June 14; goodbye my minies!

Day 130

Yesterday I said goodbye to my first class. At the end of the class, they attacked me with hugs and I literally felt trapped. The Chinese teacher came in and saved me though. Today, I said goodbye to the remaining three classes. They showered me with hugs and little gifts. Some students had cards ready made for me and others made cards during class. When the students who did not have anything prepared saw the other guys leave little things on my desk, they started to pull out things from their pencil cases: scissors, erasers, markers, pens, and other stationary things. They would have had better use of it than I would, however I could not decline their extremely generous and kindhearted gifts. It was all too adorable and sad. One of my little girls, Mary, even started to cry.

some cards I got from one of my classes

This made me smile/laugh.
I'm really impressed with the correct usage of apostrophes.

It was my last day of teaching in Beijing and I am really going to miss those little guys.

May 27; post-birthday non-shenanigans

Day 112

My day began shortly after coming home from last night's event. I taught, showered, and caught up with the rest of the gang at Pyro's. While I was doing that, poor Tanjin was getting poked by thorns. One of her students decided it would be cool to throw his shoe into a bush full of roses. Really? A bush full of throny roses? Kids do the darnest things.

I went to Berney's for dinner (yay for home cooked food!) and he made one of my favouriteees.

seafood spaghetti already prepared =)

So the plan after peeling a basket full of mangoes, was to make cheesecake. We ended up making this instead:

mango cake/pudding. 

reason the cake was in a frying pan. 

So after an hour, the cake didn't exactly mold properly... but it tasted sooo much better than it looked. 

Fact: Mango flavoured anything can never taste bad.

May 23; spontaneity at its best.

Day 108

I taught my kids the words "vegetarian" and "pescatarian" today. Wasn't a part of the curriculum, but I thought they were important words. I found out one kid is a vegetarian. Pretty coool.

My last class of the day was cancelled because they were rehearsing for a singing competition. Yay me! Sooo, what to do with all the spare time.... SHOPPING!
Tanjin, Sigrid, and I headed out to the Wudaokou Clothing Market to take a look at the goods one last time.  As we were looking through pretty scarves and accessories, Papa John called to ask what we were doing.
Me: "We're doing our favourite past time"
PJ: "Ohh... daydreaming about rooftops and shit cause you'll never get one"
Me: "no.... </3. shopping"
PJ: "boooooring" annnd then he proceeds to invite us to this hidden beer garden around the area....
We eventually joined him and Uncle Skippy at the beer garden and then left them to continue drinking while we went to get food with Kristie joining us later.

Mixed Spicy Seafood - 48 RMB (~$7.65 CND)

As the night was still young and PJ rejoins us, we hopped to different places. I didn't want to stay out too late since I had to teach at 8:00 the next morning, but I ended up staying way past my bedtime. We stopped by Lush, a student bar where we shared an "Epic sized" drink.

 Epic Sized Hurricane Jane - 120 RMB

 and then we went dancing.
Spontaneous clubbing is fuuuun.

May 10; from the fear of being criticized to criticizing

Day 95

I had an open class today, meaning that parents and other teachers were allowed to watch me teach. This, of course, was not my idea. It was something that I had to follow through with. Just the thought of being criticized and watched by parents and colleagues made me uncomfortable. I taught three classes today and of those three classes, only one class had parents watch me. Of the 30 students, only three parents showed up. The parents just kind of sat at the back of the class, being invisible. I'm not sure if the parents didn't care to talk to me afterwards or just didn't speak English, but either way I did not have to talk with the parents. *phew*

***

On our way for dinner in Wudaokou, we ran into another foreign teacher who we haven't really hung out with (he's a really busy guy). Surprisingly, he asked to join us for dinner. We got to know him and his future wife more over the course of the evening. They have an interesting relationship for many reasons, but the one thing that stuck out tonight was the fact that her English level was beginner and his Chinese level was so so. (FYI: The girl is Chinese and the guy is Caucasian). If you've watched Love Actually, you might think the whole scenario is super cute but in reality, communication is so important in a relationship and so how can one possibly work if you can't effectively communicate thoughts (do not give me the language of love bullcrap). People who speak the same language have communication problems all the time. In my eyes, communication is more than lacking when two people can't speak the same language fluently -- trust me, I would know.

On the topic of dating and leaving you with something positive rather than ranting, Aunty Tom gave one piece of good advice: if you really like someone, you'll break the rules.

May 9; drinking buckets on a lesson planning weeknight.

Day 94
Kris and I went to La Bamba's to do a bit to lesson plan for the rest of the week.

potato spudsters + lesson planning = winning combo

potato spudsters, as i learned, was just potato balls in batter. 

Bars in Wudaokou have different specials every night. Tonight, we realized these specials change every so often...

One of the usual bars we go to, Wu, had wonderful Wednesday special: free drinks from 8:00pm 'till late. When we arrived, they changed the special: open bar for 20 RMB for ladies and 50 RMB for men. Although it was a fantastic sounding deal, we found another place since we didn't feel like drinking on this lovely Wednesday night. We spent the rest of the evening at Helen's, one of my favourite student hangouts, with Tanjin plus papa John and David.

and so we did end up drinking

Bucket = 45RMB 

Fact: Our dysfunctional family tree just got bigger! David was inducted into our family.

May 8; broken mug, wilting flower

Day 93

Unfortunate news: My Korean "fighting" mug broke last night. = (

Coincidentally, my friend called to arrange plans to make a trip to IKEA this weekend to get stuff for his new apartment   so I figured I could get a new mug there. Although my Chinese-Swedish mug won't be the same as my Korean one = (

But on the brighter side, the weather in Beijing had been getting a lot nicer. The greenery around the school is proof of that. Today, one of my students gave me a flower:

already wilting : (

Kids are just so darn thoughtful without even knowing it. 

April 11; An unexpected interview with Teacher Yeh

Day 66

I walked into my last class of the day with students attacking me with questions front, right, and centre. Here are some of the questions they asked, some more ridiculous than others:

Do you have a mother?

Do you have a father?

Do you have a baby?

Do you have boyfriend?

Do you have man friend?

Kids say the darnest things.

March 31; you have to work for your money

Day 55

It’s tomb sweeping day weekend, which means Chinese people visit their ancestors in cemeteries and pay their respects. This year, the holiday falls on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. You would think that meant a five day weekend, but that’s not how things work in China -- you have to work for your money. I have to make up for the holidays meaning working on the weekend. Lucky for me, I only have to work Saturday.

After work, we decided to go to Pizza Hut for dinner. I was craving Italian food and Pizza Hut was the closest thing. Pasta was decent.

 Salmon and spaghetti with white sauce = 39 RMB 

 Back at the dorm, we heard something explode. As we peeped out the room to see what was going on, it was clear to see we weren't the only ones who heard the noise. We came out of our rooms to see what happened and all we saw were shards of metal scattered outside the hot water room. The container must have exploded. Instead of going back to our rooms like most normal people, we stood in the middle of the hallway talking about sci-fi, the ride to Tianjin, sharing whipped cream, and trying on John’s new sailor hat.

Capt'n John, at your service.
Well equipped with a can of  some sort of a Chinese beverage at his feet.

apparently Sigrid looks a bit like female Hitler

TanG just looks boss.

"Hey Kristie say chu chu "

Apparently I look a bit like Kim Jong Il.
"I'm the wrong type of Korean!"

March 22; it's dorm trivia time on the sixth floor!

Day 46
I woke up with a voice that was rapidly fading. I took this opportune moment to introduce my class to the best North American children's show out there, Arthur. Kids loved it. (yeees!)

On another note, a few days ago, I thought it would be fun to slip anonymous letters under the doors of a few people. I left trivia questions for John and after a few days he posted his answers on his door.

This is gonna be fun!

March 20; Dungeons and Dragons

Day 44

Once upon a time -before the time of internet, cell phones, and technology - kids used to gather around the table with nothing but their imaginations to play the good old fashioned game of D&D.

That's exactly what we girls did on the lovely Tuesday night with the help of our dungeon master, John. 

 

Character sheets

We spent about 2 hours creating our characters and buying imaginary stuff from the store. At the end of the two hours, we were too exhausted to play, but at least our characters will be ready for next time! 

My character's name is Camino. He's a 42 year old half elf/half human sorcerer who has his own bar. 

We officially (sorta) declared Tuesday as D&D night. Let's see how long this will work out for....

 If you aren't familiar with the game, check out this video: 

Also, my students gave me stuff today. A used eraser, crumpled cootie catcher, and a uncoloured "world's greatest dad" picture. Their gifts keep on getting better and better!

March 18; whipped cream = trouble on the subway

Day 42
Tanjin and I started off our day with teaching our extra classes. Here's a look at our (reject? -- there are a lot of broken desks and chairs shafted off in the corner) classroom!

welcome to sunday school kiddies!

desks after we organized them.

every classroom is equipped with a computer, projector and working speakers.
pretty awesome.

parents picking up their kids from sunday  school on bikes.
definitely awesome.

We made a trip to Wal-Mart to pick up the essentials and I miraculously found all the things I had been craving -- whipped cream and cheese.

DAIRY! CHEESE! BUTTER! HEAVEN!

As I briefly mentioned in a previous post, you need to go through security checks if you want to ride the subway. As my bag was going through the conveyor belt, the security lady stopped me and started to talk to me in putonghua (Mandarin). I replied back to her in my most perfect English, "I don't speak Chinese." Looking a little flustered, she went to get some back up. She sent over another security guy who politely asked me in English, "May I take a look in your bag," to which I replied "of course." He found the thing that was making the machine go off: my whipped cream in an aerosol can. As he was examining this strange can, I told him it was food and he politely thanked me and personally pointed me in the right direction. I totally got the right of way.

We met up with John for dinner at Falahfel. At my request through John's spoken putonghua, we got the special room which was furnished with carpet, sofa seating surrounding the room, pretty chandeliers, and a sparkly table. There was even wi-fi, what more can I ask for! Well... the lion man (he's a dude who works there are his hair reminds me of the mane of a lion in a good way) offered us complementary Arabic tea. To make this fantastic day even better, they offered to put my falafel in a wrap (they actually don't have falafel wraps on the menu!). best day ever!

Catherine pouring our special tea

My special -off-the-menu falafel wrap

Falafel Wrap (not on the menu) = 20 RMB

On our way back to the dorm, we hopped on the subway train again which meant I had to go through security check again. This time the security guard who was watching the screen got all hyped up to see something potentially exciting on his screen. Little did they know it was only my can of whipped cream. Once the security guards, now looking a little embarrassed, found out it was only food, they let me go by without any hassle.

I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of tempted to carry a can of whipped cream with my everywhere to see what the security guards will do next. 

March 8; TGIF - thank gosh i'm female

Day 32

It was international women’s day today. I never really celebrated Women's Day in Canada, but it seemed to be a big deal in China. It's very much like our Mother's Day, where moms get gifts and get treated extra special on this one day.

In class, two of my kiddies gave me cards:

The one with the bears said happy new years inside--I think she was a little confused, but so cute!

The one that says "thanks teacher" was given by a student who kept on asking me if I liked Michael Jackson. 

Even the cafeteria was nice to women today:

 Yay free pizza + banana lunch from the cafe!

The girlies and I continued our women's day celebration by treating ourselves to Indian food at the Ganges restaurant in WDK. We tried looking for this restaurant at least 5 times. We finally found the magical outdoor elevator beside Uniqlo that took us to the rooftop where the restaurant was located. It was so pretty! The waiters spoke English, there was Bollywood music blasting in the background, and there were actually Indian people working at the restaurant!

Photo Cred: Catherine

basket of naan + mushroom and paneer  

The food was delicious and went beyond my expectations. It was a bit more pricey compared to the other places we had eaten at, but it's definitely worth coming back too. In fact, we plan on coming back for Tanjin's half-birthday! =)

Feb 29; the smallest signs of genuine love makes me happy

Day 24

Today, the weather was nice.

Today, a student said “you are a very good teacher.”

Today, an Australian friend sent out a message that said she was reminded of our Korean class today at her uni lecture.

All this and a whole lot of little other little things made me very happy today.

Feb 28; lunch and lines

Day 23

Fact: Chinese people and food - food is a way to say thank you for your work; food is a way to prompt you to work well; food is a way to lure you into doing work; food connects people.

The staff in charge of organizing the open house and administration for the school invited the foreign teachers for lunch. The reason for this kind gesture? They want to hear our thoughts on activities and other fun Western culture stuff. Or at least that’s what the email implied.

After experiencing the delicious food from the cafeteria the day before yesterday at the training, I was really looking forward to having special cafe food again. ALSO, I'd get to talk to the other foreign teachers again - unfortunately, I don't see them as much as I'd like too. Friends and food? How could I say no to that. Well, it turned out the food was actually regular cafeteria food – disappointing. But at least there were other foreign teachers there.

Anyway, the real reason the staff invited us out for lunch was not to get our opinion, but to encourage us to participate in the open house. They wanted us to give a fake lesson and actually teach prospect students and their parents about Western culture during the school open houses. The school wanted to show off the foreign teachers who bring culture into the school. After throwing activity ideas back and forth (pumpkin carving, mask decorating, rapping, painting easter eggs…), Kristie and I decided to pair up and teach the future students and their parents about....wait for it.......Cinco De Mayo. Kristie likes salsa dancing, I like saying “cinco de mayo”, and we both like salsa. The school is going to pay me to salsa dance and make salsa. This is very exciting.

We had our first calligraphy class and first real mandarin class today.

We were taught how to hold a brush and draw lines in calligraphy today:

I collected all the sheets to make wallpaper for our room.

We were taught basic phrases and sounds in Mandarin today.

What I really learned in calligraphy was I still can’t have a proper posture and in Mandarin I learned my pronunciation sucks. I’m feeling less Chinese with every lesson, which leads me to believe I’m actually Korean…

Feb 27; ni jiao shenme mingzi?

Day 22

What's your name?

One of the things I needed to work on is getting to know all 120-something students.
I created seating plans to help with with the mission, but when I went to each of my classes, I realized the seats have been rearranged. Boy, this is going to harder than I thought.

Any tips on memorizing names?

Feb 26; when opportunity comes knocking

Day 21

I was offered a teaching gig on Sunday mornings. The opportunity didn't actually come knocking on my door. It actually come through a text a fellow teacher sent me. I've never texted my boss about work opportunities before.

Before accepting the job, I took a look at the pros and cons:

Pros: extra cash flow, experience, networking, small classes, team teach

Cons: waking up in the morning, extra lesson planning, half a day gone, early Saturday nights (?)

Verdict: Since I plan to travel in July and August, I decided to take the offer for some extra cash flow.

Before actually starting the job, I had to attend a day long training session. 

Pros: Unexpectedly and thankfully, the trainers provided us with a lunch that was amazing. What seemed to have puzzled me and the other girls was the fact that the cafeteria workers served this amazing food. We wondered how something this good from the cafe. It was a puzzle that no one could solve. Also, the training was actually really helpful in terms of more activities.

Cons: It was a very long tiring day of training.

Verdict: I'm qualified and ready to teach and make some kuai!

Feb 21; teacher yeh gets a card - yay!

Day 16

It was my second day of teaching and one of my students gave me a cute little card:

And a group of others were trying to teach me Chinese. Aw, kids are adorable anywhere you go!

In other news, we discovered a fast food place near the subway station (which is a 20 minute walk away from the res) with a really good variety of fast food.

 Tofu, veggies, seafood, and rice = 12 RMB (~3 CND)

 Matcha green tea latte = 9 RMB (~1.50 CND)

Tanjin playing drums in the deserted arcade in the mall.

Feb 20; relearning my name – the professional and the Chinese

Day 15

opening day ceremonies

What a better way to start off the real semester than with a good class. My first day of teaching went very well and I'm excited to say that my teacher mode is switched on – Teacher Yeh is ready to go!

As a part of the internship program, we were also offered courses in Mandarin, kung-fu, paper cutting,  calligraphy, and Chinese painting. Our extra classes finally began in the evening and we started with Mandarin. The class was comprised of us (the Canadian girls with no mandarin experience) and Jeff (a pretty much fluent Mandarin speaker). While the poor teacher was trying to sort out this mess of mixed levels, I was lurking through the desks and found an assortment of things to keep me busy. Here’s a secret message in a notebook: 

"In the past few years, great changes have taken in China" - I see a revolution coming on

Since I was unable to do the Chinese homework I found in the desk with much success, I did some kids English grammar homework with great success.

Highlight of the class: I was able to write my Chinese name…. in Chinese!