From the land where palm trees sway...

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So, here goes a quick update of things that have happened in the past month or so (other than our Beijing trip):

1. On Nov. 10, Mrs. Hu took us on a trip to her favourite shopping town: Yangzhou. It was about an hour and half van ride from Nanjing. When we got there, what did we see? Another Chinese garden. It really didn't help that I was sick that weekend. A lot of the Chinese gardens all seem to look the same, and since we had already been to Xu Garden at the Presidential Palace, Yu Garden in Shanghai and Suzhou, the garden in Yangzhou didn't really interest me. I would have rather spent the day at home in bed. The trip was beneficial in that we got to see a few more poorly translated signs, including: "The pool water is deep. Please keep ourselves." and "Take care of the green lawn with your love."

2. Liz and I have started our choir with the students. So far we have sung: O Canada, Angel by Sarah McLaughlin, I'm With You by Avril Lavigne, If I Had a Million Dollars and The Old Apartment by Barenaked Ladies, As Long as You Love Me by Backstreet Boys and several Christmas carols including Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Twelve Days of Christmas, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, and Jingle Bell Rock. We have been repeating O Canada every week and some of the kids can sing it now without the words. Their favourite so far has definitely been the Backstreet Boys song, because most of them knew it already because they sing it at KTV. We plan to do a few more Christmas Carols before Christmas, but also teach them the words to some of the songs that are played during the breaks at the school, including: more Backstreet Boys, Hey Jude, Home on the Range, Green Day, and Mariah Carey's Hero. It's such a weird mix of music, but we are having a lot of fun with the choir. We have been told that there is a music room somewhere where we could go to use the piano, but we have yet to investigate this.

3. On Nov. 24, we took a two hour van ride to Beiguo, where Joshua's family lives. I did not meet Joshua until this day, but Debbie, Tim and Liz already knew him from their yoga class. He had asked us if we would come with him to visit his family because his family had never seen white people before. We agreed, and so we thought that we were off to some remote-looking area or some small village. Joshua said that his village was very small. When we arrived, we discovered that what the Chinese call a "small village" is really a fairly large city. I believe the population of Beiguo is about 60,000 people. For lunch, we sat down to a dinner of river crabs, tripe (eww...), fish pork, chicken, beef, vegetables and questionable eggs. The eggs were questionable because we had been told previously of a delicacy in Nanjing, where people eat small baby chickens that have started to grow in the eggs. Even though the boiled eggs were right in front of us, we waited until almost the end of the meal when someone finally grabbed an egg and started to peel it. This is when we learned that the eggs had just been boiled in soy sauce and that is why they looked so strange. It was at this point where Joshua, thankfully, said that he thought it was disgusting that people ate chickens in the egg. Sometime during the meal, Joshua was asked what he usually does on the weekend, to which Joshua replied: "Weekend? What's that?" It was hard to hold back the laughter. After lunch, we discovered that there are some wines that are not made from grapes. Joshua's father has a special kind of "wine" that he drinks every day. It sits in a clear canister on their kitchen counter. The canister is filled with different animals, including seahorses and flying lizards. Gross, right? Well, Joshua poured some into a bowl for Tim to try. Debbie smelled the light brown liquid and decided that it smelled so good that it must taste good as well, and swallowed a gulp. This was very impressive, that Debbie was the first one to try this mysterious liquid. After passing around the bowl of "wine" and after everyone had a try (except for Liz) we came to the conclusion that the mysterious animal wine tasted like scotch, with an extra "kick" (maybe from the lizards...?) In the afternoon, Joshua took us to an area of the village where he used to live as a child. This area definitely looked more rural, although it was still right next to the rest of the city. We saw the rice fields, rice stacks and the nearby river, which contained drinkable water only 10 years ago. Now it is extremely polluted. We also had a group of local children who followed us around through the village. They let us take a few pictures of them and we had our picture taken with them as well. They were so cute.

4. We have been very busy with school work over the past month. The beginning of November was report card time. I have also been trying just to catch up, because I have felt like I have been behind in school work since September. I now finally feel like I have a little bit of order and I'm more on top of things. Yesterday we were finally able to move up to the 4th floor in the school building. We were originally told that we would move up there Oct. 22. Us teachers moved upstairs to our new office on Thursday afternoon, of course on about one hour's notice. But, we now have something that more closely resembles a real office. Before, we were all just in an old classroom. The plan was for the students to move upstairs several weeks later, but when we arrived to teach yesterday morning, we discovered that the workers had ripped the heating controls out of the walls of our classrooms. Great. So, we moved all the students upstairs on Friday. Getting the students organized was the key. In their old classrooms, they had practically everything they owned at their desk. It made for a very crowded classroom and very crowded desks. They had hardly any workspace on their desks because it was covered in books and other things. In their new classrooms, the new rule is that they are not allowed to have anything at their desks. Nothing on the desk or in the desk. Everything has to go in their lockers that are at the back and side of the classroom. Some of the students are angry at us right now for implementing this rule, but they will get used to it. Now next week we have to train them to get all the books that they need for one class ready at their desk before the bell rings and then to put things back in their locker after class.

5. We have discovered a new store here in Nanjing: Metro. From the outside, it looks much like an Ikea (ie: blue and yellow). On the inside, it is exactly like a Costco. On our trip there last week, I spent $100 and got a humidifier, two cases of water, a whole ton of food items including Ritz crackers, spaghetti and sauce, and a Christmas tree, lights and all the decorations. The tree itself was only $10! The tree in my apartment makes it feel like Christmas is actually coming.

6. Speaking of Christmas coming, the weather in Nanjing is still at about 10-15 degrees. Some days it has been about 5-7 degrees and at night is has sometimes gone down to about 0 or -1. It feels like October, not December. My students are so amazed when I show them pictures of snow back in Canada and some of them have never seen that much snow! (even though it's really not that much!) Also, we do not get a break for Christmas (only 1 day) so it really doesn't feel like it's almost Christmas at all.

7. Again speaking of Christmas, Mike and Debbie have given us an amazing Christmas present: on Dec. 24 after teaching we will head over to the Sofitel Golf Resort Hotel.

Sofitel Zhongshan Golf Resort Nanjing is located on the slopes of the famous Purple Mountain. The resort features 140 rooms, 3 restaurants, 3 bars and an exclusive 27-hole golf course designed by Gary Player.

After spending the night at the hotel, we will return to Mike and Debbie's apartment on the 25th for a Christmas feast cooked by Charles, the chef at one of our favourite restaurants: Salsa. Tim will be helping him cook all the food: turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, apple pie and cheesecake. When we go back to teaching on the 26th, we have a movie/activities day planned. In the morning we will watch a movie (to be determined) and then play Christmas Cranium...which Liz and I are going to invent/create on our own...and in the afternoon we will watch another movie (possibly How the Grinch Stole Christmas) and then the kids will exchange presents (boys will bring in a small gift for another boy and girls will bring in a small gift for another girl). All of this will probably occur between several phone calls to Canada. We're all very excited about the whole thing.

8. Instead of the Christmas break, we get a break for Chinese New Year, starting Jan. 26 and going until Feb. 17. I'm very excited for this holiday! My cousin, Tiffany, will be coming to visit and we have quite a trip planned. We plan on visiting Beijing, Guilin, and Sanya. We will also, of course, spend some time in Nanjing and a couple of days in Shanghai. Guilin is further south than Nanjing and there is apparently some very neat mountainous rock formations there and we will also take in a boat cruise around the surrounding village. The boat cruise is apparently a great way to see wandering buffalo. Sanya is often called the Hawaii of China. It is on the same latitude as the southern tip of Hawaii and should be very warm, even in February. Mike and Debbie went to Sanya in October and absolutely loved it there and recommended that we go there at some point.

9. Recently, I have been teaching my students a little bit about Canadian culture. Trying to explain hockey to them has been very difficult. It would be nice if I was able to find a puck and some hockey sticks, then I would take them to the ice rink in Nanjing, but there is no hockey equipment to be found in China. One day, I gave them an article about Wayne Gretzky. After reading the article to the class, one of my students put up his hand and asked: "Does Wayne Gretzky play hockey?" Wow, they have a lot to learn.

10. At one of our choir practices, when we started to learn Frosty the Snowman, we asked the students if they knew what a snowman was. Liz drew a snowman on the board, to which the students replied: "No, there's only two balls for a snowman!" We told them we had never seen a snowman with only two balls, it was always three. We said that it was probably because Nanjing does not get a lot of snow, so they definitely don't have enough snow to make a snowman with three balls. A few days later, I found a pop-up-book of The Night Before Christmas, which I read to my class. But, of course, the pictures in the book had to have a snowman that had two balls. When my students questioned me about it, I replied that the book was made in England and that England did not have enough snow to make proper snowmen either. They laughed.

11. The heating situation at the school is very interesting. Besides the workers ripping the heat meters out of the wall before the children were moved out of the classroom, the school is ALWAYS freezing. My students constantly have the windows wide open in the classroom. I close them at the beginning of class, only to have my students open them again and say that the fresh air is good for us. They turn on the heat for half an hour, then turn off the heat and open the windows. They are not satisfied with a happy medium. Not only do they have the windows open, but all of them are bundled up with about 5-6 layers of clothing, two pairs of pants, several pairs of socks, and some of them wear mittens and hand warmers during class. About half of my class also has hot water bottles at their desks. I don't get it. I have started teaching while wearing my jacket, and the students tell me that I am not wearing enough clothing. It has become impossible to walk out into the hallway without wearing a jacket or a vest. Elaine, Ms. Hu, and the headmasters for Senior 1 and Senior 2 are freezing in their office. The thermometer in there is always at about 15 degrees, but Ms. Hu has said that it is not cold enough to turn on the heaters. Our office, on the other hand is a nice refuge for between classes, sitting at a nice 22 degrees most of the time.

12. Over the past few weeks, the school has had a singing competition similar to American Idol. We went to watch the finals this past Monday. When we got to the auditorium, we were handed glow sticks and bam bams. Apparently bam bams are no longer just for sporting events. There were 15 finalists that performed various songs, including a couple of English songs. One of the Senior 3's, Will performed, and did an excellent job. One of my students, Jessica from Senior 1, also performed, but as a guest. She was the last to perform and she sang and danced. She did a great job. We have not yet found out who won the competition.

13. On Thursday this week (Dec. 13), it was the anniversary of the 1949 Nanjing Massacre. In 1949, the Japanese invaded Nanjing and killed over 300,000 people. Starting at about 10am, sirens were heard around the city. Just like air-raid sirens. They went on for about an hour. In the next couple of weeks, we plan to visit the Nanjing Massacre Memorial site, which has just re-opened to tourists after renovations.


Photos:
Yangzhou
Beiguo...small town China

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Photos

Ummm....
"The pool water is deep. Please keep ourselves."

Our feast
In front we have the eggs cooked in soy sauce, to the left are the river crabs and to the right is the tripe and fish with a head.

Is that....?
Yep, it's flying lizard wine...

Sofitel Hotel
Looks just like the Coopers' house in the OC!