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Published: July 27th 2010
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Yes, it's true
My nine year old student is more mature than me My time in China is almost at an end. Soon I will be leaving for the States (September 8th, everybody!) and leaving behind many friends and warm memories of a strange country. Most of my 外国的 friends have gone home either for the summer or permanently. If I do go out, it’s with my 中国的 friends, but none of us have much free time. I’ve been working about 60 hours per week, so I haven’t had much time for any fun. I don’t have many amusing stories for my blog, but I’ll do my best.
One of my favorite students this year has been Amy, a nine year old girl with an upper-intermediate level of English. She’s a quirky energetic child. When I first started teaching her I couldn’t figure out what she liked. She didn’t like arts and crafts in any form. She didn’t like cute fuzzy things like most girls do. It took a couple of months before we fell into a good routine (I was teaching her four hours every weekend). She likes learning about history and science. One of her favorite historical figures is Abraham Lincoln. She says things like “You know, time passes so quickly,
Tiffany.” and “Final exams are next week and I’m under so much pressure.” One minute she’s talking like a thirty year old woman and the next she’s jumping on the sofa. I taught her to play Yahtzee and it’s now her favorite game. I also inadvertently taught her an American expression. During one game I only got 15 points for my Chance. I grumbled about it and she said, “Well, it’s better than spit in your eye!” Kids really are little pitchers! Her dad loves to talk to me about politics. That’s usually my least favorite subject, but listening to someone with a completely different upbringing and background is really interesting. Her mom doesn’t speak as much English, but tries her best to talk to me and is very sweet. They took me out to dinner a couple of weeks ago. I ate something rather tasty. They couldn’t tell me what it was, only that it was good for women and might be from a frog. It was served in a baked papaya with coconut milk and honey. I liked it. I’m still not quite sure what it was, but it may have been frog ovaries.
Because of the
It's my bedhead
Touch it again and you'll lose that hand high humidity I never try to style my hair. Attempting to force my hair to do anything other than what is wants to do would be a losing battle. The state of my hair usually ranges between decent to disgusting brillo pad. Decent gets to stay down and brillo pad gets a ponytail or, in case of ultra brillo, a tight French braid. But one day a couple of weeks ago I woke up with miraculously perfect banana curls the whole way around my head. It looked as if I had slept in rollers. My only thought was, “Whoohoo! I don’t have to wash my hair!” Soon after I arrived at work, however, I was wishing I had put it up anyway. Nic, my cheerful but occasionally tactless coworker exclaimed, “Hey, Tiffany, you styled your hair today!” Not only did this irk me because I hadn’t done anything with it but emphasized the fact that my hair looks like frizzy crap most days. Then Tom walked in and the first thing out of his mouth was, “Hey, Tiff, new hairdo?” It’s bizarre having men notice my hair. Then again, they are British. 😉 It didn’t stop there. Most of the
Things to do when you're bored
Take a picture of city reflections on your eyeball Chinese teachers and students commented on it too. Trying to explain to them that they were looking at my bed head was humorous at first but got old fairly quickly. Because the bizarre Shirley Temple do occurred on a hair wash day, it definitely needed a wash the following day. And, strangely, it dried in the exact same perfectly coifed drape of curls. I got more comments about how comely my new hairstyle was. *sigh* By the next day it was back in a pony tail. Nic’s first comment was, “What’s the matter? Give up?” I slapped him.
Last Tuesday my company had a party to celebrate our first anniversary. In true China style it was held at a nearby KTV (karaoke). Karaoke in China is actually a lot of fun. If you go with a few friends you can rent your own cozy karaoke room for $5-$15 per hour. Our party consisted of about 40 employees and a handful of students, so our party was held in a large private room that had a dining area, sofa area with a large table, a piano, and an outdoor patio. Beer came in the form of disgusting 0.08% Pineapple beer.
Christine and Tom
Doing his best Blue Steel This was the only refreshment for about 45 minutes. Most people just sat around talking to the people they usually talked to at work. Then the real alcohol arrived and the party picked up. More people started singing. Some had passable voices, others were tone deaf. But here in China that doesn’t matter. Everyone is cheered and everyone gets applause. The party began at 7pm but food didn’t materialize until around 8:30. And there wasn’t much of it. It disappeared rather quickly since everyone had come to the party directly from work and no one had had dinner. A bit more food came an hour later, and again seemed to evaporate into the air. At one point there was a ‘Bring it on’ moment between two of my male Chinese coworkers. Despite the typical lack of planning and sparse refreshments, the party was fun. It broke up at about 10:30pm but some of us weren’t ready to go home so we joined some students in another room and partied until midnight. What do you get when you put four Chinese, 2 Filipinos, 2 Brits, 1 Kiwi, and 1 American into one tiny karaoke room with lots of alcohol for an
hour and a half? You get three broken glasses, one spilled bottle of champagne, and three people who can’t walk without assistance. And since I can remember ever second of the night’s events you can be certain that I was one of the ones assisting and not being assisted.
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