Let me tell you the story of how I came to discover this amazing little thing that can occupy hours of your time, ward off boredom, AND gets your body moving. Healthy and fun! Who knew?
About two weeks ago, one of my bosses told me that some guests from a nearby English training school were going to watch me teach my grade 4 students. I had no problem with this because I had developed a great system for teaching them. The students are of course easily bored and in order to keep them motivated and having fun, I decided to reward them with little coloured star shaped stickers if they spell a word correctly or win a game of flash cards. Once they collect ten stickers, I'll give them a prize. The stickers and the prizes, which are key chains or Canada notepads or other small goods, were all brought from Canada. This system is so effective, I even use some of these prizes to lift students' spirits in my college classes! Canada pins are great for this too.
Anyway, the guests were pretty impressed after watching me handle a classroom of energetic kids with as much ease as I had. The kids were even memorizing English dialogues for me by the end of the class. However, this also meant that I was being transferred to this new training school because these guests were paying my employers a good deal of money to have me teach at their school now. I was nervous about the change.
My bosses drove me to the new school the next day for an orientation. I was so anxious because I had no idea what kind of students I would get, whether the school had helpful staff, or even if I would get any classroom equipment.
I was blown away. The school is absolutely amazing. I never expected this place to be as beautifully decorated or as welcoming as it was. They even have an elevator to get people up to the fifth floor where the school is, which is impressive since elevators are rare in China. The hallways are nicely painted bright colours, the staff are so lovely to talk to, but what impresses me most is the classroom equipment. There is a new computer and smartboard in every classroom! These devices, smartboards, are like projectors but you can draw on them electronically. You can make your powerpoints more dynamic and get students included in the presentations, you can write things out and make your whole class more tight and efficient but also fun at the same time. I love working here.
Anyway, on Halloween they were having a party for the kids in the evening and they asked me to come by and introduce myself. Once again, I was so completely taken aback at how well they had decorated things, the costumes, and the games. They even made a haunted tunnel in one room! And they had a guy wearing a full mickey mouse suit (wish I had taken a picture with him.) There were musical chairs, throwing ping pong balls into baskets, and dance-offs with the kids. One of the games, though, was this Chinese version of hacky sack. The kids are divided into teams and one by one, they have to bounce it off their feet or knees or body as many times as possible. Whichever team has done cumulatively more bounces wins candy. I had a Chinese staff member by my side the whole night, ensuring I was able to see every room and escorting me to any place I needed to be. I asked her, "wow, that looks really hard!" and she said "oh no, maybe in Canada it's hard, but here, everyone is really good at it because we all learn to play from a very young age. Even the parents and the elderly and grandparents are experts at this game. We all learn to play from a young age." And sure enough, as she said this, a very corporate looking parent, a woman dressed in a conservative suit and high heeled boots started playing with the jianzi. She was impeccable, tossing it up and down from her foot with such ease so many times. I was so impressed!
I had asked her where I could buy one, because I immediately thought of one of my sisters as I watched the feathery device fly through the air and click and clank in satisfying sounds as it got bounced around. She loves hacky sack. I bought two yesterday for my apartment and my roommate has one as well. We stayed up for two hours last night playing the game, even though I am rather bad at it. Playing it with electronic music in the background is recommended.
So what exactly is this device?
Well, it's basically a rubber stand that has usually 4 feathers affixed to it. The feathers make spotting the device as it flies through the air much easier, though I have a white feathered one, a black one, and a multicoloured one. In my experience, the white one is superior since the black one is really hard to see and the multicoloured one can also be hard to follow. The rubber stand is weighted in such a way so that when it is propelled into the air it always turns around again so that the feathers are pointing up and when you kick it, you never hit them. There are some metal discs attached around the center of the stand which make a small noise when it bounces.
I find them to be rather beautiful to look at, and they are quite cheap (only 3 or 4 quai for one here) so I'll try to bring more home to Canada.
These are our jianzis. Pretty awesome, eh?
My new school I work at. Isn't it so pretty? Those orange things hanging across the hallway are pumpkins for the Halloween party.
I (tried) to look the part for Halloween. Mickey Mouse ears ftw. You can kind of see behind me they set up a big Halloween decorated wall and behind it is the smartboard for the presentation.
All the teaching staff (except me) dressed as witches.
They even set up a kind of runway decorated with balloons. Then, they put in some funky music and the kids walked down the runway and posed in their costumes. This cute little girl loved playing with the balloons!
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