Week 7: G

GAP-toothed GRINS: How great are these smiles? No, I didn't give them their names, but the boy on the far left is called Tony and the boy next to him in blue goes by Romeo. Ol' Tony gets winded every time we play a rousing game of duck, duck, goose (or, as we play it: my mom, my mom, your dad). I have approximately 150 students, but I think this class is my favorite. The kids are about 7 years old and haven't learned to be self-conscious yet. (Melissa, do you think the boy on the right is wearing licensed Snoopy gear?)

GIRLS in pink. Just a generation ago the Chinese were wearing uniforms issued by the State, and now they look like they could be at home in any American mall. Isn't it odd how they have embraced the gender attributes of colors? It would be fascinating to see where they got the notion that pink is a girl's color. Can we blame this on Barbie, too?

I didn't know what to do in my level-9 class last Sunday, so I had them act out the new vocabulary. This was: "You shouldn't have climbed the ladder, you could have been electrocuted." Uh...did you know how to say that sentence in a foreign language when you were in middle school? I guess the kids really do learn a lot going to school from 7:30 in the morning until 6:40 at night. They attend school 240 days a years (180 in the US). Last week, they were off for a whole week for the Nation's Day Holiday...but the schools required them to come in on a Saturday and Sunday for make-up days. Hey, nephews, no more complaining about school!