Babies in China :) 宝宝

   

      

Ai yao tan dang dang

(Love should be honest) 

This song is huge right now. My students love it :) 

In the classroom!

This is my class of Tourism Sophomores. In the spirit of the Presidential election, we had our own class elections. The students were split into groups and then had to come up with at least five things they would do to help the school, and then have a campaign for why they would be the best candidate for class president. Here are the things they came up with :) 

Hiking and Shao Kao

Hiking and Shao Kao

One Friday afternoon my students took me hiking up Tai Bai Yuan, a huge rock/mountain behind Wanzhou and at the top we made Shao Kao which is like Chinese BBQ but super spicy. It was a really fun day!

Happy Thanksgiving!!

感恩节快乐

In my classes we had a short presentation about Thanksgiving and its history and then we talked about what "we are thankful for." Here is their lovely list :) 

-Parents - teachers - classmates - friends - family -yoga - siblings - country/China - community  and of course the necessities ....food, water and air.

visiting ching long pu bu 瀑布

Visiting Ching Long Pu Bu with the host family!

It is the widest waterfall in all of Asia they said. And we got to see an awesome buddhist temple tucked away in the caves

   

Halloween in China

Happy Halloween from China!

Tomorrow is Halloween, so of course I decided it would be a great idea to teach my students about Halloween! We talked about trick-or-treating, haunted houses, ghosts, witches, black cats and vampires. We even watched a clip from Corpse Bride - ya know the part where Victor goes to the underworld and the skeletons are all singing. Well, anyways they loved it and thought it was hilarious and kind of crazy. When you look at it from an outside perspective (specifically 8,000 miles away outside) it does seem like a pretty crazy holiday - celebrating scary things and dead spirits. Well, at the end of the lesson we talked about what scares us. I asked if ghosts scare them and they all yelled out NO! I was shocked. Why not I said?? In the US the majority of us find the idea of ghosts pretty scary. They kept laughing and saying... No no no! Ghosts are cute! Ha, that's one I hadn't heard before. Cultural encounters come at the most unexpected moments. Then of course, I had to ask, "what scares you then if not ghosts?" The majority of them yelled out SNAKES in unison! And then dogs. A lot of girls yelled dogs. The first thing that came to my mind was, spiders, ghosts, witches, evil spirits, demons etc.... not snakes! And definitely not dogs! Who knew, my Chinese students find dogs and snakes so terrifying. I'll have to look into why that is at some point.

Students and Friends

Making Connections!

Sunshine, Cherish and I went to the Freshman welcome party together, which consisted of a lot of dancing and singing. It was quite the show! The teachers spoke and the students preformed. There was hip-hop and beat-boxing as well as traditional Chinese, Thai and Indian dances. Sunshine and Cherish are both sophomore tourism majors and are both my students! They have been my first friends here. We study English and Chinese together and Sunshine is just starting her first short stories in English, which I am helping her review.

             

Something to think about....

GO TO : http://www.economist.com/node/21553056

China’s Achilles heel

A comparison with America reveals a deep flaw in China’s model of growth

Apr 21st 2012 | from the print edition

http://www.economist.com/node/21553056

My new fav - mi fen - rice noodles!

In Nanchuan :)

Visit to Nanchuan

For the Moon Festival, I went to Nanchuan, a city that is about an hour outside of Chongqing, to visit my host family. We had a great week! Nanchuan is a small town and is beautiful, surrounded by mountains. We explored the city and even went out into an eco-reserve one day. There we hiked along the river you see above. It borders Chongqing and Guizhou (another province). It was gorgeous. We had LOTS of food and family dinners! We seemed to always be eating, something that reminds me of Jewish holidays :)

But what was really amazing and touching, was their generosity. I have only been studying Chinese for three months, so you can imagine my Chinese is not great, yet they invited me to stay with them for almost a week, invited me into their home, would not let me pay for any tickets there or back to Wanzhou, fed me every day and treated me like a true member of their family. All this with very very little communication ability. And when I say very little - I mean it!! I have studied hard for three months, but my ability to speak Chinese is still limited and there are many miscommunications and language barriers, yet I felt included and loved the whole time.

I am continuously amazed by the love and care I have experienced from the Chinese.

My host family here in Wanzhou every weekend invites me to dinner or an outing. And this last weekend they told me that they think of me as their second daughter and a part of their family - if I ever need anything to just call. And they are not just saying that. I know they mean it. And whats amazing to me is that I can communicate with them even less than my family in Chengdu. My host family here in Wanzhou doesn't speak a bit of English and also speak Chongqing hua - a different dialect from Putanghua - the main dialect (Mandarin) that I have learned. Yet, they welcome me into their home, this strange, foreign girl, feed me and take me out to explore and teach me about Wanzhou.

I have to say, I had heard that the Chinese were very friendly and hospitable before coming. But, I could have never imagined the extent of that until experiencing it myself.

It is humbling and inspiring.

Two Down!

I just finished my second and last class of the the day, my first day truly teaching with a full schedule here in China. The classes went well. The students are very low level so there was a lot of review and basics work going on, but it was fun. Exhausting, but fun. One class was full of girls only, the other full of boys only. I don't think I have to tell you which was the rowdy one. It was so interesting to go from the all girls class, which was quiet and giggly, to the all boys class, which was rambunctious, loud and silly. It was pretty hilarious actually. I had to really keep the activities moving because their attention spans lasted about 5 minutes!

The students for some reason really like to take pictures of me (I think this is a common occurrence for most foreign teachers but funny none the less) while I am teaching or just standing around. And no matter how many times I tell them, "no pictures in class, we can take pictures afterwards," they continue to take them. I am not sure exactly what the appeal is of having a terrible picture of a foreign person making funny faces while they talk, but oh well. It seems to amuse them. 

I finally got my teaching schedule!! By October 8th I will be one busy girl! Well, in comparison to the one class I have been teaching for the past three weeks :) 

Monday:
10:20am-12:00pm Freshman Secretary English
2:30-4:10pm Freshman Electro/Mechanical Technology --Oral English

Tuesday: 我不上课 No class!

Wednesday: Busy day - 忙
8:20am-10:00am Freshman Tourism English
10:20am - 12:00pm Freshman Secretary English
2:30- 4:10 pm Mold and Design Manufacturing- Freshman Oral English

Thursday:
8:20am-10:00am Freshman Tourism English
2:30pm-4:10pm Mechanical Design - Freshman Oral English

Friday:
10:20-12:00 Sophomore Tourism English

Bring out the Moon Cakes! 月饼

Next week is Chinese National Holiday as well as the Mid-Autumn Festival (or Moon Festival - zhong qui jie - 中秋节). So, we get a whole week off of school! I will be going to Nanchuan, about four hours south of Wanzhou to see my host family! (Pictures to come).

The Moon Festival is said to date back to the Tang Dynasty (618 AD) and celebrates the harvest moon. There are many different versions of the legend of zhong qui jie, the one I have been taught says that during ancient times, one day, ten suns appeared in the sky. The emperor ordered a famous archer to shoot down the extra nine suns. He did and a godess gave the archer a magic pill as a reward. Unfortunately, his wife, Chang E, took the pill without telling her husband and was thus banished to the moon, where she continues to live. Only during the Mid-Autumn Festival, when the moon is brightest are they able to see each other. Pretty tragic, yet romantic right? Anyways, during the Moon Festival, Chinese people head home to their families, have dinner, appreciate the moon and eat lots of moon cakes!

Moon cakes are hard to describe. The outside is dough and then the inside is really sugary. Some have nuts I am told, others even have meat. But I have only eaten the ones with really sweet flavored stuff inside, for example, one I just ate was peach flavored. 

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival! 中秋节快乐

One of my favorite things about China: The amazingly cute note books, with terrible English on them.

If you can't see the writing on this one, it says....

 "When I feel lonely, I will go to the street and cat for friends." 

They make me smile every time. 

Gong Bao Ji Din - One of my favorite dishes :) 

The food here is very different from what I expected. Much more oily and salty, but you cannot go wrong with gong bao ji din...ever :) in my opinion. 

A couple of my students students and I studying Chinese and English!

Exploring Wanzhou!!

Wanzhou is divided by the famous Yangzi River. It is the longest river in Asia and the 3rd longest in the world. It has been central to China's shipping and transportation throughout the center of the country. It stretches all the way to the Pacific and yes it is muddy :)

 

The English teachers, as well as my host family took us up to a scenic view point up in the mountains above Wanzhou. Once we got up there, we ate snacks, and then lunch and then played mahjong for about 5 hours :) .....so Chinese. Below is a mahjong table. As far as I can tell from playing for several hours, mahjong is somewhat like poker but with tiles. It originated in China and is a major part of Chinese culture. Each player gets 12 tiles and you need to make straights or three/four of a kind with them. I think it might have been beginners luck, but I somehow won like seven times. Usually you gamble with money, but we used peanuts :) And at the end I had the most peanuts! 

Chongqing, Wanzhou, China - My new home for the next two years :) 

I arrived two weeks ago to Wanzhou and just started my first class yesterday. I like the city a lot. It is small for China, a mere 700,000 people and it is built into the mountains with the famous Yangtze river flowing through it. It is beautiful and the people are lovely. I live about a 30 minute bus ride outside of downtown on campus at Chongqing Three Gorges Vocational College. Out here it is very small, there is one tiny main street with a few restaurants, an open air market and some clothing stores. But, I like it out here. It is small and quiet and peaceful.

I have only one class as of now, until the freshman finish with their mandatory military training. In a couple weeks, I will be in the full swing of things!!

In two weeks, I will be headed to Wanzhou, Chongqing, China! I will be teaching for the next two years at the Chongqing Three Gorges Vocational College. This Monday, I will head there for my site visit. I am lucky, my train only takes 7 hours. Some people going to Gansu will be on the train for 20-30 hours. The city is in the mountains and on the Yangtze river. It is the second biggest city in Chongqing municipality with about 900,000 people. So, it is much smaller than where I am now in Chengdu (14 million people). But, it gets super hot there! All my host family keeps saying is "ooo Chongqing hen re! Chongqing bi Chengdu re! (Which essentially means, Chongqing is way hotter than Chengdu, be careful!) 

Pictures to come :)

 Exploring a Tibetan area outside of Chengdu - It was so nice to see the mountains again :) 

So, this is the most popular song in China right now. You go into any store, a car, or even to the pool to go swimming, and this song is blasting. I think it sounds pretty cool, but my students informed me that "it's not a really cool song to the young people and nobody can really dance like that, but it is definitely the most popular song in China right now, and they just DONT GET IT!" They said they wanted to show it to us so we would understand how interesting Chinese pop culture can be. I thought that was pretty hilarious :) Regardless, I like it! 

Last day of MS = Karaoke sesh!

Last day of Model School = Karaoke Sesh

So for the last day of Model School our final assessment was done through Jeopardy and of course -- since we are in China - Karaoke! These are the songs the students came up to sing, which actually turned out to be amazing pronunciation practice for them. My partner and I were even coerced by our students to get up there and sing and dance to Toxic by Britney Spears. If they had to endure the embarrassment of singing in class, in front of a ton of people.... I guess it was only fair that we did too :)

One of our last days of Model School - English Corner

Last week we finished our two weeks of Model School training. These are our awesome students who were showing us the way to pose for chinese pictures. First, is what looks like a peace sign to us, but actually means victory and the second is the kitten pose :) So adorable.

Making some Chaofan!

My waipo noticed my LOVE for fried rice and so she taught me how to make it! Step by step :) 

Once I get to site I will be able to make one dish at least!