Christmas and the end of teaching

The countdown is on until my last class… no, hang on just a minute - the countdown is over! I got a text Wednesday morning, just as I was snoozing the alarm (again), to say that class is over and not to come in, so I finished my stint as a TEFL teacher two days early! I’d said goodbye to everyone at Kindergarten 1 on Tuesday, so at least I got one set of goodbyes in properly (even though like the mug I am, I’d forgotten my camera). So, since I now haven’t got emotional stories to tell about my last day as a teacher I’ll tell you about Christmas instead!

Actually, I lie. It’s not exactly an emotional story, but I shed a wee tear as I was walking home on Tuesday – I really enjoyed Kindergarten 1. I don’t think I’ve really been a very good teacher and I don’t know the names of any of the kids or teachers there (I actually feel a bit terrible about that), but I do know the kids have had some fun, which is half the battle with learning a language. It’s also been good to have a place where I can indulge my inner four year old, just be silly and have a good giggle. There’s nothing like making kids laugh, and it’s such an escape from all the stress of being an adult!! Having my last tutoring session on Monday was a bit emotional too, even though I’ve only been doing it for a few weeks and I was more scared about starting that than kindergarten. I’ve actually taught Mingyu something – she’s a dab hand at naming colours, the rainbow song and the rudiments of artistic colour mixing. Teaching hasn’t all been peaches and cream, but what can I say? I’m an optimist even in hindsight and fortunately I’ve had a light teaching schedule with enough variety to keep me on my toes. Distraction is the better part of enjoyment, or something to that effect.

So yeah, Christmas.

This was my first Christmas away from home, and we went to Beijing to meet up with Niamh, Will and Mark. Steph and Laura have both been really homesick and missing the build up to the festive season, but as the last few Christmas’s I’ve worked in retail (stressful!!) and there aren’t any kids in my immediate family to wind up with sugar and threats about Santa, I haven’t been massively homesick and I’ve managed to enjoy the novelty of being away from home. Having said that, I’m not missing next Christmas home for love nor money! Christmas isn’t big in China, at least away from the bits with Westerners it isn’t, so I took it upon myself to be Festive, with a capital F. I made advent calendars for the girls (I got bored after doing theirs so I haven’t had one) at the start of December, and when I got two packages from home – mince pies and Cadbury’s from the utterly awesome Hannah Fry and wrapped up stocking fillers from my wonderful Mum – I decided that everyone should have something to open too, so I made stockings for the six of us last week. That put me in such a festive mood!

We got the train on Christmas Eve morning, at the ungodly hour of 7.05am, and after a stupidly long, boring journey, during which I got told I look like Naomi Watts(!), we arrived at the hostel mid afternoon. The boys had already arrived, and after we’d filled Steph with medication (she’s not been well) and Niamh arrived, we had some sustenance then went for a foot massage. Heaven. We got our backs and shoulders done while our feet were soaking, I could hear things crunching away but it felt so good!! When it got to cupping on the feet I was less jazzed but at least I didn’t get it done on my back too – Laura came away covered in polka dot bruises! (Not painful apparently. Hmmm!) We went for the most amazing Italian food after that, I actually can’t believe how much I’ve missed pesto and the chocolate lava pudding was frankly to die for. Then came the bars… after which Laura and I rolled back to the hostel at 5am - I dished out the stockings and fell happily into my bunk.

The only plan for Christmas Day was “eat, drink and be merry” – I think the stockings were a good start for that. Steph and Laura knew they had them but it was a surprise for Niamh, Will and Mark. The looks on their faces were just the epitome of Christmas – no wonder Father Christmas is jolly, I had a smile on my face all morning from that! I put on my new green silk dress, discovered the potent combination of Irish coffee and admiring looks – it’s a nice dress - then we went out for Christmas dinner. It wasn’t turkey and stuffing by any means, but hey it was interesting. Deliciously creamy mushroom soup, smoked salmon on hash-browns(!), steak or lamb chops and cheesecake or a mini chocolate soufflé with free wine and cocktails. Everyone was getting a bit homesick by the time dinner was done with – I’d arranged to Skype home and my granny, so I headed back to do that. It was lovely talking to home, but watching Mum open her present from my brothers and me set me off and I had such a cry… what a relief that was! Sometimes you just need a good weep. After that clearing up shower, I decided that a sure route to being merry was getting merry, so I headed back out to do just that and you know what? It worked. I had a great night.

Boxing Day was a whole other story – my hangover was fully proportional to the fun I’d had, but pretty much everyone was in the same boat so we all had a quiet day and got the train home in the evening. We went out for a meal and drinks on Wednesday night to say a big goodbye to the Handan family (now that was emotional) and Charlie cooked yesterday too. That pretty much brings you back up to speed! It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m getting the train up to Beijing to see in 2011 and get ready to start my new job. 

I can’t believe I’ve only got two weeks left of being an intern; there’s so much I haven’t told you about! Let me start with pomello, since I’m eating some as I type and everyone should know about pomello. It’s a citrus fruit we first had at Andy’s house back in the day when his fiancée made hotpot for us. I think it’s known as Chinese melon, but I can only ever sing the name to the tune of ‘mellow yellow’ and that’s part of the charm for me. Pomellos come sized like coconuts – big ones, small ones, some as big as your head – and are yellow on the outside, have a soft, white pithy layer inside half an inch thick. They taste a bit like a combination of grapefruit and lemon, but not as bitter as that makes it sound – just a bit tangy and refreshing. YUM YUM YUM.

Ok, now breakfast is done with, I will crack on with the serious business of blogging about being an intern while I still am one!

Not before time, as I get to the end, I’ve had a break through with teaching. One little lassie, who usually bursts into hysterical sobs at the sight of me, didn’t cry for the FIRST TIME! Not even a whimper! I can’t go as far as to say she smiled at me, it was more of a blank look, but still she joined in as we sang the alphabet and I think that is something of a triumph. I also brought out the big guns of ‘the wheels on the bus’ which was surprisingly successful. ‘1,2,3,4,5 once I caught a fish alive!’ turned me into the Pied Piper of Handan as I led thirty odd toddlers marching around the classroom and one of my evening classes greeted me with a rendition of ‘Red and Yellow and Pink and Green’ (the rainbow song) as I was taking my coat off, and my private student liked that one too. Ah, the power of music… !!!

I seriously can’t believe I’m the same teacher who was ready to throw up at the thought of kindergarten! Having said that, I’m definitely ready to have a break from teaching now and re-engage my brain. In the New Year I’m moving to Beijing to work for a new travel company, so I’m both excited and almost as scared as I was before walking into the classroom for the first time. I don’t think ‘Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes’ will help me much in an office, but if there’s one thing this internship has given me, it’s the knowledge I can do all kinds of things I didn’t think I could. It hit me this week as I was being driven home from tutoring just how lucky I am. I don’t know why coloured lights at night (and shiny things in general) induce an inflated sense of wonder in me, but they do. Maybe it’s an echo of the excitement of going to see the Christmas lights when I was little; maybe I’m just a magpie in disguise. We were driving along the most beautifully illuminated avenue and I did a bit of blessing counting. I can hardly believe that this internship ends with the year. It’s had its ups and downs and frustrations, like everything else, but it’s actually been brilliant for me, even though teaching has turned out not to be my thing.

This might seem a bit of a jump, but I’ve always thought that whatever it is you have to do, being dressed for the part is half the battle. For teaching I wear two jumpers and leggings under my jeans, and the kids are all wrapped up like mini-Michelin men. It’s getting cold here but so dry that we’ve no snow and lots of static electricity! No more high-fiving for me – the shocks were getting ridiculous. Anyway. Sometimes it’s enough to be wearing matching under-crackers or my favourite ‘give me a job!’ earrings, which I bought in Istanbul. I have to say, I really didn’t think that my school hockey coach’s advice “Look smart, play smart” would be one of those phrases I would end up living by, but hey ho, I didn’t think I’d be a teacher in China either and look what happened! Imagine, therefore, just how good it feels to own two perfectly tailored and beautiful silk dresses. Oh hell yes!

I’d mentioned to Swallow that I fancied getting one made, so a couple of weeks ago so rang and asked if we wanted to go to a tailor’s that she knows. Obviously, the answer was yes. The shop was behind yet another branch of KFC – I swear it’s bizarre how we’ve ended up navigating by fast food joints – and with four of us, plus employees and another couple of customers inside, you couldn’t swing a chopstick. Hung up on rails around three walls were made up garments for you to try on for style and fit. Below the clothes were hundreds of rolls of the most beautiful silks in every colour and pattern under the sun. Dress-making heaven. I ended up buying (investing) in two dresses and a top, which we picked up last Friday, just in time for Laura’s birthday night out. Some of our Beijing friends came down for that and we met up with Denise which was fun. I wore one then, I’ll wear the other one at Christmas. 

Speaking of Christmas, we had our Lilac Christmas dinner yesterday – more weird food! We went to a hotpot restaurant (the same dish we had when I first ate pomello) which was lovely. Swallow played Santa and handed out Christmas presents from the school. I got a woolly hat, which is really cute and typically Chinese in that it’s adorned with sequins that don’t even vaguely go with the colours of the wool! Steph and Laura got scarves, the guys all got gloves. The hotpot was delicious. If you haven’t tried it, do. Everything is cooked in a pot in the middle – there’s a spicy side and non spicy side – and everyone has an individual bowl of sauce that you dip the things you’ve taken from the middle pot into before you eat them. As well as nice normal things like mushrooms, cabbage, broccoli, sweet potato, strips of ham, tofu etc, we had the obligatory weird addition: cow’s stomach. It’s rubbery and looks like a brown brillopad; nicer than live shrimp, but not much in it.

Until after Christmas then guys, have a good one!

My China

I’ll never forget the “pinch-me!” moments I had at the top of the Great Wall and walking down East Nanjing Road to the Bund in Shanghai but anyone can go there and do that, that could be anyone’s China.  My China is a glorious paradox, it’s like nothing (and nowhere) else. It’s chaotic and still, beautiful and repellent, completely alien and welcoming, the big touristy sights and the corners of Handan where foreigners are a spectacle.

My China is brilliantly lit in the night by fireworks, lanterns and neon. Everything seems to have a fine coating of dust, sugar or sequins. It’s a place with synchronised dancing before work, a shower that plays jingle bells when it’s hot, an ancient and toothless man pedalling a bike-van delivering rocking unicorns and black cotton buds.

In my China I’ve got the couple at the market’s outdoor kitchen stalls who make the best fried rice in the world, the taxi drivers who know exactly where I want to go and manage to take me a different way each time and the granny who lives opposite, laughs whenever she sees me and worries that I’m not wearing enough clothes.

My China is full of plans and even more memories. There’s the gut-wrenching fear I felt walking into Kindergarten for the first time, hiding a grin at four year olds confidently shouting ‘TORTURE’ instead of ‘talk show’, laughing so hard at two teams of ten year olds racing to mime the sentence ‘I want to go the washroom!’ that I fell over.

I’ve got a fair few nights with patchy memories and hilarious photos because of the word GAMBEI! And I’ve got several memories of endurance train riding… the crush of humanity, dodging being hit in the face by luggage, the jokes, the aching and the numbness, practicing Mandarin with curious passengers, climbing over people to get to the toilets, being used as a back rest by a series of fat women and the utter joy of getting off after eighteen hours!

My China is a place to say ‘yeah, why not?’ to all kinds of things. I have represented the UK at a sporting event… the opening ceremony of an international Tai-Chi competition! I’ve eaten cold donkey sausage, frogs, cheese flavoured sponge cake, watermelon mashed potato and jam cake, chicken hearts and live shrimp whose antennae twitched on my plate after I’d decapitated them…  

It’s a place where Cadbury’s chocolate, teabags and Skype are more precious than gold. It’s in haggling for silk dresses, dodging bikes and phlegm, the peace of my local park, empty, on a cold Sunday afternoon, the glow of finding really bizarre things in common with people and innumerable moments with friends I’ll never forget. The good, the bad, the weird, the infuriating, the dull, the touching, the hilarious and the strangely sticky… they’re all part of MY China.

Kindergarten Revisited

Sometimes, I hate my job! I was heading up the stairs to my last kindergarten class, and as I rounded the corner I saw, on the emerging landing, a small boy gleefully weeing on his friend’s shoes rather than the bucket so placed for the purpose. OH MY LADY GAGA. I’m developing strategic tunnel vision and deafness and can ignore the stares and phlegm hacking of adults and kids using the toilet pots in the corner of the classrooms pretty successfully … but there was just no escaping this!

There are some things you just don’t get used to – hence the tunnel vision – and fair enough, I’m the stranger here. It is wearying though. It’s a hard sensation to describe, on one hand I never want to leave – on the other hand, I can’t wait to be finished. I’m still here making the best of things, but in my heart of hearts I just know I’m not cut out to be a kindergarten teacher. Actually, scratch that. I’ve always known I’m not cut out to be a kindergarten teacher. TTC and I-to-I have just given me four and a half months of confirming that... thanks… Having said that I wouldn’t want to forget any of this experience, however harrowing it sometimes is, so here is what happens in my Kindergartens.

Housing in Handan is divided into what you might describe as gated neighbourhoods which all are semi autonomous. They mostly have a kindergarten, exercise equipment and an open space for the old people to loiter, a shop (or at least street food sellers pitched at the gates) and X number of blocks of flats. The Lilac Education Group, who I work for, is owned by a big housing company (which, incidentally, we appeared in a commercial/promotional film for a few weeks ago) and they have four kindergartens as well as a primary school and the Foreign Language School where I do my evening classes. I work in Number 1 and Number 2, Laura has Numbers 3 and 4. Kindergarten One is around the corner from Zheng Tong Xiao Qu – the neighbourhood where I live - about a ten minute walk away. From the outside, it looks like a duplo castle blown up to gigantic proportions; there’s even a turret. Kindergarten Two is a half hour taxi ride away and is like a primary coloured fortress.

I don’t think I’ve said much about taxis so far have I? They are an integral part of our life here, so I’d better remedy that. There are two kinds – the modern blue coloured ones whose starting charge is y6 and the red ones at y5 where you take your life in your hands and hope the car isn’t going to fall apart! As we’ve one working bike between three of us and buses are incomprehensible (though much cheaper – anywhere for y1) anywhere we want to go beyond walking distance or as a group, we go by taxi. I have found that much as there are two distinct colours of taxi, there are two distinct breeds of driver. Firstly, the ones who are dour, silent, refuse to understand where we’re asking to go and drive you the longest way possible kind; secondly the ones who are chatty, laugh good-naturedly at our fumbling Mandarin and drive you the longest way possible! It’s everyone for themselves on the roads, with lots of horn honking to let people know where you are since lane discipline, traffic lights, queues and donkey carts, push bikes, electric cycles, mopeds, pedestrians, potholes, U-turns and staying on one particular side of the road are all negotiable factors. In one of the most delightful bits of physical irony I’ve encountered, at the bottom of ‘Model Civilisation Road’ (on my way to Kindergarten 2) is an eight lane crossroads with no lights, or lanes. Chaos!

I arrive, in an I-hate-the-morning rush, and go straight to my first class at K1 or fish out my assistant at K2. On Mondays (at K1) I have three classes of the eldest tots, using ‘Hello Melody!’ book 5 and one class who use book 3. With Hello Melody 5 I have taught such gems as: “On the road, I see a car./I see a car go Ba! Ba! Ba!/On the road, I see a lady./I see a lady in a taxi.” …and… “It’s so hot. It’s so hot./In the desert, it’s so hot./Lots of eagles, lots of rocks. Camels going for a walk.” Riveting stuff. It’s pretty much the same in each class – I walk in, get handed some flashcards then the teachers, if they’re good (and at kindergarten 1 they mostly are) help keep order and translate when my mimes and didactic instructions fail. If they’re not massively interested (Kindergarten 2, take a bow) they chat in the corner, play on their phones and laugh in my face when I ask for help in getting through to fifty uncomprehending (and therefore bored) five year olds.

There’s lots of drilling, saying words at different volumes and in different groupings (half the class, one table, individuals, girls only). Unfortunately, the kids are too young to understand most of the games which spring immediately to my mind, so I’ve got a few which work and we stick with them. I play one where I put the flashcards up, have a student come to the front and cover their eyes and listen to the rest of the class shout out a word. They have to pick the right card from the line up and say the word for a high five or a point, depending on how competitive we’re being. There’s a fair bit of singing too, but again, only songs with the simplest words get through – Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes is WAY too complicated!

Although after all these weeks some kids still cry as I walk into the room, mostly the kids are adorably glad to see me, which is always nice. It’s really satisfying to make kiddies laugh; who knew that peek-a-boo, a rogue wiggly arm and pretending to stomp on a flashcard of a cockroach would set me up as a comedian in my own estimation?!! I’ve had some absolute comic howlers from these babies in return which makes the mornings pass quicker too – one lesson I had to teach “give me a kiss!” to a class of four year olds. They get excited when they get the hang of new stuff, and the boys especially shout new words at the top of their voices so I had thirty kids absolutely bellowing at me to kiss them. What it is to be popular eh?! Another one went along the lines of me: “talk show! TALK show! T – alk sh-ow!” kids: “torture! TORTURE! TORTURE!!” … close enough kids, close enough I thought. Oh that memory makes me smile! I’ll leave it on a high there and revel in the fact I don’t have to go back until Monday!!