Police Station, Moon Cakes and Classes

It's the 4th of July in China!

The hype in China is big right now! National Holiday!  It's as big as the 4th of July in the US!  The added bonus with the holiday this time is that they have extended the days of the holiday because Mid Autumn Festival also falls within that time frame!

The big deal about Mid Autumn Festival is the MOON CAKES!  They are a symbol of family and sharing.  We were given moon cakes from several people.  It is what you do this time of year.  Some moon cakes have been better than others.  Some are sweet and some are savory.  The savory ones can be part of  a meal with the protein in them.  It is a mixed bag because unless you can read the Chinese characters, you won't know what is in them.

The top boxes of Moon Cakes are from Shandong University.  They are a mix of savory and sweet one, although the term "sweet" in China does not necessarily mean the same as in US.  The ones in the bottom round tin were given to us by Ding Rongui, who's son David tutored four years ago, came to visit and brought those (and two bags of coffee that we gave away).  Andrew, the student who has been helping us a lot, it is from Hong Kong and we offered him some of them.  He got so excited to see them because he can't get them around here.  After David offered one to him, he jumped up with an exclamation of happiness and gave David a hug.  A very un-Chinese reaction.  Turns out they have an egg inside them, we thought it was a piece of sweet potato...

These are Moon Cakes that are more common in the south part of China.  They are a little more like a marshmallow in its softness and they have a thin layer of another gel like thing in the middle.  They are interesting to eat because they are so soft and don't really seem to have a lot of flavor, just a hint of flavor.  I only photographed the yellow and white one.  There were also a red, green and blue one.  I really couldn't tell the flavor of the red, green and blue ones, but the yellow one had a hint of lemon flavor.  Haven't tasted the white one yet.

A student that has been a friend to BYU teachers for the last few years, Crystal, brought us three moon cakes the other day.  We opened up the first one to have as a part of our lunch and it was SO good!  So the next day, we decided to open up the next one the next day for lunch.  It was not what we were expecting, totally different from the first one.  A little disappointed, so I got to looking at the package.  It had the pinyin for what the characters meant (pinyin is the transformation of the Chinese characters into words for those of us who have trouble reading the characters) and typed it into Google translate.  It told us that it was "black bean" inside .  So I took the last moon cake and typed in the letters for it and it came up with "black sesame".  I so wish that I had saved the packaging from the first moon cake from Crystal so I could look for it in a store somewhere and find it!  It was so good!

We have had moon cakes from others.  The university gave us a large box with about a dozen or so moon cakes.  We opened one of them that we were told was savory and started eating it and we both decided that it might taste better heated up.  David took it to the microwave and asked how long to cook it for.  I suggested may be 3-4 minutes, so he set it and then walked away.  Pretty soon, it smelled like something burning and sure enough, the moon cake was totally nuked!  Poor moon cake...

Residency Permit

We had signed up to take a trip to the Guizhou Province during the National Holiday Week.  It is supposed to be very beautiful with waterfalls, Tiantai Mountain Dragon Temple and performances by several minority groups with special costumes.  We are very excited to see it, but we have a slight problem in that we had to turn in our passports to that the university could get the papers ready to be turned into the police to get our residency permits.  We were getting concerned because we didn't have those or anything that we could board a plane with to take this trip.  Several times since last week, we have been emailing and calling to ask about getting some receipt that we were told would take the place of our passports if the residency permit was not done yet.

Late Wednesday, we got word that the papers were ready to be taken to the BIG police station so that we could get the receipt.  It is WAY across town and you have to have a Chinese speaker with you to do it. Eva had meetings the next day and wouldn't be available until Friday and I had to teach Friday morning.  We were afraid with the National Holiday that getting there and back would be a nightmare, so we decided we must try to get it Thursday afternoon.  Eva suggested that we ask a student of hers, Andrew (a young man who has been very helpful to us), to go with us.

David and I had to head after lunch over to the old Hongialou campus to pick up the papers and get our gift from the university.  We went back to the main road and Andrew had gotten a cab and met us there.  He went with us to the police station and after about a 30 minute wait, we were able to get the papers, pay a 400 RMB fee for the residency permit and then we had our permit to get on the airplane on Monday!

David is conversing with the wise men of the campus.  These statues stand in a semi-circle in one of the park areas of campus and he wanted his picture taken as if he were talking with them.  

Classes have been fun this week.  We have assigned the students to do Reader's Theaters the week we get back from National Holiday.  The last hour or so of the class was to let them rehearse.  We go around in the class and listen and offer suggestions as to how they could do it better, correct enunciation and explain words and meanings to them.  It has been fun to watch some of these young people get into it.  This class is so  different from the "memorize/lecture" format they are used to that it sometimes takes a little bit to get them going, but they are having fun and improving their English!

A former student of David's took us out to eat at a nice restaurant.  Lots of good food!  This fish was especially delicious.  The student said that they prepare it by scraping the meat forward from the back and then breading it and frying it.  YUM!

Church today was held in our apartment with just three of us.  Some of the teachers that are here in China with us left today for a trip along the Silk Road in northwestern China.  We did that one when we were here 4 years ago.  It was a great experience that was not without its challenges.  We thought it was really worth doing though.  We decided to take the trip that was being offered for the Second year BYU teachers to the GuiZhou Province.  The big deal about this area is the fantastic waterfalls and the minority areas that still have strong traditions there.  We are excited to see more of China so next week's post will probably be full of pictures!