The weblog is full of crap that I never update, but the stuff that I write is usually about something, so feel free to read it and comment. The links are virtual gold though, and only venture there if you really have tons of free time to waste.

Here’s a picture of Joanna in her new office:

Having been an EFL teacher for some time now, I know there are a lot of different websites for teachers, all offering an immense amount of information. However, in the past years I’ve collected and used only a small part of everything that I thought was worthwhile. By now, I’ve separated the chaff from the wheat so to speak, and I’m left with instantly usable materials for in the classroom. Now I’ll try to upload everything I’ve got and offer it for common use, for anyone interested. You can find my stuff under ‘Teaching Materials’.

For those of youze who wanna learn Chinese or Russian stuff, check out the ‘working abroad’ link. Lots of nice language sites to see there. And of course there are the forums on the left to go to.

I hope this weblog will be of use to you, whoever you may be. Be sure to check out the Media links as well if you wanna ne up to date…

Regards,
Roel, The Netherlands.

geselecteerd als gefixeerd bericht is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

Step 1 was getting to China and leading a tour for Summum, a Dutch tour company. I still have a tour to go, in a month and a half, but at least I’m here now. and that’s the most important.

So if you ever find yourself in the neighbourhood, feel free to drop by. Just contact me through the email option on this page and I’m looking forward to see you. We’ll have a beer somewhere.

All the best from Guilin, China,

Roeltheworld!

Guilin home is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

Joanna in Guilin is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

Taking the class out on a trip:

Spot the baby:

Spot the old man:

Wo xihuan chi baozi!

More images from the past… is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

My second ever class:

Uni in Beijing:

Some pictures from the old days… is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

These are my favourites:

I need more recent ones!!
I’ve been in Holland for too long… all my pictures are 3 years old!

We’ll work on that next summer…

Joanna here! is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

I just found out that the Anual Airforce Airshow will be held in Leeuwarden this year!

This is really good news for us! And on top of this it will be held on Friday 16 and Saturday 17 June.

The airshow is really cool to visit, it’s the biggest thing in Holland, and you will see military airplanes from all over the world performing stunts and acrobatics.

The entrance is for FREE!

There will be about 300.000 people there, but the airfield is pretty big, so you can just take a blanket and have a picknick anywhere on the grass, and enjoy the show.

I’ll let you know more about it in May… (aah, still a long time!)

Roeltheworld

Airshow 2006: Leeuwarden 16/17 June!!! is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

The gleaming white ship would take me on a seven-day journey to Chongqing, the massive industrial metropolis in central China, home to 16 million people. In doing so, I would pass the three furnaces of China: Nanjing, Wuhan and Chongqing, where some of China’s highest temperatures are recorded each year. I was filled with anticipation for the coming trip. It had long been one of my lifelong goals to sail the biggest river in China, and besides, after weeks of intense travelling through China’s North-Eastern provinces, I was looking forward to a week of leisure. After all, on a boat there is little to do, other than to sit on deck and quietly watch people go on with their lives on the riverbanks.

The other people on board were all Chinese. My Chinese language skills had been improving steadily in the past few weeks, and I was able to have short conversations with the temporary travelling companions with whom I shared my cabin. We were eight in all: an elderly lady, a young girl called PingPing travelling with her mother, a guy named Yibo also with his mother, and the Zuo’s: a father returning home to Yichang with his beautiful daughter Meng. Before long, the younger people had got to know each other a bit, and we hung out together for most of the time. The four of us, Pingping, Meng, Yibo and myself, explored the ship, played cards and taught each other our languages. Meng was very pretty, and I couldn’t help being secretly in love with her. Of course, I knew that this was the kind of love I could only be enjoying by myself, and for the next three days I simply had an uncomplicated affair with her in my mind. Her name meant ‘Dream’, and here one instantly sees the aptness a name can have.

It was my name that gave my new friends more trouble. The ‘r’ is hardly used in Chinese, with the result that my name sounded much like ‘Lu’. Unsatisfied with this they decided they would give me a proper Chinese name. After some time of contemplating suitable combinations, it was father Zuo who came up with the name ‘Da Jiang’, after the river that carried us. At first we laughed at the suggestion, but then this funny thing occurred that tends to happen with names: it stuck. I was Da Jiang from then on, and Meng even offered her family name for me to use: Zuo Da Jiang.

A day later we arrived at Dongting Lake. Looking over the peaceful body of water that stretched out before me, I balanced on my heels as I often saw the Chinese do, and lit up some tobacco. I was quietly looking at the second largest lake in China, which makes the news regularly for flooding its surrounding flatlands, killing thousands at a time. Numbers tend to lose their meaning, as is so often the case in China. Nothing of this, though, could be inferred from the serene beauty of the lake, as I sat on deck taking in the view. There wasn’t a breath of wind and I was watching the orange sunlight being reflected on myriad tiny waves. I was thinking of how most colours in China always came down to three basic shades: brown, grey and green, when I noticed an old man hunching next to me with a carrying pole leaning against his shoulder.

He was the archetypical image of an old sage that we picture ourselves in our minds when we think of a Chinese philosopher, but this one next to me had been visibly hardened by life’s challenges. Through the cracks in his face I saw he smiled at me. He started pointing here and there with his crooked fingers, muttering words in a nearly unintelligible dialect, probably commenting on the loveliness of the lake. I offered him my tobacco, and he gladly took the pack in order to scrutinise it carefully. Then, just as I was about to offer rolling a cigarette for him, he took out a paper and in an expert way rolled a beautiful cone as if he’d been doing it for years. (Later I concluded he must have been doing exactly that, for in the mountains I would see villagers roll home-grown tobacco in cut up newspapers.) We smoked our cigarettes, and when he was finished stood up fumbling in his pockets for something. He took out a coin, and I saw it was an old bronze coin from the last Imperial dynasty, corroded with age and with a square hole in the centre. I admired it for a while but when I wanted to give it back, he indicated for me to keep it. Luck had it that I had a length of black string in my pocket, so I tied the coin to the cord and hung it round my neck. When the man saw what I had done, he smiled even more with obvious glee, and ensured me that I was welcome in his home anytime. It seemed I had done the right thing.

At times, the friendliness of strangers can be startling, but when you’re on the road and you discover that you have made friends, the shock is always greatest when you go separate ways. We arrived at Yichang, a charming little town just upriver from Wuhan, and here my fellow cabin mates disembarked. We said goodbye, exchanged e-mail addresses and silently made our peace with the fact that we would never meet again. I was on my own again, and knew I would miss the homely atmosphere we had had in the last four days. In a way, we had been a temporary family. The mothers had sort of taken me into their custody as well, and I can still remember us washing our clothes by hand in the cabin-sink, and them showing me what I was doing wrong, teaching me how to do it properly. Meng proved to be as fleeting as any dream, when she strolled down the dock and didn’t look back.

The ship continued its journey, finding the quieter parts of the river to crawl up against the currents that grew in strength with each yard gained. Just ahead of us the mighty mountain ranges of central China were waiting for us. I was anxious to see the famous Three Gorges, the ‘San Xia’, with its dramatic scenery as it had been depicted on silk scrolls thousands of times. However, I knew that a few miles up-river work was in progress to build the cause of their demise. The last of the twentieth century’s massive constructions was straight ahead and we would have to pass it first. I had read it was a rather large project, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing the ‘San Xia Da Ba’. The largest dam ever built arose before us out of the water, a huge grey fortification with cranes and machinery along the entire length of its hulk. Nearing it, our boat diminished in size, and was ant-like when we inched around the giant concrete obstacle holding eight super-turbines in its belly. These generators would provide enough power to boost the entire Chongqing municipality into the 21st century.

With the boat’s turbines roaring full-throttle to combat the swirls that hurled past the narrow opening where the dam had yet to be filled, all of us mortals on board simply stared up at the largest superstructure we had ever seen. Entire villages had been erected for the construction workers on several places on the dam surface. From the edge on the top of this massive grey monstrosity we saw tiny people looking back at us. Some were waving; most of them did not care. I felt absolutely tiny, and everything I once thought I knew about proportional size and value, had to be thrown overboard to be re-evaluated. It is at times like these, when the sheer enormity is so overwhelming, that it tends to catch you off guard.

The scale of this project can not be underestimated. Leaving the dam in the background, we passed enormous mountain sides with here and there some farmer shacks perched between vertical cornfields. We had left the flatlands behind, and suddenly entered another realm, the dam forming an exaggerated border drawn to mark the division. In the afternoon the sun had more and more trouble with casting its rays onto the river, and the looming hill sides grew ominously dark up ahead. High up on the slopes we could see white marker stones. They were indicators of how high the water level would climb in future years, when the dam would be complete.

The next morning I discovered the ship had moored at a city that sprawled upwards onto the mountain slope. Early sunrays lit up a large stairway leading into the ascending rows of houses, and the shouts and noise of this early morning bustle made me feel I was truly in a foreign land. I saw merchants trading with passengers, and barefoot coolies carrying bales of goods to and from the ship. I made my way down to the second deck from where I could buy food from local vendors that had set up their stalls next to the boat. Two red Chinese characters reading ‘Fengjie’ were visible high on a signpost, and I guessed this was what the town was called. It seemed to be an ancient city, and my imagination took me back to the days when warlords were in constant battle over control of this river, and the lands that depended on it. I was convinced this town had seen better days, and when I saw the white markers high above the rooftops, I couldn’t help but feeling sad and rather ineffectual. Looking at the people scurrying about, fully realising the certainty that this city was going to be lost, gave me a strange feeling of complacency.

Steaming ahead on our last leg of the journey we saw more examples of what a mighty river can take. It was the first dead stranger I had seen in my life, and it was rather gruesome. A rotting green corpse floated past us, and as I stood on the forward bow I heard a man next to me saying it was bad luck to see corpses floating past. Pondering the futility of this message, the details of the decomposing body could be seen as we sailed right past it. It was a man floating on his back, arms and legs bent into the air, sticking upwards as if he were driving a car. I concluded he must have held on to something large like a tree-trunk to stop the water from dragging him away. His mouth was turned into a ghastly grimace like the ones you see on Japanese Samurai masks. I tried to imagine the last moments of this man’s life, but not liking my thoughts I stopped and sent him a silent prayer. Minutes later, a dead pig floated past us, emanating a horrid rotten stench. It was only a few weeks later that I was able to eat pork again without feeling nauseous.

Then one morning our own final destination came into view. The surreal high-rise of Chongqing City welcomed us through a haze of smog. A week had gone by, and we had traversed over a thousand miles, through one of China’s major arteries into its heartland. Sad to end this journey, I then realised this was only the first part of the true voyage that was still ahead. I felt I had not only seen the river, I had experienced it, and as with any experience I knew it would take time to entirely come to terms with it.

The river has had its impact on me, and in a way by carrying its name I give testimony to its imprint on my soul. But a name needs to be honoured. ‘Da Jiang’ means ‘Big River’, signifying strength and endurance. It is a name well suited for this powerful river, which provides a livelihood for millions, and continues to take human sacrifice to this day. I do not know how I can bear this name, but I feel that it has given me compliment and serves as a reminder for me to try and live up to my full potential. The river serves as an inspiration, much in the way it has done for many philosophers in the past. A Taoist priest could very well agree with me when I say that the Way of Life might in fact be a river, leading us along a path in one direction towards a sea; always the same river, but ever-changing as it is never the same water that flows past.

I have been back to my patron river a few times. I have seen its first bend deep in the mountains of Yunnan, and heard its currents rage below me as I swirled around mountain sides, going to places where springs would form tributaries, which in turn would converge into the body of water ultimately flowing out into the East Chinese Sea. Every now and then, I touch the coin necklace hanging down around my neck, and wonder if the old man is still alive. I think back to my journey, and imagine what the underwater city must look like. I think back of Meng and wonder what has happened to her since. And every time I see the big river I feel it is a part of me, as much as I am a part of it. And every time we are both a little different.

Roel Cruijff
Leeuwarden, 23rd April 2005.

“The Big River” is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

The thing is that most people don’t make value judgments by first thinking about it at length and then give a well-balanced opinion. Instead it’s more a matter of intuition, and our culturally determined situations that influence our outlook on language.

Most of the time people connect accents with places; a certain twang indicates the speaker is from there and there, a nasal drawl means somewhere else. But in fact accents have a cultural origin, not necessarily a geographical one. Of course, members of the same social layer often conglomerate together and live in the same places; coal miners live where coal is found. Young urban professionals obviously lurk in city centers. And that’s why it would seem that accents correspond with places. But how come then that labourers talk differently from socialites, even though they live in the same city?

Well, for example, an accent in Rotterdam does not so much refer to ‘the place Rotterdam’, but more to the culture of it. And more than that it refers to to the subculture the speaker belongs to. Especially in culturally diverse places like cities it’s definitely more a question of who you’re talking to, than where you’re talking at all.

People reassert themselves by language. You can make clear what side you’re on just by the tone of your voice. Accent plays along nicely. To narrate an extreme case, in recent years youth in the suburbs of Amsterdam have naturally developed a separate unique language that basically allows them to determine what social environment they belong to, and by doing that saying who they are. Other less obvious examples are easily found.

Look at the weatherman on TV. More often than not he will speak with his own familiar accent. This is to show he’s just a regular guy from the neighbourhood. The kind you talk about the weather with, and the kind you can trust with intrinsically harmless information such as weather. Newsreaders, by contrast, adopt an authoritative and standard accent, to ensure credibility. This, by the way, also often leads to the fallacy that language as spoken on television is the ‘correct’ one. Well, of course there isn’t one correct way of speaking. A newsreader in a fish factory, even wearing the proper clothes, would rather stand out if he were to open his mouth. There he would have to adapt his speech and accent if he wanted to be socially accepted.

When applying for a job too, one had better make sure to speak in the standard accent instead of something too strongly flavoured. But this is often done subconsciously. Those among us who have a strong sense of language can change accents as easily as they change their wardrobes. For the lesser linguistically talented it’s much more difficult, and will take more time. But all of us have, and regularly use this ability. Even if we’re not always aware of it.

In all, you could say that by simply speaking we are in fact saying: “This is where I come from.” Which actually means: “this is the sociocultural environment I come from”, or more to the point: “this is the sociocultural environment I want you to think I come from”. You see, we are really constantly identifying ourselves, using accent as one of many tools to reaffirm our position in that vastly complicated system called human society. And so there is much more information in your speech than merely your words. Something you, as a teacher, might want to remember, or forget, when you’re looking at a class of 30 students, their ears primed, and waiting only for your voice to tell them exactly about… you.

Regional accents is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.

A village outside of Lijiang

Park in Lijiang (dragon’s tooth mountain on the background

The old city of Lijiang

Lugu Lake

Village at Lugu lake

Dali Three pagodas

Yunnan pictures is a post from ROEL THE WORLD.