The Monkey Kings 美猴王

Suzhou Web Toastmasters held its demo meeting on Saturday. Over forty people attended. Many people held formal roles like evaluator and timer, others gave speeches and everyone seemed enthusiastic about being a Toastmaster. Our meeting was a bigger success than I expected. Our volunteers did a great job and so did the speakers. If this is what we can expect from the club, we will be really successful.

So far, we need more people volunteering for this week’s meeting, including for giving speeches. The club, so far at least, is based entirely at Web English school, so all we need to do is ask our students and teachers if they would like to do anything at the next meeting.

And since it is at an English school, I would like to put extra emphasis on English learning. That would mean giving the grammarian (the person who helps us improve our English at each meeting) extra time to learn more things, and lowering the bar for membership to those who might not have very good English but are still anxious to be Toastmasters. I’m really looking forward to seeing what can happen in the months to come.

Has this ever happened to you? Have you ever heard something a hundred times and only thought vaguely about it, and then the 101st time you think, “yeah! he’s right, I should!”? Well that’s what happened to me and food.

I have heard innumerable times about how important a good diet is, and I have heard several good diets. I’m not talking about Atkins, I’m taking about simple, healthy, still tasty diets. I have (mostly) given up processed foods, white bread and meat.

The trigger for this life change was the video “What’s Wrong with What We Eat”, from TED.com, which I recommend you watch here. I knew many of the things he talked about, but it made me realise that I should start eating more healthy. I go to the gym (started going about a month ago with the other King), I don’t smoke or drink (almost never, anyway), why shouldn’t I start eating right? I don’t know about you, but I plan to live to 100!

The other reason I decided to all but give up on meat (I’m not stopping entirely, just cutting down to maybe one small portion a day, which makes it easier than giving it up entirely) is when I learned, from the same video, the enormous hazard livestock poses to the environment. I had no idea that those cute little cows, pigs and chickens actually pollute more than transportation. The biggest sources of pollution in the world are, in order, energy production, livestock, transportation. I was mind boggled. When countries develop, in general, they eat more meat (and who can blame them, it’s delicious). With the rise of countries like China, Brazil and Russia (India is mostly vegetarian), we can expect more and more livestock production, and more and more cow farts. With all the energy I already consume, I can at least reduce the amount slightly while doing something good for myself.

A change in diet, if I keep it up, is a good way to be healthier now and in the future, and to do a small part to reduce my effect on the environment.

The Monkey Kings have decided that, for the full month of July, we shall be speaking entirely (stay tuned for the exceptions) in Chinese. If we are speaking with my wife, the Chinese English tutors and other Chinese coworkers, with each other and almost everyone else, we will be speaking only in Chinese. The only exceptions are the obvious ones: with our students and with people who don’t know Chinese.

It hasn’t been as hard so far as I expected. We are in class 25 hours a week, we watch a little tv, read newspapers and books and listen to music in English, and when we simply can’t express something, we’ll speak in English (just for a word here or there, of course). So we are around enough English that we are not desperate to speak it. But I know how these processes go: there is a honeymoon stage, a period where it is really annoying and you wonder why you did it in the first place, and then a time when it gets to feel more natural. That is the culture shock curve or circle or pie chart (however you present it), and I’ll bet this will be the same.

This month is a great opportunity for us to drastically improve our Chinese fluency, and I think mine has improved already. I ask people to correct me when I make mistakes, and hopefully being corrected will help me avoid picking up any bad habits. That said, I don’t trust many Chinese people to correct me very often. The culture prohibits it as rude. People are loath to do anything that could be perceived as rude, even if they are your friends and you say you are fine with it. They are like Canadians that way. I have been in this situation before. To people learning a language, I recommend finding someone you trust to practice with, someone you trust to correct you frequently in your speaking. You only need one or two people like that and a little discipline. You will lose your bad habits.

July is not just a chance to improve fluency but a chance to cement all the grammatical constructions (word order is my biggest weakness in learning a language) and vocabulary I learn this month. So I should be reading my exercise book more… on top of work, preparing speeches, starting our company, writing my book and going to the gym. I’m busier than I’ve been since December. It feels great!