jobs

so this week we've been talking about what jobs the students want when they get older. interestingly, older is a difficult concept to get across. so i've started saying, "in the future." the answers are across the board. CEO, boss, and managing director (i had three of the latter in my most recent class) are the most popular. when asked why, the answer is inevitably, money. though rachel had a kid in her class say that he wanted to be a boss because he wanted a secretary who could make him friends. interesting, to say the least. there were a fair share of football players (soccer--they are taught out of an english english book), musicians, writers, lawyers, artists, pilots, drivers. then came the ones from the book, butcher, shop assistant, milkman. after hearing any of those, i'd ask them to close their book.

what was interesting to me were the jobs that drew laughter when they were suggested. cleaner, housewife, farmer. after they laughed, i would ask what they thought was funny. there would never be an answer. i pointed out that i used to be a farmer, but they were never shocked about that.

after a good list had been written on the board, i would ask them questions. "which jobs make you famous?" artist, footballer, singer, boss. i would ask how a boss would be famous, and inevitably, bill gates would rear his head. i would ask what jobs make you rich, and i'd get the same answers, with engineer thrown in as well. a few students would say farmer, and i would ask them how. they would clarify--they meant american farmers. very interesting.

it's interesting to see the values of these students. it seems, right now, that money is number 1.

bike ride

after classes, i took a bike ride to see what i could see. i did not see much. in the suburb where the school is, there are all types of land use. there was a man sawing lumber into planks. people farming under enormous telephone and electricity wires. tons of people on bikes, rickshaws, three wheeled cars, busses, trucks. no stilts. yet.
there are many people doing different things. a group of eight parked their bikes in the middle of a median and seemed to be gardening. there were about 12 people that i saw sweeping trash around the road. a man at a cart made noodles. there were many different jobs, and many different people doing them. and one waiguoren riding his bike around gawking and taking pictures.
no one seemed to pay much attention to me, except for the occasional hello. and i mean, "halllloooooo!"
i also passed a lone gaspowered lawn mower running by itself in the middle of a lawn. no one near it. just sitting there, spewing carbon monoxide into the atmosphere. but did i do anything about it? heck yeah, i did. i wrote this blog.