Happy National Day!

Happy 60th Birthday to the People's Republic of China! For people all over Mainland China, this is a day to celebrate national pride and bask in the glories of the PRC, plus it marks the beginning of a whole week off so that they have proper time for gaiety and reverence. For people in Hong Kong, it means a day off work. Most people, it seems, just take today to enjoy not working and save up their party spirits for Saturday evening's holiday, Mid-Autumn Festival. Nonetheless, the fireworks display over Victoria Harbour is supposed to be pretty spectacular, so I'll be joining in the festivities downtown later this evening.

When I asked my students what their plans were for National Day, most of them replied that they did not plan on getting out much because they wanted to avoid the crowds. "Crowds?" I asked. "Yes," one guy said, "All of the Mainlanders who come in and go to Disneyland and pee in the streets." Uh-oh. Looks like I've just had my first classroom brush with HK-Mainland stereotypes. While I have yet to see anyone actually pee in the streets, it will definitely be more crowded than usual this week, as visitors from the Mainland come to HK to shop, sightsee, and contribute to the HK economy.

I'm off to go enjoy my day off from teaching - sort of. I still have to grade about 20 papers when I get back, such is the life of a teacher. Hope everyone is doing well! Elena, aren't you glad that I finally updated ? :) And happy beginning of October, the best month of the entire year!!

If only it were a common misconception...

So as part of the icebreaker that I played with my 1310 (first-year) class, I mentioned that I had once auditioned for American Idol (this was one of my truths for "Two Truths and a Lie"). They all seemed pretty impressed and asked me if I was on TV, did I like it, etc. I laughed and told them that I wasn't on for very long, but that the experience and the audition were really fun.

Well, fast-forward to Tuesday night's English Department Welcoming Dinner: I'm talking with some second-year students, and when the topic of shopping and fashion in Hong Kong comes up, one of them pops up with, "Oh yes, you know! We heard from the first years that you were on America's Next Top Model!" I started laughing hysterically, and corrected them, saying that it was only American Idol, and that I was only onscreen for about half a second. They looked a bit disappointed, but still managed to boost my ego by telling me that they thought I should be a model in Hong Kong and that I had great fashion sense. They also requested that I start wearing more high heels to class.

Have I mentioned that I love these kids? Because I do.

Hakka Village

So tonight, the fellow Fellows and I ventured out to Sai Kung Country Park, one of the more remote and green-tastic area of Hong Kong, for a Yale Club of Hong Kong barbeque. The drive out was lovely, as Dr. Man took us to one of the piers by the beach to get a good view of the water and we stopped by the Visitors Centre, which features an entire wall of plastic turtles. We finally joined about 30 other people at the home of a Yale alumnus who lives in a Hakka village, which are these great, tiny little villages that used to subsist on farming - in fact, on the 10 minute trek to his house, we passed by an old, abandoned rice patty. We also passed a huge, gigantic spider that was about the size of my head.

Wall of turtles

As usual, we got to meet a fun array of people at the event, and the alum's wife took us on a tour of the village, which included a smattering of old houses, an old temple, an old cistern, etc. It was cozily rustic, and I actually felt quite at peace there. However... that all changed when out tour guide told us that critters of all shapes and sizes often find their way up uncomfortably close to the houses. Now, we had already seen several cows walking around the park, just chillin, so that was not unexpected. But apparently it doesn't stop with cows - they also have lots of fun spiders, wild boars, and of course my favorite, snakes. Oh, but not just any snakes, no - freaking CHINESE COBRA SNAKES. Apparently there is also a pink cobra snake? Yes, there is, and this lady once had a 10-ft long cobra in her front yard. HO-LY-HELL. So you can imagine how much fun the trek back to the car was after that, especially since it had already gotten dark, and I could just hear the evil army of giant cobra snakes plotting my imminent demise just off the concrete path. I don't think I breathed the entire time.

So will I go back to Sai Kung, now that I know that a populace of monster cobras awaits me there? A few people reading this know how I froze when we saw a small snake in the Everglades - if I saw a 10-ft Chinese cobra in front of me, it would definitely have the Medusa effect. Yet somehow, I feel like I must swallow this fear, and not let my phobias get the best of me. I shouldn't miss out on one of the most beautiful areas of Hong Kong just because *gulp* there are huge, giant, poisonous snakes who want nothing more than to suck out my soul living there... right? Maybe I just need to grow up, face my fears, and move on to enjoy the beautiful parts of life... but I might be enjoying these beautiful parts of life with a machete in hand.

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying the school year! I'm working on quite a long-winded post about all the craziness and loveliness of teaching, so as soon as I get a break from lesson planning and paper-grading, I'll try and get that to you. In the meantime, have a wonderful week!

xoxo

Jenny

Eeee!!

One of my students just addressed me in an e-mail as "Dear Professor." While I am totally undeserving and unqualified for this title, I still squealed with delight! It feels very surreal to be teaching college courses... but I love it!

So pleased

Written to me by one of my students in his introductory letter:

"I have the typical reason for my choice of doing an English major: I love the language and sometimes I feel the letters begin to like me too. We then fall in love."

My students are brilliant. They also love emoticons. I am so lucky. :)

Are You Excited or Nervous? ...Yes.

First day tomorrow - I have my lessons planned out, my outfit picked out, and I'm about to go straighten my hair and do all possible night-before primping since I don't anticipate much time in the morning (my first class being at 8:30 am and all). I can't really recall a first day of school that brought such fluttery emotions, at least since my first day of high school. I wasn't too nervous on my first day of school at Yale, because if I embarrassed myself in the classes I was shopping, I could always just not take those and find other classes. But no such luck here! My students will be stuck with me for the next twelve weeks, come Hell or high water. Now let's hope I don't completely drown tomorrow.

Here we go!

Banquets A Plenty

One of the most fulfilling (haha) aspects of this Fellowship is the constant stream of banquets, dinners, and special gatherings we are invited to throughout the year. In the past week alone, we have gone to two special gatherings, one with the President of New Asia College, as a means of welcoming us and getting us off to a good start for the year, and the other with a visiting alum of the Yale-China program who took us to his favorite restaurant in Hong Kong, Spring Deer. In addition to these two gatherings, we have received and responded to invitations for no less than seven events in the next three weeks. Most of these are welcoming receptions for new staff or are part of the New Asia College 60th Anniversary Celebrations (which will be going on all semester). So in addition to preparing for classes, we have quite a busy schedule!

I actually really enjoy these events, for three distinct reasons:

1. The mass amounts of delicious food that are heaped upon us. Dr. Peter Man, the Secretary of New Asia College, and our closest supervisor in HK (and all-around wonderful, amazing man) usually does the ordering at these gatherings, and he is an absolute genius at choosing the cuisine for the evening. We always leave extremely full, loaded with leftovers, and quite satisfied. Though you always have to be careful to leave a little bit on your plate, lest you get the jovial reprimand of "Jenny! Why are you not eating??" from Dr. Man. Several of the alums we ate with tonight happily warned us that Dr. Man is responsible for any and all weight gain while in Hong Kong. This just makes me like him more, since his attitude towards food, making sure everyone enjoys it and eats way too much of it, is very much like the Southern attitude towards food.

2. Getting to dress up for special occasions. It just means there are more excuses to find dresses!

3. Meeting all of the illustrious alumni. I really do love to meet all of the people who come to these events, hearing how they ended up in Hong Kong, how they got involved with Yale-China, what they're doing now, etc. Everyone has a really interesting story and background, so the conversation doesn't turn stilted as much as you might expect when you throw 12 strangers together at a table. I've started to ask everyone who lives in Hong Kong what restaurant recommendations they have, since Annie and I are trying to put together a comprehensive list of the best places to hit while in HK. The best part is when everyone starts telling stories from previous years of Yale-China Fellows - we heard several interesting stories tonight, but I probably shouldn't be broadcasting too many of those online! Wouldn't want to harm the good name of Yale-China :) I'm looking forward to all of the upcoming New Asia Anniversary events, as there will be tons of alumni coming in and out of Hong Kong in these next few months, so hopefully I'll get to hear some great history of the place!

All in all, tonight was a nice break from an afternoon of lesson planning - hopefully I'll have a good report card on my first class to present to you this week! Wish me luck!

How 'Bout That!

Yesterday, as anyone who stumbled across my Twitter, Facebook, or Skype accounts knows, was truly a banner day. First and foremost, I am now officially on the path to solving the mystery of how I ended up in Brad Paisley's song, "All I Wanted Was a Car" - after sending him about 10 tweets over Twitter, he actually Tweeted me back!! Apparently, it's a really big coincidence but he'll be checking with his co-writers. He also said that he'll have to get me to one of his shows so I can come say hi!! Hopefully my visits back to the States will coincide with some of his tour dates and we'll be able to make it work! Ahhh, I might get to meet Brad Paisley! Maybe he and Carrie Underwood will be touring together again, and I'd get to meet her too! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sink into a reverie of day dreams, where somehow my meeting Brad Paisley turns into my becoming a country-folk singer as well, becoming BFFs with Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift, and meeting some gorgeous, twang-y country boy crooner. Wouldn't it just be lovely?

...

...

...

...

...

Ok, back to the real world now!