Life update
So I've discovered that a VPN is ok to use on a somewhat regular basis, so I've been linking to Facebook from work (I don't currently have enough bandwidth at home to both connect to my VPN and use web pages... it's a long story), and commenting mostly on my kendo dojo's pages, with occasional little updates to my own. I figure it's time I did something a little bigger from here.
Kendo and school are taking up most of my time.
There, update done.
Haha, just kidding!
School right now means twelve forty-minute periods of English Foundations class, with three different classes. Yes, that's right, I see each group of students four hours a week. Today, I only have one of those classes, but I get in all four hours today.
Middle of the month, we're going to change that, so each of us new teachers covers one of the classes, so I'll have the same kids all week long. That will be nice, because then I only have to learn twenty-five names, instead of seventy-five. Then after winter break (which will last from late January to the end of February), I will start teaching a GAC course, which will be subject-oriented breakdown. Most of these kids already know a good deal of the material we'll be teaching; what we're doing is teaching them how to do it in English, so that they can survive in an American university.
Chinese students are amazing! It's been pleasantly shocking when I do something that will usually result in students trying to get away with breaking rules, and they just sit there and look at me. For instance, one day I finished my lesson plans two minutes early, so I dismissed the class. They stared at me for a minute before I said, "No, really. I'm done, you can start your break early."
"But we are good students, Grant. We will not go early!" was their answer. I was amazed!
Little things like that happen all the time. I brought a video for them to watch that went along with our future tense unit (yes, I managed to connect Doctor Who to class - my life is complete), and five students leaped up in each classroom to get the projection screen down, make sure the remote had batteries and turn it on for me, and connect my laptop to speakers and projector.
The differences are mostly subtle like that. Chinese kids still get sleepy in the afternoon (having a scheduled nap-- the forty minutes immediately following lunch is nap time and students bring pillows and snooze at their desks-- doesn't help, either; in fact, I think it makes it worse), they still sometimes forget that they've been assigned homework, there are still the two kids who talk back and the rest of the class will let them do all of the work; but they are far more polite and they respect their teachers like you wouldn't believe. I offered to help a student with his homework on the weekend, and he insisted that I should not meet him at the school because I would have to go outside in the cold, and that would make me uncomfortable.
That's the nutshell version of school.
Kendo is awesome. I was surprised and a little dismayed, though, when I found the dojo and visited, and discovered that absolutely everything is done in Chinese. At home, kendo is done in a mixture of English and Japanese. All commands are done in Japanese, and we're taught the meaning and intention of words like "Kikentaichi" (Ki=spirit, ken=sword, tai=body, ichi=one; the merging of spirit, mind, and body into one function through unified power, unified movement, and unified timing), so that we understand the deeper aspects of Kendo (the way of the sword). In China, because all Kanji has its source in Chinese, they read it as though it were Chinese and use the Chinese words for things. So I'm having to learn the language of Kendo all over, and the senseis laoshis actually have the least command of English, so I either need a young kenshi to translate for me, or I miss a lot of lessons.
Having three months off while I was in Cheyenne has hurt my kendo basics, too. And I think my dojo was letting me get away with a lot more because of my left arm. Qinan Laoshi has really been going after my hand posture, and the fact that I use my right too much (the right hand guides the sword, the left hand provides the power). Yesterday, I learned the definite benefit of not leaning forward, at least for men strikes. It hurts a lot more when your opponent strikes the middle of your head instead of the mengari at the front of the helmet (thanks, Jeff-san!). And that more than anything has helped me straighten up, which has continuously been one of the worst points of my basics.
Part of my frustration comes in the fact that they are so focused on correcting my basics, and this is mostly me whining, is that they ignore the poor basics around me. One of the other kenshi, a fellow in his mid-twenties who hits way too hard, constantly misses my kote and hits me somewhere on my upper arm during keiko. I have the bruises covering my entire bicep today to prove it. And it drives me crazy how poor their zanshin is; the moment a keiko or a match is finished, they walk off. There's no "onegashimas" and "arigatos", and certainly no bowing to be exchanged (occasionally I can shame an opponent into a "xiexie" or a "gaijien" by my formality). When the Laoshi calls for a rotation, the opponent will simply walk away, and sometimes they won't wait for the call; they're done practicing, so they'll move on and crowd the guy in the next line while they wait for him to finish and move. During Kirakaeshi, my opponent will bow and then saunter back to center when exchanging, instead of maintaining kamai and eye contact as we re-center together. They seem honestly surprised when I have maintained it while they walk, facing away from me, towards their start positions.
In short, the connection is severed as soon as the practices strike is completed. This is to say nothing of kenshi's formality when we actually do practice matches at the end of the day. I've watched kenshi swagger on to the court; they don't make zanshin with their opponent and will often step in at different timings. I don't know whether this is allowed at the tournament and test level or not, but good zanshin has been drilled into me (and rightly so), and it's burning inside my mind that this dojo simply doesn't do it.
So yeah, this is mostly a whine today, but it's things that I certainly don't have the rank to address in my new dojo, no matter how much I would like to see them fixed. So thanks, Livejournal and facebook friends, for letting me vent for a bit here.
But to end on a positive note, I have finally seen one building that actually looks like it was made in China:
Ironically, it's a convention center, called the "Friendship Palace." So of course it looks like that; it's designed to appeal to foreigners' sense of "Hey, that's Chinese!" But it's just funny to me that, even among the official buildings around the city, not one has that traditional Chinese style. Of course, government buildings since 1949 have gotten away from the traditional style, but that's beside the point. Harbin is a very Europeanized city, because it is so heavily influenced by post-war European and Russian interests. In fact, the main shopping district downtown, Central Street, stretches between the two major expat districts, Russians at the north and English-speaking nations at the south. So it was great fun for me to see this building, situated as it was right across from the immigration bureau's office.
And now I've gone and made myself late (well, later than I want to be), so I better close out and scoot! Have a good evening everyone back on the other side of the date line, and goodbye from tomorrow!
Kendo and school are taking up most of my time.
There, update done.
Haha, just kidding!
School right now means twelve forty-minute periods of English Foundations class, with three different classes. Yes, that's right, I see each group of students four hours a week. Today, I only have one of those classes, but I get in all four hours today.
Middle of the month, we're going to change that, so each of us new teachers covers one of the classes, so I'll have the same kids all week long. That will be nice, because then I only have to learn twenty-five names, instead of seventy-five. Then after winter break (which will last from late January to the end of February), I will start teaching a GAC course, which will be subject-oriented breakdown. Most of these kids already know a good deal of the material we'll be teaching; what we're doing is teaching them how to do it in English, so that they can survive in an American university.
Chinese students are amazing! It's been pleasantly shocking when I do something that will usually result in students trying to get away with breaking rules, and they just sit there and look at me. For instance, one day I finished my lesson plans two minutes early, so I dismissed the class. They stared at me for a minute before I said, "No, really. I'm done, you can start your break early."
"But we are good students, Grant. We will not go early!" was their answer. I was amazed!
Little things like that happen all the time. I brought a video for them to watch that went along with our future tense unit (yes, I managed to connect Doctor Who to class - my life is complete), and five students leaped up in each classroom to get the projection screen down, make sure the remote had batteries and turn it on for me, and connect my laptop to speakers and projector.
The differences are mostly subtle like that. Chinese kids still get sleepy in the afternoon (having a scheduled nap-- the forty minutes immediately following lunch is nap time and students bring pillows and snooze at their desks-- doesn't help, either; in fact, I think it makes it worse), they still sometimes forget that they've been assigned homework, there are still the two kids who talk back and the rest of the class will let them do all of the work; but they are far more polite and they respect their teachers like you wouldn't believe. I offered to help a student with his homework on the weekend, and he insisted that I should not meet him at the school because I would have to go outside in the cold, and that would make me uncomfortable.
That's the nutshell version of school.
Kendo is awesome. I was surprised and a little dismayed, though, when I found the dojo and visited, and discovered that absolutely everything is done in Chinese. At home, kendo is done in a mixture of English and Japanese. All commands are done in Japanese, and we're taught the meaning and intention of words like "Kikentaichi" (Ki=spirit, ken=sword, tai=body, ichi=one; the merging of spirit, mind, and body into one function through unified power, unified movement, and unified timing), so that we understand the deeper aspects of Kendo (the way of the sword). In China, because all Kanji has its source in Chinese, they read it as though it were Chinese and use the Chinese words for things. So I'm having to learn the language of Kendo all over, and the senseis laoshis actually have the least command of English, so I either need a young kenshi to translate for me, or I miss a lot of lessons.
Having three months off while I was in Cheyenne has hurt my kendo basics, too. And I think my dojo was letting me get away with a lot more because of my left arm. Qinan Laoshi has really been going after my hand posture, and the fact that I use my right too much (the right hand guides the sword, the left hand provides the power). Yesterday, I learned the definite benefit of not leaning forward, at least for men strikes. It hurts a lot more when your opponent strikes the middle of your head instead of the mengari at the front of the helmet (thanks, Jeff-san!). And that more than anything has helped me straighten up, which has continuously been one of the worst points of my basics.
Part of my frustration comes in the fact that they are so focused on correcting my basics, and this is mostly me whining, is that they ignore the poor basics around me. One of the other kenshi, a fellow in his mid-twenties who hits way too hard, constantly misses my kote and hits me somewhere on my upper arm during keiko. I have the bruises covering my entire bicep today to prove it. And it drives me crazy how poor their zanshin is; the moment a keiko or a match is finished, they walk off. There's no "onegashimas" and "arigatos", and certainly no bowing to be exchanged (occasionally I can shame an opponent into a "xiexie" or a "gaijien" by my formality). When the Laoshi calls for a rotation, the opponent will simply walk away, and sometimes they won't wait for the call; they're done practicing, so they'll move on and crowd the guy in the next line while they wait for him to finish and move. During Kirakaeshi, my opponent will bow and then saunter back to center when exchanging, instead of maintaining kamai and eye contact as we re-center together. They seem honestly surprised when I have maintained it while they walk, facing away from me, towards their start positions.
In short, the connection is severed as soon as the practices strike is completed. This is to say nothing of kenshi's formality when we actually do practice matches at the end of the day. I've watched kenshi swagger on to the court; they don't make zanshin with their opponent and will often step in at different timings. I don't know whether this is allowed at the tournament and test level or not, but good zanshin has been drilled into me (and rightly so), and it's burning inside my mind that this dojo simply doesn't do it.
So yeah, this is mostly a whine today, but it's things that I certainly don't have the rank to address in my new dojo, no matter how much I would like to see them fixed. So thanks, Livejournal and facebook friends, for letting me vent for a bit here.
But to end on a positive note, I have finally seen one building that actually looks like it was made in China:
Ironically, it's a convention center, called the "Friendship Palace." So of course it looks like that; it's designed to appeal to foreigners' sense of "Hey, that's Chinese!" But it's just funny to me that, even among the official buildings around the city, not one has that traditional Chinese style. Of course, government buildings since 1949 have gotten away from the traditional style, but that's beside the point. Harbin is a very Europeanized city, because it is so heavily influenced by post-war European and Russian interests. In fact, the main shopping district downtown, Central Street, stretches between the two major expat districts, Russians at the north and English-speaking nations at the south. So it was great fun for me to see this building, situated as it was right across from the immigration bureau's office.
And now I've gone and made myself late (well, later than I want to be), so I better close out and scoot! Have a good evening everyone back on the other side of the date line, and goodbye from tomorrow!