Americans! Americans!

Today is a big day indeed! Yesterday, Daisy came to inform us that there would be 10 Americans coming to "check out this school." TEN AMERICANS! Here!!!! AAAHHHHH!!!

I haven't physically encountered anyone who speaks fluent English really in two and a half months apart from the other three Americans here and Daisy. This is a big deal.

I first saw the Americans as I taught my first class this morning. A few poked there heads in. There were women with blonde hair, the most coveted of foreign women it seems here in China. Immediately, my kids were out of their seats, jumping up and down yelling, "TEACHER!! TEACHER!!! LOOOOK!!!" It took me a bit to get them back down and focused on the lesson. But I couldn't help but smile. Inside, I was jumping up and down and being just as excited! AMERICANS! I now understand their enthusiasm!

As we went onto the field to do the dance with the kids (dancing to Cotton Eyed Joe is a daily thing now), we split up and one of the American guys went to talk to Adam and Kammi. I jealously watched from across the field.

Lunch was the best part. We walked into the cafeteria, and there were the Americans. They took two tables and had about 7 2-liter bottles of Pepsi with them. So that's where the stereotype comes from! Haha. I haven't had any soda since being here. Although we have found it a couple times in a few places. I just really don't like carbonation.

Anyway, for lunch they served the sesame fried chicken that I really like (it's a little bit spicy, but way better than a lot of what they serve), they also had the spring rolls and sushi--both of which are normally only a breakfast item, and even then is rarely served. They also served chicken on a stick, green beans (cooked with something sour, ginger, and peppers, but hey! Vegetables!), and sandwiches! Sandwiches!!!

I was practically jumping up and down! I haven't seen so much good food in one place in.. well... a very long time. Unless you count Pizza Hut. :) The sandwiches were on a sweet white roll. There was a fried egg, bolognese, cucumber, and tons of mayonaisse. I mean, it was almost too much mayo for me, and that's saying something! We think it was homemade mayo because it tasted a little strange and we haven't found anywhere that sells it here. But still. It was delicious!

When we were finished eating, a few of the Americans came over and talked to us. They asked things like "Are the students happy here?" (Yes, yes, yes and definitely yes!) and "Do you ever feel left out and separated from the other teachers? We notice they don't associate with you much.'" (absolutely not, it's just the language barrier that makes it difficult, but we can communicate through smiles and head nods, and really that's all we need. The teachers here are great) "How are the student's English skills?" (obviously, the older kids are better than younger, but I'd say they're pretty darn good.)

I think I never actually sent the blog post where I wrote about the one time we met the kids from other schools who were learning English. But I did. And let's just say that I have fourth graders at this school who could outperform the seventh graders at the other school. And the "others" we met were the best in their classes at their school. So yes, I'd say the kid's education here is far superior than many others. However, they are in school from 8:20am to 9pm. So there's that...

Anyway, back to the Americans. We only got to spend a few minutes talknig with them at lunch and then they had to run. But we told them how great it was we got to talk to them and they promised to try and come back and talk later. Boy, I sure hope so. But if not, they still came, and I'm happy. The end!

Reply

Forward

Click here to Reply or Forward

Annie the Diva kid

I love my students. I absolutely plain old flat out LOVE them. They're adorable and hilarious and smart and fun. Sometimes, though, they can get a bit of attitude. Like Annie.

Today we did the "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed" chant. I pick five kids to come up and be the "monkeys jumping" as the class chants. They LOVE this! Well, Annie wanted to be picked but I didn't choose her because she was yelling (it's been two months I've been working with these kids trying to get them to stop screaming when they raise their hands; the progress is moving at turtle speed, but at least we're moving forward!).

 

 

Well, not picking Annie sure was a mistake. Angry, Annie decided she was going to be a monkey whether I liked it or not. "I monkey!" she told me and got out of her chair and joined the other monkeys up front. "Six little monkeys," she told me defiantly. As much as I wanted to just let her do that, and allow six monkeys, I knew better. And the reason why set in quickly. As I tried to get her back in her seat, the class began yelling, "I monkey!" Soon 30 out of my 40 students were standing up front yelling "MONKEEEEEYYYYYSSS!!!!!"

I had to turn around from laughing. (I'm actually still laughing, this was so cute and funny) I then told everyone "NO! Sit down NOW!" It took a few minutes but finally the kids went back to their seats. I had to threaten "No monkeys at all! No monkeys! Sit down!" The kids sat back down. Except for Annie. Who stood at the front, arms crossed, pouty and completely adorable. I finally dragged her back to her chair where she glared at me and then promptly put her head down to cry. I felt pretty bad as I continued with the lesson. Just a minute later I saw her bring her head up. There were no tears coming out of those eyes. None. She saw me see her looking happy and quickly stuck out her lower lip and put her head down again. The little stinker was faking it! We switched to reviewing Halloween words and she was back, good as new and ready to go. I think I need to teach her the word "manipulative."

She might just be one of my favorite students. If I was allowed to have favorites, that is.

Then again, I have a lot of favorite students.

The Game of Hangman!

I feel like I should write more about life here, but the truth is, life has just been "same ol' same ol'" lately. And I'm not sure how much I've already written. I'm LOVING teaching the third and fourth grade kids. And I enjoy the second graders when they are behaving. My kids are just so, so good.

I realized recently that my first graders have learned enough letters now to play Hangman, and boy do they love it. I think it's good for them too, because even once they've guessed what the word is, I still make them say the letters to spell it. The other day they figured out m-o-n-k-?-y. They knew the word was "monkey" and kept chanting it, but I made them guess the last letter. It was so cute as they shot their little hands in the air, so excited and confident that they just knew what that last letter was as I prompted them saying "monkEEEEEE." And then I felt terrible as I shot them down after they screamed letters like "Q" and "L" confidently! They didn't understand the part where I was drawing a stick figure, but that's okay. We had fun anyway.

My second graders on the other hand get very worried as I continue to draw the stick figure. But I don't like to let them lose because I want them to get the words. So after completing the stick figure including hands, feet, and ears, I go on to draw shorts and a t-shirt which always makes the class laugh because they thought it was over.

I also discovered how to make memory on PPT. This comes in handy as you can't buy note cards ANYWHERE in this country. (okay I exaggerate. on this province... maybe that's an exaggeration too, but seriously, people here don't even know what note cards are. Even at Carrefour!) Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to get just the last two cards picked to reappear. So if they get one card wrong they have to start over. I felt bad about it in the beginning and thought the kids would get frustrated with it being too difficult. Boy was I wrong. They LOVE it. And I write the words "up, down, left, right" on the board and make them use their words now instead of hand gestures to tell me which boxes to click on. I'm really impressed with how well it's worked. And I can switch up the words every week to their new vocab words. So great! I can't believe I didn't discover this before!

As for work outside of teaching, it's been pretty fun. I spend pretty much every day at the school from 8am-6pm, so there's not a whole lot of leisure time spent. I ate sushi for breakfast last week which was a pretty cool event. Apart from that I spend my days browsing our street, sweeping the dust out of our apartment (the dust here is seriously insane, AND we're on the 9th floor!), and watching TV shows/movies on my laptop. And, that's pretty much it. Hope this does well for an update!

Halloween -- Chinese Style?

As part of the immersion program, the school has decided to throw a Halloween Party, even though China does not recognize Halloween.  We had to come up with a list of ideas/activities and what we'd need for the party next week. As we brainstormed last night we discussed making them eat yucky food like brains and worms. Then it occured to us: The people already eat pig brains and chicken feet. They eat duck head and the eyeballs of fish. Their spaghetti already looks (and tastes) likes slimy worms and every meat is identifiable as an animal. How are we supposed to scare them with food?

Needless to say, there will be no "gross" food at this party. Or should I say, the only food there will be scaring us more than them.

Street Encounter with Student: Success!

I was walking home from school today and saw a couple of my students walking with what I assumed to be their parents. The parents can sign the kids out of school sometimes in the afternoon to spoil them. They said, "Hello" so I responded, "Hello! How are you?" And the kids chanted back as they've done many times before, "Fine, thank you!" The parents just LOVED it and laughed and laughed thinking that was just the greatest thing ever. They should just see them in class!

I definitely am loving my third and fourth graders more and more by the week. They are just so well behaved and I can actually see them learning. It's so exciting when they get it right, and I purposely exaggerate it like crazy which makes the kids exaggerate excitedly. The whole class is just so smart and so much fun!

I recently realized that at the end of this week I'll be halfway done with my time here. It's really sad, actually. It feels like I just got here three weeks ago. Maybe four. But in fact it's been two whole months. Two, entire, difficult, life-changing, months filled with nasty food, incredible people, all types of weather, and piles of adventure.

And some days, I just can't believe this is really my life!

Parents' Day

At the end of the week the parents like to come and watch the final class through the window. Since this is a boarding school the parents all have to come pick up their kids Friday afternoon.

They usually only show up a few minutes before the end of class. The first few weeks were very awkward because my final class is a second grade class, and they are the most difficult. They misbehave a lot, and it got a little awkward that I would finish scolding a student and turn around and there's a parent peering in through the windows. I've worked a little harder so the parents could see their kids being smart and successful instead of me constantly ragging on them. Some days I seriously feel like all I ever do is say "No! No! Stop!" and "Not good!" I've learned which activities get them to misbehave more and which are better. The problem is, the "fun" activities get them really wild so they are bad. But the activities that keep them in good manners are the ones that get boring quickly and that means the kids won't behave well for very long.

Well, today we did the body activity where they drew a body part out of a cup (mouth, leg, ear, etc.) and then rolled the dice (they LOVE throwing things). Then whatever number came up on the die they had to draw that many. So the monster would have like four eyes or six legs or something. They LOVED this game, but they got out of control very quickly because they have difficulties taking turns and waiting for each other. It's kind of to be expected in a class of forty kids, I guess. So then I got them all back in their seats and quiet. Then played the quieter game. I write a word on the board like "banana" and then the next word has to begin with the last letter of the first word. So it would go, "banana->apple->elephant->taste->ears->sit" The kids actually LOVE this game but they end up yelling over each other. It's a lot better than running around the room, though. I thought it would be a good one for the parents to come in on, and my idea surprisingly worked. All the kids were actually participating. They were all yelling English words and we had a looooong list on the board.

So, the moral of my story is that even though I'm not really a great teacher, and I seriously struggle to keep these kids in check, I can at least fake it enough to keep the parents and other teachers happy. :) Gosh this experience is amazing!

Schoolchildren in China

The lady at the supermarket on our street likes to speak English to us. Actually, most people we meet here love to speak English to us, just not many know much more than "Hello." Well, the lady at the supermarket likes to tell us as we leave, "See you tomorrow!" At first, I thought she was joking because we went there so often. But now I'm beginning to think she actually thinks it means goodbye. It's so cute, and I love it!

When I try to pronounce the student's Chinese names they all end up giggling out of control because I'm so bad at it! I actually really enjoy the attempts and having them repeat it until I say it perfectly. It gives me a taste of my own medicine, I guess. They think it's completely hilarious when I try to say their Chinese names. Although I am now able to say my Chinese name somewhat normally now.

Lately, I've been trying to get the students to say, "Have a good day!" Instead of (or in conjunction with) "goodbye." Some of them have begun to catch on, but it's the cutest thing when they chant back at me, "Haff a goob day!"

I'm always excited when the kids do something extra smart that surprises me. Well, the other day I was tossing the ball around asking questions. One of my smarter kids, though, didn't throw the ball back immediately. Instead he gestured and pointed. I kept following his finger, trying to see what he was pointing at. He'd shake his head and gesture again. Finally, frustrated that his motions weren't getting the point across he struggled out some English words, "You... go... there... I throw ball to you. Can you go there?" Okay, so it doesn't sound like much on here, but this was actually very impressive in my opinion. He created that sentence all by himself.

I've been working on getting my fourth graders to make their own sentences without me spoon feeding it to them. I put a tic-tac-toe board up and split the class in half. Then, I put a word in each of the boxes like "library" or "classroom" (these have been their most recent vocab words). Then I pick a student from each team. The student must tell me where they want their X or O but they may not say the word, but must describe the word. So instead of "library" I wanted them to say "A place where I read books." Or instead of "bank" they'd say "A place where I get money." Unfortunately, I wasn't fully able to get the point across and I had to settle for "read books" and "money" instead. But I figure I'll take baby steps and make it harder as we go along. I also sometimes put letters and they must pick a word that begins with that letter instead of saying the letter outright. This gets fun, and it sometimes surprises me the vocab words they already know. The best part is that the kids absolutely LOVE it! They beg to play it so it's my bargaining chip to get them to behave during the normal lesson. (I draw a "good meter" on the board and as they're good the line goes up, but as they're bad it goes down. If it hits bottom the must be completely silent while it fills back up slowly to a normal level, but if it gets to the top, they get to play a game for the rest of class)

Another fun game I've gotten them to play recently is a whispering game. I'm still in the "teaching" phases of this game. These students are very competitive, and not at all shy about cheating (which could, partly be due to the language barrier, I should acknowledge). If there's a way to cheat, they'll do it which makes most games less fun, and my job very difficult. But I basically put them in two lines. Then I whisper a word to the kids at my end of the line. They basically play "telephone" whispering the word to each other all the way to the front and the person at the front has to spell the word, correctly, on the board (or paper... I had to switch to paper because they kept ruining my whiteboard markers). This game works better for my third graders because I was able to get the point clearly across in the beginning that saying the word aloud is absolutely not allowed and if I hear someone on your team say the word, then I dock a point from that team. The kids were pretty mad at me at first for taking the point, but they understood and got better. Unfortunately, with my fourth graders, they were so excited and talking so loudly that all I could do was continually dock points from their teams and make them redo and redo and redo to the point that I think both the kids, and I, were getting frustrated. I think I'll try it again with them on another day and figure out a better way to show them that they must not say the word loudly because then it's just a matter of who can write faster. Ah well.

Anyway, there are some random games I've played in my classes. Now I need to figure out some fun games for my first graders. They don't understand "get into a circle" (the few times I've tried it just creates utter chaos of the rest of class, basically) so that cuts out "ring around the rosie" and the "hokey pokey" and "pass the ball around." They are incapable of passing the ball from their desks. I've tried this a few times and no matter what, I can't get them to stop throwing it. And they don't yet know their letters so we can't play hangman. I really don't think they'll get tic-tac-toe either. I read somewhere to try Bingo, so I'm going to try that later this week. But I don't know if that will work either. When I give them papers, half of them become paper airplanes or some form of origami, some become scribbling sheets, and only about ten end up with what I want them to be used for. Mostly I've just been playing Slap with them and doing lots of songs and hidden pictures on the Powerpoint. And I've made a few stories to tell them via Powerpoint. It just feels weird to use powerpoint with first graders. This week we did body parts so I drew a face and said, "What does it need?" and the kids had to answer "He needs a mouth!" and when they did they could come up and draw the mouth. The problem is I can't even do much one-on-one interaction in my first grade class because the kids get jealous or beg to be picked on and if I can't pick all of them fast enough they burst into tears. And if I give the same student my attention for longer than about five seconds, I completely lose the rest of the class.

So there's a little taste of my every day life here. I didn't know if I've really documented it, so I figured might as well since I'm sitting at my desk playing my tenth game of Freecell today!

Pandas! In Chengdu

A week ago, for the National Holiday, we decided to go to Chengdu. The school didn't really want us to go as they're quite protective of us. But we were surprisingly safe the entire time. The only "bad" thing that happened was that when we got to the airport the cab driver drove around the block claiming it was the construction and our ride cost 70 yuan. Fortunately, we had anticipated being charged more, and 70 yuan is only like 12 dollars. And they told us the ride to the Panda Base would cost over 100 yuan and it ended up only being 54. We know to make the cab drivers restart the meter when we get in, and carrying a map in my lap helps as well. :)

Anyway, the Pandas were my highlight of the trip. Although I really enjoyed every second of the entire trip! It was incredible! And Chengdu felt like we were in America again with all the Caucasians we saw! Although many of them were European. In fact, there may have been more Europeans there than Americans!

 

Here is a picture of me with a Panda butt. That's about the best picture I could find that actually worked. It was difficult! Pandas sleep in the trees a lot in the most uncomfortable positions imaginable. Crazy!

We found this random sign, too. "No strinding." We couldn't couldn't figure out what it meant. Maybe no straying from the path? No standing?

They had red pandas too who were like the cutest little things ever. Seriously, I think red pandas are cuter than the black and whites cuz they're so playful and cute! One girl actually got to pet one because it walked right up to her! We walked along a path where they could do that! So cool!

Anyway, that's all about the Pandas. We also visited Du Fu's cottage (the beginning of Chinese literature) and the Wuhou shrine. I'll maybe write about those another time. We also ate some incredible food. And we ate more American food than we had in the last month combined. I got a Big Mac and we found a Papa Johns (which actually was not very good at all. The pizza here, even at Pizza Hut, just isn't the same since they don't really have cheese nor do they like tomato sauce). We usually get one Western meal a week here in Guiyang and it's always either KFC (which is really spicy so I don't like to go there as much), Pizza Hut, or Dicos (a Chinese version of KFC which has less spicy chicken, surprisingly. I think we're going there today since we all spent all our money on our trip and are now too poor to afford Pizza Hut).

We decided in all, we're glad we live in Guiyang and not Chengdu. While it was a great city to visit, it was definitely not as "Chinese" as Guiyang. We weren't immersed in the culture like we are here. Too many people spoke English there. It actually surprised us when someone actually spoke to us because we're so used to the "point and grunt" system. I really do love Guiyang, and I'm definitely gonna miss this place! Even if it's more difficult to live in. That makes it an adventure!

Cotton-Eyed Joe

(My pictures are at home, and I don't get to use the internet much at home, so still no pictures yet of the trip, but here's what happened today)

 

A few weeks ago, if you heard, the four of us English teachers were asked to "perform" something for Teacher Appreciation Day. After stressing for a while, knowing that we didn't know how to dance or sing or play any of the instruments they have here, we finally decided on Cotton Eyed Joe. This went over really well next to the Kung Fu performance and the incredible sing/dance routines that we heard some teachers had stayed up all night rehearsing. (that was sarcasm, just in case you missed it!)

Well, apparently they actually liked Cotton Eyed Joe. And the gym teacher (or somebody with power) decided the entire school should learn it. Long story short, every day for the past few weeks we've been asked to go outside during the schools "recess" time (it's not really recess, more of a midmorning workout from 9:50-10:20 every day) and dance with the kids on the field. Just with the 7th and 8th graders.

Today, they informed us that they wanted to take pictures and film our dance. So we went out on the field and they had us stand with the kids instead of in the bleachers above them. And they played the song and we danced. About halfway through the song, the gym teacher got on the loud speaker and said something in Chinese (while we were all still dancing). Then, suddenly, the next time we went to turn, all the kids turned the opposite direction! The kids were doing the same dance but in exactly the opposite direction with the opposite hand and opposite feet! This totally threw us off and we looked like we didn't know the dance at all for the last half of the song. After that is when Daisy decided to inform us that the school wanted the kids to get an "equal" workout so they switched directions half way through to use all of their muscles. Yeah, thanks for informing us.

Well, we ended up having to do the dance a few more times and we eventually got the hang of it. But seriously, you try doing the Cotton Eyed Joe backwards and see how easy it is! I'll give you a hint... it's not!

It does feel really, really cool though to go out and dance with over 300 kids doing the same dance that you taught them. They did it pretty well, too.

Summer Palace Pic -- With a Crowd!

This picture kills me. I love it! When we were in Beijing a few weeks ago, we all posed for this picture in the summer palace. Immediately, the people swarmed and jumped into our shot. It took me a minute to realize what was happening because it really felt like the paparazzi. The Chinese girls you see to the right and the one man to the left are definitely not a part of our group. But they really enjoyed taking pictures with us! And there were even more people just staring and taking photos just of us in general. Haha, it was impossible to get a group picture just of us. These people have no fear. Hilarious!

(I'm in the exact center, in the orchid shirt.)

 

 

Change of Perspective -- Wow!

The other day, I had to go to the bathroom while we were in town, so I ran into KFC real quick. When I came out, this conversation seriously happened:

Me: "Oh my gosh, that was the fanciest squatter ever!"
Kammi: "Oh, I know. The Pizza Hut bathroom was fancy too."
Me: "Yeah, it had toilet paper and everything!"
Kammi: "Did it have an automatic flush, too?"
Me: "Yes! And there was soap!"

It's funny how two months ago, in America, I would come home from work and just stick my hands under the faucet of my bathroom at the house fully expecting it to turn itself on because basically all bathrooms at Disney World are automatic and I was so used to using them. And yet, here, just a short month or two later, I'm ecstatic that the bathroom actually provided toilet paper! Despite the fact that it was still a squatter.

What a good life!

Snake Snack; Oh Look, an American!

Random Stories:

One of the first days we were here in Guiyang, I noticed some people riding by on a motorbike. Three Chinese people were crammed on there. Dumbfounded, I jokingly made the comment, “Haha, how many Chinese people can you fit on a motorbike?” Daisy overheard me, which I wasn’t expecting, and responded, quite seriously, “Oh five.” I looked at her shocked and amused and she continued, “Yes. You put one in front of the driver, and three behind. Maybe you can fit six, if you have a baby in a backpack.”

We were eating a fancy meal for the Teacher’s Day celebration. There was a new food that looked like a rice krispy treat except the “krispies” were these long thin round things shaped sort of like worms but they were light tan. I asked Daisy what is was and she responded, “It’s a sort of snake from Taiwan.” “This is a snake?” I asked, grossed out, and rethinking the bite I just took. “Yes, yes, a snake.” I started looking for the head, because Chinese people tend not to cut the heads off of their animals, when Kammi clarified, “Wait… there’s a snake inside this?” Daisy thought for a second and then said, “Ohhh, snack. Snack. I’m sorry. I meant snack.”

When we’re in a taxi on the way somewhere, we like to keep an eye out for the kids on the busses. When we’re stopped at a red light or something, a kid will look out the window and see us sitting in the taxi. Then they turn to a parent or friend and say something in Chinese, and soon both are looking out the window straight at us, staring. We can pretty much assume what they’re saying in Chinese is, “Look mom, an American!” We were just walking down the street just the other day when a little boy did that. I could see it in his face, as soon as he turned around and saw us. He grabbed his dads hand, pulled him close, and said something to him. Sure enough, just a second later the dad turned around and looked at us, smiled, and then continued walking.

Travails of a Primary School Teacher

I’ve been having quite a bit of trouble with one of the second grade classes lately. I mean these kids have been absolutely terrible and were spiraling downhill, quickly. It’s really sad when my first grade students behave better than second grade!

I finally told the teachers about this class and asked for help. Yesterday I went in and the kids actually apologized to me. The one boy who was the worst behaved kid in the class was actually much better. Still not “good” but definitely better. As long as the Chinese teachers were in there, the kids behaved very well. But then, after they left, it took about ten minutes for them to be bad again. One boy I sent out of the class and he was climbing the walls outside the classroom and opening the back door, messing with the kids, and then running away as soon as I started towards him. Of course, I didn’t even begin to chase him, but it was incredibly annoying, not to mention disruptive. Terrible. If I stood by the back door, he'd go in the front or bang on the door. And the kids don't pay attention as well when I walk around the class (which is funny cuz I always heard that teachers should walk around the class to keep attention).

Another issue with these kids (and it has happened in all my classes, including fourth grade) is that about once a day I end up with a student in tears. Sometimes they're crying that they miss their moms and dads, and sometimes the're crying because another student hurt them somehow. But sometimes, and this is most of the time, I seriously have absolutely no clue what they're crying about. One girl in my first grade class has done this twice now where she starts crying, and then that gets these two other girls crying. And I don't mean quiet crying, I mean loud sobbing wailing. And I have no clue what sparked it or what to do with it. But if I give them attention, I lose the rest of the class. And I can't leave to find a teacher because it'll take too long and I can't leave a class of forty 6 year olds unattended for that long. And I have no way of asking them what's wrong. So usually they just sit in a corner and cry. Which still disrupts the calss because everyone is staring and pointing, and sometimes running over to her for words of comfort (which is really sweet and I sometimes allow it, but sometimes that gets the whole class thinking they can run over and "help" and I lose everyone).

Learning Chinese hasn’t helped. I learned phrases like “be quiet” “listen” “stop” “repeat after me” etc. But the kids don’t respond to that. At first I thought my accent was just so bad they couldn’t understand. But every adult I’ve said things to says it’s fine. So I think the kids just aren’t expecting me to be speaking Chinese or something.

Today I finally had success with these kids though. Mostly. I never had to send a single kid out of the room which is kind of a big deal for this class. I did a lot more TPR exercises (total physical response, I’ve been reading about it online). Getting them to stand and sit and turn around. They still don’t get “Simon Says…” yet, but once they do I’m sure it’ll be a hit.

And I’ve learned that the kids LOVE it when you pick one of them to stand at the front and show the rest how to do it (stand, sit). I used to just stand up there myself, but it’s way more fun to pick a kid. Then I had some bouncy balls that I was throwing around the room getting kids to answer questions. “Would you rather have the big yellow ball? Or the small red one?” It worked well for a while. Until a kid stole one of the balls and chucked it at my head. I didn’t see who threw it either, but I could certainly narrow it down to two kids. We stopped playing immediately, unfortunately. That was the only notably bad behavior the whole class though which is a huge improvement!

As people usually tell you when things are hard, "It'll get better." This job will get easier, at least that's what I'm banking on. And as for the food tasting better? Well... I'll let you know if that ever happens. I did find some rice cakes that taste pretty good, though! (yep, you read it right, I've resorted to rice cakes as the best tasting food in this country. well, that and Pizza Hut)

Queuing -- Chinese Style

I think it's some sort of Chinese thing, but when I have activities that require students to raise their hands (which is all the time), my kids think it's okay to jump out of their seats and yell, "Let me try!!!!" in order for me to choose them. I'm pretty sure this behavior is reinforced in their Chinese classes, as it seems to be the Chinese "way" to be aggressive in order to get your way. That's why people don't bother waiting in lines, push ahead to get on the bus, drive over yellow lines, and allover don't understand the concept of taking turns and being patient.

 

Anyway, I've been working on unestablishing (word?) this behavior, as it's extremely annoying, gets the class very rowdy, and makes it so I can't hear anything. I refuse to call on students who are yelling and only choose the ones who are quietly, patiently, putting their hands in the air. I explain to the loud ones why I'm not choosing them, make the class be silent, etc. etc. You'd think that after two weeks of this the kids would get the hint. But no. In fact, some are getting worse. And today I almost burst out laughing in the middle of class as a student, who was so desperate because he really knew the answer, stood on his chair yelling louder as I ignored him, "Diannaaaa! Let me try! I looooove youuuuu!!!"

 

That got all the students started. "Dianna. I love you! Let me try! I love you!"

 

I had to turn around to keep them from seeing me laughing. As much as I love being told "I love you" (and I almost caved and chose him because, seriously, how cute is that?) I pointed at him and said "Thank you. I love you too. Be quiet. An jing! Then I can let you try."

 

I love these kids!

Hills, Kids, Miao Tribesmen, & a Recalcitrant Doorlock

Yesterday was incredible.  Possibly the best day I’ve had in China so far.  Actually, yeah.  I’d put it right there at number one.

It’s amazing how, every day, I can tell things are feeling more and more normal.  The homesickness is subsiding more and more.  And then, every once in a while, I take a step out of my life and think, “Oh my goodness!  I’m in China!  This is whack!” (yes, I did just use the term whack)

Well, the food still sucked at the cafeteria.  But my little students are getting progressively harder to deal with, so yesterday I began a new approach to get them to behave.  This included even MORE positive praise, changing activities every 8 to 10 minutes, printing out pages for them to color/write on, and switching between group work and pair work every 8-10 minutes.

This is one of the "courtyards" at the school.  More specifically the one for the Primary aged kids.  Remember that saying about Guizhou, "No more than 3 feet without a hill?" Well, you're looking at one, there in the background of the right side of the photo.  When there's a hill where they don't want it they simply dig it up and put it somewhere else.  They got halfway through this one and decided the rest of it could stay.  That happens a lot too.  There are trucks everywhere here though moving dirt around trying to get rid of the hills.  Hill-arious!

My first class was absolutely horrible.  They’re my worst class though.  Seriously, I could hardly keep their attention for the first five minutes.  I also decided to ignore the kids who were not paying attention, as long as they weren’t disrupting the class.  By about halfway through I had a grand total of 6 of my 40 students paying attention to what was going on up front.  The rest were distracted by coloring their pages with animals (although I was proud that most of them got that I wanted the black and white animals to have circles around them and the green ones to have squares and the fish needed a triangle around it) (that came after I went around the room and told them in little groups of about five though).

Above:  Some of my second grade kids.  They act like they just love me before class and want nothing more than to speak to me.  But then class begins and suddenly they're totally into each other or their pencils... I've started going around the room and collecting everything that's not put away by the time class begins)

Anyway, as terribly as that class went, my later classes showeddefinite improvement.  They actually did extremely well.  And my fourth graders are always my favorites.  I taught them to answer questions like “Where do you live?” and “What grade are you in?”  I was surprised they didn’t know those questions, which is why I decided to teach them that.  They had a lot of trouble hearing the difference between “Where do you live?” and “What do you like?”  I think that’s cuz all last week was spent talking about “What do you like?” though.

I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but in my Class one, grade one class, Jack is definitely, by far, my favorite kid.  He is just so cute and smart!  He's easily the smartest kid in my class and the best at English.

Moving right along, school went great and my older kids came to see me in my office and I spoiled them, of course.  Then, Daisy told us that the school was paying for us to see a play!  It was called “Wind of Colorful Guizhou.”  We met at 6:30pm.  The car that they normally reserve for us had an emergency, apparently, so we had to take taxis.  Daisy usually puts Saebra and I in one taxi and tells the driver where to take us.  Then she goes with Adam and Kammi in a different one since we all won’t fit in one.

The theater was kind of far away.  About ten minutes into our ride, our driver pulled off to the side of the road.  As I turned to get out he turned around and put his hands up in a ‘T’ and then pointed outside.  “Ummm, we go out there?” I asked.  “Mei yo,” he responded which I was surprised that I actually knew that that means “No” (or it’s actually one of their many forms of the word “No.” “Bu” is usually the accepted form).  Then he said “WC!” which I know from my students means bathroom break.  He promptly got out of the car and ran over to the toilets that were just around the corner.  Saebra and I sat in the taxi.  Slightly petrified.  He had left the keys in the ignition, it was a creepy part of town, and the people kept walking by and peering in the windows.  We talked about how someone could literally up and kidnap us right there.  Fortunately they didn’t, and we were back on our way in no time.

We got to the theater and took some pictures.  I bought a Lusheng.  It’s a musical instrument created and played by the Miao and Dong tribes here in Guizhou.  It’s really cool, but I can’t figure out how to get more than one note out of it.

Above:  Me, Saebra, Kammi, and Adam.  Daisy wanted to take our pictures by some of the Miao tribe.  (That's the tribe there on the right.)

The show was absolutely, completely, totally phenomenal.  The best show I’ve ever seen in my life, and I live in Disney and have seen plays in London, plus I saw an acrobats show and a Kong Fu show in Beijing.  This beat them all out!  It had a little Kong Fu, a little bit of Acrobats, lots of dancing, incredible music, unbelievable effects, it was funny (although most of the funny we didn’t understand) and it was just pure awesome.  And it was definitely unique to anything I’ve ever seen before.

After the play, Daisy took us down a market street to grab a snack.  At first she wanted to take us to this incredibly spicy fish place.  But Kammi and I don’t like spicy much, and Saebra’s not a fan of fish.  We talked Daisy instead to taking us to a BBQ place.  Nothing like American BBQ, of course, but still good.  It was the first time in China that I actually had Chinese food that I legitimately liked okay.  It was no hamburger, but it was still pretty good.  We had about ten different kinds of food and just sampled everything.  We had this weird watermelon slushie with peanuts, some eggplant with copious amounts of spices (primarily garlic) on it, a weird thing that we dubbed the name “jellyfish” but apparently was some sort of plant (weirdest texture I’ve ever put in my mouth), all manner of pork, beef, chicken, rabbit, and duck, (the rabbit was actually really good), green beans (nothing like American green beans, they’re enormous here!), lotus root, zucchini, cabbage, and two kinds of soups with weird clear jelly type stuff inside that I can’t really describe.  Some of the food was good, some was terrible, but it was a lot of fun to taste it!

Daisy kept asking me what the name for the meal after dinner was.  I told her sometimes we have dessert, but this wasn’t sweet.  Then we finally settled on “midnight snack.”  But we explained how that was different, too.  Chinese people really do snack quite a bit.  That’s probably one of the reasons they’re thinner in general.

Well, Daisy’s parents live right by the market street, and she was planning on spending the weekend with them, so she just put the four of us in a cab back home.  We said goodbye and I called Daisy when the cab dropped us off to let her know we got home safely.  Then, Saebra and I split off from Adam and Kammi to go home (our complexes are a few minutes walk away from each other).

Well, Saebra and I got to the door to get into our complex and found it shut.  We’d never gotten home late enough for the door to be shut.  Fortunately, we knew that our little card key could get us in.  But, when we swiped it, it didn’t let us in for some reason.  We scanned it like ten times and I pulled on the door in many different ways but it just wouldn’t budge.  Slightly worried, we called Daisy and told her the problem.  Fortunately, Daisy has nine roommates, and they all happen to live in the same complex as ours.  She called one of them to get us in while Saebra and I waited out front.  A while later (it felt like an eternity), two of her roommates came downstairs to open the door.  Only they couldn’t get it open either.  They pushed the button on the inside and yanked and pulled and stood on chairs and looked for locks.  Nothing.  As they started to make some phone calls, and Saebra and I talked about maybe just staying at Adam and Kammi’s, three policemen came over from across the street.  There are policemen everywhere in China.  Usually just randomly standing up and down the street hanging out.  The one policeman came up, pulled out a card, scanned it, and the door opened right up.  He told the girls something in Chinese and they said, “You just have to scan your card to get in.”  We tried to tell her that we knew that and that our card didn’t work, but we couldn’t get the message across and we were already in the first elevator so we couldn’t show her how it didn’t work.  Then, we got to our building and we scanned our card to get in and it did work!  Cuh-razy!

Anyway, we made it home safe and had a heck of a day.  It was incredible.  I can’t wait to have more adventures.  But I do hope that next time we get home a little more quickly than last night!

Yes, I'm Still in China! And happy, too!

Here are some random stories since the last post.

Sunday was Teacher Appreciation Day.  We were to "perform" for the other teachers of the school.  We only had a few days notice, and they didn't have a piano, or any other sort of "normal" instrument.  And none of us really know how to sing.  So we ended up deciding on Cotton Eyed Joe, since we're not really the best dancers either. 

Well, long story short, the act before ours was teachers performing Kung Fu (so that's how they keep the kids in check!).  We turned to Daisy and made sure she was aware, "You brought us to China to teach... just so you know.  Not to perform!"  She assured us we'd do great.  Well, we got up there and danced our little hearts out.  Monday, the school gym teacher came to our office to learn the dance and today, Thursday, I saw kids dancing to it in the gym.  Yep.  We brought good ol' Cotton Eyed Joe to China.  They wanted an easier routine, so we introduced the Macarena, but they didn't like that one.

Two boys in my class today cried.  The ... whole ... time!  Well, at least the whole first ten minutes until I just couldn't take their disrupting my entire class of first graders anymore and made them go outside.  Fortunately, another teacher was out there and she took care of them.  They missed their moms.  I wasn't really hard on them at all because it's hard to be a six year old taken away from mommy for five days a week!  (This is a boarding school -- remember?)  I felt terrible for them, but really, I didn't have any control whatsoever of the class when they were in there, basically.

I also had a girl in my class eat her ink pen.   Yep, you read that right.  She ATE her pen!  I just looked over and she had blue all over her face and dripping out of her mouth.  What the heck!?  I'm aware ink is supposed to be poisonous, but I also know that I ate ink when I was in second grade and I'm still alive.  Although it did scare me at the time when I finally did learn it was poisonous.  The girl is still alive too, for the record.

We wanted to go to Pizza Hut last night, but were too embarrassed to ask Daisy for the address since this would have been our third time in two weeks.  So we resorted to asking the 13 year old students to write down "Pizza Hut" in Chinese on a piece of paper so we could give it to the cab driver who would, hopefully, take us there.  We trusted that the students translated it accurately (and didn't play a practical joke on us!) -- and apparently they were good, because we made it there all by ourselves.  Yep, we're basically awesome!

I love that the Google Chrome  browser has a "translate" button.  I think that alone has converted me to Chrome as my browser. 

Due to the squatters here... I've had more conversations on bathroom habits in the last few weeks than I think I've ever had in my entire life!   (Hint:  squatters aren't people who live where they shouldn't... squatting has to do with the fact that bathrooms here don't have toilets, but rather have a single drain hole in the middle of the bathroom's tile floor.  Squatting.  Enough said.)

But still, I've learned a lot comparing the way I use these toilets compared to how others get along with them.  Again, enough said.

Other cultural "shocks" that aren't shocking to me anymore: 
 
Random explosions on the street are basically normal here.   For real.

So are groups of random policemen marching around randomly and practicing their formations or whatever it is they do. 

We've also seen all kind of kites on the square in the city, and at night they're decorated with lights.  Just beautiful! 

People honk their horns all the time and are just generally loud. 

Old people sit around and play card and board games in the streets. 

People go on walks in the morning, clapping their hands together every few steps.  I have no clue what they're doing. 

There's this one guy who stands outside all day (at least, he's there in the morning on my way to school, and he's always there at night when I come home) playing with this yellow "juggling' type thing.  It's like a yellow disc on a string that he swings around.   Kind of a horizontal yo-yo I guess.

The weird things about this place are beginning to feel normal.

The only thing that isn't is the food.  It's only gotten worse.  It is getting harder and harder to put things in my mouth that my body says, "Uh, no, that doesn't go in here.  Keep it out!"  Not only do I not recognize the PARTS of the animals I'm eating, I don't even recognize what kind of animal it is that the parts came from.   

Except that we had chicken legs for dinner tonight!  The first familiar thing I've had since I arrived!  And I ate six (6!) of them.  I would have eaten even more, but I felt like people were already staring.

 Don't get me wrong, though.  I love it here.  I really, really do!

China Journal Post 13 - Beijing Photos Set II

Here is the Forbidden City from the top of the hill where the Buddha statue was.  It’s seriously enormous!  We walked from one end to the other.

 

 

And the picture below you may have seen on a post below.  This is Saebra and I eating our ice pops in the Forbidden City.  They were banana flavored, sort of, and only cost 1 yuan which is less than 20 cents!  I didn’t particularly like them, but I have forced myself to at least taste every new food that comes my way on this trip (unless is has tentacles or eyeballs).

 

 

I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVE the English translations here.  I’ve seen signs on the road that warn not to follow too “clowsely” and even a T-shirt that read “Knowledge likes pants… invisible, but very important.”  I still regret not buying that T-shirt, actually!

But the translations in the museum drove me crazy.  It would have a jar with decorations of dragons on it and the translation would say “Ancient jar with dragon decorations.”  Just look at this Yellow flag with clouds above.  And the English translation?  “Yellow Flag with Colorful Clouds.”  Yeah.  Thanks for that.  I couldn’t tell.  To be honest, I really am grateful that they even bother with English in the first place.

This next picture was taken in the gardens part of the Forbidden City.  I love the sign.  In case you can’t see, it says, “Perilous hills, no climbing please!”

 

Here’s another view of those “perilous hills.”

 

It was certainly an exhausting, yet wonderful first day.  We closed it by going out to dinner at a fancy-ish restaurant.  This is Sabrina trying desperately to grab some fries with her chopsticks.  The ladies that the table behind her actually got up and “helped” teach her how to go about it.  Everything else on the table really was legitimate Chinese food, though.

 

 

Saebra and I tried to stay up, but I’m pretty sure I fell asleep around 8 or 9 that night.  It was certainly a rough day, but I enjoyed every minute of it.  In fact, I can probably say that about my whole trip up til now.  It’s been rough.  But I’ve been enjoying almost every minute of it!  I am so grateful for this experience.  I’m on top of the world delighted that everything has gone so smoothly for me.  I couldn’t be happier or more excited for what these next few months have in store.  Of course, I’m scared too.  But I’ll take the fear and the troubles if it means this much happiness and excitement in the end!

 

 

China Journal Post 12 - Beijing Photos

Here are just some more random photos I took.

These guys seriously need to work on their rock art work.  These are supposed to be animals, I think.

The picture below is just inside the Forbidden City.

 

Below is a view from the Forbidden City towards the hill we climbed.  That pavilion thing at the top is where the Buddha statue is (no pictures of the statue we allowed). 

Below is Elizabeth and I… with a door.  It’s a cool door, okay?  Notice the “threshold” by our feet.  It’s said in Chinese culture that if you go to Hell when you die, you come back as a ghost to haunt this world.  So, when you die, they tie your feet together.  Then they build doors with this threshold thinking that you can’t jump over them as a ghost with your feet tied together.  So when you see these step things, you know that only good things are able to get inside.  Girls are supposed to step over them right foot first.  Boys use the left.  We asked why and the answer was simply, “tradition.”

 Then "Fiddler on the Roof" got stuck in my head.

China Journal Post 11 - Arrival in Beijing

We got in around 10:30 at night.  During the drive to our hostel I was introduced to the severe lack of a driving system in Beijing.  If I wasn’t so tired I probably would have been frightened.  Three lane roads turn into four lane roads, magically.  Lines on the road are more guidelines than actual rules.  Blinkers and signals are just pretty lights for decoration.  And the horn is a fun musical instrument!

We arrived, in one piece, to our hostel where I was pleasantly surprised by our room (which had a Western toilet!).  And very nice beds. Well, they actually felt like wooden planks, but it felt great after thirteen hours on a plane!  The view out our window wasn’t exactly glamorous, but hey!  It’s a hostel!  I also got to finally meet Saebra, the girl with whom I’ll be spending the next four months teaching English with. (Yes, I am aware I just ended a sentence with a preposition… I’m teaching spoken English, not grammatical stuff!)

 

 

We went straight to sleep, of course.  We were to begin at Tiananmen Square bright and early the next morning at 7:45am.  It sounds early, but I was bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5am.  Since we had time, we decided to run to the shop across the street where they told us the night before we could buy water! 

 

 

Looks like a pretty normal/cute little shop right?  Well, we went inside, and just as I was going to ask the lady for some shui (water), I heard a grunting just next to me.  There was a naked man sleeping on a bed inside the shop!  I don’t even know which part of that to not italicize!  (PS, look carefully through the window to the right and you’ll see him.  And this picture was taken days later!)  Yep, what a good welcome to China!  ACK! (I left this picture big for your enjoyment)

Well, we did buy our water.  And water is surprisingly cheap here.  Only 4 yuan for a big bottle (you can see them on the ground to the left).  That’s less than a dollar! 

 Then we continued on to Tiananmen!  And the Chinese History Museum (I don’t remember the exact name of it, but all those “National History Museums” basically have the same name).  And we visited the Forbidden City and after that, those who wanted to (which included myself along with my aching tired feet) could climb the hill/mountain to view the Forbidden City from above and see a giant golden Buddha.

 

 

The picture above is me in Tiananmen Square.  Behind me is the entrance to the Forbidden City.  Note the sky.  And the solid gray color.  The smog in Beijing is disgusting.  Always just a solid gray sky.  No clouds.  No bright sunlight.  Just gray.  It’s not always overcast in Beijing as some will tell you.  It’s just smoggy.

China Journal Post 10 - The Flight Over

Remember, these posts are being made by my dad, from material I (Dianna) send him.  He has a tendency to ad lib a bit, too, and since I can't access Blogger from China, I can't edit or censor his, um, poetic license.

You know that saying, a picture is worth a thousand words?  Well… I could easily write a thousand words about each of the pictures I’ve taken here.  And then some!  There is just so much amazing stuff here! I’ll try to keep things interesting to read, but I just want to document everything, even if it’s just for my future self.  I never want to forget the amazing things I’m doing and seeing here.  That said, I will begin.

The thirteen hour flight was very long, obviously.  But very fancy.  I had my own private entertainment center.  This little doohickey had numerous movies and TV Shows to choose from, games to play, and an up to date forecast of how our trip was going. This was particularly nice because despite most everyone in the group flying on the same plane, our seats were not together.

Nearer the end of the flight, I suddenly smelled something horrible.  It smelled as if the guy next to me just had terrible breath and just breathed my way.  Disgusted, I looked away and tried to hold my nose until the smell passed.  Unfortunately, it didn’t.  Moment later I discovered that that horrible smell was to be our dinner.

The food hasn’t improved since.

Yes, I’ll admit.  The food has easily been the worst culture shock I’ve encountered here.  I’d almost say it’s the only one that’s really affected me for bad.  But that’s a different rant for a different time.