“The children are incredibly cute and they are the reason I have fallen in love.”

Dragging our suitcases behind us, we boarded the bus to our new school.. we arrived in Du Jiang Yan, which is a beautiful small picturesque city rich in mountains.. it just wasn’t Nanchong. It was quickly explained that our school was not ready yet so we had time to settle in and create our syllabus. Thankfully I had completed my TEFL certificate with distinction so felt prepared to tackle the task. My TEFL course provided me with confidence, knowledge and resources – and assisted in attaining this incredible internship.

Once we had created our syllabus we made our way to the new school to have a look around. I believe that exact day allowed me to understand the unusual opportunities I could be faced with during the next four months. Before Hannah and I knew it, we were dancing to a song we had barely rehearsed which we did not recognise due to the lyrics being in Chinese, on stage, in front of many leaders of private schools within the area, teachers from the school in Du Jiang Yan. Later, we found out the song was in fact Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. It was hilarious, confidence-testing and the kids loved it.

A month later I had been entered into a Chinese clothes fashion show and I found myself hosting China’s tourism promotion event to a room full of people and on television. In May I will be competing in the half marathon taking place along the Great Wall of China in Beijing. I am currently fundraising for a Charity in Beijing called Chunmiao Little Flower which works with abandoned and orphaned children.

We’ve accepted that moving to Nanchong is fading out, but love that we have settled in to Guang Ya Kindergarten, Du Jiang Yan.  The children are incredibly cute and they are the reason I have fallen in love with this internship. One of my classes of 5-6 year olds are always joking. For example, I walk in to class and say “Hello everybody!” some of them shout “see you later” or “see you tomorrow” or “bye!” then fall on the floor laughing. I genuinely feel it has been mutually beneficial, they’ve provided me with my newly discovered passion..teaching. I love the little monsters and never want to leave them.

I would say my biggest challenge so far is being a vegetarian (this being because there is NO such thing as vegetarian in China, all it means is that you prefer vegetables). Before coming I suggest you either come to terms with eating less, eating more boiled rice, removing meat from your meals or bringing more money to eat out or cook for yourself and accept that meals aren’t included.

Tips

1. Get a good VPN: Install this to your phone and computer before arriving in China
2. Useful Apps: Pleco, WeChat/QQ, APP
3. Attempt the Chinese phonetic alphabet, it will make so much more sense if you do
4. Simple visual way of learning characters: Chineasy
5. Bring home comforts and things you may struggle finding i.e: Yorkshire tea bags, peppermint tea, your favourite make-up, deodorants (ideally roll on/block deodorants when travelling on a train or bus, they will throw spray in the bin/trash!! plus deodorants are expensive here!)
6. Don’t eat your food if you drop it on the table, it might as well be on the floor. The 5-second rule doesn’t apply here! Chinese spit their food on the table (e.g. fish bones). Chinese don’t blow their noses, they prefer to.. erm.. spit phlegm on the floor. This happens a lot.
7. Respect culture. Just because it’s not like home, doesn’t mean it’s the wrong way of doing things. It just means it’s different
8. Prepare to love China, the language and the locals. Oh and expect to extend your visa.