Alyssa's first class was ages 5-6. I didn't count them but there were quite a few. It was bigger than a class in America. I'm sure there were around 50 kids. In China they learn English through cheesy dialogues. Yesterday we taught the dialogue "Hello! What is your name?" "Hi! My name is David." We went to each kid and said "Hello! What is your name?" They would then respond "Hi! My name is (insert their name here)." Some of the kids I went to I had to help pronounce the words. When it got to the part where they were supposed to say their name they would stare at me and wait for me to tell them what to say next. I tried saying mingzi (Chinese word for name) hoping they would get it but they just continued to stare at me with their big eyes. Then we sang a song. A really cheesy song. When class was over we said "Good bye!" and they all said "Good bye!" They came running up to the front of the class and each and every student wanted a hug. It was kind of like two marshmallows hugging each other, everyone had so many layers on! We taught one more class the same information and finished the day with a class of 5th graders. They were all 12. The Chinese have a different system of calculating age so they were probably closer to 11 than 12.
The school fed me lunch and it was very good. One of the dishes they brought out looked really questionable. I've adopted the habit of not asking what it is and make myself try everything so I ate it. It was delicious! It's called ear of tree and it's some sort of fungus. They love their fungus here!
We made Valentines for some of our friends too. We made one for Josh who teaches at the same school as Alyssa. It was super fun to put it in front of his door, knock and book it back to Alyssa's room. He made Valentines for Alyssa and me as well. I made Valentines for two of the teachers I share an office with and my friends Spring and Apple.
I had my first experience with a squatter on Tuesday, Alyssa's toilet is a squatter. It was super scary and a very strange sensation. I figured whenever we travel we'd be using a squatter most of the time so I ought to get some practice. I'm super glad I did, I feel much more prepared to travel now.
Alyssa's liaison, Orange, took us out to hot pot for Valentines Day. I've talked about hot pot before but I'm not sure that I called it hot pot when I did so I'll explain it again. They bring out a soup thing and you put lots of different foods in it, cook it and eat it. This time though, we had what Orange called a cold bowl first (It wasn't cold so I'm not sure I heard her right). It was filled with pork, shrimp (and not the cute shrimp you buy out of the freezer section at WalMart. I had no idea what shrimp actually looked like until I came to China), carrots, celery, cucumber (It didn't really taste like cucumber I think even my dad could have handled eating this cucumber), cauliflower, and these really really really delicious potatoes Orange called Chinese potatoes (Pretty sure they were sweet potatoes). Then we had noodles, beef, tofu meatballs, some sort of fungus, potatoes and tomatoes. During dinner a lady came into our room and passed out pink boxes of chocolate to all the girls in the room. Josh was the only guy that we came with so he was a little bummed that he was the only one that didn't get one. Orange brought her son Starlight (His Chinese name means starlight or something...) and he was super cute! He's 5 and he liked to talk a lot. Every sentence started with "Mama!" (I'm going to assume that no one needs me to translate that Chinese into English. It's fairly universal). At the end of the meal we had what Orange called a Pumpkin Cake but it was more like a small roll or a big puff. Those were delicious. Starlight came around the table and offered each of us one. Then he caught me starting to eat one of the chocolates that we had been given and he got really upset. Orange told us he was upset because it was too late to eat chocolate and it would be bad for my teeth. She whispered that he thought that because that's what she told him (Still not sure why she whispered. Starlight doesn't speak English). I ate it quickly why he wasn't looking but he saw his mom looking at the wrapper and got very mad at me. He asked his mom why we kept dropping things with our chopsticks and tried to show us how to use chopsticks properly. It was pretty sad that a 5 year old was trying to help us with our chopstick skills. :)
Later that night Spring and Apple met me at my office to give me my Valentine. Earlier I had mentioned that I really liked this awesome thing the Chinese have that you wear on your sleeves. You wear them when you cook, clean, or in my case teach so your sleeves don't get dirty. Both Spring and Apple bought me a pair of them. Apple bought me longer ones that are pink gingham and has a big blue bow on them. Spring's pair are the shorter ones and they are blue with purple hearts and sparkles. They also left me Milk Drink outside my door. It was the best drink ever! I also made plans to play with Spring and Apple on May 1st. I started laughing because that's so far in the future but it's one of the only days they off of school. Spring goes to school Monday through Saturday and Apple goes to school everyday of the week so there isn't much time to play. They start school at 6:50 and finish at 9:40. It's a little ridiculous.
Today I wore both pairs of sleeve protectors because I didn't want to hurt anyone's feelings by picking just one pair. Spring and Apple laughed really hard when they saw them but the other teachers told me that I only need to wear one pair. I reassured them tomorrow I would only wear one pair.
I taught my second class today and it went SO much better than my first class. My favorite thing is when I walk into the class and they get so excited. I don't understand what they're saying but I can just imagine. "Ah! She's teaching our class!" "Look at white girl!" Really there is an audible gasp when I walk into the room. At the beginning they did the eye exercises again. During this time the class monitor walks around to make sure everyone is doing it correctly. I asked him what his name was, the class monitor has all the power in the class, and the whole class erupted in giggles. He couldn't answer me at first he was so excited. If I'd known just asking his name would be such a distraction I wouldn't have done it. I had made a power point and in my first class I couldn't get it working but today it worked. The class was so fascinated with the pictures I put on the power point. They loved the picture of my dog Horace (He's a Great Dane for those of you that don't know). I told them that when Horace stands up he is taller than me. They liked that. I also had a picture of my best friend on there. When they saw the picture I could hear all of them saying "She is so beautiful" and I told them "Yes, Whitney is very beautiful." That got the giggling again. Really this would be the best crowd for a white comedian. We played the same game as last time where they roll the dice and whatever number they get is how many things they have to tell me about themselves. That is always interesting. I brought my dad's nerdy Dungeon and Dragons dice so it has 12 sides. The whole class goes crazy when kids roll higher than an 8. One of the things a girl told me was she likes to make friends and she hopes that we can be friends. I said "I want to be friends with you too!" and she started blushing and hid her face in her hands. I left class today feeling like I could actually do this and that I wasn't a complete failure. Tomorrow I have 3 new classes to teach. I'm super excited and hope that they go like class today not Monday's class.
Four of the grade 3 students and one of the teachers I share an office with gave me a Chinese name today. In pinyin in is Ai Ling (Eye Ling). Ai is a beautiful flower that smells very good. It blooms in May. Ai also means love but the character in my name is the flower. Ling means woods. Trees are in woods and trees are green which is my family name, hence Ling. But the teacher added a character to it so instead of meaning wood Ling means Jade which is valued in Chinese culture. Many women have jade bracelets that they pass down from generation to generation. It is supposed to be very small for you so that you can't get it off until you are ready to pass it down to the next girl. Fun tradition right? :) Cassy, the teacher that was helping with my name, taught me how to write it in character. It's super hard because you have to do it in just the right order. But I drew one and she said it is very good and that I have a unique style. What I think she meant is it's obvious you're American and not Chinese.
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