I Quit (and found a new job)

• The title says it all, there were a couple big reasons why but I won't go into them publicly because that's not polite but now I'll be teaching elementary school English to children in Shenzhen for the next year
• I'm sorry to the children in rural Guangdong who I would have allegedly been teaching (at the time of this post no definite plans for which school TFC had wanted me to be posted at had come in although allegedly the government sent them a document saying they could send teachers to teach)
• I'm sorry to the friends I've made at Teach for China because I feel like I've let them down and didn't give them a proper goodbye
• I'm sorry to my manager because I know that if I ever became a manager that he is exactly the type of manager I want to be like and emulate
• I'm sorry to the kids at the English Corner at Shantou University that I didn't get to watch Wall-E with on Thursday and say goodbye too
• My last few English corners with the Shantou University students  
• English Corner
• • We had fun with the first graders on Monday
  • We started off by teaching them how to Crank Dat Soulja Boy and they got it for the most part except for the beginning parts (but they knew how to do the YOUUUUUUUU part really well) 
  • I saw another group teaching their kids how to do the hokey pokey, yeah let’s see how well that helps them later in life when they're in a disco and the only moves they can do is “You put your left hand in…” 
  •  In all honesty though, that hokey pokey dance is what I should have done because at least their learning proper English that way, (Note: the only lyrics I taught them to the rap song was YOUUUUUUU because I'd ask them the definition of it in Chinese and they'd say, "NIIIIIIIIIIII")  
  • And now I think one 1^st grade girl has a crush on me 
  • We had to go inside because it was raining and the kids apparently thought they were made of sugar and they'd melt and when we got inside this one girl was trying to ask me a question and she asked me to come really close to her so I put my ear near her mouth…and she licked my ear
  • They don’t really prepare you for how to respond to that in summer institute so at first I said, “uhhhh…no….I mean 不….no…………no" 
  • Then after class she wanted to talk to me again, so her way of talking to me was grabbing me by the pinky and running out of the school as fast as she could 
  •  I thought, “Oh maybe she wants to introduce me to her family and then I'd have a great opportunity to establish roots in the community” but then she just let go of my pinky and said, “BYYYYYYYE!”

Visa Running in Hong Kong and the like

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• l  Learned some cool new Chinese 4 character phrases (成语)
  •   灭此朝食- Miè cǐ zhāoshí-Will not have breakfast until the enemy is wiped out-be anxious to finish off the enemy immediately
  •   画蛇添足 – Huàshétiānzú – Draw a snake and add feet to it – ruin the effect by adding sth. Superfluous 
  •  拨云见日 – Bōyúnjiànrì – To dispel the clouds and see the sun – to restore justice 
  •   螳螂捕蝉 - Tángláng bǔ chán – The mantis stalks the cicada while ignoring the oriole behind him – to ignore the greater danger while getting the little gain 
  •  塞翁失马 – Sàiwēngshīmǎ – The old man lost his horse – a blessing in disguise 
  •   危如累卵 – Wēirúlěiluǎn – Precarious as a pile of eggs – a dangerous situation 
  •   一毛不拔 – Yīmáobùbá – not even pull one hair out – sting
  •  拔苗助长 –Bámiáozhùzhǎng -Trying to help the sprouts grow by pulling them up – to ruin something with excessive enthusiasm 
  •  枯鱼之肆 kūyúzhīsì-Dried Fish Market - There once was a man who found a near-dead fish at the side of the road. The fish asked him for some water to save his life. The man replied he was about to travel to the Yangzi River and promised to bring some water back for him. The fish then said: “By the time you come back, I’ll already be at the dried fish market” 
  •   井底之蛙 – Jǐngdǐzhīwā – Frog at the bottom of the well – narrow-minded 
  •  对牛弹琴 – Duìniútánqín – To play the flute to a cow – do something pointless 
  •   鹏程万里 - Péng chéng wanly – The fabled rock flies 10,000 miles – You’re capable of future success 
  •  指鹿为马 – Zhǐlùwéimǎ – making a deer out of a horse – deliberately misrepresent
  •  Here’s more: 
  •   http://carlgene.com/blog/2010/07/20-actually-useful-chengyu-%E6%88%90%E8%AF%AD/
    Visa Run to Hong Kong
  
  •   Because I and a few other fellows’ visas were about to expire since we entered the country and we don’t have our work permits yet, we had to go across the border to Hong Kong (which for some reason is considered international/leaving the country even though it’s part of China), stay in Hong Kong for 1 second, and cross back over into China so that we were good
  •  We decided to just go into Hong Kong seeing that we were already there and it was a blast
  • l WESTERN FOOD 
  •   I had GOOD pizza for the first time since I left the United States, then we had 7 layered nachos that had real cheese and tasted like real authentic American style Mexican food, and for breakfast I had a real sandwich with the crust cut off
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  • And if you're ever in Hong Kong, I recommend (that if it's 10 o'clock on a Sunday afternoon and you've done everything else) take a trip to Happy Valley Race Track
  • It's cool because (I assume) on Sundays they just let people walk around the track for jogging and walking and it's absolutely beautiful
  • Plus they have a cool horse racing museum and you can take a bus to The Peak (the highest point in Hong Kong with views of the entire city) from there so I thought it was worth it
  • Plus I have to mention that watching the 10-year old rugby game was absolutely hilarious because you can tell these kids must have grown up just watching rugby highlight videos on youtube (which is legal to do in Hong Kong) and it was so funny to see the expression on their face when they would hit the kid carrying the ball, a little collision would happen, but then none of them would fall over so they'd just be standing there like, "Wait...how are we still standing even though we hit each other?"
  • Like my friend said, in the force = mass * acceleration equation, mass is quite important

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  

  

  
  
  •  Church 
  • It was nice to go to a legitimate catholic church that was in communion with the Vatican 
  • So in China, the catholic church is not allowed to operate as it sees fit (the Chinese government wants to appoint bishops to which the pope says, “Hey…knock it off”) but in Hong Kong and Macau, the catholic church is allowed to operate freely (even the Hong Kong Chief Executive is catholic – one point for Jesus
  •  And you could tell the difference between mainland China catholic mass and a Hong Kong mass 
  • I can’t really make a generalization because I’ve only been to one catholic mass in mainland China (Dali, Yunnan which does receive a lot of foreign visitors who are probably catholic) but in Dali I know that there were only two masses offered in one church for the entire city but in Hong Kong there were about 15 churches on this small little island/peninsula that each offered about 5 masses every Sunday 
  • And in the one I went to in Hong Kong there were a lot of differences between the one I went to in Dali 
  •  People actually sang the hymns 
  •  People smiled
  •  The place was packed
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

• I still love teaching English Corner 
• One group had this 1^st grade boy that said, “I need to pee” and the teacher said “fine” thinking, “Oh well I guess he’s just going to run to the bathroom and pee 
• Nope, that little boy ran right over to a tree, dropped his pants (bare bottom showing) and did his business right there 
• Then all the other boys said, “cool” and they went over and joined in 
•  The female teacher in the group tried to deflect the attention away from the boys so she asked the girls, “What game do you want to play?” 
•   They pointed at the boys and said, “That one” 
•   Then, thinking quick on her feet, the female teacher said, “But then you’ll ruin your dresses” and the girls went, “oh”
•  With our group, nothing else really happened
• We introduced the game "Captian's Calling" which is really fun (we kept it simple, with our favorite being where we shout "mermaid" and all the kids shake their hips around and wave their hands in the air like a princess saying, "HI SAILOR!")
• The boys get made fun of mercilessly by the girls for that one http://www.gameskidsplay.net/games/mental_games/ship_captain.htm
• Cultural Revolution Museuｍ
• It was cool to see a museum where you can see what too much nationalism can do
• I can't post all of the photos here because they are kind of graphic but I highly recommend going if you're in Shantou and you have enough money to get a taxi (you can take public transportation but it is pretty out of the way)
• By the way, the Cultural Revolution museum isn't actually advertised, you have to find the scenic area that it's at and try to make your way up there with maybe two signs to help you but it's pretty easy

The next few photos are pictures of a wall of remembrance for victims of the cultural revolution

View from top of the pagoda