Flattered

 My second week of being a foreign teacher is complete and although it did get a little easier other factors made me struggle.  My C1 class went a thousand times better this week because I was prepared for that specific class and I knew what they wanted to do: play games.  I literally only played one game but that kept them entertained for my 30 minute class.  My Parent/Child class was sadly worse this week because the children were very naughty and rowdy, so even if I tried to play games with them they were too rough with one another, so I stopped the games and sat these six little 5 year olds down.  

My upper level classes went almost the same as the first week, but I think the students themselves are becoming more comfortable around me so they are asking more questions.  My C11 class, which is my highest level, is probably my favorite now because it is just me in the classroom teaching eighteen 14-16 year olds about English.  I like making them do role-plays and get into groups because it makes the class go faster and improves their English skills.  They have to read their homework out loud, which of course they don't like, but I think it not only helps their pronunciation but also their ability to see and hear where they made mistakes in their writing.  I also get to hear what they enjoy about English and what they think of me.  A lot of the girls said nice stuff about me (5 male students and 12 female students) like my teacher is very pretty, I love her blue eyes, she is very nice and smart.  I was very flattered to hear these things, but then the boys got up and they said I speak to fast and one even admitted to not liking listening.  Boys are always so critical.  I liked that they said I speak too fast because I actually don't, half the time I repeat myself anyway, but they have to understand they need to be able to listen to a foreigner and start picking up the gist of what I say even if it is too fast, they are higher level so that is one of the things they must begin to learn to do.

China is beautiful, but it also has a lot of pollution you don't realize is there until you start coughing.  That's what happened to me, my body is trying to adapt to the pollution my body is sucking into my lungs, so coughing is what I have been doing since last week.  Now normally, coughing is okay but constant coughing keeps you awake, especially when you're hacking up stuff, so I got very little sleep.  Even with cough medicine, it only soothes it for a bit until the coughing begins.  The coughing makes it very hard to teach, especially with pronunciation and with being loud for the younger children.  Each day on the weekend is a twelve hour day teaching, standing on my feet, so naturally you get very tired, but when your sick it makes it worse.  Thank god my cold didn't come until after classes were over, so now I am spending my days off grading hw, watching series, coughing shit up and blowing my nose.

My roommate went off to Xi'an while I stayed home because of my sickness and also because of the news of violence spreading like wildfire in the cities (which makes me happy I don't teach in a big city).  I needed to go shopping so I waited to around 6:30pm to leave the flat and go to Vanguard (a chinese grocery store).  The store has 3 or 4 levels, but once you pass once you cannot go back down (they have carts, so you can just bring them upstairs by taking the flat escalator, which is magnetized to hold the carts in place).  It's not very hard shopping in China, yes everything is mainly in Chinese, but there are a lot of things that look like the stuff back home and if not you can usually tell what it is just by looking at it.  Something a little disturbing is that babies are allowed to pee on the floors here, so watch out for puddles.  I mainly went to get some drinks (as the only place that sells diet coke is Vanguard) and fruit (pomegranate season is coming!).  While I was buying drinks this young man approached me, I was already nervous about being out alone but this guy made me very tense.  He started speaking to me in broken English while his friends stood by and watched.  I said hello and he asked me my name.  He told me his name was Amos and that he was 23 (a year older than me lol), he knew I taught at Aston (most foreigners in city teach at Aston so it's common for everyone to know where I work) but he wanted to ask me if there was any classes for 23 year olds and I said I didn't know and that he would have to ask the school.  He followed me around for a bit saying if I ever wanted to go out I could call him and that if I ever needed help that he could help me.  I said goodbye to him as he was nice, although also weird.  I realized that many people had been watching him talk to me and I began to understand why.  

Most people don't talk to me because I cannot speak Chinese, but this boy got up the courage to talk to me in my native language.  I had been nervous because I was alone (no one to walk me home) and I didn't know what he had wanted from me, so I was also scared.  He was just being nice and yes, in a way flirting with me, you could tell by his erratic heart beat in his throat and the sweat coating his forehead.  Although I was not interested in this boy, it was flattering.  Here in China many people still have not seen many foreigners, even my children like touching my hair or talking about my eyes.  Boys are the same, they often try to catch my attention by using English words and smiling.  Again it's flattering to be noticed, but I'm honestly not used to it.  In the US there are a lot of blonde blue-eyed girls who are much prettier than I, but here I'm seen as beautiful.  It's definitely a first for me to be admired by women and men wherever I go.

Due to the tension between Japan and China, there has been numerous riots and demonstrations in the larger cities against Japanese citizens and any products that were made by Japan.  Many people have been beaten, even Chinese, because they had been driving a Toyota (Japanese made car).  Tensions have been growing for months in the dispute over ownership of a string of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea called the Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Those came to a head last week when the Japanese government said it was purchasing some of the islands from their private owner to thwart a Japanese politician's plans to buy and develop them.  China reacted angrily, sending marine patrol ships inside Japanese-claimed waters around the islands, which Tokyo has administered since 1972. Some state media urged Chinese to show their patriotism by boycotting Japanese goods and canceling travel to Japan.  The tension continues to thicken as China moves closer to the anniversary of a 1931 incident that Japan used as a pretext to invade Manchuria before World War II.  It is a scary time to be a foreigner here because if China an Japan do not settle this issue, they could definitely go to war within the next year or so.

My schedule has gotten longer as the English Corner classes start up this week on Thursday.  So I will teach two EC classes on Thursday night and one on Friday night.  Also our Mandarin Lessons begin this week so Thursday at 2pm I go for my first hour lesson with my roommate.  I really want to learn Chinese.