April Fools...

The kids shamefully caught me out on an April Fools this morning...I can’t believe I forgot!!! I walked into my class and they all told me that I was in the wrong lesson. Confused, I checked my schedule only to hear the class erupt into laughter and yell ‘Happy April Fool’s Day Teacher!!!) Little monsters. Imagine if I'd walked out again?!

It’s been a pretty uneventful week at school. My favourite student moment has to be when I was teaching prepositions, and after asking ‘where is the chair?’ a boy put up his hand and answered ‘the chair is under my ass’, I must admit I couldn’t keep a straight face...Love my kids!

My weekend sunburn is fading (must remember suncream next time I fall asleep on the beach!) We went to Zhuhai, which is the next city along from us, and is amazing! From there you can get the ferry to Macau – it’s very close. The city has quite a western influence, a lot of the market sellers speak some English, I think as there is quite a lot of business trade in the area. We turned up yesterday morning and met up with Becky and her friend Helen– a Chinese girl she met out clubbing last Saturday, and then later Martha, Will, Neil and another Becky joined us. We spent hours shopping in the underground market! It was like a maze...a fabulous maze filled with clothes, jewellery and all sorts of things. Cries of ‘looksee’ and ‘you very beautiful’ followed us around. Having Helen there to help with communicating made it all so much easier (please can I just carry a Chinese person around with me everywhere?!)

Sunday we headed to the beach and soon became the local attraction...there was literally a queue of Chinese people waiting to have their photo taken with us. I just couldn’t stop laughing! The beach was rough sand, and you could look out to see a scattering of small islands around. The sky wasn’t clear although it was a bright day. The Chinese people were out in hoards! But they don’t sunbathe here, no, instead everyone (well – particularly the women) remain fully clothed to sit on the beach.  It’s not fashionable to be brown in China! They all want to be whiter! There was kite-flying, watersports and lots of Chinese guys swimming in the sea.  I was, however, the one and only girl (let alone white girl) who swam in the sea. As soon as I went to the water’s edge in my bikini with Will, a crowd of people came to watch and yes, you guessed it, take photos...as if I wasn’t self-conscious enough!  Becky and Helen dared go in later on. The water was much like England, but just warmer. Had a wonderful day!

Monday we went to KTV for some Karaoke fun for Neil’s birthday. As he teaches at the University in Zhongshan, he’s invited his class out – consisting of mainly girls, funnily enough. They were the same age or even older than some of us! They were very sweet, and had bought Neil presents and a massive birthday cake! We had a room to ourselves, and I think the students were delighted to be shut in a room with a bunch of foreigners to take pictures of... Singing was fun, pretty much everyone sounded terrible – so I blended right in! Haha.  A lot of Westlife was chosen for some reason...as well as the current Chinese songs that I am beginning to recognise now, as I hear the students singing them in the afternoon at school. The videos that accompany some of them are very strange! Some guy on a toilet? What’s that all about?!  

Anyhow, need to go and get my ticket to Hong Kong sorted – can’t wait til the weekend! 3 days off!!!

Catch you all next week! Xx

• China
• China Internship 2010