China's Treatin' Me Well!

Life in China is going splendidly!  I feel like each new week brings more to be thankful for, and it is certainly safe to say that I love it!

Work. Work is going great. I really love my students.  They have become so much more open and willing to speak, and they are unbelievably creative.  Being an oral teacher rather than a grammar teacher definitely has its perks.  Rather than teach them boring rules, we get to do fun activities and have discussions on topics like tradition, festivals, culture, globalization, etc. I really challenge them in terms of their level of speaking abilities, and they consistently surprise me with their creativity and ability to think outside the box, even in a second language which they find so difficult. I’ve also started a second part time job. Through this I will be teaching both kindergarteners and adults; so all in all, I am now teaching pretty much every age group. I had class with the kindergarteners Saturday and it was SO much fun. They are unbelievably cute and they were so excited about the activities I had planned.  They could barely sit still in their seats because they were so anxious to get to the board and participate in the next activity. Next week we have three days of teaching off because of some sports events at school and a school field trip on Friday. And I’ve been asked to participate in a race during the sports events. Great. I have to compete against these incredibly fit Chinese people. I am going to look like a fat, American loser, haha. And I’m really excited about the school trip, although I am definitely curious as to how they plan to take 1000 students on a trip. It should be interesting, for sure.

Friends. Yay!!! I have friends! :) I have met some really great people in the last month and I feel so fortunate to know them. I am so glad to finally have solid people in my life!

Chinese. I am finally starting to learn some Chinese! A friend of mine has agreed to teach me, and we will have lessons twice a week. I’m not even attempting to learn characters at this point, but I really want to become conversational.  I know it will take time, and Chinese is obviously unlike any other language I know/have studied, but I’m hoping to catch on fairly quickly.

Transportation. This may sound odd, but I love public transport. I think growing up in SC, where you drive absolutely everywhere and there is no public transport, it took on a kind of exoticism in a way. As a child, buses, metros, taxis, etc have always reminded me of big, exciting U.S. cities or Europe, the kind of places I’ve always really seen myself being. And these things remind me of travel, because they have been the means of transportation in almost every place I’ve traveled, as opposed to driving. So, I have always had this secret (not so secret anymore) love of public transport. That being said, I love using public transport here. I know, it makes everything take so much longer and I may have to take an hour bus ride to travel 12 kilometers, but it doesn’t bother me at all; I absolutely love it. It’s oddly one of my favorite things about living here. Random weird fact #874.

There’s a bit of the last few weeks in a nutshell. I continue to love life, no matter where I am :)