Day 108 - Chinese Christmas Party

Day 108 – Chinese Christmas Party

Gilbert was here to pick us up at 8:45 for our Saturday School.  We did the usual review of words and then started on some other words.  At the break, we played outside throwing the ball around.  Little Leon, who joined us last week (he is only 4, but his parents are friends with Gilbert and they want to get their son started early) was excited to come this week and he warmed up to us quickly.  He loved throwing and catching the ball.

The second hour, we decided to do Christmas words and then showed a Power Point that has a short video of Silent Night attached to it with Karen Carpenter singing and lots of images of the story of Christ’s birth attached to it.  I hope that the Chinese officials do not consider this preaching or proselytizing.  Gilbert was the one who wanted us to cover Christmas and what better way to cover Christmas than to have two American teachers do it!  The children were doing really well with the words and the pictures, but then they started to get a little tired.  When Silent Night started playing, I was watching the pictures thinking, “I hope this doesn’t get us in trouble.”  At the end, I looked over at little Susan and she has tears streaming down her face that she is trying to wipe away.  David said that during the video, she had her hands pressed together as if she were praying.  When the video was done, it was time for the kids to leave and when they were all gone Gilbert told us a little more about Susan.

Susan’s grandmother was very sick when she was about 3 years old.  She went every day with her mother to take care of the grandmother and didn’t have a lot of opportunity to play with other children.  Susan was put in the adult world and she doesn’t seem to fit in with the younger children well.  Gilbert told us that Susan, at the age of 7, has already read the Bible in Chinese!  He thinks that her grandmother was Christian, and the mother is devout Buddhist.  Susan seems to feel these things spiritually and is very interested in all the Bible stories.  It was just an interesting side note to this girl with tears over a song that she could probably only understand less than a fourth of the words, but feels the Spirit through the pictures and knowing the stories of Jesus. 

After that, David and I spent a half hour on learning more Chinese.  We did talk a little about the story in the Bible of Noah and how many ancient cultures seem to have a story of huge flood and the eight people that were saved in the flood.  The Chinese character for boat is the shape of a boat and the symbol for eight and the symbol for mouth (also meaning people).   Brent told us this was also the character for family, but Gilbert didn’t say anything about that.

Leon’s dad is going to be working in the US in about a year and wants to work on his English.  He was very excited to meet us and invited us to lunch with them.  I have a feeling that we will be having lunch with them a lot because he is very anxious to improve his English so he can go and not have to have an interpreter.  Lunch was very tasty and as we sat and talked, Leon was allowed to play some games on a cell phone.  At first, he was taking pictures of all of us.  Pretty soon, he was over at David’s knee, showing him the game and even taking David’s finger and using it to play his game!  See the video!  So cute!  I think we just adopted another grandchild!

As we were going into the restaurant for lunch, we stopped to look at the pond that was covered with ice and looked so pretty.  Two children, about 11 years-old, were throwing ice on the pond and they came running over to us when they saw us.  The girl’s name was, Jean and she had come to the first class, but her skills are better than what we were doing, so she dropped out.  The boy’s name was Eric and they both came to say, “Hi.”  The kept coming around us while we were at the restaurant and we talked a little.  Gilbert invited them to the Christmas party that was going to happen that evening.

When we got back home, I made pumpkin roll and got caught up on email.  I wasn’t able to check one account for two days and I had over 200 emails in it!  It was easy to erase about ¾ of them because it’s the email I use for when I purchase online and they were almost all ads. 

Gilbert was back here at 5:30 to pick us up and take us to the Christmas Party that Susan’s mother had planned.  They were so happy to have us there!  We were the honored guests and they sat us down with the children to eat.  I had to make a little speech to begin and they all sat waiting patiently for me to take the first bite!  I wasn’t sure why no one was eating, but with cute little Helen looking at me expectantly, I thought, “I better pick up something and eat it!”  Susan had given me a little tart that is so yummy and I am going to learn how to make someday!  They had forgotten to give me a plate or chopsticks or a spoon, so I just picked up the tart and started eating it because that was all I had.  Then the kids dug in!  They saw I wasn’t eating much and started giving me more things, another tart and some cookies.  Susan made sure that I had a strawberry (one of the words we have taught them and she said it as she gave it to me!)  Then someone got me a plate and a spoon and before I knew it, my plate was FULL with all the little things the children were putting on my plate for me!  I didn’t have to reach for a thing.  Then a grandmother came in with one of our favorite foods, “yam with strings” and she put some on my plate and then she brought some fried tofu and fried sea grass and fried lotus root.  After I politely ate those, she came back with some more.  This time, I left some of it on my plate… they won’t give you more if you do that. 

The children gathered around the table waiting for us so they can eat.

Jean is in the pink coat and Eric is the black coat next to her.

Steven is getting up to grab some food.  Susan is next to him and then Lily.

Getting ready for the show.  Carol is in the red dress seated.  The girl with her hand raised in the red and while sweater is Susan.

Susan and Lily were our emcees for the night.

The cameras were flashing the whole time.  The parents were so proud that the American teachers had come to the party for their children.  As soon as most of the children were done eating and moving away from the table, they cleared the table, moved the food to another room and mopped the floor.  I felt like we were at a Relief Society gathering!  David said he thought it was the PTA! 

With the floor clean, they had a little talent show.  Helen, Susan, Eric and Jean all played for us.  Then they did a “Gangman Style” dance.  Then it was time for us to go so we could get more things done to be ready for Sunday, so Gilbert took us home.  It has been a fun and fascinating day for us.