Amy Adoyzie Enjoys Life and Junk

"How do you assess future greatness?" Kamal asked us, a dozen teachers sitting around him after another day of student testing. He, the Chairman and CEO of the Asian University for Women, gently slung the rhetorical question into the center of the classroom, it floated slowly to the ground as we all looked at each other and shrugged in our heads.
We're knee deep, wading through layers of photocopied tests, in an attempt to assess the English and math capabilities of our bright young students. They're exhausted from the multiple daily examinations. We're trudging through trying to grade them in between seemingly endless meetings. After they're all marked, the scores tallied next to student ID numbers, then what?
How do we assess potential? Leadership? Courage? Through a couple 300-word English essays written within an hour?
They've passed a first test by showing up here. Doesn't it take courage to move to a foreign country, away from comfort and security, to invest the next year and a half of your life into an untested program, hoping its rewards will outweigh its sacrifices?
I ought to ask my colleagues that question.

These are students from one of the best public high schools in Chittagong. Some of our Bangladeshi students were plucked from schools just like this, which looked alarmingly similar to my classrooms in Huarong, Hunan, crammed with about a hundred students and a single teacher.

No one likes tests, they're fallacious gauges of one's complete and true ability. How does one say: I am from a remote area of Pakistan where my father is a potato farmer. Girls like me never leave. But I have. on a multiple choice exam?
Thankfully, they're only being tested for English comprehension and writing ability- to place them in the best possible classes to further their studies.
Thankfully, we're not grading them on potential, because there isn't a mark high enough to do them justice.

This is one of my favorite shots thus far. I love the way the colors of the buildings compliment the woman's sari. She was walking down the path and Auggie had commented that the woman got into her shot and I thought, "She is the shot!"
I lowered my camera and shot up at her and she was staring right back.

The grand view from our apartment balcony. We overlook Chittagong with a new mosque sprouting up beside lush, leafy palms.
This is my view for the next eighteen months.

This is a public service announcement to let ya'll know that there is a trove of Engrish material in my Flickr photoset: Engrish So Manies.
Check out the many mutations of the English language like this gem:



(I wanted this shirt so badly, but my bulbous beer belly refused to fit within its confines.)

What could be more apropos than visiting the birthplace of the cultural revolution on May Day?!
Amy Kirch and I signed up for a day tour without really knowing where we were going except that we would visit Shaoshan, the town that birthed Chairman Mao. The tour began in Changsha, Hunan's provincial capitol, and we were on the bus for no more than 15 minutes when we got off at Martyr's Park. I've been to Martyr's Park before, it's a pleasant place to escape to during hot, humid summer nights when it seems half of the Changhsha population is there practicing ballroom dancing. The park is also home to a ferris wheel, a man-made lake with scenic pagodas and a small minority village. I was unaware of the latter.
Chinese people like looking at natives, or at least some effed up Chinese tourism version of it, and nestled inside the park was a small village inhabited by savages who wagged their tongues and wooped like the Indians we saw in cowboy movies. The first thing that greeted us were three fabricated totem poles, so out of place as they stuck out in the middle of a Chinese city.
After being led through the village strewn with painted cow skulls and thatched huts, we were treated to a monkey show by the "minorities" where I saw a dude put fire down his leopard print pants.



We boarded the bus, and after an hour-long ride we ended up at the birthplace of Liu Shaoqi, another famous communist leader from Hunan, and got to see his digs. The dude published a book or two and had interesting rooms.


We were beginning to wonder if we actually signed up to visit Mao's house when we got back on the bus again. Finally, after another hour, we were in Shaoshan and were ushered to bow at the feet of a towering bronze Mao statue where people laid bouquets of fake flower at his feet and bowed. I chose to take a self-portrait with my favorite Fuck shirt (courtesy of Dyanne, Gus's mom, circa 1970s) with Mao in the background. Communism is spelled wrong, which makes this an amazing American Engrish shirt.


We were taken to a gift shop, where we stood around for 15 minutes as they hawked Mao tchotchke at us. I's love me some communist economy! When we actually got to Mao's house, Amy Kirch and I were ready go home because Mao's old kitchen looks like any ol' dinky old school Chinese kitchen, but nary an iron bowl in sight.


Our day of touring didn't end at Mao's house and we were taken to the peak of Shaoshan via a mountain/ski lift that let us look over the entire town! This was a highlight for me, and I was all giggles and giddiness before getting scooped up into the rickety, rusted orange bench. As we left the park, we were treated to one of the finest examples of Engrish ever via an "I NSTRCTION" board.