Down in Guangxi Province, in Southern China is the wonderful tourist mecca of 
Yangshuo. It is dubbed the 'English Corner of China,' and with good reason. Yangshuo, with its fantastic scenery, western comforts and plethora of English Schools has been a popular spot for foreign tourists since the '80s when it was the backpacker hangout. When word got out about how fabulous this backwater town was, inevitably the town's popularity grew past the backpacker crowd to include just about everyone and their mother, both foreign and Chinese. Usually this alone would be a reason to cross a place off our 'to-visit' list. Over-touristed places can rarely deliver on the reasons they became popular in the first place. Our guidebook suggested that if you were after the sublime scenery as opposed to the 'banana-oreo-peanut butter milkshakes' (or something) to consider staying out in the countryside. But, no, as I mentioned in a few previous blogs we were looking for a 'banana-oreo-peanut butter' type experience at this point. Because, really, if they had peanut butter, they were bound to have decent toilets, right? Well, that was my (disturbing) train of thought anyways. We were so looking forward to Yanghsuo that I began to really worry that it couldn't possibly live up to the oasis it was in my head. Locals that speak English, food variety, good value accommodation, bike paths through spectacular mountain-scape that require no 
sweaty hill climbing... It couldn't possibly have it all.
Ohhh, but it did. And more.
The people who we really owe our fantastic Yangshuo experience to are a local Hungarian-Chinese couple, Atilla and Candy, whom we met through couchsurfing. And no, Atilla wasn't even the Han (pronounced 'Hun') of the pair, much to the chagrin of Jonathan's nickname scheming mind! Atilla is an English teacher at one of the biggest English Colleges in Yangshuo: Zhou Yue English College. If we volunteered a mere two hours a night to chat with a small English class, then the school would provide free lunch, dinner and a room! What a deal! In the end, we only took advantage of the free dinner, but for any traveller whose budget needs a break, its a really great offer. The students at Zhou Yue are all adults and very, VERY dedicated to learning English. They are from all over China, and have quit their jobs to improve their English. They want better jobs and more opportunities and see English as an essential skill. Their day starts at 8am and the learning doesn't stop
until 8:30pm! As with our other volunteering experiences, we really feel as though we got much more out of our time with the students than they could have possibly gotten from us.
Our weekday evenings started with dinner at 530pm. We joined the students at big round tables in the dining hall and tried our very best to keep up with their swift chopstick mastery. They eat SO fast. Within twenty minutes the students would be gone and only us volunteers would be left, overwhelmed by the whirlwind, wondering what happened to all that food that had been piled on the table mere moments earlier. It vanished. By the last week, one of the students, Gunner, who had taken a particular liking to Jonathan (don't they all?) had decided that he was going to personally make sure that Jonathan left the dinner table full. Usually only two of the five dishes on the table were vegetarian. In China, the dishes are set in the middle of the table. Everyone has a small bowl of rice in front of them and uses the chopsticks to pick the food from the communal dishes, a bite or two at a time and put it into their rice bowl. Gunner didn't like that Jonathan only got to pick from two of the fast-disappearing dishes. How could he get enough? Gunner would get extra little bowls for Jonathan and fill them with the vegetarian dishes and put them in front of Jonathan. He would then instruct the rest of the table that they
were only to eat from Jonathan's dishes as a last choice, if they happened to still be hungry when all the other food on the table was gone. It was really sweet, and really funny.
The most amazing thing for us was actually being able to communicate with Chinese people. After dinner all the volunteers were sent to different classes, armed with a nightly topic with the only instructions being to 'just talk.' It could have been a painful and awkward two hours, but it never was. The minutes flew by and by 830 I was making lists of all the questions and topics I wanted to discuss the next night with my next group of victims..ahem, students. We had come half way across the world to visit China and because of our lack of Chinese and their lack of English, we hadn't really had the opportunity to communicate with many folks, expect one couple we met in Fenghuang. Until now. Every night for two hours we sat in different classrooms and discussed various topics with the students. They got to practice their speaking and listening to our different accents and we got to hear so many fascinating opinions, life stories, insights and legends of the Chinese.
I can't say enough good things about our experience at Zhou Yue. We talked to
real people about what it was like to work in Chinese factories, the conditions, the pay, the hours, the clients. We talked about Chinese geography and all the small towns or ginormous cities the students came from. We talked about politics, religion, food and family. We covered life aspirations, marriage, kids and the generation gap between young adults and their parents. We discussed China's one child policy, it's 52 minority groups, its 1.3 billion strong population and the languages that all these people speak. For example, every person spoke a local dialect from their village (they are so modest that they don't even consider this a language, since its not usable outside their village) and Chinese (Mandarin), many spoke Cantonese and now English as well. 'How many languages do you speak?' they asked me. 'One, just English' I said. 'One and a half if you are willing to be generous enough to count my smattering of French,' I added to make myself feel better. 'No, but what about your mother tongue?' They asked, like I didn't quite get their question. 'No, just English,' I confirmed, 'That is my mother tongue.' 'No,' they persisted, 'Like what language did your parents teach you in your town when you were a child. What do they speak in your town?' And so on. I think by the time I left that night they still weren't sure if I was still just pulling their leg, trying to hide some dialect of secret obscure 'Canadiana Canoe' language from them or something. We talked about travel, how hard it is for Chinese to obtain passports, and what they think of the ballooning western influence. They were fascinated by every detail of our lives. Where we worked, how many people were in our family, how much money we made, what kind of car we drove, why we came to China, 
where we came from, where we were going, did we like Chinese food, what do people eat in Canada, do they like Chinese food, what is this 'Chinatown' they have heard about, what did we think of China before we came here, what do we think about it now, could we speak Chinese, did we think it would be hard to learn, why are my eyes green, were my parent's eyes green, what about my sister's, no, why not? Most importantly, did we like the movie 'Titanic' and did we know every word to Celine's classic 'My heart will go on?' (Seriously, they are obsessed with this movie and this song). Romantics, all of them. When we told them that James Cameron, the director of the film was from our home town and that Celine was a fellow Canadian we were pretty much promoted to celebrities ourselves. Who'd have thought... only in China. haha
PS. Just an update on our postal situation: So far four of the five packages have made it safely home, and the only one that hasn't, isn't due to arrive until next month, so we still have high hopes for that one too! (ya!) Thanks for those who let me know that their China postcards have been arriving! That's exciting. Turns out the stamps do work! Now just for some Nepal arrivals. I wonder as well, Gina, where does this lost mail go? I mean, it must be somewhere...
Yangshuo. It is dubbed the 'English Corner of China,' and with good reason. Yangshuo, with its fantastic scenery, western comforts and plethora of English Schools has been a popular spot for foreign tourists since the '80s when it was the backpacker hangout. When word got out about how fabulous this backwater town was, inevitably the town's popularity grew past the backpacker crowd to include just about everyone and their mother, both foreign and Chinese. Usually this alone would be a reason to cross a place off our 'to-visit' list. Over-touristed places can rarely deliver on the reasons they became popular in the first place. Our guidebook suggested that if you were after the sublime scenery as opposed to the 'banana-oreo-peanut butter milkshakes' (or something) to consider staying out in the countryside. But, no, as I mentioned in a few previous blogs we were looking for a 'banana-oreo-peanut butter' type experience at this point. Because, really, if they had peanut butter, they were bound to have decent toilets, right? Well, that was my (disturbing) train of thought anyways. We were so looking forward to Yanghsuo that I began to really worry that it couldn't possibly live up to the oasis it was in my head. Locals that speak English, food variety, good value accommodation, bike paths through spectacular mountain-scape that require no sweaty hill climbing... It couldn't possibly have it all.
Ohhh, but it did. And more.
The people who we really owe our fantastic Yangshuo experience to are a local Hungarian-Chinese couple, Atilla and Candy, whom we met through couchsurfing. And no, Atilla wasn't even the Han (pronounced 'Hun') of the pair, much to the chagrin of Jonathan's nickname scheming mind! Atilla is an English teacher at one of the biggest English Colleges in Yangshuo: Zhou Yue English College. If we volunteered a mere two hours a night to chat with a small English class, then the school would provide free lunch, dinner and a room! What a deal! In the end, we only took advantage of the free dinner, but for any traveller whose budget needs a break, its a really great offer. The students at Zhou Yue are all adults and very, VERY dedicated to learning English. They are from all over China, and have quit their jobs to improve their English. They want better jobs and more opportunities and see English as an essential skill. Their day starts at 8am and the learning doesn't stop
until 8:30pm! As with our other volunteering experiences, we really feel as though we got much more out of our time with the students than they could have possibly gotten from us.
Our weekday evenings started with dinner at 530pm. We joined the students at big round tables in the dining hall and tried our very best to keep up with their swift chopstick mastery. They eat SO fast. Within twenty minutes the students would be gone and only us volunteers would be left, overwhelmed by the whirlwind, wondering what happened to all that food that had been piled on the table mere moments earlier. It vanished. By the last week, one of the students, Gunner, who had taken a particular liking to Jonathan (don't they all?) had decided that he was going to personally make sure that Jonathan left the dinner table full. Usually only two of the five dishes on the table were vegetarian. In China, the dishes are set in the middle of the table. Everyone has a small bowl of rice in front of them and uses the chopsticks to pick the food from the communal dishes, a bite or two at a time and put it into their rice bowl. Gunner didn't like that Jonathan only got to pick from two of the fast-disappearing dishes. How could he get enough? Gunner would get extra little bowls for Jonathan and fill them with the vegetarian dishes and put them in front of Jonathan. He would then instruct the rest of the table that they
were only to eat from Jonathan's dishes as a last choice, if they happened to still be hungry when all the other food on the table was gone. It was really sweet, and really funny.
The most amazing thing for us was actually being able to communicate with Chinese people. After dinner all the volunteers were sent to different classes, armed with a nightly topic with the only instructions being to 'just talk.' It could have been a painful and awkward two hours, but it never was. The minutes flew by and by 830 I was making lists of all the questions and topics I wanted to discuss the next night with my next group of victims..ahem, students. We had come half way across the world to visit China and because of our lack of Chinese and their lack of English, we hadn't really had the opportunity to communicate with many folks, expect one couple we met in Fenghuang. Until now. Every night for two hours we sat in different classrooms and discussed various topics with the students. They got to practice their speaking and listening to our different accents and we got to hear so many fascinating opinions, life stories, insights and legends of the Chinese.
I can't say enough good things about our experience at Zhou Yue. We talked to
real people about what it was like to work in Chinese factories, the conditions, the pay, the hours, the clients. We talked about Chinese geography and all the small towns or ginormous cities the students came from. We talked about politics, religion, food and family. We covered life aspirations, marriage, kids and the generation gap between young adults and their parents. We discussed China's one child policy, it's 52 minority groups, its 1.3 billion strong population and the languages that all these people speak. For example, every person spoke a local dialect from their village (they are so modest that they don't even consider this a language, since its not usable outside their village) and Chinese (Mandarin), many spoke Cantonese and now English as well. 'How many languages do you speak?' they asked me. 'One, just English' I said. 'One and a half if you are willing to be generous enough to count my smattering of French,' I added to make myself feel better. 'No, but what about your mother tongue?' They asked, like I didn't quite get their question. 'No, just English,' I confirmed, 'That is my mother tongue.' 'No,' they persisted, 'Like what language did your parents teach you in your town when you were a child. What do they speak in your town?' And so on. I think by the time I left that night they still weren't sure if I was still just pulling their leg, trying to hide some dialect of secret obscure 'Canadiana Canoe' language from them or something. We talked about travel, how hard it is for Chinese to obtain passports, and what they think of the ballooning western influence. They were fascinated by every detail of our lives. Where we worked, how many people were in our family, how much money we made, what kind of car we drove, why we came to China, where we came from, where we were going, did we like Chinese food, what do people eat in Canada, do they like Chinese food, what is this 'Chinatown' they have heard about, what did we think of China before we came here, what do we think about it now, could we speak Chinese, did we think it would be hard to learn, why are my eyes green, were my parent's eyes green, what about my sister's, no, why not? Most importantly, did we like the movie 'Titanic' and did we know every word to Celine's classic 'My heart will go on?' (Seriously, they are obsessed with this movie and this song). Romantics, all of them. When we told them that James Cameron, the director of the film was from our home town and that Celine was a fellow Canadian we were pretty much promoted to celebrities ourselves. Who'd have thought... only in China. haha
PS. Just an update on our postal situation: So far four of the five packages have made it safely home, and the only one that hasn't, isn't due to arrive until next month, so we still have high hopes for that one too! (ya!) Thanks for those who let me know that their China postcards have been arriving! That's exciting. Turns out the stamps do work! Now just for some Nepal arrivals. I wonder as well, Gina, where does this lost mail go? I mean, it must be somewhere...
beginner class and Jonathan had an intermediate class. Although most of the kids in my other classes were older and in grade 12 or so, half of the kids in my last class were young. The Life and Hope Organization houses kids from the countryside who otherwise wouldn't have access to education and so the kids live in the Wat compound. I think they mostly just register for English classes to entertain themselves for an hour each night with a foreigner flapping their arms around trying to act out or draw the English words I was trying to convey to these beginners.
keeping me company so I wouldn't have to wait alone. First, they discovered that if they pressed their fingers into my reddish skin that it would leave a momentary white mark. This, was very, very entertaining for them. Having darker skin, their arms didn't create the same show as mine. It began with just a dozen boney little fingers pressing into my skin, but it soon turned into whole tiny hands gripping hand fulls of my skin and squeezing as hard as possible and then laughing hysterically when my skin turned white for a brief moment before returning to its 'natural' red... it would also later turn a 'natural' black and blue... but the kids didn't stick around long enough for that show.
books and bags at the end of the class and return with fistfuls of wild flowers for us that they would then painstakingly arrange in our hair, only to fall out the second we moved. It was very cute ,though; and super thoughtful.
in the grand scheme really weren't that important as the program is not part of their actual schooling. One teenage boy in particular was disappointed that we weren't staying longer, as he was hoping to 'become fluent' from our daily before class chats.
breaking the cycle of poverty by providing loving support and access to education to the poorest and most vulnerable in Cambodia...' Again, we will be teaching English, only this time our classes are mostly comprised of adults and older teens. We are teaching three classes, from 4-7pm, every evening. Most of the students attend school or work during the day and come to the evening classes because they really want to learn English. So far, they are pretty entertaining and provide us with at least one giggle worthy statement every day. I say this in good humour, not to make fun of them, the same way everyone laughs when I try to say 'goodnight' in Khmer, which must be coming out something like 'I love to eat boogers' judging by the way they laugh when I make what I think are the correct noises. For example, on the first day, one of the boys wrote, 'It is exactly in the midle of the dessert,' which is funny because dessert is supposed to be desert, and he was meaning to say the the Marrakech market was 'exactly in the middle of the desert,' which is still funny, I think. Then another boy decided that you could buy and espresso at a pharmacy, which is probably what people who drink espressos try to use as medication anyways! haha
to questions. Without fail, in each class, a cheeky boy would stand up and ask me how old I was, what my favourite colour was, and if I could cook. That was a new one. Could I cook? haha Was I filling out an application of sorts, I wondered. Was I passing?
everywhere else, too) presents the challenge of encouraging and helping the students pronounce words and sounds accurately. One way we have been helping them to focus on proper pronunciation is by playing the telephone game. The class is split into two teams and into the first person's ear we whisper a sentence. That person and everyone after has to whisper into the next person's ear until, finally, the message reaches the last person, the one at the back of the room, and he or she runs to the front of the class and writes the sentence as it was received on the chalkboard. One small mispronunciation along the line can produce some pretty weird sentences, words and grammar.
My favourite round of telephone happened to be when we relayed the message She is walking a dog. The first team ran up to the board quite quickly. The trouble with their strategy, though, was that they concentrated on speed rather than accuracy. In haste the little boy confidently scribbled down He is walking a door. At least his spelling was correct...
kindly invited us out to see the school's organic farm, which was about an hour outside Vientiane. International Women's Day is an actual Holiday here, so there was no school that day. Phout, the PhysEd teacher at Sunshine was at Didi's house when we arrived in the morning, as he was going to come out to the farm with us. For Phout and Jonathan, it was love at first sight, or love at first sight of the Lao Phrasebook, perhaps. For the entire car ride, and then for the next two weeks, Jonathan and Phout had a complete and utter bro-mance happening. Phout didn't speak much English and Jonathan spoke even less Lao. We had been given a Lao Phrasebook from an Aussie friend named Greta way back in Luang NamTha. From that moment, it lived in the shirt of Jonathan's breast pocket and he used it several times a day. It was/is a fantastic tool to aid in communication with the locals. Whether its ordering rice and veggies at a menu-less restaurant or asking someone if they have kids (or answering that question, which was more likely) we can't imagine Lao without that phrasebook. So, as he had been doing over the previous two weeks, Jonathan used the phrasebook to start up a simple conversation with Phout. The phrasebook is especially useful because it has the Lao characters beside the English word, so even if the person you were trying to 
communicate with didn't understand what you were trying to say, you could point to the word in Lao. Jonathan and Phout 'discussed' sports and basic life history the entire car ride to the farm, and all the way back. Every time the phrasebook came out Phout got excited. He was fascinated by it. Jonathan would ask Phout a question and hand him the phrasebook. Phout would gingerly flip through it, getting distracted by the variety of subjects the book covered, reading words, getting Jonathan to pronounce them for him, and so on.
students came and brought a pot of rice and a pot of the day's main course to their classrooms to eat, and the teachers served themselves in the kitchen. Phout found Jonathan a bowl, filled it until rice was heaping over the edge, and then made him a second bowl full of the main course and carried them out to the table for him. He brought him extra fresh herbs and spices and sat right next to him, in case Jonathan had a whim for anything further. When Jonathan finally had worked his way through his first helping, without even asking, Phout whisked his bowl away for a refill. After the feast, Jonathan and Phout parted ways with an enthusiastic high five. And so it began. The daily love affair of Phout and Jonathan. They gushed at each other when they passed in the hall and waved excitedly when they saw each other across the courtyard. Everyday Phout would personally serve lunch up for Jonathan while, everyday, I stood in the middle of the kitchen, empty bowl in hand, watching in dismay. Everyday, while heading 
over to the lunch table, hands full of food, he would turn to me with a sly smile and shrug his shoulders as he left with Phout. If his hands hadn't been pre-occuppied with all the food Phout piled into them, there is no doubt those two would be walking around holding hands! If Jonathan ever happened to go to the bathroom before lunch, or stay in the class to talk to a kid and I went to the kitchen myself, I would be met with an adorably worried Phout. 'Where's Jonathan?' would be his greeting. And then, not only would I be standing there food-less, watching as Phout ran about making special arrangements for Jonathan's meal, I would also have to follow him around, assuring him that dear Jonathan was certainly on his way. 'No, of course he's not mad at you! You look very slim in that Phys Ed shirt! Any man who can't see how wonderful you are just isn't worth your time!' Haha Just kidding. But, Jeez. When does my suffering end?
Present Continuous Tense. Don't worry if you can't remember what Present Continuous Tense is: there won't be an English test at the end of this post...if you're lucky! Anyway, Saba has a bit of an artistic flare and uses her talent to help teach her students. In this particular class, there were four drawings on the wipe board.
Just as I was thinking to myself What totalitarian dictator are you saluting? one of the kids put up his hand and said, "What are they smoking?" Saba and I looked at one another and smirked. It was funny, but it was even funnier because he was so earnest. Saba slightly modified the arm that was causing the confusion, but you can maybe see from the photo how it could have been misconstrued.