Walkin the Dog….
Let me start by typing that I am not putting myself down by identifying with a pet dog, but by being one of the only older, more mature, foreign teachers in our little group at the Xiasha campus, I definitely qualify as a fifth wheel. I sometimes identify with Sadie, my bouncing boxer, as she prances at the front gate waiting for me to put her leash on for a walk.
My trainers, pictured above, are all in their 20’s and they all have more than a years experience working in China. Also their previous assignments were not as ‘cushy’ as this one. Ricky is from Australia, Elizabeth and Nathan are from Arkansas, Florida and most recently the Katrina hit part of Louisiana. They are all very nice and are willing to let me follow them around on their WuMae trips, their vegetable market trips, dinners out, and Hangzhou trips. They help translate for me and make sure I don’t starve. I have decided that these guys have kindly appointed themselves as my ‘trainers’. (Or if my suspicions erupting from the paranoid part of my brain are correct, maybe Zac and Nicole have secretly been talking to them to make sure that I get enough exercise while I am here.)
Physical Training
Not sure who has won the title of Toughest Trainer of the three. Nathan not only walks me, but also attempts to teach me survival Chinese such as numbers, and the hand signals for numbers (six is the same as the ‘surfs up’ sign the surfers send to each other) as we walk. I thought Nathan’s first ‘training session’ or walk to the vegetable market was tough on this old dog because we totaled 7 miles. (It should have been 3 miles but we got lost). Recent experiences have made me aware that Nathan’s sessions was just a ‘walk in the park’ compared to Ricky’s training session. Last week Ricky temporarily earned the title of Master Trainer (Elizabeth hasn’t taken her turn yet). I went with Ricky to Hangzhou where we clocked a record 14.11 miles on my pedometer. That was a total of 33,000 steps by the time I got in my apartment. Just in case you don’t believe that this old dog can walk that far I documented the total in a couple of photos when we finally stopped at 10pm to rest and eat at McDonalds. We didn’t get home until 12 midnight so add 2000 steps to that 31,000 total. As mentioned, Elizabeth hasn’t taken her ‘trainer’ turn in the competition yet, but she loves to shop so I am sure that I will clock many steps on her strolls thru the local Xiasha stalls.
Mental Training
Both Ricky and Nathan have given me material to watch, read and listen to – to improve my survival Chinese. I am surprised they haven’t given me up as hopeless. I watched a DVD that was teaching Pinyin to Chinese Children and I fell asleep twice. The DVD definitely could NOT compete with our mesmerizing Sesame Street. I will attempt it again after I finish watching DVDs of the addictive 1st, 2nd, and 3rd seasons of 24.
The Chinese DVD really will help this visual learner because I need to see the pinyin as well as hear what they are saying to have any chance of memorizing it. It is all a matter of substitutions, C sounds like ts, Q is pronounced ch, I sounds like eee and so on. After you get the substitutions memorized then you work on the tones (they are the tough part). I have to get my numbers learned quickly because I am almost out of my water in the water dispenser and I have to make a phone call in Chinese to have it delivered. This means I have to be able to say “ I want water” and my room number 6101 in Chinese. So if I don’t die of thirst it was because you CAN teach “an old dog new tricks” and remember to consider me lucky because in China it is the “year of the dog”.
