Blogs from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China, Asia - page 7

St. Patrick's Day has always been a part of my life ever since early childhood. I can remember pinching classmates if they didn't wear green, drawing shamrocks in class and having green cookies. As a collge student it was another reason to drink, as if any American student needs a reason. I can remember Molly's bar in DeKalb had a special "Riding the Rail" if you drank so many Irish beers and shots then you received a tshirt proving your accomplishment. This week in class I explained to my students about the upcoming holiday, St Patrick's Day, and to my amazement none of the students or staff members that I told about this holiday had ever heard of it. I guess none of them have Irish ancestors in their bloodlines, so why would they. It got ... read more

My 6 year old nephew said to my Mom "Grandma what ISN'T made in China ?" The things kids say that are largely very true. I am writing this blog to show that the US is selling goods to China and not just the other way around, as most are led to believe. Americans are used to looking at shirts, pants, shoes, plates, picture frames and basically anything sold at Wal-Mart saying the notorious "Made in China" many more items could be added to this list but you get the idea. If you asked any of my past or present students in China they would have a different connotation in their mind than most Americans when they read or hear "Made in China." In the last few weeks, I have tried to look at China in ... read more

Today, was our 2nd day of teaching the students of Business English class 11-1; eleven stands for the year they started college and 1 is the number of their class. I had created a quick outline for today's lesson as we are still getting to know the students and going over the basics. Quick Lesson for Today: Explain the Importance of an English Name Students type in their English and Pinyin Name (ie.Wang Peng) into Excel Take students pictures with their name card Review Class Rules Students tell us what they want to learn this semester Listening & Speaking activity called What Would you do If..... I had no idea the simple task of steps 1-3 would take over 45 minutes but that was ok as we have 90 minutes in a period. You may wonder ... read more

China always keeps me on my feet. I knew that we would get our schedules 4-5 days before the new term; I had requested them about 10 days before the new term and Ms. Gao, Head of Business English Dept, told me we would have plenty of time to prepare with 4 or 5 days before the term started. I was looking forward to last Thursday as I thought maybe today would be the day we got our new teaching schedules (5 days before the term). Then I received an email after 10:30pm from Ms. Gao stating Peter and I could pick up our teaching schedules on Friday. Pete could get his from the 6th floor office and I could get mine from the Business Adminstration Dept (my newly assigned dept). I quickly responded to the ... read more

Today, we have been in China for 3 months and sometimes I wonder where the time has gone and other days it seems to not go by quick enough. This last month, we lost my Grandma Mosher at the grand age of 95. She was quite the woman and it brings tears to my eyes as I type this. I have so many great memories of her as she only lived 5 minutes away from us as I grew up. Every time I came home from China, CA or NIU I would go visit her to say hi and catch up on her stories. I learned so much about our family history from her. Grandma loved playing cards, gardening, knitting and making warm blankets for us all. When we were kids we would dress up in ... read more