Easter in China

WHAT A DAY!

Happy Easter everyone! Last week a couple of the guys here mentioned to Matthew that Easter was an important festival in England and he suggested we have an Easter party. This seemed a bit over the top but oh well; before we know it we were being asked what we wanted to drink, eat and who we wanted to come.

Yesterday started normally, except we were given a Chinese breakfast as opposed to our English one, we were upset but we soon realised that today was the day kids were coming to the Complex! Soon enough a bus load full of kids arrived and there was suddenly life in this place! Even if the power did go out again while I was washing my bedding!

The morning was spent cleaning my room! It amazes me how dusty everything gets here! Soon we headed into town and our party. We arrived but they were still getting ready so we were sent out to get some lunch. Beef noodles probably weren't the best choice as I ended up spattering myself with chilli and oil.

We then headed to go and get the guys' train tickets to Xi'an (they are going there for tomb sweeping), this took FOREVER as they had to wait for people to get their passports, get money, etc. We then headed up to the party.

I walked in and was greeted by various people I knew, namely teachers and students. Ah so it was one of those parties then? Great...

Nevertheless we soon had lots of fun! We played with balloons, decorated hard boiled eggs and socialised. I spent a lot of time with one of my teacher's five year old, his name was Toby and he was cute as a button! He stole my camera and took loads of photos which was amusing! 

The 5 year old in question

Jeff and I

Chris and his mother (one of the teachers from the Friday school, she is VERY generous!)

Victor and Jeff from my Thursday School, poor boys had to spend their whole weekend with me!!

Ros and Linda from my Friday School

Toby the Photographer

So after balloon fights and photos, we decided it was time for pass the parcel, this was a bit of a dampener because I felt like my fellow interns were undermining me in front of the children I have to teach. Comments like 'there are too many layers, this is getting really tedious' really got on my nerves because I spent an evening of my time preparing it with Alex and NO ONE else did ANYTHING. Really need a break from some people here (roll on Shanghai on Thursday). 

Anyway the rest of the party went well, though I quickly found myself getting tired. The food arrived and it was lovely, not the traditional lamb roast we were promised but the mutton was nice. We then performed Adele's 'Someone like you' and had performances from the kids. One of my kids (Chris) performed Boom Shi Boom! I was so proud of him!! We had desert, fruit salad and cake. Naturally the presence of cake meant we HAD to have a cake fight. 

Overall a really nice day! But we have been given a whole lot of food to eat too! Oh and my teacher gave me a coffee set!!

Lesson and Feeding the Five Thousand

OK so Friday's lesson went well even though all of my higher ability kids had gone on a trip and I was given some new ones with, lets just say, questionable English. So now I am teaching about 20 teacher's children on top of my original 20. Teacher's children are so badly behaved! I had to be quite strict with them to get them to focus. Friday remains my most challenging day because I have to engage both the high achievers and the younger students who don't speak any English. My lesson plan went down the drain slightly so I had to improvise a lot; we talked about the difference between English schools and Chinese schools and answered some questions as a class. For the last bit of the lesson I gave up and just put Mr Bean on, they LOVE Mr Bean.

Now it was somehow decided that Easter was a big deal and that we must have a party for it, so the evening was filled with preparations namely making pass the parcels! I decided I should take one to my trip too because we were having a party. Alex did one and I did another, it was actually rather fun because we put Priscilla, Queen of the Desert on (I love that film).

Yesterday was trip day, YAY! Today was Jia Xiaozhuang we were going to the Children's Park, that park with the stream running through it. We played games and I boomshiboomed in front of a rather big crowd of confused onlookers! It was a lovely day and with 45 kids and a good half a dozen teachers, hard work though! Little did I know the hard work was yet to come. 

After a stroll in the park we headed back to school for a picnic; little did I know that the teacher had told the children to bring in some food for me to try and the children had taken that to mean bring in a portion of food for me! I was quickly surrounded by 40 odd plates of food! I had to be polite and try everything; some of it was very nice, some of it wasn't but either way I quickly became full. That is when the teacher brought me some mutton she had bought freshly cooked just for me. Despite cries of  "Wo Bal Lu' (I am full) I was made to continue eating for a very long time. I had to bring lots of it home too! I now have gallons of the finest Qinghai yoghurt (made from Yak's milk) and lots of dried beef (and by beef I mean Yak.). 

After being force fed for ages I played some games with the kids. Badminton was fun and then we did this weird catching game, I don't think I understood it very well. We then settled down for pass the parcel! They got the idea very quickly and soon began having lots of fun! This was definitely a hit! Next we did over and under (put something over their heads, then under their legs). They loved that too! We finished with the Okey Cokey which went down well as well.

On the way back I was introduced to a child with fantastic English, when I asked her what she wanted to do when she was older she told me ' I want to be an Astronaut and the first woman to walk on Mars' talk about aiming high (no pun intended)! Most of the time all I get is 'I want to be a worker/ teacher/ doctor'. I was very impressed by this child!

We finally made it back to the Complex, where there was still people working hard because apparently kids arrive on Sunday! It was such a lovely day that Cecilia, Alex and I took our books out and sat in the sun reading, it was glorious! It soon got a bit too warm for me so I went for a nap before dinner which was well needed! 

The evening was passed by watching Hell Boy with Alex, Cecilia and Mike, after a brief blackout that is! 

Lessons, Lessons and More Lessons

Well the power came on finally on Tuesday morning!

I have exciting news! I have been given a Chinese name!! 何伟山- Hé wěi shān, it means The Gorgeous Mountain! Xing Yan Yan gave it to me! I quite like it!

Tuesday's lesson went really well! I had planned to play a lot of running games with the kids so I wore jeans and a nice shirt instead of my normal smart attire. As luck would have it we were visited by a news team from a local Xining TV station!! And there I was wearing jeans! They tried interviewing me... in Chinese... repeatedly. Wo Bu Ming Bai - I don't understand. The Chinese teacher had to the interview on my behalf! So watch out because I will be on TV! I had the kids write a letter to the kids at Hyde Park Junior School, they loved it! The letters aren't half bad either!

Wednesday took a rather interesting turn! We got told that we had to leave to get to the office at 830 so we all had to get up early! Then the bus didn't turn up until HALF PAST NINE! The organisational skills of China are starting to get on my nerves. We finally made it to the office, we walked in and it was tense... It quickly became apparent that Matthew was on the war path. We didn't know who he was angry with, us or his staff! Turns out it was his staff! In China it is bad to make someone lose 'face' however people were losing face left, right and centre! Matthew even made Xing Yan Yan cry! It was awful! We didn't have a clue what was going on! Once Matthew went into his office, things were much nicer. We finally found out when we were off for the Qing Ming Festival (Tomb Sweeping Festival). We got some lunch which was really tasty! We even got PORK (Deena was ill and stayed at the complex). Then we headed off to our schools!

It was my favourite school so I was excited! The lesson went REALLY well, the letters were fantastic and we got to play some games! I had a couple of new faces in class which was a bit of a surprise but not too bad. However one of the new boys is a very bad influence on one of the other boys. I think I am going to need a seating plan for next week! I am sure this is going to make me very unpopular, oh well! Oh and on Wednesday there was a kite festival in school, all the kids had brought in kites and were flying them! It was beautiful! One of my kids got me a kite to fly too which was great fun (until I realised they had stolen the kite off a small child...), first time flying a kite since I was little! It was a really great day!

 

The evening was filled with making plans for Qing Ming! Everyone is going to Xi'an to see the Terracotta army, well everyone except for me! I am flying to Shanghai!!! EXCITING TIMES! I will be seeing Kathryn! And getting a break from the people here (a break is DEFINITELY needed from certain people...).

In a slightly scary turn of events, one of the teacher's son text me saying there had been an incident in one of the middle schools here. A student had killed another student with a sword after an argument! This is crazy!! He went to primary school with the victim so was quite upset. Still can't quite believe it.

Yesterday was an interesting day. It started off pretty boringly with me scanning in all of the letters from the kids. Deena still was ill so Matthew wanted to take her to hospital; she was adamant that she was not ill enough to go so I tried to persuade Matthew that she will be fine. However he wasn't convinced, he was just worried about her. He really cares about us, all the adults do.

School yesterday was interesting... Originally they had told me I would be teaching 20 students but have 20 students observing my lesson (3 hours of observation from primary kids, who the hell thought that was a good idea?!). So when I walked into a class of 80 it was a bit of a surprise... I had 20 kids from my first week, 20 from my second and 40 new ones... and they all were taking part in the lesson. This was a bit of a shock to say the least as I was expecting 20. Well I just went with it and tried to do as much as I could in the lecture hall I was given. Tried a lot of group work and I think it worked! Still would have been nice to have a bit of notice though! I was exhausted after class, we went back and I spent the evening playing cards and Chinese Checkers with Alex, Mike and Siz. 

REAL FOOD, Lesson Planning and Darkness

OK so Sunday we went back into Xining! We decided that we should go and find a western cafe called Cafe Java so we can have a proper western lunch! We arrived in Xining and began walking in the general direction of where we wanted to go, well some of us did. Will decided to be difficult and declare he didn't want to go and just got on a random bus. Good riddance really, it gave the rest of us a much needed break from him.

We got on what we thought was the right bus and began our journey, however it quickly became apparent that we were going the wrong way so we got off again! We found a Western Cafe called the Greenhouse Cafe but it didn't serve food so we continued our search for Cafe Java. We eventually found it but it was closed!! We met up with one of our Chinese contacts called Kelly and she found out that the cafe would be open in an hour or so.  Across the road from the cafe was Xining Culture Park so we decided to go and burn some time in there. We walked in and saw that we could rent a golf cart for 20RMB for half an hour, Mike and I decided to split the money and time. It was so much fun! The carts weren't fast but much fun was had driving round with Deena and Alex (they got one between them too). I tried to do a 3 point turn but quickly realised that there was no reverse gear (duh...) and had to wheel myself backwards, Mike found it hilarious.

The park was really nice but like most of Xining there wasn't much greenery yet. Kelly said that there has been virtually no rain or snow this year, so the ground is very dry. I am sure it looks a lot nicer when there are leaves on the trees and flowers in the flower beds.

We decided it was time for lunch only to have Will ring us and ask us to help guide him to where we were. The general feeling between Alex, Mike and I was that if he had wanted to come he should have stayed with us. We were more interested in western food than getting Will to us; in fact we'd have preferred him to be elsewhere. Alex describes him as a cloud of negativity while I just describe him as an ignorant moron.

Anyway we went into Cafe Java and ordered ourselves a burger and a coke (no diet coke here in Xining), the coke was even chilled and served with ICE. This is unheard of here in Xining. It was glorious. We sat down to wait for our food and Cecilia and Kelly taught Mike and I how to play Chinese Checkers which was good fun! It was weird being in a place with so many foreigners! The burgers soon came and my goodness, they were to die for. I mean they weren't that great quality but it was meat with no bones in it! Oh and CHEESE! Was very happy! Even Will's arrival couldn't put a dampener on my mood. We had chocolate cheesecake after which was very nice! China doesn't do desserts so this was a treat. Mike headed off to meet Fish and go pick up his laptop from the repairman. I was quite happy just chilling out in this cafe enjoying the atmosphere but of course Will was restless and demanded we go. This annoyed Alex, I actually thought she was going to attack him; I guess his attitude that day just tipped the scale. The thing is with Will, he does things to get a reaction and yet is so socially inept that he fails to notice when he goes too far and then he never lets things go. In all he is just a spoilt brat, who is used to getting his own way.

Anyway to avoid the next World War I suggested that we go and meet up with Fish and Will. We got on a bus and found ourselves waiting outside of the market. I got a phone call which was all in Chinese so I passed my phone to Kelly. She talked to the man and then relayed to me that he had a package for me but couldn't deliver to school because it is too far out of Xining. Once Michael and Fish arrived, we went to this massive supermarket. My phone rang again and Fish answered it, we had to go meet the courier to get this package. We walked for a while but luckily Fish is really nice and her English is fantastic! She said I was very intelligent which was nice! We met the courier and he handed me my package. Now to see what was in the package... red noses. Lots of red noses! I forgot I bought these! Oh well I will have to use them in teaching somehow!

Fish and I headed back to the supermarket and had a quick look around. I bought some sun cream and a mop. The supermarket was huge, we are going to have to go back. We then made our way slowly to the bus stop. By this point I was wearing a red nose; I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to feel down when wearing it, everyone smiled at me, one kid even tried to use a lychee as a nose so I gave him one of mine, he was so happy! Alex, Cecilia and I ended up getting distracted and fell behind the others so we told them to go on without us. It was nice to just be the three of us; we casually strolled toward the bus stop stopping to look in shops and the like. It was just lovely.

Monday was fun, I was excited about my lesson this week as I am doing some letter writing to the kids at Hyde Park. This weeks' lessons will focus on the difference between English and Chinese schools and I will be playing some English playground games with my classes, this will hopefully give them a break from letter writing! I seem to be a lot more blasé about my lesson plan this week. I have an activity bank and a rough plan but it is nowhere near as thorough as the last couple of weeks. I guess I am growing more confident...

Anyway so Monday morning was filled with lesson planning, after lunch I had a nap and then the power went. NO ELECTRICITY. On top of that it was so windy that we couldn't go outside because of the dust being blown around. Once the wind had died down a little bit, Michael and I played some basketball (I am still awful). We were joined by some of the Chinese teachers which was cool, though I quickly felt very silly because they were so good. It was fun though!

After basketball I played some Chinese checkers with the girls (lost twice...), then dinner. Even after dinner there was still no power so we quickly found ourselves sitting in the dark! Siz, Alex, Mike and I decided to do some exploring and play some games in the dark. We played tag and hide and seek, the Complex is very creepy at night! I won hide and seek though (even if it was through default)! We then decided that it was far too cold to stay outside so we went into Mike's room and he played his guitar for us and we had a sing-song. It was really nice!

Overall I have had a really amazing couple of days! I am lucky! Oh and I forgot to mention that my new Jasper Fforde books arrived on Monday too! EXCITING!

Bus life!

This is Alex's video. Sorry about the swearing and my lack of involvement but it really shows you a lot about our lives!

Life in Captivity

Oh What A Wonderful Couple of Days

OK so Friday: Lesson went well! Lots of games and fun! Oh and some of the kids brought in musical instruments to play for me! There were a few flutes and a sizor (I have no idea how to spell it).

The kids all made me gifts which was lovely! I got lots of paper cuttings, a mobile (the ones for babies), origami, hand made flowers, drawings and even a painting! My favourite had to be a card from a girl called Tina, in this card she introduced herself and said she was very happy to have a 'happy man' as her teacher. Really sweet!

Last night was really chilled! Will and Deena were out seeing a concert, so Siz, Alex, Cecilia, Mike and I hung out and got to know each other better! I didn't know Alex was ambidextrous for a start! We played cards and had a lot of fun. I went off to bed pretty early as we had to be up for a 730 breakfast and an 8am depart.

Having said that, the canteen wasn't unlocked until 8... Will and Deena overslept majorly and so we were really late for our excursion (my school had been waiting in the cold for 40 minutes! And it was COLD). There was a massive argument in the car because Will was upset at us because we didn't give him enough time to get ready; this then blew up into a heated argument because I sent him a text telling him we had to be gone by 8 and he was still asleep at 820! Mike got really annoyed and the journey wasn't much fun, well for them at least! I said what I needed to say and then plugged myself in to listen to Miranda Hart's audiobook, a great way to escape any situation.

Today's excursion was up South Mountain, now we had tried to go up there before but it was closed. I joined my class (Wednesday's school - my favourites) and we began the walk to the mountain! The kids were lively and full of questions which I was more than willing to answer. The Swallow came too! We made it to the base of the mountain and began our climb, needless to say it was pretty hard work! I was expected to climb, sing songs, interact with the children and yet I wasn't allowed to take my jumper off despite the fact that, by this point, it was very warm!

We made it to the top though and the view of Xining was certainly impressive. We took loads of photos and I mean LOADS. I swear I had a picture with every student AND  every member of staff AND some random members of the public!!!! We played lots of games including duck, duck, goose, we sang songs and we just had fun!

 Soon it was time to head back down the mountain to lunch! Beef noodles, yum! However this was beef noodles with oodles of chili! Being watched and more often than not videoed while I was attempting to use chopsticks to eat my noodles is definitely an experience!

Next it was time to go meet the others so I bade farewell to my class and headed back with the Swallow. We got there and met up with everyone before going off and doing jobs, Michael needed his computer fixed and I wanted my haircut so we went with Fish to the electronics market and then onto the barbers. Now Chinese barbers are interesting! They wash your hair and give you a head massage before getting you in the chair, it was very relaxing. I don't think they understood how short I wanted it so it is still longer than I would normally have it but its better than what it was! Plus for only 35RMB (£3.50) you can't complain.

After the haircut, we went for a walk so Michael could buy a guitar. We got lost a couple of times but we made it eventually. He got his guitar and we decided that, seeing as it was such a nice day, we fancied a beer! So naturally we ended up wandering to try and find one for about an hour! And when we did find one it wasn't even cold!

For Kathryn

Fish with Fish

After that, we made our way back to the bus stop and back to school (via a ridiculously crowded bus...).

Oh and some last exciting news! Thanks to the lovely Victoria, next weeks lesson will involve establishing some form of communication between the kids I teach here and the kids of 5G at Hyde Park! I can't wait to start this!