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We just finished our third week of school and I’m finally starting to feel like I’m getting the hang of things a bit more.  I think I’m definitely building more trust and relationships with the students and they are becoming less and less afraid of talking to me in English.  I also held my first English conversation class for teachers at my school.  It’s great to have so much support from the principal and staff at the school for English learning.  The principal even treated us all to iced coffee for our first session!

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This weekend, we took a train to Toucheng for an annual festival in celebration of the ghost month.  There was lots of food, carnival games, offerings, a bonfire, and fireworks.  But, the main event was a contest for young men to mount and climb the structure below called Gupeng.  The base is made of 12 thick wooden pillars at least 30 m tall and drenched in cow fat.  Atop the pillars lies a platform on which thirteen also large and tall bamboo structures balance with tons of offerings, pastries, and a gold medal to claim as a prize for good luck for the year.

The entire game is extremely dangerous; in fact, the contest was suspended for seven years because of deaths caused by the rigorous contest.  It was definitely an interesting experience to see; although, I must admit that watching these men hang on for dear life as they slowly climbed these greasy wooden poles lost some interest after a while.

Probably one of the most exciting aspects of my first year full-time teaching (albeit in a new country) is the freedom we have to decorate our own classrooms! The principal at Li Sing Elementary School is really supportive of improving the English program at the school and has given us two English classrooms this year!  My LETs and I have already started decorating one of them which will be American themed.  So far, we’ve painted chairs, cabinets, and made an awesome flag themed bulletin board!

(Lisa and Amy, my LETs)

The other classroom will be fairytale themed.  Amy and I have already bought some curtains and tassels to make a faux-stage with s0 that students can perform reader’s theater!  There’s something incredibly rewarding about decorating your own classroom.

Twice a day, the students have a 20-minute break in which 6 students from each home room leave the room to clean up the school. During this break, cute happy music sort of reminiscent to the third Harry Potter movie plays over the loud speakers as the children run around asking the teacher for more things to do. It’s probably the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. These kids had so much energy as they washed the blackboard, cleaned off the erasers, swept the floors, wiped off the desks, and mopped the floors. They definitely must learn what it means to be responsible for the school and apparently obedience. I called them “hen(3) guai(1)” [p.s. be careful on the first tone for guai…otherwise you might call someone strange] which means that they’re good kids. Then, Amy laughed as she said that they are “hao(3) ting(1) hua(4)” which means that they are good listeners, they’ll do whatever you tell them to. Anyway, I was floored with how obedient the students were and noted how this would never happen in America.

Cute story #2. So, on the first day of class, I told the students that I didn’t know any Chinese. But, when they asked me what my favorite foods were, of course, I had to speak Chinese because all of my favorite foods don’t really have accurate English counterparts. So, I said “cong you bing” which is like a green onion pancake extraordinaire. Then today, I was introduced to the entire school at a school-wide assembly as an American teacher that only spoke very little Chinese so they should practice English with me, or if not, then Chinese. Later during the cleaning session, a kid (not in my class) came up to me and screamed “cong you bing” and smiled. Absolutely adorable. He ran away too quickly afterwards for me to respond with anything else but a laughing hysterically.