The end of the first term has finally arrived. Friday was the last day of classes. This Monday and Tuesday, the students will write their final exams, and on Wednesday the parents will attend a meeting with the staff of the International Department.
On Friday evening, the teachers of the department, the middle school teachers, and your humble scribe attended a dinner to celebrate making it this far. The whole affair was presided over by the school's headmaster, or Principal. I'm not exactly sure of his duties, but he comes around to visit every once in a while, and he makes a well-received speech whenever there is a school assembly. His looks remind me of Chairman Mao a little bit, and his gestures sort of bring echoes of the great man.
At his right hand sat the vice-principal in charge of the middle school and the International department. She is another person that visits every once in a while, and she has some English, as well. I have been training her and the other teachers in my department to stop turning the lights off all the time. I think they are trying to save money, but as I have trouble reading in the dark, I am urging them to let them burn while I'm in the staff room. I think they might be a little embarrassed about it, especially when I whip out my flashlight to see my way down the stairs.
Besides myself, there are four teachers in the International department. Linda is the supervisor, and she teaches some English classes every once in a while. She is kind of hard to take sometimes, as she has a tendency to get over-excited and distracted at times. When ever I need something from her, I have to make sure I have her full attention before making my request, or she will brush me off with a "Yeah, yeah," and then not get it done.
There is a tendency over here, and I noticed this in Korea too, to let me know what is happening last. I am told the day before that things like a report or a lesson plan are due. They aren't too worried about what I submit, as long as it's something in English. I have a suspicion that whoever sees this material just looks at the words, doesn't understand them, but gives them an official stamp anyway.
But all of my bosses have been very nice to me, and try to make my life here as pleasant as possible. I'm grateful for their patience with me.
My three co-teachers are a great help, as well. "Annie" co-teaches History with me, "Ocean" helps out with Geography, and Mrs. Zhang does the English classes that I or Linda don't teach. Mrs. Zhang also takes care of the discipline, and she has a very sharp tongue. Every once in a while, she will bring a naughty student (usually a boy) into the staff room for a dressing down. They don't use sticks on the students like they do in Korea, but they're not above giving them a real hard pinch or a slap.
The International class only has twenty students at this time. One of them, who's English is very good, is leaving for Canada soon, to attend classes in the Upper Canada District School Board.
I am the one full-time foreign teacher at the school so far. There is an Englishman who comes in on Fridays to spend time with the other classes. His name is Adam, and I don't know that much about him, as our paths don't cross very often. My school is out in the boonies, across the river from the main part of Harbin, so I rarely see any foreigners at all. And when I do, they are usually Russian.
But I digress.
I was talking about our dinner. With the rest of the middle school teachers, we were about twenty, seated around two big round tables with lazy susans in the middle crammed full of delicious food. There were many toasts, and it was kind of like many a dinner I attended in Korea. There, the director of whatever school I was working at would usually take us out for an evening of burning meat, cup after cup of soju, and many a toast to us, them, and everyone else in between.
The difference between those meals in Korea and these in China is that the toasts themselves do seem to go on for an extraordinarily long time. My glass is raised, and raised, and raised, and I wait and wait and wait to drink, and still the speechifying goes on and on. The people I work with are very long winded when it comes to making a toast. It wouldn't be so bad, but I don't understand much of what is being said, and I will admit to being bored after a while. I was sitting at the table with the principals, and it looked like the table with the teachers were having more fun, so that is where I ended up before long. I was sitting next to the English and Math teacher, who seemed determined to get me as drunk as possible.
I let him.
Heh.
So now I'm looking forward to six weeks off. The Chinese Lunar New Year, or Spring Festival, is coming up, and I look forward to seeing a lot of things blow up real good. Harbin is famous for its Ice and Snow Festival, which started on January 5th, and goes on for weeks. There are fantastic ice and snow sculptures all over town. There are some really nice pictures on the web, if you care to look for them.
And, of course, I will be heading down south to a much warmer place. I plan on going to Sanya, on Hainan Island, which is described as "China's Hawaii." But more of that another time.
