Countdown Day 20: D's Photo Ops

Those of you who know D know that he's fond of "costuming" -- i.e., altering his appearance, often in radical ways, just for the sheer fun of it. This garnered him some second glances in the U.S. (especially in places like the 'Cuse and Greenville). Here, however, his foreigner status + his wacky look stops people dead in their tracks. (Heck, my own plain Jane self also gets second looks here, so you can imagine what they think of D).

Frequently, the stares (and giggles) are accompanied by cell-phone photo taking or by requests for a photo op with D. For example, just last week when we were in Hong Kong, a couple of businessmen from India wanted their picture taken with him. And today during our semi-weekly Jusco/McDonald's pilgrimage, a group of local teens asked for the same (prefaced by the compliment, "We think you have much fashion."). I've captured that event here. (Notice that two of the females in the picture have their fingers in the "V" position. For whatever reason, most young Chinese -- especially females -- are unable to stand for a photo without making this gesture. When I asked my students what it means, they told me 'Victory.' When I asked, 'Victory over what?' they could not tell me. So, the 'V' mystery lives on).

Countdown Day 16: Magic Grades

This is a guest post by the resident pain-in-the-ass-partner, D.

As a teacher, one of the most dreaded and gut-wrenchingly difficult tasks you face is assigning overall course grades at the end of a term. You see, it's not as easy as the "good students get As," the "above average students gets Bs," etc. Usually, you have numerous battles [sometimes with your own conscience, sometimes with
colleagues, etc.] over just *how* to do it – i.e., what system will be fair, ethical, and appropriate to both individual students and the class as a whole?

At the school where RB and I teach, we don't get to (or have to) make ANY of these difficult decisions. These decisions are made for us. RB and I, not so affectionately, have dubbed the process "MAGIC GRADES."

This is how MAGIC GRADES work. Start with the number of students enrolled in your class and then multiple that number by two different percentages: 20% and 75%. This represents the percentage of A grades and the percentage of A and B grades combined that one is strongly suggested to give. On paper, the official guidelines allow for some flexibility; however, I was told ". . . do this if you want to avoid trouble."

For example, I have 77 students in one of my classes. So, I need to give 15 students a grade of "A" (i.e., 77 * 0.20 = 15); and I also need to give a total of 58 students a grade of either "A" or "B" (i.e., 77 * 0.75 = 58). Note, this grade assignment must occur irrespective of the actual score they earned in the class (e.g., a student who earned only 50% of the total class points will magically receive a 'B' rather than an 'F' simply because we need more Bs in this particular class).

And now you know the "rest of the story!"

We Will We Will ROCK YOU [with Ping Pong?!]

Note: This is a guest post, brought to you by the resident pain-
in-the-
ass partner (a.k.a. 'D').

Chinese people have strange ideas about fitness and exercise. This is the admittedly hasty conclusion that I've come to after living in (just) one city in China for (only) six months. Let me provide a few examples…

Ping Pong. Now, for the record, I rather enjoy Ping Pong. I try to play it once a week to improve my skills, have a little fun, and meet some new folks. But, as you may already realize, Table Tennis is regarded as the official sport of China; and (as you might suspect) they take it very seriously. Everyone in my office of a dozen or so co-workers "practices;" and some of my colleagues will not play Pong (as I call it) in public for fear of public humiliation over their poor playing ability. How do I know that this is the reason? Because they told me so! (Incidently, the title of this blog post comes from a recent TV commercial shown here in China featuring Pongers battling it out while the famous Queen tune cranks away in the background.) Also, on several occasions people here have told me that the reason why they play Pong is "…to keep fit."

Dancing in the Square. It seems that Chinese people like to congregate outdoors just about anywhere where there's sufficient space for ballroom-style dancing (e.g., city parks, parking lots, etc.). Thus far, we have only observed this activity at night and after dark; and it seems to be practiced much more by older folks. Another interesting feature of dancing in the square is that the participants tend to be same sex pairs. Sometimes, the ballroom-style dancing is replaced with another type of dancing (e.g., line dancing); and these same public spaces where the dancing occurs at night are also used for group Tai Chi practice in the morning.

Walking Plus. A very common fitness-related sight around these parts is women (of all ages) walking by themselves and older, opposite sex couples walking together. Now, you may not think that this sounds very unusual or especially very interesting, but . . . the thing of it is, they're not JUST walking rather they are very exuberantly engaged in some sort of self-flagellation as they walk. Yes, you read that last sentence correctly -- they are actually hitting themselves and they are
doing so with what appears to be considerable force! It is not clear to me (or RB) why they are doing this? To try and increase blood circulation? to stimulate the muscles? to break up fat? Who knows?! But it's damned interesting, eh? I should add that no part of their person seems to be spared the treatment – e.g., people will hit themselves in the arms, legs, belly, and even the face!

Gyms. The first few weeks that I was China I had a helluva time trying to find an actual gym. I say "actual gym" because there are many places purporting to be gyms that are not what I would call a gym. Let me share just a few examples. An outdoor swimming pool . . . a big open room filled with badminton nets…a closet containing just one very old, thin, and rusty bar loaded with very light sand-filled plastic weights…and, my personal favorite, a dark and dusty pool hall filled with nine billiards tables! [You should have seen how proud this fellow was when he showed me their 'gym' (aka pool hall).]

My Gym. Eventually, I did find a gym. It is poorly equipped indeed – e.g., only one cheap barbell and a total of around 450 lbs. pounds of plate weights . . . for the whole gym. But the staff is quite friendly and the atmosphere is pleasant enough, even jovial at times. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that the barbell holds up [it's bending already]. The picture above shows me with Mr. Wang, a member of the staff and resident gym rat. Believe it or not, he is about three times larger than the average Chinese guy.

Most of the staff of around ten people hangs out at the gym all the time, sometimes working out, sometimes playing Chinese board games, and sometimes working the desk or the CD player. Of course, they have Ping Pong tables in the back! Mr. Wang is teaching me a few new Pong tricks.


This is a photo of the sign that includes the name of the gym in English and Chinese behind the front desk at the gym where I work out. If you embiggen the picture, you can read the full name: Valuable Strength International Healthy Body Meeting.

And now a word from the resident pain in the ass . . .

D, it seems, caught wind of how I represented -- or, in his opinion, misrepresented -- our conversation about what constitutes a burger. I have graciously agreed to post his amendment to my post, but only this one time (after all, those who want their say should start their own damn blogs, no?).

D's 2 cents:

On numerous occasions, Running Burro (RB) and myself have talked about
the concept of a list of criteria to accurately and consistently define foods [Incidently, this may be differently conceived as identifying foods.]. For example, to be appropriately labeled a sandwich, does the stacked concoction (sitting on a plate [or perhaps a cutting board]) need to include cheese among its multiple layers?
And what about the inclusion (or exclusion) of a condiment/spread?

Typically (in such discussions), I take the position [just for the 'sake of argument'] of assuming that checklists are apparent necessities, whereas RB is both more reluctant to invoke the checklist concept as well as more willing to permit a short checklist (i.e., I usually assume that such checklists [if they were to exist and be instructive] would need to include many items).

So, in order for something to be rightly called a burger, what should it include? As I recall, these were the only two items mentioned: (i)ground up* composition; and (ii) some specific percentage [or proportion] of the ground up product needs to be beef. We did not get into any specific details such as "What kind of beef?". Or "What numerical value should this percentage [or proportion] take?" - e.g.,
95%, 88%, etc.

*Footnote: I believe that many times (i.e., during our discussion) we were
talking of burger when we really meant to be saying something about
the patty part of the burger. Also, I should have added that the
patty itself needs to be of a form resembling a geometric shape (e.g.,
approximately circular or square depending upon various factors
including the desired outcome and whether the patty is formed 'by
hand' or by machine), but…I did not think of any of this at the time.

And now back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.