The days here are getting bleak. It’s cold inside and out, the pollution is building, and finals are still two weeks away. Not only that, but the important tests have already arrived. Standardized tests might not be as important as they once were, but the GaoKao college entrance examination is still the only criteria used for college admissions. … Continue reading Soft Eyes, Evil Wizards
First, and most importantly, this pen exists: Something interesting and unexpected has happened to me recently: I’ve started to actually feel like a teacher. Instead of going out to experience new parts of China on our own, Dan and I have stuck in and around Jishou to carry out our teaching duties. Class is proceeding more or less … Continue reading The Unofficial Responsibilities of an English Teacher
What a week. I’m so excited about people and freedom right now. My PiA boss, Alex Jones, got in around 5pm on Thursday. After dinner with all of the people who could call themselves my boss (a surprisingly large number), we had office hours. Alex is a much-beloved teacher of the Princeton in Jishou summer students and … Continue reading When Boss #2 Comes to Visit
As I’m sure everyone saw, this week was a big one on the climate front. The US and China signed a deal agreeing to limit carbon emissions over the next few decades. The US agreed to cut its emissions by at least 26 percent by 2025, while China agreed to have its own emissions level off … Continue reading “A historical moment, but…”
My alarm clock buzzes me into the waking world. I reach to the bedside table, ready to swipe it away and retreat to a more comfortable place, when something catches in my mind. My alarm doesn’t buzz, it rings. And my phone doesn’t ring, it buzzes. I open my eyes fully and see it’s a call from … Continue reading “What meeting?”, Hot Pot, and a View on the state of US Politics
I hope everyone had great Halloween. Dan and I sure did. This week I taught classes about Halloween in America. We went over vocabulary and sentence structures, took a quiz that told us whether we were witches or warlocks, and reviewed with pictionary. My students pointed out that it was strange that parents would send … Continue reading Happy Halloween
You can always feel the edge of a season, like a thumb pressed slowly against a knife blade. There’s something deep in the brain that sounds the alarm, that tells you: Get ready. In my hometown of Eugene, Oregon, the first sign of fall is that good rain that cleanses the air of its summer haze and makes it clean … Continue reading Fall in Jishou
First, a little Victor Jara to soothe your soul and get you in the revolutionary spirit: Alright. Feel free to leave that going in the background. This week, a start of a discussion of the following article: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/moral-dilemma-we-face-age-of-humans-180952909/ Rick Potts gives what I think is a good framework for a discussion on how our thinking needs … Continue reading Our (re)action, now: a framework
Part 1 here Part 2 here My eyes open in a dark room. Boom. Pop popopop. Explosions outside my window. I check my phone. It’s 5:03 am on national day, and the fireworks have started. We head out for the day around 7:30. We cross the footbridge toward downtown, and enter a world of red and gold commotion. Red banners … Continue reading ZHANGJIAJIE（张家界）/NATIONAL DAY PART 3: PEOPLE
(Part 1 here) You stand and you stare… And then the sounds come rushing in. People laugh, people talk, people pose for photographs (“qiézi”, “eggplant” is the Chinese version of “cheese”). There are horns in the distance, and five hundred feet climbing rough-cut stone steps. Vendors yell, children yell, everybody yells above the noise. Then, a … Continue reading Zhangjiajie（张家界）/National Day Part 2: Chinese Tourism
360 by bike 