Got My Shades On

This past week was a holiday! The Qingming (pronounced Ching ming) Festival is also known as the Tomb Sweeping holiday, because it's the day you visit your relatives' burial sites that have passed away. The Chinese like to put people in mountains, so it is usually a day full of hiking, too.

Nikki and Dionne went with me to see one of the local mountains, and as we were walking we saw lots of families on their way to visit their ancestors. You're not supposed to take pictures of the tombs, but the ones here were horseshoe shaped, kinda carved into the mountain. I found a picture that is kinda like what I saw online:

We got Monday off, and don't even have to make it up, which is very nice. I went to the mall and found a fashion show full of foreigners, which happens about every holiday. People from the country come to the mall and are fascinated by the white people. There was quite a crowd as you can see.

The rest of this week was pretty uneventful, just chilling here at the school. The lesson I had planned this week was about commercials. Our Taiwanese friend Yuju, who lived in America for a long time but now works in the corporate side for a sunglasses factory, gave me, Nikki, and Dionne a TON of sunglasses for Christmas. A TON. We each have about 15 pairs of sunglasses now, haa. I decided to put them to use by making the kids write commercials about a pair I gave them. After I divided the class into groups of 4, each group wrote a commercial and we took turns sharing. They never disappoint!

Some classes were into it more than others, but each class had some gems. Some of my favorite commercials:

"These sunglasses are unique. They make you blind so people will respect you."

"Do you like being beautiful? Do you want to be celebrity? Brad Pitt and Angelina wear these glasses. They are so fashion!"

"These glasses will make you taller than me." (said by the one 6 foot boy at our school haaa)

"These sunglasses are so cheap. Only $5! (the rest of the class yelled TOO EXPENSIVE) Okay only 5 RMB!"

"Before these glasses, I was dog. No one looked at me. But now...I am so sexy."

"Buy these glasses because they come with own model. He can do your homework or clean for you."

And lastly, from one of my cheeky boys:

"You should buy these sunglasses because they help you see through women's clothes."

To which the rest of the boys reacted:

And the girls and I:

Sometimes I forget they are 17 because they look so small and young and they usually act like your standard American 12 year old, but then they say things like this and I'm like, oh yah. You are indeed 17. 

After each class had done that, the rest of this week we've been playing Wheel......OF.......FORTUNE.

Instead of a wheel though we have just a box with slips of paper

Let me tell you, I didn't think this would be as big a deal as it ended up. They love it. Especially the pieces of paper that say BANKRUPT and MISS A TURN. They lose their minds every time a team gets one of those.  It also gave me a chance to teach them the phrase "sick and tired" which I had as the puzzle. They go "what's meaning Victoria?" and I told them it can mean you hate something. And a few quick ones said "SICK AND TIRED OF HOMEWORK!" 

Hardly a dull moment with these ones.

In other news, I picked up a tutoring job on the island in the middle of the river that goes through Wenzhou. It's two sisters and they are a lot of fun. But I noticed this on the elevator:

No 4th floor. Only 3A.

Four is a bad luck number, like our 13, and I thought it was funny that this building had no 4th floor.

Also this week, the headmasters took me to another high school, one that is known for their amazing test scores and college entrance rates. BUT GUESS WHAT. They don't have a foreigner teacher, which I am 100% sure that is why they brought me. It was like "Oh hey school, you think you're hot stuff because your scores are better than ours, but look at what we have. A white girl."  They were lucky I am so well behaved. One of these days when they take me to these things I'm just going to pull this:

No shame.

One highlight of the school was the wall of communists in the board room we sat in.

I noticed Stalin immediately because my history teacher from high school looks exactly like him.

Now no more holidays until May Day, which is pretty much their Labor Day. People just hang out, there's not really a holiday, just a free day. So l leave you with some cats, dancing, and cats dancing, all of which I used this week in my powerpoints for class.