Survive and Thrive: First Day of School

(*Editorial note: Please allow me to clarify something! In our latest newsletter I said that our language school lasted from 8:30am-11:30pm. For those of you who have been very concerned for us as to how we were going to keep up that rigorous schedule three days a week, you can rest easy. It should have read 8:30am-11:30am. Our school day is only three hours long, not fifteen as I led you to believe!)

At 6:40 am on Monday we were out the door on our way to our first day of class at language school. Just a short walk from our apartment we caught subway line 5 headed south. It was a squeeze to get on, and just four stops later we had to exit on the opposite side of the train to transfer to line 10. Thankfully, many people were doing the same thing, and we made it out without incident. While it was still standing room only on line 10, it was not nearly as crowded, and we made it to our destination by 7:10. Just atop the stairway out of the subway station some amazing smells greeted us. Vendors stood over grills sizzling with chicken, onions, eggs and sausages. On the spot we decided that we would not have oatmeal for breakfast on Wednesday! We won’t need to get up any earlier in order to grab breakfast, since we arrived at our school one hour ahead of schedule.

We found our room, turned in some paperwork and played ping pong while we waited for our class to begin.

Zhang Lin Lin is the teacher who has the monumental task of teaching the four of us spoken Chinese. Around five feet four inches tall, and apparently in her early twenties, Zhang Laoshi (teacher Zhang) as we will address her, was dressed in dark blue denim capris and a bright yellow cardigan layered over a grey T-shirt. Not exactly an intimidating first impression! It became evident as she began, however, that our minds and mouths would have a grueling time of it, working to understand her instructions, stretching to make sounds that we do not have in the English language, and straining to reproduce the tones so integral to speaking Chinese. Zhang Laoshi would not allow us to speak English with her or with each other. She said that if we spoke English, we would be teaching her, and that was not why we were there. Although she often laughed at our failed attempts and sometimes looked disgusted with how we mutilated the tones, we found our new teacher to be a friendly and cheerful ally in our efforts to speak Mandarin.

Due to the “opening ceremonies” of the school year, we did not have our second class or a change to meet Zeng Laoshi, who will teach our comprehensive Chinese class. For that we wait until Wednesday morning, our second day of school. With fresh, fall weather outside, completed homework, and new backpacks for our school book, we are ready!