Lina in China

This morning I was to be taken at 8 am to a city called Zitong. I did not really understand what it was about all I understood is that my friends in Mianyang have to work during the day. So as it is I just followed someone with broken English because the friend of a friend had said in broken English that I should do that.

By German standards it was a long drive to Zitong, Sichuan. We where driving for maybe 1 ½ hours through Sichuan. Due to the earthquacke parts of the street are still destroyed. Whenever the driver crosses these it can really give you a startle.

I did not sleep much since the Karaoke in Mianyang the night before had taken us so long. So I kept falling asleep, and was awakened by cracks in the road and sudden stops.

After we arrived in Zitong I got the feeling that we are hurrying somewhere. Just I did not find out where. We ate a hurried noodle soup and I finally achieved to get some hot water for my morning coffee. Then we hurried on.

Suddenly the 3 men I was travelling with brought me to a preschool / kindergarten that had been partly destroyed by the earthquake in Sichuan and was rebuilt.

They brought me in the office and communicated that we would play some with the children and take pictures. None of the employees of the Chinese kindergarten, not even the director of this preschool had ever seen a foreigner. So the excitement about my visit was great.

I was lead on the court for playing and singing and picture taking on the kindergarten courtyard. I soon got the impression that this is probably one of the best preschools in Sichuan. It was clean, colourful, the classes not to great and everything done and planed with a heart. Even they toilets were very clean for Sichuan standards where even luxury restaurants usually have unbelievable dirty toilets.

I was given a wolf mask and should catch children and there teachers. I was asked to sing an English song (I believe none in this Chinese kindergarten understood that I am no native English speaker). Happily I knew “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands!” And this was very good since the clapping, stamping of feeds, shouting and so on the children could take place in.

The school even had an English teacher even though her own English was hardly sufficient for communication.

Then I was brought to a preschool class of children about 6 years old I guess. I was asked to play a game with them and was really at loss as I had not expected such a thing. So I tried to play “Montagsmaler” the Chinese kindergarten children. In this game the Chinese children should guess what I am drawing. Then they asked me to teach “some English sentences to the children” I tried: “The dog is on the house” which proved to be too hard.

Then came the picture taking. They tried to place crying children in my arms and I did not know how to hold them. Chinese preschool children are carried in front of the breast one hand under head or shoulder the other under the legs and never on the hip like German children. Trying to carry a Chinese child in the German way does scare them as they do not know it.

After this class I was sweating and tired and it was opened to me that 5 more classes were to come…

So they decided to make it shorter. In the second class I taught some English words and pictures were taken, in classes 3 and 4 just a general greeting and picture taking, classes 5 was just greeted, in class 6 I volunteered to sing the “If you’re happy” song once more. Then came class 7…

After we were done they lead me back to the kindergarten office and offered me some bottled green tea. So I took my chance trying to communicate weather I may see the school. They showed me the dining room and the kitchen, a sleeping room and the dance room. Of course they selected to show me the best. But I also peeked through some windows and in the whole school the hygiene standard was high enough that I would have sent my child to this school with no worries.

All was prepared with love. They showed me one sleeping room (Seems like they are also a boarding school. I asked if the children have parents, they said: “of course” so it is no foster home). Children where sleeping on two stories in the room. There was something build like a giant two stories bed for the Chinese preschool children of the boarding school. Everything was need and tidy, the same for every child though. The children sleeping upstairs had a slide to leave the bed in the morning. They had paper stars and moon hanging from the ceiling and everything smelled like fresh wood.

The dancing room had a projector, every class room a computer (I don’t know if they have internet) and a TV. Most rooms had air conditioning. All together a very need school.

Back on the school yard there was some more greeting and some more singing. In almost all classes except with the little ones the children where able to say “good morning teacher”, “hello”, “thank you”, “we love you” and “good bye” so I guess these Sichuan children are prepared for the international world or at least for a good school.

After walking around some in the city we returned to the Chinese kindergarten once more in order to have lunch there. The food was good, clean, and diverse.

Tags: earthquacke, earthquacke Zitong, earthquake in sichuan, kindergarten, pre-school, preschool, preschool after earthquake, preschool in earthquake, Sichuan, Zitong

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 18th, 2008 at 16:47 and is filed under Environment, Modern China. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.