Vivian Chow
Lessons in Life
The successes and failures of volunteering in rural China
By my third day of teaching in Dongbaoquan village, my voice had grown hoarse from repeated attempts to talk over 30 raucous 7-17-year-olds. They had been shy the first morning, silently watching and following us like the Pied Piper as we approached the village schoolhouse. This morning’s scene was far different: irreverent boys on tabletops bludgeoning the floor with their unoccupied stools, flinging chalk at an angry group of girls.
After confiscating their weapons and regaining order, I attempted to carry on my English lesson on moods, praying that the students would still remember the words for “happy,” “sad,” “angry” and “excited,” which we had spent the better half of the morning drilling.
“Yu Kan,” I called on one of the chalk launchers in an attempt to distract him. “How do you feel today?”
Playful Bytes
A primer on Chinese computer games
Despite the many reports of Internet addiction and carpal tunnel syndrome resulting from too much control pad crunching, computer games can be - dare we say - educational, especially if you're trying to bone up on your Chinese. We shopped around and picked out some homegrown Chinese video games for different age groups: some cultural, some historical, and some just plain fun. Most require at least some level of Chinese literacy (or at least a Chinese-English dictionary on hand), but these alluring games may be just the impetus you've been looking for to start working on those Chinese characters. Vivian Chow
