Around the World in 330 Days: Brian's Fulbright Journey in China and Elsewhere: Day 262: Take-My-Husband-to-Work Day

Today, Wednesday, Kerry came to work with me...on one of my long days at school, the second last one. Even though the day was long, it was pretty good, which is quite typical of my long SISU days.

We had no problem getting a cab and getting to the bus. The driver didn't even accept Kerry's offer of money. However, today we had to take a very small bus and wasn't as comfortable as the big one. Just our luck! This is only the 2nd time this has happened. After getting to school, we had to wait around a bit before my first class, but at least this time I had someone to talk to.

Kerry came with me to the Short Novel class, and the students applauded him! It was so nice. He stayed for my lecture, in which I gave a background on Art Spiegelman and the Maus series. Then two students led discussion, as usual, but they did something slightly different today: they made the student who was chosen to talk pick the next person. There was a lot of uncomfortable giggling at this, but it did work out. These students are smart and know how to provide effective answers; they are just unbearably shy. When I asked someone to define "genre," you could have heard a pin drop. And these are mostly English majors, so I was really nonplussed.

Afterwards, 10 students (yes, 10!), me, and Kerry went to the canteen for lunch. The students led me to the third floor. "The first floor is too crowded, and the third floor has better food," one of them said. And it did. It was more like a fancy, Chinese dinner...in a banquet room called the "New York" room. The students ordered all the food, and one of them even paid for it! (I will make an offer to pay next time I see him.) As we were eating, Hannah, one of the braver students, piped up, "Tell us a story." "What kind of story?" I replied. "A love story," she said, giggling. She wanted to know how Kerry and I met. I told her that we met online, and the seemed excited by this. However, in general the students didn't ask too many questions, personal or otherwise, and it was a mostly quiet meal. "They're nice, but too quiet," Kerry said. And I'm inclined to agree.

I then rested a bit and met with a student about her Midterm, but that went well. Discussions about grades, for the most part, lack the drama that they do in the USA. The students mostly say "I can do better" or "I can try harder," and that's about it. I don't hear "You're being unfair!" or "You marked me wrong when you shouldn't have!" The difference is just uncanny.

The graduate students straggled in for their reading group around 2:40 (always a bit late). We reviewed three poems today: "Still I Rise" by Maya Angelou; "Love Poem to a Butch Woman" by Deborah Miranda; and "Barbie Doll" by Marge Piercy. I was particularly curious how they'd react to the Miranda poem, which is lesbian erotica. "It's groundbreaking," Vera said. No one seemed upset or squirmed when I talked about vaginal or clitoral imagery, so I think these students are ready to discuss sexual topics at their level. They are grad students, after all.

Then it was time to go to the Honors class. Five groups did presentations today, and then we discussed them afterwards. The best group, in my view, was the one that talked about Michael Jackson's influence on Chinese culture. They were really the only group that consistently showed direct visual examples of American influence in China. All the presentations were interesting: they were on street dancing; sexual topics on TV and their influences on teenagers; Internet memes; Michael Jackson; and Disney films. Good pop culture topics. It's just some were better than others.

Finally, it was time to go home. Again, the bus driver refused Kerry's cash. We got home fairly quicly and decided to stop at the Ciao Cafe for pizzas: Kerry had his meat lover's; I had my salmon and arugula. We went home and crashed...I was super tired.

Visual highlights from the day: