Finals ended and all the kids went back home today. This may be the last time I will see their faces for awhile, so of course I am a little sad. The children on the other hand, were so happy and excited to go home. During this half a year, they only have two chances to go back home: 1) for a week during National Week Holiday in October and 2) for a month after the Fall semester to celebrate Chinese New Year. This is their Winter Break and they could not be more excited to go back home to their village for a month, be with family, and see friends. The children packed all their belongings and bags in the morning and eagerly waited outside and in the classroom for their guardians to come and take them home. One by one, the students left the school. Most of the parents came by scooter or motorbike, but others like grandparents took the bus. However, some of the student’s villages are very far away. Moreover, some of these mountain villages have horrible roads and since yesterday snowed, there was heavy congestion which made it even harder to travel. As a result, these guardians could not come to the school on time, and so some students were left wondering
when they were going to get picked up. The younger students especially, got the most nervous and anxious as they watched their peer’s get picked up and go home. Some waited frantically at the school gate while a few cried. Eventually though, all the students got picked up today and were able to go home.
It was a bittersweet day. I’m really happy that these kids finally have a chance to go home and be with their family. I’m glad they will be able to relax, have fun, play around and be kids. But I really will miss them a lot. I will miss their smiles, their curiosity, their innocence. These are good, strong kids and they deserve every right to be happy and have the same educational opportunities as a kid in Shanghai.
And I also keep thinking, wow, my time here is also ending. After Chinese New Year, I am leaving China. How quickly it all went...
*WARNING - GRAPHIC IMAGES*
As Chinese New Year approaches, so begins the various decorations and preparations for the festival. Red lanterns are being hanged from trees, characters for good luck and fortune are being written, and last but not least...pigs are getting slaughtered one by one for the upcoming family reunion feast. This afternoon at our school, I witnessed our pig being slaughtered with my very own eyes, heard its wailing screams with my very own ears, smelled its fresh blood in the moist air with my very own nose, held its separated heart with my very own hands, and ate its freshest meat with my very own mouth. It was an experience that was not particularly fun to watch, but nevertheless necessary. I chose to watch because as a meat eater, I feel it is only right to witness how much pain and suffering animals go through in order for me to eat and receive pleasure from eating meat. Eating meat takes a life away and therefore should not be taken for granted. Buying the pre-cut, individually wrapped package of pork chops at the supermarket does not tell the whole story at all. It detaches you from the real pain that takes place. So I watched. I stood as 3 hired butchers used ice hooks and dragged our pig from its sty to the slaughtering area. With hooks in its mouth and its hooves being dragged, I watched as the pig struggled and fight to no avail. With every piercing scream, my stomach turned a little more. The butchers then lifted the pig, laid it and held it sideways on a wooden rack. With one quick stab with a spade in the neck, blood flushed out into a bucket, the screaming stopped and was replaced by gurgling, as the pig slowly became still and lifeless. It took them less than an hour to clean and fully butcher the pig. And a couple hours later, I was eating coagulated pig blood in soup and Chinese style braised pork. I felt a strange, calm emotion. I wasn’t sad that the pig suffered and died and I didn’t regret not watching the slaughter. I was actually happy and not in a gloomy mood at all. It tasted really good! I was happy knowing that I at least had the heart to watch the pig sacrifice its life for my stomach and acknowledge how much pain it goes through. As meat eaters, this is the least we can do. We owe it to the pigs to at least witness their suffering. If you’re not willing to watch the slaughter but still eat meat, it’s easy to take it all for granted. Otherwise, just become vegetarian.
As the New Year came, so did the new changes to the school. Principal Zhang has all but left and cleared out everything in the Principal’s Office, while I was busy backing up all the 6 years of computer data (pictures, movies, documents) onto our recently bought external hard drives. The initial shock of changes has all gone away, as we have accepted what is happening, so now we are just left off trying not to think too much and ask why, as we really don’t have an answer. In fairness, there are no huge changes that will affect the kid’s education. The material is the same, the teachers are the same. Maybe some of the educational values that Principal Zhang emphasizes like social responsibility and critical thinking will be less encouraged. But the kids will be fine as long as there are nurturing, education-oriented teachers around them, which there are. I just don’t like the idea that it’s being controlled, restricted, and placed in the same type of uniformity by the Government.
We’re also in the full swing of review mode, prepping for the finals that will take place next week. If there’s one thing I really don’t like about Chinese education, it’s the amount of work and pressure they put on these kids starting from such a young age. Even the 1st graders are busy reviewing and taking practice tests in preparation for finals! Until I sat down and talked with the Principal, we were 
handing out practice tests after practice test every single day. The kids are getting numb and are becoming study robot drones with the sole purpose of getting a high mark on a test that can be barely considered a true indication of their ability. It’s a horrible system because we are getting pressured to make these students get higher marks, and in turn we are pressuring kids to the point where they will soon lose interest in learning. I let the Principal know my feelings, so now there’s a little less pressure, but I still feel bad for these kids. Their life is revolved around studying and doing well on tests. They get up at 6:30AM, get ready and do morning exercise until 7:30AM, memorize and read their school books until breakfast at 8:15AM, have 2 classes in the morning, eat lunch, 3 more classes in the afternoon, manual skills class, wash-up, dinner, and then self-study/homework class until 8PM. There are breaks of course throughout but generally they spend a huge amount of time in the classroom. And it’s not only our school, these are all the schools in China.
Finals ended and all the kids went back home today. This may be the last time I will see their faces for awhile, so of course I am a little sad. The children on the other hand, were so happy and excited to go home. During this half a year, they only have two chances to go back home: 1) for a week during National Week Holiday in October and 2) for a month after the Fall semester to celebrate Chinese New Year. This is their Winter Break and they could not be more excited to go back home to their village for a month, be with family, and see friends. The children packed all their belongings and bags in the morning and eagerly waited outside and in the classroom for their guardians to come and take them home. One by one, the students left the school. Most of the parents came by scooter or motorbike, but others like grandparents took the bus. However, some of the student’s villages are very far away. Moreover, some of these mountain villages have horrible roads and since yesterday snowed, there was heavy congestion which made it even harder to travel. As a result, these guardians could not come to the school on time, and so some students were left wondering
when they were going to get picked up. The younger students especially, got the most nervous and anxious as they watched their peer’s get picked up and go home. Some waited frantically at the school gate while a few cried. Eventually though, all the students got picked up today and were able to go home.
