Since last year I’ve been in a Peace Corps affinity group called Volunteers Supporting Volunteers (VSV). Part of my role in this group is to edit and write articles for our monthly newsletter called Mental Health Monthly. Each month this gets sent out via email to all PCVs in China. Below is an article I wrote recently for it about optimizing mental health in the Peace Corps. Enjoy:
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How often do you remember what you did yesterday? Or the day before? Last month? Maybe you keep a journal, but still find it hard to bring to mind what you ate for dinner last night without reading what it was. It’s objectively hard to keep track of these life statistics, especially with new China memories forcing their way in every day. Sometimes I find myself wishing I could take a better snapshot of what I’ve been doing than what I occasionally post on Facebook.
There are service-affirming and creative ways to do this. Keeping track of life events and falling in love with the numbers can create a new outlook towards Peace Corps service. So, if you’re like me and wish you could remember how many times you actually wore pants during high school, this article might be for you. Here are two easy, practical ways to keep track of your service that can help optimize your mental health.
PC Experience Bar
In Middle School I happily filled up my life with videogames and not with girlfriends. I played a lot of World of Warcraft. In WoW you create a character and then take them out into the world to battle monsters, level up and become more powerful. Across the bottom of the screen is a purple experience bar that looks like a long horizontal sand clock tipped over. It feels really good to fill that bar up with experience and level up.
One way to optimize mental health is to apply the same principle to experience in the Peace Corps. Literally make a Peace Corps experience bar. Tape together five to six pieces of paper and draw a long horizontal bar with twenty-six interconnected segments. Each section on the bar representing a month of service, with one extra month at the beginning and the end. Pick a favorite color highlighter and fill in each month as you move ahead in time. This creates a spread and visual of your service, what you’ve completed so far and what you have left. You can even write personal highlights or achievements as they happen under where you are on the bar. Having a visual like this can create a feeling of contentedness that can help affirm your choice to join the Peace Corps in those times of distress or doubt. Just look up at the wall and see the progress you’ve been making.
Are Excel Spreadsheets really that soul crushing?
Another way to try keeping your head above water is to fall in love with numbers. That’s right, pop open a laptop and pull out that old, dusty green Excel spreadsheet application. You know, the one from that random statistics class in college? Maybe you have a small habit you want to develop or a bad one you want to get rid of. The trick is to apply a few numbers to it. Find something you can track that you think will improve your life and immerse it into the Excel experience.
I wanted to optimize my morning routine. So I Excelled it up. First, I wrote down seven things that I thought would help make my day better if I did them in the morning. I put those things in columns. For example:
Date
<6am?
plank?
run?
~3 eggs?
coffee+H2O?
music/pod?
cleanup?
10/13/16
0
1
0
1
1
0
0
10/14/16
1
0
1
1
1
1
0
10/15/16
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
The trick was to give myself a score by determining my daily average out of seven. If I did a thing in the morning, I put in a 1. If I didn’t, I put a 0. Keeping track like this helped me remember what I did, but also gave me some hard hints as to where I could improve. After a month, the knowledge was there, but I was too lazy to apply it. It doesn’t matter. Simply put, the process of actively gathering personal data like this can vault the brain onto a platform of higher thinking. By thinking hard about what we’re doing, or just looking over what we did last month, we can put things in perspective and realize what we did.
Every Saturday I buy fruit and eat some while walking around. People notice me, the foreigner, so I give them a nod and begin what has come to be a standard conversation here in small-town China,
Hello!
Hi, what country are you from?
I am from the United States.
I don’t understand.
The United States of America, it’s my hometown.
[looks around wistfully] I don’t understand.
I’m sorry, I’m trying to speak standard Chinese.
I still don’t understand.
…
Sometimes I feel like a man fighting with an octopus on a treadmill during these conversations. Most days, after some time and more than a few desperate hand gestures, the fruit vendor crowd gets it. I’m trying to buy bananas. Some days they don’t.
I’ve come to learn over the past year in the Peace Corps that it’s not so much about what you have to say, but about how you say it. They don’t speak standard Chinese here in Gansu. In Chengxian the local people speak Cheng county dialect Chinese. You have to hit the correct sound for people to understand.
Chinese as a language already operates with four required tones to pronounce. Adding yet more geographical differences in sound has, for me, made it hard to talk. So instead I walk. Through the tofu carts and hanging meat markets of this place.
The big challenge for me here is learning to wield my conversational chopsticks in a way that prevents the food from hitting the floor. I often don’t know what we’re talking about when we start, but by now, a year later, I am able to sling sentences around coherently – even after talking for an hour (or three).
One standard Saturday morning after successfully buying a few bananas I noticed a small group of students approaching. The conversation went:
Hello!
Hi teacher, did you eat?
Yes I did! And you?
Yes.
What did you eat?
Noodles.
And then, in cocky Mandarin I said,
I ate fear…
They burst into laughter at my bad pronunciation.
…err I mean I ate eggs.
By then they were chatting amongst each other in rapid Chinese while Zoe tried to help me with pronunciation of the correct tone. Out of the corner of my ear I heard shy, typically inconspicuous Bessie belt out:
Wo ye shi zui le!
Everybody but me laughed even harder. So I whipped out my phone, thumbed open Pleco (a free translation app) and typed it in.
Wo 我 – I
Ye 也 – also
Shi 是 – am
Zui le 醉了 – drunk
I also am drunk.
In conversation with a Chinese person, if somebody says something funny or aloof in any way you are safe to respond with a:
Wo3 ye3 shi4 zui4 le! (我也是醉了)
In English it’s kind of like saying, “I remember my first beer” when someone makes a mistake or is being goofy. You don’t actually have to be drunk to say it, either. It’s one of those little phrases that make it easier to do a walk and talk at my site.
As I’ve come to find out, using Chinese slang is especially well received in class or during cooking club. It cracks students and local people up in a way that makes you the lovably relatable foreigner.
There’s plenty of slang to be slung around, too. Part of the fun of being in the Peace Corps is jumping into the foray and learning, in the thick of it, how to mix your own flavor into the bubbling cauldron of intercultural conversation.
For me, chowing into that linguistic stir-fry has provided much full-fillment. There’s no knowing what’ll be at the buffet this day or that, but it usually turns out to be quite tasty.
Here’s an example of how to impress the locals using Chinese. Say this:
Ni 你 – you
Zhen 真 – real
Niu 牛 – cow
Now, in the United States if you called somebody a genuine cow you’d be looking for trouble. But in China it’s actually the highest of compliments. Similar to saying, “you’re outstanding” to someone.
Ni3 zhen1 niu2 (你真牛)
You may need to udder this phrase more than once to get the pronunciation just right. Make sure to sharply stick the NI like sixteen-year old Olympic gold-medalist Shaun Johnson during the 2008 Olympic vault finals and to lay out the ‘oooo’ of NIU like a hungry lone wolf during the mid-autumn full moon. As the enigmatic foreigner, it’s up to you to set the tone of the conversation.
So far, my time mixing languages, dialects of languages, conversations, questions, answers, and misunderstandings could be summed up in one word: bewildering. Even here in China, as the only male foreigner in my city, I’m not alone in my bewilderment. When docking in foreign ports you always notice how the wind ruffles the sails of the other ships the same way it ruffles your own.
I was having a conversation in English with a second year Chinese student of mine. I asked her,
Do you like Chengxian?
NO!
Why not?
I first arrived last year I didn’t understand the local Chinese, so I had much trouble.
I spent two weeks of my summer in Linze County teaching teachers! Situated in Northern Gansu near the city of Zhangye, this little area the size of Sioux Falls, South Dakota (roughly 170,00 people) is an oasis on the fringes of the Gobi Desert. I was in the land of the Silk Road and the Rainbow Mountains (Danxia), where echoes older than the United States shift and sift through the sands. Distant dunes and blades edged mountains rose leisurely from the window of my eighth floor hotel room while the warm breeze came through. Eight floors below the street buzzed with family packed mopeds and marketplaces stocked with steam-dried noodles.
Nine Gansu volunteers were sent there. Not on camels, though. We took the fast train!
i couldn’t stop listening to drops of jupiter
For summer project we were all required to teach classes alone for three hours in the morning or two in the afternoon. The rest of the time was spent doing various activities with each other or with our trainees. Sometimes doing Zumba (dance exercise), oftentimes throwing around a Frisbee, always eating breakfast, and never ever eating Western food.
We ate A LOT. We even had three big Chinese-style banquets to celebrate the starting and ending of summer project. These occasions were sobering.
Having time with other American volunteers was good and needed, but a little bit like leaving a carton of milk open behind the sofa for two weeks. There are lots of healthy bacteria living in milky harmony happily going about their business, but then eventually some mouth bacteria from the moistened papery opening starts munching on the milk too. Before you know it, the milk done gone bad.
“…and that’s why I never had any milk time friends back in school.”
That’s taking it a bit far; we didn’t completely spoil our bubbly Peace Corps provided milk. We did have our fair share of in-fighting, though.
I’d hazard to say that any extended social situation, like serving in the Peace Corps with other volunteers, risks flaming up into a throbbing, cystic zit. Despite all the doxycycline pills and non-comedogenic moisturizer in the world it can still be out of anyone’s control. I’d say that our biggest challenge as a group during summer project was living together for two weeks trying not to pop it.
From my perspective living in the bubble is a good thing because the other people inside can aid in the process of reflecting on your service and growth as a person. You get to digest the China milk with some other person’s stomach. Like a mother bird, whenever my stomach gets too full with Chinese culture I vomit some into the mouth of another American in my bubble. After all they’re going through similar things, right?!
I gotta share this NOW
They’re usually able to offer a fresh take on the situation. This makes me feel better.
Thankfully I roomed with a guy named “The Don” for the duration of the two-week teacher training. The Don is a well-dressed kid from the East Coast who had previously lived in Korea. Observing The Don’s behavior in any situation was like watching Don Corleone in the Godfather.
When attending to important matters of business, each Don looks you in the eye, speaks softly, not raising his tone of voice or changing his rate of speech, appears to listen to you (demonstrating engaged body language) and then calmly asks a question or offers a solution. This emits an air of confidence and control that naturally brings people down to his calm, reasoned level.
In most situations being calm is more important than being right.
Even in the classroom.
I often felt like I was running out of time in my classes. I taught Public Speaking and Using Roleplays. We reviewed the three tools of public speaking: balloon, banana and cabbage. Balloon helps you calm you down, banana helps you slow down and cabbage helps you speak up.
not demonstrating proper condom application
Theoretically, this delicious method of speech preparation was supposed to get my students ready to speak, but practically we had more fun with it than that.
The students really like the activities in both my classes and, overall, it was a great summer project.
This last weekend there was a traditional Chinese holiday called Dragon Boat Festival. Almost everyone gets to play hooky from school for it in China. During the holiday families celebrate by racing little toy boats down rivers and by eating zongzi (traditional leaf-wrapped rice dumplings).
As for me, I started a campfire with a koala bear.
Photos by Ben Elmakias
A fellow Peace Corps volunteer in Gansu came to my city to go backpacking during the long weekend. He brought along a small two-person tent that he had packed for China, but hadn’t used here yet.
Ooo la la
His name is Ben and he was the first other China volunteer I met during Staging in San Francisco.
Photo by Ben Elmakias
That was nearly one year ago today. We were on the shuttle bus from the airport to our hotel and I, foaming at the mouth, asked aloud on public transportation if “anyone else was going to China?”
Thankfully Ben spoke up with a “ni hao.” Turns out he actually studied Chinese in college and can speak it pretty well.
During our time together we got to interact with a lot of locals and I admittedly felt extra nervous speaking Chinese in front of him. But he complimented my abilities, saying something along the lines of:
“I think you can speak Chinese better now after a year than I could after three years of college. And I majored in it!”
Killn it …also photo by Ben Elmakias
It felt good to hear that from someone so knowledgeable in Chinese and who, relatively speaking, had a similar upbringing to my own (he also grew up in the Midwest – Madison, WI).
For a minute I was even inspired to sit down and really put in some work towards further improving my Chinese. For a minute.
The first day of our hike Ben and I headed to Feng Huang Mountain. We went to the Temple of the Sleeping God, explored some dry goat-feces carpeted caves, walked through a rural farming village where a family was pouring the foundation of a new house, and peaked the mountain before walking back to my apartment. It was fun!
Ben was awe-struck by the beauty of this area and took many pictures of the land and people. We were there during the late afternoon, which is like the Golden Hour for photo lighting and getting epic pictures. We both got our fair share.
Most of these were taken by Ben, though.
We had lots of good, sometimes deep, sometimes funny talks along the way. He’s a pretty smart guy and our conversation was full of interesting stories.
We talked about spoken word poetry and the difficulty involved in writing, which reminded me of something I once heard back at camp in Colorado.
Somebody had asked our talented family camp guitarist, James Hersch, how he had gotten so good at writing songs. I’m glad I was there to listen to his response. He told us this story:
Growing up I loved music and writing song lyrics. When I was eighteen I had about ten songs that I thought were pretty good. So I went to a local studio and they laughed me right back out the door. My songs were all trash, apparently. I had an older friend who had been writing lyrics and playing guitar his whole life. So I asked him, “why didn’t they like my songs? What should I do now?” He told me to, “fill a wooden barrel with your songs.” …what? “Fill a big empty wooden barrel with your sheet music. It’s not until then that your songs will be any good.” So I got to work.
James used to do special concerts with all the kids at family camp. They would, over the course of one hour, write a song together about any topic the kids wanted. Then they’d perform it for us all, with James plucking away a new guitar riff while the kids sang fresh and funny verses packed with real story. We’d be blown away. I think he filled his barrel.
These are the kinds of things you can talk about no matter where you are – whether in the mountains of China or in the middle of a Lord of the Rings movie marathon. James’ story vibed well with my long weekend breather mountain hiking because it reminded me that everything is a process, including the Peace Corps. If you can just stick to the process you’ll be alright, kid.
The next day we slept in, ate a lot and went to hike Ji Feng Mountain, the most prominent peak in my county. We also wanted to camp out that night, so we had to get a move on.
Hiking Ji Feng Mountain is like stepping back in time…
Photo by Ben Elmakias
yikes
Mixed with a little modernity.
Photo by Ben Elmakias
It was on Ji Feng Mountain where I first tried Soylent, an FDA-approved concoction of all the nutrients a human body needs for a day.
It tasted like pancake mix to me, so I greedily snarfed it down like a meth addict.
The monks at the monastery offered us cigarettes and a bowl of noodles, but we were determined to leave the mountain as fast as possible. Daylight was running out and we needed to hit the next trailhead and find our campsite on South Mountain.
We ended up finding a good place to camp underneath a sheer cliff face. It moved more than my bowels to watch the waning pink-orange light play off the cliff while building our koala bear fire as the sun set in the West.
…your what fire?
Photos by Ben Elmakias
The next morning we went up to another monastery nearby and drank tea with the locals. One of them, a 77 year old man missing his left hand at the wrist, is an expert at traditional Chinese handwriting. We got to enjoy watching him write a few lines for us.
me not understanding a single word this guy said
Photos by Ben Elmakias
This guy is seriously a stud. We’ve met before and he thought my name was Luke!
Seriously check out that bamboo pipe… I know what I’m buying before moving back to Colorado
All in all Ben and I had a great time hiking together, full of everything we needed to feel reset for the final push of the semester.
Ben was happy that he came down and wants to come again with his Chinese girlfriend next time… and maybe even one of her friends!
Coming to China I was expecting to be drinking a lot of tea. And I do. But I also drink a lot of coffee. And usually I drink it for free. It wasn’t always this way…
fo’ free
A big part of being in the Peace Corps is getting out into the community. You know, being the butterknife that spreads American culture all over the local breaded landscape. I was having some trouble with this for some time, what with being busy teaching and travelling and not being able to say ‘bread’ in Chinese.
But these last few months have been different and I’ve been able to get out there and see what Chengxian, Gansu, China has in the way of bread.
What I did was I walked around a lot. And I ate food.
Lots of food.
I drink coffee for free because during this time I walked into a coffee shop looking for some food. The twenty-five year old owner offered me a beer, so I sat down.
“Hey man.”
“Oh, hey. Yeah I’ll try some coffee,” I said after the first seven beers and twenty-eight games of “shi dian ban”, which means “10.5” in Chinese. In China they literally have a card game that is half of what 21 is.
“Come here drink free,” he replied.
Fast forward a couple months and I’m on the coffee shop’s soccer team. We’ve been playing most nights every week. Number 1 team in our county.
After returning from the marathon in Beijing, I got a call from my friend. He said to come down to the shop the following morning.
This is what I saw when I got there:
They were shooting a commercial for the coffee shop’s one-year anniversary. I was gonna be an actor!
Now, lots of people have told me, “Matt, you probably shouldn’t be an actor. With your good looks, great hair and propensity for dramatic appeal, well you’d frankly just blow us all away, man. And there aint enough hospitals in the country that could deal with that.”
So I didn’t. Except one winter in high school for a one-act play. I was an angry dad who just wanted to get his annoying family home from vacation. Needless to say, there really weren’t enough hospitals in the country.
But this time it was gonna be different. This is China and I wanted to put on my best face.
In China, there’s a saying: “Wo ye shi zui le,” which means, “I, too, am tipsy.” The girl, who was my co-actor for the scene, whispered this to me just before we started to shoot.
So of course, I couldn’t help but fitfully smile and laugh. We had to do at least seven takes of me sitting down and ordering cappuccinos because of this. Thanks a lot Mrs. McFunny Funpants.
Here’s a link to the full commercial, which is taking Chinese YouTube by storm:
After the wrap we celebrated with a cake and a lot of beer until the wee hours of the morning. It was then, during the zenith of my inebriated clarity, that I realised something.
“I, too, am tipsy,” I slurred aloud in non-tonal Chinese to the twenty or twenty-five people in the room.
We arrived in Beijing and immediately went to McDonalds. I ate two cheeseburgers, fries and drank a Coca Cola, or, as the Chinese pronounce it, “Kah Kah Kuh Luhh;” the perfect pre-marathon day meal. My buddy Ryan ordered the same thing. I ate too fast and a sewer wave of nostalgia crashed into the pit of my stomach. Ahh McDonalds. Standing up from the table felt like running a marathon in and of itself. I had almost forgotten that feeling. It was going to be a good race the next day.
After this meal of champions we took the actually-quite-well-organized Beijing subway to meet up with everyone else at Sihui East bus station, which would take us to our hostel right by the start line.
I was doing the full Great Wall Marathon in Tianjin Province, China as my first legitimate marathon that I actually registered for (unlike the one in Denver back in October 2013…).
Saturday (Race Day):
Jagged peaks covered in dark green reflected the morning sun and stood guard over bucolic Chinese roads and villages, much like the two-thousand year old Great Wall itself. It was going to be bright and hot on the road. There were runners from all around the world and the U.S. Peace Corps was well represented on the Wall. As were Shaolin monks, cancer-charity tank tops and even Save the Rhino. Here’s some pictures of the volunteers and Ying and Yang square where we started:
I had given myself twenty weeks to train and had only achieved the first twelve of that. The last eight I put virtually zero running in the books. I knew I was getting myself in deep here in a very stupid way. Running marathons is no joke, especially when you’ve signed up for one of the toughest in the world, at least according to Red Bull.
“If only Red Bull really did give you wings,” I incidentally remember thinking at least three hundred and twenty seven times during the race.
I did end up hallucinating a duck at one point, though
My wave took off at 7:50am. I’ll break it down by every 5K (~3 miles aka 12 laps on a track):
0K – switch backing to the Wall
Started off very slow, but after a few minutes two half-marathoner volunteers caught up to me with a “hey Matt,” so I quickened my pace slightly. This worried me, as I knew I had A LOT of road and Wall left ahead. It was okay because I slacked off and let them take off after five minutes. The spool of road we were on passed the hostel we stayed in the night before as it unraveled up the side of the mountain.
5K – hitting the Wall
Running the Wall the first time was like trying to bake a cake without a kitchen floor – you’ll eventually finish it, but it’s gonna take a little gymnastics. The path was packed with people so I was able to take standing breaks while waiting to move ahead. This took a while.
SCRAMBLE!!!
I passed two blind runners coming down the narrow goat trail near the end. It was very impressive to see them and I felt accomplished somehow by there presence. They later passed me again.
By the end of this stretch I remember thinking, “I’m only six miles into this thing? Oh no.”
10K – on the road
I didn’t notice the toll that the Wall took on my legs until reaching this point. The long road is testament to the need to follow and complete a full training regimen for this race. I was slightly embarrassed because my pace really slacked off and people started to pass me in a steady stream. To me getting passed has always siphoned my race confidence and aided the desire to quit. Realising this I quickly developed a mental schema to combat it. Run two-minutes, walk two-minutes, run two-minutes, walk two-minutes and ignore all other runners. It worked and I did it as we passed on through busy roads and excited villages.
Before reaching the point where the half-marathoners schismed away from full-marathoners I ran into a halfer coming back to finish. He took one look at my dark blue tank top, which was an old racing jersey from my alma mater, Luther College, and yelled, “GO NORSE!!!”
And then later on this stretch some other middle-aged guy, who looked like he was a small Midwestern college cross-country coach cheering on his team on the side, cheered me on with a, “Go Luther! Mad respect man, mad respect.” At least I think he said that. I was too busy trying not to die.
It was cool seeing all the Luther pride in China like that. I tried to find the half-marathon guy hours later when I finished, but he probably left already.
15K – uphill struggle
A volunteer who had previously run this marathon had told me that there was a stretch of about seven or eight miles of constant uphill that he wasn’t expecting, but that had been so punishing that he had to get his knee popped back into place during it. This is where that all started. Both ahead and behind me there was a line of walking runners stretching out as far as I could see. And I was one of them. The nagging thought this time was, “What if I don’t make the 8-hour cutoff time limit?!”
21K – halfway bus
We continued running uphill as we passed the half marathon 13.1-mile point. I had reached this spot in a little over three-hours, so my confidence soared as I realized that I would make the cutoff even if I walked the rest of the way. But there was a big bus parked nearby collecting runners who had given up. I was determined not to be one of them even though I mainly walked during this stretch. The sun was very hot and bright. At one point we passed marathoners coming down the mountain in full-stride, which gave me surges of confidence and envy.
25K – runner’s high
Downhill. Finally. The road, complete with careening buses and coal-laden trucks, wound down the mountain we had just climbed. Eventually my stream of running companions became the envy of all those slogging up the other way as we passed them going down. Running became pretty consistent again and I stopped walking for long, painful periods of time. I ate at least three bananas during this stretch.
30K – viral cramping
I get my picture taken by Chinese people all the time. But this was different. We were once again running the road back to the starting line, which was a main artery of traffic and Chinese shopping through this area. There were more than a few spectators the first time my calves cramped up and I’m pretty sure some people got some edge-of-your-seat, will-he-make-it-any-further quality footage here.
exactly like this, yeah
It was the first time I really stopped on the road to just stand there and wait it out. I kept cramping up consistently on this stretch so I had to once again start taking some serious walk breaks.
35K – hitting the Wall again
Even if I had been squatting my whole life I doubt I would have been ready for that Wall again. It took me the better part of an hour, but I made sure to not take any breaks and to focus on every step. There was only numbness in my legs, with the occasional echo of pain deep within, which always whispered, “give up, you asshole.”
In all honesty, I wanted to run this race so that I could conquer the Wall, but once I got back to it the second time I knew that it had really conquered me. There was nothing I could do but keep slogging along. I couldn’t gracefully Legolas my way up like I had been picturing for weeks.
whatever
We went up the Wall again, but in reverse, meaning we had to traverse the steep rocky goat path for nearly three quarters of a mile before reaching the actual two thousand year-old Wall portion. I’ve never seen so many people throwing up in one place. But we had our wristbands signalling our defiant return to the Wall and were determined to make it.
Looking around it felt like the Wall had beaten everyone until I heard a woman behind me shout, “We’re gonna be missing this tomorrow!”
40K – euphoria
Getting off the Wall for the second time was like finishing the race. The remainder was simply the pathway to glory and would be no problem. It was a downhill stride of delirium the entire way, snaking along the same winding road that we initially took to get up to the Wall.
42K – finish
No words – just a vigorous sense of accomplishment and relief as they draped the medal around my neck.
I did it! I beat the Wall! My official time was 7:00:27. I just about broke seven hours! Ahh so close! I’m proud of myself regardless. I feel very accomplished!
Around fifty minutes later the first Rhino crossed the finish line just before the eight-hour cutoff. It was an eye-watering moment for a lot of people as he took off the heavy suit for the first time.
screw rhinos, get this guy a beer!
If you’d like to check out some more pictures from my race day (and a video of my finish) click this link:
All in all, I would highly recommend this marathon. Every step of the course was beautiful and challenging. So where next? Antarctica? The North Pole? Anything is possible. Beast.
Albatros Adventure Marathons released a short, drone fuelled highlight video from Race Day. Enjoy!
It was the beginning of a sublime three-day weekend. Sleep-in on Saturday, May Day on Sunday, Chinese Labor Day on Monday, which, of course, meant no class. My only goals were to shave my face and to fry up some chicken legs. I’d been researching how to do it the KFC way and perfecting my technique through trial and error for months. Sure, I didn’t have half the proper ingredients but damn it I was ready! My students had other plans for me.
On Saturday morning around eleven I woke up to an ardent knocking on my front door. I put on some pants and yelled, “do you know what time it is?” The knocking continued.
“Oh yeah, I’m in China and they probably can’t hear me, let alone understand me… especially through the door,” my brain blurted out to my empty bedroom. Buttoning up a shirt I walked to the front door.
“DO YOU KNOW WH—“ On the other side of the eyehole were four students smiling up at me. Opening it I sputtered an, “Oh, oh hey, how’s it going?”
We were to jump on a bus and head to Xi Xia right then! Serving in the Peace Corps does call for a lot of flexibility after all. The Colonel would have to wait.
What are ya, chicken?
As I unbuttoned the shirt to put it on they shoved a small paper bag filled with jian bing into my other hand and said, “it’s your breakfast!”
I wasn’t mad
Our destination, Xi Xia (pronounced ‘she sha’), had been talked up ever since I arrived at site last year.
“It is so beautiful.” – Cora, freshman oral English student
“I really want to go there, Matt.” – Ana, student who has never been there
“There’s a secret entrance that students can show you so you don’t have to pay the equivalent of $10 to get in.” – written on an old, brown-stained note left by the previous male volunteer at my site
“If Xi Xia was a boy he’d be my boyfriend <3.” – back-side of said note
As it turned out, it was a place FULL of magical wonders and EVEN MORE Chinese tourists. And even that secret entrance!
Who doesn’t enjoy toking a smooth one down by the river?
We hiked around and spoke English with each other while taking in the sites, which I suppose did something to fulfill the first goal of Peace Corps China: don’t ever embarrass yourself by speaking Chine—I mean teach English.”
But honestly, what would Peace Corps be without a dose or two of daily embarrassment?
Even for the sake of fashion
My students were enthusiastic to have me along and took many selfies and group selfies with their selfie sticks. Taking selfies is an epidemic in China just as it is in America. I’ve seen little kids do it, students in class do it, and breastfeeding women in hair salons do it. Everyone does it and if you don’t you won’t be able to shove pictures of your life onto the ever-widening social life raft that is WeChat (a social media platform in China similar to Facebook Messenger).
It’s surprising to me that ‘selfies’ is still underlined in red on Microsoft Word. The dictionary people really haven’t defined it yet? This is 2016! What’s the deal with that?
Come on I say!
The first word suggested to correct it is selfish. I can’t see how that’s relevant, though. What could the personal benefit of randomly shoving your arm out into empty space be? What if you were eating a big burrito? Gone! What if you were on the phone with your mother in law? Talk to you later! What if there was a big mean looking ex con walking within arms reach? Whoops.
Oh sorry sir I was just trying to take a… a photo of myself.
Here are few selfies that the students took and sent to me later:
While hiking around I met a few interesting Chinese people. One woman approached me speaking fluent English! I was dumbfounded… usually all I get is a quick, “I don’t understand what you’re saying,” rattled off to me in Chinese. But this woman’s English abilities were better than mine.
She’d been a middle school teacher teaching specifically English for 28 years. That November she was going to Boston for three months to study. It would be her first time in the States. She asked me what she should do there in her free time and I, having never even been within a hundred miles of Boston, mumbled to her to, “Go to a hockey game.” She heard, “Play in a hockey game,” and said, “No no no!”
Me at a loss for words in 2 languages
That’s exemplative of cultural exchange for me here in China.
That night I got home exhausted by the full day. Xi Xia had really taken it out of me. By this point the chicken legs had been marinating in salt and pepper water for over twenty-four hours, definitely wayyyy too long. But I didn’t care. I just hopped into bed!
In total I drank sixteen or seventeen small cups of the clear, fiery liquor with an assortment of Chinese people. Everyone admired my ability to drink and several people said, “you must become my teacher.” My pseudo-drunken response was always ‘hen hao’, which means ‘very good’ in Chinese. I impressed myself! Typically it isn’t the case that I can maintain such an abundant level of sobriety after a day full of drinking so much (i.e every Wednesday during college… just kidding!). I think the reason why I didn’t feel drunk was because I went in with a goal of keeping it all strictly business.
The name’s Bond…
I was definitely overdressed and felt out of place because of this. Suit coat, tie… nice pants. My twenty-eight year-old local friend Robert invited me to go to the wedding with him because he wants to teach me more about Chinese customs in the area around his hometown. For this I am very thankful! It was the wedding of his friend whom I had previously met at a dinner party. I was very happy to go along, but felt like I was the eye’s equivalent of the plate if the couple was the savoury spread of food on top of it. There were many, many curious guests looking for a peek and finding it.
The baijiu toasting (pronounced ‘by-Joe’, which coincidentally is an expression used by my Grandpa Kon when he’s in awe of my ability to sing the ABCs whilst driving on the wrong side of the Interstate) began during the big reception. Typically this proceeds with the guests of the bride being served plate after plate of carefully prepared Chinese food then followed by the guests of the groom. The wedding party eats last, around two o’clock. For some reason I was in this crowd.
“Take Me To Your Heart”
All the while during the meal the fathers of the newlyweds walked from table to table toasting the guests with cups of baijiu. By the time they got around to my table they were pretty drunk. The father of the bride vigorously shook my hand for about a minute before fumbling through the Chinese version of “when in Rome”. We took two cups together, which is the respectful way to toast someone during a wedding in my little slice of China.
The newlyweds also did this at every table. People were feeling buzzed, that’s for sure!
Another way to be polite in general, at least amongst men, is to offer cigarettes. Even though I do not smoke, after a while I gave up saying no and accepted them!
When in Rome, right?
The atmosphere yesterday was light. Festive decorations and happy faces complimented the beautiful white dress of the bride. Nearly every person in the small village of Xiaochuan (which means ‘small river’) showed up. Xiaochuan is maybe a 40-minute journey by small bus from my apartment on the campus of Longnan Teacher’s College in Chengxian (Cheng county), southern Gansu.
Before the reception comes traditional toasting with the parents and public recognition of the couple. Chinese custom has the bride and the groom toast the parents three times with tea, pour a full bottle of champagne onto a waterfall of cups and then toast one another with said champagne. A close friend, who in this case was a twenty-five year-old dude, hosts the ceremony by making witty remarks and wishing the couple a happy life. To me it seemed that he served as both master of ceremonies and best man.
It was a good six-hour day learning about the Chinese way of the wedding. On the bus back my friend Robert, who likes to say that he and I are brothers, told me that he wants me to name his kid when he has one.
In my drunken stupor all I could say was ‘hen hao’.
“Education is simply the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to another.” – G.K. Chesterton
This semester I am teaching one hundred and ninety seven college students in China. That is a lot of planning. As a new teacher in the Peace Corps I think it’s important to think of the human mind as a seed ready to be plant– Ah whatever. Here’s how to really create a lesson in style.
You will need:
Spare time
Unbending willpower
2 tsp. Canola oil
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Step 1 Get on YouTube
In order to create an immersive lesson for your students you need to get onto the Internet. In our digital age the average attention span of an adult person, including that of your students, is less than a goldfishes. That comes out to be about eight seconds. But don’t worry! YouTube is ripe with content that will transform your future lesson from drab into dazzle.
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Step 2 Get Your Head in the Game
You need to pump yourself up if you are ever going to be able to think of a good warm-up activity for tomorrow’s class. Since you are on YouTube already, go ahead and watch two or three of your favorite music videos to get some inspiration. It might be worth it to create a playlist that you can listen to later on.
An example of a good starter video:
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Step 3 Open Microsoft Word
You can’t paint the Mona Lisa without a canvas.
dassfd
Step 4 Take a Break
Pacing yourself is important here. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger took a break between Terminator movies and he was eventually elected to be the governor of California.
I’ll be back… after a cigar
lkhjhjklhkjl
Step 5 Create a Template
Don’t think about the lesson quite yet. Work on perfecting the structure first. Will the students do a skit? Will there be a Part I and then a Part II? What will the temperature in the classroom be?
There are many questions to consider when thinking of a good lesson. Who is your audience? Will you need to do a review of the previous class? How much time should be allotted for–
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Step 6 Clear Your Head
Whew. That was getting to be a lot. You should go get some fresh air. Go for a walk outside so that you can return refreshed and ready to weave another hem into that golden tapestry of knowledge to be draped on your students tomorrow.
Fresh air is good for your immune system. Remember, tomorrow you will be cramped in a small classroom with fifty students for two hours. You should take that twilight walk near the large ferris wheel in your Peace Corps town.
it’s not creepy if you don’t think about it
But wait… what’s that rustling in the bushes?!
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Step 7 Try to Fight a Bear
Maybe you should get some sleep. You’re not going to get anything done tonight.
klmlkm
Step 8 Remember the PPP Format
When in circumstances of extreme lack of motivation, think back to Pre Service Training and the PPP format.
When it comes to Teaching English as a Foreign Language, the PPP is what you NeNeNeed. It is an instructional model designed to increase the amount of time students spend speaking compared to you, the teacher.
1) Presentation – introduction of content and language
2) Practice – students begin to work with language
3) Production – students internalise and use language
The theory is that a teacher tells students new content, practices it with them and then has them do something creative with it. The goal is 80% student talk, 20% teacher talk. Boiled down, this design is good for people who need to practice speaking a new language.
As a matter of principle, I like to add another P to this format:
Procrastination – somebody needs to put the ‘pro’ in procrastinate
Personally, I place procrastination previous to presentation. This way I am assured to wait until the last minute, write a blog post and then get down to work on a lesson plan for tomorrow.
Throughout history people around the world have celebrated the harvest. For the Chinese the celebration happens during a full moon. This year it was on September 27th. Back home cross-country season has begun and people are racing in the crisp fall air. Maybe not to celebrate the harvest, but I’m still a little jealous. In China, in my village, there’s also a distinct vibe of restlessness. A need to move. Or at least to shoot fireworks.
Here are six remarkable things from my Mid-Autumn Festival.
#6. It’s not vomit.
I am learning how to cook! Broiling, boiling and full of who knows what. I swear I didn’t just throw up and eat it. It’s a type of potato and tomato stew made in a rice cooker. It wasn’t good at all. Nothing a sizeable brick of Velveeta wouldn’t change, though.
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#5. Mooncakes.
Around dinnertime I had a visit from the president of my college. It was a formal affair and I made sure to clean up my apartment for once. Official pictures were taken and gifts were given (to me).
A box of chocolate and a bigger box of mooncakes.
mooooooooon
Mooncakes are important. During the Mid-Autumn Day Festival the full moon rises to welcome the harvest. Throughout China people eat these somewhat bitter tasting cakes during this day. And then they stop for the remainder of the year.
I don’t blame them. They are kind of nasty. I’m not sure what to do with the rest of my box…
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#4. The harvest.
I had heard of banana hammocks before, but a banana house?! Upon closer inspection they weren’t actually bananas. It was corn. For a moment I was back in the Midwest!
Fact of the matter is, people in my neck of the woods in China work hard. Hanging them up to completely dry out before shucking them. Beach goers in France could learn a thing or two here, I think.
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#3. Children learning.
There was nothing corny about this girl. She was intensely practicing Chinese characters (known as Hanzi) while her mom shucked away. We passed through numerous small villages while were hiking in the morning.
We even ran into a group of about fifty elementary schoolers who were also hiking. We could hear them long before we saw them. They were eager to catch a glimpse of the ‘foreigner’ as we passed by. I made sure to high-five them all!
mold’n brains n tak’n names
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#2. Mountaintop experience.
A little view of my site, Chengxian. It looks like people are building a temple or something, brick by brick, at the top of this mountain.
It is Fenghuang Shan. Exactly one mile in elevation above sea level, it provides a complete overlook of my place in China.
The town.
Looking to the south.
West.
East.
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#1. Making new friends.
There’s a local hiking club that I hiked with. It was hike-tastic.
thug lyfe
I think we will hike together again in the future. Hopefully at least one more time before it gets too cold. We also plan to eat hot pot and go rollerblading, of all things.
All in all my Mid-Autumn Day was great. I’m thankful for the experiences I had and the people I met. I hope to hike many more mountains in my area soon.
christen sun 