Charity Fair

Once a semester this strange thing happens. We go to our late afternoon classes to teach, only to find that all of the kids have mysteriously disappeared. No kids in the hall. No kids in the classroom. If we are lucky, we might see a lone student scurrying about.

"Where is everyone?" we ask.

"Charity Fair," they reply, and scurry on their way; perhaps carrying a box of brownies, perhaps some pirated DVDs.

Of course, we think, Charity Fair. No reason to tell us foreign teachers about that. Or about anything for that matter.

The Charity Fair is a way to raise money for various charities (as the name so adequately implies). For the past two years, the Charity Fair has raised money for the victims of the earthquake that occured in southern China last spring. The kids get pretty creative, and because they get to miss class all afternon and fill themselves silly with sugar, they get pretty exctied as well.


One booth allowed students to smash platefuls of condiments on fellow students for the price of 5 yuan. That booth, and the students running it, smelled pretty awful by the end of the day!



Another booth was a slave auction. There really is no cultural relative or sensitivy on an issue such as slavery, so there is not much use being offended or trying to force them to understand. The student in the picture is one of my tenth graders.

"So, if I buy you as my slave, you will do anything I demand?"

"Yeah."

"Even your homework?" The whole booth laughed.


Something a little less intense:
The girl on the right is another one of my 10th graders.


And here is a botth selling pirated DVDs. I think the market is already a little flooded.

And here is something reminesent of a good old bake sale. Nicole and I did some damage.

My former student who moved up to Nicole's class. His name is Scrubs. No joke.

It was a fun, kind of cracked-out, afternoon.