The Monkey Kings 美猴王

I just became a member of China Advanced Toastmasters, or CAT. Having completed the first Toastmasters manual by giving ten prepared speeches, I am a Competent Communicator in Toastmasters. CAT is a club designed for advanced speech makers, where you can get the feedback and the opportunities you need to clear all the last hurdles to your mastering public speaking. And an unexpected bonus was that it was the cheapest Toastmasters I’ve ever found.

I am also strongly considering starting a Toastmasters club at my company, Web International English in Suzhou. It would be a boon for the teachers and students. I’ll let you know how things develop.

The Monkey Kings and Queen went today to the Humble Administrator’s Garden (拙政园). We weren’t there long, as it started raining (as it does every day in Suzhou, it seems), but this was our day off and we were determined to see one of Suzhou 75,000 gardens. The administrator didn’t seem that humble.

The garden is very big and very beautiful. The walkways were all little, round stones. There are long, thin canals running through the garden, with walkways and bridges all around, some of which go down to the water. The canals are like long ponds, with big, fat goldfish and wide lily pads. The Monkey Queen said she used to use such lily pads as umbrellas when she was younger. Some of them could have covered her whole family!

The garden also has a small bonsai garden (彭景苑)–lots of little trees growing out of pots–an art gallery (like all Chinese tourist spots) and a lot of little pavilions. Though the price was high (70rmb ($10) each), and we cut our visit short for the rain, we felt it was worth it.

Monkey King Matt went to to the mall to buy something for his computer and I accompanied him. When we got to the top floor, which for some reason had computer supplies and musical instruments next to each other, I saw a bunch of guitars. I thought I could probably get one for cheaper elsewhere, but it might take hours to find and I decided I wanted one then. When I found one for 200rmb ($30), I thought, wow, maybe I should get one. I played it, it was just as good as a $200 one in Canada, so I bought it. Now I am back in the habit of playing guitar for the first time in eight years and I’m even teaching Joy (the Monkey Queen). Maybe I can find a way to work it into my classes.

I just had my first English corner. English corner at Web means you, the foreign teacher, are holding an hour long seminar. I see it as a great way to get experience in holding a meeting and speaking in front of a group.

I don’t know how successful it was. It is often difficult to tell just what Chinese people are thinking, because so many of them hold their emotions–happy, sad, angry or ecstatic–inside. If I were in Germany or Italy I’d probably know exactly what most of them thought; but most Chinese people don’t want you to think they disapprove of you.

Anyway, my subject was American comedy and I analysed an episode of Seinfeld with them. The show is based on everyday subjects, familiar things; characters that drive the plot, and not the other way round; relationships; common things made funny; repeating words until they become funny. The reason I don’t know if it was successful or not is that there wasn’t a lot of participation and my students didn’t get a lot of the jokes. But they appreciated a lot of the humour when they understood it, and they learned about what makes American comedy funny, so I hit my goal.

We ate dinner at 水天堂大酒店, a good restaurant with a fantastic stewed chicken dish we tried. After dinner, we went to 金鸡湖 (translation: Gold Cock Lake), a big, beautiful lake to watch what you might call a lake show.

We walked around where hundreds of others were milling. Suddenly, lights of all different colours illuminated the harbour, some on the surface of the water, some shooting forward in swirling patterns and some rising as far as you could see into the sky. Water shot from spouts on the surface, elevated lights turned the shooting water purple, green and red, fire burst from a wall and heated our faces and I stood by, fascinated.

The water swished back and forth, sometimes creating heart shapes, sometimes arching and weaving, always with grace and wild colours. The lights on the water would change colour and pattern as the water flew and the lights in the sky rose and fell. Across the water, we could see fireworks in one direction, an island of green trees with lights under them in another, and a brightly coloured ferry crossing the lake. Suzhou is great!

One of my favourite things about China is how open people are to meeting newcomers. Last night, Matt and I went to an outdoor barbecue to buy dinner around 10pm. I used to go to this kind of place and buy barbecued sticks of meat and bread (羊肉串儿，馒头，等等) in Beijing all the time; and I was thrilled to find there is one near our apartment.

So we bought food from three of the vendors. Vendors often make the food with their family: the first place we bought from was a husband and wife, the second a mother and son and the third two parents and their daughter. We got into conversations with all of them. The third group was doing the usual “you speak Chinese so well!” that we get from everyone (doesn’t really mean anything, since they’ve been saying that since I started learning), and the daughter said something about Americans being good at Chinese and I said in Chinese “we’re not Americans! Not all white people are American.”

It is so funny to talk to lower and middle class Chinese people. They are curious, which is great, but they don’t know much about the world. I can answer all their first five questions before I hear them: I am from Canada, not the United States or England; I am teaching English in China; yes, of course I like China; yes, of course I like Chinese food; thank you, thank you for the compliment on my Chinese.

Either way, the people we were talking to may have assumed we were American but they quickly learned. I’m glad to be among open minded people who I can teach, when so many people in the world are closed minded and think they know everything.