Today marks the first day that we've seen the sun in Inner Mongolia, and it's strange to have some sort of idea of cardinal directions. What I had once supposed to be south is actually west, and I feel like I have some sense of direction for the first time here. I was interviewed by a local TV crew yesterday, and because I'm not teaching here, I was completely unqualified to answer any of the questions, so I lied through my teeth and told them what I thought they wanted me to say, which I suppose is no different from most TV interviews. They had three questions: what do you think of the city, how are the students, and what are you getting from the students as a teacher.
Question number one was unanswerable because outside of chaperoned trips to the supermarket, we aren't allowed to leave the hotel to wander around and explore the meager looking shops that line the streets here because it's “too dangerous”. Having seen the kind of crowd we draw whenever we leave the hotel, I can see why leaving could be considered dangerous, although the crowds seem more fascinated by foreigners than dangerous. Niona thinks that most of them have never seen a foreigner before, and they bombard us with questions that none of us can understand as they circle around us. Questions two and three would have been better answered by an actual teacher at this camp, as I have had very little contact with the students, outside of running the afternoon activities and giving a speech that nobody in the audience understood at the beginning of the camp. I rather liked my speech.
We don't have the Internet on our laptops today because all of the internets are being used by frantic Chinese students applying for colleges in a frenzy. There's a whole lot of students that are very driven, either from within or by their parents, to get into the top colleges around the world. The weird thing is, I don't think that they're applying to colleges based on the quality of the education that they will be receiving, I think they're doing it by brand name. China loves brand names, and that seems to carry over to colleges. I read an article today that talked about brand loyalty in China, and there were several people quoted as caring more about the brand name of a product than its quality or benefits, and you can see that reflected in their drive for colleges. They all seem to want to go to Harvard or Yale, or some other big name school. As an example, the name of the camp we're teaching is the Oxbridge and Ivy League English Summer Camp, although and is spelled ane on our shirts. Thanks, Chinese t-shirt factory, I'm glad to see our 2 RMB (About 15 cents) per shirt bought us quality!
Going to the supermarket is an interesting experience. You know how people complain about salespeople in American stores being overbearing and kind of pushy in asking you if you need help? I miss that. Instead of asking, products are just kind of pushed on you in the most helpful seeming manner possible. And this isn't just a few people that you can try to avoid, or push onto some other unlucky shopper, there are probably more store employees than shoppers present at any given time. It's madness, and I would just like to shop for snacks in peace, thank you.
Other than all of that, the only other notable thing I've done is sit around the room and watch MST3K episodes with Miles while drinking gigantic Chinese beers that taste exactly like Heineken. I'm running a gigantic game of The Price is Right this afternoon, so I'm going to have to remind everyone to spay and neuter their pets, and hope that the last person doesn't perpetually guess one dollar. I'm bringing my webcam every day, so hopefully Skype will be a possibility soon. Oh, the name of the Inner Mongolian town we're in is Wu Dan, see if you can find anything about it on the Internet, I haven't really looked.
-Cooper
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