Final Week of Training

Saturday

We had been told that we would need long, warm coats for China as the classrooms are not heated.  One presenter said that she wore several layers of clothes under her long coat, plus gloves and a hand muff, and yet still shivered as she stood in the classroom to teach.  So we went shopping in Provo looking for some suitable winter clothes.  Anne didn’t find any coats, but we got a few long sleeved sweaters. 

We needed to do something physical for a change so we drove to Provo Canyon and walked along the Provo River path.  Since it was a Saturday, there were lots of families (and reunions) in the park area.  But it is a beautiful walk, especially at the base of Bridal Vail Falls.  We remembered when the tram was still operating, taking people to the top.  Our kids might not remember but we took them all to the top on one of our trips out west.  We have a photo to prove it.  We bought fresh peaches from a roadside stand and ate some right where we parked.

  Yesterday was Randy’s birthday so we offered to take them out to dinner.  He selected Café Rio. 

Sunday

Today, in place of the usual block of church meetings, we attended the China International District Conference.  Former CTP people were invited to also attend the meeting..  There are four International Districts in China.  They are led by men who live in China because of their job assignments. 

We will be in the branch of the one who conducted the conference, Central International District President Douglas Weaver, and his wife Melissa Weaver.  In fact, the branch meets in their home.  The speakers were mostly men, or their wives, who work in China for major corporations and serve as district or branch presidents.  Their messages were about how to adapt to living in China and how to support and be supported by the branches.  We can only meet with expat members of the church while in China.  We can have no contact with local members.  We are prohibited from talking to anyone holding a Chinese passport about the church. 

Anne couldn’t feel too sorry for the wives who have big homes, drivers, maids, and don’t work a job.  But one did mention that when they first arrived in China for her husband’s job, they didn’t know where to meet for church.  Then they found out it would be a five hour drive (on a good day) from where they lived.  So the next week, they drove to that city, got a hotel for the night, and attended the branch the next day.  The branch was so thrilled to have them that they made arrangements for members to house their family every Saturday night, and feed them on Sunday.  We were told that branches here really take care of one another. 

One person told of the difficulty on their first day of shopping at a grocery store.  The boxes of potato flakes looked just like the boxes of laundry soap flakes.  The Chinese characters on the front didn’t help any.  They didn’t know if they were “buying spuds or suds”! 

Thought for the day:  “You will not change China, but China will change you.”    We need to make China our home. 

We visited afterwards with the teachers we are replacing.  They were able to find out our teaching schedules for us.  So far, Clyde is assigned 14 class hours a week and Anne has 10, but we will probably have more added by the time we get there.  We are under contract to be paid for up to 16 in-class hours. 

Jean and Randy fixed a grilled chicken dinner for us when we returned.  It has been hard to be good guests.  We eat and run in the mornings and come home exhausted in the evenings (often eating elsewhere like on campus) only to check emails and Facebook and try to do some homework.  That evening we were able to Skype with Bethany, Jefferson, and Leanna (and their families).  We need to get used to doing that with all of them.

Monday

Thought for the day about dirty apartments:  In a week it will be your dirt.  We smell to the Chinese (since we eat a lot of dairy and meat) as they smell to us (because of the spices they eat).  Our fundamental political differences:  Freedom (us) vs. order (China).  Every day we have our Survival Chinese language lesson, two hours about oral teaching and two hours of teaching writing.  Different people teach history or politics on different days.  We were told that “confidence inflates the ego, criticism expands the mind”.  We also had a snoozer class about paying taxes (and donations) while in China.  Apparently after subtracting our expenses for tax purposes, we will have less than zero earnings from China.  

We are going to Chengdu with Marilyn and Jerry Hadd from Idaho.

Surprise!  Our visas came in so we met with the travel office.  We will be leaving Houston on Saturday, August 23 for San Francisco, and from there take a 14 hour flight non-stop to Chengdu.  While BYU pays for the flight, we chose to upgrade to bigger seats (at and extra $150 per person – Clyde is too used to flying business class on overseas trips).  We also have to pay $100 for a second suitcase per person.

Tuesday (taken from Anne's Journal)

This morning we were divided for the first hour into men and women.  It reminded me of being divided in Jr. High into boys and girls for “the talk”.  We were told about what to wear while teaching (dress slacks and skirts – no capris or open toed shoes).  How to clean our fruits and veggies (scrub with soap, soak in bleach).  Brush our teeth with bottled or boiled water.  And how to use the squat toilets:  You have to bring your own tissues, since the public toilets have no toilet paper, and your own hand sanitizers since there are no sinks to wash in.  You can’t flush the used tissues so they all go in a can in the stall and the smell is pretty strong.  We were told we can’t even flush the tissues in the western toilets in our apartment.  (We checked with the prior couple we are replacing and they didn’t follow this rule.  WooHoo!)  Some of the stalls have no doors.  You face the way you come in.  Some people miss the hole.  No wonder they have you take off your shoes in their homes.  We all had to practice squatting. 

Our oral language teacher travels every few years to China to check up on the BYU teachers and video tape them in action.  He shows several video clips to us each day for examples of lessons.  One was of Clyde’s old missionary companion and former roommate, Rex Lewis.  He and his wife went to China few years ago.  We had more roundtable discussions with former China teachers in the late afternoon.  These have been very helpful.

Wednesday 

One of our guest lecturers for the day was Chad Lewis, a former BYU football player.  Because he served a mission in Taiwan, he spoke Chinese, sort of.  After his BYU career and some pro football, he was hired to be a football announcer in China.  But his Chinese was more limited to gospel terms, not sports ones.  For example, he said, “I testify that Tom Brady just threw a true pass.”  I think his best advice was to always carry a snickers bar with you, in case you don’t like the food offered.  You can sneak eat it in private.

We had an hour lesson on personal security.  We watched a video that showed a group of pickpockets pulling money out of people’s pockets using chop sticks - as the people were walking.  We can contact the church’s alarm center just like other missionaries in case of need.  Hope we never need to.  

 There was an earthquake in Chengdu in 2008.  It killed almost 70 thousand people and left 18 thousand missing.   The first set of BYU teachers were there at the time.  They were sent home since many of the buildings were ruined.  We will be the third year that teachers have come back since then. 

The afternoon was devoted to us class members giving example lessons that we’ve been working on.  Half of the class did today, with the other half (us) going tomorrow.  Some were heavy with quality PowerPoint presentations.  We then had to evaluate them.  Most were well done and gave us ideas to use. 

Thursday

More of the same training in the morning, and then it was our turn to do our sample lesson presentations in the afternoon.  We have to turn all these ideas into opportunities for the class to converse in English.  We were evaluated, but being Mormons, everyone said nice things. 

Friday

Our final day!  Today our “teaching English as a second language” teacher, Lynn Henrichsen, gave us his critique about our sample lesson presentations.  He has been such a great teacher all along, 2 hours every day, that I really value his opinion.  He models what he wants us to do.

He also said that we should always have a “talk in our pocket”.  We need to be prepared to be the featured speaker at an event.  This has happened to him several times, where the poster advertising the activity was all in Chinese.  He was invited to attend, not understanding that he was the main event.  It could happen.

The program director, Jeff Ringer, talked again about being careful not to preach the gospel over there.  Spots at universities have been lost because of loose lips.  He said he refers to our program as The Ammon Project:  we might think of ourselves as missionaries, but we are still just working in the stables for the king of the land.  It is not to go any further.

And then we had a nice graduation!  The director wore his doctoral robes and handed out our “diplomas”.  It was an intense two weeks of training.  The instructors were top quality.  And the other teachers were all very accomplished people, just what you would expect from people in the church.  We hugged, said our good-byes, and all went our separate directions.  We will meet together again in Hong Kong in late January.                                         

 Graduation with Jeff Ringer, Director of the CTP

Jamie and Geneil Ballantine, Deputy Directors of CTP (they do all the work and previously taught 2 years in China.)

Our flight to Houston wasn’t until Saturday afternoon.  So we decided to just have some fun.  We shopped in the BYU bookstore and got T-shirts to wear in China.  We went to the Paleontology building and also toured the remodeled Bean museum.  We ate ice cream at the BYU creamery.  Then we went to a movie.  We really needed a break from all the pressure we’d been under.

Saturday we did laundry, repacked for the trip home, and hung out with Jean and Randy.  They had been very kind to us as we left early every day and came home late – not good guests. 

Our flight got into Hobby airport at midnight.  Not wanting to inconvenience anyone else, we took a taxi home.  It was a very expensive ride!  It was after 1 AM by the time we got home and even later by the time we finally fell asleep. 

We attended church with Crystal and the kids (Jonathan was on a business trip).  Sacrament meeting was pretty lively with twins, Alton and Ashlyn.  Bethany & Zak had us all over for dinner Monday night to celebrate Clyde’s 62^nd birthday and Storey’s belated one.  We spent the rest of the week frantically trying to get our lives and home in order. 

Friday

We think we are pretty much ready to go.  We bought three large suitcases and are paying $100 to take the extra bag.  It is hard to have everything you need for a year in two bags and two carry-on’s.  We gave the keys to our renters last night.  It sounds like they will take good care of things.  Jon and Crystal had us over for dinner and to say good-bye.  Then we went to B&Z’s to see them one last time.  It’s going to be hard to leave.

End of Week One

Wednesday:  They have been stressing a phrase to us - “This is China” (TIC) – meaning don’t expect the same efficiency and ease of life as in America and you will be happier.  They usually don’t plan ahead and are slow to deliver on promises.

We spent an hour this morning “learning” survival Chinese with a young lady from Taiwan.  Some of us just aren't getting it.  It is our least favorite section.  For example, they spent a lot of time teaching us the phrase which means, “Do you speak English?”  Why would I ever say that?!  I’d just say it in English and see who answers me.  Daaah!  Two more hours of ideas on teaching ESL classes followed by a break for lunch.

After lunch we had a two hour lesson on teaching writing as ESL.  We hope to only be teaching oral English, but the training in writing will be good for us too.  Some of our instructors are really great.  We wish we could hold all their ideas in our heads. 

Next we had what we all felt was the best help so far.  Former China teachers who worked in different cities and just got back in June/July came to tell us what it is really like.  We split up in small groups and got to spend a half hour with each couple.  More couples will come next week.  They gave us practical ideas on what to bring and what to teach.  Mostly each one said how much they enjoyed it and loved their students.  It really helped us to hear that.  I also liked hearing from someone who is going back for a 3^rd tour of duty that she hasn’t learned how to speak Chinese and is doing quite well.  For example, she said she had only learned to count to 10 in Chinese.  (WooHoo – we can do that already!)  In her last city she was named volunteer of the year!  She joined a dance team and held babies in orphanages. She even went door to door with members of the communist party to teach people about earthquake emergency preparation.  She talked to the English speakers. 

Afterwards we met at the Cougar Eat for dinner with the teachers that served in the school where we will be teaching.  Four of us from this year will be replacing six of them from last year.  They filled us in on the accommodations and people we will be working with.  The classrooms we will be teaching in have no clocks, no heat, no air conditioning, and no garbage cans.  They also brought us some maps, booklets, and lists of things left in the apartment for us.  They are a great support team!

I forgot to mention the other couple who will be teaching with us:  Jerry and Marilyn Hadd from Montpelier, Idaho, where they raise alpacas.  He has a PhD and she just retired as an English teacher.  I’m glad they will be on our side!

Thursday:  Day Four.  Group photos this morning.  Then the usual Chinese lessons and teaching ideas, lunch followed by writing training.  In the afternoon we learned more about technology that might help us over there.  We had a lecture about the politics in China.  Interesting fact, only 5% of the population in China belong to the communist party.  But that 5% run everything.  We had an activity with all the CTP teachers in the evening, making it a long day.

Friday:  Today’s quote about leaving our grandchildren behind:  “Grandchildren have a gravitational pull disproportionate to their size”.  We miss our grandchildren already (Oh - and the other family members too.) 

Same schedule as the prior days.  We were supposed to have a guest lecturer come and talk to us in person about China in the afternoon, but he was still in China on business.  So the tech people set up a Skype with him and he shared with us updates about BYU and the expat church in China.  I thought it was very interesting.

After his address, we were treated to a Chinese dinner, complements of Panda Express.  We were told that real Chinese food will not taste like that.  We get Saturday off, yea!  We hope to be able to get some much needed sleep, do laundry, and walk in the mountains.