Flea Circus

Came back from Dragon Boat Festival to find out that the teacher who had been here for only three months had gone.  Three weeks of G covering the lessons until the new replacements arrived on the 20th. As part of their training, they have to observe several classes.  The have only observed one of my classes. It is a class of 15 kids ranging in age between eight to eleven, who after being in school all day, have finally snapped.

I introduced the new teachers and encouraged the students to ask them questions. They asked the normal “How old are you?” “Where are you from?”  and they laughed at Minnesota, thinking it was “little soda.” During the questioning, one student randomly started meowing, followed by another cat, and a monkey. Joseph, the smartass of the class, asked in a high pitched, baby voice “Do you speak English” followed by a maniacal laugh. Completely ridiculous, especially paired with the looks on the new teachers’ faces.

At the end of the training week, one of the new teachers had to teach while I observed. It is a class of eight, six to nine year olds; a challenging class with moody twins and a hyper active six year old. The new teacher messed up and started to panic slightly. The six year old, feeling the rise in tension, stood up in his chair and started singing at the top of his lungs. Each class he takes the opportunity to stretch out his diaphragm, but this was particularly loud. The new teacher stood in shock as seven children ran to subdue the six year old, and the six year old started backhanding the students as he sang his finale. Stacy and I sat back in amusement.

One of my classes includes the aforementioned hula dancing kid, who has since developed a multi-personality disorder. When he takes off his glasses, he is no longer Angus, but his twin brother, Ongus.  The barking kid has calmed down a bit, but he still pants. That class also has a loud child who claims he likes to eat babies… I am a bit worried.  

The “gay” class is still at it, but is now including heterosexual relationships after they claimed I was gay and I said “No, I like boys.” and then had to hastily explain that I meant boys over the age of twenty. One boy offered to hook me up with his eighteen year old cousin and a girl offered to set me up with her dad. I should mention this is the class that draws pictures of me surrounded by ghosts, or me throwing grenades at students.

I will be curious to know how the new teachers handle these classes. I hope they don’t try to stifle their creativity and weirdness. These kids are the only redeeming feature of Hemei, let alone the school.

In other news, summer is here. Temperatures are between 31-43 degrees Celsius. The air conditioners only seem to be able to get the rooms down to 28 degrees. Despite the heat, we’re still walking around Taichung and Hemei. This heat is just plain useless without water to swim in.