hi all! sorry about my silence in the last few weeks, i got horribly complacent =D first amusing thing to happen to me after my last blog - i accidentally emailed my last blog to a whole heap of gap people. horribly awkward. fortunately i hadn't said anything bad about anyone!!
earthquake: as i'm sure you're all aware there was a horrific earthquake in sichuan province on the 12th of may. the first i heard of it was when my aunty cat emailed me asking me if i was ok - carina and i never turn on the tv and hadn't been on the computer that day, so we we're completely ignorant. no one in our area felt a thing.
its been amazing to see the outpouring of grief in china. i had a senior 3 student come to me in tears because she was so upset about it. she said she thought it was terrible that so many students her age had died just before they had their national college entrance examinations, and before they had a chance to live their lives. at the beginning of every class students would ask me if i knew about it, and start relating survival stories they had heard. they school asked the students to donate money for the relief effort, and they donated all the money they had, despite the fact that most of these students are the children of poor families. walking down the street in nanning the week after we were invited to sign a banner bearing a good will message to the people of sichuan.
just last week we saw some people writing messages of hope for the victims and releasing it into the sky. it's not that the chinese people are more upset then people in any other country would be, but actions like this set them apart.
weather: tis summer time in china, which means wet season =D rain will come from no where, and will last for hours, flooding the oval and basketball courts and making rivers everywhere. it rains so much here - it's rained everyday for the past 6 days. but its pretty awesome rain. walking in it is so much fun!! giant raindrops soak through your clothes in a matter of minutes, leaving you looking like a drowned rat. but everyone carries on as normal, mostly because the rain provides some relief from the oppressive heat.
senior 3s: senior 3s recently completed their big college entrance examinations - three days, four exams. all of them were reeeeeeeeally stressed. everyone in china takes these exams seriously - the senior 1 and 2 students are sent home for the duration of the exams, surrounding streets are blocked during exam hours, and everyone in the town does all they can to support the senior 3s.
carina and i went away for the exams - we didn't want to disturb the girls living above us - and when we returned most of the senior 3s had left =[ fortunately they have to come back for an oral english exam, so we got to say good bye to our friends. it's so weird with out them, our building is silent, and the school is a lot quieter with 1000 less students. we're defiantly going to miss the senior 3's. they were so friendly and always willing to help us when our chinese failed =P they were great company, and we miss talking to them =[ we've given out our email address though, so hopefully some will keep in touch. we see them one more time on the 24th of june when they come to chose their colleges =D
junior 2's: the principal of hengxian no. 1 junior school invited us to come and teach two junior 2 (year 8) classes as part of their open day. i think it was an open day for senior schools to come and poach the top students as opposed to the junior school inviting people to come and look around. so not only did we get to teach, we also had to talk to some of the junior 3 students - foreign teachers are rare in hengxian, and therefor the schools affiliation with gap is a huge drawing card.
having only ever taught senior students, carina and i were rather apprehensive about teaching junior kids, especially since we found out that not only would the classes be 3 times bigger then what we are used, we would have a whole group of teachers and parents watching. turns out we we're teaching in front of over 100 people. we we're a tad nervous, to say the least!! we spoke to other gappers who teach this age group and worked out some lesson plans, and had forewarned our link teacher she would probably have to translate, but we still didn't feel prepared. so we rocked up, sat in the principals office for a bit, all the while being stared at by curious students who were returning from their lunch breaks, and were then dragged off to perform!!
first lesson was an epic failure. the lesson plan wasn't long enough, so we had to ad lib for 20 minutes, which is not easy. the students were horribly shy and not used to our voices, so they spent most of the lesson looking like stunned mullets =D
second lesson was a better lesson plan, and we pulled it off nicely. even the teachers who were watching got involved, it was awesome! for the second lesson we did body parts, and played simon says with the students, they were very good at it and squealed when we gave them small koala key rings as prizes. all in all i think we made a good sales pitch for the school.
finishing dates: carina and i recently received our finishing date, after a bit of confusion about when we finished teaching and when we were allowed to leave. we now finish teaching on the 27th of june, but have been asked to hang around until the 30th so the school can throw us a party ^_^
the finishing date has elicited mixed emotions - im really excited about continuing my wondrous journey and catching up with my friends, but im really sad about leaving hengxian. i've had an amazing time here, and made so many friends, its going to be hard to say good bye. i'll miss being a teacher, and i'll defiantly miss my students. i now only have four lessons left with each class =[
i cant believe we will be leaving so soon. sometimes it feels like i've been here forever, sometimes it feels like i've just arrived. it hasn't always been the greatest fun - been bored a lot lately because the students are busy studying for graduating exams, and all the senior 3s have left, and this town is tiny - but it's certainly been interesting, to say the least =P
until next time citizens!
claire. xo.
Showing posts with label students. Show all posts
Showing posts with label students. Show all posts
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Friday, February 29, 2008
blog S2793/52J
so! hengxian! im going to try and condense the last week into one post, or else i'll spend the rest of my stay here writing blogs. so i shall give things headings, because i like headings, and i like things to be organised. if you have adverse effects when reading heading, i suggest you leave. now.
our first morning:
we awoke on the first morning in hengxian to the pitter patter of about 700 feet right outside our room. turns out the basketball courts is the site of the compulsory morning exercise routine. i managed to sleep through the majority of it though. it was hard, but i battled on and slept in till the indecent hour of 9.30, whence i was awoken by the musical strains of an avril lavigne song... they're obsessed with her here, her posters are everywhere, the students all love her, its crazy!
our first outing:
on our first day here lily took us for a walk out in the town to show us where the supermarket is. was a very interesting experience. let me just say i have never been stared at so much in my life! people would stop what they were doing to watch us walk past. people on motorbikes would turn their head to stare as they drove by, its crazy! and they all smile and wave, and some say hello, its great. little kids and old poeple seem to get the biggest kick out of it. however we didnt realise how odd it is for them to see a western until...
mobbed by students:
we came back from our first solo walk around the town, and one of the students, a lovely boy named danny, came up to us and started talking to us. so far the students had kept their distance, content with simply waving and saying hello. danny, it appears, was simply confident enough with his english skills to approach us. so we were chatting to him on the basketball courts when another boy, lung, came up and asked us if we would like to stand in the shade, as "the sun is bad for you" (everyone here is worried the sun will ruin our lovely pale skin...). as soon as we were in the shade and talking to danny and lung, WHAM! we were sorrounded by about 20 students, it was insane! they were all saying hello and trying to introduce themselves. we started talking about their exams (they have uni entrance exams in june) and why we were here, and they were all shocked to find out we were only 18. the only students at the school at the moment are senior 3 (yr 12) students, and they're all between the ages of 18 and 20. the most bizzare and amusing part of this conversation was that one of the students told carina we were the first foreigners she had ever seen. and she's 18!! and she's not the only one. a senior 2 student (yr 11), told carina the same thing at dinner the other day. so im sure you can imagine the reactions we get from the students.
dinner at lily's:
on our second night in hengxian, our link teacher lily showed up and invited us around to her apartment to meet her family. turns out today is another celebration of the spring festival that only happens in the country, so lily had lots of family over. they were all very friendly but didnt speak much english. then lily brings out something that looks like a stick of bamboo, and asks us if we would like some. turns out its sugar cane, so lily suts a huge piece each. so prizes for guessing what it tastes like. it wasn't too bad, bit weird though. she tried to offload some onto us, but we hastily declined. turns out that the farmers were having trouble selling sugar cane because the cold weather made it go hard in the middle. so the government orded all government workers, including teachers, to buy 100 sticks of sugar cane! even students had to buy some!!! twas communism in action my friends! then she tells us its dinner time and tries to make us eat more food, even though we had told her we'd already eaten. in the end we just ate anyway. she made some lovely tofu, and was extremely flattered when i told her how good it was. it was a throughly enjoyable evening, but i think i had enough food to last me unitl next week. but of course, as we were leaving, lily gave us some apples and oranges... all anyone ever does around here is feed us!!
observing classes:
we spent some time this week watching english classes, just to familiarise oursleves with the battle field. the first classes we watched was lily's senior 3's. you should have seen the reception! as we were walking past the classes rooms students were waving and yelling hello, and we got to lily's classroom everyone cheered, it was hilarious!!! the students kept inviting us to next to them but we opted to sit up the back out of harms way. they had a double english lesson and in the break lily went to find another class for us to watch, leaving us to the mercy of her students. as soon as she left they ran to the back of the class and bombarded us with questions and whatnot. one of the students told carina that lung, the boy we spoke to the other day, was going around telling everyone he thought she was beautiful!! then lung asked her how much money she had?! was very amusing.
all the students seem to be well behaved, bit mechanical though. shall be interesting to see how they respond to the games i have planned for them!
hengxian:
hengxian. it's actually a rather rural town. if i knew the population i would tell you. its 115km from the provincial capital nanning, and anything outside nanning if pretty much rural. its a very cute little town,not much traffic, but those who do drive dont seem to know. i keep going to cross the road only to be honked at by someone because i've looked right instead of left. must get used to that little peculiarity. carina believes our school is in the "bronx" part of town. the other part of town is "fifth avenue". the only difference is that the few nice shops in hengxian are in the smae area, and it's a bit cleaner round there. we went for a walk near the school the other day which was fun. carina freaked out at the sight of two dog carcasses hanging in the window. we also found a pet store that sells the cutest little turtles. they ranged from about 4 cm long to 9 cm long. if they didnt carry selamonella i would buy one. those three wheeled motor taxis that i will one day get a photo of si#o you understand what im talking about, only cost 2 yuan maximum to get anywhere in town, thats how midget sized we are!
the school:
the school is rather large. there are 2678 students here, virtually all of which board. they sleep in dormatories of twelve, some of which dontnhave windows, just metal bars... their beds are wooden slats which they cover with a woven reed mat and a thin quilt. sure as hell makes me appreciate my apartment!! were on the ground floor of a seven storey apartment building, which is one of the tallest in the school. there are six basketball courts, an oval with a running track around the outside, and two volleyball/badminton courts. they school is extremely clean and extremely green. southern gunagxi is subtropical, so there are plants and trees everywhere. the classrooms are nice, heated by some magical system that i couldnt see, and small but not cramped.
food:
we're given free meals in the school canteen, and lily kindly explained to the staff that we are vegetarians. she's told half the school it would seem; whilst waiting for bowls yesterday one boy told us that after lily told them we were vegetarian he started eating vegetables and stopped eating meat!!! it was only a temporary change of heart however.
for students, breakfast is at 6.15, but lily arranged it so we can go and get it when ever we want and just heat it up in the apartment. each day we get two steamed buns each - one with some kind of sweet seasame paste, and the other plain (which we've been smothering with jam we found in nanning!!) they also give us two hard boiled egss and some horrible tasting millk which we've been trying to explain we dont want, without any success.
lunch is begins at 11.20am (!!!!) and dinner at 5.35pm (!!!), however we've been told that we can go 10 minutes earlier to avoid the rush. and boy is there a rush!!! first you have to line up to get your bowl and spoon. next you have to line up to get rice. they give you HEAPS of rice, and thankfully carina and i got across that we dont need that much. next you go to a seperate line for the rest of the food. and boy do they give you food. all of this takes about 15 minutes. im yet to finish a single meal ive had at that canteen. i think thats just me though, carina cant seem to get enough food. its pretty bland stuff though, and the rice is a bit dry. theres not much variety, but we dont mind because its freeeee!!
everyones shocked that we keep eating there, even lily! she's worried we dont like it, but its not that bad. some of the students have offerd to show us the restraunts in hengxian, but im not sure if they will have much vegetarian food, and anyway, they're not free!
being vegetarin in china isnt that hard, its the explaining it to people thats difficult, especially in restraunts. we had lunch with our other link teacher the other day and she said people dont understand why were vegetarian, because in china they put meat in everything! other then that no one seems to have a problem with it!
classes:
we found out the other day that our classes are voluntary, and were teaching out of a text book, which we thought would be disasterous, but has turned out ok. the text book is pretty good, and it takes the stress out of lesson planning. we've also been given the ok to teach some of our own stuff which is nice.
we got our timetables yesterday, which is all good news! we teach 6 classes each, but we have them twice a week (means double the lesson plans though =[ ). carina is teaching all senior 1 classes (yr 10's) and im teaching all senior 2 classes. and because the classes are voluntary theyre tiny by chinese standards. our largest class is 31, and our smallest 27. and, just to make things brilliant, i odnt start teaching untill 4.05pm everyday!!! gives carina and i plenty of time to cycle around hengxian on the bikes were yet to get. i start teaching on monday and i have written up my first lesson plan, all by myself! its all about australia, and about me learning students names.
giving someone a name:
alot of consideration goes into naming someone. you have to make sure the name you give them is interesting, reflects their chracter, and is a bit unique. it has to be a name they can be proud of, but is still respeactable. something that is cool now, but will be equally awesome next week. there is a lot of pressure on the namer.
alot of our students have approached us with requests for english names. they see it as a bit of a status symbol. and fortunatly thye understand that it is easier for carina and i to pronounce and remember, although we have been trying hard with their chinese names. so when lung, the boy who questioned carina about the state of he finances in what iwas sure was some kind of marrige proposal, asked us to give him an eglisg name, we thought long and hard about it for 20 seconds and called him liam. what a lovely name! i hear you cry. why thanks you, carina and i thought so ourselves, which is why we chose it. since that day of triumph, two young girls have also requested english names. we named one shy yet charming girl penny, and a friendly and good natured girl kim (it suites her perfectly, i dont know why though). which is a vast improvement upon the english name her friends were calling her - table! turns out her name sounds like the chinese word for table. i was speaking to a senior 3 student last night who i had met before, and i told her i had unfortunatly forgotten her name, and could she please teach it to me again. with much patience and good humor, she taught me her name, and then told me she would think of an english name for herself, as it would be easier for me to remember, and she was sick of her friends calling her ice cream (never fully understood why they did that). about twenty minutes later she asked me what i thought of the name 'sunny', and i told her it was perfect. it suites her good nature and happy disposition perfectly. now all i ahve to worry about is that the students will become better at it then me and i'll be out of a job!
well thats all for now folks, as more intersting things happen i'll forget to tell you about them.
hope your all having a wonderful time with out me, i dont see hwo you could though.
love from claire.
our first morning:
we awoke on the first morning in hengxian to the pitter patter of about 700 feet right outside our room. turns out the basketball courts is the site of the compulsory morning exercise routine. i managed to sleep through the majority of it though. it was hard, but i battled on and slept in till the indecent hour of 9.30, whence i was awoken by the musical strains of an avril lavigne song... they're obsessed with her here, her posters are everywhere, the students all love her, its crazy!
our first outing:
on our first day here lily took us for a walk out in the town to show us where the supermarket is. was a very interesting experience. let me just say i have never been stared at so much in my life! people would stop what they were doing to watch us walk past. people on motorbikes would turn their head to stare as they drove by, its crazy! and they all smile and wave, and some say hello, its great. little kids and old poeple seem to get the biggest kick out of it. however we didnt realise how odd it is for them to see a western until...
mobbed by students:
we came back from our first solo walk around the town, and one of the students, a lovely boy named danny, came up to us and started talking to us. so far the students had kept their distance, content with simply waving and saying hello. danny, it appears, was simply confident enough with his english skills to approach us. so we were chatting to him on the basketball courts when another boy, lung, came up and asked us if we would like to stand in the shade, as "the sun is bad for you" (everyone here is worried the sun will ruin our lovely pale skin...). as soon as we were in the shade and talking to danny and lung, WHAM! we were sorrounded by about 20 students, it was insane! they were all saying hello and trying to introduce themselves. we started talking about their exams (they have uni entrance exams in june) and why we were here, and they were all shocked to find out we were only 18. the only students at the school at the moment are senior 3 (yr 12) students, and they're all between the ages of 18 and 20. the most bizzare and amusing part of this conversation was that one of the students told carina we were the first foreigners she had ever seen. and she's 18!! and she's not the only one. a senior 2 student (yr 11), told carina the same thing at dinner the other day. so im sure you can imagine the reactions we get from the students.
dinner at lily's:
on our second night in hengxian, our link teacher lily showed up and invited us around to her apartment to meet her family. turns out today is another celebration of the spring festival that only happens in the country, so lily had lots of family over. they were all very friendly but didnt speak much english. then lily brings out something that looks like a stick of bamboo, and asks us if we would like some. turns out its sugar cane, so lily suts a huge piece each. so prizes for guessing what it tastes like. it wasn't too bad, bit weird though. she tried to offload some onto us, but we hastily declined. turns out that the farmers were having trouble selling sugar cane because the cold weather made it go hard in the middle. so the government orded all government workers, including teachers, to buy 100 sticks of sugar cane! even students had to buy some!!! twas communism in action my friends! then she tells us its dinner time and tries to make us eat more food, even though we had told her we'd already eaten. in the end we just ate anyway. she made some lovely tofu, and was extremely flattered when i told her how good it was. it was a throughly enjoyable evening, but i think i had enough food to last me unitl next week. but of course, as we were leaving, lily gave us some apples and oranges... all anyone ever does around here is feed us!!
observing classes:
we spent some time this week watching english classes, just to familiarise oursleves with the battle field. the first classes we watched was lily's senior 3's. you should have seen the reception! as we were walking past the classes rooms students were waving and yelling hello, and we got to lily's classroom everyone cheered, it was hilarious!!! the students kept inviting us to next to them but we opted to sit up the back out of harms way. they had a double english lesson and in the break lily went to find another class for us to watch, leaving us to the mercy of her students. as soon as she left they ran to the back of the class and bombarded us with questions and whatnot. one of the students told carina that lung, the boy we spoke to the other day, was going around telling everyone he thought she was beautiful!! then lung asked her how much money she had?! was very amusing.
all the students seem to be well behaved, bit mechanical though. shall be interesting to see how they respond to the games i have planned for them!
hengxian:
hengxian. it's actually a rather rural town. if i knew the population i would tell you. its 115km from the provincial capital nanning, and anything outside nanning if pretty much rural. its a very cute little town,not much traffic, but those who do drive dont seem to know. i keep going to cross the road only to be honked at by someone because i've looked right instead of left. must get used to that little peculiarity. carina believes our school is in the "bronx" part of town. the other part of town is "fifth avenue". the only difference is that the few nice shops in hengxian are in the smae area, and it's a bit cleaner round there. we went for a walk near the school the other day which was fun. carina freaked out at the sight of two dog carcasses hanging in the window. we also found a pet store that sells the cutest little turtles. they ranged from about 4 cm long to 9 cm long. if they didnt carry selamonella i would buy one. those three wheeled motor taxis that i will one day get a photo of si#o you understand what im talking about, only cost 2 yuan maximum to get anywhere in town, thats how midget sized we are!
the school:
the school is rather large. there are 2678 students here, virtually all of which board. they sleep in dormatories of twelve, some of which dontnhave windows, just metal bars... their beds are wooden slats which they cover with a woven reed mat and a thin quilt. sure as hell makes me appreciate my apartment!! were on the ground floor of a seven storey apartment building, which is one of the tallest in the school. there are six basketball courts, an oval with a running track around the outside, and two volleyball/badminton courts. they school is extremely clean and extremely green. southern gunagxi is subtropical, so there are plants and trees everywhere. the classrooms are nice, heated by some magical system that i couldnt see, and small but not cramped.
food:
we're given free meals in the school canteen, and lily kindly explained to the staff that we are vegetarians. she's told half the school it would seem; whilst waiting for bowls yesterday one boy told us that after lily told them we were vegetarian he started eating vegetables and stopped eating meat!!! it was only a temporary change of heart however.
for students, breakfast is at 6.15, but lily arranged it so we can go and get it when ever we want and just heat it up in the apartment. each day we get two steamed buns each - one with some kind of sweet seasame paste, and the other plain (which we've been smothering with jam we found in nanning!!) they also give us two hard boiled egss and some horrible tasting millk which we've been trying to explain we dont want, without any success.
lunch is begins at 11.20am (!!!!) and dinner at 5.35pm (!!!), however we've been told that we can go 10 minutes earlier to avoid the rush. and boy is there a rush!!! first you have to line up to get your bowl and spoon. next you have to line up to get rice. they give you HEAPS of rice, and thankfully carina and i got across that we dont need that much. next you go to a seperate line for the rest of the food. and boy do they give you food. all of this takes about 15 minutes. im yet to finish a single meal ive had at that canteen. i think thats just me though, carina cant seem to get enough food. its pretty bland stuff though, and the rice is a bit dry. theres not much variety, but we dont mind because its freeeee!!
everyones shocked that we keep eating there, even lily! she's worried we dont like it, but its not that bad. some of the students have offerd to show us the restraunts in hengxian, but im not sure if they will have much vegetarian food, and anyway, they're not free!
being vegetarin in china isnt that hard, its the explaining it to people thats difficult, especially in restraunts. we had lunch with our other link teacher the other day and she said people dont understand why were vegetarian, because in china they put meat in everything! other then that no one seems to have a problem with it!
classes:
we found out the other day that our classes are voluntary, and were teaching out of a text book, which we thought would be disasterous, but has turned out ok. the text book is pretty good, and it takes the stress out of lesson planning. we've also been given the ok to teach some of our own stuff which is nice.
we got our timetables yesterday, which is all good news! we teach 6 classes each, but we have them twice a week (means double the lesson plans though =[ ). carina is teaching all senior 1 classes (yr 10's) and im teaching all senior 2 classes. and because the classes are voluntary theyre tiny by chinese standards. our largest class is 31, and our smallest 27. and, just to make things brilliant, i odnt start teaching untill 4.05pm everyday!!! gives carina and i plenty of time to cycle around hengxian on the bikes were yet to get. i start teaching on monday and i have written up my first lesson plan, all by myself! its all about australia, and about me learning students names.
giving someone a name:
alot of consideration goes into naming someone. you have to make sure the name you give them is interesting, reflects their chracter, and is a bit unique. it has to be a name they can be proud of, but is still respeactable. something that is cool now, but will be equally awesome next week. there is a lot of pressure on the namer.
alot of our students have approached us with requests for english names. they see it as a bit of a status symbol. and fortunatly thye understand that it is easier for carina and i to pronounce and remember, although we have been trying hard with their chinese names. so when lung, the boy who questioned carina about the state of he finances in what iwas sure was some kind of marrige proposal, asked us to give him an eglisg name, we thought long and hard about it for 20 seconds and called him liam. what a lovely name! i hear you cry. why thanks you, carina and i thought so ourselves, which is why we chose it. since that day of triumph, two young girls have also requested english names. we named one shy yet charming girl penny, and a friendly and good natured girl kim (it suites her perfectly, i dont know why though). which is a vast improvement upon the english name her friends were calling her - table! turns out her name sounds like the chinese word for table. i was speaking to a senior 3 student last night who i had met before, and i told her i had unfortunatly forgotten her name, and could she please teach it to me again. with much patience and good humor, she taught me her name, and then told me she would think of an english name for herself, as it would be easier for me to remember, and she was sick of her friends calling her ice cream (never fully understood why they did that). about twenty minutes later she asked me what i thought of the name 'sunny', and i told her it was perfect. it suites her good nature and happy disposition perfectly. now all i ahve to worry about is that the students will become better at it then me and i'll be out of a job!
well thats all for now folks, as more intersting things happen i'll forget to tell you about them.
hope your all having a wonderful time with out me, i dont see hwo you could though.
love from claire.
Tuesday, February 26, 2008
from beijing to hengxian (not very inventive, but it'll get better).
sooo, where are we up too... ahh yes, the 4 am make up call! how terribly delightful!
got up and realied i wasnt as packed as i thought, so had a mad rush to get everything in pack and down stairs by 4.30. lost one of my padlocks, which ended up being at the bottom of my pack, but it meant that most of my clothes in the bottom pocket of my bag were vulnerable for the entire trip =[
got given a "breakfast box" on the bus. mine contained a pastry like edible, which was quite nice, but contained a solid slab of something green that looked like seaweed flavoured jelly. i avoided that bit. said good bye to everyone at the airport, except for four gappers who were flying later. checked in without any problems, except that my bag had magically gained weight even though i didnt buy anything in beijing.
just to show you how good chinese airport security is: i took a pocket knife onto the plane in my hand luggage =D accidently of course. they scanned my bag yet didnt notice it was in there, and i had completely forgotton about it.
flight was ok, slept for most of it though. the woman infront of us put her seat back just after take off, told us to shut up, and went to sleep. this of course made us giggle for a good 5 minutes, all the while eliciting evil glares from the man next to her, who we assumed was some sort of male relation and not just an angry passanger.
arrived in nanning at about 11am found our luggage with out any troubled (thankfully my unprotected clothes had not been violated), and were met by our link teacher betty and the school driver. they had a very cute sign with our names on it. caitlin and lauren were met by their link teacher, shadow, who started stroking their arms and saying "ohhhhh, so beautiful!". our link teacher has studied in canada, so we didnt get that kind of reception. on the way out she asked us if we would like to go out for lunch and we declined, but realised that gap may not have informed them of our vegetarianism (carina is also vegetarian). we had assumed they wouldd have, but it occured to us on the plane that they may have left that responsibility up to us... it appears this was the case. fortunatly she was shocked but not mortified as we had expected. on the way to hengxian (pronounced hung-she-en), we pulled over; turns out betty decided we needed food anyway. we were a bit apprehensive as to how she would take the whole vegetarian thing - turns out she understood perfectly! the food was nice, but the drinks... chinese people dont drink alot of water, especially not at meal times; they always drink tea. however we were lucky enough to experience the wonders oooofff...... corn juice! yes corn juice. it is really just pureed corn. warm purred corn. its actually not that bad. but i would never drink it again. ever. its weird.
we arrived at our school and were shown to our ground floor apartment. tis very big, but terribly cold. its all tiles, and a bit drafty, but im sure it'll be great in summer. we have seperate bedrooms, a lounge/computor room, a laundry, something you could call a kitchen if you wanted to, and a bathroom with a western toilet. we also have a squat toilet, but thats acting as a drain for the washign machine. we've called it 'the wooden palace', because everything is made of wood. everything. all the furniture is wood, the COUCHES are wood, and i swear on my life that the matresses have wood in them some where. we've called the bathroom 'the swamp', because there is no seperate shower cubicle, so the water just goes straight onto the floor and down a drain. but the drain is a bit dodgy, so it floods a bit first, hence the name. everything is brand new, because they've never had gapper before so thats nice.
that night betty and lily took us out for dinner to meet all the other english teachers. we rode to the restraunt in a vehicle that is very hard to describe. its a kind of three wheeled motorbike thing, with an area at the back to sit in, but not like a rickshaw. i shall get a photo of one so you can see. the dinner was nice except they kept trying to feed us an eggplant dish that had chicken in it. we just kept ignoring it. and they gave us more corn juice...
the 21st was the lantern festival, the last day of the spring/new year festival, so children were letting off crackers and fire works. we told our link teachers that in australia you need a permit to let of fire works and whatnot, and they were very shocked. they offered to take us to buy some after dinner, an offer we hastily excepted. we bought 60Y of fireworks and crackers, and took them back to the school to let of on the oval. they were spectacular! one of them started shooting balls of fire or something along the ground, a spectacle we were not prepared for, and one of them hit carina in the leg, twas hilarious! some of the smaller ones were these amazing showers of sparks, and one of them was like fireworks we get at home; huge colourful explosions in the sky.
one of them was a dud, so lily went and returned it, so we have a spare one to let off next celebration.
that night all we heard was the sound of fireworks. it was a very exciting welcome to our new home.
got up and realied i wasnt as packed as i thought, so had a mad rush to get everything in pack and down stairs by 4.30. lost one of my padlocks, which ended up being at the bottom of my pack, but it meant that most of my clothes in the bottom pocket of my bag were vulnerable for the entire trip =[
got given a "breakfast box" on the bus. mine contained a pastry like edible, which was quite nice, but contained a solid slab of something green that looked like seaweed flavoured jelly. i avoided that bit. said good bye to everyone at the airport, except for four gappers who were flying later. checked in without any problems, except that my bag had magically gained weight even though i didnt buy anything in beijing.
just to show you how good chinese airport security is: i took a pocket knife onto the plane in my hand luggage =D accidently of course. they scanned my bag yet didnt notice it was in there, and i had completely forgotton about it.
flight was ok, slept for most of it though. the woman infront of us put her seat back just after take off, told us to shut up, and went to sleep. this of course made us giggle for a good 5 minutes, all the while eliciting evil glares from the man next to her, who we assumed was some sort of male relation and not just an angry passanger.
arrived in nanning at about 11am found our luggage with out any troubled (thankfully my unprotected clothes had not been violated), and were met by our link teacher betty and the school driver. they had a very cute sign with our names on it. caitlin and lauren were met by their link teacher, shadow, who started stroking their arms and saying "ohhhhh, so beautiful!". our link teacher has studied in canada, so we didnt get that kind of reception. on the way out she asked us if we would like to go out for lunch and we declined, but realised that gap may not have informed them of our vegetarianism (carina is also vegetarian). we had assumed they wouldd have, but it occured to us on the plane that they may have left that responsibility up to us... it appears this was the case. fortunatly she was shocked but not mortified as we had expected. on the way to hengxian (pronounced hung-she-en), we pulled over; turns out betty decided we needed food anyway. we were a bit apprehensive as to how she would take the whole vegetarian thing - turns out she understood perfectly! the food was nice, but the drinks... chinese people dont drink alot of water, especially not at meal times; they always drink tea. however we were lucky enough to experience the wonders oooofff...... corn juice! yes corn juice. it is really just pureed corn. warm purred corn. its actually not that bad. but i would never drink it again. ever. its weird.
we arrived at our school and were shown to our ground floor apartment. tis very big, but terribly cold. its all tiles, and a bit drafty, but im sure it'll be great in summer. we have seperate bedrooms, a lounge/computor room, a laundry, something you could call a kitchen if you wanted to, and a bathroom with a western toilet. we also have a squat toilet, but thats acting as a drain for the washign machine. we've called it 'the wooden palace', because everything is made of wood. everything. all the furniture is wood, the COUCHES are wood, and i swear on my life that the matresses have wood in them some where. we've called the bathroom 'the swamp', because there is no seperate shower cubicle, so the water just goes straight onto the floor and down a drain. but the drain is a bit dodgy, so it floods a bit first, hence the name. everything is brand new, because they've never had gapper before so thats nice.
that night betty and lily took us out for dinner to meet all the other english teachers. we rode to the restraunt in a vehicle that is very hard to describe. its a kind of three wheeled motorbike thing, with an area at the back to sit in, but not like a rickshaw. i shall get a photo of one so you can see. the dinner was nice except they kept trying to feed us an eggplant dish that had chicken in it. we just kept ignoring it. and they gave us more corn juice...
the 21st was the lantern festival, the last day of the spring/new year festival, so children were letting off crackers and fire works. we told our link teachers that in australia you need a permit to let of fire works and whatnot, and they were very shocked. they offered to take us to buy some after dinner, an offer we hastily excepted. we bought 60Y of fireworks and crackers, and took them back to the school to let of on the oval. they were spectacular! one of them started shooting balls of fire or something along the ground, a spectacle we were not prepared for, and one of them hit carina in the leg, twas hilarious! some of the smaller ones were these amazing showers of sparks, and one of them was like fireworks we get at home; huge colourful explosions in the sky.
one of them was a dud, so lily went and returned it, so we have a spare one to let off next celebration.
that night all we heard was the sound of fireworks. it was a very exciting welcome to our new home.
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