Besides the Chinese names, last weekend was a very interesting. Friday night Mr. Xu took us out for drinks. This apparently means we will go out at 6pm and have a HUGE meal, a bottle of wine, and like 8 or 10 half liters of beer. That's kind of a lot of alcohol for 3 people. After dinner we decided to keep going and ended up at KTV. If you are unfamiliar, KTV is karaoke. But it's a bit different than in the States. Here, you have a private room with a touch screen menu where you can choose your song and how you want it to project on the wall and play over the stereo. So we found the English songs, which was a hilarious mix from Lionel Richie to Michael Jackson to Brandy to Britney Spears. It was great. Mr. Xu even sang some of the English songs. Apparently he tells his students that he doesn't sing. This is a lie. I've seen it first hand.
Sunday we went to our students "sports meeting." This is known as a track meet in America. The students were so surprised to see Laura and I there, we ended up being somewhat bombarded by kids, and didn't really watch too many of the races. It was fun to sit and talk with the kids though. I really feel like we are the first people to give them the time of day. Their other teachers simply expect them to show up and memorize everything they need to achieve a certain result. We would rather them gain the confidence and understanding in what they are doing, so we'll sit and chat and hopefully make a difference.
This past week my te
aching schedule changed (again) but now I am much happier with it. I will be teaching 2 classes each day, and then an English Corner at night four times a week for the top students. It means I will see each class only once a month, but the top 8 classes will see me 2 additional times each month beyond their classroom lesson. In the English Corner, I can teach whatever I want. I can also (hopefully) create a much more relaxed atmosphere in which the students will not be too scared to try and practice their spoken English. The Dean of the Senior 1 class took us out 
to dinner on Tuesday night. Things kind of got a way from us too. I was supposed to teach at 7:35a and 8:35a the next day (which ended up being canceled due to a mix up) but that didn't matter to the teachers. We got sufficiently drunk by about 9pm on a Tuesday. The Dean (who doesn't speak English) really seemed to enjoy himself. We were linking arms and drinking and he even ended up hugging Laura and I. I hope this means that I am officially welcomed a part of Senior 1 at Siyang Middle School.We found out that Siyang hosts a semi-pro basketball team in their off-season for training. They play an exhibition game in town before heading on the road for their season. We were able to get tickets and went to see the game. The first Chinese player to ever play in the NBA is actually back in China now and plays for this team. The crowd loved him! It was funny though because we walked in during warm-ups and got a fair amount of looks from the people there to watch the game. We've gotten pretty used to that, but when the players from the team noticed us and were all looking in the stands, it's kind of weird. We definitely bring an even bigger spectacle to any event that goes on in our town. Chen said she heard people talking about us and they thought we were Russian. People have also said they think we're French...not sure what they are basing their opinions on, but oh well. After the game we waited to the team to leave and the crowd to thin and we headed out. The game was held at the feeder school for where we teach, and there were many students standing in the hallway as we left. They were all very excited to see the foreign teachers, and one even held out a notebook and pen like for an autograph. I figured it wouldn't hurt so I signed my English name in the book. Then all hell broke loose. The kids started pushing towards us and shoving notebooks and pens into our hands and wanting us to sign things. I honestly felt like a movie star or something. The security that was working the game came over and started holding kids back and ushering us out the door. Laura said she even signed a kid's jacket. It was such a strange and surreal experience!
Friday we decided to be brave and go get our hair cut. Chen came with to help translate, but it was still unnerving to let someone near me with a scissors when I couldn't tell them anything! It all worked out though, and I now have short hair again, and it only cost me about 1.50USD. Apparently for a wash, cut and dry, it's very inexpensive in our town! But, if you would want to actually have like an up-do or color done the price would jump from the 10RMB we paid to about 100RMB. That's still much cheaper than in the states, but yikes! That night we decided that we would finally check out the "club" that we had discovered on a different night of wandering. Yes, a real live club. It's called Mass Fashion Bar.
The music was loud and we ordered a bottle of vodka and went from there. It was pretty fun, but we would've preferred more American music. It's hard to get into the mood to dance when you don't know any of the songs being played. But we were able to snag some VIP cards, which means discounts! and I think the club managers were really excited to have the foreigners in town make an appearance at their bar. We'll probably go back a few times, and if we can ever convince people to come visit us, we'll take them there. It's probably the most happening place to go on weekends, besides KTV. Our friends from the restaurant where we eat at least once a day came with as well. Liu Jie and Liu Hao. They are brothers and only Liu Jie speaks decent English, but Liu Hao is learning, and they are teaching us Chinese, and it's nice to have some friends outside of the school.On Saturday Chen took us downtown so that we could buy some bikes! It's difficult to get to places in town quickly from our apartment without taking a pedicab, so we wanted another means of transportation. Chen had her mother-in-law do some bargain hunting and she was able to find a place that could sell us decent bikes with baskets and locks included for about 36USD. Even in China that is a good deal for new bikes. They are kind of hilarious, but will totally do the trick to get us through to February. We road the bikes around for a bit and got to see a few other schools in the area, Chen's old apartment, and even some rice fields and people harvesting. I never knew what rice looked like before it got to the store, so it was really interesting to see! That night we rode our bikes to a dinner with all the English teachers from my office as a welcome dinner for Laura and I, and also a going away dinner for a young assistant teacher in the office. It was very fun and I was able to get to know the people in my office better. Everyone thought that I was very shy, but they usually speak in Chinese in the office, so I never have anything to say. I hope that now we will all be more open to talking with each other.
Finally, Sunday. Today we went to lunch at Chen's mother's house. She doesn't speak any English but was so excited to have us over. She cooked soooooo much food. The always have a ton of food at meals in China, it's crazy! But we got to see an old Chinese house, which seemed huge because now everyone lives in apartments to save space for the ever increasing population. We also ate with Chen's sister and one of her friends from the school she used to teach at. There wasn't a ton of interaction because of the language barrier but it was really neat to see someone's home and experience true Chinese home cooking. We met some children from the neighborhood as well, one little girl in particular, after warming up to us wanted so many pictures taken together! We also got to see some kittens that are only about 2 weeks old. Chen's cat lives with her mother and just had babies...I really want to take one as a pet, but that's just not going to be possible, with me leaving in 4 months and all. After lunch Chen's sister took us to the Siyang Exhibition Center where she works and gave us a tour that showed us about the history of Siyang as well as the progress it has made in the past few years. It also gave us an idea on where the city will be heading in the future, and I think that in maybe 5-10 years, Siyang with be a strong economic and industrial area.
Quite the week I had, huh? As I said before I will do my best to break the week up a little bit more, especially if so much happens. It's impossible to remember it all a week later when I try to update this thing!
(PS I'm having some issues uploading pics, so hopefully I'll be able to get them up soon!!!)
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