Post by kk on Jul 26, 2013 19:42:44 GMT -5
Way too many pictures at hand, so lets make that 2 or 3 posts over the next few days. Lets start today with the reason why I went to China in the first place.
The school on yet another rainy day. 12 days there and we got 12 days of rain. There is nothing I like less than wet shoes. At one time I had 4 pairs up for drying.
Sometimes we got a break for a few hours, but that was about it. Here a couple of shots close to the school showing new and old being still very close together.
Our principal. Fantastic lady, friendly, open-minded and extremely progressive for this place. As long as the kids smiled, so was she. The kids adore her.
Our Students
Our team. I look like grandpa next to those overgrown teenagers. But as it turns out, I learned a lot from them. They might be half my age, but they are a wonderful team to work with.
Another shot of the 3 of us. Those two are the perfect instant entertainers. I was completely astonished with some of their instant impromptu performances. Completely unrehearsed yet seemingly of one mind. Don't be fooled, both have the ability to stop any nonsense in an instant. I was just the third wheel in this group, yet fun to be around them knowing that one can fully trust that they would not go overboard. In other words, with them, you get all the fun, yet the quality remains high. I love that, because I know its a very hard thing to find these days.
My wonderful class with our team-flag. The two ladies to the left are former students here, who volunteered to help us foreigners out whenever we could not do something ourselves.
Kids create the team-flag. Boys had neither a chance nor the talent to come up with something not cute and female.
After they did a very good job on the flag, I agreed trying to create a team-mascot, while they worked on their own spirit-masks. Old newspapers, white glue and Tissue-paper.
Our main theme for the program was Canada, but we had opportunity to stray into lots of other things. So my class decided on recycling, for our art project. My class choose making a tree out of waste-materials.
An old net-stand, old newspapers a few bamboo-sticks and we where on our way.
Half way there with branches added.
Some white glue and tissue-paper, plus a little spray of colors and the basics are there.
Show-time. Add a few trimmed branches. Let everyone make some leaves (our theme for the summer is Canada, so they made maple leaves), and put on a local twist of "Wishing tree", and you get everyone happily writing their wishes to add to the tree.
Drama: The hardest thing in drama for any student or adult for that matter. Practicing basic emotions. Practicing saying, I hate you and I love you always seems to be a fun activity. One lady (far left) was so concerned about telling "I hate you" to my face, that she nearly cried and asking me repeatedly for assurances that I would not be mad at her for doing so.
After sitting down for lunch before the final performances, the subject came up as to how difficult it is for those kids to make a fool of themselves on stage in front of their friends. So we decided, we had that lunch-hour to get everything together, to show them just how crazy things can get on stage and yet are still acceptable "on stage". While we where rushing off to get fitted out according to out team-mascots, we came up with a simple storyline. 50 minutes later
Showtime
Story is simple: "Sunny Bear" (the fat one) takes a walk, "Angry Eagle" harasses and eventually kidnaps her. "Power bear" steps in, fights the Eagle and rescues the Damsel.
So in the end its kisses for the hero. After several attempts, the hero gives up carrying the damsel away, and so the damsel carries him into the sunset.
So the only thing left is taking a bow and hope we did not overstep using the two flags. Apparently, having the hero wearing the Chinese flag was a good decision as we did not get any complaints. roar29
Now the only other thing that was already in the planing beforehand, was retaliation toward Mr. Know it all. This boy is bright, but soooooo full of himself that I decided to teach him a lesson during "His"performance. After we had no problem with our own performance, I thought I still had something left to step up the game and gave them the worst drag-queen they will ever see. He certainly did not see that one coming. roar29 eyes12 toilet21
The kids had a riot, and as we got assurances at our departure that we would be welcome back next year, it looks like, everything worked out well.
Enough for today, In the next few days, will put up a post on the Jade-market I visited on the day off.
The school on yet another rainy day. 12 days there and we got 12 days of rain. There is nothing I like less than wet shoes. At one time I had 4 pairs up for drying.
Sometimes we got a break for a few hours, but that was about it. Here a couple of shots close to the school showing new and old being still very close together.
Our principal. Fantastic lady, friendly, open-minded and extremely progressive for this place. As long as the kids smiled, so was she. The kids adore her.
Our Students
Our team. I look like grandpa next to those overgrown teenagers. But as it turns out, I learned a lot from them. They might be half my age, but they are a wonderful team to work with.
Another shot of the 3 of us. Those two are the perfect instant entertainers. I was completely astonished with some of their instant impromptu performances. Completely unrehearsed yet seemingly of one mind. Don't be fooled, both have the ability to stop any nonsense in an instant. I was just the third wheel in this group, yet fun to be around them knowing that one can fully trust that they would not go overboard. In other words, with them, you get all the fun, yet the quality remains high. I love that, because I know its a very hard thing to find these days.
My wonderful class with our team-flag. The two ladies to the left are former students here, who volunteered to help us foreigners out whenever we could not do something ourselves.
Kids create the team-flag. Boys had neither a chance nor the talent to come up with something not cute and female.
After they did a very good job on the flag, I agreed trying to create a team-mascot, while they worked on their own spirit-masks. Old newspapers, white glue and Tissue-paper.
Our main theme for the program was Canada, but we had opportunity to stray into lots of other things. So my class decided on recycling, for our art project. My class choose making a tree out of waste-materials.
An old net-stand, old newspapers a few bamboo-sticks and we where on our way.
Half way there with branches added.
Some white glue and tissue-paper, plus a little spray of colors and the basics are there.
Show-time. Add a few trimmed branches. Let everyone make some leaves (our theme for the summer is Canada, so they made maple leaves), and put on a local twist of "Wishing tree", and you get everyone happily writing their wishes to add to the tree.
Drama: The hardest thing in drama for any student or adult for that matter. Practicing basic emotions. Practicing saying, I hate you and I love you always seems to be a fun activity. One lady (far left) was so concerned about telling "I hate you" to my face, that she nearly cried and asking me repeatedly for assurances that I would not be mad at her for doing so.
After sitting down for lunch before the final performances, the subject came up as to how difficult it is for those kids to make a fool of themselves on stage in front of their friends. So we decided, we had that lunch-hour to get everything together, to show them just how crazy things can get on stage and yet are still acceptable "on stage". While we where rushing off to get fitted out according to out team-mascots, we came up with a simple storyline. 50 minutes later
Showtime
Story is simple: "Sunny Bear" (the fat one) takes a walk, "Angry Eagle" harasses and eventually kidnaps her. "Power bear" steps in, fights the Eagle and rescues the Damsel.
So in the end its kisses for the hero. After several attempts, the hero gives up carrying the damsel away, and so the damsel carries him into the sunset.
So the only thing left is taking a bow and hope we did not overstep using the two flags. Apparently, having the hero wearing the Chinese flag was a good decision as we did not get any complaints. roar29
Now the only other thing that was already in the planing beforehand, was retaliation toward Mr. Know it all. This boy is bright, but soooooo full of himself that I decided to teach him a lesson during "His"performance. After we had no problem with our own performance, I thought I still had something left to step up the game and gave them the worst drag-queen they will ever see. He certainly did not see that one coming. roar29 eyes12 toilet21
The kids had a riot, and as we got assurances at our departure that we would be welcome back next year, it looks like, everything worked out well.
Enough for today, In the next few days, will put up a post on the Jade-market I visited on the day off.