Fun Links

For your reading pleasure:

Item #1: My life in reverse.  Read about the experience of a Chinese teacher teaching in the States.  Her impressions and commentary on America are quite amusing (at least to me).  I had to laugh at the quote from the American school superintendent, “Part of [the Chinese teachers] coming here is us indoctrinating them about our great country and our freedoms.”  We all love a little dose of American arrogance.  Before I knock my homeland too much, I must confess that a Chinese school official would also likely say that one of the main benefits of me being here is indoctrinating me about how great China is.  Another memorable quote from the article:

That afternoon, Ms. Zheng taught classes at Central Middle School, drilling 22 eighth graders on how to count to 100 in Chinese and explaining some Chinese holidays before turning her back to write a Chinese tongue twister on the board.

Out of the blue, a girl with long brown hair asked her classmates loudly: “Where’s France at?”

“In Europe,” a boy with baggy jeans called out from across the room.

“France is not in Europe,” another boy said.

Ms. Zheng just kept writing Chinese characters on the board. “American students don’t know a lot about the outside world,” she said later. “Mostly just what they see here.”

Cultural sidenote: Ahhhh, blessed indirectness.  Ms. Zheng’s appraisal of American students could be so much harsher.

Item #2 is a tongue in cheek description of the Shanghai World Expo.  This article is likely more entertaining to those of us who have lived in China.  Best quote of the article:

Cost to China of Shanghai Expo: $55 billion. Discomfort of standing in 3-kilometer line for a port-o-potty: incalculable. Trumping Japan in an international event: priceless.

Item #3 is proof why being an English speaker (and reader) in China is unceasingly amusing.  This shirt definitely tops the popular-on-our-campus “No paint, no gains” shirt.  Before you mock China too much, remember that people in the States could likely unknowingly be sporting similar messages in Chinese.