Early in the week we were contacted by one of the foreign teachers on Central Campus. He was trying to find native English speakers to record some dialogues in English for a senior high school English exam. This teacher has an acquaintance who has some responsibilities in connection with this exam, as he works with teachers in Shandong Province to research and improve education. We agreed to help, so were picked up and taken to a recording studio near the medical campus of SDU. Nancy noticed that there was an envelope marked "TOP SECRET" in the back of the car. That turned out to be conversations that we were to record for this test. After we made some "corrections" of the Chinglish in the text, we spent about 45 minutes recording. We did ok for most of the session, but the last page was a news report about pollution and the consumption of coal in the country. There were many Chinese names and places. We did not do so well!! They kept stopping the recording and asking us to repeat the names correctly! We couldn't understand why you would use copy with so many Chinese names and expect native English speakers to pronounce them accurately! We were paid for this assignment so we just did our best. Nancy had deja' vu about being in a recording studio, like during her college days at KBYU.
The recording studio was very similar to this.
It was a bit intimidating at first.
Most of the week we did some organizing of our computer files and classroom materials to try to prepare lessons for next semester. We have a tentative schedule that indicates we will likely teach the same students that we had the first semester. So, we need to make new lessons that will build on the material that we used the first of the school year.
Nancy went to get her hair cut this weekend with June, a Chinese law lecturer at SDU. She just got her PHD and is in her first year of teaching. June had originally contacted us about tutoring Sunny and Lisa and offered to help with anything we needed while in Jinan. She lives in the apartment complex next to us. Since the salon was quite busy, they had to wait and so Nancy learned more about June. During the conversation, June confided to Nancy that she is dating someone but has some concerns. June is a Christian and so is the male, so that is an important shared value. She also said she enjoys "entertaining with him". However, since June has a PHD, her earning potential is much greater than that of her "boyfriend", as he only has a BA. The Chinese don't hesitate to ask about how much money anyone makes and she is concerned about the reaction of her friends to the disparity in income. June also doesn't want to necessarily be the breadwinner in the home. Plus on the second date, he informed her that he lives with his parents because he pays their mortgage. So, if something were to work out between the two of them, they would need to start married life with his parents because he could not afford a second residence. As a Christian, June recognizes that money is not the most important value in life, but she still will have to decide if this is a 'deal breaker" to the relationship. She promised Nancy to email her with future developments!
We did want to "use up" our campus meal credits by January 10 so we enjoyed a couple of meals with BYU teachers at the faculty restaurant on Central Campus. Now that we have a translated menu for ordering food, we keep trying new dishes to provide variety to our palate since we eat there frequently. A new favorite is coated pineapple (has a sort of syrup with strings) that has to be eaten while hot or it hardens on the plate. We also enjoy a salad with a variety of greens, peanuts and vinaigrette dressing. (We just keep hoping the university washes veggies carefully!!) However, we once had popcorn shrimp that was wonderful, but we have not recently been able to order it correctly. We keep getting fried shrimp with the eyes looking at us!! Some of our teachers discovered we could use meal credits to purchase drinks, so we each stocked our home refrigerators with peach juice, orange soda or water. It is quite comical to see the expression of the restaurant employees when we place an order for 24 sodas! We decided that next semester we will try to spread out our meal credits. The six teachers on Central Campus will have one night per week that we will eat together and then we will invite the other five teachers on Shandong Normal Campus to join us once a month and we can pay for their meals.
The six of us who teach on SDU campus eating at the Central Campus faculty restaurant. Behind Nancy is David Cox and Libby Clarke. Behind Stan is Zina Cox and Wayne Clarke. Notice we are all wearing our coats as they don't heat this building very much. Plus there are no forks and knives since we have mastered eating with chopsticks! (well enough to get most food into our mouths)
Tuesday we are heading to a spa resort for an overnight trip with some of the BYU teachers. A few teachers are still doing finals at Shandong Normal University so they can't attend. (The two universities don't always have the same schedules. SDU starts the second semester on Feb. 24, but Shandong Normal starts March 3). The spa trip was suggested by one of the BYU teachers who was taken there a few weeks ago by her university and loved the experience. She especially like the little tiny fish that nibbled at her toes!! Our Chinese church member has a husband who takes Chinese to the US on guided tours so he arranged this trip for us.
This week we are also planning a trip to the Jinan zoo to see the panda bears and get ready for our 3 week tour. We leave Saturday for Shanghai, Hainan Island (sun!), our BYU Teachers Hong Kong Conference, a SW China tour and a trip to Cambodia and Vietnam. We likely won't update our blog until returning mid February.
During finals one of Stan's Korean students brought him this jar. It looks like orange marmalade. We discovered that it can be added to hot water to make a fruit "tea' but it can also used on bread.
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