Looking beyond the surface...

Hello everybody!

I am back in Beijing, ChinaL now! The flight was boring but I was able to watch 4 episodes of "Supernatural" on my portable DVD player before the battery ran out of juice! Its a bit quiet and lonely here by myself after all the people and activities I have done these past five weeks in California! But, I'm looking forward to a new school year with more experience of how to prepare for courses and the things that makes classroom teaching more successful and those things to avoid or not forget to do! Such as write everything on the board as you say it but don't put students with other students that will put them down. Almost have to be a coach as a teacher and pay attention to how students interact with each other.

Anyhow, I just wanted to comment on the fact that the school is trying really hard to "look good" for the upcoming evaluation in October 2007. But don't they realize that "looking good" will never work if what's beyond the surface is less than perfect, decaying even? If the teaching strategies and courses aren't organized, if the tree roots are growing over underground pipes, if people get short term release but not long term? I agree that one should "live for the moment" but to a certain extent!!! You can't just chop down trees to make the alley more beautiful and replant them later. You gotta think beyond the here and now....and look past the surface level. And just because one looks a certain way....of a certain color, dress, physical size...that doesn't mean that you should treat them based on your assumptions of them! "Oh, you're Chinese-looking...so you can't be from America. When did you emmigrate to America?" That's the dilemma of minority-Americans whose parents were from a different country but whose generation were born and raised in America...I don't identify myself as "Chinese" by nationality but yet I am not exactly viewed as "American" here either. The identity dilemma of someone not only of mixed cultures...but of three different nationalities....

Oh, another point. I was bored and...uhmmm...eavesdropping on another person's conversation while waiting to board the plane at the airport. The lady commented to another lady, "Americans aren't so rich as they seem. There may even a bigger percentage of Chinese richer than rich Americans. They [Americans] like to spend more so they seem richer while we [Chinese] tend to save money and don't spend it. Americans have their problems just like us." The other lady replied "Well, China is also a bigger country than America so you have to think about the ratio of population if you were to compare China to the US in terms of poverty and economy." Interesting. I'm glad that they were able to open their eyes to the fact that America is not the glamourized Beverly Hills 90210 lifestyle that disillusion its foreign viewers. Anyways, its human nature to have pride for our ancestry, religion, family, jobs, accomplishments and our hometowns. Its only natural. I would find one a little bit odd if they didn't have pride for any of the above!