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Christina Laoshi
Entry 13 of 22 | show all | print this entry |
It seems like the more time I spend in a place, the more I grow attached to it. As the weeks go by and people talk about how they're tired of Suzhou, I find myself wishing the time weren't passing so quickly. I'm getting to know the streets and the buildings and the people that make up this town and it seems more than just a temporary place to live. Of course, it's not without frustrations; I'm still not used to people spitting all the time, children going to the bathroom in the streets, traffic chaos, the screeching of motorbikes, and generally being unable to communicate in a meaningful way with the locals. But I honestly think I got more annoyed with things in France (oversensitive waiters, expensive prices, public transportation strikes) than here.
Anyway, David and I started teaching on Thursday! We had kind of a "prep" day on Tuesday where we just talked with the English teachers and they gave us some advice. Apparently the nearby middle school heard that we would be volunteering at the primary school and wanted us to come visit them, so we ended up teaching 8th grade on Thursday. There were about 40 14-year-olds in the class, and a young teacher who translated for us when necessary. I was surprised how much they understood though; the teacher didn't have to do much. We gave a lesson with school vocabulary and had them create an "ideal" school. Then we played a game and asked them some questions. They were pretty well-behaved students; I'm not sure if that's because we were guests or what, but we didn't have to whip out our stern teacher voices or anything. After the class, all the students came up and gave us paper cranes they had made with little messages in English on the inside. I felt like I'd been given 40 valentines all at once! It was really cute.
Other than that I've just been exploring the city. It doesn't have a huge city feel because there are no skyscrapers or big monuments or anything, but when you start to walk around and see how short a distance you've covered on the map, you realize that Suzhou stretches on for a long time. Claire and I walked around some yesterday and stumbled upon an interesting alley where locals sell various products, including live frogs in a mesh bag, live but tattered-looking ducks, live chickens, fish, both swimming and dead, and all sorts of animal parts, some of which we couldn't identify.
This weekend we're in Suzhou. The campus is having a Shakespeare festival so I'll probably go see a play tonight. Then tomorrow, the principal of the primary school invited David and I to go to a famous park called Tiger Hill outside of Suzhou for the day, which I've heard is beautiful. I think that's all for now!
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