Beating the Winter Blues

We’ve been pretty focused on teaching for the last couple of weeks. Brenda says she is working far too hard for someone who is retired! We both agree on that, but we don’t know any other way to do it. Report cards went out two weeks ago and we have some chastened students. English continues to be a problem for many of our students and despite intensive ESL classes, it is becoming apparent that some of them will not grade. Or at least, they will not meet the Canadian standard for a pass; we don’t fool ourselves about how the profit motive may affect final grades.

However, after a week of serious faces, last week was our winter carnival at school and we worked hard at building school spirit, wearing funny costumes and teaching students how to have fun, Canadian-style. One of the things we have noticed about our classes is that they are not very responsive, but I think we made a bit of progress with participation this past week. Our little middle-high school group of about 80 students is really starting to feel like a school. I’ll include some pictures of me as a superhero, TechMan, and a hippie.

We have had a few interesting adventures. Last weekend we went to a huge tea market and purchased some tea and some teapots and such. One of the school secretaries knows a lot about tea and she has been teaching us about it. It is no simple subject and comes in many different varieties – oolong tea, pue-er tea, green tea, jasmine tea etc. There are all kinds of herbal teas and flavoured teas too with many different claims from weight loss to beauty! Some of the teas are quite old and quite expensive and are purchased as an investment like stamps or paintings. The flower teas that are flavoured with flower blossoms fascinated me. When you pour the hot water on them, the dried blossoms puff up and twirl in the water – very pretty and tasty too. The ladies spent hours tasting and looking; luckily for me there was a huge photography mall on the top floor of the market so I spent a hour or so up there ogling cameras both old and new – some amazing bargains on collectibles – Leicas and Rolleiflexes and roll film cameras. I was tempted but ended up spending $10 on a portable reflector to use with my students. I am teaching photography now to two classes – what a surprise! They are working on a photo essay on Beijing, which is a joint project with River Valley MS. We have had a field trip around the school neighbourhood and I hope to get them further a field after the break.

The weather has been great for the last week. It feels like winter is over. The highs have been 10 – 15 degrees Celsius; the kids have been playing on the field at noon in shirtsleeves. This morning, Brenda and I went for a walk in Chaoyang Park, a huge park behind the school; we started in ski jackets and we had to unzip before long and I just stuffed my jacket into my backpack for the walk home. This has been a golf weekend for me; there is an organization called Beijing Golfers Club which runs weekly tournaments here. I signed up for their first event of the season – the Polar Classic on March 3. From what I can gather most of the courses open after the New Year holiday, which means the first of March. I also went to a nearby golf course and driving range with a group of teachers. I didn’t know it was there, but it is only about 3 kilometers from the school. It is a little 9 hole executive course and a driving range in the midst of a forest of apartment buildings so that is quite handy! We pounded balls for about an hour again in our shirtsleeves.

This upcoming week is the last one before the New Years holiday; it is the year of the pig! We are going to Hanoi, Vietnam and the Ankor Wat temples at Siem Reap, Cambodia and Phnom Phen, Cambodia. I think this trip will be less western than anything we have seen. We need to get some American currency as well because apparently it is more readily exchanged than the local currency. I am planning to leave my laptop behind on this trip, so news may be a bit sporadic until we get back on February 26th. Happy New Year!