Songping English Festival

This a clip of the 9th Songping Primary School English Festival back in March where they basically told me to give a speech the day before.  It was too hard to upload it due to China's Great Firewall, so I'm able to do it now while I'm in Japan.  The school told me to give 'a short English speech to cheer them up,' whatever that means.  Now, this school is grades 1-6.  Tough to make a speech in English that a first grader and a sixth (or the teachers for that matter) would both understand and be amused by.  So I just made a few comments (after typical audio China difficulties) and my contact teacher told me beforehand, that after my minute or two speech, to read the banners that were hanging and have the children repeat after me.

Lillian, a fellow Chinese, English teacher was the translator.  After I performed this speech and looked at this video, I realized how 'Americanized' my speech was; meaning, I used index cards whereas, Lillian, memorized it overnight, as we practiced what I would say the day before.  Very embarrassing, I feel.  I'm such a buffoon.  China students are taught rote memorization; whereby they're famous for their focused memorization through sheer repetition (without the use of meaning as a basis to store information).

Certainly not one of my best speeches or performances, but oh well.  However, what is good is the song the children sing at the end.  A very famous song here in China (might be elsewhere too - I don't know).  I told them that the song was great afterwards and now that I have this video and watched it a few times, I like the song more & more.  The children did a great job!  Peter, the speaker in the beginning/end was one of my best students, but a bad ass!  His English was one of the best of the students at the school. 

My contact teacher, Lily, who speaks at the end is a tough lady.  She has no problem yelling at students in a classroom.  In fact, there is a male teacher in my office (not an English teacher) who kicks students in their asses when they leave.  Very amusing to me.  He just kicks them and yells something in Chinese.  Not what you would see in America.  Hope you enjoy the video!

Final Chapter - Songping Primary School

This may very well be the final post of this blog - we'll see.  School is over and I'm already on my final travels (before I head home). I have visited Xi'an and Shanghai.  I'm currently in Nanjing. I'll then be traveling to Seoul, Hiroshima, Osaka, Kyoto, and Tokyo.   I just don't think I'll have time to update the blog as I'll be very busy city/country hopping for the next few weeks.  If I can fit in a post or two (and get internet access), I'll try.  But this may be the final chapter....

About a week and a half ago, the English department and I when to lunch at a local hotel restaurant in Songping in my honor of teaching and leaving China.  It was very nice and the vege dishes were excellent; for the most part - sometimes there can be meat hidden in some of them!

The next morning, I went to school for some final pics of the English department.  The English department, as you can see, are all female.  I was the only male - which either they really liked (probably) or didn't - not sure.  The gentleman to my right in both pics is the headmaster (very quiet, but extremely nice; hardly saw him throughout that the year) - and the lady to my left is my contact teacher (who I went to whenever I encountered problems).  I was probably closest to - and worked the most with' the lady to the far right in the 2nd pic.  Her English name is Mini and she was really always nice.  She said all the students and English teachers really liked me and are sorry that I'm leaving which was nice.

The last pics are the 'Reading Room.'  During the first semester, I taught in individual classrooms; basically, I hopped from classroom to classroom for each English class.  During the second term, they decided I teach from this room and the classes came to me.  I didn't think I would like that at first but I soon realized I enjoyed having my own room.  The last pics are of the room I taught my English classes during the second semester. 


And that's it, for now!  I hope to be able to post new entries.  But if I can't, I hope you enjoyed this blog.  It was just an experiment when I started, but I enjoyed updating my travels.

Dameisha Beach, Shenzhen

Last weekend I went to Dameisha Beach in Shenzhen. Dameisha includes Dameisha Seashore Park and the hinterland, which covers an area of 1,680,000 square meters. It was the first time I have been to a beach in Shenzhen and for good reason - because they're far away! It took about two hours to get there by bus-subway-bus (Shenzhen is geographically large, think L.A.). I live on the west side of Shenzhen and basically I had to go to the far eastern part of the city. But on top of that, I arrived in Shenzhen late August last year - in fact, my first night in my apartment (how time has gone fast) was my birthday. It was already becoming late in the summer season last year and I didn't know the city nowhere near well enough to travel to the beaches last summer. Last weekend, was really my last full, free weekend in Shenzhen, so I decided to take a gander. I had no intentions of going into the water - I'll be living in Florida during the summer - and I'll get my fair share of beaches shortly. Besides, it was packed and everybody would have been staring at the laowai (foreigner). Dameisha beach is free but, starting this year, they have begun limiting the number people allowed to visit per day to 50,000.  It was really hot and I walked around for an hour or two and then headed back to the center city.  Below are some pics of this area...