The living arrangements are even better than I thought they would be. The seven foreign teachers are living in apartment building A. The guys are on the first floor, Julianne and Kim are on the second floor and Cait and I are on the third floor. We have our own bedrooms, living room, kitchen, two bathrooms, and eating area. The other Chinese teachers live in apartments the size of McVinney (my freshman year dorm) in a one room cell. We are definitely being spoiled here.
We actually have not started teaching yet because the students are on a five day vacation. In China, the students go to school every day of the week from 7:50am to 10:00pm with a few hour long breaks throughout the day. At the end of each month, the students are given a five day vacation when they can travel home to be with their families. Lucky for us, we arrived right before this vacation, so we are still on holiday!! We met with the head officials of the school and our boss, Mr. Zheng a couple of days ago. We were told that five teachers would stay on campus and teach in the kindergarten, primary school, middle school, and one senior high school class, while two of us would have to commute into the city to the South Campus and teach the senior school students each day. These two teachers would be working a little more than the North Campus teachers and have many more students. Mr. Zheng told us to email him with our top three choices and of course no one wanted to travel to the South Campus. So we arrived to the meeting to find out our jobs and I was given the job in the South Campus. I later found out that I was chosen for this job because of my language skills. The more I think about this, it’s going to be great. I am going to get to know the city really well and I will pick up so much more of the language, and this of course is my goal for the year! Additionally, I’ll be teaching senior school students, so they know a bit more English than the students at North Campus. I am very excited about this and I will take full advantage of the city of Tongliao! (plus, since I am working more than the other teachers, I will be reimbursed for that! And that’s not so bad!)
Since we’ve had a full week off, the seven of us have traveled into Tongliao every single day and we are finding each time that it is a great city! (It reminds me of a smaller NYC) The cab ride into the city is 10 yuan ($1.30) and the bus is 3 yuan ($.40). Funny story, the other day, we all wanted to go to lunch but since there are seven of us, we need to take two taxis…so Kim, AJ, Cait, and Ian got into the first taxi and I waited for a second one with Mike and Julianne. As the first taxi drove away, the bus pulled up and stopped right in front of us. (At this point, none of us had used the public buses in Tongliao yet but the three of us looked at each other, laughed and jumped on). As soon as we sat down, the entire bus started laughing at us. We paid our 3 yuan and I attempted to tell the driver where we wanted to go. I had memorized the name of the place where we said we’d meet the other four but as soon as I said it, the driver went into gibberish and I was totally lost. Mike and Julianne laughed at me as I tried to think of a better way of saying it. I suddenly remembered that there was a KFC on the same side of the street so I yelled to the driver “kan da gee” and the entire bus erupted in laughter again but the driver showed me a sign that he recognized what I was saying and we were off. There was a man sitting in front of Mike who did not stop staring at him. Talk about AWKWARD. When we arrived at the restaurant, the group in the first taxi thought we were nuts because they thought they lost us. But I figure the best way to immerse ourselves in this type of culture is to get out of your comfort zone and go on mini-adventures like this one! (and who cares if you’re laughed at the entire time!!)We had about three days on campus before the students left for vacation and it was truly bizarre. Everywhere we walked, little Chinese children would say “HELLO!!” and burst out laughing. I think I’ve been told “You’re beautiful, you’re so pretty” five hundred times (which I now realize means, “You’re funny looking”). These students are so friendly and they LOVE us. We’re still feeling like minor celebrities because people follow us and stop to stare and point-this even happens at school. The people of China are so friendly and have been so wonderful to us.
On our third day here, we were told that the school was holding their annual “Sports Meeting” where students compete in track and field events. It’s a school-wide event where students celebrate their school pride and sportsmanship. At the opening ceremonies, we sat with the school and city officials on a red carpet! Little did we know, that we would be competing in the LAST event of this two day affair. HA AND it would be against the school’s gym teachers! You can take a wild guess as to how that went but it was a blast and there is a picture of me, beginning the first leg of the race. The entire school cheered for us and it was a wonderful experience!
I know I’ve written another novel, but I hope you enjoy my hilarious adventures in China. I’m sure this is just the beginning of funny stories…miss you all.
1 comment:
Great blog Sheila - keep on immersing yourself in the culture! I loved the story of the bus ride!
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