Christmas in China

Merry Christmas

Well.. to start will.. I totally had to work the entire Christmas weekend.... and it was a damn busy weekend at that. Which I guess is better than sitting at home alone on Christmas.

So... as far as China and Christmas goes.... stores put up Christmas trees and decorations......but thats about it. People give each other apples wrapped in shiny paper stuff...... these you are supposed to eat at midnight on Christmas... for good fortune or something like that. Pretty much every Chinese "tradition" has something to do with getting more money. Its amusing the number of Chinese people that are shocked that the foreigners don't know that they are supposed to eat apples on Christmas night......yay for holidays adapting to other cultures...... hehe

A bunch of our friends went to Tanbo for Christmas dinner. They had invited us.. and asked if Chris's band could play and I could hoop a little. But Chris was in America for Christmas. I ended up hooping to a random version of Jingle Bells (not my choose)............it kinda worked.. and all the people in the restaurant were pretty impressed. They announced me going out there to hoop and everything... it was fun.

We had 11 people there that night and 4 of them were Chinese, but still when the manager came to tell us something or ask us something... she came to me and attempted to tell me instead of going through one of the Chinese people, that was also kinda cool.... its my restaurant :) and it all ended up being free! When we went to pay they told us that the owner had covered. So of course I went upstairs and thanked the owner...which was interesting.. i haven't really talked to her since I have been able to actually speak decently. So Christmas dinner was a great success and we went out to a bar for a little while afterwards... and some of us stayed decent enough to make it to work at 8 the next morning...... others didn't make it at all the next day.

On to the fun part.... my classes were actually pretty decent (even though i had to teach most of them in joy)... The earlier part of the week I still had mostly Earth Village classes (the school i usually teach at) a few that i really like... Which was nice because in EV I got to teach Christmas stuff (it was fitting and I was wearing a Santa outfit). But for Saturday and Sunday I was covering a lot of Joy school classes because Chris was in America. These are not my students... I never teach them... and we weren't allowed to teach a Christmas lesson in Joy. But I was good and only skipped ONE of these classes!

The good thing about Chris being gone for Christmas.. was I get to teach his Foreign Teacher Only classes. Which have a lot of students I like in them and are very good classes. These are EV classes that are 2 hours each and there is no Chinese teacher (we still have Cici sitting in there to help us if we need). The students in these classes are also in other classes in EV ..... so these are my students.

I bought a Santa outfit for me.. and a female Santa outfit for Cici(my co-teacher for those classes)(really a Mrs. Claus... but they didn't know that, and I didn't tell them). Between the 3 classes there are only 27 kids total, so they are all pretty small. I went to the 2yuan store (like our dollar tree but cheaper) and bought a bunch of random shit..... notebooks, pens, toys, soap, toothpaste (yaaa... one kid totally got the soap) I put a number on all of the items... wrote all the numbers down on little slips of paper and then put them in a hat and let the kids draw a number to get their gift.

These classes were great, we did one hour of normal lessons and then an hour of Christmas party... which was a lot of fun and involved me giving out the gifts and teaching them a few Christmas words. A few of my students also gave me some presents, some candy, a phone tassel, some paper cranes on little strings, and a drawing...... with my name misspelled....

Phone tassel was given to me by Lucy (there is a Lucy in every class). But she is smart but sometimes a little lazy... unless she gets mad at another student... then she wont stop answering. I remember her mostly when we were going over the question "What did you do yesterday? I blahblahblahed yesterday." And you get the same few answer from all the kids(played computer, went to school, did my homework....). But she was mad at one of the boys in the class, so her answers were a lot more fun "I hit Bruce, I cooked Bruce, I ate Bruce, I gave Bruce Poopoo" I don't remember a lot of them... but I called on her a lot that day.. and she used any words she could think of to insult him.... and he totally lost, because of course as soon as she says one about him.. I would call on him to retaliate... he got few but she definitely won that. I love watching kids fight in English.... mainly because they are actually thinking about any words they know and how they can actually use them....other than the exact sentences they learn from the book and are drilled on.

The drawing is from a very crazy student May.... she is a lot of fun sometimes...... but just can't stay in her seat for the life of her....

The paper cranes are from Rose.... a very smart but quite student. She doesn't speak to much in class unless you specifically call on her, but between classes you can sit down and have a basic conversation with her.

Before my 2hour class started on Christmas I had one random class at joy after lunch.. .and then only a few minutes to get to the EV branch school Songjian. Normal day it would have been fine, but I had my box of toys and stuff for the party. Also my favorite class was at the same time as the Joy class. So I called the lady that makes the Joy schedule and told her I wouldn't make it to that class, got my box of stuff, and went to Songjian. I got there just in time to. The manager of Songjian was going around giving candy to all the classes (only branch school that did this) and taking pictures of the classes. I got there in my santa outfit (that i wore on the bus, but i had a jack on over most of it) right in time to jump in the picture with my favorite class. Its a bit of a big class and half the students are really good and the other half are just there, but the ones that are just there don't cause any problems so I don't bother them.

My favorite student is Linda the little girl in front of me and to the right, in the yellow shirt. She is amazingly smart and head and tails above the rest of the students.... mostly because she is creative... she really breaks through the cookie cutter mold of the sentences we teach and tries to say what she actually wants to say. So she always talks to me before the class starts and does ok at actually having a conversion. But.. she is smart and REALLY a teachers pet for the Chinese teacher... so a lot of the other students pick on her a lot.

This picture of me with the very unhappy look small child is damn amusing. This is of course not my student, she is to young for our school (only like 5 or 6). She is the Songjian's manager's daughter. But she often sits in and watches the 2 hour classes.

The Rabid Chinese Kid

Not really much of a story hear... but the other day I was teaching a class in the small branch north of the river. I have taught this class a few times before.. but its been awhile. It is one of Lily's classes so of course like all her classes... they are far more violent then most other classes (kids constantly hitting and kicking each other).

For the most part the class was being pretty good this day.. I used some new games that work really well. There was one exception though... one kid that just could not stop hitting the people around him... and being kinda weird about it.... I didn't really think twice about it and just moved him to the seat closest to the door. Like ever kid, he of course wouldn't move. I did what I usually have to do and grab his arm and pull him over to the other chair, and he moved like most kids do.. but starts hitting my arm. He is a very tiny kid so I didn't really care he could hit me all day before I feel it, but its still odd for a kid to hit me. Granted I do have kids hit me occasionally but usually they are playing. In one of my songjiang classes a little 7 year old girl will slap my but occasionally if I walk past her desk... very strange kid.

So... this kid is hitting my arm and noticing that I don't care, then he decides he will dig his fingernails into my hand as I put him in the new seat. Now this should not happen, and of course the Chinese teacher is not there. So I tell him in the simplest English I can that if he hits me again he is out of the class. I continue teaching and every time I look over at him he makes a growling face and raises his hand and makes like clawing motions at me. With his size and actions he kinda reminds me of Gollum.

As I start the next game and am throwing a really big dice to a kid I catch a glimpse of my hand and it is totally bleeding.. .not badly bleeding... but still. I have already warned the kid.. and its been a few minutes since he did it.... and he isn't really disturbing the class, just kinda sitting there looking like Gollum... so I can't really throw him out at this point..... though I wanted to.

The class continues and he actually plays the games, but when he sits back down he starts hitting the kid next to him.. and scratching at him. So I just grab his desk and slide it a few feet away from the kid other kid.. so that he is isolated and in front of the open door (where some kids parent is standing watching the class). I continue teaching and the kid moves his chair back and continues assaulting the other kid... who for some reason is not fighting back at all! So I moved him again... this time he just jumps out of the chair and backs out the open door.... now standing in the hallway looking terrified almost like a cornered animal. He is out of my class.. thats good enough for me.. so I stick my head out the room and call down the hall for the Chinese teacher.......................................no response..........I call again.........still no response.... but this time the kid runs into a another classroom so I take a quick glance in there and he is hugging some older women that I don't know... so I assume its his mom.

At this point.. there's like 5 or 10 minutes left in class, so I finish up the class and then find the Chinese teacher and tell her about the kid. She tells me "Yes, he hurt me last week" and shows me the long scratches down her arm.... and says "He has head problem, its ok"......... um NO!

At this point Lydia finds us.. which is nice, Lydia's English is far better than Lily's and she is the head of the Super Kids teachers (this is a Super Kids class). We discuss the kid for a few minutes. Then I had to teach the teach another class.... which is Lydia's class.. and older class that is a good class. While I was teaching that class Lydia and the branch manager go to talk to the kids grandmother (the older women) and the kids mother.

After Lydia's class she tells me that the kid wants to apologize. So the grandmother drags him into the teachers office and is telling him over and over in Chinese to apologize. They finally get a sorry out of him as he is beating and clawing at his grandmother. I accept the apology and tell him to just be good in class, Lydia translates ( I don't let students or parents know I can speak Chinese). And the kid leaves still beating the grandmother.

This of course went to Simon the next day...(not by me but by the branch manager).. and they had a big superkids teachers meeting over it. And supposedly the Chinese teachers are actually going to stay in the classroom now (some do anyways). And one of the teachers told the other teachers i got "mauled" by the kid... that was pretty funny.. but really its just 3 small cuts on my hand that have mostly healed now. Though that kid did have some pretty dirty fingernails!

This kid obviously has some problems..... he is about 10 years old.. and smaller the most of the rest of the kids in the class... but not by much. There is a weird difference in how other kids react to this in China and America. From what I can remember, if kids figured out one kid had a problem in an American class.. that kid would be teased and beat up on and stuff. But here they let him freak out and beat on them... and sometimes look kinda worried about him... either that or they are watching him like some sort of freak show... "what will he do next?" kinda thing.

Its almost like a weird protection of the weak sometimes..... like when there is a new student, and I go to ask them a question, many of the other students will jump up telling me that student is new and try to convince me to not to ask them a question.... or just lean over and try to help them.

That was a much longer post than I had expected it to be.. and probably pretty boring..... hmm.... I guess I should add some random pictures at the bottom to make it interesting.