Picture
It's the cabbage season at the moment. In particular this variety called qingcai, meaning green vegetable. Yunnan folk also call it kucai, bitter vegetable. This monster specimen was a present from our photographer friend Li Xiaowen. He brought it back from nearby Da Lu Shan mountain, where growing enormous cabbages has been turned into a local passion. They even hold a Cabbage Festival in January, a bit like a village show, with prizes and certificates for the best specimens. Cabbage soup is one culinary manifestation of qingcai, but even more popular is yancai, pickled vegetable. So at this time of year, with the dry season in full swing and clear blue skies all day, everyone hangs their cabbages out to dry on washing lines all over Simao. Once the vegetable is dried and yellowish it gets chopped up and bunged in a clay jar with vinegar, chilli, ginger and sugar and left for a few weeks to mature. Every local granny has their own secret family recipe which is "best". The results are all delicious. See also www.leafgovso.co.uk/yunnan_oddities

 
Picture
Simao is in the centre of the bullseye
Since our first, and biggest, earthquake in 2007 (M6.4) we've experienced plenty more here in Simao. There are a few seismically active minor faults running quite close to town which periodically grumble and shift. We've had two sizeable local tremors in the past month, a wee M3.4 on the 19th November and a bigger, and closer, M4.1 last night at 3.09am. The intensity was enough to wake us all (except Edie) with a fright as the house shook and the windows rattled alarmingly in their frames for a few seconds. Then silence, and a minute later the barking of dogs. The adrenaline rush left us feeling sick in our stomachs and it took me a while to get back to sleep. These night-time quakes are cruel, much harder to cope with. The Puer City Earthquake Bureau is at www.eqpeyn.com. Even without being able to read Chinese you can get the gist...See also www.leafgovso.co.uk/earthquake_alert.htm.

 
Picture
Nita feeling tiny in her classroom.
Did you hear the news of what happened in Mojiang? A student killed his classmate. So many tragedies happened. Other news for you is that last Thursday, 26tth  November, another student died in a Chengjiang middle school, fighting over a girl. The person who died is 12 and a half years old; the killer is 13 and a half. Whenever I think of this I cant sleep; the images of the dead children always in my mind.

My work as a teacher is harder than before. Because two students died we, as class teachers, need to walk around the school at certain times, no time to rest at all. Sometimes I just divide myself into two persons - the real me is open, lovely, kind, easy-going but when I face the students I need to be really strict and I am always thinking about how I should punish them when they doing something wrong. I did talk with them time and time again but I still need to punish them when talk is useless. I do think you can move someone with you heart and love, sometimes, but some students are just like stone, no matter what you have done to them, no matter whether you are good or bad, hard or soft. I doubt whether the character of the students really decides anything.

One of the teachers told me: “You are not here for teaching. The most important thing is to educate them how to be good people, to respect”. I do believe that now. I can feel that I am changing.  I have come to believe what I didn’t believe before and I started to doubt what I believed before, especially in the area of education.

I think, I doubt, I write, I talk, I study, I want to do something more but I find I am powerless. I am so tiny. In my class alone there are so many people, 64 students. Every day I need to talk to so many students, just because they haven’t attended morning exercise, or they talked back to other teachers or they have not cleaned the classroom. Such tiny details that I think a 16 or 17-year old person can do properly by themselves. In addition, I need to company them to hospital when they are ill and I need to observe whether they have any psychology problems, if they have the intention to kill themselves. To be honest, I don’t really have time to prepare my lessons.

After the two students died the leader said that stability is the first aim, so every minute we really need to be stopping such kinds of accidents from happening again. It really is a hard job. I never realized before. It is much more difficult than I thought.

Here is our school timetable. You can see how crazy they are and how crazy the education is.

起床,早操 (get up, morning exercise) 6:20 --6:40

早餐,卫生 (breakfast, clean) 640--720

早读 (morning reading) 720---750

第一节课(first lesson) 800--840

第二节课(second lesson) 850--840

第三节课 (third lesson) 940--1020

第四节课 (forth lesson) 1040--1120

第五节课 (fifth lesson) 1130---1210

午餐,活动(lunch) 12:10--13:00

午休 (rest) 13:00---14:15)

第六节课 (sixth lesson) 1430--1510

眼保健操 (eye exercises) 15:10--15:15 [they never do it unless some one comes to check on them]

第七节课 (seventh lesson) 1525——1605

第八节课 (eighth lesson) 1620--1700

晚餐卫生 (supper ,clean ) 1700--1820

晚自习一 (evening class 1) 1820--1910

晚自习二 (evening class 2) 1920--2010

晚自习三 (evening class 3):20:20---21:10

晚自习四 (evening class 4) 2120--2300

晚自习五 (evening class 5) 2220--23:30

洗漱,熄灯 (washing, rest) 2220--2330

You can see from the timetable that students have no time to do sports. We had an exam recently and many students fell ill during the exam time. I think students need more sleep and more sport. Even I need time to do sports and sleep.

So many people said I am too kind to students. I dont know if it’s true. As time goes by I find I become so restless, so quick to get angry with some students. No matter how hard or soft I am, whether I punish them or talk to them, whether I tell the parents, they just keep on going the same way as before. I just feel they like stone. I'm sure they need to study how to respect, how to be grateful. I complain but I still appreciate such a chance to deal with different kind of students. I gradually get some real experience and I know I get stronger and more mature through this. I have a deep awareness of the real education in China. What we learned in university is really useless the most of time.  The university education should connect with our life, our real work. What is the root of the problem?


When we met Nita in August she told us of a student who died, as a result of an ectopic pregnancy. She had been too afraid to tell anyone that she had missed a period, suspecting she was pregnant. When the pain started nobody suspected that it was anything more serious than an upset tummy. The school instructed all teachers to keep silent about the incident. Nita comments on the school's desire to reach stability and prevent students from coming to harm. As in most cases this is achieved through even tighter controls and a relentless timetable, rather than through life skills education and knowledge. Do we education students "how to be good people" by putting them in straight-jackets? Nita is struggling to adapt to a very harsh social environment that many teachers lack the proper skills to deal with. I don't know where else it ends other than in disaster. Maybe a crisis will be the turning point, the final indicator that something just isn't working.

 
Picture
Freda's making good use of her time off school, and of her old Find Out magazines. It's all part of our Christmas gift theme for this year - recycling paper. I'm sure friends and family are already wondering what home-made gifts are on the production line - is it recycled can pencil pots, hand-decorated shopping bags, DVDs? Keen eyes will get a clue from this picture...

P.S. Freda has been a little unwell again -  frequent trips to the loo (say no more) and a bit of a rash. Otherwise she's up, about and fairly perky, keeping up with school work and helping Edie with hers. It may be, however, that we have to head back to the UK soon to try to find out what's going on in her tummy. More news on that soon....

 
Picture
We met this lot on the cycle home
As the sun burned thorugh this morning's mist we took to our wheels to visit the orange groves for the fifth year running. We had some photos to deliver to some farmers in the small cluster of houses on the hillside. In 2008 our old friend Luo Huizhong, the orange farmer whose groves we raided in 2005, was over visiting his daughter in Shenzhen. He is now back and living slightly lower down the valley in a new, white-tiled house. His old neighbours may not be far behind them as their houses crumble around them. The orange trees have been uprooted and replaced with carrots and maize, in rotation, or teabushes on the terraced hillside above.

Picture
The neighbours' old house
Picture
Mr. Luo's new house
Outside the new house the Luo family (old farmer Luo, his two grown-up sons, one daughter in law and his 11 year old grandson) have a small orchard with bayberry and lychee trees. They also have two giant pigs that they are fattening up for Spring Festival. Mr Luo's eldest son has promised to call us the eve of the pig slaughtering, about a month from now, so that we can go and join in. Killing the pig and preparing all the meat and fat for the coming months is a traditional family event. Nevertheless, it's a promise I won't be disappointed if doesn't keep. Even if I wasn't vegetarian, I can't imagine relishing the sight and sound of a pig slowly bleeding to death from the neck with two grotty farmer's fingers stuck up it's nose - don't quite know what function the latter serves. I'll send Ali. It's a cultural ritual that should be documented.
Picture
Luo Huizhong is on the right
For more on Luo Huizhong and the Orange Groves (as they once were) visit www.leafgovso.co.uk and click on Simao Folk.
 
Picture
Sunshine is about the only thing on the side of the Grade 3 students now that they are finally back from their teaching practice and living (or perhaps we should say 'squatting') at the new campus. Due to lack of space at the old campus, the Grade 3 students have been forced to inhabit this building site ahead of time. They have no hot water for washing and inadequate canteen facilities meaning they often go without hot meals. The teachers are grumbling too, as they have to take the bus from the town out to the campus every day for classes. At least the College is providing a free bus service to tie in with class times.

This morning Ali took a bike ride out to meet Cindy, one of the class monitors, to deliver the Teaching Practice Feedback & Evaluation forms that Lesley gives to the students every year. It's especially important this year as it's the first time since 2006 that the English Department resorted to the usual teaching practice set-up of minimal preparation and minimal support of TP students. Given that Lesley has data from all four PIE teaching practice groups (160 students in all) she will be able to make a direct comparison between the nature and quality of teaching practice for PIE and non-PIE students. So far it's not looking good for the non-PIE conditions - most of the students we spoke to this time only taught about 5 lessons (compared to an average of 120 for PIE students!) and experienced many social challenges like pressure to drink. With PIE teaching practice groups Lesley ran life skills workshops before they left for placements, to help them prepare for such challenges. Pre-teaching practice agreements and on-going correspondence with the Education Bureau and Middle Schools also meant that we could keep these problems to a minimum. She was very disappointed that the English Department, under new leadership, refused to cooperate or continue the PIE activities and approach to supported teaching practice. The one consolation is that it's a good research opportunity. Let's hope that the data supports the belief that PIE is the way to go!

 
Picture
Visitors to the TDC these days get to open the advent calendar for, you guessed it, a mini Dove chocolate (best quality!). The TDC is a hive of activity these days, even more than usual, as Hou Wanxia has been formally promoted to the post of Director of the Teaching Development Centre. While she's flapping around trying to put together 3-year work plans, reports, proposals etc, I'm digging out versions of these documents that I've already prepared. It's quite funny really. A visitor asked this morning, "So, what will the TDC do and where will Hou Wanxia's office be and who else will be part of it?" I had to laugh. Hou Wanxia will continue to work with me, Tina (until January) and the new volunteer, in this office, doing the work already underway and developing new activities, that are also already underway. gWe also hope to start up a few new research projects, like a teaching model/experiment (with me as the teacher) in local schools. As it happens, I am happy to do everything I can for Hou Wanxia. I will hand over all my materials, documents, resources, reports and anything else that can help her in this new role. I'll be the secret force that guides and supports her, probably the thorn in her side too! She has a lot of eyes on her but this formal recognition of her efforts and capabilities has been a long time coming.

 
Yesterday's home school activity involved making an advent calendar out of matchboxes. Lesley had to hunt high and low to find them as everyone seems to use lighters these days. Every drawer has a Dove chocolate inside and we can only open the drawers we decorated ourselves. Needless to say, Freda and Edie made sure they decorated the most!
Picture
What's more, when we went to the mailroom this mornign, the 1st December, we were thrilled to receive a parcel all the way from Aberdeen. Perfect timing - it was two more advent calendars (chocolate again). Thanks Granny and Grandad - we don't know how you did it?! The countdown to Christmas is getting ever more chocolatey...