We're Going to Thailand!

Our flights are booked - the weekend before Jacky's mom(s) Tammy and Iris come to Beijing, we will be exploring Thailand! We have a month and a half to plan our trip - if you or anyone you know has been, please give us some suggestions!

Houhai

This Saturday we explored Houhai, a beautiful neighborhood around a lake and surrounded by mazes of hutongs. We had the wonderful company of our friend Katherine, her boyfriend and her boyfriend's sister. We spent the day wandering in and out of shops, stopping every now and then to admire the beauty of the lake and watch people enjoying boat rides on the lake. For dinner we hoped to find "Hutong Pizza" a restaurant our guide book awarded "the best pizza in Beijing." We got lost a few times looking for it but finally happened upon a small sign for it in a hutong off the main walkway. We were skeptical when the sign led us to a small alleyway that looked more like someone's house than a restaurant. But we opened a small curtain and found a beautiful and quiet restaurant. We helped ourselves to some delicious pizza and milkshakes! The pizza definitely beat Chinese "Pizza Hut" pizza (although Katherine disagreed)! On the way out I spotted what looked like steaming iced tea...curious we asked the vendor what made it steam and he said mint! Hmm...I had to try it, see picture below!

With Katherine's boyfriend and his sister. 

Exploring the hutong.

The entrance to the restaurant.

Steaming pear iced tea!

Cotton candy!

"Dress Up" turned "Masquerade"

Jacky and I have noticed that the concept of childhood play is very different here in China. We seldom observe our students engaging in pretend play; when it is free choice time they often do puzzles or play with manipulatives alone. This is unlike what we learned in the US where cooperative "dramatic play" is seen as crucial to young children's learning! I was hoping to introduce the the idea of playing pretend through "dress up" to my students while we were reading a story called "Dressing Up" a couple of weeks ago. Unlike in most American preschools, the classrooms don't have a dress up bin filled with clothes for the children to use so I was hoping to have the children's parents bring in clothes we could use for this lesson. I sent home a letter and had my Chinese partner teacher, Ann, translate it for the parents who can't read English. The day after I sent the letter home Ann told me that the parents were very excited and would have their children bring dress up clothes the following Friday. But the next day Ann told me that the parents expressed concern over not having enough time to prepare for the "dress up party" so she wanted to change the day to the next Tuesday. She said that the parents were hoping to get their children beautiful costumes for the event! I reiterated what "dress up" is to her and explained that it was not going to be a party but just a chance for the children to play pretend freely. I told her that the parents did not need to buy fancy costumes, rather bring old clothes and dolls from home. That afternoon a parent told me that she was very excited for the "masquerade event." Eventually the "masquerade" was pushed back even further by my Chinese partner teachers to the following Friday...Parent Open House Day! What was to be an ordinary lesson turned into a lavish masquerade! I expressed concern to Ann that my lesson was free play, I wanted the children to have a chance to freely use their imagination. I told her that it would mostly be a hands off experience--I wouldn't be directly teaching them, rather just encouraging their pretend play. I worried that the parents would not understand this since the concept was so foreign to them, and thus think that I was a bad teacher!

The day finally came and after I did my usual morning meeting and reading lessons in front of the parents it was time for the children to change into their costumes. They changed with the help of their parents and seemed very excited to show off their costumes. The excitement quickly faded and they all seemed a bit lost, there seemed to be no use of imagination, pretending that they were the doctor, pirate, princess etc. that they were dressed up as despite my encouragement (acting sick and asking the doctor for help etc.). The parents seemed confused too. I approached Ann and asked her if she could help me encourage more play, she said that the children did not know how to do this and that a lot of them didn't understand what they were dressed up as! She continued, "why don't you lead them in some dances?" After some failed attempts at getting the group together to dance I approached the principal of the school (who was observing all of this) and she suggested that I do a fashion show. After a short and messy "fashion show" we got together for some group photos and the open house was over. The children and parents definitely had fun, but my goal of fostering imaginative play was not met! The whole experience was a bit frustrating and embarrassing (I must have seemed so unorganized to the parents!) but it was so interesting to observe the children's confusion over what is such a normal part of preschool for American children.

Recently, the professor who owns the school and hired us discussed with us the opportunity to conduct research this year and present it with him at NAEYC's fall 2014 conference. After many interesting observations like this we are considering studying our students' play patterns and comparing them to those of students in the U.S. as our research topic! We'll keep you posted!

Showing off their costumes!

Yoyo aka Harry Potter reading my morning meeting message.

Discussing the parts of Yoyo's costume.

Standing around, looking confused!

The parents, teachers and students!

Trying to lead dance activities.

A Day in A Hutong

Last weekend we went with Katherine to one of the Hutongs. Quiz - who remembers what a hutong is? Hint: it's from our 4th of July post! They're narrow streets/alleys with shops and very old short buildings. They're traditional old Beijing neighborhoods that now have many shops and restaurants with many rooftop options which we love! The hutong was Nan Luo Gu Xiang Hutong. It was a new place for us and very busy and crowded. We visited many shops and got lost several times. We turned around and ended up in front of a music shop. Jacky has been wanting to get a ukelele for a few weeks now to practice and play in the park! It was fate. She bought one and has been teaching herself with the great help of YouTube! We were ready to eat and found a fantastic place where we could sit on the roof - it almost had a European feeling to it! Enjoy the pictures below!

Strolling through the hutong

RED SOX! Turns out it was a socks store...

A view from our dinner table

All smiles up there!

With Katherine :)

Chinese Entertainer Yelling at Us!

Last Friday, we went back to the outdoor bar place we went the previous weekend because we had such a blast! The first time we went there was KTV (karaoke) on stage but we were not quite confident enough to get up there (however, now we feel confident that we will become the next pop stars of BJ). This time, there was a man performing who was hilarious - though we have no idea what he was saying. He did crazy things like take off his shirt, use fans with feathers while dancing, and shortly after we sat down he started using US for his act. From the stage he was waving at us and talking to/at us. We were just laughing and saying "I don't know!" (also in Chinese - wo bu dong!) Here's a video when he got off stage to come straight over to us and "yell" at us while everyone - including us - were cracking up. Enjoy!

P.S. When we asked our friend Katherine to translate it the next day, all she could understand was that he kept saying "Why are you so white?!" HAHA!

Learning to say "I Love You"

The Chinese teachers in both of my classes asked me to teach the students an "English" song (it's by a Chinese pop star, Fiona Fung) called "A little love." I agreed, although the English in this song is relatively poor. I eventually found out that some of my students will sing this song at a promotional event this coming weekend (we've been practicing for weeks!). On Monday, seven of the children went to a recording studio and were individually recorded singing the song. Why? We don't know. Jacky went with them, and she said it was quite the adventure! Anyway, below is a very funny and endearing video of two of my students (who very rarely speak up during my lessons) passionately shouting "I love you!" at each other. Enjoy! 

An Anniversary Post

This weekend marks one month that we have lived here in Beijing. We wanted to reflect and recap things we've learned and accomplished in the past month!

We have learned:

• how to count to ten, how to say hello, goodbye, thank you, I love you - and a few other very basic Chinese words and phrases.
• how much we love tofu.
• how "flexible" Chinese people can be when making plans - sometimes you only get one day's notice! We were given a list of weekend dates we have to work and the first one on the list was the next day. We had an interesting conversation with our boss about how crazy he thought it was that in America people plan so far in advance (his examples were weddings and dentist appointments...)
• how rarely Chinese people give or receive compliments.
• that the sidewalks and bushes are fair game for children to go to the bathroom.
• that lines (at a grocery store, at the Forbidden City, etc) don't exist. You have to be basically touching the person you're behind or else someone will cut you off.
• that pedestrians don't have the right of way - ever.
• how different our concepts of "beautiful skin" are. In the summer, we tan to get darker. Here, they use umbrellas and arm sleeves to block the sun. (Yet we've never seen sunscreen...)
• how much fruits and vegetables vary in cost - we recently bought 4 oranges for 50 yuan (almost $10) but some tomatoes and edamame for .61 yuan (10 cents!)
• how common it is for people wear to the same outfits everyday. 
• how if there is a holiday during the week, it is expected to work a weekend day to make up for it.
• how the person who sits farthest from the door at the restaurant is the "guest of honor" and the person who sits closest usually pays.
• how there is no dramatic play (dress-up) or free play at school even though these kids are so young and it's considered one of the most important learning activities in classrooms back home.
• that we are the only foreigners we know of in our neighborhood. We definitely though it would be easier to get around and do things without knowing Chinese!
• how crowded and big Beijing is - it could take us around two hours to get somewhere on the subway - which leads us to our next point...
• how cheap taxis are!
• how to use chopsticks.
• how we have a love/hate relationship with our VPNs. We have to use a Virtual Private Network to get around the many American sites that are blocked by the Chinese government. Sometimes it works great and other times not so much...
• how much we miss the beach and our summers back home.
• how good we feel after great workout.
• how much closer we feel to home with social media.
• how bad the pollution can be (sometimes it prevents our daily walks to the park with the children - other days it's gorgeous).
• how to bargain at stands and shops.
• how to use a non-western toilet (our school doesn't even have a "real toilet").
• how challenging our job has been and will be this year. We're realizing that this isn't studying abroad but rather a 6 days a week full time job! But we also are realizing that this is an invaluable experience where we're learning a lot about teaching! 
• how anything as small as hearing a familiar song (typically Taylor Swift) will cheer us up!
• that good smelling bug spray exists.
• that the students don't use pencils or crayons but marker pens and oil pastels (both so messy!)
• how strong we are and how far our positive attitudes will take us. We know this blog typically highlights our fun and exciting experiences but we want everyone to know that this month has been full of surprises, challenges, and obstacles that we could have never foreseen coming into it. We knew it would be challenging and we know that it will be worth it, but we'd be fooling you if we didn't admit that we've faced some serious challenges that have made us doubt our ability to stay. Luckily we both share a positive attitude and are able to find the humor in the seemingly unbearable situations we've faced. That being said, we have been able to sort out many of the miscommunications and we are happy to say that we're coming back to finish out the year until June after a 3 week Christmas vacation. Since making this decision we've found ourselves getting more comfortable in our apartment, neighborhood and classrooms. 
• how much we've appreciated everyone who has reached out to us since we've been across the world. It's always so nice to hear from all of you who we miss everyday! You can never contact us too much!

"Gan Bei" - "Cheers!" to 11 more months of teaching and learning in BJ!