Ocean of Morality
  • Blog
  • Family
  • Relatives
  • Countries
  • Gallery
  • Guestbook

"Cinderella, you SHALL go to the Paul..."

4/11/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Picture
"Cinderella" was one of the most outgoing and talented students I met during my year doing teacher training for VSO in YiLiang, Yunnan.
Picture
We have kept in touch over the 15 years since then. I even visited her once during a typhoon when she was studying at Hainan University! ​

​
Cinderella is now married, a mother and a teacher in her own right at the school where I first met her as a student. Recently she asked me to give an online talk and Q&A to her senior school students. The first two attempts were thwarted by power cuts in her school but we finally managed to connect last week and I was faced with a large class of expectant and excited students, full of questions for "the foreigner"!

0 Comments

A quarter century ago

16/7/2020

2 Comments

 
Picture
A friend recently sent me some photos taken 25 years ago when I first lived in China. At that time I was a single, somewhat slimmer VSO volunteer working in Duyun, Guizhou Province. How time flies!
Picture
2 Comments

Flashback: This day in ...2006

20/4/2020

0 Comments

 
Picture
Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started.

One of the teachers I train was telling me last week how bad her students' listening skills were. So this week, whilst observing her lesson, I decided to have a go at her weekly dictation test. Admittedly, I had not done the homework so I had no idea what words to expect, but I feel like my "listening" skills were quite good. So I was very embarrassed to score only 3/10!!
Picture
However, I suggest that it might be her pronunciation that's at fault, rather than her students' listening! See how you get on with a few examples (as I heard them):

"of late" eg "your horse may be of late".
[Actual answer: "a flat" - eg "your house may be a flat"]

"bitten" eg, "bee has bitten a sea".
[Actual answer: "between" - eg "B is between A and C"]

"glum" - eg, "these students are inner glum".
[Actual answer: "column" - eg "these students are in a column"]

"bulgy" eg, "Mrs Wang is a bulgy teacher"!
[Actual answer: "biology" - eg "Mrs Wang is a biology teacher"]

                                                 
….so, how well would you have done??
0 Comments

Many daizzy go

26/3/2020

1 Comment

 
Picture
A blast from the past last week when one of my ex-students, "Daizzy", sent me a photo of us when I was running a teacher training course in her town, back in 2006. Daizzy is now an English  teacher herself and married with two kids!
1 Comment

Flashback: This day in ...2006

19/9/2013

 
Picture
Another in my occasional series of "Flashbacks" looking back at blog entries made before this Weebly version started.


The final destination on my tour of remote countryside schools was LongJie (Dragon Street) Middle School. It’s very poor. The photo shows a typical dormitory - 12 students living in a room the size of my kitchen. As usual, the day started with 2-3 hours in the car, then observing 2 lessons and giving feedback. After lunch, I did 2 model lessons and an hour’s training. Then supper and 2-3 hours onward journey.

Picture
The observed lessons today couldn’t have been more different. The first was a new teacher, with the English name “Shrimp” (!?). She was teaching a Grade 1 class - students who had been learning English for just a week. Shrimp’s English is excellent and she kept it simple and clear. The students eagerly volunteered to come to the front to recite simple greeting dialogues and copied down new letters of the alphabet into their notebooks. The second lesson was from a more experienced teacher called “Ryan”. 90% of it was conducted in Chinese, and it involved the teacher, and later the students, drawing various things on the board and on paper. I was trying to work out the point of it all (with my limited Chinese) right until the bell finally rang and the lesson was over. The other teachers observing the class with me also left very confused. One asked me, “Was that an Art lesson or an English lesson?”. I managed to catch Ryan alone later, but when I asked him about the lesson he suddenly started crying! Once composed, he told me he had planned a lesson from the textbook, but changed his mind at the last minute and decided to try an idea he had read in a newspaper!? The other English teachers had apparently criticised him after the lesson and he now wanted to apologise to me! I ditched my planned feedback about “Teaching Aims” and “Lesson Plans” and tried to encourage him instead. I commended his willingness to try new teaching ideas(!), his bravery in letting others watch the experiment(!!) and assured him that for every failed idea there’s a successful one (right??). 

My own self-esteem took a battering between afternoon lessons. I had a bit of a wobbly tummy and had to rush to the school toilet. Staff and students share the same block - a series of holes in the ground with no partitions, let alone cubicles! Now, the sight of a foreigner in your school is enough for stares in itself, but a squatting foreigner trying to keep his balance amidst the filth is simply too much to miss, and I managed to attract a crowd of 10-15 gawking boys as I did my business! I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me …until I remembered what lay beneath!

Long time no see, Josie!

17/9/2013

 
Picture
I'm pretty hopeless at remembering names, but I can usually spot a familiar face. No such luck last week, though, when I was approached outside my school by a young lady with a cheery, "Hello Paul. Remember me?". Slightly embarrassed I had to confess I didn't. "I'm your old friend Josie, from Guiyang", she explained. I wish I could say there was a sudden burst of memories, but it was only the name that sounded vaguely familiar. Thoughtfully, Josie had brought along some photos of me from that time and a couple of letters I had written to her, too! We've had no contact since then, so it was shock, but a lovely surprise, to meet an old friend. Unfortunately, she caught me right at the moment I was due to take my Lattitude volunteers to lunch, so I had no time right then to stop and reminisce.

Picture
However, yesterday we met for lunch and I was able to pore over her old photos and find memories of my time in Duyun, some 16 years ago, slowly creeping back! I was working for V.S.O. at that time, and Josie had just graduated from the Teachers'  College as I began my teaching placement there. I met her socially amongst other friends a dozen times. In my defence, she did look a lot different in those days! The one photo that did ring bells though was me standing in front of a Mao Zedong wardrobe [below], which I spotted in her grandma's house, I think, when I visited.

Picture
Josie is now living in Kunming, and married with a 5 year old son. She heard I live here too through a mutual friend and tracked me down to Robert's School on the internet. Unbeknown to me, she'd been waiting for me outside the school for over an hour, poor thing. I'm jolly glad she persevered though.

Away daze

14/8/2013

 
Picture
With the return of our nanny after her week's holiday, Jiajia and I decided to get away for a few days before starting work once again. A newly opened line of track now links Kunming to Mengzi - a town where I lived and worked for a year with V.S.O. back in 1996. So, we took the early train this morning for a busy but fairly pleasant four hour journey through towns, countryside and tunnels. The train terminates at a station some 14km from the actual town (the line is due to be completed by the end of the year) and is, rather bizarrely, situated atop a hill, so you have to climb down 200 steps to get to the road where buses/taxis will complete the journey for you

Picture
Mengzi itself has seen huge expansion since I lived there. A vast new development to the west has increased the size of the town fourfold. It's not a town anymore - it's a city. I used to take a horse and cart from the College where I worked to the main shopping street. Now there are flashy public buses connecting you to shopping malls and enormous government buildings. On arrival we found a great hotel; clean, quiet, friendly and only 220RMB (£22) a night, including breakfast. Ten minutes walk from the lake and the old town. We'll explore them tomorrow.
Picture

A bit of a shock

8/9/2012

 
Picture
After a busy day yesterday with the volunteers I finally got home at 10pm and did a quick online  scan of the day's news. It revealed there had been a sizeable (5.6) earthquake in Yunnan at around noon. Having felt nothing in Kunming, I shot off a quick email to Lattitude Australia to tell them they could reassure any worried parents there that all was well. It was only then that I investigated further to find out where exactly it was. And it turns out it was 13km from the town where I used to work as a volunteer with VSO, JiaoKui. The BBC video showing the afternath even shows my old Middle School [white, left  in the photo above] and students milling around in the playground. About 80 people are thought to have died so far but, after some quick texting, thankfully none of the friends I still keep in touch with there.

Plans and designs

4/8/2011

 
Picture
An ex-VSO friend of mine, Michael, kindly arranged for his daughter Ruth to show us around her fashion design studio in London today - of particular interest to Jiajia who has a background in design and would like to add her own clothes creations to the brands that she sells in  her store. It was a hive of activity, full of inspiration and ideas for Jiajia to pursue when back in Kunming. We planned to visit the British Museum afterwards but the rain and a rather punishing sightseeing schedule this week saw us heading home instead.

Ruth's tooths

3/2/2010

 
Picture
I had the great pleasure yesterday of meeting up with an old student of mine today. Ruth [centre] was one of the English teachers I used to train when I lived in JiangCheng three years ago. I almost didn't recognise her, as she has changed her glasses and was missing her two front teeth from a recent fall, poor girl! To Ruth's right is "Ian", one of her ex-students and her nephew, who was in Kunming to enter an English speaking competition (he came 18th out of over 100 entrants). To her left is her elder sister - one of seven sisters in her family (no brothers!). We had a nice meal together and reminisced about JiangCheng.

Today I was invited to lunch by Li Guo Zhi, my old boss from VSO, who is down from Beijing for a meeting. There were also some new and leaving VSO volunteers there, and I enjoyed chatting to them and sharing some local knowledge about Kunming and Yunnan. It's really nice how VSO have kept in touch, despite it being over 2 years since I left the organisation.

    paul hider

    Author

    Paul Hider lives and works in Kunming (SW China) and regularly updates this blog about his life there.

    Past blog entries

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    December 2009
    November 2009
    October 2009
    September 2009
    August 2009
    July 2009

    Tags

    All
    April Fool
    Basketball
    Birthday
    Blog
    CAL
    Car
    Cataract
    Cemetery
    China
    Chinglish
    Chippenham
    ChongQing
    Christmas
    Competition
    Construction
    Cop15
    Countryside
    COVID
    Dali
    Dancing Lady
    Dave & Esme
    Den
    Dentist
    Disaster
    DnD
    Dorta
    Druncle
    Earthquake
    Ebike
    Education
    Everton
    Exams
    Exercise
    Family
    Film
    Fishing
    Flashback
    Food
    Forest
    Fossils
    Friends
    Furniture
    Games
    Geese
    Gym
    Halloween
    Hamsters
    Health
    Heijing
    Holiday
    Home
    Homework
    IELTS
    IKEA
    Illusion
    JD
    Jiajia
    Kindergarten
    Kunming
    Language
    Laos
    Lattitude
    Leaf
    Lego
    Lexulous
    London
    Ma
    Mandarin
    Merton
    Minority
    Molly
    Mountain
    Movie
    Museum
    Nancy & Family
    Nanny
    Neighbourhood
    New Flat
    Olympics
    Painting
    Parents
    Park
    Party
    Paul & Crystal
    Pets
    Podcast
    Police
    Pregnancy
    Primary School
    Private Tuition
    Random Travel
    Relatives
    Renovation
    R.I.P.
    R.S.L.
    Running
    Schools
    Shenzhen
    Shopping
    Ski
    Sport
    Spring Festival
    Sri Lanka
    Swimming
    Temple
    TESOL
    Thailand
    Theme Park
    Traffic
    Training
    Transport
    Travel
    TV
    UFO
    UK
    University
    Vietnam
    Violence
    Visit
    VSO
    Water
    Weather
    Wedding
    Wildlife
    World Cup
    Xishuangbanna
    YUFE
    Yunnan
    Zoo
    Zoom

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.