Becca’s in China

Ms. Liza and Mr. Ge recently adopted a class pet from the local school.  For some sort of reason there all running around with snails…and since Mr. Ge is in with the local teachers he got his class one.  He eats fruits, veggies, and eggshells.  This thing is HUGE - but was photo worthy, so here he is, Sticky:

Sticky!

  This door really represents the reasons why I love teaching my kids so much.  We looked at pictures of bats before we colored these, and some were lazy, some stuck to the tradition, and then I have those few kids who really go outside of the box.  These are the children that I really love the best - it’s amazing to see the work that they put out.  Most of the really creative ones has older siblings who attend our school, and what’s really interesting is that apparently their brothers/sisters aren’t very creative at all. 

I have children who question me as to why they can do or not do something.  Then I have those other one’s that ask me why they have to be normal.  For example, we had a project earlier this week where they had to color in cats to decorate the room with.  One of my students were being made fun of because she decided to color he cat green, so what did I do…encourage her.  I told my students it didn’t matter what color her cat was, because it was hers.  The student was very excited and her cat ended up coming out to be fantastic. 

We have all sorts of decorations, and it’s going to be very interesting week leading up our school’s Halloween celebration on Friday - but I’m ready.

Also today - we had a great activity.  As a whole first grade we went outside and played “Red light, Green light.”  Most of the kids had never heard of this game so we had to explain it to them first, but when we got outside it was on!  I volunteered to be the ‘lightpost,’ and luckily they gave me a megaphone.  I’ve never held or used one before so I have to admit that I was a little excited.  We played a few rounds through, and I also got tackled a few times by six year old’s, but it was so worth it.  Everyone had fun, including the other first grade teachers.  I got a little annoyed with one though.  I have this really small boy in my class and he had made it all the way to the end and was almost about to tag me when one of the other first grade teachers grabbed him by the back of the shirt so he was running in mid-air…poor little guy.  Needless to say he still won - which meant that he got a huge hug from me for winning.  It was a good day, and really was a great way to end the week. 

One last set of pictures, Liza and I went to the store to hunt down some cheap Halloween candy and this is what we discovered.  An American kid would egg your house if you gave them a package of Skittles like this:

Today I received a wicked package from my parents which has so much stuff in it - I was practically ripping  into it.  Granola bars, Mike n’ Ikes, and more jeans.  Ahh…my life is now ok again.

Other than that it was just a regular Monday.  I taught seven lessons today and really had to hit the ground running today.  However, it’s ok the rest of the week get’s much better - it just involves grading after this point.

Words of wisdom for anyone who may ever want to travel to China.  If someone helps you find Chinese medicine to take if you’re getting sick.  No matter what color, shape, outside texture, or size the pill is…do NOT chew it, swallow it. 

Needless to say I was not forewarned, and learned the hard way. 

It was perhaps the worst taste that I have ever experienced, I cannot use words to describe it because it just goes beyond description - just imagine the worse thing you’ve ever tasted times a thousand - and these were the yellow pills.

1. Macaroni and Cheese

2. Cook-out Milkshakes

3. A couch (although I guess my second bed is considered one)  

4. Dryer Fresh Towels

The past week has been completely crazy.  Only having one day off to recover also did not help in this situation and has left the whole staff restless and ready for the weekend.  The kids however, are not restless.  In fact I believe that they are anything but restless.  This has caused me to have a crazy week. 

For example:

Situation One: A few of my students were complaining that their pencils kept disappearing and that a certain student was taking them.  However, the student in question never confessed and I couldn’t find the pencils - so I assumed that he was eating them.  Then come to discover his pencil box had a secret compartment, in which all of these students pencils were being hidden.  Needless to say this student lost his free time, and instead had the liberty of spending it with me at his desk.

Situation Two: On Friday I had to teach the children a play entitled “Follow the North Star,” which was about the underground railroad.  In the states this play wouldn’t have been an issue.  However 8,000 miles away, trying to explain what American Slavery was to a group of Asian children is quite difficult.  I had a lot of blank faces - they understood the definition to slavery after explaining it twenty times, but the connection just couldn’t be made for them. 

Situation Three: Ok, this was a really cute one.  I have a small Japanese girl in my class who hardly ever talks - but this week she’s been playing a lot by herself.  So on Wednesday I went over to see what she was doing, and she was coloring a picture.  But then out of her little voice I hear her singing, “You are my Sunshine.”  How cute is that.  She also knows a second verse - which I had never heard of, so she has been spending the week teaching it to me during their free time. 

Situation Four: We have now officially picked the first grade New Years show songs.  They are: Jingle Bells, Here comes Santa Claus, Frosty the Snowman, and Deck the Halls.  I have to admit, this took a lot of effort for some sort of reason, and I think that ‘Deck the Halls,’ is a bad choice for our children.  It instantlymade me think of that scene from “The Christmas Story.”  Can you imagine having to accompany 20 children as they sing: Fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra ra ra.  (I secretly can’t wait!)  

Now stepping away from the school topics, otherwise this week has been fine.  Tai Chi is getting harder, and I’ve been sick.  So there’s been a lot of Zhangjiang in my life recently.  For the last two nights however, we’ve been taking the oppertunity to break out and get into the city.  On Thursday we played video games, and yesterday we went DVD hunting.  Other than that, I’m just hanging out in Shanghai - sick.  Oh, also - saw these guys on the side of the road, enjoy:

Mr. Mac and his new sandbag

Last night after Tai Chi and burning our tongues off at dinner Parker finally made his move.  He has been searching for some sand to place inside his Tai Chi ball which he recently acquired and what better way to find sand then on a construction site, and like any great young American what did he do?  Construction Drive (Dumpster Dive) for a free bag of sand.  Once getting the bag of sand however, the 25K weight quickly caught up with him, and we were forced to take a taxi back the final block to our school.  Even paying the price of the taxi - this photo was completely worth it. 

This event actually reminded me of a story of myself from a good number of years ago.  I spent my first summer after college working as Chuck E. of a Chuck E. Cheese’s - making no money and I moved into my first apartment.  When my roommates started moving in and coming to the realization that we were all in the same boat.  So we decided to go dumpster diving at a local construction site for some wood to turn into a bookshelf.  Climbing into the site we had one flashlight between us, and carelessly entered ourselves into this situation. 

Once on top of a huge pile of lumber we had found the jackpot - a clean and dry pile of lumber below.  Before one of us jumped we looked down to find a board with a huge rusty nail sticking out of it.  After high-fivingourselves for a disaster well avoided we jumped down and with the next step I made I heard a pop from the bottom of my converse sneakers.  I had stepped on a nail.  At first it didn’t hurt - and then it really hurt, so here I was in the ghetto of Greensboro, in the dark, with a board attached to my foot via a nail through my shoe.  Once pulling the nail out of my foot we made our way over to the schools infirmary to explain the situation.  They laughed, checked my shot history, gave me some pain killers, and sent me on my way.  I’m pretty sure my mother knows about this, and if not I’m sure I’ll receive an e-mail from her later on this week.

Anyways…did you know that “anyways” is the third most annoying word in the English language according to a recent poll done by Berkely?   

Today was like any other Monday - long, and dreadfully painful.  There’s just something about Monday’s and rain here, when seen in combination the children are completely unstoppable.  However there were a few bright spots over the course of the day.  We introduced animals in Science today so I decided to take the kids on a hike around the school to see if we could find any animals and what there shelters were like.  The first stop was definitely the best, our school library has a small turtle named Mr. T - and the kids loved him.  He sits in a bowl in the back of the library, so no one hardly ever notices him.  The oohs and ahhs came from all directions, and then for the next twenty-minutes my kids were amazing. 

I wish those twenty-minutes came more often.

Last night after working a Thursday and it being a Friday I was a little tired, but ready for a night out.  This was no ordinary night, but rather a night of dressing up, being with good people, and having a fantastic time.  My friend from the Shanghai Symphony was asked to play in a chamber concert and asked if I would come and support him.  Of course saying yes I ended up at this odd building on the other side of town with a tiny room that barely resembeled a stage.  Also walking in I noticed the program and saw one of the performers warming up and soon realized how young she was. 

Turns out he was playing on a student recital for some violinist (I know that sounds awful to say but I don’t know who the guy is.)  Questioning the playing ability and I soon looked at the program and realized how ridiculous it was:

Wieniawski - Caprice, Op. 18, No. 4

Paganini - Caprice, Op. 1, No. 13

Sarasate - Carmen Fantasy

Mendelssohn - Violin Concerto

However, once the students started performing I was completely mesmerized and amazed.  Their playing was so beautiful and so expressive, it left me with a strange feeling of awe and appreciation.  Here I am traveling halfway around the world and these students are so much younger than students I hear playing these pieces - and they sound better.  By far I have to say, the performance was the BEST version of the Carmen Fantasy I’ve ever heard…and believe me I’ve heard it plenty of times. 

I also like the fact that I was able to bring someone along who wasn’t a musician, it was a nice feeling to be the ‘tour guide’ for once.  Di came out and played the Bottesini Bass Concerto and honestly did a bang up job.  He has matured greatly as a musician, and I think that it’s almost magical that we both ended up in Shanghai.  However this feeling did not have a chance to last for very long, because soon enough I was back home in Zhangjiang and preparing myself for another day at work.

Today’s topic was sharing.  You would be amazed by how many children hate the idea of sharing.  So much so that they literally tell me that they hate sharing.  So today Ms. Gu had to sit down and explain the rules of sharing to all of the children.  Needless to say they claim to understand it…but we will soon see.  So for now, it’s just another day in Shanghai.

My new Fall Wordwall - can you see the tree?

Today I finally went there - the place that no one else wanted to go, the YuYuan Gardens.  It ended up being a bit of a bust honestly, while it was very pretty and calming - something was missing.  It didn’t feel like a special place, instead it felt like a giant walled in tourist trap.  Photos were hard to take, and the place was crawling with huge tourist groups.  Also at one point I had someone tell me that I was losing my group and to keep up.  This made me laugh.  Not as much as my mini-story from yesterday….

…so yesterday.  I am on the metro and this little old Chinese man comes in.  I am of course listening to my iPod, and honestly don’t pay him much mind.  Chinese people generally stare at me in the metro for some odd reason - but you get over it quickly, I think it’s one of the culture shock phases.  At any rate he looks at me and smiles, and asks me to pull off my headphones.  When I do the man looks at me and says, “Can you speak French?”  Ok, first off - if I could speak French, what’s to say that I could speak English or enough English to understand the question.  Second, it didn’t matter if I could speak French or not, because he was determined to speak French to me either way.  Needless to say I think my Memere would have been proud of me for being so polite - and butchering French to be nice to him. 

Anyways, here are some photo’s from my visit to the garden - enjoy:

Fancy door = Fancy Garden

Dragon Wall in the garden.

Second cool door...

Beautiful.

I am also unfourtantley having some difficulties with uploading photo’s - so I will post some in a few days when it all sorts out.

After having my original plans cancelled due to Alex suddenly having to leave for Suzhou - I found myself with an empty day.  So after spending several hours doing laundry and catching up on life things I saw that there was a new exhibit at the art museum and thought that I would go and check it out.  It was actually quite interesting, but I found myself a little out of place - it was art from or about the cultural revolution.  Some of the works were vividly realistic, while others held onto a more rougher and playlike quality.  One thing that almost stays the same across the board is how happy everyone in the pictures look - interesting: