I have a Big Big Monkey!

*Disclaimer* I forgot to take pictures this week, so you will all have to keep waiting a little more. Sorry.


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So I am sure that all of you are more than a little curious about how the subject of big monkey's got brought up out here in China. I will be getting to that in a moment, but I will tell you that it is a work related story and that the two competing titles I had for this week were "No Goodbye, No Goodbye!" and "My name is Piggy!"

In Joy English schools we have four levels of classes. K classes are the smallest children, their ages can run from 4-7 and they all speak very little English. S classes are the next highest, they cover some more difficult English but mostly the difference between S and K is that S classes are learning to read and write. Y classes are where students begins learning more complex grammar and to spell more complex things. Spelling is a big part of Y classes. R classes are the highest levels of the Joy program and they deal in complex grammar and words (well for English as a Second Language that is).

"My Name is Piggy" comes from one of my K classes. I start the class by going around and asking everyone's name so that I can start to learn the children's names (I have 49 classes which range from 3 to 18 students each and see each class only once every two weeks, the rest of the time they have a Chinese teacher). I had gotten to the end of the class and a little girl dressed in black cloth pants and a black and white polka-dot shirt looks up at me and says "My name is piggy!" It turned out that this was a joke between her and the Chinese teacher because her English name for in class was Judy and Ju is the Chinese word for pig so her teacher calls her JuJu." Our new phrases for the week were "Shrug your shoulders", "Pull your ears", "Rub my back" and "Massage my neck."
With each of these phrases we teach a motion to the children to help reinforce it, in this we use verbal, visual (flashcards), and kinesthetic (movement) instruction styles. The motion for
Rub my back) was to turn to the person to their right (class in a big horseshoe) and rub that person's back. JuJu didn't have anyone's back to rub so half way through the lesson she started rubbing the teacher's desk and laughing the whole time. With one look I knew that she knew exactly what she was doing. She had the "I'm being cute and you can't stop me" face.

My next Kiddy story comes from the budding adolescents of one of my R classes. The grammar point were were working on was: "I have a ________, so I will _______." Alternately I would ask them the questions "What do you have?" "And what will you do with it?" These students were particularly playful on the day I was teaching the lesson so I got answers ranging from "I have a ball, so I will play ball" to "I have Billy (a girl pointing at one of the boys in class) so I will eat Billly."
As the class wore on, one of the boys chimmed in with the title of the week. "What do you have?" I asked him. "I have a big, big Monkey!" he said trying not to laugh while he used his hands to show just how big his Monkey was. "And what will you do with your big big Monkey?" I asked him allowing myself to laugh. "I will have it eat Vicky(their Chinese teacher)." At this point Vicky looks up and at the class. "Hey who said that?" She asks while I pantomime cooking and pointing at her and then feeding the cooking to the Monkey. While she tried to act upset she was also trying not to laugh even while the children rolled in their seats.

This week hasn't brought me many new shocks about China in general. One new thing I learned is about married life hear in Henan (our province which is similar to our state by American standards). I was talking to Vicky who has become my Chinese big sister since I got here since she is easy to talk to, likes to have fun, speaks English very well, and is married. The fact that she is married is actually important in establishing a free friendship because if I know she is attached I don't feel awkward around her. I don't have to worry about trying to woo a married woman.
Anyway, she and I were talking today and she told me that in China a couple's finances are managed by the woman even though people work. The custom here is that both husband and wife work and then the wife gets all the money. After planning out their spending and savings she gives her husband his allowance for the month. It struck me as interesting with how strongly male-dominated the west thinks every aspect of Chinese culture is. It is true that the society is very Patriarchal, but I am beginning to suspect even more than I did back home that women have a great deal of power in non apparent ways.

For the last two days I have been celebrating my birthday in various ways. Yesterday, on my birthday here in China, the teachers got me a cake. Cakes in china are sweet bread with very fluffy frosting and bits of fruit in between the sweet breads. Really they don't hold a candle to good old fashion cakes. Following that class I had a K class which simply adored me. After class they followed me into the hall on what was suppose to be my break and crowded around me. I played with them for a few more minutes but I had a very sore throat and wanted to get some tea to calm it. After a while I looked down at their darling faces, Millie in a white dress that could have been out of a western wedding; Shirley, in her red and white striped dress; Mark in his red shirt; Frank in his blue top and shorts; and Cissy in a yellow shirt, and none of them older than 5. I told them all goodbye and their bright faces dropped and they all shouted in unison, "No goodbye! No goodbye!" This was perhaps the best birthday present I can ever remember getting because it was genuine, it was not prompted, and no one at the school teaches them to say that phrase so it means that all of them thought it up themselves. They got me to stay another minute before I needed to go to their chorus of disappointed voices... I think I was smiling until I went to sleep.
Today I took a bunch of the teachers out for Chinese hot pot just like last time, but before that one of the teacher's who couldn't go convinced their K class to give me a group hug and sing me happy birthday. So today I got tackled by 11 small children who all wanted to play with me for their whole 10 minute break. Then later that night while I was being shown where a good place for Hot Pot was that was nicer than the last place we had went I admitted to Vicky that I thought all the girls at XiGong were pretty. The truth is that I think most of them are Pretty but I would never tell the one's who aren't that I don't find them such. "Its a shame everyone has a boyfriend." I said, a point which she only nodded at. Then at dinner she told everyone at the table that I had called all the teachers pretty in Chinese and I knew enough of the words to know exactly what was being said. After that Vicky turned to me with an imp like smile and asked, "So which teacher is the most pretty?"
Almost before the question was finished I looked at her and said, "Oh no. I'm to smart for that one, I know better."
Vicky's gleeful response was, "Ah you have an opinion, I'll get it later."
Really I have found a school full of Chinese sisters complete with the teasing.