Meeting our students- They have been welcoming and curious. Here are some of their most common questions so far: Why did you chose Shantou? Have you ever quarreled (their word not mine, given a choice they use the most British or formal word) with Don? Can you speak Chinese? (To both of us) And our favourite, tell us something romantic that Don did for you.
The Students – They are studying in a 3 year program to give them a certificate teaching English to primary or middle school. We’re not too sure yet whether they would be able to teach college / university. Some have studied two years at another school before coming here. They are in their early 20’s and their families are close by, most within a couple of hours bus ride from the campus so they often go home on the weekends. Unlike some of our students in Jinan, there is no epic journey to go home.
Classrooms – We are thankful for the many fans in the classrooms. Some even have one right over the lectern. Unfortunately, we don’t just stand there all of the time and because they spin to circulate the air, we still sweat. So our new teaching dance is talk talk talk, wipe wipe wipe. Ha ha!
Temperature - This week, the average temp has been in the mid 30’s with the humidity factor making it feel like high 40’s, they’re calling for mid 50’s in the next few days. Enough said.
Eating – Our food options have expanded since the students’ return. Despite our best intentions, we’re not able to cook as much ourselves now. Because of our schedules, we can’t go downtown during the week when the bus wouldn’t be so crowded. Last weekend we chose to avoid the bus altogether because we were told it would be bad (remember that there is really only one bus route taking everyone to town, they come every 15 minutes and the buses are small).
So we do take out for lunch and dinner a lot. Most of our meals have remained very reasonable, at $1 Cdn or less. You get lots of rice (Yay for the south, in the north they are not as rice oriented), a bit of greens, and a choice of 3 meats (BBQ pork, roasted duck or chicken for example), cafeteria style so you normally just pick and chose what you want and easy enough to order. We just point.
We also found a restaurant in one of the cafeterias where you can order off a menu. The ordering process is a bit different. Step 1 – take a few photos of menu. Step 2 – go home to translate on electronic dictionary as it’s too rushed there so I take my time and write in the menu items into my dictionary and it translates them for me. Not only can I figure out what is of interest but more importantly what we want to avoid. Step 3 – order a new dish to see if the translation is correct ☺
For fresh fruit, we shop at a little cart outside our gate or the stores along the main road. Sadly, the veggies are further away in the village that looks close but really isn’t in this heat. We made another trip last weekend but it’s a killer to walk there at anytime and the bikes haven’t moved since that one trip we took, just too hilly and hot for me at the moment.
Breakfast – We have been enjoying a great bacon we found in Walmart on the weekends. We can easily buy eggs now. On weekdays, I often buy a steam bun in the little store just outside, one yuan or around 15 cents, filled with some veg, a bit of meat and a piece of boiled egg. The only problem is that if I snooze, I lose. They only make one batch and when they’re sold out, I starve. Boo hoo.
Work - Our schedules are not too bad. There is a max of 3 classes a day since the school day goes from 8:10 – 3:40. We each have one full day. Luckily there is a 2 hour break at lunch so we have time to eat and take a short nap if we want. We’ve found that teaching in this climate has been a bit draining at times. We are always trying to be energetic to begin with, with the temperature and humidity factored in, well, let’s just say nap time is great.
Extra activity - We’ve just had our first English Corner here. Since the other Canadian couple hadn’t returned yet, it was only the two of us. We were surprised at the turnout. The freshman were all required to attend so there was a couple of hundred (yes! hundred!) students there. The student union organized it and a couple of students were hosting it so that wasn’t much a burden for us. The only thing was that we had to give a short presentation (unrehearsed and off the cuff really). It was the Don and June show. Apparently, if you put a mike in either of our hands, we morph. We also dressed the part of Canadian teachers with our matchy matchy red Roots t-shirts. Our big item for show and tell was our Canada flag. We had little trouble filling in our given time slot and then we had fun playing the various games that followed.
Life here so far is comfortable despite the weather conditions. Our classes are going well and the majority of the students seem interested. What more can we ask for.
Here are some more pics:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22798130@N07/sets/72157622290402185/
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