the world cup....too bad it is the same week as final exams

how can you come to a final exam and not bring a pen? especially when you have been reminded that you will need to bring a pen repeatedly? why did I have to give 5 students pens so they could take their final exams?

we have just started exam week here at 湖北工业大学. i am giving 10 exams this week, 8 of them are for my listening and speaking classes. my exam is split into two parts. the first 45 minutes assess the students' listening comprehension and vocabulary. for the second part of the exam, i assess their speaking. because we have a limited amount of time, the students were supposed to come to class with 1 minute of speaking prepared. memorized. i told them i wanted it to be like i was watching cctv-9 (china's english language tv station, not that i have a tv, i have only seen it in hotels). the students are allowed to speak about anything they want. i got a lot of flattery, but a great number of kids talked about the world cup.

the world cup is huge here. advertisements are everywhere, and everyone is talking about it. during the speaking exams today, i had three kids tell me they have been staying up until 5 in the morning to watch every game. it is too bad that final exams and the world cup are the same week. that's going to hit the kids' scores hard.

the whole country seems to be in a giddy party mode. last night, we met at drunken river moon for the birthday of jennifer paradise. this is a huge restaurant and we sat on the 2nd floor balcony overlooking the main dining hall. in other words, we had front row seats to witness amazing foolishness. the restaurant was showing the pre-game on a huge 8X10 foot screen. many groups (largely men, university-student aged to 60s) were having dinner and watching a little of the game. competitive drinking is a visible part of chinese culture, there is toasting and cheering and a lot of puking. it is an important exercise, or so we are told, because you gain a lot of respect from your peers if you can keep drinking and challenging others. it doesn’t matter if you throw up. you drink, and throw up, and drink again. we regularly see people throwing up under the table at restaurants, no one even seems to notice. oddle, they never seem to get very drunk because few people can keep it in their system. sorry to get a little graphic, but if you have been to china, you will surely have seen this. i have always wondered how this works with when Chinese and American businesspeople meet. as a woman, this doesn’t come up, we are served lovely watermelon juice, but for men it can be a different story. last night we watched two tables abuse their bodies like it wasn't a monday night. i had a student, spring, tell me this morning as part of her speaking, that her uncle was so drunk watching the game, he called her and told her germany had lost when it had, in fact, won. or so she says. we all know i am not following this in the least, and am totally clueless regarding sports in general. advice to anyone coming to teach in china: know about the nba and football.