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Published: January 9th 2009
Jo's Notes: Happy New Year! Since I last wrote, the Western holidays have come and gone, and now the lunar-calendar New Year is revving up. Life has been extremely hectic, in a Guangdong kind of way. What this means is that the usual laid-back pace, which I really like, is status quo, but I feel out of breath most of the time. There have been many activities, outings, dinner parties, lunches, and on and on, on top of some wonderful sight-seeing trips. I figured out that between 12/24 and today, I hosted 8 student dinners and one faculty get-together here at my apartment and attended 4 others as a guest. The first semester ended for me earlier this week, which also created much activity with 200+ papers to grade and final grades to calculate and record. I've attached some pictures of my International Investments classes, a student "hot-pot" party, and one of my boss at the Economics and Management Dept. end-of-term dinner. Two groups of students came to my apartment to cook me traditional Chinese dinners, which required hours of cooking and many courses each. The first group planned and executed a 7-course meal with the centerpiece being home-made dumplings. They
came Sunday afternoon, planning to cook and eat in time to go to a grand finale student pop-song contest at 7:30. We had just finished forming 100 dumplings and were on schedule, when around 5:30 the electricity went out in the whole block (rain storm), for over an hour. We sat with candles and flashlights, trying to think of an alternate means of boiling the dumplings since my hot-plate is electric. When the power came back on, we had just enough time to stuff everything into my small fridge and head out to the concert. So the girls came back the next night to cook up all the food. A fabulous meal. The second dinner was orchestrated by my student Jack from Maba (you may recall he was the tour guide for the class outing to Nan Hua Temple). Maba rice is famous in the area, and the traditional way to cook it is with bacon and a dab of a wonderful red oil. To go with the rice, he cooked an 8-course dinner for me and seven other students. The rice WAS delicious. (See pictures.)
Right before the holidays, I took a fun trip to Hong Kong. What
a fabulous city!! If you EVER have an opportunity to go to Hong Kong, GO!! Although I only had 24 hours there, I am smitten. I went so that I could attend Hong Kong Monthly Meeting (Quaker), which meets in St. John's Cathedral Annex (Anglican). (See a few pictures.) My tour guide was another teacher from here who showed me around Kowloon and Central. I stayed with a friend who showed me all around the Peak area. The city is clean, runs efficiently, and is breathtakingly beautiful. A combination of San Francisco, London and New York. Both church services were wonderful, each in its own way. My other sight-seeing jaunt was on Jan. 2, when the entire country takes a 3-day holiday for the New Year. Another teacher and I took a bus to the Ancient Mei Pass, a famous mountain pass about 3 hours north of Shaoguan. Built around 800 AD, for centuries it was the main gateway between Guangdong and Jianxi Provinces, and the only route over the mountains to Beijing. It is an engineering marvel since it sits up about 5,000 (?) feet above the valley below, and was dug by hand through solid granite. (See pictures.)
Full Entry: Again, must postpone the detail 'til later.
Best wishes for a wonderful, happy and healthy 2009!
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Jack
non-member comment
Happy New Year
Jo, Thanks for your recent blog entry. I was in Hong Kong in 1995 in early January and remember how tropically warm it was - a nice change from the Northeast as well as Beijing. I am sure it is now even more prosperous and busy. We have been well. Katie was here for a visit last week and it was nice seeing her. She stayed at our house over New Years with Carol and Ma. We spent last weekend skiing st Stowe - great fun although a bit icy. Winter is upon us here in Connecticut, snow, ice and temp in the 20's. Good luck with everything. Jack