India and China Summary (Videos)

Here are the URL's to the videos for India and China.

India:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_5mOkYkZok

China:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJq5y4gUGsM

As a bonus too, here is the video of Shaanxi College of Communications Technology that was shown Friday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dAHkYslvbQ

Enjoy!

48-Hour Day, 4-Hour Night

Sadly, this is our last blog post of our trip.

We were woken by an alarm set for 4:30 and a hotel call we had set up last night. We were off to the airport on an empty road in China. Very strange! Very strange! Before we knew it, we were on the plane to Shanghai with two carry on’s this time.  The school had presented us with beautiful plaques to take home not realizing how much more work it would be to have to take two carry on’s.

The plane took off 30 minutes later than scheduled, which did not work in our favor considering originally we would only have 2.5 hours to change terminals, but because of the late take off, we now only had a 2 hour layover. Montana and LuRue did some airplane sleep during the flight. We were served a "delicious" breakfast of extremely bland rice and some sort of bread with spicy meat inside.

Once the plane landed, we had to get our bags, go to Terminal 2, check in at Delta on the level above & get our passes to Seattle, drop our bags off, go through customs, hurry up through security. The people that helped us weren’t very helpful, because they kept saying how we should’ve been earlier as if it was our fault. The person who gave us the boarding ticket even put a note on it telling us to be at the gate 55 minutes early. We had to butt in line several times, but we did make it 20 minutes before the flight was scheduled to take off.  Actually, what happened, was the gate closed about 5 minutes after we got there (LuRue was drenched in sweat), but we sat in the airport for another hour before actually taking off. Good thing we didn’t have another close take off to catch.

On the 10-hour flight, we did a lot of movie watching. Montana and LuRue both watched the modern version of “Annie”. LuRue then watched two other videos she didn’t think Montana would be interested in, as Montana did some video editing and watched “The Theory of Everything” which proved she was never going to be a scientist or mathematician. They ended the plane flight by watching “Singing in the Rain” together – a movie suggested by LuRue in the beginning of the trip. The movie ended just a bit after they landed. When they had left Shanghai, it was Saturday mid-day and when they arrived it was Saturday morning. Where did the time go?

Once we had successfully dropped our luggage off to go to Tuscon a helper kindly pointed the way to D3, which involved getting on two subways. However, we got there and the huge sign with all the gates and flights said N16 was our gate. We asked a worker just to make sure, but it was N16. As LuRue turned around to start walking back to the N gates, she tripped over a man's luggage and fell onto the carpet. Luckily, no harm done, but after surviving 3 countries coming very close to falling it would seem like she would have it down to an art…obviously not.

We backtracked to the N gates where we had started our little adventure. Once we knew we were in the right area, we immediately looked for a plug in to charge computers and go on Google. Wow! We’ve been away from Google for too long. We spent a few hours organizing and replying to unanswered emails. At 11, Montana, LuRue and Montana’s parents did a video chat before we headed to board the plane. We are finally back in America!

PS...video summaries of India and China will be posted some time tomorrow.

Countdown to Takeoff

Montana and LuRue had mixed feelings about today. Neither of us were exactly sorry that it was the last day to "dance" our last routine. We've about worn out the charts prepared over two weeks ago, so it is time to retire those. But at the same time, we don't feel like it is time to go home. Not exactly like there is a "bucket list" from which to tick off items...more like this has become a fun life of discovery that we don't want to end.

Our final class was 90 minutes this morning at the original school. For the first time, there wasn't even a single girl. And it wasn't long before we figured out that the level of understanding was the lowest we had encountered yet. Fortunately, "John Wayne" was the teacher and he was terrific. He translated all our directions, as well as the sentences on our posters which made our activities with this group just as much fun as all the others have been. And "John Wayne" was really into the Hokey Pokey, too! While neither of us will miss the significant effort it takes to prepare for and to conduct the classes, we will very much miss the interaction with the students and the teachers. Having kids race to the front of the class, then awkwardly try to say their sentences in a language they can barely wrap their tongues around is very endearing. They are so embarrassed, but try so hard.

As soon as class was finished and the final "rock star photos" were over, the vice-director Mrs. Shi was there to escort us to a display room, showing all the accomplishments of the university. Then we were led into the same room we had entered on our first day...the same spots with our name plates...directly across from the president of the university, Mr. Yang. The difference this time was that we recognized all the teachers as friends and also some of the students. The Farewell was just as formal as the Welcome, with our "speeches" following one by the president as well as from other school officials. For us, the highlight was the video Montana had put together about our experiences during these past three weeks. With BaoLi's help, it was a tribute to the school as well as a journal of our experiences, so the school loved it, too. They couldn't thank us enough for introducing them to different ways of teaching. We realize that they are limited in what they can do, for various reasons, but it would be nice to think that both they and the students may be able to take away something fun from our activities.

Then we were taken to a special dining room with one large table. Though it was a little while before we understood just what was happening, eventually the places at the table were taken by the party secretary at the place of honor with us at either side, along with some of our teacher friends. The elegant plates of food were placed endlessly on the large Lazy Susan...about 20 times more food than we could possibly eat. As BaoLi said later, it wasn't really about eating the food, it was more about toasting everything imaginable. The secretary and the director kept coming around the table clinking glasses as we sipped wine each time.

When that was over, we said our goodbyes to everyone, then headed off to a folk museum, which was an hour or so away. Much to our surprise, after we got to the museum, a carload of the teachers pulled up. So we all went through a large estate which has been constructed by recreating piece by numbered piece, the homes from neighboring areas that date back to several of the dynasties. The teachers did get a guide, but a Chinese-speaking guide, which suited LuRue and Montana very well, leaving them free to look at their own pace. The first stop was a musical presentation on a stage of ancient music & comedy, a dying art. After we had been invited on stage, for photos of course, it began to sprinkle. Sprinkles turned into rain & then we were presented with museum umbrellas to finish the tour.

The place was quite impressive and was easy to imagine servants scurrying around, waiting on the important masters. One of the displays features shoes worn by women with bound feet. BaoLi said that her grandmother had had them; another teacher said that her husband's grandmother did as well.

One of the most magnificent displays was of paper cutting. There were some huge pieces of the most intricate designs imaginable. It would have been fun to see something like that being crafted. Only one of many things that we didn't get to see. Guess we'll have to come back.

The trip back to the hotel took about two hours because of the rain/rush hour combination. The teachers came into the hotel lobby, carrying the huge plaques with which we had been presented at the end of the formal welcome. We said our goodbyes once again, knowing that this time it really is goodbye.

Dinner was time for our last team meeting, so a farewell to Don, then back to the room to pack. Just before slipping out for one last nostalgic trip to Baskin-Robbins, we met with BaoLi just finishing up her receipts and paperwork. We are taking a package back to the USA to mail. After hugs and farewells all around, we went back out into the rain.

Oh, nooooo! 4:30am is going to come very early!! We have a 5:00am pickup!

Ouch! The Busy Bee Stung Me

Another early start to the morning. We met Don, who was already waiting in the car, and our escort, who was waiting in the lobby, 10 minutes early, because 10 minutes early is on time in China. 

We seem to finally have a pattern down for the classes. Montana and LuRue did their normal pronunciations, drawing, Simon says, homonyms and sentence game for both classes. Both groups were very eager to participate and Montana and LuRue even got a few lovely performances at the end of their classes. 

After the classes, we headed to the bell and drum tower market for Montana to get a souvenir. It was a quick stop. Cici and Phyllis brought Montana and LuRue to a little alley with lots of souvenirs. Montana picked out a dragon statue that was originally sold for about 70 yuan, but with the skillful bargaining of Cici, Montana bought it for 50 yuan. 

The driver brought them back to the hotel with just a few minutes to spare before heading down for lunch which was at 1:30 today. We discussed our days and then at 2:30 Don and LuRue went down to teach the hotel staff some English. LuRue did a role playing game with phrases they requested to practice. 

Montana went to go finish her video then go get BaoLi's opinion. Montana spent the rest of her afternoon at the "Torture Chamber" a.k.a. "Fitness Centre".

We met up again at dinner time, except BaoLi wasn't here today because she had to go pick up Jerry. She had already ordered some ribs (specifically requested by LuRue) and some noodles. After dinner our day wasn't even close to being over. We both had to start getting packed and take a shower, because we are having lunch the party secretaries tomorrow, as well as the president of the college. Montana also had to do some final touch ups on the video before showing it tomorrow AND, if that wasn't enough already, she had to finish up writing both the journal & blog. No early bedtime tonight!

Spring is Here!

We expected to experience winter during our entire trip to China. We have been surprised to watch cherry trees and other flowering trees, some a deep fuchsia color, come into full bloom, while the weeping willows are dressed in new green leaves. We've even had some shirt-sleeve weather...but not today. Thundershowers and lots of rain.

Today is April first, but we could find no one to fool today. The best we could do was to trick our classes with Simon Says. Once the students realize the point of the game, there are always a lot of giggles and embarrassed realizations that they have been tricked.

Montana and LuRue weren't caught by any April Fool's Day pranksters, but they were surprised and delighted at the end of each class. After the first session, Lily's class acted out "The Three Little Pigs", presenting us with pig faces as gifts (beautifully drawn, by the way!). A young woman performed a very graceful dance after the second session. She ended her performance by gliding into a perfect leg split!

At lunch in a hotel on the main campus, we got a peek at our next "assignment"...judging the Oral English Contest which was to take place immediately after we finished eating. Montana and LuRue were staring blankly at 5 charts on which the participants would be commenting, while Don was feeling on "home ground". Before we three knew what we were getting into, we were escorted from the restaurant to a room in the college where we were seated in the front row, with very official-looking pages, pens, and stapled scraps of papers on which we would be writing numbers, expressing our opinions of the quality of the students' presentations (17 in all) on a scale of 1 to 10, with 5-7 being average. There would be three competitions: retelling a short story after 5 minutes' preparation, explaining a picture, randomly picked, and explaining a chart. As if the contestants weren't terrified enough, they also had to endure a question from each of the three foreigners regarding the content of the chart he or she had randomly picked. Of course, Don was looking at the charts as child's play and challenged the students to provide percentages while comparing one point of data with another. Montana and LuRue looked at each other with open mouths since neither of them would have had a clue on how to answer. And we supposedly speak English! Montana and LuRue had questions such as, "In what year was the green higher than the red?" At that point, we gave the student points on how well they managed to maintain poise while under pressure. 

Neither Montana nor LuRue like being a judge...we want everyone to do well...but we survived with our dignity intact, we think. The three of us were given the top 3 prizes to present: 2 second-place prizes and first prize. Those and the 3 third-place prizes were all mobile phone chargers of various capacities.

On the way back to the hotel, our driver's patience was once again put to the test as he dealt with the rain & the rush hour traffic. His audible "tsks" make us realize that his job of getting us back and forth from here to there to everywhere must be very frustrating. However, he skillfully darts into available spaces the millisecond they open up, acing out the drivers to his right and left. Yesterday we saw a young man pedestrian perform a skillful pirouette while leaping a foot or two off the ground to avoid being hit by the car just in front of us. It was almost like a long practiced dance step. You literally have to be on your toes while crossing streets here!

Only three more performances of the Hokey Pokey. How will we ever survive???

Of Terra Cotta Soldiers and "Successful" Guides

Another early morning wake up to start the day. This time, we were going to a new school. It was like an extension to the college we've been going to. The age group was the same, so we stuck to our same plan we've been doing for both classes. The only thing different about the two classes compared to our past classes, these people seemed to be more talkative during the break. The students taught Montana a little Chinese, but she would not have a clue how to say any of the words she was taught. 

After our classes Don, Montana and LuRue were brought to the teachers eating area for lunch at the college we have been going to. The teachers were going to take us to the terra-cotta warriors today. It was about an hour’s drive from the school to the terra-cotta warriors. The teachers who came with us got us set up with a tour guide. The guide was so “successful” that, if there had been any question about it, she verified by her actions that neither Montana nor LuRue like tour guides. 

Don, Montana and LuRue were guided through the three different dig sites. The first and the second ones were pretty well dug up, but the third one was not dug up to save the colors on the warriors. There were also statues of horses most of which were collapsed, but some still stood. It was amazing to think people 2,000 years ago built and painted all of the soldiers. We tried to ask the guide what they used to paint the soldiers, but the guide never understood us. We did not like how the guide stopped to talk for what seemed like forever at places we weren't interested in and skimmed by places we wanted to stay at. 

At the end, Montana wanted to get a souvenir, but eventually gave up because the tour guide was doing her job and becoming extremely annoying, which made Montana not want to buy from them. We have already scheduled with BaoLi to stop by another souvenir place on Thursday after school. 

Because of the traffic, we got back a little past 6. Luckily, BaoLi had scheduled dinner for 6:30 instead of 6. It was getting off work time, so very slow and several aggressive drivers. We drove past the hotel and tried several U-turns, but we had to go past what seemed like 5 traffic lights. It would've been quicker for the driver to drop us off somewhere before the hotel and just have us walk. 

When we finally got back, we had a few minutes to rest before heading down for dinner and sharing stories then going our separate ways for the night. What a long day! If we can get to bed early, it will be easy to go to sleep we think, we hope!

Dumplings by the Dozens

This morning was a scramble for more than one reason. Not only did we have to hear the dreaded alarm, but we would be facing much younger students (juniors in high school) during the second session today - new material prepared with no idea how it would work. LuRue forgot her name tag and her water bottle, but all the important stuff arrived at the school safely.

By previous arrangement, the first session was split into two, with Don trading with us for the second half. The reason was that his students are not only more advanced, but also have some excellent dancers to perform "The Little Apple". They were set to teach Montana the intricate moves that are so popular now in China. For 45 minutes, Montana got one lesson after another, especially from one girl who loves dancing, and it shows. Montana got her workout (though still went treadmilling in late afternoon). Even the "instructor" had to remove layers of jackets and take rests. There is now a video of the entire dance, so maybe Montana will start a new dance craze in Fairbanks.

Our younger students came in a group of 20, so our activity worked well by dividing the class in half. We had menus from different restaurants. With index cards prepared yesterday, each "waiter" had a menu and three index cards with the words they were to speak, such as "Welcome to ____ Restaurant. May I take your order? Here is your bill. Here is your change." They also had pads for writing the order and the price. The diners each got $28...1 ten, 3 fives, and 3 ones in Monopoly money, needing to pay the waiter whatever their bill was. There was just time enough before the break for the waiters and diners to switch places. The barely-controlled chaos actually worked out well. We also had some scaled-down versions of our other activities after the break so that there could be some team competition, which turned out to be just as lively as with our older students. As always, we ended with the Hokey Pokey.

After our goodbyes to the students, the teachers whisked us off to Cherry's apartment, Cherry being a teacher who has worked closely with us. Cherry and her husband now have their own apartment with their 6-year-old daughter, but until recently, they have lived with Cherry's parents in the apartment we visited, in one of hundreds (thousands?) of high-rises in Xi'an. We met her parents--her dad being retired army (now the family chef), her mom an OB-GYN at the hospital and a highly respected medical instructor. Her dad had already made dozens of dumplings and had everything set up for us to "have a try", as the teachers are always encouraging us. The three of us learned to roll the dough, then to put in the filling, pinching the edges shut "just so", so that the filling wouldn't ooze out. Of course, we got to eat the fruits of our labors, along with some other delicious side dishes. The daughter "Ya-Ya" performed a couple of dances and recited some poems. It was delightful!

After bidding goodbye to Cherry and her parents, the teachers then took us back to the campus where the students were practicing ping-pong in a large outdoor court. Also there were two secretaries of the Communist Party..."big potatoes" as Edward would call them in Tanzania. They are attached to the university and at least one of them outranks the president of the college. They challenged Don to some games and he upheld our honor by not failing too badly. We all played a bit, with Montana lasting the longest. It became clear, though, that they were lobbing us easy balls when we watched the ping-pong whizzes really play. Also arriving a bit later was a PE instructor who got Don involved in a martial-art routine. LuRue and Montana joined in when the teachers again encouraged us to "have a try!"

We got back to the hotel about 4:00pm. Our days are full!!! Before we meet at 6:00 for dinner each evening, we are usually writing the blog, the team journal, or preparing a variation for the next day's lesson. Dinners often take nearly two hours as that is the time to discuss the day just past, the day coming, and the reading of the team journal. At least the three of us can go to our rooms...BaoLi faces an hour's bus ride (two transfers) to get home. Then she is often here the next morning by about 7:15am. And we leave on Saturday as she prepares to meet a new team on the same day!

For the next three days, we will be at a new school. We'll continue to use the same materials for the most part as we'll continue to meet new students each day. Somehow the challenge of getting the shy students to participate and to laugh keeps the repetition from getting old. Actually it's comforting to do something familiar so that we can concentrate on getting reactions and smiles.

We may be tired at the end of each day, but neither of us is anxious to leave.

At Your Own Risk

Another 9:30 meeting with our tour guide, Baoli, today. We were off to see the Xi'an Expo Garden where BaoLi's husband, Harry, works. We made a quick stop at Harry's office before taking an elongated golf-cart-vehicle to a market and walking around the market. The market sold anything you could possible imagine - from bras to smoking pipes and anything in-between. There were even a few on-the-go dentists, eye doctors, ear cleaners, and foot cleaners.

BaoLi then took us to a restaurant nearby for lunch. Lunch was a crepe dish to which you could add sweet pork and eggs. There was also a type egg soup and some "pumpkin pies" (a small roll with bean paste) that BaoLi ordered for Montana and LuRue's sweet tooth. 

After lunch, we headed for the expo garden. There were many, many people inside the park. We got a VIP tour in the golf-cart car. The garden was a place made for the International Horticultural Exposition 2011. It had things from many different countries including France, Africa and Italy. It was also a very popular wedding picture area. Harry took us to places like the dinosaur museum, different pavilions, a theme park and the center of the park - a 13 story high building with a great panoramic view of the park. It was a great place to people-watch. We were going to go into garden with plants from all over the world, but sadly, it was past closing time. 

Our drive back involved some crazy driving according to LuRue. Montana didn't notice a thing, probably because she has adapted since India and Tanzania. We arrived at the hotel around 7 with lots of stuff to do, but our taste buds were screaming at us, so we were forced into stopping by Baskin Robbins before finishing the day with writing journals, photo editing and getting ready for tomorrow. 

Teenagers in a Tomb

Wouldn't you think that 8:30am would be considered past "alarm" time? But Montana and LuRue were both blasted awake & had to get moving in a hurry. We had a pickup time of 9:30am, so we headed off to breakfast & managed to be "on time" in China time...5 minutes early. 

A young man came in right on the dot, looking for us. A woman had contacted BaoLi a week or so ago, asking if any volunteers would spend the day with her and her 14-year-old son in order to give him practice speaking English. Don declined, but Montana and LuRue were willing, so here they were, climbing into a very nice car with the woman, her son, and the woman's brother. 

The destination was "The Tomb of Jing Di", quite a distance north of Xi'an. The historical site has been open for about 9 years and is a model for preservation of artifacts. The digging sites are sealed off with glass, maintaining necessary temperatures and humidity. Visitors walk over transparent floors in some sections. The woman arranged for an English-speaking guide who was very good, so it was an interesting visit.

One of the attractions there was a "movie" that neither Montana nor LuRue could figure out. It lasted 20 minutes (we were in the SRO section), and from the back of the small theater, it looked exactly like a stage with rather small actors. Even though we "knew" that it was a screen, it looked very much 3-dimensional. From our position, it looked like we were looking at a real stage with real actors from the rear seats of a very large auditorium. However, when the actors disappeared in a puff of smoke, there was no denying reality. In some cases, the actors faded into a stone statue of themselves a couple of times.

Besides the sight-seeing, both Montana and LuRue enjoyed talking with the woman and the boy, whose name is Yuan. He wants to choose an English name and was asking for suggestions from Montana. BaoLi hadn't told us much about the woman...kept saying she didn't really understand the woman's motivations, but it became clear to LuRue during the day as they conversed in broken English. The woman is determined that her son go to the United States next September to attend high school, then university...eight years. She has no family there, has no friends there--only a dream and determination. They took a 16-day trip to the East Coast, to Chicago, and to California a couple of months ago. LuRue thinks she was hoping to get lucky and connect with someone who could arrange a school location. The boy says he wants to study astronomy. We all exchanged email addresses...we may someday find out if he actually makes it.

After the museum tour, we went to a noodle restaurant and the mom wanted to take us to another museum, but we said that no, we had to go back to the hotel. Montana had a video to put together at BaoLi's request and LuRue wanted to get started on planning for Monday's session with the younger students.

Montana went to her favorite place "The Fitness Room", but had to scream silently as there were other health nuts there.

Another big day coming tomorrow. Then a huge week ahead. Not much down time here!

Will He Ever Know?

Another early start to the morning. We are both looking forward to two days of sleeping in. We got picked up again by Torres and taken to the school. Not arriving 25 minutes early this time though! We did our normal routine of introduction, pronunciation, drawing game, Simon says, homonyms and sentences. The second class started 10 minutes late, because for some reason, the class didn't come. Lulu, a teacher, went to go see what was going on. Finally, we did get it figured out. There was only one class of 30 that was split between Don and us, so our class was very small compared to what we've been used to. We skipped pronunciation and went straight into competition, because the class started late. Also, there were only two teams, but the competitiveness was still there. 

The group met up for lunch and BaoLi gave us a little lesson on the one child policy of China. There are a lot of exceptions to it, for example, if the husband was a coal miner, they were allowed to have 2 children. Our next group meeting wouldn't be until Monday. 

In the afternoon, LuRue did some re-organizing and Montana started the blog, did photo editing, and tread milling. 

For dinner, we went to a restaurant in the shopping mall near by - luckily, for LuRue, it was not spicy this time. They also made a stop by a neighboring store for an after dinner snack. We went back to the hotel and did the last few videos for the detective film. Well, hopefully last. We also spent time looking up videos on Youku, the Chinese version of Youtube. Earlier, Don, a very professional man, had talked about teaching verses of Y.M.C.A. to the kids. LuRue got a kick out of that, but Montana had never actually heard the song before, so LuRue introduced it to Montana. We wonder if Don knows what he has been teaching the kids. 

It's Showtime!!

The tigers are on the prowl!! Montana and LuRue had their moment in the spotlight this afternoon when they danced to the Tiger song as the group sang (fortunately). LuRue, for sure, would not have been able to sing the song in Chinese while trying to remember the dance steps (can-can & grapevine), which were practiced about three times in the hotel room last night. The tune is "Frere Jacques" and tells about 2 tigers, one without an ear, the other without a tail. The costumes were quickly put together with hotel napkins, rubber bands, safety pins, and duct tape. Both dancers survived.

The afternoon was actually delightful. A couple of times a year the students put on an exhibition showcasing the hobbies and talents of the students. According to a couple of the teachers, these arts are often handed down from parents to children through families. The singing ranged from traditional Chinese opera to pop songs...same for the dancing. There was also a Kung Fu demonstration by a student that has been training for 10 years. An ancient instrument was played by one student, followed shortly after by 2 students playing guitar. Following these acts, we volunteers were led to a table where 3 girls demonstrated the art of making and serving tea. Seems that there are different teas for young people and for old people. 

From there, we went to the back tables where we watched as students demonstrated Chinese calligraphy, ink painting, watercolors, paper cutting, chops carved from wood, and T-shirt painting. We each tried our hand at the calligraphy...writing out "China, United States, Friendship". As the show came to a close, we three were presented with the works of art made by the students.

The morning classes went normally, usually beginning slowly as we start with a lesson in Pronunciation, but as soon as we move on to the contests, the excitement begins. Again slow at first because the students are so shy, but by the end of the session (90 minutes), they are racing to the front of the room. BaoLi had told us that they love competition, so we are using as much as we can. Photo sessions used to come at the end of the class...now they are beginning at the 10-minute break midway. Montana has probably already appeared on hundreds (thousands?) of China's version of Facebook. And there is still a week and a day to go! It's sad to think our trip is coming to an end. 

Since the exhibition started at 1:00pm, we were taken to eat in the teachers' campus canteen. It's a cafeteria where the teachers can eat breakfast and lunch. On the way Ms. Shi pointed to her apartment on the other side of the university wall...24 floors up! Apparently, the teachers are given the opportunity to live very near the campus. There are about 495 teachers and staff for the 10,000 students there. The classes we've worked with range in size from 37 to 52, with most of them being about 45. The teachers have told us that they sometimes combine classes so that there are 80 or so altogether. Can't imagine trying to learn or teach a foreign language like that!

While being driven to and from places, we have lots of opportunities to observe many things, incredibly aggressive traffic being only one. Always we see people with brooms sweeping the sidewalks, the streets, walkways, alleys. If there is litter dropped, it doesn't stay there long (except for some flower boxes). There are also street-cleaning trucks in addition to water trucks (to spray the air to clean it) which play "It's a Small, Small World" so that people will be warned. At first we thought it was an ice-cream truck.

Before dinner, we walked to the mall to get some more lollipops for the winning teams. We managed to find a treat or two for ourselves along the way. This healthy eating can be tolerated for only so long! 

A Day to Keep Us on Our Feet

This morning was pretty calm with our usual waking up at 6:30, meeting Don and the teacher downstairs at 7:30, then off to the school. Somehow we got to the school 20 minutes before the class actually started. That set a new record.

The classes went pretty smoothly. We did our normal routine of introductions, pronunciations, drawing game, Simon says, break, homonyms, sentence contest, and the Hokey Pokey. The drawing game was a little confusing to explain this time, especially because even the teacher didn't understand. We later found out that the teacher didn't actually work there. Finally, LuRue got the point across by picking up someone's paper, doing an example, then walking around the room with it. We added more to the houses this time, because after the explanation process, people really seemed to get into it. We have already done a few changes to the drawing game and we'll see if it works better tomorrow. We asked people in both classes to perform something for us at the very end. In the second class, no one was brave enough to come up. However, in the first class one young man came up and performed a part of the American song "All of Me" by John Legend. 

Everyone went back to the hotel and met up for a quick lunch, because we needed some time to get everything together for the meeting with a new school at 2:10. Today had definitely been a "keep us on our feet" day. As Montana said, "It's like we're being tailgated by the future."

We were led to a classroom that was set up like our other welcoming - a circle of tables in the center for the important people like us and the teachers, then a half-circle in the back for the others- the students. It started with self introductions and a group photo, then LuRue went into talking about what it's like in Alaska, which led into Montana showing her Tanzania and India videos. Don got up and got everyone to sing, "I'm a Little Teapot". The rest of the class was spent by having people ask us questions, most of which Don answered, because there were questions Montana or LuRue didn't exactly know how to answer. One student even got up to sing "Hey Jude" by the Beatles. 

The group was escorted back by a teacher who gave us each a bag of red tea, which neither Montana or LuRue had ever heard of. They had an hour to start blogs and prep for tomorrow before heading off to dinner. This time there were only two dishes, so most of the meals were finished. We did a review of our goals, then the group was dismissed. 

Montana and LuRue went back to their room and while Montana was finishing up the blog and photo editing, LuRue created last minute costumes for our performance of "2 Tigers", the Chinese version of "Brother John", tomorrow.  

Getting in the Groove

Almost mid-way through our teaching days in China and we are finally figuring out how to do our jobs. Today Montana and LuRue were able to switch some things around easily to match the ability of the students. When the students weren't responding in the same way as the students from yesterday, we knew what we had to do to get their engines revving. The teachers also make a big difference...some are very involved, and so make sure that the students are understanding us; other teachers are more shy and have to be asked to intervene when we keep getting blank looks.

What we have managed to do is to get the pronunciation part of the lesson taken care of quickly during the first few minutes, then move on to the contests and games. As Bao Li told us at the beginning, the students are very competitive and become very involved. The lollipops are also a great incentive. After the ice has been broken, we have a lot more fun with the games, such as Simon Says. Once the students get to laughing, they are willing to do a lot more, which makes it fun for us. We even seem to be getting more successful when we ask the students to show us dance steps or sing us songs after the Hokey Pokey. Today we got two beautiful solos: one was a song called Dust by Jiu Jiu, in Chinese of course.

More rain today...very glad that the rainy spells have been coming during the week, not the weekend. We got lucky last Saturday and Sunday when we did a lot of outdoor things. The hotel room has definitely cooled off. Now even Montana thinks it's a bit too cool. We are wondering now if the city really has turned off all the heat & that the sunny days were what was keeping everything warm. We do have hot water, though, so hot showers are always available, thank goodness! The room at school today was much cooler than usual, too. There was an open window next to where we stand. Montana finally closed it. Hardy people, these Chinese!

After lunch, we did some "housekeeping" chores, such as some hand laundry. The hotel does have laundry service, but it costs $20 to $30 for a small grocery-sack-size of clothes. We'd rather spend our money at a restaurant (or a Baskin-Robbins, if we're being honest!)

At 2:30, LuRue went down to the lobby where she and Don had agreed to meet with some of the hotel staff to practice English. We met in a conference room where Don worked with the reception people and LuRue had about 8 people from the restaurant. Bao Li had helped the evening before with some pages written in Chinese, but even she didn't understand everything, so LuRue just went with the flow. The people had to come and go as they got called away from time to time, but the most successful was the role-playing...greeting "diners", asking if they wanted to order from the specialty dumpling menu or the regular menu, asking if they wanted to pay with cash or credit card, etc. Even though they're adults, they are as shy as the students we work with every day and they are just as thrilled as the students to be participating, so it is a lot of fun.

The dumpling menu is fun, too. The names of some of the dishes are: Peacock Greeting Guest, Three Gods Gathering the Treasures, Searching for Treasure in the Dragon Palace, Come Back Full of Treasure, Monkey King Entering the Palace, and more.

Before dinner, Montana and LuRue watched the rest of the 2008 Olympics Opening Ceremony (except the parade of nations). It was a spectacular and thrilling experience for both, even though LuRue had already watched it in 2008. She had forgotten that 15,000 people had performed...never repeating. Just goes to show how many people live in China. We were reminded again of the fantastic show we watched on the Li River a few weeks ago, also magnificent--same director.

Our calendar from now until we leave is almost full already, with the teachers always asking us if there is anything else we'd like to do. We won't be wondering how to spend our time! 

Teaching 5th Grade in College

We were woken up to ear blasting, annoying, painful noise... the alarm. It was the beginning of another week of teaching college students 5th grade things. Rebecca, the teacher that picked us up, came knocking on Montana and LuRues door at 5:25 am wondering where we were. I guess 5 minutes early is really 5 minutes late in China. Because of a traffic jam, we were a few minutes late to our class and the students were already waiting for us in the room. 

We are starting to get into a routine. For both classes, we did introductions, pronunciations, homonyms, Simon says, sentences, drawing game, and the Hokey Pokey. For the first class, we split up the pronunciations into three parts, one in the beginning, one right before the break, and one right after the break. However, we changed it back to normal for the next class, because we decided it just wasted time. Today, each person on the winning team got a lollipop. That seemed to get the students a little more into it. Most people were involved, but still there were those one or two students on their phones. 

During lunch, we discussed the activities Don and we did. Baoli also gave us a lesson on names in China. It seems like family is extremely important in China. After lunch, Montana and LuRue worked on changing a few things. We added more sentences to the homonyms and put the drawing game first instead of last, so we'll see how that works out tomorrow. Other than that, we didn't do much until 6, when we met Don and Baoli downstairs for dinner. 

Baoli took us out to a restaurant in the supermarket nearby. We were served dishes of sweet potato, chicken, pork, tofu, a broccoli stir-fry and some sweet rice to top it off. We all went to an electronic shop nearby on the hunt for a flash drive. Then Don and Baoli went back to the hotel. We stopped by a supermarket to get more treats for the winners tomorrow before going back to the hotel to finish up some preparations then go to bed.