First day of classes (kindof)

Well Monday was the first day of classes, but for me not really... All I had to do was show a movie Monday night for my video classes.

My schedule works like this:

On Monday, I have the movie from 7:30 to 9:20 at night.
Tuesday, I don't have anything.
Wednesday I have one section (2 hour block) of movie discussion.
Thursday, one section of movie discussion.
Friday, two sections of movie discussion, one section of freshman oral English.

So Friday is my busy day - the freshman don't start however for another week or two (they all have military training). All in all it's about 12 hours a week in the classroom currently, however I might start teaching a class of my own creation about food in America (what is American food, where does it come from, why is Chinese food more American than McDonald's... stuff like that) but that would also not start for a week or so.

Anyway so my first day of classes wasn't very exciting - I simply had to show the movie. Ran into some minor technical problems at the beginning, but other than that it was okay. I showed Sneakers, because apparently the Chinese students love sneaky people who are tricky and inventive (perhaps a Thomas Crown Affair is in order...). I was a bit nervous about my choice at first, because several students asked me prior what the movie would be, and did not seem excited when they heard the choice, followed by a polite explanation of why they enjoy romantic comedies. Apparently the English department (where I teach) is overwhelmingly female - out of 130ish students who came to watch the movie, maybe 15 of them were men, and they all clustered together at the back. Even before the movie started, we were all hanging out outside (they didn't give me a key to the room), and all the female students were clustered near the door and filed in excitedly, followed by this very defensive looking group of male students... really funny to watch actually.

I'm pretty sure they all enjoyed the movie - I told them it was just for fun and that they weren't required to write down too many things they didn't understand, and at 9:20 when the class was supposed to end and we still had 30 minutes left in the movie, I gave them the option of leaving but everybody just kind of looked at me with this taken-aback expression on their face of, "why in gods name did you pause that?!?"

Aside from that life is going well - still having trouble communicating, most importantly when trying to order food. Also we keep forgetting to learn how to politely refuse, because rickshaw drivers are PUSHY. I'll be standing and waiting for the bus (there is a very convenient bus which runs all through town), and two or three rickshaws will roll up, the drivers will shout HELLO at the top of their lungs, point at their sweet ride suggesting I should get in, and putting up some random combination of numbers which can range anywhere from 3 to 15. Sorry guys, the bus costs 1 yuan and its waaaay faster. Maybe I should learn to say that in Chinese.

So I wouldn't call myself a successful English teacher yet - we'll see how this week goes. Wish me luck for Wednesday!