3 months in China....

Asia » China
December 6th 2009

Published: December 10th 2009

Well, i've been in this lovely country for over 3 months now, so nautrally to celebrate my quarter year anniversairy in China, it's a blog update!

So, RANDOM CHINA THOUGHTS....

1) Students like to change their names. All. the. time. So you think it's hard to memorize 150 student names? WELL, let me tell you! It's worst to remember 150 student names if the students continually change them throughout the year!

"Ryan can you give me that answer please?"
"I'm not Ryan anymore teacher. I changed my name to Conann."
"What?"
"Too many students have the name Ryan, so I changed it to Conann last week."
"Oh. okay."
"And the answer's two."
"Thanks Ry-er...Connan. Leonardo, can you give me the next answer?"
"Leonardo?"
"Teacher, I changed my name to Ocean. I told you last week."
"Crap."

So that may have been a fictional conversation, but the names are all true!!!
The thing is, i don't actually mind memorizing their new name, BUT the thing i despise the most about name changes is that now I gotta change all my marking sheets! Arrrrgg....

2) Smoking, horking and spitting on floors are all acceptable practices inside trains and shopping malls. Yes. Inside shopping malls. Yes. inside subways. So imagine standing on the TTC subway, and the dirty old man squished up next to you is horking and spitting his yellow phlegm at your feet.

3) White congee does not exist in china, but yellow and black congee do.

4) Littering on the floor is allowed and commonly practiced becasue by littering it creates jobs for trash cleaning ladies and men. So if you don't litter, little old ladies lose their jobs. Ergo, Be socially conscious, and a good citizen, by littering.

5) I've gotten very good at using squatters.

6) Chinese people will turn anything into Chinese alcohol "bai-jou". There's the norm: Corn and Wheat baijou, and there's the odd. I've had the pleasure of trying ant baijou and seahorse baijou. One of our favourite restaurants serves a special type of baijou..lizard and deer penis. Yes. Deer penis.
Apparently in Chinese culture if there's a part of you that isn't working well, then you should take that same part off an animal, stew it, and consume.

7) My science lab room has no fire extinguisher or smoke detector. And now that i know this, in retrospect, all those burning experiments that i've done, yea. i probably should have been more careful instead of waving around buring pieces of metal over my students' desks.

8) I've found that I've cared less about safety since being here. I burn a lot of things.

9) Awkward moment #24543: Since my school is filled with ESL students, whenever i teach them new words, i have to go over how to say it with them. So the word was "Acidic", and i was breaking it up for them. So we did a choral repetition technique:
"A" (they repeat "A" after me), "Ci" (they repeat "ci"), annnnd before i said the last syllable, i began to realize the predicament i had just walked myself into.
Hoping for the best, i finish off the word with "Dic".
The boys roar in laughter, yelling "Dick!" "DICK!" "DICK!!!!"
One smartass kid: "Teacher, can you explain what "dick" means?" Smartass kid #2 pipes up: "Teacher, can you show us what dick means?!"
I play stupid and answer back, i have no idea what you guys are talking about. i dont' know what it means!
Smartass kid #3: "I'll show you what dick means teacher!"

9) Awkward moment #520354: I'm on the cover of the All Boys School's First Magazine publication. awesome. I can now look forward to seeing my picture all around the school. though slightly pleased that boys deem me cool enough to be on the cover, it's still slightly creepy.

10) It's fricken cold here. thereby shattering all illusions i had of China when i was young, of it being a barren hot desert.

11) There's a piano in the apartment a few floors above me, and the person who owns that piano IS ALWAYS PLAYING IT.
Everyday when i get back from school - that pianist is going away on the piano till dinner time, then he/she takes a break for a hour, and then resumes playing again. AND, what's worse: it's ALWAYS the same song. and it's driving me up the wall. (The pianist is currently practising that song right now as i type this. arggg) It started off as slow with mistakes, and now he/she is playing it more fluently. So at least there's improvement.

12) I gave a 15 minute lecture today about the different Pokemon names. Since the Chinese kids only know their Chinese names, i taught them the English names of Pokemon.
I teach my students so much.

13) These Chinese students are WAY too smart for me. They ask me all these really challenging questions that are way beyond university level, and i can't answer any of them.
So i end up just giving them a blank stare. And telling them to stop thinking so much.
which is probably not the right thing to do, as being a teacher, i'm supposed to encourage thinking. oops.

14) KFC is more popular than McDonald's here.

15) A flight to thailand costs $70 Canadian.

16) I don't like China fashion. It's so hard to find clothes here - cuz they all have frills, bows, or are bedazzled. score.

17) Ikea in China is still AWESOME. (and they still serve Swedish meatballs!)

18) I have run out of random china thoughts. so TA for now!

THOUGHTS: OUT.

3 months in China....

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