It has officially been eight days since I moved in with my host family and I couldn’t be happier. From the moment I stepped into their home, they incessantly reminded me that I was now a part of their family. My host parents didn’t have two daughters; now, they had three (that’s including me of course haha). I felt extremely nervous about abandoning the comfort of King Noah Hotel and my friends and beginning yet another journey with my new family. I was scared of many things, but thankfully, everything turned out more than okay. I even met my host grandmother, and although we cannot communicate very well with one another due to language barriers, I am happy to experience a grandmother-granddaughter relationship for the first time in four years. I have met many of my host sister’s friends, who bring me so much joy every time they come over to watch Running Manor to teach me how to speak and write in Chinese. My host family always makes me feel included, despite their confusion at some of my mannerisms and my inability to fully engage in conversations at the dinner table around their family friends.
This week was also my first week teaching English alongside Jinjie. Teaching with Jinjie has allowed me to forge better connections with my students and be more efficient as an English teacher. I smiled from ear to ear when a student, this past Wednesday, sent me some kind words on WeChat. The message reads: “By the way, the way you and Jinjie teach English is really, really interesting JI like it very much. My classmates think so, too! This is the most fun class I’ve ever had.” I feel very accomplished to have a student give me such great feedback for the class. I am even more motivated to make learning English for No. 9 students as engaging and high-energy as possible. Nonetheless, I have had to deal with a few misbehaved students; I still need to figure out the best way to handle disruptive kids.
This week we began teaching our extracurricular classes. If I’m quite honest, I was initially skeptical to teach Journalism/News Report. In fact, for a long time, I was wondering, “why did I get assigned to teach this class out of all classes?” On the first day, Evan and I had trouble presenting our Google Slides presentation because the school computer did not have a VPN; this was a very frustrating experience, but in retrospect, I should’ve planned ahead. On the spot, I asked students to write about their favorite hobbies; they have probably written about their favorite hobbies about five hundred times. The class seemed dull and disinterested. I was unsure of my role as one of the Journalism teachers. Am I supposed to read their pieces and correct their grammar? Am I supposed to aimlessly pace back and forth in the spaces between the desks? To be honest, the first class was a hot mess. Thankfully, I was able to spice up the class a bit. The students were suddenly livelier. Instead of the banal “favorite hobbies” prompt, I asked students to choose from the following open-ended prompts: 1. Write about what makes you happy or 2. If you were granted one wish, what would it be? Students wrote about their burning desire for world peace, their love for soccer, their dreams of being a teacher, you name it! It was really refreshing to hear about the students’ passions and pure perceptions of the world around them. These pieces restored some faith I have in humanity.
All in all, this week has been nothing short of adventure and madness (of the good kind). Moments like getting stranded at the movies at 10:30 PM and having to walk/run for 35 minutes home and playing “Every Time We Touch” to support the Zhuhai Guys during the basketball tournament are moments I’ll relish forever. I have become dangerously addicted to Black Sugar Pearl Milk Tea. I also can’t forget the delicious meals I’ve had with two No. 9 friends, Peter and Edward, who insist on taking me to all of Zhuhai’s “dank” restaurants; I’ve fallen in love with the 5 RMB peanut butter noodles not too far from Zhuhai No. 9. What a week!
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