This was the first weekend I'd stayed in Yangzhong and no one had offered to feed me. It was a little depressing and I wasn't quite sure what to do with myself. So I was really happy when Joan came and sat with Andy and I at lunch and invited me to go and visit a different high school in Yangzhong with her. I was all for that so at one o'clock sharp a car from the other school picked us up and away we went! The guy driving the car was the Director of the Education Department and he took me to see some sites along the Yangtze River before going to the school. They were pretty cool and we took lots of pictures of the white girl standing by the river. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of the picture taking.
We got to the school and the instant I stepped out of the car I could hear the squealing and see the students gathering all around me. Joan told me to go say hi to some and I went over to a group of girls to talk to them. Next thing I knew Joan was gone and I was standing in line with the girls for instructions for gym. The girl that had dragged me over there leaned to me and whispered "Shh! He won't notice!" I was feeling a little skeptical about this and was thinking to myself "One of these things is not like the other!" This school is a lot less strict than my school so the gym teacher okayed the students to just walk around the track with me. Little bit of background information: The school I teach at is the number 1 high school in Yangzhong. Joan told me later that the school she had taken me to was the last ranked school in Yangzhong and that the students there are "rubbish" (as she so eloquently put it). The kids at my school will all go to university while only a few of the kids at that school will go on. Most of them will go straight to their jobs. I could tell that the two schools are different just from walking around the track with them. Their English was not nearly as good as my students who are only in Grade 1. I had lots of people following me taking pictures on their phones. People would grab me and face me towards the phone that they wanted me to look at. This was another difference, my students aren't allowed to have cell phones at school and everyone follows that rule.
I found Joan a little later but she ditched me again and I got dragged to class by some students. Here was another big difference between schools. All my classes have 56 students in them, the classroom I got dragged to had no more than 20 students. They sat me down in an empty chair and waited for the teacher to come to surprise her. Boy was she surprised! Then two other teachers came in and dragged me to their classes to show me off to their students. The first class just asked me questions and that was normal. Where are you from? Do you like China? How long will you be here? Do you like Chinese food? etc. The second class was a little different though. One girl ran up to the front and hugged me really tight then stuck out her hand for a handshake. A few other students would randomly come up and hug me during question and answer. That was kind of a bizarre feeling. The most bizarre thing though is when they said some things in Chinese and then the whole class erupted and rushed at me with papers and pens. I had no idea what was going on and I couldn't see anything through the mob of Chinese kids and papers. I wrote my name more times than I have in my entire life. Sometimes after I would write my name they would grab me and kiss my cheek. That was exciting and I'd never had that one happen before. Then they wanted me to sing a song so I sang Popcorn Popping on the Apricot Tree because it had hand actions.
After being a big celebrity in the classroom one of the teachers returned me to the class that I had first come from, this didn't really help me because I still had no idea where Joan was. I could tell again the difference between this school and mine because the students were watching a TV show and their school got out at 3 in the afternoon and they didn't have school all weekend like my students do. I was sat down in a desk and the students tried their best to talk to me. They were all pretty cute and I had a good time with them even if I was super lost. Eventually three boys from this class took me to the office that Joan was at. I felt a little less lost then. Joan told me that the school was going to take me to dinner that night and we were having special fish. I wasn't super excited about the fish because supposedly if it's not cooked properly it's poisonous. Great.
Dinner was...different. I've mentioned before that dinner is a time for the Chinese to drink and get drunk and that it doesn't take much for them to become drunk. They gave me orange juice after a little fight about me drinking whatever kind of alcohol they were drinking. It didn't take long before everyone at the table except me and two other ladies not drinking alcohol were very drunk. They kept toasting me and the toasts got more and more ridiculous as the dinner progressed. They tried to say them in English but lots of times I had no idea what they were saying. One guy began his toast by saying "Beautiful girl!" and I have no idea what he said after that.
I sat next to the principal chair which isn't necessarily a good thing. This means that he would dish my food. The first hot dish they brought out was a large platter of fish and the guy in the principal chair made sure I got my fair share of it. Yummy. I don't normally care for fish but this wasn't too bad actually. It was quite fresh. I was worried after he'd dished up the first time but he never dished my food again for which I was grateful. Joan made sure I got lots of the special fish though. She kept saying "It's so expensive. Marie cannot have this fish when she in China. Alyssa cannot have this fish. You are lucky!" and as she would say this she'd spoon more on my plate. I was actually thinking that Alyssa and Marie were the lucky ones. I liked having the opportunity to try it but that was it. One time Joan served me the entire tail of the special fish and it just flopped around in my bowl and was nasty. Dinner was a bit of a let down because they really just had plates of fish. I like fish more in China but it's still not my favorite thing. Then they brought the rice out and I thought I could fill the empty spots in my stomach with it but Joan dished it up in my bowl with fish juice so even my rice tasted like fish! Gross.
I was very anxious to leave this party. Everyone would point at me say stuff in Chinese and then everyone there would laugh. This happened more frequently the drunker they became. Finally I told Joan I was leaving and she had one of the teachers give us a ride back to school. Luckily it was one of the teachers that didn't drink during dinner. As we were leaving one of the drunker guys that cracked the most jokes about me chased after us and gave me the weirdest hug ever. He just kind of wrapped his arms in the space around my shoulders. It was weird. Dinner was pretty awful and I went straight to bed feeling absolutely exhausted. Being a celebrity will do that to you.
Saturday was a good day though. Joan invited us to her house to use her ping pong machine. It was awesome! Josh was the best at it and after a while Joan took the machine down and Alyssa and I played Josh. He still killed us. I had to use the bathroom while we were there and had a moment of confusion. I couldn't find where to put the toilet paper! In China, you don't flush toilet paper. Ever. That was a really hard habit for me to break. We all kind of looked around and couldn't figure it out! Eventually we determined that we probably were supposed to flush it! This was crazy and I had a hard time doing it. You know you've been in China too long when you can't figure out where to put your toilet paper.
After playing ping pong for a while Joan took us to a badminton club. A random Chinese guy called me over to play with him and I was absolutely humiliated because I've never really played badminton before and it was obvious. I spent five minutes trying to serve the stupid birdie over the net. Once we got things going I did pretty good, we had a couple of good rallies. He had me switch and play with another guy and I actually scored two points with that guy!
Josh was having dinner with Lily that night so Alyssa and I went to a little restaurant to grab some dinner. After dinner we bought a slice of strawberry cake to share. We were so upset about sharing because it was the best cake either of us had eaten since coming to China. It was the best cake ever!
Sunday we went to the park for a little bit to write in our journals. We didn't get a ton written because people kept coming over to look at the Americans. We went and bought what the Chinese call 'pancakes' for dinner. This was an awesome experience. They make pancakes by putting dough in an extremely hot barrel with their bare hands to cook them. They just stick them right to the side! They tasted amazing!
It was a very exciting weekend and lots of fun!
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