An American with a heart for the nations.
"And I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then I said, Here am I; send me!" -- Isaiah 6:8
Email: chinaroadie-at-gmail.com
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I'm just amazed at how words and actions impact our students so much. Sometimes what we say in passing is stewed over for some time. We have to watch and choose our words carefully! The Easter lesson went over very well, and I've been approached with questions. It's my pleasure to explain things.
The past few days I've come down with something. Nothing serious, just mild nasal stuffiness, and a very sore throught. It sounds like I'm losing my voice, and I have a hard time speaking and being heard in class. Some students have commented that my blackboard is no good for me. That it produces too much dust. I told my students that we have blackboards in America as well, and I don't mind dust.
During lunch with the students today I learned that a group of them approached the administration and said that the blackboard was bad for my health, and they want me to have a white board! Their thoughtfulness and concern is really touching.
PS Last night when I put my 2 year old to bed, he said:
"Wô ài nî, Dad!"
Being the good translator that he is, he said it in English: I love you Dad! What a good boy.
A picture of the campus right before classes began this semester. Students like to air out their bedding:
Here is a shot from Lantern Festival -- looking down the street.
Jìng Yè Sī
-- Li Bai
Chuáng qián míng yuè guāng
yí shì dì shang shuāng
jǚ tóu wàng míng yuè
dī tóu sī gù xiāng.
Tang Dynasty Poem (618AD-907AD)
Still Night Thought
By Li Bai
Bright moonlight in front of my bed
I suspect there is frost on the ground
raising my head I see the bright moon
looking down I miss home.
We had a couple students over yesterday. One of them is very talented at chinese caligraphy. She wrote out this famous poem for us. Last semester our chinese tutor taught this poem to us, and I just enjoy it.
Tomorrow I have the opportunity to climb a bit up Mt Tai. I'm taking a few students up to the half-way point -- the Middle Gate. I'm looking forward to getting out and getting some exercise. Today we have day off for Easter, but somehow it doesn't feel like a day off when I'm correcting papers/journals, and prepping lesson plans for next week.
Tonight we'll spend dinner with our team mates and have an Easter celebration.
He is Risen!
There are many places where they are doing construction.
The Temple here at the bottom of the mountain had its humble beginnings around 211 BC! It is a walled fortress.
This has been such a busy week! Our CA came to visit to check up on our team, and we had a great time visiting. The kids really enjoyed seeing with her, and playing. Our FAO (Foreign Affairs Officer) took us all out for mutton hotpot, mmmmmmmmm—mutton!
Hotpot is a treat in itself. Usually there is a large bowl on a burner with water in it. When it starts to boil, you put thinly sliced meats in to cook. The restaurant we went to had individual small sized pots so you can cook your meat right in front of you. It was great! My skills with chopsticks have improved remarkably in the past seven months. Using your chopsticks you take the raw meat and cook it for a minute or so, then you dip it into a sauce, usually sesame or garlic, and enjoy.
Easter is upon us. This is a going to be a great opportunity for sharing some of our cultural heritage in our lessons! Many students are really interested in Easter, and want to learn more about this important holiday. We’re very fortunate for the openness that we enjoy. the kids are anxious as well for Easter, we plan to dye some eggs and have an egg hunt.
My students have been teaching me some interesting Chinese proverbs. When the Tiger Leaves the Mountain, the Monkey is King is one such proverb. It means, more or less, when the cat’s away the mice will play. This proverb comes to mind because I’ve been seeing tigers for the past few weeks. Every Monday and Tuesday I take two students out for a walk and we just chat in English. There is a park just 10 minutes up the road from us called “Lao Hu Gongyuan,” or Tiger Park. They actually have five north-east tigers there in a caged open field. Today we saw all five of them. Very exciting.
Today was a great day. The sun is out, the sky is blue, and the weather is starting to feel a little more like spring. My favorite time of year. Class went well also. Every Friday we have a fun day for projects or sharing American culture. This week's theme is sports, so what better American culture activity to share than American baseball!
We start out by explaining the rules, we teach them "Take Me Out to the Ball Game..." and then we watch a baseball movie. We watched "Sandlot." It's a great film, very light hearted about some young kids whose lives almost revolve around baseball. After the movie, everyone gets to put into practice what they learned and play some ball! No matter how many times we go over the rules, it's funny to see the students do the same things: like run with the bat, go to the wrong base, or even have two runners on the same base! It's great, and everyone has fantastic time! Too bad we don't have time to do a unit on fantasy baseball.
What really hits home, for me though, is just seeing daily American life in the movie we watched. Contrast that to daily life here, and you see some major differences. Nothing bad, just different.
There is a part in the movie that depicts the 4th of July. The kids stop playing ball to watch the fireworks. Ray Charles starts to sing "America" in a way that can never be equalled. Just watching this scene touches my heart in a way that can't be fully described. Immense pride and love for my country are two things that come to mind. America isn't perfect, but it's home. I guess I've always been a patriot. After serving in the Marines for a few years, I have a deep feeling for the freedom enjoyed in the US that many other people might not be able to relate to. Freedom is definetly not free. There is a heavy price for it.
There is also another freedom that was heavily paid. One that I also don't take for granted, and that's my freedom in God's kingdom. I guess that's one thing that allows me to be comfortable no matter where I am. I'm reminded that we're only passing through.
Often times we get lunch out on the street from a vendor. Some of the delicious things that they make are youbing, or fried flat bread with leeks.
The pot is flaming hot and cooks the bread. There is a lady who makes the bread on the board to the right. You can see the bread getting ready to cook. She folds the leek into the middle of the bread so it cooks inside it. It tastes a bit salty, but with a great onion flavor! Notice that the entire set up is on wheels! The front of this cart is actually like a bicycle, so they can peddle off after lunch time.
Right next to the youbing, is the jianbing vendor. Jianbing is made like a pancake on a hot round gridle, and egg is cooked on top of it and then a hot sauce is spread over it. Other things are put on top, sometimes deep fried fried bread, or a fried rice cake. Here is a picture of the batter going on the hot gridle...
After it cooks a bit, next the filling goes on top...
Then if you're still hungry, some tasty baozie (steamed buns with pork filling) is just across the alley...
PS: Don’t forget to sign my GuestMap!
Today is a special day in China. Apparently it is “customer day,” or so my students tell me. What this means, I have no idea. Maybe I’ll go to the store and see the kind of discount I can get. I bet I could get a sweet deal on some chicken feet, or a bucket of deep-fried silk worms.
Another reason today is significant is that it’s the last day we will have heat in our apartment! Everywhere above the Yangzi river the government allows the heat to be officially turned on in November, and officially turned off today. Fortunately, the forecast looks like it’ll be starting to warm up soon. It has been cold lately, with some brief showers, and the water freezes outside at night. I’m looking forward to spring. The buds are definitely on the trees.
In just a few moments I’ll be going back to class for my one hour of free-talk. I’ve been routinely getting about 20 some students! It’s exciting because these students are so eager to learn and practice their English. At the end of last semester only 3 or so students would come. Most students take a 2-3 hour nap after lunch -- as does most of the city and it’s workers. So it’s great to have this kind of turn-out. I give a 5-10 minute talk on a given topic, and then I turn the students loose on topics that I assign them. Today I’m going to talk about “quality of life in America, from my perspective.” This is a great topic, because I can share about what really matters most in my life.
This weekend's funny highlights:
We went to McD’s for dinner! Always a treat since we so seldom go. What was really funny was a woman walking in front of us. She was extremely well dressed, definitely well off. The next thing we noticed she turns around and hawks up a big one just like the rest of the big boys around here, and keeps walking.We’ve been into the new semester only three weeks now. It’s amazing how different this class is from last semester. The group dynamics are so different this year. It’s also interesting to notice how each group has a distinctive personality.
Last semester’s homeroom group was young and boisterous. It was challenging to keep the group on task at times, but it made it easy to teach a class so willing to talk and participate. When I contrast that class with one of the others you can really see the group dynamic differences. One guy was always hawking up a big juicy loogey during class time. Thankfully he spit it into a napkin, but I often lost my train of thought. Another guy would often dig for gold like there was no tomorrow. It looked like he could get a finger clear up to his second knuckle up there!
But these were my students, and each one of them was unique. At the end of the semester they told me that there is a saying in China that once you are somebody’s teacher, you are always their teacher. There are some bonds that aren’t broken.
This semester is off to a great start.
Side note: on my final exam I had a picture identification section. One of the pictures was Frosty the Snowman. I thought we had a great lesson and went over everything about the meaning of Christmas. However, one student identified Frosty as Satan Clause!
Also notice I have a new Guest Map! Take a moment to fill it out!
It's pretty cold outside, but it doesn't stop these diehard pool sharks.......
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