March 3, 2019 – Cupping and Award for Dr. Tricia

Spring is happening in Jinan, China!

Monday started early with David leaving for the Qianfoshan Campus at 6:45 a.m. He thought he knew which building he was supposed to be in, but found out that it was a different building.  Last semester, there were two students assigned to make sure that our classrooms were unlocked and the computers turned on, Ray and Jay.  Lynn, another foreign teacher walking with David, saw Ray who was able to help them find the building and the classrooms.  Fortunately he had arrived on the campus plenty early, so that he had time to find the classroom and get set up.

On Monday, a photographer popped into his classroom, took a couple of pictures and then popped out.  The next day, he several people sent him this picture that was on the SDU website.  The caption on it was "Feeling the charm of exotic culture."  A happy surprise!

My classes went well, and we had lunch as soon as David arrived back from his campus.  We had a new maid come and clean for us that afternoon.

After our classes and lunch on Tuesday, David and I went to our massage.  I had mentioned to Carol last Friday that I was thinking about getting a cane, because going up and down stairs is very painful with my knee when.  Carol met us there, and she had brought a hiking pole with her that she was going to let me use.  She started talking to the head lady about my knees, and how tender they were even for the massage person to work on them.  The head lady suggested a treatment that she thought would work to reduce my pain. It involved a deeper massage than I was getting, cupping, and Chinese herbs being “baked” into my knees.  Frankly, I am in so much pain, that I decided it wouldn’t hurt to try this.

First, the head lady started digging into the nodes (I’m not sure if that is the right word for it, but it was the best we could come up to that sounded right) along my lower legs.  This was PAINFUL!!!  She said that the lines of the nodes had several “clots” in them (not really clots, but with our different languages and all, they didn’t know what to call them), and that it was causing a lot of the swelling.  I endured the pain, but not quietly, and then the next part of the treatment started.

 

Starting to put on the cups..  Notice the flame in the background.

Most of the cups are in place on that leg.  Then she did the other leg.

The cupping cups were used with what looked like a stick with a flammable cotton ball on the end.  She would light the “cotton ball” and quickly put it into the cup and out again.  Very quickly she would then run the cup up and down my leg where she had just finished trying to loosen the “node lines” along my leg.  It was as painful as the first part where she was trying to loosen the lines with her hands.  As the cup cooled, it would suck up skin and all into it.  After a while, she started attaching, by suction, the cups to my knee and down my leg.  I was actually glad that she started doing this, because I knew that the most painful part was finished.  I can handle that cupping part.

 

This is what my leg looks like after they take the cups off.  

The purpose of the cupping was to increase blood-flow around my knees so that the rest of the treatment would be more effective.  The head lady (I need to get a name for her, because it just feels weird to keep calling her that), then smeared a hot paste of Chinese herbs all over my knees.  Then they placed a box, with some sticks of herbs that are lit, over my knees in a box.  The box is left over my knees for about 25 minutes.  They kept checking the sticks to make sure that they aren’t too hot and burning me.

 

Chinese herbs are now it place.  Ready to bake.

This is the combustion box.

A look at the inside of the box.

After “baking” my knees (we started joking that we were going to have BBQ knees for dinner) another herb that smelled like it had some peppermint among other things in it, was rubbed on my knees and then wrapped with cellophane.   I was supposed to keep them wrapped until I got home, and then take it off.  It gets really warm with that oil on it and almost starts to feel like it is burning after a while.

When we went back on Thursday for our next massage, the same treatment was repeated.  I feel that it has done some good.  I can climb stairs without tears, and I have more relief from pain at night.

 

David was having some back pain, so he decided to try the cupping also.  He said it didn't really hurt. They didn't use the flame to attach them like they did with mine.  There was a pump that they used to suction some air out of the cups.

What his back looked like after the cups were removed.  Then they rubbed the peppermint oil on him also.

David had to go back to the Qianfoshan campus to teach on Wednesday.  We wanted to have lunch with Eva, so Eva and I met after my classes and walked to a nearby restaurant to wait for David to get there.  The university canteen only serves food until one p.m., so if you aren’t there right away, you miss out on lunch or have little to choose from.  That’s why we chose a restaurant.  We had a nice meal and talked for some time about our courtship and marriage relationships.

Wednesday evening, Jay and Tresa Wilkins came over and brought us some cream puffs.  They have a new bakery near them that just opened, and they have fallen in love with their cream puffs.  The brought a large bag of them and split them with us.  It was a nice treat.

The Foreign Affairs Office of SDU gave us coupons worth 2300 RMB to use at a grocery store called, InZone, as a gift for Spring Festival (Chinese New Year).  We needed some groceries, so we decided to go there instead of our usual Carrefour to use those coupons.  It was a very generous gift!  We went there Friday afternoon to pick up some things we needed and then went back over again on Saturday for some more.  We can only pack so much in our little cart and drag home!  We so take that for granted at home, where we just pile many bags in the car and drive home!

Friday morning, we made a trip to the hospital to see Dr. Tricia.  She wanted the orthopedic surgeon to look at my knees, after I had mentioned to her about maybe needing a cane.  He looked at them and really didn’t say much except that losing weight would help me.  (Sigh, I know.)  They saw the marks from the cupping and seemed a little concerned about it, but said if it seemed to help go ahead and do it.  After the surgeon left, we stayed and had lunch with Dr. Tricia.

We had brought back to China with us a certificate of appreciation to Dr. Tricia from the BYU China Teachers Program.  She has been a great help to so many BYU teachers over the years, that we introduced her to the Malan’s last fall, when they were here, and they got the certificates ready. They gave David and I some nice covers from BYU (like the covers for graduation certificates), to bring back with us.  We took it with us that morning and showed it to her.  She was so surprised and pleased to get it.  It is hard to describe her reaction, but she couldn’t believe it!  We walked down the hall with her, and she was showing it to her head nurse and telling them about it, when one of the deputy directors of the hospital came around the corner, and she was able to show it to him.  That was a very happy coincidence!  Now the hospital will have knowledge of the show of appreciation for Dr. Tricia.  We went into the hall and had pictures taken.    

 

This is the picture we got of Dr. Tricia and the head nurse with the certificate of appreciation.  Her face does not show how excited and pleased she was.  If we would have known there were going to be pictures, I think we would have dressed up a little more.  Oh well.

Dr Tricia had wanted to have us bring some books for her two sons that they would be able to put coins in.  Bill has been a collector of coins for a long time and her six-year-old son, Baobao, is starting to get interested.  We had brought over two bags of quarters that the two boys could share to fill the collecting books, one for states and one for national parks on the backs of the quarters.  Dr. Tricia was so excited.  She had noticed that the American quarters had different pictures on the back, so we had to explain about how to put the quarters in the books and how to find where they were from.  She took them home and explained to the boys how to do it, and by the time Baobao had to go to bed, the coins were all in the books in the correct places!

 

Baobao "hammering" the coins in place.  

Saturday morning, David and I were invited to visit a small startup “school/library” where they are trying to encourage the parents to read with their children.  We had met the guy who wanted to start this school at the Christmas party last December put on by SDU.  He has a three year-old son and another on the way, and he wanted us to come check out his school.  Right now it is more of a program for afterschool and on Saturday where parents can come do that.  Most Chinese children are not exposed to books until they start primary school at about age six or seven.  Those books are all textbooks.  This man feels that they should be exposed much earlier to all kinds of books, books that spark their imaginations and help build a bond between parents and child.  Nearly all of the books are in English and some in Chinese also.  I recognized a lot of the books as popular children’s book in the US.  It is a new and exciting concept for China.  I hope he succeeds.

Because we were in the area of the Wilkin’s apartment, they invited us for lunch.  It was good food and fun company.  Then we went shopping and headed home.

Our Church’s District Conference was this weekend.  David and I both needed to listen to the Leadership Session at three.  It is all by phone because of the far distances between all of us in China.  We had to eat our supper while that was going on and then leave as soon as it was finished to go to the Hanlin Hotel and join the others for the Adult Evening Session.

Sunday morning, we were back to the Hanlin for the General Session and then lunch afterward.  We enjoyed the meal and the company afterward.  Then it was home to try and get the internet back up.  China has decided to mess with the VPN’s this weekend, and so all the VPN’s were not working.  Frustrating!

February 24 - Back To China, Lantern Festival

I had made this lovely lunch for us to eat at the airport before we left China, but of course it got left at the apartment in all the rush to get out the door.  This is what it looked like seven weeks later.  Lunch, anyone?!

 The trip back to China was rather uneventful, except that with the problems that I am having with my right knee, we decided to ask for assistance in the airports.  I was met by someone with a wheelchair each time we were ready to get off the plane.  When we arrived in Shanghai, we had to wait until everyone got off the plane so that they could take me out by a side door where they could get a lift up to it.  Stairs are especially painful, so we had to wait for everyone else to be off the plane and they took the luggage of the flight crew off with us. 

We saw these ice floes near Nome, Alaska.

We arrived in the Jinan airport at 1:30 a.m. and our taxi driver was waiting for us.  This man has picked us up several times, so he knew us.  He was a little shocked to see me being taken through the airport in the wheelchair.  He couldn’t bring the taxi up to the door because there was a long line of taxis waiting to pick up people, so I told the attendant that I could walk to where the taxi was.  The driver got us across the street and told us to wait there so he could bring the taxi to us. 

This jet flew with us for a good length of time while we were flying over Russia.  

When we arrived at our apartment, he backed-up into the gated area and made it as little distance that I had to walk as he could for me.  Then he held my arm all the way up the stairs to our third floor apartment to make sure that I arrived safely. Then he helped David pack the bags up the stairs.  This is all way above and beyond his duties as a taxi driver, but he wasn’t going to let us just take care of things ourselves.  A very kind man.  We wrote a letter commending him to his company after Eva suggested that it would be a good point for him.  We tried to pay him an extra tip for his service, but China doesn’t “do” tips.  So the letter to his company is a good way to repay him for his service to us. 

We slept as late as we could and then tried to take it easy Wednesday..  Our friend, Carol, offered to order some groceries for us and have them delivered so that we didn’t have to make a trek to the store, so we had her order some basics that we needed.  Jay and Tresa also came by in the afternoon to pick up the items that we had brought back from the US for them.

We decided to go to the canteen on campus for supper.  We went up to the fourth floor, but as soon as the door opened, we saw that the gate was across the opening and realized that they weren’t open yet from the holiday.  We decided that the basement canteen must surely be open, but after we went down one flight of the stairs, we saw that level was also dark.  We didn’t want to try the first, second, or third floors, because our experience has been that you need to know Chinese in order to get the food you want.  We chose to go off campus to KFC and grab supper there.  It was more walking than I wanted to do that day, so I was pretty tired and hurting when we got back to the apartment.  We were in bed by 9 that night.

Thursday, David made the trip up to the Hanlin Hotel to deliver the packages that we had brought over from the US for some of the BYU teachers there.  After he left there, he went to the grocery store and got some more items that we needed.  Eva came over after a meeting that she had on campus and visited with us.  She brought a Chinese New Year gift that SDU had for us.  It was a packet of gift cards to spend at the InZone Market and totalled 2600 RMB!  Very nice.

Jay and Tresa Wilkins brought supper over for us on Thursday.  Eva was still here visiting when they came, so they were able to chat with her also.  Eva wanted to take some of the spaghetti home for her and her husband to try for their supper, so we gave her some since there was plenty.  

Friday we got up earlier than we had since getting back.  We had a massage scheduled that morning, so we had to get going.  We met Carol there, and she took us out for lunch.  It is a really nice restaurant that serves great steaks and pizza.  It was nice to eat there and catch-up with Carol.

This is Carol Wang.  She is so fun to talk to.  Carol lived in Ohio for a year and knows English quite well.  Her sense of humor is contagious.  Wish I had gotten a better picture of her.

Tender and juicy steak.  YUM!

They served the fries in this little school bus.  Cute.

We also wanted to stop in and visit with Dr. Tricia, so after we left Carol, we headed toward the hospital.  We would have been about an hour early, so we decided to stop at Baotu Springs park and look at some of the Lantern Festival displays to kill some time.  It would have been nice to have seen it at night, but it is still pretty during the day.

This is the East Gate entrance to Baotu Springs.

Lanterns hanging from the ceiling of a walkway.

Beautiful display on the water.

It's so fun to walk through paths like this when they are all decorated.  So much to see.

You see the picture of the boy holding a fish.  Boys are cherished in Chinese society.  The word for "fish" has the similar sound as the word for "plenty."  Therefore, the symbol of the boy holding the fish means to have a prosperous year.  

I loved seeing the lanterns lining the walkways.

The butterfly display was so pretty!

This display is about music with the lute being a central part of it.

Our visit with Tricia was only about an hour long.  We were starting to yawn a lot in from of her, so she sent us home in a taxi to get some rest.  

Friday night was a birthday celebration for all of the January and February birthdays in our Jinan group.  We celebrated Sue Stubbs (January), David, Aaron Tran, Daniel Quillen and Patty (all February birthdays).  Aaron wanted to take us all to a Korean BBQ place that he enjoys, so we all met at the Hanlin, and then took the bus over to where we were close to the restaurant.  It was a pretty good meal, except I had to watch out for some of the dishes that were rather spicy.  After the meal, the Wilkin’s and us went home, and the others went to the Hanlin Hotel, where the others had birthday cake that Bonita Quillen had made. We have to watch our time closely, because some of the buses that we need to take don’t run anymore after 9 p.m.

Birthday party!  Daniel and Bonita Quillin, Zina and David, Nancy Rounds, Sue Stubbs, Tresa Wilkins, Jay Wilkins, Aaron (Tran Duc An) and Patty.

On Saturday, Bonita came by with the cupcakes that we had missed getting the night before.  When she was ready to leave, David went with her to show her the way to the Wilkin’s apartment.  She was delivering birthday cupcakes to them also.  When David got back, we hurried to the grocery store and bought a few items that we hadn’t thought of the other day and then hurried home for supper.

One of my students from last semester, Phoebe, had brought me back a gift from her hometown.  Her aunt grows millet, a yellow grain, and wanted to give some to me.  She came over after we had finished supper and brought the millet.  She stayed to visit until we started yawning a lot again, and then decided she should leave.  I figure one of these days we will stop yawning so early in the evening and driving people away!  

Phoebe had given a report in class that I had been rather harsh in my critique of.  I later felt that I shouldn’t have been quite so harsh in my comments, so during the break in class, I had pulled her aside and talked to her about it, apologizing and explaining the position I had on what she had reported on.  She seemed to accept it well, and so we have exchanged WeChat ID”s and we have been communicating ever since.

 

This display was telling the story of Liang Ju.  The woman in the pink dress wanted to be educated, but women in China at the time were not supposed to be educated.  She dressed up as a man and went to the school for many years.  The man in blue beside her fell in love with her when it was discovered that she was a woman.  They wanted to marry, but her family refused to let them. She committed suicide and he died also.  Tragic story that has been immortalized in Chinese folk lore.

Today we went to church with the others in our group and had a fun time at lunch afterward.  Now that the blog is finished, I can stop yawning and go to bed!

December 28 - Last of the Finals, Alan Ding, Coming Home

Carol Wang had bought some Lego-type toys for us that we hadn’t been able to find, so when we went for our Massage on Monday, she brought them to us.  David and I were both so tired that we didn’t linger long and talk much afterward.  It had been a long day after a short night before.

We didn’t have time to rest as we had to go to the Red Cross Church that evening to sing at their Christmas Eve program. We met Tresa and Jay Wilkins at a bus stop, so we could get on the bus that we needed to go there.  We hoped that all the others would be able to make it on time.  They had reserved some seats for our group in the front, and if we didn’t have at least some of us get there bey 6:30, they would release those seats.  Our group made it with three minutes to spare.

The buses were all quite crowded.  We were fortunate that people give up their seats for older people.  At first we didn’t get seats, but as people got off, we were able to get some empty seats for all of us.  The bus that the others had to take from the Hanlin Hotel were so crowded that they couldn’t even fit anymore in it!  They ended up getting a taxi and made it before the program started at 7 p.m. 

 

The ladies in their costumes waiting for the program to start.  They were happy we were taking their pictures.

The program was shorter this year than last, and we were number three on the program.  It was all very nice, and there was such a great spirit of friendship and love in the room.  We made some new Chinese friends, too.  Catherine, a Chinese friend, wanted to come up and sing with us, so we needed someone to take pictures and video for us.  The lady sitting behind us and next to Catherine and Sue Stubbs agreed to do it.  Then there was an exchange to make WeChat friends, and now we have a new connection.  

The director of this choir is about ninety years old.  He has been leading this group for a long time.  They even sang the "Unto Us a Son is Given," and"Hallelujah Chorus."   

This is our group singing "Joy to the World," and "Angels We Have Heard on High."

 

The man sitting down is the man that organizes the program.  The women in the beautiful dresses are waiting to go on to perform their dance.  

This woman is an opera singer that sang for us.  Her dress was very sparkly and colorful.

Getting on the bus back to campus after the program went well.  We were at one of the first stops for the bus, so there were plenty of seats available.  Jay Wilkins has a mustache, and if he grows out his beard could pass for Santa Claus.  He and Tresa had ordered some candy canes through Eva, and he was passing them out on the bus.  Several people wanted to talk to us, but with limited language skills, it was really  tough.  When we got off the bus, we called “Merry Christmas” and “Shen den quai le” (Chinese for Merry Christmas, but I’m not sure of the pinyin Chinese for all the sounds.)  It made quite a hit and the mood of the bus was quite joyous.

Christmas Day was final exams in the morning.  A tradition that has recently started in China is to give an apple at Christmas.  The Chinese word for apple (ping guo), also has the same sound as the word for “peace.”  So it has become a tradition to give an apple to someone for Christmas.  Between David and I, we were given about twenty apples in the last two weeks of finals.  We ate as many as we could, but still had a LOT of them by Wednesday afternoon.  We had dinner with Jay and Tresa on Wednesday evening, so we gave them a bag with about a dozen apples.  We also gave our cleaning lady a bag with five apples in it.  She seemed please to get them.  That left three apples for us.  One for lunch on Thursday and two for lunch on Friday.  We love apples, but that was a lot!

 

This beautiful necklace was given to me by two of the girls in one of my Tuesday classes, Alexis and Bella.  I was wearing it when Bella came for her final and she was so pleased.  I was glad that I could thank her in person for it.  When she gave it to me, she walked in the room while I was interviewing another person and just set it on the desk by my stuff. It opens and there are some fragrance seeds that you can put in there.

Dr Yang, David’s Chinese oncology doctor, invited him to lunch on Tuesday.  David was finished with his final by 11 a.m., so he was able to go, but I wasn’t finished until almost noon, so I didn’t go.  Dr. Yang was sponsoring a Christmas party for some of the cancer patients at his hospital.  Most of these cancer patients are from small villages and have never seen an American.  David went around and shook all their hands, then Dr. Yang had him tell them a little about Christmas.  They gave him a lovely bouquet of 18 roses.  Later there was lunch with pizza.  Then one of the nurses and Dr. Yang’s assistant brought him home in their car

 

David with Zhang Xiao Li, Dr. Yang, and his head nurse Li Ling.

David with some of the cancer patients.  These are poor people and they come from the countryside.  None had ever met or seen an American before.  

Dr. Yang's staff.

We had also planned to see Dr Tricia on Tuesday, so we could get some more of the medicine that we have been getting for my arthritis and also say goodbye.  We also needed her to fill out our medical record books, so that we could get the receipts turned in for the insurance to reimburse us if they will.  I had planned to take the bus and meet David at the hospital, but the nurse that was driving him home, drove him first to our apartment and then to the hospital.  It was nice to not have to walk to the bus station in the cold.

Alan Ding, the boy that David had tutored five years ago and is now attending the University of Texas, is home for the holiday break.  He wanted to visit with us, so he offered to take us out for dinner Christmas evening.  He has grown a lot, and it was great to catch up with him.

The last of the finals was on Thursdays, so we got the grades all finalized, entered them on the spreadsheet with the students numbers and information and got them ready to send to Eva.  She and Alina wanted to come say goodbye, so we were able to give her a copy of all the grades from our classes.  They stayed and talked while they warmed up.  Jinan has turned really cold the last few days.

Several of my students mentioned a picture that they had seen on a school blog with David and me in it.  One girl even printed off the picture and gave it to me as a gift.  I asked for the blog website, and one girl sent it to me.  I know our students see us all over campus, and we are holding hands, and they think we have such a great love (and we do!).  So this is the picture and the poem that was written about us.

This is the picture that was on the blog.  The poem is roughly translated to: "The leaves are colored like candy, will you come and take a walk with me."  

We will be home for the next six weeks, so I won’t be posting about China during that time.  I may put some family memories on though. 

December 23 - First Week of Final Exams, Parties, and Christmas Cookies

Some of the dozens of Christmas cookies that I spent all of Saturday making.

More of the cookies.

It is always so very rewarding when we do final exams with our students!  We have to do a five-minute interview with each student, so with our large classes, that takes two weeks to get it all accomplished.  David had to even add an afternoon session for one of his classes, because it is so large.  We have been given a few lovely gifts and lots of compliments on our teaching.  (At least we hope it all isn’t just to get a good grade…)

We wanted to go shopping for some more items on Tuesday afternoon at the outlet mall on the west side of Jinan.  On Sunday, Nancy Rounds was talking about getting Aaron to help her, but he didn’t seem to have any free time, so we said that she could tag along with us.  Nancy was able to find several things that she wanted, but we were not successful.  We also wanted to check out where the church was that we will be singing at on Christmas Eve, especially so that Nancy would know and could get there.

Tuesday evening, David held one last English corner the students.  It was a fun time for them.

As the semester nears to the end, you find students that set up these "study stations."  I'm not exactly sure why they do it but some of the reasons might be:  closer to their classrooms, their dorm room is too cold or noisy, they can't find a seat in the library, etc.  This girl has claimed her area near the window on the landing between the stairs in the building we teach in the most.  She is able to just leave her stuff here and it will be there when she comes back.  They will stand there and memorize and repeat over and over and over again.

 While we were at our massage on Wednesday, Carol Wang was there, and we mentioned that we were having a hard time finding the Lego knock-off toys that we were looking for.  She started looking on her phone while we were there but didn’t find anything that pleased us.  The next day, Carol went to several toy shops and even a whole-sale shop to look for us.  That was so sweet of her to put so much effort into our little problem.  She was able to find something that will be good enough.  What we were looking for was last year’s models, and they were not to be found at all this year.  Sad.

If you can't find a seat on the bus, bring your own!

Friday was a very busy day for us.  We had to make a trip to Carrefour to get some last items to get us through the next week before we go home.  We hurried through the store getting all the items as quickly as we could.  Then we got up to the check-out lines.  They were ALL extremely long lines, anywhere from six to ten people long!  We have never seen it like that, but then, we seldom shop there in the morning, and I think that is when most Chinese try to shop.  They try to get the freshest eggs and vegetables at that time.  It took as 20-25 minutes to get checked out.  

We had a list of other items that we wanted to get at some other places, but David also wanted to get back to the campus to observe an activity that Eva was doing in her class that day.  I told him to head on back to the campus, and I would go to Baotu Springs Park and get the other items we wanted.  Whenever you want real touristy items, go to the parks for them.  David had been searching for some porcelain birds and hadn’t been able to find them anywhere else.  I remembered the gift shop at Baotu Springs had a lot of cute items, so we wanted to go check there for the birds. 

I made it to Baotu Springs, found the birds there, plus some other fun items and then headed back to campus.  We had planned to have lunch with Eva and her daughter, Alina, after Eva was done teaching her class.  Instead of walking all the way back to our apartment, I waited by the canteen because I had arrived back at the campus just in time for lunch.  

Lunch on Friday with Eva and Alina.

When David and Eva finally came, they had decided not to eat in the canteen, but to eat at a restaurant outside of campus.  We picked up Alina on our way out of campus.  We went to the restaurant where we had been for my birthday party and had a nice meal.  We had ordered too much food and got really full.  We stayed there talking so long that we were the only people left in the place.  It was fun.  

After that, we had to catch a bus over to the Hongjialou campus to meet Kang Ming in the Foreign Affairs Office.  The university had a gift for us that we needed to pick up from there.  We only stayed for a few minutes, because we had to hurry home for our tutoring students.  

David got a text from Eva as we were walking to the bus, asking if we could pick up some papers at the Graduate Students’ Office.  David headed back to get the papers, while I went to catch a bus home and hopefully beat our tutoring students there.  I got on a bus 16.  As it was driving past the south gate of the campus, I saw David almost out of the gate.  He got on a bus 1.  He beat me home.  The reason he beat me home was because my bus passed by an elementary school that was just letting out.  Parents and kids and scooters all over the place! 

Our three tutoring kids, Michael, Doris, and Stone came at four p.m.  We had wanted to make Christmas cookies with them.  David sang some Christmas songs and read them a story while I hurried and got all the supplies gathered together.  They had fun and loved their Christmas cookies that we sent home with them. 

Celebrating Tresa's birthday on Friday evening.  

We had a few minutes to rest, before we had to go out to the north gate and meet Eva, Alina, and Jay and Tresa Wilkins.  It was Tresa’s birthday, and we wanted to go celebrate eating at Lydia’s, an Italian restaurant, that is close to our campus.  We had a fun time.

When we walked into the restaurant, I was greeted by several of the girls from one of my classes.  Their professor had invited them out for a dinner and they had chosen that restaurant also.  It was fun to see them.

 I spent the majority of Saturday baking and frosting Christmas cookies.  I thought I would need a good amount of cookies, because I was bringing some to the Foreign teachers’ Holiday party that night and also for our dinner together on Sunday.  It takes a long time to bake a batch of cookies that normally makes about six to eight dozen cookies in a small toaster oven.  The rest of the time was spent decorating them.  I had about 15 minutes left to get dressed before Eva and the Wilkins came to go to the party together. 

At the SDU foreign teachers party, the Vice President of the University speaking.  It was an important enough party that we had three important officials there.

David and Zina singing at the SDU Foreign Teachers Party.

Our dinner companions.  They came from China, South Africa, Scotland, Netherlands/UK and the US.

 Eva decided to drive us all there in her car, which was nice, except the traffic to get out of the campus was a nightmare!  That took more time than it did to drive to the hotel where we were having the party.  The party was fun.  David had suggested that we sing some songs, so he brought his guitar along, and he and I sang some songs, with people joining-in on the songs they knew.  We had teachers there from the US, England, Scotland, Russia, Iran, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, and a few other places that I don’t remember now.  We had some of the big wigs from the campus there also.  All in all, it was a very enjoyable time together

Looking at the other two tables at the party.

One of the dishes at the SDU party.  Anyone up for some cooked larvae?

One of the larvae up close.  I did try it, but it was really spicy, so the one small taste was all I had!

Sunday morning was a rush for me to get everything together and ready for our dinner after church.  David and I both read different scriptures about Christ’s birth.  Our group sang “Angels We Have Heard on High.”  Afterwards was a delicious dinner.  The Kellie’s from Weihai, Jurgita and her husband, Huang Songsong, came from Zouping, Catherine, Patty and Summer (all Chinese friends) joined us also.

After our Christmas dinner, we practiced singing for our performance at the JingSiLu Church on Christmas Eve.

All semester long, we have been trying to get together with Eva’s friend, Yi Bing.  She is Bob’s mother, the young man that we tutored, along with Anna, last year.  They wanted to take us out for dinner tonight, so we met them at Cafe 56, it’s near our campus. Alina came along with Bob’s mom and dad, and Eva.  We had a great time talking with them.  What was really neat was the connections we made with them as we told our engagement story, and how it mirrored their story in a lot of ways.  It was a very fun evening.

Dinner with Eva, Zina, David, Alina, Yi Bing and her husband.