First week in Shunde, Daliang

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So the day of reckoning finally came and we were pretty much flung in at the teaching deep end by having to take a one and a half hour class of twenty one boisterous 5 – 7 year olds and their parents! To say we were nervous is an understatement, especially when we couldn’t even have a conversation with them to build up a bit of a rapport. Sign language only goes so far, and some of them were so nervous a little reassuring pep talk would have helped, but never mind. As it turns out, the kids responded really well to us and the language barrier wasn’t as big an issue as we both thought it would be. We both have a Chinese teaching assistant in the class with us, so that makes it a lot easier, but when you have an excited Chinese kid coming up to you and yapping away in their own language, it’s not full proof. Let’s just say there’s been a lot of smiling and thumbs up and high 5’s going on. During the week we only work evenings classes for one and a half hour classes at a time, which is longer than we expected, but actually goes quicker than anticipated. The weekends are the hardest part, as we have 7 hours of lessons on a Saturday and 6 hours of lessons on a Sunday. 2 of these are 3 hour classes, so it’s trying to find a lesson plan that is going to last long enough to fill in the time but isn’t going to bore them to tears! The classes range from kids of primary school age right up to 16 years old, so it’s a mixed bag, and each have their challenges as well as their advantages. But so far, we seem to be muddling through. There’s not been any disasters to speak of, and the kids seem to have warmed to us quite quickly. My worst class so far has been the youngest kids, who have an attention span of about 2 minutes! One of the kids is rather boisterous and unruly, so it’s been a challenge to try and keep his focus, stop him from running out the classroom or breaking something whilst at the same time trying to keep the attention of the other kids in the class (and stop them following his example). I’m sure teachers all over the world can empathise with that scenario! Hopefully now we know all the pupils and we have an idea of their levels and what works well and what doesn’t (I’ve realised that ‘mingle’ exercises do not work AT ALL whereas picture charades are a brilliant gap filler) then hopefully next week should be easier.

Apart from teaching, we’ve managed to get out and about and see some more of the area and what it has to offer. The weather has also been really pleasant with sun and clear blue skies for the last 3 days. Although the humidity has been about 90% so it’s not really ideal for walking around in. Our new favourite local haunt is Starbucks (yes, its clichéd but everyone needs a slice of home!) where we’ve become friends with Jerry, our experienced barista and new BFF. The staff speak English and love practicing on us, and even the customers who drink here like to say hello too. We don’t feel so out of place here either so when we need a pick me up, it’s where we head (and I really can’t live without my Frappuccinos). We’ve also discovered the hot food counter in Walmart (I think I should get a job advertising for them) which is truly awesome. Basically they have a selection of about 4 or 5 different noodles or rice, and you choose what you want and then they heat it up on a hot plate and mix it with veggies, chilli sauce, soy sauce and an egg to make the most delicious tasting rice/noodle dish ever. And all for 6 yuan which is about 50p. A bargain you’ll agree, so that’s where we‘ve been going for our lunch, and the little women who works there knows us now and always greets us with a big smile. We’re planning on meeting up with some more ex-pats for a drink and something to eat later on this week, so hopefully that will expand our repertoire even more.

We went to Tesco for our shopping this week, and it was definitely a gold mine of a shop. We found pork mince and pizza!! And also tinned sweetcorn, pasta, potatoes, wholemeal seeded bread, flour, and baked beans, yippee! Okay so I know it’s basically carb heaven, and also not exactly very varied, but to us finding these things has been a complete delight. We tried the baked beans yesterday, and well, they were probably on a par with tesco value beans, perhaps even worse than that, but they were still baked beans so we’re not going to complain too much. For dinner this week, we’ve had: pizza, stir fried vegetables and rice, pork meatballs (not testicles) and pasta in a tomato sauce and Spanish omelette. So I’m not panicking any more that we’ll have to survive on fish heads and chicken livers.

Finally, we took a day trip to Guangzhou on our day off (yes, a day off woohoo) to get out of Shunde and see some more of the wider area, as so far we’ve only been from our flat to our work to walmart or tesco and back – a radius of about 1 square mile! Thankfully one of the T.A’s at school offered to give us some help on how to get to Guangzhou, as it is the equivalent distance of about Stirling to Glasgow away, and no one speaks much English. She told us what trains to get, how to get to the train station, and even wrote out instructions in Chinese for us to give to taxi drivers and the ticket conductor at the train station so they would understand where we were going. She also advised us to take our passports so we could buy the train tickets- a valuable piece of advice, as without them we’d have gotten nowhere. Not sure why we need them but we did. Susan- you’re a legend and we owe you!

Anyway, we’d been warned Guangzhou wasn’t actually that nice and very industrial, so we weren’t sure what to expect but went with an open mind anyway. We actually really enjoyed or day there! The bullet train only takes 10 minutes to get there, and then the metro system is in English and in Chinese, so it was easy enough to navigate around. And no one bats an eyelid at you here- they’re much more used to seeing westerners or other cultures. Our first stop off was at Yueizu Park, which is huge and has several temples and lakes inside the grounds. We only made it as far as two temples, but it was a lovely tranquil place to go (after you’ve climbed the 1000 steps to get there) and there were loads of older Chinese men just chilling playing checkers everywhere. All the old women were also gathered in pockets across the park practicing their tai chi, but mostly just having a blather. Next we headed down to Hainan Square, where apparently most of the goods around the world with a ‘made in china’ sticker are actually produced. Some of the streets you walk down are littered with stalls and a million sellable goods including shoes and furniture. There’s people and objects everywhere and it’s chaotic. We quickly make our way further south towards the river and then up towards the main shopping district. On the way, we walk by a restaurant that looks unusual and really busy so we go in to have a little nosy. What we are greeted with completely takes us aback. All around the edges of the room are tables for diners, and in the centre is what can only be described as a live fish market. There are tanks with every type of fish possible, as well as live snakes, turtles, dried shark fins and even crocodile! The diners basically point to something they take a fancy to and the waitresses send the order to the chef to kill and cook. Oh and of none of that floats your boat, then you can also choose some snake heads in brine or jellied wasps. It’s a bit too crazy for our delicate, sheltered taste buds so we kindly refuse the offer of crocodile from the waiter and make our way back outside.

We head up to the shopping district and on the way pass a shop which is selling coconut milk straight from the shell. It’s only about 80p so we think why the hell not give it a go. The shop keeper takes the whole fruit and chops off the top with the largest butchers knife I have ever seen (that’s not a knife, THIS is a knife) and plonks a straw in the top. The juice inside is absolutely amazing and so refreshing! Although it’s slightly impractical as you walk around a bustling shopping district with a camera and guide book. The shops are all very westernised and we pass at least 3 McDonalds as we walk along. To be honest though, I really love our own little shopping mall in Shunde, so we’re not too bothered about buying anything here. We head back up to the metro and then make our way back home, to our own little oasis in the middle of Chinese suburbia. Back to school tomorrow where it starts all over again! Who knows what to expect next…

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