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.