Off to Beijing

Tomorrow, at around 5:30am, we'll leave for Pudong airport and fly to Beijing, where we'll brave the Wall in sub zero temperatures. I'll try to write again before Christmas.

Today in classes we had our Christmas parties. Last night, cole and I hiked over to People's Square (and by hiked I mean took a cab), where the only Dunkin Donuts in China is. Together, we cleaned them out. All the glazed, All the chocolate frosted. Eight dozen in total, about 480 rmb. The strange thing is that everything in the Dunkin Donuts is taken very seriously. Every donut is counted, each has a separate code to enter into the register, and every one is carefully wrapped and placed into a container. The whole process took us almost an hour, even though we called ahead and pre-ordered all of them.

Our kids appreciated the donuts, and for the entire morning they were bouncing around because of all the candy and donuts (later on that day, around 1:00pm, they had all completely crashed and were napping during my showing of Home Alone 2).

During class, I also found out that I'm losing one of my kids, Ellen. "I'm transferring to a school in America to be an exchange student," she wrote in her journal (I have them keep English journals).
"Really?" I asked her, "You're leaving after the semester?"
She nodded.
"Where?"
She thought about it for awhile, and mummered to herself. Finally she said, "I-da-ho? Boise?"
"Idaho???"
Really? Why there of all places? I looked at Ellen and saw a stylish (the epitome of Asian hipster), opinionated, and tough Korean girl (the Korean boys don't mess with her, because even though she's not that big, she hits hard, I've witnessed it). Would she fit in there?
Ellen then asked me if I liked Idaho.
"Um...I've never been there. I don't know. I'm not sure what's in Idaho."
"Smaller than Shanghai?" she asked.
"Yes, definitely smaller than Shanghai."

I still can't figure out if this will be good for her. Although Ellen is one of my better students, she doesn't speak enough English to have a real conversation with anyone, and I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong) that there are many Korean people in Idaho. How is she going to get by?

Then again, here in Shanghai, Ellen lives by herself in an apartment. Her brother is in college and her parents live in South Korea. She sees them on some weekends, and on a few holidays, but other than that, her parents just give her money and she fends for herself.

From talking to other teachers, I discovered that this isn't uncommon at all here. A good number of our kids live in the city either by themselves, with an older brother or sister, or with other students. At least Ellen is used to living as a stranger in a new country. Maybe she'll learn a lot from living in the States, but then again, maybe she'll also be bored senseless, have to deal with racism, and afterwards will never want to go to the USA again.
Ah well, I don't know. I'm going to give her my email address and tell her that she can email me about anything while she's over there; questions, translations, whatever.

That's about it for now. This past week I also made my first history exam, and I might have made the multiple choice questions way too tricky, especially considering that my history class's test averages run around 65. We'll see what happens.

Time for bed.