Fuddland

Fuddland http://fuddland.org.uk/weblog/ The weblog of David: Ph.D in applied mathematics, amateur photographer, even more amateurish musician, and currently using none of these skills as an English teacher in the east of China. Thank goodness a large part of his everyday life involves drinking tea. Copyright 2008 http://fuddland.org.uk/weblog/http://fuddland.org.uk/_includes/_images/syndication_banner.pngFuddland | Weblog Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:10:10 +0800 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=3.34 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/This is an XML content feed. It is intended to be viewed in a newsreader or syndicated to another site. Lest they forget <p>Every now and then I get to hold an open "Culture" class in which I choose some aspect of foreign culture around which to shape discussion activities. Since yesterday's class fell on the eleventh of the eleventh, I took the opportunity to introduce the students to the idea of a Remembrance Day.</p> <p>I've always found it quite surprising that China does not have an official day with the same notion of remembering those who have sacrificed themselves for their country--the closest they come is the festival of <a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2007/04/08/qingming_jie.php"><span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Qīngmíng Jié</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">清明节</span>)</a>, but that's primarily to remember ancestors, and not specifically about fallen soldiers--so after giving them a run-down of the ceremonies and traditions of our version, I asked them to come up with their own: when it should be, and what events should take place. Here are the suggestions of appropriate dates:</p> <ul> <li><p>April 6: the day after <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Qīngmíng Jié</span>, in order to get two days off work in a row</p></li> <li><p>September 18: the date of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident">Mukden Incident</a>, when a railroad in Japanese-occupied modern-day <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Shěnyāng</span> was dynamited, allegedly by Japanese militarists as a pretext to full-blown war</p></li> <li><p>July 7: the official date of the beginning of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War">Second Sino-Japanese War</a> in 1937</p></li> <li><p>December 13: the anniversary of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre"><span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Nánjīng</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">南京</span>) Massacre</a> in 1937, during which tens of thousands of civilians and prisoners of war were murdered [estimates range from 100,000 to 300,000 people] at the hands of Japanese soldiers</p></li> </ul> <p>As for the events, as well as the universal idea of a period of silence [suggestions ranged from one to three minutes], floral wreaths, monuments and so forth, and even though I am aware of the general feelings towards the Land of the Rising Sun, I was slightly taken aback by this idea from one softly-spoken, generally-amiable student:</p> <blockquote> <p>We should invite the Prime Minister of Japan, tell him to kneel down and <em>cut open his own stomach</em>.</p> </blockquote> <p>This pretty much sums up the feelings that many Chinese still have towards the Japanese today; the above student wasn't at all shy about his desires, nor were his classmates in the least bit shocked--in fact, surveys indicate that the current generation harbours much stronger feelings than those that actually witnessed the atrocities. It's <a href="http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1139759,00.html">widely known</a> that schools teach children from an early age about the "humiliations" China has suffered at the hands of the Japanese over the centuries, although some of the other students were more open and suggested they could invite "some friendly Japanese people". I tried to get them to focus more on the commemorating-the-fallen aspect, but some feelings are more deeply ingrained than a single hour-long class can placate.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/12/lest_they_forget.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=FTMNN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=FTMNN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=h6cIN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=h6cIN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=WOzWN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=WOzWN" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/450205930/lest_they_forget.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/12/lest_they_forget.php Wed, 12 Nov 2008 09:10:10 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/12/lest_they_forget.php Autostronomy <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/3117138/" title="First attempt at long exposure night photo by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img class="floatone" src="http://farm1.static.flickr.com/3/3117138_5123b0af39_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="First attempt at long exposure night photo" /></a> <p>This is really quite nifty: if you've dabbled in night-time photography of stars, then upload the photo to <a href="http://www.flickr.com/">Flickr</a>, submit it to the <a href="http://www.flickr.com/groups/astrometry/pool/">Astrometry group</a>, and wait a little while. The automated tools of <a href="http://www.astrometry.net/">Astrometry.net</a> will analyse the photo and leave a lovely comment telling you what the major stars and astronomical objects are, as well as actually notating the photo. Head on over to <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/3117138/">a photo I took almost four years ago</a> to see what I mean. Apparently it contains:</p> <ul> <li>The star Rigel (βOri)</li> <li>The star Betelgeuse (αOri)</li> <li>The star Bellatrix (γOri)</li> <li>The star Alnilam (εOri)</li> <li>The star Mirzam (βCMa)</li> <li>The star Alhena (γGem)</li> <li>The star Alnitak (ζOri)</li> <li>The star Saiph (κOri)</li> <li>The star Mintaka (δOri)</li> <li>The star Arneb (αLep)</li> <li>The Witch Head nebula</li> <li>The Great Nebula in Orion</li> <li>Horsehead nebula</li> <li>Christmas Tree cluster / Cone nebula</li> </ul> <p>Sadly the chances of taking any starry photos while living in <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Sūzhōu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">苏州</span>) are close to zero, but hopefully one day I'll be in less polluted climes, and this tool will make it a lot easier to find out exactly what I'm gazing at, instead of all that tiresome "learning" stuff.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/06/autostronomy.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=JMg9N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=JMg9N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=jibaN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=jibaN" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=SD5nN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=SD5nN" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/443925133/autostronomy.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/06/autostronomy.php Thu, 06 Nov 2008 10:03:07 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/06/autostronomy.php Spies ... like us? <p>One aspect of the English training centre business out here that I've never been entirely comfortable with is what could be described as a form of corporate spying: employees of one training centre pose as potential students at another, to find out about their prices and courses. The turnover of admin and sales staff is high enough to avoid the danger of employees of Training Centre A who visited Training Centre B being recognised when B pays A a visit of their own. To me it seems to be a fairly underhanded way of finding out about local competitors, as well as a pretty lazy method of getting ideas about how to improve one's own services.</p> <p>When I occasionally poke one of the managers into defending this tactic, I generally get an answer along the lines of, "Well, everyone else does it." But when, today, I playfully tsk'd at one of the spies as she headed out of the door on her latest mission, I got a different sort of reply:</p> <blockquote> <p>What, they don't do this in your country?</p> </blockquote> <p>It wasn't a sarcastic, rhetorical question; nor was it meant to imply that if we don't do it, we're clearly doing something wrong--it was asked with a genuine interest. What I found more interesting was my immediate instinct, which was to say, "What?! No, of course not!" But I managed to catch myself and instead gave a stammered, "Um, well, I don't really know ... I hope not."</p> <p>But the more I think about it, unless there's explicitly a law that says it's illegal to not declare a conflict of interest when enquiring about a company's services [and it must be a conflict of interest rather than simply posing as a potential customer, because otherwise all those undercover journalist Watchdog-type investigations would be breaking the law on a regular basis], then I don't actually have any basis to tut-tut this activity other than my own moral standards.</p> <p>On a related note, a few weeks ago a new student joined a class that I teaching on Sunday mornings. It's a good group of people from all sorts of different companies that like doing vaguely business-related role-plays, so I welcomed the newcomer, asked her what line of work she was in and was surprised when she replied that she works at the reception desk for a competing English training centre. Thinking that she was either the worst spy in the world, or that her company's own services must be pretty dire, I asked her why she had joined [and paid for] this group instead of asking her own company if she could sit in on a few lessons a week there. She said that she wanted to improve her English without her employer knowing she was taking extra lessons, at which point I stopped making further enquiries. It's a source of constant bewilderment to me why people do things that I don't understand or agree with.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/04/spies_like_us.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=Pde4N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=Pde4N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=5QJ1N"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=5QJ1N" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=sM3sN"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=sM3sN" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/441886645/spies_like_us.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/04/spies_like_us.php Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:03:15 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/04/spies_like_us.php Drain <p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200811010215/Image000_big.jpg" title="View the large version of 'Drain'"><img src="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200811010215/Image000.jpg" alt="A small boy peers into a manhole as two workmen climb down a ladder into it" width="200" height="150" /></a></p><p>Despite repeated offers, this boy didn't want to go down the drain too. Coward.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/01/drain.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=xxRmM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=xxRmM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=VrPNM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=VrPNM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=45DtM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=45DtM" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/438645565/drain.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/01/drain.php Sat, 01 Nov 2008 10:10:20 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/11/01/drain.php Odd one out <p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200810310300/Image002_big.jpg" title="View the large version of 'Odd one out'"><img src="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200810310300/Image002.jpg" alt="A rack of English-language magazines, including the monthly publication of a well-known human rights organisation" width="113" height="150" /></a></p><p>A surprising member of the magazine rack at one of the training centres where I do some part-time work. I'm assuming it was snuck into the country in someone's luggage.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/31/odd_one_out.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=5HkTM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=5HkTM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=SEASM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=SEASM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=mseXM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=mseXM" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/437600159/odd_one_out.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/31/odd_one_out.php Fri, 31 Oct 2008 10:40:21 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/31/odd_one_out.php Hammered <p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200810181200/Image000_big.jpg" title="View the large version of 'Hammered'"><img src="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200810181200/Image000.jpg" alt="Two hammerhead sharks on a bed of ice" width="113" height="150" /></a></p><p>On sale at the local supermarket--that's your bog-standard, huge, foreign-owned supermarket, not some small speciality fishmonger--a couple of whole hammerhead sharks, about three feet in length. Anyone got any tasty recipe suggestions?</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/18/hammered.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=WEtOM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=WEtOM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=O02kM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=O02kM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=jwHQM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=jwHQM" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/424550439/hammered.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/18/hammered.php Sat, 18 Oct 2008 19:45:18 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/18/hammered.php The old streets of Bozhou <p>Perhaps due to <a href="http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=%E4%BA%B3%E5%B7%9E&ie=UTF8&ll=31.933517,118.24585&spn=6.729331,9.887695&t=h&z=7">its location</a>--fairly far removed from other famous tourist destinations or ports of trade [as well as it being in one of the poorer provinces in China]--while the local government seems to have gone some way towards designating certain areas to be of interest to tourists, the old streets and buildings of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">亳州</span>) that are in the traditional Chinese style are still plentiful in number mostly because they are still functional: people still live and work in and around them.</p> <div class="imagegroup"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2936305079/" title="Corny III by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3020/2936305079_3aa85427bb_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Corny III" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2940687836/" title="The streets of Bozhou II by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3049/2940687836_2c2c42521a_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="The streets of Bozhou II" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2937158466/" title="Corny II by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3251/2937158466_114bc67038_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Corny II" /></a> </div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2940687296/" title="The streets of Bozhou I by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img class="floatone" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3156/2940687296_3bc13411f0_m.jpg" width="240" height="96" alt="The streets of Bozhou I" /></a> <p>Wherever we went, on the street outside shops or walking down dusty side streets, glancing into open doors, we saw game after game of mahjong being played--it reminded me a lot of <a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2007/02/01/chengdu.php">what I saw in <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Chēngdu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">成都</span>)</a>, although at least most of these people seemed to be at their actual places of work not working, rather than hanging out in the park all day not working. The general aura of a relaxed attitude to life may or not be related to <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span> being the hometown of the founder of Daoism (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">道教</span>) [aka Taoism], <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Lǎozǐ</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">老子</span>) [aka Laosi, Lao Tse, Lao-Tzu, Laotze, and Laocius].</p> <div class="imagegroup"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2928421303/" title="Laozi (老子) by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2147/2928421303_ae3c4eb4a1_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Laozi (老子)" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2928421949/" title="Scripture of Taoism by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3063/2928421949_3af44e0b37_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Scripture of Taoism" /></a> </div> <p>Every evening we were there we ate out at a sprawling food court just across the road from our hotel. At around four or five in the afternoon, dozens of tables and plastic stools are set out beneath an old marquee, with several different proprietors offering an enormous variety of dishes cooked before your very eyes. Since we didn't really know any names of the local dishes that we could order, and even if we were told the names we wouldn't know what it was, we settled on a much more convenient method of ordering: we simply chose the ingredients and asked to be made a tasty dish using them. <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2940688138/" title="The streets of Bozhou III by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img class="floattwo" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3206/2940688138_f4b426cd81_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="The streets of Bozhou III" /></a> <p>This sort of Chinese fare tends to use only one or two vegetable and meat components, given its pep with spices, garlic and sauces, so it's quite easy to choose, say, a nice-looking aubergine and get served a huge plate of it flavoured with some sort of thick gravy-like sauce that you've never tasted before, but is nonetheless delicious. And of course there are staples like steamed dumplings, rice, and some sort of thick, tapioca-like soup with soy beans that seemed to be a local speciality to fill you up.</p> <p>There were a few other parks and temples that we didn't go and check out, but I think we saw the lion's share of what <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span> has to offer, and it was well worth the trip. The people were friendly and not overly-curious, even though we were the only foreigners we saw the entire time we were there. The only embarrassing "special treatment" we received was at the train station trying to buy our tickets home. As we were queuing, with a good twenty or thirty people in front of us, a new window was opened and we were beckoned forward. I was half-expecting to be spoken to in English, but [as with every other local that we interacted with in <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span>] the attendant didn't seem to know anything beyond, "Hello". I felt quite awkward being allowed to buy our tickets ahead of all the other people waiting in line, but I expect politely refusing the service and re-joining the queue would have created great confusion [as well as unintended offense], and it was nice to be able to secure sleeper tickets for the ten-hour or so train ride back to <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Sūzhōu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">苏州</span>).</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/16/the_old_streets_of_bozhou.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=z5rVM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=z5rVM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=RejfM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=RejfM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=GLSJM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=GLSJM" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/422345258/the_old_streets_of_bozhou.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/16/the_old_streets_of_bozhou.php Thu, 16 Oct 2008 14:11:34 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/16/the_old_streets_of_bozhou.php Hua Tuo <p>In stark contrast to the imperious <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">曹操</span>), one of his contemporaries and another resident of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">亳州</span>) was the legendary physician <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Huà Tuó</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">华佗</span>). [And when I say "legendary", I of course mean, "I'd never heard of him until I went to <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span>, but he does seem to have been pretty important."]</p> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2927691921/" title="Hua Tuo (华佗) by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img class="floattwo" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3233/2927691921_9800be1daf_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Hua Tuo (华佗)" /></a> <p>As well as being a renowned practitioner of traditional medicine, perhaps his most significant achievement was the first recorded use of anaesthetic during surgery--<em>1,800</em> years ago.</p> <p>He might have passed his extensive knowledge on to future generations had he not irked <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span> by refusing to treat the tyrant's chronic headaches exclusively--a stubbornness that cost him his life. [In fairness, his recommended treatment was to numb the pain with hashish then split <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span>'s head open with an axe to extract the pus, so one can perhaps understand <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span>'s desire for continuous pain-relief treatment rather than extreme surgery.]</p> <p>The fairly simple former monastery of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Huázǔ'ān</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">华祖庵</span>) that has been designated a tribute to <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Huà Tuó</span> doesn't offer much to see beyond a tastefully-displayed statue of the man himself with a potted biography and a few other historical artifacts, but is worth seeing if only for completeness.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/11/hua_tuo.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=pwxCM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=pwxCM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=TKNaM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=TKNaM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=lz9VM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=lz9VM" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/417390359/hua_tuo.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/11/hua_tuo.php Sat, 11 Oct 2008 10:16:03 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/11/hua_tuo.php Cao Cao <p>One of the other claims-to-fame for the city of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">亳州</span>) is as the present-day form of the birthplace of the warlord <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cao_Cao" title="Biography of Cao Cao"><span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">曹操</span>)</a>, who lived during the time of the Three Kingdoms around the second and third centuries. [This period is the subject of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Cliff_(film)">John Woo's latest film, Red Cliff</a>.]</p> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2922197116/" title="Cao Cao (曹操) by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img class="floatone" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3036/2922197116_f74e4625b1_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Cao Cao (曹操)" /></a> <p>Despite being traditional portrayed in stories from this era as a big of an evil bugger, <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span> is seemingly rather proud of its tyrannical son, and an enormous [albeit almost characature-like with his barrel-sized chest] statue looks out over the city from in front of the train station.</p> <p>One of his sneaky tactical ideas is also now a tourist attraction named <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Dìxià Yùnbīng Dào</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">地下运兵道</span>) [which I'm roughly translating as "army-moved-underground tunnels"]: he dug out a short network of subterranean tunnels beneath the city for his army to hide in, waiting for an invading force to wander in under a false sense of the scale of his defences. The tunnels--although quite well-lit with bare lightbulbs and not in the least bit maze-like--are still pretty claustrophobic, smelling of damp earth, barely wider than my shoulders and forcing me to stoop throughout their length. The thought of waiting down there for any length of time, jam-packed between fellow soldiers in the darkness makes me quite uncomfortable.</p> <div class="imagegroup"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2921351285/" title="Cao Cao's Secret Tunnels I by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3130/2921351285_01374a9bea_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Cao Cao's Secret Tunnels I" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2921351427/" title="Cao Cao's Secret Tunnels II by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3141/2921351427_5aa28dd548_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Cao Cao's Secret Tunnels II" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2922197708/" title="Cao Cao's Secret Tunnels III by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3120/2922197708_efb3e7a08b_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Cao Cao's Secret Tunnels III" /></a> </div> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2922198036/" title="Cao Song's jade burial suit by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img class="floattwo" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3284/2922198036_7ac1857ca1_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Cao Song's jade burial suit" /></a> <p>The last <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span>-related attraction we visited confused me a little until I did some background reading. I <em>thought</em> I was visiting <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span>'s tomb, but in fact it was the tomb of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Téng</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">曹腾</span>), <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span>'s foster-grandfather, which is nothing more than a grass-covered mound of earth about twenty feet high surround by small flowerbeds, but also on display is the jade burial suit of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Sōng</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">曹嵩</span>), <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span>'s father. [I can't find anything (in English) that tells me where <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Cáo Cāo</span> was laid to rest.] The longer I looked at it the eerier it became, the simplistic facial features somehow making it seem like it could sit up at any moment and start clomping towards me with its oversized feet. [I think I've seen too many Mummy films.]</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/09/cao_cao.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=92KrM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=92KrM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=PBiIM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=PBiIM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=QA2TM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=QA2TM" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/415552192/cao_cao.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/09/cao_cao.php Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:05:55 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/09/cao_cao.php Not a spoonful of sugar in sight <p>Last week was China's National Day holiday, and thanks to some fortuitous timing of the calendar I ended up with a whopping eight consecutive days off, the better part of four of which Mary and I spent in the little-known city of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">亳州</span>) in the province of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Ānhuī</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">安徽</span>).</p> <p>Despite being home to some quite significant historical and cultural places of interest, <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Bózhōu</span>'s tourism industry has barely gotten off the ground. There are street-signs to most of sights throughout the city, but ask a taxi driver to take to you one of them [or even pointing at the sign when you become convinced you must be pronouncing it completely incorrectly] and they have to yell out of their window at one of their fellow cabbies to ask for directions.</p> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915064492/" title="Open market by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img class="floatone" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3279/2915064492_98d4b0ecb0_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Open market" /></a> <p>Still, we did manage to see almost all the city has to offer, and we started with the main reason we wanted to go there: the enormous traditional Chinese medicinal products marketplace. [Depending on your source, it's either the world's largest, or just China's largest, or just one of the four largest, but just take it from me: it's pretty blooming big.] As well as the weird and wonderful things that we were expecting to see, one surprise was just how good the place <em>smelled</em>--and not just the market, but throughout the city we got whiffs every now and then of pleasant aromas that we couldn't quite place.</p> <p>It was also nice to find that, despite being the only tourists in the entire place [by which I mean, the whole city, for the whole time we were there], the people were completely relaxed about us just wandering into their shops and around their stalls, snapping away with our cameras and poking our noses into the boxes, sacks and tanks on display. The few times I tried to enquire as to what unrecognised items were, or how to ingest something, I fell foul of a combination of a lack of vocabulary and an inability to even make out what words they were saying in a thick, guttural accent that they steadfastly refused to attempt to make clearer, but we were happy enough just taking it all in.</p> <div class="imagegroup"> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915053852/" title="Chinese Medicinal Products Marketplace by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3058/2915053852_82723deb19_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Chinese Medicinal Products Marketplace" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914214121/" title="The Beetles by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3198/2914214121_0eb6e2daca_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="The Beetles" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914214701/" title="Shelled by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3188/2914214701_4ba84c9ae7_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Shelled" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915056674/" title="Coils by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3223/2915056674_b7139ab0e8_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Coils" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915057416/" title="Prickly by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3271/2915057416_2cec002055_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Prickly" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915057842/" title="Splayed by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3082/2915057842_771427272c_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Splayed" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914217073/" title="Starfish by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3110/2914217073_7d76aa3518_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Starfish" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915059086/" title="Slice of antler, anyone? by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3102/2915059086_da4fb5e836_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Slice of antler, anyone?" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914218109/" title="Not brains by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3099/2914218109_150e9a306e_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Not brains" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914218437/" title=""I'm planning on passing the Ear Certificate next year..." by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3139/2914218437_0104a8c11f_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt=""I'm planning on passing the Ear Certificate next year..."" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915060354/" title="Skinny by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3294/2915060354_a95d0d4105_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Skinny" /></a><br /> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914213271/" title="Seedy by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3021/2914213271_703bb2d30a_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Seedy" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2915060880/" title="9 out of 10 cats prefer not to eat dried snakes. by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3122/2915060880_47077223fb_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="9 out of 10 cats prefer not to eat dried snakes." /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914220043/" title="Copybird by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3140/2914220043_bc6c9c8513_m.jpg" width="180" height="240" alt="Copybird" /></a><br /> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914220639/" title="Blue Jay Way by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3163/2914220639_6f2bd4f826_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Blue Jay Way" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914221439/" title="What, you're a Scorpio too? by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3274/2914221439_51f36449a5_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="What, you're a Scorpio too?" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914221765/" title="Hello Mum by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3272/2914221765_908225dc71_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="Hello Mum" /></a> <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fuddland/2914222541/" title="This medicine tastes like rubber by dvd3141, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3115/2914222541_726e51911a_m.jpg" width="240" height="180" alt="This medicine tastes like rubber" /></a> </div><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/07/bozhou_chinese_medicine_market.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=ggPEM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=ggPEM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=yrGuM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=yrGuM" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=XeTeM"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=XeTeM" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/413384254/bozhou_chinese_medicine_market.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/07/bozhou_chinese_medicine_market.php Tue, 07 Oct 2008 10:15:36 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/10/07/bozhou_chinese_medicine_market.php Mid-Autumn Festival <p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200809140900/Image000_big.jpg" title="View the large version of 'Mid-Autumn Festival'"><img src="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200809140900/Image000.jpg" alt="Mid-Autumn Festival" width="200" height="150" /></a></p><p>Today farmers and families here are celebrating <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Zhōngqiū Jié</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">中秋节</span>)--<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival">Mid-Autumn Festival</a>. The celebrations have many aspects, but the most important of these seems to be the eating of moon cakes.</p> <p>The nomenclature is a little misleading as the cakes can be meat- or bean-paste-filled as well as sweet, and to be honest I don't find them all that palatable. But the extra day off work I get is pretty tasty.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/09/14/midautumn_festival.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=8jW3L"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=8jW3L" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=g8OEL"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=g8OEL" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=CFYaL"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=CFYaL" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/392181715/midautumn_festival.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/09/14/midautumn_festival.php Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:50:26 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/09/14/midautumn_festival.php Work shift (Part II) <p>Another short-term job I took on was at an <a href="http://www.ielts.org/">IELTS</a> summer school. For those that don't know, IELTS is a internationally-recognised standard English level certification that many institutes require as part of their entry criteria. The exams focus on one-on-one interviews with native English-speaking examiners, testing vocabulary, grammar, and the ability to express one's opinions. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Chinese students take these exams every year with dreams of studying abroad.</p> <p>Through a fellow teacher, I was put in touch with the local office of a company by the name of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Běijīng</span> IELTS, run by a nice enough chap calling himself Adam. After meeting with him for less than ten minutes we had agreed on me teaching four two-and-a-half-hour classes at a higher-than-average hourly rate, without him once asking me if I knew anything about the IELTS programme requirements. It was enough that I am a native English speaker. He lent me a textbook on which to base my lessons, but couldn't tell me anything about what the students had covered to date. This was the first indication [of many] that the "school" is little more than a money-making scheme that provides little benefit to the earnest students looking for an intensive few weeks of English skill-honing.</p> <p>Classes of more than twenty students were packed into the twelve or so classrooms on the fifth and sixth floors of the building--a building which housed two other English training centres, directly across the road from where I had been working full-time for the last year and a half. The textbook I was given to use proclaimed to be an official IELTS publication, but flipping through the pages revealed it to be a knock-off copy--as in: someone had taken the original and typed it all out again, except his/her typing skills left a lot to be desired, with plenty of typos to confuse the students.</p> <p>On two occasions the students hadn't even brought their copies of these copies. When I located Adam or one of the numerous administration staff members, they told me that "the last teacher didn't use the textbook." Well tough, my lesson plan hinges on having these mistake-ridden textbooks to hand. I laughed in Adam's face when he suggested I come up with a new plan after the class had already started. [I've had this experience before, when "managers" seem to be under the impression that teachers can pull two-hour lesson plans out of their bottoms at the drop of a hat.] Faced with this refusal to change my plan, he magically found spare copies of the textbook for each and every student.</p> <p>After these mishaps were ironed out, the classes themselves generally went quite well, but the sheer number of students coupled with the lack of organisation meant that the school could never tell me if the class I was having was one I had taught before or not. It wasn't clear if students were consistently kept in the same groups all the time, or moved from class to class depending on their own schedules. This made it frustratingly impossible to build on previous lessons, so each class had to be a self-contained session.</p> <p>I organised a lot of role-play speaking activities, making sure each and every student was given the opportunity [read: forced] to come up to the front of the class and give a short talk or simulate a section of the IELTS exam, but hardly anyone seemed to be taking notes of my suggestions for what the correct way to say things is, or what sounds better, so I don't know how much they actually went away with after the classes.</p> <a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/images/china/titfortat.jpg"><img class="floatone" alt="" src="http://fuddland.org.uk/images/china/titfortat.jpg" width="240" height="180" /></a> <p>The only bad class I had was one with a group of younger [mid-teen] students who were clearly at the rebelling-against-all-this-studying period of life. [This was, to be honest, something of a relief to see, after teaching so many studying machines who never seemed to tire of hitting the books, but it didn't make my job any easier.] I did manage to get some of them interested in the activities, and those that wanted to mess around I guilted into shutting up by asking who was paying for these classes, them or their parents. At one point one of them thought he was being very surrepticious when taking a photo of me on his mobile, so I just strolled up to him and took my own picture.</p> <p>Adam asked me to teach more classes during August, but I had had enough of the distinct feeling that this centre was interested in nothing more than making a swift yuan off the back of parents desperate to give their children a chance to study abroad, and told him I was too busy. Not that it'll make any difference, I'm sure there were plenty of other foreign teachers on his virtual Rolodex, and the money will keep rolling in. I have since gone back and forth in my mind as to whether this was the best course of action--the other path being to keep teaching there for the rest of the summer and do my best to help the students with passing these exams--but in the end, given that there was no way for me to build on previous work we'd done, I couldn't see the students missing out on very much.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/19/work_shift_part_ii.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=l9ZT1K"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=l9ZT1K" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=0biauK"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=0biauK" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=t2TDL"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=t2TDL" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/368676166/work_shift_part_ii.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/19/work_shift_part_ii.php Tue, 19 Aug 2008 11:31:53 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/19/work_shift_part_ii.php Work shift (Part I) <p>After having a pretty light schedule for the last six months or so, it's been a fairly busy month or two as I picked up several part-time teaching gigs, mostly at summer schools for kids and teens. With the more strictly-enforced visa restrictions causing problems for a vast swathe of the foreigners who have been, up to now, able to enjoy relative freedom in where they worked, those of us who were lucky enough to have the right kind of visa are much in demand, and it has really been a case of me deciding how busy I wanted to be.</p> <p>One summer school is just four boys between the ages of 8 and 11, three afternoons a week, which is easy and fun: a bit of reading, a bit of practising-short-talks-to-impress-grandparents, and a good smattering of games.</p> <a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/images/dictionaryers.jpg"><img class="floatone" alt="" src="http://fuddland.org.uk/images/thumbs/dictionaryers.jpg" width="240" height="180" /></a> <p>My approach is to try and make these things as laid-back as possible, to give the kids a chance to enjoy their summer holidays despite being forced to attend classes by their evil parents. My crowning achievement [teaching-wise] is to get them to look up unfamiliar words in the dictionary. At the beginning of the course these kids would read aloud until they got to a new word and just stop dead, look up at me and expect me to provide them with the pronunciation and meaning. I was happy to do this for a while, but eventually they needed to realise that Teacher David isn't always going to be around and it's useful to be able to check definitions and pronunciations themselves. [Since they learn English as a foreign language at school, they're all entirely familiar with the phonetic alphabet (unlike me).] It took me three lessons to get them all to remember to bring dictionaries, but now they look words up without prompting. This might not sound like much but it's a skill that bewilderingly lacks in most students I come across, adults as well as children.</p> <p>One of their favourite games is one in which I write new words up on the board, and call out the definitions of them. The students line up two at a time at the other end of the classroom and have to race to the board and be the first to touch the word that matches the definition. Being boys, they tear down the room at worrying rates, each trying to trip or otherwise impede the other before crashing into the wall, often randomly hitting the board until they land on the right word. It's hugely entertaining for me as well as them. I think I might try it with an adult class next time things are getting a bit boring.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/05/work_shift_1.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=3dPjyK"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=3dPjyK" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=dvZbuK"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=dvZbuK" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=qSVtL"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=qSVtL" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/355868370/work_shift_1.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/05/work_shift_1.php Tue, 05 Aug 2008 09:31:35 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/05/work_shift_1.php Booklovers <p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200808020530/Image026_big.jpg" title="View the large version of 'Booklovers'"><img src="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200808020530/Image026.jpg" alt="A long queue of people waiting outside Suzhou Public Library" width="200" height="150" /></a></p><p>After <a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/01/possibly_the_most_ignored_sign.php">my comments on the conduct of the public when boarding the underground</a>, in the interests of balance I took a photo of something I see every Saturday morning on my walk to teach: a long queue of people [mostly students], snaking several times back on itself, patiently waiting for <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Sūzhōu</span> (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">苏州</span>) Library to open.</p> <p>Like many important [or old] buildings, it uses traditional Chinese characters instead of the simplified versions that were introduced during the 1950s and '60s. In traditional script, the first character of <span class="pinyin" lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin" xml:lang="zh-Latn-x-pinyin">Sūzhōu</span> is written <span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">蘇</span>, whose two components <span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">鱼</span> and <span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">禾</span> mean <em>fish</em> and <em>cereal crops</em> respectively, giving more of an insight into what the region was historically known for.</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/02/booklovers.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=HE9NfK"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=HE9NfK" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=QRFDyK"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=QRFDyK" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=rZ10L"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=rZ10L" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/353308966/booklovers.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/02/booklovers.php Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:18:11 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/02/booklovers.php We don't need no Western toilets, steenkin' or otherwise <p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200808010400/Image024_big.jpg" title="View the large version of 'We don't need no Western toilets, steenkin' or otherwise'"><img src="http://fuddland.org.uk/moblog/images/200808010400/Image024.jpg" alt="We don't need no Western toilets, steenkin' or otherwise" width="113" height="150" /></a></p><p>The only Western-style toilet in this public bathroom is used as a storage area.</p> <p>As an aside, the Chinese for London (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">伦敦</span>) is a homophone for "in turn, squat" (<span class="chinese" xml:lang="zh-Hans" lang="zh-Hans">轮蹲</span>).</p><p><a href="http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/01/we_dont_need_no_western_toilet.php#comments">Read or add comments</a></p><div class="feedflare"> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=W8dJfJ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=W8dJfJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=QJRHxJ"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=QJRHxJ" border="0"></img></a> <a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?a=JEK9L"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/fuddland?i=JEK9L" border="0"></img></a> </div> http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/fuddland/~3/352230089/we_dont_need_no_western_toilet.php http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/01/we_dont_need_no_western_toilet.php Fri, 01 Aug 2008 11:53:47 +0800 http://fuddland.org.uk/archives/2008/08/01/we_dont_need_no_western_toilet.php 240