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Week 14 in China

Challis Hackley
Mar 5, 2018
3 min read

What I Learned

Chinese names can have a lot of meaning.

So if the Chinese people learn English, they get and English name that is easier for Westerners to pronounce. The reverse is kind of true. You can ask a native-Chinese speaker to give you a Chinese name and they can have a story and layers of meaning to it that you don't really get with the name's I'm used to. Or you could get your name in a phonetic way.

Fish pedicures tickle.

So much, so ticklish. Our Chinese teacher Loki took us to get the fishy part of a fish pedicure, there wasn't any painting of nails afterward but is was so ticklish, that foe the first like five minutes I couldn't sit still. Now I'm not ridiculously ticklish but it was bad.

What I Did

Sunday

Nothing to report for Sunday, Tuesday, or Thursday, but here is how the rest of my week looked.

Monday

I taught my kids about panagrams today, sentences that use every letter in the alphabet (i.e. the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog), and then I had them try and write their own, some of the things they came up with were awesome.

Wednesday

So, I’ve had my parents day with my fifth and sixth graders and on Wednesday I had it with my kindergartners. As always it was a lot of fun, and I think even more so because the parents were there laughing with me. it wasn’t nearly as nerve-racking as it had been with my older kids because the parents were basically there just to watch me play with their kids.

I got my Chinese name today! I had asked my Chinese coordinator Michele earlier in the week, if she would give it to me. She went home and put some serious thought into it because when she came back she had a beautiful name for me with a beautiful meaning. It’s something that I think I will cherish forever.

Friday

We lost one of our best students. It was really sudden; she only told us the day before she left and we didn’t have a chance to say goodbye, but she left us a note, which was nice.

Another item checked off my bucket list. Who knew China would be so productive that way. Our Chinese teacher took a group of us to get fish pedicures.

Saturday

Suzhou is known as the Venice of China. It is this beautiful little water town with quaint shops and yummy food. We took the day and made at trip out there. We caught an early train from Nanjing to Suzhou, only an hour-and-a-half long. And from the train station took a bus ride out to the town. When we got there it was an hour until the next bus ran so we wandered over to the mall and did a little shopping. We sounds some onesies. I already had one back home so I didn’t want to buy another one but the other girls in our group got some and it was fun. We already stand out wherever we go, what’s a little more attention. Caught the bus and made it to the town. Wandered the town, roads a few boats, watched a performance, got some food and souvenirs. It was a good day and by time we got home we were all really tired.