Christmas Party

We recently had a small Christmas party with some of our students. Together we told the Nativity story, sang some Christmas songs and made Christmas cards. The students above are showing off their Christmas card creations. They enjoyed making the cards so much that after we had gone 45 minutes past our scheduled time Brian finally had to just start taking away the materials! In the end, we all had a good time, and the students heard the true story of Christmas.

People, people everywhere!

This is one of the many crowded areas you can find in China. Many of our friends say that the root of China's current problems is because of the "large population." Officially, the population is 1.3 billion, but friends here say it's more likely 1.5 billion. China just completed a census, so we are curious about the results.

Truthfully, you cannot escape overcrowding in China. The city where we live has about 1 million people and is considered a "very small city." But look at the photo above, taken while crossing a sky bridge. You see the effects of overcrowding when getting on the bus. People move in mass and push a lot. If it's rush hour don't expect to get a seat. The idiom of being "packed like sardines" is quite appropriate.

Overcrowding does have other problems too. Recently, we read an article about a stampede at a kindergarten. The children were going out to recess when one girl stopped and bent down to tie her shoe. over 40 children were treated for injuries.

Concert in the Park

This impromptu concert in the park is a common scene in China. This group was performing traditional Chinese songs. Other groups perform traditional Chinese dances. Some play card games and Chinese chess. Often, the people are retirees. With forced retirement at age 60 for men and age 55 for women, these folks have a lot of free time on their hands.

The parks in China are a fascinating mix of people.

"Civilized People"

After last week's "Crossing the Street" post we thought we'd share with you how to be "civilized people." This underpass is found at one of the major intersections downtown in our city. Increasingly it's becoming a problem with how people cross the street here. We know of multiple people here who have relatives who have been hit by cars or buses.

Crossing the Street

Crossing the street in China is always an... "adventure." There are many designated crosswalks, but in general everywhere is a cross walk. In larger cities, like Beijing, the city has built barriers down the middle of the streets leaving access to cross only at the crosswalks. This keeps most people from crossing in the wrong place, but we've still seen people jumping over the barriers too.

Above is a photo from a street in our city. Notice the layers of people and cars. Generally the method of crossing the street involves crossing halfway, waiting while standing on the tiny median (less than one foot wide) and crossing the other halfway when the coast is clear. The good thing is that people always cross the street like this, so when the cars pass you as you are waiting on the median they will swerve a little to give you some space. We enjoy the area of our city where we live because the streets are wide and there's little traffic. This means that often we can cross all the way across the street!

Lastly, for those of you wondering, there is no understanding here of "the pedestrian has the right of way." It's usually, "whoever has the biggest vehicle and wants to go faster has the right of way." Does this make you excited about visiting China?

A Day at the Park

We visited the main city park with some students on an unusually warm day. They took us to an area of the park where you can buy food and feed the white pigeons. This is one of the families that was also there. Our students tell us that the white pigeon (what they call a dove) is a symbol of peace. It's interesting that this is a similar symbol in Western cultures because of the story of Noah.

Candied Fruit

Here in China there are a plethora of street food vendors. During the winter season we often get the option to buy candied fruit. The fruit above is mostly hawthorn (the red ones), which is really popular and quite tasty. The fruit has been dipped in hot sugar syrup. When it cools it hardens to make a sweet shell for the fruit. One stick of hawthorn costs only 2 yuan, about 30 cents in USD. What a delicious bargain!

Brian's Birthday Pic

Happy birthday, Brian! Brian's birthday was on October 24. We had a small party because a lot of our friends were out of town for a conference. We enjoyed eating a lot of cake and ice cream! With two of our friends we watched the second "Twilight" movie and laughed through the whole thing. I'm sorry to all the "Twilight" fans out there, but the movie is so easy to mock. All in all, Brian had a fun and chocolatey birthday.

This week's picture

This picture is of one of the local Hui men. The area where we live is the "autonomous region" for the Hui ethnic minority group. The Hui, descendants of Persian traders on the Silk Road, are ethnically Muslim. Many of the students we teach are also Hui. Usually the younger people don't wear the traditional dress, but when walking around our town, one can see many older men wearing the traditional hats and women wearing the traditional head scarves.

Two weeks in one

Last week was so super busy that I forgot to post the photo of the week! This week I'm trying to make up for it by doubling up. Enjoy!

Below is a photo of a very common sight in China: split pants. Here often children don't wear diapers. They wear split pants that are conveniently open in the middle for easy access. The parents begin training the babies when they are very little to "respond" to the mother whistling. It's a pretty fascinating idea.



Below are two photos of the mountains we can see from our apartment. This is one of our favorite things about where we live. The first photo is an unusually vibrant sunset. The second was taken the morning after a thunderstorm in September. We got rain, but the higher elevations got snow.

Kitty Pictures for this week!

Below are two photos that our Japanese friend took. She is also a teacher at our school and lives in our building. She shares our love of cats and took these awesome pictures of just one of the many stray cats on campus. Thanks, Yuri!

Surprised cat!

Happy cat!

This week's photo

This photo was also taken during our trip to Hohhot. It's from a Tibetan Buddhist temple. These are the "prayer flags." Tibetan Buddhism and temples can be found in many places in China.

Photo of the Week: September 21, 2010

This is a photo we took during our visit to Hohhot, Inner Mongolia. We just had to laugh at this sign...and the people in the picture.

This week's pictures--Sept. 15

Some weeks I can't choose only one picture...

Below is one of the guards at TianAnMen square.

Below is a Chinese tourist at the Temple of Heaven in Beijing.
Smoking is very common for Chinese men.

Introducing, The Picture of the Week!

Last year we were inconsistent with updating our blog, so this year we are beginning our new series, The Picture of the Week. This is the first installment...

We bought a new camera this summer, and Annie has had a great time exploring it's features and being creative. The picture below is from the Nature Center in Annie's hometown. It's a wonderful place full of walking trails and wildlife.



The picture below is from St. Francis of Assisi Cathedral in Santa Fe, near Brian's hometown. The artwork and expression caught Annie's eye.

At the Market

There are so many things about life in China that are so different from our life in America. One of them is what foods we can and cannot find. I'm inspired to write about this today because yesterday I made a glorious find........ canned whipped cream! It's from somewhere in Germany, so it better be good. We're saving it for a special occasion because it did end up costing $4.50 for the one can. Some things are just worth it!

We have a lot of great fresh fruits, vegetables and meats. Yes, I wrote "meats," and they sure are fresh. The meat stands have slabs hanging from hooks in the open air. You walk up and tell the vendor how many "jin" (a Chinese measurement roughly equal to half a kilo) you would like to buy. He or she cuts it off right in front of you. We buy our beef this way and have also learned how to ask in Chinese for it to be ground. Granted, there are some ways in which this is really gross (oh, the smell!), but it's also quite convenient. We've also learned to ask the vendor to cut off the fat before he or she grinds the meat, so we get really lean meat. It's also very fresh.

We buy our chicken at the big supermarket. There you can get frozen boneless, skinless chicken breasts. They're in a big pile on a table that is refrigerated. The big challenge about buying them is picking them up! For your convenience, there are some tongs available to pick up the pieces. But the tongs are just two flat pieces of metal with no teeth to grip with. Usually I end up dropping the pieces a few times before they make it into the bag that the butcher lady is holding for me. If I say something silly in Chinese she laughs a little and gives me some extra help.

Here's a meat buying tip: Go to buy before 11:00 a.m. or the good meat has already been sold.

The fruit and vegetable stands here are just beautiful. There is an array of colors, shapes and sizes. Everything comes in season, so we get really excited when new fruits or vegetables show up at the stands. Our most recent additions have been strawberries and pineapple. After a winter of bananas, apples and oranges we are very excited.

China also has to offer some really great fruits and vegetables we can't get in America. Our new favorite fruit is a pomelo. It's like a large grapefruit mixed with an orange and is absolutely delicious! As for vegetables, here they eat garlic stalk. It can be stir fried or put in stews. Lastly, eggplant in China tastes so much better than it does in America. This makes Annie quite excited because she likes eggplant, but Brian doesn't...in America. Here Brian loves it.

Here's a fruit safety tip: All fruit that does not have a thick peel MUST be thoroughly washed before eating. The quality of the water used in the fields is not always good and can leave residue on the skin of the fruit. Bananas and oranges are safe, but everything else must be washed, including lettuce.

(Below: One of the larger fruit & vegetable markets in town. This one is unusual because it is indoors. Commonly, they are open air...or just a cart on the side of the road.)

Where in the World Have We Been?

After a long absence, we have returned to our blog page. And there was great rejoicing.

Many have heard of the Great "Firewall" of China. The official purpose is to protect the citizens of China from access to pornography. Great idea! But, it also prevented us from our blog spot, youtube and many other websites. Sad! Recently, we have discovered a way to access this blog again, so here we are! Again, great rejoicing.

We had a great first semester teaching at the university here. There were challenges along the way, including the loss of a family member and a very good friend. It hurt us to be so far away and not be able to attend the memorials and to hug our friends and family. But, the One who has called us here reached out to us in this time too. We had a few additional challenges. Annie's ankle is still not completely healed from "the great fall at the Great Wall" (see post below). Brian got food poisoning once, and Annie got it twice. Then there were the stresses of H1N1. Boo! Our campus took measures to protect the students by restricting them to the campus. Culturally, this is completely appropriate. But, after two months being stuck on campus all of our students were ready for the semester to be over. The school decided to shorten the semester so that the students could go home for the holidays earlier. Now our hope is that the gates will all remain open this semester.

As for teaching, Brian taught Sophomore Oral English. Annie taught Freshman Oral English. It was a lot of fun! We have some very sweet students and a few sassy ones to boot. We have enjoyed getting to know our students, most of which are from this small province where we live. We have made many new friends. We have also made friends with some others who are either graduate students or teachers in our department. A special thank you to everyone who sent us packages this semester. We were able to share the contents with not only our students but also our teammates. They all thank you!

After the semester ended we started a whirlwind, one-month vacation. (Our semester vacation is a total of two months.) Our first stop was Xi'an via overnight train. Oh, the fun of the local trains! We had many cultural experiences. In Xi'an we visited the Terracotta Warriors, which were quite amazing. We also enjoyed eating at McDonald's...many times. When we were in the States we didn't each McDonald's much, but we don't have one in our town, so it was quite a treat. We also visited friends and enjoyed getting to know them better.

Next stop: Beijing! We spent a few days in the "North Capitol," the direct translation. There we visited the Olympics area, some Western restaurants and an import store where we bought exciting things like Cheerios, tortillas and Milky Way candy bars. Yum! We rested quite a bit in Beijing too and were able to visit a friend and his family. They have a very cute little girl.

After this, we headed to the southern parts of the country to visit some very good friends. We had a great time just hanging out, playing with their two kids and playing Scrabble. We also enjoyed the abundance of fresh fruit!

Finally, it was time to go to Thailand for our annual conference. We got there a few days early so that we could go to the dentist and to the doctor to have Annie's ankle checked out again. It's amazing that in Thailand you can go to a hospital and see an orthopedic doctor for only $12.50! He gave Annie some physical therapy to strengthen her ankle more. We also celebrated our two-year anniversary...by flying through the Thai jungle on zip lines. This was not Annie's idea, but she overcame her fear of heights and had a great time. The jungle is beautiful.

Our conference was a wonderful time of catching up with friends and sharing stories and a time for us to be nurtured in an open environment. We felt quite refreshed afterward. We also had an opportunity to go with a group of friends to "Tiger Kingdom." There we actually pet tigers and lions! This is exactly what our mothers have told us not to do since we were children. But, once you pass the age of 30, you're a little more free. We found out that Brian's allergy to cats applies to lions and tigers too! He got a little red and sneezy after cuddling with the big tigers. He is quite excited that he can now list on medical forms that his allergies are: hay fever, cats, lions and tigers.

Our last week on Thailand we spent at a beach resort. It was very relaxing. We sat around and read books, swam in the pool, visited friends who were also there and made a trip to Monkey Island to feed the monkeys bananas. We had a long day of travel back to our home and have had a few days to rest. Now, we are starting to gear up for another semester. And, in a short 4 1/2 months we'll be headed back to the States for our summer vacation.

Happy Chinese New Year to you! It's the Year of the Tiger! Grr!