Settled (Almost)

Today we got the internet. Oh yeah. Tomorrow the fridge will be picked up. This is good. Monday will mark the beginning of my first full week of school. Nice.

Last week at school was very interesting. It was a lot different from working in an American high school. The day begins with twenty five minutes of morning announcements. During this time, students must stand silently in straight lines while teachers inspect their uniforms and deliver announcements. Any students that are late must stand to the side of the group. There are always late students. Always. The classes are also a little bigger as each class has forty students. The work load in incredible. Each student is expected to play an instrument, speak Putonghua, Cantonese, and English, play a sport, and participate in clubs. Additionally, they have at least five hours of homework to complete every day once they leave school and the preparation for standardized exams in very rigorous.

Enough of the 'bad.' What I really like about the Hong Kong system is that the students get almost a full hour for lunch as well as a fifteen and five minute break mid-morning and mid-afternoon. Additionally, the schools are very well designed. Almost all of the schools in Hong Kong are laid out centered around 1-3 basket ball courts with the classrooms encircling them. It sort of looks like a motel. The students have to go outside to go from class to class.

Right now things are a bit tough because every one of the almost two thousand students and staff know my name and I barely know any of the staff! And to make things more confusing, all announcements and paperwork are in Cantonese. It's a struggle, but luckily the teachers and students are happy to help me and the only people that have extremely limited English are the janitors and some of the office staff.

I have started to pick up a few key Cantonese phrases (very few!) but I can say important things like good morning, thank you, and dim sum. I really like the phrase for dim sum. In Cantonese it is 'yum cha' which literally translates to 'drink tea.' I learned (from Betty Lai and others) that it is called 'drink tea' because that is what you do the whole meal! Makes sense, right? I have also learned that there is no actual equivalent to 'I'm sorry' in Cantonese and most native speakers have just adopted the English phrase into their vocabularies.

So, you might be wondering what my favorite thing about Hong Kong is so far. In general, I would have to say that my favorite thing is the food (there's so much variety!) followed closely by the contrasting landscape. Since Hong Kong is a mountainous island, only the rim of the island is truly developed so when you look at a skyscraper there is a green mountain in the back ground. It's wild.