Well, I learned something today.

Today was possibly the most amazing day of my life. That's "amazing" in the sense of astonishment or wonder.

After three weeks of teaching at the Crimson Summer Exchange, I said goodbye to my group today. I have been teaching one creative writing course that I designed, which I've described here, and one standard curriculum course about knowledge that was loosely constructed by the program. For my own course, I taught different groups every three days. For the SC course in the afternoon, I taught one group of ten kids (Group 13) every day.

My kids were always sweet and obviously good-hearted, but they were a real challenge for me as well. I found it nearly impossible to get them to speak up, debate, answer questions in class. I tried everything--lecturing from the front of the room, arranging the desks in a circle and sitting with them seminar-style, breaking them into groups and having them discuss and then write on the board, asking them to present to each other. Nothing seemed to make them interested or happy to be in my classroom. Because it was hard to get a response out of them, I could not tell whether I was teaching at a level that was too low and therefore too boring to respond to, or too high and therefore too unintelligible to respond to.



Two-thirds of the way through, I considered giving up on trying to teach the curriculum at all and playing vaguely educational games instead, out of which the kids could get enjoyment if not knowledge. But I was always disappointed in my own teachers who gave in to students' apparent desire to do nothing. So I ended up putting them in a semicircle and talking at them, asking leading questions that they sometimes answered, and writing everything on the board that I thought might be a vocabulary word. (These ranged from "objectivity and subjectivity" to "ancient runes" to "the Declaration of Independence" to "independence versus conformity.") Interpreting their persistent silence, I was pretty certain that they hated being in class and resented me for being boring, bothersome, and essentially a summertime jail keeper.

On our last day today, we performed the final routine we'd painfully created: a dance to "Fame," a short "talk show" about CSE, and a slideshow to Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours." (This marks the second time in as many months that I have concluded a program by singing some version of that song.)

That's when the magic happened: When the performance ended, two of the girls started crying. This sort of display was initially unfathomable to me, but it turned out that they were going to miss CSE. I was shocked. But after a moment, I guessed that some of them had made very good friends on the program and would be sad to leave them. This seemed to make sense.



About an hour later, the closing ceremony officially ended. The kids in my group asked to take pictures with me afterward...and then every one of the girls, these teenagers who I'd thought had been counting down the seconds until they could get the hell out of my worthless class, started crying. I had given them each a card and a piece of chocolate as a goodbye directly before the ceremony, and they told me that they had something to give me, too. They handed me a bunch of pictures they'd taken of the group, and two prints they had blown up and laminated.

I had not expected anything at all, but when I thanked them, they told me to turn the prints over. On the other side, they had each written me a message. The messages said that they were going to miss me. That I had made their past few weeks happy ones. That I'd been interesting. That they had learned from me. That they appreciated my teaching. And on the second print, they'd written one message: "We are Courtney's Babies! Wish you good luck teaching in Beijing and a happy life forever! We love you!"

They were standing there inconsolable, unable to smile for the pictures they were requesting, because they were going to miss each other, the program, my co-fellow--and even me. I could not believe it. I wanted to keep them in my class forever and give them the benefit of the doubt for the next year to undo my impressions of the past few weeks.



So what did I learn today? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe that you can never know what's really going on in people. Or that silent appreciation is no better but certainly no worse than the loud variety. Or maybe that, as I grow up, I need to start learning about the capacity for love instead of the inadequacy of it.

Besieged Ducks, and other adventures

Here I am in Hong Kong, watching my kids play games while we're stuck waiting out the "black warning" on the typhoon-ometer. Sounds scary--but apparently during high-level typhoon warnings, people in Hong Kong go to the movies.



It's been a very busy few weeks, and my busyness is inversely proportional to the quantity and thoroughness of my blog posts, as is probably self-evident. I can't do the last few weeks chronologically, so here are some impressions:

1. We visited a Buddhist temple. It was very interesting--as far as I understood it, people ask a question while shaking this box of sticks, until one stick falls out. This is engraved with a cryptic prediction, which you need an interpreter to explain. (I may be off on the exact mechanics of this process.)

The practice is far more dependent on objects than I had expected; I had always associated Buddhism with the natural world more than the manmade one, and these kinds of "worship articles" felt more like a Catholic thing to me. It was also fascinating to see an older style of worship sandwiched between modern skyscrapers.





2. THE MEAT MARKET. I cannot adequately describe this experience. Just imagine: you are a peaceful, quasi-vegetarian without any real taste for or interest in meat. You feel a distant but definite kinship with the animal world. You enter a market in Hong Kong, and PEOPLE ARE SNAPPING CHICKENS' NECKS one by one out of a tank in front of you. These unlucky creatures are sliced, skinned, deplumed, chopped, and hung up before us to...dry? Die? Rigor mortize? Terrorize?



We were supposed to do a scavenger hunt through this blood market, but my British friend Josh and I proved our Western weakness and opted out. Instead, we turned from the chickens and walked through the fish and vegetables, which offered a short-lived sense of security. All too soon, we were watching halved eels slithering around their bloody ice tombs, still-living fish breathing their last out in the open, caged frogs hopping on top of each other by our feet, and--most gruesomely of all--an upside-down fish in a tank slowly having its gills shaved off by a rotating wheel.



The house of horrors did not end here. Retreating to the vegetable area, where I welcomed the giant zucchinis whose removal from the ground did not induce physical pain, we passed a stray cat and wandered to a fruit stand beside the fish. Its well-meaning but ungloved owner offered us unwashed cherries--and Josh ate one, then looked at me with such accusatory, culturally sensitive eyes that I ate one too. Not typically the type to be sensitive about washing my food, I was convinced for at least two days that I would die of bacterial infection.

So no, I was not able to push past my sheltered supermarket upbringing in order to appreciate the Hong Kong market.



3. I saw Toy Story 3 at a theater here, where you sit in love seats with retractable arms between the two seats. They are essentially couches for couples, just so no one in an uneven group can ever have any illusions about who is the third wheel. The theaters also have both sweet and salty popcorn as the standard fare, yummy.

4. Went up the the Peak, the supertouristy Disneyworld-esque highest point in Hong Kong. We took a tram up the mountain, at a bizarrely steep angle that made all the buildings appear sideways. The top was basically a big mall (shocker), but the very top open-air area had a gorgeous view of the city at night. The lights here are lovely--many are rainbow-colored rather than just white, an oddly rare thing in the States. HK supposedly has the greatest number of skyscrapers of any city in the world, and it was amazing to see these lights and buildings nestled in a mountain beside a harbor and imagine all the people who populate them. Or to imagine the city I've come to think of as "mine," for better for for worse--New York City--with all of its skyscrapers beside its own water on the opposite end of the world.



5. Shopped at the Mong Kok Ladies Market. NYC's Chinatown very closely replicates the types of things they sold: stall after stall of fake designer handbags, wallets, watches, etc. I bought a watch for HK$16--roughly 2USD--and it's lasted almost a week so far!

6. Finished rereading To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time since 9th grade. Totally enamored/bowled over/obsessed for now, have forced my friends here to watch the 1962 movie with me once already. Such a beautiful book with incredibly alive characters, and one that reminds me that books don't need to be "about" something per se--this one is simply the slow story of three years' worth of growing up.

7. Drank a whole lot of milk tea bubble tea, a Hong Kong specialty. Love it.



8. Ate at a place called Modern Toilet. Gimmick: sit on a toilet seat instead of a chair! Irony: the actual toilets were fairly run-down.



In other culinary news, my class took me on a field trip to a Cantonese restaurant, ostensibly to compare cross-cultural food habits. This quickly turned into a game called, "Make Courtney Eat as Much Weird Stuff as Possible." I ate jellyfish and chicken feet. Please, picture a chicken foot. Picture how much meat is on a chicken foot. Now picture how many bones are in a chicken foot. And this was AFTER my meat market experience.



With Jessica, my co-fellow and generous liaison to Hong Kong.


9. Two more days left as a teacher in Hong Kong. The experience has been very mixed. I've enjoyed teaching my own course, but find that different students react completely differently to my lessons: some love building up plot structure on their own to understand why plot functions the way it does, while some say they've already learned the terms; some like free-writing in class, some can't stand it; some find literary examples valuable, others get bored and tune out. You can't please everyone, and I teach to the type of student I used to be and the type of teacher I always wished I had--but that leaves some students dissatisfied. It's hard for me to be unable to reach everyone, and to move on after a student expresses distaste for the lesson.

I am still interested in education policy, psychology, content, maybe a certain type of teaching as well--but maybe not middle or high school like this.



10. Miscellaneous photographic moments:

Bamboo scaffolding- apparently as strong as steel.


In the States, we sell cheap bracelets in 25-cent machines. In Hong Kong, it seems, they offer besieged ducks.


Loved this.

This must be why people love Asia...

Several fascinating events have taken place since my last post. None are especially culturally relevant or enlightening, but they are certainly unrepeatable.

1. I took a hip hop class at Hong Kong University. I can now perform a routine to Chris Brown's "Shawty Get Loose" that features far too much cheerleader-esque arm punching to possibly qualify as actual hip hop. I also had the unique pleasure of watching the HKU hip hop group perform for me. They were actually GREAT. One guy performed an entire three-minute hip hop song on pointe.



2. We had high table dinner for our students, the co-fellows who support us, and the fellows (us, the teachers.) It was right out of Harry Potter, though the Oxbridge kids told me it was right out of Oxbridge. I guess both are accurate. We wore green robes and sat at long tables, and the fellows sat at the head table and got served first. It was a very formal occasion, during which we discussed cultural differences in education. Since many of the fellows just graduated from the Harvard Grad School of Education, we have a theoretical approach to international education policies, in addition to comparing experiences across the fellows in different schools.

Dinner, however, proved not to be the unrepeatable element of the night. Oh, no--that honor would have to go to the all-male punk-rock Lady Gaga cover band who offered the keynote performance in the hall after formal dinner. The lead singer was a large, fabulous Hong Kong guy who OWNED "Bad Romance" as I imagine Lady Gaga herself cannot. The entire hall was on its feet, screaming. It was one of the most surreal experiences of my entire life. I was so enthralled that I could not capture it on film, but hopefully I will have pictures or even video to post soon.

3. Today, we visited the Tian Tan Buddha, a major tourist attraction otherwise known as the "Big Buddha," on Lantau Island. We took a cable car up the mountain to the island for our journey of enlightenment (transport's words, not mine.)





The views were absolutely breathtaking. Mountains, ocean, wooden footpaths through the mountains:







Buddha was HUGE and looked pretty impressive, until I discovered that he was built during the 80s (that's the 1980s) and completed in 1993. The Po Lin Buddhist Monastery beside it is slightly older, from 1903--but as an American with a national history only 200+ years old, I consider China's appeal its ancient history. The 20th century does not quite qualify.







People leave offerings for the Buddha, including fruit they don't remove the barcodes from and saltines.


4. THE LITTLE PRINCE IS IN HONG KONG. This is not a joke. I travel around the world, and only my favorite and most inspirational book is COMING TO LIFE in my backyard!! I could not possibly be more excited.



5. I have been semi-adopted by the Oxbridge students on this trip, largely for my immediate and enthusiastic embrace of absurd British words such as "scrumpled." I never hung out with so many British people when I was actually in London!

6. A bonus picture, my favorite until I can illustrate number 2:

Hong Kong: The World’s Biggest Stairmaster

Here I am as a Crimson Summer Exchange teaching fellow in Hong Kong, the most overwhelmingly densely populated and built-up city I have ever seen. I have been jaunting along under the illusion that New York City is the biggest and craziest city in the world, and that nothing can compare; I have said as much to friends I’ve met from around the U.S. and especially from European cities (Dublin, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, even London and Paris.) And here I must confront my ignorance, because Asia has already blown New York out of the water. New York is crowded and busy and illuminated, but at least most restaurants and retail are confined to ground level. In Hong Kong, the area that is in fact called Times Square is level after level after level of these places—from the ground (what Americans would call the first) through the fourth or fifth floors off the streets. What this means is, essentially, that four or five New York City blocks’ worth of sheer stuff is shoved into a single street in Hong Kong.



This is not to say that Hong Kong has more by volume, but there is certainly more by density, if only because they’ve had to build up in order to conserve space with such a high population. Hong Kong is also built on very hilly terrain, so the streets lead you up and down stairs and elevators constantly, through buildings and back out again, without a grid system or clearly defined and continuous street to speak of. In other words: my already pitiful directional skills are challenged beyond their limit here. The concept of my “independence” is a joke; sans cell phone for now, I will disappear into the LED-screened abyss if left to my own devices here. Thankfully, my fellows and co-fellows are a group of super friendly and open students from Harvard Ed School, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Cambridge, and Oxford. They understand the fact that I may have gone to one of these institutions, but I certainly never learned to read a map--much less a map that insufficiently depicts the unending changes in elevation.



It’s fascinating to come here after being in Europe, and to see the “developed world” being developed in such different ways. The USA, Europe, and Hong Kong (I won’t make sweeping continental judgments just yet) all have access to the most cutting-edge technologies, but big cities in each put them in your face to such unlike degrees. Europe has maintained its old-time architecture and character the most of the three, Hong Kong the least. Of course all three have rural areas far less affected by technology, and Asia features the greatest disparities between the extremely technologically developed urban centers and the poor and radically underdeveloped rural villages. But as someone who considers herself a more urban person...maybe I need to temper that description. Hong Kong is too much for me, and I’ve come to love and appreciate the independent cafes and small “downtown” and bar scene of New Haven. I didn’t like living in New York last summer because it was too big and too much--but being in Asia just may have changed my mind on NYC. It seems fairly manageable by comparison. NYC people: I may be willing to live near you one day, after all!



Furthermore, as far as I can tell, the national pastime here is shopping, closely followed by eating out. In other words, Hong Kong is one big mall. I hate to say that this does not seem like a terrible overgeneralization. You are constantly walking in and out of shopping centers here. Hopefully, I will soon discover other features that undo this impression.



I should probably mention by now what I’m doing in Asia. As for the Crimson Summer Exchange program itself, I am here as one of eighteen teaching fellows from the top 3 Ivies and Oxbridge. Name brands, clearly, are extremely important to the parents who pay for their kids to attend this program. (This applies equally to universities as to retail.) I am teaching one course of my own design, and one standard curriculum syllabus designed by the program. We did some teacher training and education theory over the first few days here, and I gave my first lessons today.

My own class is Short Fiction Writing, and it went really well! The kids came up with the main ideas I wanted them to take away about constructing fictional characters, today's focus. I even felt this silly moment of revelation when we realized that the protagonist’s desire (a part of character description) is what the antagonist (a type of character) impedes, therefore creating the conflict (a key element in dramatic structure) that drives the plot (the dramatic structure itself.) Every element comes together! The kids came up with: Harry Potter (protag) wants a family, so what does Voldemort (antag) do? Kills his family! (conflict) And what does Harry do? Saves the world--but through the lens of saving the friends who have become his surrogate family. A successful lesson! Now let’s see how willing they’ll be to write me an entire short story in the three-day curricular cycle I have with them...

Teaching is fun, but it demands a lot of energy. Outside the lesson plan preparation and grading time, the sheer energy of projecting your voice and filling a classroom with personality makes the time fly but leaves you wiped out. I deeply respect all my friends doing Teach for America for the next two years, and wish them as much rest as possible.

Some observations:
1. Hong Kong students are QUIET. They may just be shy as the program starts, but it’s more difficult than I’ve ever seen it in America to get them to speak up. I broke them into groups for an activity where I asked them to discuss amongst themselves, and I literally could not hear a single word from the front of the room. I thought they were sitting silently, until I walked around and found that they were whispering to each other.

2. Five days in and I’m already sick of rice. This does not bode well.



3. Despite Hong Kong having been a British colony for 100 years until the '90s, and using British electrical outlets, the kids tend to have American accents. Perhaps this is due to...

4. ...High School Musical. (And other American movies/TV shows.) The Disney Channel strikes again, the single universal theme of my interaction with kids all around the world. Denmark? Yes. Hong Kong? Okay. Poor Spanish-speaking Guatemalan villages? Well, why the hell not.