The first week of class is over, and I think it went fairly well. I changed a few things. First, I split all classes in half, so that instead of 23 students for an hour and a half, I have 11 students for 45 minutes. We have a new classroom with a computer and overhead projector, which is going to save me a lot of photocopying for quizzes and things. It's still not heated, and although my first day back in Guilin was met with 70-degree weather, it immediately went back to 50 for three weeks. So much for perfect timing.

My plan in class is to deliver each week's lecture on paper the week before, and then spend class time on review, quizzes, and questions. It's proving hard to wean myself off of lecture, though. This week, class consisted of introductions, group walk-through of the Academic Honesty Policy, and the classwork: translating the policy into Chinese. And I handed back finals from last semester.

Most students still don't get plagiarism, which reveals just how much of the concept is cultural. That is, if you simply write down "plagiarism is copying other peoples' words without giving credit," that isn't nearly as comprehensive and simple as you might think. What if you copy "Hello?" Where is the line between copying words and plagiarism? And how, as one student asked, can you improve if you can't copy good English writing? Most Westerners, even if they can't give a good definition, will behave consistently in "I know it when I see it" tests. Where does this information come from? Years of absorption of cultural background noise.

The chairs and desks in the new classroom are all sturdy, handsome wood. Three columns of five, seven, and five chairs, about fifteen rows deep. This is not considered a large classroom. We're in one of the new buildings, and the tile floors, both in the classroom and in the large patios between buildings, are encrusted with dirt. I find this very depressing. I watched the building get finished over the last six months, and as far as I can tell the only time the tiles were clean was when they were still in pallets. It seems likely that the building with go its entire lifespan without ever having clean floors. I may go get a real mop and bucket (and soap - an ingredient I have never seen used by cleaning people) and clean the floor of the classroom.

What I really want to do is figure out how to get a bunch of chairs and get the students out of the desks, where they have been programmed to sit and listen (or not listen). I also want to figure out how to get students to run the classroom, but first I have to figure out and execute the standard routine. I have fifteen weeks of class and eleven or twelve students per class, so I have another week or two to set up the routine.

I'm also meeting with students at lunchtime, in groups of three, for half an hour per group. 89 students, two groups a day, so I'll see each student once every three weeks. It's their time to do whatever, and a few have blown it off. Of the students that have come, all have appreciated the time. This week has been mostly "free talk," and some of it is closer to English Corner (which is hell) but a lot of it is engaging. I'm hoping it steers more towards tutoring. With some groups, though, free talk is fine. For example, two girls in one group had Bush's speech from Qinghua last week, and wanted to know why he said "peaceful settlement" instead of "peaceful reunification" regarding Taiwan. I explained that, in my opinion, Bush felt that reunification was only one settlement among several, even if it was the preferred settlement. My own opinion, which I didn't share because I wasn't asked, is that reunification tomorrow would be a great idea, so long as unified China was governed from Taipei instead of Beijing.

Last Friday night Li Xu and I went to Master Li's new apartment. Master Li was diagnosed with diabetes last month, and had a bit of trouble coming to terms with it. He felt much better after the doctor explained that he was unlikely to die from it. Li Xu translated as I explained what I knew of diabetes, and he showed me the pills he's taking. He's lost quite a bit of weight, which is good since he's had this big gut that looks quite inappropriate for a Tai Chi/Kung Fu master. His fingers, though - last year they looked full and strong, almost inflated with muscle, and now the flesh is starting to hang and wrinkle. He's going into the hospital for two weeks.

Walking home from the restaurant tonight, the sun was rapidly falling. I made it up to the roof with a few minutes to spare, and enjoyed a deep orange sky fading back overhead into a patchy white carpet with plenty of still-blue holes. The sun actually set at a 45 degree angle, behind one of the steeper, sharper peaks, and I waited for a while to see if it would come out the other side, but it didn't.

I brought some baking books (101 Chocolate Chip Cookie recipes, The Bagel Book) to the baker down the street, who insisted on treating me to dinner. I thought he meant dinner at his house, so I accepted, reluctantly. He meant we should go out to dinner. Forrest said he was friends with the Mr Hao (the baker), so I made him come to translate. Mr Hao found a vegetarian restaurant, next to the Hui (Muslim Chinese) temple complex (there's a Hui temple complex in Guilin? I gotta check this out), but when we got there he didn't like the look of it so we went to a buffet restaurant off the main square. It was, as always, quite a chore to find meat-free food.

After dinner, he was very insistent that we go to a nightclub. But when we got there, it was still too early, so we went walking. By this time I was pretty tired of the company and the constant cigarette smoke, so I begged out,a ten-minute process with Forrest stuck in the middle, and went home. Not much of a cultural experience, I guess, but then I'm a crappy tourist/cultural ambassador.

I cleaned the tile sink in the kitchen, and I was so pleased with the results that a week later I cleaned the counter next to it. Perhaps next week I will clean the tile-lined shelves next to the counter.

Now that I have all of my music on a hard drive, it's very easy to make interesting, improbable combinations of music in shuffle mode. Some work better than others. Thumbs down to: Melissa Etheridge + Superman soundtrack + Piano soundtrack + Mighty Ducks 2 soundtrack.

Lu Dan invited me to play tennis the other evening. We were both hitting better than usual, I thought. Forrest wandered over, looking for Fannie, who later showed up, at which point both watched and snickered. Eventually some random guy asked Lu Dan if he could jump in, so I hit the ball back and forth with him for a bit. I felt that I was in a groove, because I was able to aim the ball, and he was also reasonably good (better than me), so we could get just a bit into the chess match that lies behind a good rally. It was a lot of fun. Later, as I joined Fanny and Forrest on the sideline while Lu Dan practiced serving with an instructor, Forrest told me, "Actually, you are not very good."