The host family is really nice; she used to be a Chinese medicinal practitioner, and she will often tell me (although I can't understand much of the Chinese and don't want to keep bothering her to translate these medicinal words) about Chinese medicine, customs, and superstitions. The father is very knowledgeable about tea, and will introduce me to all sorts of tea and tea preparation. The brother did not seem to like me at first, which is understandable because there is some stranger coming in and taking away his parents' attention; I wasn't prepared for that, and he is still a little distant than many of the other kids, despite me actively trying to reach out to him. Maybe I just have to wait a little longer to be accepted.
I feel like we are in this weird position where we are adults travelling to another person's home and are (rightfully) treated as children in a new environment. This was the biggest emotional barrier to overcome so far because (especially for freshman), we have just had our first taste of freedom as functioning adults in a new environment, and now there is someone again asking with whom we are going to the store and what time we will be back. Obviously, this comes from a genuine concern and care for our well-being, but I found it to be a little jarring to be treated a bit like a middle schooller again.
I absolutely love teaching; from the first moment I make every single student know that I am in charge and demand their full attention and co-operation, which scared everyone (according to several people on WeChat, they were scared I was going to be cold and mean), but quickly realised that I have some creative and fun activities with which to learn. (I was the 千奇百怪的好玩老師- extremely weird, fun teacher). During class, I demand everyone to speak, and sit them in alternating sexes so talking happens less, but I think I have two special education children in total. Partly because of the intense Chinese stigma against special education and unwillingness to declare their child as special needs while insisting they receive the same education as everyone else, they fall behind. One didn't want to speak to me even in Chinese, so I was about to yell at him to give me an answer, when something inside me realised that he reminded me of my autistic younger brother Max, who is about this age as well. Instead, I went up to him and gently asked to repeat his answer to me, and he looked at me like someone understood what was happening to him. While the other kids started jeering at him to talk louder, I quickly silenced them and demanded their respect, and let the child finish talking.
For the games we play, I found that competition was good, but competition against me was more fun for them. So I devised a game where I ask them to fill in the blank about tenses, and if they were right I would have to split my legs apart a little further, and if they took too long or were wrong they would have to. This sort of class bonding while thinking about English was the spark that instigated my train of thought for subsequent activities to be as a group against me as opposed to them against each other.
Outside of class, every single break someone asks me to play either table tennis or badminton with them, and it is fantastic; although I still haven't got a racquet, I use my brother's, and it is lots of fun and good exercise. Andrew and I play doubles sometimes, and we have introduced the slang "You woulda thought" into Chinese, grammatically translated as "你以為." Normally this phrase is followed by what the person erroneously believed, but we just say the three characters, and the Chinese students find it as funny as we do. But there are a lot of 我以為 moments I have experienced so far, 我以為 I would occupy the impossible space of simultaneously a free adult in a new world and a student of Chinese culture in the home, 我以為 I could have black sesame without having raging diarrhoea, 我以為 my Chinese could get me through some impossible to translate situations, 我以為 the students would be a little more mature (I don't know why because I was just as bad if not worse) 我以為 my shirt wouldn't get fifty shades darker because of the sweat, but 我以為 I would adjust to life to form a mundane routine, yet thankfully, Zhuhai never lets me expect anything.
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