Hello Jingshan!

The day we've been anticipating for almost a year finally arrived. The spring semester here at Jingshan officially began on Monday morning with an "opening ceremony" (anyone who saw the olympics this summer knows that they like ceremonies here in Beijing). This was, in a sense, our olympic moment. And we were ready. Amy, Elias,and Becky prepared speeches and we had our gift to the school wrapped and ready to present.

School begins early here (the students arrive by 7:30) and the ceremony began shortly after. The students had all gone to their homerooms and each class came out to the playground/basketball courts/track together. Once there, each class lined up in neat rows.

The students all made sure to check that they were the proper distance from the person in front of them by holding their arms out. One arm's length is the right distance. I tried to imagine the entire population of Newton South lining up in such a neat and orderly way outside on a cold winter morning, but I just couldn't picture it.

Our group lined up on the far right and once everyone was assembled several students marched the flag over to the flagpole to be raised. Everone sang the national anthem to start the ceremony.

The speeches then began. We'd been asked to introduce ourselves and after several speakers we were given the cue to go up to the stage. We'd brought our gift to the school (an engraved pewter "paul revere" bowl filled with messages from Newton students) and were ready to present it to the principal. The students spoke first, with Elias and Becky doing a great job representing the group. Since they both spoke in Chinese I'm not 100% sure what they said, but they got lots of laughs and applause from the crowd. Then Amy made her speech (her second speech in Chinese) and we made our presentation.

And with that we were officially welcomed as members of the Jingshan School community. In many ways school here seems just like school in Newton (but with 40-50 students in a class). Amy and I are still getting to know everyone and observing this week, so I haven't actually taught a class yet. After teaching classes with 8-12 kids in them for the past 10 years I'm sure it will be an adventure when I do begin teaching. Stay tuned for that story in an upcoming entry...