My first week of school

My first week of school? But I've been teaching since last Monday! How could it possibly still be my first week? These are questions I ask myself every day. There is only one answer: China.

Yes, I did indeed start teaching last Monday. But then there was a 1-day holiday. 'What's the problem then?' You ask. Well, that holiday fell on a Thursday. 'But what's the point in missing Thursday then going to work on Friday?' China asks itself. 'I know, let's move the weekend back one day!' GREAT. But wait, that means I have to work on Sunday and have a 6-day week. That's OK though...except on Wednesday you have to teach Friday's lessons, and on Sunday you teach Wednesday's lessons. Confused yet? Well, guess what's happening next week...National Day! Which means a whole week off school! Oh but wait, that means I have to work this weekend as well. So it's an 8-day working week. An 8-day working week. And just in case you weren't already infuriated and confused on my behalf, on Friday I will teach Monday's classes, on Saturday Tuesday's classes, and on Sunday....Friday's classes. So I'm working Sunday to Sunday, and last week I only taught 3 days. So basically, my first week of school just. won't. end.

But enough whinging, how's the actual teaching going? Good, I would say. Not bad, not so fantastic I want to die because I know I'll never experience anything better, but good. Good+. The students are largely well-behaved - and even when they're not, they're not naughty like how we were back in school. Their major offences include talking while I'm talking and giving me some back chat, and that's really only one class. I'm firm but fair really, and to be honest the repeat offenders have some of the best English out of all my students, and take part in the lesson even when I make the stand against the wall. I teach grade 7, and it's just so amusing when 12 year olds try and give me attitude, or think that I can't see them not paying attention. They get so shocked when I get in their face and make them stand up and answer questions in front of the entire class. But these misdemeanors are barely worth mentioning: some classes are good, some classes are amazing, and some classes are like drawing blood from a stone, but I think I'm making progress.

It's also great to see the students' reactions when they find out I can speak/write Chinese. If they don't understand something (after I've explained it for the 10th time with big gestures and small words) then I may write it in Chinese - reactions range from applause to shrieking. It's a good moment. 

THE FIRST TIME I WRITE CHINESE CHARACTERS ON THE BOARD

Something that's interesting about Chinese kids is the fact that attitudes tend to be class based. If a class is good at English, all 60 of them are quick and will get what I'm saying immediately. Class 13 are useless. Full stop. Class 14 are all excited to be there, classes 15 and 6 are scarily intelligent, and class 8 are naughty in a way that occasionally makes me want to slap them, but are also a class of jokers....who are actually pretty good at English. It's kind of weird, sort of like there's no individual personality - though the real jokers (and those who have learnt English before) stand out. 

They were also alllll really excited to see me (and Chris, the other teacher at the junior school) for the first lessons, and even nearing the end of week 3 there are still students yelling "外教!" (waijiao, foreign teacher) in the corridor when we walk past. I think they're slowly getting used to us though, a few of the students are even friendly, and some of them are genuine friends. There'll be more on the 'English corner kids' in a different post - they deserve a private mention. Needless to say, I think the novelty is slowing but surely wearing off...at least in the classroom it is.

WHEN I WRITE A CHARACTER ON THE BOARD INCORRECTLY

The teachers are a mixed bag. the English teachers of the classes I teach are largely friendly and, again, some of them are making efforts to be friends. The material for the classes is pretty unimaginative, so some of them are a little too impressed by the fact that I get the students up and moving in the first lesson. Most of them know that I speak Chinese, and I've made one friend who actually makes an effort to practice with me. Most of the staff don't know however, so it's interesting to see what they have to say...although it's irritating when I'm not in a good mood. To be fair, it's usually just comments on the fact that I exist ('Oh look, one of the foreign teachers' 'The foreign teacher is here, they don't speak Chinese, do they?') or comments on my outfit/figure....and by figure I mean booty. I must say, they're usually quite favourable - I've been told I resemble Halle Berry more than once, which is, of course, a complete fallacy.

Ok, boring post about teaching, I know. To make up for it, here are some pictures of pandas. We went to the reserve (which is surprisingly near our town) during the Mid-Autumn Festival and the place itself - as well as the pandas - is beautiful and incredible. I'd definitely be willing to go again if any future visitors are interested.

Wait, of course you are. It's pandas.

Pandas - Po and Dede

Panda eating whilst on side

Panda eating whilst on back...seriously, all they did was
lie down and eat. Pretty sweet deal.

BABY. PANDAS.

Moving image - as proof that I really was there...
and that the pic with me and the pandas wasn't super-imposed

Be jealous. Be very jealous.

I think language exchange is important because...

I have literally no idea what Sichuan people are saying when they speak to me. "But you speak Mandarin!" I hear you hark. Well, let me break it down for you: I speak putonghua (普通话, the way you're supposed to speak) whereas Sichuanese people speak gibberish (ok, sichuanhua 四川话, but it might as well be gibberish). Not only do they have a ridiculously frustrating accent (I now know why northerners hate southerners all over the world), not only do they put different tones on words when speaking putonghua, not only is it a completely different language where characters are pronounced....wrong, but they actually believe that the two are similar. No Sichuan. No.

Let me provide you with an enlightening example.

The sentence "你是哪国人?" means "What country are you from?" in English.
In Putonghua it's pronounced            ni shi na guo ren (with various tones)
In Sichuanese it's pronounced             ni si la gui zhen (with various, different, tones)

Yah. Not the same.

Sichuanese pinyin even has it's own Wikipedia page. It disgusts me.

But, I'm learning. I feel I have to as, although literally every Chinese person I met understands what I'm saying, in typical Chinese fashion, I, too, must understand them. On their own terms. Or f off.

CHATTING WITH THE NOODLE-SNACK LADY

On the other side of the coin, there are a lot of students who are willing and able to practice their English as often as possible with us foreign teachers. Most of them use the medium of the 'English Corner' which happens once a week, and is actually quite fun and interesting. This week we had a mini-party for 中秋节 (zhongqiujie, Mid-Autumn Festival), which was almost cancelled due to 4 hour non-stop torrential rain, but was happily relocated to an indoor location. As the teachers we provided the snacks, the chat, the convo and unfortunately a little bit of entertainment. Luke got to read a poem in English. I had to read mine in Chinese. 'Nuff said. Although, apparently my reading was 'good' and several of the students have contacted me on QQ to say they'd be willing to be language partners. Hopefully I can nick some photos and videos from one of the students soon and put them up.

Some of the other, more fluent students actually come around to our residential area for chats, especially some of the kids who are close to Andre. We've gotten to know them a little and they're mostly very sweet - one of them took Luke to get his tooth done and another bestowed the internet upon me - and often welcome. There are also the girls who live down the way, who by Chinese standards would be classed as 'bad girls' - they stay up late, go out (and drink I may add) and some of them even smoke. They're pretty cool, they even taught us how to play Chinese poker. I believe Ma jong lessons are next on the list.

QQ is amazing btw, if you don't know about it. It's basically the Chinese version of MSN, except it's actually in fashion and if you don't have one you are officially a social pariah. I had about 50 people add me in one day, and some of my junior 1 students seem especially keen to try out my Chinese typing skills. Well, in as limited form as possible. I'm not that cool just yet. 

In my spare time I like to...

I don't know if I've mentioned this before but a good friend of mine, Charlie Q (cba to type his last name) is living in Chengdu city whilst studying at Sichuan University. This gives me great and plentiful opportunities to go into town as often as possible...meaning when he doesn't have class and my teaching schedule allows. So weekends.

And go into town we did, last weekend to be precise. We stayed overnight at a great hostel called The Loft, which is super westernised and awesome and serves omelettes but more importantly also serves Long Island ice teas and is actually a little bit nicer than my actual accommodation in Xindu. 1-0 to Chengdu. We also went out clubbing. Aaah clubbing, I sometimes miss it, but on the whole, not really. Well, I miss the dancing, but not the staying up late. I'm too old for that ish and clubs tend to be full of youths. In China, they're also full of crazy, somewhat desperate, and very drunk Chinese girls, as well as some members of the Public Security Bureau. I assume it's easier to bribe intoxicated officials than sober ones.

Yeah... Luke got all the ladies

The 'entertainment' (I use that word very, very lightly) is also - rather unfortunately - provided for you, which means that at almost every hour, on the hour, the stage is cleared, raised, and taken over by the only-black-guy-in-town-and-therefore-honorary-T-pain singer and several rather scantily clad eastern European girls who are clearly here on some sort of 'cultural' exchange and were obviously lured into the disturbingly synchronized dance-world of Chengdu with the promise of horribly weak made-up cocktails. But it was still fun to watch.

Yes, that is a booty, in you face

Oh, and did I mention there were topless dancers?
There were topless dancers.

We also saw exactly 2 cultural monuments, Tianfu Square that houses the statue of Mao, and some guy called Wang's Memorial (3 if you include the outside of the city stadium). There are many things to see in Chengdu, so as my passport has been confiscated and will not be returned till after the upcoming holiday, I guess I'll be seeing them all....really soon.


But anyway, Xindu is way better than Chengdu. It's sort of the quiet, residential district on the outskirts of town, but it still has its features. Well, 3 main features, those being the Buddhist monastery, the park that you have to pay to get into aaaaaaand my apartment. 4 if you include the jiaozi restaurant. Anyway, all those things are super beautiful - including my apartment - and even Charlie and Martin who came to visit from the big city agreed. Here are some pictures as proof.

Outside Xindu's Baoguang Temple
No photography allowed inside

Photos from inside the park
This was taken just before the Lion King stampede moment

Although, at one point there was a weird Jurassic Park/Hunger Games moment when we were going into the park and a herd of old Chinese ladies broke down the barrier, knocked over the receptionists and almost stampeded us to death. We had to climb up some really steep side-stairs to escape. Charlie almost didn't make it. It was terrifying.

Chengdu 1 - Xindu 2

The prodigal child returns

Two and a half weeks into my long-term dose of China and, in a shocking turn of events, things have been going pretty smoothly until today. And of course, when I say smoothly, as always, I mean smoothly for China. Basically, we had a bit of a mix up today at the medical centre but.... hey ho, we'll try again another day. For 7 hours. In my usual manner, I'm gonna go ahead and skip the usual blog padding of 'how it feels to be back in China' (I made the choice to come here, I've lived here before, about the same really) and 'what are the people on your course like' (I have made some friends I would like to visit but, as most people are new to China and speak no Chinese with a few exceptions, added to the fact that I'm an anti-social cow, I wasn't really part of the 'gang') and get to the good stuff.

The first two weeks were quite intense and managed to seem both long and short at the same time. The first week was the TEFL course, which consisted of 5 days of never-ending 9-5 lessons with a few American guys informing us of various teaching practices, test answers and China-living tips of varying degrees of usefulness (there was a lot of chat about something called a Class Monitor, which I'm sure I'll get on to at some point), and ended with a test that consisted of just about nothing we had covered. Don't worry, we all passed. The second week consisted of a teaching practice at a local secondary school in Beijing which - despite the initial minor hiccup of wow-these-guys-are-not-as-good-at-English-as-I-was-expecting - was a lot of fun and actually went quite well. Who knows, maybe it went some way to influencing my future career path...

Teacher Edi

Teacher Luke (who also works with me now in Chengdu)

Teacher Faye 

Teacher Fran

Me, Faye and the practice class! 

Unfortunately, there are no touristy photos of Beijing this time around. We were out in the sticks (a place called Shunyi with exactly 1 very awful nightclub) and besides, you've seen them all before now anyway. And when I say sticks I mean it - the hotel barely had enough Wifi to go around, hence the lack of posts.

But you want to know about my new place, right? Well, the school I know very little about so far except that it's called Xindu No.1 Middle School (because Charlotte and Leela will want to look it up) and that it's the second best school in Sichuan, which is pretty good by anyone's standards really. Oh, and they have class from 7:45 am till (wait for it) 9:15pm. No words. No words. I have been informed I won't have to teach past 5pm. Wonderful. Apparently I'll be taking on the Junior 1s (year 7/8 equivalent) which should be nice as that's the age group I had practiced on during my week of teaching and I really enjoyed that level. Some of them may never have had a foreign teacher before and may not have an English name yet (or may just have a gender inappropriate/just plain awful one that I can change for them). In any case, it means that I can break them in how I want, which is just perfect.

As for my living quarters, it's quite cosy now that I've scrubbed it to within an inch of it's life, unpacked, thrown out a load of old stuff, rearranged all the furniture, bought new sheets and lit some incense. Things to know: yes, I have a western toilet; I do have a curfew, but if lessons start at 7:45 I doubt I'll be breaking it too often; yes, I have all manner of internet and have even procured a Chinese simcard despite not being able to decipher a word of Sichuanese. Honestly, it's like a completely different language. Most of the people do speak 普通话 (ho ho, the Chinese lessons are back, putonghua standardised Mandarin), but one market lady got very angry and shouty with me when I couldn't work out what she meant by sisisisisisisisisisisisisisi. Yeah, may need to get a language partner.

Bedroom/living area

Very bad picture of my Kitchen.
I'm not retaking it - you know what a kitchen is.

Bathroom

I have friends! Yes, I am officially friends with the entire foreign population of Xindu district. In other words, 5 English teachers, including myself. For the first time, I'm not exaggerating/being sarcastic/throwing inappropriate irony about. We're literally it.

Left to right: Hubert (UK), Andre (SA), Chris (UK), Luke (UK)
And can I just say they made more of a fuss over this photo than any 13-year-old girls I know.

Oh, and Chengdu/Xindu itself. Xindu is a town in Chengdu btw if you're getting confused - it's the equivalent of saying 'I live in London' 'Where?' 'Croydon'. Well, if Croydon were Northwest of London. Anyway, it takes a bloody long time to get to the centre of town. Xindu itself is a nice little laid-back place, with a few good-looking, appropriately southern-China-feel locations around town. I don't have too many pictures yet (as I keep forgetting to bring my camera out and have consequently had to nick several photos from other people), but I promise a whole bloody montage soon enough.

At the "Tea house of Never Ending Tea"

Street food times

Oh, and I've talked about food before as well right? Sichuan food is meant to be the best in China, and so far it's been pretty good. Very spicy, so definitely my style. I may not have mentioned my rules however, which I kept having to remind the first-timers of every time they offered me something/asked me what something weird was. The main 2 are: 1) I don't eat things that I can't see e.g. buns with filling (unless someone else has eaten said thing and not died) and 2) I don't eat meats that I can't identify by sight or smell. Other weird stuff I can experiment with, but it can get...irksome to say the least when you remember that in China, not everything is how it seems....

WHEN 'GREEN' IS WATERMELON INSTEAD OF LIME* 

*Love the fruit, but seriously, in a sweet? Come on Asia.....