Day ... ? - Teaching In Beijing

I'm teaching English at a summer camp in Beijing. While writing my last entry and yapping to the guy next to me, I was approached by someone asking if I'd like to teach English for $1200 US. I questioned whether his deal was legit - but decided to trust the man and my intuition.

I hopped in a cab with him and was taken to a nice hotel in Northwest Beijing. There I was met with other foreigners in a hotel room, all being prepped for teaching the next day. It was shady up until I started talking to the other teachers, where I learned that this summer camp is supposed to be affiliated with one of the top universities in China.

So I am being taken care of -- a nice hotel for 10 days, all meals and transportation taken care of. I teach for about 8 hours a day, 60 students (in two classes0 and am chauffeured in a shuttle to and from the school. Today is my day off (PAID!) and I am exploring and eating whatever I can until tomorrow.

Some fun points:

1. My students have to make up English names for themselves. One kid is "Barry Smith", another is "Jay-Z".

2. Yesterday, we watched a video on Chinatown, S.F.. I went a little overboard and started lecturing the kids on Chinese immigration in the U.S. Watched another video about Antartica, so I went off on global warming and pollution (esp. here in beijing); finally, on American High schools, I talked about the Obesity epidemic among American school-age children.

3. We also watched a video on the BBC. The children asked, "what is the difference between our news and BBC?

"Well, your media is controlled by the government. You know what they want you to know"

I'll probably get into a lot of trouble for that ...

I have also discouraged EVERY student in my class from ever wanting to go to the U.S.