Oddities of China Life (Part 4)

Grubs & Dragonflies

Insects are very popular in this area of China. I hope people now realise that the food in this region barely resembles the "Chinese food" in England!

The grubs are deep fried and taste best dipped in chilli powder. They taste a bit like feta cheese and have a light, crispy texture. Unfortunately they're a bit oily so it's hard to eat too many.

The dragonflies were barbequed by a street vendor and taste a lot like prawns. The shells are very crispy, but also a bit spiky if you bite from the wrong angle. Pretty yummy, but also quite expensive for the amount of meat you're getting (I guess it's hard to catch dragonflies?).

I actually quite like both :)

China: A Royal Date

Group work

This week I’ve been teaching about family and have been using the Royal family tree to exemplify relationships. The students know the family tree better than me and shout out “DIANA! WILLIAM!” before I can turn around to face the board! After speaking, they did some group work writing their own laws pretending they were Princes and Princesses with pretty hilarious results.

Here’s a photo of the board at the end of a lesson:

One class got into quite a heated (and hilarious!) gender debate with the boys saying:
“Every man must marry 6 wives” *cue "AHHH!?!"*

With the girls retaliating with:
“All men must stay at home all day and do housework.” *"NOOOOO!"*

Followed by:
“Only men are respected. Women aren’t.” *"OHHHH!!"*

And then:
“Men must have long, curly hair.” *"NO! SO UGLY!"*

I’m glad my grade 1 classes aren’t responsible for making laws! Each of my classes has around 60 students and the atmosphere is SO FUN when they incite a debate. A lot of students are too shy to speak English on their own usually, but feel more confident when the whole class is already shouting out in English. It’s really funny seeing what they come up with! Teaching is so fun :)

Today, I had a special morning as my teacher trainer from the private language school I did my teacher training at came to visit. A few weeks ago, my Volunteer Co-ordinator from England came to visit us and observe/critique our teaching. She then suggested the language school film my lesson for a DVD to show to new volunteer English teachers. It was a bit surreal and even more surreal/embarrassing watching the footage back. Zoe and I then did interviews on camera after and it’s being made into a short film. It’ll be a great memento of China life!

Photos taken during the lesson that was filmed (!)

Next week I’m giving a lecture on “The Royal Wedding” since wedding fever has definitely hit our school. If anyone has photos of how they celebrated/memorabilia they’ve collected I’d really appreciate it if you could email me them. Even just a comment on this post of how you spent the wedding would be brill. No matter how boring your story, it’ll be more interesting than mine- watching the live stream at a fellow Brit’s flat here in China (followed by a national anthem sing-a-long).

Previous week's lecture

(students and I spent half of English Corner drawing this up :D)