Cahokia

For my first presentation here in Wuhan, I will be teaching about the native american city of Cahokia.  This was the largest pre columbian settlement north of Mexico.

The settlement is famous for the large earthen mounds that were built for ceremonial and burial purposes. In addition, it is the site of the american woodhendge, consisting of a variety of wooden pillars buried in the ground in line with the summer and winter solstice and equinoxes. A pretty fascinating place, at t's hayday around 1200 AD, Cahokia had a population larger than any city in Europe at the time.  Estimates range from 15,000 to 50,000 in population.

The city had minimal sanitation, and the rulers had to keep up a steady flow of immigrants to make sure the population remained steady in the face of deaths from poor hygiene and disease.

It was the centerpiece of Mississippian culture and traded with other tribes as far away as Pennsylvania, Minnesota and the Gulf Coast.

I am not sure how interested the students will be, but it certainly has me interested.

St. Louis used to be known as “Mound City” due to all of the mounds on both sides of the river. Most of the mounds have been leveled over time. Part of one still exists; it is known as Sugar Loaf Mound. In a bit of poetic justice, the Osage Nation (now of Oklahoma, but originally from Missouri) bought it in order to preserve it.

Humans first arrived at Cahokia around 700 AD, but sometime around 1050 the population exploded for unknown reasons and the city became a regional center of what is known as the Mississippian culture.

At its peak (1050-1250 AD), the city was home to 10-15,000 residents, with the regional population estimated to have been as large as 40,000. That means it may have been the biggest world metropolis of its time, surpassing even London and Paris.

The center of Cahokia, both geographically and spiritually, was the huge Monk's Mound. It was the home of the city's ruling priest, who lived in a wooden temple at the peak. He ruled over a social structure similar to that of the Maya or ancient Egyptians, with a graded aristocracy and a proletariat of slaves and commoners.

Cahokia's downfall was just as sudden as its rise. For some reason, by 1300, the once-magnificent city had been virtually abandoned and its people dispersed. It's possible that the construction of the great mound contributed to Cahokia's demise by overexploiting natural resources. Agricultural degradation, droughts, and overpopulation may also have been factors. In the late 1600s, the Cahokia Indians (of the Illinois confederacy) came to the area and it is from them that the site derives its name.

More to this post later.

Wuhan Foreign Language School

The school is highly ranked nationally and is the number one school in the province of Hubei.  It operated originally as a school to train and develop foreign language speakers for the Chinese foreign service and has as it's operating principles the goal of modernization in accordance with the ideals set forth by Chou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.

As I have stated in other posts, it is a boarding school.  Students typically go home on the weekends.  Boarding starts at a young age.

Out of 8,000 applications, only 300 students were accepted into the school.

They teach German, Japanese, Spanish and French in addition to English.

Basketball is very popular here and NBA stars Kobe Bryant and others have visited the school.

I will be primarily teaching a club rather than a standard class, although I will also be teaching regular english classes.  The club is voluntary participation and is geared towards teaching english by teaching about American culture and history.

I think I will start out by teaching about the native americans.  A brief history of the Wampanoag peoples, Cahokia in Illinois and generally about pre-columbian america.

I want to be challenging rather than simplistic, so I will try and introduce the historiographical theories of guns, germs and steel to explain how the europeans conquered the natives so readily.  The main thing I must do is avoid getting into sticky political discussions.

Wuhan

Wuhan is a centrally located city in the heartland of China.  It has alot of similarities to Chicago.

The Wuhan Experimental Foreign Language School where I am located is outside of the city center.  It is about a half hour drive to get into the more urban downtown.  There is alot of smog here, although less at my location than downtown.

The school is in an economic and technological development zone, meaning that there is alot of building going on.  There are alot of apartment buildings of more than 15 stories, a large three level shopping mall, and alot of miscellaneous shops.  The mall has a walmart in it, as well as such designer shops as a VANS, Nike, and various other mid to high end clothiers.  There is also a MacDonalds, a pizza hut and a starbucks there.  It is called Wanda Mall and is next door to a huge office building under construction named Wanda Place.  Wanda is the name of a department store in the mall, hence the name.  Wanda anchors the site.

I went to the MacDonalds and had a crispy chicken deluxe sandwich for about 4.00 with fries and a drink.  It made a good brunch fast for me.

While out walking, I came across a kind of interesting sight. Along a water canal there are what look almost like terraced farms.  It seems some locals still farm any arable strip of land.  Looking up the canal I saw small plots planted with a variety of produce.  It was very interesting to see agriculture, and I mean small scale subsistence agriculture, side by side with huge 20 story apartment complexes and shopping malls.  The produce is sold on the sidewalk right in front of the super market.  I will try and get some pictures of this, not because it may be interesting to you my gentle reader, but rather because it is of interest to me, your humble narrator.

I have alot of down time because I am waiting on the documents needed for my visa.  This has given me the chance to walk around a bit and check things out.

I  would dearly like to get a Chinese bird book.  No doubt an english language book of Chinese birds will be difficult to come by.   I have noticed alot of new birds in my perambulations and would like to identify them for my life birding list.

Today I hope to get my canteen card so I can dine with the faculty without mooching off other teachers.  I am desperate to not be more of a burden than I already am.

Election Day

It is odd to be over seas at election time.  Just a few weeks ago it was a rather large part of my somewhat empty life, now I kind of miss not having the deluge of ridiculous over reportage that I typically cringe at.  I guess the only thing I am lacking is the TV news coverage.  I have all the internet stories.  I guess I actually miss television!

In other news, I went to the supermarket yesterday and spent some time talking to one of the other teachers.  He is also named Jonathan. He is very nice and from Ohio.  He, along with the other American english teachers have all been here since August.  It really makes my long period of patient waiting kind of pointless.  I can only assume that the agency I am working for either was totally inept or the folks at this school may have special treatment.

Apparently, the headmistress is highly connected within the state's education ministry, so maybe that is how it works. The politically connected can get you a visa, while those who are not connected can't.  That may be overstating the issue, but I am inclined towards that opinion.  Wish I had come here a couple of months ago and gotten myself started.

At the supermarket I discovered some more odd stuff; specifically cuccumber, italian meat sauce and steak favored potato chips.  I also found a 10 dollar bottle of wine, which unfortunately did not last long, as I enjoyed drinking it.

The food at the supermarket is fine.  Packaging is obviously problematic for someone like me who is functionally illiterate here in china.  I have to act like a toddler and riddle out the contents of all the pretty colored bags and boxes with their shiny, cartoon characters and gloss.

The danger for me is that an enticing cartoon character does little to tell me if the contents of packaging will be what I want.  It is kind of interesting as a study in how the mind works.  It might be worth investigating how merchandizing is orchestrated towards the illiterate.  Obviously, the packaging must be geared towards a literate audience here in china.  The english on the packaging of asian products is kind of baffling to me.  I am very glad for it.  I guess the marketing folks here in china have adduced that putting english on a product will make it alot easier for people to know what it is because mandarin characters might not be as widely read as english.

Anyway, today I am heading to the walmart to check that out.  Going to try a local restaurant and get some supplies.

Crossing the Yangtse for the first time

Today is my first full day here in Wuhan.  This morning I headed downtown to get my medical exam for my work visa.  Basically, it is an onerous formality that requires that I be human, breathing and have money to pay for the exam.

The clinic I went to has a number of stations that visa seekers must go to.  At the ECG station, the doctor politely asked me to take my T Shirt off, when in fact I had no T Shirt on.  Basically, I was too hairy to do the ECG.  Rather than shave me or have me come back when she could do the test, she passed me and noted that the ECG diodes attached poorly to my skin.  I suppose it is easy for Chinese to mistake a western man's body hair for clothing because Chinese have very little body hair.

As I write this post, I am sitting in the office of the school.  I am teaching at the Wuhan Experimental Foreign Languages School, which is a public school.  I am told that the headmistress is a very high ranking party member and that she is involved with the national education committee or governing body that administers to schools. This means that the school has plenty of funding.

The campus is nice.  It is rather large. There are dormitories for both faculty and students.  Most of the students are boarders.

Unlike in the US, students start boarding at a much younger age.  There are primary school age kids who sleep at the school.  Students all go home on weekends.  I cannot imagine being at a boarding school at such a young age, although I recall that there are equivalents in the US and England where very young kids board.

My accommodations are decent.  I have a one bedroom with living room and bathroom.  The kitchen is shared with several other foreign teachers.

The hosts have been quite gracious and accommodating.  One fellow has been particularly nice and we have spoken a bit.  His english is very good.  He suggested I let him know if he can put me in touch with a relative of his who is a businessman because I am a lawyer and he said his friend might be able to help me get a job.  This would be in addition to teaching. You can be sure that you will hear more about this if indeed it comes to pass.

There is a dining hall for students and another seperate one for the faculty.  The food is actually pretty damn good for a cafeteria style place.

I like it and am optimistic.  I am looking forward to teaching once I get my visa processed.

Waking up to being a 40 year old toddler

Well I had my first experience of being illiterate. I got to the airport and, too shy to hazard a foray into a restaurant because of my lack of any appreciate conversational mandarin, went to a news kiosk to buy water, tea and candy. Note my gentle reader that I do not typically breakfast n candy, but I am a ill frazzled.

So I buy my water, tea and two candy bars. I got what I expected with the water, but the tea and candy bars were a surprise, and fortunately not the teeth grinding kind of surprise.

I expected the tea to be unsweetened like in Japan.  The bottle looked the same, but because I cannot read it turned it to be non offensively sweetened.  Still was good.

The dove bars, which I anticipated being milk chocolate were n fact white chocolate. That was a surprise. Fortunately, I am not adverse to white chocolate and hence it was a savory treat.

Anyway, the point is, I have stepped into a world where I cannot read, communicate by pointing, smiling and nodding, and cannot understand what people are saying. A few days ago I was this burned out lawyer living in G-Vegas, not I am a giant baby Huey wandering the Middle Kingdom in search of food.
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Rubber hits the road

Your humble narrator is now in the fabled Middle Kingdom, which was in large part the whole impetus of this blog.  No more will there be tired posts about how bad the food is at the G-Vegas Ale House (Which has made me feel bloated and full of liquid lard on a couple of occasions) or such triflings as sighting a moose in the backyard. No from now on this Blog will be synchronizing itself with the daily circumstances surrounding living and working in China.

I got into Beijing yesterday at about 5 PM local time and was met by a very friendly and well spoken assistant to one of the teachers who works for the agency that got me here.

I should also point out that your narrator has no intentions of offending against China's strict visa requirements. It is very possible that I will be back on a plane very soon to get my work visa because I am technically here only as a tourist.  Please do not let that fact get back to the Chinese authorities, oh my gentle reader.

Initial impressions of China are really not possible.  I took a shuttle to the hotel, ate some KFC, and watched some Chinese TV while dozing.  In a moment of cosmic kismet, the only english program on the TV had a singer named Sarah Connor who was signing Ray Lamontaigne's song "Crazy" (which is more infamously known by it's cover artist version by Gnarls Barclay).  Stumbling around a foreign hotel room in serious jet lag and KFC induced torper, hearing that song made me laugh, as indeed I might be considered by more sedate and reasoned people to be kind of crazy for coming to China in the first place.

I want to be here because my life had hit an impasse and I needed to make it work again.  Depending upon how my career as an ESL teacher goes, I fancy myself doing alot of traveling and teaching over the next years.

It is not that I do not want to go back to practicing law.  I love it.  I know I am pretty good at law.  In many respects, my midlife crisis type foray into being a Chinese english teacher is symptomatic of burnout.  Yes, to place the motivations for this Chinese teaching jaunt into perspective, it is pretty much a period of professional re-evaluation and assessment with an aim of putting my mind and career back on track.

My mind is good right now.  I feel very good and am optimistic that this is going to be a very fun and enlightening experience.  My idea of fun might not align with the ideas of fun held by my readers. Fun is perhaps not the best word.  Intriguing might be better.

In a couple of hours I am flying to Wuhan to meet another teacher who will hopefully get me ensconced at a school where I will soon be working.

My apologies to my readers for the delay in making posts.  The past few weeks have included alot of downtime and not much in the way of happenings.  I will be sure to summarize any posts of interes