That was the topic of debate this weekend (worded in a Pro/Con format). It was to be debated in English and consisted of 10th and 11th grade students, mostly from schools in Xián. It was really interesting to watch them, although the subject did get a little tired after a while. Some students mastery of English was obviously better than others, and we were asked not to judge them on their English so much as their content. However, it is hard to do well if you are stumbling all over your words! I think there were around 200 entrants, and a team of 2 girls from my school won. They are both in one of my AP Calculus classes, with one of them having lived in San Diego for a year which definitely helped them. They paid us 500 RMB a day for our troubles, so it took some of the sting out of giving up another weekend (although these phantom weekends are getting old). As far as the students' opinions on the topic - well, they have to be prepared to take either side. But privately, I would say that whichever side is taken, they do not want war of any kind!
On Friday night Chris, Jake and I decided to go to the movies to see Interstellar (almost a 3 hour movie). It has proven to be a very popular movie here in China and the theater was sold out. We paid $4 for our tickets (25 RMB) which I thought was pretty good. If you buy your tickets, and popcorn, on-line here you save a ton of money (and there is no service charge like Fandango). I don't know why theaters in the US aren't doing it as it works really well and you even get to select the seats you want to sit in. The audience was a bit noisy at times, but as they are reading the subtitles I suppose the spoken dialog isn't as important to them... A Chinese woman sitting next to me was on the edge of her seat half the movie and looked to be crying a couple of times. A couple weeks before, I went to my first movie in China and saw the 3-D movie African Safari (a documentary). It had great animal footage and I enjoyed it although Sky said he was a bit bored after a while. I bought a popcorn package on-line before that movie which consisted of a small popcorn, bag of treats (I don't know what it was), and a coke for 10 RMB ($1.63). Good deal, eh? But the popcorn they serve here is like kettle corn - no salt or butter but they do put sugar on it. It was OK but not something I'd want again.
Oh yeah, they turned the heat on Nov. 15!! At least, they said they did. My apartment didn't feel any warmer for a couple days. But then I started to notice it feeling warmer when I came in the door. Right now it is a comfortable temperature. Based on what others are saying, the warmth of the apartments varies like crazy. Some too hot, some too cold. And it's a bit frustrating because you can't regulate it at all... The air pollution also gets much worse in the winter because of the coal burning to supply the heat. We've already had a couple days labeled Severely Polluted and you see more people wearing masks. The old-timers say this is nothing, however. Right now the index is in the 200's range and they say it goes up to the 700's - sometimes higher! Makes me want to go out and run a marathon!
So I see that Thanksgiving week is coming up, and the schools in the Portland area are probably out all week. I'm jealous! No days off here at all. We've been talking about things to do, but nothing has solidified as yet. Haven't seen any turkeys running around here...
Here's a mural that was painted on the wall inside the KTV last week. We all thought it was pretty strange (those urinals are just paintings) and posed for pictures..
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