Tuesday, March 31, 2015

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!

Monday, March 30, 2015

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.

Sunday, March 29, 2015

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. 



Saturday, March 28, 2015

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!

Friday, March 27, 2015

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. 

Thursday, March 26, 2015

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! 

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

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.  

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

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! 

Monday, March 23, 2015

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. 

Sunday, March 22, 2015

From Antiquities to DQ

Another sweet morning of sleeping in! Eight a.m. seems about right for both Montana and LuRue. 

Montana decided to skip breakfast. Though not sick, it just didn't sound good to her, so LuRue went down for her usual egg, bread, orange juice, and milk tea. Don happened along, though he had eaten hours earlier. He shared his activities from yesterday & LuRue told him about the movie, and about the trip to the Bell & Drum Towers with the students. When it got to the part about returning to the hotel at 11:30pm, he was very glad he hadn't gone.

The two did talk about visiting the Shaanxi History Museum, highly recommended by Baoli, so tentative plans were made for meeting in an hour to take the city bus. Montana wanted to go, too, so the three set off on Bus #24...Don with a city map, charting the turns and the traffic circles, and LuRue counting the stops with curled-under fingers. We found the museum right where we expected it to be, which is always a good sign.

We had been told by Baoli that we could avoid the long line for free tickets by paying 20 yuan each (about $3.50). The first step was to find the place to get those tickets. That resulted in a lively conversation involving a guard, Don trying to speak Mandarin, a street hustler, and a young man who told us that he had an "interpreter license". The answer was almost too easy...go to Window 4, which couldn't be seen because of all the people at Window 1. The conversation also revealed that Don and LuRue could get in free because of their ages--they just had to show copies of their passports.



Once at the entrance, we went our separate ways. Montana and LuRue were guessing that Don might want to linger longer at displays, and once we were in, we knew we had been right. The large lobby was milling with all kinds of  tourist groups, small and large, as well as local people and lots of free-roaming tourists. Most of the glass-enclosed displays against the walls were already three people deep, so Montana and LuRue buzzed by those and headed for the free-standing ones in the middle of the room. The building is huge and very nicely laid-out with relics dating back about 4000 years. Some of the older ones were more sophisticated in design than those only 2000 years old. There is no denying that China had a very advanced society, with amazing works of art along with scraps of silk and linen fabrics. Anthropologists must be thrilled to view such treasures, knowing so much more than we do about these things.



There were two floors, and during our speeded-up tour, we learned the Chinese art of merging into space being vacated by other onlookers. The trick is thrusting a shoulder forward while moving a foot in the same direction. The body follows and you find yourself in front (right in front) of a display so that you can read the information. Otherwise you find yourself staring at someone's back.



After we left, Montana was finally feeling hungry, so we walked back along the route of Bus #24, but didn't find any places to eat. We just missed a bus by about 20 seconds, but another was along in about 5 minutes. We kept track of stops again, and got off just after spotting our "butterfly-decorated" traffic circle and passing our hotel. We were back into familiar territory.

We were both yearning for some good old American food so began looking for one of the ever-present KFCs or McDonalds. The golden arches won out. But the overhead menus were all in Chinese. LuRue ordered what she thought was a fish sandwich while Montana got the Chick McNuggets. What LuRue got was a Spicy Chicken sandwich. Two days in a row!! The dictionary is going to have to come out! Not spicy!! A blizzard at a nearby Dairy Queen topped off lunch and helped put out the fire-in-the-mouth.

Back to the hotel, Montana heading for the treadmill...LuRue to write this blog and also the weekend version of the team journal.

Unexpected Surprises 

Today, we decided to check out the egg stand in the hotel restaurant that we had been wondering about. The stand only makes fried eggs, so we each got a fried egg for breakfast. The morning was spent getting footage for our film. 

This evening we were going to go see a movie near the supermarket, so we went there to go look for theatre. We did find one theatre, but it didn't seem right to LuRue from what the she remembered of Baoli's directions. So, we went back to the hotel to call Baoli. It turned out to be the right theatre. That didn't matter anyways because the students taking us to the movie were going to meet us in the lobby of the hotel. 

We went back to the supermarket again to get some scotch tape for LuRue. On our way back we found a BBQ place where we stopped for an early dinner - some unexpectedly spicy chicken wings and a bowl of "sweet potato" balls, which actually was regular potatoes mashed into a ball, but it was good anyways. 

We got back to the hotel a few minutes before meeting the students. We went up to the room and dropped off some unnecessary stuff before heading downstairs to meet the students. We were actually on time for once! The students led us to the Cinema China Film theatre. They got our tickets and some caramelized popcorn which was delicious. We offered to get them something, but they refused to accept even a handful of our popcorn. 

The movie we saw was called "Lost and Love". It is about child trafficking. There were two main characters - a dad trying to find his son and a son that got abducted and was trying to find his parents. We both thought it was a really good movie. We got lucky this time, because there were subtitles in English.

After the movie, we were expecting to just get taken back to our hotel, but nope, they led us around the park where the theatre was, then took us on a bus to go see the bell and drum towers. Sadly, neither of us had our camera, because we were expecting to just go see the movie. We got to watch a guy making small figurines out of a ball of sugar. We also got to try a sweet rice dish, which to us wasn't very sweet. We headed back to the hotel, getting back by 11:30- 2 hours later than expected, but worth it.



Sugar statue

Saturday, March 21, 2015

TGIF (More than ever!)

What a week! Definitely a roller-coaster ride! From first meeting with students on Monday morning through Montana being down & out a couple of days to LuRue teaching the Hokey-Pokey 10 times in "business casual" shoes (as in screaming feet!) Seems like everyone was feeling the same, as there was next to no conversation on the way back to the hotel, even though the teacher Mrs. Zhao was with us and is always very enthusiastic.

Montana and LuRue with 
some of their many students

Today our students were from Auto Trade & Auto Electronics. Almost all boys again, but a few girls in each class. Our team leader has told us that in their normal classes (often 80 or so students), many of them just sleep at their desks. Being a teacher in a required subject is very challenging. Montana and LuRue have improved their teaching tricks over the week, with students participating much, much more than before, but it takes a lot of energy!

That required a trip to the elegant mall down the street for a very expensive scoop of Baskin & Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip right after lunch. We discovered the most important Chinese word, so decided we had better commit the characters to memory. Excited guys running to climb a ladder for their ice cream, then happily jumping and skipping down the street afterward.

The happy Chinese characters for ice cream

Montana immediately went to the fitness center for the treadmill, but LuRue flaked out on the bed to start this blog and to gear up for tonight. The team is going out to a nearby restaurant for dinner, after which some teachers will pick us up for an evening at the park. They've described it as a very beautiful place. This is only the first of many activities that they have planned for us. They are very excited about our being here...this is the first time this particular school has had any Global Volunteers. We couldn't possibly have any better hosts!

Baoli did as we had asked at lunch, giving us feedback from the teachers and from her observations of our classes. Even though we are already speaking as slow as molasses, we are still speaking too rapidly. When we can use the white board to write as we speak, or use a prepared chart, things go much better. So we have more things to prepare. But it is worth the effort when we see the students (most anyhow) actively participating, smiling and laughing shyly. We always try to get them to show us their Chinese teen dances and songs in the last few minutes of class (after the Hokey-Pokey). Now and then a brave student or two will actually do something. All are good at egging someone else on, but no one wants to be the one who will perform.

Montana performing with the students

When Montana and LuRue got to the lobby a couple of minutes late for dinner (5:45pm), we couldn't find Don or Baoli anywhere...very strange!! They are always early. We waited & waited, & finally Montana started up the stairs to our regular dining room to see if we had gotten the information wrong, but then LuRue spotted Don coming down in the elevator (glass sides visible in the lobby) and Baoli came rushing in the front door with her 4-year-old son Jerry. Both full of apologies, but Montana and LuRue were happy to be first for a change. We walked around the corner from the hotel to a restaurant that serves a special dish...Yangrou Paomo, a Muslim dish. It requires breaking up two "English muffin" type biscuits (partially cooked dough) into soy-bean sized pieces, then the server takes the bowl away to fill it with very hot lamb (or beef) stew, which finishes cooking the dough, swelling it. It is served with garlic pickled in vinegar.  Montana and LuRue split a serving and couldn't finish it. The meal included a salad that included sliced lotus root, crispy and delicious.

We were back at the hotel lobby by 7:00, the time we were to be met by two teachers from the college. They were taking us to the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda in south Xi'an, which was originally built in the year 652, though it has been rebuilt and repaired since then. There is a statue of the monk who traveled to India and brought back Buddhism. Seven or eight years ago, the farmland surrounding the pagoda was transformed into a very large park, which now contains a massive fountain display performing "dancing" water spouts with music, beginning at 8:30pm. There are colored lights on the trees, a small "train" that drives around the edge of the park for parents and children, lots of vendors selling every trinket imaginable, etc. Purists would not be pleased, but thousands (millions?) of people enjoy it tremendously.

The fountain show

Baoli had her son, and another of the teachers had also brought her 9-year-old son, so it was definitely like a family outing. The teachers treated Don and LuRue like the grandparents, always helping them up and down stairs, around obstacles, and explaining everything we were seeing. Right away, they insisted we all had blinking "bows" on our heads, which turned out to be helpful. Montana and Don are so tall compared to everyone else that it was easy to keep track of us in the dark.

After watching a lot of the fountain show, we walked to the south end of the park, passing many more vendor stalls. One of them was selling cotton candy, so they insisted we have one. Don and LuRue just took some of Montana's. Earlier they had bought a treat for us...a stick of strawberries and one of hawthorn berries, each coated with caramelized sugar. We also shared those, the strawberries being preferred. 

The south end of the park seemed to be reserved for dancing...lots of it. As various kinds of music played, large areas were filled with people doing some sort of line dancing, another area for agile boys making complicated Michael Jackson moves, another area for teens and young people (mostly) to do a more modern line dancing to popular music, and the final area for the "senior citizens" to do old-fashioned dancing. When Don and LuRue did a few turns, they noticed that not only were the teachers taking photos, but quite a crowd of Chinese people were also snapping away. As one of the teachers commented later, "There are going to be a lot of new postings on You...? (some site that sounded like the Chinese version of Facebook)".

LuRue and Don dancing with the blinking bows

The teachers were absolutely delightful and fun to be with. We all had a great time! We got back to the hotel at 10:30, too late to do anything except for Montana to edit her pictures and for us to fall into bed for some much-needed sleep!

Thursday, March 19, 2015

Teaching Grade School in College

Finally, BOTH Montana sand LuRue got up unwillingly at 6:30, both zombies. LuRue got out of her zombie stage after breakfast, Montana, however, was tripping over air and running into walls until we got in the car to go to school. It was almost like walking into a whole new school for Montana, since she hadn't been there for two days. 

We got there early today, so LuRue and Montana had a few minutes to spare as the class filled in. They started by introducing themselves to the class, then did a short lesson on pronunciation and the difference between words such as heel and hill, which sound very similar. The class was divided into 4 teams to play the homonyms game. There was a piece of paper with 5 different homonyms used in sentences (“one” as an example). The place where the homonym was on the sentence was a blank, so the teams had to write down which homonyms were used. Whichever team got the answer right first would get a point. After that, the class took a ten-minute break. During the break, LuRue and Montana showed post cards from the places they lived to the people who were interested. 

LuRue helping a team

Montana and LuRue started the second half of the class with some Simon Says, which the students seemed to really like. Then, we did another team game where we would give a word and the team would have to use the word in a sentence somehow, for example, DANCE: Do you want to dance? Whichever team got a correct sentence written first got a point. We added the points between the two games to see who won. We ended the day by introducing the "Hokey Pokey". After several duo performances and some coaxing, the students finally joined,too. 

Teams hard at work

There was another ten-minute break before the next class started. The last class had seemed successful, so we used the same ideas for this class. This class had a little more time, so we added a drawing section to the team games. In the drawing game we told the teams what to draw, such as a a house with a bed, and whichever team drew it correctly first got a point. 

After both classes were over, we headed back to the hotel for lunch - some cabbage-like vegetable, a pork dish and a Chinese-style spinach pie. The group exchanged stories of their mornings during mealtime. 

The afternoon was spent looking for a cheap place to get laundry done. We were not successful, even with our amazing charades and Don's ability to speak a little Chinese. However, our hunt for an ice cream store was very successful. Actually, we found three in the same mall on the same level...which to try first? We relaxed the rest of the evening before meeting up with the group again at 6 for dinner and discussing weekend plans, which did involve sleeping in!

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Another Day of Learning (Not Teaching)

Morning started out with a bit of excitement in the breakfast area. LuRue got to breakfast earlier than usual and found Don getting his food amidst a sea of navy blue uniforms, trousers tucked into boots. We are guessing there were about 35 SWAT team members swarming around...eating, getting food, walking to tables. All were gone by 7:00am. We speculated that they were there for training.

Montana was feeling better, but had decided that she should take another day to make sure that her health is totally under control.

Don took 10 of LuRue's students to join his second meeting with the Tourism Class. We are learning that there is quite a difference in the abilities and the motivation of the students...those who are counting on English to get a job and those who are taking a required subject. This has meant constantly readjusting our lesson plans to meet the needs. Fortunately, the teachers have been willing to give us feedback on what is working, what is too difficult, and what is too boring. Unfortunately, we will never see the same students again so they will not benefit from any improvements we are able to make.

LuRue's first class was all boys (about 40) learning surveying and related skills. The pronunciation lesson prepared was very difficult for them, such as the difference between the long e and short i sounds, as in "heel" and "hill". Montana and LuRue will begin preparing more action games and activities.

The second session was another surveying class, but did include three girls. The class had 46 students, but Don joined us. This time the pronunciation class was cut way back, and we jumped to Simon Says. LuRue tried her most rapid commands, but could catch only a few. 

We moved on to "Hokey Pokey". The students followed the moves, but only a very few voices were heard. After a couple of nearly solo performances, LuRue asked Mr. Jhang, aka "John Wayne" to encourage the students to sing along as they performed the moves. (We are learning that having girls in the class makes a big difference!) They did, and so did John Wayne! We later complimented him on his participation.

Ms. Shi (Vice-Director of Education), Tracy, and Alice (two English teachers) accompanied us back to the hotel. They wanted to see Montana, bringing her a very beautiful bouquet of flowers and a large bag of fruit. Montana was feeling a little overwhelmed, but got through it OK.

Montana's flowers

After lunch, Baoli hailed a taxi for herself, Don, and LuRue so that all could return to the Global Volunteers "office" where we could get more teaching supplies. After three days of classes, we're beginning to figure things out a little better. Baoli told us that the English teachers regularly have classes of 80 students. Whew!!

Things have been so hectic that we've not even had a chance to do any exploring. LuRue did see a majorly nice ice cream store during her trip to the supermarket, which we'll check out when Montana is fully well. We're discovering that Chinese dinners do not come with any desserts. We are beginning to have withdrawal pangs!

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Changing Horses in the Middle of the Stream

After a harrowing day yesterday of scrambling around trying to figure out what to do with dozens of Chinese college students who speak only rudimentary English and are too shy to try even that, Montana and LuRue were almost at a loss at what to do for today. When Montana asked Baoli last night at dinner for some ideas, possibly games, Baoli thought a bit, then came up with a couple of activities that had possibilities. Montana returned to the room and wrote up a lesson plan for today while LuRue went to the lobby to do the daily blog. 

Things changed overnight, literally, Montana wasn't feeling well this morning, so decided she'd better not go to school. Before the rest of the team had even left the hotel lobby, Baoli and the teacher who meets us were already on their phones, having tables rearranged at the school and working with Don, the other volunteer, to bring both groups together. That was a great idea in LuRue's eyes. The activities Montana and LuRue had planned actually needed more preparation, but we had no time or materials to do it.

So Don and LuRue worked with 59 students, using Don's prepared lesson, then separating into two groups to continue what was already started. The first session went quite well, then Baoli had some suggestions during the break, so the second session with 45 students went even better. We are learning and evolving! With Baoli's encouragement, LuRue even tried the Hokey Pokey and was shocked that the students really seemed to like it! We'll definitely do it again!

Don has two classes that he will be meeting with multiple times (5 times each), but Montana and LuRue will see different students every session of every day they are in China. That leaves them the option of reusing the same materials over and over again. With a school population of 10,000 students, only a small fraction will meet with Global Volunteers, even with the large classes.

After lunch, LuRue found the nearby supermarket with the help of the hotel staff writing a note on a card and LuRue asking clerks or passersby on the street. Once there, she bought some markers, and with the butcher paper given to her by Don, wrote up a Pronunciation poster for tomorrow. Montana made up sentences on index cards to go with the words on the poster so that the students will have the "opportunity" to read them out loud (most will try to look invisible, but we know where to find them!) Now better prepared, both are beginning to feel like they know what to do...finally. At dinner, Baoli also mentioned Simon Says, which shocked both Montana and LuRue that college students would actually do it!

It's beginning to look like we may survive these three weeks, after all!