Masterton teacher set for China

China-bound Hadlow School teacher Julia Brady knows her chopsticks and is not afraid to use them.
And while the Year 5 teacher admits she has much to learn about life in China, she is eager to overcome any barriers of language, lifestyle or table manners that may stand between her Masterton students and herself and pupils in the sister city of Changchun, where she will be teaching from next week.
"Do I know the language? No. Do I know top from bottom? No. But I've been told the children are beautifully behaved and mannered and my father taught me how to use chopsticks. So everything should work out just fine."
Mrs Brady, who has been teaching at Hadlow School since 2001, will be continuing a 30-year tradition of academic exchanges between Masterton and the city of Changchun.
Her selection comes after an exchange visit to Wairarapa last year by Changchun teacher Mei Ge, who taught Chinese languages for two months at 22 primary and intermediate schools in the region.
Throughout the 1990s, Masterton annually hosted high school graduates from the city, who attended trades-related and English language courses at the then-Wairarapa Community Polytechnic.
The links reaching from Wairarapa to Changchun, which has a population of 8 million people, have endured and the city is known to be "very fond of its little sister, Masterton", Mrs Brady said.
She plans to regularly post online throughout her 33-day trip to keep pupils in both nations in touch and is keen as well to visit tourist locations such as the Great Wall and the Forbidden City.
She said English became a compulsory subject in China several years ago, although she has been told the number of native speakers willing to live and teach in the country has been limited and are even rarer in rural areas.
Retired Wairarapa College teacher Donald Simpson, who taught at Jilin University in Changchun, has been helping Mrs Brady to prepare for her trip, as have Wairarapa teachers including Joy Clark and Tim Nelson.
Mrs Brady is expecting cool spring temperatures on her arrival as well as the occasional dust devil blowing through the northern China district out of the nearby Gobi Desert.
But she feels ready for the rigours of a different climate and is confident the journey will be rewarding for herself and her pupils, given the help from fellow Wairarapa educators and her own earlier travels through communist Poland.
"And the chopsticks, we can't forget that.
"I am very good with chopsticks."