Shaking the rust off my Chinese

決 心∶每 天 最 少 寫 一 句 中 文。

Resolution: To write at least one sentence of Chinese every day.

There are several reasons behind this idea. First, even though I will be taking a Chinese class at UM, it may be one that focuses on speaking rather than reading or writing, which is what I need more help with anyway. There are a lot of things I know how to say already, but I don’t always recognize the characters when I see them or know how to write them. Actually, the above sentence wasn’t too bad – the only phrase I had to look up was “resolution” since I didn’t even know how to say that.

Second, the classes only meet twice a week, so unless I force myself to work on something every day, I won’t be getting daily practice (as I would have at Yale, if I’d had the time to take Chinese). Third, I hope that forcing myself to write will teach me new vocabulary (via my English-Chinese and Chinese-English dictionaries, plus maybe some help from Google Translator), which will make reading easier because writing is production while reading is simply recognition. I’ll probably write down the characters in my paper journal first, just because that’s the best way for me to learn, but now that I’ve installed Chinese fonts, I should practice typing those too.

The dictionaries I'm using =P

This week has been pretty tiring, but with lots of little accomplishments. I apologize in advance for the lack of photos, but there hasn't been much to photograph this week. We finally found out our class assignments: each of us will be teaching two sections of EELC101: Interaction and Study Skills 1, so working with about 40 “low-intermediate” level students total. Monday we met with all the other EELC101 teachers (there are 24 sections!) to discuss the textbooks, class policies, test-writing, etc. The textbooks are brand-new this year (and haven’t even arrived yet), so no one really knows quite how things are going to work, but the topics (ranging from advertising in the media to portrayals of girls in fairy tales) seem fairly interesting.

Tuesday morning was simply tedious – I had to proctor my fourth placement exam, including a writing portion, so that was about four hours of distributing stuff, pacing back and forth, then collecting and counting stuff *sigh* Sam had it even worse – she had to proctor the evening makeup exam for local students, so she was there from 7-10 PM! On the bright side, she got a ride home from Eric (the ELC resident techie) on his motorcycle, which must have been pretty cool =P In the afternoons, we met with our mentor teachers, Janice and Theresa, to go over our plans for the first lesson, after which we all felt much better about what we were going to do.

Wednesday was another day of meetings - first, some "new staff" stuff with Kim, then we joined the general faculty meeting. Some of it was rather painful, mainly because it went on for so long (2.5 hours!) and lots of items on the agenda didn't apply to us ETAs, but some of it was very useful, like discussing various methods of encouraging class participation. After a delicious catered lunch (udon noodles, spring rolls, saffron rice with chicken/ham/raisins, shepherd's pie, many types of salad, and various cut fruits), the four of us set out to (finally) open our BNU bank accounts so we can get our first stipend checks in a couple weeks. That process went on much longer than expected because there was a mix-up about the required paperwork, but it finally went through.

While we were waiting for processing, Susan and I went to check out a local stationary store, hoping to find planners so we could keep better track of our daily schedules. Eve recommended one across the street from the UM annex, which we found to be a friendly, well-stocked, family-owned business (two brothers and a sister) called "Prince" (太 子) stationary store. We ended up talking with the oldest brother, Barry, for a long while after he realized we could speak/understand Mandarin, and at the end of the conversation he was even kind enough to point out two good coffee shops around the corner (never mind that neither Susan nor I are coffee-drinkers). Susan and I both got little calendars, and the sister who was working the register gave us a discount, so it was 29 MOP instead of 33 =)

Back to the ELC for a quick office orientation - Fanny showed us where all the supplies were kept (yay for free pens and paper!) as well as how to use the copy machine, which also has a nice scanning feature that can send the PDF files to an email address. Thursday was more of the same - a meeting with Eve in the morning to go over all the things we're expected to do (American corner activities, field trips, podcasts, etc.), then the afternoon was a computer orientation with Eric to go over the various facilities available (there's even a computer dedicated to film-editing!) and how to create our courses in UMMoodle (the equivalent of Blackboard, classesv2, etc.) Eric himself is a super nice guy - he gave Sam a ride home, as mentioned before, and he also asked us for help in selecting an English name for his daughter, who is due to be born sometime this month =)

Today we didn't officially have anything to do, but Susan and I went in to finish preparing for our first week of classes, finalizing class policies, printing out syllabi, etc. I felt very teacher-ish after making umpteen copies of various things to hand out on the first day, even more so after organizing my desk to have Post-it notes, paper clips, and various writing utensils handy at a moment's notice. (Btw, I need to find purple or green pens to use for correcting instead of red, because apparently the students have been traumatized by that color being used on all their papers since primary school.) To all the teachers I've ever had, now I know what you went through every year!

After some grocery shopping, cooking/eating dinner, and a brief visit from Emily/Amy, we're finally relaxing at home...time to break out the Scrabble!

Day 4: Training begins!

Today marked the official beginning of ETA training, aka the first day of real work, but it was still a lot of fun. After a quick icebreaker and meeting some more of the ELC staff (Janice, Theresa, and Alice), we began with “Survival Cantonese,” taught by one of the GAs, Azita. We weren’t sure what to expect, since we were all at different levels of comprehension, but it turned out to be an educational experience for all of us, learning phrases from the basic numbers and “Good morning” to various expletives so we know when people are cranky.

After that was a meeting with Eve on basic rules and regulations (including what to do in case of a typhoon, since it’s still the rainy season), then it was off to Taipa Village for a delicious lunch at a local Thai restaurant. Although I’d had Thai food many times in New Haven, it was fun to try some new dishes, like green curry with shrimp (spicy!) and coconut milk soup with chicken and Napa cabbage (creamy and savory). The restaurant owner also had a great sense of humor, pretending to toss a giant tub of raw shrimp (complete with heads) on our table =P

The afternoon began with an interesting discussion on what it was like to teach students in Macau, with input from Eve, Erica and two UM students who work in the ELC, Joseph and Carol. As Susan, Amy, and I have realized over the past few days, Macau has a lot of systemic quirks from being a former Portuguese colony, so it’s not always directly comparable to mainland China or Hong Kong. It was helpful to find out things like how most Macanese students have at least one part-time job but also spend a lot of time in class (each class is usually 90 minutes), so they don’t have a lot of free time for outside activities.

Next was a discussion about lesson-planning, starting with an exercise on how to make a PB&J sandwich. Austin volunteered to be the “teacher” for this demonstration, which resulted in a lot of hilarity as the rest of us pretended to have no understanding of what was supposed to happen.

Austin teaching us about PB&J

Amy and Emily being good students

We ended with another hour of survival Cantonese, then split up to do our own things in the evening. Susan and I embarked on a quest to find a good Chinese-English dictionary, starting with an impromptu tour of the UM walkways as we tried to find the campus bookstore. It turned out to be disappointingly small, with only a few dictionary options, and only a few Chinese – English textbooks for what we think is the beginner-level class for foreigners.

Following some phoned-in directions from Eve, we caught the 25 back to Macau and found a fairly large bookstore a few stops away from our apartment, with a decent collection of dictionaries and Chinese learning books. After much debate, I ended up buying two dictionaries (Chinese-English and English-Chinese), while Susan picked up a textbook and a translated version of an American young adult fantasy novel, which she is planning to work through slowly to improve her reading skills.

Home now...time to get dinner and plan my mock lesson to teach the other ETAs!

Day 3: Car Tour of Macau!

This morning we were supposed to meet Eve and Kim (the ELC director, aka our boss boss) for dim sum at the Kapok restaurant behind the Altira building where we usually get off, but when Susan and I got there, the restaurant had a sign saying that it was closed for a few days. Instead, Kim drove us down (she drives! In Macau! On the left side of the road!) to the southernmost part of Macau: Coloane (路 環 – Lou Wan in Cantonese).

Map of Macau-Taipa-Coloane
(click for a bigger version)

Coloane and Taipa used to be separate islands, but the Macanese government “reclaimed” a lot of land in-between, which is now known as the Cotai strip (meant to be modeled after the Vegas strip since a lot of major casinos are there). Coloane itself is still fairly undeveloped, however, with lots of woods and hiking trails, as well as the famous Hac Sa (黑 沙) black sand beach. As you can see from the map, mainland China kind of wraps around Macau, so as we were driving south, we could see wind farms on Chinese territory.

This was the view from the restaurant where we ate lunch
(The green hills are mainland China)

Besides having a delicious meal, we went exploring a little around Coloane Village. In one of the churches, I first wondered why there was a painting of Guanyin, a goddess of mercy in Chinese mythology, but then realized it was a Chinese depiction of Madonna and Child:

Having lived in Macau for almost ten years, Kim had a lot of interesting things to point out along the way – a youth hostel at the tip of Coloane, a marine sports center (where a lot of people stored kayaks and canoes), a huge swimming pool where we could pay student admission rates, her favorite hiking trails, the old shipyards, and much more. The highlight, however, was the A-Ma Temple, which we never would have gotten to on our own because it was pretty much at the top of a mountain.

The entrance to the complex (lots more uphill driving after this!)

The architecture and the sheer amount of detailed work (carvings, gilding, etc.) was incredible – I can’t even imagine how much time and hard work it took to bring all these materials up the mountain, much less put it all together.

The main temple courtyard

The courtyard gate (view from the courtyard)

The temple itself

Huge statues of A-Ma and other gods inside the temple
(being repaired that day)

A few close-up shots of the carvings – I particularly liked the dragon column because it reminded me of the ancient Chinese earthquake detector, where the top dragon would drop the ball into the mouth of the bottom dragon (or a frog’s mouth, depending on the version):


The crowning glory of this temple, however, is the huge statue of A-Ma that’s carved from several thousand pieces of (unpolished) white jade. The statue is so large that we could glimpse it from the Cotai strip, clearly visible amidst all the green treetops. It requires a further hike up the hill to get there, but it’s definitely worth the view.

Side view of the statue

View of Taipa and Macau – you can even distinguish the Macau Tower

On the way back to UM, we stopped by the Taipa Municipal Cemetery, which sounds morbid but is actually more historical and picturesque than creepy (kind of like the Grove Street Graveyard). It’s a massive place, with terraces wrapping around several hillsides to accommodate all the years of families bringing their deceased there. You can actually see the graveyard from the UM library, which will be an important fact for a later story.

The graveyard guardian

One side of the graveyard

After more driving around Taipa and Macau, Kim left Susan and me near our apartment, so we headed home for dinner and rest to prepare for the official start of training!

Day 2: Exploring with the GAs

Woke up early this morning (jet-lag!) and went exploring a bit...found my way back to the Sanmu grocery store and picked up some cereal (Honey Crunch Corn Flakes!) for future breakfasts, but the third floor was closed off so I couldn't get a bowl or spoon to eat said cereal. To make up for that, I stopped by the Saint Honore Cake Shop, the smaller of the two bakeries across the street from the bus stop, but it's a chain brand throughout Macau and HK. It's quite cheap and delicious, albeit unhealthy for daily consumption: I got a tsa sao bao (BBQ pork bun) for 5.5 MOP and a "Rocky Bun" (buo lo bao) for just 3 MOP, so spending just over $1 USD.

"Rocky Bun" with red bean paste - just 4.5 MOP!

I managed to find my way back to the Altira roundabout via the 25 bus, where I met up with Austin, Holly and the other two MPI ETAs, Emily (yay for Yalies!) and Amy. After some adventures figuring out where we were supposed to meet Eve and using a New Century Hotel payphone (since none of us had cell-phones or Macau simcards yet), Eve took us on a quick tour of the UM walkways...so much more convenient than hiking up the hill! We ended up spending more time in the ELC than expected - the MPI ETAs all had to check email and deal with something about their MPI contracts.

For lunch, Eve brought us to Senado Square to meet Karen and Tom, two UM grad students who are working at the ELC as graduate assistants (GAs) helping students with their writing. They took us to a little dumpling/noodle shop for lunch (where Emily was curious to try the "black fungus", then all around Senado Square, the historical center of Macau.

Senado Square

We were able to get a lot done - purchase cell phones/simcards, get fresh-squeezed juice (mango, yum!), sample beef jerky/almond cookies/egg rolls from street hawkers, and take some ridiculous photos, like this one:

There was some historical stuff too - the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral (the rest was lost to a huge fire), and the Mount Fortress, with old cannons and a great view of Macau:

St. Paul's, with huge weekend crowds

View from the balcony of St. Paul's

An antique cannon at Mount Fortress

By the end of the day, we were all pretty tired...Karen walked Susan and I back to Horta e Costa, passing by more landmarks like the Macau Public Library and the local flu clinic =P Tomorrow will be even more exploring, so time for bed!

The journey here

Well, after fifteen-plus hours of traveling, I am no longer eligible to say "Never have I ever been to Asia" :-P Here's the massive Boeing 777 that carried us from LA to Taipei, as seen from the LAX hallway window:

I didn't take any photos of the 13-hour flight, namely because I was on an aisle seat (by choice), so no window views, and frankly, it would have been kind of boring looking down at the Pacific at night when we wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway. The inconvenient departure time of 1:50 AM actually makes very good sense in retrospect: the flight attendants served dinner (shrimp and scallops in a light curry sauce with white rice and other side dishes - much better than domestic flight food!) around 3 AM (6 PM Taipei time), then turned off the lights for several hours to help our bodies readjust. I managed to get a few hours of sleep, but I also had time to watch the new Star Trek prequel movie on the personal entertainment system embedded in the seat ahead of me. I have to agree with Chrissy, it was pretty good, even knowing little-to-nothing about Star Trek.

When we got to Taipei around 5:30 AM local time, Susan and I wandered around a good portion of the airport, mainly looking for a currency exchange so we could get some NTD for a snack. Along the way, we found free internet stations (which we promptly used to reassure the folks at home that we had survived the long flight), seemingly endless duty-free shops, and some unusual exhibitions:

This one was pretty cool - there's calligraphy all over the model plane

Hello Kitty-themed everything was a little frightening

Finally, we found a currency exchange, which was conveniently downstairs from a small food court, so we enjoyed some xiao(3) long (2) bao (1): small dumplings with savory soup inside.

Yum.

After that, Susan and I met Austin in the gate waiting area, then it was back on to another plane for the 80-minute flight to Macau. I managed to get a couple photos of Taiwan, which left me with the impression of vast swathes of greenery, even after a powerful typhoon swept through just days earlier. I'm definitely planning to go back sometime this year, maybe while my family is visiting.

Not gonna lie (shoutout to the SCHOLAR kids and RAs!), my first impressions of Macau were...mixed. As we approached the southern portion (Coloane/Cotai), it was pretty cloudy, but we could see fishing boats in the water and there was also a lot of greenery. However, that soon gave way to reveal a massive urban-industrial complex, including two smokestacks (later found out it was the power plant) and a full skyline of skyscrapers.

Pretty, from a distance

Not so pretty -_-

After passing through customs, where we met Holly (one of the MPI ETAs), we were greeted by Eve, one of the ELC staff members, and Erica, an ETA at MPI last year. A chartered university bus took us to UM, where we dropped off Austin and Holly because they would be living near campus, then Eve told Susan and I a lot about Macau as we continued over the bridge to the peninsula. Squeezed between the glittering hotels and casinos were dank, crowded buildings and narrow streets, something like NYC's Chinatown but even more confusing because there are almost no street signs or address numbers on the buildings. Finally, we made it to the Horta e Costa district and up to our apartment, Queen's Court 12/A.

Eve helped Susan and I get Macau bus passes, which are super convenient because then we don't have to carry around exact change for the bus fare, and we also get reduced fares for using the cards. She shepherded us back to UM, where we got to see the ELC itself, plus our little ETA office, room 110. This cute little sign next to the door greeted us:

Susan and I checked email and sent notes home, but didn't stay for long, instead opting to head back to Horta e Costa so we could shop for daily necessities like sheets and pillows. Incredibly, it took us nearly two hours to find those two things, hopping from the convenience store across the street to two Royal supermarkets, to several furniture stores, etc. I'm still amazed we didn't just get completely lost wandering around the neighborhood, because we had no idea where we were going. Between the two of us, we had enough Chinese (most people understood Mandarin) to ask where we could get sheets and pillows, but somehow no one seemed to know where we could purchase such items, as if everyone else simply brought old ones with them when they moved in or made their own.

Finally, we asked the Queen's Court security guard, who directed us to a Sanmu grocery store two blocks away. I say it's a grocery store because that's its main function, but in reality it's more like a department store, with groceries on the first two levels, then all sorts of home goods on the third level, even irons/ironing boards, pots and pans, school supplies, and bras/t-shirts. Happily, we found sheets and pillows galore, so we were able to make our beds and collapse in them for our first night in Macau.