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Nimen Hao!
Sorry for not posting an entry in... nearly 3 months :S. It has been a combination of a terrrible internet connection, teaching, been carted from one place to another and a general state of apathy when the internet has been working as it should. So now to make up for my lack of posting, what's been going on?
Well, we've now got settled into our teaching schedules- we each teach 18 hours a week (well we did, now Scott only teaches 14 hours because he was having issues with his workload and I now only teach 16 hours because of an administrative mistake that is more difficult to correct than to leave it alone) Jon is teaching writing classes, I teach Oral English and Scott is teaching a combination of the two. It's not a lot when you first look at it- part-time in England- but when you consider that we also have to give them homework (and mark it) and we are designing our own curriculm as we go, it takes up a lot more time. Students here vary from very eager to very trying. The eager ones are brilliant, not always at speaking English, but their generally attitude is friendly and they try to understand and explain themselves to you and simply want to be your friend. The trying ones make you wonder why you bother getting up in the morning to teach them. Fortunately most of my students fall into the eager category.
We get invited nearly every week by students to English Club and English Corner. The distinction is a little hazy, but from what I have gathered (asking the students) English Club is like a society in a British university where you rock up and do interesting things and is run by the Students Union, English Corner is run by the individual classes but organised by English Club. What happens at English Corner can vary, some classes have a question for discussion as a group, others play English word games; but in the majority it decends into mobbing the English teachers with questions and affection and asking for photos.
So far this year we have had two holidays. The first was on 28th September - 8th October, it was the combined National Week and Mid-autumn festival holiday. National week is a 7 day holiday where people go home and visit their families if they can and go to see various tourist sites, the most popular of which (unsurprisingly) are those associated with the Red Uprising. Jon and I decided that we would visit Nanchang for a few days, the provincial capital of Jiangxi.
After a 4 hour train journey costing 4 pound 40p each we arrived to pleasant if grey weather. During our stay we never say a bit of blue sky, I presume it had something to do with pollution as when we left Pingxiang the sky was clear. We had booked a room in the Yijia Business Hotel and after a faff finding it- the address was wrong and it blended in with the surrounding shops, even the taxi driver was confused- we dumped our bags and went out to see what Nanchang had to offer.
For a provinal capital Nanchang feels quite small, there are several parks and department stores and ... A PIZZA HUT!!! But of course with this been China the Pizza hut wasn't quite like it is in England, there was no tomato puree and the Cheese was mild America, but it was still divine!
The next day we went to Tengwang Pavilion first. The pavilion had a large garden with carp in ponds which were quite peaceful considering the throng of people there. The Pavilion itself has 7 floors (8 if you count the balconied area on the top floor for private viewings of the performances on the stage. Each of the floors had a different thing it ranging from old blueprints of the previous pavilions, artefacts that were found from around the area and one floor gave you the opportunity to have your photo taken in Song dynasty costumes.
Afterwards we went across the river (the tributary rather the whole river) to the provincial museum, which I have to say was rather disappointing. There were some photos that had been superimposed onto a wall and some information about the indigenous tribes of Tiawan, some pottery for sale, an exhibition of traditional Chinese artefacts such as Jade jewellery, fans, old edicts etc, very interesting but not a patch on the exhibit at the Chinese National museum, an exhibit about the flora and fauna of the province and a dinosaur exhibition consisting of a few fossils and a walk through area of plastic dinosaurs.
Next we went looking for a store that sold magic cards. The building that was named on the mtg website had been knocked down so we went wandering looking for a store that sold games it the hope they'd also have magic cards even if we couldn't also play with people and get to know them. We managed to find one gamestore in the entire city but to cut a long story short there were some gamers in there who also played magic and dragged us along some back streets to what we would call a social club. There was a counter where you could by food such as pizza and ... MAGIC CARDS!
A note to my readers who play magic- the box cost only 700RMB (a little more than 70 pounds) and the market for individual cards is also significantly cheaper, so if you want any Chinese cards send me a message, as a price guide find the cost on GBP and then turn it directly into RMB e.g. 20 pounds for a steam vents costs about 20RMB here, Vraska the Hidden- 70RMB (I now own three!).
We made friends with some locals and had a good sociable evening at the games club. The next day we paid a visit to some other attractions- Youmin Si, a Buddhist temple. The buildings were beautiful and the atmosphere was very peaceful, but we felt slightly out of place, Youmin Si is a working Buddhist temple and not as famous as its counterpart to the south of the City: Taxia Si.
The second holiday was for the school sports meeting 24th- 26th October. Not that we were informed about it until Scott happened to mention that he was going to Hong Kong during it and his co-teacher was helping him organise it. So we didn't go anywhere for that holiday. However, Simon, another English teacher at a different shool arrived in Pingxiang and we were introduced to him and some former teachers who now live in China came back to say hello. So we were thoroughly wined and dined during those few days.
Simon works for a school Called Pingxiang Oxford English School, they're an afterschool school for English and teach 4 for 14 year olds English and they held a Halloween party which were invited to. There was face painting, a catwalk and mini talent competition, parents wrapped their children is toilet paper as a mummy, apple bobbing, pumpkin carving and tick-or-treating up and down the street, we had a quite a bit of fun.
I have also garnered an avid admirer during our stay. Her Chinese name is Weng but her English name (which is a combined effort between Jon and I) is Anastasia Firefly a tourism major(Anastasia because she needs a normal given name as she wishes to have lots of contact in the future, and firefly because of the sheer amount of energy and passion she seems to have for learning English, sometimes it's a bit overwhelming.
The school had a talent contest last week and Anastasia invited us to join her in watching the final. There was a variety of sketches, dancing and singing, all of which was pretty damn good, one guy even sang the English song Apologise, his pronunciation was near perfect (can you tell I'm an oral teacher :P). Although we weren't able to understand most of what was said we still enjoyed ourselves. (see photos)
Well folks that about sumarises what I've been doing for the past few months. Until next time!
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