A Walk in the Park

Paul had to leave on the 7am bus this morning to teach and I did not. Since it has been so hot here I decided to walk around the lake in the park closest to our apartment. I went early and was moved along in the tide of the masses going to work and to school. When I got to the park it was most amazing! The first thing I noticed was all the music being played - quite loud.  Everything from traditional Chinese to quite western. Accompanying the music were groups of adults practicing various forms of the extremely popular tai chi exercise routines. Some were dressed in traditonal silk outfits and others had on either street clothes or some form of exercise clothing. Some just moved their hands and feet to the music and some held fans, or ribbons or wooden sticks. Everyone moved very slowly and in controlled movements in unison.  Fascinating to watch!

I was a little nervous here - the stick had a metal

ball on it and he was really swinging it.

She  was totally motionless and stayed that way.

The little dog would not stand still.

 



All finished!

 

 

 

 
 
We have had lots of rain and so the foliage and gardens were beautiful. No one was on the lake in the little paddle boats and the bridges were so pretty reflecting on the water.  I had a great time and I got back just in time and ready for a shower.

This one and the following picture are opposite sides of the same lake.

 
 

The lotus plants are almost ready to bloom

 

 

One last rose in bloom

 

 

A hotel on the way home.

 

Classes

The photo above is of one section of our sophomore students. Very typical. One day while I was back at my father's funeral, I had Paul take this Oral class on a tour of campus - actually they took him. Note the statue in the background. Impressive. Further back is the new library. It just opened a few weeks ago. We heard it was the largest in Asia. Our student clarified it. "Largest library surrounded by a man-made lake" (which they are just finishing and have not yet filled).

I teach these sophomores American History and Oral English on Monday and Thursday mornings. I teach a total of 51 freshmen Pronunciation Monday afternoons in 2 classes. On Mondays and Thursdays Paul is teaching Business to seniors and will soon be teaching American Culture to freshmen. On Tuesday mornings Paul teaches Sophomore Advanced Writing (20 students in each class). Last semester I also taught Movie Appreciation and Paul taught Public Speaking. We mostly take an uncomfortable university shuttle bus on a 50 minute ride out and back. In the mornings we typically leave at 7 AM and Mondays Paul gets home just before 7 PM. 

Some of the freshmen. All our classrooms are the same, although we seem to spend most of our

time  teaching in this room 306. Note how the desks look brand new. Not one single mark or scratch on them. The Chinese students are significantly more respectful of private property than Americans. The classrooms all have their own teacher computer system and projector.

Lesson preparation takes of a lot of our time at home along with correcting assignments. Paul has an extra dose of correcting with all the essays. Sometimes we grab a bit of breakfast before class or even lunch in the student cafeterias. We also need to meet in dozens of small group sessions of students called "Free Talk." These help students have an opportunity to spontaneously practice their English. Some we do in our apartment and most we do on campus. Office hours are also required. 

Getting places, doing laundry and grocery shopping (totally different from at home but that is another blog for another time) take a surprisingly large amount of the rest of our time. Things like no dryer and hanging all your clothes up to dry and shopping almost daily because you have to carry everything home make the days seem much shorter than in the states. 

Often the classes come with suggested text books that are available but not mandatory. That is good because all the books are in Chinese and unless a teacher has taken the time to translate the instructions they are useless to us. Fortunately  mine has been translated and is very helpful.

Paul had his business students get a couple of books he had bought for $40. He told them on Monday and they all had their identical copies on Thursday. Price? $2.20 for one and $1.50 for the other. When asked how they got them so fast the answer was "PDF files to the printer." Ah, this is China.

The students are just great and we love them!  They are bright and happy and so smart!  Their grasp of the English language is quite good and they are able to express their thoughts quite well usually.  They are fun to talk to and they actually like talking to us and make an effort to be with us and converse.  

Church has been quite a bit more lively than normal thanks to

an influx of BYU study abroad students. Young Ambassadors

a few weeks ago. This is a group of BYU dance students

studying here for a couple of weeks. Had a BYU engineering

group. Also several BYU independent traveling groups. 



Funny story. The other day several of the girls came up to me and told me that another student would be absent because she was “hot headed” and couldn't come. I got all worried that she had gotten herself in trouble with the authorities for getting mad at someone. Come to find out she had a fever and was sick! We all laughed at that one! Just when you think you understand them....  

There is a 10 minute break in each class because the classes are an hour and 40 minutes long – each class meets once a week. I know, a bit different than home. During the break one of the girls in Paul’s writing class who had just come to my Oral class came up to me and wanted me to help her correct her written assignment that Paul had marked up.  She was so earnest and wanted the help so I helped her – I just hope her Professor won’t get too upset. But then again, you might as well use the resources you have available.

 

20 of the BYU dance students asked if they could come over for FHE. Not a large apartment, but we all fit. Had a wonderful time. They loved Ann feeding them. They were really longing for a little "western LDS" feeling that we were able to provide.

These Chinese students cope with some of the same issues as students do at home. The freshmen are away from home for the first time and have a tendency to maybe get a bit homesick. They are learning to deal with spending their money for the first time and how to manage that. Some spend the whole semester's funds the first few weeks. Many of them have never had a roommate and that can be an adjustment from being the center of the universe. They do not choose their roommates and so they make friends almost immediately. Pretty much the same stuff. For all it is their first doses of freedom and some spend too much time playing games on their phones and not enough studying.

A “Typical Chinese”

We are on an airplane. As our flight attendant filled a minor request for us we commented “she is really the 'typical Chinese' that we mostly interact with: young, bright-eyed, happy, cheerful, smiling, well groomed, looks nice." We would also add: well raised, polite, helpful, kind, optimistic, educated, disciplined, inquiring, reserved and so very hopeful about their future. They are proud of their ancient culture and they are proud of their country today. 

They create a wonderful and positive impression of what China is and how it will be even better in the future. Some come from poverty, some from very modest backgrounds, some from the middle class (which lives like the American middle class of he 60s), and some from wealthy backgrounds. But they all have big dreams and ambitions which they see others constantly achieve and know that they can too.

Look at this picture or others of our students and friends from other posts of this blog. This describes them. This also describes most of those we encounter and interact with in their 30’s and 40’s.

Older Chinese generally receive a different description. In the same way American “Greatest Generation” was marked by being raised during the depression and living WWII, older Chinese are marked even more so by WWII, The Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution. They are from a different time, a different world, a different culture and have known poverty and difficulties beyond our experience. We have been touched by much of what we have read and especially by occasional first and second person accounts we have heard. Their outlook, demeanor and behavior contrasts dramatically with the youth.

Street Sweeping

There are street sweepers everywhere. Our campus alone has at least a dozen or more. They are an additional cause of air pollution in China. Every day every road and sidewalk everywhere gets swept multiple times.

These are not machines. Never seen one. They are people with brooms. I can hardly imagine the number of hundreds of thousands of sweepers throughout China. They were everywhere during our first trip to China. There are even more now.

They keep things swept. Notice I said "swept" and not "clean."

It seems there is always dirt and dust on the sidewalks and roads. I think the street sweepers have a very interesting strategy to deal with it. What do you mean? Me? Cynical?

Here is the formula:
1. Stir every piece of dust and dirt into the air, swooshing it all around everywhere.
2. Hope that 1/3 of it clings to buildings, cars, plants, and people. It will never return to the ground and never need to be swept again!
3. Hope that 1/3 of it gets breathed in by the pedestrians and stays forever clogging their lungs. I testify they succeed really well with this.
4. Sadly let 1/3 of it return to the sidewalk or street.
5. After you have gone a few hundred yards, return to your starting point and begin again! It is an endless all day cycle.

How can this be? What is this? Now what do we do?

Above the smog the air was beautiful

I think I understand where the term "Chinese Fire-drill" comes from!

I think he spends half his time with binoculars focused on our window.

As we have said many times, a day is not complete until we have our

“How can this be?”
“What is this?”
“Now what will we do?”

 moment. Many times we continue in our state of confusion. Often we stumble along. Gratefully, on the stickier issues, there is always the tender mercy.

We have been writing several blog entries today. We have written in airports, on the airplane, and now in a hotel lobby. After most of the above has been completed, we have begun having an interesting series of our "special" yet typical “China moments.”

It started with the announcements on the airplane. They were in Chinese, perhaps also Cantonese, and then supposedly English. We have heard announcements for years and sort of know what they are by heart. This time we could not understand what they were saying - in English - sort of....

We began wondering - it was clear we were not landing at our destination. That has happened  before when we thought was a flight was non-stop and it was merely direct. Since we could not understand what they were saying, where we were, and what we were supposed to do, we were concerned we took the wrong plane.

As we got off the plane, we showed our tickets to the flight attendant. She told us it was the right plane, we just needed to all get off, take the shuttle bus to the terminal, and then when they called us, take the shuttle bus back out. Ok. The first wondering what is going on is resolved.

Hanging around the front of the hotel.

Everyone gets off the plane. Some get on one bus because they are at their destination. It heads to the terminal.

Those of us going on, the majority, get on a 2^nd bus. It slowly heads to the terminal, drives the length of it, and makes a U-turn. Since it has doors on both sides we think it wants to line up to drive straight back along the front of the terminal.

It doesn't stop. It keeps driving. Slowly. It never stops. It drives right back to the airplane we just got off of.

We are really scratching our head wondering “What is going on here?” Fortunately almost the entire bus (we were the only non-Chinese on it) burst out laughing. It is as odd to them as it is to us. That is comforting. Ignorance likes company.

We get back on the plane, never having left the bus and only being off the bus maybe 15 minutes. Second wondering is never explained, but we take comfort the Chinese also don't know. So much odd stuff always goes on. It really is funny how much odd stuff constantly goes on.

We grab a taxi at the airport and head to our hotel. We get within several miles of it and suddenly there are blockades everywhere and lots of police and military. Soon the road is blocked the way our driver wants to go. He heads in another direction and while there is more military and more guns, we seem to get closer.

About 8 blocks from our hotel there is a final blockade and our non-English speaking driver signals us to get out and walk. It is about 90 and very humid. We grab our suitcases and start walking down the security lined street. We get to our hotel drive but the official looking guard will not let us go in. No paperwork. Someone from the hotel comes by, tells the official to let us in, and takes us in his golf cart the rest of the way. What is going on here?

Turns out there is a big Asian financial summit going on at the Sheraton Hotel next door. That hotel is closed. A large percent of our hotel rooms facing the Sheraton have been closed by security. We are on the 7^th floor in the room closest to the Sheraton. The English speaking concierge who has walked us to our room explains they inspected our room and said the angle from our balcony was different (different for what? a clear aim?) so they allowed use of the room.

As I type now I am looking at an officer on the roof of the Sheraton with binoculars looking back at me. I wonder if we will be able to stay. Oh, and all the local seafood restaurants, all the restaurants in fact, and all the shops and stores we were looking forward to are closed for a week or so because of security.

This morning at the breakfast buffet we arrived just as it was closing. We had been told, or at least we had understood, that it would be going on for another 45 minutes. They recommended we come during the last hour.  Hurry and grab some food - since everything outside the hotel was closed, this was our only chance to eat and we wouldn't want to starve!

As we ate the manager of the dining room came over to welcome us in person as is the Chinese way. When she realized that we had missed most of the buffet she personally went to the kitchen and came back with fresh fruit and other goodies for us (such typical Chinese kindness). Where did we go wrong?  We left fully satisfied and happy but again wondering "How can this be? We are positive of the words they told us."

All in all it would have been nice to know. Interesting to be trapped in the hotel. Number 3 mystery at least understood. China is so interesting.

A new freeway

Freeway toll booth

Talking about all the construction and the messes and air pollution it makes is only one part of the story.

This morning we took a 20 mile ride out to the airport. It was mostly on a new freeway. 4 lanes in both directions and beautifully landscaped with mature plants, shrubs and trees. It was like a private park. Instead of being unusual, as it would be at home, this is very typical of China.

The dense, well-trimmed and watered shrubbery and trees are so different from what we would see in America. It is not unusual to see miles of flowering trees in bloom on a freeway less than a year old. Not only are the freeways landscaped but they are meticulously maintained - all by hand.

So often at home we see new public plantings dry out and die. Here the streets have constant watering trucks driving the boulevards water the hedges in the median and sides of the road. Impressive.

Along with landscaping is the constant road and sidewalk sweeping - much of it done by hand - even done by hand on the freeway itself.

One of the advantages of a country with a large population still trying to emerge from poverty is that there is so much available cheap labor.

Different from America, laborers  will work at any job to elevate themselves and become self-sufficient. The prime work motivation, even in very low paying jobs, is to work and sacrifice to allow their children to get an education. China really puts that inexpensive labor to work beautifying the country, cities, streets, and neighborhoods. It definitely soothes the heart and gladdens the eye.

These, and so many of our pictures, are hazy not due to poor cameras, nor being actually overcast and cloudy. Instead it is the haziness of air pollution.

Desolation

This photo is exactly what the power plant looked like from the freeway. Real people have to work there. I can not imagine. It is coal and not nuclear.

Xi'an has many heating plants and several power plants and it looks like this around all of them. The soot coming out of the chimneys is filthy.

All of Xi'an was an ugly haze of air pollution that morning. As soon as we got just blocks north of this power plant, the air improved dramatically.

On the other hand, we had our third amazing dust storm here day before yesterday. While it is amazing outside, you would not believe how filthy our apartment is. Even closed up it is not really closed up and everything is covered in dust and dirt.

Cough. Cough. China.

"Our" elementary school

One thing we enjoy about our apartment is that it is 5 floors above and 50 feet away from the 2000 student campus elementary school.

Very prestigious school. Everyone wants to get in. If you get in, you are guaranteed admission into the campus middle school (the middle school across from the south gate; it is building a 2000 student addition 2 blocks away from us here on campus).

Getting into the middle school pretty much guarantees you your choice of colleges  Chinese are obsessive about school ranking in a way we have never seen in America so the middle school is very desirable.

We enjoy living by the school. From early morning to early evening it is so busy and full of happy noises - 6 days a week

(Sunday is for private tutoring; but so are week nights for those (all) who want to get ahead. A neighbor asked us to tutor her 10 year old daughter from 9 PM to 10:30 PM Monday nights. We said, "No." What are they thinking?)

Its makes walking around the area a lot of fun when everyone is coming and going. Often a smiling child will shyly say "hello" and giggle when we respond in English.

At times we have been "mobbed" with smiling laughing kids who want to "talk" to  us. Their parents are very happy to have them practicing their English.

 Everyone is picked up by mom or dad or a grandparent or an after school tutoring program.


The other day one of the Chinese faculty members invited us to go over to the school yard with her to watch some jump roping.

The school had a full two days of an all-school jump roping contest. Single, pairs on a single rope, double Dutch, double Dutch teams and of course, teacher exhibitions since they all competed as kids.

They also had a hacky sack competition. This was done with small weights attached to feathers.

It was enjoyable being in the midst of all the kids being kids: practicing, competing, giggling, laughing, studying, reading school books, reading comic books, being coached by parents, being over-coached by tiger parents, playing cards, and generally just enjoying a couple of days in the school yard with their friends.

The gated concept really worked well here. Only two ways in and out of the school grounds with a single guard at each gate being sure no one left. Here are some fun photos from it.

We submitted our papers

We are moved by feelings being a very small part of what is taking place among the Chinese people.

It is exciting to see the church able to more freely discuss what is actually taking place (see newly released church website http://mormonsandchina.org/).

We have felt prompted to submit our papers to serve again from August 2013 to July 2014. We have been assigned to return to Xi'an. We are excited. We look forward to being home for a few weeks this summer between the assignments.

Sports' Day

The other day classes were cancelled while the university held it yearly “Sports Days” on the new campus. 

 

Some of Ann's freshmen students. This is our college's group

in plaid.

As we arrived home from school two days earlier our phone rang with Zhang Yi telling us that we had been selected by the Student Council of the College of Languages, Humanities and Law to lead its team walking into the sports arena during their opening ceremonies.

 

She said no college had previously selected foreigners to have that honor before. Maybe kind of cool, and hopefully an indication we are creating some of the relationships we are trying to build.

 

When will we ever get the chance to do this again?  We were intrigued. Here are some are some of the pictures of us and the events we saw during the program.

 

The opening ceremony was fairly cool and showed evidence of influence from the 2008 Olympics.

Now stopped in front of the University officials to

perform.

 

We were supposed to wave at the crowd. Not comfortable. But since we had students sprinkled though it who were waving to us, it was easy to wave back, at which point the whole section waved back at us and then cheered. That was fun. The unusual Americans on campus. We are treated nicely.

 

The athletic contests were apparently selecting winners to go to a regional, then national competition.

 



The field was filled with the various college delegations.

The hurdles gave an interesting view of the composition of competition. There were a handful of outstanding hurdlers. Our students said they were PE majors who would all go on to be coaches.

 

There were also lots of very poor ones. Some obviously got recruited by friends who said "oh, let's go do it and represent our club." They tripped a lot. Reminded me of what I hear said about American Idol and reality TV in general: "Friends don't let friends....." Lots of friends here missed the boat.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dragon Club doing their most famous move: "Great Wall"



 

 

 



Two of our students just live to be part of their dance team.



Several hundred faculty were part of this demonstration.