Last Weekend in Dongguan!!

           This weekend was so much fun! We all had Friday night off, so we relaxed at our apartments and went to bed early. Saturday we left around 8:30 to go to a city about three hours away to go “drifting.” Drifting is the Chinese kind way of saying white water rafting down a small river that goes down a mountain. When we first got to the sight, we had to lock up all of our stuff in lockers in a huge locker room. There were SO SO SO many people!!

Something I have learned about the Chinese culture is that the people are always conveniently in your way. I am convinced that they practice every night moving in front of other people then stopping, so it is incredibly inconvenient to walk anywhere.

After locking everything up in the lockers and safes, we got on the bus and drove us up to the top of the mountain. We put on helmets and lifejackets then walked down a very unsafe path with stairs to get into a raft in the river. While we were waiting for a raft, the Chinese workers (who were standing in the river) threw water at all of us. Immediately we were soaked!!

While going down the river, we would go down very fast parts and then wait for a little bit in calm parts. If I hadn’t tied my flip-flops to myself with rope, I would have lost them within the first five minutes. The whole thing took about an hour and a half. The whole time we would throw water on other boats, at other people – the Chinese version of a water fight. :)

At the very end it started to pour rain and it was so much fun to sit in the boat, soaked, and get poured on. We went back in a rickety, crowded bus then changed to dry(er) clothes and came home. It was a very fun experience!!

Rain :)

Sunday, we went to Humen to go shopping. One building was full A LOT of bags, wallets, and shoes. The other building was full of A LOT of clothes. Most looked like children’s sizes, so most of us didn’t waste much time to look for clothes. :) I bought a wallet and a couple scarves. For lunch we came back to campus and went to a traditional Cantonese restaurant with the leaders of the camp. It was…interesting to say the least! A few of us traveled to Pizza Hut afterwards, because of the questionable, cold, mystery meat.

Last night was one of my favorite nights so far! We had a dance masquerade party, where all of the students and teachers dressed up and wore masks. Some students had prepared a dance, as well as the TA’s. SO MANY PICTURES were taken! It was a fun two hours to hang out with the other teachers and with our students.

After this weekend went so fast, I cannot believe it is our last week here. I am excited to see Hong Kong and to come home, but we have to get through this busy week first!

They have signs and banners for EVERYTHING!! 

Most of the guys in my class :) 

The girls of Class J!! 

Class J and D :)

Over halfway done!

            After today we are over halfway done with the summer camp! My students are still very timid and shy in class, which is frustrating. Tomorrow and Friday pairs of students are sharing about American holidays. The textbook we have to use to teach out of is really boring and dull. I hate teaching out of it, but since the university purchased them for this camp specifically, we have to. It has been a challenge for me to challenge the students in the areas they need, while at the same time keeping class interesting. Overall, this experience has made me excited for teaching in my own classroom someday!!

            This week I had my students play the human knot, which was a huge hit! We also had a tug-a-war contest between all of the classes, then between our teaching assistants and the teachers. As you can probably see from the pictures, every person there was dripping with sweat because of how hot and humid it is here!

            This weekend we are going on two different day trips with our teaching assistants again. I am not positive what we are doing, but I will post more about that later. A week from this Saturday we leave for Hong Kong and stay until Tuesday mid-morning. After the horrid 16 hour plane ride, 4.5 hour layover in Chicago, and a quick flight home to Cedar Rapids I will be back in Cedar Falls!

            I cannot believe tomorrow is August 1!! I have been receiving a bunch of emails and updates about ADPi and I cannot wait to come back and help with recruitment plans! School starts in less than 4 weeks. :(…gross. I can’t wait to see everyone at home! Feel free to keep sending me emails to keep me updated!

Weekend in Guangzhou

            This weekend was full of activities! Yesterday morning us 10 teachers, all of our teaching assistants, and a handful of the camp staff took a charter bus to Guangzhou, the capital of the province Guangdong, which is where the town we are living in (Dongguan) is located. We first went to the Canton TV Tower, which is now a popular landmark of the city. It was 114 floors to the top, plus a big antenna thing on top. We first went to the 107 and 108 floors to view the city. I sent a couple postcards home from floor 107! Hopefully they get to the US before I get back. 

            After about 20 minutes, a few of us got the idea to ride the World’s Highest Vertical Freefall, which was on the top floor on the big antenna. After jumping off the World’s Tallest Bungee Bridge in South Africa last summer, I couldn’t turn the opportunity down! The drop was about 10 meters, so not too tall, but it was pretty frightening at the very top before being dropped because you could see the whole city for miles and miles and miles. The second drop was terrifying. The hydraulics of the seats shifted us forward so we were face down looking at the ground before dropping. Yes, I screamed. Yes, I cried a little. Yes, I am a bit of a daredevil. No, my parents didn’t know until after. 

 View of the city from the 108th floor. 

 The Canton Tower :) 

            After the Canton tower we went to a shopping mall and had McDonalds for lunch. It is so popular here and a little bit different than the US. The university paid for our lunch and our TA’s lunches, so it was more a treat for them than it was for us. In the afternoon we went to a “theme park” called Lingnan Impressions. It was kind of like a park with a few streets of old buildings and lots of shops and a few shows. It was cool, but it poured down rain on us and the Chinese TAs and staff did not understand that we did not need to stay together as a big group of 30. It was a little stressful, but the buildings were beautiful and we saw a lot of the older Chinese culture and traditions.

The 10 UNI teachers

            Today, Sunday, us teachers and three TAs went into the city of Dongguan and went to a market called Lady’s Park. There were multiple streets and alleys of shops and stores that we walked through. Most of the stuff was not touristy stuff or things to buy as gifts or souvenirs, but a few of us girls got really cute backpacks. There was a lot of clothes and shoes. We ate at Pizza Hut for lunch and went to Walmart, which was similar, but had a lot of different things, then came back to our campus. Tonight we are getting ready for the second week of camp and trying to recoop from our experiences of the weekend!

Week One - Almost Done!!

            Week one of three of China English Summer Camp is almost over! The days seem to go by very slowly, but the week has gone by fast for the most part. The days are full of teaching and the nights have different activities depending on what night it is. Last night we had another English Corner and it always starts out with talking to different students and classmates about a topic. Eventually we venture off and talk about random things. After answering questions like why my hair is red and why I have “black makeup” (sleepy bags) under my eyes, I taught my class the slap game. The loved it!

            Today is Friday and we all had to give a test to our students. This afternoon another class and mine are watching Space Jam. The areas that I think need the most improvement are speaking and pronunciation. They also struggle with hearing and understanding foreigners. I feel like I repeat instructions a million times before they understand what they need to do for each activity.

            Tomorrow we are going to Guangdong, which is the capital of the province we are living in right now. The city I am in is Dongguan. Sunday we are going to a market for a few hours then getting ready for the week. I hope to talk to more people at home this weekend, but the 13-hour time difference makes life difficult!!

            Yesterday was our first day of teaching! The day started out with an opening ceremony that included two faculty members from Dongguan University of Technology speaking, as well as our camp director, Yana Cornish. Yana and the Vice President of the University exchanged school flags, then the 10 of us teachers did a half-hour performance of fun songs and skits. Ceremonies are very popular in China, so we will also have a closing ceremony to end the camp.

            The students know English pretty well. Speaking it is the hardest part for most of them and pronunciation is pretty awful. The letter “r” sound and the “th” sound are very foreign to them. My students like to repeat words a lot after I say them, especially words with the letter “r” in the middle. Most are very shy to speak out loud, so I have had to make it clear that the only way they will learn is to continuously speak English aloud.

            I have 16 students in my class. 5 girls and 11 boys. All of our classrooms are in the same building in the same hallway. My class joins with another class for the first hour of every day to review what we learned the day before and then I teach solo for the rest of the day. The day went by fast, but we will see once I get through a whole day of teaching!

            The schedule for each day is about the same. We have class from 8:30-11:20, lunch/siesta from 11:30-2:30, class from 2:40-4:30, an afternoon activity from 4:50-5:50, and an evening activity from 7-8:30 everyday. We are not required to go to the evening activity, but last night’s was a lot of fun, so most of us teachers will probably end up going to them anyway.

            Our meals are still good. We do not get much meat, but when we do it’s usually pretty spicy. Not much rice or noodles (even though we would love to eat them) and a lot of bread. The Chinese do not have different foods for breakfast and the other meals. We have chicken nuggets almost every morning for breakfast along with Coca Cola. They only have small packets of instant coffee, but tea is more common.

            Hope all is well at home!

Teaching English in China - Day 1 and 2!!

            First full day – check! After leaving Cedar Rapids around 6:30 am Thursday morning and spending a fun 5-hour layover in Chicago, the 15 and a half hour plane ride to Hong Kong went very smooth. I sat next to an older Chinese woman who did not know how to work her personal TV, and she did not have a problem with waking me up from two different naps to ask for help. It wouldn’t have been so terrible except her screen was in Mandarin, so I had to look back and forth from my screen in English to help her, which of course caused me to lose my spot in whatever movie or TV show I was watching at the time. That was my first eye opener to the Chinese culture. J

            After going through immigration and luggage claim, Yana, my professor and I, met a driver who drove us three hours to Dongguan. We also had to go through a security checkpoint in the van to leave Hong Kong then another checkpoint and customs to enter China. I had no clue that the two countries hated each other so much! There are so many unnecessary differences between the two even though they are neighbors – for example, in Hong Kong the steering wheels in cars are on the right and in China they are on the left.

            I got to my room on the university campus I am teaching at around 11 pm on Friday, which is 10 am Iowa time. My first night of sleep was terrible. The beds are hard as rock and have absolutely no give. My shower was an experience considering they don’t use shower curtains in China. After going outside this morning, within the first five minutes I wasn’t sure why I had even showered because I was drenched in sweat.

            The humidity here is unbelievable. The canteen where we (the 10 of us teachers) eat a family style breakfast, lunch, and dinner is a ten-minute walk and if we aren’t drenched in sweat from being outside, we are drenched in rain water. It rains at very random times throughout the day and when it rains, it rains hard. 

            After breakfast today we had a campus tour by our teaching assistants that are all English majors of some sort at this university and each of us have one or to TAs assigned to us for the duration of the camp to help with random tasks or to translate if necessary. They are also working on their English, so it is a great program for them.

            If you have any questions about anything I am experiencing here in China feel free to email me! schantza@uni.edu