Sub White Sand for White Snow

If I can't have white snow at a wintry Minnesotan Christmas, I'm going to opt for white sand.  What's the best place in China for that?  It's indisputably Sanya, "the Hawaii of China".

After the Christmas concert I hurried to the airport and flew to this tropical paradise, filled with cliche shorts, beach-side restaurants, and time to relax in the sun!

I made it to Sanya!  This is a picture on December 24th!  This is the first time in my life that I'm wearing a t-shirt outdoors on Christmas eve!

There are coconuts everywhere in Sanya.  It's quite a good business for the locals, because they simply need to scurry up the tree and chop off the ripe coconuts then sell them for 10 yuan ($1.80) (along the beach, 4 yuan ($0.83) in town).  Second, this is the Chinese style bathing suit.  It's not only very short but it's tight.  I opted for lying on sand instead of swimming, as I did not bring a suit and didn't want to buy one of those.

Of course I had to try a coconut too!  They chop off the top, tap into the coconut, insert a straw, and you're set!  It tastes like light coconut Gatorade.  In some countries they use coconut water in hospital IVs, because it's filled with natural electrolytes and is sterile.

Trying Hainan tea to bring back home as a Christmas gift.  (Hainan is the province that Sanya is in).

This is how I spent Christmas eve, with a chilled beer sitting along the beach in the shade.  Fantastic.

Christmas eve dinner was certainly memorable.  We had a barbecue at the hostel!  It's a good way to meet others and share the holiday.  Here I'm grilling my very fresh shrimp.  When I say very fresh, I mean they were still alive and kicking when on the grill.  I had to hold the stick on the grill so it wouldn't fall off as they squirmed under the heat.  So different.

For Christmas day I laid on the beach the entire day.  Here's one of my favorite pictures.  The woman has a life vest...on shore.  Plus, she's got an umbrella so she doesn't get any sun...on the beach.  People bring tents (like in the background) so they can stay out of the sun.  I, on the other hand, loved it, hoping to change my skin tone from reflective to pale.

Christmas dinner (number 1), at a restaurant along the beach with some people I met at the hostel.

Christmas dinner fish!  Sweet and sour sauce with pineapple over the fish, the entire fish.  They don't cut off the head or tail in China.  It's considered lucky if the head points at you when the server places it on the table.

Christmas dinner (number 2).  Someone in the group that I met at the hostel had made dinner plans with a Chinese guy the night before.  So, we all went and it turned out to be a banquet with his family.  (totally awkward, but so much so that I won't forget it.)

Follow that with a full-body massage (we 5 all got one and we were in the same room together, fully clothed, of course.  1/2 of us were ticklish so we ended up all laughing the entire time, instead of ever really relaxing.)  which ended an unforgettable Christmas!

Chinese Christmas? What a paradox.

What is Christmas like in a country that doesn't recognize the holiday?  Simply summarized, very unique!  Being token foreigners, one thing we did was hold a Christmas concert, as is tradition at our school.

Let me recount some of these memorable Christmas moments.

A student gave me a Christmas gift!  This has the head of a dragon attached to a blossoming flower.  I was floored to get a gift from a student.  How nice and flattering.  Turns out this is a common pen holder!  How cool!

Preparing for the Christmas concert, I rehearsed with soloists and in the music room is this guzheng 古筝 (a "zither" in English) which my student, Silvia, can play.  Before we rehearsed we simply had fun chatting and exchanging music.

For one class, my students picked a Christmas song and made pictures based on the lyrics.  Here in "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree" are the lyrics "Later we'll have some Pumpkin Pie".  What better way than to have Silence and Messi pie Michael in the face?  Poor Michael lost the coin toss.

In the same fashion as above, the girls' group sang "Here Comes Santa Claus" and thanks to my horrible photoshop skills, we have Susan as a hilarious Chinese female Santa Claus!

Another group chose "Home for the Holidays" and the lyrics "I met a man who lives in Tennessee, and he was headin for Pennsylvania..." lend themselves to a long road trip.

In our last-minute rehearsals, the students also helped me decorate!  Note how big the bow is.  I think it's fantastic as Catherine shows it off.

The Christmas decorated auditorium reading for the following day's concert.

Here name is NoNo and she has a beautiful voice as she sings the intro verse to "When Christmas comes to Town"

The class voted to simply sing a song, but I made sure they were like a choir for that.  All in red and fully rehearsed, they sounded good.

Zoe played the accompaniment.  This was amazing as she and another student, Trista, learned the music in only one week after learning that their classmate couldn't play it.  Trista did very well, but when Zoe sat down, she had the whole thing completely memorized!

11th graders singing "When Christmas Comes to Town" opening our 2010 Christmas concert.

The exchange students performing their  "Santa in China" skit.  On the left is Klaus Markus, German, playing Santa Klaus.  He's wearing a traditional Beijing opera mask.  Max, the American, stands to the right.

This student from the China--Australia class is performing a Latin dance at the Christmas concert.  I don't know what Latin dancing has to do with Christmas, but that didn't stop the Chinese from including it.  We four foreign teachers had planned our programs to last 50 minutes--perfect.  At the last minute we heard they were adding acts (none of which related to Christmas, actually).  The concert went from 50 minutes to 2 hours.  This is China.

Michael, a foreign teacher here, wanted students to learn the story of Christmas as they performed the nativity play using their bedsheets as the perfect costumes.

Remember the pictures that my classes made?  One group chose Feliz Navidad and never came up with any picture ideas.  So I decided they would dance.  And they did--it went over great, actually.  (Note who's the 3rd person in the row.)

Another shot from the Feliz Navidad group.  Here in front is Swave (that's his name).  He's at the top of the class and a really positive student.  What a great beaming smile.

Here's the students in concert with photo backgrounds.  They sang "You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear" with this in the background.

The full layout of the Feliz Navidad dance.  I thank marching band, which totally helped me plan the stage positioning (blocking).

L-R, (me), Ellen, Jim, Della, & Ms. Dong.  Ellen and Della are our Chinese liaisons (unfortunately, Michael and Sean took off right after the concert, so they were not around for the photo.)

Merry Christmas!

The German in Zhengzhou

I've abandoned any sensible order of blog posts.  Here's Philipp's week in Zhengzhou!
 

We took a day trip to Kaifeng, a former Chinese capital only 40 minutes East of Zhengzhou.  Walking along small streets, there are vendors selling every sort of good, including these bulk dried food (nuts and fruits). 

Fortunately, Kaifeng is not a popular tourist city but has a long history and played a significant role in Chinese history.  That combination means incredibly ubiquitous and inexpensive souvenirs!  Here I'm looking at the 4 meter scroll of 清明上河圖 or Along the River for the Qing Ming festival.  I got it for 30 yuan (or $5)

Look at the cool dragon!  Like my Lederhosen in Germany, I had to get a traditional coat in China.  Again, note the improving bargaining skills.  They wanted 100 and I got it for 55.  In Nanjing the woman wanted 150 for the exact same thing.

As Philipp and I came back from Kaifeng we were greeted with this train station.  A hall completely crowded as we struggled to understand what the chaos all meant. (We made it back, clearly.)

Note the startled, stung, unusual face Philipp displays here.  What could possibly throw off this well-tempered German?

We find our culprit--Baijiu (白酒)--Chinese rice wine.  It's the most common drink among Chinese men.  It's typically around 50% alcohol and unforgettable.  It is a must-try experience in China.  But trust me, one taste will satiate an unaccustomed tongue, as it, well, takes a lot of getting used to.

Wednesday morning Philipp and I took a bike tour to the famous Yellow river.  It's very shallow but incredibly wide.  The loess in the water colors the river a yellowish hue.  English may have the idiom, "when pigs fly" but Chinese has "when the yellow river flows clear".

Proof!  We made it the 25 km here on a mediocre road bike and a really crappy strolling bike.

(Mother, note the jacket and how safe I'm being.)  This is the river after which my province is named.  I live in Henan province, which means "South of the River".

At the yellow river, there is a pleasant park along the shore where one can actually ride a camel.  (We didn't, though.)  Admittedly, we didn't discover the park right away.  First we went on the incredibly busy bridge over the river, not knowing of a park.  Only on our return journey did we find this tranquil area.  If only we'd see this first!

This was the "highway" to the river.  The road suddenly stopped and turned into a huge construction site.  No worry through, you drive right through.

 

And despite the clear construction, lack of an access road, and absence of foot traffic, there are these hundreds of advertisements completely covering the facade of any building.  This is China.

The Most Rewarding Feeling

Tuesday the 11^th was an amazing day—an incredibly rewarding experience as a teacher. That night the 11^th graders took a writing test and the top student finished early, so his friend asked the him to write something to help him with his test that he struggled to finish.  The top student started, but only after my seeing this did he not go through with it.  I talked with him later that night and called him out on it insisting he never do it again.  He and I have a really good rapport and he said he was very moved by my following up on it.  We talked for over an hour.  In the conversation he also shared his Chinese English teacher’s opinion of me, that she respects me and sees how hard I work compared to other foreign teachers with whom she has worked.  However, it was  unfortunate to hear that some of his classmates—my other students—would prefer to be the other teacher’s class.  In there they could watch movies all the time instead of doing activities to learn English.  He retorted immediately to say that I should not let that influence me, because my approach is right. 

Second, a student texted me around 11:00 p.m. saying he had a problem and wanted some help.  Turns out that he was struggling with unrequited love and, in China, he has no one older to turn to.  Dating is forbidden at school (one might face expulsion) and parents will tell their students to focus on their studies and not think about dating.  I shared what advice I could and it seemed to console him quite a bit.  From my perspective, it was simply an honor that he would trust me enough to turn to me.

I sometimes think that this time in China may not be as rewarding long-term because I am not making friendships.  Then something like Tuesday happens and it highlights that I am, in fact, building relationships; they simply take a different form. 

Intermediate Thoughts

I know I have yet to send a real blog post for the last multiple weeks, but this I send with random thoughts as I’m between holidays.

Christmas was spent in sunny Sanya, the southernmost point in China, known as the “Hawaii of China”.  I reclined on the beach, drank from coconuts, and ate freshly caught fish.  It being the holiday season, I embraced the line from Eat Pray Love of “I have no interest in being obese, but I’m done with the guilt.”  The guilt of worrying about the extra 5 pounds or (thanks to my genes) the extremely pale skin.  Rock on Scandinavians and other northern Europeans! 

 

For New Year’s I’m off to Nan Jing, which means “Southern Capital.”  A Chinese friend from college is back in China and I’ll visit her to bring in the solar new year.

 

Other random thoughts—my holiday season has just been doubled in length by moving to China.  I, like many others, embrace the holiday spirit of indulging in chocolates and cakes without regret.  Now in China, as the Western season winds down, the Chinese gears up for another month preparing for the Spring Festival—the Chinese New Year—on February 2^nd.  However, it’s likely a nice break from the past 4 years of resolving in January to eat healthier and exercise more.  I’m in the 90% that don’t sustain that resolution to the end of the year.  That’s ok.  The food is delicious!

 

Also, I’ve finally found a decent way of intensely engaging my students on a regular basis.  We watch 30 minutes of a movie and the students each have to write answers to five questions about the movie.  If they achieve a set percent score, we will continue the movie on the following day.  They are genuinely concerned about continuing the movie and, as a result, use their English, practicing subject-verb agreement, pronoun usage, and dependent clause formation.  Plus, it is a way to better teach to the middle, as I am regularly biased towards teaching the honors students. 

 

However, to make the questions for these movies means I have a lot of outside class work to do.  I have now seen these movies four times this week.  And let me tell you, Iron Man is not a great movie.

 

Below some pictures from the Christmas Concert, another long story to share:

 

Thanksgiving in China...does that happen?

This is officially the second Thanksgiving that I have spent out of the country and, as always, I'll find a substitute for the holiday.  Fortunately, China is the biggest market for KFC (Yum! Enterprises).

 

So I did just that.  On Thanksgiving day I went to KFC and ordered the largest meal I could find--the bucket of both regular and extra crispy.  It came with three pops, so I assume that meant it's supposed to feed three people?  Well, like Pizza Hut, they're terribly wrong on their estimates, because I cleaned that bucket up in true Thanksgiving tradition.

The following day, Friday, the school took all the foreign teachers and our Chinese counterparts (those who work with our program) to a collective dinner for Thanksgiving.  Granted, I'm the only American at my school, so the other teachers had to ask for some clarification, but I enjoyed it.  I think they also intended it to be a Christmas celebration too? 

Many say that schools will take their new teachers out to a fancy dinner in order to build the relationship--you do something for me, I do something for you.  If they take the first step with a fancy dinner, then they may leverage it later for extra work.  Fortunately, Sean and I already put in a month of teaching twice as many classes as we should have, so it's going to take a lot more one-night dinners before they can leverage anything against us. 

 

Thus began my holiday season.  Next was to deck my apartment out in Christmas style.

Fortunately, most Christmas decorations are made in China, so I bought them for the cost without
shipping and import tariffs built in.  

I figured, if Zhengzhou doesn't have any snow on the ground, I can still have my White Christmas.

The Chinese characters are pronounced "Sheng dan kuai le" meaning "Merry Christmas."   And, yes, that is a 3-foot silver bow behind me.  It's ridiculously huge; I love it.

With Thanksgiving past, it is clearly the beginning of the Christmas season!

Later Days,
Rick

Shanghai--the Metropolitan China

I found my Chinese home!  While Zhengzhou is calm, growing, and regionally-reputable, I discovered the Chinese city for me in Shanghai.  I have yet to experience Nanjing, Guangzhou/Shenzhen, and Xi'an, but like the metropolis that is New York and Frankfurt, as is Shanghai.

 

I met a friend, Clare, in Shanghai during the students' testing period.  Poor students are taking 4 days of mid-term exams and I'm drinking Starbucks in Shanghai.  Clare and I both came to China through the same company--EMW China.

We weren't dead-set on seeing the sights, but strolled around the city and eventually came across "the Bund", a heavily commercial area known for it's skyline and evening views over the river.  Note the internationally-recognizable Pearl Tower sticking out behind Rick's head.

Not being sightseers, we went shopping.  Clare insisted that with her impeccable style (as seen here) she could save me from mine.

All day Thursday we spent shopping along NanJing road.  The street features a pedestrian shopping road and many western amenities, including Marks & Spencer.  I had no idea what it was, it being a United Kingdom store, but Clare was ecstatic to find "brown sauce".  That just doesn't sound appetizing to me.  Yet, I now like Marks & Spencer since they sold ground coffee!  My first real, home-brewed coffee.  Thank you, Marks & Spencer.

Shanghai being a metropolitan city, we also came to experience the night life!  This is where the most stories always originate, including the "thrill" that is waiting for women to get ready.  Once everyone's finally ready, the night brings adventures like multi-story lounges, taste-testing a wine (saying to the server that it's not good and getting the response, "Too bad.  It's already open."  What restaurant does that?) and eventually throwing away a 3/4 full bottle--the Chinese just cannot make a good wine, running into Germans between bars and getting directions in German, and dining at KFC to finish the night.

From such nights result the above carnage.  (Note that it's basically a woman's stuff everywhere?  Make-up, shoes, purses, and the slew of outfits tried on before deciding what to eventually wear.)

 

All in all, Shanghai is a beautiful and exciting city.  There's no shortage of shops, parks, culture, and Starbucks. Like Frankfurt and New York, it's an international city--certainly worth a return trip!