We had noodles for breakfast at Genius Baby- I hate to say it but I'm already getting used to these non-breakfast foods in the morning.We were met by Teacher Shi and Echo.Debbie and Ruth were also with them, it was good to see them again.

We went to Golden Childhood Kindergarten where I was to give my first lesson.I hadn't realised that the other English teachers from our scheme would be watching and I felt very self-conscious.I kind of rushed through my lesson plan and the kids were picking the words up much more quickly than I expected so I was told the lesson was too short and I had to go back.Crap!I'd run out of material as I'd only planned one 20 minute lesson for the day.Thinking on the spot I launched into head shoulders knees and toes and got them to copy the names of the parts of the body and then sing the entire song.One child said the Chinese word for toes instead and all the other kids started laughing and crawling on the floor.I thought it was funny and started laughing but then I was suddenly aware of the video camera watching me and tried to restore order.

After the first class I thought I had finished and started to relax, but then I was told I had to do a second unexpected lesson.Luckily it was a different class of children so I was able to use the same lesson plan again and this time I did head shoulders knees and toes at the end so I didn't finish too early.When I had a moment I counted, and in the room there were 30 children (aged four) and 10 adults.Despite the high number of adults to children (most of them speaking the same language as the kids) it was still chaos trying to get the children to listen and follow the activities.I think age four is so young to be learning a second language.Hopefully it will be easier when I am on my own, because the Chinese assistants kept interrupting me to talk to the children but didn't tell me what they just told the kids.This made it very difficult to manage a coherent lesson with so many people giving instructions to such young children.

Went to kindergarten for supper, the meal had been chicken so the chef specially made a potato dish for me.It was grated potato fried in some kind of vinegar.I was given a spoon but actually went to find chopsticks to eat with, as it was easier to pick up the potato shreds with the chopsticks than the spoon.I can't believe I'm opting for the chopsticks so soon!

As we were eating, Jen found a chickens head in her bowl still with the crown thing on its head.It literally looked like it had just been chopped off and thrown in.Not very pleasant!In the evening we watched TV with Miss Wang, it was quite nice just the three of us sitting there watching TV and laughing about the contestants on the show which we couldn't even understand.

Somehow the conversation came up about children so I decided to break the rules and ask something a bit controversial… so Miss Wang told us about the one child policy.She said that families can only have one child if they live in a city, but up to three children if they live in the countryside.I asked if many people move to the country so they can have more children, she laughed and said a lot of parents do this.I asked her what would happen if a family had already had as many children as they were allowed and then got pregnant again.She said they could go to the government and pay 13,000RMB for the child.I didn't ask what would happen if they didn't pay this fee.Interestingly, she also said parents are not supposed to have a second child if their first child is a boy. I'm not sure how that rule applies to people in the countryside etc.but even in 2010 it seems there is still greater desire to have a boy in the family.However, from what I have seen, women are in the workplace as much as the men, running food stands, restaurants, market stalls convenience stores, driving buses and taxis, teaching in schools.I wonder how long it will be before the birth control rules change too.