Dragon Boat Festival, Movie and Heading Home!

Night lights at DaMing Lake.  One of the bridges.

Dragon Boat Festival was on Monday.  Jinan has some performances, but we couldn’t seem to find information on any of them, and there were no dragon boat races on DaMing Lake.  Kayce, David, and I decided that we wanted to go see some of the museums that we haven’t seen here in Jinan.  Aaron has been to them, and he offered to take us.  We went to see the Shandong Provincial Museum and the Shandong Museum of Art.

We had planned on meeting about 10 a.m., but we got busy talking to our children, who were calling for Father’s Day, so we were late.  When we arrived at Shandong Provincial Museum, the line was way out the door!  We were not looking forward to standing in line, but we did anyway.  We smiled at the children that were near us.   Some were brave enough to come up to us, but most weren’t.  It was a big relief to get inside, because it was hot outside.

 

Last of the line at the museum.

Our goal, to get into the museum, before we roasted in the heat.

When you get inside, you are greeted by a huge stairway.  The museum was well organized by rooms and age of the artifacts.  We didn’t see the whole thing.  There are five floors with ten to thirteen rooms on each floor.  Some of the exhibits had things that were also on display in the museum that is on our campus, so we kind of hurried through those rooms. 

 

This was the grand staircase that greeted us when we got into the museum.  It was so cool temperature wise and otherwise.

This is the ceiling above the stairs.

One of the ancient stones.  I don't remember what Aaron told us about this.

This is a HUGE bear!

He almost got David!  ;)

This was a tomb for an important person in ancient China.  Similar to the Terracotta Warriors in Xian, he had horses, chariots, guards and a home to live in, miniature style.

After about an hour or more of exploring, we decided to go get lunch at the local underground RT Mart.  Jinan has several underground markets and if you don’t know how to find your way out, you could be lost for days.  We tried to go to one restaurant, but their waiting list was about a half hour.  We went to a food court area, and Aaron helped Kayce and I order several dishes that we were going to share, while David held a table for us.  We had some interesting dishes, but it was good.

 

Zina doing her Vanna White imitation to show off the beautiful lacquer panel at the art museum.

After we finished eating, we headed up out of the underground and headed to the art museum that was next door to the provincial museum.  There was no line to get into, not that there weren’t people there, just no line like this morning.  We were mostly looking to find rooms that had more traditional Chinese art in them, but a lot of it was either children’s art or modern art.  After exploring several floors, we were tired enough to head home. 

 

I don't know if they have painted ALL of the electrical boxes in Jinan yet, but they are everywhere!  I love it!

Tuesday was back to final exams with our students.  It is great to see the progress a lot of them have made, but also, how far some still have to go.  You can tell by the way that we test them, if they have just memorized a speech for the first question, or if they really knew what they were saying.  Follow-up questions are so telling.  In the afternoon, we were able to start printing out grade sheets for them and getting ready to turn them in at the end of the week.

Wednesday, I met with Dr. Tricia.  She was planning to give a speech to her department at 11 a.m. that day.  She wanted me there for moral support.  She had an incident when she was ten years old that makes it difficult to speak in front of others.  She was a good reader in her elementary years.  She didn’t go to kindergarten like most students, so she was a little behind her peers when she started school.  She soon learned to love school and was a top student.  The teacher asked her to be the reader to the class because she was so good at reading the Chinese characters.

One day, she was reading along, and she came to the character for sun.  She stopped, tried to say it, looked at it again, tried to say it, but could not get passed that character.  It rather traumatized her and made it so that she couldn’t give speeches or read in front of the class again.  She did find that if she gave a speech in English, then she could do it.  She taught English to university students for ten years after she because a doctor.  She loves the English language and is always trying to improve her language skills.  She did a great job when she gave the speech.

After the speech, we were able to have a quiet lunch together, eating the special DeZhou chicken that she has tried to get for the last few weeks when we have had lunch together.  After lunch, I went to my Chinese painting class.   When that class was over, I sent them all a message on the WeChat group that we were a part of.  Even though we had a language barrier, we are able to get past it and had fun showing each other pictures.  I showed my seat mate how to use the translation part of WeChat so that we can communicate through it. 

Thursday was just more finals.  David had a student who invited him to learn to play ping pong, so he met him in the afternoon and had a fun time playing.  They were able to get up to 60 volleys and only missed one volley in that 60.  There was a lot of practice before that, but David had fun being coached.

 

My pictures of the light show at the lake weren't very good because we were so far away from it, but another brightly lit bridge will take its place.

We wanted to go see a special light show that the city puts on each Tuesday and Thursday, but you must have tickets for it.  Eva tried to get tickets, but they are usually gone within a few minutes of the time that they open the online tickets site so, no tickets.  There are places on the lake that you can see part of the show, so we decided to go to DaMing Lake and see if we could get to a spot to see it.  Eva was in a meeting that went late, but Dani, a girl who was a student of Eva’s and had helped us earlier in the year, met us and walked us to where we would be able to see part of the show.  She stayed with us and then, because it was getting late, got a taxi and came back with us to campus.

I finished my exams on Friday morning while David stayed home and printed off all the grades he had and most of mine.  We must email them to the department and hand them a paper copy.  We went to lunch with Eva at the canteen and finished putting my grades together when we got back from lunch.

Kayce, Aaron, Marilyn, Sophia, her husband, a girl named Ming, and Patty were all going to see the new “Incredibles 2” movie Friday evening, so we decided to tag along with them.  We met at a shopping center close to where the theater was and had dinner at a Korean style restaurant.  The Korean really didn’t seem that much different than most Chinese food, but it was good.  We had extra time after we finished the meal, so we walked around the area.  David wanted to get ice cream, and I wanted to eat one of the cheese pie tarts that you can get there, so we did.  Last time until we come back. 

While we were waiting for the rest of our group to get there, we were being told some fun stories.  Patty got this picture of us.  I love the look on David's face.  

Our Korean style dinner.  The restaurant people seemed a little overwhelmed when we walked in with nine people.  I noticed one employee take a picture of us without asking us.  Then we asked her to take this picture. 

From left to right, Marilyn (she is a lawyer who comes to Chins to teach for one semester each year and she was a perfect addition to our fun group), Ming, Sophia, and Sophia's husband.

The other half of our group from the left, David, Kayce, Patty, and Aaron.

The movie was fun, a little more intense than we like, but still fun.   Then we all had to find our way out of the maze of the mall and go to our respective bus stops to get home.

Saturday morning, David and I wanted to go back to the cultural market to pick up a few more trinkets to take home, so we got on the bus and rode there.  We quickly found what we wanted and then wandered the rest of the market for a little while.  We didn’t see much else that we were interested in (at least that we were willing to pay their prices for), so we fought our way through the crowd, so we could buy some special peanuts that we have grown very fond of.  When we got back to our area, we went to the technology market to buy some printer ink, stopped at the pharmacy to get some very effective cough lozenges, and tried to get US money from our bank accounts before we go home.  Everything went well except the money from our bank account. 

Sunday was a day of good-byes to some people at church.  Lily came to lunch with us at the Hanlin after church and brought along Frank (from Shandong Airlines) and Fanly, his girlfriend.  It was a nice visit and Lily was able to meet the others of our group – more BYU China Teachers for her to know.  David had an Elder's Presidency meeting at 3 p.m., so we had to leave at 2 p.m. to get home in time. 

 

Lily with David and Zina.

David had a message earlier today from a Chinese man named Jack.  We had met him last November at our Thanksgiving dinner one Sunday.  He had met previous BYU China teachers and he knew that we would be having a Thanksgiving dinner that day.   He had spent a few years in the US and loved to come and be a part of the traditional meal.  Jack wanted to meet with us tonight.  We weren’t sure what he wanted.  David had helped proof an advertisement for him last January. 

When Jack arrived, he had his wife (didn’t tell us her name) and daughter, Paula, with him.  He was bringing us a gift for helping with the advertisement.  He brought two sheets of calligraphy that he had written himself.  It is an art form here that they study.  We visited for about a half hour and then they left. 

 

This calligraphy from Jack was a poem by a famous poet and calligrapher.  I recognize one character on there, the one for water.

This calligraphy was also from Jack.  He said that it meant something like "Grow and Prosper."  I should have written his exact words down.

We leave for home on Tuesday, we are ready for a break.  The excitement of seeing and being with our family again has made us very “trunky” this week.  We can hardly wait.  The blog will continue in September when we come back for another year of teaching, socializing and growing here in China.

As we walk hand-in-hand all over China, people exclaim what love we must have for each other.  We do have a lot of love for each other.  We grow more and more together as we go through all these experiences, some good, some not so good, and some that are really hard.  We won't let cancer beat us, we will be strong and keep on trying to do what God wants us to do, spread love to others in the world.  Couples rarely used to hold hands in China, but we are starting to see more and more people walking hand-in-hand.  Sweet love story.