Bike Thief at Large!

Arianna and Nils. Two German exchange students at our school.

Our waiban (Peggy) wanted to give hamburger grilling a shot!

Hey everyone. Here's what's been going on in Wuhan lately.

As I mentioned a few posts ago, most of us teachers bought bikes a month and a half ago. Traffic in Wuhan is TERRIBLE (I can't emphasize that enough), so I was glad to get one this year. Less time spent waiting at bus stops, cramming into standing room only buses, then being stuck in traffic jams for ridiculously long periods of time.

Two Saturdays ago started out as a great day. I was already planned for the next week's lessons and had some time to kill. The weather was nice, so I decided to ride my bike to Lu Xiang (our downtown). It was a little ways away, but I had the time. I locked it up next to a bus stop hoping that having a lot of people around would deter any bike thieves. I had a great day at Lu Xiang. I studied Chinese at a coffee shop for a few hours before meeting up with friends at Papa John's for pizza. Everyone else took a bus or taxi home, but I was excited to ride home. It's quite the adrenaline rush to ride around thousands of people and swerving cars! A few weeks ago, I had Rebecca on the back of my bike and clipped a taxi's mirror.

As I was walking back, I had a bad feeling that my bike wouldn't be there. It had been parked for a few hours. Wuhan is a huge city, and I know I'm prone to be a target as a foreigner. My gut feeling was right. I walked around the area a little just to make sure the police hadn't moved my bike in case I had parked it illegally. I never found it. I'm guessing someone on the other side of the city is enjoying my wheels now. I've heard plenty of stories about people getting their bike stolen. So instead of being too angry, I just felt like it was my time to have it happen. Oh well.

Last weekend the six Zhong teachers at our school decided to have an American cook-out and invite some of the new foreign teachers at our school as well as some of our Chinese friends. Organizing something like that in China is quite the process! We had to go across town to buy the burgers and other foreign food. All in all, we had pretty big, multi-cultural barbecue with almost 30 people. Besides the Americans and Chinese, we also invited a few German exchange students who are here for the year. It was a lot of work, but I think everyone had a great time eating burgers, playing wiffle-ball, and hanging out.

As expected, it wasn't too long before I got my first sinus infection of the year. I've been trying to run fairly regularly, but the air is awful this year due to more construction close to our school. So many times, I'll be glancing at the landscape and think, "if that was fog, it would be beautiful." Unfortunately, it's smog. This infection has stuck around for about two weeks, but thankfully the worst is past. It was difficult to teach some of my classes with a bunch of crap in my throat and a faucet for a nose.

Other than that, not a lot has happened. You can be thinking of some opportunities I might have in the future to talk with some students. I am planning to give some Books to students who were asking about it at the beginning of the year. Also, one of my classes is doing an English project. Some of the students have decided to do theirs' on appreciating the New Testament. Their teacher has asked me to talk with them about it in a few weeks. I'm definitely not an expert on theology, but I'm looking forward to the opportunity.

I finally have wireless internet in my room which means I can use my iTouch to communicate more easily with all of you. Through a free app, you can text/call me just like a phone in America at 517-798-4420.

Also, I have another app called Instagram. Think of it as twitter for pictures. I'll try to post the occasional interesting China picture. You can follow me at rmathews10 if you'd like to.

Grade 2 students will be on a field trip next week, so I'm going to enjoy some time off! I hope all of you are doing great!

Matthew 6:19-21

Foreigners 2, Chinese 0

Foreigners win!

Kirk driving in for a lay-up

Hello again everyone. I hope you're all doing well. Here's what I've been up to recently.

This year, we've had a lot more opportunities to play sports with the Chinese students and teachers. Our school has 4 German exchange students studying at our school. We take Kung Fu and Chinese classes with them, so we've gotten to know them fairly well. Recently, they told us that a school team (I think it's like an intramural team) wanted to challenge us and the Germans to a soccer game. We have quite the mix of foreigners. Some of us had played soccer growing up, but most had not. However, we had to represent our countries! It was a lot of fun. We played for about an hour with no subs while the other team had a few. We were dead tired, but pulled out a 3-1 win.

A few days later, I received a call from an Chinese English teacher. He said that some of the Chinese teachers wanted to challenge us to a basketball game. My first year, I showed my students a copy of my hometown newspaper's sports section when I was on the front after a homecoming game. Ever since then, the rumors have spread around campus that I'm an amazing basketball player. Some have even asked me if I played at Duke!

I was excited for the chance to play an organized game. We played with the same group of foreigners. I think Kirk and I are the only ones who played organized basketball growing up, but some of the other foreigners are pretty athletic. I knew it would be a pretty tough game because I've played with many of the Chinese teachers, and they aren't too bad. We had our work cut out for us!

We took an early lead, but the Chinese teachers rallied back. They led by 6-12 points for most of the game. Kirk and I were the two primary scorers, and our shots just weren't falling. Finally, in the 4th quarter, I started to hit a few three's and Kirk was getting in the paint for some lay-ups. I hit a 3 to put us up 65-62, and we managed to hang on for a 1-point victory. It was a fun game, especially with quite a few teachers and students watching and cheering.

We just finished a short two day vacation to celebrate National Day. Basically, it's China's 4th of July. It was nice to have the break, but I'm ready to finally get on a regular schedule. While I've been teaching for over a month, I think I've only taught one normal week. There's been lots of short holidays and schedule changes.

Our chrch has 50-100 people from all over Wuhan, which is a very spread-out city. We don't get to see each other too much, so one person usually shares at the end of each service to introduce themselves and talk a little bit about how He has been working in their lives. I talked this past Sunday. I was a little nervous, but it seemed to go well as I talked about how I've been encouraged during my time in China by seeing some of my students become brothers and sisters.

That's pretty much all from here. Please be "thinking" of some of my teammates from other schools. Jacqueline is a teacher at a middle school on the other side of Wuhan. Her father unexpectedly passed away back in the states. Jacqueline, her husband Paul, and Jacq's younger brother are now in America for the funeral. They will coming back to China this weekend.

Also, be thinking of Melodie and her family. She is a teacher at a university here in Wuhan. Her mother has been having some health problems and had some tests run. Melodie was here yesterday, but I forgot to ask for more info! Hopefully, there has been some improvement.

Lastly, I just wanted to let you know that I added a couple of tabs to my blog. The second tab is my contact information. The third one will be a bunch of funny and/or interesting articles I've found on the internet about China.

I hope all of you are doing well! Philippians 4:6-7

The trend continues...

I don't understand!

The 2011-2012 Zhong Relations Team

Hello again everyone. The trend has continued. Whenever I have a ton of things to blog about, I don't have time to write. When I have plenty of time, there's nothing really new. This update is the former. A lot has been going on.

Over the past two years, our group has become pretty good friends with a family that runs a small store. We usually buy our drinks there before we go to a nearby restaurant. They don't speak a lot of English, and most of us don't speak much Chinese. However, we've communicated the best we can with them. We've had dinner together and hung out with them during a few holidays. At the end of last year, I thought we had established a good enough relationship to give them a Book. They were very grateful and seemed intrigued by it. We weren't able to tell them much other than we were C's and that this Book was very important to us. Honestly, I didn't think about it too much over the summer.

A few weeks ago ZZ (what we'll call her for short) told us that she was reading it and was very interested. ZZ is one of the girls in the family whom we have gotten to know the best these past few years. We said if she ever had time, we'd love to take her to a Chinese chrch. One day, Rebecca and I were at the store and she asked if we could go with her that Sunday. I was really excited. We rarely go to the Chinese chrch since it's so far away. However, some of us were already planning on going because a past student of mine (who is now a sister) wanted to go.

Kirk and I went to the English service with my past student because that was the only time she was able to attend. Mandi went with ZZ to the Chinese service since she can't speak English. ZZ really enjoyed her time there. Please be "thinking" of her and her family. The Book has her very interested. Mandi wrote a great blog on her time with ZZ if you'd like to read more about it by clicking here.

I've really been encouraged by our entire Zhong group this year. We've grown to 27 teachers this year! The teachers from Huangshi came to Wuhan this past weekend. It was the first time all of us were together. We had a great time sharing about how each of us ended up in China and what we were excited about for the coming year. Plus, it's always great to hit up Papa John's for pizza! I know it sounds cliche, but I mean it when I say that we have an amazing group this year!

The 5 guys from Zhong (Me, Kirk, Taylor, Nathan, and our Zhong boss Adam) who live in our part of town have started a small group. I can already tell that we're really going to encourage and challenge each other to live like JC.

Getting slightly famous for extremely weird reasons has also become somewhat normal. As I mentioned in my last post, we are taking a Kung Fu class with some students. I wore my Ting Bu Dong t-shirt the first day. Ting bu dong means "I hear you, but I don't understand" in Chinese. The school photographer was taking pictures, and got one of me in my shirt. It somehow ended up on the Chinese facebook and apparently got a lot of comments!

Kirk, Taylor, Mandi, and I also performed the infamous "Baby" by Justin Bieber at Mr. Mai's recently. Bieb's is HUGE in China. Mandi told me that she had learned the rap, so I told her we had to do the song sometime. You can watch it here on Rebecca's blog.

There's a lot more I could write about, but I'll end with what I promised in my last update. On the first day of every class, I have my students fill out an information sheet. Among other things, they write down their English names (which they pick themselves) and any questions they have about me or America. Here's a Top 20 list of my personal favorites.

What's your English name?

• Elves
  
• Leopard Cat
• Silence
• Vacuum
• Yogurt
• Listening Jason
• New Season
• Spy
• Hermtice
• Kentucky
• Peachy
• Noyes
• Vehicle
• Country Boy
• Utah
• Cloud Strife
• Demon Hunter
• Soviet Tank Units
• Unogibber
  
• 1900
  

Do you have any questions about Ryan or America?

• Some people taught me that you were in basketball team of Duke. Is that true?
• How much do you know about FBI?
• I have no question temporary. Now I get one: What's the most romantic thing you did for your girlfriend?
  
• Are you married? Do you have a girlfriend? (As usual, the most asked question!)
  
• Who is the most handsome man in America?
• Don't ask me questions in class.
• Do you think you are a sanguine man?
• I love Narnia.
• Do you have a girlfriend now? If yes, can you tell us about her? If no, are you interested in a Chinese TV dating show called Fei Chang Wu Rao?
  
• Are you a genius?
  
• How about the religion of NBA?
• Do you think that you are handsome?
  
• Why is there a B*ble and many many pillows in the America's hotels?
  
• How do you practice your religion in China?
• How do C's live in America?
  
• Please introduce something about your religion.
• Could you teach me the meaning of some C*ris*ian songs?
• What's the most important thing that the Holy B*ble tells us?
• How can I get a B*ble like you?

Philippians 4:6-7

In China, On-line

Hey everyone,

Year 3 of "The Skinny White Kid" is back! Congratulate yourself for surviving a whole summer without the most entertaining and informative blog in history, and rejoice that it has returned!

I've been back in Wuhan for about two weeks. I planned on blogging quite a while ago, but the internet in my apartment was down the first week. The school IT guys were able to get us set up again. Unfortunately, I missed two fantasy football drafts! So that problem might mean a few more losses this year.

Anyways, as you would expect, a lot has happened the past two weeks, so I'll try to give it to you in quick bullet points.

- Kirk and I flew over together. It was about as smooth a trip as we've had. No canceled flights or delays. During our layover in Los Angeles, we were able to meet up with Daniel (our teammate for the past two years) and Joe (a high school friend). We ate at the famous In-N-Out Burger near the airport. We even saw a famous actor (Topher Grace) even though we were only there for a few hours.

- When I arrived at my apartment, I was pleasantly surprised at how clean it was. Last year, it was really dirty, and there were even a bugs running around. At the end of last year, I tried to clean my place really well hoping that would control the mold and dust this time, and it did.

- The school originally told us that we would start teaching on Monday (Sep 5). However, I got a call last Wednesday (Aug 31) afternoon from a teacher. He told me that the Senior 2 teachers (Rebecca, Mandi, and I) were going to start the next day! We were frustrated because we hadn't prepared to teach or made copies of information sheets that we needed to give our students. Luckily, the three of us have all taught before, so we had an idea on what to do the first day and we were able to have the copy room ladies make them just in time. The first week of classes went well overall.

- Tony, our new Chinese boss, has been great. This year, he convinced the school to buy us soft couches for our rooms. For the past two years, we've only had wooden chairs and benches. It's so nice to have somewhere soft to sit besides my bed!

- Tony also has the foreign teachers taking Kung Fu and Chinese lessons from the school. The Kung Fu class is with a bunch of students and is all in Chinese, but it'll still be fun to hopefully pick up a little.

- All the teachers decided to buy bikes this year. They're not the nicest, but they'll get us around. Our school is a little out of the city, but the area is growing. Now that we have some stores, restaurants, and our gym within bike-riding distance, it'll be nice to have them.

- Our good friend Patrick (he's in a picture in my last post) moved away from Wuhan over the summer. Fortunately, he is here this week for a business trip. It was fun to go to Papa John's and play some pool with him.

I also wanted to give you a list of the foreign teachers at my school, so you can know who I'm talking about when I mention them. It's a great group, and we're all good friends.

Kirk: 3rd year teacher from Ohio, teaching Senior 1, also one of my best friends from college
Rebecca: 3rd year teacher from Michigan, teaching Senior 2
Taylor: 3rd year teacher from California, teaching Senior 1, he used to teach at our school, but this is his first year since I've been here
Mandi: 2nd year teacher Louisiana, teaching Senior 2
Nathan: 1st year teacher from California, teaching Senior 1

That's a quick update for now. I'm hoping to start getting some pictures up on here soon. My next post will be a list of some of my favorite names and questions from my students on their first day.

Philippians 4:6-7

Home!

Daniel at Cory and Lara's party

Cory, Lara, and I. We both wore the same shirt on accident. It says "I hear you, but I don't understand" in Chinese!

Annie, me, and Patrick at Mr. Mai's.

Mr. Meng

Suzanne, a waitress at the Aloha Diner. She will be moving away this summer.

The teachers in my office. Mr. Zhou, Jane, me, and Teacher Wu.

Hey everyone! I made it home Tuesday morning at about 7am after a 30-some hour trip. I probably wouldn't have made it home in time if it wasn't for my friend Joe, who works for Delta Airlines. Kirk and I flew Delta from Los Angeles to Detroit, but our first two flights in China were on a Chinese airline. That airline messed up our baggage, and our flights were delayed. With those together, we had hardly any time to make our last flight. Fortunately, we had planned to hang out with Joe during our LA layover. Instead of hanging out, Joe spent the time helping us out. We were the last two on the plane before they closed the gate! Thanks a lot, Joe!

The last two weeks of my time in China were basically spent saying a lot of goodbyes. To my students, to teachers, to friends, to the other foreign teachers. It was nice to have our last week off which gave us more time to visit with so many people. Next school year will be the first time we will have lost some of our teammates. The first year, there were 5 of us (me, Kirk, Daniel, Cory, and Rebecca). This year we just added Mandi. Next year, Cory and Daniel will stay in California. We'll have two new teammates. It'll be really strange to not have them with us next year!

A lot happened these past few weeks, but here's a quick list along with some pictures above.

- I went to a goodbye party for Cory and Lara (Lara is his Chinese wife). They will stay in America and get their Master's degrees.

- We said goodbye to a lot of friends at Mr. Mai's. One of my closest Chinese friends (Patrick) is moving to Nanjing, a city close to Shanghai. Hopefully, we'll be able to see him a few times next year.

- One of the math teachers whose office is near mine had a goodbye lunch for me and the other teachers. Mr. Meng is a hilarious teacher who can't speak English very well, but he loves talking and teaching me Chinese!

- Rebecca, Mandi, and I went to dinner and had a very interesting conversation with a teacher at our school. This teacher is a member of a religion that is REALLY looked down upon in China (so much so that I can't even mention it on here). I'm glad I was finally able to learn more about this religion, as well as us share what we believe with her.

- Cory and Lara left a little too early for us to make one for them, but the other foreign teachers and I made a goodbye video for Daniel. It had a lot of interviews, funny skits, songs, etc. It was fun to make, but hard to hide it from Daniel while we made it!

- One of my students gave me a really cool gift before I left. She kept a record/journal of every lesson I taught their class along with some other things I did for the school! I know it was a lot of work for her, and I really appreciated it. It's something I'll be able to look back upon and remember this year.

- Wuhan had some flooding our last days there. So much so, that we had to walk home instead of take the bus one day. We had to walk in water that was knee-high for quite awhile. We also had to walk on a train bridge to avoid waist-high water. While we were on it, we were pretty close to getting run over! It was pretty crazy, but lots of fun too!

Well, I guess that's everything for now. I probably won't update this blog too much (if at all) over the summer, but it'll continue for Year 3 in August/September! I'm hoping to see as many of you as possible while I'm home! Have a great summer!

Finishing up

G

Grade 2 Class 22 on the last day of class. Just one of my 11 classes!

Hanging out with my students (Kevin, Isaac, and Wendy) over the holiday weekend.

At a smoothie shop with our Chinese friends (Douglas, Coral, and Lily). We convinced the worker to let us behind the counter for the picture!

Hey everyone. The end of the school year is just about here. This is my last week of teaching. Since it’s the last lesson, I’ve just been watching a movie or doing a campus-wide scavenger hunt. The students love doing something so out of the ordinary.

It’s been harder than I thought to say goodbye to most of my classes. Almost all of my students have been with me for two years. When I think about my job, they’re the first ones that come to mind. They’ll still be at school next year. However, I won’t be teaching them because they will move onto their senior year. As I’ve mentioned before, your senior year in China is basically a year-long review/study session for the GAOKAO exam, which determines what college they’ll attend. Their grades throughout their high school career basically don’t matter. It’s all about this one exam! They already feel a ton of pressure. I know I’ll see them around the school, but it’ll be strange to not see them every day and know that they’ll be incredibly stressed.

Quite a few of the students have been giving me letters and notes to thank me for teaching them which has choked me up a few times!

Last week was a small Chinese holiday, so I had a couple days off. I was able to go to a movie (Kung Fu Panda 2) with three of my students. The movie was really funny, and it was great to see them in a more relaxed environment. I was also able to go to chrch (the gvt allowed one) with another student for a second time.

Another friend (Coral) who we got to know well last year at Mr. Mai’s visited us. She moved to Beijing this year, so we hadn’t seen her in awhile. It’s weird to be living in China and having friends move away from me!

Other than that, not a lot of new stuff has happened. I cleaned my room like crazy over the holiday. I’m hoping this will help prevent mold (which is really common in our rooms) when I return in the fall. It’s also nice to have a clean room for a little while before the dirty Chinese air fills it with dust after a week!

We just judged a small English singing competition for our students. As usual, they asked us to perform at the last second. Daniel, Kirk, and I sang Beyonce’s “Halo” with our falsetto voices as best we could! I’ll post a video if I ever get a hold of one.

That’s all for now. 13 more days…

Pressure's on!

Teaching Class 26 during my open lesson

I have about a month left for this school year. It's still surreal that another year is ending, and I'll be saying goodbye to hundreds of students that I've taught, most of them for two years. Fortunately, they'll still be around for their senior year getting ready for the Gao Kao exam (think ACT/SAT with a LOT more pressure) even though I won't be teaching them. I think it's kind of cool that I'll be able to watch this group throughout their whole high school career.

Last week, I had an open lesson. Basically, this is when a bunch of the school's Chinese English teachers come to my lesson to take notes and pick up ideas for their classes. We've built good relationships with many of the teachers. Because of that, I wasn't extremely nervous. However, this is pretty much the only class where Chinese teachers will sit in on any of our classes the whole year. Plus, there are only two teachers who do them (Rebecca also did one). With that in mind, I felt a little bit of pressure to have a great class. If either of our classes didn't go well, it would reflect on our whole group. Another thing that adds pressure with open lessons, is that to the Chinese teachers, this lesson isn't a real lesson. It's more of a performance. Many Chinese teachers even practice their open lessons with their class beforehand! It's a pet peeve of mine. How are teachers supposed to learn how to teach a normal class when they're not watching one!!?? With our schedules, we can't "practice," so I had no idea how Class 26 would handle the pressure.

However, the lesson went really well! The textbook's unit was on cloning, so we talked about debating, then ended class with a short debate. I think students usually know that performing well makes their teacher look good. I purposely picked one of my better classes. They have good English, and I knew they would want me to look good (gain face), and they helped me out a lot! I have a few pictures from that lesson above.

This past weekend, the entire Zhong Relations team (about 17 people) went to some hot springs (a Chinese spa/swimming pool area) for our end of the year get together. We had a great time swimming, relaxing, and worshiping. It's always nice to hear about everyone's year and say goodbye to many of those who are going back to America for good. Hopefully I'll get a picture of everybody up on here soon. I forgot my camera, so I have to get it from someone else.

Now that the weather's been warming up, our group has been more motivated to get in shape. We've been doing a P90X (a famous DVD program) workout together once or twice a week, and those of us who are returning joined a gym nearby. Maybe I'll be add some muscle over time and weigh more than 130 pounds for once in my life!

Other than that, not a lot else is going on here that I can talk about. There are definitely some other things that I would like to share, but they'll have to wait until I get back to America. As I've said many times, it's been great to have quite a few opportunities to share my faith this year.

You can also be "thinking" of our end of the year craziness that we have to get figured out (visas, contracts for next year, etc). Last year, we almost didn't get our visas renewed in time thanks to an obscure rule about the type of pen you fill out forms with! I think we're more prepared this year, but you never know in China.

That's all for now! I'll be back in a month!