- A student came up to me the other day and asked if he could tell me a joke. He asked if I knew who ET was. “Of course,” I replied. “Do you know what is stands for?” he asked. Knowing he wasn’t going to say extra-terrestrial, I indulged him; “What?” I asked. “ENGLISH TEACHER!” hahaha Boy, was he right!
- SO many students need glasses and it is so so common for students to share a pair. Glasses get passed here like Mom and Jessica and Ronald and everyone else pass them around at home! I'd love to set up some program to help them get glasses to those who need them. I know what it's like not being able to see!
- I taught my students the word ‘sunburn’ and the concept was foreign to them; apparently, they don't burn in the sun. A few weeks later, I was playing Simon Says and was teaching new body parts. I pointed to my elbow and asked “What is this?” Their reply? “SUNBURN!” Apparently, I have very red elbows haha. Another funny moment was when I pointed to my cheek. The students shouted out, “FACE!” and I had them focus on my cheek. Their response? “MEAT ON FACE!”
- I avoid fish as much as possible at lunch time. I have not even come close to mastering getting meat off the bones. One day, I went for it though (as the meat option did NOT look very appealing) and did I EVER regret it. For one whole week, I had a fish bone stuck in my teeth. I dug at it with toothpicks, floss, paper, everything but to no avail. FINALLY, sitting on the bus one day, I got it out. My gums were pretty tender there for a while.
- Over the past week, my school grounds have erupted with DOZENS of white butterflies. It’s stunning. There is a hedge that stretches from the building with classrooms to the building with my office. As I walk along it, the butterflies burst out. I feel like I'm in a Disney movie every day!
- My students love changing their names but my favourite was Mr. Perfact. Nope, I didn’t make a typo. It was too good!
- I am the arm wrestling champion of Chong Gu Middle School. Right AND left handed, I am undefeated. Awww yeah!
- I did a reading with Grade 9. It was a dialogue between two people. Whoever created had a sense of humor and knowledge of western pop culture as they two men were Tim and Allen. I didn’t realize it at the time but I had to giggle when I started reading it allowed.
- There are lots of efforts made to separate/distinguish boys from girls here. At the morning assembly, they stand in two separate lines and they wear two different to coloured uniforms. It's almost to a fault as the "cootie" mindset runs rampant and makes it hard to get students to work in groups with each other.
- Students call each other and themselves fat all the time. It's so sad. They really value "beauty" more, I think, than we do at home. At one point when I was playing a game there were two girls left and the other kids were all laughing cause it was the two "fat" girls left. The two girls themselves refer to themselves that way. The crazy thing is, the are the size of average Canadian students. I think, as bad as it sounds, I'm going to be a little culture shocked coming home because I have seen maybe 3 people we would classify as obese in Canada since coming to China...and they were all foreigners.
- I have a student whose name is Apple. A classmate saw the humour in this and said “Her name is Apple. Mine is Tree. I am her father” I love when the students are advanced enough to make such comments!
- I did a movie unit with my Grade 9s and I asked them to share their favourite type of movie. Here is one response: “My favourite type of film is romance because they have the sexiest actors. My least favourite is war because they don’t have beautiful actors."
- Students can NOT pronounce ‘th’. My goal before I leave here is get each and every one of them to stick their tongue between their teeth before I leave. If I can do that, I will be a happy camper!
- I have a teacher that comes and watches me teach once a week. She’s a senior teacher and so it’s pretty nerve-racking when she’s taking notes of MY lesson but I'm lucky as many others get much more frequent viewings.
- There is a Chinese proverb that goes along the lines of "Tell me, I'll forget. Show me, I'll remember. Involve me, I'll understand" I find this....interesting. There is no “involving” or differentiation in these classrooms. I tried to give different activities to different groups in the classroom and it was a huge fail. After talking to the teachers afterwards I was told to just let the weaker students sleep. Ugh.
- Today, some people came to the school to do a skateboard demo. It was so so entertaining to watch the kids as I don’t think most of them have seen a skateboard before. Some tried it and had death grips on the guests as they were pushed about 5 meters. Sometimes you forget how different things can be. The world did get a little smaller when they played “Sk8er Boi” by Canadian Avril Lavine over and lover, though haha
- Today I saw one of the craziest insects I have ever seen. It was flying in the hedge. It was like a cartoon giant wasp with red and fur. I’m trying hard to figure out what it was.
- We had an Earthquake drill the other day; I had no idea what was going on. I’m glad it wasn’t the real thing as I wouldn’t have any idea what to do (I was in an office alone in a separate building from everyone). Students hide under their desk and then all meet on the soccer field.
- I’m going to be a radio jockey before you know it! Almost every English teacher in the school has recorded me reading excerpts from books so that students can listen/learn. They listen so very very closely to how you say things that sometimes it’s hard not to over think it. For instance, I had to say, “Come inside my friend” and I was recorded saying it four different ways and it took forever to choose the “proper/best” way to say it. They take things like this so seriously.
- Fireworks still go off at all hours of the day and night. I think it’s such a waste to set them off in the day.
- One day some of the teachers cornered me in the cafeteria to ask me “an embarrassing question." They wanted to know if it was true that in Canada, we confess our sins to a priest. To them, it was astonishing that people do this. “If I did something wrong, I would never tell anyone!” one of them exclaimed. They were so intrigued about the concept that they kept asking questions like “if someone says they killed someone, does the priest tell the police?” and “how clever do priests have to be? What are the requirements to become a priest? Do they have to study for many years?” China really doesn't have religion, per se, so the whole idea of it is incredibly interesting to them. Some other concepts are also foreign to them like Canada’s stance on homosexuality. One teacher asked me if gay people disgust me. They also asked how old people in Canada have to be before they are married. Apparently in China, a woman has to be 20 and a man has to be 22. Go figure!
P.S. 25 days until I'm on Canadian so