10/31/2104
Anne taught a Halloween lesson to her three classes of grad students. They had no idea what it was about so that was fun exposing them to her favorite holiday. Their assignment was to get together in small groups and invent their own holiday; what would it be called, what would it be about, what would they do and wear, etc. They had fun doing this and then presenting their ideas to the class. Anne put their holiday names up on the board and then the classes voted on what they thought was the best idea. The winner was "PhD Day". They all think they are over worked (which they are) and deserve a day where they lay around in their pajamas, do nothing, and have others wait on them.
Anne taught a Halloween lesson to her three classes of grad students. They had no idea what it was about so that was fun exposing them to her favorite holiday. Their assignment was to get together in small groups and invent their own holiday; what would it be called, what would it be about, what would they do and wear, etc. They had fun doing this and then presenting their ideas to the class. Anne put their holiday names up on the board and then the classes voted on what they thought was the best idea. The winner was "PhD Day". They all think they are over worked (which they are) and deserve a day where they lay around in their pajamas, do nothing, and have others wait on them.
Saturday, 11/01/2014
We heard through a source, that the school provides four field trips each semester for the teachers. Of course the school never told us this so we missed the first two. But we managed to get on the bus for the next two. On Saturday, November 1, we were driven to a small town about two hours outside Chengdu called Pingle Ancient city, founded in 150 BC. It had been hit hard by an earthquake in 2008. But they rebuilt part of it and so that part is now a tourist site. It was very picturesque. We bought some trinkets, snacks, and then wandered out to the country side. People farm every available plot of land. We are stared at more when we are in the country instead of the city.
We heard through a source, that the school provides four field trips each semester for the teachers. Of course the school never told us this so we missed the first two. But we managed to get on the bus for the next two. On Saturday, November 1, we were driven to a small town about two hours outside Chengdu called Pingle Ancient city, founded in 150 BC. It had been hit hard by an earthquake in 2008. But they rebuilt part of it and so that part is now a tourist site. It was very picturesque. We bought some trinkets, snacks, and then wandered out to the country side. People farm every available plot of land. We are stared at more when we are in the country instead of the city.
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| Pingle Ancient City |
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| C&A in Pingle Ancient City |
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| Clyde Kissing a Frog (actually 20 feet in a pond behind him) |
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| Bailu City |
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| A stop along the road |
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| Bailu town |
Friday, 11/14/2014
Our next trip was a much bigger adventure and wouldn’t have happened if not for a male student named “Autumn” who the Hadds befriended. His family lives here in Chengdu and they know their way around. He took us to see two more UNESCO world heritage sites. We and the Hadds all had Friday off (which happens once a month). We got up early and took a bus to the north train station. We handed our passports and money to Autumn and he bought us tickets at the train station window. It is so nice, and necessary in our case, to have a native speaker with us. We boarded a high speed train and took a very smooth ride about an hour away from Chengdu to Dujiangyan. This town is famous for an irrigation system built in 256 BC that still functions today. It prevents the town from being flooded and yet provides water for the crops, by dividing the river in two. They have since built a modern dam up stream, but some people think that work on it caused the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Our next trip was a much bigger adventure and wouldn’t have happened if not for a male student named “Autumn” who the Hadds befriended. His family lives here in Chengdu and they know their way around. He took us to see two more UNESCO world heritage sites. We and the Hadds all had Friday off (which happens once a month). We got up early and took a bus to the north train station. We handed our passports and money to Autumn and he bought us tickets at the train station window. It is so nice, and necessary in our case, to have a native speaker with us. We boarded a high speed train and took a very smooth ride about an hour away from Chengdu to Dujiangyan. This town is famous for an irrigation system built in 256 BC that still functions today. It prevents the town from being flooded and yet provides water for the crops, by dividing the river in two. They have since built a modern dam up stream, but some people think that work on it caused the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Counting the driver, six of
us were stuffed (it was practically immoral) into a small taxi for this part of
the tour. Afterwards he dropped us off
in the town before we needed to catch a bus back to the train station. We wandered around for awhile, taking
pictures and eating local snacks. Anne
bargained for a necklace from a street seller.
And this is also where Clyde and Marilyn decided to try and eat some
local food: bugs on a stick. Clyde said they were crunchy, but some legs
got stuck in his teeth.
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| Bugs on a Stick - Mmmmmm |
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| C&A near Dujiangyan |
Back at the train station, we
took another high speed one to the end of the line. That is where Autumn’s aunt owns a weekend
home. She met us at the train station,
but there were too many of us to take a cab so we walked a couple miles to her
home. It was a small but nice two story
in what would pass for a modern subdivision.
Apparently a lot of wealthy people live here and commute into Chendgu to
work. It is prettier and the air quality
is better. His aunt, uncle and later his
mother, met us there and took us to a local restaurant. None of them speak any English. We were served quite a variety of food, but
my palate just isn’t a fan. We spent the
night in his aunt’s home and were served some “interesting” things for
breakfast. They were all trying so hard
to be attentive hosts.
It was cold there and we were
planning to spend the day hiking up a mountain – Qing Cheng Shen. We put on lots of layers of clothes. Most people take the city bus to the
entrance of the mountain, but again, we walked it, a few miles. It is very pretty there with the misty
mountains in the background. All along
the way is a beautiful park that lines the road on both sides. We were told it is green here all year round.
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| One of the many temples on the mountain |
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| The Pagoda and top of Qing Cheng |
From the entrance, it took us about two hours to hike to the
top of the mountain. There were carved
steps all the way - though some were easy, and some were ridiculously steep. We had to hold on to chains to pull ourselves
up those. For a fee you could hire
porters to carry you up in a sling thing.
We were not tempted. The trees
were changing colors. There were several
different temples carved into the mountain side to walk through along the
way. We were really proud of ourselves
for making it up to the top as it was a tough hike. On the very top was a pagoda shaped Taoist
temple. We could first see it from far
away and urged each other on to make it to the “birthday cake”. The view of the green and misty valley below
was worth the struggle to reach the top.
There was a cable car that could take people half way up the
mountain, but it wasn’t free and you would miss all the extra temples and most
of the view along the way. But at this
point it was getting late in the day and we all agreed to take it down the
mountain. Back down at the entrance,
Autumn insisted that we visit Dr. Stone for a foot massage. It turned out to be a sidewalk studded with
decorative stones. The idea is that you
take off your shoes and walk the path for a massage. The more you weighed, the more it hurt! Autumn thought it was a pretty funny joke on
us.
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| View from the top of the Pagoda |
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| Beautiful scenery along the way |
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| Dr. Stone foot massage |
From the mountain entrance we walked back to Autumn’s aunt’s
home. They offered us some snacks like
chopped rabbit – a cold dish full of bones.
Thank goodness for Snickers bars.
And then they hired some tuk tuks (small 3-wheeled vehicles) to take us
back to the train station. If I had a
fit-bit thing, I bet the number of steps we’d taken the past two days would be
off the chart. We took another smooth
train ride back to Chengdu. After a
dinner at the nearby fast food restaurant, Dicos, we took a bus back to our
apartment. It was a great weekend.
11/19/2014
The directors of our BYU China Teachers program, Geneil and Jamie Ballantine, have been traveling around China for two months and visiting all the BYU teachers to see how they are getting along here. Chengdu was their second to the last stop. It was so fun to see their familiar faces and ask how the other teachers were doing. It’s impolite but sometimes comforting to hear that someone else might have it worse than you. As the Hadds were doing tutoring that first evening, we took the Ballantines out to dinner and got a chance to visit with them alone. We all went out to Peter’s Tex Mex on Thursday and the Hadds got them alone on Friday. During the day they visited with our school’s directors and tried (unsuccessfully) to get another university here to accept BYU teachers. (We are too old for them.) The Ballantines also attended our classes and observed our teaching. That was a bit intimidating but they said nice things about us. But then I guess they really couldn’t say that we stunk as teachers, now could they?
The directors of our BYU China Teachers program, Geneil and Jamie Ballantine, have been traveling around China for two months and visiting all the BYU teachers to see how they are getting along here. Chengdu was their second to the last stop. It was so fun to see their familiar faces and ask how the other teachers were doing. It’s impolite but sometimes comforting to hear that someone else might have it worse than you. As the Hadds were doing tutoring that first evening, we took the Ballantines out to dinner and got a chance to visit with them alone. We all went out to Peter’s Tex Mex on Thursday and the Hadds got them alone on Friday. During the day they visited with our school’s directors and tried (unsuccessfully) to get another university here to accept BYU teachers. (We are too old for them.) The Ballantines also attended our classes and observed our teaching. That was a bit intimidating but they said nice things about us. But then I guess they really couldn’t say that we stunk as teachers, now could they?
11/23/2014
Anne was asked to speak at the branch on Sunday on the topic of humility. That’s a hard subject because if you think you know anything about it, you really don’t. It’s like the old saying: “Humility is like underwear; absolutely essential but indecent when exposed.” But living and teaching in a country where we can’t even understand the language has humbled us.
Anne was asked to speak at the branch on Sunday on the topic of humility. That’s a hard subject because if you think you know anything about it, you really don’t. It’s like the old saying: “Humility is like underwear; absolutely essential but indecent when exposed.” But living and teaching in a country where we can’t even understand the language has humbled us.
11/27/2014
Anne taught an oral English lesson about American Thanksgiving to her grad classes. She went over some traditions and idioms like “cold turkey” and “talk turkey”. For the last part of it she brought some American grocery store ads that were left in our apartment by the former BYU teachers. After dividing them into groups, she handed each group an ad. Their assignment was to make up a menu for a dinner for 4 people, spending no more than $50. Then each group reported to the class what their meal would consist of and how much they “spent”. A few groups spent all their allotment on meat only. A girl representing her group said they would spend the little cash they had left over on "snakes". That caught Anne off guard for a second. After all, this is China and we've seen strange things they consider food. Turns out the girl really meant “snacks” but she definitely pronounced it “snakes”. They all had a good laugh.
Anne taught an oral English lesson about American Thanksgiving to her grad classes. She went over some traditions and idioms like “cold turkey” and “talk turkey”. For the last part of it she brought some American grocery store ads that were left in our apartment by the former BYU teachers. After dividing them into groups, she handed each group an ad. Their assignment was to make up a menu for a dinner for 4 people, spending no more than $50. Then each group reported to the class what their meal would consist of and how much they “spent”. A few groups spent all their allotment on meat only. A girl representing her group said they would spend the little cash they had left over on "snakes". That caught Anne off guard for a second. After all, this is China and we've seen strange things they consider food. Turns out the girl really meant “snacks” but she definitely pronounced it “snakes”. They all had a good laugh.
For our Thanksgiving dinner, several expat adults met at
Peter’s Tex Mex for a traditional turkey meal.
It was a set price consisting of all the usual, wonderful things you
would expect. It was heavenly.
11/29/2014
After the visit from our BYU directors, the school official over us decided to offer a local cultural field trip to the foreign teachers – something in our contract but never delivered on until now. But by now, this location was something most of the foreign teachers had already been to on their own - so only ourselves, the Hadds and one other teacher signed up. We were met on campus by a junior student with the English name “Michael". It turns out he also met the Ballantines at the airport and helped them get around here. Michael speaks English well and had done a short internship in Chicago last summer. He loaded us into taxis and off we went to Wide and Narrow Alley.
After the visit from our BYU directors, the school official over us decided to offer a local cultural field trip to the foreign teachers – something in our contract but never delivered on until now. But by now, this location was something most of the foreign teachers had already been to on their own - so only ourselves, the Hadds and one other teacher signed up. We were met on campus by a junior student with the English name “Michael". It turns out he also met the Ballantines at the airport and helped them get around here. Michael speaks English well and had done a short internship in Chicago last summer. He loaded us into taxis and off we went to Wide and Narrow Alley.
The Alleys are preserved streets from the Qing Dynasty (1616-1911). They have been refurbished and are mostly
tourist areas now, but represent old Chengdu.
We walked through the shops and Michael (at the university’s expense)
treated us to snacks and then dinner. He
is such a nice person and interested in practicing his English, so on another
day we invited him to dinner at our apartment.
Given a choice of what to have for dinner, he chose pork roast, mashed
potatoes, steamed broccoli, rolls and homemade cookies that we baked as we
ate. A week later we invited him (and
the Hadds invited Autumn) to a guitar/pizza party at an expat’s apartment. We think they had fun. We hope to be able to keep up with
Michael. We can help him and he
certainly can be a help with Chinese for us.
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| Our friend Michael |
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| Wide and Narrow Alley |
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| Ginko Trees |
Our province is famous for its Gingko trees. In the fall they all turn a striking bright
yellow. Our two campuses are covered
with them and the school offered a month long photo contest. The place was packed with people posing in
and under the trees and playing with the leaves on the ground like it was snow
in winter. Literally the ground is solid
yellow with the layer of leaves.
One of the single English teachers in our building is Agmad
Gydien from South Africa. He looks and talks like he is from India. He is a fun and funny guy. He got tired of his students excuses for why
they were late to or missed class so he bought a “lie detector” and brings it
to class. Now when the students come in
late, they have to put their hand in an electric machine. If their excuse for being late is a lie, they
supposedly receive a mild shock to their hand.
The rest of the students now look forward to someone coming in late for
the entertainment factor. He also bought
another electronic shocking machine that he applies if they are caught using
their cell phone in class. The other
students like this so much they turn each other in. We had “Akes” over for dinner along with Michael. (His students call him Akes because they can't pronounce his real name.) We forgot Akes is a Muslim and doesn’t eat
pork, but he sure loved the rest of the meal and especially the cookies.
More will come later . . .
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