Day 17 Orientation Meeting and Pizza Hut

Day 17

Started the day hoping to talk to Alisa.  She had her final dress fitting this afternoon (morning here) and I had hoped to be there via Facetime, but that didn’t happen.  She sent me some pictures and it looks gorgeous. 

Worked on some lessons this morning.  Sister Elise Britton, Branch Relief Society President called and she talked about some of my duties now as the Group Relief Society Leader.  It still scares me a little, having to set up Visiting Teaching and be the “care-taker” of this group of women here.  David and I had an orientation with the other new Shandong Central Campus teachers.  Wayne and Libby Clark were also invited since they are the only new teachers at their campus. 

After the meeting, We and the Clark’s walked over to the Pace’s apartment.  We talked for a long time and then decided to go out to Pizza Hut and experience it Chinese Style!  It is more like an upscale restaurant here.  It was still pizza, but you could order all sorts of salads, soups, drinks, desserts and even some rice dishes.  It all tasted good, but it was rather expensive compared to other Chinese food.  Then David and I went to RT Mart to grab some groceries and saw Stan and Nancy there in the checkout line.  Caught the bus for home and went to bed.  Exciting, huh?

Day 16 - Finding the Copy Center

Day 16

David had a meeting with his supervisor and co-teachers at 9 a.m.  I worked here at the house doing laundry and dishes and working on my next lesson.  My students are all headed on a medical path and will finish in 5 years from now.  The first lesson is all on getting a job and learning to interview and I don’t think it is really relevant to their situation, so I have to adjust the class for their needs, I believe.

We went to lunch at the Canteen and then went to find the copy center that was supposed to be in the teaching building closest to our apartment.  We found it.  It was inside a little shop that a man and his wife run where they sell all sorts of little things for the student – soda pop, water, notebooks, pens, treats and……. Copies!!  The woman had a cute little baby that was about 3-4 months old.  I walked over to the baby and got him to smile at me.   Once again, the parents seem really happy when you notice their children and especially that I got the baby to smile at me. 

After we took the copies back to our apartment, we went to the streets to find a new wallet for David.  We had seen some vendors on the streets earlier, but I think they only come out on the weekends, so we had to settle for getting some bananas from a street vendor and then some bread and yogurt at the Uni-Mart.  We can’t find milk here that we are okay drinking (they like to add stuff, grains, vegetables and who knows what else to their “milk”), so we have become satisfied with a drinkable yogurt that has a good flavor.  A woman in the store was trying to “help” us decide with yogurt to get and pointed to the Olympic rings symbol on the one container.  I’m sure she was very proud that this brand of yogurt was a sponsor of the Olympics.  She spoke no English, but we communicated anyway, smiles and pointing are very important!

I made BBQ spare ribs in my new crockpot for supper.  Very yummy!  I had been looking for brown sugar and finally found it, but it really is just white sugar with molasses added to it.  So it was easy to add it to some ketchup and make a quick and easy BBQ sauce for the ribs.

 

They have these large rocks all over campus.  Some have words written on them and some are just rocks.  We haven't found anyone on campus yet that can tell us the significance of the rocks, but I'm sure there is one....  Hmmmm.... we are in China.....

This is a park that we walk through on the way to the canteen.  It has a pretty walkway.

We don't know who they guys are that are depicted in the statues, but they are in the park, too. Wasn't sure how close I wanted to get to him, at least he is dead...

Still don't know who David is standing by.  

Day 10 - Signing the Contracts

Day 10

This morning we had to meet the other first year teachers from three of the Shandong Universities to get our paperwork done.  Six of us from BYU were there along with five younger guys and an older Scotsman that had met on our campus.  We signed contracts, got our paperwork done for registering and also got a card set up for meals at the Canteen on our campuses. 

When we were done, Wayne and Libby Clark came to our place along with Stan and Nancy Pace.  We went to lunch with Wayne and Libby at Yon Ho, a “fast food” Chinese place that we like.  While we were waiting for our order to be served to us, Stan and Nancy came along with the Chinese  girl, Lily, that had taken them to get a cell phone for Nancy and we all had lunch together.  Lily is such a pleasant girl to be around.  She loves to practice her English with us, so it is great to have her around. 

After lunch Libby, Wayne, David and I went to DaMing Lake and took a boat ride on the lake.  It was fun because the ride took us through the area where there are a lot of bridges and interesting buildings.  Then we walked some of the paths.  We parted ways at RT Mart to do the shopping that we needed to do and after supper, I made pear crisp for the potluck dinner after Church tomorrow.

Day 15 - Zina's First Oral English Class

Day 15

Today was crunch time for my first class.  I was going through things to try and have some “extra” stuff in case my plans took less time than I thought they would.  I put together a beautiful presentation of a song that was on the CD of media for the class.  (I tried to get it off of YouTube, but I guess you can’t do that anymore.  So I got it all put together, got myself ready, and we started off to class.  Down the stairs and 25 steps away from the apartment, I realized that I needed the paper with me that said where the class was (in case I was wrong—it’s all in Chinese….).  So back we go!

We made it to where my class was supposed to be with what I thought would be 15 minutes to make sure everything was ready for the class and there is still a class in there.  We went to the help desk and she assured me that I was in the right building, so we went back to wait for the class that was in there to leave.  A nice young woman, named Sherry, came up to us and asked if she could help us.  I told her that I thought I was supposed to be teaching in this classroom in 15 minutes, so she went into the teacher and asked for me.  Had I been told the correct time for the class to start, I would have waited another half hour at the apartment, but evidently, we are still on “summer hours” here for a few weeks and the time I was told were the “winter hours.”  Sherry was very kind and informed me that my class would start at 4 p.m. and not 3:30, so she showed us where a faculty room was, and we went there to wait.  She did not just leave us there, she sat and talked with us for the whole time we had to wait.  Such a sweet girl!  She is studying to be an electrical engineer and wants to get her Master’s in the US, and needs to pass the language test before she can do that.  Her English was pretty good, but I don’t know what level they expect before they can allow them to apply in the US.   She gave us her email so that she could help us if we needed more help.  Again I say, “Such a sweet girl!”

There is a class “monitor” in each class that is similar to a class president.  He is supposed to help me get the media center going and all the electronics.  They have to lock up the cabinet that it is in, so he had to go get them.  I started my presentation going (they like them done in Power Point so they can read and hear what you are saying).  It was going well.  The exclamations as I showed them my family were appropriate.  They filled out cards with their name in Chinese, pinyin Chinese (Romanized characters) and most of them had an “English” name.  I also had them tell a little about their likes and dislikes and where they were from.  I had them stand up and tell me about what was on their cards after they handed them to me, so that I could hear their English and make a judgment as to what I felt they needed to work on the most.  That took us up to the ten minutes break and then some.

After the break, I had the last eight people do their introductions.  Then I went to do the media song that I had worked on this morning.  No sound!  The Monitor came up and tried to help, but no sound.  The rest of what I was supposed to do required sound, but there was NO sound!!  I stumbled through a few things.  (Thank goodness David was there with me!)  They were supposed to be able to hear a dialog between two people and then answer some questions about it.  Well, David to the rescue.  I started to read it all by myself, but he volunteered to come play the part of the guy while I read the girl’s lines.  The students really seemed to enjoy that!  I was able to find the script on the CD that I had thankfully brought with me, so they were able to read it then and answer some questions about it.  I was informed that I was supposed to let the class out a few minutes early so that they could prepare for an exam that they had to take at 6 p.m., so I did.  Thank goodness that is over.  Now I know better where I need to take this class and what to do if that happens again!

David and I went to eat supper in the Canteen (campus cafeteria) and then had a nice walk home.  A mother was walking her toddler, and the toddler looked at us and pointed, so I waved and said, “Nee How.”  The baby was so enthralled with us and waved back and kept waving at us until the crowd came between us, and he couldn’t see us anymore.  So cute!  The parents seem pleased when you notice their children.   

Day 13 & 14 - Raising the Frig and Bank of China Account

Day 13 & 14

Monday was rather quiet for us.  One of the BYU couples, Wayne and Libby Clark, had come over last week and suggested a way to make the kitchen work better for me.  The refrigerator was really too low to get into and was hard on my back because of the way it was.  Some of the other apartments that have had BYU couples in for a long time have got them set up on a shelf that puts it up higher.  The TV in the living room was on a stand that was just about the right height for it, so we moved things around and David’s co-teacher, Danny, came down and helped us move the refrigerator up on it after we got that moved around.  Later that afternoon, another teacher, Jason, that we had met last week came over for a visit.  He is a 38 year old single guy from North Carolina. 

Tuesday, we met Eva along with Danny at 9 a.m. and she took us all to the Bank of China to set up our bank cards.  At first they would not accept the copies that were made of our passports.  Our passports are still in the hands of the police that are getting our work Visas ready.  We had to give them the paper that the police had given us that said it would work to replace our passports until we got them back.  They even asked Eva for her identification and had to call the police and the university to make sure of it all.  After two hours, we finally walked out of there with a bank card in our hands.  Then we were able to take that information to the University so that we could get paid for teaching here! 

Stan and Nancy Pace had come over this way to get their bank cards in the afternoon, so they just came over and we spent the afternoon with them.  They had found brown sugar at the RT Mart and I showed them where the flour was at.  After that, we went to Jingren Pie for supper.  We really like that place!  The pies are not American pies, they are meat or veggies or both, that are baked in a bread biscuit.   There was a lot of other good stuff there and we really ate too much.   David had texted Eva that we were eating there and that we really liked it.  She had just finished teaching her class, so she picked us up and took us home.

We are eating at Hon Yo, with from the left, Libby and Wayne Clark and on the right, Nancy and Stan Clark.  Our good Chinese friend, Lily took the picture.

 

Here is the shot with Lily, a very beautiful girl!  Also a great help to us in learning the city of Ji'Nan!

Day 12 - Chicken Feet Soup for Potluck Sunday

Day 12

Alisa called and we did some Facetime before we had to get ready for Church.  She had a special experience to tell us about when she and CJ went to the Salt Lake Temple that day.  As they were waiting in the Chapel, Alisa got the feeling that she was going to meet someone that she knew there that day.  As they were leaving the Chapel to go to the first room, she felt a hand on her arm and it was her Aunt Carolyn, David’s sister.  It was cool for her to have that experience. 

We left for Church at 8:30 because we planned to get there a little early to help set up the microphone for when we gave our talks, but it took us until 9:45 to get there.  So much for early…  David and I were sustained as the Group Leader and Relief Society Group Leader.  Any objections are to be emailed to our Branch President; I guess I will be doing that… not).  Our talks went well and seemed well received.  Potluck dinner afterward was yummy and we had a fun visit again.  Pam Carter was not feeling well, a bad cold, so I gathered some dinner for her and took it down to her.  We decided to take a taxi home to get us there faster.  It is about twice the price of the bus and less than half the time, but we still hope to find a faster way on the bus there.  More research.

Just as we were coming home after being dropped off by the taxi, we had about 4 minutes left to walk to our apartment and the rain started.  Thank goodness we had an umbrella with us.  It was coming down pretty good and we would have been soaked had we not had it.  We did get a little wet, trying to fit both of us under it.  Just after we got in the apartment, it really started coming down harder.  The rain lasted for about a half hour, and then let up nicely. 

Eva was at the campus doing some work and came over to answer some questions we had on different subjects.  We gave her the rest of the pizza I had made.  I hope it was as good as she remembered pizza to be.  Trying to make it here in China is different because not all of the ingredients are the way I would have it in the U.S., but I tried and we thought it was pretty good. 

On the bus ride to Church, we had three different people talk to us in English.  Two were younger people.  One was a girl who was a student at Shandong East Campus.  Another was a young man who had graduated from Shandong University and now works in the IT field.  They both had a rather good command of the language.  The other was a woman who seemed to be about 50 and while her skills were not great, she did speak to us and we talked a little.  I was so pleased with her for speaking to us.  It showed great courage, because I know I feel a little intimidated when I try to use the little tiny bit of Chinese that I know to a native speaker.  It would be nice to run into her again. 

For the potluck today, one of the couples wanted to try a dish with the chicken feet that you find sold in all the stores here (raw, pickled, smoked, you name it).  I wasn't brave enough to try eating one, didn't really care if I ever did or not, but some of the men did.  Just not a whole lot on there to eat.  I think the Chinese stew them all day long until the bones are really soft and they just crunch the whole things down.  Still not sure I want to try it even then.

Day 11 - Boat Ride on DaMing Lake

Day 11

This morning we had to meet the other first year teachers from three of the Shandong Universities to get our paperwork done.  Six of us from BYU were there along with five younger guys and an older Scotsman that had met on our campus.  We signed contracts, got our paperwork done for registering and also got a card set up for meals at the Canteen on our campuses. 

When we were done, Wayne and Libby Clark came to our place along with Stan and Nancy Pace.  We went to lunch with Wayne and Libby at Yon Ho, a “fast food” Chinese place that we like.  While we were waiting for our order to be served to us, Stan and Nancy came along with the Chinese  girl, Lily, that had taken them to get a cell phone for Nancy and we all had lunch together.  Lily is such a pleasant girl to be around.  She loves to practice her English with us, so it is great to have her around. 

After lunch Libby, Wayne, David and I went to DaMing Lake and took a boat ride on the lake.  It was fun because the ride took us through the area where there are a lot of bridges and interesting buildings.  Then we walked some of the paths.  We parted ways at RT Mart to do the shopping that we needed to do and after supper, I made pear crisp for the potluck dinner after Church tomorrow.

Water lilies on the lake.

These boats are for hire at about 200 Yuan.  Most people just have their pictures taken by them unless they are in a large group and share the cost.

The pier on the lake.

One of the many beautiful bridges we passed under.

Yes, we enjoyed the ride!

Typical Chinese buildings that they have for people to rest in.

Another bridge.

It is a beautiful place to have weddings and we saw at least 3 there today.  

David blocking my view....  Love you, honey!

The Dragon boats.

Just another view to see on the lake.  At one time, it may have been used to go around the lake, but now I think they use it for parties and receptions.