Twas the Week Before Christmas...

China has been building to a fever pitch for Christmas this week.  More and more people are learning about it and recognizing it as a time of family, joy, and giving.  It is nice to have our students giving us small gifts and wishing us a happy Christmas.  All the signs of Christmas are here: the music, the decorations and the parties.

David's cold was getting worse, so on Tuesday, he decided he better take the antibiotic that we had brought with us.  His cough had gotten really bad and he was starting to feel it in his lungs.  By Wednesday afternoon, when we went to visit with Dr. Tricia, he was already starting to feel better.  He still has some cough, but it isn't keeping him up at night.  He also tires easily and needs more sleep than before.

Our visit with Dr. Tricia was to help her after the passing of her father.  She had questions and we tried to give her answers that would give her comfort.  After our two hour visit, she seemed some better and seemed to be able to accept what we said.  We pray for her everyday and hope that she finds peace soon.  I'm wondering about becoming a grief counselor... (not really).

Purse and silk scarf from Dr. Tricia for my birthday.  I was so shocked that she had something for me.  Even in her grief, she was thinking of others.

Necklace that Yi Bing gave me.  It was carved by her father on a peach pit.

We were really  busy this week trying to get papers graded and get sign-up sheets ready for our students and the finals week that is coming soon.  My eyes were starting to go "bug-gy" after 3-4 hours a day reading interview summaries and grading them.  Put on top of that the need to correct the vocabulary quiz, too.  It seemed that between David's cold and the grading papers, we spent a lot of time in our apartment this week.  Thank goodness for the ease of ordering from Mike's Pizza and the delivery!  It's so nice to have Chinese that can speak English!

These were the gifts from some of my students.  The heart shaped box was full of candy (just what I don't need, but it was a sweet thought).  The apple was from another student.  They give you apples in the new year time.  The Chinese word for apple is "ping guo."  The "ping" is also close to the word for peace, so they give apples at this time of year and wish peace and safety for you.  Such a sweet gift.  We have been given several apples after this one.  

Friday afternoon, we were asked to judge a speech contest at Shandong Airlines Corporate Headquarters at the airport.  They picked us up from our apartment after lunch and drove us there in a nice vehicle, I imagine it was a company car.  Shandong Airline is trying to encourage their employees to learn better English so that they can help customers from foreign lands better.  Six employees had signed up for the contest.  They titled the contest, "The Glory and the Dream."  Their under ten minute speeches were supposed to reflect that theme.  We also had to judge on skill, fluency and pronunciation.  We were introduced to the regional manager for Shandong Airlines, who had a pretty good grasp of English himself.

We chose three winners and it was pretty obvious who had the better skills.  We commended them for trying and for the efforts of the company to try and build their skills.  We related experiences that we have had traveling in China and how we appreciate those who can speak English.  After the contest, we were driven back to our apartment.  They paid us 800 Yuan for doing it.

Saturday was the Christmas Dinner with the other foreign teachers.  We had Mormons, Protestants, a Muslim and some "don't know".  We made it easier on ourselves this time and went to a local restaurant where we could have a private room and order some dishes.  They just so happened to have a roast goose on the menu, so we ordered that and several other dishes.  There was plenty of food.  We also had a "White Elephant" gift exchange.  I'm not sure that Mustafa or the Chinese student, Yang Xu, or even Mr. Hiroshi understood what it was about.  Most of the gifts were okay.  I wish we could have had a gift exchange that showed love and care in the gifts we chose, like the gifts they brought, but I wasn't in charge.  It turned out okay though.

Cuddle fish dumpling.  Tasted good.

This was a lotus root sandwich.  There was a little slab of meat in between the two slices of lotus root.  Normally, I don't care that much for lotus root, but I would eat this again in a heartbeat!  

Our half of a roast goose.  We were all surprised that it was on the menu and since there was not turkey, we choose the goose.  Of course they leave the head on and then chop it up, bones and all before serving it.  I discovered the reason that the Chinese chop up all their poultry like this; so you can pick it up with chopsticks.  They don't think it is right to use your hands to pick up food to eat and they think a fork and knife are too cumbersome to use.

From the left, Yang Xu, Lynn, Mark and Kyle.

From the left, Zina, Pam Holt, Mustafa and Mr. Hiroshi.  All good dinner companions.

Saturday evening, we were invited to a presentation that was all about pomegranates.  We are lightly associated with a group called "Rain Education."  They are trying to build educational opportunities and bridges between cultures.  I'm not sure who the host was for the evening, but he was from a province that grows pomegranates big time and wanted to share his love of his home with everyone.

We met our contact from Rain Education at their office and then we walked to the building where we were invited to have dinner.  It was a pretty fancy affair.  We were served fresh pomegranate as we walked in the door and then seated at a table.  They served us banana pizza (which was really delicious!)  Cooked bananas and a sauce under it (I'm still trying to figure out what the sauce was made from) and then a rich custard that was served in little tiny bottles (they held about 1/4 to 1/3 cup of custard.  There were also some little loaf things that had custard baked inside of it.  I sure wish I had gotten pictures of them!

A little four or five year old little boy was there and his father came and introduced him to us.  The boy spoke about 3 words of English and he wanted to have him speak those words with us.  The boy made David a little Chinese origami boat.  The whole time we were there, we had cameras in our faces and off to the side.  The dad wanted his little boy in some pictures with us, so we had those taken also.

After eating, we were invited to a tea table, the kind where you are basically sitting on the floor.  After we told our contact we didn't drink tea, she said, "I will just tell you about it and then after the pictures are taken, we can go to the other room."  She was true to her word, so if you see us in some pictures drinking some tea, just know that there wasn't even water in the cup.

The next room was where they showed us a video of the place where they grow all the pomegranates and the beauty of that area.  Then the guy who was hosting it, (he took turns speaking in English and Chinese) turned it over to the guy who makes the pomegranate juice into wine, so we had to sit through a presentation on the wine making.  We had been told earlier that afternoon that there was a presentation going on in the concert hall on campus about American music and we wanted to go see what that was, so we had to leave the event we were at.  I was a little disappointed because they were also going to do a demonstration of Chinese writing that I wanted to see, but we had to excuse ourselves and go.

Our beautiful pomegranate gift.

As we left the building, the parents and the little boy caught up with us and gave us each a huge pomegranate in a nice box.  We hurried over to the concert hall and when we got there, a woman was speaking in Chinese with a piano on stage.  She had a power point presentation and on the screen were a picture of Stephen Foster and then another American female composer that I didn't know.  We stayed for about 20 minutes thinking that any minute she would get on to some singing, but she didn't, so we just left and went home.

Sunday, we went to Church and had lunch at the Hanlin with the others.  We came home to rest and then left in what we thought was plenty of time to get to the Jing Si Lu Church.  The bus was pretty crowded but when we got to a place on the bus where we could stand, two nice young ladies stood up and offered their seats to us.  That was good because we had a LONG ride ahead of us!  It took us an hour and a half to get to the church.  The traffic was insane and the buses were super crowded.  A lot of things were going on at the malls that we had to pass, so people were out celebrating Christmas Eve.

BYU teachers and Arron, our Vietnamese member.

One of the choirs.  It was so fun to watch the director.  He really gets into it!  

I wish I had better video of this group.  The kids were so cute!  You can't see it, but the little girl on the front row, third from the right, was the kind of kid that was so fun to watch.  She really put the BIG into her actions!

These lovely ladies were doing a dance and then David leans over to me and whispers, "One Grecian Urn."  I lost it!  Then I told Kayce sitting next to me and she lost it!  It took all three of us a while to stop the giggling. 

The performance at the church went well.  When we got up and sang, Angels We Have Heard On High, the audience was clapping along and I truly believe that EVERY camera in the building was filming us!  We also sang, Joy to the World, but for some reason that didn't get the same response as "Angels" did.  David and I thought it was strange because that one had gotten a big response four years ago.

We left after the choir that sang when we were done.  We were starting to get nervous about getting a bus home if we waited much longer.  Taxis don't like to take Anglo's that might not be able to tell them where to take them.  The ride home wasn't as long as the ride there, but it was still crowded on the streets and in the buses.  We did make it home okay.  Merry Christmas!