Visiting Dignitaries

Last week my parents were visiting China, and after a few days exploring Beijing and the Great Wall, they came down to Baoding and the Eastern Bilingual School.  They definitely got the royal treatment at school.  As when Elizabeth and Ben came in January, my students were so excited to see my parents that I was almost invisible to them.  I'm used to getting cheers and hugs when I enter a classroom, but my family all got more hugs and cheers than I ever did, and small gifts as well.  One girl gave my mom a tiny fake pearl. 
Entirely by chance, one of the days my parents were here was my school's annual kite flying festival.  The whole primary school, kindergarten, and the parents of the first grade were all gathered to open  the festival with a few speeches, the national anthem and a brief kite display.  After I met my parents at the school gate, we went out to the field to watch the proceedings.  I thought we could watch from the back of the crowd, but one of the teachers approached us and asked us to sit in front, facing the crowd, with the most important people from our school.  So, as the festival began, we sat facing over a thousand children, parents and teachers, and were announced alongside the principal, headmaster, and founder of the school.  Yeah, apparently foreign teacher (and parents!) is just as important as founder around here.  And, not to brag, but I did get the biggest cheer from the students.

The view from our seat

Some of the older students opening the festivities

After the flag raising and opening speeches, the older students went back to class, and even though I was supposed to have class, too, the school photographer wanted to take some pictures of us with the students and the kites.  First he had us link arms with some sixth graders and walk around looking at the different kites that students had decorated.  I don't teach sixth grade, so the students were a little shy about talking to me. 

Each student had a blank kite to decorate with their hopes and dreams

Of course, after all of the older students returned to class, we were asked to be in class photos of all six first grade classes, and some parents even asked me to take individual pictures with their students.  My face hurt from smiling so much!  I don't interact with my students' parents very often, obviously because I can't speak Chinese, so it was nice to meet some of them and for them to see their children speaking English with me and my parents.  By the way, the Chinese equivalent of "cheese" when taking a picture is "qiezi," the word for eggplant, because like the word cheese, it forces the speaker's mouth into a smile.

One of my first grade classes with their kites

After all of the pictures, we followed the students and their parents out to the field where we all flew kites and ran around for a while.

After the kite flying festivities, the rest of my parents' visit to Baoding was pretty tame, although we did go to all of my favorite restaurants and spend time with my American and Chinese friends before leaving for a weekend trip to Datong.