Amy Adoyzie Enjoys Life and Junk

Another update from Fish:

Hi Amy
Happy Christmas!
It's a long time that we haven't sent e-mails to each other.How are you doing these days?I wish you all the best!
The weather here is very cold now.I put out my heavy coat last mouths,dressed myeslfe like a beer!
New Years Day is darwing near.Our school will hold an new year evening party.That's great!
Lsat night was Christmas Eve,We CHINESE eat apples last night,because apple stands for safe and sound in CHINA. so, Iwish you all is well.
May you succeed and happy in a new year!
Have a nice day!
FISH

(There are still a couple more videos of my former students that I have yet to post. Keep your eyes peeled for them if you're a fan of these Chinese teenagers!)

QQ is China's most popular instant messaging program. On every occasion where I've met and spoken with Chinese students, they would inevitable ask me if I had QQ and then be completely disappointed when I confessed that Americans don't use it.

QQ is also the name of one of my most interesting students, Qu Qian. She was a student of #17, a science-track class with about fifteen girls in a class of seventy students. She was amazingly outgoing and gregarious, even when other students told her that she shouldn't behave that way because she was a girl. During my last week in Huarong, I took QQ out to lunch and I asked her all the questions that we were warned not to discuss with students. And she unabashedly answered them all. (Our talk will be another posting.)

This is the latest e-mail I've received from her:
Teacher Amy,
How is your everything going? I am QQ,Yesterday is our National Day,we have 2 days off,today I will go to school to have evening classes,so I have a little to write to you.
I have called one of our new foreigh teachers.She is from Goyanna,which is a small country in the South America.I will try to spare my time to talk with her to practise my spoken english.It is 7 months before our college entrance examination,so I have to spare no efforts to study to achieve my goals.We have so many wor-k to do everyday.What are you engaged in now?If you ar-e busy now,you needn't write me back soon,because maybe I will not surf the Internet for a long time.Best wishes for you!
Yours,
QQ

An update from a former student, Fish:
Hi Amy,
Several days before, New Grade 1 and Grade 2's students were came to school for night study. Having seen them, I suddenly realized that I have stay here for 2 years, I'm old to them. How time flies! That makes a little sad.I think I am a adult now, in order to make my dream come true,many things I have to leave behind.
I can't imagine my futrue,because I am a dreamer, alway imagining a happiness, bright futrue.But life is cruel.The bigdifferenc
between them always makes me disappointed.
It only has 272 days before national examination.I know I have to study hard, but I still have no self-confidence.Now , I began to say to myself,"Try my best and just do it " !
Today, we'll hold an English PETS exam.
Do you know that our country have classify the English into 8 grades.Today I will pass the grade 2.I'm so nervous, but I think I can do it !
Have a nice day!
Fish

Diana's mother stopped me as I was returning home after class. She spoke no English and I can barely make out the Huarong dialect. Thankfully, I was with one of my students who helped translate that Diana's mom wanted me to tutor her daughter. I agreed.
Diana was a Junior Three student, two grades below the students that I was teaching. Junior Three students at Huarong Yizhong don't have a foreign teacher, and Diana was jonezin' for some English.
Her mother tagged along the first couple time Diana showed up at my apartment to practice her oral English. I felt like I was babysitting two kids, chatting with Diana and watching her mom out of the corner of my eyes to see what she was snooping at. Her mom meandered from room to room, inspecting my living quarters while I tried to show Diana how to correctly pronounce her L's and N's.
Diana was asking me about life in America when her mom began flipping through my back issues of The New Yorker, when she landed on a teeth whitening ad. She ran her finger over the model's gleaming smile and asked Diana to translate a question. Diana ignored her, but I understood enough to hear that she wanted to know why Americans had such white teeth. She rubbed the glossy magazine paper, hypnotized by the pearly whites.
Diana continued to ignore her mother's questions and I just flashed my smile.

A letter from student Amy to teacher Amy:

Dear Teacher Amy,
Do you want to know much about your student- me? Yeah, I am a girl, a Miao zhu girl [Miao are a minority in China]. I don't like my life is always silence. Sometimes, I hope the God would give me something exciting, and sometimes, I hope a place where I could see everything with a silence sight and a few people. I love crying, but I also love laugh and my friends once said I was a mad. I always think a lot, a lot. Sometimes, I am even crying but I do not know why, only feeling too many bad things in my heart. I hope I could become a foreign teacher like you in the future.
That's all, if you want to know more about me, we can chat with each other someday or when we all are free. OK?

Angel is a great and insightful kid. She understands how lonely and frustrating it can be to as a foreign teacher. Sometimes, all's I need is for a student to acknowledge this and it brightens my day.

Joanne is another one of my favorite students. Her English name used to be Lily, but she didn't feel like it fit her so she asked me for another one. When I suggested the name Joanne, she really liked it and made sure to tell me that this name meant more to her because I personally picked it out. She's a darling and you can read more about her here: amyadoyzie.livejournal.com/2007/01/23/ She's 'Saddy Lily' in this story, but as you can see from the clip, she's mostly a chirpy lil' bird.

Xi Fei wrote me a note once that said "To see American farm is my dream. Could you let my dream come true?"
She's curious about American farms because her parents are farmers and she would like to think of ways of making their lives easier. Her older sister told her that all of the farming in America is done by machines, and that farming life is prosperous and highly profitable. Little does she know...

An email from Jiang Feng:
Hi ! i'am your student .this is my first letter to my teacher .i write letter to you because i want to kown something about America , America'culture,life and the punk music .
I contact the punk music soon .because friend of mine introduced some Chinese punk music to me.
I slowly like him because I thought he compared these pop music to express significant the thing.
Moreover can divulge our sentiment to work as our mood not good time.
Green day is a good bank.I also just now know them.Although I am not understand them to sing any very much.But I like this kind of excited rhythm, and feels their mood.Why are you sure to like punk? You look like very peacefully.
You can tell me to be more about the punk matter?
These, I had to go attend class.
Why are you certainly very surprised I to be able to write such well,because I used the Yahoo translation.
See you next week.

A couple weeks ago he wrote me this letter, here's an excerpt:
I'm very moved that you tell me your view about Punk. But it's very difficult to us to become independent. Because our life we imitate somebody else's word and deeds and pursue somebody else's footstep. I like Green Day's song' simple and lively rhythm, although I don't understand the meaning of the words of their songs. I can feel their happy, resentful and sad emotion. I try to use their rhythm and emotion to express feeling myself when I listen to their music. One of the most important reasons I like Punk is that it express the singer's real views and emotion about the society, war, peace, friendship and love in their eyes. Instead of pine and whine for nothing.
I have two questions about Punk. Why aren't Avril Lavigne's music punk? How do we separate punk music from pop music?

Leave it to me to just recently realize that my darlin' lil' digicam, M-K, has video-capturing capabilities. With about a month left of teaching, I decided to introduce you to some of my kids via le YouTube.
Besides meeting my students, you can also check out some miscellaneous clips at youtube.com/user/adoyzie. Don't fret, all of the videos are less than three minutes long because my camera can only handle that much. You can watch me eat a pear during one of my moments of stir-craziness, or listen to a story about near fan death, amongst other things! But I digress...

Meet Lily!
(She is White Lily from this story) Lily tells us why she likes English!