John Adams

I've been interested in history in all times.

Not until last week had I had the interview at a private school, the Lang. dept. Chair told me to be prepared that the school might want the Chinese teacher to teach one Chinese History class outside the regular language classes (IF, there aren't enough enrollment...). I remembered I used to think that if I didn't teach the language subject, I'd like to teach history instead.

History, i.e. his+story, apparently it's a genre about all kinds stories. Who wouldn't love stories? That's also the reason why I like watching movies, I guess, to see how the director tell a story.

Anyways, after Elizabeth I and II, almost all Jane Austen's adopted movies & TV series, I really enjoy watching HBO's John Adams for the past 2 weeks. It was only 5 years ago that I took the American History class during my 1st semester at SFSU. I could never remember the original 13 states at that time. However, after the 1st 2 episodes on HBO, those 13 states are easier to memorize now.

One interesting thing I observed in "John Adams" and it's also related to my profession is, when Johan Adams was assigned to gain the $$ and alliance with France in 1776, even as such a eloquent lawyer like John Adams himself failed to accomplish his mission due to the cultural difference and language barrier (Yeah... when the French king Louis XVI made fun of him:" No French? Not even one word?!" That really humiliated Adams).

Thank goodness, Adams' very political accurate wife Abigail asked him to bring their eldest son, John Quincy Adams (later he was elected as the 6th U.S. president in 1825 ), with him during this long trip. Little John Quincy went to school in Paris probably from ages 10~14, then at the age of 14, he travelled to St. Petersburg, Russia under his father's will to serve as translator and interpreter to the newly appointed American minster because the new U.S. diplomat needs a secretary who speaks French to help him survive in Queen Catherine's French-speaking court.

When I was watching this segment of the episode, I couldn't help but wondering what Mindy said in the comment about why most American are monolingual... So, we might see what things were like 230 years ago in the colonial America era. Sure, we can always debate that there might not be any resources for ordinary people to acquire a foreign language when they were struggling from day-to-day life. But, what about now?

Even now, most Americans still don't value the importance of acquiring foreign language(s). Of course the Bush Administration has stressed the need to have more Americans master “critical” languages, including Arabic, Chinese, Russian, Hindi and Farsi. Officials, noting that fewer than 2 percent of American students currently study any of the target languages, said that they are critical to national security and cultural understanding. However, from my previous interview experiences with one language school and 4 private schools in L.A. area, either none of the school directors have ideas of how the Chinese program will thrive (or we should say "survive" here, if they can't get enough students to enroll in the class, or drop out afterwards) or they don't know what to expect and achieve in this new Mandarin Chinese learning trend... There are still a lot of seeding and plowing to do in this newly developed ground.

Being able to speak French might not be the sole reason that John Quincy Adams later became the 6th U.S. president, but it was definitely the main reason why he was chosen to be the secretary at the age of 14. I believe that knowing a foreign language won't necessary bring you any immediate benefit, but surely will broaden your horizon of the world. And when the opportunity knocks on your door, you'll be more ready than others who don't posses this ability.

CarneySandoe SF Forum

"...Was it a waste of time?..."

My mom-in-law left a voice message in my cell asking me about the past event in San Francisco last weekend while she was tyring to set a date to meet us in L.A.. Later I told her, I didn't regret to spend about $600, 700 dollars (incl. 2 nights @hotel, flight tickets, public transits and basic meals) flying up to SF for that California private school job searching conference, and ended up having 2 interviews only. One school was the 2nd interview actually, another girl school I kinda like is located in Pasadena though (about 1 hr drive from my place, which means at least 2-hour commute every day... No way...).

But, it's always good to visit San Francisco. Even though it was still freezing cold (about 40~50 F/10~15C), I managed to get a massage in Chinatown, checked a few stores I've always liked, dined at "King of Thai" twice, "The Scala" French bistro for 1st day breakfast, "La French Press" for breakfast the 2nd morning, and "Boudin" for sourdough bread lunch.

Overall, it's a nice trip. But it's more like a little vocation to myself. As my step-father-in-law said: "Honey, you're entitled to it. No worries."

A few interesting observations during the forum:

1. The overall candidates are younger, and well-dressed.

Maybe it's a private school thing, or because you don't need a CA teaching credential for this, most candidates are like in their early or mid 20-something. And they sure know how to dress for success. I was a bit embarrassed by my very teacher-like outfit (black cashmere cardigan+coral shirt and gray trousers+silver flats). After living in the U.S. for 5 years, and seeing how those ESL teachers dressed up, I've been very sloppy for my personal image than I used to be. And I don't know why, I just can't dress up like a "corporate" anymore. Those tailored suit (blazer and skirt), 3-inch high heels are very far away from me now. I might just donate my 1 or 2 suits to dressforsuccess.org.

2. The myth of "Chinese" teacher.

The forum is in a pretty formal setting like 50 schools tried to interview all 50-200 candidates within 8 hours. So, it's sort like speed dating, everyone gets about 20-25 mins to talk to each other and find out if they're a good fit (of course, you have to make a request to the school you're interested in first, the school can either reject, ignore or accept you, and vice versa).

At one point, I was just waiting, and reading a book outside the conference hall with a bunch of other female candidates. Then we started to chat and found out we are all language teachers at the same table. The French teacher said something to catch my attention: ".... I was laid off because the school wanted to start a new Chinese program... but later I found out that new Chinese program was discontinued because there weren't enough students enrolled in the class."

Then a Spanish teacher complained about one of her previous interview experiences:"... I was talking to that director in Spanish during the whole interview. But at the end of it, she questioned me that she's afraid my Spanish is not good enough compared to the native Spanish speakers...".

An English teacher, who looks pretty young, and recently just received her master degree said: "No school is hiring English teacher now... I heard they just want Chinese teachers...". (My O.S.: Hello? Just want Chinese teachers? That's weird... I'm here! How come I requested interviews to 7 schools in L.A. area, got 2 rejections, 1 acceptance, 4 unheard...)? She continued:" I just did an interview with a Singapore high schools, they want me so bad. I could literally just accept that job on the spot... Maybe I should really think about it... I heard they have developed the whole system of 'Singlish' now...".

And of course, we together started to attack how bad the American education system has become these days... How public school system is even worse, and the teacher was tormented by the Bush administration's "No Child Left Behind" policy.

Hmm... Anyway, that's why I worry so much about the future of America. Sure I'm not a citizen yet, but my husband is, and our future kids will be. I certainly don't want to send my kids to a pricy private school so he or she can get a better education. All I can do now is to devote myself to a very tiny part of this system, try my best to make some differences, and hope a better future for everyone here.

Teaching Demos

Went to a private school for teaching demo/interview this morning.

I prepared for this event for about 3 hours last night (sure I'd had a rough lesson plan in my mind earlier on).

• I pulled out a few authentic materials I think I can use on teaching numbers and asking for directions;
• Some chopsticks, as the counting sticks in ancient time which I got for free from supermarket;
• A map of Beijing for asking directions;
• A name tag with my name on it for asking names... etc..

Created a handout for each class. Then some props I've been using for the past 10 years. When I showed my husband the hour glass and a pair of click boards (castanets,响板), he was confused at first why on earth they have something to do with language teaching.

Anyway, after I thought I was well-prepared for the teaching demos, I still couldn't sleep well last night. I laid down in bed around 10 pm, and then I kept having all kinds teaching ideas/stories/activities popping in my poor little brain... And of course, those old scary "school nightmares" were once again coming back, haunting me...

Luckily I got up at 6:10 am. Only 10 mins behind my schedule. Since I've been training myself to get up at 7 am sharp for the past week (just for this super early interview this morning), I didn't suffer too much for getting ready in the morning. I took a hot shower, had bagels and a small cup of coffee, made tea into my to-go thermo mug... It feels like living a student life, or I'm working full-time again.

I taught 2 classes from 7:40 to 9:15 am, and then I had the interview (or sort of walking around the campus and talked) with the chair of Foreign Language Dept. for the next 40 minutes. The director gave me some very "fair and insightful" feedback to my teaching demos.

After living a comfortable married life for the past 2 years, some of my teaching skills are rusty now. Even though I know I should have

• jumped into the topics right away,
• listed all the key words/sentence patterns on the board before I started to teach the dialogue or activities,
• or even though I should have changed my strategy (or lesson plan A to B) right away when I found out the air in the class was kinda dead at one point....

I didn't manage to perform 100% this morning. For that, I loathed myself a lot while I was waiting for the bus to get home around 10 am (just an upset feeling that I could have done better than this... but not purely just sad, or almost-want-to-cry upset, so that's OK).

Here are things I have to work on before I have the chance to do a 2nd interview at the same school (if they contact me again for a 2nd interview) or doing another demo at other schools:

1. Work on my simplified characters: As a native speaker, a wanna-be Chinese teacher, and with the sense of competition, if that English-born director could manage to master both characters, there's no reason why I can't do it. And as he criticised on my teaching skills and claimed that "...You native speakers don't understand the pain we have to go through in learning Chinese..." (ha, it sounds so familiar... But now the role is reversed...)Oh, I do. As a native speaker of Chinese, I still have to learn different spelling and written systems on my own because of the stupid political scheme. And being a less privileged Taiwanese Chinese, we also have to learn the Northern Chinese linguistic usage. And don't mention that the equally painful process we had been through when we were learning English.
2. Polish my teaching skills by reading the lesson plans, reference books, and articles I've collected over the years. It always helps to generate some new ideas when you read something old or new. The key is to stimulate your stale-as-old-bread brain.
3. Research Chinese History materials: The director asked me to think about teaching a Chinese History class. Even though I have no idea what my audience will be, it will be fun to refresh my memory in Chinese history. And history is always something I'd like to teach, if I'm not teaching a language subject.
4. Practice my Chinese calligraphy: That's one extracurricular class my mom has always regretted for NOT letting me take when I was little (except for swimming, English and piano). "At least, you'll have a more beautiful penmanship...", she always said. Yeah... I don't know how I managed to survive as a teacher with a ugly handwriting for the past few years, how it would affect my future career or how much I could improve my penmanship at this old age. But, it's always good to upgrade things in your life, isn't it.

Eating is the most important thing! 吃饭皇帝大

One of my tutoring students sent me this comic strip from Germany (he's on a business trip) today: (I've tried to post the comic here, but didn't work...)

The dialogues between these 2 businessmen are:

• A: I've been very impressed by the Chinese approach to business...
• B: Yes, me too.
• A: I came here expecting to find a country whose traditional ways of doing things would hamper its aspirations to be a 21st century economy...
• B: (listening)
• A: But in fact, many aspects of ancient Chinese culture are fully in tune with modern business requirements...
• B: Yes... Chopsticks in particular.
• A: Quite. One doesn't have to waste valuable Blackberry time whilst one's eating...

Indeed. I find chopsticks super useful for me. I don't really need a fork or a spoon, all I need is a rice bowl and a pair of chopsticks, then you can have almost any kinds of food with them (mm, I even use chopsticks for eating French Toast or salad). You don't need tongs when you're cooking. And you can even use chopsticks as a knife when it comes to eating some tricky food (like steak). Or even better, if you have long hair, you can fix your hair with it, you can fight (or stick) your brothers with them at a dining table... Very useful...

So... I guess that's why ancient Chinese invented chopsticks and keep using them even now -- to force you focus on eating only, not reading or typing at the same time?! Haha (it's healthier for you to concentrate on eating anyway).

Speaking of health, here's some "Chinese way of living" for everyone.

An old Chinese saying: 吃饭皇帝大 (chifan huangdi da)

When one is eating, one is greater than the emperor.

Meaning: When someone is eating, even though he's only a peasant, we should treat him like an emperor and respect his basic human right of satisfying his tummy.

Underlined meaning: Food is the most important thing for commoners (or, for us middle class nowadays). We don't care who the emperor (or president) is, when we're hungry, we want food. If you bother me when I'm eating (or, can't even provide food for us, or can't 'SHOW ME THE 'FOOD'), I don't give a dxxn that even though you're a emperor (or president).

I attached 2 pix for you. One was my niece demonstrated how to use ONE chopstick to eat a cob of corn during the Chinese New Year's Eve dinner. Another was my brother (my niece's Dad) showed you how to stick people with chopsticks (pls do not imitate, it's very dangerous.... haha).

The Story of Stuff

I'm not sure how China is doing on environmental issues these years. I heard they have been more aware of it, and have been improving on air pollutions, conserving woods... etc.

Anyway, I got an e-mail from my cousin A yesterday. And checked out this website she forwarded me right away.

www.Storyofstuff.com

To sum it all: We should all do our parts in saving the mother nature, so our kids (can't even think about "grand kids"... ) still have places to go fishing when they grow up!

As a "foreigner" in this country for the past 5 & half years, I'm pretty proud of myself doing almost everything very "environmentally".

1. I don't have a car. I take public transits (though I'm thinking about getting a Toyota Prius these days to survive in L.A....)
2. I don't shop/buy a lot of new outfits (of course I lost control sometimes, thank GxD, the U.S. has the greatest return policies in the world. Or you can always sell it to a 2nd hand store for a bit cash and some conscience back).
3. I don't have an i-pod, blackberry, i phone, updated new electronic equipment every year (however, I did finally "upgrade"my cell phone I had used for 5 years to a camera phone last month... Hahha. Very happy).
4. I recycle everything I can and encourage (or nag at) my husband to do so.
5. I turn off the light every time I leave the room, even though I know I'm coming back in a minute and encourage (or nag at) my husband to do so.
6. I don't buy or keep chemicals in the house (all my cleaning products were passed on from the previous apt. owner). You can simply find out a lot of alternatives we used before 1950's. Hot water and vinegar, hot water and newspaper, hot water and lemons... etc. And, yes, "Windex" is definitely not the most effective product when it comes to window cleaning or dealing with a pimple on your face (if you don't get this one, refer to the movie "My Big Fat Greek Wedding").
7. I don't use hair gel, mousse, perfume. I don't do manicure or pedicure. Because I'm allergic to any chemical or aerosol products (I do use deodorant though. And I think everyone who takes public transit should do so. You can be NOT pretty, but can't be stinky).
8. I try to bring the shopping bags every time I do grocery shopping (I admit sometimes I got lazy or forgot about it. And the U.S. didn't ban the plastic bags like Taiwan, San Francisco or Japan, so I don't have to pay for plastic bags. Yeah~).
9. I recently start doing compost, simply hoping my herb garden in my balcony would grow better. Sure, it smells sometimes. But you'll have "organic" herbs in your dining table. Yum yum.
10. The list goes on and on...Blah blah blah...

Sometimes I'll ask myself, do I do such things above for the sake of saving $$, for my allergy, or for the planet of earth. I guess it's more on the $$ side first. Then, after you get used to it, you'll find out your "happiness index" (plus health) actually raise higher when you semi-successfully escape from this evil capitalism-induced consuming propaganda. Even though my husband or I could have become millionaire some day (finger crossed, we'll never know...), I will still keep doing a better job on converse our resources in the world.

Why? It's simple. I just want my kids to have some places to go fishing when they grow up.

CLTA-SC Workshop (Integrated Chinese, 3rd edition)

Went to Pasadena City College for the CLTA-SC (Chinese Language Teacher Associate-Southern California) workshop yesterday afternoon. The association invited 2 authors of "Integrated Chinese" to present the 3rd edition of IC that is gonna publish this summer. They also invite a "Live ABC" sales representative to demo a set of interactive Chinese learning CD-Rums, which reminded me about ESL learning a lot. But, I'll definitely get them for my students if the budget allows me to do so.

I think the best part of this workshop for me is getting out there to see what kind of people are devoting themselves to this field. Of course most of the attendants are current Chinese teachers in different levels (K-12 @ public/private American schools, Heritage Chinese schools, community colleges, universities). I'll say 95% are native Chinese speakers. I only saw about 3 Caucasian, 2 African American teachers. And among these 95% Chinese speakers, I guess 1/3 of them are from Taiwan, 2/3 are from Mainland (only based on their make-up, outfits, behaviors and some overheard Chinese accents). Interesting enough.

Anyway, after attending this workshop, I finally have more faith in myself. It's overall not that different from ESL teaching. Just different subject, but same teaching theories, teaching philosophy plus tons of patiences+loving care for this job.

Why Chinese?

Read this blog entry from another Chinese teacher's blog
http://blog.huayuworld.org/shirleyc/109/2007/12/19/873, found it's interesting to me.

Maybe I've been tutoring very motivated, adult professionals for the past 5 years; I don't have to worry about this question at all. After all, when my students come to me, basically, they are all eager to learn. All I have to do is to show them the effective ways and tools to acquire Chinese language skills, so they can move on to do it on their own.

But, if I'm gonna teach 5th ~12th graders in private school next school year, I guess I have to come up with some very creative and inspiring ideas for those rich, spoiled kids (to quote the bus driver on Big Blue Bus 14, when he referred to the kids who went to private schools) to study Mandarin Chinese.

So, I personally add 3 more reasons to study Chinese outside the "normal" catagories.
(please read No. 1 to 11 from Teacher Shirley's blog entry)

12. So you can order food or talk to the servers at Chinese restaurants "in Chinese" to impress your friends or family!

13. You can understand a lot of "interesting" Chinese character tattoos on many people's body parts, or on many merchandise sold in stores.

14. You'll never know IF someday you are gonna meet a hot Chinese boy/girl, and make friend with him/her.

Haha. Just for fun. Maybe those kids would buy it!

Occupational Disease 职业病

One of the problems for being a teacher (except being under-paid, very time-consumed) is to get all kinds of occupational diseases.

1. Hoarse voice or callused vocal cord 声音沙哑+声带长茧
2. Lower back pain 腰痠背痛
3. Chronic bladders inflammation 慢性膀胱炎

Above should be the top 3 problems, I guess. I was lucky enough to have "only" the top 2 and 3. Haha.

Here are some suggestions to prevent them:

• Protect your vocal cord: I've been always very careful about using my voice. Try to use your diaphragm (丹田 dantian) than just the muscles around your throat. Always drink warm or hot water or any substitute drink to rinse your vocal cord is the best way to maintain your voice quality.

Another effective way is to let your students talk when you're tired or talk too much.

• Avoid lower back pain: Give up your heels! Even though my chiropractors have been warning me for years, I finally quit wearing heels in class 3 years ago. The reason is simple-- I just can't handle the pain anymore. Sure the idea is very glamours to be chic, tall and pretty in the class (any heels do help to lengthen your legs), but, after teaching for 10 years... It's better to quit wearing heels at work.

Yoga is another good way to prevent lower back pain. By bending your body, especially stretch and lengthen your back and spine, really help your body to relax.

Lift your legs high at the end of the day--like all the ballerinas will do after a long-day practice (晾腿）. Simply put your leg up high against the wall, will relax the muscles on your legs, so you don't end up having varicose veins (静脉曲张 jingmai quzhang). If you think that's too much trouble, just place a pillow underneath your leg (as long as it's higher than your heart) before you sleep, that will do.

• Deal with chronic bladder inflammation: When you have to teach back-to-back for 5 or 6 hours, it's hard to go when you have to go... The result is-- you have chronic bladder inflammation.

"No work (or school, students or $$) is worth your health!!" I have to remind myself all the time, or any other bank tellers, salesperson, flight attendants, fellow teachers, even my stpe-mom-in-law that. I guess many female teachers have the same like me.

2 tips: (without antibiotics!!)

• Pure, no sugar added cranberry juice: You can get them for $5,6 from Trader Joe's. It tastes very sour and tangy. But, it'll definitely wash out what ever cause the affection. And it's only juice, not medicine.




• Beets: Try NOT to eat it cold as in salad (or you can "de-ice" them into "room temperature" first). Making it into soup, or juice (only add room temperature water, not ice cubes) will also enhance your kidney function.

Regional Variety

I think the local TV station--LA 18-- must be run by Taiwanese Chinese.

Few reasons:
1. They use traditional characters in the show and on the website.
2. They anchors have Taiwanese Chinese accent.
3. The translation of many places and terms are also mainly used in Taiwan.

For example:
"Subprime Mortage Crisis"-- the problem which began last summer in Stockton, California and continues to ricochet through the economy and has led the U.S. edges closer towards a recession--has a few different translations along the Pacific Ocean.

• In China, they call it 次贷危机
• In the U.S. or at least on LA 18 TV channel, it's called 次级房贷风暴
• In Taiwan, 次級房屋信貸風波

I personally prefer the translation in the U.S. The word "风暴" feng (1) bao (4), the direct translation will be "storm", if you look up this word in the dictionary. Sure it's different from the original "crisis", but this "crisis" does bring a certain degree of "stormy" effects to people throughtout the U.S. and affect many economies outside of the U.S. So, I wouldn't say it's not perfect to translate "crisis" into "storm" in Chinese.