Ni Hao from China - June 11, 2007
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
5
17
Trip End
Ongoing
Zhongshan, Guangdong,
China
Monday, June 11, 2007
My students have been changing their names again! One of my students, Sohpia, who is also a student of mine at No.1 Middle School, told me when I saw her at Bond, that she had changed her name. When I asked her what she had changed it to, she said to me 'Do you remember that famous movie Gone with the Wind'? She now goes by the name Rhett. Just kidding, she goes by the name Scarlett, and I have to try very hard to keep from smiling every time I say her name! I was also informed that her twin sister Jane, has now changed her name to Anne Elise.
On one of our days off, Laura and I went to Guangzhou for the day. We were quite proud of everything we saw in one day, and with the fact that we were able to find our way around! The first stop was Shamian Island. It was so nice to wander around as it had a bit of a European feel to it. Not only that, there were hardly any cars, so it was nice to get away from the hustle bustle of the city. While we were there, we saw many western couples with Chinese babies. The US Consulate is on Shamian Island, and couples adopting Chinese babies are required to stay in Guangzhou during the adoption process which apparently takes about a month. Shamian Island is also a very popular place for having wedding pictures taken. I think we counted about eight different couples having their wedding pictures done. After we left Shamian Island we went through a park on our way to have our Starbucks fix. After that, it was off to this Turkish restaurant we found on our last trip to Guangzhou, for a fabulous Turkish meal (I sure miss Turkish food!).
Christy, one of the other foreign teachers, and I used to share an adult class. Just before the holidays, we went out with our class to a restaurant, in place of a lesson in the classroom. It was a great way for them to practice their English in a social setting, as they don't get many opportunities to do that in Zhongshan. We talked about many different things. Jerry wanted to know what life in Canada was like. He said that he thinks that life in China is very hard. I was almost embarrassed to tell him what life in Canada is like, as I feel we have it very easy and very good compared to a place like China. I have to agree with Jerry, that life in China is very hard. As we were getting ready to leave, they wouldn't let us pay for our meals. Grace said that their English teacher is very important and is like family to them. Devin gave me a ride home. He said that we are all friends, and we should help each other. He said that if there is anything I need, to give him a call, and he would be happy to help me out. I love my adult class!
As classes started winding down at the end of April, everyone was getting ready to go away for the May holidays, and I was getting ready to go away on my first solo trip in China. The saying goes 'In heaven there is paradise, on earth, there is Hangzhou'. I made plans to go to Hangzhou, and I was curious to see what this paradise was like. I caught a bus from Zhongshan right to the airport at Guangzhou. I had no idea how long the bus would take, and seeing as it was my first time going to the airport, I wanted to make sure that I gave myself lots of time in case anything went wrong. I was surprised that the bus only took two hours, so I had five hours before my flight left. I tried to get an earlier flight, but there wasn't anything available. The flight to Hangzhou was nice and short, and I was in my hotel room by 7:30 that night. After freshening up, I went for a bite to eat and a look around.
My hotel was right across from West Lake, and like the Li River in Guilin, it was a beehive of activity. I got up early the next morning to go exploring only to discover that there were thousands of people who had the same idea. Aside from the many tourists around the lake, there were fan dancers, people doing tai chi, couples dancing; there was also a gymnast with his coach. There are boats that take you to the islands in the lake, and if you look across the lake at any given time of the day, you would swear it was rush hour on West Lake! One day I decided to take one of the boats early in the morning before they got too crowded. As I was getting off the boat on the first island, an older gentleman motioned for me to get off ahead of him. Next thing I knew, his granddaughter Amy was next to me speaking to me in English. She was in Hangzhou on holidays with two of her friends and her grandfather. We ended up spending the next few hours together, touring the different places on West Lake. Amy explained to me that her grandfather was happy to meet me, as he had always wanted to go to Canada. He was so funny, as every time I took a picture and showed it to him, he got so excited that he would clap his hands and laugh. We ended the morning with Amy's grandfather taking us to a very nice restaurant for a Chinese lunch, and the promise to keep in touch.
The next day I went to Shaoxing to meet up with Ada Mae, the sister of a woman I trained in Port Alberni last year on BCeSIS. When I was in Port Alberni, Laura Lee was talking about her sister who was teaching English in China. I told her that I was interested in finding out more, as I had considered teaching English once I was done with teaching BCeSIS. She put me in touch with her sister, and now here I was, a little over a year later, actually meeting up with her in China! While I was Shaoxing, I also met Joe, Ada Mae's husband, Jude, Ada Mae's assistant, and Jude's friends Sally and Yanni. We had a great day exploring Shaoxing and going for a boat ride on one of the waterways. Shaoxing has been described as the Venice of China, because of the many bridges and waterways. The population is about four million (although it didn't feel like it!), and is a one hour bus ride from Hangzhou. I loved Shaoxing, and the waterways reminded me of the canals in Venice.
One day when I was going back to my hotel in Hangzhou, a woman followed me in to the elevator, and then got off on the same floor as me. She struck up a conversation with me, as I guess she wanted to practice her English. She spoke a mile a minute, and kept talking about the Maldives. When I asked why she knew so much about the Maldives, she said that she heard about it from another foreigner. She said that whenever she talks to foreigners and learns new words, she likes to write them down; however, she doesn't like to waste their time trying to find a pen and paper. She pulled back her sleeve to reveal all kinds of English words written on the inside of her arm, and there in the middle of them all was the word 'Maldives'! Too funny!
There was a huge Thai restaurant in Hangzhou called The Banana Leaf, and I decided to go there for a Thai feed one night. It was extremely busy, and there was only one table left when I got there, at the front of the restaurant. At one point, when I was eating my meal, I heard some singing at another table. I turned around to have a look, and figured that they were singing Happy Birthday or something like that. What I didn't realize was that they were coming around to each and every table to sing to them. I was sooo embarrassed when they got to me. I was right in the middle of eating my dinner, and was hoping that they would just move on to the next table, but no such luck. There was five of them altogether - one guitar player and four singers. They asked me what I wanted them to sing. I just really wanted it to be over and done with as quickly as possible, so I asked them to choose a song. They ended up singing 'Every Woman in the World' - how embarrassing, being serenaded in front of the entire restaurant!
Two weeks after I got back from my trip to Hangzhou, my friend Michael from Australia came for a visit. He spent some time in Hong Kong, and then one Friday after work, I went to meet up with him in Macau. We spent the next day in Macau, and then came back to Zhongshan in the evening. The day after he got here, I had an entire day of classes at Bond. Michael graciously agreed to come and visit the students in two of my classes so they could have the chance to speak to another native English speaker. The students certainly weren't shy in asking him anything that came to mind. I had a bit of a chuckle when Michael handed out koalas to all the students and one of them turned it over to reveal 'Made in China'.
I have been slowly building up my running mileage, but it's pretty tough going with this heat. I have been going out at 6am to do my long runs, but already the temperature is close to 30 degrees at that time of the morning. So far, the highest temperature has been 37.5. I've been told that it could even get up to 40 degrees. As soon as you walk out of an air conditioned building, you can feel the sweat just dripping down your body. When I teach at middle school, I am in classrooms that have fans, and although air conditioning would be better, the fans are better than nothing at all. However, since I've been doing the oral testing, I've had to sit outside the classroom with no air conditioning or fans!
We are now in to our third week of oral testing at the middle school. There are no more lessons, and in two weeks, we will be finished teaching middle school for the term. There has been some talk about both Lisa and I going back to teach middle school in the new school term, but nothing is definite at this point in time. Although I wasn't crazy about teaching middle school back in March, I have really come to like it. As I started warming up to the students, and they started warming up to me, there were many times when I would walk in to a class, and the students would start clapping and cheering. I even had one girl come up to me and tell me that she loved me! Now I know what Oprah feels like when she goes to work! Although there were many students who constantly misbehaved, there were tons of students who really and truly wanted to learn. I was always amazed at some of the things they would say or do. One of my favourite memories was when we were doing a lesson on 'Where do you want to go?' We talked about, and showed pictures of many different places, what you would see/do there, what you would eat, and what the weather would be like. As an activity, we then went around asking each student where they wanted to go and why. One student said he wanted to go to the US. When I asked him why, he said that he wanted to meet Steve Nash 'because he is my star'. I told him that I used to work with a man, Gus, who knows Steve Nash. When I told him that, his eyes went wide, and I could tell he was excited that I knew someone who knew Steve Nash! Anyways, I moved on through the rest of the class asking each student where they wanted to go and why. When the bell rang, this one student came up to me and wanted to know about 'this man, Gus'. I told him that I couldn't promise anything, but I would send Gus an e-mail and ask him to tell me something about Steve. Gus wrote back a wonderful e-mail about Steve Nash, and just as I figured, the student could hardly wait to hear what I had found out. There was a small crowd gathered around as I read/translated the e-mail from Gus. I'm not sure if he understood everything I said, but he couldn't wipe the smile off his face, and he was so excited, I thought he was going to wet himself! He thanked me very much, and I couldn't help but think that that had really made his day. After the crowd had dispersed, one of the girls from the class came up to me and asked me if I knew Avril Lavigne! I guess she was hoping I knew someone who knew Avril!!
On a sad note, one of our Chinese teachers is in the hospital in Guangzhou fighting cancer. Apparently she had it six years ago, and it has come back. She is only 25 years old. She has already had an operation, and is now going through a series of eight chemotherapy treatments. When she first went in to the hospital, all the foreign teachers were approached and were asked to contribute money towards Shirley's medical expenses. Unfortunately, medical insurance is not something that many people have in China. Lisa came up with the idea of a fundraiser for Shirley, and we have been working on getting it together. We are having an English corner, and are hoping that many of the students from Bond (past and present), the students from the many different schools that we all teach at, and any other people who want to practice their English with a native English speaker, will attend. We have started to spread the word, and it sounds like many people are interested. One of the ladies from my business class said that she wanted to bring her five year old daughter, because she wanted to teach her about helping others. Not only are the foreign teachers from Bond going to be participating, but foreign teachers from other language institutes in Zhongshan are also going to participate. We are going to contact local businesses for some door prizes, and apparently the Red Cross has said that they will make a donation. We will contact the local newspaper to see if they can advertise for us, and will put up posters wherever we see fit. We have no idea what the outcome will be, but if it is successful, we will do it over and over again.
Lisa and I went to Guangzhou last week to deliver our contribution to Shirley, and were sad to see Shirley's hospital conditions. She is on a bed in the hallway beside the elevator, as she can't afford a private, air conditioned room. To make things worse, the hospital 'gown' is like a prison uniform - blue and white striped pants and top. Although we have talked about doing this fundraiser for a couple of weeks, seeing Shirley made everything so real, and made us realize just how important it is that we follow through with it.
We are definitely in to the rainy season now, and rain, thunder and lightening are regular occurrences. I don't think I've ever seen lightening so bright or heard thunder so loud! You have to carry an umbrella with you at all times, as you never know when it is going to downpour!
As the school year winds down, Lisa and I are starting to look forward to, and make plans for, our upcoming holidays in August. We are hoping to go to Sichuan Province to see the panda bears, Tibet, and Yunnan Province. We will be gone for about three weeks, and should be back in time for the beginning of the school year. Here's hoping we'll be going back to No. 1 Middle School.
Until next time,
Gaye
