Those quirky Chinese (Marcus)

Today was a good day. Wednesday is usually the 'end of the teaching week' in my mind. Friday is when we launch our first Senior 1 Lesson, and Wednesday are the final two classes. Monday and Thursday are solely Junior 1, and I don't count them in the weekly 'lesson stress' as the younger kids are just so damned awesome that we can literally teach them anything and the class will be fine. We could walk into class with no preparation, a bottle of orange juice and a pair of mittens and somehow make a class from it. If in doubt with the kids, play games! Senior 1 is a different story. These guys can make it really awkward if the lesson doesn't work, so Friday = day 1. 4 classes for me and a chance to test the lesson out. It's then used another two times on Tuesday, and a final two times on Wednesday.

Today however I had to head into WuXi City with Mr Pan to urgently post off some documents so got out of teaching my last class of the day - which also happens to be my crappest class of the day. A certain kid, who we call Mr Fuzz(due to his formally fuzzy afro style haircut *note - very rare in chinese)), and his sidekick, Mr Never fkng shuts up in class kid.

So yeah I missed them today. But my earlier Senior 1 class is usually also difficult - but today, 200% fine. I also noticed the class was approximately 85% female...which i havent noticed before. Usually there's a group of guys who just piss around at the back, but today I had everyones attention, and couldnt really spot any muck-around guys. So I don't know if they changed the classes around or what.

I also taught my second, final and favourite of the gifted kids today. Tuesday is gifted 1, Wednesday gifted 2. When I turn up to Gifted 1 - there's usually a welcome wagon of kids waiting to greet me - this makes me feel wonderful, no matter my mood. Wednesdays I don't get that, but the class is simply adorable. Wednesday has names such as Jeep, Hill, (Fat)Tom, Gerry and of course the male Betty, who I will be having words with next class over name choice. Also in this class I teach Mr Pan's daughter, Dellia, who is an absolutely lovely little girl.

So I launched a new game to these guys and it was a massive, roaring success. It was a cross between Tic Tac Toe and Hangman with the class divided into two teams. In order to 'capture' a square, they needed to guess the word, letter by letter. If the word didn't contain the letter they guessed, it was over to the other team. Man the noise that came out of them, the roars, the cheers, the massive rapid discussions and pouring over textbook trying to work out the themed words of first clothes, then animals. Ahh a great day!

To cap the day off we went out for dinner to our favourite Korean BBQ place(we think its Korean anyway), then went for a short walk down the street.

It really is a cool area here when you get to know it a little better. Cool is probably being too nice, but sometimes, it just has an interesting, happening vibe. As we walked down the street we saw a huge crowd of Chinese by the road, all looking into something..a store or somesuch. We were going to turn around, or cross the street, as we would quickly become THE main attraction, not whatever they were looking at, but our curiosity had us, so we went and had a look.

The crowd was all standing around what looked like a store that sold mobile phones and electrical entertainment items, like televisions. In front of the store - in the window, was a medium sized widescreen TV setup. Outside the store, two speakers. The TV was playing the movie, Golden Compass, obviously pirated(and a crap movie too if you're wondering!) and well, the crowd was gathered to WATCH the movie. Just standing there on a thursday night, on the sidewalk watching a movie. Classic. I love this kind of randominity(tm) that you constantly discover here. The whole place is a classic.

Other things of interest were several late night pharmacies/clinics. All open-windowed, allowing easy viewing in to passers-by - inside, various forms of chairs and the like, with people sitting there with drips in their hands.

China, the land of the IV drip. Food poisoning? Drip. Vomiting? Drip. Bad flu? Drip. Did you just cough? DRIP. Got change for a fifty? DRIP!!! DRIP DRIP DRIP. If you even look in the window you'll have an IV on you so fast you cant even say the word drip.

On the way up the street, we saw a man taking a leak on the sidewalk. On the way back, another man taking a leak on a different sidewalk. I think before I leave China, I think I am going to try that. Gotta live life to the fullest eh.

And finally, and completely unrelated, I walked around the apartment stuffing toilet paper into all the cracks of the windows, blocking the holes. The mosquitoes in the apartment have been practically non-existant since, granted it has been cold the past few todays. It was warm today however and so far so good.