China's Perception of Beauty

Before each class, the same thing usually happens. Excited children peer at me from behind a wall or door and then run down the corridors shouting; ‘beautiful! Beautiful! So beautiful!’ The Chinese teachers who help me to control the class also comment on my appearance and youth.

If I had a pound for every time someone told be that I was beautiful here, I would be rich!

I’m not saying this to sound full of my self. The fact is, every foreigner in Asia will say that they have been told the same thing.

 The Chinese love fair skin, big eyes and being thin.

In China, when someone compliments you about anything, you must decline the compliment and produce a compliment of your own in return. So, for example, if a person says, ‘your Chinese is very good,’ you would reply saying, ‘no. My Chinese is not good. Your English is very good.’ If you say, ‘thank you’ to a compliment, you are seen as being arrogant and impolite. I didn’t know this when I first arrived. Oops!

At home, a lot of men will find big bums and big boobs attractive. Here, it’s all about having a pretty face. Girls here are thin and petite. Not once have I seen fake boobs and big bums. The girls here seem to concentrate on facial beauty more than showing off their bodies (unless they work in a club).

I find the Chinese girls so pretty with their naturally straight dark hair, near perfect skin complexions and their petite sizes. But naturally, some will find flaws in their appearances. I’ve had some Chinese girls tell me that they think that their faces are too ‘fat.’ Sounds pretty ridiculous right?

The Chinese girls also want fair skin. I was aware of this before I came here and although there is a variation of Asian skin colour here, pale is seen as being cooler and more beautiful than darker skin. Here is a picture of a Chinese actress, Liu Yan, to give you an idea of how pale some girls want to be.

Some Chinese girls focus a lot on what they look like and what they look like to others as any other girls would in any other country. One Westerner told me that he was at work and some Chinese recruiters were busy sorting out possible applicants for future job positions. When he asked how they were deciding who got hired and who didn’t, whether it was on the Universities they had been to or past experience, they replied saying that it was down to what they looked like from their application photographs!!

Beauty pageants in mainland China were banned for more than 50 years to try and limit the discrimination of women. But now, it is apparently quite popular among young women and it is something many dream of winning.

 However, when I ask my students what they want to do as a career, instead of saying; a singer, an actor, a model, a celebrity, they will say that they want to be a business man or woman. I find this refreshing.

When I talk with my older classes about differences between China and the West, I mention the different ideas of beauty. When I tell my students about British girls wearing fake hair, fake nails, fake eye lashes, fake eyebrows and fake tan, they always look at me with raised eyebrows and laugh.

I like to people watch and the girls here are usually very natural looking. Of course, some will wear make up, but I’ve never once seen an orange face or 8 layers of make-up on any girl.

I also find it very difficult here to guess a girl or a woman's age. I'm not the only one to have this difficulty either! Chinese women seem to have the super power of looking young for a long time! They will always look younger than they actually are! For example, the actress, Zhang Ziyi (from 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' and 'Memoires of a Geisha') looks about eighteen but in actual fact she is thirty four!!

I’ve spent so long getting used to my ‘ginger’ hair. I spent my younger years being bullied for it and when I was older I was teased for it.

Now, I love my hair, it’s what gets me noticed. Less than 4% of the world’s population has my hair colour and less than 4% has my eye colour (green). Everyone tries so hard to be different and now I realise that I was different all along. So just when I am fully embracing my individuality and 100% happy with my appearance (well, 85%), the Chinese think that my hair is blonde!!...

Typical!! So I keep getting told how much they like my ‘blonde’ hair. It was the same when I lived in Italy. They described my hair also as ‘blonde.’ Typical!

I find different countries and cultures' ideas of beauty interesting. Everyone wants what they don’t have!

I have to say, I prefer the more natural look here rather than the faker look at home in the UK. I’m already wearing far less make up here than I would in the UK and I am going to try my best to keep it that way.

The Spring Festival is approaching...

On Sunday I went to my work’s New Year meal. I thought it would be just the foreign teachers and our bosses. I couldn’t be more wrong. We went to a hotel. I was asked to write good luck wishes to people for the New Year on red paper. I signed my name and got given a free gift (a set of chopsticks. Great! I can practise using them at home now!) 

I then got taken into the main room. It was full of tables and people….400 people in fact. The entire team from the 14 different schools were there! 

 Food was brought out continuously. I have to say, I still need to get used to Chinese food. It’s certainly very different to the Chinese food we get at home! I have yet to learn the names of Chinese dishes or know what is what! Also, I still have the same problem using chopsticks! So, attempting to eat food is always harder than it should be!

A week before the event, I was asked to do a performance at the meal. I said no because I was feeling unwell. I’m so glad I said no. I had no idea that I would have had to perform in front of over 400 people!!

Some children and teachers did some performances. I have to say, the whole experience was a bit strange for me! Five girls began the show. They are obviously teachers at the school and they performed a dance in little shorts and crop tops. It was a bit inappropriate for a teacher’s meal but I don’t think anyone would protest because they were attractive Chinese girls!

Next, some boys who were no older than ten years old performed some Chinese hip hop dances. At the beginning, I thought they were good. They were cute with interesting style and good moves. However, the second song came on and it had lyrics that included, ‘I’m going to shoot you’ and swear words beginning with ‘f’ and ‘s.’ Again, probably not the most appropriate song for a work dinner or for children! The foreign teachers looked at each other awkwardly, trying not to laugh. I looked around and it seemed the Chinese enjoyed it though!

Two more children came on stage and performed a dialogue. It reminded me of a performance from the Eisteddfod back in Wales. I think half the dialogue was supposed to be in English but I didn’t hear any!

Two male singers sang a song each. The first should stick to his day job. The other was quite a good singer and the Chinese kept offering him gifts for his singing. By the end he was singing with an arm full of wine, food and Baijiu, (the VERY strong alcohol that they drink here).

It seems Chinese people are immune to loud sounds. The microphones were SO loud the whole time. I fear my hearing is not so great now after that evening!

The meal was over as quick as it had begun. The whole event lasted about an hour! People were having photos and leaving before the performances had even ended! I was so surprised. I thought the New Year celebrations would go on all night! The foreign teachers wondered how much was spent on the event and that it was a shame the event ended so suddenly.

 The foreign teachers were the last to leave. The workers were taking down the whole display before we had even left and they were standing next to us impatiently while we finished our wine! I think that was them ‘subtly’ hinting for us to leave!

The Spring Festival (Chinese New Year to you and I) is fast approaching and people keep asking me what I’m doing for it. I have no idea!

 It seems boyfriends and girlfriends are going on holiday to places like Indonesia and Thailand. The Chinese return to their families. Foreigners go home.

Apparently the Spring festival is like Christmas…except it lasts over a week!! Everything is closed. I thought that maybe I could do some travelling around China, but travelling is impossible apparently. The roads, trains and planes are grid locked and even some hotels don’t do business.

What will I do?

 Even Natasha, my closest friend here is going on holiday with her mother. I am going to have to stock up on an endless supply of food and hope that some people will be around for me to socialise with! I will get at least four days holiday from work during this festival. I must not waste them!

This year is the year of the horse. I was born in the year of the horse so this is my year! I'm supposed to wear red every day to attract good luck. Supposedly, when it's your year, you will either get a lot of good luck...or a lot of bad luck. Let's hope this year is a lucky one for me!

The good and the bad

As expected, some children are good, others are not so great. When I was little, I was one of the good. I never spoke out of place, I was shy and I always did as I was told. Now that I’m the teacher, I know that those good children make the life of a teacher so much easier and better!

I have started giving stickers to the classes that behave well. Some classes are large (20 students) and others are small (as little as three in a class). However, a large class could behave just as well as a small class, depending on the personalities of the children.

I enjoy teaching well behaved classes the most for the obvious reasons; I don’t have to strain my voice, we can all have a laugh and I find that I enjoy my self as much as the children do.

Classes also have a mixture of good and bad children in the same class. I have yet to work out how to praise the good behaved children without causing the bad behaved ones to have tantrums.

The naughty children are always boys! I wonder why that is? These naughty boys are usually big for their age. (One large eight year old boy took a liking to me and proceeded to pick me up when I was writing something on the board. He was quite scary, even for an eight year old!)

A lot of the boys enjoy fighting each other. Once, two boys were fighting, and at the beginning, they looked like they were play fighting because after each hit they would laugh. However, the hitting began to get harder and harder and their faces turned angrier and angrier. I had to run in between them with their parents and stop them before it got too far! The parents didn’t seem bothered while I was stood quite alarmed! Later, the same boy from the fight would not stop talking while I was trying to explain a game. So I sent him to sit down and said he would not take part. He didn’t care. He just lay down on the floor and was laughing to himself. (A future pain in society no doubt!)

He has been the only child I have sent to sit down so far though. I’ve also had a nine year old boy hide under a table and cry like a wolf for much of a lesson. Some children are quite odd!

Some of the Chinese teachers are a great help and help me to control the class and make sure that they understand. Others are not so helpful. They will listen to their music or be on their phones.

I am also surprised at the difference in the levels of English among students of the same age but in different classes. Some classes are very intelligent and understand most things. Others struggle with even the basics. Sometimes it can be difficult to communicate with students that you know should be better than they are. Sometimes I wonder if they just pretend to not understand to be annoying!

I have a new student. She is only three years old and her name is Apple. She is now having one to one classes with me once a week. She has to be one of the most intelligent three year olds on earth! I’ve heard that China is home to very hard working and intelligent children and pushy parents. These are not pushy parents. These are parents who have seen how talented their daughter is and are trying to give the best head start to her education! This three year old has taught herself A to Z, body parts, animals, numbers 1 to 10, colours and songs like, ‘London Bridge is Falling Down’ and ‘Row the boat.’

 I repeat, she taught her self!!

There have been a fair few tears in my classes too. I am glad to say these tears are not a result of my teaching!! There have been a few accidents in my classes; children have trapped their fingers in doors (they seem to love playing with doors), they have fallen over (due to being silly) and have been too rough play fighting with each other. The children tend to get very excited with the presence of a foreign teacher and their behaviour can go over the top! I tend to their wounds the best I can and do what I can to put a smile back on their faces!

I am still really enjoying teaching. I get told that I’m good with the children and that I will be a great teacher. This makes me happy. I can’t see my self teaching forever, but I hope to continue teaching in the near future! 

Welcoming 2014 in China

For New Year’s Eve I usually spend it on Wind Street in Swansea or at home with my family watching Jools Holland on television and drinking wine. I’m not a huge fan of New Year’s Eve usually. If you go out, it’s busy, it’s expensive, no one seems to know where to go and it is always possible that you may spend the countdown in a queue or in a taxi.

This year I was glad to celebrate the New Year in a different place. My New Year involved no drama, no problems, no stress…just a lot of dancing!

Natasha had a head start, she had started drinking in her apartment while getting ready. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ve yet to work out what’s the best wine to buy here! We met some teachers at a bar. Unfortunately, we missed the live band because we took too long getting ready. (Typical girls!)

We did have difficulty deciding where to go. We tried a few different bars but they were all busy. For some reason, I didn’t expect the Chinese people to be out celebrating too! Everywhere was busy but not like it would be in the UK!

We eventually went to a bar and were given a table to sit at. The bar manager is a little in love with Natasha so we got ourselves a table easier than it should have been!

We got ourselves some cocktails and waited for the count down. John, another teacher had bought some Italian Prosecco and shared it between everyone at the table.

The count down was funny. I have only mastered 1 to 10 in Mandarin, so when everyone began counting backwards from 10 to 1 in Mandarin, that just confused me! I felt like I needed ten seconds in between each number to work out what came next!

After celebrating the New Year, the youngsters of the group decided to go to a club. We went to a club called V8. It’s a hip hop club and I was surprised to see a lot of young Westerners there. I didn’t get attention from Chinese people like I had in the other club I mentioned in my earlier blog! It was nice to feel as though I blended in a little, that I didn’t feel like I had ‘FOREIGNER’ written on my forehead!

The dance floor moved around in a circle. That was a shock the first time I stood on it. I wondered how I could be that drunk already before I realised that the floor was actually moving! The floor also felt like a trampoline. When people jumped to the sound of the music, I felt my self up in the air without making the effort to jump my self!

We danced the night away. It got to 3am and we were the only ones left on the dance floor. I grew tired and Natasha was the dancing queen and wanted to keep on dancing! We decided to go home.

As we left the club and waited for a taxi outside, for a brief moment, I felt like I was in Swansea again! To my left, there was a Chinese man passed out on the floor and stretched out like a star, a Chinese girl and boy were trying to lift him onto his feet to get him into a taxi and there was a random pile of clothes . To my right, a group of Chinese men were trying their best to walk towards another group of taxis. It must have been a difficult journey because it took them a long time to reach the taxis! There was also the unpleasant sight of where someone had been ill. The pile of clothes was a mystery because everyone was fully dressed near by. Where did they come from?

I smiled to myself. The Chinese would be challenging contenders against the Welsh when drinking is concerned.

I hope 2014 will be a good one for me, for my family and my friends!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions? I have a couple…

• I must not forget that I’m in China!...Now that I have settled here a bit better, it’s time to be a tourist! I haven’t taken many photos of the city yet. I haven’t seen any tourist sights yet either. So it’s time to go exploring and see some sights!
• I want to learn Mandarin. (Not fluently! That’s impossible!) It would be nice to be able to understand some things though!
• I must not forget the Italian I spent four years learning at University! So I need to keep practising it somehow so that I don’t forget it...

 I wonder what welcoming the Chinese New Year will be like!...