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!