DOWN UNDER

As the semester ended, we had a couple of invitations for dinner. One of the invitations was from a teacher and the other from one of my students. The teacher is a horticulture teacher and he is one of my tennis group. We have done a number of things together. It turned out to be a party with three couples and us. It was a good time. The student was a girl from my Business English class. She had been my timer for the midterm and that little responsibility turned around her semester. She and her good friend took us for a tasty meal of duck hotpot. Renee really liked Annie. She wants to introduce her to our student friend David. They may not hit it off though. Annie wants to go help people in Tibet, and David thinks he wants to be a businessman in Chongqing.

We delayed our vacation trip because of a wedding. The wedding was in Jiamgjin where we did our summer project. Mr. Li and Shelly had moved their date up so we would be able to attend. It was a large gathering. Renee and I were in the wedding procession (of cars, not people). I prepared a part of my wedding speech to present. It was another elaborate occasion with over 800 guests. (The Chinese weddings we have attended have all followed the same pattern. They are held in a restaurant. There is usually an arbor through which the couple enters. The bride is dressed in white and maybe even walks to Lohengrin's Wedding March. There is a stage where the couple stands and listens to speeches, pours wine into a configuration of glasses so that somehow you pour into the top glass and all the glasses are filled, and cuts the wedding cake. In one wedding the couple even played some silly games. Then the bride throws her bouquet. Next the bride changes into a red dress and the bride and groom go from table to table toasting. We have learned that they often use water or very weak wine because so much toasting can be "bad for your health" as the Chinese say. Meanwhile the guests are eating from the multitudes of dishes that are gracing their round tables. After about an hour and a half, everyone leaves. There is no minister or any official to "now pronounce them man and wife." Sometimes the wedding occurs months or even years after a couple is "married" legally because the weddings are so expensive.)

During that same weekend we had the second student bemoan to us that his parents had arranged a blind date for him. In this case, the young man found his date to be lovely and hopes that the future communication will lead to better times. (Actually, we had a little laugh at his expensive. He had spent about an hour telling us how upset he was about this action that his parents had taken. Then we happened to see him the next day with the girl, who was so beautiful. The boy was grinning from ear to ear. Maybe parents do have a good idea now and then:)

Then we were off to Australia. We flew to Sydney and stayed with the Gibbons, friends from our travel in Eastern Europe. They have a lovely home on the beach. We enjoyed our days of seeing the surfers, swimming in the sea pool, and touring the sites. The beaches are beautiful, the animals are exotic, the harbor is majestic. We enjoyed our time with the Gibbins and with Yanlin, our friend from Kunming. She has just moved to Sydney with her husband.

Next stop, Melbourne to become spectators at the Australian Open. (Rich had to choose our hotel online and he did a great job. While the location was not in the center of town, the transportation system made it easy to travel to the tournmant and to other sites, and we had a beautiful park right across the street.) The tennis was great, but the site was very crowded. We saw many players -- The Williams sisters, the Bryan Brothers, John Isner, Sam Querry, Robby Ginepri, Ferdinand Gonzales, the Chinese players -- and some good matches. We also saw some of Melbourne -- the night market, docks, gardens, and we went to the theater and saw Jersey Boys. It was a good show. (It was a treat to be in a Western country, to hear English all around, to have people constantly say please and thank you, to have automobile drivers actually be considerate of pedestrians. What wasn't so great was always looking the wrong way when we crossed the street. We could not get used to the reversed driving lanes. We could get used to the great weather, though. Unless we were sitting directly in the sun, we were very comfortable. The only problem was sunburned lips! How did that happen?)
On returning to China, we exchanged our summer clothes for winter ones and went to Chengdu for a week of Peace Corps inservice training and language review. (We enjoyed meeting the China 15s, the new group that came to China in the summer. They seem to have a positive "aura" and three of them are from eastern Pennsylvania!) We spent another evening and a day with former students and now we are back in Yongchuan for a week or so before our next adventure. So far our holiday has been stupendous.