Hello!
I have successfully arrived in my placement city of Wuzhou, in Guangxi province which borders Vietnam :)
With me at my placement are Adam, 30, from Cheltenham; Monica, 30, from Norway; and Daga, 30, from Poland. So they are all 30, I am the baby of the group!
The train got into the station of Guilin 90 minutes late so we were on it for 26 hours! Not an experience I wish to repeat! I think I will be flying back to Beijing in January if it's possible!
When we arrived, the principal (Mr Chun) and another member of staff (whose English name is Laura) were at the station to meet us with a big sign with our names on :) They took us for dinner at a Chinese restaurant, with the typical table with a spinning centre so you take bits of everything...
Then we got in the car and came to Wuzhou, which took 3 hours. The scenery coming to Wuzhou is lovely, it's a shame it was dark and we couldn't really see it. But Laura said that she is going to take us on a trip to Guilin, so we will be able to see the scenery in the day.
For now we are staying in a hotel (very nice, for business people!) because our accommodation isn't ready yet, apparently they are decorating it. But Laura said that the principal has spent 300,000RMB (about £30,000) on refurbishing our appartments so it's going to be pretty fancy I think. The hotel is really nice though, just strange to live in a hotel!
We don't teach for all of September because the Kindergarten is not ready yet. We visited it earlier and it's pretty much still a building site! It will be really really nice when it's done though I think, and the Chinese just have this can-do attitude that is so foreign to us. If I saw that building in England I'd say it would take a year to finish, but I'm sure that here it will be ready by 8th October as planned!
Then Laura took us out for lunch, where we were served more Chinese delights, such as chickens' hearts in spicy sauce (thank God I made it clear that I don't like spicy food, because they want you to try everything and eat everything here, and got offended if you don't say how nice it is!) and a whole chicken which had just been boiled and then cut up with an axe, so the bits of 'meat' still had bones inside. And the head was on the plate....
So within the first month we get some teacher training, Mandarin lessons and trips to the local area: Guilin, Kunming and Wuzhou area. It should be good, and it sounds like we will be getting paid too. We will see about that though!
First things first though, on Friday there is a parents' meeting where parents of prospective students come to a show put on by the staff at the school, a sort of talent show.... We are expected to participate in this! We have no talent though :S And Laura made it very clear that we have to practise a lot and be very good, and we have no clue what to do! So I'm off now, to stress about that some more!
Ciao for now... xoxo
Loading recent content...
What do you think?
Add Your Comment!
Log in to leave a comment or Create an account
Hi Jessica
I am not with i-to-i but am also in the Guangxi Autonomous Region. I am in Baise City teaching at Qifu High School. Just finished my first week and am exhausted but also very pleased. I've had positive feedback from the senior FAO already!!! I am the only foreign teacher here and have 4 FAOs so things get done quickly for China time. I flew into Guilin then went to Yangshuo before being posted to my school. Only daunting bit was being introduced to 4000 students at their opening ceremony for this semester!!!
It sound like you are off to a good start, especially as you will have time to look around before you hit the ground running with teaching, planning etc.
I have had no luck accessing FB here in China - how are you doing it???
That sounds like you are going to have an interesting time there. The talent show I agree is probably to show how good your English is and so a short play or even a good poem would be appreciated. If this is anything like India then yes this would be considered very important to the school authority, they like to show off English teachers very much. Best of luck there, and I like to follow on facebook, it is handy.
Sounds like you guys are already having a great time (apart from the train ride!)
Don't stress about the talent show - it's more just an opportunity for prospective parents to see that the school has fluent English speaking teachers - why don't you do something like a play with a bit of slapstick comedy thrown in, as the parents probably won't speak much English. That or some singing!
Hope it goes well - make sure you let us know how you get on :)
» Comments RSS