Truly Asia

As anyone who has watched CNN International in Korea for a while (this is actually a significant portion of my peeps, by the way) knows, Malaysia is "Truly Asia." And now we have seen some of the Malay peninsula and had the chance to ponder this slogan, so, well, simple in its simplicity.

Great things about Malaysia included: iced coffee (and many coffee/tea options, cheap!) in the many kopitiams, the cleanliness of Kuala Lumpur (I told Brian I'd rather lick the sidewalk in KL than sit on the sidewalk in Guangzhou), delicious and cheap food food food!, cats chilling out in the city (there need to be cats; they keep rodent population under control; cats need to wander; don't cage them, tie them up, or otherwise imprison them; thank you), being able to walk up and down escalators again without being blocked by the GZ citizens who find it expedient to run -- run! -- from the subway car to the escalator so they can get ahead of the backlog of people caused by the fact that no one stands to the right, walks to the left -- or, in Malaysia's case, stands to the left, walks to the right but -- cannot figure out that once they get there they should keep moving (just. keep. moving!) up and that if everyone did that they would not be concerned with making a mad dash from subway to escalator in the first place and life would be better for all involved, really, so much better for all of us...

Yeah, basically Brian and I were not exactly looking forward to returning from Malaysia to Guangzhou. But we did get a dose of Chinatown at the end of our trip that really prepared us to come 'home.'

Let's start with the fun stuff. Kuala Lumpur, so very often shortened to KL, highlights:

Petronas Towers: They are super tall and famous and gleaming. We went for it and did the tour, which includes a hologram welcome/introduction, a stop on the sky bridge that connects them, and then time at the observation deck. We actually spend a lot of time in the KLCC area around the towers, breakfasting at the adjoining shiny-fancy-superchic mall food court (SE Asian mall food courts aren't like U.S. mall food courts. We're not talking Sbarro's and Hot Dog on a Stick...they are these really great multi-culti set-ups where you and everyone in your party can try whichever Asian cuisine you fancy that day for delicious and cheap, and they just happen to be built in air-conditioned malls) and making a few purchases in said shopping establishment, plus kicking it in the KLCC park outside  with its sunshine, fountain, chilled out people, and have I mentioned clean sidewalks?  That mall has a Kinokuniya, which is our new favorite Asian bookstore (we discovered last year in Bangkok) (and which apparently has branches in the U.S., like in L.A.'s Little Tokyo...who knew?!) where we happily whiled away some time and where I (obviously) found two Malaysia-y books to purchase (or was that...two truly Asian books?)

I am way too parenthetical in this blog post.

Batu Caves: These are on the 'outskirts' of Kuala Lumpur, but only 13 km from the city, and you can see their hill/mound from the Petronas Towers, and you get there by the public transit train in no time at all. And when you do, you find cool Hindu shrine things, a big ol' staircase to climb to get to the big cavern with cool rays of light penetrating through holes in the rock, the large golden statue of Murugan (a lord/deity/Hindu type personage), and a WHOLE bunch of monkeys. The monkeys come up and grab water/juice/soda bottles right out of your hand with a ferocious swipe of their long lithe arms, so keep the drink tucked safely away in your backpack if you don't want to relinquish it!  Caves are cool.

Happy Hour: Everyone knows this is my favorite thing about traveling life, and since Malaysia is "officially Muslim" there are apparently taxes on alcohol and therefore the imbibing is a bit more costly than in all the ridiculously cheap SE Asian countries (hello, 50-cent beers in Cambodia and the Philippines). But that just means it costs not quite as much as drinking in L.A. or Chicago or New York. And there were, indeed, happy hours about KL, including in our hotel lounge where we liked to relax, so all was well.

We loved our hotel! Stay at the Swiss Garden Hotel on Jalan Pudu. Great location, super-duper comfortable room, good amenities like spa and poolside bar, and hurrah that we got a good deal.

I should probably let Brian talk about the food, but let's just throw out a few words and phrases: roti. Breakfast for a dollar. Indian. Indian-Chinese-Malay. Street food block party at night. Chicken wings. Vegetarian stuff everywhere. Have I mentioned the prevalence of iced coffee? I don't even mind specifying "without sugar" or sometimes getting it with the sweetener and condensed milk. More Indian food. Yum.

After Kuala Lumpur, we went down the highway to Melaka, a UNESCO World Heritage city on the Straits of Malacca (modern Malaysia has lots of simplified spelling and lots of the letter K, I noticed) that used to totally be the most important trading port, like, ever. In the 1500s, if you were a spice, you probably were going to pass through here, and it was so fun to imagine the harbormasters conducting business in 80 languages and thinking about the Portuguese, who would soon be ousted by the Dutch, who hung out until the British took over, etc. The mix of Indian-Chinese-Malay culture and cuisine, along with all these Euro architecture-language-style remnants, produces such a fascinating blend.

Melaka is all about the river, where one enjoys strolling, cute little bridges, old buildings, having a beverage by the water, and a river boat ride, during which you can see the city and spot really large (monitor?) lizards swimming IN the water, which is so bizarre to someone like me who thinks of lizards in Phoenix as being a distinct part of life but never really swimming.

In Melaka, it was fun to:

• Walk along the aforementioned river all the time.
• Wait in line ( = moving along a row of plastic or metal, I forget, stools on the street) at the famous, crowded Capitol Satay restaurant before enjoying its satay celup, a fondue/hotpot-like experience of dipping vegetables, tofu, meat in the hot bubbly spicy peanut sauce in the middle of the table. 
• Ride in a weirdly garishly decked out trishaw cab, which involves a man pedaling you to your destination while you sit in the part covered by bright pink, magenta, fuchsia, and god knows what other color, flowers, like parade float paper style, with random 80s-like pop blaring. This is an experience not to be missed. 
• Eat 'Baba Nyonya' cuisine, aka Peranakan Chinese, which is the Chinese peeps who came to Malaysia/Indonesia back in the 15th/16th century (telling you, it was the place to be!) and are also sometimes called 'Straits Chinese.' This food was really Chinese-like and also not. I love fascinating cultural blends.
• Go to the Literature Museum, because everywhere should have a museum all about preserving its literary heritage and making sure historical and current texts in Malay are not overlooked in the scheme of things, plus you take your shoes off and wander around barefoot on the cool stone and dark wood floors inside.
• Walk up the hill to see old churches, bricks, cats lounging about in said old church remnants, views of the water, and so on. 
• Jam out in Chinatown and kind of see more Chinese architecture than I do on a daily basis here in Guangzhou, where there are soooooo many tall, similar, white/gray-tiled high-rise apartment blocks and modern skyscrapers and post-1960s/70s buildings. 

However, it was not fun in Chinatown to, of course, see a woman holding her young, pantsless child above a gutter to do his excretory business, which more than the buildings, Chinese characters, or speaking of Mandarin all around me is what really made me feel like I was back in China....god, that is my least favorite thing about living in Guangzhou!!! And there it was, welcome to Chinatown. So horrible. UGH. 

All in all, Malaysia impressed us and this was just a tiny taste of the peninsula's east coast. We have to go back for the highlands, the west coast, the beaches, the islands, and all the Borneo parts! But for now we are delighted because KL was way cooler than we expected (OK, actually we didn't really know what to expect, so we just had no idea, but it was great there) and the whole Malay thing is such an interesting mix of cultures and I am really enjoying reading the book I picked up, Thinking Through Malaysia, even though it is just a collection of college/academic papers analyzing various random fragments, because it explores the mixed-race identity in the country and all the socio-political ramifications of identity, race, ethnicity, definition, and the like in a perfectly fascinating place to analyze such things.

Yup, I'm good with Truly Asia.  

Some good, some bad

What's been happening 'round these parts?

Well, for starters, my laptop is pretty much done, done, done...it doesn't even start up, really, anymore, although I occasionally can get it to do something and I might salvage a few more things off of it. The lack of laptop is behind my inability to post, respond to emails, etc. over the last couple months. I'm borrowing a new-to-me computer now, and it's nice to make contact with the world again.

August was great because we returned to our previous work schedules -- you know, the normal ones, where you go to work five days a week? After spending June and July working six days per week, I was definitely happy to get back to normal. Unfortunately, my schedule wasn't *that* normal, because I am still working at my 'new' center, after all, where the manager and his two managers-in-training are sort of obsessed with not giving the staff fixed schedules. So, every week it changes - 5:00, 5:30, or 6:00 for the evening shifts and anywhere between 12:00-1:30 starts on the weekend. It bounces all over the place. I've taken to writing it on my arm so I know when to go to work.

Since we had our weekends back, Brian and I went to Macau again during August -- we still love it! This time around we saw a few more historical sites, went to the museum, walked all around, and ate even more (and more delicious!) Portugese egg tarts.

In September, our two friends from New York came to Hong Kong for their vacation (yay! visitors!) so we headed down there on our weekend to spend time with them.

For Mid-Autumn Festival, we had a 3-day weekend, and we visited Yangshuo, which is in the next province over from us (Guangxi -- or Guang-west, which borders our own Guangdong, or Guang-east). Yangshuo is where you find a gazillion stunning karst formations rising out of the earth, and where you cycle and float around and where you don't feel like you're in China and it's awesome.

September's almost over, and we have rescued a kitten! He was abandoned and tiny and screeching outside our apartment building and we had to help the poor little fella out. We've since taken him to the vet, deeply enjoyed spending time with him, and worked on finding him a home.

Now that I have access to a functioning laptop again, I'll try for some more frequent updates as we head into fall and the home stretch!

p.s. Go Braves!

And it was all yellow...or some of it was yellow

Yesterday one of my (adult, Chinese) students in a group lesson checked with me to be sure she had the word "yellow" correct -- to describe her skin, she explained, motioning to her arm and then touching the skin there. Yellow skin, right? I explained that although she was right, we probably wouldn't say that anymore because it sounds derogatory. Now, before all you I'm-too-good-for-political-correctness people start rehearsing the pithy comment you're going to make about this post, please read the whole thing and realize I'm still setting up the context. Just pay attention for two seconds; it won't kill ya.

Well, the table of curious students asked me, how would you describe it, then? I told them, realizing even before the words were out of my mouth that it was going to sound weird, that someone in the U.S. might say "Asian." Sure enough, a few of them laughed. Asian? That certainly wouldn't tell them anything. What about the color?

I said we had really moved away from describing skin color, and moved toward describing various ethnic groups, usually based on geography, e.g. of Asian heritage, of African heritage, Pacific Islander, Middle Eastern, etc. in place of describing skin color. OK, she said, but just Asian? Well, I said, no, I mean, I might describe someone with more detail, like, "She's short, Chinese, with long black hair and dark round eyes" or something like that.  And to be fair, ye PC naysayer, is it really so much better to describe Han Chinese and Japanese and Koreans and Vietnamese as "yellow" without having any clue about their ethnic and national origins, than it would be to say "Asian" without having a clue about their ethnic and national origins?

But here's the rub, about "yellow":  Well, they asked me, then what if someone is Chinese but has white skin? Because some of us have white skin, they pointed out.

THIS, my naysayers, is getting to the point. Now you can start firing those comment cylinders. What this student means by white skin is not what you mean by white skin in the good ol' U.S.A.  When you see someone of Asian heritage that is first and foremost what you see. You aren't going to describe her skin as white, even if she is a porcelain geisha. So don't get too high and mighty. I was reminded of discussions in Cuba with my friends about the "blancos" and "negros" there, and how in a fierce discussion about racism one night, I was fascinated to discover that people were "white" in Cuba who would be checking a different box in the U.S.A.

I told my student that if we were specifying, we would probably say "light-skinned Chinese" or "dark-skinned Chinese" person, that people often talk about light-skinned and dark-skined Latinos, too. Of course, that's still only two options, but it would definitely sound more polite and acceptable, I think, in our usage than "yellow." Then they asked me, doesn't "dark-skinned" mean "black"? And by the way, they asked, can you say "black"?  I told them that dark-skinned doesn't always mean black, and that they could say black, usually, and that there are some who have made the term into a proper identifier, Black, to be capitalized, and so forth. Black, I said, sounds different in our accepted societal discourse than yellow and red, with regard to skin color. I can't think of any modern situation in which someone randomly says "yellow" or "red" in a non-pejorative way.  There are just so many other and more precise ways to describe people, so as a lover of language and words I have a lot of better choices. But what do you call the American Indian/not red person, they asked?  Indian is OK, I said, in a lot of tribal and American Indian Movement (AIM)-type activist circles, especially.  You could also say Native American. My students know what "native" means because we expats are sold to them as "native speakers" of English. They thought about this term. "You know," I said, "native - because, well, they were in America first."  And so we were back to heritage.

Obviously, skin color intertwines with heritage in so many ways ... but I think we would do well to divorce the color from the ethnicity if we want to be able to precisely describe people. But the question is, why do we need to be able to precisely describe people's skin color? Does it matter, really? What if there were a box on our driver licenses, next to hair color, eye color, and weight? Did there used to be?

I think it is foolishly naive and really wishful thinking to make the whole "we're color blind and racism doesn't exist unless you make it exist" argument. That's just hogwash. We all think about race and have ideas about race embedded in our minds--it matters what we choose to do with those ideas, though. But what I'm specifically interested in and curious about lately are the blurring, overlapping lines among skin colors and ethnic identities and nations. Why do we in the U.S. tie so many ethnicities to geographic locations and boundary lines drawn in the sand?  This causes so many problems. I recently finished reading David K. Shipler's book Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land and through all the messed up messed-up-ness of that conflict, I kept coming back to thinking about how fixated the Israeli Jews were/are on making a nation state for their "people." Why? That seems to be the crux of the problem, no? Why does an ethnic group of people have to have a state only for them?  Don't we see this same idea in raging conflicts in the Balkans, Rwanda, Sudan, etc.? Sure, you can argue that colonial terrorist imperialists drawing the lines in the sand to form nations didn't help things any, either, but why?  Athenian, Spartan, Abyssinian, Khmer, Cham, Navajo, Inuit... Greek? Cambodian?  Why not have an ethnicity and a nationality? Why do we blur them? And how  many years will it take until United States-ian can become an ethnic identity? 1,000? More? Less? Will it ever do so? I need the biologists to weigh in, here.

So if you think being an English teacher is all fun and games, well...OK, never mind, maybe you actually didn't think that.

Independent Nations

Well, another 4th of July has come and gone. I have now spent the U.S.A. Independence Day in five different countries, and it's always fun to gather with a few "fellow Americans" when in some far-flung spot on the globe and rustle up some patriotic feelings, or at least some hot dogs and beer. Actually, we rustled up fajitas for dinner last night, at one of Guangzhou's Irish pubs, in a gathering of folks that included nationals of the U.S.A., Canada, Scotland, New Zealand, and China. I suppose that in itself is very "American dreamy" in some viewpoint or other. I might add that I drank Dos Equis. Hey, I don't always celebrate the 4th in the land formerly known as Canton, but when I do...they are sometimes out of the Pure Blonde Ale that was actually my first choice order.

 

Earlier in the evening I had a small cup of Budweiser during our beer toast (!) to the U.S. at work, as I taught a little "4th of July hour" for the students. We had a bit of history (why 1776? why split off from England -- what's wrong with them?  why are there 50 stars and 13 stripes? etc.), a little bit of vocabulary (eagle, Statue of Liberty, White House, basically a collage of U.S.A.-like images), a bit of totally differing perspectives (they don't think of Guam as anywhere near China and in fact said "But it's much closer to Japan than here" whereas I think of Guam as "about the same distance" from Hong Kong/Japan -- and I'm living closer to Guam now than I ever have before), and a little bit of arguing when I busted out the Budweiser. "That's not an American beer!" they protested. I mean, first of all, oh-so-appreciative students, you're welcome. Right?!  Secondly, my boss just offered to get something simple for the 4th of July and I said, hey, why not Budweiser? But, see, they actually bottle some Budweiser right here in China. (Hence it being easily available without having to seek out a specialty store with a vast imported beer selection.) So my students were completely prepared to sit there and talk about how it's not an American beer. But, I mean, it is. Coca-Cola bottles stuff all over the world (they were among the first to "think globally, act locally")  but it's still an "American product," no? Or McDonald's and KFC -- also everywhere, here. It was so weird. It's freaking Budweiser. I'm sure many people have accused Budweiser of many things, but I never thought anyone would ever accuse it of being Chinese.

 

It all makes you think, doesn't it, in this globally connected economy and internet of ours? What does it mean to be anything? I hate the co-opting of "American," which actually refers to two entire continents, so I phrase my question thus: "What does it mean to be United Statesian?"

 

 

 

 

Jesus is the reason for the ... what, now?

I know, let's talk about why I reject Christianity - -that'll surely be fun for all and sundry, if admittedly a bit off the subject of China. Today I got a hymn stuck in my head, thanks to someone's Facebook post. I will do you the favor of not getting it stuck in your head, too, but let's just say it was one of the many, many hymns that reference how Jesus loved me enough to die for me.

Now, I could cite a lot of reasons, actually, as to why I've severed my ties with church/religion/belief. Let's see, there's ... the logical inconsistencies, the sexist patriarchy, the inability to appreciate the Bible -- a work of literature -- as literature, the !@#* creationists and abortion clinic bombers (yes, I know, they are the extremists, but quick: name three ways their churches try to put a stop to their actions), the sheer unmitigated boredom of the hours and hours and hours of my childhood and adolescence wasted in church ... yeah, there's all that, but I'm here for a much more fundamental (see what I did there) reason today, to wit: the whole "Jesus died for me" thing.

 I mean -- what the hell? So to speak.

And no one will explain it to me. (Believe me, I've asked.) They like to say things like "You have to take it on faith."  But they miss my point. This isn't about the impossibility or possibility of it, no, nor is about the (totally respectable) question so many have asked as to why exactly their loving, omnipotent, etc. God-the-father would send His Son to be savagely butchered and all that. No, I ask a much more to-the-simple-point question of how exactly one dies "for" another.  Like, OK, you put this guy (sorry, this Guy) on a cross and pounded in the nails and he ascended to Heaven and -- this was for my sins?  What's the connection? I'm pretty sure I never asked for all that. And this atones for my sins how exactly?

I mean, it's clearly like all the other barbaric, old-school, ritualistic, like-so-many-cultures, pagan, animism, Aztec, whatever, bloodthirsty animal sacrifice just amped up a bit, like if the people who wrote the New Testament were sort of the Quentin Tarantinos of their day. But everyone has totally fallen for it. I find it to be no small coincidence that many of these same people are convinced that the young men and women who are routinely slaughtered by savage, institutionalized, government-led butchery in Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Germany, Japan, Bull Run, Valley Forge, etc. are also said to have died "for me."  It's as if that argument is too powerful for anyone to resist. Oh, this terrible sad awful tragic deplorable thing .. oh, wait, it was for me? Oh well, then it's so powerful! Oh, I'm so moved!

No, dude. Someone was murdered. How does that help you? What does that have to do with you? Nothing.

But government leaders who convince you of that get to be rich(er) and (more) powerful because your powerful belief enables their slaughter. And so it is with the Christians. You can almost hear a warmongering council back in the day: "How can we really get this Roman Empire off the ground? Hey, what about those wacky Christians -- remember that guy we killed? He said, 'Greater love hath no man than this...'  Sure, maybe he was talking about running in front of a car chariot to push an innocent child out of harm's way, but let's say instead he was laying down his life for the sins of his friends - of his people - wait, I've got it! ALL humanity! Then everyone has to believe in us! Let's put a Holy in front of our name."

Sheesh.

I will give a hundred dollars, straight up, to the first person who can explain (actually explain) just exactly how the f**k (even ostensibly) Jesus died for us. What does that even mean? It is the absolute most basic tenet of Christianity, I mean, that is the WHOLE THING, and no one can explain it.

No, thanks! say I.

OK, but it really was boring going to three hours of church every week, too, though.

Guangzhou and permanence and skies

I've been having technical issues recently - it may be time for a new laptop - and that is why the posting schedule has been yet again thrown off. Sorry! 

Five months of living in Guangzhou. Seven months remain. How does Guangzhou compare to the other places I have lived and taught?

Well, Korea in general is easier in a few ways than China in general, as far as just living there goes. In Korea, an expat teacher feels s/he can pretty much do whatever s/he wants all the time. This is largely true, within reason, but the problem is that so very many expat teachers -- so very many twentysomethings the world over, of course -- lose their focus on that "within reason" part. In China, I don't have the same sense of abandon that I can do whatever I want and that everything will be conveniently somehow available. Many, many things are here, sure, in terms of food, fashion, transport, technology, etc. But, I do have to put forth what I perceive as more effort as opposed to the ease of daily life. It is also so much easier to become functionally literate in Korean, and being unable to read everything around me is really, really, really annoying -- almost as annoying as being unable to find an affordable literacy/reading/writing class here.  Living in Mexico is on a whole other planet from the Asian bewildering-days experiences. I mean, living in Mexico is not even exotic or particularly "different" from my Southwest U.S. heritage, geography-climate-food-wise -- plus, Spanish is easy, being in North America is easy, eating is cheap and delicious and easy, and basically everything except cockroaches is easy there. But, you don't get paid enough money to live or do anything much, so you definitely finding yourself wanting to head back to Asia.

Job-wise, I much much much prefer my current gig to all of my other ESL teaching jobs, mainly for the reasons of hours worked per week, the materials and curriculum provided, and the fabulous adult students as compared to the cat-herding atmosphere of teaching five or six or seven classes of Korean kids and 'tweens all day.  I loathed the split shifts in Mexico and the only problem here is that we have had a very recent development in which they have changed all the foreign teachers from five to six-day schedules for the summer (and possibly beyond). Needless to say, we are livid at having our "weekends" (two days off in a row) taken away. My 26 hours of work are now spread across six days, so I've got time to organize my life and do things, but can't take weekend trips for three months -- or possibly more -- which is so lame.

Food is easy and cheap here. Not quite as cheap as Mexico, more vegetable options than Korea (and far less seaweed, thank you very much! said the allergic-to-seaweed-lady), not much English on menus, lots of pictures though, and in Guangzhou, plenty of Western, Indian, and other foreign restaurants including multiple expat-filled pubs and taverns.

But am I planning to stay in Guangzhou past this year? No. One might wonder why, since I seem to like the job and whatnot. Yesterday, it hit me quite strongly while I was running, the reason why I won't be here forever. As I ran through my neighborhood of tall, gray, skyscrapers, "Useless Desires" came on my running play list and Patty Griffin sang that wonderful line of hers, "The sky turns to fire/against the telephone wire..."  I looked around me and realized that in the gray Guangzhou rainy season haze and the utter lack of expansive view, I haven't seen that sight in ages! For that alone, I will hie myself to a good ol' open space to wander and ramble again in my lifetime.

I sit 10 stories above the street

I was unable to post on Thursday due to a random can't-connect-to-Blogspot error. Apologies!

Anyone who likes music and/or deeply loves some band or other has probably listened to quite a few live albums in his/her day. The story I am about to tell will resonate with Indigo Girls fans but also, I think, anyone who enjoys a live album -- as for you people born five minutes ago who only download your music one track a time, I can't help you.

I enjoy listening to a live album (say, 1200 Curfews) that is put together with songs from various shows and interesting artist chatter to link and introduce the songs, but there is one thing that just really annoys me. There are a few occasions on the aforementioned album when one Indigo Girl (OK, its's usually Emily) starts to talk about the next song and before actually introducing it, she gives it away by something she says in her little intro. For example, "So I was thinking about Galileo..." which elicits a huge cheer from the crowd and even a sarcastic "Nice segue" from Amy. Well, before another certain song she mentions that she was thinking about her little boyfriend Danny in sixth grade, and a faint recognition cheer can be heard from in the background, clearly coming from the tenth or so of the fans who now know she is about to launch into the story behind "Least Complicated" because we are just that devoted and know all about the whys and wherefores of most of their songs' origins. OK, fair enough that some people are still in the dark - no problem. She then says, "I went to Woolworth's and I bought him a ring." At this point, there is a huge, loud recognition cheer (for which Emily has to pause in her story, even) because now most everyone knows what's coming. The damn chorus of the song, after all, involves the fact that "[she] bought [him] that ring because [she] never was cool." OK, great. Now we are all in. Here come's "Least Complicated." Emily finishes talking about the "beginning of the rest of [her] life" and we're off ...

Except! Except then!  When they start playing the song, there is another recognition cheer a few bars into the guitar-strumming intro. It's like, what?!  Who is doing that?  We've already established that we knew what was coming and cheered for it. The people who give that oh-my-god-thank-you-for-playing-this recognition cheer at that point just remind me of the jackasses on Facebook who comment on someone's "OMG thanks for all the birthday wishes!!" status with a "Happy birthday!"  Do you just want the whole world to know how entirely you have missed the boat, or what?

Yes, these are the musings of someone with too much time and/or Indigo Girls trivia on her hands.

And here we are in June. Summer in Guangzhou is shaping up to look a lot like spring in Guangzhou: warm gray, hazy days punctuated with rain. I guess it is a bit hotter, because we are running the A/C. Haven't yet got an electric bill with this new cost factored in. Our bills overall have been pretty cheap, so here's hoping it's not too much of a shock to the system!

What an adult-like nerd I am blogging about weather and electricity bills. Other recent happenings in the GZ; work, work, work; a new schedule at work about which the foreign teachers are not happy; two consecutive first-place trivia wins at the pub quiz in two different Western-themed, expat-filled taverns in Zhujiang New Town; occasional Chinese class; Game of Thrones withdrawal this past week just like for everyone else around the world who watches it; reading; being crowded on the Metro -- you know, the usual.

I think June needs a thing. You know how March has in like a lion, out like a lamb? Why doesn't June have a thing like that?

How to learn a language without really trying

The short answer: you can't.

The longer answer: you still can't, but I'll talk about it in more paragraphs. Ever since I have started trotting off to teach English in Asian countries, one of the most common questions from friends back home has been more of an assumption than a question. They'll ask if I speak Korean, or, now I guess, Chinese, but they seem kind of surprised to learn that the answer is no, that I am not fluent, not by a long shot, in these languages of countries where I have lived.

And by the way, I am the person who likes studying languages, who has always liked studying languages, who got the highest of my high grades in high-school German and French, who took Polish for a semester in college just 'cause, who regularly reads newspapers and books in French and Spanish and is always looking for simple German books, who has taken Korean and Mandarin classes while living abroad,. etc. etc. The spirit is willing, indeed! One of my friends said to me the first time I lived in Korea, after a few months of my being there, "If I know you, you're speaking better Korean than the Koreans by now." But I wasn't, and I still don't, and here's why: when you teach English abroad, you often find yourself working full-time in an English speaking environment, immersing your students, disciplining the children who speak in their native language. Even at my current job, teaching adults, there's an English-only policy that is indeed enforced.

Most people don't understand.how very much of my day is spent speaking English. Add to that the fact that I live with an English-speaker, and the tendency of expat teacher communities to be separate from locals in nightlife, poetry readings, arts, etc.. and you have a recipe for being nowhere near fluent in the official language of your country.

Yes, I believe you should try. You should take a class (I'm doing that) and listen to the language in various media and study a bit on your own and jabber with people in your daily encounters. I got really proficient at store/taxi/ticket counter Korean!  As it happens, I would try to learn Mandarin even if I didn't feel compelled to, because I like language and languages. I just invite you to consider how good of a football player you would be if you hung around watching football practice for a year, or how well you would play the violin if you worked in the box office of symphony hall.  News flash: language is a skill. It totally needs to be practiced to be acquired, just like a sport or musical instrument. You might have a talent for it, but you still have to pick up the equipment and do something to bring out that talent.  Living abroad gives you chances to practice a language, of course! But not 24/7.  Not when you are teaching English and being paid not to speak any other language.

I would also invite you to consider how a person from Honduras or Ecuador living in Phoenix who gets a job as a dishwasher in a Mexican restaurant and speaks in Spanish with a bunch of co-workers every day and then goes home to Spanish-speaking roommates might not magically become fluent in English overnight. Just putting that out there.

That said, my goal for June is to ramp up my language study. The first four months here were busy, chaotic, and full of out-of-town commitments. I plan to spend most of the summer right here in Guangzhou, and I am going to improve my Mandarin when I am not working. Let's check in come August and see how I did!