YiXianGuoJi Olympics, Part 2

The games resumed Friday morning, after several days' worth of preparation, practice, and decorating:

(these teachers are basically the most skilled craftwomen ever!)

While most of the classes used the pom-poms and noisemakers from Monday, Pink 3 opted for more practical sun-deflecting gear--flower hats!

It began the same way as Monday: lining up, marching out, watching the flag raising, and singing the national anthem. Then Jerry and Jasmaie (pronounced Jess-may) introduced the games; she spoke in Chinese and he "translated." Adorable.

By this point, there were tons of parents gathered around the gates, watching, waving, and taking pictures. It was a little strange for me because I don't know them but they knew me; I heard "Hello Alison!" several times, but just smiled and waved because I had no idea whose parent they were.

We then did the morning exercises (singing and dancing) and then suddenly everyone was lining up to go back inside. Turned out to be a bathroom break...minus the bathroom. Instead of walking our kids up to the 3rd floor, they took out the plastic portable potties, like from our trip to the Military Museum, and kids took turns dropping their pants in the hallway. My job was to tuck their shirts back into their pants as they lined up. I took some pictures because it was that unbelievable, but Adam said they're inappropriate to post. You know, the whole kiddie porn thing and all...

Then the whole school trooped back outside, where chairs had been set up for them. Let the Games begin!!

The teachers decided their class' events, so we had everything from running and crawling,

to feeding radishes to a rabbit,

to crawling and rolling.

They were all pretty similar tasks, but the smaller classes went altogether, while the older kids competed 2 by 2. They all had a blast and the parents took tons and tons of pictures.

Then it was time for a teacher event: Tug of War! A few teachers from each class competed and the kids loved cheering them on. It was hilarious.

At the end, each kid was awarded a "medal," a pack of markers, and a certificate from the principal before taking a group picture:

A very fun morning at YiXianGuoJi kindergarten!

Perspective

Today, we had a picnic in the park near CICAMS instead of the weekly meeting. It was actually very fun, with yummy food...though one of the items someone brought was pre-packaged dog meat.

Anyways, I was talking to a past Fogarty about Tianjin, a city that Alison and I might go to this weekend as it's 40 minutes away by bullet train, and supposedly is a fun day trip (it comes highly recommended by all four of our non-Fogarty friends in Beijing hahaha). During the conversation, I was stunned by the difference of perspective:

Hao: I have to go to Tianjin this weekend.
Me: Have to? Do you not like it? We were thinking of going there Sunday.
Hao: I don't really like it. I mean, there's nothing to do. It's so small.
Me: Small? I thought it had over 7 million people?
Hao: Yea. It does. Way too small.

So apparently, a city that is slightly smaller than the biggest city in US (our superstar metropolis, NYC, with 8+ million people in all 5 boroughs!) is too small to have anything fun to do.

Insane, right?

YiXianGuoJi Olympics, Part 1

I arrived at school on Monday, taught 2 Pink classes, and then went outside to meet the Small Int'l Class for the Monday morning routine--flag raising and "exercises" (choreographed dancing to music). To my surprise, the whole school was lined up in preparation for the "Kindergarten Sport," whatever that means. I assume it's like a mini-Olympics. Each class had a sign,

Notice the great spelling?

and some sort of hand-held celebratory object (pom-poms, noise-makers, signs).

Cindy, Jean, and Dora picked their colors--"I like blue!" and "I like PINK!"

Bowen and Leon were excited!

Ashley and Hannah made their pom-poms into hair!

Eventually, we got to the flag-raising and national anthem singing:

I tried to record the singing on the camera, but it was just a bunch of noise. The kids shout at the top of their lungs, all completely off from each other. It's hilarious, and I imagine exactly how The Star Spangled Banner sounds in preschools in America.

Then it turned out that they weren't prepared for the sports and postponed until Friday. Stay tuned...

Instead of sports, we went inside for a lesson and my favorite time of day--"Do a Dance!" We either do the Hokey Pokey or the kids' favorite--the Chicken Dance! Yes, I brought the Chicken Dance to China. The whole school does it and loves it. So funny! They usually gather in small groups and dance:

Cindy (left) and Sarah had a grand ol' time; I just had to post this series of them being absolutely adorable.

I definitely plan on bringing a camera on Friday, so get ready for YiXianGuoJi Olympics, Part 2 this weekend!

Side note: there is a music room in the school, where the kids have piano lessons; it is also the new storage place for the Scholastic materials. When I first went in, I was completely confused by the pictures on the walls...2 white men with Chinese names?? I was sure that I must know these musicians by name, so I sounded out the Chinese, and this is what I came up with:

 Chai - keh - foo - suh - jee (literally) = Tchaikovsky!

Shao - bong (literally) = Chopin!

Because every Chinese word has an associated character, they must "translate" foreign words into similar sounding Chinese characters. EX: Arizona = ya li sang na (yah-lee-song-na); Carrefour = jia le fou (jeeah-le-foo). It's so interesting how they have adapted foreign and international words to make them understood and able to be used in Chinese!

Forgot the best part!

After we bought all the stuff at Panjiayuan yesterday, we took the bus home, and this old Chinese man wearing Harry Potter glasses immediately looked at us and asked me in Chinese if I were a Uyghur (a Chinese Muslim). When I said that we were American, this man got super excited!

For the remainder of our ride, he spearheaded the rest of the bus into asking us questions about what we were doing in China, what we thought of China, etc. The best part was that, at every stop, he'd announce to the people coming on that I looked Uyghur but in fact was American.

We didn't really understand a lot of what he was saying, particularly when he launched into some diatribe against (in support of?) French tourists. But it was so exciting for us to engage and have a legitimate conversation.

I was so happy for his mistake for a more personal reason. People have often told me that I can "pass" as many different ethnicities--in Mexico they thought I was Argentinean, in Chile they thought I was Mexican (I think the gist is that I have somewhat olive skin and dark features so can blend more easily into a crowd in many parts of the world...until I speak or turn so people can see my schnoz in profile)--and a few friends joked before I came here that it'd be the first time I'd so obviously not be a part of the society I was living in. But turns, out, I can still pass as Chinese--just as a marginalized religious/ethnic minority!!

Great Day all around!

Alison and I got all dolled up to go to the 9th Annual Meeting of the National Cervical Cancer Consortium and Symposium of HPV Vaccine and Cervical Cancer Prevention (try saying that three times fast). I wasn't nervous until we arrived at the hotel, and then I was like holy moly, these are the movers and shakers in China! And they think I'm an expert. HA!

Turns out, through the course of this year, I've met a lot of people who are the movers and shakers in China--that, coupled with the fact that all of the post-docs and PhD students at CICAMS were in attendance relaxed me big time. So by the time it was my turn, I was ready to roll:Notice how my new suit fits me perfectly, like it was made just for me? Oh wait, it WAS! Anyways, the weirdest moment of the whole process was after I started, this man with a huge zoom lens got extremely close and took like 100 pictures of me, and I got all flustered, but then figured, what the hell? And stopped mid-sentence to crack a big smile.Everyone cracked up. Having Shangying Hu, my Fogarty Twin, translate for the presentation was also a very special experience as we've worked so effectively and so efficiently this past year. But it was a strange waiting game--first I'd talk and she'd waitthen she'd talk and I'd wait.But all in all, it was a great success. Another highlight for me was getting to be on the panel afterwards with Dr. John Sellors, who has really spearheaded the global movement towards low-cost alternatives to cytology, and Shangying and Eunuch--we actually had fun.
We then had the requisite photoshoots for the Fogarty, with LiRong, Shangying, and me:
(It kinda looks like I have a penis coming out of the top of my head (can I say that?) but, dont' worry, it's just the drawing behind me.) And with Dr. Qiao and Dr. Zhao. My suit bunches up funny when it's buttoned and my arms are out, but otherwise it looks pretty pimp, right?

Afterwards, we walked to Panjiayuan (for the last time, I think) and purchased beautiful gifts for friends and family (and ourselves obviously, as we count under both categories) and then headed to Lisa at the Pearl Market to pick up the rest of the order.

Easter Festivities

Happy long [Easter] weekend to everyone at home! I actually didn't realize Easter was upon us until my school alerted me by bringing me into "Easter planning meetings" all week. Like for all other major western holidays, we had an assembly, complete with games, songs, and performances. 

All of the kids were decked out in bunnies and eggs, which was pretty cute:

 My big class kiddos:

It began with none other than a Clifford the Big Red Dog puppet show, performed by yours truly. I was given a story about a dog celebrating Easter with kids because he likes eggs, as they are the seeds of life. Ummm....ok. It wasn't translated for the kids (they wouldn't have understood it anyway), but they all enjoyed the Clifford puppet.

This was followed by a performance by the Yellow Class, complete with costumes.

It was about an old woman who needed help from animals to pull a tree....I think.

We then played games, all dealing with eggs. The oldest classes carried hardboiled eggs on oversized spoons,

The 2- and 3-year old classes carried and rolled paper-mache balloons,

 and the smallest classes ran with painted, non-hardboiled eggs.

We ended with the April birthday party. The kids were all super excited and adorable in their birthday hats:

They were also all super excited about the birthday cake that the whole school (teachers and kids) share for lunch:

I mean, everyone likes ketchup, ham, and cucumbers on their birthday cakes, right? Well they loved it. Luckily, I'm doing the Chinese/Sephardic version of Passover and eating rice but abstaining from cake and bread. None of this yummy dessert for me!

It's the end of April and this school is still keeping me on my toes! I do love my kids so so so much, and I know I'm going to miss them immensely...(Adam and I have gotten nostalgic as of late. Luckily, it's not over yet!!)

The Egg and the Opera

On Thursday night, we joined Sarah and her friend at the National Center for Performing Arts, also known at the Egg. There is currently an opera festival going on, and we saw the French opera Carmen.

We walked up to the Egg at dusk, and it was spectacular.

We walked down stairs and into the entrance, but what we didn't see was that the Egg is surrounded by water, which creates an interesting visual effect. Once inside, you can look up and see the current moving above. While this was pretty awesome, Adam pointed out that the cost of maintaining the water could probably fund health care for a small Chinese city. Oh, priorities.

Inside is also very well-designed, from the lighting to the small details, like how this building compliments the Bird's Nest Stadium (this is the Egg, that's the Bird's Nest...get it??).

We were "caught" with a camera when going through security and had to check it with the coat check. It was very confusing at first--usually they just say "please, no flash photography" or something. We realized that it actually makes sense based on where we are. The Chinese are notorious for constantly taking pictures and for trying to evade authorities or rules whenever they can (hello bootleg DVDs!); so they probably prohibit cameras from even entering the theaters, knowing that they can't catch everyone but that they will significantly reduce the number of cameras. Luckily, Sarah smuggled hers in and got some pictures of the theater:

The staging and costumes were beautiful, and we got the perfect bird's eye view from the third tier :)

We knew that the three leads would be foreigners (they alternate with Chinese each night), but weren't sure about the rest of the cast. It turned out that everyone was Chinese: kids from an acrobat troupe, a high school theater group, and the NCPA chorus. While the opera was very good and we both enjoyed it, Adam's critique was that the chorus was just too big and that the stage seemed overcrowded. However, it was quite appropriate for China--way too many people!

Afterward, we went outside and took a few pictures with the sparkling Egg behind us:

What a fantastic way to spend an evening in Beijing!