Letter From China
by
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Greetings Once Again from Beijing!
... where I am wishing that the dragon king’s daughter hadn’t married the human being.
This past week was February 2nd (our calendar, not yours), and the weather turned cold and rainy: TingTing explained to me that a long time ago, there was in the heavens a very big and very powerful dragon king. He married another dragon and they had a daughter. It happened that in outward appearance, the young daughter dragon looked like a human being. One day, on February 2nd in fact, she married a real human being. Her mother was very sad about this and shed a great, cold tear that came to earth as bad weather. Thus, each year at this time we have bad weather again. I don’t know if this is true or not, but it was colder than a dragon’s butt here last week!
I now have a weekly poker night with the girls. I kept asking Victor and Bill, but they were like, "Huh?" Now, Jennifer and two of her friends, Han Dong and Chang Fei, who don’t speak English (but who love to gamble!) come over. The other two girls can now say, "fold," "check" and "raise" (what a good teacher I am!), and when someone raises two jiao, everybody goes "ewww" and folds. I found some microwave popcorn at PriceSmart, which they like but want me to put sugar on, for some reason. One beer lasts two hours between all of them.
Jennifer came by today. She told me she was riding on the 503 bus this morning and a man, who thought she wasn’t looking, tried to reach into her purse and steal her wallet. Her reaction? She just gave him a quick dirty look and got up and went to another part of the bus. "You didn’t yell, ‘Thief! Thief!’?" I asked. Oh, no, nobody would ever do that in China. We would never want to cause a commotion. People are very private here. Jennifer went on to say that, for example, if a person falls into a lake and starts to drown, he better hope there are at least 100 people around. This would increase only slightly the chance that somebody might actually attempt to save him. If it ain’t your business, they ain’t interested here. I "thank my lucky stars" that I’m not at the bottom of last week’s manhole!
My student, May, was visiting the other night, and I sneezed twice in succession She said, "Someone is cursing you." Huh? Apparently in China, if you sneeze once, someone is missing you. If you sneeze twice, someone is cursing you. Three times means somebody is talking about you. If you sneeze four times, you have a cold!
The sound of channel surfing in China: "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, China’s entry into the WTO, blah, blah, blah, China’s winning bid for the Olympics, blah, blah, blah." Actually, China is about to become the third country to put a man into space, and there are plans for a space station quite soon. Also, the ten-year plan calls for China to have a colony on the moon. I’ve been teasing my students, "Okay, how much you give me for the Moon? Ten billion
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Book Details
Language :
English
Publication Date :
12/12/2003
Format :
Softcover
Dimensions :
5x8
Page Count :
304
ISBN :
9781414026824
About the Book
Letter from China is a poignant and irreverent diary of the author's yearlong (2001-2) experience of teaching English to college students in Beijing, People’s Republic of China. From the very first pages, the author draws you into his struggle with a culture worlds away from his comfort zone. The author’s generous and compelling personality allowed him to gain access to the lives of his students and their families, who became characters in his tale. One can experience the author’s wit and humanity throughout the narrative.
The author's humorous view of China is especially timely and dovetails with the current explosion of interest in that country as it enters the modern world. The book is neither a travelogue nor a look at the government, although elements of those subjects are woven into the story. Instead, it is an engaging look at China, tailored toward those who know little about it. Still, those who have lived and/or traveled there will also enjoy the book as it reminds them of the absurdities they, too, experienced.
About the Author
Peter James Froning is the author of Letter from China, an account of his year teaching English to Chinese university students. Before that he was an economic developer and former accountant (CPA) and devoted follower of the band, Procol Harum. He was raised in the small town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, but spent most of his adult life in Wilmington, Delaware, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Most of his professional life was spent helping others develop small businesses, particularly within the multi-cultural world of the Land of Enchantment.