万圣节快乐 (Happy Halloween)

I taught my students about Halloween this week and it was pretty much the most exciting thing ever!  My sister sent me a care package filled with Halloween decorations, toys, and teaching materials, so I was able to teach my kids all about our American holiday!  The majority of my kids had never heard about Halloween, so it was really interesting trying to describe our traditions to them and they were so adorable that I just had to share pictures :-)

I showed slides of kids dressed up as monsters, ghosts, witches, jack-o-lanterns, Kung Fu Panda, and Spongebob Squarepants- I even wore a Minnie Mouse mask (that's how much I love these kids).  After that, I tried to read them a spooky Halloween poem, but had forgotten that they wouldn't understand the concept of "BOO!", so when I screamed it at the end there was complete silence; I'm pretty sure they thought I'd lost my mind.

Then we played a find-the-match game on the chalkboard with various Halloween-themed pictures:

I also taught them about jack-o-lanterns and they created their own using paper cuts:

Then I taught them the concept of "trick-or-treating" by going around to each student, having him/her say "trick-or-treat", and giving him/her a treat! 

After each of my classes, my students gave me the most amazing responses: I was applauded, thanked, told that I'm their favorite teacher, hugged, and had my cheeks kissed!  One class decided that I was famous and all of the students made me autograph their jack-o-lanterns!  Those are just a few of the many reasons why I adore teaching Chinese kids :-D

A Chinese wedding

I got to experience my very first Chinese wedding on Sunday!  It was... fascinating.  One of my co-operating teachers, Camille, asked me to be her +1 at her friend's wedding.  I've desperately wanted to attend a Chinese wedding ever since I first signed on to come here, so of course I said yes!  One of her friends picked us up at 8am and drove us to the start of the festivities.  There were 3 parts to the wedding: the bride's parent's house, the groom's parent's house, and the ceremony.  FYI- this is going to be a long one...

Let's start with the bride's parent's house.  We arrived around 9am to an apartment building covered in gold and red decorations.  Outside the building was a gigantic inflatable balloon archway and about 2 dozen costumed men who clanged symbols and beat drums while a costumed girl danced up and down the aisle. 
We tried to walk up to the apartment, but there was a huge gang of men blocking the way because they weren't allowed into the apartment.  Apparently, the guys on the groom's side have to be given permission to enter the apartment by the girls on the bride's side.  So after they pleaded with the girls for awhile, we were finally all allowed inside and were ushered into a bedroom. 
The bride was sitting on the bed, ballerina-style, wearing a white wedding dress (traditionally the dress would be red).  After picture-taking, the groom had to put the shoes on the bride's feet.  The groom had hidden the shoes and his friends had to find them by coercing the hiding places out of the girls on the bride's side.  All the guys from the groom's side crowded around the bed and picked up the girls, holding them by their hands and feet and throwing them onto the bed next to the bride (no idea why, but it happened to all the girls and they tried to do it to me, but luckily I knew enough Chinese to explain that I was wearing a dress and didn't want to be thrown).  Finally, the girls gave up the shoes and the guys held the shoes ransom until the groom gave them money (apparently this represented the hardship of marriage that they would experience).  After the groom put the shoes on the bride's feet, he picked her up and did 3 spins to the left, then 3 spins to the right, then he carried her out into the entryway.

In the entryway, the bride's parents were sitting next to each other and the bride and groom stood in from of them.  The groom's father said some stuff in Chinese and the groom bowed down to the bride's father twice, then both the bride and groom bowed down to him together (which apparently meant that the groom had taken possession of the bride and she became part of his family). 
At that point, the groom's father discovered that there was a foreigner at his son's wedding and I became the center of attention for awhile; he made sure that I was front and center where I could get the best view and I was told to take pictures of absolutely everything, even if I didn't want those pictures.  After the picture-taking, it was time for the dowry-hand-off.  All the girls from the bride's side carried boxes and bags of presents wrapped in red to the cars, which were waiting to take us to the groom's parent's house.

Ok, so then we were at the groom's parent's house, which was also decorated and had those entertainers out front.  The girls carried the dowry and we walked into the apartment, where the bride was standing in the middle of the family room in a red wedding dress.  The groom's grandmother sat down and the bride and groom bowed down to her twice.  Then the groom's parents sat down and the bride and groom stood in front of them.  The bride's father handed the groom's father a nut, the groom's father cracked open the nut and gave it to the groom, and the groom fed the nut to the bride (apparently this symbolizes the bride's fertility and is supposed to bring good luck for a fast pregnancy with a son).  Then the bride and groom bowed down to the groom's parents 3 times.  After the groom's mother had force-fed me candy, desserts, fruit, and tea until I thought I would puke, we all got back into the waiting cars.

Alright- now for the actual wedding.  We arrived at a fancy hotel, where the symbol-clanging people were doing their thing.  We walked into this huge banquet room where there were about 30 tables and a huge walk-way aisle in the center, with a big stage at the end.  We sat down at our tables and were fed random appetizers, including duck head and chicken feet.  About an hour later, 4 girls in red dresses came on the stage with some weird looking instruments and they played for awhile.  Then an M.C. came on stage and started yelling in Chinese, everyone cheered- I sat there and looked confused.  He called the groom up on stage and then the ceremony began...
A little gazebo-looking-thing at the end of the walkway was unveiled and there was the beautiful bride, back in her white wedding dress.  The groom walked down the aisle and handed the bride her bouquet, then lifted her up onto the walkway.  They walked down the aisle, got to the front of the stage, and turned around to face the guests. 
The M.C. started saying Chinese words again, then the groom placed a ring on the bride's finger and they kissed for awhile (until it was awkward).  The groom's parents came on stage and they all took a toast.  The bride and groom walked off the stage, she changed into her 3rd wedding dress, which was gold, and they walked around the room and the groom took shots with each table (30ish tables).

So that was my first Chinese wedding experience!  I was continually told that it wasn't a traditional wedding at all, that it was very western.  Even so, it was an awesome experience and I'm still confused by some of it.  It was also a great opportunity to hang out with Camille and share a bit of my life and heart with her!

China=awesome

There's so much to love about China and it isn't even just the big things, like the history, scenery, customs, food, language, culture or super old architecture.  I love the little things, too, like: when I ask 1 Chinese person for directions 20 people will crowd around trying to help the foreigner and several will pull out cellphones to call friends for directions; when walking through the gate off campus the security guards will stop you for a mini English tutoring session; and if I say a single word in Mandarin, no matter how horrible it sounds, every Chinese person around me will tell me how great I am at speaking Chinese!  It's such an incredible country and I'm falling more and more in love with both the big and little aspects of this place.  How funny is it that when I started this whole journey I was so adamant that China was the 1 country I wouldn't go to??  Now I tell people it's the 1 place that everyone should come to at some point in their lives!

Anyways- time for updates on my life in China...

This past week I finally started my Mandarin language tutoring; it's so much fun and I absolutely love my teacher, Kelly (I don't know her Chinese name).  Going into the lesson I expected her to laugh at how horrible I am at this unbelievably difficult language, but it looks like those Pimsleur lessons paid off- she was impressed with my tones and basic knowledge of structures (whoop-whoop)!  I'll definitely have to work on my pronunciation- she said it was "very American"- but at least it wasn't bad enough for her to laugh! 

On Thursday my little 4th graders had a competition, which I went to but still have absolutely no idea what it was for or who won.  BUT I do know that each of my classes were marching and chanting and it was melt-your-heart cute!  Here are pictures of the adorableness of 2 of my classes:

On Saturday, our team invited over several college students from a nearby campus to have a home-cooked meal at my apartment.  We made spaghetti, salad, breadsticks, and apple crisp and had some super amusing conversations in addition to several really significant topics.  Of the 5 that came, 1 is a new Sister, 1 has been a Sister for a long time, and 1 is seeking- so it was really nice to be able to spend some time talking with them.  Afterwards, most of us went to KTV (karaoke on steriods without the audience) and had a great time just acting dumb!

Now it's time for an amazing Chinglish sample from one of my students!!

"Do you love life? Then, don't waste English a second. If you really like English in English t find happiness. English can make you happy. happiness. You find Englis learn English. English time is valuable. You waste Your English is tantamount to a waste of life. So if you want to learn English well."

A bit of R&R

We've been on holiday for National Day since Friday and we don't start back to work until Monday.  We'd been told that September would be a pretty stressful and exhausting month as we began lesson planning/teaching/community relations/team building/etc.  Although being here is an incredible experience that I wouldn't trade for the world, it definitely is stressful and exhausting.  I love China- I love the people, the culture, the history, the community, the recreation, and teaching- but it's all so draining and we've been in desperate need of some R&R.

On Friday, we started off our vacation by celebrating survival of our 1st month of teaching by getting full-body massages!  I spent the weekend catching up on paperwork, lesson planning, cleaning, errands, and keeping in touch with people from back home.  Then on Sunday night I took an overnight train to Xi'an, where I met Lauren and Sam; the train ride there was a horrindous experience, but I made it safely.   In Xi'an I got to check off another thing from my bucket list: to tour the Terracotta Army!  It was incredible, but you'll have to wait for my next newsletter to get the details!  Here's a couple sweet pictures from our tour, though (and you can see the rest on my Facebook):

 The train ride back was such a huge difference from the ride there.  Since we'd found out it was a 15-hour ride home, we'd splurged and bought tickets for beds; that train ride was the best sleep I've had in my entire life!  At 3:30am we were shaken awake by the staff to switch out our tickets, and we couldn't figure out why they would choose to wake us up for that.  The lady tried desperately to tell us something, but we couldn't understand her and were half asleep, so we starred vacantly until she gave up and walked away.  We fell back asleep and at 4am she came back, shook me and Sam awake again, grabbed our stuff and proceeded to kick us off the train!  We quickly woke Lauren up and we all were thrown off the train with no idea what was happening or where we were!  As it turned out, though, we'd arrived in Taiyuan 5 hours earlier than expected!  Then we were scammed by a taxi-driver, locked out of campus, and unhappily let in by the security guard we'd awaken, but we were finally home! 

And now for...You know you're meant for China when: you happily call it home :-)  I love that I've come to call Taiyuan home! I'd actually missed it while on vacation, even though I was only gone for 1.5 days!

PS- happy birthday dad and Tracie!!  I love you both!