Below this photo is the start of term speech.

We are holding this dinner tonight in order to welcome new staff members to our school, and also to demonstrate our gratitude for the ongoing contributions of our continuing staff members.  I really hope that you will enjoy yourselves here with us this evening: I hope you enjoy the food, the drink, and the time that you will spend with your colleagues; both those you know, and those you have yet to meet.

今晚我们欢聚一堂，即是欢迎新的同事，同时也是要借此机会对老员工为学校所作出的持续的贡献表达感激之情。希望大家尽情享受美食和美酒，不管是已经熟悉的同事，还是尚未谋面的同事，让我们尽情的享受所有爱华人欢聚一堂的美好时光。

I feel very proud today.  I feel proud to remember the many wonderful people who are no longer with us at Aihua, but who helped this school to become what it is.  I feel proud of the people who are still here with us, and who are working hard to make Aihua better and better.  I feel proud to look on the bright new faces that have joined our ranks, and who will help to create our future.

今天，我感到非常的骄傲自豪。我非常骄傲自豪的记起那些优秀的但已经离开爱华的员工，因为今天的爱华依然沉淀着你们的付出；同时，我更为依然与爱华在一起的出色的爱华人感到骄傲自豪，是你们的辛勤付出使爱华越来越强大；我同样感到非常骄傲激动的看到一些新的、闪亮的面孔加入到我们的团队，这些新生力量的加入将帮助爱华创造更美好的明天。

I feel proud today, but I also feel humbled.  I feel humbled to think of the loyalty and the dedication of the Aihua soldiers with whom I stand shoulder to shoulder.  Aihua is my family, and I love very deeply the people I have struggled beside.  I won’t list names, or acts of valor, but if you get to know us, you will know who has sacrificed what to protect our school.  Aihua is held together by a constant application of willpower, and it has not been easy for us to get where we are today.  We are here though, because of quiet sacrifices made by brave people here among us.

今天我骄傲自豪的同时，我也亦感到自己的渺小，特别是和与我并肩奋斗的爱华战友们的忠诚和奉献相比。爱华是我的家，我非常热爱和我一起奋斗的爱华人，我不一一点名，也不一一列举他们的功德。如果你了解我们的话，你就会知道为了呵护爱华，谁都做了什么、谁都付出了什么、谁又都牺牲了什么。爱华拥有永恒的毅力，成长到今天，爱华走过了一条不平凡的路，爱华的今天，正是因为我们有太多的勇敢的爱华人在默默的做着贡献。

To be honest, I am not a businessman.  For me, Aihua is not a business, but an ideal; the betterment of Aihua is my Holy Grail.  There is so much cynicism in the business of English teaching in China, but there is also so much potential to do good through this work.  When we go into classrooms as English teachers, we have the opportunity to help a handful of young people prepare themselves for their futures, and this is not something small.  As teachers though, we should not limit our influence on our students to course material: we also have the opportunity to set good examples for them, and show them how grow up to be good people, and positive members of society.  The foreign teachers among us have another advantage, in that we have the opportunity to broaden our students’ understandings of culture and the world.

说句心里话，我不是一名商人，对我来说爱华不是一个生意，而是一个理想，让爱华越来越繁荣是我最神圣的使命。在中国，很多教育机构不是真正的做教育，很多教育机构的真实目的不是教育本身。而我们是把教育当成一种人类爱的奉献。作为老师，当我们走进课堂，我们就肩负起帮助年轻的学生为未来做好准备的使命，这种使命责任重大。作为老师，我们不要只限于教材对学生的影响，我们同时要为人师表，为学生成长为尚德的好人、对社会有用的人作出表率。我们教师团队中的外教还有另外的优势，那就是帮助我们的学生拓展他们的国际文化的视野。

These are all good things that we are doing.  Our most important role, however, is as ambassadors, and as peacemakers.  In Northern Ireland, I saw that it was the common people who made the ground for peace, and only after this had been established did the politicians step in and shake hands, and take the credit for what the common men had done.

以上这些都是我们可以做到的有意义的事情。然而，我们最重要的角色是大使、是缔造和平的使者。在英国的北爱尔兰，我曾看到是那些普通的老百姓使和平有了进展，而那些政客的介入和握手言和恰恰在这之后，与百姓争名斗利。

We all recognize that China is a rising power, and that it will have a great influence on the destiny of the world.  We all know that the brightness or the darkness of our world’s future hinges on the relations between China and the west.  Now, the future could go either way.  China and the west are suspicious, untrusting, and largely ignorant of one another.

我们都意识中国是崛起的大国，对世界的命运将有着深远的影响。我们都知道未来世界的光明与黑暗决定于中国和西方世界的关系。现在来看，中国和西方世界彼此猜忌、彼此不信任。未来的世界充满了不定性。

Violence begins where language fails.  We teachers, learning English and learning Chinese, stand on the side of brightness and of peace.  Our presence as common people shines light on the shadows of ignorance and suspicion.  We are showing our students that western people are friendly, kind and funny, and not so different from Chinese people.  In turn, we are learning from the time we spend here that Chinese people are not so different from us.

冲突源自于语言交流的失效。作为外教，我们学习英语、学习汉语，我们站在和平和光明之上。我们作为普通人的存在照亮了愚昧和怀疑的阴影。我们展示给学生西方人的友好、善良、有意思和幽默，我们和中国人并没有什么特别的不同。作为回报，我们从我们在中国所度过的时光中也学到了中国人和我们也没有什么特别的不同。

It is easy to be cynical.  In this day and age, there is so much to make us cynical.  The challenge, though, is to find value in the things around you, and the things you are doing.  If you cannot find value in what you are doing, you must create value in what you are doing.  Otherwise, you will live a life that is as vapid as a string of internet smileys.

讥讽和批判是很容易的一件事。在当今的这个时代，有太多的事情可以使得我们去讥讽。然而，对我们来讲挑战就是意味着在你周围、在你所从事的工作中找到价值。如果你不能从你所从事的工作中发现其价值，你就要去创造价值。不然的话，你的生活就会像一串网络上的表情符号一样乏味。

http://myopic.us/xinjiangtime



	




	

Link to song

Fahai temple was built when Shakespeare was a boy.  It has in it amazing mosaics depicting blue, tusked gods, and ladies floating on clouds. It is about 20 minutes drive from our Gucheng school. I took a walk up to this temple on my first day in China, and it is still one of my favourite walks in the area.

This video does not enter the temple: cameras are not allowed. In walking through most temples, Faihai Si included, you ascend through a series of areas, divided by steep stairs upward, toward the highest point.  The highest point of the temple represents the highest achievement, the highest level of mastery.

Although the video does not enter the temple, the road toward Fahai Si seems to mimic, or precede, the temples’ architecturual foundation in an ascent toward mastery.

Last week Ms Chen and I went to a lecture at Beijing University, delivered by Professor Mayers, of Yale University.   Dr Mayers has been involved in the development of the idea of EQ: emotional intelligence.  Ms Chen received the tickets to this lecture from her political party.  She was told that the tickets had cost 2000 RMB each.  When she asked me to join her at this lecture, I agreed because I felt that it would be nice to get out of the school for a morning, and spend some time with Ms Chen.

Sam collected me, and then we picked up Ms Chen, and were away out of Shijingshan by 7:00 am.  As Sam drove the clunky school van,  we sat in the back and discussed our overriding concern: how to develop a culture of courtesy, warm heartedness, mutual support and shared respect at our school.  Chen Xi felt that she could glean ideas from Dr Mayers’ talk, and pass these on to our management in training.  The management could then transmit these ideas to the staff and teachers, who would in turn transmit them to our students, and to the parents of our students.

There were a lot of people at the talk, but I was the only non-Chinese.  Under each chair we found water, a bag, a notebook, and a flyer for an EQ summer camp for 10 to 12 year old children, to be led by Dr Mayers.  When Dr Mayers entered the theatre, everyone stood, and would not sit until Dr Mayers had asked them to be seated.  Dr Mayers was accompanied by a translator, who followed him sentence by sentence.  The first thing he did was ask the audience how many people were in attendance as parents.  Almost every hand was raised.  He then asked how many were in attendance as business leaders.  Perhaps 5% of the audience raised their hands.

Dr Mayers proceeded to claim that the conception of emotional intelligence was new, as new as 1990, and that in the history of thought, it had only been implied once, in the work of Darwin.  He then showed a series of sketches of birds, seals and apes mouth feeding, and then a slide of a human couple kissing.  He stressed that these slides were photos of sketches by Darwin, and that Darwin had interpreted this evolution of mouth feeding toward kissing as evidence of the development of emotional intelligence.  I noted down in the notebook from under my chair that this seemed to be a misreading of Darwin.  I also noted that the idea of strong and weak abilities to read and control emotions had existed throughout human thought, as notions of sensitivity, empathy, and awareness of others.

Dr Mayers then described how the EQ level of an individual could be measured through standard tests.  He showed photos of faces, and asked the audience to rank the level of given emotions in the faces, for example sadness, from one to five.  He showed that there was a general consensus in how people interpreted emotions in others.   He described EQ as a measuring tool; one that might be useful to police, or HR departments.  Again and again he stressed that EQ was based upon scientific principles.  The equation of EQ with IQ, suggests that an innate quality is being measured; like the charisma ability, in Dungeons and Dragons.

In fairness, he did not pretend to be talking about ways of improving emotional intelligence.  He made this clear in his replies to questions at the end.  To the first question, what should a boss who has a low EQ do about this problem, he replied that the boss should identify an employee with high EQ, and work closely with him.  The next question was “what should a parent do if children fight over their toys.”  To this, he turned aside, blushed, and then laughed.  He regained his composure and said: “Well, I’m no child psychologist, but I guess you should explain to the children that they should think about how the other child feels.”

The talk was about measuring EQ, and not developing EQ.  Were Dr Mayers to have suggested that the principles of his work could be used to develop emotional intelligence, the fact that his theory is founded entirely on science and statistics, means that developing EQ in others could most readily be used to develop skills in emotional manipulation.  EQ is not a theory of ethics: it does not provide guidance for how to interact effectively with others.

Many Chinese people are desperately seeking to create an ethical and courteous society.  They recognize that crowded roads, crowded shops, one child families, and an exam focused educational system have created a public culture of bad manners and selfishness.  Many Chinese people want to encourage courtesy and empathy in their children, in order that their children may set an an example that will contribute to the development of a better society.  Dr Mayers and his audience were at cross purposes and somebody must have been aware of this.  It seems not a little cynical to exploit the noble aspirations of Chinese parents who wish to see their children develop empathy and courtesy.

There were flowers and butterflies on the flyers for the expensive EQ summer camp, congregating around a photo of Dr Mayers’ head.  The letters E and Q jumped out of a bright and bouncy alphabet.

There are ways to help young people develop courtesy and empathy, and ways to encourage these qualities to become contagious:  Dr Mayers’ EQ measuring tool has no relation to such a project.

Ms Chen’s political party collected donations to be used to build a new public school in an area in Sichuan hit hard by the earthquake of 2008.  Ms Chen traveled to Sichuan to represent her political party at the opening of this school.

Jemma is from Huddersfield, UK. She studied Forensic Science at The University of Lincoln. She has traveled to many countries all over Asia and Australasia including Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, Lao and Cambodia. She fell in love with teaching after doing some volunteer work in Indonesia. She achieved a life goal of traveling around South East Asia and Australasia for a year after university. She lived and worked for a year in New Zealand after traveling. Her interest include kayaking, snorkeling and traveling.

Life in Beijing.
Beijing is a great place to teach in China. It has a great mix of western luxury and Chinese culture. In the centre you can find most of the comforts of home such as Starbucks and western food. You also have a lot of culture and heritage on your door step like The Forbidden City and The Great wall. At times in the centre you could forget you were in China. In Shijingshan you can immerse yourself in Chinese life (and shock some locals).
An average trip into the centre of Beijing into ‘Western town’ will take between 45 and 60 minutes on the subway (in my opinion the best way to get around Beijing at just RMB2 a journey). If you are after culture and heritage then Beijing is the centre of it all. The Forbidden City is easy to get to from the subway as is Tian’amen square. The Temple of heaven is also easy to get to and a good way to spend an afternoon just walking lazily around. There are various other Temples that you can almost feel secluded in (which is a rare feeling in Beijing). The Great Wall is reached easily by public bus and taxi combo and when I went it was almost deserted in parts (seriously I have photos with no one in!). In ‘Western town’ you can find a lot of home comforts like restaurants and coffee shops. You will start to crave western food. There is also a good western supermarket chain called ‘Jenny Lou’s’. This is great to get some of the things you miss from home.
Life in Shijingshan is more Chinese. You will get some inquisitive looks from the locals (a looking up and down, which I would normally associate with eyeing someone up in a bar, is pretty common). There are various Chinese restaurants around that are pretty good (a warning. Chinese food is nothing like you get back home). Shijingshan is a nice area to walk around and explore. There are some creature comforts around such as Carrefour; a French supermarket. It is the only place I can find bread that doesn’t taste like it’s been stored in a bag of sugar. Wanda Plaza is a good place to waste some time. It has plenty of shops and restaurants plus a cinema and an arcade. The arcade has everything you expect plus snooker and a roller disco.  The games are addictive and dispense tickets, so if you ever feel like your apartment is missing a novelty lamp and you have the time, a trip to the arcade is well worth a look. You will always have someone to socialize with. The teachers often meet up for dinner, drinks or shopping. Shijingshan is a great place to be and I really enjoy life here.