Zhuhai is lowkey so much better than Guangzhou. I mean, I loved Guangzhou; the people were very friendly, I enjoyed the bigger city environment, and it was a novelty since it was my first time in China, but Zhuhai takes the cake. Firstly, I haven’t got a perpetual cough from the pollution, and since I hail from a city quite like Zhuhai, Zhuhai reminds me of a home away from home. Obviously, being at 九中 is a vastly superior experience to being at 執信，purely because the nature of our programme only can facilitate a series of surface level interactions at several schools versus a long-lasting set of relationships at Zhuhai.
Onto what teaching at Zhuhai is like; 40 minutes is not a lot of time, and you really want to do a good job. I don’t know if it’s because my mom is a teacher or because I am a perfectionist, but during class, I see myself not as a friend but as their teacher, and many of my peers made it a point to be their friend. Professor Ku even said we aren’t going to really teach them anything long lasting, but instead give them experience speaking English, but I want to try my hardest to assist them with their school curriculum. My method of teaching is also wack. My students told me after class they thought I was cold, but quickly opened up to me because they realised how weird I am. For instance, I asked everyone what their name was, and then explained what our activity was (we were learning the grammar of least favourite.) I asked them to tell me their favourite and least favourite colour, subject, activity, and thing about Zhuhai, but told the four quietest students to run upstairs to second floor and shout their answer from the gym’s outside stairs. They thought I was joking, but everyone seemed to have fun, and the class atmosphere seemed to be more conducive to fun-learning, but simultaneously realising that I wasn’t there to mess around. 40 minutes really isn’t enough time for once a week sessions, so I make it a point to talk with my students outside of class. I really enjoy teaching, and I hope that I can improve these next few weeks to simultaneously give these students a good time, but also teach them a bit more than they thought they were going to learn. They I call me teacher (because I said my name could be either Alexander or Hulaoshi and obviously the latter is easier to pronounce), which is weird because at the end of class they say thank you teacher in Chinese and I'm like "Umm.... I guess, but after class I'm just trying to play with y'all".
I’m sure others would talk about their host family, but I want to save that for next week when I can make a balanced observation of my time so far with them. But they’re the best.
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