This past week was probably my hardest week in China so far - mostly because it was a holiday week. On Tuesday we took the 1st and 2nd graders to an aquarium for a field trip. The trip was a success, I was proud of the kids, they did a great job in the aquarium.
Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, we still had a half day of school. I taught the kids about Squanto, which was really fun. We listened to a Radio Theater version of Squanto and they really enjoyed it - even though I had to stop it a lot to explain what was going on. Most of the kids are not American, so they don't have the background knowledge of the American Indians and the First Thanksgiving that a lot of Americans have.
After they participated in field games, we had a big celebration and every student brought a food dish to share. 1st-3rd grades shared our food, it was a lot of fun, mostly because there was food from America, Korea and China on our buffet. Friday was spent in Chengdu visiting the cottage of a famous Chinese poet, Du Fu. He is known as the "Poet Historian" in China.
His cottage is on the grounds of the most beautiful garden, I've heard that it is even more breathe-taking in the springtime. I wished that I could read and understand Chinese so that I could read his poems and really understand their beauty. He had a wonderful place to find inspiration. I made this adventure with Kimberly, my trusty travel companion, and her dad who is a businessman in China and came for the holiday weekend. After the cottage, we went to this place called the River Market where we heard we could make great deals with the vendors. Well, 3 Americans with limited English do not advertise "good deals" to the vendors, it advertises..."they have money". Needless to say, we didn't get many good bargains at the River Market...a few, but not many. 
And despite being away from home for this particular holiday, I was able to enjoy 2 Thanksgiving dinners! So even though whis week was a hard one, it ended up not as badly as I thought it could have.
One more week of student teaching left!
-kait
2 comments:
You are almost home!!!! Enjoy every minute of these next 2 weeks. It will go quickly!!! See you on the 10th!!!! Love you, Mom
Wow!!! Only 2 weeks left! I can't believe you're going to be home so soon. I really can't wait to sit down over a cup of hot tea or coffee and hear all about your wonderful stories and see the pics!!! I miss you!!!!
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