Hello Friends and Family,
I hope you are all doing well. I hear that spring break is just around the corner. What are you all going to do? I don't get a spring break but I do get to have some awesome adventures everyday. This past week or so has been very fun. We have been able to do a lot. I don't really know where to start.
The woman that takes care of the foreign teachers here at Xiangtan University is Lany. She is very nice and makes sure that we are happy and healthy. She is Buddhist and thought that we might enjoy a visit to the Buddhist temple. I was really excited because I had never seen a Buddhist temple and I was not sure what to expect. Lany had a driver pick us up at 7:00 a.m. last Sunday morning and we drove to the Temple. It was very different than what I expected. The street (or ally) that the temple was on was full of people and the gates to the temple were just in the middle of it all. I don't think I would have even noticed them had Lany not pointed them out to us. We went inside and we were expecting a service to be starting but as it turned out, all the nuns were meditating and had been for hours. We decided to take a look around and Lany told us what each of the Buddha's represent. It was really neat because I didn't know anything about the religion before that. We met this lady who was so sweet. She was so excited to see Americans. She just kept thanking us for being there and we thanked her and she thanked us and we thanked her and she thanked us and back and forth over and over. It was really funny. Maybe we need to learn more Chinese phrases other than "thank you" and "Your welcome". The first picture is one I took of the lady that we met there.
We decided to go get some breakfast down the street and then come back and have a meeting with the Master of the temple (She is the one in brown in the second picture). Then we went back to the temple and met the Master. She was so nice. It was kind-of the same situation where we just went back and forth telling each other how great they were back and forth for about two hours. Then we ate some lunch and it was delicious. My roommate informed me about an hour ago that while we were eating, she saw three giant rats running around the kitchen...I am so glad that she decided that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to tell me that while we were there.
The nuns at the temple treated us like royalty. It was really interesting to see how much they loved us and they don't even know us. English teachers are very appreciated here because they believe learning English is the door to a brighter future. They just think we are the greatest and they don't hesitate to tell us over and over again. haha. The master of the temple gave us these really cool bracelets that Buddhist people wear and these little charm things as a thank you for our visit. She also invited us to come back and stay the night at the temple and be a nun for a day. I thought about it and I decided that I didn't want to. My roommate is going though. I decided that I would rather spend the day in the city with some of my students. We are going to have a super fun day of shopping culture.
On Wednesday night our friend Dennis, who is the equivalent of student body president, was in charge of a fund-raiser for the victims of the ice age. We didn't really know what was going on but I think it was an event to honor the students who raised the most money. How they did it was they sold oranges. The money from the oranges went to the farmers who lost all their trees from the snow. In the middle of the event, Rita pulled out some money to donate so we thought it was a good idea too. We handed the money to one of the people that was working at the event and she looked really confused. We told them that we wanted the money to go to the farmers and then all of the sudden all these cameras were on us and they were thanking us and we were even more confused and then they told us that our oranges would be delivered in the morning. After trying to explain that we didn't want the oranges, we just wanted to donate, and failing miserably, we gave up. We thought that we bought a few oranges and we felt good about helping out the farmers. Well, the next morning, I came home from class and there was a HUGE bag of oranges in our front room. This things has to weigh more than me. There are probably 400 oranges in the bag. Anyone got any ideas for how to have fun with 400 oranges?
I really love teaching. It is so fun and the students are so eager to learn. I love making them laugh and helping them to learn English in a fun way. They get so excited when they see us on campus and they want to do things with us. I taught about 5 of my students how to play basketball a couple days ago. They are actually really good for having never played before. I loved it.
This week the number of students I teach doubled. I originally had about 200 students and then I was given 5 more classes of college juniors to teach. I now have about 450 students. I have made a real effort to memorize their names and I think I have about half of them. It is a lot harder than you think because they all look so similar still! For the first week, I swore that the same girl was following me everywhere. It was probably a different girl every time, I'm just an idiot. I taught them about emotions this week and ways to express themselves. I lost my voice practically every day this week because of it. Showing that you are ecstatic and enraged and terrified is hard on the vocal chords. haha I think they got the point though. I also taught them about music. I played some of the hits of today and some Beatles songs. They love the Beatles and they love Mika. They really like country to which I though was funny. I taught them the head-shoulders-knees-and toes song, and the Itsy Bitsy spider song... they hated learning those hahaha.
Today, Friday, was Women's Day here in China. Apparently they adopted this holiday from us but...i had never heard of it before. I think in America we usually refer to it as "Take your daughter to work day." Anyway, there was a big conference in Xiangtan City that was for all of the most important people in the city. Rita, Christy, Lany and I were all invited to attend. I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was I did NOT want to have to do any sort of chanting. We got to the place where the conference was and it was a beautiful hotel. The only 5 star hotel in the city. The meeting was all in Chinese of course but Lany helped to translate. Our table was in the front of the room and they were broadcasting the show on TV. The hosts/emcees were dressed like they were hosting the Oscars or something. They had Chinese dancers and a few people did Karaoke (they love that here and take it VERY seriously) and they presented awards to some people that were very helpful during the "Ice age" (they refer to the ice storm as the ice age) A lot of people in this province were badly put out by the storm. Many people lost their homes and many even died.
The Chinese love to toast to...everything. I now know what a room full of tipsy Asians looks like. They get up and walk to all the different tables and toast to each other and drink red wine. Christy and I both don't drink so it was funny because after the toasts, everyone would look at us and stare like we were forgetting something...oh well. Our table got a lot of attention and we just smiled and nodded because we didn't know what they were saying haha. Lany leaned over to us and said, oh now it is time for you to be interviewed for the TV. Uhhhhh... excuse me? WHAT?! So we were all interviewed and they asked us questions about how we celebrate this day in America and ....since we don't, I had to make up some stuff. Rita, one of the other foreign teachers decided to turn it into a Hillary Clinton Rally...gag. She loves Hillary Clinton so in her interview she asked the entire conference to stand up and toast to Hillary Clinton. It was really funny and I just kept thinking, I hope this doesn't make it back to America. After the conference, they gave us these awesome "China Red" tea cups and saucers. They are so beautiful. I was so excited. It will be something that I keep forever. Then we went to a super nice hotel and we had Lunch with all of these important people in Xiangtan City. They all kept saying how I look like Barbie with my humongous eyes. haha At least they don't say that I look like a bug or something.
After we got back from the celebration, we went to the salon and had our hair washed and blow-dried. It was fabulous. I feel like my hair has never been so clean and smooth. I will be going back...every week. Then we came home and took naps and then Rita called and told us to turn on the TV. There we were. They were showing us at the conference and our interview and they talked about us for about 5 minutes. It was ridiculous. I took pictures of the TV to prove it! haha. So random. At the end of our interview they had us hold hands and raise them in the air and say "HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY" haha. Awkward. There are some pictures of that too.
Everything is an adventure here. We have made friends with almost all the street vendors between our apartment and our classrooms. They just laugh at us because we are clueless. Oh well. I love China and the people here are so generous. I have to fight my students to let me pay for my own lunch. The people are very curious and they just want to talk with us. I hope they know that I really am not as cool as they think. They keep saying how grateful they are for our contribution to the students of China but I really think that I am getting more out of this experience than I ever imagined. I love it here.
I miss you all and I am enjoying the replies I am receiving. Keep em' comin'!
--
XOXO,
Elizabeth Jenkins
No comments:
Post a Comment