March 10- Quiet Week... Until Friday

The campus at SDU is starting to come alive with blossoms!  These are some of the most fragrant flowers.  I feel like Fernando the bull as I walk by and just smell the flowers.

 Our week has been busy with teaching and some of our usual activities.  This week we assigned the reader’s theaters for the coming two weeks in class. We think it’s so fun to watch the students become creative with how they present each play.  They don’t have money for props, which are not required for the plays, but it does make them more interesting.  I hope to have some fun pictures for next week because of the readers theaters this week.  

As David got off the bus before his class on Wednesday, he took a picture of the scooters that were coming down the scooter path on Jingshilu (Tenth Ring Road).  Some roads, like busy Jingshilu, had a path for walkers, scooters and then the road is left for the cars.  Most of the time, the pathway for the walkers is just walkers, unless a scooter decides to drive there also!

Sometimes it is really hard to get across the scooter path to get to the city buses because of all the scooters going by.

We had a rather frustrating start of the week.  The government decided to mess with our VPN’s, so we couldn’t check Facebook or our gmail accounts.  There were some big wig meetings happening, and so they always mess with the VPN’s when they do that.  It makes it hard to want to stay in China when they do that.  I just don’t understand why.

We went to our massages on Tuesday and Thursday.  I had the cupping on my legs on both days, and David decided to try it on Thursday.  He has had some pain in his right knee and when the orthopedic surgeon checked it out, he said it was just the joint getting older and told him to take some glucosamine sulfate pills.  He wanted to see if the cupping would make a difference in his knee.  The cupping was really painful for him.  Mine is still painful, but not like it was the first few times. Now he is trying to decide if he wants to have them do it again or not.

On the way home from our massage Thursday, we were very late getting finished, and we had to stop at the Hanlin Hotel to give a member who was going to have surgery the next day a blessing.  We had to make a quick stop at the nearest KFC to grab something to eat before we went.  

We started tutoring Michael and Stone again on Friday afternoon.  We had a good lesson and then played a game of "Go Fish."  I don't know if "Go Fish" or "Old Maid" is their favorite, but they worked hard, so we had a few minutes to play a game before they went home.

Later Friday evening, Helena came by for a visit.  She had a former student of mine with her.  His name is Allen, and he was a student last fall semester.  I had helped Helena with some suggestions for studying English so she could pass the IELTS exam.  We all had a nice visit and I forgot to get pictures with them.  

Saturday, David and I went to the children’s library again. David brought his guitar, and we sang some songs with the children after the director read some stories to the kids.  The children that had been there last week were very excited to see us again.  The director told us that word had spread that some Americans were coming to the library, and so some children were coming from a long distance to see us.  It was fun interacting with the children.  We did “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes,”  “If You’re Happy and You Know it,” and “If You Chance to Meet a Frown.” 

This is the director of the children's library reading to the students.

 

Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.  They know the song already, just not the English words.

The director's son came up and let me hold him for a minute.

If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands.

Eva had to be at the Hongjialou campus in the morning.  When she was finished, she met up with Yi Bing and her husband (Bob’s parents that we helped tutor last year) and had dinner at a dumplings restaurant for a late lunch.  Eva was constantly interpreting between what Bob’s parents were saying and what we were saying.  Bob messaged us this week to say that he had been admitted to a prestigious program at UCLA for the summer, and then he would be going back to Duke in the fall to finish his experiments with his professor there.  It is quite an honor for Bob and Shandong University, because he is the only student to date that has been admitted to both Duke and UCLA.  He’s one very smart young man!

Saturday lunch with Eva, Yi Bing, her husband, Zina and David.

This pot of water is right at your table in the restaurant that we went to with Eva, Yi Bing and the husband.  It sits down in a "well" that has a convection hot plate in the bottom.  You turn on the hot plate and when it starts to boil, you add the dumplings and let them cook.  

Lotus root.  

This is a type of white fungus.  I will miss eating these types of fungus when we leave China.

 

As we waited for Eva to get her car to take us home after the dinner, I noticed that there were wedding pictures being taken at the Catholic Cathedral across the street.  

The cathedral.  Magnificent architecture!

Late Saturday evening, we got a message that Kathy Guo and her son, Hanson, were in Jinan and would come to church.  We were excited about it!  Kathy and Hanson were here five years ago when we were here.  It was great to renew our friendship and see how much Hanson has grown.  He was only nine years old when we last saw him.  He likes living in Canada.

Here is our group from Sunday.  David, Zina, Hanson, Kathy Guo, Sue Stubbs, Nancy Rounds, Bonita and Daniel Quillin.