Who am I kidding? I always have stuff to talk about!
A weird, unique thing that we did this week was play mini-golf on a rooftop. One of the many (many [many]) malls in Foshan actually has a full 18 hole mini golf course on its second floor. A local restaurant that is popular with foreigners hosted a tournament, and so all of the teachers from our school decided to try our luck.
It was a lot of fun playing putt-putt. I haven't done it in quite a while (I think August of 2012 was the last time), and the course was quite nice. It was, as usual, very Chinese. None of the lights on the course worked, for example. The prize was 200 Yuan and a bottle of Tequila, although none of the teachers from our school won. The buy in to the tournament also included dinner, though, and I had the most adequate fish and chips I've ever had (in China [this month]). It would have been nice to have won, but I would say it was still worth it.
The highlight of week 15 was obviously Halloween. As previously stated, we have more or less been doing Halloween-related activities for the entire month of October. This week kicked it up another notch, however, and every one of the teachers dedicated their entire week's classes to fun and games.
Since we're talking about paradoxes, I will mention that not having any lesson plans to create actually made the week absolutely CRAWL by. This felt like the longest week of my duration here, including that one really bad week about which we no longer make reference to.
I made sure to fill my classes with Halloween-themed bingo, more spooky cartoon clips, and a number of silly games. For my younger kids, I gave them more coloring pages than they could shake a stick at. We also watched the majority of "Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" in all of my classes, regardless of age. I have to say, having not seen ItGPCB in many years, I had forgotten quite a bit about it.
It's a weird little Halloween special, and it's clearly a product of a time gone by. Despite being "for kids", there is not really very much that goes on visually in the cartoon. It's largely dominated by children standing in a circle and talking/being mean to Chuck. Since my kids have varying levels of English ability, many of them found the cartoon to be rather boring. They did really like Snoopy though and cheered/laughed whenever he was on screen. A lot of the humor, even for someone who understands what they are saying, is odd. The jokes are starting to get a little bit dated, and it's really bizarre just how mean everyone is to Charlie Brown. It's the sort of thing that definitely would not get made today.
I "invented" a few new games to play this week as well (read: stole them from the Internet). The first one was "pass the pumpkin". This is basically musical chairs or hot potato, but involved a large plastic pumpkin instead of a potato or stuffed animal. Actually, now that I think about it, has anyone ever used an actual potato for hot potato? Outside of Russia? I think the potato in Hot Potato is just supposed to be a metaphor of some kind...
This game went over well in all of my classes, although inevitably I had to deal with rampant cheating and children getting hurt. The pumpkins were just plastic, and they would have been fine, except that the children insisted on whipping them at one another at breakneck speeds. I had about one crying kid per class, which for me is not a bad track record.
The other game I "invented" was called Zombies. I liked the idea of this one a lot, and thought it would work really well. The entire class acts like "Zombies" and lumbers around with a blank expression on their face, with the exception of one kid who is "it". The "it" kid is just a normal person and their job is to go around and try to make the zombies laugh or smile. If a zombie laughs or smiles then they are "cured", and they get to join the other team. The winner is the last kid who is not smiling or laughing. Sounds fun, right?
I even thought ahead and made a lot of extra ground rules. No closing your eyes, no touching anyone, etc. I thought I had it in the bag, and I even made sure that Jason (the Chinese teacher) explained the rules a second time in Chinese. The kids said they understood and, after picking one kid to be "it", we got started. The game got off to a good beginning with Kelvin (It) making a few kids laugh. Once the room was about 50/50, though, everything went predictably off the rails. A number of kids played both sides, pretending to be zombies so that they still could have a chance at winning and then, when they thought I wasn't looking, going around and trying to knock their competition out. This game became chaotic faster than one of Jeff Goldblum's theories about dinosaurs and I had to pull the plug. I may try to resurrect it at a later date. Maybe I can spin it into a Christmas game somehow.
With games comes candy of course. I spent a lot of money on candy this week. Essentially the only candy that I can find around here that is both A) reasonably prices and B) not disgusting are these fruit flavored lollipops at the grocery store near our school. I bought a lot of those fruit flavored lollipops. It was difficult to strike the balance between giving the kids who did well on the games a prize and just giving them too much candy. They eventually starting demanding it, and if there's one thing that Jon does not do it is acquiesce to the demands of screaming children. I ate all that candy in front of them so fast their heads spun around.
So finally the big day arrived, which for us was Thursday October 30th (Why not on actually Halloween? Because China of course). Half of our classes were cancelled for the day in favor of a big school-wide party. Since there are nearly 2000 people at this school when you combine faculty and children, the party had to be held in the individual classrooms. There just isn't any single place to put all the kids and all the teachers.
Before the party the first half of the day went pretty much as normal. I found an old cape and a funny witch's hat in a cupboard in the office, so I wore that around all day. The kids during my oral English classes got a big kick out of it. When I wasn't "teaching" (read: goofing around with kids), I was goofing around in the office with the other foreign teachers. One of the Chinese teachers (Helen, specifically) bought a board game edition of Words With Friends, and it has taken the office by storm. All this week and a little bit of last week we have been playing whenever there's enough free time for a game. The Chinese teachers thought it was hilarious that we were playing dressed in costume, and they were impressed that we knew so many English words that they didn't. They took plenty of pictures of us.
After lunch we were provided with our "official" costumes. The school required us to wear costumes, which they went out and bought for everyone, while we were working in the various classrooms during the party. Laura was a witch/skeleton thing and I was a bumblebee.
Of course I was a bumble bee. The children and teachers all like to make comments about how I am so big and fat all of the time. Nevermind the fact that a lot of the other foreign teachers are significantly taller than I am. Nope, I am the big fat foreigner here, and apparently one of the largest people they've ever seen.
Oh well. I owned it. The bumblebee costume was made out of this rubbery fabric material, like the kind that cheap disposable tablecloths that you buy for the Fourth of July are made out of. It was a mess of material and wires, which made the round frame. My wings were very similar to fairy wings on a little girl's princess costume, and the hat had pipe cleaner antennae. The outfit's prized feature was a little fan which could be turned on to inflate the thing, and to make me even bigger and fatter. The legs were very strange, I am not sure if they were designed for someone much shorter than me, or if the length was intended to disturb the way I walk and therefore make me more bee-like, but either way I nearly fell over a number of times.
The kids thought it was the funniest thing when they saw me as a bee. They all ran up to me and started hitting me and tearing at the costume. This was actually legitimately scary for a minute, and can only be likened to a zombie movie moment. Fifty kids coming at you and moaning while literally tearing at your skin is actually unsettling. As I mentioned, my balance was already compromised, so they nearly tipped me over. I had to karate chop my way out of the middle of the herd.
Did I mention how hot it was in the bee suit? IT WAS REALLY HOT. I felt like I was in a sauna, except there weren't any big fat Russians sitting around me.
The other foreign teachers had interesting costumes as well. Chris was Spiderman, Leon was The Devil, Zac was a clown, and Shebaum was another bee. Nathan wore a witch's hat that also had a funny wig built in. We looked like quite the crew, and the Chinese teachers went nuts for it.
At 4:30 we had to go around and pop into every classroom. The kids were expecting candy and were generally being complete terrors. Since we weren't the teachers in charge at this point, there wasn't much that could be done. We just waved and kept on walking. After the "party", which Nathan hosted from the school's TV station control room thing, each class had a fashion show, where they walked down a runway and showed off their costumes to one another. The final act of the school day was passing out bags of candy.
The school actually had the candy for the students delivered on Monday or Tuesday of this week, and let me tell you I have never seen more candy in my life. 1 bag of candy for 1600 kids ends up being an entire semi-truck full of candy. Once I saw the contents of the boxes I was much less enthused. Sure, each kid got a Kinder Chocolate Egg, which is awesome, but the rest of the candy left more to be desired. The children each got a tiny piece of bread (the same brand Laura and I eat for breakfast every morning, coincidentally), some "milk chews" (which are like cow tails except 10x harder and 100x more milk-flavored), and a bag of unseasoned seaweed! My mouth is watering just thinking about it right now.
After work we had just a few hours before going to one of the bigger Halloween parties in town at a bar called Octopus. Not wanting to wear the bee costume anymore, I went to Walmart to buy some props. Thanks to some fake blood, some plastic teeth, a cape I stole from the school and a beautiful make-up job by Laura, I turned out to be a pretty decent vampire. Laura bought some fake fingers and an axe, and then we splashed blood all over some old clothes to make her a fearsome zombie huntress.
Octopus is a popular bar in town, although I had not yet been there. True to its nature (and the reason why I had not yet gone), things were quite expensive inside. The bar was very cool, though. It was designed to look like a pirate ship, with the intent of giving customers their sea legs. On Halloween it was extra decked out with cobwebs and spooky things all over. At least, I assume that this is the case. I've only been there the one time. Maybe it always looks like that. They were projecting classic
After a fun evening of spooky gallivanting, we decided to call it a night.
The other highlight of the weekend was an all you can eat Indian buffet. We didn't eat Indians, mind you, but food made in the style of cuisine which came from the Indian subcontinent. It was such a treat to have something that wasn't Chinese food OR McDonalds! I ate more than my fair share, and guess what they had RICE PUDDING for dessert.
Altogether it was a pretty good week. It's been very difficult for me to not be able to partake in a lot of my autumnal traditions. This is the first time in my life that I did not carve a pumpkin for Halloween, for example. I wore a costume, but I was unable to fully plan it out the way I am used to.
In fact, it doesn't really feel like fall here at all. The leaves do not change color, nobody decorates anything ever, and it is still as hot as hell here. The weather finally broke for a few days this week, and it went down to the mid 70s. That was heavenly while it lasted, but we are back up to the high 80s as I am writing this.
It was funny to see the Chinese people panic, however. As soon as it dropped below 85 degrees the sweaters came out. During the week when it was in the mid to high 70s I legitimately saw a number of people wearing full winter coats and boots! How amazing that these people experience the weather so differently from how I experience it. I was so happy that I wasn't sweating anymore, and I was still wearing shorts and t-shirts everywhere, and yet everywhere I walked I was passing people who looked as though they were coming from a particularly bitter ski trip.
These feelings did not come without a tinge of jealousy though. One of my favorite things about fall is the opportunity for a change of wardrobe. Pants, hoodies, scarves and coats are some of my favorite things to wear, and there's just absolutely no way I can wear any of those things here.
Another philosophical moment that came to me this week concerning Halloween is the fact that these kids will most likely never experience Halloween the way I know it. Everything that they know about Halloween involves a few random powerpoints that I showed them and then the "party" that we had on Thursday. The party, which took place entirely at school, involved them watching a weird powerpoint while a disembodied Scottish voice shouted at them, dancing around the room to Katy Perry music, and eating dry seaweed. As far as these kids are concerned THAT is what Halloween is.
Are they wrong? I think this really got me thinking about how holidays are really just a set of shared traditions. This is one of those things that is completely on the nose and totally obvious, but when I was confronted with something that was so blatantly NOT Halloween this past week it forced me to experience Halloween from a new perspective. It's really easy to get caught up in traditions. They make us feel good and as if we are a part of something greater than ourselves. Even if it's just eating candy and watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (it's a Halloween movie, damnit!), holidays and the traditions that accompany them are things that we all hold sacred.
I really hope that, even though it was "all wrong", the kids enjoyed Halloween as much as I always have growing up. I hope that they carry on doing these things throughout their school education and that when they have kids their kids can experience the same things too. It's the rituals that matter, and more importantly the feelings they evoke. The rest is just window dressing.
Except the seaweed. I ate that stuff and it was FREAKING GROSS.
With games comes candy of course. I spent a lot of money on candy this week. Essentially the only candy that I can find around here that is both A) reasonably prices and B) not disgusting are these fruit flavored lollipops at the grocery store near our school. I bought a lot of those fruit flavored lollipops. It was difficult to strike the balance between giving the kids who did well on the games a prize and just giving them too much candy. They eventually starting demanding it, and if there's one thing that Jon does not do it is acquiesce to the demands of screaming children. I ate all that candy in front of them so fast their heads spun around.
So finally the big day arrived, which for us was Thursday October 30th (Why not on actually Halloween? Because China of course). Half of our classes were cancelled for the day in favor of a big school-wide party. Since there are nearly 2000 people at this school when you combine faculty and children, the party had to be held in the individual classrooms. There just isn't any single place to put all the kids and all the teachers.
Before the party the first half of the day went pretty much as normal. I found an old cape and a funny witch's hat in a cupboard in the office, so I wore that around all day. The kids during my oral English classes got a big kick out of it. When I wasn't "teaching" (read: goofing around with kids), I was goofing around in the office with the other foreign teachers. One of the Chinese teachers (Helen, specifically) bought a board game edition of Words With Friends, and it has taken the office by storm. All this week and a little bit of last week we have been playing whenever there's enough free time for a game. The Chinese teachers thought it was hilarious that we were playing dressed in costume, and they were impressed that we knew so many English words that they didn't. They took plenty of pictures of us.
After lunch we were provided with our "official" costumes. The school required us to wear costumes, which they went out and bought for everyone, while we were working in the various classrooms during the party. Laura was a witch/skeleton thing and I was a bumblebee.
Of course I was a bumble bee. The children and teachers all like to make comments about how I am so big and fat all of the time. Nevermind the fact that a lot of the other foreign teachers are significantly taller than I am. Nope, I am the big fat foreigner here, and apparently one of the largest people they've ever seen.
Oh well. I owned it. The bumblebee costume was made out of this rubbery fabric material, like the kind that cheap disposable tablecloths that you buy for the Fourth of July are made out of. It was a mess of material and wires, which made the round frame. My wings were very similar to fairy wings on a little girl's princess costume, and the hat had pipe cleaner antennae. The outfit's prized feature was a little fan which could be turned on to inflate the thing, and to make me even bigger and fatter. The legs were very strange, I am not sure if they were designed for someone much shorter than me, or if the length was intended to disturb the way I walk and therefore make me more bee-like, but either way I nearly fell over a number of times.
The kids thought it was the funniest thing when they saw me as a bee. They all ran up to me and started hitting me and tearing at the costume. This was actually legitimately scary for a minute, and can only be likened to a zombie movie moment. Fifty kids coming at you and moaning while literally tearing at your skin is actually unsettling. As I mentioned, my balance was already compromised, so they nearly tipped me over. I had to karate chop my way out of the middle of the herd.
Did I mention how hot it was in the bee suit? IT WAS REALLY HOT. I felt like I was in a sauna, except there weren't any big fat Russians sitting around me.
The other foreign teachers had interesting costumes as well. Chris was Spiderman, Leon was The Devil, Zac was a clown, and Shebaum was another bee. Nathan wore a witch's hat that also had a funny wig built in. We looked like quite the crew, and the Chinese teachers went nuts for it.
At 4:30 we had to go around and pop into every classroom. The kids were expecting candy and were generally being complete terrors. Since we weren't the teachers in charge at this point, there wasn't much that could be done. We just waved and kept on walking. After the "party", which Nathan hosted from the school's TV station control room thing, each class had a fashion show, where they walked down a runway and showed off their costumes to one another. The final act of the school day was passing out bags of candy.
The school actually had the candy for the students delivered on Monday or Tuesday of this week, and let me tell you I have never seen more candy in my life. 1 bag of candy for 1600 kids ends up being an entire semi-truck full of candy. Once I saw the contents of the boxes I was much less enthused. Sure, each kid got a Kinder Chocolate Egg, which is awesome, but the rest of the candy left more to be desired. The children each got a tiny piece of bread (the same brand Laura and I eat for breakfast every morning, coincidentally), some "milk chews" (which are like cow tails except 10x harder and 100x more milk-flavored), and a bag of unseasoned seaweed! My mouth is watering just thinking about it right now.
After work we had just a few hours before going to one of the bigger Halloween parties in town at a bar called Octopus. Not wanting to wear the bee costume anymore, I went to Walmart to buy some props. Thanks to some fake blood, some plastic teeth, a cape I stole from the school and a beautiful make-up job by Laura, I turned out to be a pretty decent vampire. Laura bought some fake fingers and an axe, and then we splashed blood all over some old clothes to make her a fearsome zombie huntress.
Octopus is a popular bar in town, although I had not yet been there. True to its nature (and the reason why I had not yet gone), things were quite expensive inside. The bar was very cool, though. It was designed to look like a pirate ship, with the intent of giving customers their sea legs. On Halloween it was extra decked out with cobwebs and spooky things all over. At least, I assume that this is the case. I've only been there the one time. Maybe it always looks like that. They were projecting classic
After a fun evening of spooky gallivanting, we decided to call it a night.
The other highlight of the weekend was an all you can eat Indian buffet. We didn't eat Indians, mind you, but food made in the style of cuisine which came from the Indian subcontinent. It was such a treat to have something that wasn't Chinese food OR McDonalds! I ate more than my fair share, and guess what they had RICE PUDDING for dessert.
Altogether it was a pretty good week. It's been very difficult for me to not be able to partake in a lot of my autumnal traditions. This is the first time in my life that I did not carve a pumpkin for Halloween, for example. I wore a costume, but I was unable to fully plan it out the way I am used to.
In fact, it doesn't really feel like fall here at all. The leaves do not change color, nobody decorates anything ever, and it is still as hot as hell here. The weather finally broke for a few days this week, and it went down to the mid 70s. That was heavenly while it lasted, but we are back up to the high 80s as I am writing this.
It was funny to see the Chinese people panic, however. As soon as it dropped below 85 degrees the sweaters came out. During the week when it was in the mid to high 70s I legitimately saw a number of people wearing full winter coats and boots! How amazing that these people experience the weather so differently from how I experience it. I was so happy that I wasn't sweating anymore, and I was still wearing shorts and t-shirts everywhere, and yet everywhere I walked I was passing people who looked as though they were coming from a particularly bitter ski trip.
These feelings did not come without a tinge of jealousy though. One of my favorite things about fall is the opportunity for a change of wardrobe. Pants, hoodies, scarves and coats are some of my favorite things to wear, and there's just absolutely no way I can wear any of those things here.
Another philosophical moment that came to me this week concerning Halloween is the fact that these kids will most likely never experience Halloween the way I know it. Everything that they know about Halloween involves a few random powerpoints that I showed them and then the "party" that we had on Thursday. The party, which took place entirely at school, involved them watching a weird powerpoint while a disembodied Scottish voice shouted at them, dancing around the room to Katy Perry music, and eating dry seaweed. As far as these kids are concerned THAT is what Halloween is.
Are they wrong? I think this really got me thinking about how holidays are really just a set of shared traditions. This is one of those things that is completely on the nose and totally obvious, but when I was confronted with something that was so blatantly NOT Halloween this past week it forced me to experience Halloween from a new perspective. It's really easy to get caught up in traditions. They make us feel good and as if we are a part of something greater than ourselves. Even if it's just eating candy and watching The Nightmare Before Christmas (it's a Halloween movie, damnit!), holidays and the traditions that accompany them are things that we all hold sacred.
I really hope that, even though it was "all wrong", the kids enjoyed Halloween as much as I always have growing up. I hope that they carry on doing these things throughout their school education and that when they have kids their kids can experience the same things too. It's the rituals that matter, and more importantly the feelings they evoke. The rest is just window dressing.
Except the seaweed. I ate that stuff and it was FREAKING GROSS.
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