This weekend is supposed to be one of the most important of my ILP experience, because the ILP director Casey Glade is visiting DaGuangHua. Casey is supposed to supervise our classes on Friday; that night, DaGuangHua is treating us with dinner at a super fancy restaurant. Casey will interview each of the ILP teachers individually on Saturday morning. We’ve prepared for this weekend with pep talks, quick re-training, and lots of cleaning.
There’s not much he would do besides tell us to do better if we have a bad teaching day, so I haven’t been terribly worried. Yes, I’m concerned enough to step up my game and try to be better and get my kids to speak more English, but it’s not a life or death situation and I know that.
This Friday morning, I prepared a lesson that included lots of items about which to discuss and an easy BMC. My students were more active than usual, but I controlled them with a firm hand and things weren’t too bad. I tried to my best to keep them speaking and behaving, just in case Casey decided to enter my class, but he never showed. I had the kids speaking a lot more English than usual, until my second to last class, with Kyle, Kylie, Kim, Dennis, William, Collin, and Paris.
I can’t recall how the subject of kissing came up, but somehow we began discussing kissing. I think one of the kids tried to kiss another student, causing an uproar of laughter from the entire class, including Teacher. The Chinese use a simple hand gesture to symbolize kissing: you interlock all your fingers except your thumbs, and you tap your thumbs together. The kids started doing this, and Kyle tried to kiss Kim’s cheek. She shrieked and backed away, giggling. Before long, all the kids were calling out dual names, like, “Collin and Paris! Kim and Dennis! Kyle and Collin!”
William kissed Dennis’s cheek, grossing out the latter. Kylie and Kyle, who were on opposite sides of the tables, air-kissed (they are siblings— ironically, considering their names— and they thought this was hilarious). Paris had been pouting for whatever reason, but was pulled out of her funk by the raucous giggling of her classmates. Kylie said, “Paris and Kyle!” Paris and Kyle leaned into each other, pulling away at the last possible second. Both shrieked, embarrassed. However, they tried it again and this time Kyle planted one on her kisser.
Everyone gasped and then burst out laughing; Kyle vigorously wiped at his mouth and turned bright red. Paris covered her mouth with one hand, pleasantly surprised. Although he pretended to be grossed out, it was easy to tell that Kyle loved every second of this attention; he proved this when he promptly kissed Kim’s cheek. Kim’s facial expression was priceless: she squeezed her eyes tight and grimaced, and then had a giggle fit.
Suddenly, all of the girls left their seats and bombarded Kyle, holding him down as Paris tried to kiss him. He fought her and grimaced as she planted kisses on his forehead and cheeks, but then he stood up and willingly smooched her.
Kyle and Collin are friends, but they usually spend their time karate chopping and kicking each other. However, today Kyle stood up and grabbed Collin and kissed the top of his head, much to Collin’s horror. The class loved it.
I filmed a lot of this escapade, thankfully. It makes me so happy to watch. This class was so much fun!
When I took them to the bathroom, I asked Paris if she liked kissing Kyle. She responded animatedly, “Yes, Teacher. Yes, yes!” I had to laugh—this girl’s life had just been made: she was positively glowing.
When Kate brought her kids to the bathroom, Kylie told her that Kyle and Paris kissed. Kate looked at me disbelievingly, but I didn’t need to explain or legitimize Kylie’s claim, because Paris and Kyle kissed yet again. My class and Kate’s class practically died laughing; Lily fell to the floor in a giggle fit.
My students are absolutely adorable. My only worry is that that class will never behave ever again: they’ll want every class to be a kiss fest. At least Casey didn’t come into that class! In fact, he never showed up. He still hasn’t showed up; his flight may have been late or something. It’s kind of nice; I’m not complaining.
At lunch, I tried pig’s foot. It. Was. Disgusting. Holy eff, it was awful. All that was on it was fat—squishy, chewy, nasty fat—and the hoof. I had to try it just to say I did, but I will never try it again. Ever. The Chinese must be in survival mode, otherwise why would they serve so much crappy meat? I’ve had chicken feet, chicken neck, and now pig’s feet—the parts of the animals where little to no meat resides. Crazy Chinese.
I showed off my video of the kids kissing, and everyone has loved it. Maren almost keeled over and died laughing; I knew she would.
For the big dinner tonight with Casey, I wanted to dress up all cutesy since I hardly ever get an appropriate opportunity to in China; however, it’s rainy and cold outside so I decided to be sensible and wear skinny jeans, tall wedge boots, a black shirt and my red, white, and black cherry blossom scarf that I found in Shanghai. I even straightened my hair (and received lots of compliments, including Adam’s impressed glances now and again).
I talked to Casey briefly; he’s a very congenial man with a plethora of stories that he is more than happy to tell—over and over. I do think he has a pretty awesome job though, as he gets to travel the world every semester. How awesome would that be?
We all met at the school gates at 5:20PM, where we piled into vans (China is so sketchy) that took us to a tall building with a drive up entrance, like a hotel. Chinese hostesses led us to a vast dining room filled with countless circular tables. The room was decorated as if for a wedding or a formal engagement.
Our tables had a glass center that turned; before long, this was loaded with all sorts of Chinese dishes: various sprouts and leafy green vegetables; beef, chicken, and other meat dishes; potatoes; tomato stew; dumplings with different stuffing; rice noodles; fried rice; and my personal favorites, basu de guo and guo bou ro (sweet potatoes and sweet and sour pork). Whenever there was an empty space on the revolving table, the waitresses would fill it with another steaming dish. Most of the dishes were delicious, while others were, well, quite nasty actually.
For desert, there was basu de guo (it’s like potato covered in sweet, sticky gooey stuff; candied potato, I suppose is the best description—to die for!) and this strange purple doughy ball (not so tasty). We all ate until we felt ready to burst—my food baby was/is very prominent right now.
I love going out to good Chinese restaurants, though: it’s so much better than cafeteria food.
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