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...