enjoy!
So I think I’m starting to get a hang of how things are here in Guzhen. We wake up around 7 or 7:30 (either by alarm or by banging construction) and get ready to go to school. We drop off our lunch pales (which are actually like 3 metal bowls stacked on eachother, one has the main dish, the other rice and the bottom soup) and grab breakfast from the kitchen and then we head upstairs to the ILP (international language program) classrooms. We have opening with the kids which includes talking about the weather and singing a few songs and such. Then we split up into classes. I team teach with a girl named Megan which is ironic? This week I’m in charge of games. The first day we played duck, duck goose and today we played a matching picture memory game. I’m getting more a hang of it but I’m worried about doing the other subjects just because I don’t think I’ll be able to come up with new ideas for EVERY DAY.
The program is an English immersion program where we really just interact with the kids instead of having text books and stuff like that. I'm teaching primary age (about 6 yrs old) so they are just learning basic speaking for now.
Okay so yesterday was kind of hectic just because it was our first day teaching and we didn’t know anything about the kids and we just had to get used to everything. But I still think it went okay. Today was a lot better though. Then after we taught Chantelle, Lorenda and I went to the bank to exchange our U.S. money and then the supermarket to pick up a few more things. First of all it was our first day without Lucy so we were kind of guessing on how to get everywhere but we got around just fine. The bank was pretty much just one big fat headache. We get there are just plain clueless on what to do. We probably should’ve asked Lucy what to do or should’ve brought her with us. We pick the line everyone is standing in and are waiting for about an hour. That consisted of number everyone looking at us, especially when we first walked in. And then there was this Chinese man that was yelling and at first we thought he was just talking loud cause then some people were laughing but by the end we think he was just frustrated mad. I thought it was funny just because we couldn’t tell. Then the line finally moved and we got up to the counter and the lady tells us we’re in the wrong line, great. So we go to the other shorter line and we get up to the front after about another half hour and the guy of course does not speak English but somehow some lady took our passports and went and made copies of them and then we had to fill out all of this paperwork and it was just really long. Lorenda was filling stuff out and Chantelle and I tried to get paperwork from some lady that the guy pointed us to but she pointed us back to the guy. It was just frustrated but we laughed the whole time because that’s all we could do. And there was a good looking guard there, but I think I only thought he was good looking because he looked like Chow Yun Fat. He cracked us up because he was standing inside and then he goes over picks up this fatty night stick and just goes outside and just swings it around and hits it against his palm. It made me laugh because that’s probably what I’d do.
So then we head to the supermarket. Chantelle and I were mainly looking for a blow-dryer and I was looking for a straightener. I picked up some good American junk food on the way. It was funny trying to find a blow dryer because they didn’t have them in the main part. Which it is seriously another headache because stuff is sort of organized together but it’s really not. So we go upstairs and all we see is shoes and purses and wallets and we’re like great, this isn’t going to work. Then a shoe sales lady comes up and says hello. Of course she only speaks very little English and we soon found our selves back downstairs at the help desk where another lady directed us back upstairs to a hidden electronic/appliance department we totally didn’t see before. We soon found blow-dryers and it was funny because we pointed to one we wanted because we didn’t see boxes or anything. So they lady takes it and plugs it in and shows us that it works. So we nod and we’re trying to tell her we want to buy it. Well soon enough there’s like 5 salespeople around us and one guy speaks English and I say “we want to buy this one.” He just gave me about the blankest look anyone could give and after about a minute he goes “you want this one…?” and I say yes. So he tells the others we wanted to buy it (in Chinese) and they all laugh along with us because that was just plain hilarious. Then the lady takes one out of the box and plugs it in and shows us that it works and we nod to show, yes, we want it. So then she write us a ticket thing which we have to take to a desk and pay there and then she brings it to us. The whole thing just made us laugh because it was WAY more than we thought we’d have to go through just to get a dumb blow dryer. And I didn’t get a straightener because it was too expensive. So then we get that meet up with Lorenda and go to the bakery that is right next door. I AM IN LOVE WITH CHINESE BAKERIES!! They are the most wonderful thing ever. I love them forever and ever amen. They have such good breads and little baked treats. They have a different taste to them but they are SOOO good. So we buy some stuff there, like filled up a tray because that’s how much good stuff there is. So I get to the register and the total came to 18 Yuan and again we give the Chinese people a good laugh, again. I tried to pay for it with a 100 Yuan bill. The lady laughs at me and grabs a bunch of money and just takes 20 dollars and gives me the rest back. Then Chantelle tried to pay 12 Yuan with a 50 Yuan bill. So we gave them a good laugh. Oh p.s. 18 Yuan is about $2.50 U.S. so I got 2 loaves of bread and about 7 other baked goods. You can probably get just one loaf of bread in U.S. for that much. That is why I love China.
Okay so I forgot to write about this. So the first day we came we drove on a bus and dropped the other two schools off and then switched to a bus that brought us to Guzhen. There we met Gary who works for bond institute. He is way funny I like him a lot. So he dropped us off and that night we went over to the Bond Language office which is right in town right by a park. We sat there for a while; we got to use the internet there. And we also met Lucy who actually lives with us. Our apartment has five girls total. Megan, Lorenda and J share a room and Chantelle and I got the other room. They are very nice apartments. We have a dining room with mini-fridge and microwave then a tiny hallway like room with a sink and dishes which also leads to a mini-porch where our washer is. We have a living room with two desk that we use as tables, two couches and a TV we have yet to use. Callie, our head teacher lives with Lucy and also Jaime another teacher who just got here yesterday. It is so nice having Lucy (who is Chinese) because she’s the one that showed us around town and she helps us with sooo much. We love her and are so thankful for everything she does for us. She really does take such good care of us. Lucy also works at Bond as an English teacher to Chinese adults, and she will be our mandarin teacher. So the first night we just hung out with Gary and Lucy and another Bond worker named Nina. We all went to a very good Chinese restaurant. We go into a room and sit around a circular table. Gary just asks us kind of what we want to eat but pretty much orders for us, because here they eat family style where you just get dishes of food and eat from each dish. I love it. We had some good stuff; we told Gary he has very good taste. The next day Lucy took us to the supermarket but along the way we stopped at this five star hotel which was GORGEOUS and then there was a seafood restaurant upstairs but next to it was all of these tanks of fish that you pick out to eat. There were some gnarly looking stuff in there and some huge fish. It was neat. Then she took us to the supermarket and then we ate at Dong Dong which is Chinese fast food and Lucy said the teachers from last semester loved it. It was pretty good. Its still family style and its nothing what we would consider “fast food” but it was good nonetheless. Lucy ordered for us because the whole menu was of course in Chinese, but we want to go there a bunch and just point to stuff and see what comes out on our table. Ha-ha. Oh China.
Okay so our kids are WAY WAY cute, like way. I love them all to death and it’s only the second day. We have 13 kids in the ILP program which is unusual but we’re hoping for more in April. There are 7 boys: Owen (smart but quiet), Apple (best name/a little rambunctious), Andrew (little bit of mischief), Mike (really shy and chubby), Blake (way cute but tends to wrestle with the other boys), Paul (our martial arts kid slash I think the cutest boy), and Ben (more reserved but mischievous). And 6 girls: Jodie (way cute girl, really smart), Karyn (chubby little screecher/pouter/drama queen), Bree (way cute and smart), Katy (cute and more quiet), Yaya (she puts the tokens in her mouth a lot), and Stella (one of the more difficult ones but still good). My kids are Blake, Owen, Katy and Jodie. And I think I really lucked out with a really good group. These kids are so smart and so clever. It’s amazing really. I’ll tell stories about some of the kids but you really don’t know what they’re like until you meet them. Oh so funny story today. Our classroom door was unlocked so we were waiting outside of the door and some random not ILP Chinese kid runs up to me shows me this picture and just throws it at me and runs away. And it’s like a real picture of some lady that looks like she’s dressed up like a ghost. It was really funny and really random. And cute kid story of the day we went down to get breakfast and on the way back up to the classroom Chantelle and I are walking back to the classroom and a class full of little Chinese kids sees us and one shouts at us “hello!” and soon the whole room is shouting hello at us. It was the cutest thing ever.
Okay next funny kid story of the day. This happened to Chantelle. So there’s this kid Andrew who’s one of those kids that’s not bad but doesn’t exactly strive to follow the rules. So they made paper bag puppets and they were drawing on them and Chantelle saw that Andrew was drawing his puppet as a naked lady. So Chantelle totally sees what he is drawing and asks Andrew, “Hey Andrew what are you drawing on your puppet?” and he just looks at her and then at Chantelle’s chest and then just gives her a look and goes, “uh…” Ha-ha. It makes me laugh. So Chantelle tells Andrew that he needs to draw a shirt on his puppet and he just shakes his head and says no so she took it and made the boobs into wheels and then into a car. Ha. So he had a very unique car on the shirt of his puppet. It still cracks me up to think about it.
Okay so for meals I always imagined it that we’d have a cafeteria and we’d just get a tray and dish up ourselves. But actually we have these lunch pales that are actually way neat. They are like 3 metal bowls and they are stacked on each other and a handle goes around them. We drop them off to the kitchen for meals and pick them up and eat them at our place for lunch and dinner and breakfast is different, the first day we just had a giant roll bread thing and a packaged bread thing but today we had fried noodles. So after we teach we pick up our lunch pales and come back and eat them and today we lift the lid and there is literally a fish head staring up at us. Stuff keeps happening where I just stop and say to myself, “yea, I’m definitely in China.” I was a lucky one and got a good piece of fish meat with it. None of us went near that fish head. So usually the top bowl is a main dish, the middle one filled with white rice and the third soup. But I’ve learned to stay away from the soup. Its just broth with chunks of stuff that isn’t really edible. The first day it was just chunks of bone and today it was seriously livers floating in it. The soup usually has a rank smell and I can’t even imagine even trying to drink it. But the other two meals we’ve had from the school were good. It’s usually meat with lettuce (we think just cooked in oil). But it’s good. I mean Chantelle and I usually eat some of our bakery stuff with it, but that’s just because the bread is so good. We figured out the best way to describe kind of the texture and kind of the taste of most of the breads and bakery stuff is like shortening cake. But it’s a little bit different. The bread is sweeter but not American kind of sweeter. I really wish I could bring some home.
okay ps. i forgot to write about this. okay so before i left i knew Guzhen was a light fixture town. what that meant i wasnt quite sure until i got here. there is store after store of chandelier stores. they are huge and they are gorgeous! most are bigger than me. i'll try and take pictures of them but you couldnt know the beauty unless you see them in real life. but lucy took us into a big one and they had this little pond with these HUGE elephant fish. it was ridic.
okay this was from sunday morning. it was a really bad morning so i woke up and just wrote a venting email. because not everyday in chinese is glorious i spose..
grumpy morning Sunday woes:
By no means should I be up right now. We got in yesterday at about 4 pm and then we went around the city and ate at a restaurant and then just came back because we were all exhausted. Everyday we get to come home to awesome wood beds. There is literally no padding on them. Find the nearest wall, knock on it and that’s our bed. Figured out that I will wake up every few hours and I’ll have to re-position myself because whatever side I’m laying on gets soar. So I’ll just have to rotate my body throughout the night. Awesome right? Ha. Okay next. When we got in yesterday we found out our apartments are RIGHT next to a construction site. This is no regular construction. There are these huge metal crusher things. All they do is bang against each other over and over and over and over and over. I think they’re punching a hole in the ground but it just sounds like two metal crushers banging against each other. But they said that they stopped at like 7:30 at night. So we’re like well okay, that’s not bad at all. Whelp, we got to discover that they start at 7:45 in the morning. And of course this woke me up and then I had to go to the bathroom but for the next 6 months is me seeing how long I can hold it because there is no bathroom, at least by western standards. There is a hole in the ground, a “squatter” they call it. It’s like a toilet seat but in the ground. So you can imagine by the name how you use it. For lack of a better word, it is disgusting. There is no way that I am ever going to get used to it. Every time I will have to go to the bathroom I’ll automatically get pissed off just at the fact that my body is making me go to the bathroom. And my lovely room mate’s converter just popped and is now smoking and melting? And she decided to place the nasty smell of burnt plastic right next to me. Okay so with the construction I was fine when I woke up I could probably fall back asleep to it, it has a rhythm so I was fine but then Chantelle woke up and got on her laptop. And there is seriously nothing that irks me more than the sound of typing. So I just lay there and am just pretty much grumpy to max. So now I am sitting on our couches that have 1000 times more cushioning than our beds writing this because there is nothing else I can do. Its 8:48 and I planned on waking up at 10 because today is sleep in day. Big, fat UGH.
(the day got better after this.. :) )
sorry this was kind of long :) to be continued :):)
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