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Published: August 23rd 2019
Actually, I haven’t learnt a whole lot about education but having talked to the teachers there there are some interesting facts. Our experience has been in private language schools, and there are some common threads.
Most of the teachers are women, young, in their twenties. It seems that all of the private language schools have cctv in the classrooms, and the parents can watch what goes on from the reception area. The grandparents are the worst, asking why the teacher isn’t asking their offspring more questions or showing them more attention. Kids learn English in school but the lessons are very boring and the teachers use Chinese all the time, probably due to their own level of English. They do sport, football, badminton, table tennis, volleyball, but after school the emphasis is on homework and they haven’t got much to say about freetime activities.
We have had such fun with the teachers who acted as stewards for us. They have a great sense of humour, brought us tea and gave us biscuits and snacks from their own bags, and wanted to take selfies with us. They haven’t got instagram but use apps like faceU which make everyone look 18.
Photos are a big thing here and everyone seems to love taking them and being in them. An older man in a restaurant the other night was trying to sneakily take a photo of the 5 of us eating. Probably there had never been a non Chinese person in there before. I waved him over to take an official one and he was so pleased. And last night walking around in the area there was a lady with a baby in the most hilarious little buggy made of woven plastic, no padding, and I wanted a photo of it so asked the mum if I could and she took the baby out and handed him to me (he was not happy about this situation) and wanted to be in it too. Later, there were 2 cute little girls with their mum and again, no problem having a photo. She said thank you to me! All the parents and grandparents we see are desperate for their children to say hello in English too us and are so smiley when we engage with them. It’s not at all like I expected. I thought they would be watchful and unfriendly. We have had
lots of offers of help from people who can speak a little English. Imagine that happening in the UK! I really hope I can come here again. It feels really safe. When we asked the guy at school about the phone charging places at the shopping centre and weren‘t people worried their phones would be stolen out of them he seemed genuinely puzzled at the concept.
Last night was our last night here and we made a second attempt to find the elusive night market. This time we were successful. Turn right out of the hotel and it is NOT the second right as the receptionist told us, go all the way to the first major junction and then turn right and after a dark bit it starts with watermelon stalls, then a whole long line of garage sized simple restaurants, food takeaway places and the worst clothes ever. The takeaway places which were most popular had selections of things on sticks, vegetables and unidentified items. I went in for a closer look and they smelled terrible. Leslie thinks it might have been stinky tofu, which I am keen to try, but it wasn’t worth risking when we have
a travel day tomorrow. People smiled and waved at us.
I have really enjoyed this area, no frills and a feel of normal (not rich) people their daily lives, making the most of outside space on the street. The apartment blocks around, where a lot of them presumably live, are up to 40 floors high. Really hope that the lifts are reliable!
Tomorrow is a big travel day. We are taking the fast train to Beijing South Train Station, 856 miles in under 4 hours, so this will be the fastest train so far. Then a taxi will meet us and the drive to the hotel to the east of Beijing will be another 90 minutes.
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