Day 20
David had his first day of teaching here at
Shandong University today. He started at
8 a.m. and except for three short 10 minute breaks, he was teaching the whole
time until Noon. He felt it went well. The classes are 2 hours long, so the first
class went from 8 to 10 and the second was from 10 to 12 noon. I came
at the start of each class while he was doing his introduction of himself, and
then I went out to do some errands. He
took his guitar and found a few minutes at the end of each class to sing a
song. He wanted them to sing with him,
but the students were rather shy about singing along. Not sure how many of them really knew the
words or the tune to John Denver’s, “Country Roads.”
We ate lunch at the canteen with David's co-teacher, Danny, and had a hard time finding a place to sit. A student spoke enough English to say that we could sit at his table with him. He actually had pretty good skills in speaking English as we talked to him more. He is from Kazakhstan and is studying to go into public relations. We had an interesting visit with him.
I needed to get some fruits and vegetables
today, so I went to a couple of the street vendors and bought some stuff. I passed by one vendor that had these small
green bulb-like plants that he was selling.
I did not know what they were and since I don’t know Chinese for, “What
is it?” and he didn’t know the English for, “It is a _______,” I wasn’t sure
what to do, but I came here to try new things and not be afraid. I figured if the Chinese were eating it,
there might be some value to it. (Although,
they do eat the bean of the ginko tree and I’m told it’s rather bitter, so I
won’t be trying that.)
I bought 6 of them. The vendor put 10 in a bag and because of my apprehension;
I put 4 of them back. Some were softer
than others. I brought them home and
just before dinner, I decided to peal one and cut it open. I chose one that was a little firmer than the
others. This is what it looked like:
I was not sure whether it was edible or
not, but my all-knowing husband looked at it and said, “I think it is a fig!” Okay, so that I don’t look too dumb here, I have
never, ever, ever in my life seen a fig outside of a newton! So who is the first one to try it? Not David!
Yes, I tasted it. I wasn’t too
impressed at first, so I came to the trusty computer and Googled, “figs.” It said that the mushier ones were the riper
ones and unless they were oozing stuff or were moldy, they would be the better
tasting ones. So, I got the mushiest one
I had, made sure it was not moldy or oozing stuff, cut it open, and tried
it. Yes, I liked the flavor of that one
better. So that was my lesson on figs
for the day.
We went for a walk after dinner and stopped
at a vendor that was on campus. They
have pomegranates here that are not the nice red color that we see back in the
States, but more of an orange-yellow color.
I wasn’t sure how to pick a ripe one of these either, but I did my best,
trying to remember what I had read a long time ago, and we will open that one
up tomorrow.
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