The Time to Say Good-bye

    As an English teacher in China, what a precious opportunity it is to study in Yale University in USA this whole summer.
    Totally the days we are on this campus and in the classroom are only six weeks! What a short period of time compared with what we are expecting from this place of treasures of knowledge and arts and surprises.
    I shall remember forever the marvelous libraries it boats, especially the Sterling. The architecture of the library is Gothic, originated from a church, so you can imagine how solemn and grave it is with tall and arched roofs and elaborate sculptures on the stone walls. There is no doubt that the most valuable is its huge storage of books, from which you always can meet those books or writers you dream of. It is a place where you think you can realize your dream and achieve what you want.
   In this academic palace, you shall see churches here and there, which adds to the quietness and holiness of the environment.That is a place where you see the conflict between the tradition and the modern, the old and the young, and the time passing and coming. But it shall be a place existing forever for it is the support of people's dream and pursuit.
   What counts most is the classroom for which we come. In the classroom of our own, we meet two teachers, Siggy and Carrie.
   We come here to learn, and actually we are like sponges absorbing all useful and beneficial knowledge and information to the fullest.
   Thanks to her,Carrie, we have learned the ways of doing researches and have been provided with so valuable and helpful academic resources on line.Especially, what I want to mention is the opportunity to make a speech on the Chinese Tradition and culture in the New Haven public library, which all should be attributed to her. And personally, this is a chance I have got myself enlarged and extended. I am such a person who is so likely to be nervous in a new environment that seems out of my control. So to make a public speech in an environment I do not know is really a challenge to me. With her help and patient instruction, I have finally succeeded in completing the whole speech in a way at least to my own satisfaction . As she said, what we needed to do is to enjoy the speech, forgetting ourselves but concentrating on what we tried to say.It shall be such a permanent and valuable and beautiful memory in my mind!
    Siggy, the other brilliant teacher, is pretty and passionate. From her class we have learned various ways of how to get the students involved and engaged in the lessons or the activities arranged by the teacher.It seems that she is the spring of the innovative and creative ideas of how to make an interesting and meaningful teaching. We are all so engaged in those activities and games introduced by her, from which I learn that there shall always be a better and properer teaching method, and the teacher should take it as a duty to to be better, better and best! And personally, from her I have learned that one's attitude towards life determines where he is. So I shall cherish her smile and creativity and sparkling wisdom of teaching and life the whole life. It is so meaningful to me that anxiety has another name, Challenge, which is repeatedly mentioned in the reading offered by her and so well illustrated by her.
   Thanks to Siggy and Carrie, we have got the opportunities to observe more and different classes given by other teachers. By observing their teaching, we have a broader idea of English teaching: whatever ways we use, the purpose is to get the students fully interested and totally engaged in the class and let them play the main role in it and achieve the biggest effects of the teaching, or to some extent, it could be out in this way that the less teaching, the more learning! Also, I would like to say thanks to all the teachers for their classes I have attended.
    All in all, Yale trip and life will be a new start for me to go on with my teaching career, and also a moment, short but permanent, enshrined in my memory.

 

 

Differences between Americans and Chinese

    I have learned and studied English for decades, but unfortunately it still remains a foreign language to me!
    Language reveals the way of thinking and culture of a nation, so it is also true that I still have no much idea of what is the essence of English culture besides some cliches I have learned from the textbooks.
    Right now I am in the English country, which is the ideal land for all English learners---the United States of America. So what a rare opportunity for me to know more about the differences between this nation and the nation I am from.
    By my knowledge, there are many words used to describe America: the land of freedom and opportunity and the land of hi-techs and sound systems.
    For I am staying here for only six weeks and most of the time on campus, I am afraid that I could not say I know more about this nation than before, but it is true that I saw and have seen something here with my eyes.
    Chinese culture is one of acquaintance, but the American is not limited to that one. Chinese people just smile at and say hello to those who know or familiar; Americans smile at and greet to almost anyone they meet face to face. Maybe it is a little exaggerated to say anybody but it really makes sense to show a contrast between the two nations in this aspect.
    Chinese people try to protect themselves from the harm of the nature, for example, the strong sunshine, or the dirt they imagine there is; Americans plunge themselves into the nature: the closest touch with sunshine and animals. In China, you shall see all the girls or young lady hold an umbrella in sunshine for fear of being tanned,and in the street seldom you see the animals, but here I see people love the sun bath so much, and what is more, the small animals like pigeons, squirrels, sparrows are all so leisurely walking or running or chasing in the street or on the grass!

   Chinese people nowadays are chasing the hi-tech even in their daily life for convenient and easy life; Americans seem in a dilemma. In China, teachers are strongly recommended that they should use the multi-media to teach,and  many people want to possess the most advanced electrical or electronic appliances in life, but to my surprise, teachers in Yale summer session  are not so dependent on those hi-tech, but use very traditional ways to teach, and many people seem not to have used any smart cell-phones.
   In university, Chinese teachers have to follow all the standards and schedules made by school administrations; American teachers are full of individuality to enjoy their own freedom and creativity. In China, if the teacher fails to finish the assigned tasks, possible that is kind of failure or negligence of duty, but here, exactly, in Yale summer session, all the teachers choose their own textbooks or reading materials or teaching methods.
   Here, I do not want to make a judgement what is correct or what is wrong. What counts so much is the fact that there are the differences existing between them. And what I mentioned about China is just parts of China or, to be honest, those parts I do hope it can make some change for I love it so much that I wish it a perfect today and a better future.
   
   

A Small Talk of Languages

    As it is said that language distinguishes us from the other animals, intangible but dynamic and imaginative!
    I am always amazed by the magic of languages: so picturesque,various and unexpected with such a power of creativity!
    From the language you speak, people can tell where you are from or what is your nationality. Besides, from the way you speak, you shall betray who you are and even what you are!
    It entails such a long time training and much practicing to use a language freely and accurately or to feel at home with it! Even so, you shall also so possibly be trapped there for lack of accuracy leading to misunderstanding.

I like playing with languages usually. I enjoy so much the effects purely produced by the beauty, rhythm or rhymes of the language itself. Sometimes I say something just for the game of words or for the purpose of humor, so you can imagine what a consequence will be resulted in: misunderstanding! Here I mean more using my native language---Chinese, which is often manipulated by me for fun. Surely this often invokes some disaster, that is, you say what you do not mean!
    So one even cannot avoid causing misunderstanding when one tries to use his native language in a more funny and personal way. What if speaking a foreign language, say, English?

    Besides the ideas, whether two persons can have a good communication with each other often depends on how much they know the way the other speaks, including tones, diction, pace, body languages and so on which reveal one's habit of speaking and some messages hidden behind the words.
So a good communication can be achieved by what you say, how you speak, and what's more, by hoe much the other know of your speaking manners and how much they can accept or appreciate. Here comes the reason why friendship or understanding is not based on how long you know each other or what you say but on how much you know each other's languages which contain not only the messages of the words but also some implications behind or beyond it.

The Phantom of Opera----a love seemingly ruinous but truly heartfelt

   The Phantom of Opera

   ---a love seemingly ruinous but truly heartfelt

    Yesterday, right in America, I was so lucky to get the chance to go to New York to see the live stage opera show, the Phantom of Opera.I am so deeply impressed and touched by it that I couldn't even get myself out of the story till now.

     I have watched the film of this story on line at home. I remember that I have been moved to tears and deeply immersed in it, though I forget all the details of the story except the love for the heroine from the phantom. Though, the story was once more presented before me on the stage yesterday, I was still ignorant of the accurate details and background of the story for the obscurity of the dialogues. However,I haven't consulted anything about the story so far, and I just want to take a record of the direct feelings the stage opera has brought me with the language incompletely being understood.

     People all thought the phantom was a ghost, who was malicious and evil. But in my understanding, the phantom was a man who was persecuted and biased by people. He was ugly and sinister, but so talented a genius in music. He fell in love with the heroine, possessive and dangerous, but strongly and devotedly! He was a real man who had never been cared and loved, but so thirsty for it! Does a man like him, living in the dark without any advantages as a social being, have no right to love or to be loved? Finally, he won a kiss from the heroine, which was such a great console to his soul that he let her and her lover go .

   
     Could you say his love is humble and selfish and meaningless? Could you say he has no right and need to be cared? Of course not! I am so touched by his words: " I love you... I love you..." which is echoing in the theater, bringing me to tears.

 

Moving to get enlarged

Qinghai Lake

    In 1997, I got a chance to teach Chinese in Park University (I hope I am right for many years have gone!), and meanwhile, fortunately, I was admitted to studying Public Relation there with much scholarship. What an amazing opportunity it was for me to know the world and get enlarged. But life is just like a box of chocolate and you'll never know what is the next! I was denied the visa and I gave up finally.
    That year I was still young and had no much idea of what it really meant for a person to go outside and have a look and have a new perspective to look at the world.
    In my 40's, finally I could go here and there at home or abroad. In China, I have been to Qinghai Lake in Qinghai, Jiuzhaigou in Sichuan, Lijian and Shangri-la in Yunnnan, the grassland in Mongolia and so on. Traveling on these lands in China, I have become more in love with this nation which boats of  so much splendid and magnificent natural scenery of rivers, mountains, grasslands and highlands,etc. Often walking or standing in the nature, I could feel its largeness and vastness but how tiny a being the personal life is! Besides, these years I have been to India and some European countries, which, on the other hand, makes this world smaller to me.
    Right now, here I am in this small but cozy room located in Yale University in USA, the other side of China. On this land, I see people of different colors, appearances and languages, amazingly, all are amiable, friendly and gentle with smile on face, and what is more, all people here,including us, could make smooth communication and understand each other quite well in spite of the language barrier. All because, I think, we are brothers and sisters on this planet, though of different races.

Grassland of Mongolia

 

My Space in Yale

My Space in Yale

    The day I moved into Calhoun College in Yale was 27th, Jun. I share suite 11 of doorway J with a French lady, who teaches history in France. So unrealistically, I've got a room to stay in a place dreamed of by myself since childhood.

    The buildings constituting Calhoun residential college are formed in a circle with a beautiful grassland in the center. In the morning,the sunlight feels so soft and tender as if a mother touches you with her warm hands, and some students get up so early as to do some morning exercises, like playing Taiji, jogging or simply moving their bodies; In the evening, it is still as bright as a day at 8 pm, the evening sun glowing with its golden light set on walls of red bricks. We students from anywhere of the world are gathering in the courtyard, sitting at the table, in the chair or on the grass by groups, chatting and laughing.

    It is in peace and harmony. In it I am relaxed and feel at ease.
   

 


   

My First Impression of Yale

My First Impression of Yale