Day 15: Tuesday 6/1/10

Somehow, I managed to miss breakfast again after waking up on time... I taught my kids how to sing "You'll be in my heart." They really seemed to enjoy singing. I also played ping pong with a couple kids in my class. They're really good, and they were able to give me some pointers and were very encouraging whenever I made stupid mistakes.

My project at Dandelion is becoming more concrete, and I'm making great progress with the planning/execution.

Finally, my day was ruined by a huge thunderstorm. Right after I walked out from the supermarket, rain started pouring down. Besides the fact that it was after my shower just half an hour ago, the rain had a lot of crap in it. At first, I didn't realize and I thought it wasn't that bad since I thought it was just water. Then, I realized that there were a lot of dirt particles in the rain as I saw on my shorts. BLEH, bad day...

Day 14: Start of another week

I missed breakfast yet again. By the time I got to the cafeteria, they had already put away all the food :( Looks like no 馒头 for me. The students were ecstatic to see us return, thinking maybe we had left for good even though we had reassured them last Friday we'd be back. I talked to quite a few of them on QQ over the weekend.

The highlight of my day was learning Chinese caligraphy. I sucked at it but it was still fun. The teacher wrote our names for us which looked really cool. He also gave us a scroll with a proverb on it as a gift. Mine said 厚德戴物. Oh yeah, I finally took my first hot shower at the school... took awhile to get to that point.

The kids in my class tried to arm wrestle with me. By the end of like round 5, my right arm was really sore. Thankfully I still won all of them lol. I played basketball with some kids from other classes, but I didn't really want to try too hard since they're still kids after all. Playing too hard might injure one of them unnecessarily.

Nothing else too eventful happened today.

Day 13: Returned to the school

Good bye, nice warm showers.... I'm going to miss you for another 5 days. I finally bought a solar powered apple with flapping leaves and a solar powered dancing panda. It took me a couple hours to find, but they were well worth the time. Eventually, these little nifty gadgets will make it to my car as ornaments. I also bought an ancient Chinese instrument called 竹排. So far, I can only make horse footsteps. It's pretty cool.

Today, I also visited 钓鱼台, a fancy, private hotel resort for government officials. The security was pretty tight. Only authorized license plates were allowed to enter. Apparently, the hotel is actually like a mini-neighborhood, full of private luxurious houses. One night in there is about $2k USD. Two days before my visit, Hillary Clinton was living in one of those houses. Pretty neat.

Finally, I'm sad to report that Haiwang broke my sunglasses. They slipped from my hand as I was just about to put them on, and they fell right under Haiwang's left foot, which he then proceeded to take a step forward and bent up the metal frame. Now, I have to buy a new watch and another pair of shades at a 批发产.

Teaching again tomorrow. YAY

Day 12: 天坛

Today, we went to 天坛. Derek tried to get the student discount on his ticket but got rejected. He called the service hotline to complain about the situation but got nowhere. Eventually, he had to pay the full admission price. There wasn't too much to see, only like 4 note worthy building. One of the them was the echo wall. We tried to see if it actually works, but I think there were too many people to hear anything.

After 天坛, we looked around in 红桥, which was essentially a huge black market, full of fake name brand products. We could buy Rolex watches for around 40 yuan... sketchy right?

Later, I hung out with my mom's friends again. We went to 后海 for dinner, and as we were walking around after dinner, I realized that this area was full of bars. The night life here was hustling and bustling, pretty cool. Nothing else too exciting happened. We celebrated DLo's birthday a week in advance for some reason, and I missed KTVing with the group :(

Day 11: Friday, 交通饭店

It's Friday! Rather uneventful day at the school. The usual... breakfast (馒头，粥)...lunch (salty veggies mixed with a few pieces of meat, rice)... dinner (KFC bucket of fried chicken).

I taught oral English to my class today by playing telephone charades. They learned the game very quickly and were really into it. It was a fun class. In fact, since next period they had independent study, they wanted to keep learning English and have another oral English class. However, I only prepared one class lesson so I could not teach another class period. From this, I could tell that they really want to learn and can be enthusiastic about English.

This hotel is much better than the Red Wall Hotel that we stayed at last week. We will be going to Tiantan tomorrow. Fun!

Day 10: Thursday! aka one more day till Friday aka back to the city!

Sorry about the long blog title, but I think it says it all.

Today, like yesterday, was a jam packed day of learning and fun. I got up at 7:10, but I was still too late for breakfast. Disappointed, I still went to all the classes. First of which was two periods of Chinese. We critiqued essays and discussed areas of improvement and suggestions as a class. The teacher actually asked me to proof read one girl's essay. I tried my best to give her some good feedback, but I felt that maybe I wasn't so qualified. Just because I'm a senior in college does not mean my Chinese is that good. Keep in mind I moved to the U.S. when I was only 8, aka just finished 2nd grade. So my Chinese level is still about there. Anyways, I managed to pull it off.

Next, I had a biology class. I was really surprised that they talked about the toiletry issue in class today. The teacher had the students reflect on what problems exist with the current bathrooms and then what changes could be implemented to improve current conditions.

It's a small world. Even at Dandelion Middle School, I bumped into a UNC alum, Jim Best, who is the principal at Dalton School in NYC. He and Zheng Hong signed a collaboration to help train the teachers here and try to find ways to let their own passions transfer to the students through creative means. For example, he talked about incorporating math and physics through basketball since it's a popular sport here. During P.E. class today, we had special guests from Nike. I'm not sure how sincere their motives were, but they basically played a game with the kids and rewarded the winners with some random crap. I felt that the most important part of their journey here was taking pictures with the kids and using that as advertisement/CSR for Nike, showing the world that they care, but in reality, I still think they don't. Spending like 3 hours with the kids is not going to do any good.

The children in my class are really starting to open up to me. They see me as like a big brother and would address me as such. Even the teachers have told me that the couple of kids who sit in the back used to be really quiet and not interested in school, but now, they've become very lively and have taken a strong interest in learning English. It's an honor to have that kind of effect on these children. They taught me how to play their game during recess. They exchanged emails and QQ numbers with me. The guys opened up quick, but I'm really surprised how the girls also approached me. Usually, I tend to think that they're more shy and reluctant to talk to older guys, but I guess not.

OMGGG let's talk about dinner... For the first time eating food at the school, I felt full after a meal. We had slices of birthday cake, which was absolutely delicious. I haven't tasted anything this good and flavorful since the last time I was in the inner city of Beijing. Ridiculous right? Well it's true. Good night.

Day 9: Classes

Today was quite an eventful day. For breakfast, I had the usual… 馒头. I think the most inspirational story comes from Chinese class today. They read a story about how a Swedish group of mountain climbers made it to the top of a mountain first but were trapped in a blizzard on the way down. All of them died, but one of them had kept a diary. Another group of British climbers, despite not climbing to the top first, discovered the frozen Swedish bodies, gave them a proper burial, and retrieved the diary to take to the owner’s family. Afterwards, the children in the class started sharing their own adversities and how they overcame them. One kid talked about how his parents had a huge fight, and his mother decided to commit suicide by drinking a vial of poison. Fortunately, doctors were able to revive her at the hospital. Another girl talked about how her little brother had to undergo three major surgeries when he was young. His dad had to try really hard to set up an appointment to see an expert doctor and consult about the proper steps. The process took a long time, because there were so many patients and not enough doctors. Finally, another boy burned his arm really bad with hot water when he was three years old. Consequently, he has a huge scar on his arm as a reminder of what adversity he has overcome and his determination to succeed in school.

On a side note, I ate my first raw tomato in … I don’t even know when the last time I ate one was… I despise them sooooo much, but these kids in my class offered it to me, and I couldn’t say no. I gulped it down in front of them as a sign of my appreciation for their gift, but let me just say, it tasted awful. YUCK!

Finally, I played street ball with some kids at the school again, but this time, I played with kids mostly from my class. It’s good bonding time. Dinner was really good; we went out to eat, and we literally cleared off every plate right after they brought it out. Good times… first filling meal in a week! Oh yeah, I just took a nice freezing shower. Loads of fun… for those who went on the Costa Rica trip with me, think about our showers and think how it could be worse, and that was my shower. THE END