My Life as a Superstar

I love walking into the cafeteria (not because I love the food or the smell) but because I love seeing all the kids and even better, all the kids love seeing me! My kids are starting to learn my name and will call out to me when I walk in. It makes me feel like a superstar. Fact.

Ok, funny story about my name. I was with one of the groups of  kids (they are divided into 6 different groups – three 4-year-old groups and three 5-year-old groups) and I was trying to teach them my name. I kept having them say Teacher Solana, which sounds more like techa Solana. As they were saying it one kid realized that Solana sounds like Banana and he switched to calling me Techa Banana. It caught on pretty quick. So now all the kids call me Techa Banana. And I love it.

But back to the cafeteria, so they are calling out “Techa Banana, Techa Banana” and it just melts my little heart. They are so stinkin cute! Even the kids that I don’t even know love to wave and call out “hello” or “good morning”. They are adorable. And I can’t help but stop and give high fives to them. Warning: once you give an adorable little Chinese kid a high five, everyone else will want one too…and I can’t resist.

Besides high fives, the kids love holding their hand to my face like a microphone to make me sing. It started in class when I would pretend a cup or a banana was a microphone. So then they started using their hands as microphones in my face during breaks and such. They love when I start to sing. And I love when they giggle because I’m singing into their hands. It’s a win-win situation.

It not always just the kids either. The adults love to use whatever English they know on us too. I love it when they get so excited to say hello as they pass in the hallway or cafeteria. But is goes both ways, they giggle at us when we try to use Chinese and say Ni Hao…I’m not sure if it’s because we pronounce it wrong or they just think it’s funny to see Americans speaking Chinese or if we have a booger on our face…not sure. But then again it makes me giggle sometimes when they say hello too. But mostly, I just love it.

Another perk to being a superstar is having your picture taken. Haha, it’s so fun! At first people would just take pictures of us whenever we got together for group shots (I was warned that this would happen a lot). Then we have random people just come up and ask to take a picture with us. One girl walked up to my friend Heidi and asked to have a picture with her. She didn’t bring a camera or anything, she just wanted a picture. So Laurissa took the picture. It was super funny. Some people don’t ask and will just sneak pictures of us. Or like that one time we were dancing and I turned around to see an Asian with a camera. Well, I figure that since I am bound to be in pictures with Asians anyways I might has well embrace it. As such, I’ve developed a new game that I love to play when we go out. It involves jumping into group pictures with Asians at every opportunity. This is how you play: you walk by, notice them taking a picture, jump in doing the Asian peace sign (it means happy), and boom. You win. And like I said, I’m a superstar here so they love it! If you’re ever in China you should try it too. It’s actually a lot of fun.

As for meeting and getting to know them, Darci and I made a new friend, Isabella. I think I mentioned her briefly before. We first met her when Laurissa, Ashley, Darci and I were practicing My Heart will Go On. We were hot, sweaty, tired and thirsty. She was with a friend and they were introducing themselves. She is a new teacher here as well. She teaches piano. I think we met another girl that same night whose name was Rachel and I got them mixed up and called Isabella Rachel for the first few times we met. She told us we danced so well and that we were all so beautiful. Her English is pretty good. We see her all the time in the cafeteria now. Sometimes we go over and eat with her, we usually just miss her though. We went and talked with her in her piano room one night. Just asked questions about her life and such, it was cool. Another time we went to her apartment to show her how to do a twist thing in her hair and chat some more. We brought her a gift of cookies because we know gifts are a big thing here. A couple nights ago she brought us some moon cakes. It’s big holiday thing for the Mid-Autumn festival coming up. There were 4 of them. The first one we tried was really good. The last one we just tried was…interesting. We enjoy learning some Chinese words from her and she loves practicing her English with us. She is so happy all the time. She is such a sweetheart.

I love the people here. They are so great! I cannot wait to make more friends and get to know people better. The language barrier is a little bit tough but when both sides put forth efforts it is well worth it. I love feeling famous! I love China!