Teaching at the The Ningxia Red Cross Society

Between 15.00 and 17.00 every Wednesday we teach the staff at Ningxia Red Cross's administration building. The students we have are members of the staff at the Red Cross administration. They're a group of between 10 to 15 people, varying from one week to the next. Aged between 21 and 50 makes them a diverse class. They are a busy crowd, often picking up their phone in class and running out in the hallway to talk. This is because we teach them during their working hours. The first time we had to start from scratch. Some of the younger members know a little bit of English, but most of them know next to nothing. But they are very eager to learn, and they see that in order to get connections with other Red Cross Societies around the world, they need to learn and improve their English.

We have started the teaching by letting them learn single words, which are important for their work, and personal interests. They are learning to count, to greet and to introduce themselves. And we are trying to learn them simple, but useful sentences. When we teach there we have an interpreter with us, Jia Lei. He is crucial to us now in the beginning because of the language barrier. Teaching there is fun, and we learn about the Red Cross and their work here in Ningxia. We are dreaming about being able to join them for an excursion to the more rural parts of the region during this year. Their building is situated in the Old Town of Yinchuan.

The Ningxia Red Cross Society's homepage: http://www.nxredcross.org.cn

FK Network Meeting in Beijing

Last Saturday we went to Beijing on the night train. 19 hours and hard sleepers again, but it's always fun so we didn't mind much. We travelled through the desert lands of Inner Mongolia, through Shanxi and Hebei, saw a lot of beautiful scenery, until we finally arrived at Beijing Railway station.

In Beijing we had two free days before the show (network meeting) started. We decided to be crazy tourists and went to the Great Wall, Ming Tombs, Jade Factory, Tea House, Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Beihai Park and Jingshan Park. All this in just two days. Imagine how tired we were of all the walking. Especially the day we ran to the top of the Wall. But it was definitely worth it. We got to see a lot of China in two days, and had a lot of fun.

But after the fun started the work. The reason for travelling to Beijing was that we were to attend an FK Network Meeting for FK China. It lasted for one and a half day, but it turned out that it wasn't half bad after all. We discussed and shared experiences and from the looks of it it was rather successful. One of the best, some people said. So with a satisfied smile on our faces we flew back to Yinchuan on Thursday to plan Friday's teaching. It was a hasty but fun week in Beijing. Looking forward to going back there some day.

Link to Fredskorpset's coverage of the meeting (in Norwegian):
http://www.fredskorpset.no/no/Fredskorpset/Media/NyheterPressemeldinger/Nettverksmote-i-Beijing/

Welcome Party for freshmen students at Xinhua

Thursday 16th of October the teachers and students at Xinhua invited me (Chris) to attend the annual Welcome party for the freshmen at the college. I was there together with the rest of the freshmen's teachers. It was a 3hours lasting fun event, with singing, roleplays, acting and breakdancing. Many of my students attended the singing, acting and dancing on stage. One of the things I liked the most was when a group were doing tai chi with chinese fans while two famous calligrafers were painting on stage. The local TVstation was there, and my name was annonced in public together with the rest of the teachers, The concert hall at school was as full as could be, people were standing everywhere and all seats were taken.