A Class Act All The Way

I've not blogged in a while - this is either because nothing's been going on, too much has been going on, or I've become terminally lazy and bored with everything and lost my will to journal events that will probably only make me angry when I read them again. However, I've summoned the strength to do just that, right now, for your benefit. And by benefit I mean "read this, and if you have an inkling of sense you'll never ever come to Xinjiang Normal University".

I've complained about the Stanleys before; but now I realise I've been slightly wrong - the root of the problem lies with three Azerbaijani students (two brothers and one sister). They are a nightmare. The youngest one (16?) cannot produce anything other than a monotonous non-stop tirade of sound when asked to read out loud (ignoring punctuation and even omitting a rest between paragraphs, let alone sentences); the middle sibling (Gulaga, I feel it's okay to mention his name since he writes it on EVERYTHING - the board, the desks, maps on the wall, the windows, you name it) is probably the most annoying possibly-ADHD person I have ever met, and he lacks social skills and a suitable mental age to boot ("teacher teacher pick me pick me", or simply not shutting up when the teacher is talking, or walking round the classroom in the middle of lessons, or - like most of the other students - dashing out when his phone rings to answer a call ... all this from a 17 year old dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase, playing the man about town), and finally the oldest one, 18 I am told ... he seems to be the most normal of the three but this isn't saying much. He still lacks an attention span or any kind of common manners or courtesy that should be shown toward a teacher / in a university environment.

This week I've had the pleasure of seeing all these Central Asian students packing up their bags and preparing to leave about 10 minutes before the end of the lesson because they figured we were done with the interesting part of the class and the teacher's a bit of a pushover (she is, I have no idea how or why she puts up with so much shit from the class - someone told me on Monday she threw some chalk at these kids ... I said if I was the teacher I would throw the KIDS out of the window and be done with it; I went further to say if I was their teacher they'd all be dead by now, and I'm not kidding.) They need high-speed lead injections to their brains, the sooner the better.

It's not just these younger ones who can't pay attention either though - this week also saw an older woman in the class (I estimated 40+ though my friend says I'm being a bit harsh) committing such an act of duncery (I made that word up but it's rather nice I think you'll agree) that I actually turned around and reprimanded her. Gulaga had just spent a good couple of minutes embarrassing himself by answering the teacher's "What is the abbreviation for this type of train in China?" with "They are green", and I thought after the fairly obvious correction by the teacher there'd be no one else misunderstanding the simple question, but nooooo I was wrong. Behind me, this behemoth of a woman (seriously, she could do with losing a bit of weight) tries to answer the next question (identical but about a different type of train) with "They are white" ... I actually turned round and exasperatedly half-spat the words "ABBREVIATION not COLOUR" in Chinese ... god, would it kill them to listen? And if they don't understand could they just keep shut like I do most of the time?

While I'm on the subject of keeping shut, would it be possible for them to close their gobs while I'm being asked to read out loud? It would be the least they could do.

The worst thing about all this is not that their Chinese is better than mine (after all I kind of expect that from people who learnt all their Chinese in China and who havent had to go to high school because when they got here with Daddy from Azerbaijan he arranged for them to come straight to uni via an admissions contact of his so they wouldnt have to "do Biology, Chemistry, Physics, all those HARD subjects" as the youngest of the three put it) but that this is supposed to be a better class than I was in last semester!

Then again, what do you expect from the university who has not only managed to lose an exchange contract with a British uni (as far as I know, after just 2 years of sending students here, Newcastle has cancelled the exchange, or at least not offered it for this coming year), but also lost a contract with the US State Dept for English teachers (because they treat them all like shit, literally, and they simply wouldn't stand for it). Apparently Anniwar, the useless sack of crap who was supposed to be in charge of the foreign exchange people, has now been moved to a different department (but not sacked for some reason), so maybe there is hope for the future; however, as long as the university keeps allowing un-vetted foreign nationals in on the basis that they have money alone, and until it learns what a university ought to be like, I doubt very much that anything is going to change.

Rant over, I'm off to sleep. This week has been less than exciting. Next week I get to plant a tree or something. See how THAT goes.

DAYS TIL I AM IN THE UK: 95

Choosing A University

The first post in what I hope will be a year-long blog of my Year Abroad experience - here I answer the question I get asked not most, but quite a lot ... "Why on earth are you choosing to study in Urumqi???"

I don't know how other universities in the UK (or indeed the world) allow students to choose their placements for years abroad, nor whether Newcastle will change its policies in the future, so I can only comment and give advice based on my own experience. In my case, students in their second year of study were given basic information about year abroad posts towards the end of their first year (I seem to recall that anyway), and then more details soon into the first semester of their second year. Students taking European languages are offered a choice between studying at a university or arranging a work placement. Students taking East Asian languages are offered only study positions at affiliated exchange universities.

Choosing was based on personal preference versus available spaces at the host universities. Where this process was concerned, the main problem was its speed (or relevant lack thereof) and the onus on students as a group to sort out themselves and their destinations. If you have no prior knowledge of China, then the choice of 6 different universities could seem quite daunting. Information and Year Abroad (YAB) meetings came quite late into the year, as did finalising choices; with hindsight I can now say that everything has worked out okay, everyone knows where they are going and most people have received paperwork from the host institutions. But be prepared to feel like the SML is taking their time! As for how to choose, your opinions, personal experience, likes (and dislikes!), and ability to handle interesting / new / different situations will all affect your final decision, but here's how I came to mine (the six institutions are Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Chengdu, Haikou and Urumqi):

* I lived in Shanghai for a month on my GAP year, and found that while it is in China it is not terribly Chinese. No one really stared at you (something Chinese will do when something / someone is interesting or strange to them) which is a good measure of how urban the place is! Not to mention the pollution and size of the city (circa 20 million people) - I quickly grew to dislike Shanghai, so that was automatically ruled out.

* As the capital, Beijing is heralded as a political and cultural hub, and the quality of the Chinese spoken there is second to none. Indeed, 北京话 (beijinghua, or Beijing Dialect) is standard across China, in a fashion similar to Queen's English - or what it would be if everyone in England was taught to speak "correctly" rather than in their regional accents / dialects. For a linguist, studying at the Beijing Cultural and Language University (BCLU) would be a dream. However, I have been to Beijing, and my opinion was quite jaded by the dreary weather (it was February), the smog and pollution, the masses of concrete (Tiananmen Square is just a large concrete plaza), not to mention its proximity (as with Shanghai) to the sea, giving its summers a propensity for humidity - all these lined up to rule out Beijing.

* Haikou is based on the island of Hainan, south of the Chinese mainland. It is like Florida in terms of climate, but with (I think) more monsoons. It is humid in the extreme - and yes, your accommodation might come with internet included, and air conditioning units, but it is likely I would never want to leave my room, and that both of these things would become a necessity rather than a luxury.

* Moving away from the sea, the cities of Chongqing and Chengdu are both located in Sichuan province. The main problem I have with Sichuan province is not the geology (it was recently the centre of a whopping earthquake), but the food. People belittle my reasoning here, but Sichuan food is spicy. I cannot handle more than a korma, and certainly not any chilli dishes - a recent excursion to a well-known Japanese restaurant proved this when my girlfriend offered me a slice of chilli and I foolishly accepted. It is likely that I would be eating three times a day (minimum), which amounts to approximately 1000 meals during my time in China. To feel upset and discomfort one thousand times in the course of a year is not something I want to remember from my YAB.

* Finally, we are left with Urumqi (Wulumuqi) - a landlocked city, 2000km from the nearest sea, where the summers are hot and dry, and the winters are exceedingly cold (average of -15C). A city which, though heavily industrialised, is only a short journey from stunning views (the Tianshan mountain range runs south of the city, and Heavenly Lake is so close that when it freezes over in winter I am told people go en masse to skate on it). A city where the options for local travel are not to the traditional Asian destinations of South Korea, Vietnam or Japan, but the more untouched countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and parts of Siberia (Russia). Yes, I am biased. But the city seems perfect for me, given the aforementioned choices - it is only 2 million people in size, it has a national ethnic minority (more on them in a later post), an ethnic language by default, and I will be forced to use my Chinese to communicate because English speakers are few and far between. Oh, and it's cheap as chips.

So, my advice to students who are given a range of options, but not much information, and are forced to make a relatively fast decision - get together quickly (use Facebook, set up a group to discuss issues), and then get your heads into some books or pick the brains of people who have either been to China and returned (fourth year students) or those of us out there. Read as much as you can, and ask as many questions as you can, because nothing is a stupid question - if you arrived in Chongqing and didn't like chilli but had neglected to ask, you might find yourself in for a horrible year.

(If anyone wants to contact me regarding Urumqi, please feel free. Either leave a comment on my blog or email me at h.l.joseph@ncl.ac.uk)