Today was a mildly frustrating day. I’d had a nice morning and afternoon at the apartment relaxing. Abi and I had gone to the grocery store to pick up some stuff (dumplings for dinner!! Yummy!) and then work for 3 hours. My classes are going a lot better. I am really enjoying the kids and teaching. It does get annoying just parroting the DVD’s and the flashcards, but it does make lesson planning really easy. My favorite TA, Echo, is pregnant!! She told me 2 weeks ago, before she told anyone else, so that was really exciting. She is such a wonderful person, and I love working with her. In my Y4 (higher level 5-8 year olds) class I have a new TA, Tina. I am still getting used to her but it has been frustrating the last 2 or 3 weeks with her in the classroom. She has a really good grasp on English and I really enjoy talking with her, but as my TA she is very difficult. But hopefully we can work out the kinks and make it work out. But things didn’t get frustrating till tonight. I was talking with Shishi about wages and the school, Edi and Abi came as well because they had to talk with her about their own stuff. And Shishi was just difficult, no more than usual, but it is still frustrating. She also said some really hurtful and unnecessary things to us which just put a sour taste in my mouth for a while…it made us all a little frustrated. But after an icy bike ride back to the apartment, Abi and I made dinner (dumplings, rice and steamed carrots), we watched a movie, and had a beer (Pabst for me…the only imported beer in Cangzhou) and my frustrations just got laughed away…it was very nice! Haha. Things with the school have gotten a lot better since our big talk with Shishi in my first month. We are still trying to tell Shishi that we would rather get paid full wages then be given gifts. She just doesn’t seem to understand this and keeps spending way too much money on us thinking we want or need it. And all she says is she doesn’t care about money and doesn’t need it, she just wants us to be happy….no matter how much we say we are happy without all of this. After she couldn’t pay Edi & Ali full wages a few weeks ago and Ali talked to her about it, she did bump up the tuition costs at the school which is really good; since she wasn’t charging enough to even cover basic costs totally. So hopefully that will keep going and she will be able to at least break even with the school.
This last Tuesday we took a trip up to Beijing again. We were craving burgers and just wanted to get out of Cangzhou. The weather forecast just kept getting colder and colder and there was a prediction of snow, but when as the weather man ever been right? So it was cold….high 20’s low 30’s but no snow in Beijing. We had a wonderful time though. Abi, Edi & Ali wanted to try and set up an account to transfer money back to the UK so we ended up in the business district. The building we were in had a medium sized Christmas display in the main lobby, and seeing it nearly made me cry…so ridiculous I know, but it was so great seeing Christmas decorations. Ali actually came out and got us to show us the display because Edi and I love Christmas. For the afternoon, Abi and I hung out in Tiananmen Square. It wasn’t as crowded as it was last time I was there so that was nice. Opposite the Tiananmen is the Forbidden City which is decorated with a large Mao picture at the front entrance. I am learning much more about him and China in reading Wild Swans. Some of the information is just appalling. Some of what give me so many OMG moments is the fact that no one talked because they couldn’t. That just seems absurd to me. Growing up we were taught to be respectful and to think before we talk. But for years people lived in fear that something they said could get them arrested, beaten, or their family shunned. It just seems amazing, especially because this was all happening at the same time my own parents were growing up in California. Just learning all this history and that fact that is happened so recently is really eye opening. Some things that happened are beyond imaginable….I am currently in the late 1950’s when there was major famine throughout China, so bad that people did unimaginable things, the instinct of self-survival can be so strong that it would make people do the most horrible things, and this author captures it in print. Back to the Beijing trip, anytime I see a Mao picture it makes me think of the book, so my thoughts get sidetracked. But ABi and I went up the Gate tower where an exhibition of Chinese art and culture is set up inside and it was very interesting to see it. There are pictures from the 1960’s of a street where we’ve had Starbucks and it looks like the shanty towns set up in the US in the 1800’s. We looked at the pictures and all I could think of was at this same time in the US we had Jackie Kennedy and major advancements in science and space travel. It really is an education living here, and I am thoroughly enjoying it.
Tuesday night we decided to further our cultural experience and went to a Kung Fu show. It was great!!! Abi and I even listened to “Kung-fu fighting” on my ipod before the show….i’m sure that’s a totally authentic Chinese song, haha. The show was beautiful. With 7 scenes and a full story line it was more of a proper stage play than I had thought. It was more of a ballet with martial arts show, but absolutely beautiful. We all came out of it very pleased. It was a really nice mini-break in Beijing and when we got back to Cangzhou Wednesday afternoon there was snow!!! Not a ton of it but enough…my bike seat had about an inch of snow on it! Craziness….i’ve never lived anywhere where it snows and I’m not 100% sure if I like it or not, especially since I have to ride my bike everywhere and riding on ice is dangerous. But so far so good **knock on wood**.
Oh some fun stuff that I was talking with Sharon about earlier today, I am using more British-isms than normal. I have been watching a few episodes of The Inbetweeners, a very British sitcom. On Facebook I made a comments saying the show was brilliant and Sharon, being the only American on my friends list to actually know the show commented on my British-ness now haha. I now use brilliant even more than I did before. Also ‘veg’…it bugs me when the other use it 9instead of saying vegetables or veggies) but now I am using it, and every time I do give a mental sigh. Also saying half-nine instead of nine-thirty for 9:30, I don’t say it all the time but sometimes it just slips out. And then one think I have noticed that I never thought I’d pick up is saying ‘h’ the English way. The English pronounce it ‘haych’ instead of ‘aych’ and now it seems weird to say it the American way. But I refuse to say ‘z’ as ‘zed’…that is too weird for me and not nearly as natural as ‘haych’….but yeah, that’s the random side notes.
Now time for bed…yikes nearly 3am, thank goodness tomorrow if Friday and I get to sleep in!!
**There are new pictures posted in the 'China: Life in Cangzhou' and 'China: Beijing mini breaks' albums
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