Pretty Woman Spitting An American Travels in China eBook Leanna Adams Mary Ruggles
Download As PDF : Pretty Woman Spitting An American Travels in China eBook Leanna Adams Mary Ruggles 
Leanna Adams moved to China in 2006. What she found were squat pots, plates of pig’s feet, wildly curious Chinese people and life-altering experiences.
Pretty Woman Spitting is a kind of love letter to China. Adams chose the title after hearing a particularly guttural noise (spitting is commonly heard all over China) and turned to find a beautiful woman in a delicate yellow frock hocking up a big one. Pretty Woman Spitting is the book Adams wanted to read before she moved there, filled with loads useful information like where to go to the bathroom and how you shouldn’t hug Chinese men after they fix your toilet.
While living in the countryside teaching English and American Culture, even the most basic issues of hygiene presented complicated dilemmas for Adams. The reaction of the rural Chinese – who had seldom if ever seen a Westerner – to a curly-haired American woman ranged from pointed curiosity to outright inappropriate touching.
The book is part memoir, part travelogue and a compelling and often hilarious account of an evolving Chinese society and a woman at a crossroads. Adams was nearly robbed, held her co-worker’s hand as she died in a filthy, smoke-filled hospital, bonded with many of her three hundred students and left part of her heart in Wuhu, China.
Adams’s contrasting experiences highlight the differences that make the two cultures unique and the similarities that make all people human.
Pretty Woman Spitting An American Travels in China eBook Leanna Adams Mary Ruggles
For three months in early 2012, my sister and I taught sophomore oral English at the university of a "small" Chinese city of 11 million--located not far from the setting of this book. We discovered Pretty Woman Spitting a few weeks after our arrival in China and had already encountered many of the situations the author describes in her narrative. And were growing more and more discouraged and homesick by the day. Discovering this book came just in time.My sister and I each downloaded the book to our Kindles, and at night from my bedroom I could hear her laughing as my serious older sister seldom laughs. I would call out to her, "What?" And invariably it was about something she had just read in Pretty Woman Spitting. Then I would flip a page in my bedroom and begin howling with laughter, too, to which she would call, "What?" We ended up many a night getting back out of bed and sitting together in the living room of our apartment, Kindles before us, reading excerpts to each other, laughing til tears streamed down our cheeks, and shouting, "Is THAT what they mean?" Or "No WONDER my students responded that way!"
So not only did this book clear up some of the perplexities that we Westerners encountered at every turn, but it also helped us to laugh at what otherwise would have caused much distress in our daily interchanges with Chinese students, university faculty and administration, restaurant waiters and store clerks.
The author tells with precisely the right mix of gentle humor, affection and outright frustration the things you can expect to encounter, teaching at a Chinese university and living in a provincial Chinese city. Although there are frequent grammatical errors (really shoddy editing in the Kindle edition, folks), it was well worth the read. It lifted the weariness that my sister and I both felt at the end of a day, putting our hearts and souls (not to mention our brains) into working with students who had as little grasp of Western thinking as we did Asian.
Also, because of the author's explanation of the Chinese way of learning and testing, a lot of heartache was avoided. We allowed our students to work in groups during the semester, and we evaluated daily both their group and individual comprehension of English vocabulary and pronunciation. The only formal test they were required to take was their final examination.
Our students worked very hard at their lessons. They learned much about life in America, about US currency (how to identify similarities and differences between Chinese and American money), and how to count it and make change. They learned what they needed to know to apply for an American job, how to write a resume, and how to dress and conduct themselves during an American interview. They learned a little of what Americans do for fun and a little about famous persons in American history and why their contributions to society were so important.
They taught us ten times as much as we taught them.
Pretty Woman Spitting is as close to telling our own tale as any story my sister or I will ever read. It is factual, it explains with affection and humor some of the profound perplexities of shopping and dining in China, walking cold into a Chinese classroom with no experience of Chinese customs, and even what to expect when you visit your first Chinese rest facility. And it gives you ample warning for how attached you will have become to the Chinese people when you return home, and how difficult it is to say goodbye.
It is an invaluable source of information for anyone getting ready to teach or otherwise work in rural China. It will change your perspective from one of utter bamboozlement to one of humor and enthusiasm. It helps you get your game on!
Despite the poor editing, I highly recommend this book to anyone who already is IN China, is planning to go to China, or anyone who knows someone who was in China and has come home full of strange stories that defy your credulity.
Read it! You'll be soooo glad you did!
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Pretty Woman Spitting An American Travels in China eBook Leanna Adams Mary Ruggles Reviews
At first, I didn't like this book's title (or the cover). But--since I have an unquenchable interest in Chinese culture and started studying Chinese last year, and since I'd read elsewhere that spitting is somewhat of a national exercise in China (especially in Beijing)--I decided to just go for it and I bought the book.
PWS provides the kind of travel information you wouldn't get unless you've experienced it yourself. For instance, 'the bathroom situation' was most surprising. Make that shocking. The author was living in Wuhu, a small Chinese town/city while she taught English at a local college. In most public buildings, the rest rooms comprise--literally--a 'hole in the ground' with no further amenities. The author also described college life with her students, Chinese food, karaoke, a women's bathhouse, her travel excursions to other Chinese cities, the art of "bargaining in Beijing," and much more.
PWS is packed with info about "the real China" from the author's frank perspective, and a quick read. The book describes Leanna Adams' sometimes challenging journey of "self-discovery" to China and gives a really good sense of what it's like to live there. Anyone interested in Chinese culture and language will enjoy reading this book.
I bought this book on the recommendation of a good friend. I thought I would just read a chapter or 2 before bed - at 1 AM I finally had to stop and get some sleep! The next day I had my kindle in my hand constantly trying to sneak in a chapter here and there. I have been to China 3 times - twice to adopt and once we lived there for a month and went to Chinese school. Her unbelievable vivid descriptions pulled me right in and had me laughing out loud remembering when nearly the exact same thing happened to me. Where else can you see a woman who looks like a supermodel spit louder and farther than a football player? Some parts had me feeling I could smell and taste what she was talking about. My first trip to China was very controlled and sanitized. My next 2 had more of the elements of this book - the real China. Meeting real people, learning about their lives, hopes and dreams. And the truth of how very hard it can be to be on the outside trying to understand a completely foreign culture.
I highly recommend this book if you have been to China or not. It's an entertaining read from start to finish.
For three months in early 2012, my sister and I taught sophomore oral English at the university of a "small" Chinese city of 11 million--located not far from the setting of this book. We discovered Pretty Woman Spitting a few weeks after our arrival in China and had already encountered many of the situations the author describes in her narrative. And were growing more and more discouraged and homesick by the day. Discovering this book came just in time.
My sister and I each downloaded the book to our s, and at night from my bedroom I could hear her laughing as my serious older sister seldom laughs. I would call out to her, "What?" And invariably it was about something she had just read in Pretty Woman Spitting. Then I would flip a page in my bedroom and begin howling with laughter, too, to which she would call, "What?" We ended up many a night getting back out of bed and sitting together in the living room of our apartment, s before us, reading excerpts to each other, laughing til tears streamed down our cheeks, and shouting, "Is THAT what they mean?" Or "No WONDER my students responded that way!"
So not only did this book clear up some of the perplexities that we Westerners encountered at every turn, but it also helped us to laugh at what otherwise would have caused much distress in our daily interchanges with Chinese students, university faculty and administration, restaurant waiters and store clerks.
The author tells with precisely the right mix of gentle humor, affection and outright frustration the things you can expect to encounter, teaching at a Chinese university and living in a provincial Chinese city. Although there are frequent grammatical errors (really shoddy editing in the edition, folks), it was well worth the read. It lifted the weariness that my sister and I both felt at the end of a day, putting our hearts and souls (not to mention our brains) into working with students who had as little grasp of Western thinking as we did Asian.
Also, because of the author's explanation of the Chinese way of learning and testing, a lot of heartache was avoided. We allowed our students to work in groups during the semester, and we evaluated daily both their group and individual comprehension of English vocabulary and pronunciation. The only formal test they were required to take was their final examination.
Our students worked very hard at their lessons. They learned much about life in America, about US currency (how to identify similarities and differences between Chinese and American money), and how to count it and make change. They learned what they needed to know to apply for an American job, how to write a resume, and how to dress and conduct themselves during an American interview. They learned a little of what Americans do for fun and a little about famous persons in American history and why their contributions to society were so important.
They taught us ten times as much as we taught them.
Pretty Woman Spitting is as close to telling our own tale as any story my sister or I will ever read. It is factual, it explains with affection and humor some of the profound perplexities of shopping and dining in China, walking cold into a Chinese classroom with no experience of Chinese customs, and even what to expect when you visit your first Chinese rest facility. And it gives you ample warning for how attached you will have become to the Chinese people when you return home, and how difficult it is to say goodbye.
It is an invaluable source of information for anyone getting ready to teach or otherwise work in rural China. It will change your perspective from one of utter bamboozlement to one of humor and enthusiasm. It helps you get your game on!
Despite the poor editing, I highly recommend this book to anyone who already is IN China, is planning to go to China, or anyone who knows someone who was in China and has come home full of strange stories that defy your credulity.
Read it! You'll be soooo glad you did!
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