I was really excited about my lesson this week. I was teaching about music genres. I had a scene from "Tangled" to watch, music videos and music to listen to. Almost all of my classes went really well! They went crazy over "Tangled", they were laughing so hard. I just showed them the scene in the village where people are dancing and such. They really got a kick out of it. I found out that the kids in my classes are super talented too! In one class we spent most of the time listening to people sing songs. They were pretty good too! One boy came to the front of the class and danced to Michael Jackson. He had the MJ moves down pat! After that class the boy that danced took me to the dancing room to show me some other moves. That didn't last too long because there was an actual dance class taking place there. The teachers let me stay and watch and it was pretty cool. Chinese traditional dances are way awesome! The had a fan in one hand and a silk scarf in the other as they were dancing. It was beautiful!
Orange taught the four of us how to make dumplings on Wednesday. I'm super excited about that because dumplings are my favorite food here so I'm so excited to be able to make them when I have to leave China to go back to the States. It was actually fairly easy. I don't mean to brag or anything but...I was the best at folding the dumplings (Besides Orange of course). Josh's dumplings were...unique to say the least. Orange looked over at them once and said "Josh! Are you making a flower or dumplings?!" His dumplings really were awesome. Orange took Alyssa and I to the market to buy the ingredients for the dumplings. Markets here are not like anything I've ever really seen before. I saw more inside organs than I ever really wanted to see. Alyssa recently acquired two turtles, Azure and Sheldon (Yes, we might be watching too much Big Bang). While at the market she decided to get some food for them, they supposedly will eat shrimp. We went to the lady selling shrimp and why yes, they were very alive still. The lady picked up a couple and just plopped them still squirming into Alyssa's outstretched hand. One of them jumped right out of her palm. Then the lady asked if she wanted a bag. Surprise, surprise, Alyssa got a bag.
I went for another run this week. There was one guy that was shuffling around the path. One time we crossed paths on the side closer to my school. He pointed at the school and I told him that yes I was an English teacher there (I was pretty proud because I did so in Chinese). The only difficulty was I was nearing the end of my run and was out of breath so it came out rather chopped. Afterwards the man came to talk to me while I was stretching and we used my sorry Chinese and lots of sign language to communicate that I am American, the school is not paying me money to teach, and that my name is Arielle. I also said I don't understand and I don't know and sorry a lot. The really weird thing I've come across in China is that even when the Chinese figure out that you can't really communicate with them in Chinese they still insist on talking to you. Really I don't know how many times I say I don't know and I don't understand. The worst is when they refuse to do any sort of acting out and just start speaking in Chinese really fast. On the way home I didn't put my jacket back on because I was hot and didn't want it. The security guards pantomimed me being cold and I pantomimed me running and being really hot. They started laughing really hard. I love my security guards. They're so cheerful and also have a big"Herrlllo!" for me when I pass by. Then I ran into one of the lunch ladies who gasped at me wearing so little clothes at the end of March (Really if the Chinese came to America and saw what people were wearing at this time of year they would all die of heart attacks). I pantomimed again that I had been running but that wasn't good enough for her. She forced me back into my jacket. That was great. :)
It was a pretty boring week by China standards but this weekend should be exciting! Josh's birthday is tomorrow and the school is buying cake and we're going out to dinner. There's also a district conference in Shanghai this weekend so back to Shanghai I go!
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