Chris takes the cake! and the medal!

Chris had an art lesson and I had a chinese lesson, and I agreed to meet Chris after and Elaine would take us all shopping, I called Chris after his lesson and started to leave, but before I could get to the class to meet him he was already walking back, and I didn't have a chance to make it halfway before I got another call asking where I was, because he had been run over!

We met him soon after and heard the full story, Chris had been walking at the tail of a group of chinese guys and as an electric motorbike swerved between two buses it enountered chris. It encountered Chris at 30kmph and hurt his leg, back and arm due to the impact, the bike however went on going and was then hit by a bus, throwing the guy across the road. 

The guy was in a bad way but luckily Chris was fine, if very angry, and so he just limped off, getting the hell out of there before anyone noticed a foreigner was involved! 
We met him limping along the road and I think his worst problem was he didn't know enough chinese to tell the guy who hit him just what he thought of him leading to some pent up frustration. 

The road was starting to get closed down due to the big accident and so we took a few back roads and went shopping anyway! 

At least we answered the question, and Chris takes the ribbon for first car accident, lucky bugger!

Bacon no more!

We managed to find bacon in China! we bought 12 packets of it and spent a lovely couple of weeks eating bacon sandwiches, we went back today to buy some more and disaster had struck, no more! no space for it either, in China you just can't predict shop stock, its probably better for our health anyway! but that doesn't mean we don't miss it already....

Students, dear students...

Our students were asking questions about sports to each other, and one stood up and said, "Does she enjoy playing with balls". Keeping a straight face was a bit tricky, but we just about managed it! 

Thunderbirds in China

we have been looking for some TV to watch and relax in between lessons as we don't usually have time to get out and do anything more than sitting down for an hour, and so we downloaded some thunderbirds! both Chris and I watched it as children so rewatching now in China is a bit surreal, but still its pretty funny, neither of us remember it being an hour! But its also crazy how much we remember of the episodes, and the names of the characters!

We showed Elaine and some of the teachers but they were none too impressed... no accounting for taste I guess!

Class 2 meal

Grade 2 Class 2 did well in the sports day so decided to invite us out for a meal to celebrate in little fat sheep, the hotpot restaurant! We went along and us, 50 students and a few teachers had a great meal laughing and joking with my old students. The students were drinking beer along with us and getting quite tipsy, even some of the girls were drinking along with the teachers! 
The teacher there really loves his beer and managed to drink a pint out of a bowl faster than the students could drink a small glass! 

Had a good meal and a good few beers, the students paid for all the teachers along with themselves, but taking over the restaurant was pretty fun too! 

first jumper day!

Oh dear, today was the first jumper day.... a bit cold now! God damnit.... it's the start of winter! 

Sports Day Pictures

Second English Competition

So... we made a mistake, it turns out that our speeches and general confused shenanigans last time in the new school meant that the old school wanted to do the same and organised it's own English competition, with us again as the judges of honour!

This time, a little more prepared, we shaved and found a shirt to wear and arrived with some idea of what to do, except a different bunch of student teachers had organised this one and so it was of course, completely different. This time, instead of writing the scores on cards collected and only the average being announced each judge had to look the students in the eye as our score was read out. I of course reacted by constantly over scoring and giving full marks many times. The other problems included that the first 3 students were marked out of 8, integers only, then marked out of 10, decimals allowed, then out of 7 and 3 separately with decimals allowed, so the students had no sense of cohesion!

We also were asked for a speech and I decided to do it, as Chris has decided my improvisation, or should I say pulling it out of my..ear ability is more refined!

Gave a nice little speech and spent the whole time while the children were performing prepared speeches smiling, winking, and listening attentively, which the 4 chinese judges ignored them, simply talking over them!

The children did great and some were really amazing, and again they tried to run some silly games, with more problems! The student teachers asked the students to volenteer, of course none did, so they asked us to take part, I jumped up and waded out into the students asking ones who looked interested, soon the stage was full and we played a game in which they said an action and two people had to perform the action on stage, swim, sleep etc, on the fly action I mimed superman and won, but then succeeded the next round to let the students play, always leaving the stage with a bow and a salute, to applause sometimes, or laughs, just like a performance! Its always like this....!

Ah well, for the two english competitions we have been paid around £30 extra! so not a bad little bonus, although again no pictures I'm afraid!

Hmm the last post had some pretty crazy formatting, this is a quick test to see if its going to be like that from now. So...
test?
test?

Thanks...

English Competetion

I was asked to give an English corner which luckily never materialised
but then it came back to haunt me when Chris and I were asked to be
judges for an English competition in the new school.

We agreed and dragged ourselves over for the preliminary stage and
watched our students perform, mainly because they wanted us to watch
them for support and not really for any other reason. Then the next
week the day of the competition came and so chris and I, after a long
day teaching, wandered over to the hall, and quickly found ourselves
wishing we had bothered to shave and wear a shirt!

All the student teachers who had organised this were dressed up to the
nines and the heads of both the schools were there along with a few
hundred students! We had no idea what was going on so just kind of
rolled with it, but the student teachers seemingly had just about as
much idea as us!

We sat down at our set places at the front of a large lecture hall
with large airline style conformable seat and only then noticed that
everything was on video and there were two professional photographers
around as well.

The students then proceeded to put on prepared performances including
providing an english voiceover for the snow white film, singing
English songs and all sorts of cool things.
The teachers then tried to run a game with the kids but of course none
volunteered, so Chris and I jumped up on stage and joined in playing
the balloon games with them, I worked with ChenChen, my old student
and friend, and Chris with another student.

At the end they asked us, without any prep time, to give a speech! So
I Stood up and gave them a small speech, most of them were students I
am or have been teaching, and so it wasn't too hard to give a little
on the spot thank you speech, then unfortunately chris also had to
give one! In the end the snow white dubbing girl won! and Oceane a
student we are friends with was a pretty close second. However in true
chinese style she was heartbroken at being second, its just not good
enough! She was genuinely upset! crazy chinese!

In all the craziness we didn't even manage any pictures! Only one of
Oceane receiving her giant but disappointing awards!

A difficult job...

The day after the sports day I say some students fumbling on the ground, I wondered if they had lost their glasses in the sports day so I offered to help but it turned out they were tasked with picking up all the confetti that had been thrown and fired from fireworks the day before, by hand! Crazy china!

Paid 3000rmb per hour

Sports day was actually a 4 day event here with all the school decamping into the lovely sunshine to watch or take part in more events than I knew existed!
Everything from running and hurdles to jumping, skipping and all the rest and since both schools were taking part (3000 students) and there were endless heats and races it was 4 full days! The students not taking part either watched and cheered their friends along or sat in the shade talking or doing homework! With some not turning up at all!

The competition even had an opening ceremony with all the classes parading in wearing their (self organised and bought) class branded uniforms with fireworks and confetti and balloons, amazing! Unfortunately we only know about that through pictures as Chris and I ended up going for a social beer the night before to new the new English guy in lingxi and we didn't get home until 6am, for a 7.30 start! Not that they told us there would be a ceremony!

The next few days I spent wandering around the field and since all my grade 1 students were there and all my old students now grade 2 I had 2000 students to meet and greet, and they got to practise their English, so everyone was happy!

Chris decided to head off to shanghai for the weekend and do a little shopping and catch up with friends so I help the fort at the sports meet.
In the end the teachers all organised a teachers only relay race for the Saturday afternoon and since grade 1 was missing some teachers I was asked to take part, mainly because I knew the students would enjoy it I accepted.

As all the teachers were introduced they all got a shout of approval but when I was announced there was a huge roar of students wanting to see the foreigner run, what had I signed up for?!
I was given my number and my team and told where to stand, it was a 200m relay and I was last in my team of 10.
All the teachers ran and my team was destined for third, in fact when I was eventually called up it was obvious that the teachers ahead had already finished and the one behind was miles behind! I was going to be third.
All the teachers were accompanied by shouted encouragement from the students but when it was my turn all the students formed a tunnel one person wide for me to run down with students on each side the whole way, often 2 or 3 deep! For the whole 200m! Crazy! But very funny with them screaming for me to go faster I ran as fast as I could and did a quite impressive job, putting on a good show for them even though I could not have changed the overall rankings whatever happened!

Afterwards I was congratulated by an endless parade of students and teachers and invited for a meal, but since it was too early to eat I just headed back for a shower.
That night all over the students qqzone (Chinese Facebook) there were lots of comments about me and my running and a huge number of pictures and videos turned up too! With one student making me my own webpage with a video montage set to music, awful! But pretty funny.

The next day I was given 50rmb (5gbp) for my trouble! In china whenever a teacher does something like that apparently they get a reward! I only did it for a laugh!
Working it out if I got 50rmb for one minutes work that makes a nice 3000rmb (300gbp) an hour! I see why professional athletes do it now!!

All in all it was all good fun!

Fire in lingxi!

Woke up a few days ago and there was a funny smell, so we took a look outside to see this! A massive fire! Being a little Chinese now we obviously decided to walk towards it and take a look, a whole warehouse was on fire and the firemen had obviously decided to just stop it spreading and let it burn out. We watched for a while and took some pictures before heading back to class!

A heartfelt gift!

Elaine went on a trip for a few days to a beautiful waterside town a few hours away and brought me back a gift, a pumpkin with Chinese characters written into the side whilst it was still growing, resulting in this. (see picture)


And for those needing a translation the first character is ni (you) the second is Zhen (really) and the last is Ben which means stupid. (sorry if you are reading this ben!). My students all thought it was very very funny.

Sometimes I really love my students!

one of my students drew a picture of me and showed me, not an awful likeness I guess! It could be worse! And he is a lovely kid even if his English is maybe worse than my Chinese! Haha!

Also put a few random pictures of my students up, them playing around and chatting outside the classroom, very cute kids!
The slightly large boy on his own is stark, the boy who drew me, him and a few other students came over and danced for me, played guitar, sung a song, and showed me some things they like, a few Japanese cartoons, good fun hanging out with them!

One boy, who I have named rolo! (although now I need to get a packet of Rolos from England) bought me a baseball cap like his because last lesson he kept wearing his, so I kept stealing it and wearing it, good fun!

More teaching!

Had an uneventful week with the students taking exams so we had a day to relax, much appreciated! There was mention of some sort of English corner on the weekend which I said I might attend but I realised I forgot to ask when and where so sadly was forced to spend Sunday afternoon relaxing instead!
This week is sports week, which should be fun!

Hangzhou trip end

Wow so much blogging to catch up on! I will try to write it all down and throw up some accompanying pictures later as im blogging on my phone today on a long journey, but we will come to that soon!

So hangzhou... After we stayed a night in a possible den of sin we moved into a much nicer hotel in the expensive row near the train station and wow, what a difference! International standard, large rooms with large windows and well a lovely change, although im sure I will remember the other hotel for much longer!
We spent the next few days exploring hangzhou, mostly things I had already done, including a taxi driver who was really sure he had to tell me at length how handsome he thought I was! Crazy man!
We also did west lake and a bit of shopping as well as visiting the islands, again! Something im not sure Chris still might have missed, despite it being what hz is famous for!
In the end O'Keeffe got the flight and I made my way back to wenzhou by train early the next morning, tired and in need of another holiday to relax after my first holiday!

Luckily after national day and its week holiday we have a 4 day week because of exams and then the week after that we will have a 3 day week because Thursday and Friday are sports days! Crazy! But not entirely sad..... Being a teacher in china does have some benefits!