Stupid basketball game

Sunday night we got asked to be in a student fashion show. A Chinese student whom Katia knows from her classes entered a fashion contest and made all these clothes in one week-end. We went to try some out Sunday evening and we practiced doing the fashion show Monday evening and tonight (Wednesday) is the night of the fashion show! The tall American teacher called Andrew will be my "partner," which means we'll go out on stage together and "do our thing" - walk and pose and stuff. I think I'll be wearing a white skirt with my blue top, and heels or white boots lent by a Chinese friend. Katia and Guillaume are partners - can't you tell they're dressed the same?

It'll be something to participate in a Chinese event.

Monday I yelled at my students. Well, I didn't yell, but I got mad at them for not listening or caring or working. This was the class just before lunch.

I'm working on pronunciation - on stressing some words more than others. I give my students limericks and some of them are pretty funny.

My apartment gets dirty so quickly it's depressing. :P

I had lunch at the university cafeteria with Elvis and Vita, the two first-year students I had lunch with last Friday at McDonald's. We talked politics and about their hatred for the Japanese. They're still bitter about the rape of Nanking and the fact that Japanese textbooks tend to ignore this historical event.

I also gave them a mini introductory French lesson (upon their insistance).

This afternoon I'm going to play ping pong with some of my continuing education students from my Monday afternoon class. They enjoyed the limericks exercise. Ping pong is super popular (if not the national sport) and I'm sure my students are super good.

Yesterday I watched a basketball game between a Chinese students team and a foreign students team. Apparently they have this type of game every year and usually the foreigners win. Well this time I was embarrassed to be a foreigner because not only did they play pretty badly but they were extremely sore losers. The fans on the sidelines would swear into a loudspeaker (in English) at the referee and at the Chinese players. They were called on it a few times and the Chinese team even got a couple free shots at the hoop because the foreign fans wouldn't shut up. These "fans" would boo whenever the Chinese had a foul shot or even had the ball. Although the foreigners eventually only lost by ONE point I was saddened by the unfriendly atmosphere that had come out of the game. There were at least a hundred spectators, mostly Chinese, and the foreign on-lookers were making fools of themselves by acting so rudely. In the end, the Chinese were much stronger and they started booing whenever the foreigners had the ball or made a shot. It was really stupid. The captain of the foreign team was eventually disqualified because he was simply playing angrily and not following the rules of the game. He incited the people on the sidelines to "make some noise!" to show their displeasure.

I was with a few of my students from my Tuesday afternoon class and they were courteous enough to clap for the foreign team because I was around, but I tell you by the end I was quite embarrassed and I cheered for the Chinese team as well.

You'd think that foreigners coming to China would be more open and friendly and not act so immaturely. Their loss I guess.