Much Obliged

Last night we were taken to a celebratory dinner commemorating the 62^nd anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.  The dinner was held by the regional government in Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, and our school decided to send in addition to our school's president, Eaaf, William, Mrs. Ma (who works for the international affairs office and can speak very good Japanese) and myself.  Mrs. Ma's English is limited, but the four of us are able to communicate pretty well, with William using Chinese, and Eaaf and I using Japanese.  I am able to somewhat follow the conversations William and Mrs. Ma had, but usually I could only answer in Japanese.  We were seated with the vice-president of Zhengzhou University and four of their foreign teachers.  One of them, who sat next to William, was an older gentleman who has been teaching for seven years.  I was sitting between a Russian teacher from Zhengzhou University and the Zhengzhou University vice-president.  The Russian teacher, who has very good English, has been teaching for three years, and is from Moscow.  She came to China because her husband is Chinese and from Zhengzhou.  I got the impression that she misses Russia very much.  The vice-president of Zhengzhou University had a very good sense of humor (he would laugh a little whenever they would announce the Yellow River Friendship award going to a representative of the Coca-cola company) and he taught me the word for shrimp (xia1 虾) and oyster (bi, which I can't find in Chinese dictionaries, so maybe it refers to some other kind of creature).

Last weekend, we went to the Yellow River National Park with the other teachers (except for William who decided to sleep instead).  Once again, it was the school taking us.  This time however, it was only for us.  Among other things at Yellow River National Park was an enclave of peacocks which we got to feed and take pictures of.

I have started this week working on my Chinese with one of my students.  I told her I'd exchange one hour of English conversation for one hour of working on Chinese.  We covered holidays, parts of your face, furniture, and the phrase, “I didn't understand your meaning” 没有听明白你的意思.  This next week we are on vacation, and I am going to Nanjing.  So next entry will include many pictures from Nanjing.

This may be a habit I am forming from my classes, but I would encourage you to ask questions about these pictures and leave comments.  Though I am only posting once every two weeks, I can respond to your questions via e-mail or it may get me started on other posts.

Also, this just in right after I wrote everything else and saved it and my pictures for today onto my flash drive, my computer is broken!  Fortunately, everything is backed up on my external hard drive, and just about all of my pictures are still in my camera's memory card, so I don't think I've lost anything.  Except a working computer.  So... I will have to figure something out there.  I'm not panicking.  There's a city to visit.

Tatiana, Ben, Eaaf, Aikawa-sensei, Aikawa-san, Mrs. Ma and a friend of Mrs. Ma in the parking lot at Yellow River National Park

Several restaurant river boats on the Yellow River.  We ate lunch at the one with a red roof on the left hand side of this picture.

So many peacocks!  So many shinny blue feathers!

Zhengzhou, the newer part of the city.  As you can see there is lots of construction.

Our fancy table.

This is a great picture.  It really captured the essence of that number sixty two.

Night time when we left there were so many lights!  It was so beautiful!  And I had drunk more wine than I usually do because of all the toasts.  Mrs. Ma pointed out that my cheeks were red, but she said a little red made them look pretty.

Classes

I have seven classes that I am teaching this semester.  Four of them are conversation classes at the Foreign Language School.  Three of them are reading classes for English majors at a more general school. (Minsheng)  The Foreign Language School classes are about thirty students each, and the Minsheng classes are about forty students each.  I have some stories about them, but they were written throughout the last week.  I have dated these, and not edited them.

9/12

Just now, right before I started writing this, four of my students stopped by.  Two of them, Ruth and Jane, had brought me presents back from home (this weekend was mid-autumn festival, and many students went home to be with their families).  Ruth brought me moon-cakes (see last entry to read more about moon-cakes).  I have been telling all of my classes that my favorite Chinese food is moon-cakes.  Jane brought me a fake sunflower and blue rose, both of which she made herself by weaving silk threads around wires to make the petals.

Ruth, Jane, and Linda had lunch with me on Friday.  They took me to a place that serves heated stone pots filled with rice, vegetables, and meat.  Linda was pretty quiet, but Ruth and Jane and I talked.  I am hopeful that we may be friends.

When they came by to give me their gifts and wish me a happy mid-autumn festival, once again Ruth and Jane did all the talking.  Linda and another friend (who is also in my class) were quiet.  But I just received a text from Linda.  “hello , Ann . Tonight I saw you I feel very happy . I want to say again : happy moon ' s day ! I love you .best wishes for you . Linda”

I have been feeling kind of sick today, and a bit lonely.  These girls made my day!  I'm so happy!

This Saturday was Teachers' Day.  I received many many text messages wishing me happy teachers' day.  My favorite I will reproduce here: “Happy Teachers' Day to you,Ann!maybe it is your first teachers'   day in China.don't feel lonely. We are all here with you ! I will bring you mooncakes when I come back from home, Ok?i am really glad to be your friend! Sandy” Another good one, “Happy Teathers' Day , happy every day,best wishes to my lovely friend_like teather ^^ by Marissa from class 2”

I need to remember these things for whenever I feel down.  In Japan, I would be afraid that if I received this kind of praise I was somehow going to let down whoever said these things to me.  But I am not in Japan.  All I can do is be myself, with all my shyness and all my enthusiasm.

9/13

One thing I will say about being a quiet girl amongst less shy American boys – the conversations I've had with students have been very focused.  I went to English corner, and I talked a great deal to one girl (where as the other English teachers talked a bit with many different people).  Though I envey that – charisma?  Outgoing-ness?  (I'm not sure what adjective to put here), I am finding that my personality has its own advantages too.

9/16

I have just finished my first week of classes (I should say, my first week of actual classes.  The first week was just introductions.  This week I actually taught).  It's interesting to give the same lecture and get different responses from my classes.  My reading classes I assigned the short story “The Blue Cross” by G. K. Chesterton (a detective story).  One class was shy but when I asked them what the author may have meant by the story, came up with really good answers.  The second class was less shy and had lots of questions.  The third class had very few questions about the story, but asked me about churches, if I had ever met a priest, and about sex education in America.

Hairstyles here tend to be practical, though there are some girls with perms and some boys and girls with bleached hair.  There are a few boys with really crazy hairstyles that seem to come out of a Japanese cartoon.

I have found that people don't expect me to speak Chinese, but are happy to talk to me once they find out I speak a little.  The first week here I had at least one god exchange a day which I was proud of (look!  I ordered in a restaurant all by myself!).  Since then it's gone down to once or twice a week.  But it seems much easier to start a conversation than it did in Japan.

Yesterday there was a patriotic singing competition between the freshman classes.  I talked to a few freshman boys who didn't speak much English.  I talked to some of my students who were also there.  And a group of boys from one of the Physical Education major classes asked to take pictures with me.

9/17

Today, air-raid sirens went off for an hour this morning commemorating the day and time the Japanese first attacked.  Those of you from Beloit may remember I did my symposium project on perspectives on World War II in Japan.  Though there are certainly many ceremonies remembering the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, there is nothing that compares to this.

Also, I saw an advertisement with cartoon versions of the main characters from 'Journey to the West' (if you have heard of the Monkey King, 'Journey to the West' is the novel he is from) promoting ibuprofen.

I have taken to channel surfing when I have time to kill.  My favorite show so far is one that I have nicknamed 'Beautiful People' (美人心计 mei3ren2xin1ji4, literally it means scheming beauties).  I think it takes place during the Tang dynasty, and mostly takes place inside the palace.  

Most nights at about 8:30 until 10:00 there is English corner.  English corner is just a meeting place for students and English teachers to meet and talk.  There are many fewer people than in class, and the people who come tend to be from different classes as well, so there's less pressure.  Also, since it's a less formal setting, we teachers can act more like peers.  It has been a great deal of fun!  Several people from my reading classes have started coming regularly.  

There are also a few students I have had dinner with.  One was from Eaaf and Will's class, who is interested in studying at University of Pennsylvania for graduate school.  The other was one of my students.  My student, I invited after seeing her by chance around campus.  She is very quiet, but so cute!  She went to English corner with us after dinner, and she and I have texted a number of times afterward this week.  All of this is something I wouldn't have if my students were not my own age.

Two Weeks Notice

I seem to be logging in every two weeks instead of every week.  I actually have been taking pictures and writing things to go into my blog, just not logging into my blog to put them up.  Here are two weeks worth of pictures.

South Gate of Campus at Night the First Week of Classes

Moon Cake

Silk Flowers and a Bag of Moon Cakes

Freshmen Military Training

Last Day of Freshmen Military Training (totaling 2 weeks)

Several signs like this appear on campus and off

A Larger View of the Freshmen Military Training Last Day

Building walls and tearing them down

Kansai Gaidai campus was right next to a Komatsu plant.  Komatsu makes construction equipment, and possibly other things as well.  Every day, for nine months I walked past the big signs, KOMATSU.

Last year, I noticed at Beloit cranes and digging trucks with the KOMATSU name on them.  They had followed me home.

Today, on our way to Zhengzhou to get our health exams, there were more cranes and trucks and such constructing hotels and appartment buildings.  Sure enough, they had in big blue lettering, KOMATSU, along the side.

It really is everywhere.

Piece of Cake (bing2)

This first week, I would like to highlight the word bing, which means 'cake'.  There are three cakes in particular I would like to highlight.

The first would be what we've had for breakfast most morning, da4bing2.  Da4bing2 is like a pancake, except occasionally it's filled with vegetables.  I myself have particularly liked the ones with just a little bit of green onion in the batter.  Each da4bing2 at the stall we frequent is about 8 inches in diameter, and costs 2 kuai (about 33 cents).  You can also just get half of one for 1 kuai, which is usually enough for me.  The street we eat at, (which William and the other exchange students two years ago dubbed 'breakfast street,' though they only sell breakfast at that corner) has a number of stores and businesses, but even more stalls.  People sell fruits and vegetables out of carts, bubble tea out of holes in the wall, drinks out of refrigerating units that don't fit inside their tiny stores packed with bottles of water, soda, and tea.  The place we buy da4bing2 has short tables and stools laid out next to the street.  The street itself has barely any room for cars, but cars and even trucks will still slowly make their way amidst the bicycles, rickshaws, open back rickshaws (like an open back truck, except with a motorcycle at the front), and people.  Occasionally I have seen some chickens in the alleys between the buildings, and there have been a few dogs.  If you go south along that street, the food carts are replaced by vendors selling used books laid out on the sidewalk.  If you go north, you find stalls selling mostly clothing and bedding, but we also found pots and pans and pirated dvds.

The second bing2 would be yue4bing2, or 'moon cake'.  Yue4bing2 are particularly important for mid-autumn festival, but stores are selling them now.  While we explored Kaifeng and Anhui (a city about three hours away from Kaifeng) Daniel pointed out to us some giant yue4bing2 about the size of a dinner plate, each decorated elaboratly or with the charater (fortune) which means fortune written on them.  I purchased a yue4bing2 from a stand in Anhui.  The two evenings we spent in Anhui we walked down a street not unlike Breakfast street, except even more crowded.  There were clothes stores, and ladies' undergarment stores with western looking manaquines, and puppies being sold in cages.  I bought a red bean paste moon cake, which I ate while everyone else was eating soft serve ice cream from KFC.

The third bing2 would be from Daniel Youd's last night in Kaifeng.  Daniel already knows the area, and is fluent in Chinese, so we never had pick random things from menus, we never had to try and pick our way through a conversation without having someone to translate.  He encourages all of us, even those of us who aren't students anymore, to reach out on our own.  But it was nice to have a safety net.  Also, Daniel has stories ranging from famous Armenians, to his daughter crochetting, to awkward situations as an exchange student in China in the early 90's.  We went to KTV (karaoke) the last night, which was unforgettable.  But before KTV, we ate Peking duck.  Peking duck a little bit like tacos.  The duck is served on its own, and in smaller dishes there might be small pieces of vegetables and a small bowel of sauce.  Everything is put together on a thin round piece of bread that looks a lot like a tortilla, called a bing2.

(Also, a few more photos)

Another Shot of Millenium Park

The rock reads has the Chinese name for Millenium Park.  The charaters read,  "Clear bright above the yellow river park"

Henan University Campus.  On the left are the exchange student dorms.

Behind the fences are our dorms.

Iron Pagoda Park 

This was taken in the Shanghai airport.  I would recommend you zoom in and look at the sign (there's an English translation under the Chinese).

Hitting A Wall

Unfortunately, this blog (and all of the google blogs) is unavailable here in China.  So!  My posts are a bit late!  But there are lots and lots of photos to make up for it.  These are not in any particular order.  Also, I have a few musings that I wrote out on my computer which I will post here.

KFC in Anhui

Memorial Plack on the Back of a Turtle

Site of Oracle Bones Excavation in Anhui, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Anhui city street, note the bird cages

Six Port City, Mosque

Walking around in Six Port City

This dog was extremely friendly.  This is a shrine at Six Port City

This was taken at Millenium Park, a Song Dynasty theme park.  Among other attractions were us!  A number of people asked to take their pictures with one, or two, or all of us.  William and Molly were the most popular.  This is a mom who wanted her little girl in a shot with the two of them.