Ok guys. I will be the first to admit that my blogging skills haven't been very consistent over the past month (sorry Henry, I promise I will be better) as I aimed to write at least an a4 page a day but that plan has completely failed. Therefore, I propose to write an epically long blog post detailing the highlights of the past three weeks at my project and what life is like in Chongren, Jiangxi.

First I would like to mention what it is like to be a foreigner here in the backwaters of mainland China. You are essentially a celebrity. We are constantly stared at, and not in a subtle way, in an obvious and often uncomfortable way. People say hello, ask for photos, autographs and handshakes. Sometimes it feels like we are a novelty and that people are lovely and friendly, although, sometimes it does have a distasteful tinge to it as our privacy is constantly invaded. More than once I have been mobbed by year 7s asking for me to sign their school books and it gets rather intimidating and irritating because they do not understand if I ask them to take two steps back. On the streets of Chongren people stop and stare, point and comment but we are slowly getting used to it, often they are happy to see us in an awestruck kind of way and people are on the whole very friendly, kind and helpful.

Secondly, I want to talk our lives in the school. Beth and I teach 17 lessons a week. 10 of these are will the equivalent of year 11s called senior 1s and 7 with year 7s called junior 1s. We repeat the same lessons with each class, their English ability varies, the seniors could have a decent but slightly painful conversation with a native, and the juniors know literally little to no English which makes teaching them interesting. However, juniors are more fun because we play games and they are generally bonkers most of the time (more than once have children fallen off chairs out of insane levels of excitement) and really energetic you have to be equally energetic and having four 45 minute lessons back to back starting from 8 in the morning gets pretty tiring (that's right I have to start teaching at 8 every morning!). I usually play the slap game with them and ask them to write on the board, which is loads of fun and they practically fall over trying to get their hands the highest in the air to be picked. You also get the odd cocky ones who try and teach along with you and demand silence about a million times when you ask for quiet. They also properly mob you, asking you to sign their books or shake their hand which actually gets a bit scary sometimes because, despite being small, there are so many of them.

The seniors are harder work because of their level of English but they are easier to banter with, although you do get the odd one on their phone under the desk. Lessons are 45 minutes and senior classes consist of around 60 students, juniors up to 80. I teach on a huge chalkboard at the front of the classroom on a raised platform which is a bit awkward because I occasionally forget that it is there and fall off it! Since we are quite a novelty we are often met with applause, once, the first time I had to teach a class, Beth walked ahead of me, they saw her coming and clapped, when she walked past them and up the stairs to her class there was an audibly disappointed sigh, but, when I appeared applause broke out again! Our seniors are also more appreciative of the fact that we come from a different country and culture, they also love western culture, we did our introductory lessons they were falling over their desks to get a better look at the photos from home on the projector. Some students also try and surreptitiously try and take photos on their phones, which is painfully obvious so I let them take photos with me at the end of my lessons and strike the typical Asian peace sign. When I was asked questions the majority of the questions were, interestingly enough:

· Do you have a boyfriend? Every time they saw a picture of me and a boy they asked me if he was my boyfriend

· Can I have your phone number?

· Do you like China?

· Can you speak Chinese?

· Can you sing a song for us (usually something by Adele, they adore her here)?

When I managed to write China in Chinese I got wondrous gasps and a "your Chinese is good, for a foreigner!" In our first week we were taken to visit some Senior 3 classes (year 13s) and have an informal chat to them which was lovely, there English is fantastic and the banter was brilliant, we got a couple of renditions Lady Gaga and given free cokes and waters. We made friends with a girl called Sherry who took us out to the Chinese version of KFC and sung us some karaoke. Many of our students don't have English names so often we offer to give them one, a boy I teach is called Thief and we named his friend Boss because he wanted something "cool", we also cheekily named a trio of girls Bubbles, Bluebell and Buttercup :P

The people in Chongren are brilliant. Mrs Mung and Judy are our waibans (the people responsible for our care), Mrs Mung is in her fifties and is as energetic as anything and although I hate to admit it rather pushy. She is essentially a classy wheeler dealer because, having been a teacher for 30 years, she always has an old student or friend that can sort out any problem, she also likes a good drink and frequently drinks her students under the table. Judy, on the other hand, is meek and adorable and rather reminds me of a content panda. She has only been teaching for two years and so is more close to our age. They are both extremely helpful with any questions we have to ask and their English is good enough to be able to joke around. Candy is my Chinese teacher and she is also really nice, the first time I met her she knocked on our door and gave us some fresh plums (people giving us food happens quite often, a couple of days ago a girl came round a brought over some sticks that looked like bamboo, turns out they were sugar canes and you have to rip the bark off with your teeth) and invited us to her family's farm in December.

The school is on the other side of the river where we think the main town is. The school is at least 50 years old and so looks a little dilapidated. For most kids school starts at 7:30 and depending on age can go on up to 10 at night even on weekends. As the kids get older they spend longer in lessons although they get at least a 10 - 25 minute break between lessons, a 2 hour lunch break and a two hour dinner break. To top it off every Monday morning there is a Raising of the Flag ceremony out on the parade ground.

The town Chongren stretches out quite a way and was way bigger than I expected. The school is at the end of a road made up of street sellers and garage shops. If you walk down to the crossroads by the bridge, which is often insanely busy with motorbikes and bikes (the Chinese don't follow conventional road rules and common sense health and safety, small children cling to their parents, helmetless on the back of motorbikes all the time), there is a small bakery and the bank we use. One road will take you to the hospital (which I have been to on two separate occasions now - I will explain later), the food market and the largest supermarket. Over the bridge is the main shopping street which has some pretty decent shops although Beth and I are far too large compared to Chinese women who are all really petit, both of us being at least 5'7" we are a whole head taller than most and just generally larger - I genuinely feel like a Na'vi from Avatar sometimes walking among small humans. If you keep going further down the road you reach the town square where at night you find musicians and dancers, lots of normal people waltzing in time to gentle music. By the square is our favourite noodle bar which we have dubbed Alan's because it's proprietor just looks like an Alan and is a pretty chilled guy (still doesn't beat Henry W S the King of Cool).

Down by the river there is a walkway where in the mornings and the evenings the older folk gather to do gentle exercises, tai chi or dance. The buildings light up occasionally and on a clear night it looks quite beautiful. The other night we went to a nice restaurant (it actually had air conditioning, a front door and table cloths) and had beef and potatoes, expensive but totally worth it! Chickens and stray dogs fill the streets, one we have named The Wolf because, well, it looks like a massive wolf. Rubbish makes a frequent appearance, especially at night when it literally gets chucked out onto the streets and when walking along you are occasionally hit by a not so pleasant smell but that's China! A pretty normal day sees me get up at 7 for school at 8, teach until twelve, get lunch in the cafeteria, have a nap and then faff around home on skype, go for a run and then go to bed!

When we first arrived here I got ill. I developed a cough and for 4 days I lost my voice which meant that, obviously, I couldn't teach. A massive deal was made out of it. Despite their being some difference in aspects of hygiene that the west and the east disagree on the Chinese are neurotic about health. So when I told Mrs Mung that I was ill I was taken immediately she turned up at my door and I was driven to the local hospital. The vice director of something or other (whose daughter was a teacher at the school, if you are not an ex-student you have a relation working here) looked at my swollen throat and sent me to another building. Chinese hospitals are a little different from western hospitals, consultancy room doors are left open and patients barge in and out regardless of whether the doctor is already speaking to someone else. Anyway, I was sent over and had my finger pricked, was dragged upstairs to the analysis room and then sent back to the doctor. In the end I was told that I needed to take some pills and I would be put on a drip. Mrs Mung casually bought a drip and told me that I would be put on it at the school nurses office. So I returned home and nervously went into the bare room, the nurses attached the drip with much wincing on my behalf (I absolutely loathe needles) and I sat for three hours reading my Kindle and drinking water. Beth thought it was hilarious and came to visit with her camera! So I was given four days off and I lounged round the house. At one point, despite my deathly illness, Mrs Mung too me out to the food market to prod meat and bargin for eggs and then taught Beth and I how to make jiaozi, or dumplings. We made about 150 and it took hours but it was worth it as we keep them in the freezer and heat them up when we can't be bothered to do anything for food.

Another crazy occurrence was National Teachers Day. It was on the 10th of September and it was intense. When you walked into class they would all stand up and scream "Happy Teachers Day" and we got given gifts of flowers, origami and piggy banks. I also got given a cuddly panda which lives in my bed to this day and has been named Peter the Panda after my friend Pete in Gansu. We were, however, called mid lesson and told that we would have to go to an official meeting in the administrative building. Cue Beth and I sitting for an hour trying to look attentive, drinking water and listening to all the high-ups chat in Chinese while an official photographer snapped photos of us from afar. The local secretary of the Communist party ("the most important man in Chongren" whispered Mr Zhu) was there and made a speech, he even gave me and Beth red envelopes with £20 in as a Teachers Day Bonus and to welcome us to the school which was well received by us!

Later that day we were invited to a senior 3 party to celebrate as they had some of the day off, we were taken to a classroom by a girl called Apple, the room had been decked out in decorations and the desks had been moved to make a space. We were give fruit and coke and the fun began. We played charades, posed for photos and sang Taylor Swift for karaoke. At one point students from another class tried to steal us! A fight ensued over our ownership and we were offered dumplings in one class and cake in another - in the end we stayed in the class we were because we had agreed to be there. Then Mrs Mung turned up and told us that we were going for dinner with some of the other English teachers! We were taken to a fancy restaurant and had fancy dinner and then played drinking games! Mrs Mung is a pretty hard core drinker and she had us taking shots of wine with the other teachers playing Catcher, Thief, Soldier and Officer. Middle aged, red faced English teachers is a hilarious sight, especially as, bar Mrs Mung and Mr Zhu, not many Chinese people can hold their shots. Finally we got home and went to bed!

In my next blog post (coming soon watch this space) I will ramble about our visit to Yi Huang to visit Rob and Dan and our travels to Lanzhou and Xi'an over Mid-Autumn Festival.

Thanks for reading, if you got this far!

Cat xxx