Nicola Ingber
It was a great challenge and immense fun spending time as a teacher and travelling in China. The children were a delight to teach (mostly!) and it was a pleasure to see their fascination at becoming accustomed to English customs (and manners!) and their amusement at my stories of England. It was also a very rewarding experience for me to learn about and become familiar with the Chinese culture and seeing how the history of the country has created a very particular and different mindset from Westeners. I found that teaching for a period of time and before going travelling gave me the opportunity to 'settle' into this starkly different culture. I then felt ready to tackle some of the provincial areas where my lack of Chinese language skills ensured that some hilarious improvisation was sometimes needed!