Tag Archives: class

Student Art – Chinese vs American

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Saturday I spent the morning watching our Chinese public high school teacher instruct his art class.  I was fortunate to see one student mastering the art of traditional Chinese painting.  He was working on chrysanthemums.   He had a blotter under his practice paper.  AH-HA that is the answer to working with the ever loaded brush and bleeding.  He painted one set of flowers on practice paper, which happens to be the paper I have.  Then he was given a paper with sparkles in it.  He painted the same composition again on this paper.  John, his teacher told him in Chinese to create more gradated values and I actually understood!  The third time he painted the flowers he used the same paper but turned it over to a plain backing.  This time he added more gradated washes laying the loaded brush on its side and quickly sweeping in a U-turn.  The brush tip was black creating a nice swish of gray to black.  All the students in the class were drawing from copyrited art, perfecting their skill.  In America this is something we do not stress.  I found the students were able to learn values, composition and how to lay down marks more proficiently due to the repetition.

A Chinese holiday or holidays Chinese style!

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Woke up to torrential rains and a massive headache.  Could it be the barometric pressure causing my head to spin?  Up early and out of here, need to catch a taxi before everyone else gets going.  Umbrella in hand, rain jacket on and Keens on feet, a hike to the taxi stop and then a 20 minute wait.  I get a female taxi driver and off to school we go.  Michael fixes me a strong coffee for my headache, maybe I am caffeine deficient he says.   He maybe right!  How nice to have a man fix me anything.   What wonderful colleagues I am working with.    By noon I’m back to normal.

After classes the IB coordinator and I check out the Art Supply shopping district!   Oh my a new “hog heaven” for me, and some one tell mom it is right next door to the antique vendors.  We need to take a day and go shopping.  Yes, next day off I will return for an art and antique expenditure day.

Speaking of next day off — we have three days off next week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  It’s a holiday, or maybe not!   To get this holiday, we teach our Wednesday class on this Sunday and the following Saturday and Sunday we teach our Thursday and Friday class.  Someone explain to the Chinese that we don’t give up weekends for three days off in the middle of the week!  Maybe it is like a “Chinese fire drill”—- were things get lost in translation and everyone does things “bass ackwards.”  Oh well, guess that holiday will be my art and antique shopping day!

I realized today that most all my students wear glasses, no contacts!  I suppose Lasik is out too.  No makeup on women, no bleached hair, no manicures or pedicures– no nail polish on anyone, but my little toesies!  (No manicure shops for that matter)  No need for botox, or stomach stapling, no one has wrinkles or is overweight.  People are healthy looking here, all this walking and biking, no wonder.  Most Americans would have a coronary within a week of living in this environment.  And by the way, they don’t like Air Conditioning or cold anything, including water and beer.  Even yogurt is hot.  The weather is somewhat like Galveston, hot, humid and gritty.  I always said I was the one person that liked Houston weather, well here I am on the same latitude lines!  Must admit, I like it tho.  Daniel told me today he drew a picture of the sun and put it on his desk!  He misses the sun with all the overcast, smoggy, cloudy or what ever these skies are days!   I’ve always liked warm, just need to get use to no AC!  That is hard.  I am too Americanized –soft!

Tiger Paw and Dragon Breath

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September 7, 2101

In foundation class today we did the “upside down man” drawing.  My past art students and teacher friends know this assignment where you take a Picasso drawing flip it upside down and draw it.  It opens the right side of your brain.  Chinese students think this is difficult, but they are much like American students when they draw.  I had four students flip it over when I went to my desk and draw it right side up and one traced it.  I told them “no, no this is not acceptable!”  When the 20 minutes was up,some where not finished.   They did not get the concept to stop as I was teaching a project in a time frame.  Two wanted to take it home and finish it.  They are serious students, too serious.  I think they need to loosen up!

Alice and I talk about our trip to Mi Jing Temple and what a good time the three of us had.  She makes a comment that I am laughing at everything I see, I do, I hear.   It makes her happy to see me happy.  Her husband has smile wrinkles when he laughs.  I told him that the more wrinkles he has, the happier he must be.  He liked that.  I am happy.  Alice even said that when many bad things have happened to you,  it turns around, and happiness fills you equally.  So the year of sadness, loss and unhappiness is over, I am in the year of happiness, smiles and many new things to laugh at.  I like her philosophy.  I smile, I laugh and I adore Alice.

Lunch with Peter at the corner mom and pop cafe, for a family size bowl of fresh tomato and egg drop soup, with two different  rice dishes on the side.  Our lunch was 17 yuan about $2.25.  The reason is was so high Peter had a Coke!  After school I walked to the bank and transferred my American bills into Yuan.  Now that was an interesting process, they Xeroxed my passport twice and ran all my bills though a machine to see it they were real.  25$ keep spitting back out! (Much like Dragon Breath, will explain later)  The teller called two other tellers over and they examined the bills, ran them though many times, held them to the light and chattered in Chinese for at least 10 minutes.  Are they going to haul me off for counterfeit American dollars?  Wasn’t this the money I had got at my bank in Texas?  At last after I signed three official documents I was given my RMB!  On to the coffee shop for a latte and 2 baguettes, one cheese and the other a cream filled and powered sugar on top.  This will be dinner!  Stopped in a little shop that had cute comfy tops, they are made of Bamboo fiber, this will be nice for my Yoga class, get one  and off to a taxi and home to the hotel.

Yoga class with Yan, my IB coordinator colleague and the Norwegian Massage/Acupuncturist.  I moved to the front of the class to see the instructor, I like her but can’t understand what she says, so I must watch her closely.  She teaches us Tiger Paw where you make a claw with your fist and slap it on the mat, that was noisy and silly.  Then we did a pose on our knees where you breath in, lunge forward, open your mouth, exert a loud breathy noise and stick your tongue out, I called this “Dragon Breath.”  We repeated this many times and I would look up and see my Chinese yoga classmates with their tongues out at me, I started laughing.  Looked over at the Norwegian and she was laughing so hard she had tumbled out of her pose and fell to the floor.  Another good Yoga class. Hitched a ride with Yan.  Her husband came to pick her up, nice to ride in a beautiful car with wood grain trim, like my Eos convertible.  Alias the Eos has moved on to someone else and I some where else.

Now it is time to dress and go to school, need to brush my teeth and remove the Dragon Breath!

1st day of school

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September 1,2010

Today I taught in China!  It was wonderful, but hot and sweaty.  Air conditioning is not something the Chinese use much! We have units in some rooms and our office.  The westerners come in and flip it on, the minute we walk out, off it goes by the Chinese teachers!  So my hair is in a pony tail today.  I am drinking water and carrying lots of toilet paper with me.  (No TP anywhere, carry your own!)

My classes start at 10:30 for an hour and a half then a nice long lunch for an hour and a half.  I come back to class at 1:30 and finish at 2:55.  It is wonderful.  One class today had 25  pre IB students all 10th graders the other was 3 fantastic HL students.  It is a great way to teach.  One of my HL’s asked me to sponsor the Ice Skating Club, and I accepted!  Can you see me on ice skates?  Zip, zip –boom!

I have a Chinese phone now, so if you need the number just email me.   I wanted a number I could remember, therefore I picked an easy one and was told it was a lucky number!  Yeah a lucky number, but it took longer to process because it was this lucky number, yes an extra hour.  Can you believe that was my luck?

School started with an IB faculty breakfast.  We had fried bread, hot soy milk, meatball bread dumpling, a loaf of sliced western bread all of which was yucky!  They did have instant Starbucks with real milk and a pastry with sesame seeds on top.  That was ok!   Found a little mom and pop cafe outside of the school campus that serves vegetarian food and the menu is in English.  Had sautéed broccoli then beans and mushrooms with fried egg rice and white rice.  Really great.  Learning to use those chopsticks, but picking up a mushroom is not so easy.  Very cheap, three of us ate for 44 RMB or $6.  Plus we had green tea.  I will be eating there again.

Off to yoga class……  It is fixing my back.  The bed I am sleeping on is just about to eat my lunch.  I have my down comforter on top of the mattress then a sheet on top of it.  Some better.

Namaste!

Medical Check up and Yoga!

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August 30, 2010
I had a med check for my China Visa, which included a dental check, eye check, full body X-ray, ultrasound of my liver, kidneys and spleen, an EKG, blood test and blood pressure test all done in less than one hour. Can you imagine America doing this for all our immigrants? And efficiently? It was a hoot running from one medical room to another and seeing so many doctors. I passed!

Afterwards, checked out the “Aqua mall.” Great grocery store, actually had everything anyone would need in an open air mall with a water fountain show in the middle, hence the name. Most name brand stores were there. I meet a cute couple from San Francisco, here for a week adopting a baby girl. They were so excited. My friend Sophia, the Chinese IB secretary is pregnant due in a couple months. I was curious to see is she was having a boy or girl. She told me the doctors won’t tell the moms what they are having, as some would abort the girls. They are only allowed one child, and when I say I have four — they flip!

Another short Inservice today, and I went to organize my desk and broke it! That was a moment when I was the subject of talk amongst the Chinese IB faculty! A bit too industrious!

This evening I met up with the IB coordinator at the Life Fitness Facility for a Chinese Yoga class. Oh my gosh– the floors are heated, the class was in Chinese and nothing like the “Sun salutation” classes I have had in America! This was very slow, pretzel-y upside-down, and twisty turny. It was just wonderful, I was so in my element. Even Yan said I was good, or maybe she was being nice. I signed up for three months and guess what they have spinning classes too! Yee Haw….. Maybe I can learn Tai Chi as well! Next door is the massage place, open till 10pm and no appointment! Hello China fitness!