Week 21: China's X Factor, or, I Refuse to Pay For That Sweater

Believe it or not, there was some confusion this week regarding our schedule at work!

Another forecast of cold and rain meant that the enigmatic "sports day" was postponed once more. The equally enigmatic "singing day" was very suddenly moved up to Thursday.

Before I mention that, though, I have to say that my first night as a trivia game host went very well. A lot of our friends and acquaintances from the other schools showed up and everyone seemed to have a good time. I wasn't sure if I made the test way too easy or not, but in the end everyone agreed that I gave one of the hardest pub quizzes they ever took. I suppose I underestimated the level of my own random nonsense trivia abilities. Being the host was a lot of fun because there was free beer and food for the evening, and I knew all of the answers! My favorite round that I did was the Star Wars round, but that was the one everyone completely tanked. Everyone except for my coworker Chris, who I am going to go ahead and out as someone who's nearly as big a SW nerd as I am. His team had by far the highest score for that round.

But back to singing day... The beleaguered foreign teacher crew was unceremoniously told that we would be performing a song and dance routine in the show on Thursday, which meant that we had three days to prepare something.

At this point Laura and I are real pros at doing something intricate and complicated with absolutely no prep time. Together, our crew of 7 decided to do Jingle Bells. It was safe, it was simple, and it was timely. So, from Monday through Thursday morning we spent about 20 minutes during our lunch break doing a simple song and dance. It wasn't flashy, but we were good at and that's what was important.

The excitement for the singing competition built up throughout the week, and it was definitely catching. Not unlike a virus, the anticipation for the event had infected the entire office staff by the end of the week. Also like a Virus, we all gained symptoms like dizziness, fever, headaches, and shaky palms.

These symptoms were because of the VOLUME of the NOISE. Our office is right next to the stage, and that stage was being used all week for rehearsals. Thus, we were constantly assaulted with a never ending onslaught of screaming (I mean singing) and mic tests for the entire duration of the week. It wasn't just our anticipation that grew through Thursday, I swear the speakers got louder too. By the day of the big show our desks were literally shaking to the pulsating beats of China Pop Hits.

I took a lot of Tylenol this week.

When the big day arrived the school was overwhelmed by parents and children. Every kid was in at least one act, and with each act came its own costume and dance routine. It was on Thursday that I realized where all of our school's money goes.

I knew that this school had a lot of money, partly because they hire so many foreign teachers. While our salary is rather paltry by American standards, foreign teachers are a very expensive investment for schools in China. The seven of us here are proof positive that our school has a lot of money to toss around, but on any given day you really can't "see the money" otherwise. A lot of our resources are very old and outdated. The shining example of the, shall we say penny-pinching behavior of our bosses is the office printer. Our entire office has one printer which is definitely from the early 90s. When it's not broken it's in the process of falling apart again. There are several pieces missing and the entire thing is jury rigged in the most ridiculous way possible. The ink is added to the printer from outside in a series of rubber tubes which are themselves duct taped to the sides of the monstrosity haphazardly. The printer is plugged into a computer that may be even older. It's definitely older than our 22 year old coworker Leon. At least it's in color.

Anyway, the money this school rakes in is clearly spent on these singing contest days. All of the costumes seemed brand new, and boy were they colorful! Each class had a different outfit that matched the theme of the song, which implies to me that they get new outfits each year. On top of all this was the LED screens which had been erected all over the stage. Not some shoddy second-hand screens, these bad boys were all brand new. During the performances these screens depicted slide shows (filled with pictures of the children), video clips (of mildly racist 'native tribes'), and generic pulsating techno laser light shows.

The show itself was very entertaining to watch. The kids all worked very hard and their choreography was immaculately prepared. The songs were a mix of catchy new Chinese pop songs and traditional Chinese songs as well. One of the few exceptions were the 6th graders who put on a rousing rendition of Taylor Swift's "Never Ever Getting Back Together".

I was actually featured in this song. The kids were struggling a bit with their dance and the dance teacher felt that the piece needed "something more". Apparently she decided that Laura, Chris, Zac and I were that "little something more" because on Thursday she grabbed the four of us while we were on our way to lunch and asked us to "perform" the song with them. They didn't give us anything to do while we were on stage, mind you. She apparently thought just having a couple of Americans on the stage would add to the legitimacy of the act.

Between Taylor Swift and Jingle Bells I spent quite a bit of time on the stage during the show. It was a lot of fun but it was quite intimidating! When the kids were not performing they were in the audience. Each child also brought at least one or two parents with them to the show, and a few brought some grandparents. There were easily 3,000 people watching me on the stage every time I went up there. Luckily, I took solace in the fact that none of them could understand me, and that any mistakes I made would just be chalked up to "silly western foreigners" instead of being pointed at me personally.

So instead I reveled and I shined. The Jingle Bells number went down a storm, although I am sure it was in no small part due to the fact that we were all dressed up as Santa Clause and that we were all throwing candy out into the audience. I had a full Santa beard and everything, it was really great! This will definitely be one of the memories of China that I will never lose, and will always hold dear to my heart.

After the show the sixth grade class who had put on the Taylor Swift invited us upstairs for an after show party. They said we were the "guests of honor" for helping to make their show better. We obviously had to oblige. When we arrived at the top floor we were greeted with 50 shining, albeit acne pocked faces. The teachers for the class had bought food for the after party. This food included a bucket of KFC! That's right, 8 pieces of chicken and a bag of small French fries to split between 50 kids, and split them they certainly did. We also had some Chinese snacks and candies, including shrimp potato chips and meat floss.

After laughing at the idea of "meat floss" for the last several months, I have to concede that it is rather tasty. I was worried based on how it looks that it would taste of asbestos and insulation, but it was rather just like a little-too-chewy beef jerky. I don't know if I'd pay for it, but I would certainly eat it again. For a parting gift we were given some dried seaweed, a treat I've had a number of times and never was able to enjoy. Fifth time might be the charm though...

The practicing for the show translated into a lot of classes being shuffled around or cancelled, so this was a pretty slow week. We have used the extra free time to get the office nice and decorated for Christmas. The school's English office had two Christmas trees and a variety of nice decorations at our disposal and it was a lot of fun to put them up. For a few hours, with Christmas music playing softly in the background and everyone gathering around to hang lights on the tree, it felt like I was home again. Truly wonderful.

For some reason the boxes that the Christmas trees were in were also completely filled with candy wrappers and garbage. I am not sure what to make of this, but at this point it hardly surprises me. China is a land of weird things being found in weird boxes and if you want to survive here for very long then you need to just accept it.

The few classes I did squeeze in this week were all tests. I gave several midterm exams this week and, spoiler alert, everyone did abysmally. I have never been so disappointed in my entire life. We spent the week before last reviewing all of the concepts and I made the test requirements incredibly easy. In fact, I threw the kids a one and used only questions that we went over during the review session. Despite going over material that I taught three times, nearly everyone completely tanked the test. My youngest children even failed oral questions such as "what is your name?". It was, to reiterate, disappointing.

In the end it probably won't matter though. It appears as though the tests are really just an afterthought, and that the only function they serve is to show off to the parents (who are paying a lot of money for their kids to come here) that their money is well spent. I was told very last minute about the test, and was also told that the grades should be either "A B or C". I was no allowed to give Ds or Fs. I was also told that I would probably have to curve the test. Rounding out the rules that I was initially given was that the format of the test must include oral, written, listening, and reading sections. After administering the test, though, I was informed that "having so many sections is much too hard". It appears that most of the Chinese teachers just give short 10 question multiple choice tests where there is a picture (i.e. an apple) and then two choices (i.e., A: APPLE or B: WILLIAM RANDOLPH HEARST). I was lightly chastised by the teaching assistants in my class for making the kids do a reading section and a listening section. The grades were not submitted to our bosses or to some sort of "permanent record" for the kids. Instead I just gave them to the teaching assistants who will no doubt change the grades as they see fit.

I am not sure what to think of this. Coming from the USA, when I think of school I think "testing testing testing". It has been so ingrained in us since the beginning, but even more so since No Child Left Behind, that tests are absolutely an essential part of school. If you don't do well on a test your entire future is in jeopardy. Over here that doesn't seem to be the case. The kids were stressed out when I gave them the oral portion of the test and they had to see me one on one, but otherwise they didn't seem to be bothered at all. I don't think that any of them even studied (clearly).

So what can we learn from this? Are the kids even learning at all? Every day back home you hear reports about how Chinese school children are better than American school children at absolutely everything. I am not sure if this is true. Obviously I just work at one school and my sample size is only that one school, but it is the most expensive and prestigious school in the Nanhai district, and one of the largest schools in the city of Foshan, so something tells me that it's a pretty relevant sample. Perhaps the kids really are just learning at a better rate, or maybe their other classes (such as Math or Science, which are taught in Chinese) are the classes they focus their attention on. These blog posts pose a lot of questions and not nearly enough answers, but I guess the world is a complex place and simple answers are few and far between. Maybe I'll understand it all by the time I come home.

One thing was abundantly clear this week, though: the singing competition took precedence over the test. A lot of my coworkers had their exams scheduled, only to find out a few minutes before the class began that all of the students were having an emergency dance rehearsal instead. "The kids would rather dance than take a test", was an excuse that the Chinese teachers told a lot of us this week. Um... of course they do! No one wants to take tests! I didn't want to give one, but I was told it was a requirement. Nevertheless, the Chinese teachers invariably decided that the rehearsal was much more important and the tests had to wait. Laura ended up having to give her children their oral test during the lunch break one day because their Chinese teacher May cancelled every single class this week!

One last note on the singing competition: Laura and I were also told on Wednesday afternoon that there would be a second day of singing and dancing on Friday. The Friday show was just for grade 1 and the grade 1 parents, since the grade 2-6 performances ended up taking all night on Thursday. Since she and I are the teachers for a number of the grade 1 kids, it was decided without our input that we would star in the closing number of the grade 1 show. The number we would be joining in on was "The Ants Go Marching", and since they didn't have any ant costumes they told us we would have to don the infamous bee costumes that I had to wear for Halloween!

Everyone just loves it when Jon dresses as a bee.

We were able to rehearse with the little kids once or twice before performing. The number was really cute, and all the children were dressed up as different animals. They were incredibly adorable. There was a big audience again on Friday, but not nearly as big as the Thursday night audience, so I did not get as big of a rush on stage. I guess I'm just a jaded performer now. Carnegie Hall? Puh-leaaaase.

The weekend took us back to Zhaoqing for our once-a-week Saturday class. It's a good thing that it's just once a week because having the two schools back-to-back really highlights how much better the Foshan school is. Everything in Zhaoqing is so much less organized and their curriculum is a big mess. It's only a 5 hour day once a week, but it feels longer the all five days at the Nanhai school combined.

Sunday back in Foshan was a quiet but busy one. We went back to Metro, the foreign import market, and invested in some hot cocoa and some cookies. These went really well with our annual viewing of the Will Ferrell holiday classic Elf. The other thing we did on Sunday was go to the Dongfang Market. This market is near a mall with a similar name, and is a hub of cheap blackmarket clothing. Our coworkers go there all the time but Laura and I have not had the opportunity before this week.

Upon arrival we had to go through a few alleyways and then suddenly we were knee deep in sweaters, sweatpants, basketball jerseys and more. We came here not only to check it out, having heard that it was a site worth seeing, but because we needed some cold weather clothing. The temperature outside has settled at a balmy 60 degrees or so, but as I said last week the interiors of the buildings are miserably cold. With no central heating (or any heating at all), no insulation, and buildings made entirely of concrete and steel, the inside of China is frequently 10-20 degrees colder than the outside. I'll tell you, it's weird opening a window in December to "let the warm air in".

But anyway, Dongfang was where it was at. Vendors here have a huge selection of close at silly cheap prices. Forget the fact that shopping malls already sell clothes cheap when compared to American prices (Almost anything is less than $15 US unless it's super fancy), here in Dong fang things were even lower. The added bonus of coming to the back alleys shops is that haggling is an art that is alive and well here. See something marked at $12 US? You can easily wrangle it down to $9.50.

I'm not sure where the clothes come from. My two theories are that they are either just knockoffs that are home made by someone or that they are the misprints and mislabeled from the factories and then they are stolen from there. Either way, Laura and I both got very soft, comfortable hoodies for $10 each. Mine has the zipper on backwards, which leads me to think that my second theory may be closer to the truth.

So now that I am a professional bargainer and a renowned star of the stage and screen, I think I am finally a true citizen of China. It feels good to be here.

That about wraps up this week in the news. The next few weeks are absolutely going to fly by, since we have an incredibly high number of classes already scheduled to be cancelled for the sports day (they can't postpone it anymore!), plus Christmas is around the corner. Only 9 more days until I'm in Taiwan everybody!