Bike stolen and first day teaching in the slums.

Today was a pretty epic day.

I woke up at 6:30 am to teach my first English class to 小三 (third graders). Me, being a total morning person, couldn't find my subway/public transport card. (Note: This card is equivalent to magic in Beijing. I use it for pretty much everything* and only non-muggles get it.) Heh. So it's about a hour commute from my apartment to the slums. I take 2 subway lines and a bus and walk a little bit and I'm there. I'm teaching at ZhiXing school, which is a private school in the slums for migrant workers children. The goal of this school is to basically have the children go to a better intermediate school or high school.

Teaching. Was. Crazy. I have around 60-80 kids in each class. They don't know English at all really. I don't know a lot of Chinese relating to it. Also when you say something and they say it back, they will yell. It creates a wall of sound. My first class was really good, my second was out of control. It was really frustrating to me to see them that out of control, because as soon as their teacher came in they all straightened up. I'm pretty sure they get beaten though. :/ I just need to become more like a Chinese teacher (minus the beating aspect).



Aaaaand when I got back I found out my bike was stolen. :( There is a saying in Beijing that you are not a true Beijinger until your bike has been stolen at least once. There is no discrimination against foreigners or natives. My friend that is from Beijing had his bike stolen, and a lot of people I know that I go to Uni with also have had theirs stolen. I ended up reporting this to the police. I had a U-bolt lock on my back wheel, which you can't cut with wire or bolt cutters. So they had to have picked up my bike and carried it away. Curse you Bike-thief. They're probably selling it on the black market. My friend Clayton told me a story about when he was in high school here, someone stole his friend's iPod. His dad took him to get a new iPod, and they went to the black market. And while they were there they found his exact iPod. The person didn't even bother to wipe the iPod. So his dad was just like we're taking this back. The shopkeeper got really angry, but the dad just argued that he worked for the embassy and that the guy didn't want him to call the police and that his son's name was stored in the iPod, etc. In Beijing this is ridiculous, because basically once you've lost/had something stolen here you're not going to get it back.




*Transportation only.