My Team With a Few of our Students!

Here’s one picture to preview of what’s to come! 

This is our whole team plus several of our students after we enjoyed a lovely “Hot Pot” dinner (Hong Kong style!) 

Hong Kong Observed

As I’ve spent the last three weeks in Hong Kong, I have seen alot. I think every member of my team has experienced a few moments of over stimulation at times when there is way too much going on for our brains to comprehend. Despite the sensory overload, there have been a few meaningful observations that have stuck in my head that I wanted to share. 

Lesson One~Willingly Revise Associations

In other words, sometime slimy, chewy, and puke green foods are still viewed as perfectly edible options. Gross right? 

This one was a hard lesson to learn. Sometimes there is a combination of rubbery slime on the menu…now that was hard to swallow, literally! At one point I was presented with duck intestine, cow lung, and chicken testicles within a 10-minute period and I’m proud to say I partook in all that was added to my plate. One thing that I have to say that has been especially awesome about my Hong Kong students and new friends are that they never ever “expect” me to eat everything. They always ask first. They don’t assume that I’m used to eating cow tongue or oyster guts. Still, I do feel an obligation to at least take one bite before chugging a couple cans of 7Up to get rid of the unpalatable taste I’ve just encountered.

Although it may be cliché to share adventurous food stories from Asia, I do believe there is a more important lesson I am encountering beyond simply becoming a pro at eating oyster dumplings with chopsticks and smiling through the not-so-delicious menu choices. If all I remember after I leave Hong Kong is how well I “endured” its culture, then I’ve missed the point. 

My goal is not to merely experience, but to understand the Hong Kong lifestyle. I may not LOVE everything I see, hear, and touch, but I should still be engaged in whatever cultural phenomenon I encounter. No matter what places my world-wide travels take me during my life I want to learn to love what the natives love and attempt to find the beauty and good “flavors” in everything I am willing to try. 

Lesson Two~ Say What You Mean to Say

      If you’re tired-sometimes its ok to say I’m tired. When you need help or have an opinion-share it.

If you value another person’s contributions tell them why. If you want someone to know how you feel…then say it. My students have taught me that life it too short to paraphrase one’s real opinion. They are so blunt. If they think I look not so great in that picture…they will tell me If they didn’t think I explained a lesson very well-they let me know what I did wrong. But they also will turn around and tell me how beautiful they think I am. I never take a compliment at face value, but my students are so honest that they really do mean what they say. The moment they are bored they make sure to vocalize it. On the same note, if they are really enjoying the lesson they also want to share why. They don’t hold back.

I actually believe nearly everything that comes out of my student’s mouth. It’s sort of a crazy concept to grasp. I actually trust their opinion. I don’t necessarily take it as timeless words of wisdom (these are 15 and 16 year old young adults we’re talking about), but they do speak with authenticity, which is more than I can often claim. 

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      Lesson Three-Always Be Present in the Present

My mind runs a million miles an hour. I’m always thinking ahead. This lifestyle definitely has its perks, but I do have a tendency to miss the important things that are right in front of me. In Hong Kong your mind should be present always on the now. You are here and you should be respectful and show honor to all those who are also with you at that moment. It’s a lot of pressure. The moment I seem disinterested or preoccupied I get a “Are you bored?” or “You tired?” question thrown my away and I’m immediately embarrassed to be caught pondering on things other than what’s next on the lunch menu. 

I hope to learn much more before I get on my flight back to the mainland, but these are a few of the cool and really valuable lessons I have been learning over the past couple of weeks. Next week, I hope to share a few more pictures of my team and show you more pictures of all my students and the city the call home!

Longest Post in History

I finally have some legitimate time and wifi available so I'm just gonna go nuts on this blog. 
Who knows when the next time I'm able to post will be, so I will just divide my thoughts into chapters (ha! I told you this was a monumental post!) and you can read as much or as little as you would like. 

Disclaimer: I ran out of time and battery power before I could revise this, so please forgive any all all errors. I will try to be more meticulous and polished with my writing in the future. 

~Chapter 1~ "My Team" 
Let me just say I am soo thankful for my awesome team!!!! I am blessed. They are brilliantly intelligent people who know how to have a fun time with a 130 Chinese students. Each one has challenged me in a very good way. We are all VERY different from one another, but boy do we know how to be crazy, silly dorks together. 

Amber-My INCREDIBLE team leader from the beautiful state of Tennessee. She's truly beautiful on the inside and out and she has done an incredible job straddling the fine line between friend and group decision maker. Pretty much what I'm trying to say is her awesomeness has resulted in some productive (and hilarious) class planning meetings. 

Dani-My fellow hipster has been such an encouragement to me. We are on the same page on nearly everything which has been soo wonderful. We share a very deep and passionate love for sleep, coffee, and quality alone time. We have already made far more Starbucks runs than I care to admit. Best of all, we both recognize that need for solitude and are able to help each other find a way to separate ourselves from the group and just recharge alone. 

Jackson-Well he's hilarious. He's the super creative have a million games type of teacher. I'm thankful for a guy like Jackson to keep things light and funny. Also, someone has to be willing to deal with 50 girl's teacher crushes and so far he has handled it with class!

Anna-The Irish Dancer. She is the sweetest teacher. Truly gorgeous and loves her kids. She has the positive attitude that is refreshing when we're all up til 1 lesson planning as a team. Did I mention she is a pro at Irish Dance? well, it's true and I'm a little jealous!!!

Chandler-The level-headed voice of reason in the group. Chandler is the man. I mean it he is the glue to this team in a very important way. He somehow manages to keep us on topic and on target with the important goals. He's a huge encouragement and a dry sense of humor that is making its way to the surface. 

(From Left to Right) Anna, Me, and Dani at training before we began teaching :)
MANY more (complete team) pictures to follow 

~Chapter 2~ "Hong Kong" 
This city is so cool! I don't want to spend too much time on the city, but it would be a shame not to admit that this is an incredible place. I've posted a couple pictures, but there's something about walking around this place that is so very modern. I love it! 

~Chapter 3~ "The Students"
I don't normally form close relationships. I'm more of the wade-into-the-water-slowly kind of girl so I didn't really create huge expectations for myself when it came to teacher/student bonding.

 Of course I wanted to grow as close to my students as possible, but I didn't really know how that was all going to work. I will try to share some more specific stories about individual students after I've had more sleep, but suffice it to say I will be leaving a little piece of my heart in Hong Kong. 

I've already dried tears, nursed sprained ankles, and had inside jokes with these incredible students. They are each so beautiful and brilliant in unique and incredible ways. They challenge my creativity. They are seriously so smart that each night I'm scratching my brain trying to think of ways to make each lesson more difficult. 

But, they are so patient with me. I am blessed...so very blessed. My fellow team mates are fighting the battle of unengaged, sleeping, or distracted students and here I am just trying to keep up with my little einsteins. I can't wait to share some pictures with you all! I wish you could meet each one of them. They are wonderful. 

As I said earlier, I'm not normally very quick at developing deep friendships, but these 15, 16, and 17 year old students are overwhelming me with their own love and excitement that I'm having a hard time not growing close to each and every one of them. 

~Chapter 4~ "The Culture" 
During our training week, some of our sessions were designed to introduce us to Asian culture. I have to admit that I wasn't very familiar with Asian culture, at least not in an experiential sense. Chinese cultural specifically is truly amazing. Of course, there are plenty of negatives. Many Americans think of ancient foot biding, the more modern one child policy, or other oppressive cultural traditions; however, there are soo many other Chinese cultural positives that are often under valued in the average Western mindset. 

Collectivism-In a political or economic sense, collectivism possesses a more controversial connotation, but in a social aspect it is truly admirable quality. The problems of one individual are the problems of the whole. I see this so clearly in the attitude of my students. They care for their friends in a much more sincere way than many American high school students. There is this sense one should do whatever he can to help improve the success of his peers. If one student doesn't know the answer then the entire class will feed him the correct answer. A few times, I have discovered I need to be more creative in my game designs, because too often every activity becomes a group activity when I meant for it to be more individual. 

Respect-I have to say this is soo cool. As a VERY insecure, inexperienced English teacher, the high level of respect my students have shown me has been pretty fantastic. They apologize for EVERYTHING!!!! They think I know way more than I do, which is only slightly terrifying, and they love to share anything and everything with me. This sort of respect it actually really difficult to explain. But I have learned a lot about how important it is for me to spread a little more respect all around. It is revitalizing and empowering. I feel more confident because my students have shown me a level of respect I have never felt before. It's pretty cool if you ask me. 

Gratefulness- I'm running out of battery power soo I'll be brief on this one, but I actually have lost count (I've only been teaching for 4 days!) of the amount of presents I've been given by my students. They want to share all their candy and chocolate with me...and....well it's rude to refuse right!?!? The principal at my school bought us some delicious iced milk teas just because he heard our team favored a particular kind. It is humbling to say the least. Generosity is in abundance here in China and it is a beautiful thing to observe. 

That's all for now. Many more stories to come, just no promises on how soon. 

Grace and Peace to you all! 

A Thousand Apologies

I am sorry for being MIA this past week or so. I have VERY limited wifi at the moment. I should be able to publish a more lengthy post tomorrow. I also hope to have more internet access within the next couple of days. 

MUCH more to come soon!!!!

A Very Busy Body!

These past several days have been jam packed. So much so that all the dozens of sessions and meetings have begun to run together in my tired little brain. Despite my exhaustion, I can honestly say I have begun to fall in love with the Chinese culture. I'm bursting with excitement to meet my students next Monday. I cannot wait to hear their stories and learn more about what makes each of them uniquely them. The privilege of sharing my love of the English language with my Hong Kong students is something I am having a hard time waiting for, to put it nicely. 

I appreciate how my leaders and instructors from this training week have emphasized the need of loving and investing into my students. As I better understand and respect Asian culture, I grow more and more excited about the upcoming opportunity to begin sincere and exciting  friendships with my students and other Hong Kong neighbors. 


That's all for now, but soon I hope to show you all a picture and share a mini bio of my Hong Kong Team with whom I work and live with pretty much twenty-four hours a day. 

Until then,
                     晚安

This is the lovely view I witnessed while sitting outside with a few of my team members. These mountains are breathtaking!