Saturday 19th May

Today was the school family fair, which meant that everyone had to work today, and no, we weren’t getting paid for it! We had to be at school for 9am to set up and then sort out our own stands.There were all sorts, food stands from local companies, stationary stands, info stands, game stands (which the teachers were running). There was a water wars area inside the enclosed basketball court which was very popular, there were water balloons, water pistols and all things like that and seen as it was 30 degrees this was very popular! There was a penalty shoot out, archery, darts, bean bag toss, lucky dip, all sorts of fete games like that. There was also a stall run by Chinese teachers (i’m not sure what the game was) but they had a bin bag full of water and goldfish and if you won, you won a goldfish which was put in a very small sandwich bag where the fish only just fit in it. A lot of teachers thought this was cruel and they actually ran out of bags for goldfish (typical in China really) we were finding dead goldfish all day, which kids were picking up and carrying to their parents. I was on the face painting stand with 3 other teachers so we did our own face painting first, I painted myself as a leopard and another teacher did a glittery rainbow on her face. The fair opened to parents and children at 10am and I was painting kids faces from 10am until 1pm, one kid straight after the other. One of the Chinese teachers was also face painting, but wasn’t very good at it so I also had a lot of parents bringing their kids over to me asking if I could “fix this”. One of the kids I didn’t even know what it was supposed to be and had to ask! I love face painting though and had a really good day.

At 1pm the game stands closed and we all went to the stage area to hear the school pop band and then there was the talent contest. One of my grade 4 girls was singing in the talent contest and did an Adelle song. This kid is 10 years old and I had goosebumps, she was amazing! I had a very proud teacher moment. After this there was the parents Vs kids football match while the teachers started to clear away, then the highlight of the day, Kwai wars! 5 teachers had volunteered to be put in the stocks and all week students (and teachers) could vote for who they wanted to be put in the stocks by putting money (kwai is also the name for Chinese RMB) in a box with that teachers name on it. The money then goes to charity and the teacher with the most money in their box is put in the stocks and students can throw cream on a paper plate in their face. This years winner is the admin vice principle (who everyone hates). After that we finished clearing up and then we could all go home at 4pm.

I went home to shower and wash my face paint off and we all met at the Irish bar at 5.30pm for dinner. Everyone was pretty tired though and didn’t stay out long, my arm had been aching from all of the face painting and I was ready for bed by 8pm!

Follow the link to see the photos from the day! http://www.internationalschool.info/family-fair-talent-show-at-beijing-international-bilingual-academy/