If it quacks like a duck....

Another guest writer this time with a story of her week in China for as a Professional Learning Leader and curriculum developer:

A week in China........

Well I have just surfaced from a week in China for work and there are many moments to share:

Eating:

If it looks like a roasted duck head – then it is a roasted duck head. I was having dinner in the hotel that I was staying in while in Chongqing. It was a buffet that was a mix of Chinese and Western food.

As I was carefully looking at what sort of food was on offer one of the servers took it upon herself to advise me – this involved getting one of the chefs out and between them using google translate to make sure that I knew what was what. What ensued was a series of hilarious moments which were a mix of charades, karaoke and show and tell on a phone.

When it came to the roasted duck heads I had to draw the line – much to their disappointment – they didn’t even try to convince me to try chicken feet though they did get me to try jellyfish (enough said).

Lesson learned- given a chance and a smile – people are more interested in being helpful.

Taxi drivers can go either way…

Scenario one –waiting at the train station to be picked up – one driver was literally yelling in my face for 5 minutes asking whether I wanted a taxi – I started off ignoring, then saying no, then walking away – it persisted until I almost had to run away yelling nooooooooo.

Scenario two…. Driver with as much English as I have mandarin (i.e. none) we managed to get to where I needed to be (after 3 U-turns) he turned off the meter and then took me almost up the stairs of the school – being very apologetic!!!

The language barrier...

What to do when you attend meetings and lead professional learning in Chinese when you don’t speak Chinese!!!!!

I have just completed a series of meetings and delivering professional learning in Chinese. Luckily I have two colleagues who were with me most of the time who were able to translate and thus we managed to be quite successful.

Though the translating comes at a cost – on one of the days we had fish for lunch (remember this). After lunch we had a session where teachers stood up and shared what it means to be a teacher ‘nowadays’. This was all delivered in Chinese and one actually sang her delivery rather than speak (karaoke again).

My trusty sidekicks were sitting on either side of me very diligently whispering translations to me – now remember the fish….. after about 30 minutes of this I had to tell them to relax and enjoy the sessions – rather than get caught up with the translating – I thought I was going to pass out.

Thank you so much for that story Juanita.

Enjoyed reading it.

Cheers,

HB