And Now a Word From My Students

In class the other day we were talking about poetry and lyrics. One thing I have found in China is that creativity is stifled in the extreme. People tend to be good at recitation or at imitation, but creation is sorely lacking. My assignment for them was to write a spontaneous, original poem. I left the spelling mistakes because it makes it more impressive when you see what all they wrote correctly. These are kids who usually have to use an electronic dictionary to spell "orange." I was very impressed and decided to share some of the more interesting submissions.

When I was child
I want to be a superman
when I am young
I want to be a totler
when I will old
I want to be a famous people
-Shelley
I thought this was nice. Shelley normally doesn't say anything, so her attempt at tenses (while not particularly successful) was ambitious.

When the sun is rising up
walk through
the lake is blue
Where swimming the goose
Do you remember your childhood
with happiness on you face
You never lost your wings
Please fly and believe you can do
On the cloud. Angles are smiling to you
Always...
-Joe
I liked that Joe attempted to rhyme! He's a really funny kid who tries REALLY hard.

Asleep, senseless of spring morning
I heard birds everywhere singing
the stormy night made so much noise
How many flowers dropped. Who knows?
-Vivian
Vivian is Joe's desk partner and they worked together on their poems.

"A List"
1. travel go abroad
2. appointment with star
3. to be a doctor
4. shoot a film
5. get married
6. fix a bike
7. invent a toy
8. dress designing
9. get the winning number in a band
10. cook sunrise with my family together
-Joy
I think I like Joy's the best. Her "poem" is a simple list of things she wants to do before she dies (maybe). I assume she means "breakfast" when she says "cook sunrise."

“Important People"
Oh, Mother! you looks like a flower
you bloom in every season
for world, you bring colur
for me, you bring the big love
I hope I can keep you company
forever!
You are not only my motherm but also my
idol.
-TiLa
I think Tila (creatively written TiLa) MAY have copied this, but I hope not because of the atrocious grammar.

“The Youth. The Life."
The youth like a poem.
It worths everyone to chant.
The life like a picture.
it worths everyone to paint.
In the spring, we can flying
idea. Launched a better future.
In the summer, we can
running, sweating.
In the fall, we can reading books
thinking more things about our life.
In the winter we can snowing.
Staying with the family.
-Jessica
Jessica is the resident writer in the class. It's always the job she most wants, even though she is studying to become a tour guide. She wrote me a story once in Chinese. I couldn't read it though :)

“The Distance of Smile"
I put down all my sadness and painful past
with shinning bravery and determined words
I give up the whole life of light sweet
In order to meet a butterfly and the laugh of her memories.

I have already suffered a long wait
Like rivers, lakes, seas and oceans.
And one day, I will cross a whole desert
Never left, with my young romance.

At last, under the mountains
I will find the softest wind, which belongs
To the most beautiful girl, then she smiles
To me, which distance is a mile.
-Wisdom
Wisdom is by far my best Tourism student. He is obsessed with philosophy and his hero is Gandhi. The ladies consider him quite a poet and singer in his native tongue.

I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did!

news and blues

Mostly news, not much blues this time. Been listening to a lot of Zappa recently, pretty inspiring and daunting on the guitar front. I managed to get a chance to hang out with Pumpkin and was invited to guest with them at their last show. I was there for the ceremonial hand off of the rehearsal space to the new freshman (Holiday). It was pretty touching. They asked me to write something for the show so I wrote a cheesy but catchy little ska number. They were pretty delighted and had never really heard of ska before. Funny. I read the whole Series of Unfortunate Events set of books and really enjoyed them, although it got a little tedious. It is really interesting to get immersed in young adult/or children's fiction sometimes . The author did a great job of making sense of some pretty complicated themes for a fairly young audience. Most enjoyable. I have been struggling lately to fight my way through three different books, the Cobain journals (which I feel dirty and bad for reading since the cover specifically asks me not to), Blink by malcolm gladwell, and Inherent Vice, by THomas pynchon. The Pynchon book is surprisingly boring at the 25% mark, and I hope that it gets better soon. The children's books had more compelling descriptions than an occasionally pot smoking detective so far. The reviews on this book said it was like the Big Lebowski, but so far there has been a lack of humor. Blink is pretty interesting and full of fun facts, but I keep getting sidetracked by a desire to finish the Cobain book (but then guilt when I read it), forcing myself to read pynchon (and guilt when I don't read it), and just enjoying BLink. Oh well. As difficult decisions go it ain't so bad. Emily has been sick and finally gave it to me. I had hoped to end the second half of the great Chinese residency illness free, but it is not to be. I missed about a week (not being able to talk=not teaching) but managed to finagle it so that I only have to make up 2 classes (yay!). REally not giving a crap so much about quality as we head into the homestretch. Forgive the typos but I'm lazy. Emily says to tell you that she saw some girls sexy dancing at the local electronic store. I just read in my journal that we saw dogs being slaughtered at the local "mutton" grill two months ago. The end.

Wasting TIme

Emily got sick and I've been whiling away the time surfing on ebay. It's tax return time and even though this year I have to save the money for settling in when we get home I still have been looking. Usually at this time of year I get ye olde tax money and blow it on a guitar or something fun as well as paying off the old credit card. But this year I have to save it. Not that I haven't almost pulled the trigger on a few guitars! I got back out my guitar book and am trying to force myself to realize that practicing means actually learning not just the usual endless noodling that I so enjoy. I spent time getting a guitar here and now I have to find a way to get rid of it. It is much easier to acquire guitars in China than it is to sell them! Oh well. Not a big problem if I do say so. I did have an awesome thing happen this week. I got to talk to JED!!! It was his birthday and we fought skype until it let me give him a call. Good times! Can't wait to get home...