Happy New Year!

I can’t believe its already 2012! These are some random but fun things that took place around New Years Eve!

First, I attempted to make gumbo! This was my first try at making this delicious Louisiana dish, and I do live in China, so it didn’t come out quite the way we are used to back home! It was a little bit China-fied, but still tasted pretty good! Overall, I was happy to be eating something warm and familiar!

Camille enjoying her home-cooked meal!

A CONCERT IN HUANGSHI?!?! 

Last week, our waiban called us up and asked if we want to go to the concert that night. This was a pretty big deal for Huangshi, since they just built this new arena and these were, apparently, some pretty famous acts, not that I would know.  

Camille, Diana, Me, and Jessica (Paul and Erin’s waiban). Diana bought us each a pair of light up bows to wear for the concert!

This is inside the arena. Diana and Jessica had tickets, but Diana invited us to come along because she was pretty sure her husband, the police officer, could get us in. Once we got there, her husband tried to get Camille and I tickets and we found out later that the only reason he was able to get us in is because the ticket guy said he would let in, and I quote, “the pretty foreigners”.  Haha this time, sticking out like sore thumbs worked in our favor!

This was the first act of I think nine different performances. They were really good even though we couldn’t understand a single thing they were singing...

Every seat had a bag on it with a program, bottled water, and a huge glow stick inside! 

The dancers, who unfortunately were not very good! During this performance, though, Camille and I actually recognized a song. We hear it all the time coming out of stores while we are walking or shopping. It is called Shang bu qi. We were so excited to sing along even if we only knew about five words in the chorus. We asked Diana afterwards what the words mean. It says something along the lines of “I can’t take the heartache.” 

Camille and I during the concert, having fun! Even with the famous people on stage, would you believe that people still came up to us ask for our picture???

Pan bu Wei is this guy’s name or his English name is Will. He is from Taiwan, but lived in America for a while, so parts of his songs were in ENGLISH! We were so excited! He was a lot of fun because his songs are similar to American hip hop music and he even rapped!

This was the cute little boy sitting next to us who was so excited to practice his English and share his candy with us! By the end of the concert, he even told me that he loved me! Haha

NEW YEAR PERFORMANCE

Last Friday, our school had a New Year Performance. Every class in Grade 1 and 2 had to choose some classmates to dance, sing, or perform a skit. Camille and I had each been helping two of our classes learn how to dance for the past 3 weeks. It was a lot of fun for Camille and I to get to know some of our students outside of the classroom and spend some extra time at school. It was great because the kids that I was working with are now the ones who aren’t afraid to have a conversation with me! So many students are afraid they don’t know enough English, so they just say hi and walk away.

Our students really wanted us to teach them hip-hop, but sadly most of our students have never taken a dance lesson in their lives. To be honest, they were not good dancers, but they tried really hard!

Camille and I excited to watch all of the performances. We were here for seven hours! First Grade 1 performed, then they took a break and Grade 2 performed. It was a fun but very long night! The best part was I didn’t have to teach my afternoon class that day! I know that sounds terrible, but this class is my worst class. No one speaks any English and I try so hard to make it fun with games and music and crazy hand motions. They just sit there and look at me like I’m the craziest person they’ve ever seen! It’s exhausting!  But I still love them!

These are pictures from Class 3’s performance that I helped with.  They danced to Umbrella by Rihanna while one of their classmates sang. Sadly, they didn’t do very well.

Camille helped this class do a Chinese fan dance. They did great and came in first! There are fifteen classes total and the placements were tiered, so that three classes got first, three got second, and so on...

                          

Pictures of the more traditional Chinese dances. These are my Class 9 and Class 11. The judges were older teachers who much preferred these numbers to the newer styles such as hip-hop.

                          

This is Class 13, the other class that helped. One of the girls is an amazing dancer, who has been dancing for 7 years, so they did much better! They came in second. I videoed their performances, but I can’t get them to load onto my blog!

This is our hip-hop teacher, Wang Hao. He came to Grade 2’s performance with us because he choreographed a number for one of the classes. We had dinner with him and his girlfriend on New Year’s Eve. It was so much fun…we are friends yet they don’t speak English and we don’t speak Chinese. During dinner, Cam had her ipad and Wang Hao had his out on the table so we could translate everything and communicate. We also have a great hand motioning system that works really well for us. 

Diana’s daughter, Yue Yue. She fell asleep during the show. 

Camille taught this class a dance to Tik Tok by Kesha.

This my class from Grade 2. I had nothing to do with their dance, but they were amazing and got first place!  Camille and I felt like stage-moms throughout the night— filming our kids, reminding them to smile and have fun, and telling them how proud we were of them—it was hilarious! Just telling these students how much I liked their performance was like me giving them a million dollars; they were ecstatic!

NEW YEAR'S EVE

On Saturday, for New Year’s Eve, Camille and I went to school to watch all of the winners perform again and to see some of the teachers perform.  Then, we went to a lunch for all of the teachers in the entire school. It was nice to see all of the teachers let loose and have fun. We only see them at school and they are usually very serious. Also, most teachers don’t really interact with us; I think they are embarrassed to try speaking in English, which is understandable. I get nervous to use my poor Chinese sometimes, too, worrying that I will accidentally say the wrong thing or worse, something offensive! Anyway, the lunch was fun for that reason, but for me, it was a catastrophe. My milk tea spilled all over the table, I dropped my chopsticks on the floor, people kept coming up behind me to the table to toast everyone, so I was the only awkward one who couldn’t stand up, the teachers at my table really wanted me to eat the sweet fish, but it had a ton of tiny bones in it, I eat in anyway and then a million people want to toast me so I’m trying to take  a sip and say “Happy New Year” at the same time as trying not to swallow fish bones. Lets just say it was rough!

After lunch, Camille and I are excited to walk back to school, because our Christmas packages from our families have finally arrived and we can’t wait to get home and open them. As we turn to go to school, some teachers usher us the other way because it is not time to go home, it is now time to go to the party, that was just the lunch. The party is KTV (karaoke), where Camille and I are basically forced to sing and dance with all of the other Grade 1 teachers. The options for English songs that we knew was extremely limited so Cam and I wind up singing “Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears, for all of our colleagues!  I was nervous this was going to be embarrassing, but they absolutely loved it! 

That night we headed over to Paul and Erin’s to ring in the New Year with them and Chelsie. We popped champagne, watched a clip online from last year’s New Year countdown in America, since we are 13 hours ahead here in China, and ate this giant, ½ pound Reese cup sent by Camille’s family as a Christmas gift to our team! And yes, Cam and I rocked our light up bows from the concert again on New Year’s Eve! A very interesting and very different new year! Lets hope 2012 is just as excited and plentiful at 2011!