seekingmygreaterperhaps

The past two days have been filled with talking to teachers and learning more about the Chinese education system. A group of 5 of us helping professionals are teaching helping skills and conflict resolution to teachers at Beijing Royal School, and the seminar has been going really well! I feel as though as I actually know things and the teachers value my opinion. They sometimes take notes when I say things. That’s honestly a pretty cool feeling. My education is providing me with some incredible knowledge, it’s not that I needed to travel to China to realize this, but it’s neat that the point is being driven home.

It’s a little blurry, but this is the ceiling of the man entry way at the school.

At the end of my stay here I will post about the various cultural differences between the Chinese education system and the American one… that I have observed first hand. Since it is me, I’m not saying it’s fact, but it will just be what I noticed. So stay tuned for that juicy piece of writing coming soon 😉

As for non-school related news, I haven’t done much. We aren’t staying in a great part of town, or there is really nothing but other apartment buildings and this private school in the area, so there has not been much exploring. I believe that comes later. There is like work to do or something because I have to earn credit for like my degree. Psh.

Every morning in the plaza in front of the apartment building I’m staying in there is a group of elderly women who break out some music and do tai-chi. This evening we saw the same group do the same thing, but with dubstep-ish music and sped up. It was like ultra-tai chi for the champions. It looks like a pretty fun time, and I want to learn the moves and surprise them my last day… but don’t hold your breathe. They are intense and very intimidating.

This afternoon I got to witness the elementary school across the street do their physical education class. They all stand in military formation and do exercises together. It’s pretty cute as well as very organized. They all wear green jumpsuits, which rounds out the effect nicely.

Tonight was an epic adventure to the corner market. Why you ask? Well there is a light up octopus ride meant for children right outside. I obviously wanted to go on it, so I did. It was magical and my new friends supported me in the process. The, uh, downside was this this ride is not actually made for adult people, and when I sat on it it stopped moving. No, you can put your jokes away, I didn’t break it. As soon as I got off it moved again happily. It was really cute though, it had a little story that moved along with the ride, and it lasted about 2 minutes- that’s much longer than the penny horse at Meijer. It sang a lovely song in Chinese and had a weird chant in the middle before breaking back into song. That mixed with the ice cream I had previously made it the highlight of the evening.

Tomorrow we head to the Royal Gardens, and I’m pretty excited to finish up the counseling seminar as well.

Thanks for checking me out! Now look at this Ramen Noodle chef that was in the cafeteria… making Ramen noodles by hand. They are much better than the ones you can get for $0.35.