REMINISCENCES OF ENGLISH TEACHINGS PAST - CHINA

Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)

I have been teaching for a long time, maybe 50 years off and on. When I came to Asia in 2005, I had never taught English as a Second Language before. I was plunged into teaching adult Chinese engineers and medical professionals. But from the very first class, I realized I really did know how to do the job.

China at that time had amazing internet access to the world (not so much anymore I am told). Having almost no resources in the steel-and-iron factory city where I was stationed, I had no choice but to search the internet for how to teach English for beginners.

There was urgency and importance to the teaching of English. The doctors and nurses in the local hospital were providing Western medical treatments to the best of their abilities. Annually, American doctors from Florida would come over to share the latest in cardiac care. There needed to be correct understanding from both sides. Patients' lives were at stake.

The engineers worked in the dangerous setting of the steel mill. The equipment was provided by the German company, Siemanns. Germans would come to China to instruct the Chinese engineers in the use of the machinery = and both sides would communicate in English. Again, there was a real necessity for precise comprehension on both sides. We would hear periodically of factory workers at the steel mill dying in accidents. Workers' lives were at stake.

For me, it was sink-or-swim. I felt so blessed to have good internet access and to discover the world of English language resources available then. It took every bit of my past teaching experiences in the US and Japan and of my years of theatre work to try to figure out how to teach English in the Gobi Desert of northern China's Inner Mongolia.

I learned a lot! But I realized I did not have the full skill set. 

So on the day after the biggest sandstorm in 20 years hit, I knew I could not continue to stay in Baotou. I knew that I needed more training in TEFL - Teaching English as a Foreign Language. So I went online and found an American-run school in the gorgeous city of Suzhou not far from Shanghai where a few months later I went to do a full diploma. But that's another story...

Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)

THE END OF A MARRIAGE

A short story inspired by watching the Korean Drama "World of the Married" 

How can I convey to you that knowingness, that sense of unreality, at the moment of the end of what I thought was "our marriage" but was really just "my marriage" which I lost?

It was midnight and I was standing in a telephone booth in the middle of an open square surrounded by low wooden houses - in Kyoto, Japan.

I called my husband in New York. We both lived and worked at a university there and stayed in the faculty wing of a student dormitory. 

I was studying Japanese dance in Kyoto that summer - so totally foreign to my years of Western dance but so surprisingly comfortable to me. People I met that summer would say things like, "Welcome back! I think we met in a past life." Dressed in full makeup, wig and $14,000 kimono for the final recital after weeks of sweaty work, a professional male performer looked at me in shock. He said, "Except for the blue eyes, you are Japanese."

And the man who was my husband told me that night over all-too-memorable long distance call that a graduate student --  a lovely blonde girl whose big breasts I had envied, a young woman who had been cleaning our apartment for us and had been inspired to arrange all the books by size on the shelves - so not the kind of brain that I understood - this woman had moved into our apartment. She would share the rent. And unspoken but later confirmed, she would share what had been "our" bed.

And the wave of knowingness came up. I knew with deep certainty that it was the moment of the end of the marriage. And at that very moment, I heard the sound of bells. Through the square came a parade of maybe 25 children. It was midnight - why were children out at that hour? They held up a box on poles on their shoulders. Inside I understood was a god who was being transported from one shrine to another. 

A god passed by me...or passed me by.

Like me, I thought then. Transported from who I was - or at least who I thought I was - to an entirely new set of circumstances. 

I stood in the phone booth caught between the two worlds: the American life I had known in New York and the strange world that I barely knew but loved in Japan. I did not and could not understand either one. 

I did not know where in the world I would ever fit. Or where I would ever find home again.

--- April 3, 2023 remembering a day in November, probably in 1992.

FOOD IN DISGUISE and other Random Ideas for Blogs and Books

COOKERY IN DISGUISE - Towards Clean Meat

Cooking, cook, cookery - disguised, masked, hidden

Some years ago, I was in Bangkok on a Buddhist holiday and was invited to a meal for perhaps a thousand people - to be prepared by the temple's monks.

"Oo! Chinese style pork?" I exclaimed as a monk presented a large platter of red and gray slices that clearly were the pork I was familiar with in China. "No, it's tofu!"

And this happened again and again throughout the meal from appetizers to desserts. "What's that?" "It's tofu."

Years before that, I was doing tourist shows on the island of Guam. We had "The World's Only Micronesian Dance Company" consisting of 13 Palauan students from the University of Guam, 5 sisters from the Philippines, and Miss Tahiti 1975.

The Palauans invited us to a holiday dinner at their new community center. Adorned with star charts and interesting symbols, the architecture first impressed - then came the food.

A long long table (maybe 15 regular tables pressed together) lined the sides of the room. Ladies in long muumuus kept bringing out more items wrapped in plastic or aluminum foil. We were each handed plates and urged to make our way down the buffet line.

Crinkly aluminum foil opened to meats, potatoes, mystery vegetables. "What's that?""It's taro." And this? "Yes, that's taro too."

I think I'm going to research this idea of "food in disguise" further.  Many items can be substituted for other things in recipes. How to make things vegetarian or vegan? How to bake a cake or fry a pancake or make almost anything when the familiar basic ingredients are not available? 

Really - it's how to be adventurous and wise at the same time.

Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)

A K-DRAMA ADDICTION: CATS VS DOGS

I have a new addiction: Korean K-Dramas on Netflix. An idea for a show: CATS VS DOGS. Working in and around an animal shelter has all the intensity and daily drama that a good K-Drama producer could want. Comedy, Tragedy, and Romance. Medical mysteries to solve. Personal struggles. The ups and downs of working with a team. Disappointments and Triumphs.

CATS V DOGS A crusty old cat lady versus a sincere and sympathetic dogs veterinarian. She shows him how cats can be lovable. He teaches her to be more trusting. Pasts revealed. Medical cases solved. Funds raised. Romance blossoms. Setting: a fishing village on a beautiful beach surrounded by jungle. Almost true to my life except I have not yet met the veterinarian of my dreams.

They must have amazing acting schools in Korea. And wonderful directors and writers for the shows. The shows have typical formulas depending on type - but the formulas get reworked in various settings. And they all have elements underscoring the contemporary clashes between conservative traditions and the values emerging in 2022.

Startup was so exciting for insights into the business world and 21st century technology.

Forecasting Love and Weather is a lovely May-December romance between an older woman boss and a brilliant young male forecaster while delving into the world of meterology.

Have been binge-watching Good Doctor - Korean and The Good Doctor - American. Both center on an autistic but savant character who comes up with answers to medical mysteries and genius solutions. Doctor Romantic is another I loved, especially the 1st season characters. I like the focus on the characters and dynamics of the members of the teams that surround the central characters.

One Spring Day has an adorable couple - a strong female lead and her sisters and the humble but beautiful man she is drawn to. She is a librarian; he is a pharmacist. Simple settings - the library, the pharmacy, their homes apartments. And much time spent in cars, restaurants and walks in parks. He plays basketball. She deals with a boyfriend she is bored with. He has a gorgeous little son. The same settings repeat in so many of the K-dramas. But this one has such naturalistic acting that it seems impossible that they are repeating scripted lines. It feels so real.

Crash Landing on You pairs a South Korean woman with a North Korean man in such an intense romance that the real life actors fell in love and recently had a lavish wedding. 

All time best so far - HOMETOWN CHA CHA CHA. The polls agree. Setting: a seaside fishing village. Characters: A big city woman dentist who starts her own clinic. The town's chief who is both big chief and bottle washer. Many delightful characters - townspeople and visiting TV crew. Romance: 5 stars. The series tracks the growth of the relationship between the dentist and the chief = at first very distrustful through growing trust and admiration with setbacks as past scars are revealed until a very very happy ending! The "chemistry" between the leading actors, the richness of characterizations, and the beauty of the place - all alluring. 

High production values for all the K-Dramas impress me too. 

But the real key to my addiction is the "comedy of manners" that seems to underscore all the series. Sometimes openly expressed in the various levels of bowing to each other - no nod or a small nod means superior disapproves of inferior. Female characters often are the leaders in the fight against older confining traditions - and the dramas underline how the world is changing. No longer is marriage a requirement - heartbreaking and sometimes hilarious scenes of older generations trying to demand preservation of traditions and misunderstanding the younger ones in their quests for self-determination. 

American TV and movies in comparison have so much gratuitous senseless violence, abusive language and harshness. Caring as a theme seems to have been lost. To me, the cracks in the veneer came with the debut of The Simpsons. People laughed and we got "Trumped." Like taking the lid off a trash can, the garbage in American culture was revealed in the so-called Trump years. It's still there but maybe slowly it can be cleaned up. Otherwise I despair for American culture. 

I know that there are still many Americans on the more liberal side - people who care about the environment, the climate disasters, the horrors of factory farms and the corporate takeovers of the global economy. I know there are people who care about the land, the sea, the animals, and the fates of people all over the planet. 

But the left is under siege from the right - those who assert their rights to litter, to drive fast, to not to wear masks, vaccinate, or clean up their acts. The ones who do not care, who think that freedom means they don't have to be considerate of other people - they worry me greatly. May the ones who do care survive and thrive!

In the meantime, I find life in Asia and as depicted on Korean TV series much more enjoyable. People in Asia - or at least on TV - do consider others. They do care. And that gives me some hope.

Copyright 2022, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)

Honey Bear's Legacy - the beautiful Cat Beach Sanctuary in Penang, Malaysia

Copyright 2010, TF (teviothome@gmail.com)

RIP Miss Honey Bear - you are missed. 

Thank you for the years of Love we shared.

Happy Spring 2022!

It's been more than a decade since I "blogged" regularly when living on Langkawi island in Malaysia. After several delightful years there, I took 8 cats on the ferry boat and moved to Penang island. Ten plus years of my life have been devoted to caring for cats and creating the Cat Beach Sanctuary. In 2022 I am back in Thailand and looking forward to returning to teaching - but in touch with Cat Beach every day. 

It is because of a cat I named Honey Bear that my life took such a dramatic turn - and I joined the ranks of the "Crazy Cat Ladies." She recently passed away in my house in Batu Ferringhi, Penang, Malaysia - and like so many pluses and minuses these past two years of the pandemic have wrought, I could only watch her passing over the internet.

Please read her story here and please consider joining me in supporting Cat Beach.

Please read and share the story of Honey Bear's Legacy - the beautiful beachside No-Kill Non-profit home for cats - Cat Beach Sanctuary. Let's help Cat Beach help cats!
https://mailchi.mp/066ebace11fe/honey-bears-legacy

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