Lost on Planet China

Okay, so everyone knows I'm not really into a big hoopla about birthdays. Today more than ever reassured me that NO ONE IN CHINA WILL EVER KNOW MY BIRTHDAY!!!! Today is Wendi's birthday. It turns out that all of the parents of the Early Years were in cahoots on a big celebration that happened in the cafeteria in front of everyone. As scary as that idea is (the thought of being surrounded by hundreds of people singing Happy Birthday), the scariest thing was just the presence of the parents. I lose all authority when the parents are at school, because the kiddos know mom will take care of any woe as long as they scream loud enough. You can imagine the amount of crying that happened because EVERY student's mom came to lunch. And worse, the moms are force feeding their kids. I've learned the reason several of my kids don't eat at lunch is because they expect an adult to spoon feed them. If no one is spoon feeding them, they will literally sit there and stare at their food for all of lunch time and just not eat. No no no no no no way! NOPE! I'm not spoon feeding each of my students. Luckily they're figuring out that with me, crying will get you NO WHERE and NOTHING. Yesterday here's what happened (a couple of you have heard this story, but I wanted to share it with everyone):

I'm watching Elf 1 and Elf 2 playing in the block center. Elf 1 notices that a block from his airplane is missing. He opens his mouth and I see him just about to wail the most high pitched scream that I know all of them are capable of, but then he sees the look on my face and freezes, mid-cry. He knows that if there is a problem, he has to talk to me. With me, crying will not get the stolen block back.  Elf 1 quickly points at Elf 2 and motions a swift and speedy take-away.
Me: "I notice your airplane is missing a block. Did you see [Elf 2] take it?"
Elf 1: *Shakes his head*
Me: "Okay, well let's look for the missing block. Maybe we can ask [Elf 2] if he knows where it is."
Elf 1: *stands up to talk to Elf 2* and sure enough, Elf 1 was sitting on the missing block the whole time.
Now this teacher would not have been a happy teacher if there had been a lot of screaming and tears shed over a stolen block that wasn't even stolen.

We are working on talking about our problems, as evidenced above. Phrases like "excuse me" and "please stop" should be used before any crying or pushing occurs. Of course my hope is that talking about the problem will make it so that crying is no longer necessary, again, as evidenced in the story above. My little Korean elf still seems determined not to pick up any English. Or so I thought. It turns out that what I thought he has been saying this whole time, "ping tu da", is not Korean at all, but in fact an attempt to say "please stop".

"Lost On Planet China" by J. Maarten Troost
I've been reading this book that Ariana gave me. It's a guy who just travelled China and wrote about it. He seems to exaggerate a lot, but I found two quotes to be particularly insightful:
- "As I delved into 'Chinese for Dummies', I couldn't help but conclude that the Chinese language is the Great Wall of languages, a clever linguistic barrier erected to keep outsiders out .... take the issue of Chinese characters. There are 20,000 of them. Fortunately , you don't need to learn all 20,000, just 7,000 should you wish to understand what an educated Chinese person is talking about".
- "But then, remembering that human beings cannot produce 20,000 unique sounds, even if you were to include belching and hawking great globs of phlegm (which I think counts in Chinese), the linguistic powers that be - whoever they are - threw in tones, possibly to ensure that no foreigner over the age of thirty would have any chance whatsoever of understanding the Chinese language".
- At least with the English alphabet, I only have to memorize 26 characters. And each of those characters has a typical sound, making it easy to read. Chinese characters are in no way phonetic. Two words that have the same characters are actually pronounced completely differently.

My Struggles with Mandarin:
- My TAs have been encouraging me to speak Mandarin with them. I'm careful to do it when the students aren't around, to make sure they're learning the most English possible.
- Yesterday morning I saw my TA Jean who doesn't speak English. I told her "Jin tian xing qi er", which means, "Today is Tuesday". I know it's not very conversational, but it's something I can say in Mandarin. She just started giggling, and held both her hands up in peace signs, so excited I am starting to speak Mandarin :)
- One of my elves wanted more rice at lunch. And in an effort to keep her seated, since the kiddos tend to wander when they get out of their chairs, I offered to take the bowl for her. On my way to the kitchen, Alice stopped me, looked me in the eye, and said, "You can do this, you will order the rice in Mandarin!" Success!
- I love how they create adjectives. They combine the word for "very", which is "hen" (3rd tone), with a verb. For example:
Very eat = Delicious, "hen chi"
Very look = Beautiful "hen kan"
Weird, huh?