‘I want my mommy! I want to go hoooooome!’ Tears are streaming down the poor boy’s face and his expression is one that could break your heart. His fat little face and rather comical haircut give it an element of comedy though. It actually takes quite a bit of effort to not just laugh at it. He’s only just three years old but already speaks two languages because of his nanny speaking only English to him.

All around the classroom this scene is showing, but somehow it doesn’t quite have the same effect in Chinese as it does in English. There are about 25 children in each class of which on average six cry every now and then and there is one that is permanently crying. The ones that cry every now and then tend to start crying the second I come close or look them in the eye. I guess I’m still a bit scary to them.

It certainly brings back memories though. Etched in my memory is my first day of going to school. I can vividly see now how my mother is struggling to pry my fingers off her hands. Or at least that’s what the memory looks like. Whether I was screaming and crying like some of these kids I can’t remember. But I probably did.

But on the other hand it’s also quite amazing what young minds are capable of. Repeat a word a few times and they will copy you like no adult can. Make it funny and turn it into a game and in one lesson of only 20 minutes you can teach them a good number of new things. Over a whole week they’ll learn to sing a song, some new words, a letter of the alphabet and usually a sentence like: ‘How are you?’ or ‘What’s your name?’.

And that’s the other funny thing. None or close to none of these children have an English name yet. Most Chinese will have two names. Their official Chinese name and a non-official English name which sometimes their parents choose for them. However, only maybe 4 or 5 of the children had one, so suddenly I had to come up with 50 names. So alot of them are named after TV shows, friends, actors, singers or just plucked it out of thin air. From Doctor Who and Torchwood we have Jack, Donna and Rose. We have a Will and Grace. A Bill (Bill Bryson) a Terry (Terry Pratchett/Wogan). And there’s a Charlotte, of course. Unfortunately my own family doesn’t have particularly good names for Chinese. Jakko, Irene, Brina and Rienus don’t really work. You’d think Irene is okay but that would turn into Ilene. And Caroline is just too long, sorry. Suzanne worked but I turned it into Susan. And Bas, hmm, in English that’s a kind of fish.

Unfortunately, sometimes parents disagree with names or come up with their own name. So now there’s a Koobie, a girl named Princess, one named Ariel (because, her mother said, she looks like a beautiful fish) and another named Shirley (a name only fit for people living in trailers addicted to crystal meth somewhere in Arkansas in my opinion, sorry Shirleys of the world).

But this first week was a week of firsts. Let me tell you what an average day looks like. First off you stand at the gate with the other teachers and take the kids to the playground or to the classroom. After this you will be very sweaty as it’s still quite hot here. At around a quarter past you go up to the classroom and help the kids eat their breakfast (sometimes by just scooping it in their mouths). After that it’s time for a toilet break and a cup of water and then I do my 20 minutes of English class. After that it’s another toilet break and then the kids play outside for about 20 minutes during which I again get very sweaty. Then you go back inside and help change the dripping-with-sweat kids into some dry clothes. And that’s the morning pretty much over! Just rinse and repeat for the afternoon.