I have no idea how to begin this post, or even what it will be about. Quite a lot of things have happened recently, and I'll try and put them in some order. At the end I think I will include some observations of life around here, because there are some things that need to be said.
We started classes on Monday and the pace of work here is definitely faster than anything I've been exposed to before. Firstly, there was some confusion over our timetables - on paper I have about 24 hours a week (maybe 25), which is about double my lessontime in the UK (because all my courses in England require me to go away and research stuff and learn around topics, whereas here there is direct tuition and you go away and learn the stuff that is very relevant to the books, words you dont know, etc). So that alone came as a bit of a shock. But I discovered some of the lessons are optional (those on Chinese culture for example) and some are repeats (there are 2 culture lessons a week, one is taken at a slower pace, but both are optional and there is no test, it's purely for information and enjoyment). Some are optional but I will be attending (the HSK lessons, for example, more on that when I've actually had one - tomorrow? the teacher didn't turn up to the last one). And some are just nondescript, we were supposed to have a "Second Learning Class" this afternoon, but no one showed up, so we got the impression it's optional. We can ask tomorrow. At any rate we think it might just be a homework class, in which case sod that, I can do homework at home, as the name suggests. So my workload is now down to about 20 hours a week, hurray. But what a 20 hours!
This week alone I have been introduced to somewhere between 70 and 100 new words, new uses for words I knew, or combinations of words, and I've been expected to learn them within a day of seeing them. How it works is, my grammar and language teacher will go through a passage with us from the book. We'll see the new words, say them, use them in the passage, have things explained, etc. When we come back the next day, we have a test on these words. So you have about 24 hours to learn however many new words are being given to you, approximately 30 per lesson. We've had two lessons this week. Yup, that's right, twice this week I have had to learn 30 words (pronunciation, written form, meaning), and be tested on them. It was really brought home when the teacher got two students to go and write words she called out on the blackboard. I did not want to be shown up, so I got down and learnt the words! How much of it stays in my head is another matter, I'm guessing this pace is too intense to store EVERYTHING, unless you are recapping and using the vocab constantly. And even then you have to remember how to write it all. Yikes.
The same goes for listening class, all new words have to be learnt, and the reading class, and so on. This amounts to a LOT of new words. It doesn't help that sometimes I know some of the words in the list but don't know what other words in the book mean. I'm constantly using a dictionary to get the meanings of just about everything. Talk about being thrown in the deep end. Oh and my listening is rubbish. I barely understand the tapes when they are played, the people speak so fast. Talking of fast, that's one thing the day is not. Classes are two hours each, with a break every hour (about 5 or 10 minutes), but that's a lot of classtime. 0930 - 1130, 1140 - 1330, break for lunch, and then some days I have a class from 1600 - 1750. I imagine in the winter that last class will see me leaving university in pitch black and minus 20-something Celsius. Brrrr.
Thinking of "university", this place is WEIRD. It's not at all what I imagine an institute of higher education to be like. Perhaps the languages courses for foreigners recruit differently, I don't know. All I can say is the behaviour of some members of my class (notably the Kazakh males - the girls are really good students and I don't tar them with the same brush at all) is simply unacceptable. They turn up late for classes (three of them trooped in 50 minutes late today), are rude (one of the three walked past the teacher, who was telling him off, and just muttered "yeah yeah yeah"), and basically behave like they are in some crap middle school. Take for example the guy in Marta's class who was asked by the teacher to remove his chewing gum because they were doing pronunciation; he refused, the teacher insisted, so he opened the classroom door and spat his gum into the corridor. In the words of one of the teacher-trainers who will be working here for the next 2 years showing Chinese teachers how to teach Western-style, "I would have made him go out there, pick it up, and put it back in his mouth". Excuse my French, but too fucking right.
It's got to get to a head some time. I don't want to be in a class with these people really. Theyre not disruptive all of the time, but being even a BIT disruptive is inexcusable at a university. And getting up in the middle of a class to leave the room to use your phone ("sorry teacher" - yeah? if you are so sorry don't bloody well do it, moron) is bang out of order. Why the teachers don't take a firmer stance, or just kick people out of their classes, I do not know. It's even written in our handbooks (which we now, have, long story) that such measures can be taken. And yet for some reason they don't. If it goes on like this much longer I think I will be having a word with my teachers or writing a letter to the head of the school. These guys can go in their own damn class and maybe the rest of us can get on and learn.
In other news, Marta and I finally got our Temporary Residence Permits (YAY), and will soon have proper ones stamped into our passports (hope they look nice) ... and we were also given the International Students Handbook, which we should have got when we arrived, but our college forgot (how convenient). This book tells us how to do EVERYTHING from getting our residency permit to getting a dining card for the school canteen. In short, having this on Day 1 would have made things a lot easier for us. Still, we have copies now, that's what matters.
Penultimately, could someone please tell me if they have ever encountered something like this in child-raising around the world: the children here, up to a certain age (I assume whenever they know to go to the toilet on the toilet and not in their pants) have trousers that have been manufactured with a split around the middle, which allows the kid to squat / be held by their parents and urinate / defecate freely without soiling their clothes. This is bad enough, but when a parent is holding their child over paving and there is a grassy plot five meters away, one has to wonder about the workings of the Xinjiang mind. I've not seen it elsewhere in China so I don't know if it extends to other countries nearby, or other provinces, or what. I know nappies are expensive (and wasteful?) but there are things like terry-cloths, right? It's really brought home when you walk down the street and see a kid run out of a shop, squat himself down on the steps outside, pee, and then get up and run off again. I hope winter comes soon because they can't keep their kids like this when it's below zero. Disgusting. Simply disgusting.
Oh and finally, to Mum, Aunty Anne, or anyone else not technologically inclined, you can all leave comments on this blog (which will centralise things for me and save emailing everything) by clicking on the comments link, the grey bit underneath each entry that says how many "attempts to shut me up" have taken place. You don't need to be a member of blogger or wordpress or google, you can leave your name or remain anonymous, it's up to you, but I do like people commenting and I do (occasionally) respond! :)
