Today I got the chance to go back to kindergarten! CET had all of us go visit HIT's kindergarten so that we could practice our Chinese and interview the kindergartners. I have to say it was QUITE the experience. Definitely the opposite of our visit with HIT's elderly. When I heard that we were going to visit a kindergarten I had imagined in my head visiting a class, playing with a bunch of cute kids, and easily asking them the list of questions I had for them. I expected them to be cute, adorable, quiet, and willing to answer my questions. In fact, they were actually very cute and adorable, but as for being quiet and willingly answering my questions, they were far from it.
Two classmates and I walked in a class of about 20-30 kindergartners and were immeadietly each given a group of students. I proceeded to my table of kids and sat in my chair fit for a kid 1/4 my size. At first they really didn't know what to do with me! They didn't know whether to speak English or Chinese, and when they found out they couldn't speak English to me that had no clue what to say to me. One kid just looked at me and said in Chinese "foreigner" and then put his head down unwilling to talk to me. The teacher encouraged them to say their names, etc, but they were pretty shy and needed a bit more encouragement. The teacher then decided to have them all recite the 成语 (cheng yu), or idioms, that they had been memorizing. So my table started to recite their 成语 and they gradually got louder and louder until it was practically a yelling match between tables. After that the teacher tried again to have them introduce their names, and as they introduced their names I did my best to understand what they said and repeat it back. If I said their name wrong they were definitely not afraid to tell me I was wrong. I then tried to get them to all write their names for me so that I could see their names. This got them all really excited and they started pulling out paper to write, and they were all fighting for my attention to show me their name. A couple of the kids decided to take out their books and have me read the book to them; so I ended up spended quite a bit of time reading Spongebob Squarepants to them in Chinese. I thought it was pretty funny to see how excited they were to have me reading their book. They were all crowded around me so they could see the book too (one kid was practically in my lap), and they were quick to correct my pronunciation. After an hour or so in the very noisy classroom, my time came to an end and I had to say goodbye to my new "small friends", but it was an experience that I don't think I will forget very easily. I don't know how I forgot how noisy and spirited little kids can be. I have to say though, I have no clue what I'm going to tell my teacher on Friday because I didn't get a chance to ask any of my questions...
Classes have been going well. It is weird to realize that I have been in China now for a little more than six and a half months. I'm now having to start getting things ready for next fall semester, which makes it hard to wait to go home. I've certainly been enjoying my time, and I'm slowly making more and more friends here. I have been blessed while I have been here in more ways than one. I do think I'm starting to come down with a case of senioritis though.
Oh, and it is still very much winter here. I'm watching it snow outside right now, and it started snowing five hours ago.
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