Culture Week

This week is Culture Week, where we put on performances (dances, singing and skits/plays) to fit the culture of another country. The country I am representing is Europe. European Day is on Thursday and I am going to play the part of a Scottish Man. Yes, that means I will be wearing a kilt and I will be doing a Scottish dance with Becca McBee. So if you are here...bring your camera. It will for sure be a sight for sore eyes. I am also doing a game to represent the land of kilts...Caber Tossing. It is a Scottish game where you pick up a long piece of wood (Tree Trunk, Telephone Pole) and you toss it in the air. You have to make the "caber" go forwards and flip in the air for it to be a good toss. It is interesting but thankfully we are not throwing trees or telephone poles but a long piece of pvc pipe (that I cracked the first time I "Caber Tossed" it). I am also helping with Asia Day. Asia day is Tuesday and I will be using thick pieces of bamboo (banging it on the group and clapping to together) in a dance called Singkil Dance. The Singkil Dance is a dance done in The Phillipines and is a very interesting dance. As the week goes on I will include pictures from the things that take place.
Holla...

A Visit To Your Foreign Teacher

Our topic to teach this week is Visiting Your Foreign Teacher. So I have my students do a skit involving three questions. Question 1, What would you be interested in talking to your foreign teacher about? Question 2, What are things you should not talk about with your foreign teacher? Question 3, What is good etiquette when visiting your foreign teacher? For those of you that do not know, I am their foreign teacher. So I take answers from each group and write them on the board to help them with their skits, kind of like a guideline I guess. Question one you get the same answer every time, its always culture differences, food and sports/hobbies. One girl even said I would like to talk about your baby. I told all my classes I had a niece who is a few months old that is my brothers baby. She must have heard me wrong, I told her she was my brothers baby and she laughed. It was funny. For question 2, I usually get the same answers, such as Salary/Income, Secrets and Girlfriends/Boyfriends/Marriage. Question 3 I usually get a variety but some answers are the same. I usually get replys such as, call before you come and smile. One class said we should bring gifts, I laughed and joked with them how that was such a good answer. Then I told them you do not have to bring gifts when you come see me. One girl in that class has come to talk to me once last week and came again today. She took the gift thing seriously and brought me apples and these Chinese decorations. Her roommate, who is not a student of mine, came with her and she brought me some stuff to make hot tea with. It was very sweet of them.

Here is a picture of the things they brought me:



















The stuff in the baggie is not drugs, its the stuff to make hot tea. I know it looks suspicious but it is safe. Hopefully it tastes good like it did at the Hot Tea place I went to at the Beijing Airport.

Anyways, I just wanted to share that little bit ya. Now I am gonna try and find something productive to do. HOLLA!!!

Second group of students

Today has been a good as, the my other days here at Sias have been. I went to class this morning from 8:00-9:50 with my first group then I came back here to meet with some of my students at 10:00 this morning. Yesterday when I spoke with my students it was a little awkward and dead. Today, however, was the complete opposite. I came into this meeting with nine students thinking it was going to be awkward and tedious. The meeting was really good and very enjoyable for me, and I hope the students I met with felt the same. They all had questions for me about different things and I was never asked the same question twice. They asked me about the difference between the cultures of America and China, they asked me about food, they asked what would I like to know more about of the Chinese culture. I had a few students here that were not my students but where friends of my students. They also had questions for me so I answered them the best I could. Both times the meetings have started of with them saying it is very difficult for them to talk to a foreigner (me). Yes I am a foreigner and it is not a bad thing at all. But I talked with my students for about an hour and a half about whatever topics came up. We even talked about Christmas, I thought that was kind of cool but we did not go deep into that discussion. So they left, and I got on skype and I tried to talk to Jenn but we were having technical difficulties so we are going to try and talk later on. I had class at 1:30-3:20 and 3:30-5:30 then we had dinner and now I am here. So I am going to get out of here and go talk with some friends/co-workers.
Holla

First Students

I had my first group of students come over to my room today. We talked about English we talked about Chinese, they taught me a few things but honestly I already forgot. She wants to learn better English so hopefully I will be able to provide a good base for them. I have a group coming over tomorrow at 10 so hopefully that was be fun as well. Sunday night I did my lesson planning and was gonna try and use what I had...nope...I woke up Monday with an E-mail from Tara, a lady I work with, it was the lesson she was using. So I looked at it, looked at the material and I loved it. So I used it and it worked really well. This week our topics are Describing a Location and Asking for Directions. They have to do all this in English so some students can be poor and some are pretty good. I am teaching my students this week a few things in slang and an idiom. Of course, that it was I do every week, but every English teacher does it. The students love them, especially the slang. It is always fun to hear your students say things you taught them. But anyway...today is Ole and Amys birthday, both are people I work with, so happy birthday to them. In the words of 50 Cent..."We gonna party like its ya burthday"...I wont sing the rest but happy birthday to them even though they probably do not read this thing. Oh well, I am out to find something to do....Holla

Soo

Right now Zach is installing a driver that will hopefully allow me to have sound on my computer. I hope. If not...well I guess we will have to try something else. I stinks to have video and and all that jazz but not to be able to hear it. Today, a big group of us went to Zhongzhou to do some shopping, mostly for fabric. We went to a huge fabric market first because at the end of the month we have this week long event "Culture Week" where we do performances and all that jazz. So we had to get fabric to make out outfits. I am helping with Europe day by being Highlander and either Hanz or Franz. It should be an experience to say the least. It will be fun but that week will also be stressful on some. The fabric market was actually more fun than I thought it would be, yes I said fun. I enjoyed seeing the little kids running around playing with other and when they would see me they would just stare as if I were some sort of monster or something. Before we left, a small group of kids were in front of one of the fabric places and they were all staring, so I said Ni hao (pronounced knee how..its hello in Chinese). They just gave me a blank start so I would smile and nothing would happen, still they were giving me the monster stare. But one little girl would inch closer to me and she was really silly. She started talking Chinese to me but all I know is Hello and Thank You. So thankfully, a few minutes later our translators came from other fabric place and they would translate for me. It really is good to have a translator in situations like that cause the kids were really friendly. The little boy was really funny, I didn't have to say anything to him I would just look at him and he would laugh and hide. The translators told me that boy really likes me. I do what I can.

But if you have skype I would like to have your skype info so maybe one day we can have a chit chat one day. So if you read this, leave a comment with your skype info for me. HOLLERRRRRRRR

One week down..

One week down and ten more to go until winter break. I am really glad that I only work four days a week and put in 18 hours of teaching. This weekend I am going to a fabric market to get some stuff to buy material to make costumes. In a few weeks, we have an event called Culture Week. During this time, people put on performances and all sorts of other things for a country. I am helping with Europe so, yours truly, get to wear a kilt. Yes, a kilt. It will be worth it though cause I am sure people will get a good kick out of it. So, this week I taught my students how to initiate a conversation in English. This morning, after one of the exercises, I had some of the students come up and begin a conversation. So I did a guy with a girl and after every question the girl would answer and he would say, "You are very beautiful" then he would continue on with his next question. The first couple times it kind of threw me off but I did not say anything cause I did not want to embarrass him. But it was really funny to me and lots of the students thought the same. But this week has been really good and it has flown by. But I am going to get out of here and go do something..or try.

The year has begun

I began my teaching at an English teacher at Sias University. Two days have gone by with only more days to teach in this week. The students I have are good and most have laughed at my lame jokes. Oh well, I gotta do what I gotta do. Lets start with my first ever class. So noted two things about myself during our 10 minute break of this class and said I need to repeat more and more clear. I got a lot of blank stares from students and that was not good. Oh well, I tried to teach them what a skit was so the students could perform a skit in class about about the Classroom Expectations (rules), yeah...it didn't work out like I planned. So I tossed that part of the lesson plan. I realized that I was speaking to fast for the students so I had to change that part about me. My second class went well, students were starting to understand me a little bit into the class and they began to talk a little, and my third class on monday was about the same at the second class. But today, I only have one class on tuesdays (8:00 am), my students did a really good job. I had a group of students who could speak good English so it made it easier on me as the teacher. I still did not do the skit though. I did idioms in all my classes and my monday classes did not fully understand. But on tuesday, the class picked it up within about a minute and they loved it. I gave them an idiom, partnered the students up to talk about what they thought it might mean, and afterwards I explained what it meant. They loved it. They all laughed when the found out the meaning of the idioms I used. Anyways, I dont really have much to do so I am going to find something to do....maybe pingpong?

October Holiday

So tomorrow I begin teaching Oral English. The past week has been October Holiday and the foreign teachers took a trip to Xi'an, home of the Terra Cotta Warriors ("the eighth wonder of the world"). This trip was a very exciting trip even thought we were pretty much rushed through everything we had planned because so much was planned within a couple of days. Oh well, I loved it and would like to go back one day.

So lets start with Thursday morning. I only got a few hours of sleep this night because I had to do some laundry. The dryer I used did not dry my clothes so I had to move to another dryer. I finally finished laundry around 2:30 and fell asleep around 3. So I wake up at 6 in the morning to shower, pack and get everything ready to meet in the lobby at 7. We load the bus at 7:30 and leave at 8. The trip was about 8 hours maybe a little more but it did not seem like it. The ride up there went really quick. When we get to Xi'an we picked up our tour girl and head to the hotel. We get a few hours to hang out at our hotel so a few of us went into town to check out one of the ancient capitals of China. So we get a taxi, this was my first ever taxi ride, and head to the city. We go to McDonald's, Starbucks and go on a tour to find Dairy Queen. We did not find DQ so we just went back to the hotel to get ready for a banquet that we had planned. The banquet was absolutely beautiful with delicious food and great entertainment. The food we had was Jiaozi which is Chinese Dumplings). They had about 15 different types of Jiaozi for us to try, some were really good and some were not so great. So the lady comes around to ask us what we want to drink, either Coke, Sprite or Beer. This lady had beer and asked if I wanted some, so I said no thank you. Her reply, "Yes you do" and continues to pour it in my glass. I thought that was pretty funny. But anyways, while we ate, a girl was playing a Chinese Instrument, not sure what it is called but it sounds really cool. We were provided with good entertainment after we finished eating. There were dances and musical performances for us to enjoy and enjoy we did. The most entertaining performance to me was the performance with the yo-yos. There were about 7 girls who had sticks with strings with huge yo-yos on them. They would spin the yo-yos on the string, throw them in the air and sometimes when they threw them they would do cartwheels and flips and all sorts of stuff while they waited for the yo-yo to come down. It was really excited to watch and I cannot tell you how many times I dropped my jaw from what I saw. But when the show ended we load our bus and head back to the hotel and are free for the night. So we went back to the city to get some Dairy Queen. and searching for Dairy Queen we finally find it. The doors are wide open so we all walk in the workers tell us they are closed. Our hearts were broken. So we go to other places. We find this place called Spinetti which is basically Coldstone. I did not eat there but some of us did, I went to starbucks to get a Mocha Frappachino. We make one more stop by McDonalds and some people order there and 8 of us went back about 10 minutes for the rest the group. We get taxis and the taxi we get in smells like vomit. We (Me, Sam and Jason) were worried we sat down in it but thankfully we did not. Oh well, so that was that day.

Friday, the day I waited for and the main reason I went on this trip. Woke up around 7ish took a shower, go some breakfast and loaded the bus. We head to see the terra cotta soldiers. So we are on the way and the driver misses the exit so we go to a museum where they make replica of the soldiers and where they also make chinese furniture. The furniture truly is an art and I think you would think so after seeing the things I saw at this place. But anyways, we hang out there and start messing around with the replicas and take pictures with them and enjoying ourselves until it gets boring. Then we head off to see the real warriors. I am stoked, it is something we used to read about in world history classes back in the day and I finally get to see something I had only read about. We get there and we part then we have to walk to the gate and the actualy soldiers are about good 15 minutes from the gate, maybe longer. We get inside to where the soldiers are and the tour guide wants us to watch a film first, but a few of us skipped out on the film to have more time to see all the stuff (we were only given an hour to check out everything so it kinda stunk). So we walk in and the place is crowed with people. But in China, it kind of ok to push around. Me being a bigger guy makes it a lot easier to get through places cause people just tend to get out of the way for some reason. So I get our group to the front and we start taking pictures and stuff and looking at all the warriors. It is a really cool experience to see all the things. We go through the first pit and checking out all the stuff then we head to the second pit and a guy selling small replicas of the soldiers (Small as in fit in the palm of your hand) but he is asking for 10 U.S. dollars but I told him I would pay 5 yuan but he wouldn't go lower than 10 yuan. So he got mad and finally left me on, thanks to Matt cause he can speak some Chinese so he helped me out with getting the guy to leave. So in pic 2 there are soldiers in clear boxes so I am not sure if these are orignal. Apparently there was a fire back in the day and only of of the soldiers was not damaged, the kneeling archer. So they must be important or something. We have about 5 or 10 minutes until we have to leave so we had to rush through the last building the had to bronze chariot and other things, but I'm glad that was last cause there really was not that much there. After the terra cotta soldiers we go to this museum where we were fed lunch, it was pretty good and we got to see a guy hand stretch noodles that you could buy. It was pretty cool to watch but then afterwards we went to a silk market and looked around and took some funny pictures. It really wasn't anything special but it was a good time killer. After this they took us to a museum but it wasnt anything special. A couple of us just walked around a chilled and enjoyed ourselves. Then afterwards we went to dinner at The Hot Pot. I thought it was actually pretty good. For those of you who have no idea what hot pot is, you have thin pieces of meat and a pot of boiling water and you cook your own meat. It's a pretty cool place and they also have veggies, tofu and sauces for you to try. Apparently there is a ghetto hot pot here that is much better so I will have to eat there one day. After this we were done for the day. We got taxis from the hotel and went to get to DQ before it closed and we did. I got an Oreo Blizzard and it was soooooo good. After this we go to the Muslim Market to shop and bargain. I talked earlier about a guy trying to sell me small terracotta warriors. Well I got them for 6 yuan at this place so that is less than 1 U.S. dollar. But, we go through the market and everything is closed so some people get some McDonald's and we go back to the hotel. 4 of us get into a taxi and are going back and I was wondering why the trip was taking longer than usual. The driver took us to the wrong university is Xi'an but we did not find out until we walk around that campus for about 15-20 minutes looking for our hotel. So people call us and Andy finds a student from the university we were dropped off at and he kindly walks us back to our hotel. We offered to pay him for helping us but he would not accept.

Saturday was not as fun filled at Friday was, but we made the best of it. We started off by going to The Big Wild Goose Pagota. We had a tour planned and going through all the stuff and we get to the door of the Pagota and just walk by. A lady who is one of the board of the directors for Sias said she wanted to go to the top so I told her I wanted to go to the top. So we both paid 2o yuan to go to the top. There was not much to do in there but to climb seven flights of stairs that got narrower and steeper as you guys higher (maybe thats because I was getting tired). But it was pretty cool to go up there and see the city from the top of this old building. So afterwards this stop we go to the City Wall of Xi'an, not to be mixed with the Great Wall of China. This was not really that fun because all we did was sit around and snap a couple pictures. Afterwards we had lunch and went back to the Muslim Market to do a little shopping before we left. This was really fun but also short but I got a nice North Face Jacket. The lady was asking 480 yuan but that was way too much to I offered 150 and I kept saying 150. I walked away a few times but she pulled me back so we made a deal at 200 yuan. About 30 US dollars for a North Face jacket is really good to me. So after that we went back to Dairy Queen for one last time in Xi'an. We were late getting back to the bus but the Blizzard was definatly worth it. Then we loaded the bus and made our way back to Sias.

Like I said, I begin teaching at 8:00 am tomorrow so I need to begin preparing my lesson for tomorrow. The first day wont be too bad so it is not going to stress me out so much. Anyways, I am about to go try and get a haircut tonight cause my hair is getting long.

This weekend...

I am really excited about this weekend. At 7:30 in the morning we are going to be going to Xi'an to see the Terra Cotta Soldiers. This is one of those really cool events that rarely happens to someone. But this week has been really wonderful. I got to hang out with the group I am with and really get to know them and their past. It is always excited to me to hear how things have gone on in someones past and how got to where they are now. I am currently doing laundry up on the 6th floor, the roof of my building, and the dryers are really not cooperating with me very well. I plan to wake up at 6 ish in the morning to get ready to go to Xi'an so I hope the soon, 30 minutes tops, that my laundry drys really fast. If not, I guess I will just have to wait. It's all good though cause we are taking a bus and we will be shoulder to shoulder for eight hours so I am sure I will get plently of sleep on the way. Anyways, short post today, I just wanted to let ya know what is going on and hopefully next time I will be able to provide you with some interesting stuff about Xi'an