Christmas Part II: This Time We Got It Right

If you recall, last year's Christmas wasn't too ideal. While there were definitely good parts there were rough parts such as the government coming in last minute and making us take down our decorations and telling us we weren't allowed to do a school-wide Christmas event ever again. 

I thought that last year I could work through the day to distract me from the fact that I was away from my family. I ended up spending that day so annoyed I was working on Christmas for the first time in my life. This year I decided to do things differently. 

Earlier that week, I had a Christmas dinner with the trainers at my gym. In November we had discussed how they had never eaten turkey before and I decided that as a treat I would get them a turkey dinner. The only time they ended up being free was December 21st. To  my surprise they brought me Christmas gifts! I got a scarf and hat, boxing gloves, a traditional Chinese tea set, and a new water bottle. When they asked if they needed to bring anything to the dinner I said chips. They brought literally a garbage bag full of chips. It was surprisingly touching. 

Trainer Tony took this photo. You might notice a Husker hat on my trainer Robert.
From left to right: Jiang, Carter, Shanna, Boom, Robert, David.

We ate turkey, mashed potatoes, vegetables and for drinks I had apple cider and mulled wine (a first time making it for myself). One of my guests brought a cake for dessert. We spent the night talking and singing songs together. It was a great highlight to my year so far. 

Later that week the teachers in my office got together for a Christmas event at Teacher Fang Fang's house. We ate hotpot, played a card game, and sang and danced to Christmas songs. It was so fun!

For Christmas Day, I went to Shanghai first for church, then I went to the mall and bought myself some pajamas from the store Tutu Anna and ate pizza for lunch. Later I headed to the Shanghai Starbucks Roastery (I will talk about that in a separate post), rested in another mall, and ate supper and had a drink at Boxing Cat. For the finale I went to a free museum nearby and headed home. Then the cherry on top was calling my family when I got back to Jiaxing. 

Merry Christmas from China!

Tibetan Performance, You Bet!

Last Tuesday my TA and friend Jeanne got three free tickets to a Tibet singing and dancing show and invited me and another co-worker to go along with. We were excited to tag along!

Jeanne is the far right. 

We asked how she got the free tickets and a family friend of her's works in government. If anyone in China works for the government they usually get these kind of perks. It was surprising how many college kids were there but Jeanne stated that they were probably the children of the employees. The government most likely provided tickets for entire families. And here we were, three non-government employees and non-family members enjoying this performance. 

The dancing and singing varied quite a lot which surprised us. There were different costumes, music, and dances even though they all came from Tibet. It was noticed that some of the Tibetan dancing and singing incorporated Chinese and Western styles. 

On these dancers backs was a cape made out of dozens of small scarves of different colors. The capes were taken off and flipped back on throughout the dance. The men then did a dance that looked as if they were wrestling. 

Between each dance number there would be a single person who would sing in a Tibetan style or a Tibetan infused style. 

These women balanced three tea cups on their heads while they danced! This could be the Biwang style of dance. 

These women wore orange cones on their heads and the song went from slow to fast. It was my favorite!

Many of the dances involved the costumes having abnormally long sleeves that were swung around. This could be the Ralpa style of dance. 

The last performance we saw were these men who incorporated rapping and Tibetan chanting. 

After this performance I was excited to learn more but was hard to find information on this. I found this source which states that Tibetan dance started around the 11th Century. I hope to watch more of these dances in the future!

100 Days: Part II

It's that time of year again...100 Days of School! 

Last year I talked about the history of this celebration but this time our school photographer, Mia, got better pictures. This year was a little different than last year. 

Last year I had parent-teacher conferences but this year that was cancelled. The conferences were at the same time as the students' performance and many parents didn't want to miss the performance last year, so many didn't come. This was solved this year by not having them. 

The day started at 8:30 am where my TA, Jeanne and I gave a 20 minute presentation about the first grade English curriculum to the parents. Then each class was shortened from one hour to 30 minutes and all the parents could watch our classes. We ate lunch then it was off to the concert. 

Since I could watch all the performances this year I can tell you what each class did. 101, 102, and 103 each had to write the character for person, chant a poem about becoming an adult, and then performed a poem that was directed by their homeroom teacher. You can see that the students are wearing their traditional Han outfits again, however this year the water bowl was taken out of the program. 

The students having their knowledge chakra painted on. 

The students' calligraphy of person. 

101 had the students chant a poem and do a dance. 

102 the students dressed as lily pads and fish for their poem. 

103 pretended to be a class during recess with a strict teacher watching over them. When the "teacher's" back was turned the class snuck out of the theatre. It was by far the funniest one. 

                                  

After that the students had to solve rubik's cubes, did a dance with all the extra curricular sports, performed the two English songs I taught them, and then ended with an English skit that my TA's Jenny and Jeanne wrote. 

The sports dance. They had ribbon and flag dances and basketball players. 

                                      

Colors of the Rainbow was performed again along with If Your Happy and You Know It

I would say that this year was a total success! Also the parents are not as strict as the parents last year. This year the parents all stated that they thought the students' English was very good and were pleased with the discipline and homework. 

My reflection is that I do think that I am a better teacher this year. I found that I am better at giving directions because I know what the skill set of first graders are. My TA's also know what kind of videos and homework the students like to listen to and complete which means the turn in rate is much higher. After the midterm exams, we noticed that the average grades are an A compared to last year when they averaged a B. I am very happy with my second year of teaching here and hope to have a good finals exam week in January. 

You Have No Mail

Last year for Christmas I wanted to mail some Chinese-only items to my sister and my long time pen-pal Anita. A co-worker helped me get a FedEx to pick up and mail my package off to the Czech Republic and Portugal. I was able to track down where the package was and so were my recipients and all seemed going well. Strangely enough, when the package came within blocks of where they lived we hit a snag. 

FedEx said that both my sister and my friend had to go in-person to the FedEx office, bring their passports, and be there within three days or the packages would be sent back or DESTROYED. 
Both had a hard time getting time off to get to the FedEx office. Anita sent her boyfriend to pick it up for her but the employees denied him, saying Anita had to come in person and just her passport wouldn't do. My sister came in the day they told her to with her passport only to be told that the package was destroyed early that morning. 
Both of my packages ended up getting destroyed even though I expressly stated on the forms that I filled out when sending the packages that I wanted them sent back if there was a problem. Needless to say, none of us use FedEx anymore. 

(If you recall in a previous blog post, FedEx has let me down before.)

What is confusing is that while I was in the USA I could send packages to both Czech Republic and Portugal and had zero problems! The packages came in their mailboxes and there was no fuss. 

After doing some research I found that Europe has really tight restrictions against anything coming in from China. Everything is closely inspected and regulated compared to anything coming in from the USA. 

Sadly, the other way around is true as well. My two co-workers in 2017 were sent packages and post cards in August and then in December. A total of ZERO packages ended up getting delivered to them. Only one postcard out of three was ever delivered and it came in June of 2018. 
I have no proof but I am almost sure that the government is confiscating these items. When my co-workers checked online to see where their packages were, one seemed to be perpetually stuck in Shanghai. 

Last August my cousin asked if she could send me a project called Flat Stanley. It is now December and I am 100% sure that Flat Stanley has now become Confiscated Stanley. 

Now that the holidays are upon us, I have been asked by my loving family and friends if they can send me things and the answer is always no. I just can't risk these things getting "lost" for months on end or confiscated. I am not sure if these things will ever get delivered. 

One thing I know for sure is that the United States Postal Service is amazing at sending things overseas. 

The true mailing bae.