Old Friends and New

If you have been wondering about the people in our lives, Renee told you about some two weeks ago and today is my turn.

Some friends from last year have sort of vanished - Xiao Wan was maybe our best friend. His college moved to Chongqing. The move meant getting together was difficult. He then has had some family trouble and now a job. We still chat online, but our summer travel together will not happen. Sean the student who wanted to be a doctor did not pass the test. He will stay another year and work at improving his score. (Most people do worse the second time.) Gao Bin, one of my tutors also failed the GRE and now is scurrying to try to find a job. My other tutor, Jackie, failed at his duck business and now hopes to find a job in Chongqing. The others from last year continue to be an active part of my life.
Colin, the English teacher, has also moved to HongHe so I see him regularly. He is busy preparing his home for his wife to move into. He is painting this weekend. When it is ready she will move from XingHu to here. Two good times a week I ride the bus with him from HongHe to XingHu. He agreed to try and speak with me in Chinese. So for about an hour a week I get to practice Chinese conversation.



John and Paul have remained good friends. I meet with them every Wednesday for lunch. Paul has become a class leader. He is very busy, but we try to have lunch. He also then is able to keep me informed about what is going on and to invite me to things. John has also become a leader. He is the English Academy's tutors helper. He also was one of the two majors chosen for membership in the Communist Party. It should be good for his career. John has also been my interpreter now several times and does a great job. I have met his family and know his girl friend.



My best adult friend has become Wu Zhong Jun. He teaches Horticulture. I am not sure but he seems to be maybe the number two man in the department. We met through tennis. He began calling me to come and play and through that have played with more of the adults this year. He then had us to his home and to dinner. We have been out now several times. He is a good enough friend that he drove me to the airport to pick up Ned (This is not a simple task and it was his first drive to there.) It is good to have a friend who will try to say yes.





Another adult friend is Li Hai Bing. I met him at Lisa's (Renee just wrote about her) birthday party. He is a PE teacher at the school. He teaches martial arts. I have wanted to learn another form of Tai Chi called Tui Shou. He agreed to teach me. We have been meeting twice a week for English lessons and Tai Chi lessons. Through him I have gone to the Senior Center and met many other wonderful peopple. We have been out together a couple of times to shows and dinner. I am his "best" friend.





Many of my long term students friends are not my students. They are PE majors. Allen, business PE, Wu Fan, medical PE, and Fu Da Quan, tennis PE. All three of these young men have been great to me. They keep me informed. They try to help me and entertain me. I can count on them whenever I need company of information about XingHu.

Something Old and Something New

Someone just wrote and reminded us that we had not published a blog for awhile. She was thinking that must mean that we were already home. No, not yet. Rich has been patiently waiting for me to be responsible this time, and as usual I have been waiting for an inspiration. Can't wait any longer. Just do it. By the way, this is Jolene, a girl Rich met his first year of teaching in YongChuan. She has become a friend, and a good example of a determined, energetic Chinese student who is working hard to develop a prosperous future.

These next two blogs are to be about friends, so I want to update you on some old friends and introduce you to three new ones. First, the moms and babies.

Last year we mentioned several times the young families who were living all around us in our apartment building. Four of the babies that were born last year became favorites. This year all the families have moved to the new campus area, as we have, but we are all living in different apartment complexes and rarely see each other. I had the idea of setting up a play date at our apartment on a Saturday morning. I arranged a corner table with kid stuff and prepared to watch and enjoy. Soon after ten, the moms (4), grandmoms (2), husband (1) and toddlers (4) arrived. I was expecting an American style playdate where the children played by themselves and the parents had some time to chat. Not so. These children mostly clung to their moms and grandmoms. I think they have little play date experience. We had Xia and Le Le (who is the beauty of the bunch), Sally and Shuai (handsome), Di and Xing Xing (star) and Gui Feng and Bao Bao (just means "baby") You know that most babies in China do not wear diapers so the play was punctuated by frequent running trips to the bathroom. They all left at 11:00, probably relieved that no disasters had occurred and that they had satisfied my desire to see them all. As they left, I felt my first real sadness about leaving China. Except for maybe Sally and her son, because she is a good friend, I don't think I'll ever see those little ones again.

You may also remember Becky, our Chinese friend who sells DVD's. Big changes have occurred in her life. First of all, she is married. The picture shows her with her new husband, Edward. She gave him his English name after Edward Scissorhand because he loves movies and because he often helped her mom cut the yarn that she sold in the corner of their shop. Edward is a country boy, and we enjoyed delicious food at the day long wedding celebration in his home village. We like him very much. Second, the newly-weds and Becky's parents are closing out the DVD business and planning to open another kind of shop. And third, Becky is pregnant:) They are not ready for such an event, but they are getting very excited. Please pray along with us that all will go well with the pregnancy and the delivery.

I can't remember if we put on the blog that I was bitten by a dog, but I was. Not much harm done, though going to Peace Corps headquarters to get preventive rabies injections and being observed for a week did interrupt my schedule. Out of it all, though, has come a lovely friendship with Jia Ping, a teacher at our school and one of the dog's owners. We have a symbiotic relationship: I help her with her English, and she teaches me Tai Ji Chuan. We laugh all the time about who has the better student. Very generously, she provided me with a real Tai Ji outfit. We went into Yong Chuan to "old" street, up a hill and down an alley to a nondescript door. Inside was a woman beside an ironing board, her husband eating in front of the television, and dozens of outfits in various stages of completion. She measured me, not writing anything down until she was all finished. Her only comment was, "She's a big girl." Indeed.
The fourth friend I would like you to meet is Sandy. Sandy is my latest language tutor. She was a student of mine last year and had seemed to want to stay in touch, so when my tutor David no longer had enough time to come here to help me, I asked Sandy if she would be interested. We have had a good time together, and I was happy to be able to tell her that when I took my language exam in April, I had moved up a level. I was glad to be able to tell her that good news because she was determined to regard any failure on my part to be a failure on her part. Not so. This week I hope that we are going together to visit a special school in Yong Chuan for the blind and the deaf. I have hopes of finding out if they can utilize student volunteers and maybe learning some other ways we could help them. Sandy is a sweet and conscientious girl. I am lucky to have her help.

Last but not least is Free. Once long, long ago my college roommate came to visit me and we talked so much that my throat was dry and sore and I could barely speak. It's almost like that with Free. She loves to read and we have read and discussed several books over these two years. Now she is giving me a brief outline of Chinese history punctuated by many stories that seem to flow effortlessly from her mind. I think she is much smarter than I am, and I am constantly amazed by her insights into literature. Besides that she has boundless enthusiasm and energy. I would like to borrow some.

I told Rich yesterday that some days I would like to go back to America tomorrow and some days I would like to stay in China forever. He says he understands. We have been very blessed by our time here and hope to have many opportunities to share some of joys and concerns with you, face to face, even though we have been warned that you may not be so very interested:) We love you anyway.

THE BEGINNING OF THE END

After a long, long break the school year began. We each now have eight classes or sixteen hours of classes. We each picked up an extra class when one of the foreign teachers did not return this term. Renee has six of her classes at HongHe where we live and two classes on Thursday in XingHu where we lived last year. All of the classes are sophomores and all classes she has had before. She has been having them solve riddles and tell jokes while she tries to motivate them and give them a bigger vision of what could be accomplished now and in their lives. I have four Buiness English classes at HongHe, one of them a new class. My other four classes are at XingHu where I go three times a week. Here I have two sophomore classes and two new freshmen classes.

Our week follows a pattern. On Monday we have dinner with students from one of the classes. They are organized so everyone gets a chance to eat with us during the year. Tuesday, Renee is off to see Becky to tutor or to talk with in Yongchuan. I get to read and sometimes play ping pong or walk. We have been following So You Think You Can Dance on Tuesday nights. On Wednesday we have English Corner in one of the two sites. I go to the gym after my class and after that or English Corner, I have shao kao, fried vegetables and meat, and some beer with a group of my young men friends on the street. Afterwards I go to Yang Lu's Karate School where I have learned TaiChi and have met some great people. On Thursday Renee is off to XinbgHu where she teaches, has lunch, plays the piano, gets tutored, and every other week has shao kao with her young girls friends. Thursday night we have been following that weeks events on American Idol. Friday after I return from XingHu is our day to just do whatever and often watch whatever the film of the week is. Saturday we go into town and have a traditional Chinese breakfast of steamed dumplings, fried bread, and hot soy milk. Then I often play tennis with whoever I can and Renee cleans. Once a month she goes to a big store in Chongqing to buy "western" things. Last Saturday we had a big day in the afternoon we went to a birthday party for a 30 year old friend in town. Then to an English Program on the public Square in HongHe. We returned to the birthday party for dinner' and then went back to campus. On campus on Saturday night there is a show and afterwards dancing. We are regulars at both. Last weekend an art student friend invited us to go with him and his girl friend for tea so the evening was eventful. Sunday we go to church in the morning. Now we alternate between the Catholic and the Evangelical church. Both have advantages and disadvantages for us. Sometimes in the afternoon we go to a college age house church. Last Sunday one of the Russian teachers gave a piano concert so we enjoyed Shubert, Chopin, deBussy, and Rachmaninov. A week in a glimpse. It leaves out some tutoring, Renee's reading buddy, and our Chinese tutors. AND it leaves out Renee's dog bite. Bitten by a teacher's little house dog, Renee then had to go to ChengDu at the Peace Corps insistance to get shots and be observed. The process took a whole week of time.

During this time we got to the top of Huang Qua Shan for what should be our last time. We went on during the flower festival which turned out to be one week too early. But we had a great time with some student friends and saw some new sights on the top of the mountain.

There is also a new park that has been built right behind our dorm. There is no gate there so it takes 20 minutes just to get there. A bus driver pointed it out to us. We have gone with our neighbors from last year -Sally, her husband and baby. I have then gone with some students to climb the man made mountain and see the whole of the mad made lakes and gardens. A local business man has built the park in exchange for the land which he will now make a fortune off of by building houses, offices, and businesses.

SPRING FESTIVAL 2010

Not to let any grass grow under our feet before we left for Spring Festival we kept busy. One of the English teachers Zhang AnLi who drives me to class on Mondays took us to SongJi. JongJi is an ancient town here in Yongchuan. He and his friend showed us some of the sites and treated us to local foods. Then we went down to the Chang Jiang (Yangtze) to look for stones. This is their favorite activity when they go to SongJi. We have some rocks to show for our time there. We also went to a local art show where we saw local artists of many diferent media exhiibit. Then we were off to our student, David's kindergarten.

It was a fun but cold day. This school is a modern as you can get and is growing quickly. David was hired because they wanted the preschoolers to be introduced to English. We, of course, were guests of honor.
Then off to Guangzhou for the Spring Festival. We were staying with Dr. Wang's family. You may remember back in 1986 four Chinese came and visited us and Marple Newtown High School. Dr. Wang was one of them and although he died a couple of years ago I have been intouch first with him and then his family for over these 20 years. Sam Wang greeted us at the airport and we were off to his mother's. We spent the five days with them.

The Grandmother Guo and her son Wang Liang and his wife and their teenage daughter Aki. Sam and his family live about 15 minutes away. Sam was incharge of us since he drove and had the best English.
We visited a reconstructed village and sampled the food. We made dumplings with the family and were not even laughed at. We visited and ate with various parts of the family over the next days. Somehow they coordinated so that we sampled the vaious Cantonese style foods of Guangzhou. Besides eating our way through Guangzhou we visited Sam's home in a luxury apartment, rode a bicycle built for two through a park, saw the vaious fireworks displays from atop the city, and drove forever through the countryside. Spring Festival was different in Guangzhou. Since it is a huge city fireworks are controlled so there was no World War III like last year. The family was smaller and the extended family was actually located in Shanghai too far to visit. The meals were not punctuated with toasts as last year and drinking was not the sport of the day. It was great to renew our ties to these old friends.
We returned and spent three days in Chongqing. Grace, another English teacher, met us at the airport and got us a hotel with computer in center city. She and her boy friend hosted us for the three days. We spent a day with one of our students John who lives just outside the city. His family was more than gracious to us. The next day we met another student and toured the Three Gorges Museum. It is huge and tells the history of Chongqing and its culture. Grace and Chu HongZe tools us one night for pizza at Papa John's (their choice because they wanted to try) and another night to have Peking Duck.

Her friend has little chance to speak English so he was anxious to spend whatever time he could with us. We think he may even come to visit us in Yongchuan.

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.

WHEN CHRISTMAS COMES TO TOWN

Christmas started early for us. As our classes were ending and our final exams would be during Christmas week, we had to start early. We both organized pollyannas in our classes. The students loved the idea, and the cleverness and thoughtfulness of their gifts, which were to be no more then 7RMB (1 dollar), was amazing. The exchange of the gifts was a fun day for everyone. We told them that they had to be American for the day. When you give a gift to a Chinese person, she/he sets it aside and opens it later. One student explained to me (Renee) that if I give someone a gift, that person knows it is wonderful because I gave it. Besides, the friendship is more important than the gift. I explained to my classes that half the fun of gift giving in America is watching the person enjoy opening the gift. So we opened the gifts one by one to many ooohs and aaahs. In my (Rich) classes the students sang Christmas songs, and we joined with Renee's classes to sing some carols together. We even tackled "The Twelve Days of Christmas," which turns out to be a great oral English exercise. Some of Renee's classes planned a Christmas party, which included games that often were creative and challenging. Maybe Renee will become a game player.

One of the party highlights for me (Renee) was a nativity pageant. I guess the students remembered that I said in America we always had a nativity pageant in our church to remind us of the story. Well, this one included a pregnant Mary, sound effect of knocking at the door of the in and a baby's cries, and an adorable angel of the Lord. It was wonderful. Another prelude to Christmas was two of my (Rich) students -two Chongqing men (men from Chongqing men are famous for being good cooks) - came to cook us a meal. They and we enjoyed the evening. On the Tuesday before Christmas the department also gave us a dinner to make the season bright.
Christmas eve was a special time. We had been asked by the Evangelical church in town if we would sing. Of course, we would. We try not to turn down any offers or requests. We prepared to sing in English and Chinese "What Child Is This." The show at the church is a party where this evening 17 groups danced or sang for the congregation. (For some reason it reminded me of Amahl and the Night Visitors when the shepherds entertained the Three Kings.) We were number 15 on the program. We were only there by grace because we missed the rehersal since all the announcements were in Chinese. But we did it, enjoyed it, and were well received. After this we went to a Club. One of my former students had invited us to come. She sings there every night. We enjoyed a little Christmas music, colorful lights, and an appreciative Chinese audience.

Christmas day brought a morning of classes. After class two of my students took us to lunch. Then we went back to our apartment where students visited us the rest of the afternoon. Many of them brought apples which is the standard Christmas gift (Apple is Ping guo - ping means safety, peace) Some of them stayed and talked and we enjoyed the afternoon We ushered them out around 5:00 because the 5 American foreign teachers were going to go out to dinner together. Dinner wasn't so great but the company was, and most of us wore Santa hats to add to our image as crazy waiguoren. (foreigners) The proprietor asked us to sing a Christmas song, and we obliged with We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
Between Christmas and New Year there were some major events. Saturday brought an English event on the public square. Renee and I sang "When Christmas Comes to Town." If you don't know it, look it up. It's from The Polar Express and the Chinese know it. But the highlight of the day was Renee's play, a version of "A Christmas Carol." That play was several months in the making. We (Renee) had auditions, singing and dancing, a cast of 40plus and headaches like you wouldn't believe. I was hoping to include non-English majors, which happened, but it also meant that scheduling rehearsals was a nightmare, since very few things are scheduled in China. It's all sort of "spontaneous." Amyway, after obstacles too numerous to mention, we finally had a chance to perform. The conditions were less than ideal, and the result was a little less than ideal, but the Chinese are fond of saying that the process is more important than the product. And Scrooge "peaked" at just the right time. That evening ended with salsa. cheese dip, and tortillas tasting better with a homemade Harvey's Bristol Creme -- all courtesy of Ron, a native of Arizona.

Sunday we spent seven hours outside in very cold weather. (No wonder I have a cold). Students from City College and the local Family Church took us to a village where they put on a Christmas show for the townsfolk. It was fun to see the back courtyard of a farmhouse transformed into a stage. Great to see the countryside and those who work in it. Wonderful to see the students give themselves so freely to the gathered crowd. In return for all of this we received a lunch. Simple, but tasty food. We were told they slughtered a pig for us.

Tuesday brought another dinner to celebrate the coming New Year. Thursday was my debut as a wedding official. One of the men at the gym where I study Tai Chi asked me if I would take part in his wedding. They gave me a script and for a week I practiced each day. The wedding must have had about 500 people, but I knew only a handful. I gave it my best Chinese which people say they could understand; Renee's tutor,who had written the script for me, said it exceeded her greatest expectations. I felt good about it too.

New Year's eve we went to a masked ball at the school. It was only the third dance of the entire school year because most activities have been canceled ostensibly because of the threat of flu. The dance was just like all the others, but because we had not had one for awhile we were glad to take part. After this 6 of the 8 foreign teachers - this time the Russians joined us - went to the Club to hear some music and to usher in the New Year. To our surprise it was almost empty. The band, though, and my friend the singer entertained us. About 10 minutes to midnight, they had the countdown. (We think they were trying to think of some polite way to get rid of us. After all, it is not their holiday and they wanted to go home and to bed.) and we celebrated. The westerners sang Auld Lang Syne and the Chinese appreciated. We took over the stage and sang some more songs. By the time we left, we had to wake the gatekeeper up so we could get back into the school. A memorable New Year.

There are more stories and events, and people but too many to tell. One of them will surely be told later. It was a very festive time for us, unlike last year, which was very quiet. Next year in America:)

This term Renee asnd I are both teaching seven classes/fourteen hours of classes a week. This is a normal load for Peace Corps teachers in China. Also, Renee and I both have all sophomore classes. She teaches at Hong He where we now live. I teach three classes here, but four classes in Xing Hu where we used to live. I take the bus three times a week. But as you remember Xing Hu is beautiful and we have friends there among teachers and students. Renee comes once a week to visit and we eat with some students.
Various things break up the time. Renee is working on producing a play of A Christmas Carol in English (a monumental task, by the way, in a land where no schedule ever remains the same for more than a few hours and we have yet to have everyone at a rehearsal and we don't know where and when we will perform. Oh, my! But I figure none of the effort is wasted. The students have had a lot of opportunity to hone their oral English skills.) and I continue to enjoy my tennis and ping pong and tai chi. Then we have a few regular activites - a trip to a big store in Chongqing once a month, English Corner, dinner with students, church, and lots of casual social interactions. One weekend we went to Chongqing to the Anti-Japanese War Museum (War of Resistance against Japan Museum) The curator wants to change the name. I have been working on their English signage.
Then last week we had four days and three nights in Jiangjin. Jiangjin was where we were last summer to teach the teachers. We were invited to come back and visit the teachers , see what they were doing, and share some more ideas. It takes some planning and effort to do this as we had several classes to make up and plans to be made in order to go with everyone's permission.
The visit did not go exactly as we had envisioned. We visited mostly primary schools. At each school one of the teachers gave a demonstration lesson to a relatively small class with multimedia equipment. They did great, but we did not see a typical Chinese teaching situation. Then Renee and I did a lesson. It was Thanksgiving time so we talked about giving thanks and did a song. Then we met with the teachers. At each school they had invited all of their English teachers and other local teachers to come to observe the lessons. In each school we had twenty or so teachers watching us and talking with us. We were surprised to like being celebrities. (Actually, I wasn't surprised. I have always liked being a celebrity:) At each of the schools we were greeted by swarms of kids, some even wanting autographs!
One afternoon we went into the countryside and up a mountain to see a tea plantation and take a wet walk. On the way back we stopped at a school. The students obviously were not used to seeing foreigners. Instead of running towards us, they stepped back from us. Our first attempts at greeting them failed. Finally, one of the Chinese with us took my hand and shook it. Then a few students were brave enough to timidly do the same. Another experience for us.
Another aspect of the trip was to visit with Mr.Li, his bride-to-be Shelly, and Summer. They were the people responsible for us this summer. We had become good friends and looked forward to spending time with them. We enjoyed our visit a great deal. Mr. Li and Shelly have now planned for their wedding to be January 10. We will be going back to Jiangjin to join in those festivities. We feel like matchmakers because we kept urging them all summer to plan the wedding for while we were here and when we would be able to come. They have done it.
Now to get through the holidays so far from home, the hardest part of being a volunteer in China. (Well, other than BEING in China, which never ceases to be an adventure.)