Side note: I live in Chongqing City, in the Sichuan province, in the Southwest part of China. We live in the Yubei District, Yuanyang subdistrict, Fudi area. It's all very complicated and I am still unsure about the districts and subdistricts because everything is so big! There are also 35 million people living in Chongqing, and it shows! It is crowwwwded. We went to this big mall area and it was like black friday to the max just on some random day! Crazy.
Some info!
My Address: Yeh Wah International Education Kindergarten
Chelsea Roderick
Forte Beauty Villa,
81 Jin Yu Avenue
New Northern Zone
Chongqing City, 401122
China
My Chinese phone number: 86-187-257-402-57
Anywho, Anokhi arrived at our apartment and were pleasantly surprised! It is super cute! We live on the 5th floor of a 33story building. The two girls from last semester left us a lot of stuff so we are able to cook a lot and it already feels a little like home. The problem at first was that there is a master bedroom and a smaller bedroom. We decided to go 3/5 and flip a coin for the big one. I won! Score!
The view from my window!
our building!
Yeh Wah!
Our gated community!
My room!
Not too shabby! The next day we started training at our school from a woman named Ammylou. She is Filipino, and does all of the training for the Yeh Wah schools. She would be there all week. It was so boooorrrinnnnggggg. I mean, this was what I went to school for and trained for!? I know you can learn from any situation, but what we quickly learned was that what Ammylou wanted to happen and what was going to happen were two very different things. We realized that we just had to make it through this training and then it would be more relaxed and not so intense! She had us scheduling out every second of the day with our classes and I swear I can still hear her saying, "That is not developmentally appropriate." Umm, lady they are 4, let them play! Halfway through our training another guy showed up, Justin from Maine. Our new China family was complete! We were all under the impression that Justin was going to this new school that was being built and Zach, Anokhi and I were staying at this location. Then, I was pulled out of a training by our HR lady, Gloria. I immediately thought I was in trouble, what did I do? Is it cause of my tattoos?? No. Ammylou said that I had been the best in the training scenarios and recommended I be the flagship teacher at the new school. I should have been excited but I wasn't! I was just becoming friends with these people and now there were exiling me! I was going to have to take the school bus early in the morning to this new location, be the only foreigner there, teach the youngest classes which they have never had a foreign teach in before, and be separated from my new friends. OK, I am being a tad bit dramatic but I really didn't want to do this...I basically begged them to send someone else! They said no, they wanted me to do it and I almost cried :-( I quickly got over it though and tried to take it as a really interesting learning experience. There are only Chinese teachers at my school so we try to teach each other English and Mandarin when we can and that has been really fun! I feel like I have a really great relationship with them because we only have each other over there.
The school in the gated community is the Fudi location, which is a small district that we live in. I work at the Rongke location. It is literally still being built as we speak, day and night. They just brought in the playground equipment last week and some computers for us. It is kind of cool that I get to work in this brand new school with really great resources. My principal, Tracy, is super nice and helpful with whatever I need, and my co teachers are incredibly friendly and caring.
My co teacher, Leah, can speak the least English but is the most enthusiastic about me! Haha, she wants to learn English badly and is always trying and helping me with Mandarin. She is the lead teacher in my K2 class. Notice her American flag shoes :-)
Amy, above me, helps out in whatever class is needed. Melody, next to me, is the lead teacher in my K3 class and she speaks the best English.
They are always bringing in food for me to try so I made PB &Js for them one day and they LOVED it! Sandy is the other co teacher for K2 all the way on the right. She is my self appointed translator/teacher and always lets me know what everyone is talking about. She will also come up to me at random points in the day and go, "Ok, test, how do you say...." to make sure I am practicing my Mandarin.
Some info on my classes! So I teach two different classes and age groups. K3 are 3 and 4 year olds, and K2 are 2 and 3 year olds. They switch off every day and during the day. So, on Monday I will teach K2 in the morning and then K3 in the afternoon, Tuesday K3 in the morning and K2 in the afternoon etc. Then, next Monday I will teach K3 in the morning and K2 in the afternoon. That's probably confusing but it makes sense here...lol. I get picked up in the mornings by the school bus driver, Wong Si Fa, at 8am and school starts at 8:30. We have circle time, a lesson, area activities, P.E. time, nap time, snack time, etc. all throughout the day. Since K2 are still so young, they are only staying until 2 and leaving after their naps. K3 leaves at 5 and let me tell you it's a long ass day. I am EXHAUSTED by the end.
The first couple days of K2 were hard because the parents were all there. And when I say parents I mean, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and an A Yi (Mandarin for Aunt but like a Nanny helper lady, we have one in each of our classrooms and they are super nice and helpful). Then, the parents all left and then it was hard because the kids all SCREAMED. They cried, yes but they seriously screamed from 8:30-11:30 until their parents came to pick them up! It was chaos! There are 16 in that class and at one point, Leah, Sandy, Amy, the A Yi, and I each had at least three of the kids in our laps trying to soothe them. Then Leah looks at me and goes, "Ok, circle time!" I was like you have gotta be joking me!?! I started singing and reading books and they just screamed their lungs out. That was a hard day. It has definitely gotten easier, still have screamers everyday but they will listen for a couple minutes while I read or sing to them. They are also kind of afraid of me, which makes it hard and sad :-( I try to be approach slowly (that sounds weird but you know what I mean) to the ones I who know will just start crying if I come up to them. But there are some who are totally fine with me. Olivia, my fave, only wants me to rock her to sleep and give her a bottle at nap time! Oh my heart! So sweet!
My BFF in K2, Olivia, who strangely looks like my other BFF, Kate as a baby!
K2 getting ready for lunch!
Eva helping EE out!
stuffed.
It's so cute when they slurp their little soup bowls!
My K3 class is a breeze compared to K2. They are more comfortable with me, older and more aware of rules, which is nice. There are only 8 of them so that is super nice! Some are pretty good at English too! I go in that classroom and it is a vacation from all of the crying! I do actually have to teach stuff there but that's ok ;-) There is an American boy named Anthony in this class that I love. It's nice to understand someone and I think he likes that I can understand him when the other teachers are like what is he saying??? His mom, who I lovingly refer to as "Michigan Mom" (totes know her name but like this better) has given me so many tips and help about conquering Chongqing! They moved here in June with about 20 families from Michigan by way of Ford and will be here for a minimum of two years. Whenever she comes in the mornings to drop Anthony off we just chat and chat, it's super nice! I feel sort of protective of Anthony at school because sometimes he has a hard time adjusting to all of this newness and the other teachers don't understand it. They will speak in Mandarin and he obviously has no idea what is going on so he goes off to do his own thing and they are like, Ugh Anthony don't do that, what are you doing?! I'm like, we have no idea what you just said, how can you expect a three year old to sit there and be confused?? He also has a hard time with the food, his mom packs him a lunch every day full of regular American food type things because he doesnt want to eat the rice/meat/soup provided. Totally understandable! Weellll, we have a Tiger Mom, "Richard's Mom," as she's referred to, who thinks Anthony should eat Chinese food because it is better than American food. She is a housewife so will randomly show up throughout the day to see what we are doing. She came in lunch to see Anthony eating carrots, grapes, sandwich, etc and was not having it. She turns to me and says, "You eat this in America??" I was like, yes we do! She was like, well I don't think he should eat it here because the other kids will want it and it is unfair. I could see how that would be a problem, but the kids don't even care, they look at the food with interest but they want rice, they don't want carrots! I tried to explain this to her but she interrupts me to say Chinese food is American food, I was starting to feel a little mother bear towards Anthony as she is talking about this in front of him and he is looking at me like WTF? I said well, you are Chinese and we are American and this is the type of food that we have for lunch in America. Anthony is 3 years old and isn't used to having this type of food yet. If Richard came to America would you be ok with me making him eat American food for lunch or would you want him to still eat Chinese food? She looked very surprised and just started talking in very fast Mandarin to Melody, I guess I just don't see the problem with a 3 year old eating grapes instead of rice. He just moved across the world and left everything he knew, just started school for the first time with all Chinese kids and a Chinese teacher who all speak Mandarin, and all eat this different food. Cut him some slack Richard's Mom! Melody says she has "no respect" for us teachers. I think it's gonna be a long year with Richard's Mom, who keeps telling me to "speak English to Richard." Umm lady unless I speak the 5 things I know in Thai to him I will only be speaking in English to Richard.
Obviously the parents here are a little more hands on. Some wait outside the classroom all day long. Some cry outside listening to their kids cry. Some are super intense when it comes to their kids. It's understandable when you think that this is their only child and so they are putting everything and anything they can into it. This usually means that the child is spoiled though. They are the center of their Mom, Dad, both sets of grandparents, and A Yi's worlds and now they are in a classroom where the focus isn't on them 24/7. It's interesting when you think of it that. A kid will be playing with something, another kid will see that they are having fun so they just run up, push them out the way and take the toy. This is more than teaching them to share! So that has been an interesting dynamic in the classroom the past couple of weeks...haha
Richard is the one on the left with the pink marker, Anthony is obviously that blondie!
Duo Duo workin hard!
It's been fun hanging out with little kids again but I do miss my 6th graders at Wat Methang!
"life begins at the end of your comfort zone."
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