Thanksgiving Times Two...

12.1.13 – Xi’an Update

It is time for another update.  Especially since it is/was Thanksgiving time and I need to let you all know what I’m grateful for!  I am SO grateful for (in no particular order):

…All of you and the incredible individuals you are.  You all make me so happy!

...Wonderful children that are living amazing lives!

…Beautiful grandchildren that are healthy and happy and being raised by loving parents.

…Good health and strength over here in China (we need it!).

…Jordan.  He is amazing and I love him dearly!

…Real Chinese food!  It is SO yummy!  Nothing like the US Chinese food.

…Good friends and family everywhere! 

…This beautiful world.  I’m in awe of it most every day of my life.

…The gospel and the joy it brings to my life. 

…Our opportunity to be on the first of MANY missions to come. 

…A 2” piece of foam on our bed so we can have a little comfort at night. 

…The rain because it clears the horrible pollution out of the air here in Xi’an for at least a day!

…Tender mercies that come daily in various forms. 

I could go on for hours…. Just know that I am so grateful for my life and the opportunity that I have to be alive every day and enjoy every minute.

Life continues to march on here in Xi’an.  We are finding the weeks fly by at the speed of lightening!  I guess because we are so busy, time is just gone and we find ourselves at the end of another week and then the end of another month.  Pretty soon we will find ourselves at the end of another year!  Crazy how fast it goes!

FIRECRACKERS

Have I mentioned how many firecrackers are always going off in China?  It seems that every other hour or so, firecrackers are being set off to announce or celebrate something.  The sound of pop-pop-pop constantly fills the air here.  They LOVE their firecrackers!  The tradition of lighting them off says that the loud noise scares away evil spirits so there will be success in whatever area of life they are celebrating.  Seriously, they are sounding off all the time!

SPICY FOOD

Anyone who knows me and knows me well, knows I have never liked nor been able to handle spicy food.  Well, something drastic has changed in my life… I LOVE SPICY FOOD!  “What?  How can that be?  You were such a whimp before!”  I know… I can hardly believe it myself.  Spicy food is so good!  I can finally taste the flavor of spicy food and it doesn’t just burn, burn, burn.  The red peppers added to most everything here have such a good flavor.  I’m completely baffled by this new phenomenon!

MORNING TRUMPET

Every morning at precisely 0650, a trumpet plays in the distance, awakening all the students from a restful slumber.  Can’t you just hear it now?  I’m usually almost ready for the day by the time it goes off each morning and I look forward to hearing it faintly through an open window.

MASSAGE 

We found the BEST massage (neck, back, arms & feet) place here!  It only costs 20 RMB ($3.20) for one hour!  It is amazing and a weekly ritual for me now.  I took Jordan once and here are his comments:  “First, they put your feet in boiling hot water to soak which must be equal to Chinese water torture, then they start the physical abuse by trying to manipulate your torso into positions it shouldn't be in and pushing on some areas so hard that you feel your entire body go numb, after this they begin to shave your feet and trim your toenails with a scalpel that could scare feathers off a turkey!”  Ok, so he didn't actually say it like that, more like, “first the water torture, then the physical abuse and then the knife.”  But my way is so much more descriptive!  Anyway, to all that I say, “And what’s not to LOVE!”  It will continue to be a weekly ritual for me. 

MOVIES

Movies are interesting here.  We have yet to go see an actual movie in a theater, mostly because we have no idea where to find them and the one that we did find was not showing any US flicks.  We have however, been able to find several movies at little vendor stands along the streets.  It is like reaching into a goody-bag and not knowing what you will get when you open your hand.  Our favorite by far is when you can definitely tell that someone has been sitting in the back of a theater recording the movie.  Definite signs of “in-movie-theater-pirating” are: 

1.       The sound quality is so bad you have to learn to read lips or use earplugs when it all of a sudden goes LOUD.

2.      The beginning of the film seems to be in black & white but it is actually kinda greenish in color.  The color gradually gets better and worse.

3.      There are no beginning or ending credits.

4.      Occasionally the lens cap goes on but you can still hear the movie.  When the threat of discovery is gone, the lens cap comes back off.

5.      And our all-time favorite is:  You can watch people get up from their seats, go out to the bathroom (or for popcorn maybe) and then several minutes later you can watch their shadow return to their seat.  One lady had an up-doo (men, that is a hairdo that is on top of the head) as tall as the Eiffel Tower and it was very comical in shadow form. 

THANKSGIVING

Our Thanksgiving was a wee bit unconventional, but nonetheless enjoyable after a long day of teaching on Weds and Thurs.  We started a day early on Weds evening with a Foreign Teacher Faculty dinner that I organized at a nearby café.  We had 28 people in attendance.  The café actually prepared a real Thanksgiving Dinner for us with turkey, dressing, small potatoes (not mashed but still excellent) and a wee amount of gravy and cranberries.  Although a little more gravy and cranberries would have been awesome, it was a great dinner for only 88 RMB ($14.50)

On Thursday night we had a Branch Thanksgiving Dinner at the Sheraton Hotel Buffet.  A little pricier than Weds night but equally as good for 99 RMB ($16.50).  The Sheraton caters to foreigners and on Thursday night, they rolled out the red carpet.  Not only did they have a giant roasted turkey with dressing and gravy, they had a large pork leg and MANY other foods including: sushi, tacos, salads, fruits, cheeses, regular Chinese favorites and the BEST dessert bar in town!   

So, as you can tell, we have not lost our sense of humor or wonder.  We enjoy every day as if it were our first here and see the time passing VERY quickly.  Although we miss you all like CRAZY, we are content knowing that we are here doing a positive work that will change lives, hopefully for the better.  

Love you all SO much and hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful. We missed being with you and hope you could feel our love across the miles, WISHING YOU THE BEST THANKSGIVING EVER!!

Singles, Scooters & AQI

November 11, 2013

Happy "Singles Day"!!  You may be asking yourself, "What the heck is Singles Day?"  Here is a brief explanation from USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/11/11/singles-day-chinas-online-shopping-holiday/1697299/

"Singles Day was begun by Chinese college students in the 1990s as a version of Valentine's Day for people without romantic partners. The timing was based on the date Nov. 11, or "11.11" — four singles. Unattached young people would treat each other to dinner or give gifts to woo that special someone and end their single status. That gift-giving helped to turn it into a major shopping event as sellers of everything from jewelry to TVs to cars saw a marketing opportunity and launched Singles Day sales.  It is China's answer to Cyber Monday in the United States — the day after Thanksgiving weekend, when online Christmas shopping begins and merchants have their busiest sales day."

Now for an update:

We are still loving China!  The greatest part of this entire experience is working with the university students and trying to make a small difference, some how, some way.  Every day we have opportunities to teach good, wholesome principles within our lessons on English.  It is amazing how much you can weave into English instruction!  The students are kind and happy despite their difficult circumstances.  I recently did a lesson focused around problem solving that opened my eyes to the real life students live, outside of class time.  I first reminded them that they were attending a fabulous university, but even great schools have a few things that could be better.  We listed those things on the board.  They were then required to form groups of 5-6 and become a business that would work innovatively to solve one of these problems.  It was difficult to get them to stop thinking like students and start thinking like a business, outside the box, wanting to grow their business.  A few of them finally caught the vision of seeing endless possibilities to solve problems, while others never could get past the fact that the school doesn't have any money to make changes, therefore, no changes can really be made.  It was a great activity and got them using their problem solving language skills, which was my goal, so despite the actual outcome of whether they solved the problem or not, they used English.  Hooray!  I thought you may be interested in some of the problems they face on a daily basis:

1.      Dorms are small with 6 to a room.  No space to store the things they need.  Nowhere to  study.  

2.      No Air Conditioning in dorm rooms.  No ceiling fans. 

3.      No hot water in dorm buildings.  They must use large thermos jugs to go and retrieve hot  water from a hot water house, carry it back and sometimes up 6 flights of stairs with no  elevator.

4.      No private showers.  There is just one large shower room like we used to have for PE. 

5.      No wifi and poor internet.

6.      Electricity is turned off from 11:30 PM – 6:00 AM.  Hairdryers are never allowed. 

7.      Only one set of washer/dryer facilities per building of MANY students. 

The list could go on and on.  Suffice it to say, I have nothing to complain about….ever again. 

AIR QUALITY

You may have heard on the news about how bad our air quality has been of late.  Yup… it is BAD!  I have an AQI (air quality index) app on my phone that I check regularly, as if it will protect me somehow.  I see how bad it is and then hop on the bus and head out to school to teach.  I suppose I should be wearing a mask around but it just doesn't seem realistic to do so.  So, I will hope and pray that my lungs keep working! 

CHINESE

Our Chinese is coming along nicely.  We have Chinese class twice a week (Mon & Thurs afternoon) for 2 hours each class.  By the time we leave class our heads are about to explode!  It is seriously crazy awesome!  We come home and put up post it notes all over the apartment to try and learn the words and phrases taught that day.  Then we do our best to repeat and practice them with each other as often as possible!  It is really fun and we are enjoying learning the language SO much.  We get a slight feel of how our students must feel because our teacher refuses to use any English in class.  We get scolded if we use any English.  She is tough!  She will say words in Chinese and we must write the Chinese character and pinyin (their words in our roman alphabet) plus the tone of each syllable.  The four different tones are quite difficult to detect and master, as is the pronunciation of letters and combinations of letters.  But, we will NEVER give up!  We love it!!!

CREATIVE PIZZA DELIVERY

A couple of weeks ago, we had pizza party for our little Branch here at our apartment.  Jordan was in charge of getting the pizzas. The closest pizza place is Pizza Hut and is about a 30 minute walk from here.  He took one of our members, a 23 yr old named Joel from Argentina and who speaks pretty fluent Chinese with him to place the order to be picked up later that day.  When it was time to go get the pizzas, they walked out to the main road and found a scooter guy who was waiting to give someone a ride.  At this point I must tell you that there are scooter dudes waiting at the exit of every subway, ready to give any paying customer a ride to wherever they want to go in the city.  None of them are legal or authorized to do so, but no matter, they do it anyway.  So, dad and Joel hop on one scooter together (yes, now there are 3 grown men on one scooter), with two on the seat and one on the small luggage bar.  They ride to Pizza Hut, ask the scooter dude to wait, they then pick up 6 large pizzas, everyone jumps back on the scooter and in no time, they are dodging cars and trucks while holding 3 large pizza boxes off each side of the scooter.  My only regret is that I don’t have a picture.  There is always next time!

WEATHER

The weather here has begun to turn cold.  I finally had to put my skirts and sandals away and start wearing real clothes.  Our students are always concerned that we do not wear enough clothing to keep us warm.  While it was still hot, I would open the windows for a breeze (no AC in the classrooms remember?) and they would close the windows.  Now that it is cold, I close the windows and they open them!  They all wear big coats to class and then open the windows.  I just can’t figure it out.  I wouldn't be so opposed to them opening the windows if the air quality were better.  One day, the air quality was so bad outside that when the windows were open, the thick smoggy air rolled into the classroom and it was foggy’ish in class.  That is when I put my foot down and said, no more outside air in here today! 

Take care and know that we love and miss you all like crazy!!!!!!!

 再见  Zàijiàn