With apologies for a lengthy layoff, I have refrained from writing for the simple purpose that I have very little news of note to share with the world at large.  There are the small victories of acclimitization and adaption that I have written about before, the joys (and pratfalls) of teaching, and the ongoing challenge that is Mandarin Chinese.  I am trying to avoid retracing these same topics to death as I’m not sure exactly how to make them exciting anymore.  At any rate, here is an effort going forth into the new year, which I hope finds anyone who stumbles over this blog a healthy and productive 12 months.  We are in the doldrums here, rounding out to the semester’s end and nearly every foreign teacher’s eyes have long since strayed ahead to the coming month-long holiday that is nearing.

To take advantage of this break from work, I will be traveling with Tori back through Southeast Asia.  We’ve done it once before, but this time will be taking advantage of our past experiences to head off the more beaten path to the more remote parts of the region, trying to explore the dirt covered floors of restaurants off a red earth highway in the Cambodian jungle or drinking snake blood liquor in a Vietnamese town.  While these are well anticipated moments, the peak of my anticipation is connected to Myanmar.  Thanks to Tori’s free time and ambitious leg work, we have possession of visas to journey into Myanmar and will be flying into Yangon the first of February for 10 days.  It is a country I’ve been dying of curiousity to see and am anticipating an eye-opening journey through this closed off nation.

Until the holiday kicks off, I have been rewarding my classes with a movie.  They enjoy it, and it makes my job marginally easier than it already is.  Really, I would love it except for the simple fact that of my 20 classes, 18 of them voted to watch Twilight.  Given 5 films to choose from.  Twilight.  18 times.  Maybe once or twice, fine, I could live with that.  Unfortunately Edward Cullen’s dreamy popularity extends to the Middle Kingdom and I find myself thinking I should have emulated the Chinese government’s top-down approach.  Alas I have made an effort to find a silver lining, hauling along a paperback and a notebook so I can read some and practice writing Chinese characters while the students fall into a vampire-induced trance.  How these films have earned hundreds of millions is beyond me and speaks to a low standard for entertainment.  But that is a personal view.

The past few weeks have seen a swarm of activity pass through our apartment with the arrival of my roommate’s friendly and adventurous family for a two week stay.  With a slight rearrangement of sleeping spaces and furniture everyone was accomodated.  It is fun to have people from home visit, even ones I don’t know, because we get to see the perspective of people who are new to the country, who notice things that we teachers have largely lost the awe for.  It also made for a hectic time and I enjoyed the break I got on New Year’s Eve as they (and nearly every American I know) headed over the border to Hong Kong.  I rang in 2010 enjoying the peace and quiet of my apartment.  This may also be a sign I am becoming old prematurely.

The students are now preparing for Mr. Bennett’s grueling spoken English exam.  This consists of me taking 3 students a time out of the room for about 3 minutes to ask them questions in English.  It is less than ideal, but so is having 55 kids in each 45-minute class, so we make do.  It is a nice opportunity for me to talk to them individually and really get a better grasp of how much of what I spew in front of the class they actually grasp.  There has been some level of disheartenment for me, particularly when I ask “What is your favorite hobby?” and am stared at blankly until I give them the Chinese translation.  However, there is a noticeable improvement going from my sophomores to my juniors, so perhaps the teaching I do in this city actually has been helpful.  That or their Chinese teachers are riding them hard to learn a lot.  I’d prefer the former.  On the 15th Tori and I will depart overland via train for Hanoi, until then…cheers.