First Impressions

First off, I apologize to all for the tardiness of this post. These first few weeks here have been such a whirlwind of chopsticks, alcohol, and Chinese schoolchildren (though not together) that I haven't had a good amount of time to sit and catch up on my correspondences until now. In the future I promise to be more punctual with my posts.

-Where I live-

I am living with my college buddy Matt, on the seventh floor of an elevator-less apartment building (needless to say i'm building some sick calves). in china literally NO ONE lives in houses regardless of a person's income (there is a guy who drives a sick bmw 7 series who lives in the same apartment complex as i do). As a result, cities here are incredibly densely populated.

Our apartment complex, by Chinese standards, is top of the line. The complex is gated with 24 hour security guards, and the units are spacious with nice hardwood floors. The major downside, like all chinese apartments, is that there is no central heating. While the climate here is pretty temperate, when you have no heat it is really f------ (censored for my mom) cold. A few times at night it has gotten down to 20 degrees or so and i have woken up shivering. fortunately, a few nights ago, i came home from the bar freezing and began tearing through cupboards and whatnot in search of extra blankets. fortunately for me, the cocaine addict whom I replaced forgot, his really nice sleeping bag. so now, i wrap myself up in a cocoon of the sleeping bag and several layers of blankets.

-The School-

Thus far, one of the highlights has been my job teaching english at the school. while the days can sometimes be long, the kids are typically a lot of fun. the school consists of about 200 students, as operates mid-afternoons/early evenings on the weekdays and on the weekends. The teaching staff consists of four 'bilingual' chinese girls and myself and matt as the 'foreign expert teachers (yes, the word 'expert' is in our job title). every class is divided between instruction from a native chinese speaker and one foreign teacher. so, naturally, since there are only two foreign teachers matt and i have to teach by far the most classes.

On the whole, the children are sweet little Asian angels. however, amongst these angels, there are definitely some little bastards who try to sabotage the class. a few years ago, in an effort to curve population growth, china enacted a 'one-child for every couple law.' one unforeseen consequence of this act was that there is an entire generation of chinese kids who are only-children. so, since these kids are accustomed to being doted on by their parents and spoiled, a fair number of them suffer from "little-emperor syndrome." if left unchecked, some of these little emperors would spend each class running around the room screaming (which, they do for most of the chinese girls classes). so, every class is a constant struggle to keep the few bad seeds at-bay so that the rest of the class can still learn. one effective method i've been using is to make the class sit boy-girl. when i tell the class, naturally, they all refuse to move (i even had one girl start crying when i told her she had to go sit next to a boy). so, after much refusal and insistence on my part i usually resort to physically carrying the kid in his chair across the room (i rule over my classes like mao zedong ruled over china- with the iron fist of authority). then, if he tries to run back, to his old spot i playfully clothesline him and throw him back into his new seat next to the girl. the whole class laughs and everyone is happy.

another problem i've had to deal with in some of older classes are boys and girls flirting. in one class, this particular boy and girl just sit the whole class and flirt by poking each other and giggling. since the two refuse to be separated (honestly, i once divided the class into teams of boys and girls for a game, and the boy said he would just be on the girls team....what 12 year old boy says that?!) i've resorted to try to embarrass them to make them shut up. at the end of a class the other day, which had completely spiraled out of control on account of their raucous flirting, i got all the students in the class to sing "Andy and Carol sitting in a tree...k-i-s-s-i-n-g...." and so forth. another time, when i was going around the room making the kids spell words they had just learned i began making the kids spell things like "andy wants to kiss carol" or "carol loves andy." they were confused at first, but thought it was funny once they understood.

.........

i need to go to dinner now, but tomorrow i will write another installment of first impressions...if you have any questions/comments feel free to post them. Thanks!