Blogs from Dongbei, China, Asia - page 8

In about ten minutes I taught him more than he learned in two days of training. Ten minutes. The thing that people don't understand is it takes a brainless person to learn how to pick out a game for a class based on a list saying "this game is for this class" and to figure out how to follow directions for a survey or mingling that is written how to do it exactly in the book, or even to teach someone they need to do recitation, teach vocabulary, sentence structures and dictation in a class. But what someone really needs taught to them before they teach is how to teach. What to let them do if they're good kids and what to make them do if they're bad. How to teach them vocabulary and sentence structure ... read more

being 5 days in dalian was a break from travelling just right in the middle of my journey. meeting someone you know already for quite a long time - namely bianca - here in the outer most eastern part of china was a nice experience. since bianca had to work all day long i had all the days for me on my own. well, dalian is indeed not the most chinese city i have seen up to now. actually it's the most un-chinese city i know - er, at least in china. streets are very clean, houses are european or russian style and i thing even the traffic seemed to be more controlled than anything i have seen in the last month. people are also not the same here than in the rest of china. they ... read more

Of all the words I can think of to describe Joan two come to mind: classist and hypocritical. I never really thought about being classist too much until now. I mean sure, at school there were always my friends who complained about the rich kids who wore Abercrombie and Fitch and how snobby and immature rich kids can be. Although I calmly explained without trying to shove my money in their faces that not all rich kids were like that and that not all of those kids were rich. But this is different. "And you, do you have a boyfriend?" "Well, uh ... kind of." "Is he Chinese?" "Yeah." "I knew it the way your Chinese improved so quickly. What does he do? Is he a teacher like you?" I'm eating so I motion scissors near ... read more

¨Let's go hon, it's time to go.¨ The boys walk towards the door with their stuff. "I'm drunk. I want to drink more.¨ Camillo says pulling me back. I want to play more,¨he calls as I continue to pull my stuff together. I want to dance.¨ "I want to go home" I reply to him. This pattern continues for a while. The boys have put their stuff down. I've gone from being the only one wanting to dance to literally not being able to dance. They've played the same song four times. The CD's on repeat. I can no longer dance to the same song but he continues on as if it's his first time hearing it. "Maybe I'll go outside and do some work while I wait and they'll understand," I think to myself. I ... read more

Hi Lo from the girl you all haven´t heard from for a little while. I just went out to dinner, starving and losing my voice from having a cold and having so many classes in a row. I went out for ban fan underneath my apartment. Ban fan is literally mixed meal - a bunch of veggies and an egg mixed with some spices and rice. I tend to go to the same place to get the same thing. I have my ban fan place, my noodles place, my rice noodles place, my jaod-zi place and a couple other plaes. It's strange that these places sell other things but I never tend to get the other things, no matter how many other things there are or how good they are. It's pretty strange. I had a ... read more