Preparing for the New Semester

School starts tomorrow so we have spent most of this week finalizing our lesson plans for the first few weeks.  Although we had been given a "tentative" schedule a few months ago, Stan still had two classes on the same day and the same time...until this past Friday at noon when we had the "official" word.  However, an hour ago, Nancy received notice that she now has an 8am class tomorrow morning instead of it being scheduled at 3:30 pm.  This is China!!  Our goal for the Oral English classes is to have the students speaking to each other in English for 50% of the class period via pair and group discussions, debates, role plays, etc.  There will be some individual class presentations, some cultural "lessons" about America, idioms, etc. for the balance of the time.  At least this semester we anticipate having the same students (no roster yet) and we know their abilities.

We did take time on Wednesday evening to join other BYU teachers at a western restaurant for steak.  (It was more like steak strips and was served with an egg, but it certainly was a change from the food we had on our 3 week tour.)  We were grateful that Eva joined us.  She is a Chinese teacher who assists the BYU teachers on Central Campus.  We figured we could order by ourselves from the pictures on the menu, but she was there to help with the specifics....% of meat you want done, spicy or not, type of steak, etc.  It was a major feat for the waitress to take our order for 10 people!!

During Nancy's jogging, she asked her partner Julie about trends in dating in China since we are doing a dating lesson for our oral classes.  Julie said that one of her lab students and her boyfriend of 5 years recently broke up.  Both of them are sad because they really cared about each other.  However, the boy's mom did not like the "match" and is now trying to pair up her son with a woman who can advance his career.

On Thursday evening we invited, June, a law lecturer at SDU, to come to our apartment for dinner.  (We forgot to take a picture, but hope to have one for the next blog post.)  We met her as she was the 'go between" when some parents wanted their daughters to have native speakers as tutors.  June speaks excellent English, has her PHD and attended Harvard Law School for some of her education.  She lives near us and has been willing go with Nancy to get her hair cut, etc. 

We had such a fun time with June.  She is very open and shares much of her personal life with us.  She wanted to scrap the "crispies" from the enchilada pan and asked if she could have more lemon bars.  (Who said the Chinese don't like their sweets!!)  A few tidbits we learned during our conversation:
1) She feels like her family "circumstance" is below the young man she is dating because her father died when she was nine and she was raised by a single parent.  In Chinese culture that is an issue.  However, since she has a PHD and he has a BA, she struggles with the idea
 that she earns more money.  Also an issue in Chinese culture.
2)I think we mentioned in a previous post that she has felt the #1 criteria for a future husband should be that he is a Christian.  She wants a family man who will pray with the family and resist bribery in his profession.
3)We asked her about questions we were going to ask our students during a dating lesson.  She said most college students would say they should choose their potential spouse.  She also felt that way originally, but now at her age (about 29), she thinks a parent's approval and suggestions should definitely be considered.
4)She wondered if it was wrong to think it was a plus in his favor that if she married this young man they could have two children rather than just one.  Since he is an only child and she has an older sister the expanded China policy would allow two children.
At the end of the evening she wanted to give us a hug and asked if she could introduce us to her "sort of boyfriend" so we could give her our opinion!!

Nancy made her first batch of cookies since coming to China. Stan assisted by cutting up Dove bars to substitute for chocolate chips.  Our little apartment toaster oven doesn't maintain a consistent temperature very well, but with careful monitoring the results were a taste of home!!

Today we had a visitor at Church.  His name is Gunther Karp and he grew up in Germany.  He is married to an American and they currently live in Wilmington, North Carolina.  He works for a large multinational crane company headquartered in Connecticut.  He must travel to China every two months to supervise activities in one of their facilities in Jinan. 

We learned that he is very familiar with the Hans Roth family from Switzerland.  (Hans' mother, Maria, was taught and baptized into the Church when Stan was serving as a missionary in Austria some 44 years ago.  Hans eventually joined himself.  A few years later he married Valerie and they had 10 children).  Gunther knew several of Hans' children and other prominent members who live in southern Germany.  Stan enjoyed talking with him but didn't practice much German.  It is a very small world, isn't it?