Occasional Tales

The last of the speaking. It’s almost all over, or will be in about eight hours. Today I have to put up with the arrant nonsense the AS students are going to produce. I suspect that some of them will embarrass themselves and prove my suspicion that quite a number should’ve been in the PAL class this year. My next concern is the unwelcome arrival of that dratted woman on Friday. I have an idea which will involve a comic strip and some ideas pinched from the 3.5e Dungeon Master’s Guide. It’s meant to foster creativity, but could well throw into sharp relief the tendency of Chinese school children to make a minimal amount of effort. The real Internet was neutered at the weekend, but is up and running this morning. Can’t dawdle, though. There are speaking exams waiting. Yawn.

It returns. This isn’t really a convenient time of the year for unwelcome visitors. We’re approaching the final exams and have the speaking exam next week, which, as I think I’ve said, is going to be an enormous pain. That dratted woman was hoping to turn up next week, but is now coming back to irritate me the week after. As a consequence, I’m going to have to waste a class on some infantile frippery to keep this woman happy. That means thinking of something suitably bright and sparkly, and devoid of academic content. My problem now is trying to think of something which came from the mock exam, which can be turned into a kindergarten activity. For example, the writing was dull, clichéd stuff generally lacking in the slightest whiff of originality (though there’s nothing new under the sun) and imagination. How do I therefore incorporate originality and imagination in writing into a kindergarten lesson? How do I do such a thing with the sort of topics which tend to occur in t...

You really don’t need to know this. When Bruce came round this afternoon compiling a list of those of us who ride bikes, I got a sinking feeling that someone has decided we need a lecture on road safety. Road safety in China? What the hell are the road rules here? Cars at least obey the traffic lights (unless they’re turning right), and valiant men and women armed with flags make others stop at intersections because the electric bike people and cyclists think the pretty lights are optional. In fact, to them, all the rules are optional. There’s a hierarchy of size, but that’s a custom not a law. Riding the wrong way and riding on the pavement are also popular customs. It’s also a popular custom among the police to turn a blind eye to such indiscretions. Pedestrian crossings are a joke because the people crossing pay little attention to the cars and the cars pay little attention to the pedestrians. I’ve been riding a bike here for about five years now and have three basic...

Or, Western vs. Oriental speed. A couple of days ago, I had an encounter with the Chinese director of our programme. I’d just got back to school from buying lunch and for the first time ever since I’ve been working at the school, I got reminded of the rule about wheeling bikes through the school. I don’t do that because as far as I’m concerned, rank hath its privileges and, as a teacher, I shouldn’t be subject to this particular restriction. I note that those teachers who drive cars don’t have to get out and push their cars and that the ground staff never get off their bikes. I think what’s really going on is the over-solicitousness which foreigners sometimes encounter here. It’ll probably be known that I’m quite fast on my new bike (although I was also quite fast on the old one), and they’ll mistake my reasonable pace for speed because their own pace is so sluggish and torpid. I have heard one story about a foreigner who bought a bike and could go nowhere without being surroun...