April 5th: bear story and bike ride

Day 201

The Bear Song lesson is a good time. It's custom made for Chinese students. They love to repeat things anyway. I din't have the energy to deal with the apathy crew, so after writing the first few lines of the song and getting no response, i erased them and demanded someone give me a piece of paper. I wrote a sentence and had all the students add a sentence until at the end we had a story. Here is the fruit of their labor:

(Read in a Steven Hawking voice)
[note from Montana: no need to imagine: click here and read along with a computer! (courtesy of this place)]

Mr. Willis saw a bear in the park. The bear is very big and very fat, and the bear is a fool bear. He's very surprise, he go to catch it at once. The bear was very angry. Mr. Willis was worried. When the bear died, what will I do? Then he go out. Mr. Will cries out along the street. He saw many flowers and threes. A bear love a nice girl. The girl is very beautiful. So they be good friends. They are friendly to each other. Then he asked the girl to help him. But the girl like Mr. Willis so she didn't help him. After a few days Mr. Willis met the girl in the street. He see a very beautiful girl. Then he say, "Oh. Girl can you do my wife?" The girl was very anger and she said "Don't look at me!" Then she run away. The girl say "Yes, I can." Mr. Willis took she in his home. The bear will drink tea in Mr. Willis home. They're become good friends. Mr. Willis plays with the bear. They are not happy. Bear very hurger. So bear eats Mr. Willis up.

Though I knew my mauling was inevitable, I was surprised no mention of a WC popped up in their masterpiece. It filled the classtime completely and I now have a back-up plan for bad classes this week.

Heather came by after classes and we took a bike ride to find a temple near the river. We could see it (or what we assumed to be it) in the distance, but the road kept going straight. We took a dirt road that seemed aimed straight at it, but it dead-ended into a fiord. We skipped stones, talked about family pets, plans for May festival and such. We rode back as the sun was setting, got some pictures of intensely yellow rapeseed fields.

I saw a dead hedgehog on the side of the road, a bit of an oddity to dodge with your bike tire. After picking up some strawberries, we biked back to my place. Erin joined us for some cheese and crackers, wine. Just a light snack with the intention of getting fries at Ming Tien later.

Heather and I went back to the middle school, joined Jeni and Rhys for dumplings, only a few, as those fries were still slated to be had. The world is our buffet. We drank more wine and watched "Hercules" which, apart from James Woods as Hades, was pretty forgettable. All of us did a simultaneous cringe and groan at each shoddy and needless musical number.

Afterwards we went to Ming Tien, despite Erin Rock RSVPing and saying they were closed and was willing to put down 100 kuai to back up her claim. She owes me 100 kuai. They were open and we got fries and split a company sandwich. I played piano if for no other reason to get them to shut off the Christina Aguilera CD that was skipping. My voice was mostly not there, which I attribute to a combination of lying down watching films, the lateness of the hour, dust breathed in from the bike ride, and the cheese from earlier. I played the "J. Necklace Rag," "Novelty Rush (Bail Out)" (as per Heather's request), and "Bluestar." Considering the amount of wine in me, I didn't do too badly.

We cabbed it back, called it a night.