition. Part of the competition requires that they recite a short story or speech. Max chose one of Obama's campaign speeches. Here it is:

At the Dinner Table

I never thought about using chopsticks to eat French Fries....

The Watermelon Talent Show

Beards and Beaches

I shaved my beard yesterday. I must say I've become a big fan of beards since growing a few. It's nice going five or six weeks without shaving. All you have to do is clean it up once a week. If you're the low-maintenance type, I highly recommend it.

In other news, one of my goals for March was to start running again. When I lived in Chicago, I ran or swam every few days. However, before this month, it had been over a year since I ran. One of the reasons was the air. While Shanghai is a terrific city, I didn't like breathing the air at a normal pace, let alone having to take deep breaths while running. But, now that I'm living in a city with better air, I figure it's time to start running again. So, I jogged a few times last month and can now appreciate how nice it is to live near the ocean.

Yantai sits at the top of the Shandong province, along the Yellow Sea (Pacific Ocean) coast. It's a great city for jumping a boat to Dalian or Korea. When I was running last week, it took me about five minutes to reach the beach. As I was approaching, you could hear the sound of the ocean. I never realized how much I like that sound. The beach was mostly desolate as were the streets around it, with a few desolate vendor and lifeguard stands signaling that summer is not here yet.

But, it's still great that summer and the beach are so close. I have a feeling I'm going to like living here as the weather breaks. After all, I always wanted to live down the shore for the summer. I just thought it would be in Sea Isle or Wildwood.

(side note: I just heard the Rocky theme on Yantai radio....haha.....how great is that?)

April Fool's Day

This is one of my favorite days here. One of the things that always bugged me about April Fool's Day in the U.S. was that everyone knew it was April Fool's Day so it was tough to trick people. Your ruse (a cunning attempt to trick people) really has to be believable or you have to catch people off-guard. But, here, it's a different ballgame and I dig it.

The Chinese know today is April Fool's Day but I don't think they celebrate the same way we do, by playing jokes on people. Either that, or they're just not expecting it out of me because I've managed to fool just about everyone I've seen today. It started when I stopped in a shop on the way to school to see my friend, Xiao Shi. I told her today was my last day in China and I wouldn't see her again. She got a sullen look on her face and started crying and hitting me before I told her it was just a joke.

Then, I got to school and told my students that I was getting married this weekend and they were invited to the wedding. They were all excited and stuff. Suckers! At lunch time, I was on Skype and I told my Shanghai friend I was moving back there and opening an English school. She ate it up. Sucker!

I'm looking forward to tonight's class with the adults. Maybe I'll tell them I'm a movie star or something.

Oh, and by the way, that part about the girl hitting me and crying, that was just a joke. Happy April Fool's Day, Sucker.

In Heat

I have to turn my hot water heater on a half-hour before I take a shower. Otherwise, I'm looking at a three-minute shower followed by bone-chilling cold water. Discovering this the hard way was no fun! But turning on the water heater beforehand adds eight or nine minutes of hot water. And, let me tell you, they are a critical eight or nine minutes. This process is nothing newsworthy, but it's another one of those minor reminders that I'm not home anymore.

Another reminder is that the heat should be shut-off in my building today. One of my colleagues seems to recall that last year on April 1, his apartment got very cold. This makes sense. The buildings in our neighborhood appear to be at least 30 or 40 years old so they were designed before China made its change to a capitalist market. Everyone in the building pays the same fee and gets the same heat. It's pretty simple.

While this is a fair approach, it's also a sign that China has some work to do in terms of energy conservation. Sometimes the apartment gets too warm and you have to crack open a window. After all, wasting energy is no fun, but neither is sweating at home.

On the upside, I must admit that although the weather is colder here than in Shanghai, it is much easier to deal with because the inside is so much warmer. The two main reasons for this are that the homes in the south of China do not have central heat while the northern buildings are designed to insultate heat.

I'm posting this on the first day of April, the month where the weather convinces you it will stay cool forever before suddenly changing. While I like winter, I'm looking forward to the warmer weather and experiencing how life changes around here.

Mr. Armstrong, Max, and the Kai Fa Qu

Mr. Armstrong
Most of the students call me Mr. Armstrong. Every now and again, they call me Armstrong, forgetting the Mister, but as opposed to my days at Neumann, no one has called me Armstead yet. I have to admit it took some getting used, being called "Mister" on a consistent basis. But I am 30 now and teaching kids who were born in 1996 so I suppose it makes sense.

Teaching at the middle school has been a lot of fun. One of my concerns was that the kids' behavior would be terrible, but it's actually turned out to be opposite. Most of them are pretty good and I think they look forward to my class, not because it's English, but because I usually try to make it fun by throwing in some games. If they speak too much Chinese, I make them stand in front of the class and sing "Heads, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes." I didn't know this song before last month, but apparently it's pretty big in England and the kids get a kick out of it so I use it.

Max
As for my Chinese, it is coming along. Making friends who don't speak English has proved to be as easy as I thought it would be. As opposed to Shanghai, you get a fair amout of stares from the locals on a daily basis. Most of the time, if I say anything, they're either too stunned to reply or they say "hello" and voila I've made a new friend. One of these new friends is a kid named Max.

During my second week here, I took the bus downtown to check out the city. On my way back to the Kai Fa Qu (the district where I live - more on that later), a young kid switched seats, sat next to me, and started talking. His English was pretty solid for his age and much better than my students at the middle school. He was also very curious about life in America and asked me questions like "Is it more interesting to live in America or China?" and "Which country has better food?"

I instantly wanted to help him as I realize it's probably a rare opportunity for kids around here to get the chance to talk with a native English speaker. So, I agreed to meet up with him and his mother the following Sunday night for dinner. They are from Inner Mongolia, where she studied English. As Max was growing up, she spoke English with him and he took a liking to it. Hence, his level is pretty good for a kid his age.

For the past six or seven Sundays now, I've met up with them and their friends. Max's friends are all girls and they get fired up when I tell Max I can't believe he has five girlfriends. Their English is also pretty good and every week, we go to a different one's home. In the pictures, you'll see some shots of us making dumplings for dinner one week.

Kai Fa Qu
Now, getting back to the Kai Fa Qu, which is where I live. Yantai's population is about 2 million (roughly 15% the size of Shanghai) and is divided up into five major districts, one of which is the Kai Fa Qu. Translated directly, it means "Development Zone" and I get the impression that (like areas of Shanghai) there wasn't much here 20 years ago. But now, within a five-minute walk, there are restaurants, malls and supermarkets. Like many parts of China, it's an area in transition and I'm glad to be a part of it.

January through March