Detective Steph

Exam time again. Lucky me. Unfortunately, 'exams' also means 'cheating'.

One of the other foreign teachers had a problem last year with students sending their friend to their speaking exam for them. As far as I know, that hasn't yet happened to me, largely because I know their faces pretty well by now. But it could have done.

However, last week I had two instances of cheating [or attempted cheating] which leads me to think that it could well have happened before and gone unnoticed. Ah China...

The first time, in the morning, I noticed a student who had come into the classroom and looked a bit lost. I also didn't recognise her, though this still happens after a year and a half, cos my classes are so big. Anyway, I waiting till almost everyone had gone and she came to hand in her exam paper. I asked her her English name and she didn't know - said she'd forgotten[!] She started phoning someone and I asked her who she was phoning. She said she was phoning her friend. I asked her why her friend would know her English name if she herself couldn't remember it!! Then I asked her for her student card. She didn't have it, but went to get it and brought it back. The photo didn't really look like her - she told me it was from high school. While she was away, I asked the only other remaining student if the one I suspected of being an imposter was actually from that class. She was reluctant to answer, but I told her to be honest [she's a very good and honest student] and she said that the other student wasn't. I told her I wouldn't tell anyone that she'd told me.

I then asked the imposter a couple of questions, such as 'Who was your foreign teacher last year?' [It was me, as she would have known if she'd really been in that class!] Haha. Anyway, Rick had finished supervising his half of the class by then and came in. I asked him what he thought of the photo and he also agreed it didn't look like her. He suggested I ask a Chinese person to check as well.

I marched off to the office with the imposter trailing reluctantly behind. Fortunately I met Bob, the Vice-Dean and explained everything to him. He asked the imposter her name and eventually she confessed. He phoned her friend (the one she'd been standing in for) and found out that the student in question was working in Shanghai and hadn't been able to get back in time. Now, a few of my students had this problem, because I've had to do my exams a bit early, because of going home. But they've got in touch with me and we've rearranged their exams. It would have been easy for this student to do the same!

Anyway, I left it with Bob to deal with. [On a side-note, Rick told me that a few years ago Bob sat a Japanese exam for one of his friends...]

I was quite angry about all of this, understandably, but not hugely surprised. I've encountered and heard about cheating in China a lot in the past. What I wasn't prepared for was what happened in the afternoon.

Again, I was supervising half the class. I quickly noticed a student who I was convinced was from another class. I recognised here as a hard-working student who I've helped a lot, but she was definitely from a different class. I asked her carefully 'Are you in this class?' She answered that she was. I then asked another student sitting nearby who, though she initially didn't want to answer, confirmed that the student did in fact belong to a different class! I couldn't believe it. A) that it had happened again; B) that one of my students thought I wouldn't recognise her and C) that she lied to my face! I was furious. I made the class monitor check all the other students and ranted for a bit.

The thing is, it was lucky that I spotted both cases of cheating / attempted cheating. In either case, if it had been in the classroom that Rick was supervising, he simply wouldn't have known. It could easily have happened in past exams.

Incidentally, the student involved in the second incident ran off before I had time to deal with her, but I'll catch up with her next week. The friend who had asked her to do the exam phoned me last week, crying, asking me to help her and not report her to the department. I haven't done it yet, as I haven't had chance with the long weekend, but I fully intend to do it.

Grrr.

Anyway, wishing everyone reading a happy new year for 2010 and hoping that some of my students will realise that cheating is not OK. Adios!

It's dog-eat-dog, oh no, sorry...

So, Rick was out running the other morning. Several dogs barked at him - nothing new there, but a couple were a bit more vicious, teeth bared etc. He bent down to get a stone to throw at them to get rid of them and they soon scarpered. Their new-found aggression could mean that they know...

Know what? It's winter you see. He also passed a woman shaving a newly-dead dog with a Bic razor.

Winter is definitely dog-eating time of year in China.

Bon appetit!

Swine flu and other adventures

Swine flu has arrived at Pingxiang College. We got a phone call at lunchtime last Wednesday to tell us that lessons had been cancelled for a week, due to an outbreak of swine flu on campus! Yippee. Rick was at the time in the middle of a bad cold, so our boss was a bit anxious (phoning every day for an update on his condition, offering trips to the hospital, drips, swine flu vaccinations etc.), but we seem to be OK so far.

So, we're mostly enjoying being lazy. We had planned to go away on a motorbike trip, but it's really a bit cold for that at the moment. And it's not sunny either. We set off this morning for a short trip and were back in PX two hours later, freezing! Still, it was good to get out in the fresh air. We saw an old broken-down building (see photo), lots of cold people and a few dogs.

At PXC they're continuing to demolish a small hill on campus, to make way for some building or other - not sure what (see photos). I had to try and compete last Tuesday (when I was teaching) with a 'pecker' - one of those attachments they put on diggers to chip away at rock and / or concrete. I thought my voice was going to go. I did of course get the students to shut all the windows, but they don't fit very well and double glazing... what's that? I remember trying to explain it to my students once. Don't think there's much of it round here.

As for adventures... not much of those lately! I've been working on my MA, planning my assignment and doing some reading. I've also been preparing for my trip home in January - yippee! And, I've been trying to sort out more photos so that I can finally post about the summer trip.

Watch this space...

The [not really] welcome to China tour, 2009

I can believe it's already November and I still haven't written about our summer motorbike trip.

We set off on 3rd July, 2009 and returned to Pingxiang on 28th August. We covered a total of around 9,250kms - equivalent to going from London to Basra and back, as the crow flies. Oh, and the bikes were only 125ccs.

It was one of the most difficult things I've ever done, and also one of the most amazing. At the moment 'difficult' is what I think of before 'amazing', but I'm sure that in time 'amazing' will win. We didn't have any major problems. I came off my bike twice, but both times at relatively slow speed and I suffered nothing worse than grazed elbows and bruised and grazed knees. However, it was the sheer physical exhaustion, the low temperatures and high altitude, and the fact that I was way out of my comfort zone that made it difficult. I guess that living in China means that I am already out of my comfort zone, but when you're actually living somewhere, you find ways to make it more like 'home' and to, well, just to make things easier. When you're carrying everything you need on the back of a motorbike, you don't have many comforts. As well as that there is the human factor. If I thought the staring was bad here in Pingxiang, it's nothing to what we encountered in the middle of nowhere in China. Understandable, really. Two foreigners, which is surprising enough, but also two foreigners riding motorbikes [how can they ride motorbikes?] and who had, judging by the licence plates, ridden them a long way.

As a relatively inexperienced rider, it was a steep learning curve for me, not least because of the poor quality of lots of roads in China, and also because of the horrendous driving. I was absolutely physically exhausted at the end of each day, and then we had to find a hotel for the night. Sometimes we were lucky and found a reasonable one quite quickly. More often we found one which was acceptable (but not that nice) quite quickly, and occasionally we had to look for a long time and then only found a fairly nasty one.

One of the worst things, though, in the first few days, was discovering that there are places in Hunan (the next province to the one where we live) where foreigners are not permitted without a special travel permit. More of that later...

PS - alternative names for our trip: 'Welcome to China, but not this bit' or 'Welcome to China. Give us your money and bu**er off!'

Strange things about China

It seems that winter might finally be on the way. I'm wearing a polo-neck for the first time in a long time and am contemplating putting the other duvet on the bed [we got a new one and it has two parts that you can fix together]. Anyway, it's not bad for the third week in October, I suppose.

So, the new first years (or 'freshmen' as they like to call them here) have been with us for over a month and a half now. Given that their first two weeks were taken up in military training, we could call it roughly a month that they've been 'loose' on campus. Enough time you would have thought [or I would've thought] for them to get used to the sight of foreigners on campus, right? No. Sadly not. I'm sure they got over it much quicker last year, but Rick swears that it went on for the whole year. So we're still being subjected on a daily basis to what I can only describe as 'weirdness'. People suddenly starting to speak English when we're near them. Now, they're not speaking to us - oh no, they're just spouting all the English phrases they know. People shouting 'hallloooo! to us from a distance' - they're not being friendly and they're certainly not trying to communicate with us. It's just some kind of reflex reaction [see a foreigner, 'say hello'] and, I have to say, weird.

Today after class I was checking some students' work and students from the next class started coming into the classroom. Suddenly, I was aware of a few 'hallloooooooo's and 'nice to meet you's from the back of the class. Not normal.

I was reading some comments about this whole thing on someone else's blog. Someone commented that when working in Shanghai she just put such behaviour into a box labelled 'strange things about China' and forgot about it. I reckon it's probably the best (and only) way to deal with it without (a) going mad; or (b) thumping someone!!!

Anyway, the whole point of this is to say that today my faith was somewhat restored. I was walking to class when I student I didn't know started talking to me. She spoke to me in a perfectly normal way and we had a good chat. Phew! There's hope yet...

PS - this week I have mostly been getting my students to write stories about aliens. Some great stories!

The best time of year

As the title suggests, I just wanted to write about how wonderful the weather here is right now. It really is the best time of year in PX. The sun is shining, the skies are clearer than normal and blue, and the temperature is warm. Not hot, like summer, but warm enough to go around in short sleeves still. It's great. It really keeps up your spirits.

Rick's parents and brother were out here just over a week ago and the weather was pretty much perfect the whole time. The photos with this post are some that I took on a day-trip out to a lake. We went on a boat round the lake and had lunch there. It was really peaceful and relaxing.

60 Years of the PRC

Today is National Day in China. The fireworks have just started, which seems remarkably restrained as it's 8.30am (the past few days they've been going off from 4am onwards!) It's a day of celebrations and is particularly special this year as it marks 60 years of the People's Republic of China (and Communist Party rule). Many of the shops have the national flag flying from them and taxis do too. A lady was selling small flags near college last night.

Anyway, in honour of the occasion, Rick and I were invited to Nanchang (the capital of Jiangxi Province), last Friday night for a meal and concert. We were a bit skeptical about joining the celebrations of a communist party and country but we couldn't really say 'no' and we thought it might be quite interesting anyway. And it was.

We took a bus to Nanchang with Bob on Friday lunchtime and arrived in good time to check into Jiangxi Hotel in Nanchang. It was a great hotel - the standard was on a par with some of the best hotels we stayed in on our summer trip. Bob left us there and we settled in.

The meal was at 5.30pm in the same hotel and began with some speeches, which were all translated into English for the benefit of the many foreign experts present [mostly teachers, but some other foreigners working in Jiangxi as well]. One lady on our table spoke a bit of English and we also managed a bit of Chinese. The food was a buffet and very tasty. The wine was also good - a Bordeaux! We drank a bit more than the Chinese people. They tend to drink wine for show and not because they really like it.

After the meal, buses were laid on to take us to the concert which was happening at Nanchang University. We got onto our designated bus, set off and to our excitement(!) we saw that the driver had put the hazard lights on. We were in a leader convoy, complete with police escort!!! I might have mentioned this before, but important people in local government, the police etc. like to drive around in a convoy with their hazard lights on and often their horns blaring - telling people to get out of the way as they are important!! Haha. They also often have a special horn which makes a different noise from the average car horn, so no-one is left in any doubt that someone important is trying to get through. We've mocked these convoys many times, but it was hysterical to think that we were finally in one.

The concert hall seemed fairly new and the concert programme was great. There was some Chinese music, western music (including an excellent Chopin piano solo) a bit of singing and then some acrobatics. They were really amazing. There was one routine where they balanced candles on their hands, feet and heads whilst balancing on each other. Another one saw woman in pointe shoes balancing on a man - on his shoulders, and even on his head! He was tremendously strong (obviously!) with huge biceps and chest. I held my breath for quite a lot of it.

The buses took us back to the hotel afterwards and we had a reasonably early night. Sadly, I forgot my camera, but I've found a couple of old photos to add to this post. I've also discovered how to do links.

Next day we took the opportunity to wander round Nanchang, do some shopping and go to Pizza Hut for lunch. Yum! We caught the fast train back to Pingxiang on Saturday evening. It was great.

This week we've got Rick's parents and brother visiting (more of that later) and only had one day of our weekend last weekend due to the holiday. They give us holiday with one hand and then take it away with the other... So we were a bit tied last night. Anyway, we're now on holiday for eight days - yippee!