Monday, January 9, 2012

Peace Out Huangshi

It is officially travel time!  Spring Festival season (Chinese New Year) is almost here, which means students have off of school and us foreign teachers get time off to travel!


Les and I will be headed out on January 10 for a three week adventure.  We are traveling south to warm and sunny weather!  I can't take the cold winter any longer.  Our journey will consists of several different stops including Hong Kong, an island in Thailand called Koh Kood, Bangkok, and Shenzhen, China. 


Just wanted to give you a heads up on where I will be for the month of January.  Be expecting lots of pictures and posts when I get back.  Please keep us in your pryers for safe, easy traveling with no mishaps!


Before I head out we will be watching the National Championship tomorrow morning for us!!!!!  Wahoo!  Geaux Tigers!  Beat Bama again! Can't believe my little sister has tickets to the game and I'm missing it.  Have fun sis!  Cheer loud for me!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Just Dance

As most of you know I was a dancer for most of my life.  Since college, I haven’t been able to dance as much as I would have liked to.  My students know I used to be a dancer and currently take a hip hop class here in China.  The school had a talent show/New Year's celebration on December 30 and 31. All of the classes from Grade 1 and 2 performed. They could perform by singing, acting, or dancing!  Two of my classes asked me to help them with their dances.  I choreographed both of them and taught it to my students over the past month.  It took up a lot of my spare time, but I loved it!  

I think HE knew that this time of year would be the toughest for me being away from home, so he loaded me down with plenty of fun activities to keep my mind off  things.  HE really has blessed me beyond belief over these past few weeks.  HE knows our hearts and our desires!  The students were so excited and appreciative that I just couldn't help but love them all.  I thought the dancing phase of my life was over, but apparently HE had other plans!  I love that HE is using something that has such a special place in my heart to help impact my relationships with my students here in China.  HE is so good!  

I will say as amazing as it was...there were some challenges such as RHYTHM!  Poor things just don't have it!  My Grade 2 class danced to the song Tik Tok by Keisha and wanted to do a hip hop dance. (Disclaimer:  I unfortunately did not have any say in the song choice)   When I first started teaching the dance, I was very nervous because they just weren't getting it. However, Chinese students are seriously hard working, no matter what the task.  They practiced so much and wanted to improve.  The dance ended up looking so much better and they loved it!
Tik Tok dancers


Two of the dancers from Tik Tok, Bunny and Chelsea.

Some of the other Tik Tok dancers:  Bunny, Spark, No Way, Chelsea and Vickers (in the back).

The other dance I helped out with is......wait for it...... a Chinese fan dance.  Yes, you read that correctly.  The American taught the Chinese students a Chinese fan dance.  Oh the irony!  There was a video of the dance they wanted to copy, so lucky for me I just had to watch the video and teach it to the students.  They were also extremely hard working and the dance looked great!  
Grade 1, Class 12 performing the fan dance at school on December 31.



Both of my classes did so well!  I was so proud of them.  I went in to total stage mom mode though reminding them to smile, not to be nervous, and whatever the outcome was I was proud of their hard work.  I also was in the back of the room nervously video taping both performances!  haha 

Drum roll please....

The Results:   

My fan dance got FIRST PLACE!!!!  Wahooo!  Now, first place is a little different here because there were three classes that got first, then three that got second, and so on.  Still, it was awesome!  I wish I could take more credit for it, but I did very little compared to the students.  It was still a very proud moment for the both of us.  Their head teacher even toasted me at lunch and told me thank you for helping his students.  

Tik Tok unfortunately did not do so well.  I expected it though because the judges were older and all of the dances that won were very traditional Chinese routines, not hip hop or more modern type dances.  Poor things were so upset.  It made me so sad because they really did practice so hard.  Overall, it was an amazing experience!  I was so proud of all of my students, not just the ones I helped, because I realized how much talent their is at our school outside of the classroom.  
Lesley and I waiting for the performances to start.  Lesley also helped two of her classes with their dances.  

Lesley's class danced to Umbrella by Rihanna.  One of the girls even sang the song!


One of my classes performed a skit.  I think it was about a princess, but I'm not sure.  Everyone else thought it was really funny!


Another class did a fan dance.


This is one of my students named Mibo.  I had no idea he could sing!  He was amazing!


My Grade 2 class performing a traditional Chinese dance.


This is our hip hop teacher, Wang Hao.  He came to the performance because he choreographed one of the dances.  Although he speaks no English and our Chinese is very poor, we still are able to communicate with hand motions and translators on our ipads!  We went to dinner with him and his girlfriend on New Year's Eve and had a great time!

On December 31 the winners from the night before performed for the entire school.  As Lesley and I looked across the sea of students, we realized how much we must stick out.  Lesley decided to document it.  Can you find me?