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!

Easter weekend in China... sadly not a single chocolate egg in sight

Today I'm walking round with a massive sense of achievement as I feel like I've finally conquered the art of travelling in China! Friday after school I made my way from Houjie to Guangzhou on my own and then on arriving in Guangzhou made my way to the hostel to meet my friends...and then the next day battled through the Guangzhou metro to make my way to the bus station and successfully arrived back in Houjie! This sounds very unexciting but when everything is in Chinese (well GZ has a fair amount of English but still) and there are very few people who speak the same language as you this is actually quite impressive! On top of that, people that know me well will tell you I can barely find my way around my hometown after living there my whole life. London will be so easy for me now!

That aside, this weekend as I said I went to Guangzhou for Kathryn's birthday and to see some faces that I was reunited with last weekend (plus a few random Chinese tag ons, for example new chinese friend Luke - called this because he likes Star Wars). We celebrated Friday night and then on Saturday went to watch some women's rugby ( Kathryn is a huge fan). England vs USA was delayed for an hour because a massive storm came out of nowhere, but aside from that it was a great albeit slightly hungover day. 

The ridiculously heavy rain stopped me from staying in the big city another night, so I resentfully made my way back to Houjie for a more peaceful night in. This did mean however that on Sunday I was alive enough to go for lunch and shopping with my Chinese assistant Linda! We had some amazing duck noodles and I got some bargains (£3 for a beautiful top, about £5 for a leather bag) and it was so interesting to talk to her about her life... for example, the fact that she wants to travel around the world but Chinese people don't have passports and need to apply for one and get official permission to visit other places... it makes you realize how lucky British and other nationality people are that they can pretty much come and go where ever they want, whenever they want. It was also good just to be out with a Chinese person. I definitely got less ripped off than I would have done without her! She wouldn't let me pay for lunch or drinks and even bought me some face wash when I said I needed some, despite me begging to let me pay, she kept saying it was her honour and that we are friends. This goes against every bone in my British body, but I think she was just so happy that I wanted to hang out with her. But it was a lovely, girly day of shopping and eating, I guess some things are pretty much universal. I also discovered where the good shops in Houjie are which may come in useful when payday comes around....

Me and Linda and yes she is that tiny!

We only have a three day week this week as this weekend is Qing Ming, the Chinese tomb sweeping festival (basically where all Chinese people visit their ancestors graves and set fire to fake money and stuff to send to them in the afterlife). Soo me and Phil have decided to use this opportunity to leave the South and see some more of China and some other very missed people from Beijing... so we're off to Chengdu! Home of the pandas! It's a tad expensive (even in English terms... very so expensive by Chinese standards) but I worked so hard before I came out here so that I could see and do anything I wanted to when I got here so it's gotta be done. Can't wait to be reunited with people and see my first panda!

And then there were 6...

So Sean left us this week to go to a much better paid job in Xiamen... so now 6 of us are left including Phil who is pretty much loving life as the now only boy in our apartment. They're hoping to send us someone to replace him, so fingers crossed for a fluent Chinese speaker so we will never be lost again (in our dreams)....

Yesterday was a bit more exciting as during our afternoon classes, an announcement came on over the school tannoy about 20 minutes before the end of class... of course it was all in Chinese, so I didn't understand a word, but this hasn't happened before so it caught my interest. My assistant told me "class is over now" and when I asked what the announcement was she said there was "bad weather" and the children needed to go get their lunch. Very odd seeing as it's been raining a lot the past few weeks and I've never had a class cut short because of it, but I wasn't complaining and hurried off to get my early lunch. When I left the staff canteen with Iris a little while later, the sky had turned completely black. No exaggeration, normally the sky remains a shade of white all day from the sun and the mist, so seeing pitch black in the middle of the day was a bit concerning, especially after the Chinese announcement that still hadn't been translated to us. We ran into the head of English to ask what the hell was going on, to which she told us there was a "typhoon" coming and that we should stay in our office and not go outside. "Should we be worried?" We asked, being new to these tropical climates. You can imagine our response when she said... "Yes". We ran to Phil's office to take cover (as ours is up on the top floor and Iris reckoned this was a dangerous place to be), with all our worldly possesions, sitting and waiting for the typhoon to hit. Sadly this is where this story gets a lot less interesting, as we sat and watched the rain (pretty heavy, I'll give it that) fall and the black sky gradually turn back to normal. If that was a typhoon, I am thoroughly disappointed. Either it was a mistranslation, or the typhoon got really pathetic before it finally hit Houjie... maybe we'll never know. All I know is next time I get warned about a typhoon I might not act with such panic, kind of a boy who cried wolf situation maybe? All in all, my first typhoon experience was a complete utter letdown.

Last night was a unexpectedly good night as we went out for "one drink" with some foreign teachers that work at our partner school across town. This ended up in going out for some incredible street barbeque food with some locals, being toasted about twenty million times (remember a Chinese "cheers" translates as "down your drink in one"), heading to our local English bar for the pub quiz....and losing.

                                                                  Epic street barbeque food

Also, I'm on the hunt for a second job this week, not because my job isn't good enough but just because I've never been the type of person to be satisfied with just the one job. Hopefully some private tuition or something in the evenings so that I can still travel about on weekends, and save enough money to add to my Thailand fund for after the internship!

Bored in the office = updated blog

Things I love about China...

- The laid back approach to things getting done. England is so dependent on routines, schedules, structures... but guess what? Things still get achieved without such rigid structure!

- The friendliness of the locals. No where back home would you get treated with so much respect just for being foreign. Free drinks, people taking photos with you, people bending over backwards to make sure you are enjoying yourself and wanting to be your friend. At home I get so frustrated with people who come to England and can't speak the language, which makes me feel guilty now I'm here in that exact situation, especially when the locals here are so good with handling our poor communication skills (even if we do occasionally end up with the wrong food or end up lost because of it).

- The food. I knew it would be, but it's so different to the Chinese food you get at home... I haven't seen a single resturant serving battered chicken balls, and prawn crackers are actually pretty hard to find. Food here isn't greasy, stodgy or unhealthy, it's so delicious. Dumplings covered in peanut sauce, fried noodles, soup, sticks of barbequed meat... I eat the same meals again and again and again and I haven't got bored of any of it because it's all so tasty. I just hope and pray I can get hold of some dumplings when I get back home... the addiction has got pretty serious.

- My students. So amazing. They work so hard and are so dedicated, even the really young ones. 7 days a week school for a lot of them, but they never complain. And they're so cuteeeee (if I haven't already mentioned this 10000 times)

- How cheap everything is. A massive meal for 50p. Eat in a restaurant for about £2. Bottle of coke for 30p. Get a taxi for an hour or so for about £5. Or a bus is 30p. Western food is probably the most expensive thing... a KFC will set you back about £3.

...Things I don't love so much about China 

- The spitting. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. Everywhere you go (resturants and public transport included) you will always hear a lot of people coughing up things from deep down below and spitting it out on the floor. The worst experience of all is hearing someone do this from a balcony as you walk underneath, when you can do nothing but hope and pray it doesn't land on you (NEVER look up).

- Lack of queues. ANYWHERE. It goes against everything I know as a westerner to not queue for things. I'm starting to get the hang of just pushing your way in for things, but for the first weeks I was definitely standing at the back of the non-existent lunch queue for ages waiting for someone to let me get in to get my food.

- Squat toilets. Enough said.

reunited with some beijing buddies

I'm a firm believer that the best weekends are always the ones that don't go by the initial plan, and this weekend definitely proves that theory. Me, Phil, Sean and Elin set off to go to Zhuhai beach (which is right next to Macau), planning to have a night out there and stay in a hostel. Easy. Yep. Far too easy to go to plan in China. Our '2 hour' journey turned into an hour long journey to a central Dongguan bus station, an hour long wait for a bus there, our bus then returning to our local bus station in Houjie (making our journey to Dongguan a monumental waste of time), a 2 1/2 hour journey to Zhuhai, and what seemed like eternity wondering round Zhuhai trying to find the hostel we'd found (which was apparently just a block of flats... very difficult to find in a city filled with millions of blocks of flats). In the end we gave up on finding a hostel and decided to find a few others who had come to Zhuhai on the beach and figure it all out later, as the sun was going down and our day to the beach had turned into a frustrating day of buses and getting lost.

But this is China! And right when things are going terribly, something will come along and turn it around. And in this case, that something was when Lewis and Kathryn appeared like angels with their chinese friend Matthew. Given that I haven't seen anyone I was close to in Beijing since I've been down south, I was so happy to see these guys that the day instantly got a million times better. Everyone else decided to go get some dinner, so me and Phil went in Matthews car to try and find our hostel again. Even with a Chinese navigator we still failed. This is when an idea popped into all of our heads like a lightbulb being turned on... why didn't me and Phil just go back to Zhongshan with them? bingo! So we abandoned the beach, Zhuhai and all of our original plans to go to Lewis and Kathryn's new home and see a lot of other familiar faces... and it was goooooooooooood. We even had a bed to sleep in completely for free as they all have spare beds in their apartments, cushty!

Me and Phil even managed to find our way home without getting lost once today, which is a very rare occurence here, so all in all it's been a pretty successful weekend. I'm sure the beach will happen at some point so I'm not too upset about that, probably will go ahead when we've made a completely different plan altogether.