Chinatimes are Over :(
I’m in the Shanghai airport, waiting for my flight home. One the one hand it feels like such a long time ago that I first arrived at Cool Camp. On the other hand, it’s gone by so fast! I’ll miss China, but I already feel like I have one foot in the door back in the US- flying in the face of jet lag, I’m trying to set up job interviews for literally 2 hours after my flight lands in Seattle. Despite all the struggles I’ll always have fond “Chinatimes” memories to look back on.
China, it’s been real.
China, it’s been real.
Shanghai, briefly
Shanghai has been a whirlwind. We’ve done so much here: went to the Shanghai Museum and the Shanghai Museum of Science and Technology, walked around People’s Square, saw The Bund at Night, walked through the French Concession, visited temples and bought the most tacky tourist “I <3 China” shirts. We also did things like master the subway system (and its corollary, mastering the art of shoving oneself into very tight spaces), went to a crazy Chinese amusement park, drank zhen zhu nai cha (pearl milk tea) at every opportunity, and on the tip of a friend-of-a-friend went swimming in a pool at some random apartment complex. Also, if we thought we had seen “people mountain, people sea” we had no clue until we got to downtown Shanghai.
One of my favorite things we did in Shanghai was going to The Bund at night. It’s this street along the river and on one side there are amazingly elaborate European-style buildings from (I think) the early 20th century. Then you look out across the river and see Shanghai’s futuristic skyline lit up with every color imaginable. Just like in Hangzhou, we started naming all the buildings so we could use them as points of reference. Not knowing their real names, we started referring to them as things like “the bottle opener” and the “alien homing station”. As our names probably indicate, Shanghai’s architecture is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Here are a few of the MANY pictures from our adventures in Shanghai. These are both from The Bund.
One of my favorite things we did in Shanghai was going to The Bund at night. It’s this street along the river and on one side there are amazingly elaborate European-style buildings from (I think) the early 20th century. Then you look out across the river and see Shanghai’s futuristic skyline lit up with every color imaginable. Just like in Hangzhou, we started naming all the buildings so we could use them as points of reference. Not knowing their real names, we started referring to them as things like “the bottle opener” and the “alien homing station”. As our names probably indicate, Shanghai’s architecture is like nothing we’ve ever seen before.
Here are a few of the MANY pictures from our adventures in Shanghai. These are both from The Bund.
Adventures with Amanda: The Tour So Far
We’re on day 3 of our tour and despite being the slightest bit exhausted are having an awesome time being tourists and seeing the sights. We’ve not run into any major difficulties which is a big bonus in any of our “Chinatime” adventures. Here’s some of the things we saw in Suzhou the first couple of days. Suzhou is a canal town that is also famous for its gardens. Not speaking Mandarin, I have a feeling I didn’t get the full story, but here’s what we learned:
Last night we took a super speedy 30 minute train to Shanghai and got settled into our hotel. This morning we went to Madame Tussaud’s Wax museum and took some hilarious pictures with the likes of Albert Einstein, Yao Ming and the Obamas. Then, we went to Old Street and the Temple of the Town Gods (Chenghuang) which is part temple part insane tourist shopping haven. There’s this saying we’ve learned in Chinese, “ren shan ren hai” or “people mountain, people sea” alluding to the fact that there are massive amounts of people. Everywhere. And this was definitely the case here. Once you get over being shoved around by a couple thousand Chinese people taking pictures, it was fun to see and to be part of the hustle and bustle.
Tonight we’re going to meet up with our Cool Camp buddies Spencer and Terese and head to The Bund. Tomorrow: Chinese amusement park! It will definitely be another people-mountain-people-sea scenario, but I’m still pretty excited about it.
- Humble Ambassador’s Garden: Suzhou’s most famous garden which dates back to the early 1500’s. We followed a tour group and Amanda translated for us. Every other thing we walked past was something to bring good luck and fortune- step here, touch this dragon rock, etc., so I have a feeling things will be going our way for a while.
- Lion’s Grove Garden: This was built in the 1300s by a Buddhist monk. It has huge, strangely shaped rocks everywhere, which they say look like Lions.
- Tiger Hill: Home of the Cloud Rock Pagoda, built in the 10th Century. About 400 years ago it started leaning and the guidebook says the top of it has leaned about 6 feet from its original position. This hill also has a lake which supposedly has/used to have thousands of swords under it. Sometimes I’m not sure what is fact and what is Chinese legend. At the bottom of the hill we took a boat ride around some of the canals.
- Han Shan (Cold Mountain) Temple: This temple was named for the 7th Century poet/monk who happened to be a favorite of the one and only Jack Kerouac! If it has Jack’s approval, I was of course intrigued. In one part there was this huge bell that we rang. They told us it was the biggest bell in the world, but I’m not sure how much I believe that statement.
Last night we took a super speedy 30 minute train to Shanghai and got settled into our hotel. This morning we went to Madame Tussaud’s Wax museum and took some hilarious pictures with the likes of Albert Einstein, Yao Ming and the Obamas. Then, we went to Old Street and the Temple of the Town Gods (Chenghuang) which is part temple part insane tourist shopping haven. There’s this saying we’ve learned in Chinese, “ren shan ren hai” or “people mountain, people sea” alluding to the fact that there are massive amounts of people. Everywhere. And this was definitely the case here. Once you get over being shoved around by a couple thousand Chinese people taking pictures, it was fun to see and to be part of the hustle and bustle.
Tonight we’re going to meet up with our Cool Camp buddies Spencer and Terese and head to The Bund. Tomorrow: Chinese amusement park! It will definitely be another people-mountain-people-sea scenario, but I’m still pretty excited about it.
Just Read:
http://youreika.wordpress.com/2010/08/20/cool-camp-a%C2%A0partial-retrospective/
A "bloge" post by a fellow foreign teacher. Oh the memories...
A "bloge" post by a fellow foreign teacher. Oh the memories...
Made it to Suzhou!
We made it to Suzhou! With our trusty “tour guide”/TA, Amanda we left The Compound behind and have officially started our “tour”. It’s amazing how easy it is to navigate bus stations, cab rides, etc. when you have someone who can actually communicate with people! The only downside? We have huge suitcases to lug around said bus stations and cab rides. Oh well. We’re off to explore…something… this afternoon.
Last days in Hangzhou
We’re spending our last days in Hangzhou exactly as we spent our first: sitting around The Compound, waiting for information with very little idea of what is happening, when it’s happening or if it’s happening at all. At least now this kind of thing doesn’t really freak us out anymore. We’re supposed to be meeting with some TA (40 minutes ago) who will tell us about the tour that is supposed to start tomorrow- the details of this situation can be characterized as complete chaos and are more than I could ever begin to chronicle. At this point, we’re just hoping someone comes for us in the morning.
And just when we thought The Compound couldn’t get any worse, it does. Everything is completely shutting down and we are definitely the last hold-outs. What was once a flurry of students, TAs, teachers and commotion is now an empty shell of its former, frenzied glory. We said goodbye to the last TA last night, the cafeteria’s closed, the market’s closed, and people are starting to clean out the rooms (well, at least they’re making piles of blankets in the hallway). Having to fend for ourselves in the way of food, we’ve been eating a lot of dumplings, fried noodles and milk bubble tea because those are what we know how to order in Chinese.
Down to the final S group 4, we’ve been hitting up our favorite Hangzhou hang outs for a final time. We went back to the night market where we picked up some awesome fake Ray Bans and some even more awesome shirts with wonderfully horrible English. We also went back to KTV a couple of nights ago and despite being completely ditched by the TAs, still had a fun night of singing. Tonight, one last dinner at The Grandma’s and a final appearance at Travels Pub. Hopefully Falling Tree and his band will also be there.
In the meantime, we’ll wait in the office, hanging on to a thread of hope that for one last time, things will workout… somehow. At least now we have an awesome playlist of Chinese songs to entertain us.
Update: The TA never showed, so we called her and she's still waiting somewhere for some signature, we think for the money for our "tour". Basically, this 20 year old girl is now completely in charge of our tour, both arranging it and being our tour guide. We won't have the luxuries the other group had, but we will definitely have an adventure. We're leaving tomorrow at 7 am for Suzhou- we have no idea if she even has bus tickets, hotel reservations or any of these pesky little details nailed down, but we're going for it anyway.
And now, pictures from KTV:
And just when we thought The Compound couldn’t get any worse, it does. Everything is completely shutting down and we are definitely the last hold-outs. What was once a flurry of students, TAs, teachers and commotion is now an empty shell of its former, frenzied glory. We said goodbye to the last TA last night, the cafeteria’s closed, the market’s closed, and people are starting to clean out the rooms (well, at least they’re making piles of blankets in the hallway). Having to fend for ourselves in the way of food, we’ve been eating a lot of dumplings, fried noodles and milk bubble tea because those are what we know how to order in Chinese.
Down to the final S group 4, we’ve been hitting up our favorite Hangzhou hang outs for a final time. We went back to the night market where we picked up some awesome fake Ray Bans and some even more awesome shirts with wonderfully horrible English. We also went back to KTV a couple of nights ago and despite being completely ditched by the TAs, still had a fun night of singing. Tonight, one last dinner at The Grandma’s and a final appearance at Travels Pub. Hopefully Falling Tree and his band will also be there.
In the meantime, we’ll wait in the office, hanging on to a thread of hope that for one last time, things will workout… somehow. At least now we have an awesome playlist of Chinese songs to entertain us.
Update: The TA never showed, so we called her and she's still waiting somewhere for some signature, we think for the money for our "tour". Basically, this 20 year old girl is now completely in charge of our tour, both arranging it and being our tour guide. We won't have the luxuries the other group had, but we will definitely have an adventure. We're leaving tomorrow at 7 am for Suzhou- we have no idea if she even has bus tickets, hotel reservations or any of these pesky little details nailed down, but we're going for it anyway.
And now, pictures from KTV:
Nica and Melody
Gina :)
Sing it, Antony!
And this is how you know it's time to go home...
The End.
Cool Camp has officially come to an end. We had our closing ceremony last night and it was a nice way to say goodbye. We’ve come to expect these things to be more obligatory than enjoyable, the night usually ending up being incredibly long, hot and boring. After three of these suckers, we’ve learned our lesson and this final ceremony was really well done. All of the classes did a song, dance or skit and the amazing foreign teachers did our two dances. The TAs made one slideshow of pictures for the entire camp (instead of one for every class) and our kids got to come give us hugs and say goodbye at the end (as opposed to doing this on stage while everyone else has to sit, feign interest and watch). After the ceremony, my kids migrated back to our classroom where they were all giving goodbye-I-love-you-I’ll-never-ever-forget-you speeches (in Mandarin). Everyone was crying, even the 16 year old boys!
We had our last class meeting in this morning where we did nothing but sit around, take pictures and reminisce about the good ol’ days (i.e. last week). When the Mercedes and BMW’s start rolling up, it’s a sure sign that the parents are here and it’s time for the kids to go home. I said goodbye to my class, not letting them leave until they all promised to email me.
We have a few more days to hang around The Compound before our trip to Suzhou and Shanghai and if nothing else, Cool Camp has perfected the art of the last minute scramble. I was sitting on the street at 1 am eating dumplings last night when another teacher (who is not going on the tour) turns to me and says “So I hear they’re trying to give you money instead of a tour?”
“Um, no!” I say, dismissing his suggestion as ridiculous gossip. Even Cool Camp wouldn’t try to pull something that stupid.
“Yes they are.” He said, “They told me to tell you that you need to talk to Ray about it.” What?! There were so many things wrong with this scenario, not the least of which is the fact that the people in charge are so incompetent that I’m finding out this crucial info at 1 am eating dumplings with someone who is completely uninvolved in the tour! Despite having multiple meetings about this very topic (to avoid this very situation), this camp has still planned nothing. Apparently they realized that since there are only 3 of us on this tour they can’t get the group rate they got for the last one and it’s going to cost them a lot more money. Since they’ve know about this since, oh I don’t know, March, you’d think they could set aside a few thousand yuan, but doing things the logical way is not really their style. We promptly told them no, reminding them about our contract and its promise of a 5 day tour. We’re pretty sure we’ll have somewhere to go on the 20th, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. A little suspense makes things so much more exciting!
Here are some pictures from the last few days of camp:
We had our last class meeting in this morning where we did nothing but sit around, take pictures and reminisce about the good ol’ days (i.e. last week). When the Mercedes and BMW’s start rolling up, it’s a sure sign that the parents are here and it’s time for the kids to go home. I said goodbye to my class, not letting them leave until they all promised to email me.
We have a few more days to hang around The Compound before our trip to Suzhou and Shanghai and if nothing else, Cool Camp has perfected the art of the last minute scramble. I was sitting on the street at 1 am eating dumplings last night when another teacher (who is not going on the tour) turns to me and says “So I hear they’re trying to give you money instead of a tour?”
“Um, no!” I say, dismissing his suggestion as ridiculous gossip. Even Cool Camp wouldn’t try to pull something that stupid.
“Yes they are.” He said, “They told me to tell you that you need to talk to Ray about it.” What?! There were so many things wrong with this scenario, not the least of which is the fact that the people in charge are so incompetent that I’m finding out this crucial info at 1 am eating dumplings with someone who is completely uninvolved in the tour! Despite having multiple meetings about this very topic (to avoid this very situation), this camp has still planned nothing. Apparently they realized that since there are only 3 of us on this tour they can’t get the group rate they got for the last one and it’s going to cost them a lot more money. Since they’ve know about this since, oh I don’t know, March, you’d think they could set aside a few thousand yuan, but doing things the logical way is not really their style. We promptly told them no, reminding them about our contract and its promise of a 5 day tour. We’re pretty sure we’ll have somewhere to go on the 20th, but I guess we’ll have to wait and see. A little suspense makes things so much more exciting!
Here are some pictures from the last few days of camp:
The dwindling S group!
Monkey!
ESL 3
Nobody, nobody but you!
YMCA!
Oh! Too Sexy!
Cool Camp’s got talent! But we mean it literally this time! Last night we had what turned out to be by far the most successful talent show yet! First off, it only started 10 minutes late, a big improvement to the usual 30-40 minute delays we have come to expect. And secondly, the majority of the acts were NOT shameless, horrible karaoke. Oh sure we had a few, including two girls butchering “Hey Jude” so badly they were left with no other choice but to stop and start a second time, but the vast majority of acts were actually entertaining. I was so proud of my little class. One boy, Steven, did some kind of Chinese rap and then him and another student Tom did a hilarious silent skit. Another one of my students, Ray also showed off his mad Chinese yo-yo skills. The other notable act was a student named Real from Gina’s level 2 class who started off rapping to Eminem, transitioned into an gangsta version of the “Nobody” dance and ended with the “Sorry, Sorry” dance and a dramatic fall to the floor. It was ridiculously hot in the room we were in, but we kept it short handed out prizes and were out the door before 8:45.
The talent show was not however without its peculiar moments. For the second half of the show, these girls from the level 1 class did nothing but sit in the front and sob! We thought it was because they didn’t like their scores or something similarly petty that would send only an adolescent girl into a fit of tears, but based on the TAs translation, they were upset that only one boy performed a certain dance instead of the two who originally planned to do it. One of the other foreign teachers asked quietly, “Well did the other boy die or something?” She was half joking, alluding to the fact that this or some equally traumatic circumstances would warrant the kind of anguish these girls were expressing! The TAs calmed them by giving them all gold medals which shut them right up.
ESL 3 class has been eventful as usual and my students’ new favorite activity is to constantly take pictures and/or video of me while I’m teaching! As if this wasn’t bad/distracting enough, they insist on showing me all of the pictures of myself when I’m in mid-sentence and look ridiculous! This little one named Jack is the worst; he has a huge camera and gets right up in my face with it!I finally had to make a no camera rule. Then when that didn’t work, I started confiscating things. Today we took some group pictures outside and Rebecca (the other teacher) and I decided to sit back to back in front of the group. I’m not sure he really knew what he was saying, but when we sat down, one student, Dan exclaimed “Oh! Too sexy!” Sure, Dan.
I was running out of steam toward the end of the day today so I told them we could play whatever game they wanted. They chose “Baby, smile if you love me!” which we played for a hilarious 35 minutes! I am absolutely horrible at that game and no matter how hard I try I can’t not smile at these incredibly goofy kids. The kids picked up on this real quick, so I was the target of every other person. Luckily Linda was just as bad and was also a popular choice. I was pretty proud that I was the first to get Miracle (who we refer to as our “angst-y boy”) to crack a smile!
We have our last full day of teaching tomorrow and closing ceremonies. I walked in to class this afternoon and the TA was in front of the class talking and panicked a little bit when she saw me walk in. Then she sort of shook her head, said “Oh! Never mind!” and kept talking. It was a little suspicious that she and the kids kept looking at me while she was talking and then she ended her little speech with a “shhhhhh!” I’m pretty sure they’re planning some kind of surprise for us and were discussing it in Mandarin right in front of me, knowing I’d be completely clueless. I’m sure if these kids have anything to do with it, it will be ridiculous and we’ll love it!
The talent show was not however without its peculiar moments. For the second half of the show, these girls from the level 1 class did nothing but sit in the front and sob! We thought it was because they didn’t like their scores or something similarly petty that would send only an adolescent girl into a fit of tears, but based on the TAs translation, they were upset that only one boy performed a certain dance instead of the two who originally planned to do it. One of the other foreign teachers asked quietly, “Well did the other boy die or something?” She was half joking, alluding to the fact that this or some equally traumatic circumstances would warrant the kind of anguish these girls were expressing! The TAs calmed them by giving them all gold medals which shut them right up.
ESL 3 class has been eventful as usual and my students’ new favorite activity is to constantly take pictures and/or video of me while I’m teaching! As if this wasn’t bad/distracting enough, they insist on showing me all of the pictures of myself when I’m in mid-sentence and look ridiculous! This little one named Jack is the worst; he has a huge camera and gets right up in my face with it!I finally had to make a no camera rule. Then when that didn’t work, I started confiscating things. Today we took some group pictures outside and Rebecca (the other teacher) and I decided to sit back to back in front of the group. I’m not sure he really knew what he was saying, but when we sat down, one student, Dan exclaimed “Oh! Too sexy!” Sure, Dan.
I was running out of steam toward the end of the day today so I told them we could play whatever game they wanted. They chose “Baby, smile if you love me!” which we played for a hilarious 35 minutes! I am absolutely horrible at that game and no matter how hard I try I can’t not smile at these incredibly goofy kids. The kids picked up on this real quick, so I was the target of every other person. Luckily Linda was just as bad and was also a popular choice. I was pretty proud that I was the first to get Miracle (who we refer to as our “angst-y boy”) to crack a smile!
We have our last full day of teaching tomorrow and closing ceremonies. I walked in to class this afternoon and the TA was in front of the class talking and panicked a little bit when she saw me walk in. Then she sort of shook her head, said “Oh! Never mind!” and kept talking. It was a little suspicious that she and the kids kept looking at me while she was talking and then she ended her little speech with a “shhhhhh!” I’m pretty sure they’re planning some kind of surprise for us and were discussing it in Mandarin right in front of me, knowing I’d be completely clueless. I’m sure if these kids have anything to do with it, it will be ridiculous and we’ll love it!
Steven and Tom's skit.
Ray's Chinese yo-yo
Real... keepin it real, as usual.
My class practicing their speeches!
Last Cool Camp "Weekend"
On our last Cool Camp “weekend” we decided to stay in Hangzhou and relax. On Thursday (which we still insist on calling Saturday) Gina, Spencer and I decided to venture to a tea museum near West Lake. The area is famous for tea and the museum is free so we went and learned more than I never knew there was to learn about tea. It was in a beautiful area and there were tea fields nearby. They let you sample tea for free, so we tried green tea, black tea with lychee, flower tea and ginseng oolong tea. My favorite was the ginseng oolong tea which tasted exactly like breakfast cereal. No relaxing Hangzhou day would be complete without a meal at The Grandma’s, so we went for dinner and ordered all of our favorites. We were pretty impressed with ourselves that we navigated this entire day with no major mishaps and without anyone who speaks any Mandarin! After dinner we came back to the compound for secret dance rehearsal of the “Nobody” dance (we’re getting good!) and a teacher movie night. We don’t have keys to the classrooms, but somehow a student got a hold of one and one of the foreign teachers confiscated it, so after the night activities we went into that classroom and used the projector to watch Princess Bride.
On Friday (or Sunday in our world) we met up with a former TA, King. First, he took us to a bookstore and we spent a long time wandering around looking at large quanities of text we just couldn’t understand. This was surprisingly entertaining. We did find a whole section of Roald Dahl books and I bought the BFG in Mandarin. I figure it’s not a completely useless purchase because I’ll have students in Bellevue who can read it. I also bought a couple of picture books. I really wanted to find some that had Mandarin and English, but I might have to wait until I’m in Shanghai.
After that we decided to take the city busses up to the Longjing tea village. Since King was with us, he figured out which busses to take. The cards we have for the bikes work on all public transportation, so used them for fare and besides waiting around in the sun, it was surprisingly easy. I kept being very suspicious of thieves on the bus, but then I remembered I was not in Kibera. We got to the tea village and immediately this woman walks up to us and in a flurry of Mandarin, seems adamant that we follow her. We do and she picks up a bucket with a long rope tied to the handle, shoves it into my hands and walks us over to a well. Through King’s translation we understood that we were supposed to get water and wash our hands in it for good luck and fortune. So I lowered the bucket, filled it with water and brought it back up. It was cold and very refreshing, especially on a day that was pushing 40 C (we think this is over 100 F). We started walking away and they started hassling us again, fanatically pointing to me and the water, looking very concerned. Apparently, I had to be the one pour out the extra, but the logic got completely lost in translation. It seemed like a pretty big deal to them; I think it had something to do with the idea of things coming full circle. I’m glad we complied because we only realized later that it was in fact Friday the 13th. This task completed, went to a tea shop where we tasted Xi Hu (West Lake) Longjing tea, learned its every minutia (through some questionable translation) and bought some to take with us. The guy who worked in the shop was hilarious and we attempted to take a picture with him as we were leaving.
We took the bus back down to West Lake and rode bikes around the backside and up to Old Street. It was a gorgeous evening and despite the heat, we enjoyed riding bikes through such a beautiful part of town.
Things are definitely starting to wind down around Cool Camp. We have a camp talent show tonight, closing ceremonies two days from now and the last day of class on the 17th. Some of the foreign teachers are having their last days with the students tomorrow and people are already starting to say their goodbyes. It’s feeling a little strange to know that we’re leaving The Compound in less than a week and as exciting as that is, I think a small part of us will miss it and its many, many peculiarities.
On Friday (or Sunday in our world) we met up with a former TA, King. First, he took us to a bookstore and we spent a long time wandering around looking at large quanities of text we just couldn’t understand. This was surprisingly entertaining. We did find a whole section of Roald Dahl books and I bought the BFG in Mandarin. I figure it’s not a completely useless purchase because I’ll have students in Bellevue who can read it. I also bought a couple of picture books. I really wanted to find some that had Mandarin and English, but I might have to wait until I’m in Shanghai.
After that we decided to take the city busses up to the Longjing tea village. Since King was with us, he figured out which busses to take. The cards we have for the bikes work on all public transportation, so used them for fare and besides waiting around in the sun, it was surprisingly easy. I kept being very suspicious of thieves on the bus, but then I remembered I was not in Kibera. We got to the tea village and immediately this woman walks up to us and in a flurry of Mandarin, seems adamant that we follow her. We do and she picks up a bucket with a long rope tied to the handle, shoves it into my hands and walks us over to a well. Through King’s translation we understood that we were supposed to get water and wash our hands in it for good luck and fortune. So I lowered the bucket, filled it with water and brought it back up. It was cold and very refreshing, especially on a day that was pushing 40 C (we think this is over 100 F). We started walking away and they started hassling us again, fanatically pointing to me and the water, looking very concerned. Apparently, I had to be the one pour out the extra, but the logic got completely lost in translation. It seemed like a pretty big deal to them; I think it had something to do with the idea of things coming full circle. I’m glad we complied because we only realized later that it was in fact Friday the 13th. This task completed, went to a tea shop where we tasted Xi Hu (West Lake) Longjing tea, learned its every minutia (through some questionable translation) and bought some to take with us. The guy who worked in the shop was hilarious and we attempted to take a picture with him as we were leaving.
We took the bus back down to West Lake and rode bikes around the backside and up to Old Street. It was a gorgeous evening and despite the heat, we enjoyed riding bikes through such a beautiful part of town.
Things are definitely starting to wind down around Cool Camp. We have a camp talent show tonight, closing ceremonies two days from now and the last day of class on the 17th. Some of the foreign teachers are having their last days with the students tomorrow and people are already starting to say their goodbyes. It’s feeling a little strange to know that we’re leaving The Compound in less than a week and as exciting as that is, I think a small part of us will miss it and its many, many peculiarities.
Tea village!
Drinkig tea!
The Merge.
The groups of foreign teachers have officially merged. We are no longer the W group and the A group, kept apart by Cool Camp’s high jinks. We’ve come together into what someone suggested calling the S group. S for survivors. There are 6 of us left and once again Cool Camp has left us with no other choice than to form a strange little family. Someone mentioned that we should call ourselves the S6, but then we realized there are actually 8 foreign teachers left… we’re just not particularly fond of socializing with the other two. So in an effort to solidify the merge we headed out to the Travelers Pub, our favorite Hangzhou hang out. We also brought along a special guest: our friend and cafeteria worker extraordinaire, Xiao Xu! He’s the only one in the cafeteria who speaks English and we know we can always count on him to give us extra watermelon and free tea. We see him three times a day and sometimes hang around so that we can eat with him on his break. He’s pretty much the only good thing about the loud, crowded and incredibly hot cafeteria, so we decided it might be nice to see him in a less hostile environment. We played cards and this weird Chinese dice game, listened to Falling Tree’s band, and tried to comprehend Xiao Xu’s nonsensical stories about this really, really fat American that he knew. Trying to get details about who this person was and what he had to do with anything, Xiao Xu’s only reply was “He’s so fat, you can’t imagine!”
We’re planning a KTV karaoke night with the foreign teachers, Chinese TAs and of course Xiao Xu. We’ve also made what I consider to be the best decision since we’ve been here: to learn the “Nobody” dance for closing ceremonies! It’s a Korean song that the Chinese kids LOVE and one of the classes performed it during the first ESL camp. It's pretty amazing; it should be a hit!
We’re planning a KTV karaoke night with the foreign teachers, Chinese TAs and of course Xiao Xu. We’ve also made what I consider to be the best decision since we’ve been here: to learn the “Nobody” dance for closing ceremonies! It’s a Korean song that the Chinese kids LOVE and one of the classes performed it during the first ESL camp. It's pretty amazing; it should be a hit!
My China besties!
Speed! I won.
Spencer... Reika
Crowd Control at the Zoo
This is how Daniel, another teacher, explained teaching the level 1 ESL class. As they don’t have enough foreign teachers, we all have to rotate through and take turns teaching the class. Level 1 classes have the reputation for being a bit rowdy and difficult to manage, but in most cases, their youthful charm wins us over and we love them anyway. Since this particular group is lacking the structure they desperately need it exacerbates the problem and while I’m not sure anyone can compare to the New Concept level of crazy, it would seem that they come close. The other problem is that the one foreign teacher that does work with them consistently is a little… unusual and likes to do things like slam her water bottle on the table to wake kids up. Today was my turn to teach this class and after the stories I’ve been hearing from the other teachers I was surprised at how much fun I had! They definitely were a lively bunch, but nothing I’m not used to. The difference between them and NCE1 is that these kids were enthusiastic and willing to try. Sure I had a kid in the back, Bob, pouring water everywhere and I had to pull two scrappy little kids off each other in the middle of class, but they’re 11, way smaller than me and have yet to perfect the art of hand to hand combat. We had a fun day of making collages, learning Kenyan games and drawing silly pictures. I enjoyed my time in “the zoo” and it made me miss my little gangsters just a teeny tiny bit.
The Way It’s Supposed To Be
Man, my class is great! They are continually surprising me with how clever, insightful, silly and generally wonderful they are! While all of these things are true, I suspect that part of the reason I love them so much is my natural tendency to compare them to my last class. I try not to, but sometimes I can’t stop myself. And looking good in comparison to that group isn’t much of a challenge. My last class did have their charming moments, but overall, we struggled. One factor in this struggle was the fact that they just didn’t know a lot of English, but my level 3 class has something that was seriously lacking in my last group: motivation, positive attitudes and a willingness to try. As this group becomes more comfortable in class they are more and more willing to look ridiculous, have fun and do all of the weird things I ask them to do. We go to class and have fun; this is the way it’s supposed to be.
This morning, we started by playing some vocabulary games and then got into a circle where we took turns adding on to a story. This class likes to make up stories about the other students falling in love and having babies, so we made a rule that you couldn’t use names of kids in our class. So, the obvious second choice is to make up a story about Lady Gaga and Automan (some robot action hero… I think) having myriad adventures. These have inexplicably become the go-to topics of conversation in our class, which I have just learned to accept. The Adventures of Lady Gaga always turns into an interesting discussion.
Most of the day was spent creating and performing skits. I gave each group 3 random words and their challenge was to use those three words as many times as possible. The group who could say their words the most times would be the winner. Sometimes, I realize I plan activities just for my own entertainment, but this particular one does have some academic relevance. Groups had words like “volunteer, smash, fortunately” “Christmas, certain, following” and “cave, door knob, sympathetic” and had to find a context in which these words might come up. Trying to use the words as much as possible, the dialogue sounded something like this:
Boss: It is certain, we must do the following-
Employee: But its Christmas!
Boss: But it is certain! We must do the following-
Employee: It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas! We certainly need a vacation!
Boss: Christmas? Christmas! You can have a vacation following your work!
This one ended with the employees telling the boss to “go to the hell!” and quitting.
Or
Miracle: “I’m stuck a cave, help! Help!
Gazette: Where are you?
Miracle: In the cave!
Gazette: Use the door knob!
Miracle: There is no door knob! I’m stuck in a cave, help!
During this skit, I’m pretty sure the ones stuck in the cave were saying “Oh shit! Oh shit!” at one point, but I couldn’t really tell. I don’t think the kids have a very good understanding of the implications of English swear words, and none of the kids were reacting to it, so I just let it slide. I did however give Steven a lecture yesterday when he showed up with a shirt that said “Let’s get FUCKIN’ busy!” Kids these days…
My favorite skit today came from Monica, Eva and Jack 1 who had these three words: plant, murder, unimaginative. They titled their play “Love Story” and it was a story of a plant romance gone wrong. While this is creative, their performance took it to the next level. They plugged a phone/MP3 player into the speakers and used music to help tell the story. They also used the entire room, running from one end to the other and jumping on desks to add drama to their lengthy and very dramatic speeches. We were all laughing so hard, we lost count of their words!
I had planned to take the class outside to play games at the end of class, but with only 10 minutes left, we didn’t have time. So I had the class push back the desks, stand in rows and we learned the Macarena! While they claim to hate dancing, they thoroughly enjoyed the Macarena and even went along with the hip action. Exciting activities quickly lose steam around here because they turn into one giant photo shoot, everyone angling to get a picture. At a certain point, there’s nothing left to take pictures of except for other people taking pictures. I've learned that it's pointless to try and stop them so I just make a peace sign, smile and go with it.
This morning, we started by playing some vocabulary games and then got into a circle where we took turns adding on to a story. This class likes to make up stories about the other students falling in love and having babies, so we made a rule that you couldn’t use names of kids in our class. So, the obvious second choice is to make up a story about Lady Gaga and Automan (some robot action hero… I think) having myriad adventures. These have inexplicably become the go-to topics of conversation in our class, which I have just learned to accept. The Adventures of Lady Gaga always turns into an interesting discussion.
Most of the day was spent creating and performing skits. I gave each group 3 random words and their challenge was to use those three words as many times as possible. The group who could say their words the most times would be the winner. Sometimes, I realize I plan activities just for my own entertainment, but this particular one does have some academic relevance. Groups had words like “volunteer, smash, fortunately” “Christmas, certain, following” and “cave, door knob, sympathetic” and had to find a context in which these words might come up. Trying to use the words as much as possible, the dialogue sounded something like this:
Boss: It is certain, we must do the following-
Employee: But its Christmas!
Boss: But it is certain! We must do the following-
Employee: It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas! We certainly need a vacation!
Boss: Christmas? Christmas! You can have a vacation following your work!
This one ended with the employees telling the boss to “go to the hell!” and quitting.
Or
Miracle: “I’m stuck a cave, help! Help!
Gazette: Where are you?
Miracle: In the cave!
Gazette: Use the door knob!
Miracle: There is no door knob! I’m stuck in a cave, help!
During this skit, I’m pretty sure the ones stuck in the cave were saying “Oh shit! Oh shit!” at one point, but I couldn’t really tell. I don’t think the kids have a very good understanding of the implications of English swear words, and none of the kids were reacting to it, so I just let it slide. I did however give Steven a lecture yesterday when he showed up with a shirt that said “Let’s get FUCKIN’ busy!” Kids these days…
My favorite skit today came from Monica, Eva and Jack 1 who had these three words: plant, murder, unimaginative. They titled their play “Love Story” and it was a story of a plant romance gone wrong. While this is creative, their performance took it to the next level. They plugged a phone/MP3 player into the speakers and used music to help tell the story. They also used the entire room, running from one end to the other and jumping on desks to add drama to their lengthy and very dramatic speeches. We were all laughing so hard, we lost count of their words!
I had planned to take the class outside to play games at the end of class, but with only 10 minutes left, we didn’t have time. So I had the class push back the desks, stand in rows and we learned the Macarena! While they claim to hate dancing, they thoroughly enjoyed the Macarena and even went along with the hip action. Exciting activities quickly lose steam around here because they turn into one giant photo shoot, everyone angling to get a picture. At a certain point, there’s nothing left to take pictures of except for other people taking pictures. I've learned that it's pointless to try and stop them so I just make a peace sign, smile and go with it.
Happy Birthday, Happy Food Fight
After teaching a 6 hour day, we needed a little relaxation. Sometimes I don’t know if teaching or filling up time would be a more accurate description of what goes on in my classroom, but either way, it’s exhausting. With no real curriculum and only the vague direction to “teach English,” sometimes I feel like I’m doing little more than trying to keep kids busy until it’s time for break. The day ended up going by quickly and the kids spent a good chunk of the afternoon happily looking through American magazines to make collages of their dreams and ambitions. We had a range of ideas, from the thoughtful and sincere to the unapologetically shallow. Some kids said their dreams were to help animals or travel the world and learn about different cultures and others simply wanted to be the boss and buy lots of cool stuff. One boy just used pictures of cars and made what I will admit was a pretty awesome robot. I have no idea what it had to do with dreams or ambitions, but we’ve been talking so much about creativity, I didn’t have the heart to stop him.
After all of this, Gina and I had something to look forward to: meeting up with our new Chinese friends Mao Ming Long and Lu Xinjie for dinner. They live in apartments next to The Compound and their windows face ours. After a series of unusual exchanges, we decided it might be easier to communicate if we weren’t yelling across the street. Turns out, it’s not that much easier since they don’t speak much English and lord knows we don’t speak Chinese, but we get by using a strange combination of repetition, pantomime and cell phone translators. If all else fails, one thing we all understand is the phrase “ting bu dong.” Ironically, this means “I don’t understand.” We say this a lot, and Lu Xinjie has taken to pretending to bang his head against the wall when we just can’t understand each other. We did start teaching them American slang, so if nothing else they can say “word up” and “peace out” with the best of them. They bought us dinner and while we didn’t really know what we were eating, it was delicious. We were asking about the meat in one dish, which their translators alternately told us was pork and cow stomach. Sometimes, it’s better not to know.
After this, we headed back to The Compound for Melody’s (Gina’s TA) birthday party. We know how Chinese birthday parties operate after seeing other teachers come back to the dorms covered in frosting, but we were curious to see the whole thing go down. We met the other TAs in the office, put candles on the cake (which was 90% frosting), lit them and walked upstairs. We sang happy birthday, Melody made a wish and blew out the candles- everything seemed normal enough. Then the mayhem begins, innocently at first with a dab of frosting on the cheek, but it quickly descends into a full-on food fight. Although there does seem to be a goal in the madness: they seemed to be aiming for faces! So we dove in, grabbed a handful of frosting and looked for the closest cheek. Once the kids got involved, it went immediately downhill; a little one named Luke was determined to get me, shrieking with delight at every handful he could smear on me. Once the cake was evenly distributed between us, the kids, the walls, the floor and the hallway, our job was done. The pictures show the end result.
Luckily, one of Gina’s students has a birthday tomorrow, and we’re definitely going to that party. What’s even better than a birthday food fight? The fact that the birthday girl’s English name is Gentleman Fan Fan!!!!
After all of this, Gina and I had something to look forward to: meeting up with our new Chinese friends Mao Ming Long and Lu Xinjie for dinner. They live in apartments next to The Compound and their windows face ours. After a series of unusual exchanges, we decided it might be easier to communicate if we weren’t yelling across the street. Turns out, it’s not that much easier since they don’t speak much English and lord knows we don’t speak Chinese, but we get by using a strange combination of repetition, pantomime and cell phone translators. If all else fails, one thing we all understand is the phrase “ting bu dong.” Ironically, this means “I don’t understand.” We say this a lot, and Lu Xinjie has taken to pretending to bang his head against the wall when we just can’t understand each other. We did start teaching them American slang, so if nothing else they can say “word up” and “peace out” with the best of them. They bought us dinner and while we didn’t really know what we were eating, it was delicious. We were asking about the meat in one dish, which their translators alternately told us was pork and cow stomach. Sometimes, it’s better not to know.
After this, we headed back to The Compound for Melody’s (Gina’s TA) birthday party. We know how Chinese birthday parties operate after seeing other teachers come back to the dorms covered in frosting, but we were curious to see the whole thing go down. We met the other TAs in the office, put candles on the cake (which was 90% frosting), lit them and walked upstairs. We sang happy birthday, Melody made a wish and blew out the candles- everything seemed normal enough. Then the mayhem begins, innocently at first with a dab of frosting on the cheek, but it quickly descends into a full-on food fight. Although there does seem to be a goal in the madness: they seemed to be aiming for faces! So we dove in, grabbed a handful of frosting and looked for the closest cheek. Once the kids got involved, it went immediately downhill; a little one named Luke was determined to get me, shrieking with delight at every handful he could smear on me. Once the cake was evenly distributed between us, the kids, the walls, the floor and the hallway, our job was done. The pictures show the end result.
Luckily, one of Gina’s students has a birthday tomorrow, and we’re definitely going to that party. What’s even better than a birthday food fight? The fact that the birthday girl’s English name is Gentleman Fan Fan!!!!
Dinner!
Make a wish, Melody!
Our new friends.
Be Free!
Second day of teaching my new class and things are going so well! It continually amazes me how every time I give directions, the kids actually do what I’m asking! We started the morning with some grammar exercises from their text book. This sounds easy enough, but like everything around here, complications always find a way to sneak up on you. Take for example the fact that the entire teachers book is in Mandarin. Of course, this was the case with the teachers book for the New Concept class, as was half of the students book, so at the very least, I’m better off than I was last time. The student book has directions that are pretty straight-forward (read: incredibly boring), so we manage OK. The tricky part comes in when students start asking me to explain grammar rules or when they come up with obscure counter-examples of what the book explains. I know what sounds right, but in most cases have little ability to actually explain why. Today a girl was asking me about the difference between the two kinds of the verb “to lie”- as in to tell a lie and to lie down. She was asking about whether one was regular and one was irregular, what the past participle form was and if they were the same or not. Whew… I had no idea. I told her I’d have to get back to her tomorrow. A good percentage of my lesson planning time is spent googling the likes of “present perfect” and “past participle” so I’ll just tack that on to the list. Wikipedia through the proxy has also been a lifesaver. I can’t imagine how the Chinese function without it!
We started the next part of class with a "chalk talk" about creativity and the kids were so into it! Because of some of what I read in their responses yesterday, we started with this question: is creativity something that everyone has or is it only found in some people? How do you know? At the end, the blackboard was completely covered with their ideas and we stood back to read the responses and look for any trends. Instead of doing this, about half of the class whips out their cameras and starts taking pictures. Around Cool Camp, this is a good gauge of the success of your lesson: if someone insists on photographing/videotaping it, you or the end result, it’s a hit! The themes that came out of the discussion were that everyone has creativity because we all have our own minds and our own thoughts, but some people are more creative than others because they have “developed” their creativity more. A bunch of them also talked about how creative people made a difference in the world.
After this, I gave them each one blank piece of paper and told them to make something with it. I’m pretty sure my exact directions were something along the lines of, “Just do whatever you want! Be free!” Some of them looked very annoyed and confused by these incredibly vague directions, but eventually they all got into it. I was trying to save time at the end of class for them to share what they had made and explain what did and why they did it, but I couldn’t get them to stop working! It was amazing to see their many peculiar creations and I’ll have them present them tomorrow morning.
I have them the entire day tomorrow since it is Rebecca’s “weekend” so I’m excited to do a bigger art project with them. I’m also going to take them outside to play some games, enjoying the fact that I most likely won’t have to wait 15 minutes for the whole class to finally get outside or drag half of them out of the convenience store or deal with them trying to sneak into the cafeteria early or take chalk away from the ones who are sitting on the ground writing “It’s hot hot hot! I’m die!!!! I’m die!!!” Yes, all of those things happened on a regular basis in my last class.
We started the next part of class with a "chalk talk" about creativity and the kids were so into it! Because of some of what I read in their responses yesterday, we started with this question: is creativity something that everyone has or is it only found in some people? How do you know? At the end, the blackboard was completely covered with their ideas and we stood back to read the responses and look for any trends. Instead of doing this, about half of the class whips out their cameras and starts taking pictures. Around Cool Camp, this is a good gauge of the success of your lesson: if someone insists on photographing/videotaping it, you or the end result, it’s a hit! The themes that came out of the discussion were that everyone has creativity because we all have our own minds and our own thoughts, but some people are more creative than others because they have “developed” their creativity more. A bunch of them also talked about how creative people made a difference in the world.
After this, I gave them each one blank piece of paper and told them to make something with it. I’m pretty sure my exact directions were something along the lines of, “Just do whatever you want! Be free!” Some of them looked very annoyed and confused by these incredibly vague directions, but eventually they all got into it. I was trying to save time at the end of class for them to share what they had made and explain what did and why they did it, but I couldn’t get them to stop working! It was amazing to see their many peculiar creations and I’ll have them present them tomorrow morning.
I have them the entire day tomorrow since it is Rebecca’s “weekend” so I’m excited to do a bigger art project with them. I’m also going to take them outside to play some games, enjoying the fact that I most likely won’t have to wait 15 minutes for the whole class to finally get outside or drag half of them out of the convenience store or deal with them trying to sneak into the cafeteria early or take chalk away from the ones who are sitting on the ground writing “It’s hot hot hot! I’m die!!!! I’m die!!!” Yes, all of those things happened on a regular basis in my last class.
Miracle, Bob and Lina chalk talkin' away!
Steven's creative use for his blank piece of paper.
Victor. He wrote a big 3 (because we're level 3) and wrote all of our names inside.
With some leftover paper, they turned a chair into a little creature.
My TA, Kirsten. She's the class photographer.
Nico and her paper project.
Gazette and her doll.
April.
My Little Nerds.
It’s only been three hours, but I’m already in love with my ESL 3 class! They sit, they listen, they follow directions; they not only answer questions, but ask their own! They are thoughtful, attentive and try so hard! They are complete nerds and I could not be happier. My little nerds. They are as a group the complete opposite of my last class, which could explain why I’ve become so fond of them so fast. I was more than a little frustrated with the way things ended in my New Concept class, so I am thoroughly enjoying a fresh start.
Today, we started with some introductions and then made class rules. I told them to phrase the rules in the positive, as things that we should all do as a class to make sure we can learn and have fun. I numbered them off, helped them find their groups and let them loose- something that no amount of translation would have made possible in my last class. The kids came up with five rules with their group, then all the groups shared and we discussed as a class which were most important for our class and why. They were all very adamant about a “no Chinese/ English only” rule, which I felt was a little harsh. They justified it, saying it was the only way they’d get better at English. We decided on a “use English as much as you can and try your hardest” rule instead. Someone proposed the rule “Everybody smile all the time” but that felt phony and unforgiving to the rest of them. One girl stood up and said, “I’m not an airline hostess!” so that one was out. Several of them also said we needed a “no smoking” rule, but I told them it was safe to just assume that you would never smoke in any classroom.
My co-teacher Rebecca taught yesterday and asked them to write about what they wanted to learn from this class. Most of them wrote that they wanted to learn grammar, spoken English and American culture- things like music, movies, food, history, etc. One student wrote something about how people in Western cultures are encouraged to value their own ideas and think in creative ways and he wanted to be better at doing this. Thinking about this, I decided that will be the “American culture” piece that I will focus on- thinking creatively. I want to force them into situations where the “standard answer” will get you absolutely nowhere and see what they can come up with. Sink or swim, baby.
I made them answer two questions today as a ticket out the door to lunch. They were: What does creativity mean to you? How do you show your creativity? I am so impressed with their responses and can tell they are a very thoughtful and insightful bunch. Here are some of the ones that stood out:
Jerry: The creativity is the source of the person’s development. So it can give me new idea, new team or new chance… If the world has no creativity the society’s steps of the development will be stop. It gives me not only the development, but also the ability to live.
Jack: Creativity is important in our lives. We should do many things by creativity. Like painting, inventing, writing articles, they all need creativity. If we live without creativity, we won’t live better.
Jack 2: I think “creativity” likes I wear “skirt” one day. Yeah, that is impossible you think. But all the creativities was impossible when the maker did it. CREATIVITY just different. So you can’t mind who thinks it’s bad and funny.
Eva: In my opinion, “creativity" is an energy, even an advantage.
So we're off and running. If no one walks away with a black eye I'll consider this ESL camp a success!
Today, we started with some introductions and then made class rules. I told them to phrase the rules in the positive, as things that we should all do as a class to make sure we can learn and have fun. I numbered them off, helped them find their groups and let them loose- something that no amount of translation would have made possible in my last class. The kids came up with five rules with their group, then all the groups shared and we discussed as a class which were most important for our class and why. They were all very adamant about a “no Chinese/ English only” rule, which I felt was a little harsh. They justified it, saying it was the only way they’d get better at English. We decided on a “use English as much as you can and try your hardest” rule instead. Someone proposed the rule “Everybody smile all the time” but that felt phony and unforgiving to the rest of them. One girl stood up and said, “I’m not an airline hostess!” so that one was out. Several of them also said we needed a “no smoking” rule, but I told them it was safe to just assume that you would never smoke in any classroom.
My co-teacher Rebecca taught yesterday and asked them to write about what they wanted to learn from this class. Most of them wrote that they wanted to learn grammar, spoken English and American culture- things like music, movies, food, history, etc. One student wrote something about how people in Western cultures are encouraged to value their own ideas and think in creative ways and he wanted to be better at doing this. Thinking about this, I decided that will be the “American culture” piece that I will focus on- thinking creatively. I want to force them into situations where the “standard answer” will get you absolutely nowhere and see what they can come up with. Sink or swim, baby.
I made them answer two questions today as a ticket out the door to lunch. They were: What does creativity mean to you? How do you show your creativity? I am so impressed with their responses and can tell they are a very thoughtful and insightful bunch. Here are some of the ones that stood out:
Jerry: The creativity is the source of the person’s development. So it can give me new idea, new team or new chance… If the world has no creativity the society’s steps of the development will be stop. It gives me not only the development, but also the ability to live.
Jack: Creativity is important in our lives. We should do many things by creativity. Like painting, inventing, writing articles, they all need creativity. If we live without creativity, we won’t live better.
Jack 2: I think “creativity” likes I wear “skirt” one day. Yeah, that is impossible you think. But all the creativities was impossible when the maker did it. CREATIVITY just different. So you can’t mind who thinks it’s bad and funny.
Eva: In my opinion, “creativity" is an energy, even an advantage.
So we're off and running. If no one walks away with a black eye I'll consider this ESL camp a success!
The girls hard at work.
Doing group work like champs!
Miscellaneous Hangzhou Adventures
Here are some pictures of some of the things we’ve done over the last couple of days. We went out for a goodbye dinner with ALL of the teachers and a bunch of TAs- there were about 40 people all together. We went to a nicer Chinese restaurant where we tried some new food- lotus root, black fungus, duck soup, jellyfish and chicken feet! We stopped asking what was in the dishes and just ate; we found that we enjoyed the food much more that way. They also brought out something they were calling ice cream, but looked more like a plate of sliced turkey. We served it with a fork. Then, we went back to The Compound for a meeting at 10 pm, after which a group of us went out to sing karaoke at the ubiquitous KTV (they are seriously EVERYWHERE). Karaoke is THE thing to do here and KTV is THE place to do it. You get a private room for your group and can sing the night away. We of course chose some classics: Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, Celine Dion, etc. They let you stay there until 6 am, which some of the teachers and TAs did. Only in China…
The boys hailing cabs... the Chinese way.
Katelyn enjoying a chicken foot; Mian looking on suspiciously.
Spencer screaming Lady Gaga. 'I was just going for it!'
Drinking beer in the cab, apparently not a problem in China.
Icecream?
KTV... notice the disco lights!
Weekend.
I’m all moved in to my new room and Gina and I immediately got to work spiffing up the place. First project: clean everything! With our newly acquired cleaning supplies we scrubbed the bathroom, bleached the floors and sprayed air freshener everywhere. If only we had some of Katelyn’s perfume ads. We made a “couch” with the extra mattresses which is already a hit and had some leftover stuff which we turned into a random pillow/blanket nook. While searching through the empty rooms yesterday for anything we could get our hands on, we also took the name tags off the doors and decided to hang them up in our room as decoration. This new “art” happens to be right above the random pillow/blanket nook and Daniel, an AISSEC teacher, looked at it and commented that it looks like we’ve made an “alter” to our “fallen comrades.” He said when he came back, he was expecting to see us kneeling at it.
The past few days we’ve been more concerned with saying goodbye to our old classes and other teachers than with thinking about the new ESL camp that’s starting soon. Thursday and Friday is our “weekend” so we’re admittedly a little checked out, but we thought that camp started on Saturday. Apparently not. So we’re back to nighttime hallway huddles, wandering around, knocking on doors, seeing who, if anyone has any kind of information about what is actually happening in this place! Camp is starting today (Friday) and as of last night at 10:30 pm, there was no real information about who was teaching what. At the very least, they usually send us vague/very confusing emails and/or gather us for a “meeting” in which they give us conflicting information. While this is not the least bit helpful, at least we know they’re making an effort. The problem is that Mian, the one person who holds this entire place together is leaving today and someone new is taking over her job. We probably won’t survive without her.
Last night, one teacher was able to track someone down and get answers. While unofficial, we decided to make plans accordingly, especially since some teachers have 6 hour teaching days that were at that point, about 10 hours away. I’m teaching ESL level 3 with Rebecca, an AISSEC teacher. In a few days there will only be 7 teachers for 8 teaching slots, so we’re all going to have to rotate through the level 1 class and teach it for a day so that their teacher, Hayat, can have her days off.
I still haven’t seen any kids yet, but we’ve been told that they have arrived. There are only 5 classes going, and one only has 7 kids, so it’s going to be a lot quieter around The Compound.
The past few days we’ve been more concerned with saying goodbye to our old classes and other teachers than with thinking about the new ESL camp that’s starting soon. Thursday and Friday is our “weekend” so we’re admittedly a little checked out, but we thought that camp started on Saturday. Apparently not. So we’re back to nighttime hallway huddles, wandering around, knocking on doors, seeing who, if anyone has any kind of information about what is actually happening in this place! Camp is starting today (Friday) and as of last night at 10:30 pm, there was no real information about who was teaching what. At the very least, they usually send us vague/very confusing emails and/or gather us for a “meeting” in which they give us conflicting information. While this is not the least bit helpful, at least we know they’re making an effort. The problem is that Mian, the one person who holds this entire place together is leaving today and someone new is taking over her job. We probably won’t survive without her.
Last night, one teacher was able to track someone down and get answers. While unofficial, we decided to make plans accordingly, especially since some teachers have 6 hour teaching days that were at that point, about 10 hours away. I’m teaching ESL level 3 with Rebecca, an AISSEC teacher. In a few days there will only be 7 teachers for 8 teaching slots, so we’re all going to have to rotate through the level 1 class and teach it for a day so that their teacher, Hayat, can have her days off.
I still haven’t seen any kids yet, but we’ve been told that they have arrived. There are only 5 classes going, and one only has 7 kids, so it’s going to be a lot quieter around The Compound.
Couch!
Napping nook/ alter
A Little Less Like “Hom”
I’m sitting here in an almost empty compound, after just waving goodbye to the one thing about this place that made sense: the rest of the W group foreign teachers. Having miraculously survived their 4 week stint at Cool Camp, they are off for more adventures, traveling in and around Shanghai for 4 days before flying home. The 4th floor hallway already feels longer, eerier and a little less like “hom.” Gina, Spencer and I and most of the AISSEC kids are here for another ELS camp and once the feeling of emptiness wears off, I’m almost sure we’ll be fine.
There is however an upside to all of this: all of the STUFF we just inherited! And Gina and I already have big plans for how all of this can be put to use. We started collecting this morning, people wandering in offering us soap, hangers, food, school supplies and the most coveted item: bedding. Then, once they left we walked through all the rooms, pilfering everything we could find, carrying armloads of people’s leftover stuff with the fervor you might find in someone preparing for some kind of natural disaster or nuclear fallout. If we ever get short on cash, we figure we could always open up some kind of shop. Need an umbrella? Some Mickey Mouse markers? A half eaten package of oatmeal? Some of the teachers have this theory that people with random shops of junk get subsidized by the Chinese government, so we figure it’s probably not such a bad idea.
And if that doesn’t pan out, we are planning on having two weeks of amazingly comfortable sleep; I already have three “mattress pads” on my bed! With the leftover bedding, we’re planning on making a “couch” on the floor since we never have anywhere to relax apart from climbing up the ladder and onto our wooden bunks.
There is however an upside to all of this: all of the STUFF we just inherited! And Gina and I already have big plans for how all of this can be put to use. We started collecting this morning, people wandering in offering us soap, hangers, food, school supplies and the most coveted item: bedding. Then, once they left we walked through all the rooms, pilfering everything we could find, carrying armloads of people’s leftover stuff with the fervor you might find in someone preparing for some kind of natural disaster or nuclear fallout. If we ever get short on cash, we figure we could always open up some kind of shop. Need an umbrella? Some Mickey Mouse markers? A half eaten package of oatmeal? Some of the teachers have this theory that people with random shops of junk get subsidized by the Chinese government, so we figure it’s probably not such a bad idea.
And if that doesn’t pan out, we are planning on having two weeks of amazingly comfortable sleep; I already have three “mattress pads” on my bed! With the leftover bedding, we’re planning on making a “couch” on the floor since we never have anywhere to relax apart from climbing up the ladder and onto our wooden bunks.
NCE 1 is Officially Out of Control!
A well-established fact around Cool Camp is that my students are full of it. They have this reputation for a good reason, but I usually take their antics in stride. Taking phone calls, talking through my entire lesson, refusing to participate or speak English, poking, kicking, headlocks- besides being wildly frustrating to me, their behavior is generally harmless. Today however, things took a turn for the worst and one of my biggest teaching fears was realized: an angry, aggressive, bloody fistfight right in the back of the room.
It was near the end of their break and I was asking the students to sit down and get ready to begin the next lesson. Most kids were filtering in from the hall and I started telling them what we were going to do next. Then one boy walks in the back door and with no effort to control his hostility is exchanging words with another boy. Of course this is the moment when none of the 3 TAs are in the room and I have no idea what is being said, so I walk to the back and tell them sharply to stop talking and sit down. They ignore me and do the opposite, two more boys rising to meet the original challenger. Before I know it is a full-on brawl, more kids joining in as people are getting slammed against the wall, heads are getting thrown down onto desks and fists are flying. This fight goes on for what feels like days. These boys are way bigger than me, and my screaming at them is getting us nowhere, so I run to the class across the hall in search of any large male who can break up the fight. I have no clue how it eventually ended, but one of my boys had blood streaming down his face, his eyes already swelling. Another’s shirt was torn and he had long scratches down his face and neck. They ended up taking two of the boys to the hospital to get checked out; we’re pretty sure one has a dislocated shoulder.
About half the class fled and we were left with about 15 shaken kids. I let the TAs go try to sort out the how’s and why’s of the situation because no one was speaking English. I have no idea what the discipline system is here (if there is any) or if these boys will be back in class tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the last day, and we’re going to try to do something that should at the very least, not inspire any kind of violence: PB &J sandwiches! It’s like 104 degrees here today and I just biked to the store to get the supplies. They better freaking like it.
It was near the end of their break and I was asking the students to sit down and get ready to begin the next lesson. Most kids were filtering in from the hall and I started telling them what we were going to do next. Then one boy walks in the back door and with no effort to control his hostility is exchanging words with another boy. Of course this is the moment when none of the 3 TAs are in the room and I have no idea what is being said, so I walk to the back and tell them sharply to stop talking and sit down. They ignore me and do the opposite, two more boys rising to meet the original challenger. Before I know it is a full-on brawl, more kids joining in as people are getting slammed against the wall, heads are getting thrown down onto desks and fists are flying. This fight goes on for what feels like days. These boys are way bigger than me, and my screaming at them is getting us nowhere, so I run to the class across the hall in search of any large male who can break up the fight. I have no clue how it eventually ended, but one of my boys had blood streaming down his face, his eyes already swelling. Another’s shirt was torn and he had long scratches down his face and neck. They ended up taking two of the boys to the hospital to get checked out; we’re pretty sure one has a dislocated shoulder.
About half the class fled and we were left with about 15 shaken kids. I let the TAs go try to sort out the how’s and why’s of the situation because no one was speaking English. I have no idea what the discipline system is here (if there is any) or if these boys will be back in class tomorrow.
Tomorrow is the last day, and we’re going to try to do something that should at the very least, not inspire any kind of violence: PB &J sandwiches! It’s like 104 degrees here today and I just biked to the store to get the supplies. They better freaking like it.
Winding Down
The New Concept Camp is winding down and with only 3 days of teaching left, we still are left a little puzzled about how exactly to get these kids to cooperate. We’ve tried everything to win them over from creative lessons to games to movies, but since our faces are not attached to some kind of electronic device, they’d rather look elsewhere.
We did have an interesting lesson on animals yesterday. We brainstormed a list on the chalkboard which included things like dog, cat, bird, elephant, peacock, dragon, monster and humans. How these kids can come up with the word “panther” but can’t tell me what they ate for breakfast is still beyond me, but since they were actually doing something in class, I didn’t dwell on this fact for too long.
I had them get into groups and draw a picture of new animal that they had to create. They had to give it a name and write a description. Here are two of the more interesting:
“Pig No 2: Is made up of three parts house pig and plants.”
“Mr. Mouse Bat: It is Mr. mouse bat. He can eat more food and drink more tea. He can fly and he can swim. He can in the dark house. He can hit the bad man and he get out.”
We also had a discussion about pets and I posed this question: “If you could have any animal as a pet, what would you choose and why?” Harrison raises his hand, stands up and offers this gem: “I would pick…uh… the people… because…they are… so… ugly!” Thanks, Harrison.
We did have an interesting lesson on animals yesterday. We brainstormed a list on the chalkboard which included things like dog, cat, bird, elephant, peacock, dragon, monster and humans. How these kids can come up with the word “panther” but can’t tell me what they ate for breakfast is still beyond me, but since they were actually doing something in class, I didn’t dwell on this fact for too long.
I had them get into groups and draw a picture of new animal that they had to create. They had to give it a name and write a description. Here are two of the more interesting:
“Pig No 2: Is made up of three parts house pig and plants.”
“Mr. Mouse Bat: It is Mr. mouse bat. He can eat more food and drink more tea. He can fly and he can swim. He can in the dark house. He can hit the bad man and he get out.”
We also had a discussion about pets and I posed this question: “If you could have any animal as a pet, what would you choose and why?” Harrison raises his hand, stands up and offers this gem: “I would pick…uh… the people… because…they are… so… ugly!” Thanks, Harrison.
Huang Shan- An Epic.
On Wednesday, a group of us set out for a weekend adventure and fair warning: I have a LOT to say about this one. Our plan was to hike up Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain), what is supposedly one of China’s most beautiful places. Armed with a few pages torn from a guidebook we left the compound- Eric, Jesse, Spencer, Kert, Katelyn and I,- our backpacks packed, our ambitions high and ready for whatever the “weekend” would bring. We had no real plans other than to make it to the top of the mountain, knowing that we’d figure it out as we went along. At this point, we expect chaos, disorder, confusion and all other forms of Chinese mayhem. We feel fairly confident in our newly developed coping mechanisms (thank you, Cool Camp) so we weren’t going to be thrown by some minor difficulties.
The bus station and bus ride were fairly uneventful. We rode through the countryside, alternately sleeping and watching the farms roll past the windows. I wouldn’t bother to mention it, except that near the end of the bus ride, this guy stands up in the front and our adventure begins. He starts in on what seems like some form of speech addressed to the entire bus. As usual, we have no idea what’s going on and are talking and laughing in our confusion until someone from the back of the bus pipes up “Can you, uh please, uh be quiet!” So we do, settling in for what turns into a 30 minute diatribe of yelling and pointing. We have no idea who this guy is or what he is saying, but by the look on his face, it seemed like something we’d be better off had we understood. That, and the fact that the other passengers were completely silent, listening intently to every word, made us more than a little concerned that we were missing some kind of crucial mountain info. I’m sitting next to Kert who speaks a little Mandarin and with a furrowed brow he is trying to piece together as much of this lecture as he can. He kept leaning over and telling me the parts he has decoded. Having this information turned out to be a lot worse than understanding absolutely nothing. I say this because Kert only understood the beginning of most sentences, all of which sounded something like this: “You have to be very careful of…” “It’s really dangerous if…” “You have to watch out for…” “Don’t…” Of course.
This goes on until the bus stops in the middle of a street and people start getting out. There are some guys sitting in front of us who speak English, so we pepper them with questions, trying to get some information out of them. “What was that guy saying?” we ask. “Was it important?” “Which part?” Is their reply.
These guys were completely useless in the translation department, but came a bit more prepared than us and actually had hotel reservations in the town at the bottom of the mountain. They say to follow them and try to get a room in the same hotel. This sounds like as good a plan as any, but as soon as we step out of the bus, we are surrounded by people trying to convince us to come to their restaurant, hotel, hostel, shop, hole-in-the-wall whatever. One such aggressive marketer stood out as being significantly creepier than the rest: this old woman, an insane smile plastered on her face, following us around silently. Every time you turned around she was behind you, smiling, waving her arms in a mime for “sleep”. Most people trying to non-verbally communicate “sleep” might close their eyes, tilt their head to the side, put their palms together and press their hands to one cheek. Not this lady. With her eyes wide open and a huge vacant grin, she waved her open palm over her face and then parallel to her cheek, her head tilting to follow her hands from one side to the other in some kind of fanatical dance. I swear, I never saw her blink.
Someone in the crowd of salespeople near the bus stop spoke English, but we followed our new “friends” down the street. We quickly learned that their hotel was full, so we headed back up the street to find the English speaker. She works at a hostel and it seemed like a good deal with rooms that at least weren’t worse than our rooms back at The Compound. The only drawback? The old woman was also affiliated with this hostel. All things considered we decided it would be fine for the night.
We found out from Lala, the English speaker at the hostel, that the crazy soliloquy on the bus came from her uncle, her parents run the hostel and her grandma is the creepy old woman. Lala helped us arrange the rest of our stay, booking us bus tickets back to Hangzhou and calling to make reservations for places to stay the next night at the top of the mountain. She got out a map and pointed out two possibilities: a hotel and a place you could rent tents. We had some discussion, but in our eyes, sleeping in a tent on the top of a Chinese mountain seemed like the only real option. Lala was very helpful, but there was something about the whole interaction that was decidedly fishy. For example, she started writing something on a form in Chinese, but then stopped suddenly and crumpled up the paper. Then one of us said that it was OK, so she got out the paper, slowly un-crumpled it, crossed out what she had written and kept writing. Then, she was insisting that we pay her for everything: the bus tickets, the tents at the top. We started to get worried that they were running some kind of racket- and the mere presence of the creepy grandma didn’t help matters. We had a quick, murmured discussion about how much we wanted to trust these people, whether or not the bus tickets were real and whether or not we should go through with what she had arranged. Personally, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but a couple of the others seemed to think it would be fine. Jesse noted that if it was a sham, we knew where they stayed; we could always come back and steal some TVs. People with big muscles tend to think this way.
After a night of Chinese beer, poker and cockroaches we got up at 5:45 and left around 6:30. People kept telling us we needed to take a bus or taxi to the entrance of the mountain where you have to pay a fee to get in, similar to National Parks in the US. Our increasingly tattered guidebook pages said it was only a 30 minute walk from the town to the entrance, so we decided to walk. Who needs a bus? We’re American! The leisurely walk turned into an intense hike, walking up a steep, winding, narrow road with busses swerving in both directions. An hour and a half later, we reached the entrance where we bought our tickets, ran into some guys from Bellevue and headed for the trail head.
We had already decided on taking the more intense Western Steps up the mountain and after waiting out a 20 minutes thunderstorm, started up the trail. What the guidebook said turned out to be completely irrelevant, and the day amounted to a 9 hour trek up one giant, uneven, steep flight of stone stairs. One step, then the next and the next- I realized it was better not to look up at the endless array of jagged steps above my head. They got so steep in places we resorted to crawling up on all fours, using our arms to take some of the burden off of our over-worked legs. My heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest, my quads felt like they might ignite at any moment, but we kept moving forward.
There are little shops set up along the way where you can buy water, melon and a whole array of Chinese tourist kitsch. The shops have to get stocked one way or another and we learned that they prefer to do things the hard way- everything in those shops gets carried up in big bundles that are tied on the end of a wooden pole and slung across a guy’s shoulders. Like a huge balance, they carried what must be hundreds of pounds up the mountain. Not to detract from this amazing skill, but these guys also served another, equally important function. They set our pace. There was a group of them that we passed early in the day. We’d be going strong for a while, then would need to stop and give our legs a rest from pounding up the stairs. However, as soon as we saw the water guys coming, we knew it was time to keep moving. Our pride dictated that even if we needed to take breaks, we should at least be able to stay ahead of the guys lugging hundreds of pounds up thousands of steps.
The day progresses and we are exhausted, dripping with sweat and enjoying every second of the hike. Everywhere you look there is one beautiful vista after another and it keeps getting better the higher up you go. It’s hard work, but worth it. And then the wind picks up.
We’ve learned (again, the hard way) that strong gusts of wind and dark clouds are a recipe for a huge storm. As soon as we feel a sprinkle, we know it’s only a matter of seconds before we’re in a downpour. We feel one drop, then the next and know it’s coming. We look ahead and see a place where the trail goes between a rock face and a huge boulder. We decide to run, sprinting up the stairs for cover. This would have been a OK shelter if the boulder was in fact touching the rock face and if 15 other people would not have had the same idea. I kept getting pushed further and further up the steps until I was under no cover at all and was completely soaked, like I had gotten into the shower fully clothed. A poncho-covered Chinese family was on the next step up and I looked at them pitifully, then up at their umbrella and they motioned for me to get under it with them. Eric is a bit further into the crevasse and is taking video of the insanity, narrating as thunder booms, lightning strikes and a river starts running down the stairs and over our shoes. At the point when the river started, we understand that this shelter isn’t going to cut it and we make the quick decision to run back down the trail a ways to where there was a real place to get out of the rain. We take off, somehow still laughing at the ridiculousness and run down the steps to shelter.
Safely in what looks like some sort of medieval castle, we set about wringing out our shirts, shaking out our hair and assessing the contents of our backpacks. The majority of my stuff was completely soaked. We let the rain pass and we decided to keep moving. The wind was freezing, but we knew we’d warm up once we started climbing stairs again.
We kept going, reaching the point where the cable car drops off day-trippers. At this point it was about 3 pm and we still had lingering doubts about the legitimacy of Lala’s arrangements. We didn’t have far to go and decided to try to push it, and go as fast as we could to make it to the top. That way, if the whole thing turned out to be a sham, we could still make it back to catch the last cable cars at 5 pm and get back down the mountain that night. We charged up the last steps, Katelyn leading the way. At one point, Jesse started calling her The Machine because of her incredible stair-climbing prowess.
Reveling in our own awesomeness, we make it to the top around 4 pm. We’re about 1800 meters up and the view is spectacular. We use our map and find the place where we’re supposed to get the tents- as it turns out, it really does exist! They walk us over to what we started calling “Tent City”- a cluster of about 30 tents on concrete slabs. The man crawls in and mops up a couple of puddles that have formed inside. Then he walks over to a fence, takes some blankets off and arranges them inside the tents for us. How hospitable. We decided it was best not to think about where those blankets had been.
Just as we’re checking out our new digs, we see our friends from the bus come up a trail that ends near the camp site. How is it that on a mountain in China we meet people from Bellevue and manage to run into the same group of guys from the bus? Must be fate.
We do a little more exploring, find some food and as it gets quite dark quite fast at the top of a mountain, settle in for the night. We are laying in our hot, smelly tent when Katelyn remembers something she’s packed: perfume ads from magazines! I have no idea why she thought of bringing these, but they turned out to be extremely useful. In the harsh glow of the flashlight, we rubbed those on everything- ourselves, our clothes, the blankets, the walls of the tents. We couldn’t stop laughing at ourselves and once again, the ridiculousness of it all. Once we regained our composure we had to keep reminding ourselves: We’re on top of a mountain. In China. How amazing is that?
After sneaking into a fancy hotel to brush our teeth in their bathroom, we went to sleep early, planning on waking up for what was consistently described as the most amazing sunrise you’ll ever see. We set our alarms for 4, and tried to get some sleep.
We woke up to the alarm of Katelyn’s diva watch and unzipped our window: we were basically in the middle of a cloud. Katelyn was skeptical about the whole ordeal, but we decided that even in the face of sleep deprivation, we’d probably never be back to Haung Shan and we weren’t about to miss this allegedly spectacular sight. We wrapped ourselves in our blankets and trudged up some more steps where we stood and stood, waited and waited. We drowsily watched the wind whip clouds across the sky and twist through peaks. The moon faded, the sky got brighter, but it was so cloudy we couldn’t see the sun. There were moments when the clouds would part and the sky would be visible, which was met with vigorous “ooohs” and “aaaahhhs” from the Chinese crowd. I think it was the anticipation talking- or their imaginations- because there really was nothing to see. We finally accepted the fact that the sun had risen unceremoniously and we made our way back to our tents for a couple more hours of sleep.
Dirty and exhausted we decided to take the easy route down and rode the cable cars. A couple of people in our group were nursing minor injuries and one had a slight case of food poisoning, so we decided not to push it. It was about a 10 minute ride through the mountains and appreciating the views, we grew even more impressed with ourselves. We climbed that sucker. The whole way.
We ended up back at our hostel and the omnipresent Lala helped us change our tickets to an earlier bus. This time at the hostel, it felt like we were coming home, and we couldn’t be happier to see the whole family, even Grandma. Actually, we grew surprisingly fond of her, her smile now looking more sweet than sinister. We made ourselves at home, sipping tea, spreading our stuff across a table and with the familiarity of unwanted houseguests, laid our wet clothes out to dry. After a few rousing rounds of MASH, it was time to say goodbye to our mountain adventure, get on the bus and head back to Hangzhou.
While this trip was probably the most physically intense and exhausting experience of my life, it was also definitely one of the most fun. We never stopped enjoying ourselves, even while huddling in a rock crevice or looking up and seeing miles upon miles of stairs.
The bus station and bus ride were fairly uneventful. We rode through the countryside, alternately sleeping and watching the farms roll past the windows. I wouldn’t bother to mention it, except that near the end of the bus ride, this guy stands up in the front and our adventure begins. He starts in on what seems like some form of speech addressed to the entire bus. As usual, we have no idea what’s going on and are talking and laughing in our confusion until someone from the back of the bus pipes up “Can you, uh please, uh be quiet!” So we do, settling in for what turns into a 30 minute diatribe of yelling and pointing. We have no idea who this guy is or what he is saying, but by the look on his face, it seemed like something we’d be better off had we understood. That, and the fact that the other passengers were completely silent, listening intently to every word, made us more than a little concerned that we were missing some kind of crucial mountain info. I’m sitting next to Kert who speaks a little Mandarin and with a furrowed brow he is trying to piece together as much of this lecture as he can. He kept leaning over and telling me the parts he has decoded. Having this information turned out to be a lot worse than understanding absolutely nothing. I say this because Kert only understood the beginning of most sentences, all of which sounded something like this: “You have to be very careful of…” “It’s really dangerous if…” “You have to watch out for…” “Don’t…” Of course.
This goes on until the bus stops in the middle of a street and people start getting out. There are some guys sitting in front of us who speak English, so we pepper them with questions, trying to get some information out of them. “What was that guy saying?” we ask. “Was it important?” “Which part?” Is their reply.
These guys were completely useless in the translation department, but came a bit more prepared than us and actually had hotel reservations in the town at the bottom of the mountain. They say to follow them and try to get a room in the same hotel. This sounds like as good a plan as any, but as soon as we step out of the bus, we are surrounded by people trying to convince us to come to their restaurant, hotel, hostel, shop, hole-in-the-wall whatever. One such aggressive marketer stood out as being significantly creepier than the rest: this old woman, an insane smile plastered on her face, following us around silently. Every time you turned around she was behind you, smiling, waving her arms in a mime for “sleep”. Most people trying to non-verbally communicate “sleep” might close their eyes, tilt their head to the side, put their palms together and press their hands to one cheek. Not this lady. With her eyes wide open and a huge vacant grin, she waved her open palm over her face and then parallel to her cheek, her head tilting to follow her hands from one side to the other in some kind of fanatical dance. I swear, I never saw her blink.
Someone in the crowd of salespeople near the bus stop spoke English, but we followed our new “friends” down the street. We quickly learned that their hotel was full, so we headed back up the street to find the English speaker. She works at a hostel and it seemed like a good deal with rooms that at least weren’t worse than our rooms back at The Compound. The only drawback? The old woman was also affiliated with this hostel. All things considered we decided it would be fine for the night.
We found out from Lala, the English speaker at the hostel, that the crazy soliloquy on the bus came from her uncle, her parents run the hostel and her grandma is the creepy old woman. Lala helped us arrange the rest of our stay, booking us bus tickets back to Hangzhou and calling to make reservations for places to stay the next night at the top of the mountain. She got out a map and pointed out two possibilities: a hotel and a place you could rent tents. We had some discussion, but in our eyes, sleeping in a tent on the top of a Chinese mountain seemed like the only real option. Lala was very helpful, but there was something about the whole interaction that was decidedly fishy. For example, she started writing something on a form in Chinese, but then stopped suddenly and crumpled up the paper. Then one of us said that it was OK, so she got out the paper, slowly un-crumpled it, crossed out what she had written and kept writing. Then, she was insisting that we pay her for everything: the bus tickets, the tents at the top. We started to get worried that they were running some kind of racket- and the mere presence of the creepy grandma didn’t help matters. We had a quick, murmured discussion about how much we wanted to trust these people, whether or not the bus tickets were real and whether or not we should go through with what she had arranged. Personally, I probably wouldn’t have done it, but a couple of the others seemed to think it would be fine. Jesse noted that if it was a sham, we knew where they stayed; we could always come back and steal some TVs. People with big muscles tend to think this way.
After a night of Chinese beer, poker and cockroaches we got up at 5:45 and left around 6:30. People kept telling us we needed to take a bus or taxi to the entrance of the mountain where you have to pay a fee to get in, similar to National Parks in the US. Our increasingly tattered guidebook pages said it was only a 30 minute walk from the town to the entrance, so we decided to walk. Who needs a bus? We’re American! The leisurely walk turned into an intense hike, walking up a steep, winding, narrow road with busses swerving in both directions. An hour and a half later, we reached the entrance where we bought our tickets, ran into some guys from Bellevue and headed for the trail head.
We had already decided on taking the more intense Western Steps up the mountain and after waiting out a 20 minutes thunderstorm, started up the trail. What the guidebook said turned out to be completely irrelevant, and the day amounted to a 9 hour trek up one giant, uneven, steep flight of stone stairs. One step, then the next and the next- I realized it was better not to look up at the endless array of jagged steps above my head. They got so steep in places we resorted to crawling up on all fours, using our arms to take some of the burden off of our over-worked legs. My heart felt like it was about to pound out of my chest, my quads felt like they might ignite at any moment, but we kept moving forward.
There are little shops set up along the way where you can buy water, melon and a whole array of Chinese tourist kitsch. The shops have to get stocked one way or another and we learned that they prefer to do things the hard way- everything in those shops gets carried up in big bundles that are tied on the end of a wooden pole and slung across a guy’s shoulders. Like a huge balance, they carried what must be hundreds of pounds up the mountain. Not to detract from this amazing skill, but these guys also served another, equally important function. They set our pace. There was a group of them that we passed early in the day. We’d be going strong for a while, then would need to stop and give our legs a rest from pounding up the stairs. However, as soon as we saw the water guys coming, we knew it was time to keep moving. Our pride dictated that even if we needed to take breaks, we should at least be able to stay ahead of the guys lugging hundreds of pounds up thousands of steps.
The day progresses and we are exhausted, dripping with sweat and enjoying every second of the hike. Everywhere you look there is one beautiful vista after another and it keeps getting better the higher up you go. It’s hard work, but worth it. And then the wind picks up.
We’ve learned (again, the hard way) that strong gusts of wind and dark clouds are a recipe for a huge storm. As soon as we feel a sprinkle, we know it’s only a matter of seconds before we’re in a downpour. We feel one drop, then the next and know it’s coming. We look ahead and see a place where the trail goes between a rock face and a huge boulder. We decide to run, sprinting up the stairs for cover. This would have been a OK shelter if the boulder was in fact touching the rock face and if 15 other people would not have had the same idea. I kept getting pushed further and further up the steps until I was under no cover at all and was completely soaked, like I had gotten into the shower fully clothed. A poncho-covered Chinese family was on the next step up and I looked at them pitifully, then up at their umbrella and they motioned for me to get under it with them. Eric is a bit further into the crevasse and is taking video of the insanity, narrating as thunder booms, lightning strikes and a river starts running down the stairs and over our shoes. At the point when the river started, we understand that this shelter isn’t going to cut it and we make the quick decision to run back down the trail a ways to where there was a real place to get out of the rain. We take off, somehow still laughing at the ridiculousness and run down the steps to shelter.
Safely in what looks like some sort of medieval castle, we set about wringing out our shirts, shaking out our hair and assessing the contents of our backpacks. The majority of my stuff was completely soaked. We let the rain pass and we decided to keep moving. The wind was freezing, but we knew we’d warm up once we started climbing stairs again.
We kept going, reaching the point where the cable car drops off day-trippers. At this point it was about 3 pm and we still had lingering doubts about the legitimacy of Lala’s arrangements. We didn’t have far to go and decided to try to push it, and go as fast as we could to make it to the top. That way, if the whole thing turned out to be a sham, we could still make it back to catch the last cable cars at 5 pm and get back down the mountain that night. We charged up the last steps, Katelyn leading the way. At one point, Jesse started calling her The Machine because of her incredible stair-climbing prowess.
Reveling in our own awesomeness, we make it to the top around 4 pm. We’re about 1800 meters up and the view is spectacular. We use our map and find the place where we’re supposed to get the tents- as it turns out, it really does exist! They walk us over to what we started calling “Tent City”- a cluster of about 30 tents on concrete slabs. The man crawls in and mops up a couple of puddles that have formed inside. Then he walks over to a fence, takes some blankets off and arranges them inside the tents for us. How hospitable. We decided it was best not to think about where those blankets had been.
Just as we’re checking out our new digs, we see our friends from the bus come up a trail that ends near the camp site. How is it that on a mountain in China we meet people from Bellevue and manage to run into the same group of guys from the bus? Must be fate.
We do a little more exploring, find some food and as it gets quite dark quite fast at the top of a mountain, settle in for the night. We are laying in our hot, smelly tent when Katelyn remembers something she’s packed: perfume ads from magazines! I have no idea why she thought of bringing these, but they turned out to be extremely useful. In the harsh glow of the flashlight, we rubbed those on everything- ourselves, our clothes, the blankets, the walls of the tents. We couldn’t stop laughing at ourselves and once again, the ridiculousness of it all. Once we regained our composure we had to keep reminding ourselves: We’re on top of a mountain. In China. How amazing is that?
After sneaking into a fancy hotel to brush our teeth in their bathroom, we went to sleep early, planning on waking up for what was consistently described as the most amazing sunrise you’ll ever see. We set our alarms for 4, and tried to get some sleep.
We woke up to the alarm of Katelyn’s diva watch and unzipped our window: we were basically in the middle of a cloud. Katelyn was skeptical about the whole ordeal, but we decided that even in the face of sleep deprivation, we’d probably never be back to Haung Shan and we weren’t about to miss this allegedly spectacular sight. We wrapped ourselves in our blankets and trudged up some more steps where we stood and stood, waited and waited. We drowsily watched the wind whip clouds across the sky and twist through peaks. The moon faded, the sky got brighter, but it was so cloudy we couldn’t see the sun. There were moments when the clouds would part and the sky would be visible, which was met with vigorous “ooohs” and “aaaahhhs” from the Chinese crowd. I think it was the anticipation talking- or their imaginations- because there really was nothing to see. We finally accepted the fact that the sun had risen unceremoniously and we made our way back to our tents for a couple more hours of sleep.
Dirty and exhausted we decided to take the easy route down and rode the cable cars. A couple of people in our group were nursing minor injuries and one had a slight case of food poisoning, so we decided not to push it. It was about a 10 minute ride through the mountains and appreciating the views, we grew even more impressed with ourselves. We climbed that sucker. The whole way.
We ended up back at our hostel and the omnipresent Lala helped us change our tickets to an earlier bus. This time at the hostel, it felt like we were coming home, and we couldn’t be happier to see the whole family, even Grandma. Actually, we grew surprisingly fond of her, her smile now looking more sweet than sinister. We made ourselves at home, sipping tea, spreading our stuff across a table and with the familiarity of unwanted houseguests, laid our wet clothes out to dry. After a few rousing rounds of MASH, it was time to say goodbye to our mountain adventure, get on the bus and head back to Hangzhou.
While this trip was probably the most physically intense and exhausting experience of my life, it was also definitely one of the most fun. We never stopped enjoying ourselves, even while huddling in a rock crevice or looking up and seeing miles upon miles of stairs.
The entrance to the mountain with the ever-present Shanghai Expo mascot.
Water guy.
After the rainstorm.
'Sunrise'
Stairs!
Super excited about our tents!
Hiking.
Here are some pictures from our hike last “weekend.” We started at West Lake and hiked up the neighboring hills. There are pagodas, temples, caves and paths branching off in every direction. We climbed what felt like thousands of stairs to get to Baochu Pagoda and then went on from there. We didn’t put a lot of faith in our ability to actually find any of these other landmarks. Instead, we were happy to wander around and enjoy the scenery (and the humidity), being contentedly surprised if we stumbled upon something of interest. One time we heard what sounded like Monks yelling and made a concerted effort to hike toward that, but eventually got distracted by birds caged in the forest and our desire to find out what was down every other path. This method of hiking sounds apathetic, but it worked out well and we did come across some cool places. We found a place called Sunrise Terrace and it’s apparently the best place to watch the sunrise over West Lake. We also had some impressive views of West Lake.
This weekend, a group of us are going on a serious hike at a real mountain. We’ll probably have to be a little more focused.
This weekend, a group of us are going on a serious hike at a real mountain. We’ll probably have to be a little more focused.
Yelling and Slap Fights.
I’ve had a couple more successful teaching days under my belt and things are starting to look up. Successful by Cool Camp standards is much different than my normal standards, but I’ll take it. If I can get the kids to be quiet and put away their phones long enough to repeat some vocab words, I’m happy. If I can actually get them to get out a piece of paper and write something on it, I’m thrilled! We have been learning vocabulary for families and I had them do some scripted writing today. I gave them all the sentence stems and had them fill in the rest of the sentence. “My family has ____ members. They are…” “My family has fun when…” These directions were difficult to communicate, but with modeling, repetition, wild hand gestures and the TAs translation, most of them were able to do it. Actually, I’m sure that all of them were able to do it; some of them just choose not to. I had them turn them in to me because they’d never keep track of it to work on it more in the next class and I was impressed with the results: more than half the class handed me a paper! Sure, some of them were on 2”X 2” torn scraps, but at this point I’ll take what I can get.
Some of them wrote really cute things, but in some cases their translators get them in trouble. They’re always typing away which I let them get away with- if its helping them be engaged in the lesson instead of amusing themselves with yelling and slap fights, I’m all for it. However, some of the things they come up with are so bizarre! They obviously have no idea what it means, but they go with it anyway, putting complete trust in the powers of the translator. If a machine spit it out, what could go wrong? I had one girl talk about “pouring out grievances” and a boy talking about watching TV in “amusing delight”. Maybe these are ideas that 13 year old Chinese kids would normally express, but I doubt it.
The new Chinese teacher, Ripple, started yesterday and I’m curious to know how she’s faring. She sweet, quiet and has been described to me several times by other Chinese teachers as “green”. In other words, she’s no Burden. I think people were envisioning her getting chewed up, spit out, trampled over, etc. by my class which could very well have happened. She doesn’t make it a habit of lurking around in the back of the room like Burden, so I probably wouldn’t know if it did. Most people who deal with this class have the same goal: just survive!
Some of them wrote really cute things, but in some cases their translators get them in trouble. They’re always typing away which I let them get away with- if its helping them be engaged in the lesson instead of amusing themselves with yelling and slap fights, I’m all for it. However, some of the things they come up with are so bizarre! They obviously have no idea what it means, but they go with it anyway, putting complete trust in the powers of the translator. If a machine spit it out, what could go wrong? I had one girl talk about “pouring out grievances” and a boy talking about watching TV in “amusing delight”. Maybe these are ideas that 13 year old Chinese kids would normally express, but I doubt it.
The new Chinese teacher, Ripple, started yesterday and I’m curious to know how she’s faring. She sweet, quiet and has been described to me several times by other Chinese teachers as “green”. In other words, she’s no Burden. I think people were envisioning her getting chewed up, spit out, trampled over, etc. by my class which could very well have happened. She doesn’t make it a habit of lurking around in the back of the room like Burden, so I probably wouldn’t know if it did. Most people who deal with this class have the same goal: just survive!
My Little Gangsters.
After two days off, I was more than a little nervous walking into class today. First of all, most of what I tried last week was not at all successful. Then in a meeting last night, one of the Chinese teachers was saying that that TAs didn’t like doing activities with my class because “gangs” were forming the kids are starting to hate each other! To be fair, this term might not be the exact term someone with a better handle on English would use to describe the situation, but still, the image of little English class gangs sticks. I’m not too worried about it, although I should probably keep an eye out for red and blue bandanas just the same. They might be turning into little gangsters, but they’re my little gangsters. Even though teaching this class has been such a struggle, I’ve already gotten attached to them.
I went to class today with low expectations for the activities I had planned. I don’t have a good sense yet of what is going to work, so I just try things and hope for the best. To my great surprise, things went MUCH better today! One thing that helped a lot was that we have a new TA. She actually pays attention, translates when it’s needed and helps to keep the kids in line. Usually I wouldn’t like someone else managing my kids while I’m teaching, but when they have no idea what I’m asking them to do, it’s necessary. She also knows culturally-appropriate ways of making them behave and is not afraid to smack them around a little.
Today I taught them how to do a think-pair-share so that they could practice speaking in English in a low pressure situation. We had a couple of practice questions, but it was so hard for them to have conversations in with their peers in English. They would probably never speak English with their peers in every day life so it was a little uncomfortable, but for the ones who were actually trying, I think it will be good practice.
The other thing I did today that was really fun was making a “chain drawing”- one person starts and then others add until the whole chalkboard is covered. We had all kinds of crazy things happening in our picture which gave us tons to talk about. When we first started teaching, the Chinese teachers told us that the students may shy away from giving creative answers, instead looking for the correct or “standard answer.” With this activity, there is obviously no right answer, so kids were discussing a lot of different ideas about what the picture was showing. My favorite was the discussion of whether this one section was showing a dead person or a monkey under a rainbow. After we talked about it, I had them write what they saw. After that great discussion, a lot of them ended up writing kind of the same thing, but here are some of my favorite responses:
Bob and Rock: There is a robot, he is ill. So he want go to hospital. But he doesn’t have money. There is a person, he want help it. So he borrow it ten dollars. And then the robot go to hospital. And the person feel very happy.
Ken: I think the small man is so ugly. I see the big robot is not good. It’s ugly, too. I see the small robot is lovely. But is ugly either! And I see the beautiful rainbow. It’s so nice.
Jerry: I see a robot. It’s very silly. I also see a hospital. I also see a man. He is very happy because his wife have a baby! He’s name is James.
Amy: I see a robot go to the hospital and the robot is aren’t happy. But I don’t know why. And I see a big head man want catch the money on the grass. Oh! They are two man jump near the hospital and say “Weee!” I think they are happy. Look! There is people dance on the grass, he is happy too.
Wendy: I see a big tree and some flowers and birds. The men go to the hospital and get some money. Barton is walking on the grass. I see some children are playing games. That is a UFO in the sky. It’s a wonderful day.
At this point, I really don’t care about correct grammar. For most of them, trying to communicate anything in English is enough of a goal. If they can get me to understand what they mean, I’m happy.
Over the next couple of days, I’m going to do several lessons on families and see how that goes. I’m trying to bring in lessons on American culture, but in a concrete way that won’t just be me talking at them. I thought families might be a good place to start. I also wanted to teach them a song and today I asked them for suggestions of songs they would want to learn. The most popular artists: Michael Jackson, Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga. Seeing their fondness of gang activity, I thought maybe they’d like something a little more hard-core (and I mean, I am a pretty good rapper), but I played them a couple of the songs they suggested and MJ’s “Beat It” was a hit! They were all singing along (although mostly with nonsense sounds resembling English words) and even the boys who do nothing in the back of class all day seemed into it.
I’m hoping tomorrow will go as smoothly as today. And I’m hoping no one comes to class with stab wounds.
I went to class today with low expectations for the activities I had planned. I don’t have a good sense yet of what is going to work, so I just try things and hope for the best. To my great surprise, things went MUCH better today! One thing that helped a lot was that we have a new TA. She actually pays attention, translates when it’s needed and helps to keep the kids in line. Usually I wouldn’t like someone else managing my kids while I’m teaching, but when they have no idea what I’m asking them to do, it’s necessary. She also knows culturally-appropriate ways of making them behave and is not afraid to smack them around a little.
Today I taught them how to do a think-pair-share so that they could practice speaking in English in a low pressure situation. We had a couple of practice questions, but it was so hard for them to have conversations in with their peers in English. They would probably never speak English with their peers in every day life so it was a little uncomfortable, but for the ones who were actually trying, I think it will be good practice.
The other thing I did today that was really fun was making a “chain drawing”- one person starts and then others add until the whole chalkboard is covered. We had all kinds of crazy things happening in our picture which gave us tons to talk about. When we first started teaching, the Chinese teachers told us that the students may shy away from giving creative answers, instead looking for the correct or “standard answer.” With this activity, there is obviously no right answer, so kids were discussing a lot of different ideas about what the picture was showing. My favorite was the discussion of whether this one section was showing a dead person or a monkey under a rainbow. After we talked about it, I had them write what they saw. After that great discussion, a lot of them ended up writing kind of the same thing, but here are some of my favorite responses:
Bob and Rock: There is a robot, he is ill. So he want go to hospital. But he doesn’t have money. There is a person, he want help it. So he borrow it ten dollars. And then the robot go to hospital. And the person feel very happy.
Ken: I think the small man is so ugly. I see the big robot is not good. It’s ugly, too. I see the small robot is lovely. But is ugly either! And I see the beautiful rainbow. It’s so nice.
Jerry: I see a robot. It’s very silly. I also see a hospital. I also see a man. He is very happy because his wife have a baby! He’s name is James.
Amy: I see a robot go to the hospital and the robot is aren’t happy. But I don’t know why. And I see a big head man want catch the money on the grass. Oh! They are two man jump near the hospital and say “Weee!” I think they are happy. Look! There is people dance on the grass, he is happy too.
Wendy: I see a big tree and some flowers and birds. The men go to the hospital and get some money. Barton is walking on the grass. I see some children are playing games. That is a UFO in the sky. It’s a wonderful day.
At this point, I really don’t care about correct grammar. For most of them, trying to communicate anything in English is enough of a goal. If they can get me to understand what they mean, I’m happy.
Over the next couple of days, I’m going to do several lessons on families and see how that goes. I’m trying to bring in lessons on American culture, but in a concrete way that won’t just be me talking at them. I thought families might be a good place to start. I also wanted to teach them a song and today I asked them for suggestions of songs they would want to learn. The most popular artists: Michael Jackson, Justin Beiber and Lady Gaga. Seeing their fondness of gang activity, I thought maybe they’d like something a little more hard-core (and I mean, I am a pretty good rapper), but I played them a couple of the songs they suggested and MJ’s “Beat It” was a hit! They were all singing along (although mostly with nonsense sounds resembling English words) and even the boys who do nothing in the back of class all day seemed into it.
I’m hoping tomorrow will go as smoothly as today. And I’m hoping no one comes to class with stab wounds.
Wushan Night Market
This place is AMAZING! It is huge, packed full of people and bursting with all the made-in-China knock-off products you could ever dream of! THIS is the China I was expecting. It is the best mixture of crap you’ll ever see! Some of the more common items: souveniers like fans, little silk purses and Buddha statues, fake purses/wallets/perfume, illegal DVDs and CDs, colored contacts, jewelry, sunglasses, weird clothes, shoes, art, chopsticks, clay pots, tea pots, etc. etc. Bartering in China is definitely an art form- one we are mastering. I get a little wave of excitement every time a salesperson pulls out their calculator. I look at the number, look appalled and shake my hand side to side: No. I type in something lower, they say no, so I say “xie xie” (thank you) and start walking away. Then they grab me, “Hello! Hao, look-a look-a.” And then the real negotiating begins. It’s a thrill!
Whoa West Lake
After a chaotic morning, we scrapped our idea of heading to a canal town, Xitang, by train and decided to stick closer to home and bike at West Lake instead. There are causeways that go across the lake, parallel to the edges which are really nice because you have amazing views, get to ride under endless rows of Weeping Willow trees and you don’t have crazy cab drivers swerving around you. We decided on a place to start (we’re finally getting our bearings downtown) and decided to go down the Bai Causeway. It was actually sunny today so it was hot, but made for a much more picturesque view of the lake than the days it is shrouded in a tick layer of smog. We just kept riding, trying to remember to pay attention to all the amazing sights around us. We eventually got to the Su Causeway that cuts across the lake on the other side and decided that since we got that far, why not go all the way back around. We’d never been to the backside of the lake, so there were tons of new places to explore. We’re learning street names and are recognizing places we’ve been before (there’s where we were stuck in the rain, that’s where we stopped that one time when there were no cabs for hours, that’s the place we took jumping pictures, there’s Gotham Tower!) so we knew what direction we needed to head in and were able to navigate back to where we started from. It ended up being probably a 2.5 hour bike ride. After that we were drained, so we parked our bikes, caught a quick viewing of the fountain show and decided to head home. Then, there was a minor, insane windstorm for about 15 minutes and we saw a tree get blown over into the street, but we waited it out and made our way back to Cool Camp.
When we were on our bikes, we also met this random guy from Indiana who has lived in China for 6 years. He told us about a great hike that will take us in the hills above West Lake. We’re going to try to do that tomorrow. A lot of the other teachers in our group are so set on traveling as much as possible and seeing things from their travel books. We figure, everything in Hangzhou is new to us too, we might as well cut out some of the stress and enjoy it while we’re here!
Tonight, we’re off to a night market!
When we were on our bikes, we also met this random guy from Indiana who has lived in China for 6 years. He told us about a great hike that will take us in the hills above West Lake. We’re going to try to do that tomorrow. A lot of the other teachers in our group are so set on traveling as much as possible and seeing things from their travel books. We figure, everything in Hangzhou is new to us too, we might as well cut out some of the stress and enjoy it while we’re here!
Tonight, we’re off to a night market!
Teaching, So Far.
Teaching my New Concept English class has been a struggle. With the age range (10-16), the number of students (35) and their level of English (almost non-existent), it’s been extremely difficult to plan effective lessons. Simple things seem to be incredibly boring to them, but it’s so hard to communicate directions for more complex activities. They are also very shy about participating. One thing I’ve found that works well is having them come up all at once and write their responses on the board “Chalk Talk” style.
Management is also a nightmare, partly because of the number of kids and partly because they don’t understand any of my directions. I shy away from a lot of cooperative activities I would like to try because even trying to get my students to arrange their desks in a circle was an incredibly difficult, 15 minute process. The TA is there to translate, but she kind of plays on her phone a lot and doesn’t pay attention to what I’m saying, so I don’t think she gives them all the details sometimes. She’s not very authoritative like some of the TAs who help keep the kids in line.
I’m also having a hard time connecting with my students because of the language barrier. I see the Chinese teacher and TA joking around with them during the breaks and they just can’t engage with me like that in English. They can answer a basic “How are you?” and that’s the extent of our conversations because any follow-up is usually met with the I-don’t-understand-you-at-all blank stare. I’m determined to find a way to win them over. We were talking about food today and I was getting them to teach me to say things in Mandarin, which they seemed to enjoy. I want to sit with them at lunch sometime- at the very least I could point to things and learn some new words!
While I’ve not felt like anything I’ve taught has been incredibly successful, I’ve felt like the lessons are improving as the days go on. I did a lesson about rhyming words today which was kind of fun. We also worked on pronouncing short vowel word families, which I think they liked because they can only really get that from a native speaker. I also had them cover the board with rhyming pairs and then write sentences using both words. Kids wrote things like “I drink tea in the sea” or “Rice is nice!” We did have the pair “miss, kiss” on the board and I had several boys write “I want a kiss from Miss Kylee” or something like that. Weird, but it was the first almost-joke between our class.
I’m trying to come up with a way to teach about American culture that will be interesting, interactive, but at a level they can understand- a hard balance with this group. I have a couple of days off to figure it out.
Management is also a nightmare, partly because of the number of kids and partly because they don’t understand any of my directions. I shy away from a lot of cooperative activities I would like to try because even trying to get my students to arrange their desks in a circle was an incredibly difficult, 15 minute process. The TA is there to translate, but she kind of plays on her phone a lot and doesn’t pay attention to what I’m saying, so I don’t think she gives them all the details sometimes. She’s not very authoritative like some of the TAs who help keep the kids in line.
I’m also having a hard time connecting with my students because of the language barrier. I see the Chinese teacher and TA joking around with them during the breaks and they just can’t engage with me like that in English. They can answer a basic “How are you?” and that’s the extent of our conversations because any follow-up is usually met with the I-don’t-understand-you-at-all blank stare. I’m determined to find a way to win them over. We were talking about food today and I was getting them to teach me to say things in Mandarin, which they seemed to enjoy. I want to sit with them at lunch sometime- at the very least I could point to things and learn some new words!
While I’ve not felt like anything I’ve taught has been incredibly successful, I’ve felt like the lessons are improving as the days go on. I did a lesson about rhyming words today which was kind of fun. We also worked on pronouncing short vowel word families, which I think they liked because they can only really get that from a native speaker. I also had them cover the board with rhyming pairs and then write sentences using both words. Kids wrote things like “I drink tea in the sea” or “Rice is nice!” We did have the pair “miss, kiss” on the board and I had several boys write “I want a kiss from Miss Kylee” or something like that. Weird, but it was the first almost-joke between our class.
I’m trying to come up with a way to teach about American culture that will be interesting, interactive, but at a level they can understand- a hard balance with this group. I have a couple of days off to figure it out.
A Normal Day?
I may be speaking too soon as it is only 6 pm, but today has been a relatively normal day. We taught our lessons in the morning, did some errands in the afternoon and made it back to The Compound in time for dinner. My friend Katelyn and I felt like pretty legit residents of Hangzhou today, impressing ourselves with our bartering skills, Mandarin skills and competitive cab-hailing skills. The Mandarin was only one phrase (bu yao- I don’t want that!), but we said it and the person immediately responded. This was a big deal to us, because usually our attempts at using Mandarin just get weird looks in response, communicating something to the effect of “well… you tried.” We are going to attempt to go out tonight for our “Friday” night, and we’re all hoping for a straight-forward evening!
Closing Ceremonies
Cool camp never ceases to amaze me. Never. Nothing ever happens in even a remotely normal way. We were supposed to have closing ceremonies tonight for the first ESL camp. The auditorium at the college was rented, classes were preparing performances, people were scurrying around making farewell video montages. It was supposed to go from 7-9 which we all know by now means 7:30- whenever. Maybe something, for once, would go as planned.
Around 6:00 it starts raining, then pouring, then the wind picks up, blowing down rows of bamboo and throwing metal picnic tables across the parking lot. Eventually the thunder and lightning begin. We’re watching all of this from the window, congregating in the hallway having no real information about what may or may not be going on with the ceremony. As an aside, we really have no place to hang out, so we usually end up clustered in the hallway, on the floor or in a laundry room. We watched the storm for a good hour and finally we got word that the ceremony was cancelled. We decided to do the only logical thing with a free evening: go to the office and play Apples to Apples.
We were all settled, trying to decide which is more hard-working, rocket scientists or refrigerators when a TA comes in. It’s back on. At this point, it’s already past 8:30 pm, we’ve all decided it would be best to do it tomorrow, but no. The show must go on. I’m sure the real reason was that they had already paid to rent the auditorium.
So we all trudge over there for the “show”. We sit there for another half hour while they mess with the sound and the lights. It finally starts and the kids were pretty cute, did funny dances and skits and seemed to be enjoying themselves, but some of the choices on the part of the TAs who were putting this on were just bizarre. Probably the weirdest was around 10:30 pm when they were playing a video of all the TAs and teachers saying goodbye to their classes. The sound was horrible, so a guy with a violin jumps on stage and starts playing this incredibly sad-sounding song! My first though was that it reminded me of the moment in Titanic where the ship is sinking and the band just stands on the deck and keeps playing. At a certain point, nothing’s going to help!
And as if this wasn’t bad enough, they decided to put the sobbing TAs on stage and have every single kid walk up and give them a hug goodbye. Sweet, but not something you do with 200 kids at 11 pm. And seriously, TAs, it’s been 11 days!
We walked back to The Compound, trying to sort out how or why any of this transpired the way it did. Maybe we weren’t trying to figure it out as much just processing/mocking the insanity of it all. Sure, part of it was the storm, but even without it, they would have found a way to make a mess of it. We’re pretty sure of it.
Around 6:00 it starts raining, then pouring, then the wind picks up, blowing down rows of bamboo and throwing metal picnic tables across the parking lot. Eventually the thunder and lightning begin. We’re watching all of this from the window, congregating in the hallway having no real information about what may or may not be going on with the ceremony. As an aside, we really have no place to hang out, so we usually end up clustered in the hallway, on the floor or in a laundry room. We watched the storm for a good hour and finally we got word that the ceremony was cancelled. We decided to do the only logical thing with a free evening: go to the office and play Apples to Apples.
We were all settled, trying to decide which is more hard-working, rocket scientists or refrigerators when a TA comes in. It’s back on. At this point, it’s already past 8:30 pm, we’ve all decided it would be best to do it tomorrow, but no. The show must go on. I’m sure the real reason was that they had already paid to rent the auditorium.
So we all trudge over there for the “show”. We sit there for another half hour while they mess with the sound and the lights. It finally starts and the kids were pretty cute, did funny dances and skits and seemed to be enjoying themselves, but some of the choices on the part of the TAs who were putting this on were just bizarre. Probably the weirdest was around 10:30 pm when they were playing a video of all the TAs and teachers saying goodbye to their classes. The sound was horrible, so a guy with a violin jumps on stage and starts playing this incredibly sad-sounding song! My first though was that it reminded me of the moment in Titanic where the ship is sinking and the band just stands on the deck and keeps playing. At a certain point, nothing’s going to help!
And as if this wasn’t bad enough, they decided to put the sobbing TAs on stage and have every single kid walk up and give them a hug goodbye. Sweet, but not something you do with 200 kids at 11 pm. And seriously, TAs, it’s been 11 days!
We walked back to The Compound, trying to sort out how or why any of this transpired the way it did. Maybe we weren’t trying to figure it out as much just processing/mocking the insanity of it all. Sure, part of it was the storm, but even without it, they would have found a way to make a mess of it. We’re pretty sure of it.
And it Keeps Getting Weirder.
Just a few more strange things encountered in and around Cool Camp.
- Prizes for everything at this camp are huge toy guns.
- Burden decided a great game to play would be to draw a square, make half the class stand in it and have the rest of the class try to hit them with a basketball.
- A store gave me tiny bills for change today- they look suspiciously like Monopoly money. What’s even more suspicious is that another store wouldn’t take them when I was trying to pay for something. Although, this might have had more to do with my having no idea how much they are worth.
- A prom somehow got turned into a crazy costume party where the kids did nothing but watch the teachers dance, put paint on us and take video. We tried.
- Decorations for everything here consist of stringing fake vines all over the place.
- Beat boxing and trumpet playing together seemed like a good idea at the time.
- An English test asked students to translate, among other things, the words “cigarette” and “air confectioner” and write an essay in Chinese about “wine culture.”
- Teachers get paid based on the kids’ reviews of their classes.
Best. Dance. Ever.
This is one of our students, Scott, performing at Cool Camp’s Got Talent. Scott’s hard to explain- he’s very loud and gregarious. We ALL know Scott. We’re not sure if he was going for funny with this dance, but we can not stop talking about it. We taught them the Chicken Dance one night and he ran with it. It’s more of an interpretive Chicken Dance. Enjoy!
http://vimeo.com/13413663
http://vimeo.com/13413663
The fine judges of Cool Camp's Got Talent!!
The Things We Get Ourselves Into
.After a long, confusing day of teaching a big group of us headed to our favorite restaurant, The Grandma’s, for dinner. One of our teachers was turning 21 so we had to go celebrate! The logistics involved in getting roughly 20 people to the same place at the same time is a challenge in itself, but I think the “Cool Camp” style of doing things is rubbing off on us. Because of the cabs and other variables, we all showed up at different times and no one was sure of an exact head-count. We got 2 round tables with a couple of chairs on one side and a long, curved bench on the back side. We just kept scooting over, each time accepting that we could make do with a little less room. A couple of extra people? Sure, we’ll be cozy. Another 3 people show up? I guess my purse can go on the floor. Another 2? It really doesn’t matter if I can move my elbows. By the time we were all seated we were packed in like sardines, but Cool Camp has prepared us for such ridiculous situations.
Ordering food is always “family style” in China, so this was another ordeal that I won’t bother to describe except to say that it was a lot of waving and pointing and passing around little cryptic scraps of papers scribbled with numbers. When the food finally came, we realized we had ordered a lot- so much food that there wasn’t room on the table. We felt pressured, eating as fast as we could to make room for more food on the lazy susan. We were packed together under bright lights, sweating, so close together our chopsticks were in each other’s faces, trying to hurry and eat! Someone on the end finally just stood up while he was eating, laughing at how intense this meal was becoming.
We definitely did not make any friends at The Grandma’s last night. In the chaos of ordering, someone got the numbers wrong, or there were two things on the menu with the same number or some kind of inevitable mix-up occurred and they kept bringing us things we didn’t order. They were shuffling things back and forth- we’d try not to groan every time they came with another dish. Not more food! Then we decided to loudly sing Happy Birthday which apparently is not common in Chinese restaurants. The waitresses looked panicked after the first line and kept trying to shush us, but we continued anyway. Americans.
After this, some teachers were going bowling but a group of us wanted to call it a night, head back to The Compound, and get ready for our lessons for the next day. It was a nice night so we decided to walk around a bit before we got a cab. We walked down by a river, happened upon some large group dancing, and followed some bright lights up a weird staircase. There was a huge building we referred to as Gotham Tower and we were so fascinated, we decided to take jumping pictures in front of it. We drew quite a crowd, but had already looked like ridiculous Americans so much that night, we decided to milk it a while longer. It started to sprinkle and the other people in the area started to disperse so we decided to head back toward the main road to find cabs.
The wind started to blow and a kid, who was intent on standing and watching us, was hurried away by his mother. Our only semi-Mandarin speaker in the group picked up what the mother was saying: “It’s going to rain. They don’t understand. Let’s go!” We walked a little faster, not too worried about a little rain. The Chinese are in general, what I perceive to be a bit finicky about things like this. At least our students are- they are not willing to do things like sit on the floor, clap when they have a band-aid on their finger or be hit with even a few drops of rain.
As we were walking it started to pour. It was the kind of rain that instantly soaks you. Hardened by our Cool Camp experiences, a little rain wasn’t going to get us down. This was probably one of the least annoying situations we’ve dealt with so far; in fact we were enjoying it. So we kept walking, and laughed watching lightning bolts light up the sky over “Gotham Tower” and listening to thunder crack over our heads. Now getting a cab was definitely impossible. The only solution? Jumping pictures in the rain! Ridiculous, yes, but so are most things here. When we finally got serious about getting home it was probably an hour later and we were still standing in the rain, soaking wet and dripping with water. Empty cabs were few and far between and we stood on a corner scruitinizing the traffic for little green lights in the windows of available cabs. We stood and stood, watched our friends get picked up across the street, and stood some more. We finally found one, got yelled at- we think- about getting the seats wet and headed home. I’ve never been happier to see The Compound.
The things we get ourselves into.
Ordering food is always “family style” in China, so this was another ordeal that I won’t bother to describe except to say that it was a lot of waving and pointing and passing around little cryptic scraps of papers scribbled with numbers. When the food finally came, we realized we had ordered a lot- so much food that there wasn’t room on the table. We felt pressured, eating as fast as we could to make room for more food on the lazy susan. We were packed together under bright lights, sweating, so close together our chopsticks were in each other’s faces, trying to hurry and eat! Someone on the end finally just stood up while he was eating, laughing at how intense this meal was becoming.
We definitely did not make any friends at The Grandma’s last night. In the chaos of ordering, someone got the numbers wrong, or there were two things on the menu with the same number or some kind of inevitable mix-up occurred and they kept bringing us things we didn’t order. They were shuffling things back and forth- we’d try not to groan every time they came with another dish. Not more food! Then we decided to loudly sing Happy Birthday which apparently is not common in Chinese restaurants. The waitresses looked panicked after the first line and kept trying to shush us, but we continued anyway. Americans.
After this, some teachers were going bowling but a group of us wanted to call it a night, head back to The Compound, and get ready for our lessons for the next day. It was a nice night so we decided to walk around a bit before we got a cab. We walked down by a river, happened upon some large group dancing, and followed some bright lights up a weird staircase. There was a huge building we referred to as Gotham Tower and we were so fascinated, we decided to take jumping pictures in front of it. We drew quite a crowd, but had already looked like ridiculous Americans so much that night, we decided to milk it a while longer. It started to sprinkle and the other people in the area started to disperse so we decided to head back toward the main road to find cabs.
The wind started to blow and a kid, who was intent on standing and watching us, was hurried away by his mother. Our only semi-Mandarin speaker in the group picked up what the mother was saying: “It’s going to rain. They don’t understand. Let’s go!” We walked a little faster, not too worried about a little rain. The Chinese are in general, what I perceive to be a bit finicky about things like this. At least our students are- they are not willing to do things like sit on the floor, clap when they have a band-aid on their finger or be hit with even a few drops of rain.
As we were walking it started to pour. It was the kind of rain that instantly soaks you. Hardened by our Cool Camp experiences, a little rain wasn’t going to get us down. This was probably one of the least annoying situations we’ve dealt with so far; in fact we were enjoying it. So we kept walking, and laughed watching lightning bolts light up the sky over “Gotham Tower” and listening to thunder crack over our heads. Now getting a cab was definitely impossible. The only solution? Jumping pictures in the rain! Ridiculous, yes, but so are most things here. When we finally got serious about getting home it was probably an hour later and we were still standing in the rain, soaking wet and dripping with water. Empty cabs were few and far between and we stood on a corner scruitinizing the traffic for little green lights in the windows of available cabs. We stood and stood, watched our friends get picked up across the street, and stood some more. We finally found one, got yelled at- we think- about getting the seats wet and headed home. I’ve never been happier to see The Compound.
The things we get ourselves into.
First Day of Real Teaching
Had an awkward first day of teaching my class. It consisted of a lot of me talking very slowly, making crazy hand gestures and them staring at me blankly, talking and/or playing on their cell phones. If I was talking to them, they didn’t understand or weren’t paying attention; if I tried to get them to participate, they refused. I’m not sure what the third option is. My hope is that things will improve as they learn more English, get more comfortable with me and the class and as I get a handle on what they know and don’t know.
Only making these three hours worse was Burden, the aptly-named Chinese teacher, who decided to sit in the back of my class and watch the entire time. The watching turned into talking to the TAs, talking to the kids in the back row and randomly jumping in and taking over my class in Chinese. He’s like the problem student- except he’s the teacher! What a way to start.
The day did have its positives, however. The kids picked English names which apparently is a lot of power to put in the hands of a 14 year old. There are a lot of usual suspects: Jason, Amy, Ann, Tony. There’s the kids who got so close, but like a lot of English here in China, missed the mark by a hair: Nicolath, Harrisom. Then there are the kids who just went for it, picking the most awesome names they could think of: Tiger, Kelp, Rock, Shell, Pain and Flying Warrior.
Naturally, I let them all keep whatever names they picked.
Only making these three hours worse was Burden, the aptly-named Chinese teacher, who decided to sit in the back of my class and watch the entire time. The watching turned into talking to the TAs, talking to the kids in the back row and randomly jumping in and taking over my class in Chinese. He’s like the problem student- except he’s the teacher! What a way to start.
The day did have its positives, however. The kids picked English names which apparently is a lot of power to put in the hands of a 14 year old. There are a lot of usual suspects: Jason, Amy, Ann, Tony. There’s the kids who got so close, but like a lot of English here in China, missed the mark by a hair: Nicolath, Harrisom. Then there are the kids who just went for it, picking the most awesome names they could think of: Tiger, Kelp, Rock, Shell, Pain and Flying Warrior.
Naturally, I let them all keep whatever names they picked.
WHAT?!
Today was supposed to be my first real day of teaching. I planned all last night, scribbling get-to-know you activities in a notebook, figuring out the pacing, making a powerpoint to introduce myself. My schedule has me switching off with a Chinese teacher, 1.5 hrs in the morning, 1.5 hrs after lunch. I had a great day planned; we were even going to make a word wall.
I got up this morning, was getting ready to go, was just about ready to pack up my computer when I hear a knock at the door. A TA, Amber, hands me a note, says something “urgent” was happening with the Chinese teacher and they needed me to take the whole afternoon instead. Fine, I’ll go with it. I bummed around this morning (empowered by my Z pass, I rode around on a sweet bike), ate lunch and was back in my room, again, just getting ready to grab my stuff and walk out the door. Another knock. Amber’s back.
“Kylee! I have to talk to you! They’re telling me you’re supposed to be teaching 2 classes! 6 hours!”
What?! Seriously… what?! The schedule is STILL changing. Ten days in and still, this school has no idea what they’re doing! For some reason that no one understands, they had my name on the schedule for NC1A and NC2A. After several phone calls and a Chinese teacher threatening to jump out of her window a la Wile E. Coyote, we made sense of the mix-up. They can’t just seem to leave the schedule alone and are constantly tweaking, changing and otherwise confusing the hell out of everybody! The note this morning was for the real NC2A teacher, not for me. I really was supposed to teach this morning. Now I have to wait around another 3 hours for my afternoon class to begin.
CHINA!!!!
I got up this morning, was getting ready to go, was just about ready to pack up my computer when I hear a knock at the door. A TA, Amber, hands me a note, says something “urgent” was happening with the Chinese teacher and they needed me to take the whole afternoon instead. Fine, I’ll go with it. I bummed around this morning (empowered by my Z pass, I rode around on a sweet bike), ate lunch and was back in my room, again, just getting ready to grab my stuff and walk out the door. Another knock. Amber’s back.
“Kylee! I have to talk to you! They’re telling me you’re supposed to be teaching 2 classes! 6 hours!”
What?! Seriously… what?! The schedule is STILL changing. Ten days in and still, this school has no idea what they’re doing! For some reason that no one understands, they had my name on the schedule for NC1A and NC2A. After several phone calls and a Chinese teacher threatening to jump out of her window a la Wile E. Coyote, we made sense of the mix-up. They can’t just seem to leave the schedule alone and are constantly tweaking, changing and otherwise confusing the hell out of everybody! The note this morning was for the real NC2A teacher, not for me. I really was supposed to teach this morning. Now I have to wait around another 3 hours for my afternoon class to begin.
CHINA!!!!
Bikes!
Hangzhou is full of red bikes. They are everywhere, people flying past, weaving through traffic, covered in special bike ponchos. They look like colorful ninjas. Renting them looks deceptively simple, but like EVERYTHING here, the fine people of Hangzhou don’t make it easy. You have to have a special card which you can only get at a special place, you have to have your passport, you have to fill out forms, you have to negotiate all of this with a very limited common vocabulary. Today, we conquered their system, got the cards (called a Z pass) and the ponchos and took off on red bikes. The ratio of time spent figuring out the bike system to time spent on the bikes was probably 10:1, but now that we have these cards, we can get bikes wherever and whenever. There’s even a bike kiosk right outside The Compound. As we stood in the rain, pushing the bikes back into their stalls another teacher held up his Z pass and said “I feel free!” It’s a good feeling.
Nothing in China Makes Sense!
We’ve pretty much accepted that no plan is the best plan in China. Things just seem to be easier when you go into things with very low expectations about the logistics of things. The reason? As a fellow teacher put it so eloquently: “Nothing in China makes sense!!” From the language, to the street signs, cabs, restaurants, banks- just when we think we’ve got a handle on things, something throws us.
Yesterday, we had an interesting, but generally mellow day exploring Quinghefang Old Street. It was established in 1874, but is now a tourist-haven of shopping and eating. We tried some “dragon whisker sweets” which tasted like Butterfingers and took pictures next to this huge Buddha. We also sat down to watch a puppet show. The guy running it was so persuasive, saying “Looka looka! Sit!” over and over. “Looka looka, 5 yuan, looka looka!” So we sat, put our faces up to the peep holes and watched an interesting story unfold. It wasn’t so much a puppet show as a succession of different pictures and lights. He drew our attention to the important parts: “Tig-ah Tig-ah, looka looka” or “Monkey king, monkey king.” And the best? “The tree, tree!” There was a naked boy in the tree; when he flipped the light the boy was peeing on the guy under the tree! The story then took an interesting turn and seemed to be mostly about a girl in a tower. This one guy was the whole show, both telling the story and providing the music. We were laughing so hard the whole time, both because of the ridiculousness of the show and the crowd developing around us, taking pictures.
We met up with our group, having planned to go to Hangzhou’s alleged most famous restaurant. It was a great plan, all 10 of us found each other and there were cabs everywhere. None of these cabs, however would take us. Some of them would look at the address and say no. Some would just wave us away. We were trying to ask this lady about the cabs and she looked at us like we were crazy and kept just telling us something like “No, you don’t want to go there. Just eat here!” So not helpful! So we did what any self-respecting group of American tourists would do: jumping pictures! This entertained us for a good hour, getting the timing just right, adding props, hassling locals to be in the pictures. We’re easily amused. After this the cabs were more cooperative and we made it to dinner, which was less than impressive. We later found out that the cab thing had something to do with changing shifts. At rush hour.
After dinner and after wandering around for a good 5 or 6 hours earlier in the day, we decided to wander some more, and walked along a causeway over the lake. It was beautiful at night and we could see a pagoda lit up on a hillside. The other side of the lake near the downtown area has a water show so we walked to a place to watch it. An announcement comes on that says the show is starting in 5 minutes. It then starts immediately, “Viva Las Vegas” echoing off the lake. It was full of lasers and perfectly timed fountains, but was paired with consistently odd music choices. We kept one eye on the water and the other nervously waiting for flying light up toys to fall on us. People were throwing those things everywhere!
We also attempted to get ice cream- and I say attempted because everything is so weird here! There were advertisements everywhere for a banana split (actually called a “Romantic Split”) and a friend and I were going to share it because it was a lot more ice cream for a lot less money than buying single scoops. We went up and ordered it and they just told us we couldn’t have it. My friend speaks a little Mandarin so he asked them why and they said it was because it would take a half hour to make! What?! China, you’re so weird!
Yesterday, we had an interesting, but generally mellow day exploring Quinghefang Old Street. It was established in 1874, but is now a tourist-haven of shopping and eating. We tried some “dragon whisker sweets” which tasted like Butterfingers and took pictures next to this huge Buddha. We also sat down to watch a puppet show. The guy running it was so persuasive, saying “Looka looka! Sit!” over and over. “Looka looka, 5 yuan, looka looka!” So we sat, put our faces up to the peep holes and watched an interesting story unfold. It wasn’t so much a puppet show as a succession of different pictures and lights. He drew our attention to the important parts: “Tig-ah Tig-ah, looka looka” or “Monkey king, monkey king.” And the best? “The tree, tree!” There was a naked boy in the tree; when he flipped the light the boy was peeing on the guy under the tree! The story then took an interesting turn and seemed to be mostly about a girl in a tower. This one guy was the whole show, both telling the story and providing the music. We were laughing so hard the whole time, both because of the ridiculousness of the show and the crowd developing around us, taking pictures.
We met up with our group, having planned to go to Hangzhou’s alleged most famous restaurant. It was a great plan, all 10 of us found each other and there were cabs everywhere. None of these cabs, however would take us. Some of them would look at the address and say no. Some would just wave us away. We were trying to ask this lady about the cabs and she looked at us like we were crazy and kept just telling us something like “No, you don’t want to go there. Just eat here!” So not helpful! So we did what any self-respecting group of American tourists would do: jumping pictures! This entertained us for a good hour, getting the timing just right, adding props, hassling locals to be in the pictures. We’re easily amused. After this the cabs were more cooperative and we made it to dinner, which was less than impressive. We later found out that the cab thing had something to do with changing shifts. At rush hour.
After dinner and after wandering around for a good 5 or 6 hours earlier in the day, we decided to wander some more, and walked along a causeway over the lake. It was beautiful at night and we could see a pagoda lit up on a hillside. The other side of the lake near the downtown area has a water show so we walked to a place to watch it. An announcement comes on that says the show is starting in 5 minutes. It then starts immediately, “Viva Las Vegas” echoing off the lake. It was full of lasers and perfectly timed fountains, but was paired with consistently odd music choices. We kept one eye on the water and the other nervously waiting for flying light up toys to fall on us. People were throwing those things everywhere!
We also attempted to get ice cream- and I say attempted because everything is so weird here! There were advertisements everywhere for a banana split (actually called a “Romantic Split”) and a friend and I were going to share it because it was a lot more ice cream for a lot less money than buying single scoops. We went up and ordered it and they just told us we couldn’t have it. My friend speaks a little Mandarin so he asked them why and they said it was because it would take a half hour to make! What?! China, you’re so weird!
Hangzhou Night Life
We ended up in a lot of different places trying to find this bar, but we were determined and finally made it. It had live music and this awesome mural. It’s hard to see in the picture, but the drum set definitely said “We Are the World” and Mao on the bottom is playing the keyboard!
My Class!
I finally met my New Concept English 1 class! As I slowly trudged up to the fourth floor on my way to meet my class, I began to hear Lady Gaga music, somewhere between the second and third floor. I kept going up, turned down the hall, and the music kept getting louder. As I approached the door, I realized it was coming from my classroom! I walked in my Chinese co-teacher, Songtao, yelled something into a mic, and they all started cheering for me. We traded off speaking into the mic, back and forth between English and Chinese, yelling as if we were announcing a sporting event. I was only there for 5 minutes and it already seemed like we are going to get along great! I wish I could run my classes in the US in such a manner, although, I don’t think that would fly.
Communication is going to a definitely issue, but I met with Songtao last night and we planned how we were going to split up the curriculum. We decided that since they don’t speak much English and will have a hard time with my accent, I won’t teach any brand new material. He’ll teach the lessons first in Chinese, and then I’ll review the concepts and plan activities to help them practice their new skills. This seems like it will work better for both the students and for me, especially since half of the text book is in Mandarin!
Tonight we’re having another opening ceremony for the “New Concept” camp and we are doing “The Dance” yet again. I told my kiddos to watch for me and that it would be exceptionally silly. Hope they approve!
We’ve still been doing the evening activities for the ESL camp which is really more chaos than it’s worth. We basically have no facility to hold events for the entire camp and no resources. We’ve been doing a lot of movie nights and have learned that Chinese sub-titles are a definite must. The ESL 1 classes are quite a handful, but they LOVED musical chairs yesterday. I think they just liked a game where they could legitimately shove each other and no one would care. There’s also a kid in one of those classes who the Chinese TA’s refer to as just “The Most Handsome Kid in Camp” which is now basically his name. At least they're honest?
Communication is going to a definitely issue, but I met with Songtao last night and we planned how we were going to split up the curriculum. We decided that since they don’t speak much English and will have a hard time with my accent, I won’t teach any brand new material. He’ll teach the lessons first in Chinese, and then I’ll review the concepts and plan activities to help them practice their new skills. This seems like it will work better for both the students and for me, especially since half of the text book is in Mandarin!
Tonight we’re having another opening ceremony for the “New Concept” camp and we are doing “The Dance” yet again. I told my kiddos to watch for me and that it would be exceptionally silly. Hope they approve!
We’ve still been doing the evening activities for the ESL camp which is really more chaos than it’s worth. We basically have no facility to hold events for the entire camp and no resources. We’ve been doing a lot of movie nights and have learned that Chinese sub-titles are a definite must. The ESL 1 classes are quite a handful, but they LOVED musical chairs yesterday. I think they just liked a game where they could legitimately shove each other and no one would care. There’s also a kid in one of those classes who the Chinese TA’s refer to as just “The Most Handsome Kid in Camp” which is now basically his name. At least they're honest?
Hey Macarena!
Since we’re planning a “Prom” for later in camp, we decided we had better teach the kids some classic American dances. After our impressive showing at opening ceremonies, we were sure they’d be thrilled to learn the likes of the Electric Slide, soulja boy and square dancing. We’ve got this pretty good system worked out, where the 7 teachers rotate between classes so we can all teach 1 thing 7 times instead of teaching 7 things all at once. My dances? The Macarena and the YMCA. The Macarena was fine, until we got to the part where you have to do a little wiggle before you jump and turn. They mostly just giggled while I did it and then jumped. Some of them eventually loosened up and were wiggling all over the place!
I walked into classroom to observe a friend teaching the next day. I was introducing myself and this kid looks up and goes “Oh!” and starts doing the Macarena at me! Hopefully the American teachers won’t be the only ones dancing at Prom!
I walked into classroom to observe a friend teaching the next day. I was introducing myself and this kid looks up and goes “Oh!” and starts doing the Macarena at me! Hopefully the American teachers won’t be the only ones dancing at Prom!
Silk Market
With yet another day with no teaching until 5 pm the same group of us set out for the silk market today. Hangzhou is famous for its silk and this market is the place silk was made during the Ming dynasty. We had the two-cab situation today but were determined to meet up, comparing maps, street names, mysterious Chinese characters. It all seemed like it would work until we got in our cab. He was friendly, had some awesome stunna shades on and a cab full of newspaper, but kept trying to speak to us in Chinese. We were trying to ask if he knew English and all he could come up with was “Oh my God!” So we decided to practice our Mandarin, saying over and over again “Hello, goodbye, how much does it cost? I love you. I don’t want that. Hello” I got out my phrase book and started saying things from that, I’m sure butchering it, even with the Pinyin pronunciation guide. So we just resorted to pointing. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. OK. The weather is nice today.” On the freeway, he took the phrasebook and decided that would be a great time to point out some phrases he wanted to say to us. He was making fun of the way we spoke his language, by saying “Ni hao, ni hao” in a high-pitched nasal voice and making his hands do a talking motion. I think he drove us way too far, just because we were good entertainment. He gave us his phone number and was trying to tell us we didn’t have to pay, but we gave him some money anyway. Maybe we were a little overzealous with the I-love-you’s.
We finally got to the market with no hope of finding the rest of our group. We actually ended up at the same place, but it was HUGE- so huge even tall blondes don’t stand out. We found really cool dresses, robes, purses and worked on our bartering skills. There’s this entire back-and-forth with a calculator and a lot of very distressed looking facial expressions that I really enjoyed. A scarf I got started at 60 yuan; I talked them down to 35 (around 5 USD).
Tonight, we’re back to teaching our games and organizing an all-camp activity. Last night was movie night. It was complete chaos (seems to be a theme here) and they basically just talked, played on their cell phones and ate the entire time. Tonight we’re teaching them different dances so they can try them out at “prom” later in camp. I’ve got the Macarena and YMCA. Should be a hit!
We finally got to the market with no hope of finding the rest of our group. We actually ended up at the same place, but it was HUGE- so huge even tall blondes don’t stand out. We found really cool dresses, robes, purses and worked on our bartering skills. There’s this entire back-and-forth with a calculator and a lot of very distressed looking facial expressions that I really enjoyed. A scarf I got started at 60 yuan; I talked them down to 35 (around 5 USD).
Tonight, we’re back to teaching our games and organizing an all-camp activity. Last night was movie night. It was complete chaos (seems to be a theme here) and they basically just talked, played on their cell phones and ate the entire time. Tonight we’re teaching them different dances so they can try them out at “prom” later in camp. I’ve got the Macarena and YMCA. Should be a hit!
Pictures from Hangzhou's Silk Market
Pictures from West Lake
Adventuring!
Today a group of us aren’t doing anything until our evening games and activities, so we decided to go on an adventure. As long as you have your location written in Mandarin, you can pretty much go where youo want. We keep hearing Hangzhou described as “China’s heaven on Earth” because of its natural beauty, but all we’ve seen is concrete and a dirty river. We decided to venture to West Lake and explore and headed to an area we’ve heard has a bunch of lotus flowers. Surprisingly, we actually communicated this to the cab driver (a lot of pointing at a guide book and nodding) and even managed to walk in the right direction once we got dropped off. Just getting there was half the battle and it was definitely worth it. West Lake is gorgeous! There are endless paths and bridges and we walked around trying to take in all the beautiful scenery- weeping willows, lotus flowers, pagodas, bamboo. It was hot and humid as usual, so we had to stop for ice cream and put our feet in the water. Unfortunately, this quaint little scene was a great photo-op for Chinese tourists, and we could only smile for so long until the ice cream starts to melt! I’ll post some pictures of what we saw. Most of the signs were in Chinese, so we didn’t really know what we were looking at, but it was still interesting. The only glitch? We planned to meet up with other teachers who got in a different cab, thinking we'd be able to find them. Never saw them again the entire day! I guess we'll have to compare pictures!
After a long morning of exploring, we were trying to find food! We kept seeing people walk by with stuff, but we couldn’t figure out where they were getting it. Finally we asked some guys with KFC and they pointed us back to a main road. We found a local Chinese restaurant (next to a KFC, again blaring Beyonce music) with an English speaking waitress and enjoyed some fried noodles. Success!
Another bonus? The whole trip (2 cab rides, ice cream and lunch) only cost 35 yuan or about $5. Buoyed by our successes, tomorrow we’re going to try to go to a shopping area in another part of Hangzhou.
After a long morning of exploring, we were trying to find food! We kept seeing people walk by with stuff, but we couldn’t figure out where they were getting it. Finally we asked some guys with KFC and they pointed us back to a main road. We found a local Chinese restaurant (next to a KFC, again blaring Beyonce music) with an English speaking waitress and enjoyed some fried noodles. Success!
Another bonus? The whole trip (2 cab rides, ice cream and lunch) only cost 35 yuan or about $5. Buoyed by our successes, tomorrow we’re going to try to go to a shopping area in another part of Hangzhou.
The Plan.
So after MUCH confusion, chaos, etc. we finally have a concrete schedule. We know things are liable to change (and frequently do), but this seems like the final plan. This being the second day of having the kids at camp, we’re hoping things are finally straightened out. I’m still helping the group plan night time games and all-camp activities for now, and will be co-teaching New Concept English with a Chinese teacher starting 7-14 through 8-3.
I led the first round of games last night and was supposed to teach them musical chairs and the “I’ve never” game. This would have been pretty straight forward, except that I got into the classroom and the chairs and desks were bolted together and couldn’t easily be moved. So I quickly decided to play an improvised game of Pictionary. Once the kids understood the directions with the help of some translation, they had tons of fun. The only problem? They were yelling their guesses in Chinese! Luckily the TA’s were paying attention. We finished up the half hour with an American classroom classic: Heads Up 7-Up. They seemed to find the closing your eyes part a little suspicious, but seemed to enjoy it. More games tonight- I’m hoping this classroom has desks that move!
The picture is our "office", all the stuff on the board is them trying to figure out some kind of schedule!
I led the first round of games last night and was supposed to teach them musical chairs and the “I’ve never” game. This would have been pretty straight forward, except that I got into the classroom and the chairs and desks were bolted together and couldn’t easily be moved. So I quickly decided to play an improvised game of Pictionary. Once the kids understood the directions with the help of some translation, they had tons of fun. The only problem? They were yelling their guesses in Chinese! Luckily the TA’s were paying attention. We finished up the half hour with an American classroom classic: Heads Up 7-Up. They seemed to find the closing your eyes part a little suspicious, but seemed to enjoy it. More games tonight- I’m hoping this classroom has desks that move!
The picture is our "office", all the stuff on the board is them trying to figure out some kind of schedule!
Making it Work.
Well, we're on day 4 and still aren't clear about what exactly we're teaching or when. Some of the teachers are starting today, but there's a group of us who are supposedly starting on the 14th. We've been planning the evening activities, but have had a lot of down time. A couple of us went for a run this morning in the probably 80 degree, incredibly humid weather, and I had an unusual running companion. This Chinese guy on a bike insisted on riding next to me and chatting for the entire 2.5 miles. He wanted to practice his English, which he clearly needed. He told me his English name was "Good Morning" and said that in school, they learn English for 30 or 40 years. He kept trying to ask exactly what day and time I'd be back to the track, but being in Kenya, I perfected a polite but incredibly vague way of responding. At least I was distracted from the heat.
We're supposed to be meeting in a few minutes and are possibly getting more information. We've learned not to rely too much on the information we have at any given moment because it has been changing by the hour. We'll see.
We're supposed to be meeting in a few minutes and are possibly getting more information. We've learned not to rely too much on the information we have at any given moment because it has been changing by the hour. We'll see.
Pictures
Here are some more pictures of the campus and surrounding area. They decorated the heck out of the campus... funny that that was all completely coordinated, but they still seem a little unsure about what the actual teaching will consist of.
Opening Ceremonies
Camp has officially started. We had opening ceremonies last night in a huge audirotium at the university next door. Our group choreographed a dance for it. It included all the American classics- YMCA, the Macarena, Soulja boy, N'Sync, the electric slide and much more. We were trying to practice it in the afternoon and a couple of us were standing back watching 15 teachers all doing what we do best- trying to be in charge and organize everybody. Somehow, we got it together. We performed it on this huge stage and the kids seemed... interested. I'm not sure if they thought it was cool or completely weird, but we had fun. Here's a link to a video of parts of our performance: http://vimeo.com/13220764
Things seem to change by the day here and now, I'm not starting my class until the 14th. In the meantime, a group of us are organizing games and night time all-camp activities from 5-9 pm. It should be interesting, again because I have no idea if the "American" activities we are planning will be fun for them or just completely weird. I think that maybe we'll be an acquired taste.
We went out to dinner the other night in the downtown area. The school is pretty far out from basically anything, so it was great to get out a little bit. A couple of us even managed to get a cab back to school without any Mandarin speakers in the car. We felt pretty proud.
Things seem to change by the day here and now, I'm not starting my class until the 14th. In the meantime, a group of us are organizing games and night time all-camp activities from 5-9 pm. It should be interesting, again because I have no idea if the "American" activities we are planning will be fun for them or just completely weird. I think that maybe we'll be an acquired taste.
We went out to dinner the other night in the downtown area. The school is pretty far out from basically anything, so it was great to get out a little bit. A couple of us even managed to get a cab back to school without any Mandarin speakers in the car. We felt pretty proud.
Day Two
We got off to a chaotic start, but we’re getting more and more settled in here and figuring out how this is all going to work. We finally got assigned a class to teach and received our text books. I’m teaching “New Concept English 1” with a Chinese teacher. It’s the most basic level and I think will have mostly younger students (5th and 6th grade). The Chinese teacher will do the text book lessons for the first part of class, then I’ll review the material with more interactive activities that will help them practice using the language skills they just learned. We haven’t met the Chinese teachers we’re working with (I’m not sure if they’ve even arrived yet), but as things seem to work here, we’ll get around to that detail later. The books have text in English and Mandarin so I’m hoping we meet these teachers soon!
A couple of us also did a little exploring today. The school is a little drab (read: concrete, metal and smog) and some of us have taken to calling it simply “The Compound.” We decided to venture out on foot today and walked around a university that is right next door. There were even green patches, which was refreshing to see.
This afternoon, a group of us worked on “Americanizing” the campus to make it look more like an American high school. We made posters, blew up balloons, and drew a camp mascot . With the humidity, we’re just hoping all the tape holds up until tomorrow!
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A couple of us also did a little exploring today. The school is a little drab (read: concrete, metal and smog) and some of us have taken to calling it simply “The Compound.” We decided to venture out on foot today and walked around a university that is right next door. There were even green patches, which was refreshing to see.
This afternoon, a group of us worked on “Americanizing” the campus to make it look more like an American high school. We made posters, blew up balloons, and drew a camp mascot . With the humidity, we’re just hoping all the tape holds up until tomorrow!
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Made it!
I made it to Hangzhou! I've been here a full day now and we're getting settled in and trying to figure out what we're teaching and how to navigate this completely new culture all at the same time. We ventured to a store yesterday to buy a few things and learned very quickly that very few people in the general population speak any English. It's been an interesting experience so far but the people at the school and the other American teachers are a great group. Our students are coming tomorrow (Friday) and class starts Saturday so we're trying to get prepared. We haven't actually seen the text books we're teaching from yet, but they are supposed to come this afternoon. Fingers crossed!
I'll try to post some pictures of the school and the general area soon!
I'll try to post some pictures of the school and the general area soon!
