Shanghai

As eluded to in my previous entries, I went back to Shanghai for Fall Break.  I have lots of family in Shanghai and it's been a little while since I've gone back to see them.  For those of you that don't already know, I was actually born in Shanghai and it's a place I've been back to visit a few times before already.  A few of the places there, I always seem to be pulled back to visit but it never seems to get boring.  With this being the first solo trip I've taken back to Shanghai, it gave it a different outlook on the topic of family and life in China. 

Firstly, I really do love Shanghai, its got a great blend of the old and new there are some truly remarkable places within the city.  It's lively and everything always seems to be in constant motion.  Shanghai also has a unique blend of eastern and western influences which is not seen in many other places in mainland China.  However, my upbringing in Canada has not endeared some aspects mainland Chinese behaviours.  The public spitting, the way people push through off-loading passengers to get onto buses, the blatant disobedience of traffic rules, and opportunistic line-cutters are just some examples of things that are hard to reconcile.  Here in Macau, expats and foreigners can sometimes be heard saying "that's so mainland".  This statement is essentially a derogatory expression to describe all these habits that are negatively associated mainland China behaviours.  Understandably, in China, things are not the same as back in North America, but it's too bad that some Chinese citizens do things that shows a lack of respect for other people in their community.  It does somewhat mar the beauty of what is a truly remarkable city. 

This trip also gave me a new perspective of family.  It was something I should have realized earlier but for whatever reason, I've only really fully understood the situation on this visit.  Despite being a fully-independent adult with an established career, my family will always see me as a child.  I know that this true for all cultures, but this quality is amplified significantly in Asian cultures.  Sure it doesn't hurt to have a portion of your travel expenses paid by family, but done too much and I felt it to be a disregard for my status as an adult, which was at times frustrating.  I fully understanding and appreciate the sentiment of helping a younger generation family member but it was suffocating at times.  I realized that growing up for so many years away from China, warps my Shanghai family's perspective of my independence and this was why I will always be placed in this status when I go back.  Overall, I'm blessed and thankful for that kind of attention, but the next trip to Shanghai will be planned without involving too much hassle of my family there.

The rest of the adventures from the Shanghai is shown in picture form below.

Atop the old Saudi Arabia pavilion from the 2010 World Expo.  Not the greatest day.

The spiral walkway within the Saudi Arabia pavilion

A swarm of hungry goldfish

The temple area at Zhou Zhuang

Ornaments

The quaint waterways of Zhou Zhuang, an outlier village from Shanghai

The rows of willow trees and old Chinese buildings made for a really relaxing vista.

You know you're in China when...

Nanxiang Steamed Buns at Yuyuan Garden.  Yums!

One amongst the crowd

Yuyuan Garden

A part of Nanjing Rd is permanently sectioned off as a pedestrian street.

Along the Huangpu river

Nightlife at The Bund

Shanghai skyline

Wait, so what's happened since I've come back to Macau you ask?  How come it took so long to get these pictures up?  Well, I was assaulted by first term report cards.  Not to mention that we had community day this past Saturday and 2 more volleyball matches to boot.  During community day, one of the events was a 3 on 3 basketball tournament.  Two other teachers and myself thought it would be fun to participate in this tournament with the kids.  Naturally, the students thought it was incredibly unfair (though they didn't know how awful I am at basketball).  However, all the matches were quite close and we actually needed to play even strength (we played all our other games as 2 vs 3 students) during the final match to squeak out a come from behind 8-7 win.  In volleyball our 14-15 team is still looking for their first win of the year, as we lost the first winnable game on the account of poor serve receiving and sloppy execution on team defense.  The fact that we have a regular season (no less against some very strong teams) this year magnifies weaknesses that we didn't need to address of the course of a 1 weekend tournament last year.  We let it be known that it was by far their worse effort of the year, and unfortunately it had to be in front of a large contingent of TIS supporters.  It's back to the drawing board for our next practice.  Here's a short picture recap of our most recent match.

It should be a relatively quiet stretch from here to Christmas break, but check back soon for another update!

The Cherry on Top

So with the change in the blog address, I'm sure that there's probably won't be as many readers as before but I very much appreciate those of you who are sticking with the program. 

You may be wondering what I'm referring to in my title of this entry.  I came to Macau to start my career in teaching.  When I left, I didn't know what to expect and I certainly didn't know what kind of experience I would have living in a foreign country.  Suffice it to say, that I'm sure you already know that I have sincerely enjoyed teaching and living in Macau.  It is a position with it's challenges but also with rewards that far exceeds those challenges.  The current weeks have given me just a little extra when it comes to the rewards aspect of being here, the cherry on top.

If you've been with the blog this long, you know that I love volleyball and coaching it as well.  This past week has been flooded with volleyball related activities.  The school hosted a high school volleyball tournament for some other international schools in Guangdong province, the closest province of China to Macau.  While my team didn't play, we did have a few students serve as volunteers for lines officials, scorekeepers and the like.  Most people would tell you that spending all Saturday managing students in extra-curricular settings makes for a miserable weekend.  I would disagree.  I enjoyed being around them in a non-classroom setting and watching some reasonably entertaining volleyball games at the same time.  Throw in free food and a productive day of marking and the day isn't so bad after all.

I wouldn't describe my weekend as being "flooded with volleyball" if that was all there was to it.  Our teams started their local Macau season today as well.  Our 14-15 team was up first against a very experienced volleyball playing school.  The hosting venue where we will play all our games was VERY nice.  Other than having top notch facilities, we had a full compliment of game officials, player substitution placards (like the ones seen in professional matches), and even an electronic timeout-calling device.  While the match ended a little lopsidedly against us, I thought the team played remarkably well for the first game of the season, minimizing errors and working well as a team.  Next up is a double-header day on Wednesday, where our 12-13 team debuts against allegedly the best volleyball playing school in Macau and the 14-15 team plays 2 hours after the 12-13 team.

Life isn't that one-dimensional though, I am also very excited for the upcoming Fall Break.  I've already booked a trip to Shanghai.  Oddly, this will actually be the longest duration I haven't been back to Shanghai since probably the beginning of high school.  I've joked that it was about time I visited Shanghai since living in Asia because soon my relatives will get offended that I haven't yet been back to Shanghai yet.  I was also thinking of taking a small trip to Hangzhou during that week.  It'll be a busy week but I'm quite excited for the trip and just the time off.  The great thing about Macau, is that within a 3hr flight, there are so many different countries to visit unlike back in Canada, where there would only be one other country you could possibly get to.  I'm only beginning to scratch the surface with all the amazing places to visit.

I'll do my best to update the blog (with pictures too) after the break but I can't make any promises as it'll be report card week.  But they'll appear soon enough.  Until next time!

A Change of Plans

Hi All,


Note: Oops, somehow this post never made it out of draft phase from when I originally wrote it.  Here is a retrospective of my experiences back to the 3rd week of classes.

I'm glad you've managed to find your way over to the new site.  If you've made it this far, you've shown some real dedication in following my ramblings.  The opportunity really presents itself for me to really thank everyone's who's been so committed to the blog.  I honestly had no idea that other people followed my adventures here with such diligence.

So this past week has been mostly uneventful.  A remarkably amusing situation has arisen over the last week though.  What you'll need to know first to understand this story is that our 3rd period each day is divided into 2 segments spanning across the lunch break.  Most days, I head off to the staff room for lunch and unassumingly head back to my classroom prior to the start of afternoon classes.  What has started happening is that there is a growing number of students from my period 3 class that will patiently wait outside the staff room and "escort" me back up to the classroom.  I have no idea why they do this but they seem to take great pride and enjoyment in making sure that I get to my classroom safely.  These students are also remarkably organized, setting up an almost professionally managed perimeter covering my flanks and parting the student crowd ahead of me as I pass through the middle school hallway.  Evidently, some of my colleagues deem this very amusing as well, and make comments about how they were thinking of attacking me if it weren't for my student bodyguards.

As for the breaks coming up, I've decided that spending $300+ for flights to Bangkok during the long weekend was a little too much for me.  I can afford to splurge a little more this year but I've always thought of myself as being very financially disciplined.  I did however book my flight to Shanghai for the week off during October.  It's going to be a surprise trip for my relatives, so I'll still have to figure out how to get from the airport to their place.  No problem though, I can speak Shanghainese fluently and my Mandarin isn't too shabby anymore either.

This upcoming week is when the school hosts the Mid-Autumn Moon Festival.  There a lot going on at the festival and a lot of things are already set in place for the occasion.  We've even received our moon cakes from the university again.  We also have that long weekend to boot.  Check back next time to find out what happened during the festivities.


Getting Hit by Culture Moment:  So add Argentinian cuisine to the list of cuisines I've tried out here in Macau.  Ate a healthy serving of meats at a quaint little Argentinian BBQ and Pizzeria place this past week.  Will definitely be back for more.  Next week, I'm back to try a new Portuguese restaurant where I've been warned not to ask for ketchup for the fries.  Apparently the owner/chef turns into the Soup Nazi when you imply that his fries aren't good enough and needs a side of condiments.

Week 1 in the Books

Hello World,

So week 1 of teaching is in the books and here a few things worth highlighting from the past week:

•  Much to my relief, things are a lot more orderly the 2nd time around teaching.  The flow of the lesson, even just my thoughts during a class worked much better.  Having lessons at the ready well before the date of teaching them really does help out and overall things are less stressful and hectic.
• The new grade 7s are a great bunch.  If past indications are any sign of future outcome, then I have a really bright and capable bunch.  This group by comparison with the last group shows a stronger "elementary school conditioning".  They'll ask if they've been dismissed yet, when leaving the class to go to an assembly, they explicitly ask if they can go ahead of me, and they actual wait outside the classroom before class begins and won't come in until I prompt them to. 
• My old grade 7s, still very much like my company.  In the mornings, my classroom is filled more with my former students then with my current ones.  In the hallways, they are very emphatic with their greetings for me, in a way making me feel like a bit of a rock star.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss them.  Although, I wouldn't mind if they didn't come swarming into my classroom at the beginning of the morning.
• The first week of the staff dinner club was a great success.  We had 16 members turn up to our Wednesday dinner at a Thai restaurant.  A good time was had by all in attendance and a location has already been picked for next week.
• We had the first team meeting and tryouts for the junior girls volleyball team.  I'll give the girls credit, as a whole they did very well for not having playing any volleyball during the summer.  As mentioned before, this will be a significantly longer and more involving season.  It will also be a more complex setup as we are participating in 3 conferences, with differing age requirements, meaning that building the team will be challenging.  The first season is the DSEJ local Macau conference, which starts in October.  For that TIS will have 2 junior girls teams.  The 2 girls will be blended into 1 team for the other 2 conferences in the new year, including the much anticipated return to the SCISAC tournament to hopefully pick up gold this year.  
• On the topic of volleyball and sports team, last year our junior basketball teams had personalized jerseys for their games.  The overall reception to the uniforms were very positive with a LOT of students from other teams wanting jerseys too.  With that in mind, I whipped up a few designs this year.  Granted, it would be great to see this to fruition but money is always an issue, so I leave to the coaches, parents, and students to figure out if this is a worthwhile part of the student athletics experience.  In the absence of pictures so far, I thought I would share the designs with you.  Feel free to provide any design suggestions as this is only still draft phase :)

Well so much for a short entry.  Check in soon for another update on year 2 in Macau! 

The Journey Begins Anew

Hi All,

So tomorrow starts the 2nd year of my teaching career.  Yes, the 2nd year sure isn't greeted with as much fanfare as the 1st year I know but there is still a lot of excitement in the air.

For one thing, now that I've been back in Macau for a week, and had a chance to get to know the new teaching team at TIS, there's even more reason to hope for a great year.  First year definitely brought it's challenges with me having to do just about everything from scratch but 2nd year brings the challenges of leadership.  Everything from planning and leading a pack of 50+ teenagers on a week long trip to a foreign country (alright, I'll just say we're going to Taiwan again for experience week), to hosting the staff dinner club (don't laugh, I take that position seriously... but not THAT seriously), the 2nd year should prove to be as exciting and rewarding as the first year was.

Let's not forget that I'll have my hands-full with another batch of grade 7s.  For the first time in a long time, I don't feel particularly nervous about the first day of school.  Part of the reason is probably because I'm in exactly the same position as the year before, the other part of the reason might be because I'm already done lesson planning for a full 2 weeks :).  I'm sure that the nerves will kick in a bit tomorrow once I'm in front of 22 pairs of eyes.  Having already taught a full year also gives me the satisfaction of seeing my grade 7s from last year advanced to the next grade level.  Sure, while it might not be the biggest accomplishments in any of their lives, as a teacher I can't help feeling a sometimes overwhelming sense of pride and excitement to see the people I've poured so much of myself into move onto bigger and better things.

Every school year will have repetitive elements, so to break new ground with the blog, I am aiming to change the format to make the posts more frequently, often covering some interesting daily happenings or "philosophical" ramblings of my experiences.  Granted should any significant happenings occur, you can expect a full recounting of the details.  I liken what I'm doing to a new year's resolution; I'm hopeful this will work well but things might just revert back to the old ways before long (such a pessimist). 

An early morning awaits, so it's time to find the bed and be ready for another amazing adventure tomorrow.  Wish me luck!

Jason

P.S. Apologies for the lack of pictures, my SLR is still in Canada for repairs.  I not a big fan of uploading the crummy point and shoot camera pictures if I can help it at all.  The good news is that I should be getting the SLR back in October!

An Intriguing Start

Hi All,

Well I didn't really expect my second year in Macau to start off this way but who could possibly expect this kind of a start.  I'll preface this short entry by telling you that I am sharing the same apartment I had last year with a new TIS staff and that my trip over to Macau was mostly uneventful other than the fact that I was on the same flight as 2 other teachers from TIS and that their luggage mysterious was lost in transit.

What I really wanted to write about was the first words my roommate said to me when I got to the apartment.  No he didn't greet me with a welcome, otherwise there wouldn't be a point in writing this entry.  He said, "our apartment's been broken into."  Yes, our apartment had been broken into that very same day, as I was coming to Macau and he was at new staff orientation.  We didn't get robbed clean, for that matter almost nothing of mine was taken other than some Taiwanese money.  My roommate wasn't as fortunate.  Gone was his laptop, a couple of watches, and other little electronic goods.  

The rest of the day was spent contacting our landlord, and dragging the police investigation team to our apartment to check out the crime scene.  The police brought in 2 divisions, dusted for prints, checked IDs, snapped photos, asked us questions, and did a few other things that made it feel like a scene out of CSI, minus the gruesome murders.  It just a lot to take in mere hours after arriving in Macau. 

Not the best first day back but hopefully over the next few days we can make some headway into this situation and maybe even recover the lost items.  Stay tuned and keep your fingers crossed for us!

The End of the Beginning

Hi All,

Oops, I haven't posted on the blog in months it seems and for that I apologize.  I had expected the end of the school year to be smooth sailing in a manner similar to how students seem to just "get by" during the home stretch of any school year.  It turns out not to be the case, especially when I have to write 2 brand new exams on my own from scratch, mark those exams, prepare the final set of report cards, and deal with all the year end business. 

As I expect this to be a long entry, let me just do a quick rundown of all that's happened since the last update:

• TIS hosted an international middle school basketball tournament.  While it meant that I basically had to work the weekend as well, it was a tremendous well coordinated affair, with local television coverage, a packed gym (by essentially the whole school) for a few of the games, use of a jumbotron, and well though out social activities for the coaches and players.  The icing on the cake was the great results TIS got from the tournament, with the boys finishing as repeat champions (on last second basket to seal the win) and the girls gutting out a 2nd place finish despite a 3rd of the team being injured.

• The student councils hosted a benefit concert and a group of teachers rocked the final act.  I could describe it to you, but I think you'll be much more interested in seeing the performance for yourself here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zh3AJBJByME&feature=youtu.be

• A friend from back home in Canada came to visit and we hit up some of the popular attractions around Macau.  Finally redeemed my set of free tickets to the House of Dancing Water show.  In a word, the show was spectacular.  Definitely worth checking out if you're ever in Macau.
• We had a swap day for the grade 6s and 7s towards the end of the year.  It is primarily for the grade 6 students to get a taste of what secondary school life is like.  The jump from 6 to 7 is a significant one as many of you will have remembered and we organized something to help the grade 6s feel more at ease when they get here next year.  I told my homeroom students, that they would find recess a waste of time in their time revisiting elementary school.  Indeed the grade 7s came back feeling like they didn't belong in elementary school (despite their initial rampant excitement for one last taste of recess) anymore.  I used this as an opportunity to show them how much they had grown in their time with me.
• The 2012 edition of the FIVB World Grand Prix Volleyball Tournament rolled around to Macau again (but not the finals).  One of the teacher's at the school had connections with the organizers and we got to take our junior girls volleyball team to check out Team China's practice.  When the event started we took the girls to check out the games and the Puerto Rican and Argentinian players were nice enough to take pictures with and sign autographs for our girls.  I neat treat for me, was that my mom happened to be around and it was the perfect venue for her to come with our team and  see my interactions as a teacher with students.
• The end of the year brings along a lot of reflection and celebrations.  In the final few weeks we held the athletics banquet, the academics awards ceremony, and end of year staff party.  With the student events, it was really great see some really deserving kids get recognized for their hard work in athletics and academics.  The staff party was great time but bittersweet as well when considering it as the unofficial send-off the some of the staff leaving the school.

The end of a school year, let alone the first one as a teacher, is always a time of looking back as well as looking forward.  Before I ramble on my reflections of my first year of teaching I thought I would highlight a few details of how my second year in Macau will be similar and different:

• I will still be teaching exactly the same classes that I've taught this year (Grade 7 Science and Math) in the exact same classroom
• I will most likely not be living on my own next year or if not that, I will definitely not be living in the same apartment.  Rent in Macau is getting ludicrously expensive and even with a substantial increase in our rent supplement payments, I can no longer afford living solo in a 3 bedroom apartment.  I am currently cultivating a few roommate options for next year and I'll keep you posted on the situation.
• In the span of one year, I turn from rookie teacher into the grade team leader.  I will be the only Grade 7 homeroom teacher left behind from this past year.  In a highly juxtaposed position, I will be responsible for showing the incoming new (but still more experienced) teachers the ways of TIS middle school.  I will also be responsible for planning the Grade 7 experience week trip.  Taiwan, here I come again!
• I'll also be leading the youth group program at my church in the coming year.  Despite an initial PD conflict of interest crisis (since so many of those kids are my students), and I've come to love every single moment of youth group and sharing in fellowship with some amazing young adults.  Despite the added bit of work, I'm really looking forward to the position next year.
• My coaching duties for next year have changed, but only slightly.  The length of the volleyball season is growing so that we'll have to start practices basically right from the beginning of the year.  This means I will not longer be coaching tennis next year.  Instead of one mini-tournament and the Taiwan tournament, next year we'll be playing in the local Macau school league (regular season format) as well as 3 full scale tournaments.   I told our athletic director that I still wanted to be assistant coach for the junior girls if nothing else because we definitely have some unfinished business, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I would be bothered not to have the chance to bring the girls back to the finals again next year and hopefully win gold this time.  I was also asked if I could head coach one of the new under 12 volleyball teams next year.  As of right now, I've said yes and it is only a matter of figuring out whether I'll be coaching the boys or girls U12 team.

 Before I can truly look forward to next year however, I first need to look back at what has been an amazing ride as a first year teacher.  The biggest life lesson I took from this year was that you can't predict where life takes you and you really just have to take it as it comes.  A year ago today, all I knew about Macau was that it was a special area of Asia that might or might not be part of China.  There have been so many amazing life experiences and wonderful people that I've met the past year and I couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity to live this stage of life.

If you believe that there is a right road to take in life, this definitely would constitute as the right road for me.  While initially, it was tough saying goodbye to the people and life I had in Canada, I found myself developing a comfortable niche here.  On the personal side, it really helped me grow an appreciation of both sides of my Chinese-Canadian heritage.  I've never accepted myself as being "Asian cultured" but now I feel as though I have a bit of that eastern culture within me.  A testament to this, has been a slightly improved ability but a significantly improved confidence in my Mandarin speaking and listening skills.  I even managed go through an entire parent-teacher interview in Mandarin!

From a teaching standpoint, I've been challenged and rewarded equally in my first year as a teacher.  There are some very polar viewpoints about value of teachers, with some of the general public scoffing at our lengthy summer breaks and ease of work, against the most idealistic of teachers (of whom I once was) who lament about the effort they put into their craft to ensure all of their students are independent, capable leaders of the future.  Passing through my first year of teaching, I might not be the idealist I once was but in no way can I ever buy into the idea that my job can ever be considered "easy".  My personal take on teaching is simply this, for a teacher who is truly committed to his/her work, being a teacher is simultaneously the most fulfilling yet frustrating career in existence.  You will have days, lessons, and experiences that will catalyze your students to becoming the amazing people that they someday will become.  Yet on those same days, you might still have frustrations that keep you awake at night.  Sometimes, you'll want your students to improve even more than they themselves want to improve, and unfortunately no amount of support can overcome an absence of determination to improve on a student's part.

As I've said before, the most reassuring thing about whether I'm doing the right thing in life is the fact that at no point this year have I felt like teaching has been work in the traditional sense of the word.  At no point this year have I told myself that getting paid was the justification for why I chose to get into teaching.  I teach because I love knowing that the things I do can have a significant impact on the lives of my students in the future.  Certainly my first year of teaching has not be free of mistakes and practices that can be improved upon.  I am also willing to accept that it might take me many more years to teach to a completely satisfactory level.  But the other part of the reason I love teaching is that the students and demands of the position will always challenge me to be a better role model than I currently am for my students. 

This year has definitely been one to remember and I'm excited to make next year just as memorable.  But for now, I'm really exhausted from a hard year's work.  Everyone says the first year of teaching is always the toughest but I'm not sure I fully buy into that.  I'm sure next year will be less of doing everything from scratch, but next year will pose it's own new set of challenges.  I'm excited to see many familiar faces this summer and I thank each and every person who has read this blog and supported me on this journey.  This is only the end of the beginning and I'm looking forward to seeing what the next chapter holds.

Jason

The SCISAC basketball tournament with a packed house

The Opening Ceremonies of the World Grand Prix of Volleyball

Yeah the girls were super excited to meet professional volleyball players.

Puerto Rico's player posing for a picture

While our girls might not have known the players by name, they sure were excited to get the autographs

My homeroom class

The tennis team

The junior girls volleyball team