06/01/2015 Clyde
made me a paper chain at the beginning of this semester to count down the
weeks. Each Friday night we would watch a movie, eat an Ikea chocolate bar, and
tear off a link. It has been satisfying
to see it shrink in size. And now as I
turn the calendar page (that Bethany made for me with different pictures of the
grandchildren each month) I can see the end at a glance. We fly home on June 28th.
We read about the cruise ship on the Yangtze River that
overturned in a storm. At least we did
until the news reports were squashed here.
More than 400 people died. We
were there in April and probably saw that very ship. There for the grace of God go I…………..
06/07/2015 It was
our last day to teach Primary as one large consulate family is moving out and
the rest are going to America for the summer.
What a relief as I have never seen such a loud and violent little group
of LDS kids before. I remember Jefferson
saying something about the disrespectful expat kids in Japan.
It was our last Fast Sunday here and we and the Hadds always
bear our testimonies. Marilyn mentioned
that when she looks people in the eye here that she can feel a connection of
the spirit. That’s about all we are
allowed to do. So I wondered, what have
we been doing to share the spirit with others?
While both going to and coming from church that day we saw different
individuals trying to carry several awkward and heavy items. We offered to help and they let us. After church as Clyde and I were walking to
our bus stop we saw a young girl trying to drag several large pieces of office
supplies down the road. She had a large
white board maybe 4 x5 feet, a 3 foot tube of rolled up heavy material of some
kind, and a 4 foot long skinny box. We
had to go a little out of our way and backtrack on our way home but I felt like
a real missionary serving someone in need.
We couldn’t communicate at all but I felt a Christ like spirit for
simply helping another child of God.
We gave her one of our BYU Kennedy Center business cards and
she sent me an interesting thank you email.
Who knows, maybe someday she will look up BYU and what we
represent. She wrote:
“How do you do, Excuse me, don’t know whether you still
remember today in the east lake park there to help a girl to take things to the
office? The girl is me, oh. Today is really thank you, from me at that time a
lot of people in the past, but only you can help me with Chinese words, we are
very decree by destiny. My name is Xie Xianghua, Sichuan native, is now working
at an advertising company, today because of my spoken English is not very good,
also not good at expression, so a lot of places do very polite, hope your
understanding. In fact, today I want to ask is that I can make friends with
you? I don't know if it will not too abruptly .nice meeting you guys. really
thank you very much for your help today.”
I don’t know if I will ever hear from her again but we are
now “friends” on QQ, their version of instant messaging. Small acts of kindness, like being the only
ones to say thank you (Xie, Xie) to the drivers on our school buses after each
trip, may help those people be more receptive to and trusting of Westerners in
the future – there are so few of us here.
We are really at the very beginning of plowing the field to allow others
to come later to plant and then eventually do some harvesting.
06/08/2015 We have
seen all kinds of things tied on to motorcycles. Once I saw a load tied on so tall and heavy
that it tipped the bike over and people were trying to unload it. But I saw something new today while riding on
the bus to school. The bike in front of
us had a dead gutted pig tied on to the back.
As he rode through the pot holes in the street the pig body flapped up
and down. Part of it would drag on the
ground when it went around a corner. It
had also been raining and water/mud would splash up on the animal. And then we saw the driver pull up to the
campus canteen. Yummm!
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| Meals on Wheels |
On our day off Fridays we have been going back to places
around town we liked. Jin Li Street is a
tourist place but a very well done one.
It backs up to what used to be a private villa compound and is now a
lovely park and museum. Buildings are
restored or rebuilt to look like old China.
It is all little artisan shops or food nooks complete with streams and bridges
and flora.
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| Shadow Puppets for Sell |
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| Jin Li |
Since the BYU teachers will not be returning to this city
next year, we need to unload all the stuff that has been privately purchased
for the apartment over the last three years.
The other teachers have taken a sudden interest in what we and the Hadds
have. We’ve started to keep a record of
who wants what of the bigger ticket items like fans, small kitchen appliances,
shelving, pots/pans and dishes, etc. Every
few days we put out a “free” box at the bottom of the stairs filled with smaller
items we are no longer using like office supplies. But we are selling the IKEA mattress (beds
here are only a hard, box spring type of thing), and the convection oven which
were expensive. We’ve had so many takers
it’s turned into a bidding war.
Jerry tells us that Chengdu, which I had never heard of a
year ago, is now the second fastest growing city in the world, the first being
in Sri Lanka. It’s supposed to have 20
million people by 2020. I chipped a back
molar (probably a piece of filling) which made such a rough spot it was tearing
up the side of my tongue. The Hadds
teach some private English classes to little kids. One parent is a dentist and they put me in touch
with him. I took a taxi across the city
to his office and for 20 yuan (that’s about $3.20) he sanded it down. I offered to pay more but he wouldn’t take
it. So the next time he took his
daughter to the Hadds I gave him a plate of homemade cookies.
I also spent the week baking cookies, a few at a time in our
little oven, and taking them to each of my classes. The students never had oatmeal chocolate chip
cookies before, although because of the weird ingredients I have to use here,
they weren’t up to our usual standards, and they really appreciated it. Another time we gave them a candy from the
USA (Mitchells were getting rid of them) called Atomic Fireballs, a hot jaw
breaker. I thought they would like them
since they eat so much spicy food here.
It turned out to be a contest to see who could last the longest. After a few minutes one at a time would jump
up and run to the bathroom to spit it out.
Only a few finished it.
Apparently they just aren’t used to and don’t like the spice cinnamon. However, one of Clyde’s students really likes
the candy. The following week at the
beginning of class, he warned the students that if he caught any of them using
their cell phones during class, he would pick the phones up and hold them until
after class and the guilty student would immediately have to eat one of the
Fireballs that were left over. One
student from the back quickly jumped up and handed his phone to Clyde so that
he could get another Fireball. Everyone
got a laugh out of that. Clyde gave him
all the leftover candies at the end of class.
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