Don't Go Chasing Waterfalls

Ok. The title is a little misleading because I highly suggest you go chasing waterfalls. Especially if that waterfall is Huangguoshu in Guizhou. Way back when I learned I would be going to China, I dreamed about the location I may be living. Once I discovered that location, I did what any normal technology obsessed millenial would do and I googled the city. One of the first things I read about Guiyang was that it was close to a famous waterfall that is one of the top tourist desitnations for Chinese people. Ready, set, jaw drop.

How cool is it that I get to live somewhere that Chinese people go on vacation to? I mean, its awesome. I am so so lucky.

Anyway. Huangguoshu made it to the top of my list of places to go while living in Guiyang. And finally, two weekends ago (I know, I'm a little behind...) it finally came to be and we went, saw, and conquered that waterfall. What an experience it was too. Every time I think I can't possibly see a place more beautiful, I see a place more beautiful than anything I've ever seen before. The green trees, the blue waters, clear and sunny skies. Beyond words.

But I'm getting a little ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

Trains. I've already said how much I love trains and this was no different. Granted, the train ride is all of 1 hour so it wasn't too terribly exciting (just wait til I get to the train ride home!). But we arrived in Anshun kind of late and then had to make it to our hotel via taxi. I don't think any of us were prepared to hear that our hotel was an hour drive away and no one would take us there until the morning. How much does that stink!? So, with little options, tired feet, and annoyed minds we trudged across the train station parking lot to a hotel. We figured we would have to pay quite a bit but we were out of options. What we didn't know was that we were also paying the board for some unexpected roommates. Cockroaches. Tons and tons of cockroaches.

Now Zazu may have had a lovely bunch of coconuts, but we had a lovely bunch of cockroaches. There were big ones, small ones, and some as big as your head.  Okay, maybe they weren't that big. BUT one did climb on my head.... I was already having a hard time sleeping regardless of our many legged friends because I was sick and we were sleeping on a wooden board, and Amber and I were sharing a teeny tiny bed. None of us wanted to change our clothes or take off our shoes because everything felt so dirty. So when I felt a little patter across my head at 3:30 in the morning, I sat up and just starting whimpering because I couldn't quite cry and I wanted to laugh. So at 3:30 I started my day. The others obviously woke up too, Amber couldn't quite sleep with a roach in our bed and Jake couldn't sleep because we needed him to kill the little bugger. So we watched Stuart Little (1 and 2...in Chinese), discovered Jake lost his wallet, found Jake's wallet, watched the sunrise, and tried my best to get comfortable without having skin contact with anything by my clothes.

The next great adventure came in the morning and trying to find the right bus to get to Huangguoshu, which actually wasn't too difficult at all. What was difficult was finding the entrance once we got there and bought our tickets.We discovered that we would each have to pay 50 RMB for a bus ride to the entrance which was only about 4 km away. So we said a big fat "yeah right" and walked. And of course we got so many extra lovely photo ops because of the walk. But let's try to remember really quick that 1) I am sick and 2) I had about 3 hours of restlessly broken up sleep. So yeah, I was kinda miserable and dragging my feet. But I knew that the end result would be worth it.

There were a couple different areas of waterfalls as well as gardens, ponds, bonsai trees, and karst rocks to check out as well so I pretty much had my camera ready at every single second. But obviously we were most excited to get to the main waterfall, Huangguoshu, and the Rhinocerus Pool (where the waterfall lands). We also discovered that you could walk in the caves behind the waterfall which was super cool and wet. But I am happy to announce that I did not once fall or slip or trip and nearly die. What a feat for me.

The waterfall was simply breath taking. So beautiful and powerful yet serene at the same time. It amazes me how much force is behind the water as it cracks into the surface of the pool below it. It actually kind of reminded me of the glaciers in Alaska. In a way, you can picture those frozen chunks of ice suddenly breaking free of their slumber and cascading down the mountain sides as waterfalls. You can equally picture the power of a waterfall coming to a defeaning halt as it freezes into a block of motionless force. Or maybe I'm just crazy and you really can't picture those things. Either way, it was awesome and life changing and awesome. I feel like I've used the word awesome too many times.

Because of the roach ordeal from our first night, we decided to head home on Saturday instead of staying until Sunday like originally planned. I wasn't as bummed because I really needed a good night sleep and I was pretty worn out from the whole day. My suggestion to any and everyone, try to stay healthy. Because when you are in China, being sick is a major downer.

And I almost forgot to mention the train ride home. How silly of me. So we went and bought train tickets and were really confused because we weren't given a seat number. We later discovered that meant we were supposed to stand, which shouldn't have been that big of a deal. I mean we stand on long bus rides all the time and those are far less stable and smooth than the train. But on the train people come by with little trolley carts. ALL. THE. TIME. I swear, we were on for only about 1 hour and we were passed by carts at least a dozen times. And when they only place for you to be is standing in the aisles, it can get annoying, fast. But for the last 20 minutes or so, someone gave up their seat and I sat down next to a little boy with a toy gun. So we started playing a little game. He would yell "pia pia!" and kill me. So I'd slump over dead. But when I woke up again, he would kill me again. And so on and so on until I didn't die anymore. So he would start banging on his gun trying to fix it. Once he hit it five times I would die again.  It was all great fun until he accidently pistol whipped me in the face, which really wasn't that bad either. The kid was adorable. I fell in love.

Long Overdue... Hong Kong, Round Two!

So I'm actually going to make this brief. Only, I say that now and heavens knows I am a talker and when I write my blogs I basically just pretend that I'm talking to someone so I can go on and on and on.

So it probably won't be short, brief, or to the point. But you know what? Life isn't meant to be thought of as brief. I know so many people think a great motto for life is "Live like you're dying" or thanks to what's his name "YOLO" (bleh). But I think that if that is how you live, you'll be too focused on the present. Sure, the present is great and all. But sometimes its good to dwell on the past. Because your past is ultimately what brought you to your present and it is also what is shaping your future. And now that I have gone off on some crazy tangent that has nothing to do with Hong Kong, I feel like I should reel it in and come back to the purpose, if I can even remember what it is.

Right. So Hong Kong. (and please note that my title rhymes)

I fell in love with HK the first time I went there and I was extemely excited to have the opportunity to go back, even if it was only for 24(ish) hours and especially because my school took the tab. Another side tangent...(that was redundant) I am SO INCREDIBLY grateful to my school forever everything they have done for us. They take us to cool shows and give us free food and the teachers are all so so nice and give me medicine when I'm sick (which is practically always). And seriously, they booked us such a NICE hotel for HK. We told them to just get us a dorm room somewhere and it would be fine and dandy. But no, we get set up in a 5 star (maybe it was 4, but whatever) hotel with a BATHTUB. Oh man. So cool. So nice. I couldn't believe it.

They paid for our flights, gave us spending money. I mean seriously. We got an allowance. I mean, it was crazy and I just still a little flabbergasted. But okay.

The highlights of HK round two.

1) I was reunited with Starbucks...TWICE. And because I have an awesome mom, I used my iphone app to pay for one of my drinks with money she loaded on it. That's right, my momma treated me to a starbucks in HK.

2) I ate LASAGNA. That's right, you heard me. We decided no Chinese or Asian food of any kind. No rice, no noodles (okay, I guess Italian is noodles, but its different). So we spoiled ourselves on Western food. For dinner we went to the Spaghetti House and it was beyond delicious. I was drunk on lasagna and it was awesome.

3) We acted like annoying tourists. I mean, part of me was a little embarassed by it, because we were being so goofy (okay, I was being so goofy) but I couldn't help it. I was on a vacation and was full with delicious food and there were SO MANY white people and I felt like I didn't stick out as much and that was so nice and so I acted a little more like my crazy self...but of course that kinda made me stand out again. BUT THATS OKAY. I'm loud and crazy and I like to have fun and race Jake through the metro hallways  and pose doing the YMCA in front of a sign for the HK YMCA and I like not stepping on the cracks even if it means I gotta walk really funny. And I like to sing out loud. So there. I'll be me.

4) The night market. No I didn't buy anything because I couldn't find what I wanted and no I don't want to talk about it because I'm still a little angry. BUT what was so amazing was that we stumbled upon a little street performance by some awesome hippy looking dude with a pony tail and he was singing "Heartache Tonight" and he saw a group of white kids come up and so of course he was all like "ooohhhh gotta get one of them up here" and of course Jake goes up. But does Jake know the song...noooo. But then I was seen singing in the audience. Next thing I know he grabs me by the hands and I'm sure my face was beet red but I grabbed the mic and belted out the rest of the song and danced around in a circle and I just felt so alive. And I never felt more like my father's daughter. That song will now forever hold a special place in my heart and I will probably never feel any heartache over it either.

5) The Avenue of Stars is always a fun area to walk around. I mean you have gorgeous views of Victoria Harbor and the HK skyline and there are tons of people from all over the world and it was just super cool just like last time.

6) I ate fish and chips. And get this. It was at an English pub called Bulldogs... Well, way back when my father was in the Navy and he went on a tour that stopped in HK...he went to a place called Bulldogs. OH MY GOODNESS HOW COOL IS THAT. Sure, it probably wasn't the same place, but it could have at least been related. And even if it isn't, I mean, we are still cool.

7) Just the fact that I was IN Hong Kong.

8) I took a bubble bath. While reading a book (well, a book on my tablet...not exactly the same thing but close enough).

9) I made a new friend. We realized while boarding our flight back to Guiyang there was another white guy on the plane and it is pretty rare that we see other white people in Guiyang so it was pretty exciting. Turns out he lives here and is playing soccer on a pro team in the city. I mean, how cool is that. Everything was just so so cool. We exchanged contact info and ended up going to his game the following weekend which was also incredibly fun. I didn't really realize how much I missed going to sporting events. I mean, probably half of my income goes to baseball and soccer games and so it was nice to be able to have a little part of myself here that I didn't think I'd have.

I wish I could think of a 10. It would make a lot of sense to have 10 top moments. But alas, I'm drawing blanks. Of course I'll probably think of something later and then it will be too late but bullocks who cares. Nine is a better number anyway.

I Love My Kids

So I am not entirely sure why, but today I started really thinking about leaving. Okay, I do know why but regardless of that it hit me kind of hard. Five more weekends are all I have left in this beautiful city with these beautiful people and doing some pretty amazing things.

But that also means, five more weeks. Actually, its less than that even. I have 26 more days left of school. That doesn't seem like very much time at all, and that's after a recent two week extension. I don't know what I'm going to do when it comes time to say good bye. Heck, I have a hard enough time saying bye to my kids on the weekends.

But now isn't the time to think about goodbye. Its a time to share all the love between me and 320 Chinese kids.  I made a video for them that I will be showing them on the last day of class and it is something I'm going to share with whoever reads this thing now.

I'm not always good with words or my camera and certainly not a computer. But I know how to feel and so I tried to put that into my video. I tried to capture the very essence of my kids. I want you to be able to see through my eyes. Because, once you do, you'll see more love than you know what to do with.

Click here for the video, you won't regret it.

xox

Holiday in Guilin

If you've ever been to China, you've likely heard of a lovely little place down south called Guilin. For our May Day holiday, we decided to venture to Guilin for a couple days. We were super excited because we had all wanted to go to Guilin and we were lucky enough to be placed in the city (of all the cities contracted with CH) closest to Guilin. You've already read about the adventure on the train to Guilin, so I'll begin my tale with the taxi.

When we exited the train station we were swarmed by bus drivers, taxi drivers, go kart drivers (okay, not really, but a ton of drivers nonetheless). We had already decided to go for the public bus because our hostel provided directions and we knew it was the cheapest option. But we stumbled upon an older-ish couple who were having trouble getting a taxi that didn't cost an arm, leg, and full head of hair. We started realized we were going to the same hostel, so we decided to just split the cost of a taxi and ride with them. What should have only been a 10 minute max drive took over 30 minutes, and the 12 yuan trip cost us 50 total. But, the couple is from New Zealand and we had quite a pleasant conversation covering topics as vast as the Spice Girls and Scottish food.

When we arrived at our hostel, Ming Palace International Youth Hostel, I fell in love instantly. It was filled with wood furniture, wood panels, wood floors...and it smelled like a forest. What I didn't love so much was that the ceiling in the lobby leaked and it took over  5 hours for our room to be ready. But, we were in Guilin, a dream vacation destination, so we really had no reason to complain. So we dropped off our bags in the luggage room and went out to explore. We quickly realized that our dream vacation would somewhat turn sour. The area had received a TON of rain the past few days and the river was overflowing and moving extremely fast. Some of the streets close to the river were also flooded, sidewalks were flooded. And most of the tourist attractions were flooded. But we were determined to not let any of this deter our fun.

We started walking through a mall like area that had quite a few fun looking shops. There were a ton of restaurants too. Then an extremely kind (cue red flag) man approached us and started asking us questions and talking to us and telling us all these wonderful stories. He was so grateful for us being English teachers and hoped we loved China and would tell our friends to come to China and all about his small village and tea farm and how he is teaching his whole village English and yada yada yada. When we told him we had to go buy our river raft tickets, he offered to show us to the closest ticket office. So we agreed. He then led us down an alley (cue second red flag) and then out into a pavilion and then into the office. In all honesty, I wasn't worried about his guy at all. I didn't think he was trying to scam us. The tickets were slightly less expensive than at our hostel so we decided to buy them. He then took us back to his tea shop, let us sample some very tasty tea, and wasn't even too mad or pushy when we wouldn't buy any.

Back to the hostel to finally check-in where we are informed all river rafts were cancelled due to the weather and the river being unsafe. Our dear tea farmer friend must have forgotten to mention that. Back to the ticket office, but no such luck on a refund, until we call our superhero liaison Daisy. She talked to the lady at the office and we finally learned that if in fact the river was still closed the next day, we would receive a refund. All was right in the world again.

And now a random interjection about our roommate Michael. Cate didn't come to Guilin and there was an empty bed in our 4 bed room at the hostel. Introducing Michael: a mid-20s year old European (I never did ask where he was from) who we rarely saw. He was always super nice though. We usually were in bed by the time he got back though I was still awake and he would joke with me how we sleep so early. Though I don't know much about Michael, I know he doesn't sleep much. Oh, and he wears cute, tight and white skivvies with cartoon characters. That's really all I wanted to share about Michael.

We spent the rest of the day exploring Guilin and walking around the endless pavilions, lakes, gardens, and along the river. As can be expected in a tourist location, everything was SO MUCH MORE expensive than Guiyang. We didn't end up paying to go into any of the major touristy spots because it was too much. But while we were exploring this time, we were approached by another very kind man (third red flag) who told us all about his small village and tea farming family and how he is trying to educate his small village. Been there, heard that, moving on.

The next morning, the ticket office lady came to our hostel and gave us our money back because the river was still unsafe. The river trip was supposed to take us to Yangshou, a town not too far from Guilin that is also very beautiful and touristy. Because we couldn't take the river, we decided to take a bus there. This was by far my favorite part of the trip. Yangshou was so beautiful and we were able to climb up some of the mountain/hills and could over look the city and river and surrounding mountains. It was extremely beautiful and peaceful and I felt so free. We decided to eat at a more "western" style restaurant since we were on vacation and you can only have rice so many times without wanting something different. So of course I got noodles. And a coffee milkshake!! I was so excited for my coffee milkshake. It was in an old fashioned style glass and everything and it was so deliciously hot. You heard me, hot. A hot milk shake. I guess they quite literally meant milk shake. Like coffee and milk....and then they shook it. Like shake shake shake, your booty. But not your booty...my coffee and milk. It was still good, just not exactly...well not at all what I wanted. There were also a ton of street stalls and shops and stores so I did a little shopping (yay scarves!) and then we settled on a bench to play cards before we took the bus back. Playing cards in public is one of my favorite things to do in China. You should see the crowds that gather around us while we play! Usually just the grandpas are out at the tables playing (or the younger guys gambling!) but it's so funny to see the questioning looks and the cameras come flying out whenever we play.

All in all, it was a nice vacation. It wasn't what I expected but I wouldn't change a thing. And beside, I now have an excuse to go back since I didn't get to go down the river. Guilin, until we meet again.

That's about 3ft of water that isn't supposed to be there.

The two towers.

halfway up

My milkshake...

In Yangshou

View from the top. 

water water, everywhere.

the Li River

Everything here was something. The benches were pigs.

Under the stairs in the hostel.

And our hostel!

trains. TRAINS. trains.

Ok. I LOVE CHINESE SLEEPER TRAINS. Well, really, I just love trains. I hated the train back home. I rode Amtrak once and promised myself never again. But so many things have proven to be more magical in China and trains definitely make that list. And what an experience it was my first (and second) time on a train in China.

This last week was a national holiday in China and we had a full week off from school so we decided to go to Guilin for a few days. The train ride is supposed to last around 13 hours and on the way there it was overnight.

Riding the buses in Guiyang are always an adventure and we had to take two different buses to get to the train station. Luckily, we could read the characters for Train Station so we knew where to get off. Previously our liaison had told us that you can't miss it, so we weren't too worried about finding it. But of course, we see the train station stop but no train station. We only had about an hour before our train departed so we hit the streets running and miming out the word train trying to find where to go. We rounded a corner and glaring at us was the station. Hallelujah we made it!

Now to find the ticket office....of course! Just follow the signs that say ticket office. Now to figure out which line to get in...and how to communicate to the ticket officer that we already have reservations and have paid for the ticket, we just needed to pick it up. And of course I was the first one who made it up to a ticket window and so I handed over my passport and confirmation number and the guy starts talking in English. I thought my ears were deceving me, but sure enough, he was speaking English! I think I have been completely spoiled with how easy it was and I'm sure I'll meet challenges in the future.

The ticket process wasn't quite as easy for all of us though. Jake was the last person to make it to the window and after he handed over his documents, the lady said he needed to go to a different line because she was closing. He didn't understand why it was happening because she took his information and all she needed to do was print out his ticket. And of course all of the lines were now super duper long and our train was supposed to leave in only 30 minutes. So I grab his arm and shove him into the handicap line that was practically empty. No one in the line looked handicap, so I figured it wouldn't be a big deal. But of course Jake starts getting dirty looks and with some quick thinking, he pretended to be deaf in order to stay in the line. While not entirely (or at all...) truthful, we were panicked and in a rush. It was pretty hilarious though. And in all fairness, he couldn't understand the guy anyways because his Chinese was in a different dialect and he spoke incredibly fast. So we all had our tickets and still had about 20 minutes to spare...well 20 minutes to figure out where in the world we were supposed to go next.

We found the right platform and the right row to sit in. Success! And then of course our train was delayed for over an hour. So we just sat down and relaxed for a little bit. When we thought our train was supposed to start boarding, we stood up to get in line. After a few minutes they delayed our train again by another 30 minutes. We turned to go back and sit down but all the seats were now taken. Then, as if the journey wasn't exciting enough already, a fight broke out in the waiting area right where we had been sitting. I guess we're lucky we stood up! After, a nice girl typed into a translator on her phone that we could follow her to the platform and train so we wouldn't get lost. I swear, everyone in China is so kind and helpful to us!

When we finally got to board the train, we had even more people helping us find our bed numbers. We had hard sleeper beds for the trip which basically is no different from the hardness of our regular beds. The compartments are open and each section has six beds and a little table between the two sides. The small hallway also has little tables and fold two fold out seats for each compartment. Amber and I were in one compartment and Jake was two down from us. I had a middle bed and the others were up top. I got to my bed and realized the guy next to me had taken my blanket! I just looked at him and he kinda started laughing and just threw it back over to my bed. I didn't exactly want to use that one and it kinda smelled bad...so I switched it with the still empty bed above me. Our compartment had three older men and one younger guy in it. Right away they started asking where we were from and such. When I told them California, one man pulled up a picture of Arnold Shwarzenegger and asked me how to say his name. He kept fake shooting everyone and practicing how to say the name. It was hilarious. The other man kept taking pictures of me and zooming in on my nose piercing. So I took it out and he was so confused that I kept taking it out and putting it in again. I then started taking a million pictures of him too which made him laugh.

A while into the journey, two older men came down our hall in just their underwear and when they saw us they just started laughing. One of them ended up stopping right in front of me and decided to strike up a conversation, still wearing only his skivvys. Amber was up on her bed and started taking pictures of them, so when they walked past Jake, they started hitting his arms. It was pretty stinkin' funny. For a majority of the trip, it was raining and storming. Watching a lightning storm from a train is sorta kinda awesome. You should try it one day. I also used my turtle to teach one guy some words in English. He was trying to read a bedtime story, so I used my turtle to act out cuddling, squeezing, and tossing and turning. He gave my performance two thumbs up.

FLASH FORWARD

Our train ride home was just as if not more eventful. Because this ride was during the day, we decided to check out the seats instead of the sleepers. We hadn't realized just how hard and ramrod straight the seats were and for 13 hours times got a little tedious at some points, but it was easy to walk around and we had some pretty awesome seat mates.

The seats were set up with four on once side of the aisle (two sets facing each other) and then six seats total on the other side. Jake, Amber and I were all in the same row on one side. Sitting across from us were two guys from Holland. Whenever boredom seemed to be getting the best of us, we found a new way to entertain ourselves. These guys were freaking hilarious. One of them, Dennis, has been travelling through India, Japan, and China for the last 3 or so months. He had tons of stories. We taught them how to play a few different card games (Idiot, BS, War...) but whenever those were getting boring (which they did, quickly) I started to make up my own games. All of the Chinese people sitting around us were so facinated by these "games" I was playing and I was just making everything up on the fly. The guys started to play along and gave some excellent reactions to whatever I would do or say. When my imagination ran dry, we started flipping and flicking the cards, trying to catch them or land them on our hands. We then tried doing different word/name association type games. Oh the things you can think of when you are trapped in a moving vehicle for 13+ hours (because of course we got delayed mid trip). I just felt bad for our new Dutch friends, they had an extra 10 hours after we departed. I only hope they were able to stay entertained.

I feel like I could go on forever with just train stories. Which is crazy. I mean, we were on a train. But man, the combined 25ish hours we were on those trains were amazing.

The Olympics Return to China

I find it funny that just when you have nothing to say, you seem to have all the time in the world to say something. And, inversely, when you want to shout from the rooftops, you never catch a breath to say a single word. Well, that's exactly how this blog has been for the last couple weeks. My time is either speeding past me at lightning speed or taking its time and meandering by without a care in the world. So much though has happened in the last week and I finally have the time to sit down and share it while I actually have the ability to connect to the internet.

So I'll start with the Olympics.

Quite a few of my classes have been cancelled in the past month as the whole school has been preparing for the Olympics sports assembly that ended the international festival. Each class was assigned one country and while they had to research the culture and history of that country, they also had to prepare a short dance for the opening ceremony. If you thought Beijing did it good in 2008, you should have seen Weiming's take on an opening ceremony. It started with a group of my first graders who acted as cheerleaders of sort. They all had pom poms anyway. They led the pack and marked off the rows of where each country would stand. There was also a presentation of flags (China, the Olympic rings) and a few other things.  Then the real fun began.

I could pretend that I remember every country that was represented and tell you all about the dance and costumes and whatnot, but let's get real. I was primarily paying attention to my students. Mainly because they are the most adorable, but also because I'm a proud Mama Bear and couldn't peel my eyes away or stop raving about how cute they all were.

My three Grade One classes represented France, South Korea, and Australia.
France had one of the cutest costumes. They were dressed in blue and white, the girls almost reminded me of Mary Poppins in the chalk/carousel scene. The boys had on suspenders and little fedora hats. The danced to a song I'm assuming was in French and had the tune of the ABCs. And really, all I can say is: They. Were. Cute. (I'm gonna be saying that A LOT).

One only needs to be human to know what my South Korea class danced to. This group was only the boys because all the girls of the class made up the cheerleaders at the beginning. They were essentially just wearing their "proper" school uniform. Black jacket and pants. But they all had on some stunner shades and were carrying little swirly circle things. And then it began...."heyyyy sexy lady" That's right. About fifteen 6-year old boys dancing their little hearts out to "Gangnam Style." Though I can't say I like the song, I love my kids and you could tell they were having a blast. That dance there pretty much stole the crowd.

I feel like I should have at the beginning made a disclaimer about how most of the songs and costumes really had nothing to do with the countries they were supposed to represent. A few were pretty spot on (Spain, China, India to name a few). A couple had good costumes but bad song choices (my best example: Brazil. Green and yellow shirts to match the flag...while dancing to Avril Lavigne. Can I get a "huh?") My last Grade One class had appropriate costumes for Australia, but the song choice was a little questionable. If you've ever lived in China or have the opportunity to, one thing you'll learn right away is to just not question anything. You'll scratch your head bald trying to figure out some things that to you, will never make sense. So Australia. Picture this: 20 boys dressed up as kangaroos (tails and all) and 20 girls dressed up as goats (sheep? I'm actually not really sure) with horns. And they were adorable. Dancing to "High School Musical" because who in Australia doesn't want to "getcha head in the game". Again I remind you, don't question it.

And on to Grade Two. These three classes represented Kenya, India, and Egypt.
Class One had Kenya. The only way I can describe their outfits were that they looked like a mix between Power Rangers (that were far less covered) and well, I'm not sure. I guess they looked like slutty Power Rangers (only I'm not sure I should be calling 7 year olds slutty). But their dance was pretty awesome. They probably had some of the best coordination, rhythm, and synchronicity of all the classes. As always, some students stood out to be far better then the others. I realized that one girl, Kitty, was born to be a dancer. You could tell she was having the time of her life and had practiced a great deal.

Class Two was India. Now, one funny thing about how a large majority of all the classes went about creating their dance is that in most cases, the girls all danced in a single and the boys kinda stood around them and either watched or clapped their hands and basically did nothing. This is basically what happened with India but it was probably for the best. The girls were phenomenal. They were wearing pink outfits that were all bedazzled with gold jewelry that clinked together as they danced. If you've ever seen a Bollywood movie, they looked pretty stinkin' legit for a bunch of young kids in China. And again, I found another born dancer in the midst of the girls. Lucy was taking such care to make sure her hands were placed just so and that her timing was impeccable. And though most of her face was covered, you could see it in her eyes that she loved to dance.

Finally Egypt. I'm not gonna lie. I don't remember much about their dance. Mainly because most of the times I watched them practicing the dance, they almost always messed up and ended up stopping mid way through because they couldn't remember it. Even with their teacher, Journey, trying to do the dance with them during the ceremony didn't help much. But they did look comically cute in little headdress type hats that made them look like Egyptian Pharaohs.

Grade Three had the great honor of representing China. They all looked so serious in their white kungfu outfits that had flame designs on them. And I was also surprised to see that the one boy leading them was Jason. He goofs off so much in class that I never really could picture him in the serious role that comes with being the one leading a set of kungfu. But he did it with such pride and strength. It was also funny to see that some of the boys were clearly disinterested while some of the girls had fierce looks of determination and complete control over each and every movement.

Finally Grade Four. They were representing Germany and did so in quite an interesting fashion. They were all dressed as soccer players, decked out in the national team jersey and soccer balls. And then again the questionable music choice starts blaring out over the speakers and I just hear, "do you really want it, do you really want it...go go go ole ole ole" I had to do a double take with my ears. Really, Ricky Martin? Of all things they pick a Ricky Martin song to represent Germany. But again, I remind myself to not question it, because in China, things make a lot more sense if you don't question them.

For anyone wondering, yes the US was represented in the Olympics. And I am very sad to announce that none other than Kesha (?) and her ever so wonderful song "Tik Tok" is what is representing us in China. And yes, Justin Beiber was reppin' Canada. A few other stand outs included Denmark, who danced to "Love Story" by Taylor Swift. It was actually quite nice. They took the whole Shakespearean thing to the next level with ball gowns and partner dancing and a court jester who looked like a clown and pirates and the whole she-bang. There were also some South African hula dancers, more High School Musical, and some Waka Waka from Shakira (representing Madagascar).

After the presentation of the nations, some of the older students performed a music piece playing on a gu zheng (at least I'm pretty sure what its called). It is a traditional Chinese instrument that simply makes the most beautiful music. There was also a larger presentation of kungfu done by the older male students, a dance number including beautiful fans by the girls in primary, and a dance done by the girls in the junior department.  The ceremony was quite a spectacle, filled with wonderful costumes, music, and a lot of laughter. There is always  a stigma about schools in China. The thought is that everything is so strict and structured. That the students are under constant duress to learn and memorize everything. I'm not going to argue that a lot of that isn't true. I see first hand nearly every day what happens when a student makes a mistake. I see the long hours they spend at school, usually close to 12 hours a day. But it was quite a joy to see them being what they are, kids. To see how happy they were and how lively the festivities were.

I stuck around for most of the day to watch the competitions. A good number of my students participated in the various races. They also had long jump competitions and a few other activities for the school. I also found out I was filmed playing with some of the kids for the local news station and Jake was also interviewed (he was the best at Chinese).

It was a day I'm not likely to forget. While the kids got the day out of class and were relishing in the freedom and fun, they didn't ever lose sight of the bigger meaning and purpose. This was a celebration of differences. It was a celebration of an international community. Different cultures, customs, thoughts, beliefs and people were all celebrated and honored that day. It was something special.

Grade One Cheerleaders

Presentation of the Chinese Flag

Egypt!

Power Rangers from Kenya

Australian Kangaroos and Goats

They are cool and they know it. 

Fance :)

Fierce. China.

Student playing the gu zheng

Primary dance.

On you mark. Get set. Go!