I had Thanksgiving!
So after days of complaining about not getting to eat Thanksgiving food, the other teachers and I came up with the bright idea of actually making some ourselves. No turkey could be found, so someone made a pork roast. We also had fruit and vegetable salad, mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, I made vegetarian stuffing, and one of the Aussie teachers made pavlova. My stuffing turned out well, which I was happy about since I've never actually made it before. Oh maaaan, it was all so good. I hadn't had much real western food since coming here.
But now I'm back to teaching this week. The kids were exceedingly hard to deal with today, and I don't know why for sure. I walked in and I could just tell they were going to be bad by the way they looked at me.
Yesterday, the strange/awkward situation that I depend on everyday for a good laugh was especially funny, so I thought I'd share it. I went to buy some milk tea from a store in an underground shopping mall. The woman at the counter was explaining the price to me, so she held up three fingers and then proceeded to turn her hand around and present a lone, long, acrylic nail-topped middle finger right to my face. The idea that there was a cultural difference and that she didn't understand what that meant to a Westerner was a secondary thought. Reflexively, I made a horrified face and just stared at her, shocked, until I finally realized the misunderstanding.
Now, after having a decent lunch of dumplings and little baskets (小笼包, a kind of dumpling filled with meat and a bit of hot soup traditionally made from crab eggs) at the semi-fastfood restaurant across the street, I'm going to go out shopping for some more warm clothes since it's starting to get cold.
MJM
But now I'm back to teaching this week. The kids were exceedingly hard to deal with today, and I don't know why for sure. I walked in and I could just tell they were going to be bad by the way they looked at me.
Yesterday, the strange/awkward situation that I depend on everyday for a good laugh was especially funny, so I thought I'd share it. I went to buy some milk tea from a store in an underground shopping mall. The woman at the counter was explaining the price to me, so she held up three fingers and then proceeded to turn her hand around and present a lone, long, acrylic nail-topped middle finger right to my face. The idea that there was a cultural difference and that she didn't understand what that meant to a Westerner was a secondary thought. Reflexively, I made a horrified face and just stared at her, shocked, until I finally realized the misunderstanding.
Now, after having a decent lunch of dumplings and little baskets (小笼包, a kind of dumpling filled with meat and a bit of hot soup traditionally made from crab eggs) at the semi-fastfood restaurant across the street, I'm going to go out shopping for some more warm clothes since it's starting to get cold.
MJM