A Week Later (September 14, 2007)

-The scale of things here is hard to fathom.  There is major construction everywhere, multiple projects any one of which would qualify as a single, very large task that might take years to complete — think of Boston’s Big Dig.

At the University, one dormitory and classroom building, six connected buildings in fact, each of four or five stories, went up in less than a year.  Three thousand construction workers participated; living on site and working around the clock, seven days a week. 

A causeway connects Xiamen, an island, to the mainland as does a large suspension bridge.   Two additional bridges, each nearly a mile long are being built simultaneously on either side of the causeway, almost a mile from it on either side. 

Construction on this scale is ongoing all over China, I am told and most of it is being paid for with money paid for Chinese manufactured goods — sold all over the world.

Today I had to go to the government health office for a chest xray.  Part of the process of getting long-term work permits and residency permits is having a medical exam.  The permits are like a Green Card, in fact that seems to be the name applied to residency permits now world-wide.   The process took about half an hour and cost 102 Yuan or RMB.  That’s about $13.50. 

I had an X-Ray in the States and the doctor checked a box on a form provided by the Chinese, but they wanted the pictures themselves so we got to repeat the process.    The chest X-ray in the States cost more and neither one showed anything so I am now twice checked.

Teaching is fun and interesting. 

Every kid has a small electronic translator and dictionary.  And Chinese schools teach their kids that the teacher talks and they listen, so there are almost no unprompted comments, questions or anything else from students, especially at first. 

I’ve found that if I watch carefully and scan the room, I can note surreptitious queries about a word or two. 

My habit has been to circulate around the room and have a look to see what the word is, I thank the student for helping me and then explain the word or words to the whole class.  

This seems to neutralize somewhat loss of face from holding any particular student up to ridicule and has also increased their willingness to ask about a word and share with me whatever they have keyed into their translators. 

In every case, however, it is significantly easier to get a student’s questions in a pseudo one-on-one exchange (by stopping at the students seat, than it is from standing in front of the group and soliciting questions. 

Suggesting to the students that their classroom culture is unlikely to be the culture they will find in the workplace, particularly if they work for a joint venture or a global company makes an impression. 

It will be interesting to see if this changes over time.