In true Chinese fashion, both parties were blissfully disorganized. When I arrived at the third year’s classroom for the first party, they were still blowing up balloons. Another western teacher and I pitched in to help as we only had an hour to spend at the soirée before our robot competition. The students invited myself and a fellow teacher to sing a song. I mistakenly told my students that I participated in plays and musicals in high school- so now many of them have decided that I must be the next Mariah Carey and they are constantly trying to coax me to sing. I smartly decided against belting out “Let It Snow” and decided to teach them the Hokey Pokey instead, which involved me moving my vocal cords in a less ostentatious manner. The kids arranged for my white-haired colleague to don a Santa suit and shower the younger classes with treats. Us teachers were given Santa hats with lights embedded in them that kept dangerously shorting out. As we popped our heads in from class to class, I kept my hand in my warm pocket (no central heating in southern china) and one hand ready, just in case I needed to rip off my hat if it suddenly sparked.
The party was still in full swing when my co-worker and I left to play with our Christmas present from the robotics club. It wasn’t until the next day that I saw the present that the third year students had left on my desk: a bear-themed desk calendar with a card attached. The card contained many warm praises for my teaching from various students and a somewhat inappropriate yet heartfelt sentiment that I could, “marry early and start a family soon.”
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At the robot competition/party, we spent about 2 hours fiddling with batteries and parts and about 10 minutes actually playing with robots. The kids worked really hard and apologized for the malfunctions but I assured them that we had such a great time that it didn’t matter if a few of the robots kept breaking.
The evening concluded with a Christmas staff dinner at a restaurant near the school where I had my first experience with work functions and the Chinese drinking culture earlier this year. We left earlier than we had at our last function as we still had a full schedule of school-sanctioned Christmas activities the next day.
Christmas round one, check.
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