Sunday, March 11, 2018

Classes Start, Baotu Springs, Painting Class.

Monday was the start of the new semester.  David had one two hour class at 8 a.m. and I had one two hour class starting at 10 a.m.  Both classes went well.  We were surprised at the level of English these classes have.  These are supposed to be the "B" level students.  That means that their level of English was lower that the students who we had in the fall, and they have studied a semester with a Chinese English teacher.  Where we had a lot of blank stares on the first day of the Fall semester, this time we felt like there were more who understood us right off the bat.

After David's class, he decided to go see if Dr. Tricia could help him with the problems he has been having with his back.  She had the old orthopedic doctor check him out and then he got a shock wave treatment.  It usually takes a few days for the treatment to feel like it is working, so right now he is just a little sore where they did the treatment.

We had planned to meet Kayce at Baotu Springs that evening about 5:30 p.m., so we could get in with our passports for free.  That afternoon, Bob and Anna had contacted us to see if they could come over, they had bought some special treats to give us.  We told them what our plans were, so they asked if we could all go to dinner and then go over. Anna had never seen it, and Bob hadn't been there for about ten years, he said.

They have several corridors decorated similar to this that you can walk through.  It all feels so magical!


                                                  
Butterfly corridor.


Dragon display.

Me, David, and Kayce, just having fun!

Teapot display.
We went to the canteen to eat with them and then hurried to the bus stop.  It was in drive-time, so there were some traffic problems, and we had gotten a later start than we had wanted.  The plan was to meet Kayce at the North gate, but when we  were getting closer to 6 o'clock, and about to miss the deadline, we decided that getting off the bus and going to the East gate might get us in there before they started charging the evening rate.  We just barely made it!


Fish and under water.  The meaning was of contentment and being happy with what you have.

This display was about the morals that Chinese are taught as children.  Thinks like fidelity, trustworthy, brave, intelligence.  Kind of sounded like the Boy Scouts Law.

Paw Patrol.  I took this one for my granddaughter, Aleeyah!

This peacock one was beautiful during the day, but lit up night is even better!



The year of the dog.  



This display was to represent a poem about birds. The bird disrupted the water and send ripples out and away.


It was beautiful to see the displays lit at night.  They had music going, it was just fun. We stopped in the gift shop to check some things out, and while we were there, a young man and his family stopped and talked to us.  He was from Kansas and had come to China to teach.  He met his wife, Chinese from Jinan, and they have lived back and forth between the US and China.  They have one little girl that is a little over a year old.  We talked for a long time.  It was a nice visit.  It started to get a little cold, and we had seen all that we wanted to see, so we left and caught the bus home.

Tuesday's classes went well for both David and I.  We went to Dr. Tricia at the hospital.  She wants David to try some more traditional Chinese Medicine, so we met with the Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor.  She prescribed a concoction that doesn't taste as bad as the one last fall that he tried.  He still adds a little honey or syrup to it to help the medicine go down. (ha ha!)  We were there a long time while we waited for the medicine to be mixed up.

Dr. Tricia has started to take a class that is meant for people that want to learn to be interpreters.  She doesn't think she has the ability to do it, but she still wants to try and learn something new.   A new enviroment, she says, will help her to overcome her sadness and guilt about her father's death.  So while we were waiting, she practiced some of the reading she had to do on us.  She would read the passage to us in English, and then she wanted me to read it back to her.  In doing this, she could improve her pronunciation and also check for meaning of the words.  As soon as they brought the medicine to us, Dr. Tricia hurried us out the door, because it was getting close to 5 p.m. and she wanted us to get home before drive-time started.

Wednesday, David had classes, but I didn't.  I talked with family back home for a while when David was gone.  As soon as he got home, we hurried over to the canteen to have lunch with Eva.  We sat at a table that had another Chinese English teacher and also another teacher who spoke English quite well.  When we told her where we were from, she mentioned the National Parks that we have in Utah.  We were a little surprised.  It turns out that she goes to the US quite a lot because she has a son that went to high school in Virginia and graduated from college and now works in Washington DC.  We were surprised at her level of English, which was quite good.

After lunch, I met Kayce at the bus stop so we could catch the bus that would take me to the Shandong Institute for Elderly Learning.  Kayce has a student who's mother is director at the institute, and is taking a Tai Chi class there.  I mentioned that I was interested in learning Chinese water colors, so Kayce asked about a class for me.  It turns out that it is on Wednesday afternoons, so it works with my schedule!  Kayce introduced me to Charly, the director's son and sister to her student.  He showed me where the class was, introduced me to the teacher and the class, and then sat with me acting as an interpreter for what the teacher was saying.

The first class was from a teacher that specializes in painting birds. He went over the anatomy and some characteristics of birds, but never got around to painting. They took a break halfway through the class, and at that point, Charly decided to take me to a class on flowers.  This guy had already started showing technques of painting, the class was all excited.  They hardly seemed to notice me in the class, although a few of them smiled and nodded to acknowledge me.  It was wonderful to watch him work.

When the class ended, Charly took me to the director's office, and they decided which one of them would walk me to the bus stop to make sure I got there safely.  Charly's mom won. She speaks English pretty well, so we had a good talk on the way to the bus stop.

After classes on Thursday, I went with Kayce and Deneice to a shopping area that we had bought souvenirs from before.  Deneice was looking for some of the same souvenirs that she had bought before, but when we arrived at the shop, they had changed all the old souvenirs and didn't have the ones she was particulary looking for.  We found several other shops, but only one had anything similar, and she didn't want to pay what they were asking for there.  We wandered around, bought some cheese pies, and talked.  It was a nice afternoon.

After teaching my classes on Friday, (David doesn't have any classes on Friday) we had lunch with Eva in the Canteen.  She offered to take us to RT Mart so we could get some groceries that we needed.  We decided to take her up on the offer.  After shopping, we made our way home and then had a good rest, because we were both really tired.

My first class on Friday is a little strange.  It only has 13 people in it.  They are all Fine Arts majors, and they all have to travel from the Hongjialou campus for me to teach them.  The fact that they would have me teach a class of only 13 is probably the strangest part.  The smallest class that I have had before was 24 students.  I was afraid that I wouldn't have enough material to keep them going for almost two hours that the class lasts, so I did some looking through old material I had and found some things that I could turn into a learning game.  They really enjoyed playing it, lots of laughter in class!

Saturday morning, I went to meet Charly, so that he could take me to get the supplies that I needed for my painting class.  David decided to come along.  We had planned to meet at 9 a.m. at the place where the lessons were, because I didn't know the area that he was wanting to meet me at.  We had to wait for a bit before Charly came.  He arrived by taxi, and was going to get his car and drive us there, but he realized, he didn't have his key, so we ended up taking a taxi anyway.

Charly's five-year-old daughter was with him.  She knew a few words in English, but not enough to communicate.  She kept speaking to me, and if Charly wasn't talking to David, he would tell me what she was asking.  At one point, she wanted to tell me that my eyes were big and pretty!  We tried to learn a few small words from her.  She was delightful to be with.  Charly wanted to pick out an English name for her, so he said he was looking online for names and came upon the name of Rita, and asked if we knew the name.  I told him that I had an aunt and a niece with that name, and that it was a name that I liked.  So his daughter's English name is now "Rita."

My art supplies. I'm a little excited!

When we got close enough to the place we needed to go, and the taxi was at a stop because of all the traffic, we decided to get out and walk the rest of the way to the store. It wasn't very far.  It was a trusted seller of art supplies.  We got three brushes, small, medium and large, a set of water color paints, a palette, and 100 sheets of paper (it was the smallest size they carried).

After we purchased all that I needed for my next class, Charly asked if we wanted to go see the Art Market that was close by.  We said we did, so he stopped and bought us a bottle of water and a steamed yam.  Steamed yams are big here in China, at least in Jinan.  Lot's of shops sell them, and we see people eating them all the time.  They buy them with the skin still on and peel away the skin as they eat them.  They always smell so good!
Charly bought us a back of peanuts.  They were salted, roasted peanuts, and some were blackened peanuts.  They still tastes good, but I don't know that my eyes like to eat food that is black.  


We started to make our way through the crowd.  Very, very slow going! The way to the Art Market was crowded with shops that sold everything from art supplies, to underwear and socks,  to birds, to crickets, and mealworms. In some places, I was afraid that I would be pushed into the tables of the vendors because the crowd was pressing so hard to go somewhere. After about 15 minutes, we were able to get through the worst part of it and into an area that was easier to travel.

I couldn't resist buying this little, carved trinket from the market.  Charly explained that the meaning of this was "plenty is enough."  The word for foot, and the word for spider sound similar to the words for "plenty" and "contentment."  If you rub this foot, it us supposed to help calm you and not be anxious for what is to come. 
We walked through the market and stopped a few places.  One guy knew just enough English that upon learning we were from America, called Trump crazy and laughed a lot.  We bought a few cute little things and finally, Rita, David and I were tired, so Charly wanted to know what bus would take us back to our campus.  We finally decided that bus 75 was our best option, so we went to the nearest bus stop, but 75 doesn't stop at that one.  A man overheard us talking about bus 75 and told Charly what bus stop we needed, so he walked us to the bus stop.  Charly and Rita said good-bye to us and then we got on the bus.

After riding the bus for a while, we decided to get off at a stop that we knew where we could catch another bus that would get us closer to the campus than bus 75 would, so we got off.  It was also a shorter bus ride than the other one would have been.  It sure is nice to know the buses well enough to be able to make our own decisions.

Bob and Anna came over that evening.  Anna had bought some things online for us, so they were bringing them over. I had made brownies to take with us tomorrow for lunch, so we gave them each one.  Anna loves chocolate and fell in love with them. Bob likes them too.  They stayed, and we played some games with them.  Had a fun evening.

Sunday was our Branch Conference.  The District President and the District Clerk came to Jinan to preside from here.  We had a good lunch afterward and then more meetings at 2 p.m. for Branch Council meeting.  All of that finally got over a little before 4 p.m., so we headed home.  It's been a busy week.
The campus trees are starting to bloom!

Warm weather is on it's way!  David had stopped to smell the flowers on the trees when he was out running errands on campus.  A lot of people were there taking pictures of the blossoms, and when David was smelling the flowers he heard a lot of clicks from cameras.  They were taking pictures of him smelling the flowers!

Even the magnolia blossoms  agree that the cold weather is beyond us!

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