October 31-Halloween!

October 31:

Today is Halloween! For class, I dressed up as Justin Bieber—not because I’m obsessed with him, but because I look scarily like him when I wear purple leggings, white boots, and a purple hoodie and I comb my short hair forward—and did face painting with Kate and Emily. I had my kids line up and then sit down in front of me, one at a time. I had them say what they wanted me to paint and with what colors, and then I painted their cheeks or the back of their hands. One girl, Lucy, told me, “Teacher, my mother say no,” and pointed at her cheek; she then pointed at her hand: “Mother say yes.”

The kids loved it. Scott, Kailey, and Abi had a movie going in their room for the kids to watch. After, we had the kids color balloons.

Once classes were done, I returned to my dorm to prepare for that afternoon: I was helping the afternoon ILP teachers with a haunted house, and Bieber isn’t nearly scary enough for that. I teased my hair until every strand stood on end and I looked like I was an electrocuted Helena Bonham Carter. When my hair was wet with hairspray, I scattered glitter in it. Then I did my make-up: I put glitter in my concealer before I applied it, and then darkened my eyes with thick liquid eye liner and black, navy, and silver eye shadows. I used to liquid liner to draw swirls and vines across my cheeks and down my neck. It looked AWESOME! I was so proud of my skills. I wore a black romper with purple leggings, killer black heels and fairy wings—I was a creepy fairy, and I daresay I looked fantastic.

Brittany, Kylee, Krisan, and Ivy turned one of our classrooms into a haunted house with cardboard, bed sheets, boxes, tables, chairs, tablecloths, string and clothespins; the windows were darkened and an iPod played Halloween music. At first, I was in charge of letting the kids into the haunted house, and, also at first, the kids were too terrified to enter: they kept running out as soon as they caught a glimpse of the haunted house and heard the scary music. Finally, a little girl was willing to try it out—turns out, this little girl went through the haunted house at least three times, showing up several of the boys. Kudos to her! Eventually, more of the kids were willing to go through.

After a short while, the teachers changed my position and I became the Tunnel Grabber: I grabbed their ankles while they crawled through a tunnel of tables and bed sheets. The kids were so scared, and I quickly felt bad. I’m the type of person to cuddle little children, not scare the crap out of them. After the children went through, the Chinese teachers opted to have a turn. They were frightened but thrilled.

Because I felt guilty (some of the kids cried out of fear—the other ILP teachers took their positions a bit too seriously, with fake gore and scary special effects) and I was faint from hunger, I left early and returned to my dorm. After a snack, Abi reminded me that we were teaching English Corner soon. Still in costume, I joined Abi in teaching fourteen-year-olds about Halloween and drawing bats and ghosts. They all loved my costume, and especially my make-up.

(Random bit of useless information: Apparently, Chinese girls don’t wear make-up until they turn 18, unless they need to get dolled up for a special occasion, like a traditional holiday or performance.)

English Corner is fun, but I don’t quite relate or connect with the students like I do with my ILP students (the 5-8 year olds). Maybe it’s because when they mouth off or mess around, it’s a lot less adorable than when a sweet little five-year-old does it. My English Corner students speak about as much English as my ILP students do, which is very little though there are a few who surpass the others by a lot. Amy, Tim, and Rufus can actually carry on conversations with me; granted, it takes a lot longer and they are in broken English, but at least we can understand each other for the most part.

My ILP students are learning a lot, however I may have belittled their knowledge. They are beginning to speak English spontaneously—which is to say, they are piecing together sentences and phrases from previous and present lessons to communicate with me; they are marvelous at memorization.

Anyway, back to Halloween. I met up with Maren, Kelli, and Kaylee and we fixed our ‘dos and took a group picture with the other teachers. Everyone else dressed up as zombies or pirates or gypsies. Maren and Kelli had excellent zombie make-up, ripped and bloodied (painted) clothes, and hugely ratted hair. They looked spectacular.

The four of us went out for Chinese Muslim food—we walked there to save money plus to have more fun, since we were able to freak out all the locals. You should have seen their faces: some of them looked positively horrified, others gave us ‘what the heck are you doing, you yuchun Meiguo ren?’ (stupid American) looks, while some actually laughed and gave us thumps up. The man and woman who own the Muslim restaurant know us very well, and when they saw us they laughed and gasped and couldn’t take their eyes off us.

Muslim was, as it always is, incredible. The noodles there are the best I’ve ever had and the food is simply (and by that I mean simple) delicious. The dishes are so basic (like my favorite, which is noodles, fried eggs, and tomato) but very yummy; I will crave it and miss it when I return to the States. Cami says she has yet to find a legitimate Chinese Muslim restaurant in the States—all of the Muslim restaurants she’s found are Middle Eastern and are nothing like Chinese Muslim.

After dinner, we walked to the Jia Jia Yue and terrorized the unsuspecting shoppers by buying bread and juice and chocolate. At the night market, we had a photo shoot and bought bananas, while everyone stared at us. Granted, the Chinese usually stare at us, but now they had a real excuse (besides the fact that we are Caucasian).

I bought a yummy candied-crab-apple-and-almonds-on-a-stick from a vendor (new favorite treat) and called it a day; what I also called it was one of the best Halloweens of my life, and the only real candy I had was a single Snickers bar.

I hope everyone had a fantastic holiday!

Sincerely,
瑞 婷
Rui Ting