David's Big Adventure in China

When I loaded the pic’s that I referred to in my last post I missed a step and didn’t get them posted properly so if you looked for them right after I posted the blog update and they weren’t there you should be able to find them now. The pic’s labeled morning exercises show a group of people doing dancing or Tai Chi as their morning exercises. This is very common in China to find groups of people (normally mostly ladies) doing these forms of exercise together in the morning in any public places with room to accommodate them.
I have now moved into the bedroom in the apartment that was occupied by the Australian couple since they moved to another place. This room is much bigger, has an attached bathroom with a western style toilet and has a bigger bed (almost a big as a U.S. size double). The other benefit to the bathroom is that since it is attached to the bedroom which has air conditioning it is also therefore air conditioned and I can take hot showers. It’s one of those simple luxuries we take for granted in the U.S. There is not a hot water heater like we have in the west though. There is a small heater mounted on the shower wall about eye level that heats the water and it has a small reservoir. There is a 10 gallon propane gas tank in the bathroom that provides the fuel for the heater and when the heater is running the flames are about 6 inches from my head when I’m under the shower head rinsing. Doing laundry here is fun. We have a very small washing machine and no dryer so we have to hang the clothes to dry. I couldn’t find fabric softener in the store because I would have to use liquid softener in the washer and they were not labeled in English. I had someone at the school write it for me in Chinese so I could buy some so the clothes would not be so stiff.
Saturday night the school organized a party for the English students and us at a tea plantation. As I mentioned before, most of the students are in their 20’s and 30’s and are learning English to improve their career opportunities. About 150 students attended the party. It is a bit surprising the amount of respect and admiration they show towards the teachers. They treat us like teachers since they assume we are teachers. I was walking around the plantation with a group of about 8 students when we saw a reservoir in the distance. They asked me what the English word for it was and all listened intently while I told them what it was and pronounced it for them slowly. They asked me to spell it and several of them took out small notepads and wrote it down. I felt like a guru imparting wisdom.
The class is going pretty well and we’re now doing some teaching practice at a local school. We are teaching junior high and high school students that have basic English skills. Nathan (one of my fellows students from America) and I co-taught two classes to 10th graders. Our lesson topic was “taking a bus” and the kids seemed to enjoy the lesson. It seems the teaching here in the local schools focuses more on reading and writing than speaking since that is what they get tested on. When we said “good morning class” to start they class they all stood and said “good morning teacher”. I also did a lesson with the students here at the school where we are studying. Even though they are adults their skill level is pretty low. The lesson was about things to do on a holiday weekend. On Monday I will be teaching a 4th grade class at a local school on the topic of “Where is it?”. We’re half way through the class now and it’s supposed to get easier the rest of the way.
I have been in China more than 5 weeks now and I have not driven a car since I’ve been here. I’m sure it will feel a bit strange the next time I drive but who knows when that will be ….maybe not until I’m back in the states. I’m guessing that I will probably be back in the states during the Chinese New Year holiday in February. If not then, it won’t be until July next year.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.