Okay, I saw some page views so I think I owe whoever you are a post. I had planned to compose at least one post a week, on Sundays, but this Sunday I was too sick to even think about it. It is surprising that I did not get sicker sooner. I had a bit of phlegm stuck in my throat a week ago and thought maybe it was due to the dust storm we had that day.

Every morning at 9:20 am some energetic and patriotic sounding music plays over the loud speakers and all of the students file out onto the basketball courts. Then for about eight minutes they do some exercises while I stay in my office (unless it's Thursday or Friday when my classes start later in the day) and listen to the counting: yi, er, san, si, wu, liu...

But last Wednesday the exercises were cancelled due to the bad weather. I thought all of the dirt in the air might have had an effect on my larynx, although I had been wearing my face mask.  The next day my students stared at me when I called out my usual energetic "Hello!" in a deeper voice than usual.

Modeling my dust mask and demonstrating how I've been feeling lately

I probably should have stayed home from Erika's birthday dinner on Friday. She is the another foreign teacher at my school. She only teaches there on Tuesdays and Fridays, as she also teaches at the #8 middle school in Baiyin. We had a variety of dishes in a little room with Bob (the middle aged teacher from England) and Todd from Colorado, who had just arrived four days before. The hosts were the family of a student (Erin) at Erika's school. During the dinner the student father and uncles (really family friends) were gan bei-ing at an alarming rate of about four beers in 20 minutes and I had to turn my head to cough every now and then. Because I do not drink, the family ordered a jug of juice for me, and expected me to gan bei with that. The sugar of the juice and the birthday cake which we consumed first didn't do any wonders for my throat. I'm not sure why but it seems to be tradition in China to eat birthday cake before the meal. That's what was done at my birthday dinner with the leaders of my school.


That evening when I returned home I went to bed early and woke up at 3 am coughing up so much phlegm that it was like I was having a hangover. The next day instead of going to Lanzhou, Gansu's capital, with the other foreign teachers I stayed home. I also canceled the private English lesson with the cute little six and eight-year-old girl who live in my apartment complex. I started teaching them for an hour every Saturday three weeks ago. I called an English teacher at my school to cancel the appointment I had with her to make dumplings the next day. She was alarmed when I told her I had a cold and said she would take me to the hospital. I'm guessing she didn't know exactly what a cold is. I declined but allowed her to buy some medicine for me. She brought me some Chinese traditional medicine as well as Western medicine.


I wasn't feeling well enough on Monday and Tuesday to return to work so I asked for those two days off. I had several visits. Ms. Hu called to see what was wrong on Monday and came over to see me. The next day Lavender (the teacher at my school assigned to help me with basically anything I have a concern about) took me to the market near my home and bought some fruit for me. That evening Mr. Wu called to ask why he hadn't seen me lately and when I told him I had a cold he said he wanted to visit me too.

While I was eating dinner, Mr. Wu arrived.  He brought milk (the low lactose kind that doesn't have to be refrigerated and is stored in the same kind of boxes we use for juice in America), a loaf of bread and a personal sized cake from AILI, the local bakery. 

The lovely little cake from Mr. Wu

Despite the fact that dairy, sugar and starch were about the worst things for the congestion that was still lingering in my throat, I was touched by Mr. Wu's kindness yet again. He looked at the millet, bean sprouts, carrots and squash I had cooked for my dinner and said, "Very simple. You eat cake." He opened it up, handed me the cake and the little plastic fork that came with it. 

"Drink lots of water," he advised me for the third time before he left. 

However, because the water had just been turned off without notice, I didn't want to do that. I didn't have any extra water to force the toilet to flush, you see. Thankfully, the water was back on before I went to bed.

Today I felt much better and returned to work. I was quite excited to finally give my lesson on pirates. I taught my students to say, "Arrgh!" but for some reason couldn't get them to make hooks with their fingers. They seemed too embarrassed to do it. The top class did really get into the role plays I had them do later, however. They were grabbing things in the classroom such as badminton racquets and triangular rulers to use for makeshift weapons. Their role plays were fun to watch, though I was a bit disappointed when the top student announced that her group's role play was a silent one! She narrated while the others mimed. I guess next time I'll have to make it clear that I want each student in the group to have a speaking part!

I have been quite busy since coming to China and apologize that I have not started blogging sooner. Originally I thought I would have plenty of free time, but so far I have not even had spare time to pursue my favorite hobby of reading. 

Currently I am teaching Senior one and Senior two Middle School students at the Baiyin Experimental School in the city of Baiyin in Gansu province. My students are the equivalent of sophomore and junior students in America. I teach 20 different classes a week and have over 1,000 students. It's strange to be treated like a celebrity on campus. I walk about beaming and saying hello to students. Some of them, especially the Senior 3 students (who do not take oral English because they are studying for their college entrance exams which only test English grammar, reading and writing), looked shocked and don't reply. Others say "hello" first and some boys love to shout "Hi!" from the third story windows. Sometimes groups of girls in two or three sidle up to me quietly along the walk to the main teaching building. Occasionally I don't notice this until I hear soft giggles and then one of the girls bravely say, "Hello teacher" and ask a few questions. I have learned to be very patient in conversations with people here in China. I often need to wait for 5 to 30 seconds for them to think about how to express something and finally spit it out. 

In class many of the students are very shy. Baiyin is a small city in Northern China where the only other foreigners are three fellow English teachers. Most of the students have never had contact with a foreigner before. I am very glad that a few of them who are very excited to learn English are also brave enough to speak in class. I am starting to get used to being the most popular person in the school. My colleagues are very friendly and helpful, sometimes overly so!

Pictured above, from left to right are Mark (the head of the English department), Mr. Wu (a Chemistry teacher bent on improving his oral English), a Chinese teacher, and Lisa, a Senior 2 English teacher. The photo was taken at a fancy hot pot restaurant Mr. Wu treated me and the others to. During my second week Mr. Wu surprised me by paying for my vegetables at the nearest street market from the apartment building we both live in. He simply said, "You're my English teacher". Lately he has been coming into my office, pulling out a few dried dates or other little goodies for me and then presenting one of his yellowed English textbooks from college. He'll point to the chapter headings and ask me to read words he is unsure of how to pronounce. He has a cute habit of nodding his head once vigorously and saying "Thank you" with force every time I teach him how to say a word. He will also say this at inappropriate times during conversations due to his lack of vocabulary. 

Backtracking to cover the month and a half I have been in China will take too long, so for now I will cover some recent events. Today the school held it's first English corner. In class I feel quite confident but I was completely unprepared for this. I was notified just two days prior and told that the students would simply ask me questions and that I did not need to plan anything. However, when I arrived the teachers expected me to have games and activities prepared! I was feeling rather tired from a lack of adequate sleep which hampered my creative and improvisational skills. I felt that the two hours was mostly wasted because I was not prepared. There were some highlights, however, such as when a few students dared to sing some English and Chinese songs for me, and the young man who instead of asking about my favorites, as most of his peers did, asked boldly, "What do you think of me?" The only response I could think of was, "You're too young for me" to which he answered, "Yes, I think so too" as his classmates giggled.