September 17, 2007

So the whole security editing thing still applies...

Ni hao! I couldn't really think of anything more interesting for the subject of this letter. East Asia in September has been busy! We have been working on schoolwork for SBU and we began teaching on September 10, which was also Jeanna's birthday. We are teaching in Continuing Education, so we teach English from 6-8 p.m. Monday through Thursday. (I think I already said this, but a reminder is always good.) Jeanna has the Intermediate level class and I have the Advanced level class.

The beginning of this teaching experience was rough, to say the least! My attendance level for the class is fluctuating. I started out with 12 and then went to 5, then 7... Jeanna started out with 9 and went to 21! Apparently people can sign up for class up to the first month, so I don't really have any idea who will be in my class next. My core group consists of one Buddy--the first I have really come into contact with here! and a brother, which is cool, one is a student from Yanbian University (the big university here in the same city) who is kind of a firecracker, and two people who work here in Yanji (one is a young woman who actually is on staff at YUST in a planning department--I think she just became a sister recently! so exciting). I also have a Korean woman who is married to a Jamaican British English conversation teacher here that I have known pretty well, so it is neat to have her in my class. My class is pretty much opposite of Jeanna's, it seems. It's very discussion-oriented, since a lot of them know English well enough that they can formulate their own thoughts. There are some that struggle with this, but I think that it will help to be in this kind of class setting.

I want to tell you a little bit about my firecracker, because he surprised me so much! He is quite the radical extremist in philosophy compared to all the other students I have met around here. The first questions he wanted to ask me were all about Western philosophy, of which he is a staunch supporter, and he is really into discussion about issues. In fact, I asked him what topics he wanted to discuss in class, and the first thing he said was politics! That kind of discussion is practically unheard of around here, so I was pretty surprised. Then he said "We don't have to discuss anything extreme like religion..." and I kind of laughed at that one and said, "You think that politics isn't as extreme as religion?" To which he replied, "Well maybe we won't discuss internal politics... we could just discuss U.S. domestic politics!" (Of course, that's internal politics to me, but I suppose that's beside the point with him!) He is so interesting. One time he started quoting the Declaration of Independence to me to ask a question, and he also has cited an Amendment to the U.S. Constitution when discussing gun control laws. Sadly, I had to tell him that I'm not overly into the political scene and don't know a lot about it (he knows more of the Declaration of Independence than I do!) so maybe I'll have to study up a little to answer his questions (when I'm not doing language study, or my ethnography, or studies with students, of course... haha). He is a neat guy, I don't think he is a brother at this point but I do know that he is close with a lot of the teachers here that are, and so be yarping for him! His time could be coming.

Speaking of language studies... Jeanna and I had an interesting experience the other day! We found out that there was a morning Chinese class for three hours Mon-Thurs which no one had told us about. We were pretty surprised because we have been open about wanting to do something like that to learn Chinese. So we had one of our supervisor-type-people set it up for us, and she actually seemed kind of surprised that we would want to go, but she said that we could visit one time and then decide if we wanted to register. So we go to this class and a few minutes into it we realize that this is a beginning Chinese class that is taught in Korean! Most of the rest of the class was made up of Korean professors from YUST that were trying to learn Chinese. So while several of them could only understand the Korean half of the class, we couldn't understand much of anything. It was really confusing, and then when we told our supervisor about it later, she said "Yes, I knew it was in Korean, and I was wondering why you wanted to go..." So it was kind of a funny experience... we will have to stick with more individual tutors. It is good because we have several student contacts that will help us with our Chinese that aren't sisters, and this is a great opportunity for us to share our lives with them, but we really feel like a classroom setting would be more structured and would help us more with language learning. Please be yarping about our language studies!

We are excited to be in the ethnography phase of the trip and are finding our different contacts that we can interview to learn more about the culture here. We've been having a lot of fun hanging out with students and meeting new ones. I feel like we are on a different level from the other m's here because we are still students ourselves, and so we connect with the students in a different way. This may also be true because we are teaching a night class with people from the town, so none of our friends are actually in our classes or anything, so they don't see themselves as our students or us as their teachers. I think this could be a positive thing, but we've found it's hard to build relationships and friendships when there is a set time that we are going to leave. Pretty much everyone knows we are going to leave in December, so it's hard on them and it's hard on us. Please be yarping that Dad will accomplish His purposes through us, no matter what that means.

We have been waiting to start our b study with a friend that wants to study with us because she couldn't do it until this week, so we are hoping that this week we will have the opportunity. I am so excited about this, and I want to follow Dad's leading with the whole thing. Please yarp for her; I'm not sure if she is a sister already or just wants to know more.

We are also looking forward to Jeanna's mom's visit--she will be here in a couple of weeks, so that will be really neat. This update has gotten pretty long, so I think I'll sign off now. We are honing our badminton skills and eating lots of wonderful Asian food! Thank you so much for yarping and all your words of encouragement! Something we are realizing is how important it is to hear encouraging words from friends while here, because sometimes we do feel alone. Continue to keep me updated on life at home!

with Dad's love,

Joanna

P.S. Something kinda funny but frustrating--they keep bringing us spoons and forks at restaurants! Apparently they don't think my chopsticks skills are up to par...