Half-way through WeiHai

I have a hard time believing that we are half way through our time in WeiHai. I can’t believe that in less than 3 weeks I’ll be home again! It’s amazing how fast time flies when you’re having fun. Anyhoo, this past week has been busy, just like the week before.

Monday was another day of teaching—as was every other day of the week. As I am the only one teaching my class, and we only meet in the mornings, I was still teaching mornings. However, seeing how Sarah and Bettina are both teaching the upper level classes and have teaching partners, they switched their teaching to the afternoons for the week. The biggest change this caused was they weren’t around in the afternoons to hang out (which was probably for the best, so I could prep for my next class). Monday morning, Wayne came to visit us—to check up on how we are doing. It was really good to see him! He stayed until Tuesday evening. Monday evening was the first E-zone that we (the teachers) were in charge of leading. And it was our group that was in charge of leading—Sarah was the designated leader for the day. After E-zone Wayne took us out to a restaurant that has tables on the sidewalk. We went and got some meat skewers and scallops. It was good to get out of the school for a while.

Tuesday was Sarah’s birthday! Even though we had to teach, we all had a good day, celebrating by enjoying brownies at lunch and going out for Korean Barbeque and ice cream with Wayne. Also, we had the night off from E-zone, which was a nice break. We had to say goodbye to Wayne, which was sad, but we know we’ll see him again in a few weeks.

Wednesday and Thursday were rather uneventful days. I taught in the mornings, and planned in the afternoons. We had E-zone in the evenings, Thursday which I led. I decided on choosing the topic of celebrations, and comparing how we “westerners” celebrate Birthdays, New Years, and Valentine’s Day with how the Chinese celebrate these holidays (or at least similar holidays). I had some rather interesting conversations with the students in my group as did, from what I heard, many of the other groups. I think, after much worry about what to do and how it would go, it went rather well.

Friday was again spent teaching in the morning. In the afternoon, Jasmine, one of the teachers, and I were talking about going to the beach. While talking about this over lunch, we decided to go, as did some of the other teachers, deciding to take their classes as well. So, we took 3 classes of students on the bus to the international beach. Seeing as the students didn’t have warning ahead of time we didn’t go swimming. We did, however, enjoy wading in the water. We brought along a volleyball and Frisbee. It was fun to play with the students. They taught us a form of dodge ball with one ball and four people standing in the corners trying to hit the people in the middle. Shortly before we had to leave, we started tossing the Frisbee around. I believe that most of the students had never seen a Frisbee before. They had fun tossing it around for a few minutes before we told them it was time to go.

Coming back from the beach was quite an adventure as well. Not all of us fit on the same bus, so we crammed as many as we could on one bus and a few of us decided to catch the next bus. The next bus that we ended up catching was not a city bus, but a private bus. Not long into our bus ride I noticed that the driver was having trouble getting the bus into gear. Even though this was a little troublesome, I just ignored it—stuff like this always happens in China. However, half way back to the school, the bus stopped running, and wouldn’t start up again. After sitting there for a few minutes, we decided to get off and catch a taxi. It was quite the adventure! (in a good way of course)

Saturday we went to Liu Gong Island. We went with a large group of students. Even though the day started out a little rough, sorting out tickets and who would go with whom, we had a really good day. We split into different groups. In my group, we had 5 teachers and 6 students. We had a good day, walking around, taking the cable car up to the top of the mountain, seeing the museums, checking out the different sights on the island, and shopping. After being there for 7 hours, we decided to head back to the mainland and get some dinner. We decided to get personal hot pot, which was a wonderful way to end the day!

Today, Sunday, we were able to have a relaxing day. We went to church this morning, went to KFC for lunch, came back to the apartment and relaxed. It was a wonderful day and a wonderful ending to a good week.

First Week of Teaching - Done!

This past week has been rather crazy and busy. We arrived in WeiHai Saturday, July 11 in the afternoon. We had a few short hours to unpack our bags and get settled in our new apartment—a “flat” with a large living room, kitchen, a bathroom (2 showers and toilets), and 5 bedrooms. The bedroom we are staying in is considered to be the “girls’ room”. In our room there are 4 sets of bunk beds and 8 lockers. This is where the six single female teachers sleep. There is another bedroom (the guys’ room) that has 2 sets of bunk beds. Here the 3 male teachers sleep. There are 2 bedrooms that I believe are “master bedrooms” (with a bathroom in them) where the 2 couples are staying. Oh, and did I mention that our apartment/flat is the sixth floor of the school? Well, it is, which means that during the week we don’t get out of the school very often.

Anyway, after settling in, we had an orientation meeting—the basics of what we’re going to be doing the next 4 weeks here at Jian Hua Foreign Language School—teaching, planning, leading E-zone (a place for students to come and practice their English), and keeping the apartment clean. Our teaching days are split up into 6 sessions. We have three 45 minute sessions with 15 minute breaks in between. Then we have a two hour lunch break and three more 45 minute sessions with 15 minute breaks in between. The four lower levels only meet in the morning while the two higher levels meet all day. I am teaching the third level, so I am only teaching in the mornings. Those who are teaching the higher levels have a teaching partner so that they only have to teach for three sessions—either the morning or the afternoon.

Monday we started our teaching. After spending the day Sunday going to church, exploring a bit of the city, and going over to the principal’s flat for tea and biscuits (they’re British), I was up late planning my lesson for Monday. After the first session on Monday morning I started to freak out. I was wondering why I was here and what I was doing. During our break I talked to Lorraine (one of our hosts who stepped in as my translator for the first two days). She encouraged me and gave me advice on how to improve. By the end of the morning I felt much better about how things went, but I still knew I had a lot more to improve. I also came up with lots of ideas on how to make things go smoother and be more exciting for my students. Of course I spent the afternoon and evening preparing for my class on Tuesday as well as finding things to decorate the room. One thing I added was a world map—I found out that my students didn’t know many of the English names for countries. So I found a world map in Chinese and added English names to it.

Tuesday seemed to go better than Monday, but still wasn’t the best it could have been. I was more prepared for Tuesday. On Monday I was able to complete everything I had planned in the first two sessions and made it up as I went in session three. Tuesday I actually had enough stuff planned for the day. Once again, I got advice from Lorraine on how to teach better and how to get and keep my students’ attention. The biggest thing was not to focus on grammar—that’s what they get in school. They’re mostly here to practice speaking their English. Tuesday afternoon, as I planned my lesson for Wednesday, I got excited. I found activities in the teacher’s book that allowed the students to speak more and the topic of family trees came up. I got excited about ideas that came into my head—build a family tree on the wall with pictures of my family (yes family, you are hanging up in my classroom =D).

Excited about Wednesday, I didn’t realize that I had planned too much. I didn’t get to the family tree, but I could tell my students were enjoying class more—they did more than just sit at their desks and work with their partners. They were allowed to get up, work with groups, and practice speaking more. The only thing about Wednesday I wasn’t too sure about was that Lorraine was no longer my translator. She was leaving in the afternoon and wanted to sit in on the other girls’ classes. Instead, one of the full time staff members became my translator—only she doesn’t speak near as much English as Lorraine and she doesn’t translate near as much as Lorraine did. Although, over the past few days I’ve come to realize that’s okay (and probably better for the kids), but it was adjustment I had to make. Right after lunch, Sarah, Bettina and I had to say goodbye to Lorraine, which was very hard—Lorraine lived with us for 4.5 weeks, she became a dear friend, and we didn’t want her to go. :’( But we said our goodbyes and kept on planning and teaching…

Thursday I was able to cover the family tree. Wednesday afternoon I was able to set up the family tree in my classroom. I was going to add grandparents, but then realized that if I added them, I’d have to add my aunts, uncles, and cousins. Which, for some people, wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but after drawing it out on a piece of paper I realized I shouldn’t—I have 17 aunts and uncles and 27 cousins. I did however draw my entire family tree out to show my students—it was fun to watch their faces as I told them I have 27 cousins. It’s rare to have more than five cousins here due to the one-child policy. Also on Thursday I had the students tell us about their families and do other activities that got them to practice their English. I believe that Thursday was my best day teaching thus far.

Friday I gave the students a test over the first 2 modules that we covered. There are 15 modules and 7 tests that we’re supposed to get through in these four weeks. However, after looking at how things went this first week I don’t know if I’m going to be able to get through all of the modules. Anyways, I gave the test in the first session. Second session I was evaluated by one of the staff members here. It was rather nerve racking, but she said I did really well and had a lot of good things to say about what I did.

Yesterday (Saturday), we relaxed, watched a movie, went to McDonalds for lunch and shopping afterwards. We also went to the beach with some of our students. The water was chilly and the waves were rather big. I wish I went in, but I wasn’t wearing my bathing suit and you had to pay to change (I’m too Dutch :P). It was nice to stick my feet in the water. I brought along my Frisbee, which was rather fun to play with our students—I don’t think any of them had ever thrown a Frisbee before, let alone seen one. It was a fun, relaxing day.

This next week will only get busier. We are starting to lead E-zone this week. Our team (Sarah, Bettina, and I) are leading on Monday and Thursday this week. This past week the regular staff members led it and we came along to see how it works. This week we actually have to lead it, but we don’t have to go every night, which will be nice.

I hope you all have a wonderful week and hope to write again near the end of the week.

Pictures!

Here's a link for the church where we've been teaching. Take a look!

http://www.gwshcc.org/News_View.asp?NewsID=732

A month has gone by!

July 10, 2009

I’ve been here, in Beijing, for a month now. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long! Time has flown by…especially these past two weeks. (Sorry it’s taken me time to post this blog). The rest of the team arrived safely. Since they’ve arrived, we’ve done a lot of touristy things—we went to the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and a park on a hill that over looks the Forbidden City the first weekend they were here. And then last weekend we went to the Summer Palace. The Beijing team went to the Temple of Heaven, the Bird’s Nest, and the Water Cube on their own. Seeing as we have 4 days back in Beijing after we return from Weihai, we are hoping to go to some of those sites then. We decided it would be wise not to wear ourselves out before getting to WeiHai.

These past two weeks we have been teaching in the evenings at a nearby church. This is what our evenings have looked like. We started at 7:00 pm by singing for a half hour. We sang 3 songs—focusing on teaching one song while the other two songs are easy songs to pick up. At 7:30 pm we would split up into our classes and teach for 45 minutes. We were split into 5 classes—two teachers per class. We did our best to split groups up into different levels of English ability. Some of the classes were so large that the class would split in half, so that one teacher would each take half the class. Karin (my partner) and I had a class that would have been big enough to split up one day. We didn’t really talk about splitting up until after that class. However our class had been getting smaller every day since then, so we did not split up. It has been fun to see the personalities of our students come out as the two weeks progressed.

As I mentioned on my last post, we didn’t have anything planned for the mornings—or rather, everything we planned on for our mornings fell through. We did have one option left, which was teaching at a bilingual preschool (Chinese and English) for the mornings. We asked if they still wanted us to come (due to having previously turned them down), and they readily accepted us to come. They asked that we start coming Wednesday, July 1. That way the rest of the team would have been here for almost a week before we started (a government qualification for any foreigner coming into the country due to H1N1). We were ready to leave Wednesday morning when we get a call from our driver—he was here, but we couldn’t find him anywhere. He ended up going to the wrong hotel…an hour and a half later he finally arrived at our hotel. We still decided to go to the preschool—but we didn’t teach. We went to tour their facilities, learn about their school, and pick our classes. They have 5 classes—2-3 yr olds, 3-4 yr olds, (2) 4-5 yr olds, and 5-6 yr olds. We split up into our teaching partners from our evening classes and worked with them at the preschool as well. Karin and I taught one of the 4-5 yr old classes. The class had 25 students, but I don’t think we ever had more than 15 students there when we were there. I don’t really know why that is, but it was kind of nice. Apparently we had the worst class because of our students, and it was a little difficult especially the first few days, but it got better as the kids got used to us. Yesterday was our last day at the preschool. We were only at the preschool teaching for 5 days. We decided to only go 3 days on the last week (Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday) because it is a long bus ride (anywhere from 45 to 75 mins one way, depending on the traffic and which route we took). We would spend about two hours with the kids, mostly playing with them. We would play games with them outside, sing songs with them inside, take attendance, talk about what day it is, what the weather is for the day, and do some crafts with them. It was fun and a good experience for us.

Saturday morning, July 11, we will be leaving our hotel that we have been living in for the past 2 weeks and four of us (Sarah, Bettina, Lorraine, and myself) will head to the airport while the Beijing team heads to a nice hotel for their last night in Beijing. We will be heading to WeiHai, flying out at 12:15 Saturday afternoon, where we will be for the next 4 weeks. Lorraine is accompanying us there, but will only be there for a few days to make sure that our transition goes well. I will be teaching a class of 11-14 yr olds, Bettina will be teaching 12-16 yr olds, and Sarah will be teaching 16-20+ yr olds. We are all excited about the change in setting. I am a little nervous about teaching an actual class that has a set curriculum. I think this is mostly because it is going to be more difficult than what we’ve been teaching here in Beijing. I also believe my nerves are a good kind of nerves (if that makes sense).

Change of plans?

We finally found (Tuesday it was finalized) something that would work for us to do in the morning these next two weeks--teach 1st and 2nd graders at school. However, today, after dinner, we found out that we cannot teach there because it is a government run school and the government does not want any foreigners going into the schools. We do have another option, which would be to teach preschoolers at a private school. The school is a bilingual school, but the 'foreign' teachers (the ones that teach English) are on vacation this month, so they'd be excited to have us there. The only thing is that it is an hour and a half bus ride away. Also, seeing how we already told them we would be teaching at the other school, we don't know if it's still an option. I would greatly appreciate it if you could think about that. Thanks a bunch!

We've been here 2 weeks!

It’s been a while since I’ve written anything. Sorry about that, but life has been busy. These past two weeks we’ve had Chinese lessons every morning for 2 hours. We learned quite a bit of Chinese, but I don’t know how much we’ll actually use it. Some of the things we learned were very useful, while other stuff I feel like we’ll never use it. I guess I will find that out over the next two months. It was fun to learn Chinese! Maybe I’ll audit a Chinese class when I’m back home…

I guess I should talk about some highlights about our two weeks here so far. Last week Thursday we took the day off from Chinese lessons to go to a rural district of Beijing to visit a three-self church there. It is incredible what the pastor does there. We went there with another group from the US to learn about how the Chinese church runs. This church that we visited was considered the ‘central church’ of the district. The pastor at this church is in charge of all the churches in the district (about 50 churches). She makes an effort to make it to each church about 3-4 times a year. At all the churches, the sermons are taught by Evangelists (not what we would consider Evangelists). The Evangelists are trained to teach, but they are not ordained which means they cannot perform the sacraments.

After learning about the ‘central church’ and what the pastor does, we went to the training center. This is where they train the Evangelists and other volunteers. They go for two weeks at a time to train. The training center is an old elementary school that was no longer needed as a school. The church bought the property and the building to use as a training center. They are currently renovating the building so that it is a more suitable training center.

After the training center, we headed to a church in the mountains. Here we were welcomed with open arms by a group of 25 (or so) women from the church. They brought us into the church and fed us LOTS of fruit (watermelon, bananas, and nectarines) while they told us about their church. It is run by an Evangelist but is visited by the pastor on a regular basis. They sang “Jesus Loves Me” in Chinese. It was beautiful! Then were we asked to sing “Jesus Love Me” in English. We did and had them join in on the chorus. It was beautiful!

Let’s see, what else has happened in the last few weeks? One thing I really enjoy here is eating here. When ordering food, as a group, you order a bunch of dishes. When they come out, the food is set in the middle of the table (sometimes on a large lazy Susan). Everyone takes little portions of the dishes, eating what they want. It is very community oriented or family centered. Even though I greatly enjoy the eating here, I don’t always enjoy the food. It took some getting used to and I am enjoying it more that I did when we first got here. But occasionally I come across something I don’t like—like mushrooms that are translated as tree fungus, or freshly caught fish that are still full of bones. I guess I’ll just have to get used to it or avoid eating it. I have been trying to at least try a little of everything they give me to eat. Sometimes it’s harder than others.

Today we moved to new hotel. We were living in a hotel close to our host’s apartment. Now that we’re going to start teaching on Monday and another group of people from North America are coming today, we moved to another hotel that is closer to one of the places we will be teaching. We will be teaching for the next two weeks. In the mornings we will be teaching at a preschool. Here we will be teaching English to 1st and 2nd graders. The afternoons we will have off to prepare and rest. In the evenings we will be teaching English to adults in the church close to our hotel. I am excited to start teaching and to meet the 7 others coming today!

What a storm!!!

Today we had a very odd storm. We went to the office this morning and it was sprinkling. We knew the weather was forecasted to rain, but it turned out to be nothing like what we expected. Every morning we have a Chinese lesson at the office from 10-12. While in class, the sprinkling rain turned into a downpour. After a few minutes, the sky turned eerily greenish/yellowish. Naturally (all three of us being from Southwest Michigan), we started thinking about tornados. We told our tutor why we looked a little concerned (we were on the 7th floor surrounded by windows). She had no idea what a tornado was. We explained as best as we could—wind spinning around really, really quickly, picking things off the ground and throwing them into the air. We also drew a picture of a tornado. She agreed that it was a scary thing! But there is no such thing in Beijing.

After the sky looking the way it does before a tornado, the sky turned eerily dark. It looked like it was late evening. The rain kept coming down. The thunder was so loud it started a bunch of car alarms. People were darting the lightning bolts—not quite, but Lorraine said she was watching out for lightning while walking down the streets at this time. It was a crazy storm! I really wish I could have watched more of it, but unfortunately my back was to the window. After an hour or so, the storm started to let up.

Because of the storm, we had an unusually cool day today—maybe 65-70 degrees. Wayne told us that even though there will be many storms this summer, it is most likely we will not have another cool day like today. It was a nice change!

Pictures!

Here is a link to a flickr account that one of my teammates, Sarah, started. We will be adding pictures fairly often and would love it if you checked it out.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sarah-in-china/

Business of Beijing

We have now been in Beijing for three very busy days. After our 30ish traveling hours, we finally arrived in Beijing. It was a loooong day of traveling—arrive at the airport in Grand Rapids at 4:40 am, sit around the airport for 2 hours, half hour flight from Grand Rapids to Chicago, sit around Chicago for 4 hours, fly from Chicago to Tokyo which was a 12 hour flight (I’m not a big fan of being on a plane that long), sit in the airport in Tokyo for 4 hours, a 4 hour flight to Beijing, close to an hour to go through quarantine tests, customs, and baggage claim, and an hour taxi ride to our hotel. It was a long day and we were all excited to go to bed shortly after arriving at the hotel. It was close to midnight on June 10 before we got to go to bed. (we left June 9).

The next day, we had breakfast at our hotel which was quite an interesting experience—we had watermelon, bread, fried rice with egg, steamed buns with seaweed inside, hot orange-aid, and very weak coffee. It was nothing like we are used to. After breakfast we started our Chinese language training. We started class at 10, which lasted for 2 hours. Our teacher is really nice and does a good job to make sure that we are pronouncing words correctly and making sure that we use the correct intonation. After class we went out for lunch. We went to a street vendor where we ate noodles and dumplings. I would have to say this is probably my favorite place to eat so far. After lunch we went back to our hotel to rest and take a nap (naps are very popular here—and I like it). After our naps we went out for dinner and got a lot of dishes to eat—they eat family-style in restaurants. (aka order different dishes, which sit in the center of the table and everyone picks out what they want). After dinner we went to our hosts’ apartment and enjoyed some fruit and random conversation.

The next day (Friday) was much the same at Thursday. The only difference was instead of taking the typical rest in the afternoon, we went to the silk market. It was very overwhelming—every person yelling at you trying to get you to buy something. It became very hard trying to ignore everyone to just walk through and look around.

Today, Saturday, we went to a middle school gym to play sports (badminton, jump rope, and volleyball with a balloon and only hitting it with your head, shoulders and chest) with some friends of our hosts. It was a lot of fun, but it was really, really hot—over a hundred degrees without any air movement. After sports, we went out for lunch and caught up with Bettina’s sister who has been living here for the past two years. With her, we went to the Beijing Zoo, Starbucks, and Papa Johns for dinner. It was nice to have some food that we recognized and was familiar. And now I sit here writing to tell you about my first few days.

A highlight—we found an English television station. The only downside is that they like to play the same news stories over and over again—we get to see the same news stories at least twice a day (depending on how often we are in the hotel).

That’s all for now. I hope you are all doing well and I’d love to hear from me. Email me at erika.colyn@gmail.com.

Arrived!

We have arrived as planned. More to come - later!

Leaving in 30 hours...

This past week has been a busy one. We went to Grand Rapids for orientation. There were 13 young adults going to 4 different countries--3 to China, 2 to Guinea, 3 to Guatemala, and 5 to the Philippines. We had our days packed full of sessions about our countries, safety for traveling, and much, much more. In the evenings we hung out and got to know each other. The Philippines and Guatemala groups are heading out tomorrow morning and the China and Guinea groups are leaving Tuesday.

Due to H1N1, China is quarantining some people that are coming into China for 7 days. This means that we may be quarantined for our first week. We are hoping this does not happen, but there is no way of telling.

It is hard to believe that we are leaving in only 30 hours. Sarah, Bettina, and I are meeting at the GR airport at 4:40 am Tuesday. Our flight takes off at 6:40 and we fly to Chicago. From Chicago we will be flying to Tokyo, and from Tokyo to Beijing. It is going to take over 30 hours to get there, but I'm excited for the oppertunity we have to go to China this summer!

Getting Ready

Over the last few weeks, I've been getting ready for my trip to China.  I've been shopping, reading up on China, and, most recently, packing.  As my departure draws near, I am getting more and more excited.  I can't wait to see what's going to happen this summer!

On Tuesday June 2, I'm heading to Grand Rapids for Orientation.  Here we will learn more about what we're going to be doing this summer.  On Tuesday I will also be meeting Sarah Jo and Bettina.  We've been talking via email the last few weeks, and I'm excited to finally meet these ladies.  It sounds like we're going to have a busy week, but I'm looking forward to it.

A lot of people have been asking me if I'm nervous or excited about my trip to China.  To be completely honest, I've been rather surprised at how I haven't been nervous.  I am one who usually gets rather nervous about things, but I have not been very nervous about this summer.  Maybe that's because I know this is what I'm supposed to be doing this summer.  Who knows.  

I would like to thank all of my family and friends who have been very supportive of my decision to go to China this summer.  I wouldn't be able to do any of this without them.  Thanks a ton!