Ok so Beijing is now over… thank God!!! While I greatly
enjoyed the time spent getting to know my fellow CTLCr’s, Beijing was
EXHAUSTING! Here’s a little rundown of how things went…
Day 1: August 2nd- Arrived in Beijing after about 24 hours of travel
from Washington Dulles to Seoul, Korea to Beijing. Then we spent a couple hours
getting out of the Beijing Airport and to the hotel, making our ultimate
arrival time at the hotel… 11 pm, making that the best hot shower of my life!
Also, at the hotel I will be forever thankful for the men who carried our
luggage up the three flights of stairs to our room (which sadly was the best
part of the hotel) By “our room” I mean, myself and Katie, who I met on the bus
to the hotel, and she was an awesome roommate!!
Katie and I in Tiananmen Square
Day 2: August 3rd-
All of CTLC had a bright and early start at 7:30 am, as we were shown places we
could get breakfast each day. Breakfast foods included dumplings, stuffed buns,
congee (rice porridge), scallion pancakes with egg, or what appeared to be a
Chinese empanada filled with noodles. Then after a breakfast and bottled water
run, we got our first look at Peking University’s (or Beida’s) Campus, the
number one university in China, where would be spending the next two weeks. We
then got introduced to our schedules, with for me included a daily 8:30 am TEFL
activity class, followed by teaching from 9:30- 10:20, followed by TEFL Lesson
Planning from 10:30-11:20. Then we had an hour and a half lunch, followed by
two hours of Chinese from 1—2:50, and then TEFL Lecture for an hour, usually
followed by a CTLC wide meeting. We spent of the rest of the day meeting our
teaching groups, planning lessons, learning what grades we would start teaching
on Day 3, and then having TEFL lectures.
Day 3: August 4th-
First day of teaching!!! Facing this first class of 19 Chinese fifth grade
children was one of the most terrifying moments of my life, as I was sure that
I would completely crash and burn. However, the class actually went pretty well
as we went over climates, weather, and clothing. The kids were really sweet and
excited, little did I know, but it was fun and not a complete failure, which
made my day!! After that first adrenaline filled class, Chinese was pretty
easy, and the rest of the classes were just a daze, but a busy one. This whole
day you could tell people were struggling through the jetlag and the stress,
and everyone just wanted to sleep when they got back.
Day 4-7: August 5th-8th
During this time with continued on the above posted schedule and I taught fifth
grade, which steadily devolved as the kids became restless. Of course who can
blame them, they spent 6 hours a day learning English and were told that this
was “Summer Camp” (for the record, possibly the worst summer camp EVER).
NOTES: During these fun-filled amazing days (please read
with light sarcasm), I was also having the great experience of literally being
eaten by some, as yet unknown, insect (probably a spider, although first
thought to have been bed bugs) My legs had massive bites on them that were
extremely red, swollen, hot and painful to touch. There were about 15 on each
leg, with at least 5 on the each knee. So do I have the best luck or what!!
Unknown (probably a spider) insect bites... ouch :(
Day 8: August 9th-
Break Day!!! Aka Great Wall Day!!! (which if you’ve ever been to the Great
Wall, then you know this was not a restful break day, but more of a physical
workout day, haha CTLC, you got us ;) ) Anyways, we went to the Great Wall,
with only a few minor snafus, as one bus got lost on the completely straight
road to the Wall, and the other bus just randomly stopped so the driver could
have a smoke… welcome to China! Upon arrival to the wall we then spent 20
minutes milling around for tickets before beginning the “enjoyable” trek up to
the actual wall. Once on the Wall, due to time constraints, we essentially had
to walk along the wall to where the toboggans were to go down. I will say that
the toboggans were as sweet as ever, and only had a few minor traffic jams.
After our toboggan ride down, we headed over to a restaurant for lunch
(coincidentally the exact same restaurant I ate at the last time I came to the
wall) Then we all loaded back on the busses and headed back to the hotel.
Great Wall Round 2!! (it's still there lol)
Hospital Round 1: So after returning to the hotel from the
Great Wall I received word that another teacher had also received bites and
wanted to go to the hospital, and that I should probably go to, which I, of
course, was not averse to. Boy was this
an interesting visit. We walked into the hospital and went to registration, to
be told that we needed a card to register, since we were foreign. Then at the
counter to get the card, they told us that we couldn’t get one until we saw a
doctor, and the doctor had to say that we could be treated. So we then wandered
down a sketchy hallway to a very small pretty crowded exam room, with one
extremely harried and very harassed looking doctor who was being talked to by
about 5 people at once. After standing around waiting to talk to the doctor for
about 20 minutes, he looks at my legs, and tells our Chinese TA, sorry we don’t
do skin today, they need to come tomorrow… of course. So we left the hospital
and spent ages hailing a cab, as it was now rush hour in Beijing.
Day 9: August 10th-
Hospital Round 2. Today we switched grades, and my group got to start teaching
9th graders, which I was kinda excited about, as we could do more
interesting subjects. The first day went ok, but the kids were a bit loud, and
obviously a lot harder to control than the fifth graders. After the class I,
along with the teacher who also attempted to go to the hospital yesterday, and
another teacher who had been bitten on the face that night, were supposed to go
to another hospital. While the teacher from yesterday forgot to show, Cassie
(the teacher who had been bitten on the face) and I went to a different, and
much nicer hospital. The gamut for this hospital went, first trying to register
on the first floor, then being told to go down to emergency to register. Of
course in the Emergency Room we were told we need a card, which was a pain to
get as no one could read our passports, they wrote our names wrong, but it was
finally done. We then took our cards and went over to the nurse for triage
assessment, to be told they don’t do skin in the Emergency Room, and that
instead we needed to go find a doctor in the dermatology department. So we went
up to dermatology, where there was no one at reception, and then we just walked
into a patient room where a doctor was, and our Chinese TA talked to him! The
doctor said he had too many patients to see and that we should try another
doctor, so we walked in on another patient/doctor consultation. This doctor
said that she would see us after she was done with her current patient. So we
waited and then went into see the doctor. The doctor looked at me and said that
my case was more severe than the other girls, and would therefore take longer
to heal. As with every other Chinese person, she asked if I was allergic to
mosquitos (like they only have mosquitos in China!!!) She then recommended that
I avoid parks, trees or anything green, and that I should live on a high floor,
and usually wear trousers instead of skirts, to protect myself from bugs, as
these bites would probably continue in Shenzhen! During this advice session I
just nodded and smiled, while mentally discarding almost everything, but she
did give me topical lotion and pills.
Total Cost for a Chinese hospital visit (including cab
rides, cards and registration, and medicine): 70 RMB or US$11
** Note: everyone kept telling us to save the receipts to
file with the insurance, to which I just laughed and laughed inside my head :D
Day 10: August 11th-
Regular teaching day.
Day 11: August 12th-
Fight Club!! Ok so today should have been a normal teaching day, during which I
was going to cover disasters (both manmade and natural). However, instead as an
observing coordinator pointed out, the day ended up being my own manmade
disaster, lol :( During this class the kids were extremely restless, they were
quickly losing letters (if the lose them all they write lines), and in the end
there was a physical fight between two students, which involved kicking and
punching. I, to date, still don’t know what caused the fight, but I just broke
it up and attempted to continue class, but the kids were just going crazy and
we ended up doing lines for ages. Overall, it was a really rough day, but it
also taught me a lot about how to handle kids in the future and what situations
an occur. Later tonight I got a little pick-up as we got to go see some awesome
Chinese acrobats!!
Day 12-16: August
13-17th Mostly regular teaching days, interspersed with a couple
late nights, some great dinners and meeting a lot of really cool people!
Day 17: August 18th-
So today was the last day of teaching!!!! Hallelujah, Hallelujah!!!! It was a
really exciting day, and the day of the student talent show, which was sprung
on us a couple days earlier. This consisted of our kids spending ages
practicing this random Westlife song the picked out called “My Love” from like
2000. (Chinese kids know the strangest bands and songs sometimes!) Then they
preformed along with all the other 13 classes of kids, from grade 3 to
university level. This talent show, had to be an exercise in torture, or at
least that was what it felt like at the time (as it was VERY hot and extremely
noisy!!) However, in the end we were done with teaching and it was time to
party!!! Which we did by going to a place called Wudaokou and a bar/club called
Propaganda, and dancing/drinking the night away. It was a lot of fun and I got
to meet a bunch of people.
My Beijing 9th graders!
Day 18: August 19th-
So today was the Forbidden City tour day, for which people had to be at the bus
pick-up spot by 7:30 am. I however, having already seen the city once for 3-4
hours, chose to instead sleep in and leisurely pack my bag for the train (NOTE: our large bags had been shipped days
before to Shenzhen) After packing my bag and checking out of the hotel, I
decided to go to the Pearl Market and maybe pick-up some bags and pearls. At
the market I ended up running into another CTLCr and was able to get some
things I wanted. I then headed back to the hotel and stopped at Carrefour (a French
grocery/walmart chain) for some snacks for the train. Then I headed back to the
hotel, where apparently the coordinators were revealing people’s assignments.
Drumroll please….. ….. ….. I, for the
next 10 months, will be living in the Futian District of Shenzhen, teaching at
a Vocational school for high school age kids. I will be living in an off campus
apartment with another girl whom is apparently British and I hadn’t met yet,
but I’m very excited and pleased!!
Train Time: We, yet again, loaded onto the buses yet again,
and headed through heavy traffic (aka normal Beijing traffic) to the train
station. We then went through the long process of checking tickets (which,
because China is cracking down on foreign travel, meant our tickets had to
match our passport numbers) and going through security en masse. Having made it
through we had enough time to get food, at the train station McDonalds and queue
up to enter the train for our minimum 24 hour ride. (I’ll talk more about the
train ride in a future post :D )
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