The International Life

It is Saturday morning here in Baoding, China as I write this. For those of you on the American eastern shore, it is still Friday night. (It's like I'm in the future and can tell you how the next 12 hours will go!)

A week ago, I finished my first full week of teaching here in China. So, to celebrate, Kim, Emily and I went to a dance club last Friday night! Haha. Keep in mind I've been to some in Ecuador and Spain. Deep Club in Baoding, China was one of the weirdest experiences of my life! Being white is certainly an oddity around here and garners many stares...the way this translates to the dance floor is fantastically hilarious. When Kim, Emily, and I danced, there was sometimes a circle formed around us (with people yelling us on) while other times any random, corny dance move we did was copied by half of the Chinese people standing around us. At one point, we danced putting one hand in the air then the other and repeated - this was copied by other people! It's not a good dance move but I guess anything we did was cool that night hahaha. It was such a weird and hilarious experience.

I can not forget to mention that Kim's friend Henry brought us to the club (and I think he is well known there because he gave me a ticket in and I paid 0yuan). Henry is from Nigeria and a cool guy. Who knew I would meet someone from Nigeria while teaching in China? In fact, the title of this blog, "The International Life", is inspired by the fact I've met people from all over the world while living here.

While last Friday night was eventful, Saturday was another experience. A lot of the foreign teachers went out to eat dinner together. There ended up being so many of us we had the biggest table in the restaurant and didn't all fit. The food tasted delicious but the company was even greater! There were plenty of Americans, some I had known before and some I met that night. Also at the dinner were a funny, cute couple (she's from Baoding, he's from the UK), an older teacher from France, two teachers from Japan, and Mao and his cousin (their family is from Indonesia but Mao was born in Madagascar and raised in France). Who thought we would get this group together in China?

I met more people in class this week...

My second week of teaching was busier: I taught my 4 classes of Spoken English for Sophomores and 2 classes of Writing for Juniors while being given a 7th class to teach freshmen Art majors with poor English skills. I also joined in one of the Chinese classes on Wednesday, my day off from teaching. There are many foreign students here taking lessons in Chinese 2 classes a day, 5 days a week. As a foreign teacher, I am allowed to go to any class I can. I attended a listening class and we learned about tones in the Chinese language. The other students included: 1 American, 1 Russian, 1 Japanese, 1 Canadian, 2 Mongolians, and 2 Koreans. During the break and after class I learned some names: Dae Hee, Ju Mi, Ted, and Yu Ka. They all seem nice and I am a little jealous I can not attend as many Chinese classes as them! I am excited to at least get some classes under my belt and make friends from even more countries though.

This weekend may be a little quieter but I am hoping to have enough money to travel to Beijing next weekend. Now, time to be a teacher and get some lesson planning done.