Expect Anything to Happen While in China

Normally, each Aston English school will host a trip for all its teachers, CT's (Chinese Teachers) and FT's (Foreign Teachers); usually this trip is hiking up a mountain together, but my school wanted to be different so we hosted the 1st Annual Autumn Sports Day.  I was really excited for this get together because I remember when I first came to China and met everyone for the first time, I had been so nervous! Now, though, I knew all the CT's and wanted an opportunity to mix with them outside of school.  

China, in general, is usually very unorganized, so never expect anything to go smoothly and that goes for our sports day.  We all arrived thinking we would just play whatever games we wanted, but no we soon were divided into teams using colors and letters and numbers (how did this work? it really didn't there were teams of eight and teams of five and even a team of two).  I was the Blue team/H team with some of my fellow CT's and a guy who works in another office for Aston.We all thought we were going to play badminton first, but they changed their minds and shuffled us to the bowling lanes where we waited to get our clown shoes (luckily they had my size I'm a 43 in China).  

Once the game began I realized that most of the Chinese people here didn't know how to play, most ran so fast they fell onto their bums.  I began showing them how to bowl correctly and after a few tries my team was decent.  I hadn't bowled in about 10 years maybe more, but I remembered the gist of it.  I was pretty good, I scored an 86 overall, which was the highest score on my team.  

After bowling we moved on to playing badminton, which I had never played, but soon I too got the hang of it.  We were playing hard trying to win against other teams, when they announced this was just practice.  After I heard that I took a break and played some ping pong with a fellow FT, which I was horrible at because I always hit the ball to hard.  

Once practice was over they lined us up and had us do a relay race where we would get a balloon from one end then once at the finish line blow it up then pop them when everyone was finished running, we got 2nd place in that race.

Finally, the badminton competition! We picked two of our best players, which of course wasn't me, to go into the championship round.  We almost lost the last round, but we pulled through and managed to steal 1st place.  We were awarded with gold medals and plaques, which was totally awesome.  The next day I was so tired and sore I could barely move.

Yesterday, all the FT's were invited to go to a new restaurant opening downtown and since the person who owns Aston is the owner of the new restaurant some of us were expected to make an appearance.  The new restaurant was very big and the ceremony was super nice.  Many government officials came to bless the new restaurant and they even brought very extravagant gifts, like the jade dragon in the picture.  I was completely undressed, as none of us knew it was going to be such a big deal, so I looked like I was 6.  They even had a ribbon cutting and two rounds of fireworks.

It took us 2 hours to get food, because the restaurant was so busy and the owners wanted to stare at us.  We couldn't understand a lot of the things that were being said around the table, but most times someone would translate for us.  The restaurant serves hot pot, which I'm not very keen on because it never settles right in my stomach, but I ate it anyway.  Near the end of the meal we were given VIP discount cards for whenever we decide to return.  It was a cool day, but one where most of us nearly starved.

2 Months in China

It has been exactly 2 months since I have arrived in China.  It's hard to believe I haven't been here for longer than that as it feels that way, especially when working with the children every weekend.  China is becoming colder with each day that passes and I am learning I get sick quicker and easier here, than I did back home in the US.  You have to be extremely careful what you eat on the streets because you can get a bad batch of something and be best friends with the toilet for the next 24 hours.  This has happened twice to me in the last two weekends, one was some bad noodles I got off the street and the other was a Subway sandwich that had bad dressing on it.  You never know which will make you sick, Chinese food or American food or how long you will be sick.  Medicine in China is pretty easy to locate as there are pharmacies everywhere, but the difficult part is most of the medicine is only in Chinese, so for people who don't read Chinese we don't know what we are buying when they point us to something.  

Also Chinese medicine isn't that strong, as they believe drinking warm water cures everything that makes you sick.  I shouldn't say warm water, it's more like boiling hot water.  I don't know how Chinese people drink such hot water, even hot orange juice.   I've had a constant cold since I have been here because of the dry winter weather and no heating in the apartment (they are installing a heater soon, I believe).  The cold that I have is probably the worst sinus infection that I have ever had, I literally have neon yellow snot, but besides blowing my nose a lot I feel fine; my roommate on the other had to go to the hospital to get medicine for his sinus infection.

Halloween isn't celebrated in many countries besides America, so it's very rare to see Chinese people putting up decorations and wearing costumes.  But, since I teach at an English school they put up lots of decorations and everyone planned a Halloween night for the children to come enjoy.  I was in charge of a game which the children would try to eat a cookie or a piece of bread as fast as they could, whilst it was tied to a string and hung above their heads.  It was quite a cool experience, and most of the kids dressed up for the occasion.  Us foreign teachers decided on Halloween night we would have a scary movie night with lots of candy and good company, nine showed up and the other was sick, but we watched The Orphan and Paranormal Activity 1.  The movie night went to about 1:30am which in China means everything is closed, but even though everything was closed China's streets are always alive with lights from the buildings and taxi's looking for late-comers.  To my surprise when I got back to my apartment the gate was completely closed, so I had to climb it then jump over it.  Once over, without falling might I add, I felt like a kid who was coming home after curfew was up / a spy going to collect information / a burglar; it was a pretty cool experience.  I watched Kung Fu Panda 2 till I fell asleep.

My two new roommates have been doing great.  It gets quite cold, so I bought them a heating pad which also comes in handy when I am cold.  I have built them many homes, but since it is so cold most of the time they are sleeping.

My new kindergarden classes are so adorable, I wish I had pictures to show you how cute they are.  Most of the time the classes are very well behaved and they love when I step into the room, which makes teaching the best thing in the world.  But there are times when the class is too big and they children are too noisy, that teaching becomes difficult and frustrating.  Children are naturally noisy and energetic, but when there isn't a lot of space for the kids to move around or do activities its hard to control them.  Chinese classes in general are packed full of children, so much so that the children never have a real chance to know their teachers or even their fellow classmates, this goes for any grade level.  I believe the US is starting to become like China is this way because classes are becoming fuller and some children are being left behind (no pun intended for Bush's - "No Child Left Behind: campaign).  Sadly, with as many people as there are today children will be left behind as there isn't enough room for everyone anymore.

I did a promotion this week, to make up for the hours I missed last week whilst I was sick, but this was no ordinary promotion.  I went to this really nice school, dressed in my new uniform: angry bird sweater, with my flash cards, ball and hammers ready to use for teaching the kids some new things.  I didn't need any of those things.  They gave me a witch hat and told me I would be speaking to a large group of children about Halloween in America.  In my mind I was thinking like, "Okay, fifty students at the most." Oh, was I wrong.  There was a bout 1,000 students dressed up for their school's Halloween day and I was given a microphone to talk to them.  

My voice had already been shitty, but with a microphone I'm sure I sounded like a man.  There was so many children staring at me while I told them about Halloween and asked select students to say something in English about Halloween.  When the children began running to get some candy from me, that's when I knew I was in trouble, the kids were like groups of piranha's or vultures when they saw that candy.  

They began a huge parade around their outside courtyard, where I would great children with high-fives and or candy.  I was so nervous I even danced to some of the Lady Gaga songs with the children.  When i tried to give out candy it never worked and I would nearly be pulled down by the children for a piece.  I then sat down to watch the teachers put on a performance using their swords and music from Mario Party and Gangman Style.  I said goodbye to the children and took some pictures with the teachers.  The school principal gave me 100 RMB and the teacher's class gave me a plant as a thank you.  It was a hell of an adventure, probably something I never would have volunteered to do back home, but here I didn't have time to think I just reacted which made it a pretty awesome day overall.