Day 71 & 72 - How do you say, "Please don't chop up the Chicken?"

Day 71 & 72

Thursday

David had classes.  I worked on school work for a while and then went to the meat market and got some meat.  I got the usual ribs and she cut those up.  She also showed me two nice chicken leg and thighs so I nodded yes that I wanted them.  Then she took them over and started chopping them up like she does the ribs!  I didn’t have the words to say, “Please don’t chop them up!”  That is the way the Chinese like their poultry, chopped up.  It makes all kinds of shards from the bones in what you are eating.  I have stopped getting anything that looks like poultry in the canteen that looks like poultry because of that.  Sigh.  I came home and put them in the crock pot with some herbs and rice and they made a great meal… except for the bone shards…

We went to RT Mart in the afternoon to try and find some Band-Aids.  We did find them.  Had to ask someone for help, so we showed her a Band-Aid and she took us right to them.  We then went over to Pace’s apartment, because they live really close and visited with Stan for a little while so I could put a Band-Aid on my blister. 

David did his tutoring with Allen in the evening and I made the banana bread for my students in my Friday classes. 

Friday

We both had classes this morning and they all went well.  The students really loved the banana bread and there was none left to bring home and let David have for his lunch.  We had lunch here and then got some more work done.  David went to the canteen to play games with his students. 

We met Stan, Nancy and Eva at the canteen so that we could have her help us order from the teacher restaurant there.  We had a fine meal and then sat and talked for a long time.  Then we went to the little store in the basement and got an ice cream.  We stood under the light of a lamp post on the main street through campus and talked for a long time.  We drew a lot of curious looks because we were four Anglo persons talking together.  I’m not sure they even noticed Eva because she is so small.  One young man was walking past and then he stops and is standing there.  It looked like he wanted to talk to us, so we stopped a moment and Eva asked him if he needed something in Chinese.  He said he was just curious and wanted to observe us.  

Day 70 - Dinner with Wang Bo

Day 70 

I had classes this morning and so did David.  We both had great days teaching.  We feel so guided in our lessons and in the interactions we have with these young people.  Lunch was at the apartment and then we had work to do until I left for my sophomore class that’s at 3:30 p.m.  That went well also.

We met Wang Bo and his wife Amanda about 6:30 and they drove us to a Vietnamese Restaurant for dinner.  Bo and Amanda are the couple that picked us up a week ago on Sunday and gave us a ride to my students’ party.  They had a gift of a bottle of a nice French wine to give to us.  Then the discussion begins that we are not supposed to have.  We say we don’t drink wine and they have a hard time believing that any American or Canadian doesn’t drink it. They know that Muslims don’t drink, but didn’t know of a Christian religion that didn’t forbid drink.  Well, now they know a little, the very little we were able to tell them.  We kept apologizing for not being able to accept their gift and he assured us that it was fine.  We had a nice dinner and Amanda had lots of chances to talk English with us, which I think it part of Bo’s underlying desire to develop a friendship with us.  Bo spent 7 years getting higher education in Vancouver, Canada and so his English is pretty good.  Amanda hasn’t had that chance and I think he wants her to develop that skill better. 

After dinner they drove us home and we made plans to meet again, they have invited us to their home for dinner next week.  When we told him that we couldn’t speak about our religion much more than we already had and that it was so we could keep our promise to the university and to the China Teachers Program that we would not preach religion and he said he admired us even more for our integrity in wanting to keep that promise. 

We then walked down to Uni-mart looking for Band-Aids.  They don’t sell them there, so then we thought of the small student store on campus and decided to check that out for Band-Aids.  They have them… three Band-Aids for 1 Yuan in a little package.  I take what I can get when I am desperate.  It will be off to RT Mart tomorrow to get a larger package.

Day 69 - Edit the University Presidents Speech?

Day 69

I had my classes this morning.  Both went well and of course they all loved the banana bread that I used in my lesson.  I forgot it at home and my phone and my keys, so I had to borrow a phone from one of my students to call my cell phone and hope that David would answer my phone because I can’t remember his number.  Mine is easy to remember. 

We had lunch here to eat up some of the leftovers we had.  David got his lessons ready for the next few days.  I got some work done also.  Mostly, we just a quiet afternoon here. 

At about 5 p.m., we got a call from the International Office of the University asking if we would edit a paper for them.  We said we would do some editing if they needed it.  We get the paper and it turns out to be a speech that the University President is going to be giving to some traveling US university presidents that are visiting China.  They are talking about allowing more student exchanges between the students in both our countries.  It was pretty hard to decipher some of what we had to edit because it was translated from Chinese to English and you just don’t get the same meaning.  We finally got it done through and we hope it is what he wanted to say.

As I was walking to class this morning, Jin Li (Lily) a teacher friend who sits in on my Wednesday 10 a.m. class, was taking pictures of the leaves this morning and got some pictures of me.  I’ll add one here.

Day 68 - No Water and New Foods

Day 68

We woke up to no water pressure this morning.  David wasn’t able to take a shower so he just had breakfast and went off to class.  I had planned on doing laundry, but the water did not come back on until about 5 p.m.  Something about a water main break.  I did get some good lesson planning done after I talked to Seth’s family and Rachel and Alisa and CJ. 

After lunch, David had one of his students go with him to a bike repairman that is usually stationed on the south side of campus.  We needed to get the wheel on the shopping cart fixed and also a new pedal in his bike.  The student was there to interpret for him to get those things done.  It only cost 3 RMB (.50!)  I made 11 more of the little loaves of banana bread for my classes tomorrow.  David had another square dance session with some students that he was very pleased with how far they were able to get. 

After dinner, Ann (the girl I’m tutoring) came over.  I had expected her this morning, but she didn’t come until this evening.  She brought all kinds of food!  It wouldn’t have been so bad if we hadn’t eaten, but we were already full and she wanted our reactions to the foods she had brought!  We had to eat it!  I ate as much as I could politely because she wanted to know if I liked it and it wouldn’t be good if we saved it until tomorrow, according to her.  After sampling a few other things, we got down to talking and going over the things she needs to work on for her test. 

One of the things she brought over were hawthorn fruit.  We see them sold on the street all the time and once when we were going somewhere with the Clarke’s Wayne bought one and we all shared it.  I thought it was great, David was ok with it.  Usually they are all placed on a stick, covered with a glaze.  Ann also brought over some that were coated with a sweet substance, some kind of sugar coating, but weren’t glazed like the ones on a stick.  Except for the large pits (and there seems to be about 5 of them in each hawthorn fruit) it is a fun, tasty treat.  

Glazed hawthorn fruit.  The wrapper on it is rice paper and you eat it along with the rest.  The rice paper just melts in your mouth and doesn't have any real flavor to it.  Helps keep it clean before you eat it.

The sugared hawthorn fruit.  You can see two of the pits in the part hat I bit off.

Day 67 - English Sunday

Day 67

We left for Church with the two small chocolate cake in a bag, but they were pretty heavy and precarious, that we decided to get a taxi to take get there.  We were a little late getting started, so it was a good thing to get us there on time. 

After potluck dinner, we had a knock on the door and in walked ten Chinese students.  They were from the Architectural College here in Ji’nan.  They were part of an English class and they were looking for foreign English speakers to test their new found knowledge out on.  They had heard there were a bunch of us in the hotel so they came looking for us.  We brought them into the room; they introduced themselves and said what they wanted.  We stood around in small groups conversing with different ones.  I had one girl kind of take me aside by herself and we had a good conversation.  She talked about her family and her dreams and I showed her a picture of my family.  The reaction is always the same and I love it!  After about a half an hour or 45 minutes, we sang the song, “Love at Home” for them.  Then they sang a couple of songs, one in Chinese and one in English.  Their teacher challenged them to only speak English for the next two months.  They are having a hard time when it comes to talking to their families.  However, it seems to be working because they have made a lot of progress in the last few months. 

This is the girl that I spent most of the time talking to.  I think she said her English name was Alice.

The students singing to us.

After they sang to us.

We all had to get pictures!

David and I rode the bus home and as we got on campus, we saw a group of young people sitting on the steps by the fountains.  When they saw us, they all stood up and got very excited and asked if we had a moment to talk to them.  We didn’t have much time, but we did spare a few minutes.  They, like the group at the hotel, had come to our campus in search of foreigners that they could talk with.  They were pretty excited because their search for foreign English speakers had not been successful today, we were the first they had seen and were so happy that we had taken a few minutes that we had to speak with them.  We gave them our card and said we would be happy to join an “English Corner” with them sometime.  An “English Corner” is where they get together and talk only English.  They try to have it student led and if the foreign teachers come they jump for joy. 

We had to hurry on home and drop off our stuff because we had been invited to a masquerade ball that the University’s English Broadcasting Station was sponsoring.  One of my students, who is a part of that organization, invited me and David to go, so we did.  We were a little late because just as we were getting on the bus to get there, Eva called and wanted to know if we were available to go see the hotel that we live behind.  She ended up picking us up and taking us to the campus where the ball was being held.  We had lots of pictures taken of us.

The students had a program, some music and dancing going on.  Some professional dancers were showing them how to dance a waltz.  We did some dancing and we had quite a crowd watching, taking pictures and trying to copy ours steps from us dancing.    The professional dancer’s steps were quite complicated for beginner dancers and what we were doing was simple enough for some of them to catch on from seeing us dance.  It was a nice evening.

Day 66 Elementary Class, "Grandma" and Football

Day 66

We went with Gilbert to teach our elementary age class.  It was fun, but I wonder how much progress the children make when there isn’t much practice going on during the week.  They do have English classes at school, where they learn to recognize things like fruits and such, but unless the English teachers are natural English speakers, their pronunciation is not usually correct.  I think that is what Gilbert wants us to have them learn most.  He is very conscience himself of pronouncing his English correctly.  We are trying.  It is fun to work with the children that age.

After we are done with the two hours of children, Gilbert sits David and me down for about an hour of Chinese instruction.  We made some progress today because I can still remember the sentences that we learned.  He wanted us to make sure we pronounce the Chinese words correctly because one small accent sound made the wrong way can really change what you said.  Instead of asking for something that is good, you may be asking for something that is not good.  David was trying to get the pronunciation of one word down and the teacher aide, Zinia, that they hired to work at the school with us and Gilbert’s friends, Leo, started laughing pretty hard. 

They treated us to lunch and on the way there, we walked by a playground.  It really is more like an outdoor gym with equipment for adults to use that will strengthen muscles and also work aerobically.  We went over and started using the equipment and there was a grandmother there with her granddaughter.  It was starting to get pretty cold so she was going to take her in and the granddaughter points to me and said, “Grandmother” in Chinese!  Zinia said this to me so I had to go over and get to know this little sweetheart!  She as a super cutie and I would have a picture of her, except my purse was locked in Gilbert’s trunk.  After lunch, they drove us to In Zone, a shopping mall and we got a few things we needed. 

David had another football game with his students this afternoon.  When he got home, we went out in search of more persimmons.  It seems to be the ending of the season for getting them because we found a lot of mushy ones.  We finally found enough good ones and sampled food from some of the local bakers that were on the market street.  Some of the people we had purchased vegetables from the other day recognized us and said, “Ni hao.”  As we were walking back, we decided to stop at a restaurant that looked like it had enough pictures for us to decide what we wanted.  It turned out it was cafeteria style so we could just point to what we wanted. 

I made chocolate cake for the potluck dinner tomorrow.  

Day 65 - Halloween Wishes, Dates and Persimmons

Day 65

Rainy and cold today.  David and I both taught this morning.  I am enjoying these freshman classes so much!  They are just a joy to be around and they have such a great desire to learn.  All of our classes went well. 

I had this email when I checked my school email this morning.

                Dear Professor Zina Cox,
  Happy Halloween!
  I believe there must be many people sending their wishes to you including our students.You just like our grandma and we think you must regard us as your grandchildren too.I believe we will make up a warm family.
                                         Best wishes,
                                                       Liai

Is there a better way to start a day?!!  I had many text messages and email sent to me last night to wish me a “Happy Halloween!”  Liai and the girls in her class started it.

We had lunch here and then did school work.  The workmen came back about 3 p.m. and finished the electrical work in the bathroom.  Hot water for our showers will be welcome in the morning.  We met Stan and Nancy Pace at the canteen and had dinner in the teacher restaurant.  We can use our cards there that the school gives us for our free lunches.  It takes a little more than the one meal we get for the buffet, but the food is warm and we have a lot more variety.  We ordered a soup that was too spicy.  We thought we were getting a tomato soup, but I guess the Chinese characters I had didn’t match what they needed.  The rest of the meal was correct and yummy and warm! 

We came back to our apartment and played some games and talked about out classes.  It is funny how you get a bunch of teachers in a room and all they want to talk about it teaching…  We walked them to the gate when it was time for them to go and then we walked over to Uni-Mart and bought some bread and drinkable yogurt.  It was a good day.

I have tried two new fruits (for me new anyway) lately.  The first one is dates!  They are fresh and not dried.  They have a taste somewhere between an apple and a pear. 

A small tasty treat... dates!

The other fruit is a persimmon!  The girl that I tutor on Monday mornings brought me some.  So yummy!  I think they are sweeter than peaches.  Don’t know how I am going to go back to Utah and not have these two available to eat fresh like they are here!

Persimmon!