Mid-Autumn Festival

Lets see if I can explain Mid-Autumn Festival... (with help from a website)
It usually falls between mid Sept to mid Oct. around the Autumn equinox. It is sometimes called a harvest festival kind of like Thanksgiving. People hold ceremonies to greet winter and worship the moon, they also send round moon cakes to their relatives as gifts in expression of their best wishes of family reunion. When it becomes dark, they look up at the full silver moon or go sightseeing on lakes to celebrate the festival. Together with the celebration there appear some special customs in different parts of the country, such as burning incense, setting off fireworks, planting Mid-Autumn trees, lighting lanterns on towers and fire dragon dances. Because the full moon is round and symbolizes reunion, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also known as the festival of reunion. All family members try to get together on this special day. Those who can not return home watch the bright moonlight and feel deep longing for their loved ones.

On Saturday, 9-22, Sara and I were invited to perform at a dinner celebration. We said we would sing a song and 6 other English teachers decided to join us. We sang a song called “Tomorrow Will be Better”. It is originally a Chinese song translated into English, so some of the words don't make sense. But it is a pretty song. The celebration was a lot of fun. The Chinese people don't just sit and talk, they play games and perform! They played three games: 1. Two people hold a balloon between their heads and run with it, 2. A relay holding a ping pong ball with chopsticks and running, and 3. Five people per team pass a ring between them with bendy straws. We played the third game. It was pretty funny! We ended up with the principal and headmaster on our team! Our performance was ok, some of us forgot our lines and we were way off the beat, but the crowd loved it anyway. Probably mostly because of the Americans! They also like to give away money or have drawings for prizes. All but one of us at our table won some money.

The school was closed from 5pm Tues 9-25 until Wed 9-26 at 7:30, so Sally and her fiance, Ale (not pronounced the way you think), entertained us. On Tuesday, we went out to dinner and then went shopping at the supermarket. We hadn't been upstairs before, so when we went up, we were amazed at how big it is! I got a pair of shoes! They are very Chinese looking. I love that the Chinese don't care if their shoes match their clothes or not, because I got a pair of yellow shoes! On our way back home, Cathy called and wanted us to go to KTV with her and her family and friends. We couldn't say no (it's impossible with Chinese people), so we went and actually had a lot of fun.

On Wednesday, Sally and Ale took us to Zhao Qing which is about an hour away. We met Sally's classmate, Shirley, and her fiance, Mr. Ge. We saw our first dragon dance! And we rode a boat across the river to downtown. Went to the shops which is really more of a mall, complete with large rotunda similar to the Mall of America's. Then we went to a lake nearby and took lots of goofy pictures. We had a blast! Shirley invited us back whenever we want to visit. I'm sure we will!

Mid-Autumn Festival is my new favorite holiday! (Except for the moon cakes.)
I'll try to post more pictures from each of these events. I have lots!

Observations

The students have classes almost every day, so they typically wear at least part of their uniform. I suspect that there are different colors of blue for each grade level, but I haven't totally figured that out yet. But when they aren't wearing their uniforms, they wear jeans and t-shirts with "English words and sayings" on them. They usually don't mean anything. They rarely wear shorts and never tank tops even though it is so hot. Modesty is important. The other teachers wear skirts or slacks and cute tops like I wear. The men of course wear "trousers" and button-down shirts.

I had the assumption that they would be "behind the times", but they are actually very trendy. Since I left most of my trendy things home, I feel a bit "behind the times"! They have adorable shoes! I can't wait to go shoe shopping. The women are always wearing dainty high heels, or ballet-type flats like are popular in America.

There is an average around 50-52 students per class. Sometimes more or less. It doesn't really feel like that many, though. They are seated in four rows of pairs:
xx xx xx xx
xx xx xx xx
all the way back.

Addresses - Before you Send Anything!

If you plan to send anything to my school address, please email me first. I am going to get a word document with the address in both Chinese and English. We are afraid anything that might come here will get lost or sent back because they won't be able to read it. You can still send things to HK, it only takes up to 10 days to get there. But be careful of the weight. Mark has to deliver them to us, and I feel bad if the packages are too heavy.
Thanks!

If you would like to send mail or packages with clothing/sensitive materials, please send it to the following address:
Life Net Ltd.
C/O Mark Sprengeler
688 Shanghai Street 10F/B
Kowloon, Hong Kong

Other packages can be sent here to the school:
XinXing County Number One High School
XinXing New City, YuCai South Rd. #1
Guangdong, China 527400

I've been told that Priority Mail International is the best way to send things to China.

Wo shi laoshi! (I am a teacher!)

This has been a busy week! On Monday, our school had its opening ceremony. Sara and I were required to be there and sit on the stage. We sat behind the important officials, along with several other teachers. I think they were department heads. Finally, we were introduced, and when we stood, the students cheered! It was awesome! They are very excited that we are here. We feel like celebrities every day.
On Wednesday, our luggage finally arrived! We have teaching clothes! We also got our bicycles. It felt like Christmas.

On Saturday, our school had a banquet for Teachers Day, which was Sept. 10. All of the teachers went, and we got to sit with the other English teachers. It was a great time! All of our friends were laughing at my chopstick abilities. I'm pretty good, but it is harder when 9 Chinese people are watching you... During the banquet, our principal introduced us and presented us with Letters of Appointment. All of the teachers cheered this time!
On Sunday, Brandon and Caroline came over to have a weekly meeting. Then we went out for supper at the Western restaurant closest to our school. It is a coffee shop! I thought I wouldn't be able to find coffee here, but it is right down the street! Anyway, we thought we would be able to get by at a restaurant by ourselves, but it didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped. I had written some foods down in a notebook that I had along, and Brandon has been studying Mandarin for a year, so we thought it would be fine. It seems like Brandon missed the class on restaurants... Finally, he told them to do what they could, and we would eat it. We ended up getting everything we ordered/wanted! But we also got something like chai tea. I'm just glad it was good... :) So that was our first venture out without anyone to translate for us. It was a bit scary, but it turned out well.
On Monday, I started teaching. It went pretty well. I rushed through my first class and ran out of things to talk about, but it was fine. After that, it has gone much better. I've been bringing a picture of my family to show the students. They love it. They think we are all SO beautiful and SO young! One of the girls thought my Mom was the most beautiful, another one thinks Holly is very beautiful. Then, I was told that my Dad looks like Bill Gates... Oh, and one of the boys wants Bethany's phone number. I've also been bringing all of my MN Twins things. They don't know much about baseball, but I'm pretty sure that after a year, they will all be Twins fans!
I'm trying to work on learning Mandarin, also. I haven't taken enough opportunities to learn it yet. But I am trying to just learn one thing at a time. At least the language doesn't sound like gibberish anymore, it sounds like words now. If only I knew what they mean! The Chinese people we have met are so great! They make me laugh all the time. Our favorite question for them is how they chose their English names. There is always a good story behind it. I love some of the English names that they have chosen, too. Some of my friends (other teachers) are: TuTu, Greek and Shicano (she made it up). Some of my students are: Today, Character (I already have one in my class!), Flower, Lucky, Energy, YoYo, Tiger, Dacky, Dwyne, and Terly.