Chinese hospitals, teaching and barbecues

We were asked to get a general checkup, and a note from our doctor to say that we are not sick before we came here, but, being in China, that wasn't enough. It might be because it was in english, or just because they wanted to be extra sure. So we went to the hospital the other morning. I thought it was going to be as relaxed as back in Denmark, but of course not. There were blodtest, urin test, X-rays, eyesight tests(which they did while I was wearing my glasses...), some heart measure test and so on. I don't think I have every been tested that much, but I can with safety say that I am completely healthy. And I don't have the plauge... good to know! 

On Monday we had our first lesson with the children. I will say that I totally panicked. It wasn't very nice. But at the end of the day I managed to get a whole class of crying kids to stop crying, which I count as a success. We were told that we were going to spend monday following another english teacher's class, to see how he did and so on. But he didn't show up monday so 10 minutes before class started we were told that we had to teach. If we had just been told the day before, we could at least have prepared something. That was probably why I panicked. But it went alright. The kids were sweet and too young to really make too much trouble. I have 4 classes in total with about 15-20 kids in each and they are between 2 and 4. And they are incredibly cute. They all say Hallo Teacher when we meet then in the halls, and it is really adorable.

Last weekend Linnea and I went to the British Commerce's barbecue. We had been invited only a couple of days before, and didn't really know anything about the event, but reckoned it was going to be a small casual thing. It wasn't. We were driven about an hour outside Chengdu to a place called Diamond bay. It has gates and guards, and when inside it was like what I always thought an American country club would look like, just 10 times bigger (we are in China..). There were beautiful lakes and huge villas, and waterfalls, and neatly cut hedges and flowers everywhere. They had even written Diamond Bay on a hillside, like the Hollywood sign!

The barbecue was far from casual, mind you, the ticket said summer casual, but, as everything in China, summer casual does not just mean pants and a t-shirt. I have never felt this underdress everywhere I go, as I do here in China. The women wear full on ball gowns for everyday life! It's impressive. I really should have brought my glitter skirt from NY.

However underdressed we were, it was a really nice event. We met a lot of new people and made new friends.

China is lovely except, even though they served chicken feet for lunch the other day.

Love Kamma  

ps. The dogs name is apparently Lucky, but pronounced with a Chinese accent it sounds nothing like that!