Read As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83

As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83

Martha Kennedy

4.9/5 (13254 ratings)

Description:As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder is a love story...Several months ago, reading the posts on one of the blogs I follow on WordPress, I saw photos of my "Chinese hometown," Guangzhou where I had lived and worked as a Foreign Expert in English in 1982/83. A businessman from India was writing about everything he saw, the food he ate, the transportation, his hotel, everything, and he mentioned that he wished he knew what the city was like before modernization. I badly wanted to tell him. That inspired me, finally, to scan the hundreds of 35 mm slides my ex-husband and I had taken the year we lived and worked in Guangzhou. Many of them had faded out of recognition. Others had shifted on the color spectrum to Warholian silkscreens, but the rest were clear, evocative of the year that defined me as a teacher and as a person. I also realized from comparing my photos with those of my blogging pal that I had seen the beginnings of this incredible change. Riding my bike from the village where my university was located I rode on the bed of what would become a major freeway. Such an eventuality was so far from the day-to-day reality in which I lived, that I couldn't feature the modernization in which, in truth, I had a part. Out of that experience, came As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder, an anecdotal look at my experiences as a Foreign Expert in English at South China Teacher's University in Guangzhou (Canton). As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder is a love story.My blogging pal's photos showed me the "after" pictures to my "before" photographs. I was struck most by his photos of the "Pearl River New Town" with its shops, malls, museums, elaborate communal squares, parks. That was where I lived, and in 1982 it was farms and villages. In 1982, even in a city historically as cosmopolitan as Guangzhou, there was only a handful of non-Asian foreigners. China had been "open" for only a short time, and even then the "openness" was relative.My position as a Foreign Expert in English was my first real teaching job in a career that spanned more than thirty years. I'd been a Teaching Assistant at the University of Denver where I'd earned my MA, and I'd volunteered for several years at an adult literacy program in Denver, but I had never been officially hired as a university instructor. I was pretty young - 31 - and not very experienced. My knowledge of China and its history, modern and ancient, was limited. I could never have imagined China would be a destination in my life, but it was. And at such a moment in history! Chairman Mao had been dead only six years. The evil Gang of Four had been "tried" only the year before. The horrors of the Cultural Revolution were still close in everyone's memory, and people feared that the post-Mao moment of comparative freedom was a random blip. Deng Xiao Ping was determined that China would modernize and enter the world as a competitor. Every single penny of foreign exchange that came to China was used to buy technology to further China's modernization. I was one of those "bits of technology," too.Propelled by a consuming wanderlust, I took my ignorance and inexperience with me, and ended up receiving some of life's great gifts. My students' diligence, curiosity and courage inspired me, and, in turn, I inspired them. The bridge between our cultures was a shared love of poetry and beautiful language. As for China? China was the great love of my life.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83. To get started finding As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
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Description: As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder is a love story...Several months ago, reading the posts on one of the blogs I follow on WordPress, I saw photos of my "Chinese hometown," Guangzhou where I had lived and worked as a Foreign Expert in English in 1982/83. A businessman from India was writing about everything he saw, the food he ate, the transportation, his hotel, everything, and he mentioned that he wished he knew what the city was like before modernization. I badly wanted to tell him. That inspired me, finally, to scan the hundreds of 35 mm slides my ex-husband and I had taken the year we lived and worked in Guangzhou. Many of them had faded out of recognition. Others had shifted on the color spectrum to Warholian silkscreens, but the rest were clear, evocative of the year that defined me as a teacher and as a person. I also realized from comparing my photos with those of my blogging pal that I had seen the beginnings of this incredible change. Riding my bike from the village where my university was located I rode on the bed of what would become a major freeway. Such an eventuality was so far from the day-to-day reality in which I lived, that I couldn't feature the modernization in which, in truth, I had a part. Out of that experience, came As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder, an anecdotal look at my experiences as a Foreign Expert in English at South China Teacher's University in Guangzhou (Canton). As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder is a love story.My blogging pal's photos showed me the "after" pictures to my "before" photographs. I was struck most by his photos of the "Pearl River New Town" with its shops, malls, museums, elaborate communal squares, parks. That was where I lived, and in 1982 it was farms and villages. In 1982, even in a city historically as cosmopolitan as Guangzhou, there was only a handful of non-Asian foreigners. China had been "open" for only a short time, and even then the "openness" was relative.My position as a Foreign Expert in English was my first real teaching job in a career that spanned more than thirty years. I'd been a Teaching Assistant at the University of Denver where I'd earned my MA, and I'd volunteered for several years at an adult literacy program in Denver, but I had never been officially hired as a university instructor. I was pretty young - 31 - and not very experienced. My knowledge of China and its history, modern and ancient, was limited. I could never have imagined China would be a destination in my life, but it was. And at such a moment in history! Chairman Mao had been dead only six years. The evil Gang of Four had been "tried" only the year before. The horrors of the Cultural Revolution were still close in everyone's memory, and people feared that the post-Mao moment of comparative freedom was a random blip. Deng Xiao Ping was determined that China would modernize and enter the world as a competitor. Every single penny of foreign exchange that came to China was used to buy technology to further China's modernization. I was one of those "bits of technology," too.Propelled by a consuming wanderlust, I took my ignorance and inexperience with me, and ended up receiving some of life's great gifts. My students' diligence, curiosity and courage inspired me, and, in turn, I inspired them. The bridge between our cultures was a shared love of poetry and beautiful language. As for China? China was the great love of my life.We have made it easy for you to find a PDF Ebooks without any digging. And by having access to our ebooks online or by storing it on your computer, you have convenient answers with As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83. To get started finding As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83, you are right to find our website which has a comprehensive collection of manuals listed.
Our library is the biggest of these that have literally hundreds of thousands of different products represented.

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As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83

As a Baby Duck Listens to Thunder: A Foreign Expert in English, Guangzhou China, 1982-83

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