Saturday, 09/06/2014
For today’s field trip with the Hadds, we took a taxi to the subway and from there to the largest (not tallest) building in the world, the New Century Global Center in Chengdu. Look it up. It looks like a huge cruise ship from the outside. The floors and walls are made of the most beautiful granite; they must have taken down an entire mountain to build it. It houses an indoor water park, an ice skating rink, movie theaters, food courts, grocery store, and every US high end store you can think of. It is also includes offices and hotels. They happened to be celebrating their one year anniversary that day and it was packed with people. We did get free cupcakes and we ate at a Mexican restaurant – not bad - but the guacamole (considered a side) cost as much as the entree. We saw a little boy with his head shaved into the shape of a Disney Mickey. Wish I could have taken a picture of that but he was too fast.
For today’s field trip with the Hadds, we took a taxi to the subway and from there to the largest (not tallest) building in the world, the New Century Global Center in Chengdu. Look it up. It looks like a huge cruise ship from the outside. The floors and walls are made of the most beautiful granite; they must have taken down an entire mountain to build it. It houses an indoor water park, an ice skating rink, movie theaters, food courts, grocery store, and every US high end store you can think of. It is also includes offices and hotels. They happened to be celebrating their one year anniversary that day and it was packed with people. We did get free cupcakes and we ate at a Mexican restaurant – not bad - but the guacamole (considered a side) cost as much as the entree. We saw a little boy with his head shaved into the shape of a Disney Mickey. Wish I could have taken a picture of that but he was too fast.
Did you know that they train their toddlers to go potty on
demand at the sound of a whistle? We
have seen several women hold their baby over a trash can or the gutter,
whistle, and then the kids just go. Amazing!
The babies wear clothes that are wide
open (not sewn shut) in the crotch and no diapers. They probably potty train faster than kids do
in the states. (Of course, if I had to go in public like
these small kids, I’d want to potty train pretty quickly too!) Here’s a quick picture we took of one toddler
on the sly with the no crotch seam.
(Just don’t walk down the street whistling a tune in public. You may have mothers that get upset with
you!) :-) And the older
kids just relieve themselves right there on the sidewalk. Could they not at least aim for the weeds?
We also see a lot of parents that have their children stand
on the foot rest of their electric scooters and then they just plow into the
crazy traffic. In the interest of
safety, one mother did have her child tied to her with a decorative scarf.
Below are just some pictures I’ve taken of interesting
sightings: Balloons on a bike, and tired
shoppers at the Global Center.
Sunday, 09/07/2014
Someday we may figure out how to take the bus to the Church meetings, but for now, we took a taxi. This time we had taken a picture of the correct location and we were dropped off right at the complex gate. We were given callings: Anne, 1st counselor in the Primary and a Primary teacher; Clyde a Primary teacher. Anne was also given her VT assignments. Since she doesn’t live near where the others are, she will have to take a taxi each time. They may do it after church or all meet for lunch somewhere. The taxi ride would mean $5 USD to get there and another $5 to get back. Taxis are very cheap to use in China when compared with US taxis.
Someday we may figure out how to take the bus to the Church meetings, but for now, we took a taxi. This time we had taken a picture of the correct location and we were dropped off right at the complex gate. We were given callings: Anne, 1st counselor in the Primary and a Primary teacher; Clyde a Primary teacher. Anne was also given her VT assignments. Since she doesn’t live near where the others are, she will have to take a taxi each time. They may do it after church or all meet for lunch somewhere. The taxi ride would mean $5 USD to get there and another $5 to get back. Taxis are very cheap to use in China when compared with US taxis.
We and the Hadds were invited to have dinner with a family
who live in the US Consulate compound.
Three families in the branch live there and work for the US
government. Their life styles are much
better than ours but not as nice as the ones who work here for oil
companies. Laura Whitton (and husband
Matt) cooked up a whole oven-baked chicken (no head or feet attached – WooHoo!), sweet potato and carrot casserole, homemade
mac and cheese, fresh cucumber and tomato salad. It was manna from heaven! We offered to babysit sometime in exchange
for their kindness. They have three active
boys.
Monday, 09/08/2014
Today was a holiday – Mid Autumn Festival - and we didn't have to teach. We used the time to plan our lessons for the next week. I think we are getting better at coming up with ideas. Bethany has really helped. Also the BBC, bless their little hearts, has online English practice programs. We took the trolley to Ito (the Japanese store) and back. It was very crowded with holiday shoppers. This time we walked around all six floors. The directional map on the wall of the ladies department divided the floor into these sections: “Mature Women”, “Girls Loaded”, and “Leisure Women Ornaments”. Make you wonder what “Girls Loaded” means, doesn’t it? :-)
Today was a holiday – Mid Autumn Festival - and we didn't have to teach. We used the time to plan our lessons for the next week. I think we are getting better at coming up with ideas. Bethany has really helped. Also the BBC, bless their little hearts, has online English practice programs. We took the trolley to Ito (the Japanese store) and back. It was very crowded with holiday shoppers. This time we walked around all six floors. The directional map on the wall of the ladies department divided the floor into these sections: “Mature Women”, “Girls Loaded”, and “Leisure Women Ornaments”. Make you wonder what “Girls Loaded” means, doesn’t it? :-)
It was the Hadd’s turn to host Sunday dinner but
because of the invite out, we had it on Monday night. We brought the dessert, homemade oatmeal
cookie dough (can’t get chocolate chips here).
They have the big convection oven from the previous BYU teachers assigned
in Chengdu, so we baked the cookies at the Hadds.
The brown sugar here is a little coarser and tastes like molasses, but
the cookies turned out pretty good.
After we ate our fill, we took the rest around to other
people in our building. One Chinese student
visiting someone in the apartments stopped by later and asked for the
recipe. It’s not cheap but you just need
a little treat every now and then.
Tuesday, 09/09/2014
Just when we thought we had a handle on this teaching thing we find ourselves needing to reinvent again. Our students are adults after all so we didn’t want to do any childish, fluffy lessons. I went with a current event, scientific one (the announcement of the new iPhone 6 and its specifications with a writing assignment) and it was way over their heads. And half of the younger students don’t show up for class and the other half show up late. Do we have to go back to the fluffy, RS style lessons? Today was teacher appreciation day and Anne was surprised to have the college send her a large floral bouquet during class. This guy just appeared at the classroom door with this huge arrangement. Anne thought maybe it was for one of the girls in the class. But he insisted it was for her, the teacher. The card attached had all these hearts on the front and said “Love Eternal”. She thought maybe it was from Clyde somehow. As with other things here, the packaging was over the top. Anne could have made a dress for Storey with all the wrappings, or maybe a lamp shade or an Easter Bonnet. The tricky thing was getting it home on the crowded bus. Clyde also got a similar flower arrangement the following day.
Just when we thought we had a handle on this teaching thing we find ourselves needing to reinvent again. Our students are adults after all so we didn’t want to do any childish, fluffy lessons. I went with a current event, scientific one (the announcement of the new iPhone 6 and its specifications with a writing assignment) and it was way over their heads. And half of the younger students don’t show up for class and the other half show up late. Do we have to go back to the fluffy, RS style lessons? Today was teacher appreciation day and Anne was surprised to have the college send her a large floral bouquet during class. This guy just appeared at the classroom door with this huge arrangement. Anne thought maybe it was for one of the girls in the class. But he insisted it was for her, the teacher. The card attached had all these hearts on the front and said “Love Eternal”. She thought maybe it was from Clyde somehow. As with other things here, the packaging was over the top. Anne could have made a dress for Storey with all the wrappings, or maybe a lamp shade or an Easter Bonnet. The tricky thing was getting it home on the crowded bus. Clyde also got a similar flower arrangement the following day.
Anne wore a long dress to school today. She can give you, in two words, another reason
why the females around here wear such short dresses: squat potties. We saw this portable seat in a store. Maybe we should just attach one to our
backpacks and carry it everywhere. It
would give new meaning to the phrase, “Tie one on”.
At one time we used a personal trainer and later we
took a fitness class at the college gym.
One of the exercises they had us do was squats. You squat down, keep your back straight and
hold it for as long as possible. It’s
great for tightening the butt and strengthening the thighs. Our legs would start to quiver from the
strain, sweat breaking out on our foreheads.
I guess it was good practice for China.
But believe me – you don’t take a paper or magazine in with you! In and Out – no lingering! :-)
Remember the break in during our first week here?
We now have bars on the windows of our apartment. The "bling" adds to the Gulag decor, don’t you
think? We should feel safer. Just don’t start a fire!
Before:
I’d like to introduct you to our “Smaug”. (Think Lord of the Rings – the fire-breathing
dragon.)
Remember that I commented
that we originally had a difficult time taking showers. The shower head is only connected to the hot
water supply. The water starts off
pretty cool, but heats up to scalding very quickly. No long showers here! I asked our building manger if they could
put in a connection so that cold water could mix with with the hot and we could
take a shower longer than 5-10 seconds. The manager doesn’t speak English, so there was a lot of pantomiming of
freezing cold going to scalding hot. (Just imagine how you would try to communicate our problem visually!) Anyway, the Chinese wife of another American
English teacher here in the building was finally called in to translate. The picture above is an "on-demand" water
heater. It heats the water immediately
when needed rather than having a big hot water tank like we have in
America. When you turn on the hot water,
you hear the fast “tick-tick-tick” of the pilot light. Suddenly, Smaug catches fire and you hear a
large “Whoosh”! Smaug continues to roar
until the hot water is turned off, and then he goes back to sleep until the
next time hot water in needed.
Anyway, there is a lever at
the bottom of Smaug that you use to control the temperature. Push it to the left and the water is just
warm. Push it to the right and the water
could blister your skin! Anyway, we can
now take comfortable, long showers.
WooHoo!
Another interesting fact
about our apartment – all the plumbing and pipes are exposed – not hidden in
the walls like we have in the US. We are
on the second floor; five floors are above us.
We can always tell when someone is flushing the toilet or taking a
shower. We hear it running down our
pipes. No secrets here! :-)
It is very green in
Chengdu. In fact it is quite beautiful. It seems like trees, plants and
vines are everywhere. It is much greener
than what we have in Houston. It is the
end of summer, but everything is still alive and thriving. Anne took the following picture from the room
she where she teaches on the new campus.
Many of these plants are bamboo.
Remember, Chengdu is the Panda Bear capital of China.
Guess what Pandas like to eat?
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