Coffee Helps

I finally made it to the end of my trial period for my Musical class.

This was a new class for the school, and they weren’t entirely sure what it entailed or whether it would work out – so their solution was to give me a book of songs and skits, and a CD of backing music, and say “do something”.

Can’t someone show me what I’m supposed to do? asked poor “I’ve never taught a class in my life” Hails. But it turned out that although training sessions were available, they were “difficult” – which, loosely translated, means “expensive”. Reading between the lines, I deduced that the powers-that-be at the school didn’t want to shell out a fortune to train me only to discover that I was a rubbish music/drama teacher by nature, and that the subject itself would have to be shelved.

Try by yourself for four months, said the director encouragingly. If you like it (loose translation – “if you’re not rubbish at it”), we will send you on training course.

So in I went at the deep end. I really am developing a devil-may-care attitude, you know. I designed my own course and my own classes. I planned out dance routines and vocabulary games and drama skits. I made colourful powerpoint presentations and quizzes. And now, hooray huzzah, I have been watched and assessed and discussed, and deemed acceptable as a teacher of this totally made-up subject. Let the training commence!

Anyway, Musical Class is basically where the kids learn English through practising an actual Musical play. At last, I get workbooks with lines and chants and song words, as well as illustrations and cut-out masks! I’ve come to realise that these things are extremely important when you’re trying to teach kindergarten children. Someone speaking English to them for 40 minutes just does not work.

My trainer is a Korean girl who specialises in teaching music and drama to infants. First, she gave me a lesson plan – introducing the class, a “hello song” and dance, some small talk, followed by the order in which I should do things like reading the story, doing actions, teaching lines and doing roleplays, singing and dancing. Then she did a full “class”, with Jennifer and I playing the part of the pupils. It was a little embarrassing pretending to be a 5-year-old with my boss, but also hilarious watching her do the same!

It was definitely very useful to watch how the teacher kept the children’s attention all the way through, with lots of little tricks and actions to fill gaps when she was doing things like changing the CD (everybody count to ten and shout “cue music!”!) – places where I generally lose their attention and have to spend 5 minutes trying to get them under control again. The CD, the actions, the songs, the colourful pictures, the props… it all worked together to make a fast-paced, fun class that I know my kids are going to love.

Of course, the school being a business rather than part of the education system, they’re still reluctant to spend any more money than they have to, so they won’t buy me props. I’m insisting that I need them, but I rather suspect that I’m going to end up going to an art supply shop and making them all myself.

Stay tuned for the inevitable blog posts about how to make a puppet…!

I woke up this morning feeling surprisingly rested, considering that the guy next door had woken me up at 3am with his latest house guest.

I lay there, pleasantly drowsy, allowing the morning sunshine to filter in and gently bring me to a state of full consciousness. Then I just continued to lie there, enjoying the blissful novelty of waking before the alarm had gone off and not feeling a sense of dread about it happening. I had no idea what time it could be. Usually, I try to avoid reaching out for my phone and looking at the time, because there’s something weird going on there – every time I’ve done that, I’ve discovered that it’s exactly one minute before the alarm’s set to go off, and that just spoils my last minute for me.

I don’t dread going to work in the mornings: I’ve just always hated getting out of bed. As long as I don’t look at the time, I can believe I have hours left in bed. If I look, it is guaranteed to be 7.44am. But today, I eventually gave in to curiosity and picked up my phone. I flipped it open and looked at the time, proud of myself for being so alert before the alarm even went off. On a Monday, too!

It was 10am.

So that explained it.

Oops.

Teacher, why you cry? asks a chorus of alarmed little voices.

The tears stream down my face and I take off my glasses as I attempt to stem the flow with a tissue. The area around each eye is red and sore from repeated attempts to do this.

It’s OK, it’s OK, I try to assure my worried kindergarteners. I’m not crying. I just…

I pause. Trying to explain allergies and sinus problems to 6-year-olds with beginner level English is just as difficult as trying to explain it to a middle-aged housewife with no English. I do what I always end up doing when I need to urgently convey a message, and speak in a string of random words accompanied by mime and bits of Korean. It goes something  like this:

Crying no (arms crossed in an X – the Korean equivalent of our head shake).

My country – air (point outside) – wet. Breathe (deep inhalation) easy (thumbs up). Yes?

Here – air – dry. Breathe (deep inhalation) difficult (thumbs down). Nabudda. Yes?

Throat (point) dry. Hurt. Appune. Nose (point) stuffy (exaggerated sniff).

Sneeze (fake a sneeze). Cough (cough).

Eyes (point) water. Moule. Itchy (mime scratching). Yes? Rub (rub eyes). Appune. Sore. Red.

I share this anecdote simply to explain to you why it is that I am so animated in my speech these days, and why it is that ever since I became an English teacher the quality of my own spoken English has dropped so dramatically. I now speak in single word sentences and generally don’t bother to conjugate verbs. By the time you next see me, I will most likely be incapable of ordinary conversation, and you will be embarrassed by me when I make a big cross with my arms in a restaurant to tell the waiter that I don’t want anything else, thanks. When I ask if we’re leaving soon, I’ll simply say “Go. Now? Yes?” in a very loud voice, while pointing from us to the door. And I’ll probably keep saying things like “Salt. No.” instead of “Excuse me, I don’t seem to have any salt, would you mind passing me some?”.

Just warning you. Yes?

One of the great things about being a teacher is that I get to go to lots of places that I would normally be considered too old to visit.

Kkumdori Land is one of those places.

It’s a theme park right here in my home city, and I’d never even heard of it until now, because I’m an “adult” and all I ever hear about are nightclubs and bars. The theme park was much more my kinda thing! Kkumdori Land is a perfect place to take smaller children, because although it does have a few rides more suitable for older kids like myself,  it’s mostly very gentle and cutesy and fun.

Come, come, on water tree! said Jennifer, dragging Terri and me to the water log flume ride. I’d never actually been on one before! And while I’d be very enthusiastic about such a thing in the heat of summer, I hung back slightly today, looking doubtfully at the layer of ice inside the log.

Hang on, does a wave come over and soak us? I asked, not fancying spending the rest of the day freezing to death in the snow with wet clothes. Jennifer shook her head and pointed to all the children and teachers coming off the ride. They were all completely dry. Reassured, I got into the log.

Do I even need to finish writing this?

One tidal wave later, dripping, and with actual icicles forming in my hair, I clambered out of the log to much laughter. Oh, wow, aren’t you freezing? asked someone. What do you think?! I started to respond, but it was at that point that I slipped and fell over in the snow. Honestly, I love cold weather, but I don’t seem to have great survival skills for it.

Still, by the time I got to the top of the sledding hill, I had dried out, my knee had stopped bleeding, and I was only limping slightly. Then I realised that the snow at the top of the hill, where everyone was queuing to slide down, had become a solid layer of slippery awfulness thanks to the constant trampling. I miss my winter boots! Much the same as in Tallinn Old Town last winter, I couldn’t walk, or even stand up.

Alexxxxxxx! I howled dolefully, at last, clutching my sledding ring in my mittened hand and picking myself up for the tenth time. I had advanced about one foot, and the queue was only about 5 feet away – so close, and yet so hopelessly out of reach. Alex looked round at my shout, and burst out laughing as he saw the crowds of tiny little children scampering fearlessly and confidently past me, the teacher, trembling and rooted to the spot. To my relief, he strode over and grabbed my hands. Thank you – I started to whimper gratefully, but he grinned and cheerfully pushed me over instead.

Argh! You – you – you dangerous lunatic!!! I yelled, glaring up at his laughing face. Oh, quit crying – I got you safely into your sledding ring, didn’t I? he asked. So he did, I realised, and with much less squealing and falling and scuffling than if he’d told me to climb into it. Then he bent over and pushed and swooshed me across the icy nightmare until I was in the queue, safe and sound, and no longer dangerously on my feet. Glad to be of service, he said, going back to his own sledding ring. Jerry, look after Hayley teacher, will you? Jerry is the smallest and most baby-faced child in the whole school. He doesn’t even come up to my waist. And he looked at Alex, looked at me, and then nodded solemnly and put his tiny little hand protectively on my knee. Good grief.

For some reason, I went backwards the whole way down the slope and couldn’t get turned around, and then my legs flew up in the air, and all I could hear was the sound of the ring zipping over the snow and the air whistling past my ears, and the sound of my own squeals, and oh dear lord, you wouldn’t believe how fast those sled things go. It was the first time I’d ever tried sledding, and it was terrifying. I loved it.

And I get paid for doing this sort of thing now, too, you know.

I am sitting on the floor with nam-dong-seng, who is giving me a very enthusiastic lesson in Korean history as I try to follow the broken English mixed with Korean and hastily-drawn maps and diagrams.

Then Japan eat Korea, he says, drawing a threatening-looking arrow on the map and changing the country’s name for the millionth time.

Erm… not eats, I say, somewhat at a loss for the correct word since I’m not very well versed in battle terminology. Japan invades? Takes over? I pause to cough pitifully, my body racked with painful spasms. I have still not managed to completely convey to awma that I’m suffering from air allergies and not a permanent dose of the flu, and I think she suspects I have next to no immune system. She appears by my side now, having been busy in the kitchen since I arrived in my coughing-and-sneezing condition and was ambushed by nam-dong-seng.

Take this vitamin tablet, she says in Korean. Not that I’m able to translate, of course, it’s just that she’s pressing a tablet into my hand and reaching me a glass of water, and the Korean word for “vitamin” happens to be “bee-ta-meen”. I decide it can’t hurt, and then when I take it I realise I was wrong, as the tablet is huge and my poor throat is raw and swollen and dry. I start to cough even more vigorously, and now I’m turning purple into the bargain. Awma looks alarmed, and reaches for the next item on her tray. It is a small cup of steaming water, into which she is stirring some dark brown, sticky stuff from a bottle that does not look as if it contains a pleasant-tasting beverage.

I manage to pick up the words “hot water”, “ginseng”, “good”, and “medicine”  from her explanation. Nam-dong-seng looks up from his diagram of bloody-looking soldiers.  Noona, that tastes very very not sweet, he says in that delightfully Konglishy style of speech, looking truly sorry about the fate that has befallen me. Bitter? I ask, looking dubiously at it. Awma is standing over me with her hands on her hips. You better drink, advises nam-dong-seng, in the voice of one who has previously tried to resist. I look at awma’s stern face, and hastily take up the cup and knock back the ginseng potion, which tastes like liquorice only even nastier, if possible. Grooooogh! I exclaim miserably, gagging.

Nam-dong-seng tries to smuggle a piece of chocolate into my hand, but awma is waiting with the next dose: drugs. I am not sure that I should be taking drugs when I can barely read the packet they come in. Awma is prepared for this refusal, and she sets the Korean-labelled box aside and produces one that nam-dong-seng tells me they got when he was sick on holiday in France. The instructions are in French. This is better. I look admiringly at awma – the woman thinks of everything.

Successfully drugged, I return to my history lesson, only to be slightly confused to find awma pulling the cushion out from under me. It turns out that she has brought me a heated floor cushion. One with a cable and a control pad, which plugs into the wall and heats my bum as I sit on the floor.  And then she brings a tray of fresh, sliced fruit, and a pot of coffee.

So, Japan takes over Korea… says nam-dong-seng, returning to the lesson as if nothing has just happened. I return my attention to his enthusiastic story-telling, and smile gratefully at awma as she comes past and wraps a blanket around my shoulders. I’m not sick, but I don’t feel great, either, with this horrible allergy stuff. I’m not sure how much good any of awma’s fussing will do me in terms of health. But the TLC goes a long way.

I did something really embarrassing a few weeks ago.

No, Parents, you don’t have to stop reading – it’s not that kind of embarrassing. It’s just one of those things that I find myself doing and then think surely nobody else in the history of time has ever done this ridiculous and ludicrous thing? and start to over-analyse the situation, my personality, and my life in general.

See, I’ve never been very good at socialising. I make friends pretty easily, but it usually happens because someone else has made the first move – approached me in a crowd, contacted me online, invited me to join some group activity. I like spending one-on-one time with people. But throw in a third person and I become noticeably less talkative. Throw in a whole bunch of strangers and you’ll be lucky to discover what my voice sounds like. I don’t choose not to speak, I just lose the ability to do so. Chances are I’m sitting there desperately trying to think of something to say, and becoming more and more tongue-tied the longer it takes.

Obviously, I’ve had to go through a lot of discomfort because of this, since leaving my comfortable circle of friends and family to travel on my own. If I don’t make myself socialise, however stressful it is for me, I’ll end up sitting on my own, crying and wishing I was at home. So, I’ve done it. I’ve joined Facebook groups, I’ve gone to ex-pat meet-ups and dinners, I’ve accepted lunch and coffee invitations from total strangers, and I’ve done not too badly, all things considered.

Until the embarrassing  incident.

Kara, an American teacher I’d met for lunch several weeks earlier, sent me a text message to say she was going out for a late dinner with some friends that night (Friday). Wanna come?

Not at all. I’d rather sit in my room and watch sitcoms and drink beer by myself. Going to dinner with strangers involves psyching myself up, repeating calming phrases in my head, and trying to come up with interesting things to say. It is exhausting.

Sure, thanks! I texted back. And so it was that we met in downtown Daejeon, just the two of us, only to find ourselves joined by people who seemed to suddenly appear from all directions. Honestly, there were about 20. Who all knew each other. And I’d met one of them. Once.

We went to a bar-slash-restaurant, where jugs of cocktails and bottles of soju magically appeared, along with what the Koreans deem to be pub grub – large cauldrons of spicy soup that makes your eyes stream, platters of fresh fruit, bowls of mussels, and plates of dried squid. We ate, we drank, we were merry. I had a disconcerting moment where I realised that I hadn’t spoken for 20 minutes, and that everyone at the table except me was chattering away quite happily, but then I managed to push myself into a conversation with the two people nearest to me, and all was well.

Then, when the food was gone and everyone was in the party mood, we split the bill and headed out into the packed streets towards one of the local bars frequented by foreigners. No one could believe that I hadn’t been there, but it’s kind of a bar-come-club and that’s really not my thing. Also, I tend to have more interest in going to traditional Korean venues, rather than places that are specifically designed to make me feel like I’m back at home. But anyway. I went. I chatted as we walked. I was feeling OK about things.

And then we went in, and it all went to hell. My nightmare situation. Everyone got dragged off in different directions by people screeching things like “I haven’t seen you in forEVer!!” – including me, actually, as I was greeted enthusiastically by a Korean girl I’d met once before through work. We did the small talk thing, and then she said “Have fun!” and went back to her friends. And I turned around and realised that – lo! -  I had no friends. The place was packed, and I could see no one I recognised. People were just flitting easily from group to group, mingling. How do they do that?! I hovered uncertainly for a while, wondering how exactly one deals with this type of social situation. I approached a few groups of people and hovered there, too. I tried to think of an interesting conversation starter. I hovered some more. Then I made a run for the toilets and locked myself into a cubicle, where I sat staring at the door and trying to breathe deeply. Just go get a drink, and then talk to someone, I said firmly. This is ridiculous. You can travel to the other side of the world by yourself, and you can’t last five minutes in a bar without hiding in the toilets?

Suitably chastised, I crept back out. I edged towards the bar. Someone approached me, smiling as if delighted to see me, and I smiled back, only to watch her sail right past to embrace the person behind me. And then I did the embarrassing thing. (No, none of this so far was the embarrassing thing, believe it or not).

I got my phone out of my bag, and held it to  my ear with a strained expression on my face, as if struggling to hear the non-existent person on the other end over the noise in the bar. Then I slowly and carefully backed out of the door, in a “just stepping outside to take this call” sort of way. I went down the stairs, on to the street… and then I stuffed the phone back into my bag and walked hastily in the direction of my neighbourhood.

Now, since then, I’ve gone to dinner and suchlike with a number of individuals. I even met up with a group I didn’t know, at a board game cafe, to spend an afternoon being an utter geek. I was certainly the quietest person there, but I had fun, and was even managing to make a few jokes and get a few laughs by the end of our time together. Focusing on the board games took away the pressure to make conversation. And the fact that I had a nice time and didn’t want to run away screaming gave me some reassurance that I’m not totally socially inadequate. Just about 95%. Maybe the bar/club scene is just not my thing, and I shouldn’t force myself to try to fit in there.

Or maybe everyone’s like this, and they just have the sense to get really drunk first?

I feel like a grown-up when… I’m walking home with shopping bags, and there’s something like leeks sticking out of one of them.

I remember I’m not really when… I unpack the shopping and whoop with delight when I see the Nesquik chocolate milk powder I forgot I bought.

I feel like a grown-up when… I hear of yet another marriage or birth amongst my friends, and see Facebook status updates about children’s 6th birthdays and school runs and wedding anniversaries.

I remember I’m not really when… I watch a Disney movie with a class of 6-year-olds, and I’m the only one who cries at the end.

I feel like a grown-up when… I’m coming out of the subway on my way to meet a friend in order to “do lunch”.

I remember I’m not really when… I’m drinking cheap beer in a bar and blushing furiously while my giggling friend forces me to practise my Korean small talk/chat-up skills on her non-English-speaking, incredibly hot male colleague.

I feel like a grown-up when… I collect my bills from the mail slot and go to the bank to pay them.

I remember I’m not really when… I realise that one bill’s actually 2 weeks overdue and my gas has been cut off because I never remember to check the mail slot.

I feel like a grown-up when… I’m trying to get to the bottom of another who-hit-who-first argument between two 8-year-olds (one crying, one looking defensive and mutinous), and recalling how important it used to be to make the adults believe you didn’t start it. If only we knew that they didn’t really give a toss.

I remember I’m not really when… one of my students points out that the class should have started five minutes ago, when I’ve been too busy playing with whatever toys they’ve brought in that day to notice the time.

I feel like a grown-up when… I get called “teacher”, and children look at me as if I am the font of all knowledge.

I remember I’m not really when… I’m sitting with my Korean tutor, squirming uncomfortably as she says, “Not quite, try again…” when I’m stuttering and stammering my way through sentences like “I have a cat. She lives in my parents’ house.”.

So, remember my special needs class, the one that was driving me nuts when I first got here?

Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they’re now my favourite class, but other than a small incident involving me getting punched by an over-excited 8-year-old the other week, things with them are pretty good.

Apparently, according to their Korean teacher, the problem was that I was trying to teach them English. That’s just not going to work, she explained sadly. I don’t think she was advising that I tried teaching them Japanese or something instead, so I battled on regardless, until one particularly stressful session led to me actually banging my head repeatedly and despairingly on the board, to a chorus of giggles from students who mistakenly thought I was trying to be funny.

At that point, I  stopped trying to teach them English. Instead of explaining a concept and getting them to answer questions using that concept, I just wrote up the answers and got them to copy them into their books, with a focus on good spelling and handwriting. Instead of asking them questions about a text, I simply got them to take turns reading the text aloud, over and over again, until they were familiar with most of the words.

And a remarkable thing has happened. The atmosphere in the classroom has completely changed, and we have fun together – lots of silly actions and goofing around from me, lots of giggles from them. And because they no longer see me as a heartless, confusing dictator, they want to include me in their jokes and conversations – so they make huge efforts to try to find enough English words to explain to me what’s going on in the corridor or in the playground. Their enthusiasm for their work has gone from non-existent to excited and eager – because previously, they didn’t understand what they were meant to be doing, and now it’s simple things like “read this sentence out loud” or write this answer in your book”.

But the most amazing thing of all is that by stopping all attempts to teach them English, I inadvertently stumbled upon the ideal method for teaching them English: just be their friend. I spend a lot of the class just trying to talk with them about what’s going on in their lives. When they’re playing games in the corridor between classes, I join them on the floor to ask how a new toy works, or jump out from behind a door to make them all scream and run away laughing. Then they have to figure out how to tell me about their latest toy or ask me to come and play tag with them, and they know that if they use even a word or two of English, I’ll do it.

And what has happened? A frickin’ miracle, that’s what’s happened. OK, so these kids are never going to be able to speak English. But as we repeat and repeat and repeat the reading and writing practice, things seem to be sticking with them. I’ll be about to write the answer to number 5 on the board, only to realise that a few of the children have already caught on to the pattern and just continued with the rest of the questions, answering them by themselves. I’ll tentatively make a word recognition test (spelling is too advanced!) into a game by putting on a gameshow host voice and talking into my whiteboard eraser, and discover to my astonishment that they can actually connect about half the words from the text to the meanings I give them, now that they’re motivated enough to try. I’ll pick a random word from the book and find ways to use it about a million times during one class, and be delighted when one child uses it in the right context next time he sees me in the corridor.

One little boy, without a doubt the slowest and strangest child in the class (I really do feel that he should be at a special school), has taken a real shine to me – which is kind of ironic since he’s pretty much the only one in the class who really is making no progress, thanks to spending most of his time staring out from whatever goes on in his own little world. Apparently undaunted by the fact that we can’t communicate, he now comes to my classroom every day despite the fact that I only teach his class once a week. He flings himself up on to my knee, clings to me in the corridor, and refuses to let go of me when I try to deliver him to his next class. He seems content just to sit on my lap and cuddle me in silence as I sit at my desk drinking my pre-afternoon classes coffee and making lesson plans, while all the other children run around like mad things in the corridors.

What are you saying about me? I called out to a couple of his classmates today, when I heard them chattering in the corridor – the usual indecipherable string of Korean words punctuated every so often with “Hayley Teacha”. (I think this used to be mostly insults and death threats, but now that they like me I’m no longer afraid to ask. )

Toto (really), one of the better speakers, poked his head around the door. Eric… Hayley teacha… likee.

Eric likes Hayley teacher, I corrected him. Well, good. Toto doesn’t like Hayley teacher?! I pulled a sad face.

Toto shook his head. Eric LIKEE Hayley teacha!

Andrew’s head popped round the door. Likee likee I love you! he said, before the two of them ran off giggling.

C’mon, didn’t you ever have a crush on a teacher? asked Alex, amused, as I pondered whether this was creepy. We looked at Eric, who was sitting rigidly upright, motionless and staring, on my knee, as we talked over his head in the knowledge that he understood not one word. I shrugged. Not like this!! Ah well, it’s nice to be loved, I suppose.

Alex choked on his mirth. Couldn’t you just get a cat or something?!

Hmmm…

One of the most humbling things you will ever experience is finding that no one around you has ever even heard of your home country.

Koreans, at least the ones I’ve encountered in Daejeon, are not aware of this “Ireland” of which I speak. When I received blank looks a few times, I switched my answer to “the UK”, but this had even more unsettling results. I have since discovered that the Korean language doesn’t seem to have a word for the UK. For example, the Koreans speak “hanguk-mal” (Korean) and come from “hanguk” (Korea). I speak “yonguk-mal” (English), and I come from “yonguk” (England). This pains me somewhat.

It’s not that I have anything in particular against England, it’s just that I’ve been there all of three times in my whole life (and two of those times were simply for the purpose of changing planes) and don’t feel any affinity with it at all. For people to just wave aside my entire background and say “Ah, you’re from England!” in a “sure, well, it’s close enough!” sort of way is a little unsettling. It’s changing my nationality. It’s like telling Koreans they’re Japanese (NB – this is probably not a good idea!!).

Travelling through Europe, I did very quickly realise that my little home country, while the centre of my world for all those years, means pretty much nothing to the majority of people. Europeans and Americans (the people I most often encountered on my travels) had, of course, heard of Ireland, and knew that there was something dodgy about the top part, and doesn’t it belong to the UK or something? This limited knowledge was a shock to my system, and made me see for the first time just how huge the world is – that completely foreign cultures and totally different ways of living can be going on in countries we’re barely aware exist. It definitely humbled me and drove me to find out as much as I could about every new place I visited, read about, or heard of.

Still, at least I had that partial awareness from Americans and Europeans – although one thing that did irrationally annoy me was hearing Americans refer to a “British accent”. I could probably do a fairly accurate impression of the accent they mean – Hugh Grant, anyone? – but there’s no way I’d call that a British accent. There is no British accent! I tried to explain to a bewildered New Yorker in a pub in Poland. The Scottish are British… and let me tell you, they sound nothing like the accent you mean!

Maybe I’d call it an upper-class London accent. Even just an English accent, although that’s pushing it a bit, since there are so many of those, too. But a British accent? No. Such. Thing.

I did say that this was an irrational annoyance, and that’s because I will cheerfully admit to saying that someone has an “American accent”. I can identify the American twang, and while I can pick out the more obvious accents (like New York, for example, and a vague “the South”), for the most part I can’t tell them apart. I understand that it’s no different from someone talking about a British accent because they can’t identify what part of Britain it’s from… but it just does seem incredible to me that anyone could even connect a Glaswegian brogue with the accent of, say, the Queen, and say “yeah, those two are obviously from the same country, listen to the accent!”.

Anyway, I seem to have gotten sidetracked. What I was originally going to say was that Koreans, for the most part, cannot point out Ireland on a map. Fair enough… after all, it’s only recently that I learned where, well, most countries are on the map (thank you Traveller IQ Challenge!).  But if you say “in the UK”, they’ll look relieved and say “Ahhhhh! In England?”. I used to try to explain, somewhat indignantly, but it all got a bit confusing, so now I just tend to say yes.

“Ireland is in England?” Yes.

“London?” Erm… yes.

I mean, what does it really matter to them? Ireland, England, potayto, potahto.

Today, however, I attempted to break the poor geography cycle by teaching the six-year-olds all about the UK as part of the “Around the World” music class programme we’re doing for the next month. Last week was Egypt. We learned about pyramids and the Sphinx, we looked at a map, we came away with real knowledge about where Egypt is and what it’s all about. It was great.

This week is the UK. Obviously, it was an unmitigated disaster.

I zoomed in on Europe… then the UK… then England. Yonguk, I said carefully. England. Yonguk means England. England is one country in the UK.

I zoomed out again. Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, I pointed out slowly. Also countries in the UK.

I pointed and circled and pointed some more. I showed photos of scenes and landmarks from around the UK. I got them to learn the names of the other countries.

UK, I chanted. UK. England plus Scotland plus Northern Ireland plus Wales. UK.

They were all looking quite agreeable, and I felt a small shiver of success. Time for some revision. Whose flag is this? I said, putting up a picture of the carefully labelled “UK FLAG”.

England! they cried excitedly. My face crumpled.

The UK, I corrected gently. What countries are in the UK?

——blank faces——-

——upsetting silence—–

Europe? ventured one kind-hearted little soul, not liking the disappointment on my face.

It was a very long and confusing day, and I had to give up.

My name is Hayley, and I am from England.

What with the flurry of adventures and discoveries that came with my China trip, I never got around to telling you about one of the items I managed to cross off my 101 Things List. It was number 72: go on an overnight train journey.

I love trains. I’m not the biggest fan of flying, mainly because of the hassle that comes with airports and security and baggage restrictions and having to be there ages before your flight. I don’t like buses because I’m terrible at working out where I’m supposed to get out. I don’t like travelling by car unless I’m driving. But I do love trains. And train stations, for some reason. I can’t quite explain it – being in a train station just gives me a wonderful traveller buzz of excitement. Plus, you always know where you’re meant to get out, and you know that the train will stop, eliminating the whole “should I press the stop button, or do they not do that here?” dilemma.

China’s railway stations are like none I’ve ever seen before. Trains are the most popular mode of transport in the country, with Chinese people crowding into the stations every night to get on to the overnight services to various cities. Like pretty much every place I encountered during my stay, the stations are jam-packed with people and all the noise and shoving that goes along with that.

Getting a ticket can be tricky. The station in Beijing had a window with a sign saying “Ticket sales for foreign people”, but I soon discovered that that just meant that the person behind the window was able to understand and respond “no” to the question “Do you speak English?”. Never mind. Not being able to speak the same language ceased to cause me panic a very long time ago, you know. With some miming and plenty of pointing to Chinese translations of various words in my guide book, I got myself a ticket for the sleeper train to Xi’an the next night.

Riding on an overnight train is something I’ve always wanted to do. I was prepared for cockroaches and overflowing toilets and dirty sheets. I was not, however, prepared for the madness that was the train station when I arrived for my journey. For a start, security is very strict in China. You have to go through a baggage check just to get into the subway, for crying out loud! Which I must admit became very irritating after about the fourth or fifth journey in one day. And as for the train station… you can’t even get in unless you’ve bought a ticket in the separate ticket building (which you have to do a few days in advance because all the trains are usually fully booked), and you have to go through a security checkpoint no different from an airport one. Bags, metal detectors, pat-downs, the works.

Once in, you have to keep moving or you’ll just be trampled or glared at. A little frustrating when you haven’t a clue where you’re going, can’t read the signs, and just want to stop and get your bearings. But rather than being annoyed, I was thrilled by the hustle and bustle all around me. I ducked into the first space I could find, which happened to be a huge indoor market. This was a little strange to me, having never seen a market in a train station before, but it was fun to look around and stand at a cart having a quick and heavenly noodle snack before my trip.

I worked out that rather than just going to the platform as in any other train station I’ve been in, you have to instead go to a departure gate – again, just like at an airport. They even have VIP lounges and soft seat lounges and lounges for mothers with babies. Each lounge contains vast numbers of people waiting for up to 6 different trains, and you don’t get to go to your platform (via yet another ticket check and security checkpoint) until it’s announced that your train has arrived. Not that I heard any such announcement, of course, since it was all gobbledegook to me – I just wandered hopefully up to the turnstile man every five minutes until finally he nodded and let me through.

I was a little confused about where to go once on the train, as the only things I could read on my ticket were the numbers. I identified the departure time, and was assuming the other figures were the arrival time, but they turned out to be my carriage and bed numbers. No one spoke English, and the stewardess at the door just motioned me onwards, ignoring or not understanding my “where?” gesture. Not to be daunted, I just wandered cluelessly up and down the train passage until another passenger took pity on me, looked at my ticket, and showed me where I was meant to go.

I found myself in a snug little room with an electric heater, four bunks, crisp white bed linen, heavy blankets, flasks of hot and cold water, and a cute little vase of flowers on a tiny bedside table. Where were my cockroaches and stains?! I decided not to protest, and settled into my bunk to watch with interest the goings-on prior to departure.

There were whistles and Chinese announcements and clinking beverage carts and also some kind of operatic music being piped through the tannoy system. I had roommates, all strangers to each other, although they made a little small talk before the train set off. I did feel a bit awkward and out of the loop, as I could only sit there and smile politely – one guy tried to include me in the conversation, but quickly and understandably gave up and ignored me when he realised that I didn’t speak the language.

When we departed, all there was to do was read or sleep. I slept. Not particularly well, right enough, but I slept. It was a strange experience, being tucked up in my bed in a room smaller than my bathroom, with three complete strangers surrounding me. The train clack-a-clacked its way through the dark countryside, and I woke up to find myself in Xi’an.

I enjoyed the experience, but I couldn’t help feeling that this was one situation where having travelling companions would have made it a lot better. Usually, I’m pretty well suited to solo travelling. I like having the freedom to go where I want, when I want – to stop and take it all in when I feel like it, or get sidetracked by something that my companions would probably hurry past, or go somewhere different at the last minute. I like not having to talk, for the most part – and when I do need company, I know that I can generally rely upon hooking up with some other solo travellers at the hostel. But being cooped up in that little room with complete strangers with whom I didn’t share a single word in common was a bit of a downer. I couldn’t help but think that it would be a whole lot of fun to have McBouncy and The Sister and Becs in there with me – sort of like a novelty sleepover. We’d play travel Scrabble or Jack Change It, talk into the night, have a few drinks, embarrass ourselves by trying to order snacks in Chinese and ending up with 10 extra pillows, throw things at the snorers. Being in there with other solo travellers who were simply making their regular familiar commute just made it seem a bit… ordinary, if you know what I mean.

Sometimes, I do wish one of my close friends would discover a love for travel, and join me on my adventures. Otherwise I’m going to have to seriously consider getting Kat the Cat shipped over here, you know. I suppose that that would at least give me an interesting gimmick for my book…