My First School Experience in China - Part 2

I joined the school year during the second semester. Everyone in the class was already familiar with each other. The teachers treated me really well because I was the first international student in our class (at least that’s what I recall). 

Something I will never forget is that during our first English test, I remember failing the test because the instructions were in Chinese. I didn’t know what we were supposed to do, so I filled it out based on what I thought it was (apparently, I did not guess it right). I remember that the teacher had to go through the instructions with me individually after school. But after that, I did really well on all the English tests. 

Other than the main school topics, we could also sign up for individual classes and what we call “interest class”. My parents signed me up for piano classes, and I signed up for origami for the “interest class”. The individual classes usually took place during our “study time”. And each week, there is an evening scheduled for our “interest class”. 

The piano teacher I had was quite aggressive. Every time I play a wrong note, she would hit me or pinch me in the back or hand. When we took the piano classes, all of the students would go to an individual piano room to practice. The teacher will go around and check on everyone. Often when we left, we were all crying. I think I was her favorite student, so she was the nicest to me. But this experience still kind of traumatized me.