Class and so on

I simply had to label this post “class and so on”. Every Chinese person uses so on. In my writing class their papers will always say, “I like basketball, soccer, bicycling and so on.”

My Monday classes were annoying. I have two listening classes in the morning and I have quickly come to find out that the students find listening classes incredibly boring. This is probably because they are incredibly boring. All I do is play this tape for them and they have to listen and answer questions. Sometimes I’ll play music for a few minutes to spice it up, but it doesn’t make the tapes less boring.

The reason Monday frustrated me is that my students decided to come up after both classes and complain about how boring it was and tell me how they think the class should be taught. “Play movies during class, play more music…” Basically they just don’t like the tapes. I’ve decided I will ignore them all and just continue with the tapes – hooray!

So I was feeling a little down about classes until I had my speaking classes. These guys are great. Obviously it’s easier to make these classes more exciting because I can do whatever I want. In my class yesterday and the one this morning I did this game that they seemed to love. And the best part – they were all participating and talking in English! I even had one girl say she thought I was a really good teacher. This could be because students love to give compliments, but I’m just going to assume it means I’m awesome. I deserve it after the complaints from listening on Monday.

Now that everyone has stopped reading what I’ve written, or knows more than they ever wanted to know about teaching in China, I’ll share a few more interesting things I’ve discovered….

--It’s common to not take the bones out of meat when it’s served. Example: Last night Barbara and I ordered a chicken dish and a duck dish. Both arrived with bones. So there were little chunks of meat on the plate, they just all had bones. This is common and it’s not rude to spit them out – I however still prefer no bones.

--I have noticed several times in class a student will randomly hold up a phone. This is not to get better reception or ask a question. This is to take my picture with their camera phone. I am a foreigner and therefore weird. I am hoping this will stop soon once everyone has gotten it out of their system.

--Freshmen classes don’t begin until the third week of school. This is because the first two weeks are spent doing military training. I’m not sure exactly what they do but they all wear camo and walk in lines. One person told me it’s to instill discipline.

Next week is a national holiday here - therefore I will be traveling. Location to be determined. I will hopefully put some pictures of my travels online once I'm back.

One month and counting

I have now been living in Yantai a little over one month and the time has come to do something about this blog. On my to-do list: buy a cell phone and buy a camera. So photos will be coming soon.

So far my travels have included Penglai and Weihai, each an hour from Yantai. I also visited a Buddhist monastery not far from where I live.

The first week of October is a holiday here so I will be traveling! Woohoo! Now I'll just have to decide where I want to visit.


Interesting observations:

• Chinese students choose weird English names. Some of my students are Echo, Hike, Jolly, Cinderella, CCS, Rocky (a girl), Joy (a boy), Asia... well you get the idea.

• It's common to eat seafood as is. A shrimp is eaten with the shell, eyes, little legs and all.

• My shower area and bathroom are one and the same.

• Women walk around with umbrellas when it's sunny in order to stay as white as possible.

• Good thing I brought deodorant from home, I think it's impossible to find here.

• Chinese is hard.

• DVDs cost less than a dollar, and you buy them in secret door shops - all very exciting.

• Everything is fried - ovens are not common.

• A medical exam is required to be a teacher. Complete with X-ray, ultrasound, blood tests and more.

• Classes are once a week for 2 hours at a time.

• On the whole, Chinese people are very friendly.