We found coffee!! and Easter?

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David writes...

I will include some pictures of Lynne's birthday gift from Dio in this one too.

Well, we found it here,
Yes it is a big deal! so get off my back! I mentioned we have been able to find coffee shops where we can pay 30yuan for a cup, today we actually found a shop with an espresso/cappuccino machine(GASP!), but today we ventured forth and found a coffee distributor. We woke leisurely after a hectic weekend of 8am to 8pm work this was because we held our Easter parties, yea i know it's early but hey, it's China so who cares. 100 kids per night and some activities and some chaos.

Easter - In typical Asian fashion the kids are bustled around from room to room just going along for the ride, one adult will grab 4 and say you go in here and they do without question. Get in line! Move over here! stand over there! push, pull, shove (we must run to schedule!) 1 & 1/2 hrs to do all the activities and sing a song play the slide show give out some lollies and a toy ooop's nearly forgot the games....color the eggs, egg toss (day 2 saw some partially cooked eggs in the mix...Hmmmm funny....dam straight!), another game hmmm some kinda race where you put a rugby ball between your legs and jump to the other end of the room, egg roll, this consisted of your hard boiled egg(?) being rolled down a short obstacle course and if it made it out alive a cheer was heard. The egg toss was great, i have found the kids here don't get a lot of practice catching a ball let alone an egg so over the vast distance of a meter half of the kids lost their eggs, 1.5m's saw all but 4 leave the competition once it was down to 4 give em a prize each and move on. So the huge distances you see for this comp in Australia of 100m's was never challenged. All had a great time and that was all that mattered.

As i said we finally found a coffee specialist not far from the school and it was so cool we entered the nice looking shop and instantly the lady began to open a bag of coffee and pour the beans in to a hand grinder which she then handed to me, i guess if i want a freebie i have to work for it, we had a coffee brewed in the most elaborate gizmo i have seen for coffee but we were just after a drip-a-lator nothing too flash just enough for 2 cups in the morning and some ground beans. We settled on a simple unit and a bag of Brazilians best export roast....hmmmm.

Off we go I want to stop at the Beverage supermarket, big place nice and tidy and the first thing i see is 4.5L's of Chivas finest in a tipper only 1880yuan not today. I gestured to the shop assistant 'do you have a smaller bottle?, she nods and say walk this way, i said if I could walk that way i would be in the movies....Booom...Booom! we went to the western aisle and there was Jonnie Walker and JD and a couple of other names we recognised from home so i bought a bottle of JD for thoese nights when there is nothing on the tube and we have watched all the pirate DVD's 10 times. Speaking of which we will have to return to the DVD store they must have a new shipment in by now!

Ok well time to go again.

See you next time.

Ps: The buses in Tai'an only run until 7:30 at night but the shops are open until nine, the taxi drivers are not complaining!

Lynne writes...

The children here are so totally at the hands of their mothers and grandmothers. They are constantly being touched, whether to take one of the layers of clothing off or to put more on, pulled and pushed in different directions, given more water or food even before the child has said that they are hungry. It's like the kids aren't given time to think about the instructions given. In David's kindy class, the mothers bark commands to their child if they don't respond quick enough for their liking. David has had to shush a few mothers so that the child can think.

But on the positive side, children are allowed to be children. And when they turn 18 they are allowed to enter an internet cafe and to work, as it is illegal for them to do so before then. The only internet allowed is at home under strict supervision. All of our students though will enter university. That is what is expected. I have a class of 14 & 15 year olds and in this class I allow about 15 minutes to discuss different subjects that might be of interest to them. It also is a good education for me to learn more about this culture. One subject was about music. Interesting that most of the artists they know are Chinese. Only one or two western artists are known...both from Canada. You wouldn't believe it but it's Celine Dion and Avril Lavigne!

Another subject we discussed the other day was “where do they see themselves in 10 years?' Some surprising answers...one girl said she will still be in university. I asked what she will study and she said mathematics (a physicist in the making). Two girls will go into fashion design hopefully to end up in Paris or Beijing. One of these girls said she will do either fashion design or play the violin. I asked, why can't she do both? You could see the cogs at work. Three girls will be tour guides, one in Tai'an, one in Beijing and a great response from the third is to live and work in Sydney. Her English is good and I have no doubt she will succeed. Two boys will work in business and want to live in Hong Kong. Many others want to teach in primary school or teach English. And it's interesting that two out of the 14 kids in this class don't see themselves leaving the country.

The people here do not know what goes on in the outside world. They only know what they are told to know. They are very ignorant of where many countries are in the world or of what is happening on a grand scale. But I have to wonder whether this is a bad thing here. The world is full of doom and gloom about the economy, environment, crime and terrorism. The people are untouched by these worries. Their lives are simpler.

We can't help but compare these children's behaviour to the children at home. Though they are the same throughout the world. They run, play, laugh, cry, wrestle and want their own way too. But what a difference!
CHINA: Here the children do what is expected of them because that's the way it's done, no arguments. Corporal punishment is still allowed. The teachers will push and pull, slap (not hard) and get angry if the child is not paying attention or playing about with his neighbour in class. School time is from 7.30am to 12 midday and then from 2pm to 4.30pm. The children go home for lunch...all of them and maybe play in the park if the weather is nice. If both the father and mother are at work the grandparents are responsible or any other family member. Don't believe for one minute though that the kids are unhappy. The littlest thing will have them in laughter and excitement. It is a pleasure to see these kids so happy. They want to be in our classes on the weekends. Their parents have them doing so much outside of school that they have no time to be bored. Music, art, dance, sport etc. The children are not left alone, there is always someone supervising. We don't see any teenagers hanging around the shopping malls or in the parks with skateboards. They are home studying one thing or another. The children don't know any different. They are disciplined from birth to respect their parents, grandparents and all other people. We don't see children teasing about how someone looks or what they wear. Kids accept other kids. It's amazing! They might tease them if they get an answer wrong in class but that adds to the competition.

We decided to take a bus to the end of the route to see more of the town. We have done this before but we ended up way out of town at night and we were very lucky there was one more bus to come back. So on our journey today we found the coffee shop and distributor. We also travelled past a large building with IKIA written on the outside. Now before you think I made a spelling error, this is how it's written here. Not sure if it's a knockoff but we'll check it out in the future. On the subject, you may be interested to know that China will be ratifying new copyright laws shortly. Gasp, shock, horror!

Good news! We are moving! Our new digs will be 4 bus stops closer to the centre of town in a cleaner environment. It's funny how I mention the bus stops. Giving directions is not well known here. Everything is said in terms of which bus you catch. The markets we discovered a couple of weeks ago, on the No. 10 bus, has moved. We are told to take No. 6 bus but no mention of where to get off. When we arrived here we are simply told take No. 4 or No. 15 bus to work. And we were accompanied the first time to make sure we knew what to do.

We have added more pics of around town too. Hope you like them.

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Photos

The eastern gate to the Dai Temple
The road from Dai temple leads from the northern gate to the foot of Taishan then it's about 7000 steps to the top.

For meeee! you shouldn't have
But i am glad you did!

An Easter nest!
Showing the kids how we used to scam eggs out of our parents.