After visiting a few schools in Guangzhou, I thought I had an idea of what No. 9 Middle School would be like. However, I did not expect them to literally roll out a red carpet for us. They treated us like celebrities, and the entire school welcomed us, preparing a special ceremony with speeches, dragon dances, and flowers. During the first week, the staff at No. 9 Middle School took us to fancy dinners and also showed us around the city, taking us to a plaza where people danced ( 广场舞 ), sang, and played different sports like ping pong and basketball.
Whenever we walked down the hallways at school, kids would stare at us. Some would wave and say “hi” and others would whisper among themselves, and the braver ones would come up to us and ask for our WeChats. The first thing I learned was that kids associate the name “Cai Xu Kun” with basketball and everyone always laughs when this name is mentioned. “Cai Xu Kun” is a very famous singer/rapper from a Chinese show called “Idol Producer,” but apparently there’s a viral video of him dancing with a basketball. At first I thought I was cool for knowing about him because I’ve watched some Chinese shows before. However, I did not expect him to be such a famous meme in China. Literally every class I taught, some kid would bring his name up and everyone would start laughing.
Teaching different groups of kids every day, I quickly learned to be flexible and have different activities for each group depending on their English level. Whenever we split the class into groups, I would get two different reactions: “yay we get someone who speaks Chinese!” or “aww why didn’t we get the more American one”. But I know I’ll be able to get closer to my students as time goes on, and I’m really glad I’m able to communicate with them. For me, the hardest part is deciding when I should use Chinese to explain and when I should keep trying to use English to communicate with them.
Although I can speak Chinese, my reading and writing skills are almost nonexistent. One time at a boba shop, Karen and I were trying to read the menu to order milk tea. The menu had a section that said “xian niu nai” in pinyin and we thought it said “salty milk”. We were confused and even asked the workers about it, but they didn’t understand what we were talking about. We then realized that “xian” was the first tone so it meant “fresh” not “salty”. And at that moment, I realized how little Chinese I actually knew :’)
On Saturday, we finally got to meet our host family and move in! I was definitely not expecting a six year old boy and a two year old little brother! They’re both super energetic and the older one, Arthur, loves to play soccer. They have lots of friends and family living in the same complex, and they often hang out and eat dinner together. As an only child with most of my extended family far away, I’m so excited to live with this “big family” (as my host mom would say)!
This first week has been pretty wild, and I still can’t believe we’ve only been in Zhuhai for a week. In one week, we traveled across the world, put together an entire show, taught our first English classes, met hundreds of students, and moved in with our host families. From exploring the boba shops in Zhuhai to having a massage train while watching 非常勿扰 (a Chinese dating show) in someone’s hotel room, we have also gotten really close as a group. I’m excited to start our extracurricular classes this week!!
