Christmas in China

Merry Christmas y'all...Sheng dan kuai le.
    Hope you all had a safe and warm Christmas with your families. Christmas here in China was just another work day for most people. Not much in the way of decorations were around town. Some shopping malls had a Christmas tree, and the supermarket was playing Christmas songs, but that's about it. The university let us cancel our classes on Christmas, which was nice. We mixed some Christmas stuff into our classes during December though. They were very interested to learn about how Americans celebrate Christmas. We had a couple of parties for the students, and we attended a party at the church. They asked us to perform something, so we performed a song. It didn't drive them away, so that was a plus.
   On Christmas day we went to mass. It was freezing cold. There is no heat in the church, so everyone is bundled up, steam rising from their breath. The mass started with a marching band.

Two big base drums and a few horns and trombones. I'm going to suggest to Fr Mark that we start doing this at St. Francis...uniforms and all. It wakes you up on a cold winter's morning. It was so cold, but it didn't keep anyone from coming to church and celebrating. The place was packed. This community is very strong and vibrant. It is an honor to worship with them each Sunday.
Christ's Peace to you and your loved ones.
  
 

Christmas Spirit

I play this almost everyday. My students love this video. Hope you do too.

Merry Christmas from Marianne and Paul

Sadness and Joy

 This was a very sad week for us and for our dear friends and family in Raleigh. We lost a beautiful friend this week, Rosalina Rodriguez. She had a great zest for life, and she always made you feel important to her. We celebrate her life, but she is missed.

We ask you to join in our prayers for her and her dear family. God welcomes her with open arms.



 We hope you all are doing well. Baoding has been very cold these past few weeks, and this week we've had some snow. We have been battling colds, but we are doing ok. We have a few weeks to go until the end of the semester. Christmas season is a little different around here. There are occasional Christmas trees decorated in front of some stores, but not very much. We have been playing Christmas songs in our classes this month. They are very curious about how we celebrate. Some of them exchange presents on Christmas, but that's about all they do. The American teachers do our best to share some Christmas spirit with them. There are some Christmas parties next week for our students. I'm playing Santa, and at the church we've been attending has asked us to do a performance of some kind for them. We'll come up with something.

   Last week, the students had some talent shows and we were invited to attend. Gangum Style is a popular dance here in China.

Here are four of my students reciting a poem. Their English name are Abby, Aida, Aggie, and Syval.

Marianne's students are performing a skit. Their English names are Daniel, Olivia, and Drew.

Here is some of my students doing what looked like a Robert Plante song. Logan played the part very well. 

And here is one of my classes doing a group song. I know we've said it on eariler posts, but our students are really nice kids. They are a joy to teach.

There is a student club called English Corner that meets each Tuesday evening. The foreign English teachers, that's us, usually attend. We have activities that give them more practice with listening and speaking English. Last Saturday they wanted to make traditional Chinese food for us. So they rented a kitchen, bought the ingredients and made all kinds of food. We all helped too.

Marianne and Michelle and making dumplings. They were pork and cabbage and they were very good.

Amber, Michelle, and Marianne.

After a hour of cooking, it was time to starting tasting. Amber and Raphael are enjoying the the food.

They made a very delicious oyster dish. I'm not a big oyster fan, but this was very good. It was very spicy...I mean three-alarm spicy.

   We made a couple of American things too. We made some omlettes, Amber made some cooked apples, and Michele made some french bread pizza. It was an interesting mix of foods. We all had fun cooking, eating, and talking. And the best part was that we didn't have to clean up. We survived the meal...didn't get sick on anything.

    Doing activities with the students is really enjoyable. There is not much to do here in Baoding. With the cold and sometimes wet weather and the often bad air, there is not much incentive to venture outside. But it's good when we're with the students or our colleagues. 

   We hope all your Christmas parties are fun. Christ's peace to you, friends this Christmas season.

Road Warriors

Hey!!!
    Well, Thanksgiving is over. It was a very tough time for us. Not having family close by was very difficult. We really miss you all. We did the best we could for the Thanksgiving meal. On Thanksgiving Day we went to an Italian restaurant that we found. It is owned by a real Italian. It was not just a pizza place. They had a very nice menu that even included tiramisu. The food was great.
   On Saturday we had a meal with the other Americans. Everyone made part of the meal. We didn't have turkey so we had to be satisfied with chicken. Marianne made home-made rolls and stuffing. We even had three pies. Everything turned out very well.

   We didn't get to jump in a pile of leaves, or play football in the yard, but we had a nice meal with our colleagues.
   On the plus side, I didn't have to rake any leaves this fall. Leaf raking is done daily here in Baoding by an army of people. The gutters are swept clean each night.
   Another thing we've noticed is that there are lots of little dogs in Baoding. I have not seen many big dogs, like the size of Irish setter. During the day, the dogs seem to gather for some kind of community meeting, then they go out to check on things. The amazing thing is that they never get hit by the traffic. I watched a group of four little dogs cross a busy intersection at rush hour, and they made it across the street without a scratch. No problem. They acted like they owned the place. There has been many a night when I thought it was a miracle we made it back the apartment in one piece. Its not a big deal deal for dogs. I could probably learn a lot from them.

   Here we are, ready for whatever the Baoding streets throw at us. Marianne has her 'game face' on. Somehow, people still know we're foreigners. Thanks to Brian for sending the reflector vests. They are very helpful at night.

   

We ride our bikes just about every day. To class, to the grocery store, to make copies...it's how we get around. Electric bikes are very popular here. We call them 'Silent Killers'. They don't make any noise, so you can't hear them coming up on you, so if you make a sudden turn...whammo!! You're on the ground wondering what hit you. When you finally get your wits back again, the old lady is already gone.

   We found a new supermarket. They've a a small imported section where we found Campbell's soup and other familiar things. They even have aisle signs in English-something new for us so far.  The reason the photos below are a little blurry is because I was so excited to see what was in the 'Fresh & Alive' aisle. It was right next to the 'Mushy drinks' aisle.

  We have four more weeks until our first semester classes are over. We will cancel classes class on Christmas day, which is nice. We've been invited to a Christmas party at the Catholic church. We might have to perform again. Yikes!
   Y'all have a great December. We wish we could be attending all the Christmas parties in Raleigh and especially being with you We miss you all very much. Save me some pie.

The Great Wall

Hey to family and friends. Winter is coming to China a little early. We've had snow last week, and we encountered some snow when we visited the Great Wall last Saturday. We took the train to Beijing and stayed at the Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel, again. Its really a great place to stay when visiting Beijing. It is very cheap, and they have private rooms along with the dorm rooms. The private rooms are clean and comfortable, and the bathroom has a western toilet. They have a nice little cafe that serves western and Chinese food till 11 pm. Its a great place to meet people traveling from all over the world. We met people from Brazil, Mexico, Spain, Belgium, and Poland. Everyone spoke English to some degree. English is really an international language. Most people are very eager to talk about their experiences in China, the good and the difficult.
   We join a tour going to the Wall from the hostel. It was about a 2 hr bus ride to the Wall, which is west of Beijing. The bus driver was a maniac. He must have blown the horn 500 times. He wasn't stopping for anyone. It was raining in Beijing so the roads were wet, but that didn't slow us down. I stopped counting the near misses after ten. But we made it.
   As you would expect , the Wall is in the middle of nowhere in the mountains. It reminded me of the Smokey Mtns in NC. The rain had turned to a wet snow. It wasn't very windy, so it wasn't too bad.

This is view of the Wall from where the bus parked. We took a cable car ride up to the Wall. Thank goodness for the cable car.

Once up on the Wall, we had 4 hours to spend hiking. As you can see, the weather wasn't the best for getting scenic views. It started snowing and the footing was slippery. But there wasn't a lot of people there that day, so that was good. We hiked the whole distance you can see in the photo below. The Wall goes farther, but its not in good condition, so it is closed to tourists.

Every quarter mile or so there would be a guard tower. I can't imagine what is was like to live in these  buildings. Lonely, hot/cold, and probably hungry, and they didn't have the tourist vendors around to sell them drinks and snacks.

This is the last leg of the climb. Watch tower 23 is at the top of these stairs. That's as far as we could go. It is a killer climb.

 We made frequent stops to catch our breath. 

The last few yards to the top are very steep. You feel like Rocky running the steps of the Philly Art Museum.

Once at the top, it was time to rest and take a few pictures. Here we are on watchtower 23...happy that the hard part was over, we thought. It was starting to snow a little heavier, so it was time to head back to the bus. It was downhill most of the way. I think that was harder on knees than going uphill. But we lunch was waiting us, so that was incentive enough for me. 

We wanted to give our son, Brian, a Happy Birthday card from the Great Wall...

It was a great day on the Great Wall, even with the weather. We met some really nice people and climbed the Great Wall. Sweet.

Group trip to Beijing...then Halloween

Da jia hao!! Hello everyone!! Hope you all are getting ready for Halloween. We are reading about Hurricane Sandy coming up the east coast of the US. Hope you all are safe and dry. To all our friends and family in the northeast, we are praying that the storm isn't as bad as expected.

Our boss, Emily (Shi Wanyun) took us all to Beijing for the weekend. She wanted to show us some of her favorite places in Beijing. We went to Fragrant Mountain, the National Symphony, and Ti'anamin Square. The National Symphony is a very beautiful building. It looked like a big bubble. The music was very good. It was a good night.

In Ti'anamin Square there were many people taking photos. Yes, Marianne was the subject of much attention. Our boss, Emily and one of our colleagues, Mickelle are standing in front of the big flower pot. As you can see, the air quality was not very good that day.

We wanted to up in the building with Mao's picture, but there was over an hour wait to up there. We decided the view wouldn't be that great because the air was so bad that day.  So we went to lunch at TGI Fridays, heaven on earth...western food. It was great. The restaurant was in a fashionable part of Beijing. Here was a nice coffee shop with a great slogan.

Here was some great statues. Look at the size of their feet...amazing.

Our last stop before going back to Baoding was at Jenny Lou's. The store is located near the embassy section of Beijing. This store carries many imported foods. Here we are ready to go in. We brought extra shopping bags to haul back our goodies. I finally got some hot sauce for my next batch of hot wings. We filled our bags and then headed back to catch our train to Baoding.

Halloween Party

We had a Halloween Party for the students. We had explained Halloween to our students over the past week. So when we had the party we had a great turnout. I dressed as a pirate, my true calling. Actually it was the only hat I could find that would fit me. Marianne had a great mask that was very girly. Once some of the girls saw it, they all took turns wearing her mask. Here are some photos of the party.

The girl to my left is wearing Marianne's mask.

I had class today with some of these students and some of them still had paint on their faces. Yes, they were the boys.

We have been following the news about Sandy. We have been concerned that our family and friends were ok. We are praying that NJ, NY, PA, and other states affected by the storm recover quickly. Good to see people helping each other, working together.

Lost in translation...

Da jia hao!!! That's 'Hello everyone!!!'  We thought we'd share a few photos of some things here in Boading. Very few people speak English beyond, "hello" and  "Nice to meet you" (similar to our extent of Chinese but we are improving with our weekly lessons and need for survival), but having English on your clothes is common. It leads to many shirts that we read as we walk along that don't seem to make any sense to us. But it would be rude, we think, to take pictures of people or their shirts and there are so many odd ones that we forget what they say before we have a chance to write them down. But here are some examples on various things. Superlatives are common, even if they don't exactly go together. But all in all, it's tons better communication than our Chinese.

 

Just a few of the sights that made us take a second look. 

Fall is arriving here in China. We've had to break out the woolies to keep us warm at night. The heat in our building won't turn on for a few more weeks. It hasn't been that cold yet, but I hope the heat comes on soon. 

We had a lot of rain yesterday so today the air is clean. Everyone's mood seems to cheer up when the air is clean. Cabin fever can get to you very quickly in these small apartments. 

This weekend our boss is taking the English teachers to Beijing. We hope to see a few places we didn't see on our previous trip. Should be fun. They promised we'd eat a meal at a western restaurant, like Sizzlers or TGI Fridays. Can't wait.

 

Sports Day on campus

Ni hao, y'all. Things here in Baoding are going well. We had a very busy week of classes. We also met about 100 students for English Corner where students can practice speaking English in a more relaxed setting. We met outdoors after dinner time, where we played some games and danced to the Cupid Shuffle. It was a hit.

This photo was taken in front of the Beijing Art Museum with the much younger couple teaching with us- Lauren and Cuyler. The sculpture reminds us of the helmet or bean in a downtown Chicago park.


Its Sports Day on campus this weekend. Classes were cancelled today and the students participated in track and field events. They were having a good time cheering on their classmates. Marianne was again very popular with the students. She was in many group photos, again. I have to start makin' some money off this.

Marianne with her many fans. 

The girl next to Marianne is Felice. She is our Chinese teacher. We have a quiz on Monday. Gotta study.

Below are a couple of short videos of the sports action. The Back-to-back race was very exciting. These teams needs to work on their technique a little more.

Here, the boys are running a heat of the 800 meters. They all start out great, but they are usually struggling at the end.

I met one of my students there and he told me he's running in the 5,000 meter race on Saturday. I asked him if he ever ran that far before and he said 'No.' I asked him if he's been training for the race, and he said, 'Well, I've been riding my bike.' I'm not sure if he'll be in class on Monday.

At 12:00, everyone took a break for lunch and a nap.

We promised some more photos of our trip to Shanghai.

This are the fountains at the People's Square. Its a nice space in a busy city.

The city is very beautiful at night. Many building are lit up and neon lights are everywhere. Along the river is a  promenade called 'The Bund'. People flock here to get some great night views of the city.  

This is old part of Shanghai. As you can see it is a very popular place to visit. It was tough to get through this part of the city, but we made it and eventually found our way back to the hotel for a well deserved nap.

We ran into these folks on Nanjing Rd early one morning. Marianne had a hankering for a Mr. Donut and on our way we saw the seniors doing their tai chi and dancing. From midday to midnight, this pedestrian street is packed with shoppers and people-watchers, but at 8am it belongs to the seniors.

We found a nice Italian restaurant that serve a great Caprese salad with fresh mozerella. We went there twice. We also found a place that had good burgers and quesadillas. So after loading up on western food and four days of sightseeing in Shanghai it was time to head back to Baoding. We had a long but good train ride back, and met some nice students along the way that wanted to practice their English.

 The young man to the left had a 14 hour train ride to his university in southern China. No big deal.

The young man below was a student at Nanjing University.  They both promised to be our tour guides if we came to their city.

The Fall Moon Festival week

'Hey' to all our family and friends. We've had a great week off for the Fall Moon Festival. It was also the National Holiday this week. That's like our July 4th. Both holidays in one week meant that most people were also off. So the trains were packed and the big cities were full of people celebrating the holidays. We decided to take the time to travel to Shanghai. We had to take a train to Beijing first so we spent a day there. We stayed in a hostel for the first time. It was a great experience. We would do it again.

It was the Happy Dragon Courtyard Hostel. It was a fun place with very good food.

This was the door to our room. The accommodations were simple, but comfortable. The staff spoke English very well and they were very helpful.
 
We had a full day to touring around. We started at Tian'anmen Square and the Working People's Cultural Palace near the Forbidden City.

As you can see, the weather was perfect, and the air was very good. After spending a few hours here, we headed to the Beijing Art Museum. It is a very good museum specializing in mostly modern art. I think this piece was very well done.

I was getting hungry after a full day of being a tourist. So we headed back to the Happy Dragon for some pizza. It was very good. They had a great rooftop dining area in the cafe. It was neat. The sun was setting and the cool breeze was so comfortable. We were with Cuyler and Lauren. They are the young couple who's teaching with us in Baoding. They had been doing their own touring, so we shared stories of what we saw in Beijing.

The next morning it was time to go to Shanghai. We took 4+ hr ride to Shanghai on the bullet train.

The top speed was 191 mph. Nice ride.

Marianne here: Shanghai has the Wall Street of China and so it's very cosmopolitan with many large skyscrapers.Historically it was under European influence and so many of the older buildings are right out of London, France and the US.

After learning how to navigate the subways of Beijing, we got comfortable with the Shanghai metro system- us and millions of other visitors. Although we saw many more westerners here than we ever see in our own town of Baoding, there were also many folks in from the country for the break and many had never seen anyone who looked like me.Therefore many people wanted to take their picture with us or of us and once a few started, it was like an avalanche. Many times we just had to fight off the paparazzi and escape. Maybe we should have just started charging and recoup our travel expenses.

We certainly have more photos and stories to share but we'll end it here for now to concentrate on prep for our classes. We'll post again as soon as we can.