Chrstmas Gifts

 Chrstmas in China is very different than America. This is a gift I received from a friend. Can you tell what it is? It's an apple. Let me explain. Chstmas Eve in Chinese is Ping an ye (means peaceful night) Apple in Chinese is ping guo. See the first "word" This pronunciation in Chinese is the same. So, many Chinese people give apples as a gift. They sell these little boxes that fit an apple perfectly :)

Here is a gift from one of my students... Can you tell what it is???? :) :)

It's snowing!!!

I was told last night (Christmas Day Night). That it was snowing. Nicole and I looked outside and saw nothing. This morning, Nicole sent me a message saying it's white outside. Sure enough!!! It snowed in Wuhan last night and continued throughout the morning. I have pictures!

I had to tutor this morning. I bike 30 minutes to get to the place we meet. Today was a very interesting bike ride. It was slightly sleeting on the way there and snowing quite heavily on the way back. I was wearing my helmet, so by the time I got home, I had a small pile of snow built up in the crevices of my helmet. No matter, it was still and interesting experience biking in the snow!

I wanted to add more photos, but my internet doesn't work very well. :(

The courtyard at 9:00am

Courtyard at 1:00pm

Chrstmas in the Classroom

I taught my students all about the First Chrstmas. We even read the story directly from the NIV. It was sort of a happy/sad moment for me. Happy because I know some of them had no idea what Chrstmas is all about, sad because of some of the responses I got/heard  during class. Here is what some of the students said.

I was explaining who Mary and Joseph were, one student said something like "I heard something like G-d was the father, so then who is Joseph?" I then explained how Mary got pregnant. One student said, "Wow, that's amazing!" Another responded right away, "It's just a story." I was heart broken. I didn't know how to respond.

When two students were talking about the First Chrstmas, one student asked about J-sus and Zeus, "I always get them confused..." Hmm... I guess there names are similar???

Another student said, "Thanks for telling us about the first Chstmas, most Chinese people don't really know what it's all about. Now we do." Yuppers! "Now you can tell your family and friends." (This time I knew what to say. :)

At E-ster I will talk about the next great holiday :)

Halloween Pictures

 I am at a friend's place tonight and they have AMAZING internet! so I'm taking advantage of it and posting more pics!!!

Girl from "The Big Bang Theory" and Buzz Lightyear!

 

odd monster

yes, it's a man.. and the joker

bear and a cat

our pirates!!

bear pajamas... so cute :)

girl from a book, I forgot which one, sorry Lisa! and I am "A Dark Night" clever, I know :)

And Old Lady, Nicole again, a butterfly, and another pirate type person...

Wedding Pictures

Adam (groom) is talking to Linda (bride) before we go and pick her up.

They don't use Limos in China, instead they rent black cars and put pink ribbons on them.

Random picture as we were in the car. Notice what this man is doing as he's "driving" That tells you how bad traffic is...

Adam is putting hong bao (red envelopes) under the door. This will get the bridesmaids to open it

The view once the door is opened... beautiful!

Lead car... I drove in this one on the way to Linda's home.

Adam carried her down to the car!

Afterwards we went to a hotel to have dinner, we are waiting for the ceremony to begin.

Kelsey and me in my new qipao (Chinese dress) This one is a bit warmer than my other one.

Oh the horror! You asked for what?!

Here is a text message conversation I recently had with one of my students...

7:25pm Me: Can I have your email address??

7:26pm Student: My horror. celia****@sina.com

8:03pm Student: Sorry! I just wanted to say it is my honor.

8:04pm Me: Yeah, I figured :)

I didn't realize that asking for an email address would cause such a reaction. :)

Chinese Wedding

I thought I knew what a Chinese wedding was like. I mean, I've been to two of them, so I figured I had it figured out. I was wrong.... so wrong...

Last weekend I was able to participate in the entire ceremony. I will give you some step by step events.

7:00am- Kelsey, Nicole, and I were picked up to partake in the ceremony (we figured out later we were kinda the groomsmen along with one other Chinese guy).

8:00am- The line of black cars with pink ribbons were lined up and ready to go to the bride's home! I sat in the front car with the groom since I and the other Chinese guy were going to host the ceremony (that happens a bit later).

8:40am- We arrived at the bride's home... there was a lead car that recorded our trip over and as we got out of the car, basically everything we did. Firecrackers were set off to alert the bride and her family that we had arrived. After the firecrackers, we ran up to her door. The groom started knocking, but they wouldn't let him in. They asked him questions (who are you? what do you want? what's your name? why are you here? etc...) He slide red envelopes through the door full of money to encourage them to open up. Finally, he got through the front door. Her whole family was there- parents, cousins, aunts, uncles, etc...

8:50am- He does the same thing to her bedroom door. Finally, her mother came over and opened the door, then we saw the bride sitting on her bed with her dress on and flowing around her on her bed. She looked beautiful!!! Her four bridesmaids were there. This is the point where we discovered that we were the "groomsmen" The groom picked her up and carried her down to the cars. We all jumped in on the caravan and off we went! To where you ask? We didn't exactly know at this point...

10:00am- We arrived at the grooms home (his whole family was here). He carried her upstairs and set her on his bed (their new bed). They ate some soup (which I'm sure has some meaning). Offered tea to his parents and went back down to the cars (this time she could walk on her own)

11:00am- Last stop... the hotel! No we weren't checking them in for the night... we were having the ceremony and meal. The bride and groom greeted the guests as they arrived.

12:30pm- Ceremony begins! I helped host it, but sadly I made a mistake on one of my lines... So that was a little sad. However, I didn't care so much. I was honored that I was asked to be a part of their wedding in such a special way. Very seldom will we be able to see the "behind the scenes" part of the wedding. Only family and close friends get to join in the morning events.

I have pictures that I will add in the future. However, the internet isn't working very well right now so uploading pictures will be a bit difficult. There are other small things that happened which I didn't include. I didn't want to make the post too long, but if you want to know more, just let me know!

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thanksgiving is not really celebrated in China. In fact, when I asked my students what they know about Thanksgiving, they mostly just knew about turkeys. I taught them all about the history of Thanksgiving and what we do now to celebrate. We even talked about the crazy shopping day afterwards. :)

For my activity I did the same as last year... "imagine it's one week before Thanksgiving and you and your partner are both turkeys. Write a speech persuading us to eat the other person." We then voted for who we wanted to eat. It was a lot of fun! The students got very creative.

Friday night we celebrated with our friends. We had Thanksgiving BBQ- food grilled outside. It was soooooo good! About 20 friends came and we squeezed in a small small room. Very cozy!

This Sunday we are having our Thanksgiving meal for FoC. That means potluck!!!!!!!! I'm bringing the potatoes. Yummy!

Jobs found in China

I've been wanting to make a post about this for a long time. Like over a year... I just haven't gotten around to making an actual list. So, I'm going to start. I may add to it in the future, but at least it's started. Here are some jobs that you can only (or more likely) find in China.

1. puddle sweeper- there are people who sweep the streets, part of that includes sweeping any puddles that have formed. This way no person, biker, or motor vehicle will have to cross the dangerous puddle.

2. pool ball setter upper- maybe we have these in America, but I've never seen them. When you go and play pool there is a person who will set up the balls for you after each game. How convenient!

3. bike watcher- riding your bike to the store? Don't want to risk someone taking it? Find a biker watcher. Pay them a mere 8 cents to watch your bike as long as you need!

4. cheerleader- this one I'm making up myself, but wherever you see workers, you almost always see too many. I think the others are there for moral support and cheering the team on.

5. theft avoider- shopping? thinking of stealing (hopefully not)? Even if you wanted to, it would be hard. As so you as step into an aisle in the store, an employee is right there beside you. It's like shopping with a friend :)

6. McDonald's delivery person- that's right! McDonald delivers. However, Pizza Hut does not... Things are a little backwards here :)

Hangzhou Marathon

 This weekend I went to Shanghai and Hangzhou. Mostly it was time spent to see friends, but the final event was the 2012 Hangzhou International Marathon. I ran in the mini marathon with Nicole, Kelsey, Sarah, David, Andy, and our Chinese friend Ivy. It was 7km full of unique obstacles...

We started out with an obstacle... we couldn't find where to check our bags... therefore we found some friends to hold them.

The first running obstacle happened in the beginning... look at this starting line! There were so many people we couldn't even think about running! We had to slowly inch our way to open places.

This is the "starting line" Nicole and I just pushed along until we could start running.

People in this mini marathon didn't always seem like very real athletes... you can run in just about anything...

I couldn't run 7km in those! Impressive!

Or with anyone by your side...

notice the same number on the backpack. That means they knew each other. I'm pretty sure the man is her grandfather cheering her on in the middle of the race. He was running alongside of her holding her bag.

I bet they held hands the entire race

Even large costumes are ok!

We also had obstacles of bridges. There were so many people that once we hit a bridge, and people wanted to walk up, we all had to squeeze onto it. It made some interesting dodging happen!

Bridge ahead!

Next obstacle: bikes/ motorbikes/ pedestrians. They didn't really stop just because we were running, we just had to make sure we avoided them. 

 It didn't matter what we had to avoid, we finished!

 

The end is almost in sight.

A Long Day

Tuesdays are a bit of a long day. I can't really complain because I only work three days a week (two of which are half days). However, today is a bit of a marathon. I have 8 hours of teaching on Tuesdays. 8-12 and 2-6. Thankfully, I have 2 hours off for lunch. That means I get to grab some street food (no cold lunches for me, few people pack a lunch here, it's super super convenient and cheap to eat outside) and then take a nap. I am very serious about my naps. There is a couch in our teachers' lounge. There is only one cushion, so most people don't sit on it, but sleeping works well. I don't trust the cushion (I'm sure it's never been washed) so I bring my own "pillow case" This pillow case is just a hand towel- small yet big enough. I also bring a blanket. So every Tuesday at about 12:30 I curl up on the couch for my hour long nap... it's glorious!

Today, and the next four weeks, we have a special activity after school. There is a speech contest and, since the speeches are in English, they ask the English teachers to judge them. That means that after supper, from 7-9, I got to listen to speeches and score them. They are ten minutes long and it's the strangest thing... the audience doesn't really listen to them. I'm not real sure why they are even there. There is so much talking going on that as a judge I got distracted. Even with the talking, it was interesting. These were the topics... Ernest Hemingway, the negative effects of mass  media, psychoanalysis, Gangnam style (it's a song), Mark Zuckerberg (or something), and Mass media and the truth. A variety of topics.

I have at least three more of those judging nights to go...

A small trip

I have off Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays this semester. It's a great break in the middle of the week (well, sort of middle and end of the week). Usually I just hang out in Wuhan, go to study, have friends over, or just relax and plan for the next week. This week I decided to travel!

Two years ago I went to a city called Yichang. I went with a friend and we explored the area. It's known for the Three Gorges, a beautiful place along the water. Since there is a super fast train to this place (only two hours one way) and I have some friends that live there, I decided to pay another visit. So, I jumped on a train and headed to Yichang! This is what I saw...

On the boat on the way to the final destination.

We rode up the mountain, then hiked down- definitely the best way to do it.

Just in case you didn't know!

I just like this picture.

Another one! This time it tells you in four languages!

It's true... It's a good place :)

My friend and Chinese teacher

A beautiful place hidden in China. :)

The big 10

This quarter in kids study we have been doing the "big 10". It has been nice to have clear goals in mind as we teach the story and topic each week. It has been fun, but also a bit challenging at times. For example, yesterday I taught the 6th commandment to 4-6th graders (mostly boys). As I taught it, their parents were watching and listening. I was nervous about it since the 1st commandment, but it went well. Kept it simple. ;)

Today I taught older kids the same material, but at a different place. We are a week behind, so I taught the 5th commandment. We were talking about how hating someone is as bad as murder. One boy responded, "Now I understand why everyone is a sinner, we can't keep this one." BINGO! Everyone is a sinner, we can't keep this one or any of them. He realized his sin, then I could share with him the love of a S-vior.

Soon we get to move on to the articles! There we really get to explain who HE is and what HE has done! :)

A Unique Adjective

One of my favorite things to do with friends is bake. It's easy, somewhat cheap (although butter is a bit expensive), and nice to enjoy some American baked goods afterwards. This past week I decided to bake some apple crisps with a friend. This led to a very unique adjective to describe Americans.

First you need to know the ingredients to understand my friend's amazement. On the apples I put white sugar, cinnamon, and a little flour. For the topping I used brown sugar, flower, butter, and oatmeal. Then you put it in a pan and wait for the deliciousness!

We cut up too many apples, not a big deal, I just put them in with the sugar and then eat the leftovers. I took an apple slice and ate it. My friend was shocked, "you are eating raw flour!". I was thinking 1) There isn't much in it (about 1 Tbs) and 2) What's the big deal? Then I ate some of the topping (sooooo gooood!) "you are eating raw flour AND raw oatmeal????!!!!!" Really? What's wrong with that? It taste really good!

My friend started to think of a word that describes Americans. This is what I got, "someone that lived a long time ago" I said, "primitive?" "I don't know... maybe..." I looked up the word and, sure enough, primitive is the word. Why you ask? How are American's primitive?? Well, we eat raw stuff like flour, oatmeal, and veggies (they don't eat raw vegetables in China). And... in my friend's word's "you take a slab of meat and cook it over a fire... that's primitive". If that "slab of meat" is alluding to steak, hamburgers, or brats, I'm ok that Americans are a little primitive :)

Dubbing Show

Last night I served as one of the jurors (not sure why they didn't call us judges) for my school's dubbing contest. Dubbing is when they take the voices out of the movies and others speak for them. Sometimes they do this when they play an English movie in China. They take out the voices and put in Chinese ones. However, tonight it was all in English. From English to English.

Each class could send two at the most, my class had two. Some classes only sent one (there was a semifinals- they didn't make the cut). Well, it was very interesting to judge. The first two groups were horrible!!!!!!! I couldn't understand them, their clips were really long and really boring. I scored them in the 60's, very poor. My class were clips 5 and 6. They did amazing!!!!!!!!!!! I worked with them quite a bit, so I knew where they struggle and where they usually do well. Their performance was nearly flawless! However, my class is also one of the higher level classes, so... they should be a bit better than the others.

After every three clips, they share the results... which, I feel is a bit odd because then everyone knows who is winning. There is no waiting and suspense at the end. In fact, the last clip was really bad, so almost EVERYONE left (not kidding, I turned around and there were like 20 people left- we started with over 200).

Needless to say, the only real competition was for first and second, both from my class. My girls won. They did the opening scene from "Enchanted" It was very well done! I helped them three times over the past few weeks, so that song has been dancing around in my head. Congrats class 4!

A Random "Sister"

There are a lot of people here. No matter where you go, someone else is going to the same place. You can never really feel alone... except when you think about how many of those probably know about HIM. Chances are less than 1% of them. I highly doubt that as a foreigner, I'm the only one that feels that way.  I bet the Chinese Ch-sti-ns feel alone sometimes too. Here's a story about a lady who may felt a little less alone last night...

Last night I was standing outside waiting for a friend. A somewhat older lady (about 50s- so not real old) walked up to me and started handing me a piece of paper. I knew almost instantly what she wanted. My Chinese isn't real great, but my Book Chinese is pretty good. At least I can understand basic teachings. I heard a lot of the key words I hear every Sunday and during our weekly studies. The paper had all Chinese on, not real sure what it all said (my reading is still quite poor). At first I said, "I don't want it, thanks." But she persisted. So, with a smile on my face I took the piece of paper and told her "I'm a _____ too." She stopped, smiled and said, "that's great! G0d's blessings on your night."

There may not be very many of us over here, but we're growing, we're spreading, our WORK is bl-ssed! Keep us in your thoughts, they mean a lot to us and our friends. :)

Nobody ever asked me...

Tonight I had study. It was so much fun. I sat around as 7 friends learned about the amazing gift of Gr-ce. It was touching and though provoking. We were reading a section of the Book. We asked if anyone had a question. One guy asked what Gr-ce was. We easily translated it into Chinese. Then he asked what Jes-s means. This one had me thinking... Ok, now I know where this guy's level is at (it was his first time). I asked if any friends could explain who Jes-s was in Chinese. The new guy has very low English level. Of course, no one wanted to volunteer, so I had to call on someone. It was great to hear these friends explaining who he is and what he did. It was also pretty cool to understand a lot of it.

I ride my bike home with one of the friends. It's fun to chat with him on our 20 minute ride back. Today, I asked him about when he first started coming to study. Since I didn't know his history, but I know he is quite knowledgeable, I also asked him if he was washed. He said no. I asked, if he was interested in being washed. He said, "yes, I am interested, but no one has ever asked me before, so I haven't been able to learn more about it."

What!??? All we had to do was ask???? Well... I have a few more friends I think I should be asking. How silly we are. We often wait for them to come to us, but there are times when we just need to create an opportunity and ask them... who knows what they will say :o) So... G-d willing, another name will be written on the B-ptsm book in the coming weeks or months. :)

The Desert

Finally, I'm writing about the desert. I know, it's been a while, but I can still remember what we did.

The whole group finally arrived in Yinchuan by 6am on Tuesday (part of the group was supposed to be there by noon on Monday, but their bus was stuck in a lot of traffic and didn't get there until 6am Tuesday!). After organizing and paying for the trip, we threw our stuff on a bus and hit the road... destination... desert!

Almost the whole group. 26 FoCers, 3 Chinese friends

The ride over was fun, we sang songs and introduced ourselves. There were 29 of us and many were new FoC teachers, so introductions were nice. Finally, in the distant we saw the desert. Which desert you ask? Many will say the Gobi, but it wasn't the Gobi. They just think that sounds cool ;o)

Day 1: Rode about 2 hours, stopped for lunch, rode another 1 stopped for the night. During our resting time we could do anything we wanted in the desert. Part of the time was finding a quiet, private place to go to the bathroom. There are no trees or forests to go into, so you just had to climb over some dunes to find yourself a bathroom. One of the guys also brought a frisbee so we played some ultimate frisbee. The field was huge!!!!

Resting on a dune after the first lunch.

Our Frisbee field

For supper, the guides went back into the city (apparently we weren't that far away) and brought hot food for us. We had a campfire and  got ready for bed. However, something was missing... our tents were still in a pile. They neglected to tell us that we needed to set up our own tents. Not a big deal, but no fun at night when it's cold and we're tired.

Our first night's campsite minus the tents.

The first night was tough... very very cold!

Day 2: had breakfast, packed up, rode for an hour or so, had lunch, napped, got back on, rode for another hour or so, stopped for the night.

This time we set up our tents right away. Hannah and I had ours all ready to go and even took a little nap. Then we all hung out together and decided a group picture was in order. This group picture included making a fish. After that, the time in the desert got really interesting...

A fish in the desert

The wind hit and boy did it hit! They brought our food, but when we ate it, it included sand in nearly every bit. We checked out our tent but our door was broken. So, we decided to try another tent. Tents will give you privacy and a little warmth, but won't do much for the sand. It ended up everywhere! After supper we hid in our tent for a bit, then went for a devotion.

By 9pm, Hannah and I were hiding in our tent, trying to protect ourselves from as much sand as possible. The wind was ruthless. I felt like our whole tent would be picked up and flung around. I thought the first night was bad... boy was I wrong! Finally at 3 or 4 or 5 or maybe it was 6am, the wind finally stopped and rest came.

Our second night's campsite

Although it wasn't fun to sleep though, it makes and interesting story and interesting experience. I enjoyed my time in the desert. It was peaceful, beautiful, unique. Not like anything I've seen before. I also was able to spend time with friends from Wuhan and around China.

Traveling to Yinchuan!

This past week was National Holiday! That means we get about 1 week off to go traveling. As I mentioned before, it also means that the entire country is traveling at that time, so it can be quite interesting. This year I'm thankful that I was able to avoid most of the crowds. I went way way up north to Yinchuan. The capitol city of Ningxia. It's a small city of around 2-3 million (or so I've been told). I went there to ride on camels in the desert and to join in fellowship with fellow FoCers. Here is a short list of my experiences...

1. Five of us rode on a super crowded bus for 7 hours, got off, tried walking to the hotel to find out we went to the wrong one (there are 3 with the same name close to the train station). That's ok, we had time to walk some more. Arrived: 12pm

2. Day two started with the ten of us walking to find breakfast (not easy with such a large group!) I quickly took on the name of "mom". My job was to keep us together and moving forward. Then, on to the train for 20 hours!

This man wanted a picture with the 8 of us foreigners. I don't think many foreigners visit this city.

3. Train ride for a super long time. Lots of card games were played and hours spent eating and sleeping. Thankfully we had beds. Best train ride ever! (No lie!)

4. Arrived in Yinchuan! We went to Ashely and Anna's place were they so graciously allowed all ten of us to crash for a night. We were supposed to meet a fellow FoCer there to get the key. However... it turned out that Ashley was still there! She was able to show us around the apartment and help us get lunch. She also told us what we could do for the day. Having 10 people in one apartment was interesting, but thankfully we all found a place to sleep. I think most of us slept ok.

5. Yinchuan is so small we conquered it in one day (pictures coming, I didn't actually take any that day so I need to get some from friends).

6. Off to the camels!!!!!!!!!!! I'll have a post just on this since it was so cool it deserves it's own post!

Here is a hint of what it looked like. 30 camels in row walking through the desert... pretty cool!

Zeke (my camel) and me! I got him day one and randomly got him day 2. I kept him forever then :)

7. After the amazing camels I had a super long trip back... 21 hours on train #1 (8pm-6pm), 3 hour layover, 6 hours on train #2 (9pm-3:30am), 20 minute taxi ride, 2 hours of sleep, 4 hours of teaching, 2 hours of lunch with a friend... and finally... arriving back home for napping and relaxing! I also teach Sunday morning, so hopefully I can sleep early tonight :)

It was so nice traveling with 9 fellow Wuhaners (altogether there were 8 foreigners and 2 Chinese friends). We laughed, screamed (there was a scary movie watched), sang, coughed, ate, played, and rode camels together. So much fun :)