Hello all,
Hope that life is treating you all well and that you are happy doing
what you are doing.
Back to Teaching
Teaching is going fine other than the fact that on both Tuesday and
Thursday mornings I start with a class in Teaching Building 1 and then
have to move to Teaching Building 2 (which is several blocks away) for
my second class of the morning. It makes for a bit of a rush what with
having to deal with the bicycle traffic jams en route between the
buildings. You can't really believe how chaotic and crowded a street can
be until you experience one in China with hundreds of bikes and
pedestrians going in all directions on all sides of the street, with a
few cars mixed in for good measure. I would be late for my second class
for sure if I didn't have a bike to make the trip, and darting through
the crowds keeps my reflexes sharp.
I like my classes though and it is nice to be teaching things I have
taught before ('American Culture', 'Writing' and 'Oral English'). I am
still doing a lot of work on my American Culture PowerPoint
presentations so I'm not just sleepwalking through the prep. Hopefully,
the classes get better organized, more interesting, and easier to follow
each time I teach them.
We have had a pretty busy time socially since getting back to Wuxi.
Foreign Affairs Dinner
Back on Sep 24, a Monday evening, the Foreign Affairs office hosted a
dinner for all of the foreign teachers who work directly for Jiangnan
University. It was quite a wonderful feast and they also gifted both
David and I with a box of Mooncakes, the special treats of the
Mid-autumn Festival. Mid-Autumn Festival is sort of like our
Thanksgiving, a time of family and food.
Making Jiaozi
The next evening, September 25, we joined some students in their Mid
Autumn celebrations. These began with a rousing time of jiaozi making.
Jiaozi are a Chinese style of dumpling. If they are pan fried they get
called pot stickers in the West. I got to roll little rounds of dough
into flat circles, and I also got to fill some of the flat circles (with
a pork, onion, cabbage and egg mixture) and fold the edges together into
jiaozi. I learned a few ways to do this folding -- but mostly I mastered
'sloppy'. And all the while I was being plied with mooncakes (to keep up
my strength).
Eating Jiaozi
There were a couple of dozen students at this event and hundreds of
jiaozi, trays and trays of them, were made. Then the trays were taken
away and later bowls of cooked jiaozi in broth took their place. It was
a jiaozi eating frenzy then. I am pretty sure I actually got to eat at
least a few of the jiaozi I had made -- I recognized their raggedness.
They were very tasty and I pigged out on two bowls full.
Singing for Our Supper
After the jiaozi were all eaten then the party moved into games and
performances. Chinese parties of this sort are very participatory. David
and I got introduced to the group as a whole (being honoured guests
since we are foreign teachers) and later we sang a song as part of the
festivities.
Candlelight on Water
When we were riding back home we took one small mooncake with us to eat
under the moon (as tradition dictates). The evening was quite beautiful
and we got to witness another Mid Autumn Day tradition -- the release of
lighted candles on paper boats onto the canals. They were very pretty
floating serenely along, dozens and dozens of them. A nice end to a fun
evening.
Haven't I Seen You Somewhere…?
The next night, Sep 26, we bumped into Elaine, a new Lambton College
teacher, just in from Israel, so we invited her up to our apartment to
join us for dinner. She is pretty new to China as well and we had fun
telling her tales of our experiences here so far. At one point during
the evening she looked at David with renewed interest and asked "is
there a picture of you eating bugs on the Internet?" It turns out that
she had visited his website a couple of months ago while she was still
in Israel looking for information about Wuxi. It's a small world indeed.
Guests of the Mayor
The first week of October was the National Day holiday week. National
Day itself is October 1st, and this year it celebrated the 58th year of
the People's Republic of China. On the Saturday before National Day (Sep
29) we were invited to the Mayor's National Day Reception (the mayor,
being the mayor of Wuxi). This was a formal affair, so I finally had a
chance to wear my red and black Chinese dress (one I had made when we
were living in Weihai) to a function here in China.
Easy Come, Easy Go
This affair was at one of the 5-star hotels on Taihu Lake and was full
of fabulous food laid out buffet style. It was a cocktail party in
format, no sit-down tables. There were many representatives (mostly
business people) of various countries such as Australia, Germany, Japan,
the U.S. and Canada, mixing with the political elite of Wuxi. A very
nice affair indeed, only marred by the food poisoning I experienced
later that night which ensured that the buffet didn't stay with me. One
of the other teachers who had been at the event was also sick that
night, though thankfully for him, my David was not.
More Food
The next night we had yet another dinner to attend. This was hosted by
the Vice President of the University for all of the foreign teachers,
both from Lambton College (who, at around 40 foreign teachers, far
outnumber us Jiangnanners) and Jiangnan University. It was a combined
Mid-Autumn and National Day celebration. This was a much simpler buffet
than the Mayor's reception, but quite tasty (and food poisoning free --
bonus!). It was nice to mingle with some of the other foreign folk. They
had an open stage for singing and karaoke after dinner and David and I
went up a couple of times The first time we sang a Chinese pop song
(with the Chinese folks in the audience singing along on the chorus) and
the next time it was a Canadian folk song called "Departure Bay".
Another pleasant night.
The Storm Before the Calm
The National Day holiday is actually one of two 'Golden Weeks' in China.
These are weeks that many people get off work and try to spend with
family -- so of course that means that they are always the craziest
times to travel. National Day actually results in only 3 days off work.
In order for the staff to have 7 days off in a row the University had us
work the weekend before the holiday, teaching the classes we would have
had on the Thursday and Friday after the holiday (if they hadn't moved
them). This worked out okay for me this year as this term I don't have
any Friday classes, which meant I didn't have anything to teach on the
extra Sunday. My Thursday's are pretty full though so I had 4 hours of
Oral classes in the morning and 2 hours of Writing in the afternoon on
the extra Saturday.
Making it Fun
Well, as it happens, David's Thursday schedule is identical to mine, so
we decided to join our extra Saturday Oral Classes together and to lead
each pair of classes in an English sing-along. We had a dozen songs that
we already had PowerPoint presentation made up to go along with. That
way the students get the words as they come up and we also put in
pictures to help them understand the meaning, or just to make it more
fun. We made up a couple of new ppts as well. I now have a very cute ppt
of 'Itsy Bitsy Spider' that includes a spider moving up the screen and
rain drops washing it down, then it going back up the screen. Fun with
animations. :~)
We had a blast in both sing-along's. I even led them in a rousing
version of a Sam Baardman (a friend and songwriter in Winnipeg) song
called 'Run Diggy Diggy'. It was fun hearing fifty Chinese students
singing 'Run diggy diggy i-o' all together. We had no trouble filling
the hour and half of actual teaching time we have for each class
session, and even found we had to leave some songs out. So basically,
David and I did three hours of singing on that Saturday morning. If you
have to teach on a Saturday, you might as well have fun with it.
Deciding to Travel
Despite the travel challenges of a Golden Week we decided to go to
Weihai for a few days at the end of the National week and visit some of
our old friends there. We booked our flights to leave Thursday (Oct 4)
afternoon and return on Sunday (Oct 7) afternoon. Nothing is ever
straightforward in China when it comes to travelling though. It turns
out that there are no flights that go directly from Wuxi to Weihai, so
we had to book from Shanghai to Yantai (the town next to Weihai).
Elong Way to Go
We started to book our tickets online through a Chinese travel service
called elong that offers very good rates. They will also deliver your
tickets to your door and collect your payment at that time (meaning you
don't need to pay with a credit card, good old cash will do). Well, they
deliver to your door if you are in their delivery catchment. It turns
out that we are too far away from the centre of Wuxi here at Jiangnan
University. So this meant that we had to make a trek downtown to the
elong office here in town to pick up and pay for our tickets. As
mentioned I started out doing our ticket ordering online, but couldn't
finish the process as our area wasn't listed as a pickup zone. So I
phoned elong and a very nice service rep who spoke remarkably clear
English took my ticket order over the phone. She very carefully double
checked all information I gave her, especially the name and passport
information that would appear on our tickets. She was the one who let me
know they didn't deliver to our area. So off to get a taxi and go to the
address that elong had very nicely text messaged to my cell phone -- in
both English (for me) and Chinese (for taxi drivers). A wonderful use of
the technology.
And They're Off
Now we did all of this ticket ordering and pick up on National Day
itself -- a day that is crazy bad for travelling inter-city. Now that
wouldn't have had much effect on us except that it turns out that the
elong ticket pickup office is right across from the train station. We
were fortunate in that as soon as we had left the campus gates looking
for a taxi we were hailed by a driver we had used a number of times last
year and are quite fond of. Her name is Chen. She was our driver last
year when we and Gary and Hanhan (last year's neighbours) had spent a
day going boat hunting which included driving to the lake and around a
number of the canals in the area. So we know she is a good sport. This
was good because while we had an address, we didn't know what would be
on the sign out front for the elong pick-up place and address numbers
here are not always easy to find on the buildings and do not always
proceed in logical sequences.
Getting There is Half the Fun
The closer we got to the train station, the slower the traffic became.
We probably spent a half hour just driving the last few blocks towards
the train station. We finally spotted #88 on the side of a group of
buildings that were indeed almost right across from the train station.
We hopped out, telling Chen we would be a few minutes. We should have
known better. We went into a travel agency looking storefront and asked
after elong at the desk. The clerks directed us next door and said third
floor. It was a hotel next door and when we tried to ask after elong
they thought we wanted a room and began to fill out a room card for us.
So we went back to the travel agency place. Then one of their staff took
us into the back, down a hall, and bang, we were at the hotel elevators.
We went up to the third floor and spilled out into the nearly empty
office of another travel agency looking place. Our downstairs guide
walked with us to the one person surrounded by a sea of empty desks.
This new person listened to our request about picking up tickets we
ordered through elong and looked like she was going to start the plane
booking process from scratch.
Finding Out if There is Really There is the Other Half
Time for our backup plan. I still had the elong rep's number in my cell
phone so I called it. I got a different rep, but this one also spoke
very good English. I explained our current situation to her and asked
her if she could talk to Travel Agent #2. So I handed over my phone and
the mysterious five to ten minute Chinese conversation began. At the end
of it the phone was handed back to me, the elong Rep said everything
seemed to be cleared up and Travel Agent #1 signalled for us to follow
her. So we did, and we returned to the very first counter that had
turned us away and there indeed were our tickets. We're guessing maybe
elong isn't the Chinese name for this company or some such thing and so
the first agents just didn't realize that they really were who we needed
all along.
Chen had been very patiently waiting for us through all of this and so
then we had her drive us to a computer area of town where David bought
himself a small ('you can carry it in your pocket' sized) digital
camera. He has been happily playing with his new toy ever since and has
lots of new pictures posted on his website (http://www.themaninchina.com).
Chinese Family Apartment
On the Wednesday (Oct 3) of National Week we got an invitation to have
lunch at the home of one of David's students whose parents live in Wuxi.
We had a delightful time. George's dad drove us there and back so our
transportation was easy. The family lives in a very nice middle class
apartment building. As with many living structures in China you can't
tell what the inside will be like from the outside or the hallways. This
building was of standard cement construction. The stairs up to their 4th
floor apartment were bare concrete that hadn't aged well. It all seemed
rather dirty and rundown. Then we entered their apartment. It was
immaculate. Polished wood floors, tasteful art accenting the white
walls, Ming dynasty furniture in the living room, a coffee table (in
Chinese it is called a Tea table – go figure) laden with fruits and nuts
for our pre-lunch grazing.
The Ones that Almost Got Away
George's parents were friendly and incredibly welcoming. His father had
been teaching himself English, and though often quiet, his command of
English would surface when he laughed at jokes made in English. George's
mother was the concerned hostess, wanting to make sure that we were
eating enough, comfortable enough, and that our tea cups were always
full. Lunch was amazing and included at least a dozen different local
dishes, including lake crabs. It was both amusing and sad when the crabs
tried to crawl out of the wok while they were being cooked. While I
don't mind the idea that things died for me to eat, I don't like the
idea that my food suffers before I eat it. My ode to them was to
thoroughly enjoy eating them. Their deaths were appreciated.
A Future in Tea
We certainly had more than enough to eat, and ate more than we probably
should have. It was a delightful time and we look forward to seeing his
parents again in the future. They already have plans to take us to go to
a park with them for tea when the cooler weather comes.
Deal with a Dog Sitter
With our travel plans in hand we still needed GouGou to be looked after.
Elaine, our new Israeli friend (who loves dogs) agreed to dog sit for
us, on one condition -- we had to take some chocolate off of her hands
to prevent her from eating it all. It was a tough condition to agree to,
but we made the sacrifice.
A Sick Puppy
We almost didn't make the trip though. Tuesday (Oct 2) brought
complications our way. GouGou got sick that day. I knew there was
something wrong with her when she wasn't interested in licking out a
yogurt container. Normally, she loves yogurt and will do tricks to get
the almost empty container. But this day she showed no interest in it.
Later that day she started throwing up. Every couple of hours she would
throw up twice in quick succession, just bile coming up as she wasn't
eating or drinking anything. In the evening she seemed a bit perkier and
went out for a walk with us, but the next day she was still not
interested in food or water, and though her throwing up was less
frequent, it was still happening.
Vetting Her Condition
We were starting to get worried. We took her to the vet, once again
getting Chen as our driver. The vet took her temperature -- a procedure
GouGou is none to crazy about -- and proclaimed it normal. He tested an
anal swab (GouGou may not have liked the anal thermometer, but she
really hated the anal swab) for parvovirus, and thankfully that came
back negative. So he gave GouGou a couple of injections to help her
upset stomach and told us if she was still sick tomorrow to bring her
back in. Well, tomorrow was Thursday, the day we were leaving for Weihai.
Acckk, should we cancel the trip? We did seriously consider that, but
Elaine said she was comfortable looking after GouGou even if sick.
A Flurry of Arrangements
So we told the vet that we were going to Weihai the next day and that if
GouGou had to come back then our friend, Elaine would be bringing her.
We also let Chen know that Elaine might need a ride to the vet's the
next day and that we were going to leave Chen's number with Elaine. We
even introduced the two of them so they wouldn't be total strangers.
Considering that Elaine only speaks a little Chinese and Chen a little
English, they were both pretty game to go along with the arrangement.
Shanghai or Bust
Well the next day dawned and by 7:30am we had GouGou over at Elaine's
and we were piling in to Chen's car to head to the train station. The
Shanghai airport is about a two hour drive from our place. Shanghai is
an hour train ride (if you get the fast train -- 2 hours on the slow
one) then one to one and half hours on a city bus to get from the
Shanghai train station to the Shanghai airport. Getting to the train
station at 8am we figured we would have plenty of time to make it to the
airport for a 2:50pm flight. That is until we got to the ticket window
and were told that the earliest train they had tickets available for was
the 1pm train. That just wasn't going to cut it for us. So we called
Chen again, just minutes from dropping us off at the train station, and
asked if she had time to drive us to the Shanghai airport. This was a
rather pricey taxi ride at 500 RMB (~$75 cdn), but we had spent well
over that on the plane tickets. And we got the added bonus of some
extended Chinese practice during the drive.
Uneventful
This turned out to be Chen's first time driving to the Shanghai airport
so as we got closer to Shanghai she pulled over and flagged down many
folks and asked directions. Since we were now driving we were in no
hurry. Even with the extra 'finding our way' time, we still had hours to
kill at the Shanghai airport. No adventures there. As a mater of fact
the rest of the way to Thomas and Marina's was pretty straightforward.
We taxied from the Yantai airport to T and M's and were greeting with
hugs. We also got to meet their puppy, XiaoXiao (meaning small small in
Chinese – they also called him Savah, which is Russian for small). He is
a very sweet four month old who they have accidentally trained to pee in
their apartment.
Ducking Dinner
Thursday night in Weihai we went out to dinner with Thomas and Marina
and Wayne and Lori (two of our fellow HIT teachers still in Weihai). We
had some simply fabulous duck stuffed with the most amazing rice.
Wonderful food and the company of old friends. It was a fine night.
GouGou Woes
When we talked to Elaine that evening we found out that GouGou had been
sick again and that she had taken her back to the vet (Chen had a busy
driving day that day) in the afternoon where he gave her more medicine
by injection. GouGou was still pretty low energy and not eating or
drinking. We were still pretty worried about our dog, into her third day
of sickness, but we didn't think we could have done any more than Elaine
did, so we were trying not to feel guilty about being in Weihai having
fun.
Wind and Waves
On Friday we went out sailing for the morning. Another of our Weihai
friends, Lindon (originally from New Zealand), owns a twenty foot,
single masted sailboat, and was generous enough to take us out on it.
The wind was pretty calm that day, but it was nice to be out on the
ocean.
Who Trains the Trainers?
Most of the rest of our visit was primarily with Thomas and Marina, and
XiaoXiao. We spent some of our holiday visit training Thomas and Marina
in the art of being the alpha dog and perhaps they are on their way now
to retraining their puppy to pee outside. Other than this less than
desirable habit, XiaoXiao is a very nice dog. He is playful and
affectionate and you can tell that he has had a lot of loving handling
already in his short life.
On the Mend
To wrap up the GouGou tale, when we talked to Elaine on Friday, GouGou
had started drinking and eating again and was now wolfing down food like
there was no tomorrow. She seemed to have made a complete recovery from
whatever had taken her down so bad and she was once more energetic and
playful. We were much relieved, and also happy that Elaine got to spend
some of her dog sitting time with a healthy and happy dog.
Duck to Go
Thomas and Marina sent us back to Wuxi with another stuffed duck
(takeout from the same restaurant of Thursday night) and so we invited
Elaine over for dinner on Monday night to help us polish it off. It was
the perfect size for three, and was just as tasty after a day on the
road as the one we ate in Weihai.
Social Butterflies
After the National Week holiday it was back to classes again. Our social
life seems to be getting busier as we get better known around campus.
The Friday after we got back from Weihai (Oct 12) we attended two
English Corners (one in the afternoon and one in the evening). Sunday
afternoon we had two different students come to visit at different
times. In the late afternoon I had my Chinese friend Jenny come with me
to get my hair cut and so we invited her to join us for dinner after
that (her first time eating with a fork and knife). The Monday evening
(Oct 15) I had a small group of students come over to pick my brains
about how to be a good host to foreigners who were coming for a science
conference in the near future.
We Got Class
The most exciting recent development though is that we now have a
Chinese teacher. He is a young man who graduated from this university
last year, but is still on campus taking a few more courses. He has his
teaching certification and Mandarin certification (his level is higher
than the minimum required of news broadcasters) and he is working out
very well for us. He is very responsive to what we tell him we want in a
class and, even better, he speaks slowly and clearly. We are learning a
lot with him. Especially since we have 4 one-hour sessions a week (from
6 – 7pm), one every weekday except Tuesdays. We are focusing on speaking
since that is what we get the least practice with, but we end up doing
some writing as well as we take notes in Chinese (and pinyin and
English).
Halloween Party
On Halloween (Oct 31) we went to a student Halloween party. That meant
it was an event with a combination of program items (like a talent show)
and games that they got people from the audience to participate in them.
David and I each got called up to be part of some games. He was in one
that was basically the telephone game (I've also heard it called gossip)
with a twist, the twist being that each speaker had a mouth full of
water when they were saying the line they had heard. I was in a less
messy game where I had to have my back to the screen where an English
word would be projected and my partner had to describe the word to me
(in English) and I had to try and guess what the word was. I was pretty
lucky as I got a very good partner so my guessing was pretty easy as he
gave me good clues. There were some karaoke and some dance numbers and a
couple of plays. The Cinderella play was fun, with some guys playing the
step sisters, but the Chinese myth that was done as a play completely
lost me even though the dialogue was in English. The funniest thing was
the massive game of musical chairs they played at the end with the
audience of several hundred. It was actually a clever way to move the
chairs off the floor to make room for some dancing.
Birthday Boy
Saturday Nov 3 I hosted a birthday party for David. We had about 16
people over at our apartment and got some music going for a while with
people banging on an assortment of percussion instruments. I had bought
a massive cake which we made a serious dent in and then I took about 14
folks out for a celebratory dinner. I can feel so rich sometimes in
China. Being able to treat so many people to a dinner (that included
beer and other drinks) and have it come to 275RMB (less than $45 Cdn) is
one of those times. David's actual b-day was Oct 22 and we had our own
private celebration that night (I took him out for pizza -- really good
pizza). We had originally planned for the party to be one week earlier,
but then the school invited us on another weekend excursion, so we
gladly postponed the party.
Huang Shan Bound
The excursion weekend was just wonderful. They took us to Huang Shan --
Yellow Mountain -- which is 6 hours away by bus in Anhui Province. We
left at 1pm Friday (Oct 26) and returned Sunday (Oct 28) evening. Friday
was just a driving day, with a stop for dinner on the road before
getting to our luxury hotel in the city of Huangshan. It was a very
comfortable hotel room and had one of the strangest features I've seen
in a while -- there was a large window between the bathroom (on one side
of the tub) and the main room. There was a blind one could lower, but
considering that this was one of the standard rooms (with two single
beds, designed for business travellers travelling together) it seemed, a
tad out of place.
To the Mountain
On Saturday we were up at 6, at the hotel's breakfast buffet at 6:30 and
on the bus around 7am. We had another hour or so on the bus to get to
the mountain park itself, some of that drive through twisting mountain
roads that had one of the two lanes closed due to construction. In N.
America this situation would be met with flag folk controlling traffic
to alternate which direction got to use the one lane. Here in China they
just let the vehicles work it out for themselves. I let David sleep
through that part. We drove above the clouds (which was good as the fog
was so thick in the city that I couldn't see more than twenty feet) into
a gorgeous day. It was perfect climbing weather, just a touch cool with
a thin pattern of clouds in parts of the sky to give it more definition.
On the Mountain
We took a gondola up the 1800m slope and it was a spectacular ride, and
just a taste of what was to come. At the top we had incredible views of
the mountain range, and we got to walk kilometres of trails up and down
and all around. There were at least three gondolas in different areas of
the mountain park and it was set up so you could walk between them as
well as on other trails. This was all a well developed, new looking
development. The trails were all stone work (the stone blocks hand
carried -- oh, those pole men earn their keep -- and hand carved I'm
sure) and stairs, and wide enough for three or four to walk side by
side. And the width was needed as Huangshan is an incredibly popular
tourist attraction. You don't go there to get away from the bustle of
humanity. The bustle comes right along with you as you and thousands of
others wend your way through the trails. The gondola ride down was just
as spectacular. You can see pictures of this adventure both on my flickr
site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/canadiandragon/) and David's website
(http://www.themaninchina.com -- you'll have to scroll a bit to get to
the mountain)
Tea and Dinner
On the way back to town we stopped at a tea plantation and got to sample
many different types of teas while getting a demo and sales pitch on the
teas. Huangshan is famous for its teas and I am sure I would have
learned a great deal about tea if only understood more Chinese. After
our teatime we continued into town for dinner. Ms Liu (our boss in the
Foreign Affairs Department) had ordered a birthday cake to celebrate
David's birthday, which I thought was really nice of her.
Pulling Silk at the Night Market
Following the dinner and cake we went to a night market street. This was
a pedestrian area of the city with a thriving night time business. We
were given an hour to wander on our own and David and I managed to find
some interesting artisans to watch at work. Chief among these were the
women who were processing the silkworm cocoons into silk batting for use
in quilts. The first stage involved soaking the cocoons in water and
then pulling each one and stretching it over a u-shaped frame. After a
number of cocoons were pulled over this frame the silk was set aside to
dry. Later, when dried out, a pair of workers would then pull and repull
the silk making a light and fluffy batting about 6 feet by 2 feet. They
were stacking these pulled sections on top of each other. We didn't see
any other parts of the process, but these were fascinating to watch.
An Ancient Chinese Village
And that was just our Saturday. Sunday we got to sleep in until 7am and
were on the road towards Hongcun by 8am. Hongcun is an ancient Chinese
village. It is a maintained (possibly somewhat restored, but things
begin to look old here pretty quick so it is hard to tell just by
looking) village from the 1800s. Again we were shoulder to shoulder with
other tour groups as we wandered the narrow winding streets. I don't
envy our own guides as they had the cat-herding job of keeping our group
all together. Lots of interesting architecture and a bit of a glimpse
into another time. Since we couldn't understand anything our Chinese
tour guide was telling us about the place we probably would have
preferred being set lose in the city with a deadline to meet, but I can
understand why they wouldn't have wanted to do that. It would be pretty
easy to get lost in the old city.
Tourist Shopping Twilight Zone
We had one more tourist stop before heading back to Wuxi and that was a
uniquely Chinese shopping experience. Imagine the weaving line-ups they
have a Disney world to get onto rides, and now imagine that those
line-ups are weaving through display cases of Anhui province specialty
food items (especially dried mushrooms and teas) all nicely packaged.
Now you have the beginnings of an idea of this place. There seemed to be
a ton of staff moving through this labyrinth with us and we finally
understood what they were there for when David picked up a package of
dried kiwis to buy as bus munchies. The bag was promptly whisked out of
his hands by one of the small, button-cute, uniformed Chinese girls, who
then carried it for us. It turns out you don't get a shopping cart at
this place, you get a shopping staff. We lost track of 'our' staff as we
wove through the remaining aisles, but sure enough, when we reached the
cashiers she magically reappeared with our kiwis in hand.
It was a truly wonderful weekend. We had a grand time. And once again,
the school picked up all of the costs minus our spending money.
GouGou gets her own Holiday
Unfortunately, for this trip we couldn't bring GouGou (the mountain park
wouldn't have allowed her up the gondolas I am sure). Fortunately, our
good friend, Jenny, was willing to look after GouGou for the weekend. So
GouGou got a holiday too. Jenny took her to an English corner (as the
special guest) and to some of the sports' meet that was taking place,
and also had her out for walks often. They both seemed to have had a
great time.
No Move is Good Move
They have finished the new teacher's apartment and have moved all of the
Lambton teachers into it. We were very happy to find out that they will
let us stay in our current apartment, so we did not have to move after
all! Happy times.
Plug for Checking out Photos
Our social life has slowed a bit these last few weeks as the students
have been facing their mid-terms. This gave me a chance to get caught up
in organizing my photos and in posting new ones up on flickr at last. I
am also pleased to note that flickr has upgraded its photo uploading
process and I can once more see pictures on the site (I still can't see
the one posted with their old system for some unknown reason – about six
months ago I stopped being able to see the photos – but I can see all
newly posted pics). So I am much more encouraged to post new photos
again. So please check out my flickr site
Many hugs,
RuthFor 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.
Ruth's China Report January/2007
Ruth's China Report April/2007
Ruth's China Report June/2007
Ruth's China Report July/2007
Ruth's China Report September/2007
Ruth's China Report January/2008
Ruth's China Report February/2008
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