Laoshi Hao (Hello Teacher)!

On July 8, our entire group had the pleasure of traveling to the Shanghai suburb of Jinshan to tour and guest teach at a foreign language middle school. You wouldn't believe how courteous and polite the kids were. I had to ask myself over and over again "are these really middle schoolers?"

The English lesson our group taught was about animals. Would you believe me if I told you that the Chinese students could name more animals from memory than I could? And not just cat, dog, etc. During the brainstrorm, these guys mentioned armadillos, yaks, buffalo and the like. Not bad for non-native speakers, huh?

The number of students in a Chinese classroom tends to be relatively large, compared to a US classroom. On average you can expect to see about 40 kids in each class. So why is it that Chinese students perform exceptionally well, even with such a large class size? Chinese teachers are very effective at grouping students and teaching them to work as semi-automous units in the classroom. I think this should serve as food for thought for all of us that immediately point to large class sizes as "the problem" with our schools.

Anyway, check us out playing animal charades. I'm the one jumping around like a kangaroo (in case you didn't notice :-)

Do you speak English?

I once had a dear professor at Penn who had traveled extensively with her daughter while completing anthropological research as a graduate student. I remember asking her about the challenges she faced while globetrotting with a little tot in tow. She said to me "when you travel with kids, they can get you access to fascinating people, places and experiences you would never have had otherwise."

Sure enough, the encounter we had with a young Chinese girl and her family in a Hangzhou bazaar showed me how right my professor really was. China (and practically every other country in the world) is lightyears ahead of the United States in the area of second language instruction for children. See my post on my experience as a guest teacher at the foreign language middle school in Jinshan.

Chinese parents are serious about education. They recognize the benefits of multilingualism and urge their kids to take advantage of every learning opportunity. Don't believe me? Look at this Chinese mother insisting that her daughter practice English with Amira:




As you saw at the end of the clip, Amira is clearly more concerned with using the merchant's calculator to make me haggle over her toy in my broken Chinese. But I found this encounter most fascinating. Needless to say, the mother won the battle to spark conversation between her daughter and Amira. Here's how it went. How cute!

Rapping Things Up "Xi Ha" Style

Well, it does appear that things are coming to a close. Thankfully it's a positive close. My paper on Chinese hip-hop (a.k.a Xi Ha) is finished. I've enjoyed learning about China's creative addition to the world of global hip-hop. If the commercial madness (i.e. whackness) of American hip-hop continues as it is, I'm certain we'll be looking even more fervently overseas for some refreshing hip-hop innovation. Tony Mitchell put it best in his celebrated narrative on international hip-hop, Global Noise - "[global hip-hop possesses] a sense of innovation, surprise and musical substance that make it increasingly necessary to look outside of the US to countries such as France, England, Germany, Italy and Japan where strong local currents of hip-hop indigenization have taken place.”

RedStar's album is scheduled to drop soon. You can check them out at

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=114694191

Here are a couple of other dope Chinese hip-hop links that were most helpful during my study:

http://www.dongting08.com/ - Research Blog on Chinese hip hop
http://hiphop.cn/ - Extensive resource on what's happenin' in Chinese hip hop
http://www.thelab.cn - Meeting ground for aspiring artists/DJs in Shanghai

PEACE!

The Beauty of Hangzhou

For our first weekend excursion we went to the lovely Hangzhou, located in Zhejiang province. The city's magnificent West Lake is one of the main attractions for tourist folks like us. We must have climbed at least 3 different pagodas. After ascending the one that had an elevator, I wanted to choke our guide for taking us to the one with raggedy stone stairwells!! I must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed the relative peace from the Shanghai hustle and bustle.


In the pictures above, we are with our camp buddies in a local garden (I cant remember the name right now) :0 Despite the fact that there are no loud rides or fancy attractions in this garden, the kids loved it! We spent well over an hour climbing stone dragons, drinking fresh spring water and crossing streams barefoot. A place like this makes it easy to ignore the fact that there are hundreds of people around you in every direction (sigh).

A Summer to Remember

I'd say Amira had a pretty adventurous summer. By the grace of God she visited Shanghai, China, various cities in the Dominican Republic, New York City, Washington, DC, Atlanta, GA and then made it back home to good ole Philly, PA. This post is about camp in China, so let me hop off my tangent :-)

Summer camp in China was a cool idea. Amira spent her weekdays taking private Chinese lessons at Mandarin Rocks. Actually, the only reason her lessons were private was b/c she was the youngest one at the camp. The other kids ranged in age from 8-14. Sometimes that meant she got special treatment (remember the movie popcorn story?? [below]) and sometimes she felt left out :-(

One of the most interesting things I noticed at the camp were the teenagers who traveled abroad in pairs (i.e. without parents) to learn about Chinese language and culture. Apparently is not uncommon for some wealthy sophisticates to send their children trekking around the world with minimal supervision. Our group consisted of several eager young teens who were obviously used to a lot of freedom. From eating rats in Vietnam to scuba diving in New Zealand, these kids had done it all. I must admit that I sat in admiration as they told me of their many world adventures. In some ways they were extremely precocious and in other ways they were just regular ole teenagers. The only difference is that they were thousands of miles from home doing what I wouldn't DARE send my kid to do alone. No, not in a million years!

Mandarin Rocks had a full line up of activities for the kids. They were constantly hitting the streets of Shanghai to shop, watch movies, see the acrobatic show, visit The Bund (waterfront) and a host of beautiful Chinese gardens. Honestly, I think Amira got around Shanghai more than I did. Don't take my word for it. You can always ask her yourself what she thought of China :-)