Thanksgiving or Ganen Jie has been celebrated every year here. Principal Zhang is a firm believer in giving thanks and wants the students to also understand this. In fact, everyday in each grade before school ends, one student has to stand up and share with the class something that he/she is thankful for (everything from teachers, doctors, rain, to sometimes even ants and windows) and the rest of the students repeat. So this year's Thanksgiving Day meaning was very familiar for all the students. After gathering on the field and listening to various thanksgiving performances, the school bought a whole basket of fresh sugar cane and gave it to every student to their extreme excitement. Then it was time for gift giving. During the week leading up to this holiday, the students used classroom materials (paper, cardboard tubes, paper clips) and made hand-made gifts and wrote letters. 
I was very moved when suddenly some my students came one by one and handed me they’re hand-made gifts. I received over 50 gifts and opened them one by one that night. I was really impressed by the amount of effort and creativity they put into their simple gifts. They were able to scrap things they were able to find in the classroom and make really cool looking gifts out of them. I was also really moved by some of the things they wrote and will always remember how much more priceless these small, hand-made gifts are than any iPod can ever be.
Instead of turkey and pumpkin pie, we had pumpkin porridge and corn for lunch, and made dumplings for dinner. All the older kids helped with the dumpling making process. Although it was chaotic, loud, and the dumplings weren’t the best looking, it was fun seeing the students really into it and even I learned how to make dumplings.
Sports Day opened up with an opening march and ceremony the morning of Thanksgiving and then all the competition took place the day after. Sports Day is like a mini-Olympics or track and field event that every school in China has at least once a year. Yesterday and today all the students dressed up in donated athletic gear, and the running track was chalked and split into 4 lanes. Events included various sprints, long jump, sit-ups, ball relay races, mini-shock put toss, jumping jacks and at the end, tug-a-war. During this whole day event, every student participated at least once in something. The most entertaining parts were watching the first, second graders compete. Their little bodies and uncoordinated movements made for many adorable videos. All in all, a relaxing and fun day. I wish we had a Sports Day when I was a kid.
I think it’s safe to say that I am completely adjusted to life here – I pretty much have a routine every day. I wake up at 7, get ready, leave my room at around 7:45, and help one of the teachers clean the foreign teacher’s office (my office shared with a few other teachers). Three days a week, I get up a bit earlier and administer the morning reading classes for 4th, 5th, and 6th grade (the kids wake up even earlier at 6:30, get ready real quick and do morning laps and exercises). At 8:15, the whole school eats breakfast (rice porridge, stewed radish strips, hard-boiled egg, and steamed bun). After breakfast, while the students have recess, we have our morning teacher’s meeting and discuss the quote of the day. After that, I prepare class, teach class, sit in on 3rd grade math or Chinese class (to practice my listening) and eat lunch at 11:40. After I take a break for about an hour, I teach another class, preview for the next day’s class, mosey around the school to try to find something to help out with, go over homework with students, help out in the fields for manual labor class, play with the kids, and eat dinner. I then take a shower, tutor Huang MeiHong and Chengping (two 6th grade students with learning disabilities), go back to my room and go on-line or study Chinese, and then sleep at 11. The kids have homework/self-study class for 2 hours after dinner and then go to sleep around 9.
Being around these kids is so refreshing. Not only are they innocent little kids, but since they are
from remote villages where there is little contact with big cities like Shanghai and Beijing, modern lifestyles and attitudes haven’t influenced them yet. I also like how the school teaches them how to be responsible to oneself and each other. They all know how to tidy their room and wash themselves and their clothes. The younger students are taught how to line up orderly, say good morning and thank you to the school cooks and teachers, and wash their own dishes. I also love watching them interact with each other during recess. The 1st/2nd/3rd graders like to play hopscotch, jump rope, and hula hoop, just like American kids. They also play a variation of rock, paper, scissors but instead they use their feet to play. They jump in place two times, and then 
depending on what position they’re feet are in when they land the third time determines who wins and who loses. The winner gets to take a step back and the loser has to take their front foot and stretch it out to touch the winner’s front foot. If one person has been winning too much and the distance becomes too great to touch feet, another person comes in and acts as a placeholder. Some of the 3rd/4th grade boys like to play a variation of Pogs and even make their own pieces out of paper while the girls play on the swings, slides, or teeter-tot. The 5th/6th grade boys like to play basketball, ping pong or other sports while the girls play Chinese jump rope, read, or practice playing a Chinese reed instrument (θ«θ¦δΈ). Generally all of them like to run and play on the field and it’s both fun and exhausting being with them.
It started getting cold after the Mid Autumn Festival but now it’s unbearably cold, especially in the mornings and at night. I don’t dare take a shower unless it’s after Manual Labor class or after playing basketball when my body temperature is up. In the morning, I wear 5 layers of clothes, my thermal pants and 2 layers of socks. At night, I still wear 5 layers because it’s freakin cold in my room sincethere's no insulation. Worse thing is, it’s only 5-10 C and it will only get colder. Even the teachers told me that right now it’s not even that cold! ζδΉε?
The one thing that I wanted to do in my year in Beijing but never had a chance to do was going to a local’s home and experience Chinese hospitality. I heard stories about how hospitable the Chinese are when guests arrive and all the good food they cook but never had the chance to actually experience it myself. But luckily enough, the second time around in China, in a rural villages near my school, I’ve not only experienced it once, but several times now. This is the real China that I wanted to learn and see. Interacting with real people and experiencing all the real subtleties about this culture and people that make living in China so exciting.
This weekend, my immediate co-worker and fellow English teacher, Wang Lingling, took me to her village, about 45 minutes away from the school, and a 20 minute walk to one of the popular mountains, Mt. Qiyun. After getting on a small bus, we took a paved asphalt road that was full of bumps and potholes but Chinese style – big and everywhere! It was pretty much like riding a very uncomfortable rollercoaster. The first thing I noticed about her village 
was the openness and serenity of it. There were rows of fields with cabbages and other vegetables, all growing peacefully in the foreground of small lush mountains. Chickens, both regular and all white feathered, were roaming the streets pecking for food. Houses had the typical Huizhou style of black tiles, inclined roof sections, and white walls, spaced around the crops and away from the side streets. And Fall was definitely in the air. The mountains were specked with colors of brown, red, and green, and the fruits of the persimmon tree glowed like bunches of beautiful small round orange lanterns.
We had dinner at her Aunt’s place the first day. Wang Lingling, her grandmother and grandfather, uncles, cousin and parents, and me all had dinner on a small square wooden table in the main room. The eight of us, two on each side of the table, all sat on benches. Although the kitchen was dark, smoky (no gas only timber), and small, the food that her mom made was so tasty. There were
fish, braised pork, and various self-grown, freshly-picked stir fried vegetable dishes. They began eating only after they told me, the guest, to first grab some food. I felt hesitant because the cook, Wang Lingling’s mom, was still in the kitchen. But the Chinese want to make sure the guest is happy and not hungry, so they insisted we start eating. Baijiu, the Chinese gasoline-like rice alcohol, was also poured for me by her uncle, even though I didn’t want to drink it (I’ve had my fair share of experiences drinking baijiu). But since refusing would be impolite, I had a glass with her uncle and often between bites of food, he would toast with me. I mainly talked with her uncle because he was so talkative and cheerful. He kept on saying how fate brought me and him together to share a meal in his house. While eating, I would comment on how great the food was, and they would just tell me to keep eating more. If there were no more food left, that would make her mom happy because it would mean she was able to cook it well. The food was so awesome and flavorful, I was indeed the last one to stop eating. After everybody was done eating the main dishes and all the alcohol was drank, rice was finally served, a tradition I’ve noticed here even in restaurants. I think this is because rice is seemed as inferior to the main dishes, so the host wants the guest to get filled on the good stuff, not the rice. Even her mom after she finally joined us, ate little of the main dishes, and instead only ate off her rice bowl. After asking me if I had enough to eat a hundred times, they poured me more tea and offered peanuts and sunflower seeds. When they started to take the plates away, I tried to help, but they forced me sit back down. It was a great night and I walked away full and happy. Just another great experience I have had here of Chinese hospitality.
Autumn colors are in full swing here. The pine trees have turned golden brown and the hillside is dotted with red, yellows, and oranges. The air is brisk and leaves are falling. Being in a small countryside like this, I can for the first time really experience Autumn and it’s beauty. It’s everything I imagined a small village away from the big city would be like. There are no cars or cement streets, no tall buildings, no bright lights. There is nothing here to distract you from really soaking in Autumn. A perfect example of this is when we harvested radishes, yams, pumpkins, and squashes from our very own backyard. We live off the land here and Autumn is the perfect time to harvest all the Fall vegetables before the cold winter arrives. Digging yams was the most fun since it’s like digging for treasure. Because the tubers grow 3 feet deep, you have to be very careful when using the shovel to dig as to not slice them. The beauty of digging for yams is the surprise because you don’t see right away what you’re digging for. Once the tuber is in sight, you can use your hands to scrape and pull it out from the earth. Yes my fingernails have dirt in
them, but that just means it's Autumn time.
Thanksgiving or Ganen Jie has been celebrated every year here. Principal Zhang is a firm believer in giving thanks and wants the students to also understand this. In fact, everyday in each grade before school ends, one student has to stand up and share with the class something that he/she is thankful for (everything from teachers, doctors, rain, to sometimes even ants and windows) and the rest of the students repeat. So this year's Thanksgiving Day meaning was very familiar for all the students. After gathering on the field and listening to various thanksgiving performances, the school bought a whole basket of fresh sugar cane and gave it to every student to their extreme excitement. Then it was time for gift giving. During the week leading up to this holiday, the students used classroom materials (paper, cardboard tubes, paper clips) and made hand-made gifts and wrote letters. 
I was very moved when suddenly some my students came one by one and handed me they’re hand-made gifts. I received over 50 gifts and opened them one by one that night. I was really impressed by the amount of effort and creativity they put into their simple gifts. They were able to scrap things they were able to find in the classroom and make really cool looking gifts out of them. I was also really moved by some of the things they wrote and will always remember how much more priceless these small, hand-made gifts are than any iPod can ever be.
Sports Day opened up with an opening march and ceremony the morning of Thanksgiving and then all the competition took place the day after. Sports Day is like a mini-Olympics or track and field event that every school in China has at least once a year. Yesterday and today all the students dressed up in donated athletic gear, and the running track was chalked and split into 4 lanes. Events included various sprints, long jump, sit-ups, ball relay races, mini-shock put toss, jumping jacks and at the end, tug-a-war. During this whole day event, every student participated at least once in something. The most entertaining parts were watching the first, second graders compete. Their little bodies and uncoordinated movements made for many adorable videos. All in all, a relaxing and fun day. I wish we had a Sports Day when I was a kid.
