EIL Intercultural Learning

I'm now three weeks into my three-month trip to China and I'm loving it! I arrived in Shanghai at the end of May and will spend a total of nine weeks in the city, with one month teaching English in a kindergarten and one month working in a primary school summer camp.

Last year I participated in the EIL Hong Kong-Ireland Youth Exchange and after this trip I really wanted to explore some more of China. I have always wanted to volunteer abroad, so coming on this trip has given me the opportunity to do both at the same time.

I arrived on a Monday morning and was picked up from the airport by a member of the local staff in China. The most difficult part of arriving was trying to stay up for the rest of the day to beat the jetlag! Before I began working, I had one week of orientation. For this week I stayed in the volunteer flat right in the centre of the city. Another EIL Ireland volunteer, Kelly O'Flaherty, arrived at the same time as me and we did the orientation course together. We went on sightseeing trips, learned about Chinese history and culture and received some Mandarin lessons to help us get by. We also visited the schools where we would begin working the following week and met the students and teachers. This first week was brilliant as it gave me an opportunity to get settled in to the city before starting work. As well as allowing me to get sorted with SIM cards and metro tickets, it gave me time to meet and get to know the other volunteers I would be working and living with.

When I applied, I was a bit worried about being the only volunteer and being alone in a huge city for two months. But a while before I left I found out that Kelly would be here too, and once I got here I was immediately put as ease. There are about ten other volunteers here from across Europe so there's always people around and something to do. Even in the short time I've been here I've made some great friends and I'm already making plans to travel around China with some of them when we finish our placements. All the staff here are very friendly and made me feel at home straight away. They are very helpful to the volunteers, writing out addresses in Chinese for taxi drivers and answering all our questions.

After the orientation week, Kelly and I moved out to the Kindergarten with three other volunteers to begin our placement. The other volunteers had already been working there for a few weeks and had settled in, but I was nervous about starting my English lessons. For the first day, I sat in on one of the other volunteer's classes and the next day I was on my own. The lessons themselves are short (about twenty minutes each) because the children are so young, yet it can still be difficult to find fun things to do each day to keep their attention for that long! I teach them songs and play games for remembering words and phrases as much as possible, and it's funny to watch as they use the rhythm of the songs to count to ten or answer questions. I was worried about teaching English in China when I don't speak any Chinese or have any real qualifications, but the teachers stay in the room to help me explain things and to keep the kids sitting quietly (or as quietly as you can expect four year-olds to sit).

In the kindergarten the day begins at 8 o'clock when all the teachers, including the volunteers, stand at the school gates to greet the children. As they walk by they say 'Hello, good morning' to the volunteers and then go to wash their hands. After this, the nurse inspects their hands and takes their temperature before allowing them in to the school yard. After the morning exercises the flag is raised to the national anthem while the students march on the spot - this is probably the biggest difference I've noticed between schools here and at home. The children then go in to the school for some milk and biscuits before their English lessons. The English classes are over by about 10.30 and then we stay in the classroom helping the teachers with other activities or playing with the children. At 11.30 everyone has lunch from the school canteen and then the children have a nap for about an hour. We use this time to prepare our lessons for the following day, and finish work at 1 o'clock, giving us the rest of the day free.

For my first week in the kindergarten we had to work for seven days straight because of the Dragon Boat Festival. We got the following Monday-Wednesday off for the festival, but everyone in China had to work for the weekend beforehand to make up for it which we all found a little strange. On the Sunday, two of the other volunteers organised Austria-Holland day for the kids, where they made flags and played games, including a game of musical chairs to Mozart! I'm hoping to hold an Ireland-Germany day with one of the other voluntters soon. By Sunday afternoon everyone was wrecked and looking forward to a few days off. We were told that there would be dragon-boat races on for the festival, but we never managed to find any...until we found out afterwards that they started at 8 o'clock in the morning and were over well before we were out of bed on our days off. Having the other volunteers here too is great as we can spend the afternoons and days off together before returning to the kindergarten to sleep. There is so much to do in Shanghai and so many nice cities and towns around it that we never have trouble finding something to do. We are the only people living in the school so it's quite eerie at night walking around the empty classrooms and corridors!

I have felt at home in Shanghai since I got here. It's a huge city where you can really feel China's rapid development happening around you. It's starting to get hot and very humid now, and it will stay like this for the rest of my time here. We can be out in shorts and t-shirt at any time of the day or night and it's always a relief to go inside where there is air conditioning. Crossing the road can be an experience as red lights and pedestrian crossings don't mean very much, and buses and taxis weave their way in and out of cars, bikes and pedestrians making every journey interesting. One of the best things about China is the food. There are so many different things to try and it's all so cheap that we can eat out every night for less than two euro each. The World Expo is on here at the moment so there is a great atmosphere in the city. Though it's not such a big deal outside of China, for many Chinese people the Expo is their first opportunity to learn about other cultures so there are millions of people coming to visit it from all over the country, with approximately half a million people visiting each day. For Shanghai, the event is as big as the Olympics were to Beijing.

So far, my time here has flown by; I can't believe I've been here for three weeks already. I'm really enjoying working in the kindergarten and am also looking forward to working in the summer camp in two weeks.