Golden Week!

For the 1st to the 7th October we all had a week off for China's national day (60th anniversary of Peoples' Republic) and Golden week. For this break I went to Inner Mongolia with TTC and most of the Beijing TEFL crew so it was great to catch up and see how people are gettin on in their placements. Took a sleeper train up to Beijing for the actual national day celebrations which was cool, although all I really saw were some planes in formation and lots of fireworks. The big evening spectacular in Tiananmen square was closed off to the public, except party officials, and just televised. So we watched a bit of that.

Next day I travelled up to Hohhot in Mongolia with quite a few others and arrived the next morning. Hohhot is a very interesting city with various different peoples, influences and building styles. Our hotel was in the Muslim district so there was a vaguely Middle-Eastern theme to the area, and other areas were quite Russian looking in their architecture. First day we ate lamb and went horse-riding in the vast grasslands, day 2 saw us camel riding and sand trucking in the impressive sand-dune desert and for the third day we visited the newly built museum of Mongolian culture - which was pretty good actually - and an ancient Buddhist Llama temple. It was a good trip and I'm glad I got to visit Mongolia - it was surprisingly different to China in many ways. But so very cold up there compared to what I'm used to.

The journey back to Changsha was pretty grueling. Booking train tickets in China is a total nightmare and the only ticket I could get back from Beijing to Changsha was a hard seat on a 21 hour train... it was an emotional and bizarre experience. Much of it was spent is a delusional, groggy state of semi-consciousness as you could never get comfortable enough to actually sleep.You couldn't really move or walk about either as the aisles and areas between carriages were packed with people who had standing tickets. Totally packed. But I'm back now and it's been really nice to be back in Changsha actually... feels like home.

Been here for 3 weeks now and still no serious problems or issues. Loving it in fact. Pretty much got into the groove of teaching, lesson plans, eating spicy food, relaxing in the evenings, heading down to the local street-food market and navigating bus routes and exploring the city. It's not a bad life so far. And Changsha seems to get better and better the more we discover. Last Friday Fiona - one of the Chinese teachers we share our office with - showed us there was in fact a second and superior bar street in Changsha. We found a great bar that offered all you could eat and drink for £5 each and then headed to little live music venue where a 'famous' electro outfit from Beijing were playing. It was a fun night - possibly the best I've had here so far.

Old bar street

Freedom house club

Also last week we took a pretty intrepid step in food exploration. We ate snake. We'd asked a local stall if it was possible to eat it round here and were directed to a nice guy who told us to come back at 8 the next night for some tasty snake. Dunno about the others but I assumed the snake would be all cooked and ready when we got there. Oh no. First we taken to a back alley lock-up full of snakes and other live specimens to chose our snake and play with it. Then it was dragged back to the market, killed, skinned, gutted, spiced and served to us. It was good... tough but good.

Not much other news really - except that Anna, Cassandra and I are all booked to travel to Inner Mongolia for 'Golden week', which in a Chinese national holiday in first week of October. Quite a few people from the TEFL course in Beijing are going too, so should be great to catch up with old friends and see how their placements are going.

Teaching

Here's some photos of my classes:

So I’ve been teaching for a few days now… it really is quite an experience. It’s more exhausting than I’d anticipated, but so much fun. I’ve taught grades 1,2, 5 and 6 so far, but I’ve still got grades 3 and 4 and kindergarten coming up. Grade 1 know barely any English so my first lesson involved jumping around, shouting “Hello”, “Hi” and “Nice to meet you” quite a bit and getting the kids moving and speaking as much as possible. It’s amazing how much they get out of the simplest activities – like getting them to run on the spot or jump up and down while saying “Hello” or whatever. They even appear to love the crappy songs I’ve been making up, but perhaps they’re just humouring me :D The older grades are equally fun to teach, although you really do have to be thoroughly prepared – they can smell inexperience I think. Within each grade the kids’ standard of English differs greatly and generally their English is worse than I expected, particularly in the more suburban East campus school where a lot of the kids are from farming families.

In general too, things are going well. Changsha is growing on me everyday – particularly the people here. And the food! We’ve eaten out in a few great places and every Friday our Chinese collegues - Coco, Shelly, Tracy and Fiona – take us out to a different restaurant in the centre. Last Friday we went to a famous dumplings restaurant which had a strong Chairman Mao theme, complete with Mao specials and ‘The choice of Mao’ (see right). Near our apartment in the suburbs there are also places to eat out and various outdoor markets, although perhaps the less said about the meat market the better. Every night in a nearby square the locals set up street food stalls with tables and chairs and residents all gather to eat and chat - there's a great atmosphere and some amazing smells. With this diverse street food and so little English it can be hard to know what you’re eating at times – judging from the meat market I may well have eaten turtle, snake or pigeon at some point… or dog.

Whenever we eat out, or go pretty much anywhere, the locals are so intrigued by us and often want to chat or take photos. People will come up and get you to hold their babies and pose for photos. And the other night in a local seafood restaurant the manager and serving staff all wanted their picture taken with us before we left. With so few Westerners in Changsha we really are minor celebrities here. It’s bizarre.

'Walking street' in the centre - the place to be in the evening.

Arrival in Changsha

Well after a 16 hour train journey - in a badly hungover state due to post-graduation party the night before - I'm finally here at my teaching placement. I've actually been here nearly a week now so am starting to get a feel for the place. Changsha is an interesting city. It's very different from Beijing here - it's poorer and less westernised, but the people are noticably friendlier and the food is definitely better. To a further extent than Beijing the city is in the middle of rapid development and progression. Cranes line the skyline wherever you are, there's a brand new subway system under construction and vast, shining high rise hotels and offices are sprouting up to replace the urban shacks. The accommadation we've been provided with is pretty plush, with a flatscreen tv, shiny marble and wood flooring and all necessary appliances. I'm living with a 26 year old Danish guy - Soren, and an 19 year old American - Scott. Next door are three girls - two Germans and a Scot - from the same TTC program. Getting to know each other has been fun so far, particularly a session of Danish drinking games last night. None of us start teaching till Monday - this last week has involved seemingly endless introductions and official functions, including a group performance to the teaching staff which was slightly terrifying (we all sang 'With a little help from my friends'... badly). Yesterday we went to the opening ceremony of a brand new school, attended by goverment officials, which was a strange mix of communist rally and primary school performances.

Got my timetable yesterday though. I was pretty intimidated to find that I'm teaching every primary school grade except grade 2... in three different schools. And a kindergarten class on Friday which we yesterday just after naptime - all the kids were just waking up in their tiny little beds... it was funny. How I'm going to give English lessons to these tiny little kindergartners I have no idea, but at the same time I really can't wait to get started. I wonder if any of my lesson plans are actually going to work? :s

Beijing and freedom!

A very late blog update, but things have been crazy since being released from quarantine and allowed to run riot in Beijing. After the quarantine hotel we moved into apartments on UIBE campus, just north of the centre in a fairly vibrant area. After a bit of freedom I soon realised I love Beijing. It’s a frantic, noisy, diverse and vast city. The streets are incredibly hectic at all times with incessant car horns, bus loudspeakers, public service announcements and pumped up Chinese pop music. Getting around is easy though - the subway is so clean, modern and efficient - and just 20p to get anywhere in the city! Taxis are everywhere and, along with everything else, so cheap. Taxis are quite an experience though; they never know any English and there seem to be no real rules of the road, just carnage. Chinese drivers are basically just playing a real life version of GTA.

I've seen a lot here, but there’s a lot I still need to see. Memorable visits include the Wall – obviously, the Confusius temple, the Summer palace and a lot of street markets and shopping districts. One place that particularly sticks out in my mind is Wangfujing snack street where you’ll find scorpions, grasshoppers, starfish and other insects and weird meat on offer. The caterpillar was the most disgusting thing I've ever eaten.

Wangfujing snack market

The course is pretty intensive and quite long hours, but with so many kids games and activities to learn about the lessons often just involve regressing back into an 8 year old and playing word games or grammar challenges for a while. Despite the long hours of studying we still get enough time to rip it up and paint the town red pretty frequently. I’m going to miss our usual haunts – the side street bars in San-li-tun and the Manchester pub in the beautiful bar area around Hou Hai lake.

But never mind, I’ll soon by leaving Beijing and heading for my teaching placement in Changsha, in central Hunan province. Should be awesome! :D

Arrival = Quarantine

I'm here and it's all good, although due to the swine flu paranoia here it's not exactly an ideal situation. After arriving in the vast, airy and sparkling Beijing airport we were all given facemasks and then took a coach to a hotel the other side of Beijing, so we got to see a bit of the city which looks totally fascinating and crazy.

We may be in a plush 4 star hotel but we are confined here for a week. Twice a day we have our temperature taken and when walking around the hotel we are meant to wear our masks, but that rule has been allowed to slide I think. It's very frustrating being in central Beijing but not getting to go out and explore the many sights, temples and shopping complexes we are close to. I've been randomly allocated a room with this Swedish guy called Love (pronounced Loo - vey) and he is awesome. He's very... Swedish, but also chilled and an interesting guy and we get along well. In particular we love a lot of the same tv shows - he seems to only watch English and American stuff. Luckily he bought a Wii and laptop with him which has saved us. So much free time and nowhere to go.

Just can't wait to start the TEFL course and get to the uni campus!

View from hotel window