Hello December!

Hey hey bloggers! Are you ready for the next entry in the craziness that is China? Well here it is…

Last week was the most stressful week by far since I got here. Somewhere around 2-3 weeks ago the director of the school went to our librarian and asked if the foreign teachers could prepare a Thanksgiving dinner for the IC staff. That’s about 80 people. None of us had ever cooked for that many people before so we were all like uhhhh no…. But of course, like drinking (yes as in alcohol), if you refuse, you could be considered scum of the earth. So we all chose a dish to prepare for Thanksgiving. I chose decorations because, let’s face it, I can’t cook. So the senior 3s were supposed to help us prep the meal for the faculty so that we could partake in this “cultural sharing experience.” But then the point got brought up, “Why are the students helping us to cook when they won’t get to eat? The faculty should help us cook if they’re gonna be the ones eating.” So of course that blows up in our faces and the admin says, “great idea! You do two dinners! One on Friday with/for the students and one on Saturday with/for the staff.” Crap now we’re stuck doing two… Did I mention that by doing these dinners, we’re staying late at school? We stayed 2 hours past normal bus time home on Friday and 6 hours past normal bus time on Saturday… There went our weekend. So anyway, we start prepping for these dinners by telling the students what to bring from their hometown: cranberry sauce, spices, etc. All the students complained because they’re providing all the supplies for a dinner they didn’t ask to be a part of. Some of the ingredients, especially for 150+ people, can be upwards of 600 yuan (about 100 USD). Would you ever ask your students to provide $100 worth of stuff for other people? Probably not… but here in China, it’s the norm. 

So two weeks ago I started working on the decorations. I had an idea of what I wanted in my head but I was having a hard time making that a reality since there was a lot of prep that needed to happen and I was running out of time. I ended up delegating some of the work to a few students, who by the way, MESSED IT ALL UP! I ended up having to throw away half of what they made because it wasn’t at all even close to what I had directed them to do. So I ended up doing 90% of the work myself. Technically I had to redo some of what they “undid” so I was pissed off. I stayed up until 11pm every night after work doing those stupid decorations. Then some students fell through on what they were supposed to bring in terms of supplies so I ended up going and getting them myself or asking Jeremiah for help in finding some of the supplies. Thank God for Jeremiah because he helped me out so much when I was so stressed that I wouldn’t get it all done in time. I even started crying in front of him, which I’ll admit is a bit embarrassing. Anyway, it all ended up working out. Every table had a tissue paper turkey, some tinsel, paper leaves with teachers’ names on it, and some tea candles. It was EXACTLY how I had imagined the table would look before I lost hope and started adjusting my decoration plans. It was totally worth it but during the week I was sleep deprived, a little delirious, and so sick of looking at my decorations. I ended up throwing everything away. Some of the teachers took my tissue paper turkeys home because they loved them so much and I was glad to be rid of them! So that’s my story… let’s see what some of the other stories were from my coworkers….

Every American teacher took a group of students to prepare a dish. Once the students got to the cafeteria they were pretty excited to get started. We all told them that they needed to wash their hands before starting to work with the food and every single one of them asked, “why?” It was gross when they told us why that was weird to them… apparently washing their hands with the water that comes out of the school’s sink taps puts more bacteria on their hands than not washing their hands at all! But they washed their hands regardless and started helping out. There were one or two mini food fights and students sampling every single food there was (even raw foods that should not be eaten raw). When I was done decorating I walked over to where the students were mixing what looked like cranberry sauce and one of my students grabbed a piece of bread, dipped it in the sauce, and said, “Chelsey! Try this it’s awesome!” Then he held it in front of my mouth like he wanted to feed it to me. I was like, “AHHHH NO THANKS!” Then he did it to his Chinese teacher (female) who let him feed her. CHINA IS SO WEIRD! He fed a few other girls in his class and I just watched in disbelief. I would never let a student feed me, let alone a male student! Weirdddddddd. I think all in all the students had a great time. We had turkey (that tasted more like duck than turkey), stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, something that was green (maybe mushed beans?) cranberry sauce, yams, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and apple cider. It didn’t taste like America, but it was close enough.

The next night it was the faculty dinner and pretty much the same deal happened. It was like not-so-instant replay. The only difference between this prep time and last prep time was that the faculty chose to wear gloves while prepping the food IN REPLACEMENT OF washing their hands…… yea in America, we do both. So gross! The teachers also sampled EVERYTHING while preparing the food. The faculty really didn’t have as great of a time as the students and I think that was because they were giving up their time off of work to do it whereas the students were getting out of class to do it. So Saturday wasn’t as much fun but the food was still good and my decorations were AWESOME!

Unfortunately we only had one day off this week and I was EXHAUSTED. I was so frustrated that we were required to stay late on both Friday AND Saturday. They didn’t even really give us an option. They just said, yes you are doing it. So now I’m back at work and half falling asleep. On the plus side, the senior 3s I don’t teach are now saying hi to me and adding me on wechat :D New friends to teach me more Chinese! Yay! I think this week will feel boring compared to the stress of last week but I’m moving on to the joy of Christmas planning. December 28 is the school concert and I was just asked to dance in it! They’re trying to get students to dance in it but so far only singing and instruments are scheduled. I hope I can get students to dance with me! I don’t want to do a solo. I’m also making stocking cards for my officemates. The crafts never stop here in the counseling office! I’ll be sure to keep you updated as the week goes on. Until then…Laters!