Lost in Translation

This week I am teaching 2 extra classes, one for each freshman class, due to our upcoming Christmas vacation to Hong Kong which is a week earlier than when classes are supposed to finish. In English we call this a make-up class, and I forgot that might not translate into Chinese directly. My freshmen knew (I think?) that it was simply an extra class to make up for missing the last week of classes, but Leslie told several of her students that I was teaching a make-up class and when we met with them later, they asked how my cosmetics class went.

I forgot that make-up has multiple meanings and they were not aware of the one I was referring to! Bless their hearts! The shocking part of it all is that me teaching a cosmetic class was not a strange concept to them, the student just asked if I could she could join my next class :-P I was called a fashion (read: fashionable) woman in class by my students today, and have been asked on multiple occasions where I get my 'eyelash paste' (read: mascara) and how come I look so beautiful (read: any foreigner in China is beautiful).

On the note of beauty, I couldn't help but smile and laugh when 2 of the girls who come to my office hours each week were talking about makeup and asking what type of makeup I use when they said that bad eyeliner makes them look like a Panda! I've grown up calling that raccoon eyes, but am forever changing my expression - a Panda is much cuter!

We survived our 13.5 hour work day by eating lots of great food at the restaurant by school and discovering that our offices, as simple as they may seem, are quite conducive to afternoon naps (hey, we've got to do something during our 2-hr long breaks). English Corner tonight was about Christmas and as always there was absolutely no structure so we had a Q&A session for an hour or so. We did sing for the students though! This might have been the one time I would have liked to have a secret fly on the wall recording us - Leslie and I singing 'We Wish You a Merry Christmas' and 'The Twelve Days of Christmas' was probably one of the funniest things our students have seen in a while. Silly American teachers!

I guess we were just solidifying our rockstar status. I had at least 20 cell phone pictures taken of me while conducting English Corner, and all the boys there (and most of the girls, too) came up to me after and asked to have their picture taken. And they yelled at me when I tried to bend down to be on their level for pictures. I'm starting to feel more like a freak show than a rockstar: "Hey, look at that tall freakshow of a foreigner!!" On second thought, maybe I should stop wearing heels...

Clueless

I woke up early bright eyed (but definitely not bushy tailed) this morning preparing for a long (13ish hour) day. Walking to wait for the bus with my large load (13 hours leads to needing lots of books, papers, etc.) in tow, Leslie and I both had a minor panic attack thinking we had missed our bus. Finally we saw one of our coworkers who always takes the bus with us – phew!

Turns out everyone was by the school gate because some of the local people who live around the perimeter of the school were protesting at the gate and no cars/busses could get in or out of the school! How bizarre! Thank goodness our co-worker (fellow English teacher who understands perfect English but almost never communicates with us) told us to follow her, and we busted through the crowd together. People walking in and out was not a problem, they were trying to block vehicles for some reason. First I asked DanDan, the admin at our school who works with our students and their schedules, but she shrugged her shoulders clueless. Next I asked our co-worker and she said, “Maybe it’s because of the water problem?” My first thought was, “What water problem? My water worked just fine this morning!” Leslie asked one of her students who was shaddy and would not tell her what was going on (I think she just did not know but didn’t want to seem clueless in front of her).

We caught the bus outside of the school gate since there was not way it was entering the school (even though it could have easily taken out the 25ish people standing there, haha) and some other co-workers had to go to the back of the bus and direct the bus driver on how to back the [coach] bus out of the narrow road leading up to our school – hilarious! We are backing out of a small street because the demonstrators would not let us in, and in turn we went the wrong way down a one-way road to catch the high-way (okay so that’s not too out of the normal) and caused another traffic jam on top of the on outside of the school. On a Monday morning when all you want is to be back in bed, entertainment like that is definitely much more amusing than it should be. After the bus was moving in the right direction we asked another co-worker what in the world was going on and he told us “the farmers [motioning to the shack houses surrounding the school] are upset.” That’s as much of an answer as we got.

And that is typical for China – we don’t know what’s going on half of the time, but just have to laugh it off because that is all we can do!

Teacher or Judge?

Lately it's felt as though I spend as much time judging various competitions as I do teaching! Tonight we judged our third competition - the first 2 were English speech competitions, this one was an English Song competition. This time it was more than just Leslie, me, and one other person; we were part of a 6-person panel. I'm kind getting used to being a judge but it's still a rather weird feeling. Tonight's was especially awkward and hilarious! First, I do not and can not sing (besides to myself in my apartment when, of course, I sound just like a superstar). Second, it's really weird when some of our students are up on stage and we have to be impartial! Regardless, I played the role of an American Idol judge tonight (I'd like to think I was the nice one like Paula, the Chinese teacher next to me was being very harsh!).

To make the situation even funnier, we didn't recognize a lot of the songs on the list! Popular English songs in China are either A) 10-15 year-old songs or B) Songs NO ONE in America has ever heard of. Here's the night's playlist:
-If I Ain't Got You by Alicia Keys
-Crush on You
-Far Away from Home
-No No
-Drowning by the Backstreet Boys
-Skater Boy by Avril Lavigne
-Nobody's Fool by Avril Lavigne
-Tell Me Why
-Anything But Ordinary by Avril Lavigne
-It Is Your Chance
-Bring It All Back
-Hey Jude by the Beatles
-Whenever Wherever by Shakira
-Baby One More Time by Britney Spears
-Because of You by Kelly Clarkson
-Just One Last Dance
-Wanna Be by the Spice Girls
-Whistle Down the Wind
-When There Was Me and You
-Walk Away by Kelly Clarkson

Needless to say I had many middle school flashbacks watching the show :) OH China...

Mrs. Ding?

Well right now I am technically Miss Ding (Dīng Shān Shan, to be exact) but my freshman class 3 (one that invited me to the picnic) today tried very hard to convince me to marry a Chinese man and stay in China. We are discussing families & love/marriage in class this week but this class got me off-topic and on tangents for practically the entire class! Their arguments for why I should marry a Chinese man:
1. The man's family pays for the wedding (Dad would like that one haha)
2. Engagements are unnecessary (who needs to wait that long for a wedding anyways, right?)
3. Instead of calling your husband/wife's parents your in-laws, you simple call them your mom and dad (I'd gain another set of parents - not that mine aren't great already!!)
4. I could be a teacher and only work 20 (that's how many hours they think I work...I didn't want to admit that I work less than 1/2 that, haha)
5. Chinese get over 4 weeks vacation/holiday in a year
6. Many companies give extra vacation for a honeymoon (even more vacation!)
7. A woman can get up to a year off work when she has a kid
8. You must be 20 to legally marry (perfect, I'm older than that)

Despite all these arguments, staying in China to marry is definitely not in my future at the moment. They forgot that I would most likely tower over my husband and never get to see my family and friends! Students trying to marry me off = just another day in the classroom here in China. My students never cease to amaze and amuse me and they have an uncanny ability to make even Monday mornings turn into a great time :)