Hello all,
Less than five weeks before I'm back in Canada for the summer.
A Star!!
I have been living in interesting times indeed since my last update went
out. I have made my Internet acting debut. I am in a video that is up on
YouTube at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJExtzetrt0 Go check it out,
leave a comment. It is the brainchild of my fellow, David, who wrote,
filmed and edited the whole thing. It runs under 3 minutes and is very
dry humor. You can find out more about it and the video of the actual TV
ad that inspired it on David's website: http://www.themaninchina.com/index.htm
Another School-Sponsored Trip
We had another travel experience weekend of April 14 and15. We went on a
school-sponsored trip to Yangzhou (where we went through a very
beautiful, but densely packed crowd at slender West Lake -- as well as
seeing a couple of other parks) Saturday and Jiangyin Sunday. Both are
in Jiangsu province where I am now living. At Jiangyin we went to a park
where we got to go through tunnels that had been used by the Chinese
during their fight against the Japanese and then later were used by the
Chinese against each other during the revolution. The tunnels let out at
the Chang Jiang river (the Yangtze) at the spot where the river ends and
the ocean begins. Of course, to the naked eye the spot looks just like
the Yangtze a few kilometres in either direction. I am not sure if it is
salt content they measure to determine the demarcation or what. It was a
pleasant enough weekend. Nice to get out and about and see some parts of
China I haven't been to before. And we also had a few quite good meals.
And all covered by the school, even the hotel. Certainly can't beat the
price. And we got to bring GouGou with us again. She had a good time
even though a few of the parks wouldn't let her walk around in them. We
had to put her in the gym bag we got for her and carry her with us. So
she was just this cute head sticking out of a bag smiling at everyone.
The Long March Dance
In April, on Friday the 13th actually, the school gave us tickets to a
dance production about the Long March. The Long March was a year long
march of Mao Tsetung and the Red Army during the Communist Revolution. I
am not sure where it started and ended (I really must find some time to
learn Chinese history) but it went over mountains and marshy grassland
for at least part of it. I got that much from the dance production. It
was a ballet style of dance (though no point shoes) and the story
focused on a unit of female soldiers and their trials and tribulations.
As it took place during a war and a march where many were lost on the
road due to the hardships of the journey it had a regular sprinkling of
very emotive grieving scenes.
I enjoyed the dancing and there were some particularly nice group
choreography scenes of battles with piles of sand bags on wheels moving
about on stage with the soldiers to give a sense of greater action.
There were a lot of clever lighting effects as well; a very professional
production. And we had great seats for the event, 6th row centre.
We Could Give Ticket Away – One anyways
Unfortunately, David had the stomach flu that day so couldn't make it. I
went with our neighbors, Hanhan and Gary. We gave David's ticket away at
the entrance to make sure that the seat didn't go to waste and so I had
a very grateful young man beside me during the show. And I can
understand his gratitude, I hadn't noticed the price on the tickets
until we got to the auditorium where the show was put on -- our tickets
were 250 RMB (~$42 cdn) each. That's a lot of money in China.
An Inconvenient Class
This term I gave some of my students a challenge, introducing them to
global warming. I showed all five of my Freshmen Speaking and Listening
classes the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" (if you haven't seen it is
worth watching for the artful way it's put together, the humor in it and
the 'making you think' aspect of it) one week and the next week we did
follow-up activities/discussion around it. I had them talking about what
China can do regarding global warming, what it should do, and what each
of them as an individual can do. I've got some good thinkers in my
classes and some students who seem very keen on educating others on this
issue now. Drop a pebble in a pond and the let the ripples go.
Stars on Stage as Well
April 27 we performed at some on campus student event. It was in an
auditorium with a real stage with lights and a sound system. David and I
performed with Piao, a young Chinese man who is a human beatbox. He
makes drum machine sounds just with his mouth and I think he is pretty
amazing. He was our rhythm section. We did an a capella set of two
songs. We opened with 'Departure Bay' and then moved into 'Rattlin' Bog'
(as an audience participation song with a Chinese audience, always a
challenge as they don't like to stand out).
Rattlin'
We called for four volunteers from the audience for Rattlin' Bog, to
help lead the audience in all of the actions for the song. We had a
PowerPoint presentation to go with the songs that included our
introduction and call for volunteers (which Piao translated live) and
then the lyrics to the songs, well illustrated with pictures. It was fun
to put together and fun to do. It was amazing how quickly he had four
volunteers practically run onto the stage. I think that perhaps the
event organizers were worried about how this volunteer thing would work
out, so my bet is that they planted volunteers on our behalf. I don't
think they needed to worry though. The crowd got right into it and we
had lots of them doing the actions with us. The front row of VIPs seemed
to particularly enjoy the goings on and were grinning through the
actions. David says he spotted folks at the back dancing to the chorus.
It is fun to give people permission to play and then watch them have
fun!
Free Range
Some people in the building across from us in the teacher's compound
where we live had a couple of chicken chicks for a few weeks. They were
very cute but were also running lose in the courtyard area of the
compound all day. GouGou would have loved nothing better than to play
with those chicks and I don't think that game would have ended well for
the birds, so I was very careful with GouGou when taking her outside.
Something else was not so kind to the chicks though. One day I saw that
the smaller of them had an injured wing and leg. I think perhaps one of
the neighbourhood cats got at it. The next day there was only one chick
and I didn't see it for much longer either. We are now chickless again.
Spring Visitor
Spring was a busy time for visits. One of our students from HIT last
year dropped in for an afternoon when she was in Shanghai to see friends
and we had a weekend with my good friend, Doug (from way back in my high
school days) who also detoured from Shanghai where he had been doing
business.
Mayday Guests
We had a nice visit with our friends Thomas and Marina from Weihai
(well, Thomas is originally from the Southern U.S. and Marina from
Russia) over the Mayday week. David and they did a day trip to Shanghai
April 30 (I couldn't join them as I still had a class to teach that day)
which David wrote about in his blog. May 1 we borrowed Hanhan's bike so
that the four of us and GouGou could cycle around (GouGou rode in the
back of David's new 'san lun che' (three wheeled bicycle cart) – photos
now up on my flickr site). We went through our nearby village, stopped
in a beautiful park and just lazed for a while (after Gougou played with
what was possibly the biggest dog I have ever seen -- she may have come
up to his knees) and then went up into the nearby hills.
Here Yesterday, Gone Today
David and I managed to find the road up to a small lake we had been to
before. We were quite thrilled that we remembered the route and very
disappointed at what we found. The lake seems to be mostly drained now.
There is some kind of work being done around some of it -- trees knocked
over, earth moved and that sort of thing. It was a shadow of its former
self. So, we went back to the campus and rode around there for a while.
This is a truly massive campus. We rode around into some sections that I
had never been to before, like some locks for the barges that go through
the campus and an area that looked like it must be used for the students
military training in the fall and an outdoor track and more basketball,
tennis and volleyball courts. All in all, a nice day.
A One Dog Open Bike
A couple of weeks later I took GouGou back to the hills to let her run
around some. The really fun part was getting to the trail and back. It
is a couple of kilometers away, more than I wanted to walk. GouGou is
getting too big to take in the bike carrier now and I didn't want to
take David's three-wheeled cart as it is not so good once you get onto
dirt roads or hills. So instead I rode with GouGou running beside me. I
had one end of the leash hooked over my bell on my handlebars so that
she was well attached and then I let her pull me for the first part of
our trek. She is such a sled dog that I actually made pretty good speed
with my one-dog power.
Running Dog
The last time, months ago, that we tried to have GouGou run with a bike
it was much too stressful. She would keep crossing over in front of it
and had no real concept of the potential danger the wheels posed. This
time out GouGou did much better. By the time we reached the north gate
of the school I was comfortable enough with her bike savvy that I
started peddling at a slow rate. We got pretty good at riding and
running together in no time and I just kept my bike between her and any
other bike traffic or cars on the stretches where we went. So she got
quite a workout with the run there and back and a romp in the woods in
the middle. She flaked for the rest of the afternoon once we got home. I
have been taking her out on bike runs almost daily since then and we are
both having a great time with it.
Ticked Off
I don't think I will take her back to the woods though. I found two very
small ticks on her fur when we got home. There don't seem to have been
any more that got down to flesh. Nothing has showed up in the last few
weeks at least (though another stitch did work its way to the surface)
Water, Water Everywhere…
We are in the middle of an environmental trauma here. Lake Tai, the big
lake right beside Wuxi and the source of Wuxi's tap water, is having a
big problem with blue-green algae bloom right now. For the first week
the water was stinky and was not only undrinkable, but it was also
recommended that you not wash with it or even wash your clothes in it as
the toxins in the water could cause irritation. The stink has gone away
now and we can wash with it again, but you can't use it in cooking or
drink it. Boiling does not make it usable as the boiling kills the algae
but doesn't affect the toxins in the algae.
Water Rush
A couple of days into the stinky water our neighbor, Hanhan and her
husband, Gary, and me and David went out with David's 3 wheeled bike
cart and bought a whole bunch of bottled water (about 100RMB worth --
~$15 cdn). The next day the University gave us six boxes of bottled
water (I think each with 24 individual bottles in it).
University Response
The University closed the student showers and many students are not
eating in the cafeterias as they are not certain that they aren't using
tap water in their cooking. There is a run on not only water in the
campus stores, but also crackers and noodle packs and snack food in
general. A lot of students are also going out of town for the weekends
-- many going home if their hometown is close enough. I think that the
trains and buses have been crazy on the weekends
Rain Wanted
A heavy prolonged rain would help a lot as it would dilute the lake
water and get it moving. We did have a bit of rain the first weekend
which has helped (taken away the stink) but I have heard predictions
that it will be anywhere from a couple of weeks to a month for this to
clear up. It is making for interesting times.
Eventful Times
We got a call on Saturday night last weekend (June 2) asking us if we
could attend an event downtown the next morning. Without having much
sense of what the event would be we agreed (what are we here for if not
a bit of adventure?). Well, it turned out to be a zongzi making
competition. Zongzi are a sticky rice delicacy cooked in leaves. Zongzi
are triangular in shape and I had never given any thought before into
how one gets rice into the shape of a four-sided die. It seems even
trickier if you realize they pack it in the leaves in that shape before
the rice is cooked.
On Your Mark, Get Set…
Well at this event, after musicians played, dancers danced and bigwigs
speechified the competition began. They ushered us and few other hapless
N. Americans out to some tables covered with basins of uncooked rice mix
and stacks of long leaves and assigned us each our own personal zongzi
making coach. Then they gave us ten minutes to make as many zongzis as
we could. The ten minutes included our instruction time. It was really a
hands on learning experience. One leaf gets curved into a cone and then
filled with rice. Then there is some judicious leaf wrapping, rice
packing, adding a second leaf, more wrapping with a bit of tucking and
folding thrown in at the end of each leaf's wrap, and finally a string
wrapped around and tied it like a present. I don't think I actually
managed to make one on my own, and a abandoned a few that were not
working out. In the end I don't think I was a threat to anyone's zongzi
making job. It was fun though and our team actually got a second place
prize out of it (packaged zongzi for the prize).
And they Fed Us
After the competition they fed us a sumptuous lunch. The event was
sponsored by a restaurant with China-wide reknown and deservedly so. It
was certainly the prettiest lunch I have ever eaten. There was one dish
of critters fashioned by hand from rice glutton. The fish with the
googly eyes has to be seen to be believed. And then there were the
little hedgehogs made from steamed bread – sooo cute. A very delicious
meal and a fun event.
Returnees
Well, it's official, we've signed on here for another year at Jiangnan
Daxue. We are very happy about this, and happy that we don't have to
pack up all of our stuff and ship it somewhere new. We will both be
going back to Canada this summer and will return to Wuxi for the fall
term.
People Gone, Dog Stay Summer
Since both of us are going back to Canada, this left us in a bit of a
quandary about our dog for the summer. But fortune is smiling at us in
this regard too. I have been mentioning to all of my students that we
need a dogsitter for the summer and one of my students has tracked one
down for us. She heard my request on Thursday and put an ad on a student
BBS and had people calling her. She screened them for us and then
brought over her top choice to meet us on Friday night. (The speed at
which things can happen here sometimes amazes me).
The fellow's name is Zhai Zhen and he seems like a nice young man. More
importantly, he and GouGou seemed to get along quite well. It is nice
that he will have a month to get to know her better before we leave on
July 16 for our Canadian summer. And he has already come for another
visit, on Saturday, bringing a friend with him, another nice young man
who will be around of the summer. Zhai Zhen seems to be an animal lover.
He has a snake and a frog and I think he may have a cat too. The more we
get to know him the more we like him. He is asking very good questions
and shows a lot of genuine concern about GouGou's welfare and wants to
be able to look after her properly for us. I like how he plays with her
and seems to really enjoy the contact. He speaks and writes enough
English that with our limited Chinese we can communicate most things we
want to, and the rest can go through my student who hooked him up with
us.
Summer Return
So you may have noticed the date slipped in in the last paragraph. I
will be back in Winnipeg on July 16. I don't know yet when I will be
returning to China but I expect to be in N Am. for 4 to 6 weeks. I do
hope I can fit in visits with everyone.For anyone who wants to send snail mail, I am told my address here is:
My mailing address here is:
Ruth Anderson
Rm. 202, No. 4, Teacher's Apartment
Lihu Campus, Southern Yangtze University
1800 Lihu Road, Wuxi, Jiangsu
China 214122
And yet another reminder that I have photos on the web. You can see them
at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadiandragon/
I love comments, so don’t be shy.
Many hugs,
Ruth
Ruth's China Report January/2007
Ruth's China Report April/2007
Ruth's China Report July/2007
Ruth's China Report
September/2007
Ruth's China Report November/2007
Ruth's China report January/2008
Ruth's China Report February/2008
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