Teachers’ Day

Well, holy moly! They really love teachers here in China! Today was National Teachers’ Day, which was pretty much ridiculous, and absurd, and totally awesome all around. When I arrived at school this morning…i.e., when I walked the 100 yards from my dorm to my classroom, there was an envelope on my desk. It was from one of my students, Awa (that’s her English name, but I assure you, I have never met anyone by the name of Awa before). It was a simple but lovely card, along with a gift certificate to redeem moon cakes from some store (all in Chinese…my assistant will need to fill the blanks on this one). Moon cakes are the treat for this time of year…potentially for every special holiday during the year, but particularly for today and for the mid-autumn festival, which is this weekend (along with Jon’s birthday….special celebrations on all fronts).

Anyway, I was touched, but that was just the beginning. Then I got another card plus a cute handmade Korean figurine from a Korean student of mine. Her card said that she would “try to do better from now on,” which sort of insinuates that she hasn’t been doing well or she hasn’t been trying hard enough, but she’s an amazing student. So I’m left to assume that she just means that she’ll continue to try harder and harder because she’s awesome like that.
Next up, all of the teachers had a two-hour long assembly (don’t worry, I’m sure someone was watching the kids…). At first, it consisted mostly of speeches in Chinese, which sounded like blah-blah-blah as I drifted into a post-lunch desire to nap. However, into the second hour, the pace picked up and the shenanigans began. There were bizarre performances with cheerleader-esque “teachers” shaking the bon-bons and pom-poms to Ricky Martin, with high schoolers in red and silver get-ups doing a dance with bamboo noise-maker thingies, and many more. There were prizes given out gameshow-style, with a number being pulled out of a box, announced to the audience, and a (usually) Chinese teacher would run screaming down the stairs in glee to claim his or her prize. I won nothing…such was my luck. But I did get a pretty hideous silk scarf (though soft), and a couple of moon cakes. Hooray!!!!! I got my fill of laughs and entertainment though. Good job Suzhou Foreign Language School! You really know how to throw a party!

By the end of the day, I had a huge bouquet of about 2 dozen red roses (that I’ve left on my desk) and a simply massive bouquet of lilies (note photo) given to me by one of my student’s (Arrthur) dads…the same dad who recently took me, Jon, Arthur’s teacher from last year, my Chinese co-teacher, the Chinese math teacher and his daughter, a second-grade Chinese assistant, and his wife to a traditional Chinese dinner, filled with dish after dish after delicious dish. Now, my entire room…and Jon’s room (since I had to move it there)…smells like lilies. Can’t complain there. ☺


All in all, it has been a highly entertaining day.

Laterz,
Em