Doom
All the details of the new China Blog List nearing completion, I spent a few moments the other day reading some of the newer blogs. One of the ones I really liked was Doom in China. His entry entitled “Five Reasons Why I’m the Greatest English Tutor in All of China (and Maybe the World)” was hilarious. I enjoyed his “Big Holes, Monkey Voices, and Chicken Toes” hiking story as well. He summed it up very nicely at the end:
Mr. Quan looked at me and said, “I don’t want to go back to my apartment. I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow. I don’t want this weekend to be over.”
I nodded. I told him there were times in my life in the past when I felt the same thing — the dull ache of daily routine piling up on you. I told him, that is why I was happy to be in China.
Further down the page, in “Chinese Cultural Intricacies” he tells about CCTV’s plans for a miniseries in which he will play the role of an evil foreigner:
The television mini-series is about a country filled with greedy white foreigners (maybe Iceland?) attacking a small helpless Island filled with Chinese people (maybe San Francisco?) for its rich oil deposits. I don’t know where they came up with this script (maybe CNN?), but I think this will be a winner.
Jamie Doom only plans to be in China until next summer.
The best is his latest post:
I Dont Teach Stupid English Words. You will never hear Linda (see picture) say the word hello. In fact if you greet her with hello, you are just as likely to get a mouth full of stick as any other response. Linda (see picture) says hi like normal people. To explain why hello is so harmful here in China, first let me give you a little history. A long time ago China invented a little something called Chinese water torture, here in China known simply as water torture. In the ancient past, this was an effective means of making people crack/tell them secrets/agree to let them have the Olympics. But this is a new century now, and their methods are much more subtle than water torture. Now they use the ingenious hello torture instead. Some people (foreigners for instance) are subjected to thousands and thousands of hellos every day. Like the drops of water before it, it doesnt seem so bad at first. At first, like the water, it seems refreshing. Quickly it becomes too much. Everywhere these people go they hear thousands of hellos. It usually ends tragically with some timid ESL teacher going crazy and punching some poor street vender in the face, getting kicked out of China, then going on Daves ESL Caf and complaining about his school. Other useless or harmful English words or phrases I shelter my pupil from are: politically correct, Yesterday Once More and boy bands.
I Have Never Visited the Daves ESL Caf Website. Somebody told me about it, and I took their advice and never visited that website. So the way I see it, Im automatically five times smarter than any ESL tutor who has.
Wilson (Racingmix) | Email | Homepage | 11.15.03 – 9:19 pm | #
Wilson,
Well, yeah, I said the latest post was hilarious. That’s why I linked to the article.
John | Email | Homepage | 11.16.03 – 1:04 am | #
John,
Thanks for the love. I have actually thought about putting off going back to the States getting a teaching gig in Hangzhou (maybe Hangzhou University) when my time here is up. Would you advise it? Thanks for all the hard work on behalf of the China Bloggers. — Doom
jamie | Email | Homepage | 11.16.03 – 9:34 pm | #
I enjoy Doom’s style. Maybe he could put together a book a la “Dave Berry Does Japan”?
Tim | 11.18.03 – 8:37 am | #