lunchtime management

The last week has been spent doing a TESOL(enligh teaching course) in beijing. There was about 20+ of us in total, most of the others were from the USA, 3 brits, a romanian, an italian, an frenchman and a mexican. I was the only australian,and the only one of chinese ethinicity. something of an advantage and a drawback, but i'll get to that later.I feel sorry for the students who'll be getting the italian or mexican. Their accents were pretty thick and their teaching presentations were riddled with spelling and gramatical errors! Not really fair if you ask me.

Everyone else in the class couldn't speak a word of mandarin, except for maybe hello and count a few numbers. Even our american teacher who'd been living in china for 14 years probably couldn't hold a basic conversation, and he also had that real cringing way of pronouncing words, which reminded me of my grade 8 chinese teacher. So anyway, after everyone figured out i had some grasp of mandarin, some lunch breaks became quite a challenge.

Most of the noodle houses and restaurants around the hotel were in the local community, so most didn't have enlgish on the menu or have waiters who could speak it. So the first day was a bit of a nightmare with almost the entire class going out together with me unofficially appointed to take care of the ordering. And you know what it's like when you get a big group together and nobody wants to make any decisions, especially amongst a group of people you just met. It was compounded by the fact that it seemed like some of these guys had never walked into a chinese restaurant in their lives. Usually when i goto asian restaurants it's with other asians, and i realize now i take this for granted. Normally i don't have to scan and monitor the other people at the table to check they're handling the food alright. Chopstick skills were lacking, what seemed like the mildest dishes were too spicy for them, dishes were too exotic, teapots needed to be refilled ect ect. I felt like i was some mother taking care of a bunch of children!
There was one thick glass noodles in soup dish in particular, and nobody was able to serve the noodles into their own bowls. most of it ended up on the table! though in fairness the dish was originally intened for a single person and not for sharing.

after the first few days though some of the other students found restaurants with pictures on the menu and were happy enough to go it alone and point. still, other days I would have a procession of what seemed like a bunch of lost stray dogs, following me around to whatever restaurant i decided on. and it's not like i can read the entire menu, or willing to sit there and read the 50+options on there to the rest of the class. at least it was good practice for my mando.

I was happy to tell the others how to say and ask certain things in mando, but i didn't appreciate the big italian guy wanting me to translate his flirtations to one of the tea girls in real time. "alan, tell her I think she is preeeetty" ......"what is she saying now?" "oh she is sooo cuuutte"ect ect.

on the last day he really tested the waters, telling me he really wanted to sleep with one of the three teagirls, and would need my help. I sorta palmed him off and he didn't ask again, though i heard in the end he did manage to ask them back to his room for what they thought would be "a chat". I think they were quite shocked and upset when they realized what they'd been invited up there for! you could say he almost pulled a dominique strauss-kahn