The longest week everrrrr

So this week I survived my first Chinese haircut. I now don't think I will ever enjoy a haircut at home in the same way I once did. I went with the girls I live with, a little bit skeptical about the dodgy looking salon we had picked and the fact the staff didn't speak English so we had simply gestured cutting to ask for what we wanted. How wrong I was to be worried. For starters, they shampooed my hair for 30 minutes... with added head massage, of course. You'd think this would be boring, but it was just amazing. When they rinsed it out, this was followed by another further neck and shoulder massage. Not to stereotype but wow, Chinese people give good massages. Made a mental note to treat myself to a full body massage next pay day. The shortest part of the experience was the actual hair cutting part, and then the hairdressers queued up for photos with my blonde friend - clearly the first blonde hair ever to have been cut in this salon. All in all a very successful experience... and all for £3.50. Result!

Scared faces

 

So we worked 7 days this week because China is stupid and doesn't understand the concept of a public holiday (not that I'm bitter about this at all... obviously). It started well, but by the 7th day (today), the kids have just been insane and I just can't be bothered any more. Even my assistants had seemed to give up on my lessons, one even got up and left half way through. This meant the class turned into complete chaos and ended with me swatting kids off me to try and get out of the classroom as they held onto my legs and pulled my skirt until it nearly ripped and I nearly ended up bottomless in the middle of school. Even the Chinese teachers didn't come to my rescue, despite me having a class of children jumping over each other to wrap themselves around me and ruin my clothes, me shouting 'GOODBYE!!!' to try and get them to leave me only to get 40 children screaming back at me 'NO GOODBYE!!!!'

Before 20 other kids decided to bundle me and pull my skirt straight off me..... hmm like butter wouldn't melt?

I've been a bit ill this week too, not anything serious just a bit of a cold or just my immune system generally letting me down. I've learnt never to tell a Chinese person when you have the sniffles now though, as they seem obsessed with sending us to A&E as if we were on deaths door. I generally mention feeling unwell as small talk when it's not life threatening, so made the mistake of telling my assistant I was a bit tired because I had 'a bit of a cold coming on'. Her response: 'oh... so when are you going to the hospital?' I thought she was joking, then remembered Chinese people don't do sarcasm, and I told her I didn't need to go to the hospital, only to be told: 'maybe you should just go to the hospital' (with a panicked looked on her face). Every time I cough now they tell me to see a doctor.... so I've come to the conclusion China is a country of hypochondriacs.

 Anyway all that seems like a distant nightmare now as we have three glorious days off to go to Shenzhen, and hope and pray it doesn't rain the whole time (as it has been thunderstorms all week AGAIN... so much for sunny south). As much as I love my students, right now I am jumping for joy that I don't have to see them for 3 whole days!

So I've had some complaints that I'm not updating this as much as I should... I'm so busy that finding time to actually sit and put everything down on paper is easier said than done! Teaching is exhausting as well, literally the most tiring job I have ever done. My weekends go far too quickly, and most of my day yesterday was spent hibernating... However I'm going to try to  keep writing down stuff at least once a week, just so I can keep track of what is actually going on here to look back on when I eventually return to England and life becomes a lot more normal and boring again.

So on Saturday I went into Dongguan city with Jen to meet someone about some more extra work. The adult evening classes are ok, but this job is over double the wages and would mean I wouldn't have to work Saturday nights. It's also the easiest job ever... after two hours of playing with the children in the park (with the occasional English word thrown in), the boss Julie took us for lunch at one of the nicest Chinese restaurants I've seen (and paid for everything). Definitely what I'd call a successful day at work. We celebrated afterwards by going shopping in the city, they have a H&M, Zara and even a Clarks! It was nice to see some clothes actually in my size.. I think the average Chinese woman would fit into western childrens clothes. Not much else to say about the weekend apart from a night having some drinks with some other foreign teachers here ended in a 4am drunken skype conversation with my mum and nan, not something I plan on doing again in a hurry... but gave them a good laugh at least.

Annoyingly we're working 7 days this week, as the following week we have 3 days off for labour day. Basically, in China, they don't really understand the concept of a holiday, so when you have days off you have to work extra to make up for them.The idea of going to the island of Hainan fell through (trains booked up too quickly for us to get them), so now we're going to Shenzhen to explore the city closest to Hong Kong and check out their beaches.

In another interesting development, after talking to one of the girls I live with and with a new addiction to seeing new places, I've decided to make a stop off in India after I've finished in Thailand! Probably only for 2 weeks or so, just a flying visit in the grand scheme of things, but really I just want to get a glimpse of the Taj Mahal, try some proper Indian food and generally get a feel for the place. I know it won't be glamorous, but it seems wrong to be on this side of the world and not pop in. Once our mini break in Shenzhen is done with, me and Jen are going to get our research done and get things booked up... watch this space!

Finally a thought for everyone affected in the Sichaun earthquake.. quite scary to think I was very near there just the other weekend. Luckily Chengdu wasn't hit very bad so all my friends are fine, in fact most of them slept through it. We're really far away from there here and apparently there's never any earthquakes in this province, only the occasional 'typhoon' (hmm), but you do sometimes forget though that you're on the other side of the world and stuff like that can happen! Our school are so protective of us, they have pretty much banned us from leaving this province for a while (not that they could stop us) because of the earthquakes and also bird flu around Shanghai.

Anyway I'll end this post with a picture of what will be me in a few months when I leave China and make my way through to India... hopefully in one piece...

This week has been pretty slow so far, so I thought I would take this opportunity to introduce you to my arch enemy.

He may look innocent... but this child is my nemesis.


Whoever said Chinese children are obedient and well behaved has obviously never met this guy. He always ruins my games and distracts everyone else. For example, the other day I was writing on the board with my back to the class for one second, turned round and he has his trousers down... they never taught us how to deal with that kind of scenario in TEFL training. Another day I handed out some bits of paper for an activity, by the time I had got round the class he had eaten his paper. I don't know his name so for now I just call him 'chubbsy' (not to his face...yet).

Aside from that as I said everything has been quite quiet, we are all looking forward to our next holiday so that we can explore a bit more of China and go to visit Hainan island - 'the hawaii of China' (hopefully). Also discovered our local temple this weekend, which was beautiful and surrounded by some really pretty parks, so we will definitely be spending a lot of time there when it gets too hot to do anything else.

Anyway my dear mother has complained that I don't put enough photos on my blog so here are a select few from the weekend...

 Houjie temple

 View from the top of the temple

 Strange statue things half way up

 Iris burning some incense for the weird statue things

 Pretty park... in Houjie?!? Who knew

Qing Ming and that.... finally!

Long overdue blog post seeing as so much has happened in the past week. Well it's been a very up and down few days. I think I've been having a bit of a comedown week after how good this weekend was... so teaching has been extra difficult, I've felt extra tired and China has just been extra overwhelming. Basically a whole lot of factors have made me properly miss home for the first time and feel like I'm not cut out for this teaching thing. Butttt.. there is a happy ending don't worry.

So firstly... our long weekend off, which now feels like a distant memory (this week has really just dragged). Me and Phil were like excitable little children on Thursday heading to Guangzhou to get our flight to Chengdu (which for those who don't know, in a nutshell, is in Sichuan province in central China, about 2 hour flight, 40 hours by train from us and is famous for being the home of the giant pandas). My first impression of Chengdu was TALLLLLLLLL. Everywhere is a lot of skyscraper flats and a whole load of building sites... literally one every few meters where they are knocking things down and replacing them with more skyscraper blocks of flats. The weather's definitely nicer there than ours at the moment as we are in 'spring', which should be renamed as 'rain every day season'.

After we touched down in Chengdu we made our way to our friends' apartments (so much nicer than ours and they have western toilets – jealous) and after a horrendously mouth burning spicy meal (Sichuan province is known for it's spicy food) and a fantastic night out catching up with some old faces, on Friday we went to see some pandas. They were cute, but also thoroughly disappointing as they just sat either sleeping or eating their own poo. Had to be done though, and yes I did buy overpriced tack at the gift shop.

The most movement they made all day... photo worthy!

We ate some well needed western food (burger and chips – heaven), and had another night out before heading to the 'people's park' the next day for a bit of an explore. Nice to see some green, but we definitely attracted a crowd.. mainly people wanting their children to have photos taken with us. Aah, just like being in Beijing all over again. Something about a big group of white people makes the Chinese people so excited, next time I'm in London and I see Chinese tourists I'm going to act just as excited about them to see how they react.

I'm missing a lot of minor details out but all in all it was a great few days away and Chengdu's pretty cool, worth a visit if you know people there or are mad keen on pandas/skyscrapers.

Anyway we made it home safe and on Monday we had another day off teaching as it was field trip day! We piled onto coaches with the whole of the primary school (that's a LOT of children), which was followed by a bit of coach karaoke - because "and now teacher Rachel will perform a song" is just what you want to hear at 8am on Monday morning . A painful hour or so of Chinese karaoke songs later we arrived at a nature park in Shenzhen, which is the city closest to Hong Kong (we can't actually go into Hong Kong because it would void our visa - quite annoying to say the least). We walked around the park a bit with the kids and went to see a cool drum show, which was all quite entertaining but was definitely going to get old very quickly in our tired state from the weekend. Then, as if by magic, before we knew it we were thrown on a coach with all the rest of the teachers (leaving all the kids in the park with the tour guides of course), and heading to the best restaurant in Shenzhen for a slap up meal with our principle. We know it was the best restaurant in Shenzhen because we travelled for about an hour to get there, and when we arrived it was luxurious and the food was just out of this world. The best meal I have eaten in China by far. I love the Chinese way of thinking... sod the kids, lets go eat. This experience was only made funnier when half way through the meal we were interrupted by some Chinese dancers who insisted we all got up to join them dance around the tables with fans. If that's not a way to shake down a big meal I don't know what is.

Phil was a fan of the dancing... sorry

When we got back it was nearly time to leave to get the children back to school again, so there was just enough time to play with them on the grass for a while. 

Anyway the rest of the week has been pretty terrible. I knew there were always going to be up and down weeks in this kind of job and this week really shows that. I'm just running out of inspiration for how to entertain 6 year olds very quickly. I think the highlight of the week was having to pause a lesson for 10 minutes because a child got his finger stuck in a pen lid. He looked up at me with big sad Chinese eyes saying 'Rachel, Rachel' and I thought I was going to have to send him off to a&e with a note explaining why his English teacher had let him get a pen lid stuck on his finger. We've also had mandarin lessons every night, which is just not getting any easier. I'm starting to really hate the language and its stupid tones, but I'm still determined to be conversational by the end of this semester. I know know how to say something is too expensive and try to bargain it down to a lower price in mandarin, which will definitely come in useful when so many Chinese people are very keen to rip off 'rich' westerners.

I had my first lesson for my new 2^nd job last night. They're adults so that ranges from mid twenties to businessmen in their 40s/50s (well I'm guessing), which is pretty intimidating! It was so good though, they actually understood me which makes a welcome change and they even laughed at my terrible jokes. I was worried they were bored and uninterested by me, seeing as I'm not a teacher and will never pretend to be one, I just know English... so I'm not exactly amazing at my 'job', just here for the experience really. But after my class my new boss came over and told me that they all really liked me and love my smile, it's very 'warming' apparently. This cheered me up, only made better when I was walking home and one of my 40ish year old scary businessmen students came over to tell me with a massive smile 'your class makes me happy'.

So, despite how long and rubbish this week has felt, after that one comment it was all somehow made better! Teaching people who actually want to learn English and are really grateful you're there is so rewarding. I also managed to teach my younger children to sing a little song with actions, just when I thought all hope was lost with every actually teaching them ANYTHING. I'm feeling a lot more positive now and think a restful weekend will make everything better. At home I've had pretty much every job under the sun but this one is just so different in so many ways, good and bad. The goods definitely outweigh the bads though, every day is just so different and without meaning to sound ridiculously cheesy (but probably will) I've learned a lot about myself already. Time to write this week off and bring on the next ... which already sounds fantastic because of two little words : pay day!

I don't think Chinese people quite grasp the concept of 'tact'....

Today my Chinese assistant said to me: 'are you tired? you look bad.'

She's not wrong.

I also couldn't care less about how knackered I am and how bad I look as tomorrow I'm off to CHENGDUUUUUUUU!