New York City buses have nothing on Wuhan

Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Today we were back at New Oriental. We live by Olga now so we all met at the front gate of our apartment complex to go to work together. The bus ride was crazy, we had to stand because the bus was so crowded and by the time I arrived at New oriental my back was hurting because the bus makes all of these spastic movements (maybe because it’s a stick shift). We sat in on Olga and Yo-Yo’s class. I enjoy watching Yo-Yo teach because she is energetic and she is real. She tells it like she feels it is. The lesson started with a talk about honesty and she asked the class if they ever lied and most students acted like they didn’t. She then told a story about when she was in high school and she told a lie. After their class we had a break so I went to the New Oriental offices to use the internet and then I went to the supermarket to buy cleaning supplies (all I could think about for most of the day was our dusty apartment). In the afternoon we watched a video of Angela and Yo-Yo teaching a class. Angela reminds me of Olga, they kind of resemble one another and the way they both speak is similar. After the video we met with Jocelyn to go over our schedules. I am very excited about teaching my class because I think the Chinese students will enjoy me as a teacher. What I think will be most interesting is their perception of black people and their interaction with me. So many people see me on the street and just stare. Some actually come up to me and try to speak to me, but the students in the class will actually have the opportunity to somewhat get to know me and I think that will be important because not only will I be able to help them have a better understanding of American culture, I can also help them have a more realistic understanding of black culture.