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Published: July 24th 2011
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New Teachers in Yangzhou
Buying souvenirs from a street craftsman Photos:
…..summer in Yangzhou, this one at least, is wetter than an English summer, though thankfully warmer. No, I retract that, it's a sticky, humid, wet-blanket warmth, even when the temperature is only in the high 20s. Years of South Australian summers have associated those figures with the relief that comes AFTER the cool change from a heatwave. Mould has started to grow on things like my bamboo chopping board & on a pair of shoes I haven't worn for a while. Paper is hard to write on; soft & damp,the pen seems to get bogged as it makes its weary way across the page.....
…..Summer Camp is one of those complex systems, like the weather or stocks & shares, that runs according to certain pre-determined rules & variables but is ultimately more amenable to being analysed by the mathematics of Chaos Theory. We have a lot of new teachers here, some taking part for some extra money while they're in China, some here only for the camp, arriving from the UK or USA just for the two weeks then returning. Other teachers will stay for the full school year.....
….I have a mixture of students, some
Summer Camp, Yangzhou
My class, B3, Australia from my classes, some from outside the school. There are two Chinese helpers, Wang Yang, (Alex), an art teacher that I met in passing last year, & Li Zi, (Liz), a previous student of the school, now studying to be an interpreter. The kids are naturally boisterous but a really nice bunch.....
…..Danielle, a teacher from Essex, England, has a Powerpoint presentation about the UK to give to the students who rotate around all the State or Country classes to hopefully learn something about our countries of origin. Jeff, one of my really bright Grade 3 students, apart from pointing out that the Isle of Man is associated with Britain, rather than Ireland. He then points out that the flag is not correct. It doesn't have the red cross in the middle. Uh-oh. She didn't check the details. Luckily he's a lovely kid. He's become a star in her eyes.....
…..my presentation about Australia is going well. I have plenty of photos & Australian animals are always popular but before I get to those I make sure they have a mental picture of the size of Australia, about 80% the size of China, then ask how many people
Summer Camp, Yangzhou
Jeff & Lisa holding the flag there are in Oz. I get estimates up to 600,000,000! They are quite staggered to find that the whole country has a smaller population than Shanghai. I also go round the various classes, getting every student to name a different Chinese city bigger than Yangzhou's 4.5 million. Twenty answers only provide a small fraction of the total. Canberra's population of less than 360,000 is also good for a laugh, or maybe a gasp of disbelief.....
…..I'm concerned about having to nominate a sport to do with all the rotating classes after the country presentation. The world's least sporting or competitive person having to coordinate a sports activity almost every day. I end up with four frisbees &, on the morning before the first session have an idea, which I am informed is a reinvention of an existing game, where they have to team up to catch the frisbee but get additional points according to the score written in a marked circle on the ground if they catch it while their foot is in it. It's great. They love it, despite being generally woeful at both throwing & catching.....
…..to give the foreign teachers some respite & to allow
Summer Camp, Yangzhou
Li Zi leading the kids on a Scavenger Hunt in the school grounds the ones who are only here for the Summer Camp to see a little of China there is a day trip to Nanjing, without the kids. The rain is torrential & the many steps to the Sun Yat Sen Mausoleum are miniature waterfalls as thousands of Chinese tourists get out their umbrellas & make the trip. Plastic flip-flops are the most appropriate footwear. I wish I could find some in my size as my walking shoes & socks are by now totally soaked. Umbrella sellers are wearing big smiles & some of our visiting teachers are wearing cheap, plastic raincoats from the same stall &, with pointed hoods raised, are walking through the downpour like a stand, (if that's the correct collective noun), of large, green condoms.....
…..evening activities include Bingo, which has to be heard to be believed. The sound of several hundred children worked up to a frenzy as the numbers are called is an Occupational Health & Safety issue. The “Skit night” is an interesting mixture, a great dance routine by one class,some in & some out of tunes songs from others, a potted history of the USA in unintelligible English but the essence of which
appears to be an Adidas bag, an American football, a massacre & the signing of the constitution. My team do a good job of our three song medley, Hello, Goodbye, Waltzing Matilda, (with actions, not always totally coordinated), & the Jungle Book Song. We get compliments from the other foreign teachers.....
…..the excursion with the students falls on a hot day, no rain but with debilitating humidity. We are taken on buses to what appears to be a derelict prison camp. Hundreds of students are funnelled into classrooms where they make a small model boat from precut pieces of balsa wood, then make jaozi, (dumplings), having only rinsed their hands, as usual there being no soap. Lunch, similar to the school cafeteria, identical stainless steel trays & long queues. The afternoon is far too hot for the obstacle course but they are all lined up to take a turn anyway while teachers find what little shade is available & call for a truckload of bottled water. After a spell in another classroom making small ornaments out of tiny cubes of coloured plasticene we make our weary way back to school.....
…..it's Sunday & the last full day of
Summer Camp, Yangzhou
After the Scavenger Hunt. the camp. The children have bonded really well with their teachers & classmates. I have seen the shy ones grow in confidence & the confident ones take the lead in class activities. It's been interesting that the students from our school are markedly more advanced in their spoken English than the students from other schools. They're all comfortable with the foreign teachers. If there is an odd man out in my class it's probably Peter. He spends a lot of time playing with his classy mobile phone, looking up things on the internet or playing games. He is a very talented pianist & although his English isn't good, because he doesn't pay attention, I suspect he's very bright.....
…..my Chinese teacher, Alex, is getting used to my poor Chinese & is more communicative now. Li Zi (Liz), my student helper, is great, laid back, quietly efficient, helpful. It's made the week easier than it might have been. Still a hard slog at times though.....
…..Peter, (the Australian teacher here for the past two years), was young enough to be my son, at any rate, his father was my age. Despite this Peter has handed over my inheritance It's
amazing, even with our simple lives here, how stuff accumulates & when you need to move to another city, (Suzhou), to find accommodation & study, then you need to clear out the unnecessary & concentrate on the essential. Thus I now have small fridge, as yet unplugged, a set of kitchen knives but wait, there's more. CDs, books, etc. I had to press him to accept half the purchase price of the guitar amplifier, very useful for the coffee shop gigs. Thanks very much, Pete.....
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