Day 9 – Monday
Back at school with the usual Chinese
lesson in the morning, but then we returned to the hotel so the students could
work on the project. Our students didn’t
need us much (me- not at all) and so Nancy and I did quite a bit of window
shopping.
The students are doing amazing things with
the project. I think our Chinese hosts
will be blown away by what their building could be transformed into.
Day 10- Tuesday
I woke up with a nasty tummy bug and slept
until 2:30 pm. Felt better then so
ventured out into the square. Fascinated
once again by the sense of community. My
wander took me past a very serious ballroom dancing lesson, several other
dancing groups, singers of every variety, each with a microphone, mums and
grandparents with toddlers feeding goldfish, more toddlers ‘driving’ large
remote controlled cars, people playing table tennis – it’s all a fantastic
sense of community.
I walked down one street that sold only
things for pets. Every trader had dozens
of dog coats for sale. The variety is amazing. Some have frills others lace, teddy bears –
the choice is endless. I was tempted to
get one for our little Molly but couldn’t see her happily stepping into a coat
with trousers!
Again everywhere I walked, people stopped
to look at me. It is as though word has
got around that there is a group of foreigners in town and today several people
asked me to take their photo.
Days 10 – 12
More of the above during the day. On Wednesday night we were hosted by SCAT to
yet another of the now very tiresome banquets.
This time there were seventeen around the table, all people from either
China or Melbourne who are directly involved with the NMIT-SCAT program. Again there were the many toasts, with the
customs relating to toasting obviously being a very important part of Chinese
life.
One of the people at the dinner was a man
named Clive who is teaching English at SCAT to students who will be studying
Building Construction with NMIT next year.
He invited me to join his class this morning. It was a most interesting experience, with
him talking to his students in English about as fast as our Chinese teacher
talks to us in our class each morning.
It brings to my mind, the possibility that I could teaching English in
the NMIT off-shore program, but I think I will not put myself through any more
teacher training,
Tonight we have had a great deal of fun
with farewell activities. This time, all the students, both Australian and
Chinese joined together for a large dinner which was much more fun than the formal
staff dinners.
After dinner, we all loaded into tuk tuks
and headed to the river bank with three large boxes of fireworks which one of
our teachers, Rob, had organized with the aid of Logan, one of the Chinese
students. What a wonderful fireworks display
we had! Of course, the Australian
students had only witnessed fireworks from afar before: now they have
experienced the same fun that I had as a child.
Riding in a tuk tuk needs description. They weave themselves in and around all the
other traffic – the cars, the bikes, the pedestrians. With the bell jangling a warning several
times a minute, they travel sometimes on the road, sometimes on the
footpath. On the major roads they have
their own lane, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they keep to it. Going through an intersection with traffic
lights has the heart in the mouth as the driver skillfully dodges and weaves
this way and that until he has successfully crossed to the other side. Quite amazingly, I feel quite safe in the tuk
tuks and have now taken a ride in one about seven times. Each time, it has cost no more than $1 AUD.
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