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Published: February 21st 2011
Everything besides my current dial-up internet configuration at my place seems to be flying by! I just completed my second week of classes yesterday, and am celebrating my first month in China today by starting to teach at the local public school, Shiyan Elementary. I hear it’s a third-grade class with 30-40 kids, which is a change from the 5-16 student classes I have at Shane English School. I’m actually looking forward to seeing what kind of shape and condition the public school is in, even though my colleague and senior teacher Neil (from South Africa), who I am taking classes over from, says it will be short-lived and 'to hope you don’t need to use the bathroom'. If you know me, then you know that I can assimilate well into almost any situation, and with nearly everyone. Very adaptable, is an understatement.
My classes are quite interesting, and some of their English names are as well. With Chinese names being so hard to pronounce, the school (usually their first English class teacher) gives each student an English name. All the kids in my classes are so sweet and nice, and are so warm and welcoming every time I walk into
class. So I do a little dance for them or something, and get them relaxed and motivated to begin another fun English lesson. Some of the names of my students include: Cherry Pie (big little kid with red cheeks), Lucy2 & Mary2 (there is another Lucy and Mary in the class so they just throw a 2 on the end), Ford (gives me candy every class, and his pockets are always stuffed with candy), Bart, Flower, Michelle, Jim (doesn’t like to be called Jimmy because he says Jim sounds older, bigger), Raven (with more than typical almond-shaped eyes,she looks just like the bird/she’s a quiet sweetheart, only girl in class with 9 other crazy 9-10 y.o. boys), (Come on) Eileen, Jackson, Liam, Abby (Road), Mary (had a little lamb), Skye (High), William (Shakespeare or Bill), Enya, Della….etc. So there is usually a song or theme I can tie into their names, and I’ll share it with them often.
So after completing four days of training and two days of observation, the school provides a pretty solid structure of how they want the hour and a half class broken down. We start with attendance, then a warmer activity to get them
First day of class
My living room has this colorful ceiling light that changes colors- which is way coolactive and up, then review past units words and sentence structure, play a game, then introduce new words with flash cards, and writing tougher words to pronounce on board, and repeating them as much as is needed for kids to say…..th-ick or th-in. The ‘th’ can be tough for them. There is a ten minute break. Then we play games, drill, learn new sentence structure, role play with characters in book, and finish class by listening to cd, which has a dialogue section, and listen and fill in section. This is how most of the classes are formatted for 3-10 year olds. It’s interesting to point out, when classes finish, how busy the hallways get with parents and grandparents picking up students; very un-spatial, over-populated, congested, like China. But I’ve already adapted to that, so it’s not bothersome anymore,
My two older classes, 11-12 y.o. and 13-15 y.o., get to stray away from the book and we can discuss various topics that are introduced in the book. I bring up an array of subjects and ideas, and the main concentration is for them to be speaking full sentences in English. We have much more intellectual conversations in these classes and
Lantern Festival
When tons of people started to ask me to take a photo with them don’t play games because they are too old for that, and wouldn’t want to. I really get to open their minds up to a bunch of topics and things that they surely wouldn’t get in their public school. The older kids get a lot of homework from their public school, even on month-long New Years break, so I need to really push them and forcefully lead discussion topics because they come to class tired. I focus on getting them to say full sentences, and share stuff, but it’s hard. They are very private people, and definitely not even close to as open of a society we are back at home. With 90% of families only having one child, they consider cousins like brothers and sisters, and uncles and aunts usually live by or in neighboring town. Chinese can have more than one child, but they have to pay an expensive social tax. In very rural places like as for farmers etc., additional kids can be undetected. Like in the States and here, the authorities’ usually only want to bother people who can afford to pay the fine or ticket, so it’s no use bothering a peasant farmer or an illegal
Sunset from my living room
"When the lights go down on Dongyng" that has nothing.
We just had a little shake-up at the school on Saturday though, three teachers left the school without any notice or warning. Liam and Debbie, who were a couple from Scotland and didn’t socialize much with any of us teachers, just left. I had heard from a friend the night before, but kept it quiet until the news broke at lunchtime Saturday in the teacher’s room. Then, a brand new teacher who had spent six days in ‘the Dong’, vanished overnight after e had just found her new place to live. She was from the Valley of the Sun (Tempe), had a 7 y.o. back at home, and was already telling us excuses at the BBQ place we go to after work most days why it might not work out. Main reasons were that Dongying wasn’t developed enough like her past teaching experience in S. Korea, her place was dirty/dusty, and it was hard for her kid to visit China. She had come to the karaoke place (KTV) with us, Lantern Festival, but I can’t say I was too surprised about her disappearance. I told my East City School Manager Maggie (who I sing ‘Maggie May’ to
Jeb and I, Lantern Festival
Jeb is Assistant Welfare Officer, to Tony all time) when I came into the room singing Bob Marley “Exodus”, “There’s nowhere but forward you can go from here”, “Life goes on without them (Blakely)”, “Hopefully Shane School recruiting can learn from this”, “Shit happens”, “But we’re all still here, so ‘love the one you’re with’”! Like everything and everywhere, China is not for everyone. So us teachers are as valuable as ever right now to the school that is growing. Leverage.
The day after we closed down the KTV at midnight, I went in to talk to our school Administrator /Scheduler Randal (who makes our weekly schedules and helps us with various stuff like reimbursements etc.), and he turns around and has a black-eye, cuts on his face, and looks badly beat up. Supposedly, he got robbed a couple hours after we left in our separate directions after leaving KTV. He was going to meet other friends at a BBQ, and invited only me, but I declined the invitation instead to go home and get ready for next day of school. Depending upon who you ask, there are several stories about how it happened. He told Maggie a cab driver robbed him, but that is unlikely. Dongying
Just outside my complex
Nice man selling fruit from a truck, stray dog that runs around neighborhood, and girl is really a safe place, and those types of occurrences are very rare. Randall is a little, funny looking dude, and being over-served, he probably ran his mouth somewhere and suffered the consequences. My heart dropped though that morning I came in and saw him in that condition. He is such a nice and happy guy, but was badly beaten-up and had his wallet (with 300 Kua) stolen from him. I told him I was there for him if he needed anything. He is improving everyday, with the help of school staff who keep his cuts sterile etc. KTV’s solicit prostitution as well, as the girls walk around/hover around the lobby trying to hook you. The actual private Karaoke rooms are great for parties, singing and having a good time. Two microphones, big screen, fruit and beverages, and large selection of songs.
We just wrapped up the month-long Chinese New Year celebration, with the Lantern Festival. Now this was a world-class cultural experience! It took place just six blocks from my pad, so it was cool to see my slow area catch fire and welcome tens of thousands of people from all over Dongying to Qingyeng Lake. The lake, which
Guy and his hawk
We met this guy when we were going out in Beijing one night. That's his pet hawk! is frozen over, has a beautiful path around it and there were light decorations all over, and fireworks going off in all different directions. We were lighting off our own fireworks on the frozen lake as well. The main firework show was amazing though, with high and colorful fireworks. I must have posed for 40-50 pictures with my panda hat on and as one of the only Americans there. There were old and young people alike wanting a picture with PdMAC. It was fun to be a celebrity for the night. Besides the obvious celebration marking then end of the New Years celebration/holiday, many people were lighting a candle in a lantern, saying a wish for the New Year, and sending it into the lantern-filled sky. It was a beautiful sight to see.Check out the video on this blog! I had seen a bunch of low-flying satellite looking things earlier, but later is when I realized those were what we were actually celebrating on that evening. I attended the event with a bunch of teachers, teacher’s assistants (Chinese TA’s who are bilingual and each teacher has a TA for every class) and some School Administrators (Randal and Jeb). I actually
New friends at hostel
Moon (Pakistani) and Gloria (Scotland) ran into one of my favorite students. Kerry, and her father at the celebration. So he took a couple of photos of us, and she showed up to class telling everyone that she had seen teacher at the festival.
It has been an eventful first month in China to say the least. It’s still very cold, and I wear my woolen long underwear (top and bottom) everyday underneath my clothes. But it’s still very dry as well, and six Chinese regions, including Shandong, are experiencing its worst drought in 60 years. Tea and rice industries are being directly affected, and the government is helping to subsidize farmer’s losses by giving them relief money and lowering the cost of water for them. After a month of waking up to loud, echoing firecrackers at 7-8 am, today is the first day kids are back at school, and I didn’t wake up feeling like I was in Sarajevo. It was a bit scary for a couple days after I watched Saving Private Ryan, all the firecrackers (which symbolize scaring away bad demons) and car alarms sounded like a real war zone.
-Daily cab rides to and from school are 7-8 Kua (RMB),
Buddies in front of club
Adam(Australia), Larry(Cameroon) and Neil (S. Africa) which is like $1.5.
-Meals at my favorite local rice and noodle place (actually known as Arab food) are $1.5-$2, but more expensive at BBQ’s, seafood places, etc.
-At the place half a mile from my place, the family who runs the restaurant, and like many of the smaller businesses (restaurants and general stores), live above/in back of the restaurant. So in the evening walking home or going out, peering in a local store/business, the usual family of three is sitting down at what usually looks like too short of chairs, eating dinner together in their shop
-The father sits with me every meal I eat there, even though we cannot communicate, we are making improvements
-I work today then have Tuesday and Wednesday off!
-Tomorrow is going away party for Senior teacher Neil and Natalie, who have completed 2 and 1 year at school. We will be receiving new Shane English School ‘Spies like Us’ caps, and feasting on an entire lamb….there is a lot of lamb dishes here, including lamb soup
-My buddy Nazzer visited me for two nights during Lantern Festival
-Internet connection is going to be upgraded at the end of the month, when I complete
Found a Corona in Beijing
Some California guys I ran into in Soho District, Beijing first month of service
-China/Chinese are not to practical, and common sense does not make sense to them, nor do they follow it
-But 95% of the citizens are so nice and friendly, which definitely makes up for some of their un-practical ways of living
-On the road, cars are constantly driving the wrong way/against the correct direction of traffic
-Police drive around with their lights on, just pretty much making their presence known
-The big thing and morale of that is: you can do whatever you like really, afterall, it’s the Peoples Republic of China. But if you fuck up or have an accident, they’ll use everything dumb you did against you. So if you were speeding, not insured (which is very common), drunk, being too risky (like 80% of drivers here), you’ll pay for your mistake.
-With that said, I’m surprised there are not more accidents. I guess they are good, risky drivers. Yes, that is possible. Defensive driving, as in the States, is practiced by only 5-10% of people out here
-My 3 bedroom apartment is so warm and cozy, I love it. I set-up a desk in the living room so I can have a proper desk/workstation
-A lot of daily things just develop/happen differently than we are used to in the Western World, so like we say in Mexico a lot of time, we say, ‘well that’s just China’
-I love all my students! At least the ones who want to learn, work hard, and have fun in class.
-F…book- Thanks to tunnelmein.com (many sites like this now), I can check my f…book but I can’t respond to any messages, post on walls, or update status.
-I love re-heating rice/noodle/dumpling dishes from lunch or whatever in my wok, usually for dinner or late night. Serving sizes are large here.
I’m going to head down to my local eatery and get some rice dish for breakfast before I leave for public school teaching at 1 pm. Then I have another Shane class later tonight. Clearly, 90% of Shane students families are pretty well-off for China, so public school could be a wake-up call.
All my best and love from the most populous country in the world, which is home to nearly 15% of the world’s population.
-
PdMAC
Thanks to the International dateline, I wake up everyday while everyone in the States is starting their evening festivities from the day before 16 hours difference.
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Donna Stein
non-member comment
Happy for you
Thanks so much for keeping us updated. It sounds so interesting and exciting for you. You look great and happy. Your place looks very nice as well. I think this is such a wonderful experience for you. Love