This has been an emotional week for our BYU family in Jinan. Steve Schauerhammer, a teacher at Shandong Normal University, has been struggling with medical symptoms for several months and has had many diagnostic tests. To this point each had indicated everything was normal except a higher white blood cell count. He has been pursuing this more vigorously the last few weeks. Wednesday he learned he had a serious medical issue and it was recommended that he return to the US for further diagnosis and treatment. On Friday at noon we were informed that Steve and Sue would be boarding a plane on Saturday so we hastily organized a farewell dinner at Pizza Hut. We all tried to remain positive, but we are anxious about his health. We will miss them very much!!
The BYU teachers at Pizza Hut. From the left: Libby and Wayne Clark, Hansen, Kathy and Simon, at the "head" of the table (Kathy and her son are church members and Simon is her husband), Jim and Wendy Purnell, Sue and Steve are seated next to Nancy. David and Zina Cox plus Pam Carter were also with us, but that part of the picture did not turn out!
As if we didn't have enough calories at Pizza Hut, we went to Purnell's apartment and had more food...cookies, candy and ice cream. Steve and Sue were appreciative of our concern and friendship.
Friday was "Girls' Day" in China and Saturday was "Womens' Day". In writing class on Friday the boys brought breakfast to the girls and Stan! Another writing class went out to eat together on Friday night. (We "ran into them" heading for the bus to go to Pizza Hut). One of Stan's classes honored girls by having a gathering to make dumplings on Saturday mid morning and they invited us to join them. Unfortunately, we misunderstood the timing of the event and the dumplings were all finished when we arrived!! We still took photos and came home with dumplings for our lunch. (They are not Stan's favorite, but if we fry them slightly he doesn't mind them on occasion.)
One of the girl's grandmother was invited to attend the dumpling activity. She is 86 years old and lives five hours from campus. She was very excited to meet two foreigners. She kept hugging us. Of course she did not speak English. We still communicated through our smiles. We asked if she "supervised" the making of the dumplings, but the students said they didn't need her help. She was there as support!
Melissa, in the center, explained the different fillings for the dumplings. One was fennel, one was Chinese cabbage and ground pork and one was Chinese "cheese" and some meat - they couldn't tell us an equivalent name in English!
Stan's junior writing class posing with their teacher and grandma!
Saturday evening one of the BYU teachers was able to purchase "group discount" tickets to the Jinan Acrobatic Show. (Regular price was $30/person US and we got them for $7. Plus we had front row seats!!) All the BYU teachers went including Lily. Since we had the opportunity in November to go to the Beijing acrobats we had a point of comparison. That performance was the one with the 8 motorcycles in a cage so it is hard to compete with such acts. However, we were amazed at how skilled the Jinan performers were at their age. We guess that most were teenagers and some were as young as 6 or 7. There was some '"chinglish" projected on the screen that helped us understand what was happening. Much of the show was based on scenes from the Beijing Opera. The costumes and sets were very colorful.
Lily took this one.
David and Zina Cox with Lily before the performance started. We were quite the attraction....all these Americans in a row!!
Balancing with stacked chairs
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