14 April 2016

Work in the North

My time in China is not simply for travelling and in fact a lot of my time is spent at my job. Here in Harbin my job is teaching English just like down in Jining. I do work for a different company but do teach at an after school program like setting.  Like I have previously mentioned, education in China is very important and it is very common for students to go to extra school after their normal public schooling.  I work at one of these schools and so a lot of our stuff and way of teaching is supposed to be very fun and exciting.
 
The school I work for in Harbin is different than the one in Jining. It is a lot bigger and in fact it is actually a company that is originally from Taiwan and has branched into mainland China, with many different schools throughout the country. I am only hired by the Harbin Company and we are our own separate branch.  I guess you would call it a franchise where you can use the name and materials.  They do use the name and also the curriculum which is made from the original company in Taiwan. In Harbin there are about 15 different branches located throughout the city.  I personally am at five different schools and so each work day I am at a different school.  This isn’t normal and out of about 34 different foreign teachers I am the only one in this situation.  Needless to say I do know a lot of the city because of travelling to different schools.
  
I will talk a little bit more about the curriculum in a second but first the different levels that I teach. The school itself does offer classes starting as young as kindergarten (about three years old) and then going all the way up to adult VIP (one-on-one tutoring) classes. No true adult classes just simply private classes and in fact majority of the students range from elementary school to middle school.  I personally teach kids ranging from kindergarten up to about grade 6 (with really only having two of my classes in the higher books).  The students go to class twice a week: once during the week and then one day on the weekend.  For the kindergarten class, each time they come they have two 45 min. sessions with a ten minute break between.  The rest of the classes are one hour with a ten minute break.

The kindergarten curriculum does consist of six different books and I have had students as young as three years old. All the books follow two different characters and the different adventures they go on plus meeting other people.  It has about 8 units per book and each unit includes some vocabulary with a little pattern (essentially some grammar point) and then letters.  Books 1 and 2 they do capital letters, books 3-4 lowercase letters, and finally books 5-6 how to write the letters. From book 1 some vocabulary words are: morning, afternoon, evening and then with the pattern being Good ______ (fill in the blank accordingly).  From one of the later books the vocabulary words are: doctor, teacher, soldier, police man, farmer, and singer then the pattern is: Do you want to be a ________?-Yes, I do. No, I don’t.
 
I personally have ten different kindergarten classes and even though some are the same level they are different classes. Some classes are very active while a couple classes are quiet and not as active. The class size does range from school to school with the most I have is being 14 students. Overall though for the kindergarten classes it is very active and a lot of different fast paced activities. For 45 mins it isn’t much to learn so changing games and activities around to keep the students engaged is the important thing during the class.  Some props we use in class include sticky balls, big soft dice, small hammers (racing to hit flashcards), hula hoops (mainly for making circles to throw something through) and our own ideas. Overall my students are well behaved and want to learn and participate but there are a few monsters that cause trouble. 

For students who have already started elementary school there is another curriculum. These students have 8 different books with about 24 different units. Each day they do one unit and then at the end of the book they have a final test and an oral test with their foreign teacher. The oral test consists of about ten different questions based off that books materials. These books follow the story of two different characters and their pet squirrel. The interesting thing about these stories is that they are essentially fairy tales that have been slightly altered including names being changed. Some of the fairy tales include: Wizard of Oz, Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks and three bears, Cinderella, Jack and the Giant Beanstalk and others. Each book they get two different stories.  Each unit has a dialogue (the fairy tale), vocabulary (also found in the dialogue), pattern (grammar), and phonics. Then units 5, 10, 15, and 20 are review units along with something called sight words (they should be able to read these words) and cultures and festivals. For the cultures and festivals it does do every major holiday and they learn a little vocabulary and what it is all about.
 
With these older students it is good to play a lot of different activities and games too. Each class at the beginning of the class I do put the students into teams so that way they can get points and have competition. Some of the same props are used but obviously with harder activities for these students. The most students I have in a class is 20 students. With close to eleven different classes all classes do vary even if it is the same material being taught.Overall all of my classes are fun and it isn’t that hard to teach them because they do want to learn. I have had a few different observations from head teachers and they have told me I am doing a good job I should keep doing the same type of things.
 
This post is longer than I expected but did cover the basics of what I do teach and a little bit of how I do go about teaching. Maybe in a future post I can share some funny things or interesting things that happen in class because those do occur on occasion. For now this post has been long enough. I have been busy with work and taking extra classes for people who are busy or sick and so haven’t had much time to enjoy the good spring weather. It did rain the other day and I heard from old teachers that in summer it does rain a lot so I will need to buy an umbrella soon. Now I am headed off to a vegetable/ fruit market to pick up something to cook dinner.  I will write later.

16 March 2016

Indonesian Vacation

For most of February I was able to take a vacation outside of China to a warm destination. I jumped on an airplane and headed down south quite a ways all the way down to the southern hemisphere.  I landed in a country that has many islands and is known as Indonesia.  I chose this destination for the fact that with so many islands there is a great chance to do some scuba diving and simply enjoy the beaches.  As I was leaving cold and freezing Harbin those were my intentions and it was a pretty successful vacation.
 
My first destination was on the island of Sulawesi. From Jakarta I took a plane to Palu and then a bus to the next city of Ampana.  The bus ride from Palu to Ampana was through some mountains with some winding roads. It was a nice drive going through smaller villages along the way and the scenery had a jungle type feel.  My ultimate destination was a small chain of islands that are called the Togean Islands.  After staying the night in Ampana I took a speed boat (two 200 h.p. engines) out to the islands. I ended up staying on an island that was called Kadiri and the view was amazing.  A clean beach and the water had a great color to it.  I ended up staying out on this island for about six nights.  The place I stayed was called “Kadiri Paradise” and it did feel like paradise.  The room fee did also include breakfast, lunch, and dinner which were great meals.  The food usually consisted of rice, vegetables, and some form of seafood (fresh fish, shrimp, squid, etc.).  On this island there was no internet and no phone reception so it was simply beautiful nature and other travelers to visit during the stay on the island.
 
Beautiful nature is indeed pretty accurate. I was especially focused on the nature under the water.  Which with this water it was possible to see from the surface pretty easily but of course when scuba diving I can get up and close.  The diving here was pretty good and I was able to see some interesting things. It is some of the best reefs I have been on but at times we did stumble across some bad reefs. Up in this remote location the fisherman are known to dynamite fish which is very bad for the environment particularly the coral reef. Besides that fact there still was some interesting life to see.  Various schools of reef fish, a black tip reef shark, a sea turtle, Triton trigger fish, anemone fish, eels, parrot-fish, jack fish, lion fish, nudibranchs, etc.  Plus there are so many different types of coral that make for interesting views and seeing how they interact and grow next to each other or sometimes even on top of is neat.  Majority of dives were either following along the coral reef, a wall dive or something very similar but there was one very different dive.  It was a plane wreck! There is B-24 American bomber that crash landed very close to the place I was staying. The plane had engine problems and they knew it was going down and were able to eject in time before landing.  Even with it crashing it was still in good condition underwater.  It was only about 22 meters (around 70 feet) deep but right by a mangrove type island so visibility could be bad at times.  You were able to swim through real quick but not through the whole plane, simply one door on the port side swim out another door on the starboard side (those are boat terms and I am not sure if they apply to planes too).  For this particular dive my camera didn’t have battery that day so no pictures but there will be other pictures below of some of my other dives. 

While staying on Kadiri there was one day where I didn’t do any diving but took a little local trip. There was a group of us who rented a local boat for the day and they took us to three different spots. First spot was simply a nice empty beach (almost all of them are anyway) that had some good coral out front where we snorkeled a little. The next stop was actually right next to the beach and it was a little bit crazy what we did.  There is this freshwater lake right behind the rocks that we swam in along with jellyfish.  Yes, the lake is full of jellyfish, but none of us did get stung. This particular jellyfish doesn’t sting and is obviously very unique.  The next stop was a village on an island about an hour’s boat ride away. Some of the village was built on stilts literally right above the water. To connect this village to actual land there is this very long boardwalk type path. We walked along that to the next village which is on actual land. That day they were laying out coconut pieces to dry and probably sell and eat. Plus you could see that here they do build the boats just like the one we were on for this little trip.  After this we started headed back but then made a right out into the middle of the ocean.  Out here there is this random platform and it is known as Hotel California. It is literally a platform with a roof in the middle of the ocean.  Here we ate lunch and then did some snorkeling along the reef right there. This reef is the main draw to come out to this platform because it has some very nice life on it. Here is where I did see the black tip reef shark, some squid, and many more coral fish. After visiting the reef for some time we headed back to Kadiri and saw one of the better sunsets on the whole trip. 

About six nights later, eight dives later, many meals later it was time to leave the Togean Islands and venture somewhere new. First to get off the islands I took a ferry that left around 5:00p.m. arriving into the town to the north around 4:00 a.m. so getting a little sleep on the ferry.  Once getting into this city I needed to use the internet to see what options I had for plane tickets. Luckily some people I met were going to be staying in this city for one day so I went with them to their hotel in order to use the Wi-Fi. I left that city around 11:30 a.m. heading south and eventually (after a layover) landed in Bali around 8:30 p.m.  I had originally wanted to go to Flores which is the island directly to the East of Bali but no connections that day to make it that far.  At this point I had two options: to stay in Bali and be able to dive at least two days or fly the next morning to Flores and be able to dive only one day (this is because of not being able to fly directly after diving, and my plane heading back to China was a few days later). Even with the great stories of the life around Flores I took the gamble and stayed in Bali for the chance of two days of diving. 

My gamble did pay off and in fact the diving down in Bali (even with only two days) I saw more life, and more unique life than up in the Togean Islands.  I ended up doing five different dives and saw some great things such as: lion fish, nudibranch, mantis shrimp, seahorse, small porcelain crabs, trigger-fish, eels, scorpion-fish (great at camouflage), parrot fish, two turtles (one swam right over my head), octopus, anemone fish (aka clown fish), puffer-fish, stingray,  schools of reef fish, etc.  The amount of life and abundance of good coral was amazing.  I didn’t see any damage from fishing. Even with that list of well-known/ bigger fish creatures everyone might recognize there is one thing I left off. I have been wanting to see and dive with this for a long time and I was able to. The dive site is known as Manta Point. After the hour boat ride out and some choppy water we jump in and our objective is to hopefully see some manta rays. They are known to be at this spot because it is a cleaning station for them.  This rock which is only at about 5 meters (10 feet deep) the mantas will swim over the top and other cleaning fish will clean them. This happens all over the oceans and is especially common on the bigger animals such as manta rays.  We drop in and swim up to the rock but of course don’t want to go on top of the rock but instead just hover there waiting.  There were some manta rays that day and it was awesome to see. After seeing one my dive master tells me and my buddy to go to the back of the rock because there were so many other divers there.  With going to the back the mantas swam right by me I could have reached out and touched them, that is how close they came.  In total at one time there were about four different mantas. They are big, giant gentle creatures that ironically have the nickname of devil fish.  I am pretty sure this is simply because of their looks and some say they have horns.  It is a nickname that old sailors gave to the manta rays and in fact they are beautiful majestic creatures.

Even with the amazing sea life, warm weather, and relaxing atmosphere my vacation did have to come to an end.  With Indonesia being so big and having different things on the different islands I would love to get back down there and see some more. Before completely leaving I did have about six hours in Jakarta which a lot of that time was spent in traffic. Luckily the taxi driver told me about a train to get back out to my hotel which was by the airport so I did take a couple commuter trains. In Jakarta I simply walked around an area that has a big Dutch influence.  I am pretty sure they were one of the first colonizers on Indonesia.  Then I also went to a mosque (the biggest one in Southeast Asia) and cathedral which they happened to be right across the street from each other.  I know there is more to see and do in Jakarta but I wanted to spend as much time in and around the water and so that is what I did. 

I have been back in Harbin for about three weeks now.  It still is freezing weather up here and at first seemed colder because I was vacationing on the equator and in a warm environment. Of course I have readjusted and we are starting to see glimpses of spring weather. I was extra busy with work the first week back because it is called make-up week, which means a lot longer week with more classes. I have noticed I haven’t really described the working environment I have up here in Harbin. That will be the next post and it won’t take a month or longer before I write that one. I know I have been slacking but there was just too much to see and do during winter in the “Ice City.”  For now below are some pictures from Indonesia including some of the underwater creatures I did see.  I will write later.   


Trigger-fish, can be really aggressive 





local boat we used during the day trip 





I forget exactly what these are so if someone knows let me know


loading up the ferry






nudibranch 

It is not a leaf






Can you find the eel? 

Scorpion-fish with good contrast to actually see it







06 February 2016

Northern China Winter

People are probably thinking that I turned into a bear and went into a winter hibernation. Up where I live in northern China it definitely has been cold enough to do that.  That isn’t the case but instead I have been out seeing what makes Harbin the spot that people from all over want to come visit during the cold winter.
 
Before sharing what I have seen I want to talk about how cold it actually did get. It is the coldest weather I have ever been in before. The coldest it did drop down to was right around -40.  -40 is where Celsius and Fahrenheit meet on the negative side so that was pretty damn cold. That was during a cold snap that went through a lot of northern China and it was only around there for about three days.   On average it was warmer than that and actually pretty manageable if you wear the right clothes. Two pants, about three shirts, a double jacket, good gloves, a scarf, something to protect your head, and good socks.  Most importantly is a good pair of shoes/ boots. All around Harbin there is ice and so not slipping and falling comes with good shoes and being aware.  It has yet to get above freezing since probably November with the temperature today being around -8/-17 Celsius (18/1 Fahrenheit).  Temperature is relative because yesterday the temperature is around the same as today and I thought it was nice and didn’t need double pants, a scarf and I did wear less.

Harbin is known as an ice city and that is true because of all the ice just randomly over the place but also for the carving and ice sculptures.  These sculptures are placed all over town mainly in the form of buildings and arches.  The ice they used for this came from the river that does run through the town and they are big blocks of ice. Technically the ice blocks could tower over me but they did like to cut them into more manageable block sizes.
 
With so much ice there is a festival known as Harbin International Ice Festival. Since it is in my backyard I did make it there last week and it is pretty impressive. The pictures I will post don’t do justice with how neat it is in person. You are walking up to the entrance and you can see the sculptures towering over the wall. This is simply an area where almost everything is ice and snow sculptures.  Plus at night (when I went) there are lights inside the ice to add more effect to the whole thing. The big sculptures were modeled after different buildings from around the world.  Also it is an international competition so there were some that were walled off with blocks of ice but you can see over the wall and they have very fine details.

Besides the festival on the river itself there are things going on there as well.  This is at the end of the famous walking street (zhongyang da jie) that has a lot of Russian architecture. At the end of this street there is a big monument that is known as the flood control monument.  Right here is where a lot of more activities on the river itself happen. You can ice skate, rent snowmobiles, go horseback riding, sled riding, etc.

This winter was pretty fun and neat to live in a cold environment.  In a couple days it will be a new year.  Spring Festival starts also known as the Chinese New Year. I have already started hearing the fireworks these last couple of nights.  I actually will be on a plane in less than twelve hours headed out of China. My destination involves secluded islands and beautiful marine life to explore.  I am a scuba diver and I have been out of the water for far too long.  End of February I will share this adventure but for now try not to get cold from looking at the winter pictures from northern China.  I will write later. 




The cold won't stop a good game of ping pong

No leaves but does get the job done
Walking on the river. . . not a busy day. 
Before people walking on the river

                                   



Guard Duty






putting some finishing touches on the sculpture 




Installing the lights









The winner for this years competition 

The lights. . . 

. . . are constantly. . .

. . . changing color! 


Back in November with one of the few snow days.  Overall a dry but icy winter.