HOME AGAIN

I am home again.  It's Monday, June 30.  There is very little "jiggity" in my "jig."  The trip ended up about 30 hours- very long, but I am glad to be in my home.  My neighbor sent a message in Chicago that she could hear my bed calling me.  It was...LOUDLY!  Thanks to everyone for following along.  Can't wait to share it all in person! Thank you God for a successful and fun adventure!!

Last night I had a great dinner with my friends from Yong Kang and the principals from Dong Yang.  After an elaborate meal that was WAY too big, the friends form Yong Kang came back to my room for a while.  We all had a final goodbye and a few laughs.  This morning is was early to rise since we had a 4 hour drive to Shanghai.  It ended up being about 4 and a half.  My flight is delayed 4 hours but that's a good thing.  With traffic and the horrendous lines at the airport, I would never have made my 3:15 flight anyway.  So it's all good.  Enjoying a cold drink and catching up on some things in the news with free wifi.  20 hours from now, I'll be in Chicago!

My Last Full Day In China

Today is Saturday, June 28.  My last full day in China is wet!  Since yesterday the teachers took me on an 8 hour walking tour of a palace and a movie studio in the rain, I declined any more outdoor tours for today.  I have spent the day relaxing and getting ready for my long trip home.  For the first time since I have been here, I slept in.  THAT was nice!  I have packed and repacked my bags trying to fit in all the "stuff."  Most of what I brought with me stays!  I think I am ready to go.   From this door to my own it will be 20 hours or so. I am using today to charge my batteries so I can make the best of the long travel tomorrow.  Tonight, the principals from both schools and a few teachers are meeting for dinner.  I do look forward to that.  It will be difficult to say goodbye to the friends I have made here, but I am looking forward to being home. I said goodbye to everyone at school yesterday.  One by one, I have bid farewell to people who have taken very good care of me for two weeks here in Dong Yang. A month is a long time to be away.  I've learned so much about China and its culture.  I've learned a lot about myself, too.  The people here are very kind, simple, hardworking, and generous.  They want to learn about us as much as we need to learn about them.  Politics aside, I have found very few people who are different from myself and my friends and family at home.  The students are much the same, as are the teachers I have met.  The families and the households are so similar to ours in the U.S.  People want peace, happiness, and prosperity for themselves and everyone around them.  Their dreams are very simple.  I'm impressed by the work ethic and how children rearrange their own lives to take care of their aging parents.  I'm stunned by family dedication.  Grandparents who travel hours to take care of grandchildren, sons and daughters who give up living and/or working in a city to go to their hometown to care for their parents, and the amount of sacrifice each willingly gives to other family members.  The small things that annoyed me or caused me an discontent over a month's time have all but disappeared in the memories of all the good I have experienced.  There's even beauty in the rain!  All the time and effort put into this trip have been well worth the experience.  I look forward to sharing more stories and pictures with all my friends and family at home soon!  36 hours from now, I plan to be in MY bed, in MY house, in MY country.  Thanks for reading.  Hope you have enjoyed the blog!  I'm not positive this is my last post as dinner may bring another interesting story or two tonight.  But most likely, the next blog will simply say, "Back home again in Indiana!" (or as my Mother always says, "Home again! Home again!  Jiggity-jig!"

My Last Day in the Classroom in Dong Yang

Today was my last day at the school.  A month of teaching in China has just flown by.  I can't believe all that I have seen and learned.  One thing I learned is to be careful what I wish for.  I have been hoping the rain would stop because 6 days straight of pounding rain was getting to me.  But I forgot that when the rain stopped, the sun would come out.  As beautiful as it is, it is so hot here I can't believe it!  I can walk three minutes to work and look like I just got done swimming.  With all the water, the humidity is unbearable.  But, it is better than wet shoes and dodging puddles. :)  Our play, "Little Red Riding Hood" went off very well at 8:30 this morning.  1800 kids gathered outside standing in soldier formation for 25 minutes to watch our group of 5th graders put on the play.  The wolf howled, the hunter shot, the singers sang, and the sun shone brightly.  It was a rough 8 practices, but I think they did a fantastic job for the short amount of time we had to get ready.  My last three classes here were all 4th grade.  We talked about opposites, verbs, and the difference between he, she, his, her, and him.  Those are tough concepts to teach kids who barely know the language.  It made me realize how much more patient I need to be with my class at home as they are not a whole lot further along in their learning than these kids are as far as language skills go.  I had lunch with "Tom" and "Jane."  I stayed a Jane's house last week and Tom is like her brother.  We scuttled our way through lunch with "Chinglish" as they call it.  They ordered for me and we spent a nice bit of time talking about school and how nice it was to have met each other.  Before I left, I gave Tom my Indiana shirt that he liked so well.  I am now officially out of IU stuff.  I have given it all away.  After my last two classes in the afternoon, I stood in the courtyard and watched all the kids run and play and get ready for their next period.  I waved goodbye to all the older kids hanging off the balcony and managed to see Tom and Jane for one last second.  It makes me kinda sad to leave, but I am looking forward to COFFEE, CHEESE, and CHOCOLATE!!!  Tonight the English teachers and I are going to dinner at my request.  They have been so kind, I would like to treat them.  I highly doubt that happens.  As a guest here, I am overloaded with gifts and have rarely been allowed to pay for ANYTHING!  I will give it a shot though.  I have packed 1 suitcase full and have been sorting through the clothes to leave here and what to try to take home.  I have purchased a backpack.  I will have three bulging suitcases and an overweight backpack on the plane all of which will cost me hundreds of dollars I am sure.  But, it will be worth every penny, every ounce of sweat lugging them here and there, and will be a great way to bring home and share many happy memories!  I'll update some recent pics tomorrow when I can.

My first Chinese pool hall

Today was a good day with the kids. I taught all 4th grade classes.  It was a lot of fun as they have some English experience so I could take my lessons a little further than I have with some of the other classes.  For lunch, Bao and Prince took me to a famous noodle restaurant where they ordered me the most famous "Italian" noodles.  My vision of Italian noodles and what showed up in my bowl are two totally different things.  I asked what the items were and they kept saying "local delicacy" or "local cuisine".  I ate very slowly and picked out one noodle at a time with my chopsticks trying desperately not to accidentally get a hold of one of the mystery pieces in my bowl.  I did find a shrimp...just one that I think was there by accident,....and I did swallow a piece of something unidentified, but I just chugged my water immediately afterward.  Crazy meal.  During my free time after lunch, Bao and one of his friends took me to a pool hall.  Entering in the front of a luxurious spa-like salon, we walked through a door, down a tiny dimly lit hall, and down two flights of stairs to the basement!  It had 7 beautifully hand crafted pool tables and was so smelly and dirty.  I loved every minute of it!  There were several characters there playing pool.  The chairs were old salon furniture and in the corner by one table there was a stack of old salon equipment.  I couldn't believe how much fun it was, though.  We played a few games before rushing back to school to finish my lessons.  Then we went back for another hour to play a few more games.  It was definitely an interesting experience.  Aside from the pool playing, the sights, smells, and sounds just added so much that I couldn't possibly describe it all in one post.  Great afternoon!  After school, a group of teachers and parents invited me to dinner and tea.  They brought their kids.  We ate another funky meal.  They tried to translate what some of the food was.  A few things looked familiar.  We went to a teahouse then where we had a wonderful tea service and about a million snacks.  The first round is cold fruit/nut type things.  The second round is hot...whole chicken feet, mushrooms, fish parts, pigeon eggs, and a couple things I just gave up trying to figure out what they were.  I am so intrigued by what they all eat.  (Which is pretty much everything.)  We had some great conversation about the differences in education in the US and here and the differences in children.  For example, kids are with their parents up and out until as late as they want whether it is a school night or not.  If a parent owns a shop and it is open until midnight, the children are most likely there with them running around the store until it closes.  I explained that most parents made arrangements for their children to be in bed or cared for if they had to work.  They didn't totally understand the reasons why.  All in all - another good day.  Interesting place, people, and food, of course.  Looking forward to my last day teaching tomorrow.  The play that I have put together with a group of 5th grade students will be performed in the morning complete with costumes, scenery, and songs!  I will have lunch with a couple of students that I have met.  Dinner with the English teachers tomorrow night.  As much as I love it, I AM looking forward to home. :)

Wild Weekend

The rainy season has begun.  They warned me about it but I wasn't sure quite what to expect.  Since Friday, it has not stopped raining.  It's not just "rain" but torrents of hard, heavy, street flooding, shoe soaking, blowing rain that is constant.  The people just seem to take it in stride.  I, on the other hand, had a little trouble adapting to being wet from the belly down because my small umbrella only covered my head and shoulders.  Saturday after a long car ride back from Hangzhou where I was taken on a boat ride and toured several things I had already seen (once again in the POURING rain) I got back to Dong Yang to find that I needed to move quickly from the house where I had been staying to a new hotel.  After juggling the suit cases (three in a tiny car) and getting settled, I met a friend from my first school for dinner.  We ate and stayed in a luxurious hotel in the newer hip part of the city where we could walk to cool places to watch the World Cup and have some drinks. (Once again...all in torrential downpours of rain)  This hotel is most likely one of the finest I have ever seen anywhere.  I decided, since I have not spent any money yet on this trip, to get a suite for the night just for fun.  It was a huge 3 room suite, 1 full bath, 1 half (both stunning and all marble) gigantic master bedroom with flat screen, huge living room with big screen, a view of their version of Central Parka and the river, and more amenities than I can describe in one post.  The cost??  A whopping 1000 Chinese Yuan.  That equals right at $150.  I couldn't believe it.  Well worth it!  The next morning, and ALL day Sunday (in the pounding rains) I was treated to a walking tour of the oldest historic district in the city.  It's well over 1000 years old and beautiful.  I'm sure on a sunny day it would have been spectacular.  We saw a museum and then went to Wood Carving City.  It's the biggest mall filled with ONLY local wood carved pieces.  Some small, some furniture, some statues- anything you can think of.  We had FOUR HOURS to roam the place because they insisted that I pick out something to buy as another gift.  I didn't find anything I loved, so I settled for a few little things they thought I couldn't live without.  The whole gift giving culture here is unbelievable.  They give and give over and over.  For them, too much is STILL not enough.  Dinner was " a surprise" for me.  Well, during my trip, I have learned to be very leery of "surprises."  Surprise meat.  Surprise dinner.  Surprise schedule changes.  None of them has been very easy.  But I took this one like a man and agreed to follow along and not ask any questions.  They had rented a room in a Karaoke dinner house.  Karaoke is SO popular that 18 year old kids KILL to get their first chance to go since the legal age is 18.  They can drink when they are 12, but driving and Karaoke are 18.  It was a riot.  Several people I have met at the school and all the principals attended.  15 around one table sharing 18 different dishes.  All the weird stuff I have already had, new weird stuff, and some outstanding new things were on the menu.  They made it very clear at the onset that their goal was to get me drunk.  This is a custom about which I have been warned MANY times.  They had brought my favorite wine and tried VERY HARD to toast me until I was under the table.  They underestimated my stamina as well as my wit.  I got the hang of the whole toasting thing and started hammering them as fast as I could.  The Principal left early, and two of his colleagues were close behind because they had had enough.  Score one for the American teacher!  They may think twice before trying THAT again!   But it was a wonderful evening and a great way to end a very long day.  It's Monday now and I only have 3 days of teaching left.  The play that I have put together for the 5th grade English kids is on Thursday.  More tours on Friday/Saturday, to Shanghai to fly home Sunday morning.  Off to work....

Friday's Meeting with the Foreign Affairs Group

Another crazy day in China.  Today I was able to teach one class of awesome third grade students before being whisked away to Hangzhou where I was asked to meet with the Vice-Director General of the Department of Foreign Affairs and a couple members of his staff. My friend Josh, the Principal from Dong Yang, and these men enjoyed dinner.  It was a dinner beyond description.  There were 8 courses and several times during each course I was toasted.  It lasted a couple of hours and our conversation centered around the importance of this exchange program and things we can do to improve it.  Gifts were exchanged, compliments paid, and I was escorted to my suite in the Hua Jia Shan Private Resort.  It is located just near the lake and the grounds are stunning.  It's lightly raining but doesn't dampen the spirit to take a long walk and explore the grounds.  I am waiting for my good friend, Doreen, to arrive.  She is from the US and is taking a train to meet me here for this evening and the morning.  I'm very much looking forward to enjoying some time with her.  All in all, another wonderful and productive day.  Only 8 days left- they will fly by, I am sure!