Yesterday's Stories

For some reason, yesterday was full of hilarious stories. It all started off with my lesson plan - this week we are working on expressing opinions. Most of the students have done a good job with this. After a warm-up and an introduction to the lesson, I usually get them to write a few sentences that are opinions, and I walk around the room and help them as I go. I got about halfway around the room when I stopped and read this one girl's practice opinion. It read:

"I wish that China could be the master of the world."

Chairman Mao would be proud indeed!

Another opinion was that:

"I believe that China will beat the U.S.A. in basketball."

I tried to joke around with the students and say, "No, no. I don't want China to win." They just stared back at me, so finally I added, "But maybe America will lose. After all - you have Yao Ming." By the way, they worship Yao Ming here. They also expect me to know all their other Olympic athletes' names. I don't know how to tell them that I don't even know America's Olympic athletes' names, let alone China's.

Another funny thing that happened was the English Corner, which is sort of like a club for kids that really like learning English. The kids that come are always really fun, and we do it twice a week. It's actually sort of nice, but it's hard to come up with something a large group can do for an hour. Anyway, last night we did music videos, and the artist that THEY picked was Michael Jackson (who, by the way, is incredibly popular here. I am convinced that most 3rd world countries are operating about 20 years behind the U.S.A., and this is evidence.) Anyway, I've never seen someone be scared of the Thriller music video (especially when it is played on a sunny afternoon), but the girls kept screaming and gasping. I'm not sure they have anything like the horror genre of films here. After that we watched Billie Jean and Beat It.

The best part, though, was that I ran out of things to do, so I panicked and started telling them about Michael Jackson singing with the Jackson 5. One of the students (whose English name is Longer, by the way, and his best friend's name is Shorter), cut me off and said that he knew the story. He starts telling a story about how Michael Jackson's dad wouldn't let him learn how to play the piano, so one night, when he was three, he snuck into his sister's room and started playing. . . Sound familiar to anyone? Well, I thought to myself, that sounds like Mozart, but since I don't know anything about Michael Jackson, I'll let him keep going. Then another student, whose English name is Little Stone (and whose big brother's name is Big Stone), cut Longer off and said, "That's Mozart."

So what do I do? I say, "Yeah, but I'm pretty sure it happened to Michael Jackson too."

Ok, I had no idea what to say, but I had to do something. After that I told them it was time to go, because I didn't want to get myself into any more trouble.

After English Corner we went to try a "McDonald's- style" restaurant. We had to point to the value meal we wanted, which actually worked out rather well, until we got our food: Hamburger, fries, chicken nuggets. All pretty good, or at least decent. And then, to drink: Hot milk. Interesting combination. Fortunately I found peanut-butter / chocolate oreos in the supermarket and ate a whole pack (not a U.S. size pack, just so you know - only like 10 cookies) to compensate.

Ok, time to wrap this up. I promise I will tell some of the stuff about the flight next time.