Category Archives: Education

About the schools of Guizhou.

Soccer — A Guizhou Issue ?

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I have friends that are very into soccer. They play and even talk about coaching kids. The article below came as kind of a lightening bolt. How many out there think this is a good idea for Guizhou People? Perhaps there is funding to help coach the kids coming up. Please let me know at: tourguizhou@gmail.com .

Jack

Bloomberg, on China Soccer <VPN Required- see text below>

soccer1
Bloomberg•October 16, 2016 [https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2016-10-17/a-fifa-boost-for-china-s-soccer-goal]
China’s Soccer Goal
Gianni Infantino, FIFA’s new president, has ambitious plans. They are, however, easy to execute and may help further the goals of some of the soccer body’s major sponsors.
Planned total of teams in World Cup: 48
For a start, Infantino is pledging to invest $4 billion to increase the number of football participants to 60 percent of the world’s population, from the current 45 percent. Guess what: He doesn’t have to spend the money. More Chinese kicking a ball around could get him to his target in one move.
Coincidentally, that would fit well with the strategy of Wang Jianlin, China’s second-richest man, whose Dalian Wanda Group in March became the first major sponsor of FIFA since a criminal corruption scandal overwhelmed

soccer2the organization and led to the ouster of longtime president Joseph “Sepp” Blatter. Jack Ma, the nation’s richest man, followed suit in courting the federation.
When he announced his cash injection into the soccer authority, Wang said that having multiple sponsors “will help China bid to host the World Cup.”
That remains to be seen, but another of the aims Infantino laid out on Friday may at least help the world’s most populous nation return to the World Cup, in which it participated just once, without winning any games. The new president plans to increase the number of teams in the event to 48 from the current 32.
Ranked 78 by FIFA, China still has to work on its national team to reach the World Cup, even with the greater number of participants. But from a statistical perspective, a 50 percent increase in the number of available seats increases the odds that the nation makes it.
That’s just what Xi Jinping needed. The avowed soccer fan has declared football a national priority and harbors an ambition to see the country host and win the World Cup. Naturally, it makes sense for people in the private sector to help him get there.
The China team’s recent losses to Syria (really) and Uzbekistan indicate that the only way is up. As FIFA continues to grapple with the fallout from the corruption scandal, it needs supporters with deep pockets such as those in China. This is the start of a long friendship.
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English Corners

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It is Saturday afternoon on October 8, 2016 and I am at the Guizhou Provincial Library. We have English corner (Yingyujiao) here every Saturday from 2:30 to 4:30. It is located on the 4th floor of the Beijing Lu library, foreign language reading room. It is across the street from the Guizhou Park Hotel.

Other English corners that I visit are Monday Evening at the CShop on Mingsheng Lu (7:30pm)  and at the Rooftop Cafe on Tuesday evening (7:30pm) see http://www.tourguizhou.com/archives/10713 .

Another  English corner are on Tuesday night in Dayingpo at the Zhongda Shopping Mall. It is at Baker’s Pizza or Starbucks Coffee. The formal address is Zhonda Shopping Mall Building A2 on the fifth floor.

I want to add more locations for English Corners, so please write me at johnsporter@gmail.com if you know about others.

Big Data Conference of Guiyang had VR 3D Glasses

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My students Wang Min and Bai Zhong Jun attended the conference and helped me talk to the exhibitors. 20160525_155235Wang Min loved to play with the Virtual Reality Three Dimensional Glasses.  When you view the world through these glasses, it takes you to a differenct world and a different reality.  When you turn your body around, you are looking at a different world behind you, but in fact you are standing in the middle of a conference.

 

Big Data Comes to Guiyang

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Photo taken the day prior to opening day.

From May 25 to May 29, a Guiyang hosted the China Big Data Industry Summit and China ECommerce Innovation and Develpment Summit. I attended the confernce with two of my students.  Wang Min is a student studying Hospitality Manageent at Guizhou Normal University and Bai Zhong Jun is a student of Software Engineering at Guizhou University.

Sign advertising the event

Sign advertising the event

These signs are everywhere in Guiyang.

These signs are everywhere in Guiyang.

The Big Data Conference in Guiyang brought companies from all over China and from around the world. Companies that were represented include:

  • Amazon
  • AliBaba
  • Huawei
  • Huipu
  • Dell
  • Microsoft
  • Qualcomm
  • Foxcomm
  • Hewett Packard
  • Baidu
  • Tencent
  • Jingdong
  • Tellhow
  • Teamsun
  • Scistor

The Big Data Conference had good attendence by State Owned Businesses which can provide services and financing to companies with interesting projects, projects that can employ Guiyang’s technical labor force. A small stream can grow to a river and an ocean. Guizhou Province of China aspires to become the “Big Data Valley” of China. The private and public comapnies represented here suggest that this is very feasible.

Living in China – Flag Day Update

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I talked to some kids in a countryside school and offered to help them learn English:

In order to give that talk, I had to drive for three hours on an expressway, stay in a hotel, and then have breakfast (in the hotel). The trip down was fine, and the hotel looked normal.  It was a free breakfast, but I came prepared. When I go to a small countryside place I always take my bottle of instant coffee. I was ready for this trip.

The tea pot had a short cord, so I had to plug the pot in beside the bed, on the bed-stand.  Unfortunately, the TV in the hotel didn’t work, but I got up a couple hours before my little talk and played with my cell phone while laying in bed. When I finally got the coffee done I put it on the bed-stand with the tea pot, cell phone, etc. Sharing the electric for charging phone etc was awkward and as I moved on the bed the pillow fell on the coffee and tipped the cup over, almost drenching the cell phone . . . I moved fast. I avoided the worst of it and, in my stocking feet I went to get a towel from the bathroom. I got the towel wet in the sink, but the sink leaked, and I soon found myself standing in water in my stocking feet. I wrung out the socks, cleaned up the coffee and got out of that funky room and down to breakfast . . .

Fortunately I had plenty of coffee that morning, and together with the annoyance of the wet socks I had no problem waking up. The breakfast was typical cheap, elaborate Chinese breakfast. As expected, no coffee. There were noodles and a sauce with precious little meat. There were eight or ten different shaped pastries, all of which seemed to be made of the same sweet bread dough (yuck). Anyway, the smokers at the next table didn’t bother me much and the hard boiled eggs were done just the way I like them. Breakfast was OK, EXCEPT I kept hearing coughing and sneezing. 

It is my experience that I shouldn’t look at the people coughing or sneezing. Gross. It was very close to me and I decided to look up. I was relieved to see the guy holding a big napkin and I figured that maybe I was safe from air-born germs. WRONG. I looked up and noticed that he was sneezing and coughing without covering his mouth, and then he used the napkin to wipe his nose and mouth after sneezing and coughing. I hurried out of breakfast and went to the school assembly.  I had volunteered to talk to a class or two, but this turned out to be the my biggest group since visiting China. I tried to talk in Chinese, but it was suggested that English would have a better chance of being understood . . . 

Flag Day Pep Talk

China Green Card will be Easier ?

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See Washington Post China Permanent Residency

A current Associated Press report is copyrighted, but is reporting that the government is interested in having more foreigners move to, reside in, and work in China. It is considered a way of improving the economy.  This is extraordinary news.

My British friend and I have both tried to stay in China, with significant resistance from the authorities.  I am only able to remain in China as a tourist, with a ten year tourist visa. It requires me to leave the country every 60 days to avoid violation.

My British friend is only able to get a 30 day visa to accomplish the same goal. It kind of takes any financial incentive out of trying to stay here. So if the government is planning a change, it will have to happen pretty soon to save two of us.

I’ve been supporting Guizhou Province people in my own way for nearly 25 years. I welcomed the students from Guizhou when they attended Oakland University (Michigan) in the 90s. I trained teachers in Guizhou in 2000 under Oakland U’s Summer Institute, and have taught English to Guizhou People for nine of the last fifteen years. After teaching at Guizhou Normal University for four years, my contract ended without renewal last August. I never received a warning of my demise or coherent explanation.

Now at age 65 I can’t get that “Expert Certificate” that  I had received nine prior years as an English Teacher. I don’t regret my service to the Guizhou People. It’s still the poorest province in China, except for Tibet. I am, however, looking forward to seeing this new enlightened policy in action.

Why is Chinese So Hard?

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A friend sent me this link with the above title, and it only seems to cover half the story. It is accurate that the writing is hard, but the spoken Chinese isn’t addressed at all. Here’s the link:

http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

In short, Chinese looks like a chicken walked across a piece of paper. If someone gives you an address in Chinese you could spend days walking through the city trying to match it up with the addresses on the buildings.

The spoken Chinese is even worse. An American comedian said that Chinese name there kids by dropping silverware on the floor and whatever sound it makes is the name of the kid. That’s not far off. The four tones of Chinese are almost impossible to hear as a foreigner. The problem is complicated by a huge variety of dialects that don’t conform to the sounds of “Beijing Chinese” which is what is taught in schools. It all makes for great fun when getting to know Chinese friends. The only comfort is that no matter how bad they murder English, I am doing worse to their language.