Today is October 1st, China's National Day that commemorates the founding of the People's Republic of China. Last Friday night I was a guest of the Suzhou Municipal Government at the Shangri-La Hotel to attended the 58th anniversary bash, and was wined, dined and entertained at the expense of the Republic. {An Honoured Guest in SuZhou}
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| Look at that sky. Just below the temples and the giant gold buddha |
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| Up the mountain side at LeShan in Sichuan. Wanshui wanshui wan wan shui! |
This is a very special day to me, a four and a half year resident in this republic.
To me, this day means that for the next 7 days I have no classes to teach.
Whew! I could do with a break after the last month of breaking in my new students.
Some people have asked me if I will go back to Australia. "Not likely" I tell them.
The round trip would take 4 days travel out of the 7 I have free.
Some have asked if I will use this time to travel around in China. That too is replied to in the negative. This week will see every form of transport and every type of tourist destination jam packed with tourists.
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| Spiritual goods building on the very summit of Mt. Emei |
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| Looking forward to a rest on LeShan. (Shan means Mountain.) |
No, I decided some time ago that I would use this time to write three stories about my summer holiday.
I've had the photographs ready in the article manager at Magic City Morning Star News for several weeks now.
I've been counting off the days to this holiday just so that I could take my time in writing the stories.
Additionally I am planning to hit my Chinese language books and see if I can improve my Chinese.
Fortunately, this period of grace enables me to assist contributors to Magic City Morning Star News to get their articles published while Ken is out of Communication.
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| Temple opposite the cable car to the summit of Emeishan |
This last week has been an interesting one at school, even if we discount the fact that on Thursday afternoon at 2 pm I turned up for my 10am class, only to find the students were not there. Took me 24 hours to figure that one out.
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| That is a stone slab the guy is carrying, and those steps rise 3000 metres. |
This week the students have been sitting in groups composing a business letter that sets forth to answer an inquiry as to what the foreign teacher is like in class; what do the students do and what do they learn.
The exercise is a combination exercise in the writing of 'Brief Notes', 'Memos' and of course a letter.
Each group was required to write one letter that included one point for each member of the group which was to be listed as a 'point', and below it, it was to be expanded into an informative answer that was clear, concise, precise, accurate, and grammatically correct.
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| Taken from within a temple looking out - Mt. Emei (Emeishan) Sichuan. |
It was an interesting exercise, if only because I got to read so many opinions about my teaching methods. Whilst it was good to note that most students saw the value in what they were learning, it was rather hilarious to read some of the complaints. For Example:
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| Senado Square on Macau Island |
- I don't like this teacher's methods. All he ever does is make us talk in English. - What a nerve! Fancy making Chinese students speak English in Conversational English Class.
- I hate this class. The teacher is always making us 'think'! - I'm sure that they would be pleased to know that many students in the west hate doing that as well.
- This class is boring. All we talk about is things to do with Chinese Society. We are not interested in Chinese Society. - An interesting choice of words that translate to: We don't want to talk. We want the teacher to talk about foreign countries.
- This teacher forces students to talk in groups with people that they don't know. - Always a difficult thing to do, but then again, the class is about the 'skills of conversation'.
- This teacher makes us talk about topics we hate. We are unwilling to speak speak so we hate these lessons. - Ah! Such soul searched wisdom!
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| The ruins of St. Paul's on Macau Island - beside the old fort. |
Of course these complaints were all limited to just one group of students.
Despite both my verbal and written instructions, and the benefit on that particular day of having a national teacher in class to translate for me, this group did not actually do the work in the manner that was required of them.
The rest of the class did it OK, but apparently this group were too bored or too upset with the foreign teacher to listen to instructions.
Then again, perhaps they were just so happy to have the chance to express themselves that they didn't bother to follow instructions.
Fortunately for me, the other groups did what was required and expanded the brief notes to provide a fuller explanation of their points; points which provided sufficient feedback to indicate that they were in fact in the process of accelerated learning.
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| Giant Buddha at LeShan Sichuan - taken from a boat on the river. |
So here I am sitting at my computer writing this little article, hoping that you enjoyed both it and the accompanying photographs which were taken during my summer vacation. Those same photos can be found in a larger format at http://www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=554 along with quite a few more, in an article I entitled: Some photographs for the Family.
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| Baoxian Stream on Mt. Emei |
Because I had a lot of work to do when I first got back from my vacation, I quickly threw up a photographic file so that my family could see some of the sites from my trip. Since then I have added 6 photographic files (180 photos approx) of my summer vacations. While you are waiting for me to present the text articles of my trip to Macao, LeShan and Mt. Emei, you might want to take a look at those photographic files, all of which are listed in the file linked above.
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| Two Americans from New Hampshire - exploring Mt. Emei and planning to attend a yoga seminar. |
R.P.Bendedek
Email: rpbendedek@hotmail.com
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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.
Photographic Stories from China can be found at: http://www.kingscalendar.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?action=viewnews&id=128
"The King's Calendar" is a chronological study of the historical books of the Bible (Kings and Chronicles), Josephus, Seder Olam Rabbah, and the (Essene) Damascus Document of The Dead Sea Scrolls.
