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.

 

Halloween

Halloween is not a major or even minor celebration in China.  Our students generally know a little about it and some have activities and parties with a Halloween theme.  However, most don't do anything special.  And yet, when we went to buy groceries this week, there was a section of the store with Halloween costumes and other related items.  Children were there encouraging their parents to purchase them something.  We both did a culture lesson in our classes where we actually wore a costume, (that we purchased at the grocery store), and described some of the activities associated with this holiday.  In particular, they seemed to enjoy seeing photos of our sons, Ryan and Tyler, in their Halloween costumes in times past.  We sang the "Halloween, Halloween, lots of fun on Halloween" song and practiced the "art" of really scaring someone.  We also taught them how to carve pumpkins and encouraged them to gather around a candle in the dark of their dorms and tell spooky stories.  (We practiced those in class, too!)

Though most Chinese don't celebrate Halloween, we learned that the apartment complex next to us was carving pumpkins on Wednesday night and the children were going Trick or Treating on Thursday.  There are two professors living there who are from the US but are married to Chinese women.  They started this tradition a few years ago and it has grown every year.  Those in the complex who want to participate allow their name and apt number to be posted on a list at the entrance to each stairwell. The children then know which apt door to knock on.  Our friends, Brian and Sara, who live there, invited us to participate.  We had a great time and enjoyed seeing the little Chinese boys and girls in the costumes knocking on doors and reciting, "Trick or Treat" in English.  It was definitely a unique experience.

 This is Brian carving a small Chinese pumpkin

 and his son Toby "assisting."

These pumpkins turned out really well, especially since it was a challenge carving such small pumpkins.

 This is Sara and Toby waiting for the Trick or Treaters to arrive.  Brian is in the back working on his costume.

These guys dressed up like Chinese children.  They learned

very quickly the result of saying "Trick or Treat" and did not hesitate approaching every door.

 This is Toby and his "Monster Tree" dad, Brian.  The maple leaves

 on the trees here are humongous.  Brian frightened the little ones

 without saying anything.

To the right are Brian and Sara's friends, Ben and his son Alex.  Ben's mom lives in Forest Grove and his sister and husband live in Gaston.  It's a small world.  Both Brian and Ben are professors here at Shandong University.


We have an outdoor track very close to our apartment where we either walk or run mornings when we don't have classes.  There are hundreds of people there starting at 5 am until about 8.   Nancy has befriended a women who also runs nearly every day and now looks for her so they can jog together.  Her English name is Julie and she is working on her PHD and is doing research in Microbiology.  Her English is quite good and helps make that morning run a little more enjoyable.

Nancy's new friend, Julie.

After our church meetings today at the hotel, we had our dinner with our fellow BYU teachers. We were about to return to our own apartment on another campus when a group of Chinese students came to the hotel lobby.  One of our BYU teachers had spotted them in the hotel looking for  "English foreigners".  They were participating in an English class and had decided to speak English all week.  They wanted to practice their English with native speakers and were delighted to find out about 11 English speakers upstairs! We talked with them for almost an hour.  They were interested in universities in America, etc.  We also sang a song to them and they sang one in English and one in Chinese to us. 

The students are studying architecture, engineering and political science, but all are interested in improving their English. 

Believe it or not....a vendor on a bike with all those balloons.  Since the balloons are "light", I guess balance is not an issue!

Settling In

We have been in China for two full months.  We have learned and experienced so much already.  We don't think we can say that the time is just "flying" by, but we can say, "there is never a dull moment."  Lesson preparation is still a major priority, but we think we are getting a little better at it.

The weather is starting to change and we notice our apartment is quite chilly most of the time.  We understand that we cannot expect to have heat in our apartment building until around the 15th of November.  For now we just bundle up when we need to, use a small space heater and go on with our lives.  It has been mostly sunny during the day, but at night it gets cold.  Our classrooms are not heated, but they haven't been that bad.  In fact, we think they are quite comfortable, but our students are all wearing their coats.  Stan was the only person in his class that wasn't wearing a coat this week.

We are starting to learn the names and personalities of our students.  We learn so much about them and about China in our "on-the-side" conversations before class, during the break, after class and during "English Corner."  (These are student-led group discussions usually held evenings during the week or on weekends).  We were invited to one on Friday night and spent the entire evening asking students questions about their experience as Freshmen.  They have the same thoughts and concerns as US students.  Their circumstances are quite different, however.   (dorms, eating arrangements, dating, activities, etc.)  Students in China are generally required to live in the dorms their entire university experience.  They have the same roommates all 4 years and are often in the same classes all 4 years.  We wondered how they could stand each other all that time.  They don't see it as a problem.  "We just work out our differences."  It was also interesting to learn that their curfew is 11 p.m. ALWAYS, even weekends!!  They have to check in when then enter the dorm.
 
Most of the students in our classes are girls.  One thing that has been mentioned often is the lack of boys on campus.  In China, there are 30 million more boys than girls, but on our campus it just isn't so.  Most parents would prefer that the girls not have boyfriends while they are at school, but that traditional thought has been changing.  Still, marriage while in college is quite rare.

Our big adventure this week was finding the WALMART! Another BYU couple lives nearby so they were familiar with the area.  Walmart is similar to stores in the states and several products were labeled in English.  Nancy even had a sales clerk approach her and talk to her in English!! During the same trip we were taken to a "western" store, 'Ole!  There were products that often are not in other stores...for a very steep price.  For example:  a very large mix master was 9000 yuan (about $1500 US).

Saturday evening some of the BYU teachers plus Lily (our young adult Chinese friend) came to our apartment.  Many had never been here and they wanted to see our interesting RV shower/bathroom combo.  (Nancy recently learned that a BYU couple in Shanghai has only a hotplate, microwave and refrigerator for their kitchen....and the only running water is in the bathroom!!)  She decided that her kitchen double sink with hot water makes up for any other apartment issues!

Anyway, after the 60-second apartment "tour", we all went to a cafeteria type eating place near us - famous for Jingren Pie (like an enclosed pita bread with various fillings).  Then we watched a DVD with excerpts from a Chinese opera that was in Jinan.  Several BYU teachers attended last week because they were given free tickets, a DVD of the performance and interviewed on TV.  The opera hopes to go on an international tour in the future and was looking for some publicity with foreigners.  (We were tutoring that night so we missed out on the music and beautiful costumes.) Following the DVD we played a dice game. (Zilch or Farkle)  Lily had never played it before, but she was "gambling" her points away along with all of us by the end of the evening!

 Stan with popcorn in hand, Libby Clarke, David and Zina Cox, Lily

David Cox and Zina Cox, Lily, Sue and Steve Schauerhamer, Wayne Clarke

 

Journal Entry #2

We don't really have too much unusual to report for this week, unless you count spending 10+ hours grading journal entries from our writing classes!  We asked our students to write about "My Name". Some had to contact a relative to find out the meaning of their name!!

In China, children are given a surname and a given name.  However, they are listed in the opposite order than in the Western World.  A surname is usually based on Chinese ancestors or a region where the family lived. Wang is the #1 Chinese surname belonging to millions of people!!  The given name can be suggested by parents, fortune tellers, aunts, uncles, dictionaries, grandparents, etc...  For example:  Deng Min (Deng is the surname from Henan Province and Min is the given name meaning smart and quick minded.)

This is a sample of Deng Min's journal entry without corrections or editing.....

"I have always been wondering why mother give Min as my first name, so common and plain.  I thought maybe it's just a casually given name....My mother said that, because of malposition, it took almost six hours to give birth to me.  The surgical technics and instruments were not as advanced as those nowadays.  She worried that six-hour-stay in low oxygen condition may influence my intelligence.  So, she gave Min as my name, hoping that I could be as smart and healthy as other kids.  After hearing this, I suddenly remembered the long scar on her lower abdomen, and I don't wonder why now."

We enjoyed reading the unusual history of our students' names as well as some funny incidents that happened.  Some examples:
1.  Perhaps students had "boyish" names, which embarrassed them because they were girls!
2.  Maybe their name was difficult to pronounce and so they were teased or their name was confused with another Chinese character.
3.  When parents went to register their child's name with Chinese officials, sometimes there was an error and the entire meaning of the name changed.  Ex.  The name went from morning and seagull to small Europe!

The most common complaint was that they did not like their own name.  Some students even petitioned their parents to listen to their concerns and were successful as teenagers in upgrading their name to something "pretty and beautiful"!

 In process.....

finished!!!

We also agreed to tutor two nine year old girls in English on Monday evenings on a trial basis.  They have had English instruction since kindergarten, but the curriculum is generally memorized vocabulary from a Chinese speaker.  Their parents want them to improve in their pronunciation and "increase their interest". Thank goodness for the information and games on the internet, as we certainly did not bring elementary English books with us to China! We had an introductory meeting last week and managed to communicate with hand gestures and drawing on a whiteboard.  We hope this will be a way to interact with some Chinese families, although the parents have very limited English skills themselves.  One of their colleagues at the SDU Law School acts as our "interpreter" when needed.

Lisa and Sunny

Over the past few weeks we have become acquainted with Brian, Sara and their 3 year old son, Toby.  They are expecting another boy in January.  We met at a foreign teacher potluck and they live in the apartment complex next to us.  Brian is an anthropology professor from the US and his wife is from Taiwan. Both speak Mandarin and English and they have been very kind to us; ordering our water, having us to dinner, taking Stan to get a haircut, and explaining where we can find items at the store.  They spent most of their summer in the United States and admitted it was difficult to return to China this fall for their second year of a five year contract.  However, like all of us, adjustment comes after a few weeks and you learn to appreciate the setting and culture of this country and its people.

 Brian, Sara and Toby Harmen

Today our church attendance at the Hanlin Hotel doubled!!  Normally, there are 11 BYU teachers, one Chinese national who has a foreign passport, her 8 year old son who is a US citizen and a female black medical student from South Africa.  At our meeting this Sunday, we were joined by a foreign Arabic teacher from Sudan and by 14 others from the United States who are here in China for a medical conference and humanitarian service.  There was an emergency room physician, an oral surgeon, a dentist, etc. It was quite the gathering, especially trying to feed that many people for a potluck in a hotel "suite" following our church meeting.

Crisp autumn air seeps through our windows in the morning as the temperatures cool to the mid 40's.  (We are trying to practice using action verbs like we are teaching our students!!)  Window cracks are stuffed with towels and plastic bags decorate the holes around the air conditioner and stove gas vent.   However, we are grateful we are not sweltering in class any longer! We get stares when we wear short sleeve tops to class while the students huddle in their coats. Nancy even had one student question if she ever gets cold! We actually hope that winter postpones its appearances as we understand heat is almost nonexistent in the classroom.  Meanwhile, we are grateful for the days that are smog free and sunny.  We watch "city workers" sweep the sidewalks as each leaf falls to the ground.  We wonder what they do for a job when all the leaves are off the trees!