The Other School

A while back, I decided I wanted to make a little extra money so I began looking for a second job. All of the teachers I know here (not that I know many) taught extra classes at other schools as free-lance jobs or taught private lessons. Most of the teaching opportunities, however, were in Anshan, which is a two-hour bus ride from Taian so I was not really keen to commit myself to making that trip every weekend.

My opportunity finally came a little over a month ago when I negotiated with a private language and music school to teach some classes for them. It was a bit of a rocky start since they failed to inform me that they had schools throughout the Liaoning Province that they wanted me to teach at and I got a little upset on the first day when I was ushered into a car by people I didn't know and who didn't speak English and taken to a village. Since then, however, things have been ironed out and I've really enjoyed the classes I've done for them. The students are younger than my high school students. Their ages range from six to about eleven or twelve and their bright-eyed excitement in class is a breath of fresh air and a teacher's dream. They have a desire to learn that can only be found in places where school is unimportant if not denied entirely.

A couple of weeks ago, this school had a "party", as they called it (I would call it a promotional concert), here in Taian. It was sort of a celebration of the Olympics. They asked me to sing as part of the show and I agreed, if for no other reason than to show them my appreciation for giving me my second job. I had a little trouble coming up with a song. I rejected a suggestion that I sing "Fat Bottom Girls" by Queen (thanks anyway, Ben) and I didn't want to sing something they knew already or I would be singing "My Heart Will Go On". In the end, I settled on "Sunrise" by Norah Jones. I had a karaoke version for my iPod, which I was told, they could plug into the speakers for me.

I enjoyed the concert because I got to see the children play some traditional instruments including a hulusi. This instrument has three bamboo flutes that pass through a gourd. They also played a dizi, which is another type of flute, and the guzheng, the plucked zither. I've included a short video of some of the performances. The last bit is the school's teachers. You can hear in the video how awful the sound was. You know that screechy noise when you have the volume turned up past the capacity of your speakers? Well, multiply it for how loud things were. What was even worse was that when it was my turn, I found that the speakers for the music projected on the stage but the speaker for the microphone did not so I couldn't hear myself. It was terrible, and I only know because I gave my camera to a friend. I will NOT be posting that performance, however, I will add a captured image. And just so you can appreciate the magnitude of this embarrasment, I've included a shot of the crowd. I'm pretty sure half of Taian was there.

Unfortunately, a representative of the high school called me and said that I shouldn't be teaching for this other school. I've tried to understand why, since as I've said, other teachers have extra classes, and they only reason I can get is that it has something to do with the Olympics. I am being told that it is a governmental decision that all classes must stop for the Olympics but I'm not sure I believe it...I think there is something else going on. I'm still investigating this and I hope we can get it all straightened out.