The next morning, I woke up at 7 am. I know this because a marching band walked down the street in front of my house, playing traditional Chinese music. Normally, I would be annoyed by this sort of thing, but because it was traditional Chinese music I let it slide.
The English wording on Chinese things still strikes me as very funny. My room card at the hotel said "Lady-like Kind Gentlemanly Taste." I have no idea what that means. The tea bags in the room say, "It is not just wine that scent the world!" I don't know what this means either.
I had continental breakfast in hotel again. Wanting to have a more Chinese experience, I tried to try more of the different foods. I had the dry bread again, but dipped it in something I saw a lot of other people dipping in. I don't know what it was, but if I had to guess, it was rice grits. I also had some corn, a sweet potato, a chicken bun, chow mein which i put some veggies on, and what I thought was going to be orange juice but seemed more like hot unsweetened orange soda. The chow mein tasted just like Panda Express, with the excess grease and everything. Free breakfast really is bad everywhere.
Around 11, Josie picked me up to teach at school again. It was another day of full on English teaching. This day I mostly taught colors. Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Purple, Orange, Yellow, Black, White and Green. I also taught letters of the alphabet and then said words that start with those letters. These kids laugh at me so easily. I would point to things and the children would have to say what color it was, they found it very funny if I would point to the same object 5 times in a row. When I would act out words that started with a letter, they would laugh too. They especially laughed at fish, bird, and turtle.
At lunch, Josie ordered me two more hamburgers. She asked if they tasted the same as the burgers in America. I said no and told her in America burgers had two buns, lettuce, tomato onions, pickles and beef. I think this hurt her feelings. Peter and Josie had also never heard of a pickle before.
During lunch, I also asked about drama teaching. They said that the kids sing and dance sometimes and will put on a little show at the end of the semester for the parents. I told them that this was not drama, this was still teaching English. They stared at me blankly. I held everything inside, but I could tell, I was starting to get angry.
Then back to teaching. More colors, more animals, more stories. Pencil, Pen, Eraser, Ruler, Pencil Case, Backpack. I had a group of older kids today, there words were tougher and I don't remember them as well, although I know burglar, forest and picnic were in there. I read these kids stories and then they had to answer questions about the story using full sentences. All pretty boring stuff.
At the end of the day, I was exhausted and pretty hungry. I may have been a little grumpy too. Josie asked if I wanted a 500 yuan advance so I could have a little spending money for food, which I said yes to immediately. Knowing I would have the next two days off, I again asked for recommendations on what to do for fun. Again, they said it's a small town and there is not much to do here. The owner did give everyone a giant crate of pears and winter jujubes. I found this more annoying then kind, but did not refuse them.
After work, Josie took me to China Mobile to try to set up my Chinese Sim Card. We were there for over an hour, but we could not get the SIM card to work. Josie tried to convince me to buy a new phone, which would have cost me 1,000 yuan. I couldn't afford that and vehemently refused. We ended up leaving the China Mobile, both exhausted and slightly annoyed.
Josie asked if I was hungry and I said yes, I was very hungry. We walked over to a near by mall and walked down stairs to the food court. She brought me to a small vendor who had lots of meat on sticks. I could not tell what anything was so she picked out three meats for me and three vegetables. She asked if I like spicy food, to which I also said yes. They poured powdered flakes and some spicy sauce into the bucket the meats were in. We then walked over to another restaurant. I began to hand over the sticks of meat, thinking that they would cook them at this location. Josie said no eat those now and pick something else. I pointed at a noodle soup and Josie and I sat down.
"Eat," Josie insisted.
I dug into the meat on sticks. They were ice cold and very fish tasting. I found it truly repulsive, but ate as much as I could to not seem rude. Once that noodle soup showed up, I stuck with that. Josie ate some noodle soup as well.
After we finished, Josie insisted I take the meats home with me so I could snack on them later. As soon as I got to the hotel, I through them away in the bathroom trash can because I didn't want them to stink up the place.
By this point, I was pretty mad to say the least. Everything felt like insult to injury. I wanted to teach drama in a big city and I was teaching English in a small town. This was not what I signed up for. In my room, I sat and fumed, trying to decide how best to move forward. I wanted to stand up for myself, but I also did not want to ruin my relationship with my new bosses. But I felt like I had been tricked and lied too. I needed to create the change I wanted in the world.
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