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:
"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
What an adventure! That's probably the same reply I had on your last post but no kidding, this is so amazing to see the world through the eyes of our missionaries. Thanks for sharing this. You guys are troopers! Miss ya!
ReplyDeleteConnie
Hi Cindy,
ReplyDeleteWe have friends in our ward, whose son from BYUI has been in Hangzou teaching English in a middle school with China Horizons since September. He went with a friend on 11.11 day to a dance club, tried to ask a Chinese girl to dance, was informed she "belonged" to so and so. They left, were picked up by a blacked out police van on the walk home "for causing a disturbance at the club" , both beaten by cops with bully sticks, and detained at the station for 13 hours. His face is bruised, disfigured, had concussion and can hardly open his mouth, went to hospital. Two days later on the way home from eating, he was picked up and detained at another station for 12 hours. No Embassy or Consulate where he was. Needless to say, he is now flying home early for protection and treatment. So, am worried about you all....be careful and vigilant always...Corruption and evil abound! Much love, The Kinneys