mf.rox

Chinese art students parlay lip synching act into international fame

If I get up the gumption, I’ll dig up a link to one of their videos.

Who’s Edna?

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

For some reason, the copy of EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS that I just bought has subtitles from Keira Knightley’s DOMINO.

I got this irritating e-mail from a (?) student today giving me “suggestions” for how I teach my class. This is pretty presumptuous. I wrote back, which may be useless. Here’s my letter:

Dear student(s),

I think it is really surprising that you wrote me a letter telling me how I should teach my class. Do you write your Chinese teachers these kinds of letters? I find this a bit astonishing. But, to answer a few of your concerns, let me say these things:

1) This is a class designed for non-English majors. It is not an English class, nor is it designed to teach English. Therefore, it is more appropriate to show documentaries with subtitles so students can follow the material. Also, the subtitles on VCD materials cannot be turned off.

2) If there is anything you would like to know about the films that I do not cover, you can raise your hands and ask about it in class. It is impossible for me to know what all students would like to know. I have made it clear that I WANT students to ask as many questions as possible. As mature students, it is your responsibility to be proactive and ask any questions that you would like to have answered.

3) As far as speaking in class goes, this is not an oral English class. Again, if students want to speak more, it is their responsibility. There are also opportunities in class to answer questions, and students can answer them briefly, if their English is not so good, or in detail, if their English is better, or they feel more like stretching themselves.

4) Also please remember that this is an elective class, and if you feel the material or teaching methods are unsuitable for you, you can choose to take another course instead.

Best,

MFC

Here’s the student’s (students’?) e-mail:

Subject : suggestions about the course of American film
Dear Mary,
In my opion,the chinese transcrpts in the film you played for us will hinder us from understanding what the narrator tell in english in the film.the narrator speaks so quickly,and when we concentrate on our attentions to the chinese transcripts on the screen,the narrator’s words slipped away before we are concious of it.but if the transcripts show us in english,we can follow the narrator’s introduction and can understand the film better.besides,we can improve our english at the meantime.
I also hope that you could analyze to film we just watched.you could tell me about its backgrounds,its story,and the features of characters.and you could also teach us how to admire that movie.what characteristics does it have?that movie enlighten something to us?
In class,maybe you could activate the students to get involved in the discuss about the lessons.I know you want us to know more about American films,but,if you do not combine the practice of speaking or writing english with the introduction and appreication of Amerian films,I don’t think it is necessary to arrange a teacher ,who speaks english as his native language, to give lecture to us.
Above is just my point of view.maybe you could give some attentions.I am a student of yours.and I am too shy to speak english in class.terrible.I think most chinese students are in the same situation.my english is very very poor.I desperately want help from you.I want more chances to speak egnlish.because I almost never “speak”english.so I expect a lot to the class.
I do think you teach good in class.you have prepared a lot for the class.we all like your teaching,really.we just think you could teach better and best:)
Best regards

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060926/ap_on_go_co/iraq_democrats

A camera crew asked me to say that yesterday. I tried to say it jauntily. I suppose the clip, if it’s used at all, will be used to promote the Biennale. Hyperdesign is this year’s theme.

Oh, I did see the Matthew Barney film yesterday. The theater in the museum was jam-packed, which surprised me until I noticed at least some of the people there were sleeping right from the beginning. They must have been napping before the movie started, and then people who wanted to watch just filled in around them. As for the movie, I can’t say I understood it. I enjoyed it, as much as for the documentary aspects (work on the whaling ship) as anything else. I didn’t understand the significance of the ambergris, or if it had any special significance, or even if that’s what was in that mold (which to me looked like it was shaped like a maxi-pad with wings). It didn’t help that I missed a little bit of the beginning. That happened because the museum was swamped again, there was a line snaking way out outside, and plus, several people working there insisted to me that the film wasn’t showing that day. But still, I persevered, bought my ticket, and tracked down the theater inside the building. Really, I don’t know what to say about the film. The visual imagery and music weren’t as lush as in Cremaster 5. The film had to do with restraint, and while watching it I realized the Japanese tea ceremony has something to do with displacement of pleasure (while I don’t think the film was supposed to help me realize this — it just happened). After being slow and very matter-of-fact for the first hour and a half or so, it got much stranger, and had much more of the sort of imagery I had expected to see. Still, I can’t say that I understood it at all. I didn’t understand the guy/thing with the hose, and what it was, if not a strange version of one of the ship workers. One of the Chinese people near me asked “Is it a clown?” (in the Peking opera clown sense, not the Western sense). I’m not sure I can say anything more about it, really, than what I’ve written here.

Matchmaking relative.

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

On Saturday afternoons HUNDREDS of middle aged and elderly people go to the People’s Square area near the art museum to advertise unmarried kids and grandkids. They show their blurbs and photos to other relatives, and arrange meetings if they think the info sounds good enough. Apparently this is a new phenomenon. I told my friend Mr. Zhao (a.k.a. The Dog Man) about it today, and he’d never heard about it before.

I can’t get on with my wireless connection at all.¬† Is it Linksys problem, or a China problem?¬† Anybody out there have any info?

There’s a fried octopus ball museum in Osaka, Japan!

Sometimes I get really mad or emotional about something, and I can’t explain my feelings pithily or in a way I think is worthy of being published like this.

But, to just throw out my ideas right now, I’m really mad at this woman, R., who I became friends with in Shenzhen. She’s English. As I mentioned in a reply to another post recently, one of the most shocking parts of 9/11 was the way she and some other English people gloated to me about what happened. My students, and the vast majority of Chinese people I met, were really nice and concerned and sympathetic, but a lot of English people were just nasty and kind of jeered about all the destruction in NY.

I recently got an e-mail with her and since I saw it was one of those dumb “humor” ones with all the photographs, I didn’t open it. (I hate those sort of e-mails — you know the ones, that have a subject line like “wet pussy,” and then it’s just a photo of a cat that’s fallen in a bathtub, or something like that.) Well, I finally opened it, and some of the photos where supposedly funny ones about 9/11. I sent back and e-mail asking if she understood the photos at all, and asked why they were supposed to be funny. We’ll see what sort of reply she sends.

It just seems like a breach of human decency to joke, or, especially to gloat about something like that, right? Especially because she knows I used to live in NYC, and that one person I went to high school with was killed in the attack.

I’m just upset and angry. It’s irritating to make friends and then to decide the person is really an asshole.

Professor: I have no idea what you’re saying, but I know you’re wrong.

–Vanderbilt Hall, NYU

Overheard by: The King Adrock

From http://www.overheardinnewyork.com

Whew! My revising today’s class material really paid off!

I found out about it this morning. 

To my shame, I had thought Thaksin Shinawatra had already resigned!

and kudos to their enterprising grandkids, who made it all possible!

Kin reunited 65 years after Holocaust

I did some revamping of my class plan for tomorrow. I’ve gotten rid of the little history/film questionnaire I gave the students, because they knew almost nothing on it, and it freaked them out because they thought it was some sort of quiz. Instead I’ve prepared a little vocab sheet in Chinese — I’ll put up some important terms which they may not know, like editing, producer, director, etc. and introduce them to the words in English. Then I’ll show a bit of a documentary, my little lecture bit will reiterate what they already saw, and then I’ll move on into discussing immigration in early 20th century America. That’ll set them up to continue on with the reading themselves (provided they actually buy at least one copy of the book). I should be finishing up and sleeping rather than writing this, actually.

Well, class didn’t go so well after all! The biggest problem was the awkward book situation. I didn’t know if there were any suitable books for my students in the library since it was closed for the summer. The American Studies reading room was closed too. So, I thought, what the heck, I’ll make a packet. They seem to be cheap, and students are getting big thick ones all the time in my oral English class (they’re getting them for their majors, not for my class — that was just when the monitor was delivering them). I brought all my crap to a copy place the head of the department suggested, and got an estimate of 18 RMB for it all. I brought another batch for a history-related book, and got an estimate of 14 RMB. When it was all put together, the charges were 28 and 18! This is for a 150-page book and a 80 or so page book! For the 44 RMB they charged, I could have made a 440-page book at the corner copy shop! Although 44 RMB, or about $5.50 doesn’t sound like much compared to the hundreds that US students pay per class, the students balked and refused to buy them! They only want to have only a couple people buy them, and then Xerox their own copies for less. I really have no idea why the books are so expensive! I had thought I’d be referred to a cheap place! I’m supposed to tell the students they MUST buy it, although I can’t force them. I really don’t know what to do. This is a bad way to start the semester, confronting students in an elective class with thin, tiny copied versions of books (one of which is actually, unbeknownst to me, in the school library) that altogether cost twice what they’d usually pay for materials for one class! Plus the books are made already, and I have 280 sitting in my office! Another thing was that some students thought the class was too hard. Maybe I’ll revamp everything for tomorrow, and talk about what was going on in the US before moving into the film part? I’m not sure. Probably it can’t go worse tomorrow than it did today.

Today is my first class of the semester. I’m FINALLY beginning. I have a SEVERE case of the nerves, though. It’s because the class I’m teaching is one I’ve never taught at the graduate level before, plus I haven’t taught it at all for three years. I’m afraid I’ll make a hash job of everything, or bore students, or be too nervous or something. Who knows? I probably shouldn’t get all worked up about this — there’s no point. Plus, I’m only teaching one section today, and I can revise and change what I did for tomorrow if I don’t feel it’s successful.

Don’t panic, MF!

I’m feeling all mopey and sad.

Today I was shopping for clothes, frustrated with my body, and was thinking about my weight loss strategy. Basically, it is to not really do much differently, just exercise a little more than usual (walk more), and be a little more careful about what I’m eating. But then I was thinking that I’m being unrealistic. Why should I be able to take off weight without all the work other people do? Why should it, for me, just drop off. I’ve been thinking that I really don’t accept reality when it comes to my body. For another example, I’m 36, with no prospects of marriage, and I want to have a kid. I have this vague abiding belief I really will find someone and have a baby. I think I’m not thinking realistically, that I might be too old to do it easily. Maybe being alone so much is what lets me think so unrealistically. Maybe if I had closer relationships with people, I’d be forced to see that my thinking was unrealistic (or maybe they’d mention it if it was), or I would just have a healthier, more normal perspective on everything.

I just came back from my interview.¬† I conducted about 3/4 of it in Chinese.¬† I’m hoping I won’t come across as a dope or anything.¬† The interviewer, who is an intern at China Business News, also took a picture.¬† From what he told me, the¬†article he writes¬†will include interviews with several different expats.¬† He said he’d drop me an e-mail when the edition comes out.¬† I think it’s going to be in the Weekend section.

The sign of a classy restaurant.

Originally uploaded by MFinChina.

Taken by Ed Wu, in the men’s room at a Shanghai’s fabulous Dynasty Restaurant, where our school took us for our beginning-of-the-year welcoming party. It’s not bad English — it really is a puking room for men who have to drink too much during business meetings. The ladies’ room didn’t have one. Unfair!

I forgot to mention that the picture is unusual because the image you actually see is a composite of several different¬†ones painted on panes of glass.¬† Since it’s 3-D, it has a really disturbing effect, like you’re looking at a hologram, or something that’s trapped in crystal.