Video Gold
At the first of each month the students typically receive a short holiday. No school Friday afternoon at noon until Sunday evening around 7pm. This is the longest time they are without classes each month. Students who live in the school take the opportunity to visit their parents to do laundry, receive allowance for the next month and just get some down time at home. Students who live in the community and go home every night when classes end at 10pm take this time to relax and socialize.
On Saturday the 1st I was invited by some grade three students to go to hot pot with them. It is still odd to be eating and drinking beer with eighteen year olds. Thankfully none of these guys smoked and I didn’t have to admonish them for that. We finished up at dinner and decided to walk around the corner to Allen Story a large chain of bars with locations throughout China. We were joined by Daisy a student from grade two who speaks English very well. We watched the singers and enjoyed another round before calling it a night. As we dispersed in several directions Daisy invited Edward and I to her home for lunch the next day. She invited me to her home last year for lunch, her parents a very nice and her mother is a fantastic cook. We both happily accepted the invitation.
Lunch was, as is typical, fantastic. During the meal her father got up and put on some Chinese music. It wasn’t until the meal was over that I saw it was a VCD with random videos from across the globe set to Chinese music. I was quite surprised, (still am), to see the video playing was filmed in Old Sacramento. My hometown. Not just my hometown but the street I lived on. Old Sacramento is featured on two of the sixteen videos and it was just chance that I walked into the room and caught one of them. It was filmed at one of the countless festivals that invade the streets of Old Sac every year and looks to be about ten or more years old. One video is set to video of views of different buildings, the Delta King and the Tower Bridge and the other song is set to video of people. What a find. Daisy and her family were happy to lend it to me and I’ll be making a copy of it.
Every other week I teach some of the better students in grade two, (think American high school juniors), and am always happy to see them. They were my first class of students as most of them were here last year and it is like a Best Of of students. They all speak and understand English so much better than even they understand. Typical Chinese curriculum is very heavy on the grammar so it often weighs heavy on them and can take the fun out of it. So I try to, with my large class sizes, do fun things that will interest them. Recently we discussed superstitions, horoscopes and this week we are learning an English song, 英文歌. Last term we learned Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks. It is a challenge to find a new song that the music doesn’t overpower or is sung so fast. The students know and love the Carpenter’s so staying in that genre I’ve narrowed the choices down to Do That to Me One More Time by Captain and Tennille, (after one class the leading candidate), and Randy Vanwarmer singing Just When I Needed You Most from 1979. I chose both of those songs based on them having been covered or re-imagined by Chinese pop star Will Wuha. I’ve looked for newer pop songs and found a new song called Incomplete that the Backstreet Boys had in the Billboard Top 100 for 2005. Meh. Not so much. The students love the boyband sound and it seems that the Backstreet Boys have left that sound behind. It has also been suggested that I use country music and while I enjoy some country music I just can’t bring myself to dump on them with Dwight Yoakam, Hank Jr, Alan Jackson or Marty Robbins. Yeah, I’m a little outta touch with the current crop of country stars.
May 10th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
english songs? try anything sinatra,
or “Hit me baby one more time”
not by Britney Speares, but by Travis.
I’ve used it many times in classes. good fun.