#australian mentos challenge

[asp1990]

China Day 13: Thursday October 19th, 2017

Breakfast: Boiled egg on toast & two egg/custard tarts Lunch: Steamed rice, scrambled egg in tomato & Chinese spinach. Dinner: Chilli noodles, Chinese spinach & steamed rice. Stupid meat was too hard to eat.

Steps: 11, 265

I woke up at 6am this morning and made myself look “nice” before heading down to breakfast because George told us that we were going to be part of a video promotion for the school. The only instruction I received was to wear a dress. I had to lend one to Clemence, as she had not brought any with her.

Our first lesson for the day was at 9.10am with Year 8 (4) who we had taught last week. We had done our “Year 8” lesson on Australian animals and were planning to do our “Year 7” lesson about famous Aussie landmarks with them, but when we got to the classroom, my PowerPoint wouldn’t open, so we couldn’t. This has been an ongoing issue in the classrooms as I am running Windows 2011 on my (Mac) laptop and they are running Windows XP. It worked last week, but not this week, which was super frustrating. I had some conversation worksheets in my bag for our Year 11 classes later in the day, so we improvised and used them instead. The students were very chatty today and the teacher left us alone with them, so it was challenging at some points to hold their attention.

After watching the morning exercises (the International students had to do it this morning and were not very good. The German’s kept trying to get us involved haha), we walked back to our building for the film shoot. Turns out it was actually just a photo shoot for all of the international teachers. They asked if we wanted our make up done, but both of us were already wearing it, so politely declined. I joked with the German teacher if he was going to get his done and he replied with “No thanks, I’m not gay”… which I was not insinuating, but OK. The photo shoot was insane. The Chinese photographer yelled at us in Chinese, which none of us spoke, and then got frustrated when we didn’t understand what to do. There were two English speaking staff from Ganquan present, but they did nothing to make the process easier. We were given flags to represent which country we were from and Clemence was given the Spanish flag, despite being French, because there was already one French teacher in the photo. The Japanese and Korean teachers were wearing stunning; traditional garments and I felt very plain standing next to them. We were taken to 3 locations, told to smile a million times and then we were done. It was stressful, yet hilarious and I can’t wait to see how ridiculous the photos look – hopefully George will send some to us.

We had lunch in the staff canteen, where I was betrayed by mushrooms disguised as beef, and then headed to the 4th floor theatre to present our Drama performance with the English club. There energy had improved since yesterday’s performance, but they still weren’t as good as our initial rehearsal together. They all looked great in their costumes though and had brought additional props from home. I had written them all a thank you card and bought some Mentos from the convenience store (I’d run out of Aussie chocolates by this point). We rehearsed once and then performed for May, who filmed. I had to stand in for Casper again as he was at another Communist Party meeting, which was apparently very important. It went well and only one student forgot one line. We received a gift from the English department as thanks – a beautiful silk scarf & some “white rabbit” candy.

One of the cast members, Feng, was in our next class, so he showed us the way to the classroom. We had three Year 11 classes in a row and they were all quite dull. We had been forewarned that they were shy, but when we were actually faced with it, it was quite discouraging. We taught them about International sports stars and Olympians and then taught them how to order a coffee in English. The students that presented their work spoke very well, but they were all very reluctant to speak, even though we know they do it often.

We finished for the day at 3.40pm and went back to our rooms to start packing. I fear that my bag is going to weigh too much, as a lot of the gifts from the school and some gifts for family are quite heavy, but I am sure I will make it work. I put all my small souvenirs and my camera in the bag that I bought yesterday and will take it as additional carry on.

At 5.30pm, I met with Clemence and we went for one final walk in the streets surrounding the school. We stopped for dinner at a restaurant that seemed busy, but were sorely disappointed with the meal we had. It was another “choose a few plates” buffet place, but the meat was all cheap cuts that was mostly fat and bone. It cost me ¥39 ($7) for 5 plates, but 2 were rubbish. I ended up just eating my very spicy noodles, Chinese spinach and steamed rice. The old Chinese dudes were out in full force tonight and kept staring at me while I ate. I started filming them on Snapchat to give them a taste of their own medicine. I accidentally chose a table near the door and some dudes even walked in the entrance at the other end just to talk past, stare and exit out the door behind me. One guy sat next to us and started pointing and talking in Chinese. When I didn’t say anything back, he started gesturing at me aggressively, like he was cursing me. He kept staring and then yelled at us when we left, but I have no idea what he said.

We did a lap of a block, but in a direction that we had not explored yet. We walked down Yichuan Rd, which had lots of old-school market booths with food, clothes and kitschy toys. We didn’t buy anything, but had a good look at a few things. On the walk back to school, I stopped to buy a pastry from 85 Degrees (the café down the road) and also got my last Bubble Tea from Coco. I accidentally ordered a large and had almost 1L of tea – just as well my bathroom is next to my bed haha.

Back in my room, Clemence and I wrote in a card for George to put with our gift and then we finished packing. Only one more night on this hard bed and bunking with cockroaches before we fly home ☺