Chinese Customs & Culture
A tourist’s description of what to expect from China... Beijing in particular!
Foreigners in China
Government
People
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Shopping
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Weird Traditions
Safe travels in China! A tourist orientated blog post by John Ashworth |
An article I wrote, reviewing 1 day from the trip!
The China experience.
It’s been an amazing journey, coming to China again and seeing how Beijing has changed since the Olympics of 2008. I only heard later that my initial travels getting from the States back to Amsterdam in time, were prayed for by hundreds of people. First of all, thanks! It was an experience I’ll never forget. But through all of my travels and struggles I’ve learned the most important thing is to rejoice, make the best out of the moment and trust God he’ll get you where you need to be.
Now enough of that, I’m about to realize I’m actually in Beijing, China! The English immersion program we're working with is focuses on teaching the untaught, reaching the unreached by means of English! Five years ago when I was twelve we taught an elementary school, hit by the earthquakes in Sichuan, the basics of English. But now, we’ve gone to a more advanced level of teaching Chinese English teachers, English. “Isn’t it funny how the tables have turned?” I told my class; the students become teachers, and teachers from all over China turn into my students! This goes to say that God provides in amazing ways. The government can’t ever fund thousands of teachers going to the West to learn English, so instead of that, they come from all over China, even unreached people groups, to learn English from foreigners in Beijing. What an opportunity we have!
Alright, day 9/10 I believe. Now it is 03:48 in the morning on Wednesday, August the 14th. Today was a great day, or should I say yesterday? Though it actually started with missing early morning breakfast (due to the early Chinese people cafeteria closes at 08:00), I was somehow provided with a peanut butter cracker sandwich and a weird, but good peach.
Class B of the Blue group starts their morning at 10am in a beautifully, English-words-decorated classroom, almost each morning. We ran through the usual announcements, did some teaching and practiced our own class chant. Later during lunch in the cafeteria I had to wait for the peak of people eating there, to start the drum roll for our chant. Just like the first morning when all the facilitators were awake at 06:45 to greet the students for breakfast, I think that lunch was another thing they’ll remember a long time. In the afternoon session we cut out magazine pictures and gave different groups pictures, chosen randomly which they had to tell or even sometimes act out a story with. One of the very funny, interactive, and creative ways to enjoy learning English.
Then there’s always some free time to rest, hang out with our group, read journals, get some of my own work done or entertain yourself (with a nap). In PE, instead of sweating outside in the deadly heat, this time they rehearsed part of the act we’ll be doing for the talent show! Afterwards, I like to enjoy a good quality basketball game with some of the Chinese Administrative Assistants (AA’s) while it’s still light. I then monitored the Computer Lab room with the company of some spicy Ramen noodles and mango Ice cream. From then on it’s basically time to enjoy talking, laughing, adoring the two babies, going out for more 10c ice cream, or in our case we decided to watch Star Trek and head over to a delicious Muslim Chinese restaurant. From there on it was exploring the dark, excited and narrow alleyways in the outskirts of Northern Beijing. Only to come home later and spend the rest of the night in hilarious and deep conversations to the point where I am now, off to bed. We’re gonna be teaching again soon, good night!
by John Ashworth
The China experience.
It’s been an amazing journey, coming to China again and seeing how Beijing has changed since the Olympics of 2008. I only heard later that my initial travels getting from the States back to Amsterdam in time, were prayed for by hundreds of people. First of all, thanks! It was an experience I’ll never forget. But through all of my travels and struggles I’ve learned the most important thing is to rejoice, make the best out of the moment and trust God he’ll get you where you need to be.
Now enough of that, I’m about to realize I’m actually in Beijing, China! The English immersion program we're working with is focuses on teaching the untaught, reaching the unreached by means of English! Five years ago when I was twelve we taught an elementary school, hit by the earthquakes in Sichuan, the basics of English. But now, we’ve gone to a more advanced level of teaching Chinese English teachers, English. “Isn’t it funny how the tables have turned?” I told my class; the students become teachers, and teachers from all over China turn into my students! This goes to say that God provides in amazing ways. The government can’t ever fund thousands of teachers going to the West to learn English, so instead of that, they come from all over China, even unreached people groups, to learn English from foreigners in Beijing. What an opportunity we have!
Alright, day 9/10 I believe. Now it is 03:48 in the morning on Wednesday, August the 14th. Today was a great day, or should I say yesterday? Though it actually started with missing early morning breakfast (due to the early Chinese people cafeteria closes at 08:00), I was somehow provided with a peanut butter cracker sandwich and a weird, but good peach.
Class B of the Blue group starts their morning at 10am in a beautifully, English-words-decorated classroom, almost each morning. We ran through the usual announcements, did some teaching and practiced our own class chant. Later during lunch in the cafeteria I had to wait for the peak of people eating there, to start the drum roll for our chant. Just like the first morning when all the facilitators were awake at 06:45 to greet the students for breakfast, I think that lunch was another thing they’ll remember a long time. In the afternoon session we cut out magazine pictures and gave different groups pictures, chosen randomly which they had to tell or even sometimes act out a story with. One of the very funny, interactive, and creative ways to enjoy learning English.
Then there’s always some free time to rest, hang out with our group, read journals, get some of my own work done or entertain yourself (with a nap). In PE, instead of sweating outside in the deadly heat, this time they rehearsed part of the act we’ll be doing for the talent show! Afterwards, I like to enjoy a good quality basketball game with some of the Chinese Administrative Assistants (AA’s) while it’s still light. I then monitored the Computer Lab room with the company of some spicy Ramen noodles and mango Ice cream. From then on it’s basically time to enjoy talking, laughing, adoring the two babies, going out for more 10c ice cream, or in our case we decided to watch Star Trek and head over to a delicious Muslim Chinese restaurant. From there on it was exploring the dark, excited and narrow alleyways in the outskirts of Northern Beijing. Only to come home later and spend the rest of the night in hilarious and deep conversations to the point where I am now, off to bed. We’re gonna be teaching again soon, good night!
by John Ashworth