Back in the Classroom Again

It is hard to imagine that after 12 years of blissful retirement that we could wind up in the classroom again. Yet it happened.

We are holed up at the Middle School in Zhengcheng China, which is a high school. Our tenure is a mere three weeks and we have only 15 forty minute classes scheduled for the entire three weeks. One cannot say that the load is excessive. But on top of that there is a lot of demand from other schools so we are ferried out of here and put in different classrooms to “do our thing.”
Our real purpose here is to expose the students to real English speaking people. I spent the day working on words like “thought”, “real” and “leak” because those sounds are very difficult for the Chinese.

I tried something a little different from the books. As I would start a sound I would show them to position their tongues to make the sound and it worked. Within seconds they were getting the sounds and were speaking those words as if they were native Canadians. I must admit I didn’t expect it to work that well and that fast.

We live in the teacher’s residence and the Chinese are doing everything to make us comfortable. Sometimes things don’t work out exactly right. Our bathroom is dubbed the Bathroom Bayou. The toilet is a flush and run. The shower stall is the entire bathroom and the shower water is heated by a propane burner on the wall, fuelled by a rather large tank camped beside the toilet. The heating unit appears to vent into the room so w e shower with the door wide open and the fan on full.

Shaving is exciting! There is no hot water at the sink so I have to turn on the shower and fill a small plastic bucket and then shave. I am actually used to it now.
There are so many upsides to this place that the bath doesn’t even rate above a most minor inconvenience. The students are amazing. They stand up and applaud when you walk into the classroom, they pay close attention for the whole period, participate eagerly in the lesson and then stand up and say “Thank you” when the lesson is over. I must admit that I am not used to that.

Every night we have been taken out and wined and dined like Royalty. Tonight we had a Cantonese feast and last night it was Shenzhen food (my favourite).
Truthfully we have been wined, dined and feted so much that we are all ready for a break. We have pretty much all agreed that our ideal supper tomorrow will be a bowl of noodles and a beer.
For the last 24 days Gwen & I have been eating with chopsticks. Most days we are reasonably good at it but then there are days we couldn’t pick up anything. My golf game is something like that. Some days are pretty god but most just don’t work.

We all walk many kilometres each day and in China if you are not going up a flight of stairs then you are coming down. Surprisingly, my knees are starting to adapt but I won’t go anywhere without my little folding cane.

We are having a ball in China. The people are fabulous. The food is outstanding. The students are amazing and the places we have visited on this trip are mind blowing.

We have seen the Ice Festival of Harbin. We have walked on the Great Wall and strolled through the Forbidden City. We have stood in awe at the sight of the Terra Cotta Warriors.

But don’t give up. There is a lot more to come. We are just at the half way mark of this trip.

Take care.

Pickwick et al