Events

This weekend in China it is the celebration of the Mid Autumn Festival, with a public holiday on Monday September 15th. It is sometimes referred to as the Mooncake Festival as wonderful packages of moon cakes are given as gifts at this time of year.

Well it is a public holiday for some. We had class! The Chinese teachers I believe were given Mooncakes.

I had arranged to have a scrabble and poker night with some of my colleagues. The night started with some nibbles and then Chicken cacciatorie for dinner.

The night continued with people departing unexpectedly, questions raised, laughter, drinking.

The night ended with stories to tell, copious amounts of alcohol consumed and no playing of scrabble or poker!

Christmas, our New Year and the end of my contract all fell around the same time.

In China although they don't believe in Christmas they have a custom of giving apples to those that they wish happiness to for the coming year. The receiver of the apple must eat them on Christmas eve. I was the recipient of such apples and could not possibly eat them all on Christmas eve. I did tell a few white lies to my students who asked if I had eaten the apples - 'of course I ate them'

I was extremely touched by the gifts I had received from my students. Because of Australian laws I may not be allowed to bring them into the country. I will declare them at the airport and hopefully I will be able to keep them

The Foreign Teachers Christmas Party was celebrated on the 23 December 2008.

First we had dinner at the school restaurant. I was fortunate to share dinner with some of the teachers from the Brazil project and Andrew. As per normal there was way too much food.

After dinner we went to the administration building where there was a show put on for us. The students are really quite talented. Most of them can sing or play an instrument. The show was great and very interactive. Polly has formed a drama group and they sang and did some dancing.

The international school Principal - Michael, was trying to teach Blair and I how to write Chinese Characters. I think we failed!!!!!

Party was all over by 9 ish.

Andrew celebrated his birthday on the 18th December. We had a small gathering for him at the Porridge Restaurant. It was a nice dinner.