Week One in China...

(the International School where I am student teaching)

My first week in China has flown by. Monday was my first day at school, and I met my nine 2nd and 3rd grade students. Since it is an international school, the students that attend the school come from a wide range of countries, backgrounds, and cultures. The majority of the students are Korean, but there are many different nationalities present in the classrooms. My days begin with a 5 minute walk along the Yellow Sea to the bus. After a twenty minute busride, I arrive at the school around 7:10 am. Then, the school day begins. I am fortunate to have teaching assistants who will continue to help in the classroom throughout my time here. It is very helpful to have them since my class is a combination of second and third grade students at different levels and requiring different instruction according to their grade level and language level. All of my students are able to interact verbally in English, but are still learning vocabulary and struggle with reading comprehension and writing. My school day ends at 3:00, and then I catch a bus back to my apartment sometime after that.

The other staff at the school have been very welcoming, and we have had many opportunities to eat at various restaurants. This past week I ate at Korean, Turkish, Chinese, and Mexican restaurants. Qingdao has a wide variety of international restaurants and foods to choose from.

On Tuesday night we ate at a Korean Barbecue restaurant. The meat was cooked right in the middle of table. We also had bebimbop which has rice, and vegetables, eggs, and spicy sauce (see picture below). The egg is put into the bowl uncooked, but the bowl is so hot that as you mix the ingredients together the egg cooks right in the bowl. It is very cultural in China to order the food as a group rather than individually as we do in the States. You get to try more food this way, as you just use your chopsticks to try whatever is on the table.

Today we went to the market to get our vegetables and fruit. Although, we could buy this kind of produce in other stores, the market tends to be less expensive. In addition, as you develop guanxi (gwanshee) with a person at the market, the prices are not as expensive as at other places. Guanxi is developed as two people begin to develop a friendship or any kind of personal connection. Building guanxi with the Chinese people is an important concept. If you don't have guanxi with someone, they don't feel that they owe you any special favors. However, the opposite can be true if you do develop guanxi with a person. For example, my roommate always goes to the same people to buy her vegetables and fruit. As these people continue to recognize her, she is able to slowly build guanxi with them.

All of the fruit and vegetables in the picture below cost us about $9.00.