First week in Baoding

With the first week of orientation over a bunch of us decided to hit the town! After getting home at about 3am, I was regretting my decision to go out the night before I leave for my school. Three hours later (maybe still a bit tipsy) I pack up my stuff and head to the airport. It was about a two hour flight to Beijing and another two hour drive to Baoding. We (Lee the other teacher at my school and I) arrive at the school Hebei Eastern Bilingual School or 河北东双语学校 at about 6pm....very very tired. We eat dinner at the school cafeteria and basically crash. However, when we got there we noticed there was a ridiculously large welcome banner that basically said "Welcome Emily Johns and Lee Chapman to our school!"

The next day one of our two waiban (basically a teacher that helps us do stuff like go to the grocery store and whatnot..) took us into the downtown. We ate breakfast and then went to the old ZhiLi Govenor's Office. Baoding use to be the capital of the Hebei province so it still had its old city office from the Qing dynasty (1700s-1900s). We looked around there a bit and then around the main drag. Went to the grocery store and bought a few things.

By far the funnest thing was waking up at 4 the next morning and catching the early train to ShiJiaZhuang (the now capital city of Hebei). We had to take our medical exams to some office and make sure everything was ok. Of course this being China, the forms we had filled out were not exactly like the form they wanted so what did we get to do? We got to do the whole physical over again and pay for it....LAME! I'm so glad I spent so much time and effort in the U.S. getting all my tests and physical done! So after that we ate a bunch of good dumplings at this restaurant and took the train home. On the ride home our taxi drive literally hit a dog and the dog just kept running!! I screamed and then yelled at the taxi driver. Good advice to avoid having a heart attack in China...do not pay attention to how people drive and pray everytime you cross the street. You know how people say asian drivers are the worst drivers....you have no idea! I basically slept from like 4pm to 7am the next day....

To my surprise I found out I was teaching that morning....would have been nice to know earlier. I teach the primary school kids from grade k to 6th. They are really cute. And teaching basically involves singing and games and simple words like apple and red. For the most part the kids are well behaved and are really excited to have a non chinese person around (did I mention Lee and I are the only non chinse on campus??). I have a few text books that I use to make lesson plans and the rest I wing it. The students English level is really low, so I am just suppose to teach them simple words and phrases. No one writes anything down that I teach so that kind of explains why after 5 years of English the 6th graders still don't really understand anything. Either way it is pretty fun, specially the long break from 11 to 3 everyday where I usually eat and take a nap! My fellow Chinese teachers are really nice and helpful. I have one sit in each of my class and they pretty much are a translator (VERY HELPFUL!) They completely freaked when I understood what they were saying in Chinese too!

The highlight of the week was when a small 4th grade girl came up to me after class and said "teacher you are fat!" I was like...thanks girl for making my day! Then I considered since no chinese person is over 100 lbs that just meant I wasn't entirely skin and bones. Although with the food being the way it is on campus I won't be surprised if I am 100 lbs soon!

This past weekend we went into the city and looked around again...not too exciting. I'm trying to get in touch with another foreign teacher in Baoding cause life is getting a bit boring here. The other teacher at my school keeps to himself a lot so for now I'm a bit lonely....

The mid autumn festival is coming up next weekend and we get monday off so I'm planning on visiting Beijing since there is not much to do here. I also accidently signed myself up to teach a dance for the party the school is throwing...so let's see how that goes....where is dance squad deanna when I need her! Anyway hopefully my life will get more interesting and I'll post next week....