Conflucius

The end is near...maybe.

Continuing on the flu story from Hong Kong >

Today all teachers still had to report to school, in case there were any children that NEEDED to be there. Numbers were down significantly from yesterday, but there were still many kids in class that we know have full-time moms or caregivers. According to the governments warnings they should not be in school. But I guess parents here don't trust the HK Gov (the same one that handled SARS) enough to keep the kiddies home.

There were still around 40 children from the international section that showed up. About 95% of them were Japanese. The Chinese kids are all locked up and stuffed away; with parents fearing another outbreak of some mystery disease. They could be right I suppose. Today the HK gov announced a local scientist had discovered that the flu strains that killed 3 children were not any new type of virus. I stress the local part. With the Beijing Olympics only a few months away, how much money do you think they would throw at Hong Kong to keep a new virus hush hush until after the games. If this seems absurd, look at how much money they have already spent. 300 people died during SARS in Hong Kong. Guess how many people Beijing executes every month? Do you think they would give a damn if a few thousand people died from a new flu? Doubt it.

Anyway, not to be too melodramatic - here's something funny from school today.

We asked a student why she was in class today and not at home with her mom. Her answer,

"Mommy has to play tennis."

Maybe she's warming up for the Olympics?

SARS II - Official Press Release

"
Education Bureau announcement on school closure
*************************************************

In order to prevent the spread of influenza in school campus, the Education Bureau announced that all kindergartens, kindergartens cum child care centres, primary schools and special schools will begin the Easter holiday starting from March 13 up to 28.

During the non-prearranged period of school holiday, these school campus will remain open. Students could go to school as usual, if necessary.
*************************************************
"

"Could" go to school?

I absolutely agree with the first statement, but what the hell are they thinking in the second sentence. What exactly does this mean? Are kids still allowed to go to classes? Who decides if it is necessary? What does necessary entail? As long as they're not dead children are fit for classes? Until they drop dead it's OK to show up in class and infect everyone else? Good call morons...

WHMIS Would love this city!

I have made fun of people being constantly sick in this city before, but this is ridiculous. Hong Kong has just moved up from being a petri-dish full of coughing and sneezing zombies to a full blown quarantine-ready state of sickness. This movie has a title:

SARS II

I like how if you look at it quickly it looks like Star Wars.

Seriously though, Hong Kong is entering flu season, but it's not all fun and games. 3 children have already died from what the government is calling "mysterious flu-like symptoms." Hmmm, I've heard that before....SARS! That's exactly how they describe it in every single program, poster, ad etc. etc. etc. documenting the events of 2003. I guess they could also call the movie, 4 Years Later. Not to make light of people dieing, this really did happen, I'm not joking about that point. All 3 kids were under the age of 7 and thankfully none of them were from my school.

Luckily my workplace prides itself on having only slightly sickly kids walking around. Most of their teeth are not black, and they all generally know how to wash their hands and not eat their own boogers. Based on my jobs last year, this is only the case in about 5% of HK kindergartens. We have been instructed by the Gov. to start a three month program where we make the parents take their kids temperatures every day for 3 month...sounds like SARS. Also we have a nice fresh full supply of face masks for everyone, one size fits all...sounds like SARS.

Personally my throat is only half swollen shut at the moment. The 50% of it that allows air to still pass through seems to feel alright. My head only feels like 1/4 of the brick it did yesterday, and my joints are slowly recovering. Whether this is due to the post rugby match drinking or 'mysterious flu-like symptoms' is tbd. Maybe I should submit myself to government health officials prodding.

...Sounds like SARS...

Santa was taken.

We have some weird names at my kindergarten, but most I have heard before in Hong Kong. There is a new student in the Nursery section getting lots of attention.

His name is Elf.

It's Effoooing Cold!

The locals pronounce the letter 'F' as 'effoo.' Does the title make sense now?

Last night we walked down to the grocery store and I could actually see my breath! It was crystalizing right before my eyes. Children are wearing tuques and mittens, and some Chinese kids at the school are wearing up to six layers. Most of the Japanese kids are still wearing shorts. The one Canadian kid is walking around in his underwear it's so hot.

Despite what the kids may or may not think, it's freeeeeeeeezing! My wimpy little heater cannot keep up. Our laundry is practically freezing solid on the line, and it takes two days to dry compared to the usual one. Washing your hands is like rinsing with ice water, which is actually beneficial at this time as my hand is still sore from rugby - the ice helps the pain.

Next week is the beginning of Chinese New Year. The year of the rat should be funny when all the gross little creatures come out and go belly up by freezing to death on the street. It's somewhat hard to tell if it is the year of the rat, the mouse, or the year of Mickey Mouse. I'm sure Disney is playing it up to rake in some extra cash. Speaking of Disney, one of my kids skipped class to go to the theme park today, and they just happened to be greeted with the coldest day of the year.

That'll teach her.

'Tis the Season

Is Christmas over?

It's kind of hard to tell around here. They switch right from all the Westernized Christmas decorations right into the Chinese New Year stuff. It somewhat looks the same, with a lot more red and yellow included.

Also coming up is my 2nd two week PAID holiday within a month.

Next up Easter ( 7 days only holiday)

Next Up Summer (PAID holidays)

Do I ever work? Sometimes...

Bi-Weekly Update

This just in - I'm lazy!

Not having my own computer at work is really taking it's tole on my broadband social life. I'm always on the computer at home in the evenings, but it's not as fun to blog when you're not getting paid for it.

Hong Kong is currently stuck in another cold-snap, so illegitimate warnings about the harbour freezing and skating rinks forming are starting to surface. Rumour has it they're going to have an outdoor NHL game here next year.

Rugby News - We lost our oppening match of the season, to Valley. The score was only 26-14, but we played like stuffed turkeys and never really got rolling. This week's clash promises to be much more intense. We have an army of 24 put together for our run-in with Football Club tomorrow. Let me fill you in on how much we like Football Club. Our last pre-game chant >

"WHO HATES FOOTBALL CLUB?" OI!"

or quite elegantly during the half "FECK EM!"

We really loathe Football Club. Everyone does. They're a bunch of white towel tossing pomps with too much Jockey Club grass stuffed up their behinds. This game is not so much about winning, as it is shattering their ego and making them shrivle and tremble on their home turf. Referees tend to bow to the pressure of the rich bastards, so we'll be up against it.

Also new this week - Tai Po train museum is still really really boring. We took the K2 classes there today for 2 hours of train filled fun! It was cold and cloudy, and there were creepy old people lurking around. Fun!

Christmas Party!

Yesterday was the Christmas party at school/work. After the stressful (not for me) few weeks preceding Christmas, some of the teachers were happy to finally be done with December. Honestly people, they're all 4-5 years old, it's not that stressful. I had a good time at the party. It was the last chance I would have to spoil my class as I'm changing to the K2's next month. I don't really want to leave my K1 class as they're all awesome, but the K2 teacher is having a baby and calls in sick 3 times a week, so she got kicked out of her teaching duties. It should be an interesting switch, every time I 'subbed' for her the K2 kids would cheer cause they hate her (she's grumpy).

The Christmas party consisted of all the grades performing one carol each in front of the whole school. This went pretty smooth, but when you prep them a month in advance to sing a song they already know it should be smooth. The K1's sang Jingle Bells. It was hilarious, I wish I video-taped it. My class sang the loudest, cause once again, they're awesome. The K2/3's sang their songs and then it was time for Santa. Ms Grumpy was leading the party, so it could have been slightly more 'festive' but the kids loooooove Santa. Everyone took a picture with him, and then it was time to eat...sugar!

Most of the children eat quite healthy compared to Canadian kids but the menu for Christmas was anything but. We had doughnuts, cheese sandwiches, chips, cookies, juice (100%sugar), and chocolate crackers. The parents surely hate us all after the sugar rush for the afternoon at home. All the kids left post candy-feast and it was up to the teachers to clean the school before we could go home.

The most memorable thing of the morning was Mr. Mark showing up dressed like an elf. He's a big rugby player, just picture it. He had pointy ears as well. I had a snowman tie.

Merry Christmas!

Deck the Halls on a Silent Night

One of my duties at work is to teach oral English lessons to the Japanese half of the school. I only teach the K2 and K3 students 2 times each per week. It's a lot of fun and sometimes very humurous, as the students have no clue what I am saying. It's very different from my main class in the International section where all instruction is in English.

In case you didn't know, it's Christmas soon, so that means wonderfully repetitive carols sung over and over until your ears bleed. Yay. The whole school is having a joint party (Japanese + International kids) where we are attempting to have them sing carols together. It seems easy enough, songs like Jingle Bells everyone knows. But Deck the Halls and Silent Night? Most English speaking people can't get past the first verse.

I have the awesome task of trying to teach 4 year old Japanese kids the 3rd verse of Deck the Halls. Anyone who can send in the correct words WITHOUT looking them up wins a prize. At this moment I am writing, I don't even remember them all. I have to read the song sheet. How are young lads and lasses supposed to learn this when half of the English in the song is not even used anymore in everyday talk?

In any case, it doesn't matter, because no one is going to be watching, only other kids. If it was up to me the kids would all come, see Santa, get a present, sing some funny songs like Frosty the Snowman and Rudolf, then everyone goes home at noon. But noooo, we have to drag the life out of them by singing Silent Night. A song about some Christian tradition in a non-religious school, in a non-religious country, about sleeping. Meeeeeerry Christmas!

Happy Halloween!

Today is Halloween!

Hong Kong isn't exactly pumpkin central this time of year, but it's not bad. I've been seeing many more decorations than last year. I even carved a pumpkin at school for the wee ones.

I have been busy planning the Halloween party for the whole kindergarten. An easy task you might think, but not when you're dealing with finicky wackos. The Japanese section of my school is ridiculously inconsistent when it comes to common sense and rules. I had to make at least 10 revisions to my party because of it. The Chinese teachers were not much better. The other westerners? They could have cared less what happened - it's Halloween, give the pipsqueaks some candy and what else is there?

It should have been that easy...should have...

The party went quite well. Actually in my opinion it was better than anything we ever did in Canada. These kids are spoiled.

Pictures to follow...

Small Classes

I was watching the news tonight on one of the local networks, and there was a story about Hong Kong trying to change their primary school system to allow for 'small' class sizes. Current schools tend to over-populate classrooms with up to 40 kids per teacher.

The story also mentioned how changing to smaller classes might cause a problem for teaching staff who were not trained to deal with small class sizes. This all sounded somewhat interesting until I found out the size of their proposed 'small' classes.

30 Kids.

30?!?! That's not small! There is not really any difference between 30 and 40 kids, especially in how a teacher is trained to deal with it. Dealing with complete anarchy is always going to be dealing with complete anarchy!

Whoever the stats man was, said it would take another 1000 rooms in Hong Kong along with 3000 new teachers to staff the small class revolution. And I couldn't get a job in a Primary School even though I was fully qualified? Hong Kong is silly. Where are they going to find 3000 more teachers? Schools are rediculously understaffed as it is.

Local Celebrity - Parts 2, 3, and 4

As mentioned in the past I work about 10 seconds from where I live. This is wonderful for sleeping in, but today I discovered a few down-sides.

Part 2

I was pulled aside by my boss today because she had to talk to be about "something odd." There are many of the children I teach who live in my building, and apparently one of them lives very close, possibly on the same floor. This wasn't the problem though, as I had been aware of this the whole time. My boss (who was laughing) said that a parent who was my 'neighbour' had complained that I am very noisy all the time and I have people over for parties 4 nights a week and she was considering withdrawing their child because of this. WHAT?!

First of all, I am rarely home 4 nights a week, and Mai and I are not very loud at all. Nobody other than me and her have ever been inside our apartment. As I said my boss didn't care one little bit, she said my private life was none of her business. She just wanted to let me know that this rumour of me being a party animal was going around the neighbourhood. Ahhhh, too funny. Maybe I need to live up to my rep and start throwing large bashes every night.

Part 3

I came home sick from work today in the afternoon. On my way down to the local supermarket for some medicine and food, I ran into one of the parents of the kids in my class. At first she said 'Hi' like normal, but then she had a funny shocked look on her face like, "what the hell are you doing not teaching right now!" I explained I was sick and she laughed and said she hoped I got better.

I need to buy some camouflage.

Part 4

Walking up the hill back to home, 3 of my morning Japanese students yelled my name across the road and started waving and screaming "MR JON MR JON!!!!" I tried to hide, because I was supposed to be sick - not walking around (even though I wasn't really going anywhere). Their nanny's looked confused because they knew I was supposed to be at school. I didn't bother explaining in the hopes of some new rumours start about me skipping school to go party.

I need some camouflage.

Lost in Kornhill

Living and working within the same 2 blocks definetly has it's perks. Like waking up 30 minutes before you have to be at work, and being able to walk to and from work. It is also fun running into students who live in the same building as you in the grocery store as their dad sneaks up on me to scare the crap outta me waving his kid in my face (that's another story - I will avenge my fright tomorrow).

As much of a perk as it is, I am starting to feel a little cluttered. I don't 'get out' as much as I used to when I was working at every other corner of Hong Kong. I can't even remember my last bus ride. My MTR pass lasts me up to 2 weeks now on $100. It used to take 3 days to go through that much. Some people may have even noticed my photo production has receded into nill. I rarely took my camera to work before, but sometimes I found places on the way to and from that I could go back to for some photos. I need to make a point of going out more just for taking pictures.

Like I mentioned above I ran into one of my students while buying water at the Wellcome across the street. He lives in the same building as me and I see him at leat 3 times a week it seems. I was waiting in line and his Mom and Dad decided it would be fun to sneak up on me and lift him up so he was at eye-level behind me. When I turned around it was slightly startling. I vowed revenge at school tomorrow.

After leaving the store, within the 20 feet between it and my house I saw another one of my students out with her parents walking with her new Autumn Festival lantern. It was a giant Mickey Mouse inflatable blinking contraption. Speaking of Mickey, someone at school was wearing Meikcy Mouse flip flops today. Yes I said Meikcy Mouse. I love fake crap!

1st Week of International Teaching

It has now been 1 week of classes at my new school I work for. We had a whole week of first-aid/CPR training last week and our exam last Friday. It isn't a requirement of my job to pass the exam, but I think the school has to have a certain percentage of qualified firt-aiders in order to qualify for some money from the government most likely, that's how things work here usually.

The practical part of the exam was easy and according to the examiner I was very good. I am now certified to revive a plastic dummy! The written exam was a bit of a joke. We counted at least 5 spelling errors, and 3 or 4 gramatical errors. This could obviously lead to certain answers being wrong when they were indeed supposed to be correct. Hopefully it won't matter and I will find out in 4 weeks that I passed. My school was offering $500 to anyone who passed the exam as an incentive. Did I mention we were also paid for the whole week of training?

Monday was the first official day of classes for all students in Hong Kong. It has been a long week in some ways and very quick in others. My daily schedule is a little confusing, but I don't have my own class until the afternoon. I teach the PM session for K1. In the mornings I assist with the AM session for 30 minutes, and then I work with the K3 class for another 90 minutes. Then I teach English to the Japanese section of the school as well as all the Chinese students in 3 - 20 minute sessions. Then it's lunchtime, and the PM I have my own class.

My class is really quite small. There is only 6 students for the PM session. 3 are Japanese, 2 Chinese, and 1 Phillipino. All instruction is done in English and the children understand a fair amount of what I say to them. Some of the things we do during the day are free play, gym time, arts and crafts, reading time, number work, phonics, tea time/snack time and singing and dancing. We also go on a # of field trips and outings thoughout the year. It mostly lots of fun and getting the children used to interacting with one another and encouraging English speaking.

Because my class is so small I have gotten to know the children quite well already. 2 children are still on vacation so the class has only been 4 kids the last week. They are all quite different but generally very funny little people. Some of the things they say make me laugh a lot. My favorite quote so far has been from Wai Wai:

"You can not come into my house!"

He said this when he was slightly angry at me. He seems to have a devilish mind as well when playing with toys. He likes to crash and fly toys into my shoulders and pretend they explode. He was playing with a tea set the other day and said,

"Hot tea, yum yum yum. Pouring water on you, hahaha. So hot, so hot, so funny so funny!"

That made me laugh pretty hard. Sometimes the children are a little nicer and will say things like,

"Mr. Jon, I like your face."

Most of the time they are all quite cute and happy. My class is much better than the AM session where the other teacher has her fair share of brats.

International Man of Mystery

Just call me Austin Powers. I'm now working at an International Kindergarten in Hong Kong. It's the / school about 2 minutes outside my front door. It is to be honest, quite awesome! Not only do I get to sleep in even more than usual, I don't have to spend any money whatsoever on transportation. Also I'm not subjected to the gazillion people on the MTR everyday, so the chance of catching SARS has probably gone down considerably.

I'm still teaching kindergarten, but in a somewhat different role. Being an international school, the main language of study is English. There are 5 other Westerners working there and we all have our own class. This means I teach all subjects (mainly arts crafts and playtime) to the children. Being 3-6 years old they don't really have subjects, but we will do some basic math and reading and things like that. In the mornings I will assist a K3 class that I teach oral English lessons to, so this will be the same as what I did last year. In the afternoon I have a K1 class that I am in full charge of. There is still an assistant teacher in the class I believe. The class is a huge mix of 6 children from Hong Kong and Japan. Hopefully they won't overwhelm me too much.

The thing I like most about the school so far is the more Western style of teaching, which basically means the children are taught like children a little more than in the local Chinese schools. They still have a heavy work load, but there is already more emphasis on having fun and playing games etc. Last week we took the whole school to the beach and the kids played in the sand all morning. A few other field trips this year will be going to various parks, libraries, and the Coca-Cola factory. I only went on two field trips all of last year with 10 schools!

I also have already been out on a 'social event' with most of the staff. This included sampling some local beverages (tropical juices of course) and getting to know everyone. Summer school had just concluded so it was more of an end of summer thing, but it was great to actually get to know the people I will be working with. One of the other teachers also plays rugby in Hong Kong, on the team the Typhoons train with. He's in a different division so we won't end up smashing each other's heads in.

All in all it's been a pretty busy first week and a half back in HK. I hadn't expected to be back at work so soon, but I couldn't pass up this new school. It's such a good situation. My old employers were nothing but helpful (although sad) to see me leave, but with such short notice they handled it well.

This coming weekend sees the return of the Typhoons. We are going on an all night pub-crawl to recruit new team members. It should be a fun time. The season starts at the end of September so maybe I should think about getting into shape a bit. Maybe lifting little kids all day will be a good thing.

Bottom of the barrel

Today I am teaching at my favorite kindergarten. There are many reasons I like it, but the main thing that sets it apart is how much better it is from the other schools I work at.

Compared to my other schools it is awesome here. I have freedom to teach what I want and how I want. There is more freedom over time and everyone is generally more flexible. As long as the kids are happy everyone is happy. That is not the case at my other kindergartens. It seems all they care about is pleasing the principal and administration. I received a negative comment that I was not doing well because my communication with the principal at one kindergarten was not good. That was much more heavily emphasized than the very positive feedback from the children. So I suppose my purpose at that school is to teach the principal English.

I have gotten used to it over a year, and for the most part I ignore everyone other than the children. Afterall I am being paid to teach them, not adults. So imagine my surprise today at my favorite school, when during a conversation with another local teacher, she said that this was the worst school she had taught at. I didn't believer her, there was no way this school could be 'worst' in any way. She went on to describe how other schools had been, and it made me realize that for the most part, I am teaching at the bottom of the barrel.

It would make me extremely happy if next year this was the worst school I taught at. It's just funny how much of a gap there is here in kindergartens. And as I found out awhile back, all kindergartens in Hong Kong are privately run, so it is not a case of private vs. government run schools. This gap only gets worse in High-Schools. It's too bad, but in a city of such high-competition maybe it's a good thing kids get used to it when they are 5.

Honglish Names

Most of my students have English names to go along with their native Chinese names that I can't pronounce. It's convenient as it's easier to identify them, but many of them don't really know their English name too well yet, and some of them change it all the time. The 2 year olds don't know anything at all much, so they only respond to hand gestures. It has become entertaining seeing what crazy name the parents come up with for their child's English name. Not only is the spelling often wrong (sometimes intentionally) I have no idea where they come up with these names. Here's some of the stranger names.

Austin - I call him Texas
Icy
Kinki - who names a kid Kinki?
Marco - I think they like the Marco Polo hotel, honestly
Ching Ching
Sunshine

Kiki, Mimi, Yoyo and Jojo - they sound like the new panda names at the local zoo
Vivian
Happy
Sam - chinese kids should not be named Sam, it doesn't fit at all
Randy - see above
Winnie - does she like pooh?
Angel
Hill - huh?
Kitty - why not doggy?
Rain
Backy - Becky maybe?

Sheep - I'm not kidding, that was his name, as in baaaah baaah baaah

Chirs - Yes it's C-H-I-R-S. Chris I asked? No Chirs. That's how the mom spells it, even if it's wrong and everyone knows it. Apparantly as an English teacher I am not allowed to change the spelling of their English names even if they are very WRONG!

There's many more that escape me at the moment, but I'll add some as I think of it. And the #1 stupid name in all of Hong Kong goes to a local celebrity who calls herself....

Vincy!

What the hell is Vincy? she's a girl too.

Picture Day

My Tuesday/Thursday school still amazes me sometimes. Today is picture day.

They have hired a professional photographer with a nice huge camera, two big strobes, various other gear. He seems to know what he is doing, but the staff apparantly do not. It took forever to do this morning's classes. They're kindergarten kids, but you would think they are military by how rigid they look in the end result photo. I remember my kindergarten photos consisted of everyone sticking out their tongue. Needless to say this school has too much money compared to other kindergartens, but I love it here. It's the only school I actually enjoy coming to. The students seem to be smarter more like 10 year olds than 6 year olds.

Also today I am prepping the K3 kids for their Primary School interviews. Haha. Seems a little strange? Yes I think is weird to have interviews in the first place, but interview coaching for 6 year olds seems even funnier. Either way I'm getting paid to do not much of anything today, so that's a plus. I feel like my brain is wasting away..........

I Like Rain

Living in Canada growing up I was accustomed to having the odd 'snow day' here or there throughout the winter. I can't remember ever having a 'rain day' though.

Today was my first ever rain day. I was at school for the morning kindergarten session, and the kids left a few minutes early. Then I found out that the afternoon session had been cancelled due to the heavy rain/thunderstorm. Although it was raining pretty heavy (a class Red warning) it didn't seem like anything special. I've driven in much worse many times.

Not one to argue going home early, I quickly packed up my things as I was told I could leave. When I got home it was barely raining, and the warning has been down graded to amber. It has since continued to rain and thunder on and off, but nothing crazy. This is just one more weird story I have now from my teaching here in Hong Kong.

I like rain. It can rain all year if it wants to.

Pint-Sized Politicians

Even though the tiny 1.5 year olds and 3 year olds can barely stand they have better skills when dealing with each other in a peaceful manner. By the time the students reach 5 years old, they have learned to hit one another. When they get to the P3 level, they are practically trained for war. I say this because my Primary Level 3 class I have today are a bunch of wackos. There is a group of approx. 5 that decline the option to sit for the 1hour long class and torture one another. Sometimes I think they like punching each other in the nose. The worst is that they don't seem to be fighting for any remotely sensible reason. No one stole anyone's candy, no one called someone poopy face, nothing. They just fight.

I try to break it up, but nothing works. It doesn't help that they think I'm funny when I yell at them. I have no control over them. I'm just a clown. But that's why I get paid the big bucks. Clown money, it's good cash...