R.P. BenDedek
Chinese Examinations.
By R.P. BenDedek
Jun 27, 2005 - 8:58:00 AM

R.P. BenDedek (pseudonym) is a conversational English Teacher in China (Hubei Radio and TV University Wuhan), and writes for Magic City Morning Star News. In addition to his 'Stories from China', he is the author of 'The King's Calendar:The Secret of Qumran' at www.kingscalendar.com.

It's Exam Time in China.  Not just for the Chinese Students, but for us foreigners as well. So here I sit writing a story. What better excuse could I have for not studying.

I showed you some photos of my classmates and my classroom in my last story http://magic-city-news.com/article_3800.shtml. Today I thought I would start you off with some photos of the Chinese Male Students dormitory rooms and bathroom.

Communal Bathroom

What you are looking at in this photo is the communal bathroom, and no, those troughs are not the urinals. That is the bathing facility you are looking at. Students bring their buckets here, fill them up, squat naked on the floor, and wash themselves (Summer and Winter) with refreshing cold water.

Student accommodation is, for the want of a better word, DISGUSTING! There can be up to four double bunks per room, no closet space, no bookshelves, no screens to protect from mosquitoes, nor privacy, toilet facilities or air conditioning. Just like home (for many students).

So when those of you who 'live in' at college want to start complaining about how tough you have it, THINK AGAIN! Appreciate what you have.

I have only been in the dormitories of two universities, so perhaps I am not giving you the larger picture here, but I doubt it.

Whenever I feel like I am doing it tough away from Jupiter's Casino Hotel on the Gold Coast (Queensland - Australia), I just look at how the students here fare and am reminded that I have nothing to complain about. 

I at least can go home.

Boys Dormitory

I still call Australia HOME!

Many students come from wealthy families and nice homes, although I doubt that many at my University do.

Whenever I ask my students why they are at this university, they always reply that their marks were too low to attend a decent university. That says it all!

This term I have been teaching 6 double lessons to second year university students, and three double lessons to first year students. One of these three first year classes is the absolute pits!.

The only decent student (by which I mean the only one who cares or tries to learn), asked me the other day to give the single most important reason why I hate his class and have asked the school to relieve me of my duties with them. This is what I said:

Just a glimpse of one section of dead fish in the East Lake System.

You know when a fish jumps out of the lake and lands on the ground, how it flaps and jumps around? It's dying because it can't breath, and it is struggling to get back into the water; struggling to live. You know what I do when I see a fish like this? I help it! I push it back into the water.  And that is why I don't like your class. Their all dead! They don't struggle to live and learn. They can't be bothered, and neither can I! Although the other two classes are also poor in English, they do actually try. They are eager to improve. Them, I do try to help!

Catching the 402 bus at lunchtime from behind Wuhan University, I travel around the lake to the DongHu Campus of DianDa. The right frame looks back to Wuda.

Looking over to the opposite side of the lake from Wuda

It's really sad actually, because these kids are all English Majors who are doing this course because their entrance exam results limited their options, and of the options that they have, more than half are being coerced by their parents to study English.

Judy! I'll miss you!

My friend Judy was recently asked to assist a small business with their business English, and while spending time with the manager of the firm, witnessed a prospective employee interview.

The prospective employee, a girl, was asked to introduce herself. According to Judy, the girl did the usual high school routine: "My name is --- and I'm 22 years old. I just graduated from --- University and I like speaking English and watching movies and playing with my friends. That's all!"

The Manager replied: 'That is not all! Tell me about yourself?' To which the girl replied: 'Shenme?" (What?)

She couldn't actually speak English, but she does have her University Degree as an English Major.

I was supposed to ask a question about his speech and refused to answer unless I posed with him for a photograph.

Not all students are like that of course, there are quite a number who are excellent at speaking English, even if they have never had a foreign teacher.

This boy in the picture to the left spoke at a Speaking Competition at DianShi DaXue, and while I could not have given him a high mark because of his presentation skills, his topic and his speaking ability were really good. (He does not have a foreign teacher).

I have a girl in my 'dummies' class whose grammar is pretty good, as is her pronunciation, but she spends every lesson talking talking talking talking in Chinese with the girl she always sits with. She failed the 'one minute' speaking test I gave them last Thursday, despite having had one week to prepare for it.

Actually, the surprise of the week came from a girl who wants to be an interpreter. She is ugly, fat, poor at English and has absolutely no personality.

Although extremely slow with poor pronunciation, she not only managed the one minute test, but I did not inform her that her time was up until she had spoken for two whole minutes. She proved that she actually can think and speak in English at the same time.

Girls dormitory at Dong Hu as seen from the men's toilets on the 7th floor. Come September none of us will be in this campus.

I actually did this to quite a number of students in the first year classes. You could see them sweating as they realised that I was not going to let them stop. (Stop talking for 10 seconds and you fail).

I have given one of these classes a congratulatory letter telling them that if they would only practice, they would improve out of sight, for they obviously have what it takes to succeed.

One boy has perfect aural comprehension and can perfectly hear any cassette dialogue or monologue, and as well, writes perfectly correct grammatical sentences. He completely failed the speaking test three times.

From a Distance - but always with the girls. I had my camera with me in class and spotted him across the basketball field and snapped this shot.

This little snapshot is of a really nice boy in the 'struggling' class. He is active in the student organisation, he likes me a lot, he often attends class both Thursday and Friday, and gave a wonderful one minute presentation last Thursday. Trouble is that he also cannot engage in any type of conversation, and understands nothing of what I say.

Chinese students have a fantastic ability to memorise. It's what their taught all their lives. How they learned Chinese characters before PinYin was invented I'll never know. The trouble is that they can memorise text and recite beautifully, but can't answer a simple question. They have no ability to think and speak in English.

This picture captures his problem. No matter where or when you see him, he is with the girls, laughing, chatting and playing, especially in class. I have to force him to sit on his own because if he sits with anyone, he just doesn't shut up. He's really nice, but what a pain.

Candid Camera time!

Of course, playing in class is not just the prerogative of young Chinese Students. The student in this photo is Jiang Ba Hao with whom I sit in class. Now how do you suppose that photo got taken?

Students quite often come to class with cameras and take photographs of each other, especially when it is someone's birthday. It's a pity I don't have a photograph of Zhu Laoshi stuffing her face with Clara's Homemade Carrot and Walnut cake. Zhu Laoshi said it is the best thing she has ever tasted, which is not surprising if you have ever eaten the local cakes.

According to Zhu Laoshi's class enrollment form, there are 28 students in our class, but only God knows who they all might be. The actual record of class attendance stands at between 13 and 18 students at any given time.

Facing my own deadline as a teacher to give my students four different exams, and correct the 600 written papers, as well as prepare for my upcoming four exams, I took two and a half days off myself last week.

Front Gates to Wuhan University in WuChang.

Handing my last set of exam results to a teacher Monday morning, I set off to Wuhan Daxue (WuDa - Wuhan university) to sit for my Tingli (Hearing) Exam.

Judy my ABC friend dropped out of classes weeks ago and has been travelling around China. Here she sets up her new tent in my living room. At only US $15, you can always ask here to bring one back to the US for you.

Everyday, even though class begins at 8:05am, students wander into class anywhere up to the first or second breaks, which I guess the reason that they set down the time for our exam, at 8:30am.

Promptly at 8:30am, there were exactly 5 students in the classroom. Within 10 minutes that number had risen to 7 students. We started! During the next HOUR another 5 students wandered into the classroom to sit for their 8:30am Exam.

While the test itself turned out to be quite easy, there was still a surprise in store for us, for 30 minutes into the test, a messenger came in to inform us that Wednesday's Reading Test would be held immediately after the Hearing Test. This effectively knocked 12 hours of study out of my schedule, and I panicked.

Having fun at school during Japanese Cherry Blossom festival. MaSha (Brazilian who speaks English and French) and I clown around for the camera.

This exam too was easy. Not too easy, but easy too. Our regular "in class" exams are much harder, and these two tests were more designed to cover a lot of bases. I did however have to interrupt our Tingli Teacher and ask him to give us time to review the written material we were working from, before giving us each individual aural test.

Chinese is a tonal language, which means that if your tone is wrong, then you are saying a completely different word. I've mentioned before that in saying the names of one male student and one female teacher, I was actually using the wrong tone, and using very disgusting language.

The recent group of American arrivals asked me how it was that I knew all the dirty words in Chinese. I explained that having lived here for over 2 years, I have many times mispronounced many words and have subsequently discovered their true meanings.

At first nobody would tell me what exactly I was saying, so I had to explain that the only way to avoid using the wrong tone, was to actually know WHAT tone was wrong.

This is the scene from my bedroom window when I arrived in Wuhan. Now it is extremely hot and humid. From one extreme to the other.

With Wednesday's Test shifted to today (Monday), we are just hoping that firstly, we won't get Thursday's exam after Tuesday's exam, and secondly, that Thursday's exam will remain at Thursday and not be brought forward to Wednesday.

That way we will all have a free day to study hard for our most important exam. But THIS IS China!

Everybody in China is always in a hurry to go nowhere; always late arriving anywhere; can never tell you which Day you are to go somewhere; but always turning up at your door five minutes before you are to go somewhere, that IN FACT, you are going there NOW!

So, here I sit typing this article, knowing that I have an exam tomorrow, but knowing that there is not much I can do to prepare for it, because it is a speaking test. Of course, this being China, our schedule will be changed, and I could have used this time to study for Thursday's Test.

One daughter, a brilliant artist, didn't take high school seriously and failed to qualify for the art scholarship she was offered. Recently she won a competition for this face painting (on her little sister) and has been offered professional employment. School may suck but it is a necessary evil.

In the end, I just have to remind myself that I am learning the language for the love of learning it, and with the hope to increase my speaking ability. If I fail the test, I have all summer to get it into my head.

For many of the Chinese Students however, the examinations under way here in China at the moment, will decide their futures, either in relation to which University they will go to, or whether or not they can get a decent job.

For the Chinese, Examinations determine the course of their whole lives. For many western students however, University examinations are just a necessary evil that arrives at the end of a jolly good time.

Wish me luck.

I'm shortly going away down south for 3 weeks, and hope when I come back, to provide you with some more photographs and stories from China.

In the meantime, enjoy these few Additional Photographs.

A restaurant near the small back gate of Wuda, on the lake. You have to be a NewZealander to appreciate this photo. They pronounce FISH as FUSH. So it's a FISHING restaurant.

The Roundabout at Luxiang in Winter.

R.P.Bendedek

Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com

R.P.BenDedek is the pseudonym of the Author of 'The King's Calendar: The Secret of Qumran' (www.kingscalendar.com), and is a guest columnist at Magic City Morning Star News. An Australian, he currently teaches Conversational English in China. Other Stories can be found at:  http://www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=128

The 'King's Calendar:The Secret of Qumran is a chronological study, of people and events listed in the Bible, Josephus, and The Damascus Document of the Essenes. It both confirms and challenges many cherished concepts in relation to Biblical Infallibility and Bible History, The Dead Sea Scrolls, the writings of Josephus, the Reign of Nebuchadrezzar, Moses and the Exodus, Jeremiah's Seventy year prophecy of the Babylonian Exile, Daniel's Vision of Seventy weeks, and discrepancies between the Septuagint and Masoretic Texts of the Bible. www.kingscalendar.com.