“I like to eat Duck Tongue”

Abby is the queen of construction paper
iPhone Selfies. She's a cutie. 

Between weekends in Shanghai and trips down to Southern China, I teach a gaggle of darling 2nd graders and slightly less-cute-but-more-articulate 4th graders. There’s more teaching going on for the older kids; Language Arts lessons and Spelling tests occupy my afternoons while construction paper iPods and musical chairs with 7 year olds is how I spend the rest of the day. I’ve been teaching these kids for several weeks now and have all but gotten used to the hilarious stories and quirky names; but there are still moments that catch me off guard. The stories are funny, made even funnier by the fact that some of my kids have the most absurd names. You have the traditional titles like Josh and Kyle, Steven, and Taylor. Then, there's group that must have gotten their names out of the 1950’s sock hop registration list; names like Gary, Oscar, Scarlett, Linda, and Vicky. I’m also partial to the names are those that are not so much as names, but are objects; Cookie, Robot, Daisy, Honey and Kitty. However, my very favorites are those that aren’t really names at all: King, Happy, Blaze, Sweetie, and Michael Potato, to name a few. They are cute, they are sweet, they are naughty, and they are my kids….and their stories are hilarious. 

I’ve got a dozens of little tales that I painstakingly write down to make sure I remember them well enough to give me a giggle years down the road (or still make make my stomach turn). My 4th grader’s have more bewildering anecdotes. I’ve got one kid, Blaze, who doesn’t know much Englis

h. He can string together a few words to let me know he’ll be getting drink or going to the bathroom instead of writing down this week’s new Spelling list, so when he came into class wanting a “small this”, or a “little bag”, it took a minute for me to realize what he was asking for. “No Blaze, I don’ have a ziplock back…this is Spelling class. Why in the world would you need a bag or container?” Blaze opened his clutched hands, releasing about a dozen ants that immediately started crawling between his fingers. Luckily, a small houseplant was available to be the ant’s new home. I’m often asked for objects that don’t really make sense (“Teacha, do you have a lid for this?” “Teacher, do you have a picture of a hedgehog?”) but I have taken to carry around tissues in case they are needed. Once during reading, a boy named Jerry (there are about 7 Jerry’s in the ILP program, go figure) asked for a tissue, and I didn’t have one. He then proceeded to stand up, walk out the door to the bathroom, then changed his mind…spilling a loogie into his hand, then wiping that on the rubbish bin. In. His. Hands. 

Gross. Gross. Gross. 

My second grader’s are much cuter (see photo) but sometimes that gross. We end each day by piling all the kids into the gym room for a song and the chance for them to report their behavior to their Chinese teacher. Most of it is conducted in English, though sometimes it’s in Chinese. The American teachers usually tune out during the Chinese parts, but our attention was called once Hanson’s eager hand was finally called on, he said his comment, and the whole class chuckled. Lily, the Chinese coordinator replied sheepishly: “Thank you, Hanson: Chris; We mustn’t eat things out of the rubbish”. These kids will eat anything. Sunny (a 4th grader) once dove down to lick what turned out to be baking soda off the floor because it had fallen out of the fridge. You would think they didn’t get fed all day; they do, I promise. One afternoon, my horde of cute 2nd graders came running in to tell me that “James eat an ant!”. The girls were grossed out, the boys smiled and shrugged their shoulders when I asked them why in the world James would eat an ant, but I never got a straight answer.

Sometimes that communication barrier makes conversations even more hilarious. I teach a ridiculously cute and ridiculously loud 7 year old named Simba. He has the puffiest eyes that hide behind yellow rimmed glasses and the child shouts everything. His face is often found freshly flushed from yelling his report or screaming hello at friends. He is so-oo cute. Chris is his classmate (the rubbish eater) who is very naughty but has taken to giving me hugs for what I’m sure is some ulterior motive. He came into class and said sweetly “You are milk”. I looked to Simba who speaks slightly better English, who made a drinking-something-motion to confirm my question of “Milk?”. Simba replied “YES, MILK”. I asked again: “I am milk?”, utterly confused. Simba screams back at me: “NOT ME! CHRIS THINKS YOU ARE MILK! MIILLLLKKKKK!”. I have no idea what that even means. 

Simba is the star of one of my very favorite stories. My lesson included asking the kids what sort of pets they had at home. Some were eager to share their cat just had kittens, or that they have a bird at home that’s their very own. Simba rain forward to get right in my face and screamed at the top of his tiny lungs “I HAVE A BUNNY, 2 BIRDS, AND A DOG BUT THEY ALL DIIIIEEEEEEEDDDDD”. I was laughing hard, meaning I wasn’t paying him my full attention so he felt the need to shout the follow up: “TEACHA, I HAVE MANY, MANY FISSSSSHHH”. Oh Simba. My heart and eardrums won’t be the same ever again. 

King tries to play it cool, even on the St. Patrick's Day
slash Easter party.

This is usually how pictures go. 

There are also the offhanded comments that lower your self esteem in one swoop. King has to be one of my favorites (also he’s in my homeroom, so that’s a plus). He is sooooo cute, which is good because it means he gets away with saying things like “Teacha, so soft” when he jiggles my upper arms. Thanks, King. It’s a good thing I like you. 

The girls have sweet stories; shocker, I know. Pictures are often drawn and have the most heartwarming anecdotes. Taylor I think is the sweetest student I have; bonus points because she’s in my homeroom. Taylor drew a picture of Superman with hearts and when I asked what her Superpower would be she pointed to her paper because “She would make the whole world love each other…”  Could she be cuter?? 

Don’t get me wrong: the trips to exotic and exciting places have been wonderful, but it’s nice to come back home to my kids. I’m going to miss telling me their favorite breakfast food is duck tongue, or needing Michael Potato to make sure I don’t forget the “Potato” when I roll call his name just as “Michael”, or drying off leaves before class one by one for the pet silkworm for my 4th graders. Oh, I'm going to miss these kiddos. 

999 Steps to Heaven.

Who would have thought getting to Heaven was like Disneyland? We bid a sad farewell to Victor and our rocking hostel in Zhangjiajie and took a taxi to Tianmu mountain where we  luggage was stashed at a nearby hotel and got ready to wait in line. It's quite the ordeal to get to Heaven's Gate, and a 2 hour wait in line is the first step. Thank goodness for hilarious slogans and mistranslations on tee shirts to keep us all entertained. A favorite was a massive black and white photo of Chris Hemsworth splattered on a man's tee but the real winner was the man who brought his largish poodle type dog in line with him. Slowly but surely, the line snaked forward and brought us to the cable car ride that started the day's adventure.8 people to a car, the whole 30 minute ride starts by giving you a bird's eye view over a freeway, then a splattering of small villages. From up above, you can see women smacking laundry over rocks in a stream or the washed shirts hanging to dry over a field sprinkled with pecking chickens. As the terrain becomes more mountainous, things fade into thicker trees and jagged triangular points. The view below plummets into dizzying valleys as your little cable car is suspended over a thin line that appears to be climbing straight into the air. It's terrifying. 

There's nothing but a dizzying drop below that concrete platform (and some gorgeous views). 

Once you disembark, the whole scene unfolds before your eyes; a road with more turns than Lombard street snakes below you, while huge canverous valleys carpeted with green go on and on forever, creating a deep dip surrounded by steep and triangular peaks. It's an incredible view that is best seen by above. Good thing you can walk out on platforms with glass bottoms. 

The walkways on the mountain are a bit terrifying when you realize the entire path is clinging to the side of a cliff, but that fear is compounded when cement is replaced by transparent plastic. (Plastic walkway doesn't have the same ring as Glass Bridge, but in no way is that trail glass"). The material was a bit opaque but still provided a dizzying view of what lay below your feet. After the glass bridge, the walkway curls around the mountain, with several viewing points and a large suspension bridge. The swaying and spaces between boards made that crossing more frightening than the glass bridge, but made for another great viewpoint. 

I look brave in this picture. Don't be fooled. 

Needing to catch our flight later that evening, we needed to shorten our travel time up the mountain  so it was straight to the chairlift to take is higher on the mountain. At this point, the afternoon mist was rolling in, giving a normal mountainside chairlift a mysterious edge. The fog made it impossible to see the bouncing chairs ahead of you, leaving you feeling very alone on this mountain slope (read: everything was way cooler). The fog was fully swathing the mountain now, allowing huge structures like the Buddhist temple at the mountain's zenith impossible to see unless you were a few feet in front of it. The surrounding forests that crowd the walkways not hugging cliffs were enshrouded in mist and made everything 10 more beautiful and mysterious. 

I wish all the building in China looked like this. 

Can you see that windy road to the right? 

The Disneyland-esque aspect of our day returned when we needed to take an elevator and an enormous escalator through the mountain to get to Heaven's Gate. I never thought I'd be taking an escalator through a mountain and would need to wait in line for it. 8 incredibly long escalators later, our walkway wrapped around the mountain a giving us a view of Heaven's Gate up close. An enormous archway splits two massive mountains and allows the light to shine through, hence the heavenly appearance and title. One side is approachable by walkway, while the other spits out a 999 staircase you can choose to climb. (Or you can just take the escalator and the walkway and walk down the giant staircase). Despite the many modes of transportation to get there, Heaven's Gate was enchanting, especially if you add the waterfall to your left and the smokey incense curling up from the huge drum at the base. Though it would have been neat to climb up the stairs, heading down them gave us the energy to eat trail mix at the base and take in the whole scene. 

The day wasn't quite over yet; a dizzying drive down dozens (99 to be exact) of hairpin turns awaited us. Anticipating a terrible case of motion sickness, the drive lulled me to sleep after I had taken in my fair share of the views on the way down. A lunch of chow mien, a taxi ride and a plane then got us back to Nanjing. Funnily enough, that's when the motion sickness hit me; being in a taxi, then cable car, then ski lift, followed by an elevator ride and an escalator ride that felt like forever, a shuttle down the mountain, a taxi to the airport where a plane took us to the metro and another 90 minutes on that mode of transportation had me feeling like I was constantly in motion. Needless to say, I was ready to sleep in my own bed (and to see my darling kids the next day). 

The Loogie Alarm Clock.

Sleeper trains. For a train named for sleeping, there weren't many "zzzz's" to catch. Maybe I would have slept better on an American sleeper train because the main reason for my unrestful night was the violent hocking of loogies. The guttural coughs, the repeated rasping and then the eventful spit is hard to endure walking through the street and asking to sleep through a series of loogie hocking is asking too much. Needless to say, the entire evening was quite the ordeal. I rocked the middle bunk, meaning I had just enough room to sit on my bunk and have my neck curve at a nice angle, sandwiched between 2 other beds. There were 6 to our tiny broom closet sized room; naturally, the two eldest people in our compartment were all the way on top. I was impressed "grandma and grandpa" could climb up the narrow latter and curl up on the board like beds. The bottom bunks were the hottest real estate because you can sit up without being squashed. The ladies on the bottom bunks invited Hannah and myself over while we ate our ramen dinner so we didn't have to hunch over, which was very kind. What I didn't appreciate was the fact that the top bunk dwellers had painstakingly stuffed tissues in the air vents so they wouldn't get too chilly sleeping near the air conditioner. However, that mean it was a bit of a scorcher for those on the middle rows. Good thing Zhangjiajie was worth it (and that there are only 4 more sleeper trains in my foreseeable future). 

This city is quite pretty, tucked away in gorgeous mountains. The national park hidden up here is also jaw dropping. It was a chilly wait in line to get our national park passes but after passing the finger print test and several passport scrutiny points (intense, right?) I made it inside. Victor, our hostel's front desk man, had drawn us a very clear "to do list" for the day that consisted of meandering pathways under the staggering mountains. Because of the weather, it would be pointless to climb to the tops because the startling drops would be hidden by the clouds. 

Thus, the afternoon was spent admiring gorgeous walkways interrupted by stone bridges and mossy stones gazing up at tall trees and even taller mountains. Pretty as that was, the real highlight were the hordes of monkeys we stumbled upon. Those little baby monkeys were so cute and loved to to grab banana chips right out of your hand. The bigger ones were more impatient and would just snag the entire bag of trail mix by climbing up your leg and taking off with it. While the day on the ground level was fun, we were anxious to get to climbing to see the mountain tops. Lucky for us, Monday's forecast was nothing but blue skies. 

What you can't see is the huge McDonald's just behind this impressive structure. 

Victor had outlined a deserted trail head which we found with little issue, and chatted between breaths about favorite childhood shows and ice cream flavors. After many steps, a visit to a very tall pagoda that housed huge salamanders that ended up being on cafe's menu, a McDonald's on top of the mountain (?!?), even more stairs, were got to the top. The views were stunning; the mountains seemed to completely drop off to reveal a valley where towering pinnacles were somehow suspended. Obviously the stalagmite-esqe shapes were mounted to the ground, but they seemed to be free form, floating just above the ground. I suppose that's where the inspiration for the Avatar film came from; regardless, the view was breathtaking. 

A poor replica of the real thing. 

We had spent the entire day climbing higher and higher, either on foot or on shuttle. By the way, those shuttle rides are always a good time. People try to chat with us and continue the conversation though my Chinese basically consists of saying "hello" and counting from 1-10 in what I'm sure is a horrendous accent. One man kept narrating bits of pieces for his friends at the front of bus, shouting "Americans!', "Teachers!" and other key phrases for the others to hear. Another man decided to pass the time singing while the shuttle hugged huge cliff faces and rounded sharp turns. Regrettably, I did not pack my headphones that day. 

You would not believe how many people cut in front of me before I got my turn on the platform. 

Because we had reached such a high elevation and sunset was quickly approaching, we needed a quick way down the enormous mountain. Climbing down was not an option due to lack of energy (and trail mix), and a shuttle would take too long. Thank goodness the national park had installed an elevator that shoots you down some 362 or something stories in about 6 seconds. It comes with a pricey ticket and a decent wait in line, but it was so worth it to see the mountain blur as your zip down at record speed. I think what I appreciated most (besides the floor to ceiling glass for a killer view) was the fact that the waiting area was decorated just like hotel lobby; it almost made you forget you'd be elevator-ing down a mountain instead of a few hotel floors. 

Tuckered out, we needed to board the bus home...which ended up being the most memorable adventure of the whole day. The concept of waiting in line is completely lost on Chinese tour groups wanting to board a bus. The "line" becomes a swarming crowd of people that push and shove, and yank and squish and shout, all to get on a bus. Needing to get home, we joined the pulsating mass of people. Things got intense when the bus pulled up; elbows were thrown, backpacks were pulled, and individuals were dragging friends onto the bus by random limbs. Situated in the middle of the swarm, at one point my feet couldn't touch the ground because I was lifted up by the mass of people pushing me. By some miracle, all 8 of us managed to squish onto the bus along with what seemed like 2,129 other people. All. On. One. Bus. Getting ready to settle in for the 20 or so minute ride, the bus suddenly stopped about 2 minutes later and everyone disembarked. All that shoving and shouting and screaming was for nothing! The bus to go home was down the mountain a bit further; people had seemingly risked their lives for a 1200 meter bus ride down hill. 

Here's to hoping the buses are never again that busy. Ever.