David & Zina Cox: Sept 29 - Mid-Autumn Festival, Classes, and Off to Tianjin

We didn’t have classes on Monday because of the Mid-Autumn Festival. I know that the Chinese love his celebration. It is quite similar to Thanksgiving in the US. They love it as a time to celebrate the harvest and get together with family. It’s not like it used to be though, because more people are living far away from family and can’t make it home. Eva sent me a video that explained a lot of the old traditions that used to be observed for this festival and she said that most young people don’t even follow the old traditions about it anymore. They mostly use the time to study. It made her sad.

For Mid-Autumn Festival, we took the Wilkins to DaMing Lake and went on a boat ride around the lake. They take us all around the area that has the most bridges, it’s very enchanting. After the boat ride, we walked up to Furong Street and grabbed some lunch from the vendors there.

A small pavilion at DaMing Lake.

Each bridge that we went under on DaMing Lake was different. I just love the bridges!

The willows on the lake are so romantic! (The Chinese use this word a lot.)

The boat that we rode around the lake on.

We also walked around the old village part that they have restored and looked into some of the shops they had there. We were starting to get a little tired, so we headed home on he bus. While we were on the bus, one of David’s former students, Jaime, was also riding on it. He tried to give us his seat, but an old man (who was begging for money, and he had is own QR code so you could pay be WeChat!) took it first. Then Jaime gave us each a moon cake and the beggar man wanted me to give my cake to him! I would have except I wasn’t sure if it would have been polite to give away the gift that had just been given to me. Jaime walked us all the way back to our apartment.

Jay wanted some of the street food and we found this shop that roasts the whole back of the pig. They cut off as much as you want. It might have tasted better if it had been warmed up, but it needed some spices, in my opinion.

Squid on a stick is a popular food there. You can get it breaded, non breaded, spicy or not. It's really not that bad.

Classes went well this week. We didn’t have our Monday classes because we were off for the holiday, and we won’t see them again until October 8 because we are on holiday for the National Holiday all of this coming week. David and I each do a couple of phonics lessons for them, and I noticed many of my students furiously writing down notes on the presentation. David has about 3 or 4 students that are auditing his classes and I have four auditing my classes. One of the girls that is auditing my largest class of 40 students told me she had tried to get into my class, but couldn’t because my class was full. Our reputations precede us!

We received an email on Monday that our rent was due, so David headed over to the foreign student’s building to get it paid. You can’t go pay if from noon to 2 p.m. for lunch break, and we teach from 8-12. He went up the office to pay it, but a new sign said that it was now downstairs. David went down to the office and there were two people in the office but the middle seat was vacant. The other two can’t take the rent and told David that the one who could would be back in a half hour. David went back in an hour, but she was still gone, and they said that she had taken the rest of the day off. Could he come back tomorrow? He said sure.

We pass by this sign when we go to the massage place. The communist party is letting the people know that they are doing everything for them to ensure a safe, secure society, and they want you to know about it!

So David goes back the next day, and they told him that her son was sick, and so she wasn’t going to be there that day either. After David came back, we decided that it was probably going to be futile to try and pay it the rest of this week because National Holiday was coming up and there was probably a good chance that she was going to be gone for the rest of the week. This person is the ONLY one in the office that can give us the receipt for paying our rent. We decided it could wait until after National Holiday…

David went to get his hair cut on Wednesday. I decided I’m going to let mine grow out a bit, so I didn’t go. She asked about me. David couldn’t tell her why I wasn’t there until an older gentleman came in who knew some English could tell her. David had a nice little visit with the man.

On Friday, we went to the hospital to see Dr. Tricia and have a visit. She provided us with lunch and had a good talk. It was good to see her again. We brought some coins for her older son, Bill, and a little die-cast truck for her 5 year-old son, Baobao. She was pleased with both gifts.

Before we went to our massage and after we left Dr. Tricia, we went over to the Hanlin Hotel, where the SDNU BYU teachers live, to meet with Daniel and Bonita Quillan. They were coming to our campus for dinner that night and to see where we lived. Then we headed to the massage.

It seemed like we had the worse luck getting buses all day Friday. We were late getting to Dr. Tricia, and late to our massage. That was going to put us late getting out of the massage and home in time for our three tutoring students at 4:30. We walked back to the bus stop as quickly as we could, praying the whole time that the bus we needed would be there soon. We stood for less than thirty seconds at the bus stop before we saw the bus we needed come! Then, that driver drove like he was possessed! He made it through every light that was starting to turn red! He didn’t have to linger very long at any of the bus stops for slow passengers, and we made it home in record time! We were walking up to our apartment building just as our three students had come down the stairwell from knocking on our door! Our prayers were SO answered!!

For tutoring, we decided to make some banana bread. I had two bananas that needed to be used or else thrown out. What better way to practice English than to have some skills go with it?! The kids were excited. Doris likes food! Stone likes to play with whatever, and Michael likes to learn new English words. They mashed the bananas, put the eggs in, creamed the butter and sugar, and then we put the batter into the little bread pans that I have. While they baked, we showed them about Thanksgiving and made similarities to the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival. At the end of the hour, they were so excited to take a little loaf of banana bread home. I wonder how much of it actually made it home….

We met the Quillan’s at the bus stop for our campus and then went to the KFC for supper. They were ready to try some “American” food, even if it has a Chinese twist to it. After supper, they came to our apartment for some banana bread and talk. It was a nice evening.

Saturday, we got packed for our trip to Tianjin and later, for our cruise to Japan. Aaron got a taxi for us and met us at the taxi. We enjoyed the high speed train trip to Tianjin. It took about one hour 45 minutes. I so enjoy the high speed trains! We were successful in getting a taxi to our hotel and enjoyed some quiet time in our lovely room while we waited for the Holts, Allen and Shelly, BYU teachers in Tianjin. They were showing Allen’s sister, Cathie Thunell, and her husband, Randall, Beijing, Tianjin. We will all be going on the cruise to Japan on Monday.

We had dinner with them and then walked along the river to a place where we could catch a river boat cruise. It was really nice, not very cold, and we had a wonderful time visiting and getting to know each other better.

St. Regis Hotel in Tinajin was our home for two nights. Very nice place!

Tianjin at night, all lit up.

A famous bridge in Tianjin. There was a lot of European influence in Tianjin and the architecture shows it.

On the Haihe River.

We didn’t have church until 2 p.m., so the Holt’s had us all go to their campus, Nankai University and showed us around their campus. We compared notes on their campus versus ours. They are both good. We like ours better. They seem to have to take taxis most everywhere, while we catch buses to wherever we need to go. Then we had lunch and went to church. There were six of us, and we had to take two taxis. Church was nice.

Walking to church with the Pages (Jeff and Kristy) and Randy Thunell.

While we were in the taxi driving to church, Shelly Holt pointed out this building. The guy who made it put china vases ALL over the outside! It really is quite a tourist attraction. If we go to Tianjin again, I want to go see it up close.

After church was over, we went back to the Holt’s apartment and had dinner with them, Cathie and Randy, and Dr. Jeff Page and his wife, Kristy, another couple that is going on the cruise with us. We had a fun evening getting to know each other. We had taxi rides back to the hotel where we will meet all the others tomorrow morning and riding together to the ship docks.