March

March I have found to be the fastest month here. We have gone through some pretty crazy experiences, but China wouldn’t be the same without them. I have also found writing in this blog to be harder and harder as the months come to a close. Living in another country can be difficult and crazy, but as you learn to survive in a foreign culture you start to become more used to things and less likely freaked out by everyday occurrences. We have had so many “well that’s China for ya” moments that writing about them almost seems redundant. How many times can you as a reader be shocked by the train rides with spitting men, or the way our school sometimes treats us like gold and then like crap the next day” I know all of you must be saying yes we can take it , we love the shock value, but when you live here everyday things just don’t shock like they used to. So here’s an overview of shocking stories for the month see what you think. Some are defiantly worth blogging about and many you have already heard Via worried parents. Kids cover your eyes and hold onto your seats.

Joe’s Black Tongue and Hospital Experience

Well first Joe started to get flu like symptoms. He had bad diarrhea and couldn’t keep anything down even water. He first just tried Pepto Bismal and right away he started to notice his tongue was turning Black. He immediately thought he was going to die!!! We searched on the internet and found out that Pepto has this side effect among some people, so weird really weird. Joe really thought it was it for him though, he even crawled onto the floor and hugged my leg as I was doing dishes one afternoon.
He seemed to not get any better in the next few days, he even missed two days of teaching. The teachers all got worried and insisted he be taken to the hospital. We really didn’t want to take him, but with missing so many classes we felt like maybe he should go just to make the teachers feel better. So we took him, the doctors then examined him. First by putting a thermometer under his arm pit, this all while he was wearing a winter coat and two layers of sweaters.. hmm true temp , I think not. They the asked several questions in which our liason continued to refer to bowels as your shit. Honestly I don’t think the Chinese know any other word for poop then shit. She asked every question there was, then the doctor took him to another building. In china the hospital is separated into exam building and patient building. So we went to the patient building. There we got our own room and Joe started injections. I have to tell you , in China when you are sick you go to the hospital and get Ivs it’s the way its done here. We have said before that students come to class with iv bags and I even saw little kids walking around with them when we got there. Little as in 3 years old! As I am getting Joe situated with everything and the nurses find his non existent, dehydrated veins , I hear him mumble something he says “wait, wait take a picture of me”!! That’s right, everyone Joe was sick enough to be in a hospital, but not sick enough to forget his time to shine. Here’s the photos to prove he was in a Chinese hospital. Just so you don’t freak out everything went fine. The hospital here is a little scary and not as well kept as a western hospital, but as far as we know all the needled were new , We saw them take them out of a new sealed bag. Joe ended up staying the night because they wanted him to have the injections longer. He really was very dehydrated. The medicine they gave him was western medicine, although at the time we thought hmmm maybe there putting tea into his veins, but on further google check we found them to be normal iv fluids and a fluid for nausea. After two days of there fluids I wondered if they spiked it with Chinese serum because Joe was telling me he wanted to go back again that day for more. All in all Joe was there for 3 days, only one over night. It only cost 300 kuai for the bed and medicine, really cheap if you think what we pay in America!

Midservice

We had a meeting in Changsha to go over our year so far. All the foreign teachers came in and we regrouped about how life was going. Some people love there school, others can’t wait to leave. The best part was just being able to share about the same crazy things that happen to foreigners living in China. We also got some new tricks and lesson plan ideas for the rest of the year. After it all our boss even found a place to take us bowling!! That’s right bowling, I couldn’t believe how much fun it could be, we never new you could bowl in china at all , and here it is.

Teaching
In the month of March teaching went well. We were recharged from the month long vacation, so our lessons really went smoothly and the kids were genuinely interested in how our journey went. So far we have been teaching mostly from the book with a few add ins because the teachers already had started the chapter when we were on vacation.
Although this term both Joe and I have decided to start making the students give English speeches. We have them choose a topic, include an intro and speak for 2-3 minutes. I even went to the extent of having a class grade sheet made up and the directions of the speech be translated into Chinese so they have no excuse not to do it. In our classes we do not give grades so its hard sometimes to feel like we have accomplished something. This gives us a chance to have the kids feel like our classes really do matter and there not just a blow off fun time. So far the students have come up with some interesting topics. Some have been of course in the tradition of Chinese classrooms about the same thing, but some have been breaking the mold. Those mold breakers are my favorite to see.
Topics: Difference between Chinese and American families, A speech about light quoting genesis!, holiday differences, How in America we clothe our babies according to sex, Ways to stay healthy, Sports, Chinese stars, Class address(similar to the presidential address, how to be better students, often spoken with great feeling), Chinese school system, Dreams and Goals, NBA, and I even had a kid do a rap. Another wrote a riddle on the board and another told what different flowers mean. ex:red rose=love. Very creative, those board writers almost always get an “A”. I give them grades A, B, or C. C is very hard to get, and so is A. I don’t believe kids should just get an A for anything, so only the really good ones get A’s. Then I write on a slip of paper suggestions and positives with their grade. It’s a lot of work however I think its good for them to see how to improve, plus it’s the Chinese way to suggest improvement it shows I care about them.

Teaching part Deux, Basketball Boys
Well one day in March I was teaching and we were doing a group activity, Im telling you sometimes I push the limits when it comes to there being so many kids. I had this one class write stories about some magazine pictures I had cut out. An easy task you would think but to get the kids to be creative is hard, really there normally taught in a certain way that does not include anything they may be able to add input in. So I try to get them to get out of that way of learning and give them fun activities. This activity had worked in every other class I had! This was right before lunch so I could tell this day was going to be different. As I assigned numbers and the kids moved around, I noticed that the door kept opening and closing. Finally I thought you know this isn’t right , I turned around and opened the door, several students just sat outside looking out at the basketball court. I couldn’t believe it, so I grabbed up all the pictures and said sit down now. The kids all came back in and then I noticed that 5 seats were empty. The students were so surprised they had never seem me this angry. I don’t know why but like I said today was different, Teacher Emily was not taking crap from nobody. I said where? And I repeated that word while pointing at the desks. “Where?, Why?” Finally a student stood up and said outside over there, I will show you. So he defienlty ratted out his pals, but he could see I was about to kill, so I probably woulda too. He takes me outside and points to where the boys are, I asked what is their Chinese name? The boy told me all of there names and as I walked out of the class and walked up to the boys I screamed there Chinese names at them. They immeadily stopped there b-ball game and starred at me like what was she going to do? I grabbed one boy by the ear and said “Get inside, Now”. A boy tried to start talking and give me reasons , I just said “I do not care”. I was so angry they could see the flames coming out of my ears. Then as I am screaming and dragging the one boy by the ear I see Joe, the barber and the phone guy Bear starring at me from our house. The b-ball court is right outside our house. The barber just starts laughing and Bear has a shit grin the size of the Mississippi. Joe comes up to us as if he is going to help me and sternly asks what did they do , what happened. I then barked back at Joe “Nothing!” The boys all jumped. I didn’t want it to seem like I needed my husbands help to discipline my students. As we were walking back to the classroom I look up and see the whole class starring with their mouths open from the balcony next to there classroom. I really had never been mad at them before and they didn’t know what to expect. They all ran in sat down and were quiet when I entered the room with the 5 boys. The boys sat down and I told them to write an apology letter to me explaining why they left class. Then I talked to the rest of the students and gave them a guilt trip saying why do I come here, do you think I come here to play, My family is hundreds of miles away , is it fair that I come all the way here give up my family to be with you and you treat me like this? The kids all cried out Im sorry Im sorry. I said ok well you know how to act. Your not Junior students. I said if you want to be junior students I can treat you like I treat my juniors. They all yelled No we are sorry teacher Emily. I then made a kid look up in the dictionary what “waste of time” meant in Chinese and had him translate. Then I taught them teacher Emily’s coined phrase , “If you waste my time , I waste your time.” I then gave an example, You don’t work in my class then you don’t go to lunch. Ha ha haa they were so upset. The bell rang and they all looked at me like, oh god no!!! I kept them 5 minutes into there lunch, which is nothing because we are supposed to let them out 5 minutes early, so technically I let them out on time, but the other classes were out running around and going to the café before they could. I then said be better next week.
As that week went by I got all 5 letters from the boys, then the next class, everyone sat down and was quiet when I spoke, the one boy who’s ear I pulled wanted to help me in everyway possible, erasing the board, booting up the computer, it was like teaching heaven! I’m usually not that harsh on kids, in fact I am a really slack discipliner, but that day I was so mad, I couldn’t believe that I gave them such an easy task and they went out to play ball. Now the barber and Bear love to give me shit for it, they never knew I could yell either and they have kids of there own too, so they felt like they could relate to me.

Last but not least!! We found a bowling place in YueYang!!! So happy!! Now we can go bowling whenever we want, we’ve already gone once, I think China must import all the crappy balls from America, cause they really suck. We also came home to gifts from our school

, we got huge 100 pound bags of rice, two zhangguing famous jars of tofu, two boxes of fugi apples, and before we left 100 lbs of oranges, I love our school and I love Spring Festival.