leylop's blog

Teaching in Summer

2006-08-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

I miss being a student, totally. This summer I got two teaching jobs; back to school but as an English teacher, I envied those who were just sitting there and listening. Yes, I miss the days of attending classes, taking notes, asking questions, working on assignments… Two years after the graduation, I start to miss the general feeling of studying a lot, absorbing new knowledge on various subjects every day, how wonderful that is!

Before this summer, I'd got quite a lot experience of one-on-one tutoring, but not much with big groups. Last November I was trying to become an English teacher, but it didn't work out the way I wanted, I quit before I even had a chance to meet any students. This time I was pretty lucky, I got two jobs easily, and both schools just threw me the text books and put me into the classroom. Though little pressure from the schools, without tough interviews or training or demo class presentation, I felt like I was not ready, I needed more time to prepare-- like improving my handwriting, reading grammar books, studying phonetics... But there's no time for anything, I got to know I was hired only a few days before the classes began; if I said no, I'd lose the opportunities and it'd be difficult to get other short-term jobs in summer. When I came back from Sri Lanka three months ago, I had a hard time finding jobs. I lost in touch with my old students and no luck of getting any new ones; I applied for many jobs over the internet but no replies either. I was getting tired of the situation that every time I come back from a trip I have to start all over again. In June I got seriously depressed, my weight dropped to 44kg and I constantly got a low grade fever. I thought I was sick, and the more I thought it that way, the weaker I felt. During that time I frequently went to hospital but there's actually nothing wrong with my body, it was more a psychological thing.

Working helped. The first job I worked in a primary school, my students are around 10, and they just started learning English. It's fun to be with kids, as well as writing on blackboard, correcting students' homework with a red pen, talking to them during the break... I felt a sense of achievement after one month's summer program, in the beginning they barely knew any English word, now they learned alphabet, numbers, greetings, colors... This class will be continued from September on every weekend, I'm looking forward to seeing these kids again. The second job was in Linhai, a small city three hours from Hangzhou. Even though I traveled a lot, it's my first time to work in another place. My students there are high school graduates who're going to universities next month. At first I was quite hesitant about accepting the job, these students are excellent, I was afraid my English is not good enough to be their teacher. But everything turned out to be fine, they liked my class and the boss even gave me a raise in the end and hoped I'd return next semester.

Now I'm back in Hangzhou. I enjoy the teaching experience this summer, and I made three times more money than I did last year when working in an English summer camp simply as a staff. That's a step forward for me, and I think it's time that I got paid a bit more. After last three months, I've saved enough money for another budget trip, but now I prefer working more and studying. Back to June I hated waking up in the morning, feeling empty and wondering how I could pass another long day. Now I finally feel myself again. Every morning lying on bed, I'm excited about what I'll be reading and studying today. Every night before I go to sleep, there's still plenty things I want to do, that's a good feeling, and that's me.

My Students:

Lotus

2006-06-21T23:21:00.000-07:00

My eye infection went worst last two weeks so I had to stop using computer for a while. After the rest I'm feeling better and from now on I'll be more careful with my eyes. Hangzhou gets really hot latly, the heat isn't comfortable but the strong sun brighten up the city and it's so green everywhere. And the lotus are blossoming around West Lake --

''You're really scary!''

2006-06-01T12:49:00.000-07:00

I'm still looking for more teaching jobs. Last week I was pretty lucky and earned 1100RMB; but this week is completely dead, so far there's only 50RMB income and two days ago I went to hospital because of eye infection, the medicine-- two tiny bottles of eyedrop took 70kuai away from me.

Most students pay me in cash after lessons, and then I'll put the money in my desk drawer. I like counting what I've saved, it definitely gives me a sense of accomplishment and makes me feel great about working. When I was a kid my family was doing some small business and my mom taught me how to count money professionally as the way they do in bank. Now I'm pretty proud of this skill and I like showing it off abroad. In some countries their currencies are really small, a huge pile of notes is probably just worth 10 dollars and everybody is millionaire. There I've got plenty of opportunities to count big amonut of money and many locals are impressed by how fast I am.

Someone left a harsh comment on my last entry in Chinese. Usually I don't justify what I write, yes sometimes I am inconsiderate, greedy and mean, but that's who I am and that's it. This is not a place to represent what a model citizen I am or how important Chinese values are. Anyway, I found the comment kinda amusing in an ironical way, here it goes(English version)--

Anonymous 10:26pm:
Once I liked reading your travelogue,
''She must be a knowledgeable and open-minded girl.'' I wondered.
But here, in 24/05's entry,
I only see a girl who wants to get her revenge at all costs.
All of a sudden you really frighten me.
Maybe that man is old,
Maybe he has his reasons,
But it's not necessary to expose his privacy like that.
You're really scary.
To me you're just like him,
Who's conceited for knowing some English and forgetting that you're Chinese.
Not to mention Chinese culture,
You don't even understand the meaning of ''respect''
In my eyes, you're both the same-- CHEAP
(I hope you can translate this comment into English, so the whole world will know how disgraceful you two are!)

OK, mission completed. Anonymous 10:26pm, I've translated the comment at your request. Oh did I ever mention ''The Count of Monte Cristo'' is one of my favorite books? And I think ''Kill Bill'' rocks. And I enjoy reading The Best Page in the Universe. But I don't think satire is your type, so please don't click that link, it's more scary than leylop!

Liar, Liar

2006-05-23T11:37:00.000-07:00

I got an email from a guy called Chris Lee--

Dear Laylop, (wrong spelling)
After reading your blog. I become very interested in Chinese culture and learning Chinese online form you Please let me know the price, availability and your method of teaching.

Thanks & best regards,
Chris

Well my readers probably know currently I'm looking for jobs and I always like teaching Chinese, so I spent half hour writing him back and explained everything about my online courses, hoping that he'll be interested in learning Chinese with me. For me teaching Chinese is easy and enjoyable, and I really need to have a bit more income. But after I sent out the message I noticed something strange, his email account(brothermoon0357@yahoo.com.cn) is at ''yahoo.com.cn'', which is Yahoo China site, and ''brothermoon0357'' looks very much like a Chinese person's email address. Out of curiosity, I googled it online, guess what I found?

Subject: Canton Fair Interpreter
Chris Lee Guang Zhou 2006-4-12
Dear Canton Fair Exhibitors & visitors,

I'm a 35 years old male chinese native freelance English interpreter, besides translation, I have also had many years of experience working in foreign companies. I also have work experience in many fields such as international trade,sourcing, Machanical engineering. I hope all of these could be helpful for your business. If you need such service during your exhibition in the coming Canton Fair. Please feel free to contact me at brothermoon0357@yahoo.com.cn

In Chris Lee's email, he said he becomes very interested in Chinese culture after reading my blog and also wants to learn Chinese with me, but it turned out he's actually a 35 years old Chinese man! I wrote back to Mr. Lee immediately--

Hi again,
I was just wondering how come your email address is ''yahoo.com.cn'', and I searched in google and found out this message--
''I'm a 35 years old male Chinese native freelance English interpreter...Please feel free to contact me at brothermoon0357@yahoo.com.cn..

Maybe it's a coincidence but you two happen to have the same email address! So does it mean you're actually a Chinese native? I have to say I'll be angry if you cheat me like that. If you want to know about my teaching methods, why don't you write to me and ask directly?? I would like to share my teaching experience with you. I like teaching languages and I feel proud more foreigners are learning Chinese. You don't need to pretend that you're a foreigner to get the information you want.

Mr. Lee, it seems you're also desperate for jobs at the moment. You said you've got many years of experience working in foreign companies, international trade... But I seriously doubt your integrity which would be very important in business, and I would never consider hiring you as my interpreter. You haven't replied my email and probably never will. If you're still reading my blog, I'm sorry to inform you that you might need to change your email address(Chris Lee:brothermoon0357@yahoo.com.cn). Because from now on every time somebody googles you, this post will appear, and it won't do any good to your reputation. That's my little revenge.

South India Pictures

2006-05-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

I finished editing the last album of this trip. So now all the pictures are here: South India, Sri Lanka and Hampi (town name). I like organising photos, those vivid images remind me so much of my travels. The photos might seem beautiful or exciting, the life on the road isn't always pleasant. This trip I was quite unsatisfied with the food. South Indian food is very spicy, I felt like I couldn't taste anything but spices. And I don't like coriander which is used a lot in Indian cooking. In Sri Lanka their main food is rice and curry. I like the taste of Sri Lanka curry, but most of cheap local restaurants and home-stays only have vegetarian food and not much variety. One month in Sri Lanka I pretty much lived on beans, potatoes and lentils. Chinese food is what I miss most every time I travel, now I'm very happy about being home again and I can eat as much as I want!

More South India Pictures Click Here

Magical Hampi

2006-05-18T23:45:00.000-07:00

More Pictures...

Tiger Balm Saving Me

2006-05-17T09:01:00.000-07:00

I often get headache when I'm under pressure or stressed. Tonight I was trying to translate an article from English to Chinese but I found it quite difficult. The article was from an translation service company who's looking for part-time translators, I applied and they sent me that article as a test. My English is getting better over travels and I've been helping some acquaintances to do translation work. But my translating skill is not that qualified, I'm only good at the fields I'm familiar with. Tonight the article got me and the headache followed. I'm getting headache almost everyday since I got back, usually not a big deal, I just need to put some tiger balm on my temple and the pain will be gone. The whole week I've been looking for jobs-- searching and applying for jobs on the internet, writing to my formal students, asking people around... but last 8 days I only earned 100 kuai and there's no new work coming for next week. The trip to Sri Lanka cost me more than planned and now I owe the bank $409 on my credit card. Before this trip I was doing pretty well with my Chinese tutoring, but now I haven't got any students yet and it seems I'm not that lucky to meet people this time. I know I should be more patient, it's just been one week, but the debt and some other things make me anxious of waiting. I would wake up three in the morning checking my emails, take a look at the cell phone constantly during the day and log in local job hunting websites every few hours... Even though I've got plenty of time updating the blog, editing pictures, studying French, reading books... it's difficult to concentrate on any of them...

The coolest boat I've ever taken(Hampi, India)

2006-05-15T09:12:00.000-07:00

1.Oops, there's a river and the bridge is under construction, how can we cross?

2.Welcome to my boat! Just a second, I need to empty the water inside first.

3.Come! 4 motobikes, 12 people no problem!

4.OK,Let's get going!

(The water is actually deep and the current is strong. I was surprised this little boat could hold so much weight. When we were in the middle of the river, another boat was trying to catch up with us and have a race, I felt like our boat was sinking. But the locals seemed to have fun, that's probably the way they do it for years.)

Sri Lanka Pictures

2006-05-13T04:39:00.000-07:00

More Pictures Click Here

Two months in Sri Lanka and India

2006-05-11T23:49:00.000-07:00

I arrived home two in the morning. Two months in India and Sri Lanka passed quickly, now I'm back to where I started. It's always been like this-- When I'm traveling, I miss the comforts at home, but when I come back, I miss all the excitements of traveling. 24 hours ago, I was still wandering through those bustling bazaars of Mumbai in the heat; now sitting at my computer at home, I don't what to do. This time I don't have a job to return or new plans to begin, I'll probably go through everything from the start-- looking for jobs, meeting new people, saving money and dreaming about the next destination.

Before the trip, I had three months enjoyable experience of teaching Chinese in Hangzhou and on the internet. The money is not bad and the working hours is quite flexible, I'll be lucky if I can find students again and continue to work like that. The life on the road is hard sometimes; when I back to China, I'm used to comfortable life in Hangzhou and lack the ambition of challenging myself to a new job or moving to another city. Will there be any change this time? When I was in south India I got a job offer of teaching Chinese in New Delhi, this sounds like a wonderful opportunity but because of visa extension problem I couldn't go up to Delhi visiting the school, instead I flew to Sri Lanka and traveled there for a month. Traveling has become easy for me and I know how to manage things, I’m not afraid of going anywhere in the world with my backpack. But how about working and living abroad? I'm sort of expecting a perfect place-- countryside or near the sea, clear air, quiet, good food... But I think I probably ask too much, usually there're more jobs in big cities and I don't really have any particular skill.

Thank you for visiting again, I'll post pictures from Sri Lanka and India soon.

That Is My Picture

2006-03-10T09:25:00.000-08:00

I passed a Kodak shop near my house and saw one of the pictures I took in Bali was hanging in right there.

''Hey that's my picture!'' I was surprised.
''No that's IMPOSSIBLE.'' The girl worked in the shop tried to argue with me, ''Sometimes people take similar landscape photos. Our sample photos are all from our company's headquarters.''
''No, that’s my picture for sure. Look, there's girl there, she worked in the hotel that I stayed.''
The Kodak girl didn't believe me, and her colleagues were all looking at me giggling, ''No that's the photo we just received from the company. It's definitely not yours.''

Well, I didn't really mind they put my photo in the shop; two months ago I went there and printed some digital pictures, I guess that was how they got that Bali picture. I was glad they liked it but I felt kinda bad now they didn't even believe I was the photographer.

I've been busy lately but very soon I'll stop all the work and go traveling. I'm flying to Mumbai next Tuesday and in May I'll probably be in Sri Lanka. I feel sorry now I'm going to India, my students in Hangzhou need to find a new teacher, and more people are asking me to teach. I'd like to continue the lessons with them when I come back but now it's time to travel. I guess the whole point of not taking a full-time job is I can stop anytime I want. If I keep working I can probably save much money next couple of months, but what for? I was talking to a guy who works in a cosmetic company the other day, he's at my age and he told me his biggest dream in life is he can get retired earlier in the future and spend the rest of his life comfortably, that's why he works so hard now. This guy reminded me of a girl I met three years ago when I was traveling in Gansu. At that time I was 21 and she was 23. She was surprised I didn't use anything to take care of my skin. Her biggest fear was she'll get wrinkles on her face when she gets older, so she was using many products to make her skin white and smooth.

''I don't understand,'' I said to her, ''We are traveling in desert now, and you look young and pretty, why do you worry so much about your future face?''
''Women get older quickly. When you get to 23, you’ll understand, and you’ll regret about your carelessness.'' That was her answer.

OK, now I'm 24, I still think her worries are unnecessary. Poor girl, now she's 26, very old.

Some people tell me I'm living the life they want. If that's what you want, why don't you go and get it for yourself? I'm not that special and I'm doing nothing extraordinary. I'm just pretty sure that I'm living for this moment rather than all these imaginary happiness for the far future. I don't care if my retired life will be relaxing or not, I care more about my very nap in this lazy afternoon. I'm traveling again and all the money that I saved last four months will be gone; when I come back I'll probably lose all the contacts and I need to find new jobs. But it's OK, I don't want to worry much about what might happen in the future, enjoying the new trip is the most important thing for the moment.

I'm not fearless, not at all. My fear now? - The flight. I bought Air India's ticket, though cheap, Air India doesn't seem to have a good reputation. There'll be two stops between Shanghai and Mumbai; taking off three times, I don't think I'll like that. In the air just a little shake would make me feel like the plane is gonna crash. Every time pilot talks about bad weather please stay in your seat stuff, I'd think he's gonna announce the bad news and jump out of airline quickly with his parachute. This time my flight is in the evening, hope I'll just fall asleep and wake up safely in India the next morning.

Ballons

2006-02-11T09:16:00.000-08:00

It's such a beautiful day. I got two classes to teach in late morning and the afternoon, but in between there's two hours free, and I walked from one student's apartment to another's. The sun was warm and bright, the spring is coming!

Colorful New Year

2006-02-07T07:36:00.000-08:00

(I took these pictures near Wushan Square yesterday.)

Vagabonding

2006-02-05T11:43:00.000-08:00

Most of my students are on vacation during Spring Festival so I've got more time reading books, watching movies, studying French and taking naps. Even though I'm doing the easiest jobs I can ever think of, but still, not working is better. I love learning, especially since I graduated from the university, I spend more time on studying many subjects on my own. Getting to know new things is such an important part of my life, I can't think of living without that. That's one big reason I don't want to get a real job; once I work full-time, it'll be hard to keep up all my studies, and I'll probably just sit in front of a TV to relax myself after the work. I meet Jarrod quite often in the afternoons; after we finish our Chinese lessons he'll ask me 'So what's your plans for tonight?'. And very soon he finds out all my answers are the same--learning French, preparing lessons, reading books... 'Again, nothing else??' Yes again, that's how I spend my evenings, nothing fun or exciting but I quite like it. Every time I tell others about my travels, they'll instantly think I'm rich but it's not like that at all. They probably spend much money on eating out, going to bars, buying clothes... while I'm trying to save every kuai I make for my next trip. I don't do that much when I’m back in Hangzhou, but I read and study a lot. My enthusiasm for learning brings me to experience different culture and languages as well. These days my teaching jobs give me ok incomes and I can save probably 80 percent of what I earn. The only things I need to buy are books, notebooks and pens. I love notebooks and they have to be perfect-- the smell of the paper, the number of lines on each page, the design of the cover... I can spend half hour in a stationery shop choosing my favorite notebooks. And I write a lot. Even though nowadays there's computer and all these technology stuff, I still like writing in a notebook with a pen. And pens. There's at least 30 pens and pencils lying on my desk. When I study French, I like using colored pencils to take notes and it helps me to remember. Every time I see a feminine noun, I mark it with a pink pencil; and a new verb will be colored in orange, a preposition is in green, a grammar point is in red... Different colors give me a cheerful feeling, and French doesn't seem to be that difficulty. I’m quite cheap on many things, but when it comes to buying notebooks and pens, I'm very picky and I'll buy the best.

Tonight I finished reading a book called 'Vagabonding' that my high school classmate Zhu Min sent to me(thank you!). She's living in UK now and she's been reading my blog. We hadn't got in touch for years and two weeks ago she wrote me an email asking if I'm interested in this book that she booked on Amazon twice by mistake. I received the book on Chinese New Year's eve and what a wonderful gift! I pretty much agree with the author, and now my brain is on traveling mood again. April, India, won't be too far. I'd like to do long-term world travel as the book describes, but for a Chinese it'd be more difficult. Most travel guidebooks are written for western travelers, usually they take it for granted that getting visas is easy. But Chinese passport just isn't that welcoming, applying for visas always gives me headache. Now the situation is getting worse since I'm neither studying in school nor working for any company, I'm like unemployed and my income is unstable. And most travel books also many travelers measure the cost of travel by their own currencies, like for them a $2 meal is nothing. But for me I've done jobs that get paid less than 40 cents per hour, and saving money always takes time. I get a bit annoyed hearing some travelers keep saying ‘Oh that's so cheap, that's like nothing.'' To someone who comes from China, nowhere is really that cheap.

Two days ago I ran into two colleagues from New Oriental School. After months training they finally got the chance to teach since late January and I quit right before that. The school didn't fire anyone in the end, they actually needed teachers badly but they were too proud to admit that. I would be a qualified teacher now if I could have stayed there two more weeks. But no regrets. If I'm stuck there, I won't have so much freedom to do the things I want. In the book I just finished there's one paragraph which goes like this--

''The act of quitting means not giving up, but moving on; changing direction not because something doesn't agree with you, but because you don't agree with something. It's not a complaint, in other words, but a positive choice, and not a stop in ones' journey, but a step in a better direction. Quitting--Whether a job or a habit-- meaning taking a turn so as to be sure you're still moving in the direction of your dreams.''

I can't agree more.

Another Birthday

2006-01-24T11:55:00.000-08:00

My birthday was a few days ago, now I'm 24. Lately I've been busy with teaching, I didn't remember my birthday until the morning of 21st. It was just like an ordinary day, no presents, no party, no cake… and I prefer it that way. When I was younger, I always felt kinda upset that almost nobody ever remembered my birthday, not even my family. But now I don't care any more, especially this year, from 23 to 24, not much difference. I'm just not a birthday or holiday person-- Do I remember others' birthday? Not really. Do I give presents to friends? Not very often. But just because I don't pay too much attention to these things doesn't mean I love them less, so also the other way around I guess.

This month I'm doing several part-time jobs. Now I've got seven foreign students who're studying Chinese with me. But I give lessons privately so I have to travel a lot. And with every group I use different materials, I need to do quite a lot preparation before each lesson. Lately I'm getting more interested in teaching Chinese to foreigners, and I think it's a very cool skill. When I was at school, I envied these native-English speakers who can travel to foreign countries and get teaching jobs easily almost anywhere even though they're not real teachers; and I complained Chinese didn't have as much opportunity as people from the West. But now things are changing, and China is such a promising place, I'm sure Mandarin will become more and more popular, and maybe in the future I can get a teaching job overseas too. It'll be probably still difficult for Chinese to work in developed countries, but that's not my goal. I'm thinking about Africa, South America, Southeast Asia... I guess very few Chinese want to work in poor countries, so it'll be easier for me to get for a job in these third-world countries. And I don't want just be a native speaker, I want to be a real teacher. So now I’ll study more and be better prepared.

Another field I'm working on is translating/interpreting. Before I didn't think I could ever be a translator/interpreter, it just seemed too difficult. But lately because of my work(Chinese tutor), I speak English every day and I feel like I'm getting better at explaining and translating things. I definitely need to read and study more and I will, now at least I don't feel so unsure about myself anymore. And last week I just got another part-time job-- in Feb I'll go to a local factory working as their interpreter for about 10 days. I'm not really qualified for the job but they need interpreter badly as during Spring Festival there'll be some German clients coming to the factory but their own translators will go home for holiday and nobody else want to work during Chinese New Year. For me my current life is like a long vacation, so I don't mind working during offical holidays. I'm glad I got that job, I'd like to get more experience on that field as well. Two nights ago I did some research on translation companies in Hangzhou. And I found out all these companies need freelance translators. That seems like another good profession, I only need to work part-time, and the pay would be very good. And like teaching Chinese, I can also work in other countries as a professional English-Chinese translator/interpreter.

Next two months I'll be in Hangzhou and I'll work as much as I can. I like my jobs; most of the time I don't feel like I'm working and I'm learning every day. And in April I'll be able to save enough money for another trip and I'm going to India for a month.

The Little Prince

2006-01-13T10:29:00.000-08:00

I've been helping Jarrod read The Little Prince (小王子） in Chinese. This is one of the tutoring jobs I've got lately and I quite like it. Every time we'll get through one chapter; he's already prepared before the class, what I need to do is explaining some difficult words and grammars and help him understand the whole text better. 'The Little Prince' is a lovely book, I read it in English a few years ago. The first time I met Jarrod I got very excited when he told me that is the book he wants to study. Good choice! -- The language isn't too difficult and the story is so interesting. I think his reading skills will be improved a lot after we finish the book. And for me, much of my previous tutoring work focuses on conversations, now I'd like to explain grammar stuff better and be a better translator. So every day I spend an hour or two reading through one chapter in both Chinese and English. I'll make sure I know the pinyin of every Chinese character and the meaning of each word. After the class I'll review the chapter we've done that day and try to translate everything, now I pretty much remember the first six chapters by heart. Last month when I was in New Oriental School, I hated their text books. I felt sorry for these students that they have to study all those crap while there're so many interesting English books out there. This time I'm lucky to meet someone who appreciates a book like 'The Little Prince'.

I'be been teaching Chinese more since I quit New Oriental two weeks ago; I've got several private students and most of them are English-speakers. Comparing to teaching English, I'm so much more confident as a Chinese teacher, after all this is my native tongue and my mandarin is good. Also I'm my own boss, I've got the freedom to choose when I want to work and how much I want to work. Lessons are arranged by phone calls and emails, I travel across the city to meet students in different apartments, cafes, universities... There's no routine, sometimes I've got one or two appointments a day, sometimes none. This winter I'm really happy that I don't need to get up early for work in the morning. Now working averagely 2 hours a day, I make more money than taking a full-time job in Hangzhou. And I totally enjoy what I'm doing. I love the idea of helping others learning. That's why I was trying to be an English teacher last two months, but it's disappointing to see so many languages schools just treat students as their customers and make more money is their ultimate goal. I simply want to be a teacher but working in those language schools you have to deal with students hunting, marketing stuff that I'm not interested in at all.

Fortunately I finally found what I've been looking for. Now almost all my students really want to learn Chinese and I'd love to help. Before tutoring Chinese was just a fun part-time job for me, but lately I've actually got enough students, and I can even make a good living by teaching Chinese privately. So now I'll forget about searching for other boring jobs I won't enjoy and spend more time on learning and teaching languages. Sure there's plenty of other things I want to learn and do, but for now I'm satisfied with my little world and my brain can't take too much information and pressure either. These days besides eating and sleeping, I spend all my time on Chinese, English and French. I want to be a better Chinese teacher, now I'm reading an 800 pages grammar book and several other text books which help me to understand more about my mother language. Also I'm working on perfecting my mandarin pronunciation and improving my teaching skills. As for English, when I was at new oriental school, I kinda lost my interests in it which was really a bad sign since I'd been very enthusiastic about learning English for years. But teaching at new oriental I need to deal with all kinds of English exams, English sorta becomes an enemy I need to fight against rather than a helpful friend. Now I feel so relieved there's no more exams, I can just take it easy and pick up more English by watching movies, talking to people, reading books... as I always do. Two months ago I started to learn French by myself. Learning a new language really changes my life in many ways, now most movies I watch and music I listen to are in French, I want my ears become more familiar with French sounds. At home I spend most of my free time studying French; when I go out, I always take my French study notebook with me so I can read it when I'm waiting for bus or sitting in a bus... And remember the book I was just talking about? Yes, the original version is also on my reading list--Le Petit Prince. My vocabulary is still very small for reading a French book,and I haven't even learned past tense well yet, but now I'm so familiar with the book that I can figure out many words without a dictionary.

Shangtianzhu Temple

2006-01-06T07:41:00.000-08:00

I went to Shangtianzhu(上天竺）Temple with my family today--

Teaching Chinese Online

2006-01-05T05:26:00.000-08:00

This week I gave an online Chinese lesson to Robert. He's in California while I was in my room,we talked through Skype and the lesson turned out to be pretty good. Teaching Chinese is like my ideal part-time job and I've been doing that for years. Every now and then there'll be some people contacting me, asking if I want to be their Chinese tutor. Sure, I quite like this job and meeting people from different places in Hangzhou is interesting. I'd like to find more students, plus teaching English part-time, I don't need to get a full-time job. Besides teaching languages, it's hard to find something I really enjoy. It's like too many jobs are related to business, advertisements stuff. I'd like to work in a simple place where people can make genuine contacts and be who we really are. A few days ago I got an email from a high school girl who I met in summer camp, she's telling me about her school life and her discontent with the educational system. That email reminded me so much of my own high school, I used to be like her-- my classmates thought I was strange and teacher thought my ideas were too extreme. When I was writing the girl back, I realized hey I haven't really changed that much since high school, but the difference is now I’m freer. At high school I didn’t have too much choice, I didn’t like some subjects but I had to study, I didn't agree with some teachers but I had to listen to them. Now I don't need to study anything that not interests me, and if I don't like a job I can simply leave. I graduated in 2004, almost every time I go to an interview I'll be asked why I haven't taken a serious job yet. Before my answer was something like I take some time off because I want to travel, now I've seen enough and I'm ready for a full-time job. But these days I start to tell the truth, I want freedom and it's difficult to make any commitment to something I'm not passionate for. And of course I won't stop traveling, now it's just a beginning and there's so many countries to see.

I put a Paypal button here. Some people write to me saying that they'd like to donate some money to this website. I really appreciate their kindness but before I didn't feel like I deserve to get so much from my readers. I'm just a laid-back girl who can't even stick to a job, and this little site is nothing extraordinary. Also some people suggest that I can put some ads in the site. That's something I'll never do, writing this blog is my interest, I don't expect to make money out of it. The real world is already too commercialized, I'll try to keep my online space as simple as can be. As for Paypal, before I didn't feel quite comfortable about that either. But these days I'm learning French and I've found several personal websites which are really helpful to my study. They're not as professional as some big sites but there's no ads, no member login and I can feel the authors' enthusiasm for languages. I appreciate what they're doing and I'd like to make donation to their sites. So I think I'll leave the Paypal button here, maybe some people have the same idea as mine. And by supporting to each other, the Internet would be freer and simpler.

My first online class gives me an idea-- teaching and learning Chinese on the Internet is possible. I don't want to make much publicity about the whole thing but I guess some of you who're reading this blog might be interested in learning Chinese and I'd love to teach. In the last entry I menitoned I'd quit new oriental. So I've talked to the manager and once again he said I'm welcomed to stay. If I'm not confident enough to teach, I can go and listen to other teachers' classes this winter. That sounds really good. I might quit a school, but I won't give up learning and teaching. If I was talatend, I wish I could just engage in the work like wiriting, painting, film making, music producing... If I was well-off, I'd just do volunteer work helping others in need or teach kids for free; but now I can only show my appreciation for arts and I need to make a living, being a teacher and probably also translator/interpreter would be a good way to keep myself living the life I want.

No Surprises

2006-01-01T05:21:00.000-08:00

Rainy days come, there's no late afternoon sun visiting my room anymore. Two night ago I watched a movie called L'auberge espagnole, the ending arrived unexpectedly-- the last minute the main character ran away from his new job in a colorless office and decided to become a writer-- ''I choose a future without openings, I'm going to do what I've always wanted to do. I'm going to write. Everything is simple and clear...'' I love this kind of movie ending, and the moment I finished the movie, I made my own decision--Yes, I'm gonna leave new oriental school.

I've stayed there one and half month. They call it 'training period', but for me I'm losing my confidence piece by piece over time. In that school, they never ever give new teachers encouragement. We have to go to school every day, giving demo lessons and waiting for others to criticize. It's not that I don't like criticism, I know it'll make us improve, but I just feel like no matter how hard I try, I'll never become the type of teacher they want. The school head think I'm too immature to handle high school kids, one day he pointed at my clothes and said the way I dress is too much alike high school students. In their classroom, no mistake seems to be tolerated, they want perfection but I'm not a perfectionist. They say a good teacher is like a good actor, even your jokes should be well prepared. They say if your spoken English is bad, then don't speak English in your class; if your handwriting is bad, then don't write. Students are like customers, you have to provide the best service to satisfy them.

Well, all these are obviously not me. I've been staying these days as I thought maybe I can teach there in January and the pay would be nice, also a new oriental teacher sounds good. But now I've gotten over with these practical thoughts. I'll probably earn good money there, but I won't be really happy in that cold atmosphere. I don't want to compete with my colleagues, I don't want to entertain my student for the sake of making more money. Two months ago I walked into their classroom confidently with a big smile on. Now I feel like a failure-- I was told there's too many problems in my class, probably too many to be fixed. If I don't try harder, I won't get any class to teach this month. But how I can improve myself? I have no idea. So I think I'll just walk away, I am not excellent but I’m not totally useless either. Yesterday I got a new job in another school, much smaller but the boss there is very nice. She’s smiling from inside when she saw me, and her warm welcome made me feel like yes that's the place I want to be.

After Sunset

2005-12-23T10:21:00.000-08:00

(Click for large view)

Christmas, HUMP, French

2005-12-20T11:08:00.000-08:00

Christmas is coming, I'm not a big fan of these western holidays, they don't really mean anything to me. But the upcoming holiday reminds me of last December a lot. I was in Kunming at that time, my friend Guillaume and I had just done some tough travels in Sichuan province, we were quite happy about resting in a city for a while before we moved on to Laos. The guesthouse we stayed called HUMP. HUMP is a strange place, outside of this little guesthouse, it's totally China, but once you step into HUMP, well welcome to a new world. I was probably the only Chinese guest there, all the other guests were backpackers from all over the world, and the atmosphere was definitely international. There, they offered you coffee and bread at breakfast, every night there was party, people smoked weeds and got stoned... Christmas Eve was a crazy night, thousands of locals went out and celebrated Christmas in the streets. Some of them were dressing like Santa Claus, some of them were holding sort of a spray and attacked everyone they saw, some of them were just wondering around… In HUMP other travelers asked me why Chinese got so excited about Christmas in such a strange way. I didn't know, I didn't remember in my city people ever made such a fuzz about Christmas, it was probably just a Kunming thing I guessed. I'm still wondering about that question, this year I'll be in Hangzhou and I'm curious what’s gonna be like on Christmas Eve here.

I went to another job interview last week. It's a new language school from Shanghai and they're very ambitious about Hangzhou market. The guy who interviewed me is at my age. I asked him how their working hours' like and if going to the school 8 hours a day, 5 days a week is required. To my surprise, he replied-- ''Of course not! We work much more than that. In my last school our team worked so hard that we barely thought about going home on weekends. We were really enthusiastic about what we were doing and our sprit was touching. There's one teacher who threw blood during our meeting because of too much work…'' ''Throwing blood??'' ''Yes!! ...So would you like to join our team? You can start working from tomorrow!'' He asked. Oh no boy, you scared me, I'd rather sleeping in the streets than working till throwing blood.

Five weeks has passed since I came home from Indonesia. Even though I'm not that lucky with job hunting, I spend lots of time on learning lately. A month ago I started to learn French by myself. Before learning Spanish was my next goal and I even planned to go to South America. But past one year I met many French speakers when traveling and they got me interested in this language. French has the reputation of being difficult, at first I even seriously doubted about my ability of making those new sounds, so my goal was simple-- learning pronunciation and basic phrases. Now one month later, I can confidently say I've achieved more than that and I'll keep going. I enjoyed learning languages, especially when there's no homework, exams and pressure. After English, I've kinda figured out how to learn a foreign language on my own. French grammar is not that easy, but I've got a huge motivation-- once I know French, there'll another big world to discover. English brings me to a wider world, I can't imagine living without it. It must be a great thing as well to understand French movies, French songs... read French books… talk to my friends in French... And also traveling. I can travel to western Africa or probably study there, that'll be as exciting as going to South America.

Besides French, I also study English a lot. After having met so many excellent English teachers in New Oriental School, I feel like my English is not good enough. Even though the school doesn't give me much training as I expected, that place makes me think. The school never talks about salary with us during our training period, but I've heard in Shanghai a New Oriental teacher's salary starts from 300RMB up to 1000RMB per class (2 hours). That's really a lot. Not long time ago I was still satisfied with earning 1500RMB a month, I didn't even mind being a waitress and getting paid 3RMB per hour. But now I want more than that. It's not that I'm ambitious about making big money or having a successful career, no, not at all, but I guess if I can get paid nicely each hour, I can work much less. I'm still satisfied with 1500RMB a month, but instead of working 180 hours, wouldn't it be great if I just need to work 10 hours? And I can spend my free time learning French and photography, traveling and doing other creative things.

So these days, I'm not impatient with waiting anymore. I've got some tutoring work, which gives me enough money to get by. My life at home is very simple but I'm content with it. I'm still wearing the same clothes I used to wear in high school, that's ok; I'm always looking for the cheapest meals when I'm eating out, my stomach doesn't complain; I never buy make-up or any fashionable stuff, I'm still cool. My philosophy of life is I can save money by spending less rather than making more, and I'll always have my freedom.

December, Hangzhou

2005-12-11T05:31:00.000-08:00

It’s getting cold in Hangzhou, but the weather has been really nice lately. I enjoy taking a walk under the sun and looking at colorful trees. Every afternoon there’s a ray of light coming to my room, nothing beats that.

(Click for larger views)

I want to be a teacher

2005-12-08T10:20:00.000-08:00

I told my boss I wanted to quit-- I'm getting impatient with the waiting, I need to get a job. The training at the school doesn't turn out to be as good as I thought. Well there's no real training, all the teachers are preparing the lessons on our own, and every week we'll go to the school three or four times, discussing our ideas with fellow teachers. My cell phone has to be on 24 hours a day, if the school calls me, I have to be there. I was asked to prepare three classes, this winter vacation I'll teach reading and my students will be high school seniors. No, actually I'm not really sure if I'll ever get these classes. Every class is prepared by two teachers, and there'll be competition at the end of this month, the better ones will stay. This system is surly very good for the school, but for new teachers there's no pay during training period, the competition is gonna be tough. Will it be worth staying? The school keeps telling us if you're doing well there, your future will be promising blah blah blah… I'm not as wise as my colleagues who believe themselves and consider two months as an investment. I care more about the present, enjoying the moment is more real. I'm already satisfied with my current life, and I'll be happy if I can keep living like this.

But my boss asked me to stay when I told him I wanted to leave. I was a bit surprised, I thought he wouldn't care, or even worse he'd ask me to pay them 3000 kuai training fee; but he was very nice that day, and I appreciated that. I really want to be a teacher this time, and for now New Oriental School is the only one that accepts me. I sent my resume to several other schools, no reply. I left messages on many websites, asking if any student needs a tutor, no reply. I know I haven't tried that hard, but getting a teaching job doesn't seem to be that easy. So now I'm staying, I don't really have other choices, this is probably my only chance.

New Oriental School

2005-11-25T06:49:00.000-08:00

I've been working with a group of people whose resumes make me impressed. Most of them have studied or lived abroad, like a guy who's got a master degree in Oxford, a guy who grew up in Canada and has a PHD on psychology… Many of them are professional English interprets, university English teachers, TOFEL/IELTS/GRE experts… Now all of us want to be New Oriental School (新东方学校) teachers. New Oriental School is probably the biggest English training institution in China, before it was only based in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Hangzhou school is pretty new, so now they're looking for teachers. Two weeks ago I applied for a position of Children's English teacher, after three runs of interview, I was told I could come to join their training course. I didn't know much about New Oriental, I thought it's just one of these private English schools, teaching there would be easy and the pay would be ok. But everything turned out to be more difficult than I thought. First I need to take a two-months training course and do lots of preparation for my class. If I'm doing well in these two months, I'll be given classes during winter vacation in January, if not, I'll be fired. And in these two months, there's no salary at all, but I have to go to school every evening, and work for them one or two days a week. And if I decide to leave after the training, I have to pay them 3000RMB training fee. Sounds crazy. Now while writing this, I'm still not sure-- am I falling into a trap or is this an opportunity for me? At first I just wanted to be a simple English teacher for kids, but now I'm in adults department, and my main job will be dealing with college entrance exam. The first time they called me, I was glad I passed the interview and I was expecting that I'd get a job soon so I could start to work and save money for my next trip. But they said it was just the first run of interview, I needed to give another practice lesson to their headmaster, if she likes it, I'd pass. And I made it. Last Sunday I went back there for the third time, and I started to join their training program. There's already 15 or so new teachers there, most of them came to the school a bit earlier than me. Our assignment was giving a 20 minutes practice lessons, since I was new, I was asked to give the lesson first. And it was kinda embarrassing. I didn't really know about this school's teaching style, what I did in that 20 minutes was talking about myself and my experience of learning English. I thought my English is fine, so I was speaking English most of the time. But after I listened to all the other teachers' lessons, I realized my English is not good at all, and I seemed so small. These teachers are not just fluent in English, they're real experts on languages, and they've all got impressing life experiences. I felt almost awkward speaking English in front of them, and I didn't understand why I was in the same room with these professionals. We're not at the same level, I should be their student instead of their colleague. The first few days I thought about giving up. But I knew simply having the opportunity working with this team is something, I'd probably never meet people like that in other areas. And I want to be a teacher, a good English teacher. Now I've got passion and enthusiasm, but I don't really know much about teaching. New Oriental School is famous for their excellent teachers, maybe this two months training course would be good to me. I want to get a full-time job, but what can I do? I don't really have any skills, I can probably find something ordinary and get paid 1000-1500RMB a month. 1500RMB used to be my ultimate goal, but now I realize it's not that much. I can have a pretty comfortable life in Hangzhou with this amount of money, but if I want to keep traveling or study abroad, earning 150$ a month won't get me anywhere.

So I stayed. Next two months won't be easy. I need to study and prepare a lot, and there'll be tough competitions. I'm not type of person who enjoys competitions or challenges, very often working under pressure makes me lose motivation and creativity. I'll see how it goes this time.

Lesson Plan Day

2005-11-10T08:24:00.000-08:00

I’ve been home two days but I haven’t written anything yet. I want to update my blog, I want to email my friends, I want to write about all my travels… But it’s like my brain is running out of words, I don’t know how to put my thoughts into words anymore. When traveling in all those beautiful places, I’m often thinking, would it be great if I was a writer? I can travel anytime I want and write my books in a hill station in India, or an empty beach in Indonesia, or a remote village in Laos… And if my books sell well, I can take vacation again. And if my books are really good, I probably don’t need to work for the rest of my life. I mean, work as most people do-- taking a job 9 to 5, getting bored, waiting for promotions… Being a writer seems perfect, but I'm too far from it. My imagination is limited, my vocabulary is small. I'm ok with writing blog and emails, but there are all very simple writings, I can't write anything deep or beautiful.

It’s been one and half year since I graduated from the university, I’ve traveled a lot, worked a bit, now I can still not think of taking a serious job, signing a contract for a year or something. After I finished my summer job at the English camp, I stayed at home for a month or so. I read books, that’s the only thing I did that month. If you asked me what do you do, I’d title myself a reader. Then I went to travel again, in Indonesia and Malaysia. I was traveling with Chris, who I met in Cambodia and traveled with in Thailand in my last trip. Six month after, we teamed up again, and had another wonderful trip together. That was a happy time. But now I’m back home. Strange I just said goodbye to Chris two nights ago, but it feels so far away. Three nights ago I was still standing at Port Dickson beach watching the most amazing sunset I’d ever seen. Now I’m sitting in my room listening to the depressing rain. I need to go to sleep early tonight. Tomorrow morning there’ll be a job interview-- English teacher for kids. Last night I saw this job in a message board on the internet and I applied for it. This morning a call from the school woke me up. They asked me to go to the school tomorrow morning and gave a 20 minutes lesson. Actually I’m not sure if they said tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, I was not fully awake, I just remember I said yes yes yes thanks goodbye. I have no idea what to teach, my audiences will be professional teachers, I’m not that confident. They called me very early this morning as they wanted to give me enough time to think about my lesson plan. Now a day has gone, I’ve only prepared first three minutes. My mind goes blank, I can’t come up with any good idea. I searched on the Internet, all the lesson plans seem useless. I have to admit in the first place I don't really like classroom that much. I think I'll screw up tomorrow.

I need a job though, then I can save money and travel again. I wish I could find a better paid work this time but I don't have a good resume, every few months I go traveling, all the jobs I've done are short-term, who wants to hire me just for three months? This time I won't stay in Hangzhou too long either, I've got plans for next April, hopefully I can take off again then.