Gung Hay Fat Choy - February 17, 2007
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
2
17
Trip End
Ongoing
Zhongshan, China,
China
Saturday, February 17, 2007
A typical day consists of getting up early (anywhere from 5:30 - 6:30) to review my lessons for the day. I hop in the shower at 7:30, sit and have my coffee and watch the morning news, then head downstairs for my pick up at 8:30. I teach anywhere from one to three hours in the morning, then don't teach again until anywhere from 2:30 to 5:30. If I have a long break in between classes, then I usually walk home (a 45 min walk). During my break, I am usually surfing the internet, trying to get ideas for lessons, or games and activities. I am supposed to be picked up and taken back to the school for my afternoon classes, but I usually walk back to the school. After classes finish at 5:30, I either get a ride home or a group of us will go out for a bite to eat. After that, it's back home to relax a bit before going to bed. On Thursday night after school, Tracy, one of the Chinese teachers has been teaching us Mandarin. Not only has it been good for me to learn some useful Chinese words, but also to realize what it's like for my students when they are in my class. After one hour with Tracy, I'm zonked. I just can't imagine what it's like for my kids having to go three hours at a time. I have one student, Frank, who goes three hours in the morning, and three hours in the afternoon.
I have really been struggling with fun ways of presenting stories, as I felt that the way I was doing it was boring. Not only that, I felt that some of the students would slip through the cracks with their speaking abilities, as even though their lips are moving when we are reading as a group, it doesn't mean that they are actually speaking. I appealed to my friend Helen (retired ESL teacher) for some advice, and she suggested that we do peer evaluations whereby the students have to get up in front of the class to recite a story and the rest of the students mark them on different aspects of their presentation (pronunciation, volume, pace). It took a little bit of explaining before they understood what they had to do, but now they totally get it. The first day that I did it with my first class, I explained to the students what we were going to do. Frank, one of my star students, understood what had to be done, so he volunteered to go up first. However, most of the other students were quite nervous about getting up in front of everyone. I told them that there was no need to be scared, and that it would get easier each time they did it. One of the students in particular, Anny, was quite nervous about doing it. She is just a tiny little thing, and when I asked her to come up, she nervously smiled, and shook her head, so I moved on to someone else. I ended up coming back to Anny, and kept reassuring her that everything would be okay. When she came up to the front I put my arm around her shoulder, and she started to read. I was surprised how well she did for someone who was so shy and didn't want to do it in the first place. Of course when she was finished, I gave her nothing but praise, and you could tell by the smile on her face that she was very proud of what she had done. During the break, I took her aside and told her that she had done such a good job and that I was really proud of her. I definitely noticed a spring her step after that! The next day we did peer evaluations again, and I couldn't believe the change in the class. All of a sudden, they wanted to know how to pronounce certain words. Angel, who I call the ringleader, must have asked me six or eight times how to pronounce certain words. She wanted to make sure that her presentation was perfect. I almost felt that I had a bit of a breakthrough!
For the most part, I am really enjoying my classes, but there are times when I get so frustrated because the kids just won't settle down. I do feel sorry for them, because it seems like all they ever do is go to school. Right now they are on winter holidays, and have spent the last three weeks going to English school. Thank goodness for them that Bond is closing down for the Chinese New Year, otherwise they wouldn't get any break at all! Having said that, there are times when I feel like just walking out of the class. I've heard that the foreign teachers have a reputation for being too nice, and I'm desperately trying to change that! When I lay down the rules and they disobey them, I send them out of the classroom. I've also resorted to telling them that if they continue to talk or misbehave, then I will tell the Chinese teacher who in turn will phone their parents. That seems to work pretty good! The other day one of the kids wouldn't stop talking, so I wrote her name on the board. Later on, when we were playing games, she came over and was sucking up to me. I guess she wanted to see how well it had worked, so she walked over to the board and pretended to rub her name off. Nice try! I've tried to incorporate more games in to the lessons to make things a little more fun. I think we have played every kind variation of bingo that there is to play. I'm not sure if it's the stickers they like getting when they win, or if they actually like playing the game. I have one student, Linda. The first thing that comes out of her mouth when I enter the classroom is 'teech-ah, play bingo?' If she only knew how much I liked to play bingo as well! Another game we have been playing a lot lately is Simon Says. We call it Teacher Says, because they don't know who Simon is.
In my last update, I talked about two girls that I had been working with - Sisi and Sarah. Well, I guess Sarah didn't like her name, so she changed it to Fiona - just like that. I thought it was so funny! Then, a couple of weeks later, one of my students in another class changed her name from Helen to Linda!
In my last update, I also talked about Jin who had come from Dalian to study English so that he could go and study abroad. Unfortunately, he did not pass the TOEFL test, and came back to try again. As we suspected, Jin admitted that he was not here in Zhongshan by his own choice. Although he is a really nice kid, his heart definitely was not in it. It's too bad, because if it's not something that he wants to do, chances are no matter how many times he tries, he will never make it. Not only that, he was with his friend Arthur this time, and Arthur was much more advanced than Jin. I feel that Arthur didn't get his money's worth, as we always had to go at Jin's pace.
I'm finding that I'm becoming a little more adventurous with eating here, although not as adventurous as some. A few weeks ago we all went out for dinner to celebrate the marriage of Tracy, one of the Chinese teachers, and Chris, one of the English teachers, and I actually tried frog! Lisa took a picture to mark the occasion. A while back, a bunch of the guys went out for dinner to try some dog. When I asked what kind of dog it was, they said that they didn't know, but it was very fatty. My guess is that it wasn't Chihuahua. Some of the other dishes I have come across on menus are Deep Fried Chicken Gristle, Chicken Cartilage on a Skewer, and Lactic Acid Slush. One of the dishes at dinner last night was pig's intestines. I wonder if I will ever get used to the food here . . . .
The other day in class we were doing a lesson on food. For one of the activities, I divided the class in to girls against boys. I gave them a time limit, and they had to list as many foods as they could think of, the team with the most foods being the winner. They started madly looking through their books for food items and writing them down, then they started thinking of foods that they eat, and wrote them down as well. Then they resorted to their word books. They would come up to me periodically, point to a word and say 'teech-ah, is this food?' I had to laugh when kids from both teams, at separate times, came and asked me that question as they were pointing to the word 'dog'. I laughed to myself, then smiled and said 'In China, yes'.
The other day I discovered a European Market that has all kinds of imported food items. It was so much fun having a look to see what was there, but with the items came western prices. I couldn't resist a Starbucks Vanilla Frappacino which cost 22.40 yuan. Not bad on a western budget, but on my salary, it would be the same as me paying $23 for one at home. It was good, but not THAT good!
The weather here has been very strange. A couple of weeks ago I was wearing long johns to bed, and a few days ago it got up to 25°C, with 85% humidity. I'm not sure which is worse, the cold with no heat, or the heat with high humidity!
I would eventually like to get a bike while I am here, but I'm not sure if I have the nerve to ride a bike in traffic. Now that I've been here for a while, I finally realize why Asian drivers have such a bad reputation back home. There doesn't appear to be any rules of the road, and everyone seems to drive wherever they feel like it. If they get frustrated with a slow driver in front of them, no problem, they pass them - - on the left across a double line! If there's a pedestrian crossing the road in front of them they don't' need to worry about stopping. If the pedestrian values their life enough they will get out of the way. Between watching for motorbikes on the sidewalks, and trying to cross the street, you really have to have your wits about you when it comes to traffic!
Last weekend a group of us went to Alex's Bar to meet up with Kerry and Joe, two guys I met in Vegas before I came to China. Alex's Bar serves German beer, and is one of the bars in town frequented by foreigners. (Outside of Alex's Bar, you'd be hard pressed to see even one foreigner a week outside the teachers at Bond). It's pretty expensive to go there, but nice to go every now and again. There is a live Philippino band, and we spent the night dancing and playing Liar's Dice, a game commonly played in China. It is played with dice (obviously), and it was a good way for me to practice my numbers. Lisa and I ended up taking a taxi home that night, and were quite proud of ourselves when we were able to give our taxi driver directions to Bi Hua Li in Chinese!
The end of another school term is here, and all the teachers are on vacation for Spring Festival from February 17th to the 26th. Originally I wanted to go to the Philippines, but I left it too late, and was unable to make plans. Not only that, it's really hard to make any travel plans here. There are no English speaking travel agents, so whenever you want any travel information, you have to take a Chinese teacher to a travel agent with you. I'm used to making all my own travel arrangements, and it's very frustrating for me to have to be so dependent on other people. Anyways, I'm planning on doing a couple of day trips in the area - Guangzhou for a day of shopping, a couple of days to Macau for some sightseeing and maybe a bit of gambling (!), and to Guilin for a couple of days of sightseeing. Once we've figured out how to get to/around Guangzhou and Macau, I hope to go to those places on a more regular basis. We're hoping to be back in Zhongshan the day before the new term starts.
Zhongshan always looks so nice with all the flowers, but it looks especially nice now that Spring Festival is finally here. Many of the shops and businesses have displays of huge potted mums and orange trees adorned with gold paper. Some of the potted mums are so big that they look like mini trees! Over the last week it was a common site to see motorbikes carrying orange trees and/or potted mums on the back! It reminds me of when I was in Vietnam this same time in 2003.
Last night Bond took us all for out dinner for Chinese New Year, then out to a karaoke bar after that. It was fun to all go out for dinner, and to celebrate the fact that we are now on holidays for ten days. I'm not a huge fan of karaoke, but I was curious to see what karaoke bars are like in China. When we were dropped off, we were welcomed to the bar by guys on either side of us wearing shiny gold shirts, and by girls wearing short, fake fur jackets, and long red dresses. We were taken to a large, private room that had leather couches and overlooked a water way. It was very pretty with the reflection of the neon lights on the water. They brought us a big tub of beer, and then we were basically left on our own. I discovered that karaoke in China is just as bad as it is at home. A couple of hours were all I could take, so I headed home.
Tonight is New Year's Eve, and all I can hear around me is the sound of firecrackers. Lisa and I are hoping to go in to town to find a fireworks display, but I understand the big celebrations are in the bigger cities.
Although challenging at times, life in Zhongshan keeps getting better every day. Now if I could only get the discipline thing down pat . . . . .
Until next time,
Gaye
