Week 7

In the dorms

Today (Monday) SSTers completed seven days of living in the Chinese students' dorms. Students' roommates were extremely gracious, taking SSTers to meals and to their Chinese classes and elsewhere around campus. Some students said the social aspects of dorm life in China are very much like the social dynamics of dorm life in the United States. Here Daron poses with some of his roommates. Although the intention was for all students to move back after seven days, Daron and four others have chosen to stay with their Chinese roommates for an additional week.

Liz looks at albums of photos with several of her roommates, including Jenny (far left), our SST assistant. Jenny often functions as our tour guide, interpreter, and host for field trips and other events. Many students were able to make new friends during the week, and they had many opportunities to practice their Mandarin skills with their temporary roommates, some of whom spoke about the same amount of English as our students do Mandarin.

While living in the international students' dorm for most of the term has been an excellent experience, students hope that in future SST units, GCers have the opportunity to live in the Chinese students' dorms for a significant part of their term in China.

Basketball

Another major event this week was the beginning of the all-university basketball tournament, which includes teams from most departments. SSTers were invited to form a departmental team, and took on the challenge with gusto. We lost our first game by five points but won our second match by a 17-point margin. In today's game (Monday, October 28) we again fell short by five points. The events are well-attended, with SSTers and their friends and a host of Chinese students gathered around the court throughout the games. It's unclear yet whether the Goshen team will advance into the final round of the competition.

Here Matt and Ryan model the t-shirts several students created for the tournament. On the back of each shirt are our last names and numbers in Chinese characters.

English

Most SSTers reported experiencing their best English classes this week. All group members continue to teach two nights each week to classes of from eight to 60 students. During last Sunday's group meeting, we discussed pedagogy and shared teaching ideas. Here Abby talks with several of the students in the class she co-teaches with Kent. The small class met at a coffeeshop to talk about music genres in preparation for their sessions this week.

After one of his classes last week with Instructional Technology majors, Matt stayed to talk with several of his students. Some students spend an hour after their class continuing the conversations begun during the scheduled period. SSTers are teaching English majors in the Foreign Language Department; IT students, including one group preparing to go to Australia for a year; and Tourist Department students. They concentrate on oral English skills since the students have other classes in grammar. Chinese students also have the chance to practice their oral English with SSTers each Tuesday and Thursday evening at English Corner.

In addition to their regular teaching, on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning Nick and Ben went to a middle school an hour southwest of Chengdu to teach five class sessions each with the school's top students.

Film and Television school celebration

Another major event over the weekend was our participation in the 10th anniversary celebration of Sichuan Normal University's Film and Television School, which is located on the north side of Chengdu about 45 minutes from our campus. In the exhibition hall, one of the huge photo displays included the photo Nick is examining, which includes three SSTers from the 1999 China unit.

Matt and Sasha posed with some war-wounded film and television students. Actually, the film students were majoring in make-up, and were demonstrating their skills. In the evening program, the flesh-torn students did one of about a dozen performances.

The SST group was asked to sing several of "our songs" at the evening performance, though we did not know until we arrived how significant the celebration was. During our rehearsal (at right), Sasha was preparing to say, in Mandarin, "Congratulations on your 10th anniversary." We had practiced our songs -- slightly modified versions of "Guide My Feet, "Praise God from Whom," and the theme song to the film "O Brother Where Art Thou" -- for about a half hour before departing for the film and television campus. Once there, we realized it may have been good to practice more.

The opening act included about 150 extraordinarily choreographed dancers, and the costuming for all other groups was truly amazing. At the event, we learned that the program would be telecast live all across Sichuan Province and beyond, perhaps as far as Beijing, so there were literally several hundred million potential viewers. Ann, Mia, and Simon watched the entire program from the apartment back at the SNU campus, and said the group sounded and looked wonderful, even in the context of the other remarkable performances. Within 24 hours after the initial live broadcast, the program aired two more times. It's not likely that "606" has ever had a larger audience!

This week the group will continue to teach and learn. We'll also participate in the 50th anniversary celebration of Sichuan Normal University both October 31 and November 11, and one member of the group may sing. We're also planning a Halloween party Thursday evening for our students and friends.