Another GREAT Week!

We have now completed our ninth week of classes.  We wish we could say that the planning and evaluating are getting easier.  One would have to use a microscope to see the progress.  We do enjoy the students and the challenge.  To teach them something that will improve their writing and speaking does keep our blood pumping and the neurons firing.  At our age, it means we are still alive.  At least we can be grateful for that.

 

Nancy and I share one Junior English Translation class.  She has them for Oral language and I have them for Writing.  We have to coordinate our lessons so we don't duplicate things each of us wants to share.  In our lesson about Halloween, "I was instructed" to NOT show the pictures of our grandchildren because it was her turn to brag about them. 

 

This is our Translation Class.  The "bunny" ears is something you will see in almost every picture, without exception.  Why??? Who knows?

 

We spent the weekend reading Journal Entry #1.  These were 1 1/2 - 2 page essays on the topic, "A Place I Will Never Forget."  This was a descriptive writing assignment and we wanted them to write from memory.  We were hopeful that it would represent their own thoughts and not something "borrowed" from other sources.  (Plagiarism is a major problem in China.  We might address it in this BLOG at another time).   Overall, their ideas, organization and voice of their compositions were quite good.  The problem is word choice and grammar.  They may have wonderful ideas, but when they translate them from Mandarin thought into English it turns into "Chinglish"!! Here are a few samples of the phrases we see frequently on papers, plus a few sentences from better papers...all unedited.

 

..."the host of the café bar would give us a topic that was remarkably relevant to us and the guests would sacrifice their opinion on these topics."

 

..."the whole inner scene of the station accompanied by sweet broadcast voice twittering around my ears from time to time.."

 

...."my grandparents removed to a larger house a few years ago.  But they still kept the lively flowers..."

 

.."sometimes my classmates and I together drew something lovely on the blackboard at the back of the classroom and it was happy."

 

..."at this moment a spectacular building erects there...."

 

..."When I was little, I spent most of my enjoyable time in the tiny hole of a willow.  Functioning as a silent companion, the little secret base has played a rather important role during my early years..."

 

...."In the middle of the room is my big, cozy, warm bed where I can fully relax myself.  It also had its own stories.  When I was at home, in the mornings, my mom often come to my room, lying under the quilt with me.  Then 'mom-daughter chatting time' began.  We talked about everything, but mainly about my life.  Sometimes when we mentioned something interesting, our laughter would swirl in the room.   Those were the rosy memories I would never forget.  However, I bet my father must envy us at those moments, for he found himself unable to chime in the mom-daughter conversation, and the only thing he could do was to make breakfast." 

 



Since we wanted to take a break from grading writing papers on Saturday, we joined our BYU friends, Wayne and Libby Clarke, for a tour of their "

neighborhood".  It was a very rainy, dreary day, but we felt that we were in Oregon and just sloshed through the puddles!  We first visited a partially covered cultural market.  Displayed were items like furniture, decorative rocks, pet turtles, beads, carvings, nuts and children's toys.  Several vendors were packing up when we arrived due to the weather and lack of crowds.  (Sorry, but we forgot to bring out the camera since we were trying to dodge downspouts!!)

 

We then found an underground civil defense bunker which is now a very long narrow aisle "mall" of small modern clothing shops selling sweaters, coats, pants, etc.! It was about 3 blocks in length! The prices were better than in a formal Chinese shopping mall, but not so good to tempt us to buy!

 

We were so hungry that we headed for the local Pizza Hut for lunch.  (I think we wrote about this earlier on the blog, but now we have a picture!)  From the photo you can tell it is no ordinary Pizza Hut.  There are waiters and waitresses and many items on the menu besides pizza.  Plus there are half price specials everyday.  Stan had a bacon, rice, mushroom dish for $3US and a smoothie with vanilla pearls.

 

Notice on the table behind the Clarke's.  NO chopsticks!

 

After lunch we headed for a special "baking shop" the Clarke's had discovered.  This store was a "goldmine" of hard-to-find baking items like cocoa, spices and other specialties.  We are not sure how much the Chinese actually cook.  Generally, those in the city probably don't cook that often and they certainly don't bake.  It's very cheap and easy to purchase meals from the street vendors or local restaurants and bakeries are on every corner.

 

The shopping was so "demanding" we needed a boost.  We wandered into the DQ and tried out the Chinese version of the Oreo Blizzard.  We felt like we were back home for just a moment.  They really are quite close to what they should be, just not so creamy. 

 

 Nancy with Wayne and Libby Clarke at the DQ.

 

 

Friday of this week, we are taking the "high speed" train to Beijing.  We will be joining many of our BYU colleagues there to explore the city and see the Great Wall.  Nancy was unable to change her Friday classes to another day, so we will be traveling alone and meeting the others in Beijing Friday evening.  We will miss a few of the activities planned but will take in most of the major sites.  It is quite easy and inexpensive to travel to Beijing so we thought we might return in the Spring and do our own tour. 

 

We have never experienced a "bullet" train.  We understand it reaches speeds of 190 mph.  It is less than a two-hour trip from Jinan.  We are looking forward to it.  We'll take some "blurry" pictures to post on this blog.