The Hong Kong Sevens: Where The World Comes to Booze

So after 7 days of intense intoxication, 2 bouts of food poisoning and sleeping rough in a horrid Thai hostel, it would have made sense to have a detox and reminded my body what water tastes like. But no, the biggest weekend in the Hong Kong social calendar arrived so, as I say to my 5 year olds when they lose in a class game like the weaklings they are, ‘stop being a massive baby’. We had to accept that Sevens fever had begun. My family also came to visit, meaning I would have to find the time to be a local tour guide as well as ingest enough beer to sedate a race horse.

Friday: The first day was a good warm up to the weekend. We discovered that you need a passport or HKID to get into the South Stand which meant several trips back to Kowloon. It wasn’t that busy and we got to see our friends Tash, Izzy and Nathalie who all had the misfortune of forgetting their passports too. We celebrated Charlotte’s 20th birthday that night after drinking non stop all afternoon and not eating anything. Day drinking is an art form that I am yet to perfect as it usually results in me falling asleep or crying about something that happened 10 years ago. The biggest mistake we made during sevens weekend was not eating enough food which is a problem I rarely face in my day to day life. I have always been baffled by people who forget to eat meals as my entire day is motivated by the consumption of snacks and meals. But when you’re choosing between a cheeseburger and another litre of beer, it seems more practical to choose the latter.

Charlotte on Day 1 full of hope and completely unprepared for the events that would come

Saturday: I woke up at 6:30 after about 6 hours of sleep to prepare for the carnage that awaited. I was surprised to not hear Libby pottering about sorting her make up but I let her sleep, she surely would have an alarm set. She had stumbled in with my sister at 4am, doing exactly what everyone says not to do by getting spangled on the first night and potentially ruining yourself for the big day. When we decided to get tickets, we were told one piece of worldly advice ‘to get into the South Stand, you need to be there before 9am at the very latest’. Once the South Stand is full, it is a one in one out process, so time was of the essence. There was a zero percent chance I was spending the day with people who had gone to the event to actually watch the rugby. The Saturday also coincided with my sister Charlotte’s birthday.

Side note about my sister (who is pictured above for your reference): for most of her late teen years Charlotte refused to consume any alcoholic beverages with me or our family as she considered it wasted calories. Her body is a well looked after temple whilst mine resembles a monkey conquered shit heap. Luckily for me, Charlotte has entered the debilitating experience that is university and her diet of salads and dust has evolved into cheese, chocolate and shame. With this dietary change, a new Charlotte has risen from the ashes. This Charlotte was the person who suggested the first pint at 8:25am on the Saturday. I’ve never been so proud.

We arrived at the stadium and the South Stand luckily wasn’t full so we walked straight in, realising we wouldn’t be leaving all day if we wanted to get back in. Sitting down in our seats and comprehending there was nothing else to do but get pissed was quite a harsh reality before 9am. Dress up is one of the key aspects of the 7’s and Libs and I decided to go as 60’s groovy chicks. I think I probably got more compliments on our fancy dress outfits than I will get on my wedding day. The only issue was if we lifted our arms above our heads, the people behind us could read the label on my thong.

This picture gives off the false impression that we were truly engaged with the sporting abilities of the players as opposed to their overall physical attractiveness. 

My only criticism of the event was the toilet system. As a member of the fairer sex, I really struggle with the fact that I will spend a large proportion of my life queuing to go to the toilet. I could probably be fluent in Italian, be able to recite 100 numbers of Pi and read the entire literary works of William Shakespeare in the time I have spent queuing for the toilet. It is extremely stressful, especially when you’re boozing, to know that you will have to wait for 45-60 minutes to relieve yourself. The queue wrapped round the entirety of the South Stand. The line for Stealth at Thorpe Park was shorter. The look of horror in every girl’s eyes when they realised this was their solution to pissing can only be matched by someone whose been told their family are relocating to North Korea. It’s amazing how chummy you get with your female companions in these situations, but also how quickly mob mentality sets in. A girl dressed as a bowl of spaghetti tried to cut in and the entire queue started charting “CUTTER CUTTER CUTTER”. Another girl cried ‘wait your turn spag bol we’ve been here for hours’. Queue friends are a bit like speed dating partners, you have 2-3 minutes to find out weird and wonderful information before you go your separate ways, probably never to be seen again.

My mother texted us from her seat in the other stand just after when we should have eaten lunch. My original plan was to bring my parents into the South Stand but I was immediately overcome with images of my mother having a pint of piss thrown over her head and decided this would result in me being written out of her will. As parental figures come, mine are reasonably cool. One of my mother’s greatest qualities is her ability to celebrate absolutely everything. For example: when I came home for Christmas after 8 weeks in HK she not only got Libs and I balloons but they were personalised with our name on in glitter. So as you can imagine she’s a pretty low key person. This is the picture she texted me.

As I said, she doesn’t normally make a fuss. We somehow managed to miss this spectacle mostly because we were facing the wrong way and also because Charlotte was in this state at 1pm.

Then at 4pm after she long armed an entire pint over her face and attained a wig similar to little orphan Annie.

Then again at 7pm in a lovely local Chinese restaurant approximately 20 minutes before I stuck her in a cab.

Meanwhile I’d discovered that I should definitely go blonde no matter what the haters on my Instagram poll (that I have no recollection of posting) say.

As you can imagine, we didn’t make it to the Sunday due to me curling up and dying like an unwatered house plant. It was definitely worth it. I may have lost the full capacity of my liver but life’s too short to not drink extensively just because you know you’ll spend the following 5 days in an alcohol based depression, contemplating drinking a bottle of paint in the arts and crafts cupboard.

 

Full Frontal Lunatics

Continuing the tale of our Thai adventure, the bus trip was reasonably uneventful. Big Libs managed to sleep on every leg of the 18.5 hour journey and arrived in Koh Phangan like a bear reemerging from hibernation.

Jack and Hayley had booked into the hostel next door to us called ‘Nomads’ which was basically an abandoned hotel taken over by drunk travellers looking to party and fornicate. It should be renamed ‘Nobody should fucking stay here’. If you have ever wondered what ‘Lord of the Flies’ would actually be like, Nomads is perfect for you.

Our hostel was called Lazy House Shenanigans. Another party hostel promising foam parties, beer pong and a pretty loose time. We were taken to our room, excited to get in the pool and try and get some essence of a tan before the evening. Each room was ‘themed’ with famous rockstar faces printed on the wall. The pictures on Hostel World made it look reasonably nice which is what you would expect for 20 quid a night. What we walked into was a very air conditioned bomb bunker. The ‘rockstar mural’ on the wall resembled a government propaganda poster to prevent meth addiction. There was no window which meant whatever time you woke up felt like you were getting up for a 3am flight to Malia. I was placed next to the air conditioning vent which basically meant I was sleeping in an arctic tundra. I didn’t realise I’d signed up for Bear Gryll’s newest series of The Island aka the North Pole.

Full Moon involved the consumption of many buckets of Thai vodka. If you are ever offered this satanic substance as a Smirnoff substitute, run as far away as physically possible like your life depends upon it. We also did the stereotypical body paint that looks fantastic when it glows but in normal light, the moon on my face looked like a squashed banana found at the bottom of a child’s lunchbox.

Waking up the afternoon after Full Moon in our pitch black bunker room was a pretty horrific experience, it could’ve been June for all I knew. In the space of 6 hours, I had contracted some sort of virus or been poisoned by the slightly questionable chicken pad thai I had for dinner. I can already see you guys nodding your heads sarcastically and saying ‘sure you weren’t just really hungover?’. Well, judgemental internet users, I’m about to clarify just how unwell I was. During this spell of sickness, I had to make the Sophie’s choice of bodily functions. You know it’s going to be a bad day when you have no other option but to throw up in your hands. On the plus side, I was one step closer to becoming a malnourished Chinese Olympian.

After Full Moon, Koh Phangan resembled a pillaged village, with confused hungover hooligans searching for any signs of life or a cheap bacon sandwich.  We should’ve upped and left then but we’d already paid an extortionate amount of money for our communal igloo so decided to stay. Jack and Hayley did the smart thing, after their hostel forgot their booking, and got the fuck out of there.

You might’ve noticed we aren’t particularly good at travelling. We spend too much money, we get horrifically sunburnt and one of us always ends up being sick. Big Libs and I also have zero concept of appropriate levels of nudity in a hostel dorm. By our 3rd night at Lazy House, we were 2 of 5 people left in our fridge dorm. We traumatised our fellow dorm mates, three 18 year old boys with hopes and dreams and no clue what a dissertation or student debt feels like, by walking round our dorm butt naked. As mentioned previously, I “forgot” a towel which made showering an absolute delight. Luckily one of our new infant friends reassured us that we didn’t need to worry as he saw his girlfriend naked all the time. Thanks babes let me know how your A level results come out and whether that relationship makes it through freshers.

As expected, we managed to mess up our return journey. Unable to get a ferry in time to catch our Hong Kong flight home, we had to go to Koh Samui a day early. To be honest, I was just excited to get the feeling back in my toes again and not have to engage in small talk with our pre pubescent cell mates. We spent the rest of our baht on a fancy dinner at a family resort that reinforced our plan to return to Thailand after the death/divorce of our wealthy significant others.

So Thailand, was it the best holiday of our lives? No. Would I go back in a hurry? No. Did I live my 18 year old dreams covered in paint and sand for one wild night? Definitely.

Bangkok: Holla City of Squala

Body content: 20% thai green curry, 50% Tiger Beer, 30% shame

A week since our return from Thailand and I am finally capable of writing something remotely cohesive and semi humorous. I know many of you will be deeply disappointed to hear that I did not end up like my literary idol, Bridget Jones, in a Thai jail teaching the locals the legendary anthem ‘Like a Virgin’ but I think we can all agree I’m really not tough enough to be initiated into a gang. I cried at a gum advert last week.

Narrator: and an orange jumpsuit would do nothing for your skin tone.

We arrived in the city of sin Wednesday night, after partaking in the horrible British ritual of drinking beer and eating Burger King french fries at the airport. My expectations of Bangkok were pretty high, I watched the Hangover 2 as preparation and was fully ready to force a spangled Big Libs into getting a face tattoo.

Knowing that our trip would be short and sweet, we wanted to make the most of our time there and consume as much culture/food/alcohol as physically possible. We booked in at Slumber Party Hostel, the first line of my booking conformation email read as,

‘Put on your party pants (or take them off, either way:) and let’s knock back some beers!’ 

We arrived at midnight expecting to be thrown into a full frontal rave, only to be met by one lonely child sized bartender and a dog with a gammy leg. We were also greeted by the news that our hostel was in the centre of a grid of red light districts. Heading straight out to Soi Cowboy to see what our local scene was like, we immediately discovered a grave error had been made with the location. Soi Cowboy was as disgusting and appalling as I had expected and was where the majority of the Hangover 2 was filmed. The only plus was we were in no danger of being catcalled at as there were girls wearing nothing but nipple tassels and an eyepatch. I will keep this post lighthearted because I am a performing monkey with a keyboard, but my big travel tip for anyone with a moral conscience would be to avoid this area of Bangkok like the plague. Some of the bars wouldn’t even serve us as we weren’t within their key demographic aka rich, drunk and male. Who knew it would be so difficult to get an alcoholic beverage in the Bangkok red light district?

Soi Cowboy during the daytime was somehow worse than its night alter ego

If you ever fancy feeling suicidal for a few hours, go out in the midday Bangkok heat after a night of no sleep and 50+ beverages. Not wanting to waste any time, we dragged ourselves out of bed and went to try and engage with some culture to block out the fuzzy memory of dancing on a club podium like a stripper whose rent is due the next day. It was up there as one of the sweatiest and darkest experiences of my life and I did my Gold Dofe on the wettest weekend Wales has had in 400 years. Arriving at the Reclining Buddha, we swiftly realised we had not brought culturally appropriate clothing to enter a place of worship. My white dress had gone see through with sweat and I resembled a soggy, used napkin. Yes it was just as sexy as you are all imagining it to be and yes I am single. Luckily we were able to purchase garms that didn’t look like beach wear even though they did make us look like every 18 year old from Surrey trying to ‘make sense’ of their upper middle class lives on their gap year.  My temple skirt also doubled as my towel for the rest of the trip.

Narrator: So that’s two holidays you’ve completed without a towel you filthy animal.

To be frank, Bangkok just didn’t do it for me. It was the combination of the heat (with no access to a pool or a puddle), the traffic and the fact that the main boozing area shut at 2am. I plan to return after the mysterious accidental death of my very rich husband and stay in a 5 star resort and I’m sure it’ll be a much more pleasant experience.

On our second day, our travel companions Jack and Hayley joined us. This was also Jack’s expression when he had to carry a trollied Hayley to the toilet a few hours later.

Big Libs had not been feeling her usually funky fresh self and had even turned down an alcoholic beverage, an act that has never been seen before or recorded since birth. About 5 minutes later, she projectile vomited into a bush. Reminiscent of The Great Geysir of Iceland, Big Libs proceeded to expel liquid and shame all over my brand new Birkenstocks. A real testament of our undying love for one another. Big Libs would like it to be noted that the above behaviour was from food poisoning, not tequila so her mother Caroline doesn’t question our very sensible life choices.

The next day we would be travelling south to Koh Phangan and due to budgetary cuts we were taking the bus. After our transport experience in the Philippines that can only be described as similar to a really bad acid trip, we were fully expecting to be shoved in a van like cans of beans. We were pleasantly surprised when a very large double decker bus picked us up to take us on to our next adventure. What wasn’t so pleasant was the family of ants that decided to set up camp on my chair. Only 15 hours to go.

Tune in next time for more vomit 

These Shoes Weren’t Made For Flooding

I’m going to make this post short and sweet, similiar to the bowl of boiled rice I just inhaled as my sad excuse of a lunch. It’s the last day of school before Easter break, meaning I signed off mentally last Thursday from my duties as an educator. After exiting one of my first morning classes (where a boy named Garfield shit himself and tried to blame it on another child with excrement running down his leg), I was greeted by an alarming amount of water seeping its way across the reception area. One of the pipes had burst and I’m not sure why but when something goes wrong or breaks, it’s quite exciting watching the reactions of my fellow colleagues. Every teacher had a broom/mop/towel/school tracksuit and was attempting to stop the foyer of the school resembling the second deck of the Titanic. Their efforts were about as effective as giving a gunshot wound victim a single piece of toilet paper and the water was spreading quickly. A broom was thrusted in my direction and I realised I would have to contribute to the group effort of keeping our ship afloat. The appropriate reaction to this situation would be the following:

‘This is a hazard for the children make sure none of them fall over’

‘Let’s make sure we have enough wet floor signs’

‘Can I help?’

The dialogue that went through my head was slightly different

‘Do you think they’d notice if I hid in the cupboard with the toilet rolls?’

‘My shoes are 100% not durable enough for this shit show and if my socks get wet, they’ll be wet all day meaning my ability to teach/tolerate children will diminish into a puddle on the ground’

‘For the love of God, I hope this means that the school has to be closed’

‘Jesus I could really do with an Easter miracle even though we haven’t spoken in many years and I didn’t go to church on Christmas because I was drinking mimosas in my pyjamas’

As the water levels dropped, so did my hopes of school being cancelled. The only water still circulating the building is located in my Reebok Classics.

 

 

 

 

Fruit and Feet for Thought

Number of hours spent doing admin to hopefully secure a career where I don’t have to take the temperature of 200 children daily: 15-20

Number of hours spent watching Grey’s Anatomy at desk terrified that head mistress will pop her head in and see me sobbing into a Kinder Bueno: 3

Number of hours spent doing work related activities: 45 minutes

Number of Ferrero Rochers stolen from the kitchen: 4

For those of you who missed out on my titillating explanation of what a school ‘Birthday Party’ is, this should clarify things for you. Yesterday I was informed that today was going to be another birthday celebration and I only produced a high pitched scream for sub 5 seconds. The glorious feeling waking up on a Friday knowing you won’t have to interact with children in an academic sense all day can only be matched by that first bite of a Krispy Kreme donut.

As you may remember, I lost two dear friends in the Philippines. My Birkenstocks were cruelly snatched away from me.

Narrator: Or they were washed away whilst you were skinny dipping in the sea at 3am pissed out of your mind.

If they were kidnapped, I’ll admit to being an irresponsible parent for leaving them without a babysitter. The more alarming fact is that I didn’t notice until 2 days later but we’ll blame that on my total assimilation into island life. I purchased a new pair which was harder than I expected. It felt like I was cheating on my old Birks but I just couldn’t commit to a long distance monogamous sandal relationship. It needed to be done even if the woman in the shop was alarmed at the size of my feet (I’m a 6.5 but remember we’re in China).

So I decided today the Birks were making their school debut, I needed to wear them in anyway. I didn’t see a problem with them, they’re not particularly revealing and my good friend Tallulah would classify them as an excellent form of birth control. As you can guess, I was wrong. I have never seen so many people puzzled by ten toes in my life and have decided that they must all have little hooves inside their trainers. I also forgot about the tattoo on the side of my foot that was suddenly very visible, choosing to cover it with a plaster drawing even more attention to my feet. My head mistress has banned my Birks from the school premises.

My only job today was to organise a ‘fruit related game’. Have you ever had to think of a game that a 2 year old and a 6 year old have a mutual interest in playing? No? That’s because they don’t exist.

After banging out an X Factor worthy version of ‘Happy Birthday’ (the best bit is when I pretend like I don’t want to/can’t sing when I already have a firm grip on the hand held mike and have decided what key I will be performing in) it was my turn to explain my game. I had envisioned a fruit relay race using pieces of plastic fruit. I thought that wouldn’t be too difficult to understand.

My game went down like a Nazi joke at Oktoberfest. Cut to 3 minutes later Jason has managed to lodge the entire plastic apple in his mouth and can’t get it out. The children haven’t quite grasped the concept of the relay race and proceed to run backwards and forwards like a flock of goblins completing the bleep test. The other teachers are looking very disappointed with my inability to contribute. Or maybe they were just looking at my feet.

Sunburn, Sex and Suspicious Insect Bites

Following a brief hiatus due to overwhelming and unnecessary alcohol consumption, we have returned from the Philippines with almost everything intact (my Birkenstocks/HKID/dignity remain somewhere in El Nido if anyone finds them please do let me know)

Side note: whilst writing this post, I have spelt ‘Philippines’ wrong approximately 300 times.

Our friend T joined us for our trip as she has just started her travels around Asia before selling her soul to the corporate devil. All I can say is both of our parents owe T eternal thanks for ensuring that Big Libs and I didn’t die or end up in prison. That said, T is also an idiot otherwise we wouldn’t have invited her. This is T and this was her facial expression for 75% of our holiday.

Anyone who has me on social media will have seen how breath taking and mind boggling the views were so I’ll keep the bragging short.

Mad Monkey Hostel, Nacpan Beach where dreams come true/dignity is lost

‘I don’t want any bikini pictures on the holiday’ 

On to the much more important section, how did we ruin our lives/disgrace the Great British name abroad:

It would be fair to say we let our hair down. It would also be fair to say we probably should’ve tied it back up again sooner than we did. A beer cost 40 pesos allowing us to believe it was appropriate to drink between 8-12 beers a night. I’ve compiled our best and worse moments into a cohesive list. Many more exciting things happened on this trip but we can’t give away all our secrets/I don’t fancy President Duerte hunting me down.

Highs

• Our weekend spent on the boat was probably the best two days of our entire lives, enhanced by watching two shot T down five shots of rum in under 15 minutes. The only thing that would have made it better is if I hadn’t looked like I’d been cooked at 270 degrees in an oven.
• Getting a free ride on an inflatable in the sea with some nice locals who proceeded to lie across all three of us as they needed to ‘balance the boat’. We laughed so hard that my abs got a work out for the first time in 12 days, underneath the thick layer of pizza and San Miguels. Once on the rubber ring, we decided this would be the most inventive and creative way to kidnap tourists.
• Travelling to Snake Island. Whilst floating in the water, Libby heard a buzzing sound, looked up and legged it through the water running away from what she thought was a swarm of bees. It turned out to be a drone so someone somewhere has footage of a very pale British girl screaming like a banshee.
• Watching Libby have to carry her suitcase like a briefcase everywhere we went and referring to her as ‘suitcase wanker’.
• Watching 50 shades of Grey during the day we spent at the mall due to the typhoon, during a particularly raunchy scene the woman next to us belched extremely loudly.
• Every single pizza.

 

Lows

• Getting 3rd degree sunstroke and 2nd degree burns from a mere 7 hours in the sun on the first day, which needed medical attention and a trip to A&E. Met several other people on our travels who either didn’t recognise me from our first hostel/referred to me as ‘the burnt girl’. Our new nurse friend stated ‘I’ve seen people who have been set on fire that had less damage’.

Pre 50 shades of Grey, loaded up with anti inflammatory cream after our traumatic trip to the hospital. Ft Lib’s exotic scarf purchased to protect against further sunburn.

• Booking a hostel on the wrong island and having to sleep in a non air conditioned shed that may have hidden the bodies of several missing children. There was also a very large gecko.
• Big Libs having to spend excessive amounts of money trying to complete 2 job interviews in very underdeveloped areas. This was also a small high as watching Libby put on an interview worthy outfit in a sandy hostel was very entertaining.
• Running out of money on multiple occasions and having to use our sugar momma T to bail us out and save us from prostitution.
• Sand everywhere. We’ve come to accept it will forever make up part of our anatomy.
• Libs ordering a bowl of noodles that cost 99 pesos (£1.36) and it is still the only thing she has ever refused to eat in her entire life. Two words: cat vomit.
• T fell in a hole.
• Libby accidentally poured a shot of rum in her eye and went temporarily blind.
• Losing the most important piece of identification I own besides my passport and having heart palpitations for 24 hours before arriving at immigration in Hong Kong. Really didn’t fancy starring in the next episode of Banged Up Abroad although would allow more people to see how great my tan looks.

Awards

Most Valuable Player: T as she saved us from having to eat sand for the last 4 days of our holiday and brought enough painkillers that if my hand had been bitten off by a shark I probably wouldn’t have felt it.

Most Screams Per Day: Libby as she is afraid of everything including the sea, insects, rats, drones, people, hostel beds, the sun.

Big Libs also won ‘Best Tan’ as this was the colour she remained for the entire trip

Most Skin Lost: Georgia as I unknowingly got a natural chemical peel and at one point looked like Michael Jackson half way through his skin whitening process.

Overall it was a fantastic experience, we met some delightful humans and we all made it home in one, much chubbier piece.

This post is dedicated to my Birkenstocks. Wherever you are, I hope you’re living a fulfilled and happy life potentially on the feet of a small Filipino street child. You will be sorely missed.

Chinese New Year

Friday finally arrived which means we are one week closer to two weeks of toddler free bliss.  After an unpleasant start to the day discovering hyperactive snotbucket Michael can no longer handle the task of sitting on a stool, I was informed that my K3 class had taken a trip to the library meaning I wouldn’t have to make up 25 minutes worth of material in front of them today. Remember when you were in year 9, you really didn’t give a shit about how Caecilius and Grumio died in Pompei and somehow, you’re blessed to find your teacher hasn’t shown up to the lesson. After a few brief moments of anarchy and an intense discussion about whether it’s 10 or 15 minutes before you can leave, you all agreed to wait 10 minutes then legged it as fast as your little legs would take you.

(if you are part of the 1% of students who stayed behind and went to find the teacher, I apologise this doesn’t concern you)

That’s the same feeling you get, as a teacher, when your class has been cancelled. I’d like to thank my Drama degree for helping me hide the fact that my day has just been made significantly better by less student contact time.

Chinese New Year preparations are well under way and I have been fortunate enough to watch the rehearsals (they practice everyday and the music plays over the loud speaker I found myself humming the song in the shower help me). The K3’s are my 5 to 6 year olds and are therefore given the most responsibility. 6 is the new 11, I saw parents having a meeting with the headmistress because their children didn’t get into their first choice primary school and realised these tots are under more pressure than my sister was for her A Levels. Back to the performance, the 5 year-old boys are in charge of operating the 15 foot Chinese lion/dragon, which looks like a budget version of this.

As you can see, it’s quite a stressful experience requiring coordination, teamwork and the ability to walk in a straight line. Sadly none of my little goblins have any of the above skills.

I think Chinese New Year should be celebrated world wide to this extent, purely so that no one is denied the opportunity to watch a group of infants try and walk in time to up tempo music holding an enormous theatrical puppet. Somehow, all the students who walk into walls regularly have been put in the centre meaning the Dragon/Lion’s head and tail seem to have different short term goals. Never have I seen such a mix of concentration and fear in the eyes of a group of boys but there’s always one who looks like he’s planning what he’s going to have for lunch. The remainder of the boys perform a flamboyant flag twirling routine that highlights how developed some 5 year olds are and how others need a bit more time. The flag twirlers are an eclectic mix of the puppet rejects and the kids who can hold an object bigger than a pencil. I originally questioned the decision to keep the lion entirely male operated (#girlboss #leanin) but soon realised the girls skills were needed else where as the routine they have to perform is as complicated as the All Black’s haka. Jumping from foot to foot with a large tambourine in each hand, some of them have really got it down while others look like they’d rather be having a tooth removed. In every performance, the front row has been tactically chosen to highlight the cream of the crop and the back row performers would make Helen Keller look like a ballerina.

The K1 kiddies are aged 3-4 and are doing a simple song with a few musical instruments. This class are incredibly switched on for a group of 3 year olds, except for one. Her name is Fiona. She has a helium pitched voice and a lazy eye which makes it nearly impossible to ever try to discipline her. She shits her pants 5 times a day, much to the disgust of her fellow classmates and her hair grows in tufts all over her head. You get the picture, she’s a bald chipmunk. The rest of K1 are veteran school goers, having gone to nursery, but Fiona has been thrown straight into K1. Fiona aka Fi Fi gets extremely excited about everything (singing, dancing, going to the toilet) and her class mates look at her like she’s as mad as a box of frogs. I witnessed the K1 rehearsal and was impressed, they all remembered their words and most of the movements. I shifted my eyes down the line and saw my little Fi Fi hitting herself in the head with a tambourine, with her trousers round her ankles.

Do You Hear The People Sing?

Yesterday, World War 3 broke out in my kindergarten play area. Luckily for me, no lives were lost.

I was fulfilling my usual teacher duties (hiding from all the children and running away from any situation that looked like I could be useful in) when I turned the corner into the main forum of our school. The scene that met my eyes was one that resembled the final battle of the 3 hour musical Les Miserables/the majority of Saving Private Ryan.

Before I can divulge the story, meet the anti-hero of our tale, Andy. I don’t know if I’m allowed to use the kids real names.

Narrator: Well you have been for the past 4 months, bit late for that dumbo.

Andy is 4 years old and is somewhere on the autistic spectrum, no one seems to know his particular diagnosis but it was very clear from day one that Andy has zero fucks to give about school or organised rhythmic dancing. He is also a rather large 4 year old and doesn’t speak any Cantonese or English but occasionally screams in Mandarin /gobbledeegoop. It would be fair to say that Andy causes the staff at school a large amount of grief as he has no attention span and no interest in listening to anyone. To be honest, I think Andy has fooled us all, he doesn’t have to do any work and scares the faculty into letting him do whatever he wants. Genius.

Back to the battle scene. On one side of the room, Andy has managed to accumulate all the plastic fruit in the play area in a shopping basket and is doing his usual impression of an African zulu warrior. On the other side of the room, four teachers are hiding in fear behind a miniature cooking set, with various plastic kitchen appliances in their hands as weapons.

*Cue epic battle music.

Andy aka Spartacus has been cornered but he knows no fear. It’s now or never, time to fight against the forces of evil who are trying to get him to sit down in a classroom. He is propelling plastic fruit across the play area like a human tennis ball machine. He takes out Ms Chan, who runs for cover behind the safety of the head mistress’s desk, with a plastic banana. After his first round of ammo runs out, he searches the perimeter for something more substantial. Seconds later I see a plastic baby doll fly through the air and smack one of the newer teachers in the chest. Wouldn’t be surprised if she hands in her notice next week, she signed up to be a teacher not a WWE wrestler. Whilst he’s lobbing everything in sight into the barricade, he is screaming like a hyena on meth.

One brave teacher moves forward from behind the make shift barricade, Andy detects this threat and proceeds to lie down on the floor and propel his legs violently like a stay at home mum in her first spin class after binge eating over Christmas.

Finally, the battle ends, leaving a wasteland of debris and baby dolls. Andy is carried away, one teacher holding each limb, proud of his Britney circa 2007 style breakdown. An afternoon with Andy could never be boring.

 

 

 

 

Employee of the Month

Monday was one of the first days when I have woken up and really evaluated how much I need my job/considered throwing myself down a flight of stairs as a reason to call in sick. Slightly concerned that the novelty of working with these adorable potatoes in miniature yellow uniforms is wearing off and might start to resent the snot buckets if they continue to eat the hand sanitiser I give them every morning.

For once, I was actually using my spare time during school hours to make teaching supplies instead of googling crucial information like the degrees of difficulty in Olympic ice skating jumps or Michael Jackson conspiracy theories. That said, I wasn’t actually making anything for my daytime students but using the schools paper/printer to make myself look like a much more competent tutor (worthy of an $800 session which I think you can gather I am clearly not).

Since Viann (my 6 year old tutee who blackmails me into giving her cans of coke) enjoys any activity where she doesn’t have to speak English (like any 6 year old would during a 2 hour tutoring session on a Tuesday), I decided to make her a board game.

As previously mentioned, I believe laminating is the future. I would laminate myself if I could as I firmly believe I would be a much more appealing package. Maybe I’d have a job that didn’t involve explaining to a 5 year old why he can’t stick his hands down my top and pinch me.

Much to my disgust, the temperature in HK has dropped rapidly, enough for me to wear a scarf. If the school didn’t keep all the fans/air conditioning on in the winter, the following events would probably not have taken place. Whilst laminating my board game, I heard a pig like scream and saw one of my nursery children, Adelina, had got her enormous head stuck in a bucket and was running around looking like this.

This particular little girl resembles a collectable bobble head and regularly falls off her chair ,head first. I imagine this is from the pure mass of her skull. Adelina is yet to say anything that sounds remotely like English so her gibberish noises were echoing from inside the bucket as she bucket butted several other children. Distracted from my task, I looked down to discover that my scarf had been sucked into the laminator and was causing a potential fire hazard. Panicking, I switched it off and yanked what remained of my scarf out of the machine. I couldn’t believe my dearest new friend had betrayed me like this, I was considering making our relationship Facebook official. I could smell burning and so could my fellow employees. Not even I could get away with almost setting the office on fire. Swiping away all evidence of the crime (and my tutoring materials), I ran back to my desk like an oversized baby to pretend like I’d been there all along scrolling through Daily Mail.  Minutes later, the head mistress asked all faculty members to evacuate the office space because they had found a string of my scarf tangled in the laminator and were concerned it was going to explode and burn us all to smithereens. I briefly considered finding a bucket to hide my shame.

If they didn’t think I was incompetent before, they certainly do now.

Fun fact: It took 2 teachers to get Adelina’s head out of the bucket.

 

A Testing Week

With the end of Christmas comes the start of January exams. If you’re still in school, you’ll be doing mocks and if you’re an undergrad, your festive period will have been ruined by attempting to cram a term’s worth of knowledge into two weeks. Perhaps the only upside to this traumatic experience is that it only starts when you get to the age of 15. Not in Hong Kong. Here you start being examined at the tender age of two, as Big Libs was horrified to find out.

With only five days’ notice, an exam paper was slapped in front of Big Libs and she was told that all of nursery would need to be able to pass it by next week. The document was ten pages long and included a writing element. Last time Big Libs handed out crayons to her class, they were handed back with bite marks in and Carson’s spit had turned blue… mysterious. Despite this, she was determined not to fail and spent the next five days cramming information into them.  By the time Monday came around and Big Libs was handed the exam timetable, she was feeling pretty confident.

Narrator: foolish girl

Monday: Singing

As they say in show business, “never work with children or animals”. Whether they shit on the floor, put their entire foot in their mouth or forget the words to Baa Baa Black Sheep after singing it 100 times, they are always capable of letting you down.

Grade: C-

Must try harder

Tuesday: Cantonese and Mandarin

Luckily Big Libs was let off the hook on this day. She’s just about mastered shouting “MMGOI!” at anyone that holds the door open for her, but other than that her Chinese speaking skills are well below par.

Wednesday: Numeracy

Perhaps the most successful exam for most of her students as pretty much all of them had mastered counting to ten. Reagan (in a class with Clinton and Wilson) did call a heart a hamburger though.

Grade: B+

Room for improvement

Thursday: English Writing

As none of them can hold a pen yet this was a ridiculous exercise. Big Libs was caught filling in the exam papers for most of the children, but she felt no remorse for doing so.

Grade: A

Try to do this without help next time

Friday: English Oral

 This was the exam that Big Libs was most anticipating. It was the one that would give the best reflection of her teaching ability and, again, she was feeling quietly confident.

See See, aka favourite child, was first up. With eyes shining with pride and love, Big Libs started the questioning.

Libs: “What is your name?”

See See: “My name is Wong See See”

Libs: …Phew, good start.

Narrator: … wait for it

Libs: “How old are you?”

See See: *blank face, slow blink*

Libs: *starts to sweat and wave two fingers in front of her whilst nodding enthusiastically*

“Ha ha…. You knoooww thiiiis”

See See: *spit bubble forms in mouth*

Big Libs: “goooo oooon”

See See: *burps*

Libs: “WAS THAT TWO!!! SO CLEVER!”

Chinese Teacher: *rolls eyes*

Grade: A*

Fantastic, amazing, visionary