Easter: China vs. America

I'd say the biggest difference I experienced on Easter would definitely be... CLOTHES.
In America, Easter is a day for girls to wear something new and fancy. Get all dressed up! Ditch the jeans and wear a cute dress for once. Bring out those sassy heals. Going to Church on Easter is something like a fashion show. And that's totally doable, because even if its 50 degrees outside and your dress is sleeveless, or you can barely walk in those sassy heals you've got on, all you really have to do is walk a few steps to your warm car, a few more to get inside the warm Church, and then back out to your warm car and home again.

Not so in China! As I got dressed yesterday morning I thought, oh, wouldn't it be nice to wear something cute today? My white lace skirt? Maybe that one pair of heals I brought but haven't even thought about wearing yet? And then I considered what it took to get to Church. First, a 15 minute walk to the subway in 40 degree weather. A 40+ minute ride. Another 10 minute walk from the subway to Church. Get to Church and it's cold inside (there is a pre-determined date for turning off the heat, and that was 2 weeks ago). Then reverse that all on the way home. After considering all of this I decided on Toms (those are cute, right?), jeans, and a somewhat cute shirt that no one saw because I was never warm enough to remove my jacket.

The good news is, NONE OF THAT MATTERS! The Savior has still risen and is alive today!
I had a wonderful Easter Sunday, surrounded by brothers and sisters from all over the world who came together to celebrate the Good News. To end the day, I went over to some friends apartment at a nearby college campus to eat waffles, decorate eggs and cookies, and have a good time. About half way through the evening we all stopped our talking and decorating to listen to a Chinese brother tell the Easter story in his own language. Although I have no idea what exact words he used, I know the story, and I was so honored at that very moment to be in China, at that school, in that apartment, with all of those dear students.

If I had to sum up my China vs. America Easter experience in a few words, I'd have to say...
"Same same, but different."
While on the outside things might look a little different, everything that matters is still the same:
He is risen! He is risen indeed.  

These are two of my precious boys, Andy and Danny, proudly displaying their Easter artwork.

James 1:27

Around Christmas time my teammates and I had the wonderful opportunity to help out at a Christmas party that some of our friends put on for a group of blind orphans that live down the street from us. We had been hearing about the orphanage all semester but hadn't had the chance to meet the children yet. There are 3 girls and 6 boys who live in a special apartment setting and attend a school for the blind.

About a week before the party we went to a Christmas concert at a local Church and heard the children sing. It was by far the highlight of the concert for me. They sang several Christmas carols in English and you could tell they were loving every minute of it! Their enthusiasm and joy was so moving and I'm pretty sure there were a lot wet eyes around the room during their performance. At the Christmas party we had the chance to hear them sing again and again it brought tears to my eyes. These children love music and they have no fear of singing their hearts out! The room where we held the party has a baby grand piano and there were always 2 or 3 children sitting at the piano picking out tunes they knew. It wasn't an especially beautiful sound, seeing as how there were several songs going on simultaneously, but I loved watching them play.

Through all of this I found out that two of the boys were taking piano lessons and several more of them wanted to take, but their teacher didn't have anymore time available. So she asked me, would I be willing to teach some of them? Oh dear. Yes, I've been teaching piano for years, but teaching a blind student is a whole different ball game and there isn't a whole lot of instruction out there to guide you, especially for kids who have no access to braille music. But I thought, hey, its this or nothing, and it would be a good learning experience for both of us. So I said yes!

Because of the Chinese New Year/Spring Festival holiday, we just finally had our first lesson this past Friday. My friend Paula, who teaches the two other students, had been trying to communicate with the children's Ayi (the lady that takes care of them) to find out exactly who wanted to take, but she hadn't really gotten that far. So we just decided I would show up and teach whoever was ready. I had a one hour time slot to teach. Well, I got to the children's apartment, and there were six children sitting around the kitchen table, ALL excited to start piano lessons! Again, oh dear. Since I obviously didn't have time to teach all six of them, Paula and the Ayi decided I would start with two, a little girl named Katie (or maybe Kitty? it depends on who says it) and a little boy named Allan. I was a little intimidated because these children were two of the weakest English speakers, but we had bigger problems than this anyway so might as well just jump in.

Surprise surprise, the lessons went really well! Sweet Allan smiled the ENTIRE lesson. I had read that information needed to be given in small amounts and it was good to stop every once in a while and just let them play and explore the piano. I tried to do that several times with Allan, but he wasn't having it! He was super focused the whole lesson and somehow we communicated just fine. Katie, however, did need a few breaks to play the only song she knows on the piano, Row Row Row Your Boat. She also did great and our communication was a little tougher, but by the end of the lesson we had it figured out.

Over all, first day was a success! It's still a little scary... I feel completely unqualified for this, but these children are so sweet and excited to learn so we will just have to learn together.
Thoughts appreciated!!

Here are a few pictures of the children from the Christmas party... 

Katie is the one in the middle. Three songs going on at one time! Katie is more than likely playing Row Your Boat. :)

The children are having a Christmas tree decorating competition. They did really well!

Thailand

During the Chinese Spring Festival we took a little vacation to Thailand.  Our ultimate destination was our company's annual conference in Chiang Mai, but first we spent a week with our friends at the beach. Instead of writing a long story I thought I'd post some pictures. I'm not so great at writing anyway.
 Hope you enjoy!

 Our first stop was Phukett. We spent 2 nights there waiting for our friends to arrive so we could all go over to the island together. And we rode elephants!! Pretty cool experience. We bought bananas to feed our elephant and he was really greedy and ate them all in about 5 minutes. :)

 After our ride we watched a little elephant show. Meshea played soccer with this elephant, then we all got "elephant massages." Don't worry, the elephant barely tapped my back. I'm sure it could have ended horribly and this probably wouldn't be allowed in the good ol' USA, but it was fun, it made for a good picture, and I'm still alive!

 Our next stop was Phi Phi Island! When we left Beijing it had been below freezing for about a month so this was a wonderful change of scenery and weather. To get to the island we had to take a 2 1/2 hour ferry ride.

 One day we hiked up to a lookout point. It was pretty miserably hot but the view was worth it. We stayed on the beach on the right side.

 At night the tide went out and the beach grew a lot! Unfortunately you couldn't see the sunrise or sunset from our beach, but it was still beautiful.

 One of Thailand's famous foods is banana roti. They call it a pancake but its not anything like our pancakes. Its basically really thin dough with bananas wrapped inside, fried, and topped with whatever you choose. I tried nutella and sweetened condensed milk. They were both delicious!

 A whole bunch of us went on a half day (that turned into a whole day) snorkeling trip. I've never been snorkeling in the US but I'm sure its much different than in Thailand. Our driver stopped the boat and said, "Ok! Jump in!" And that was all the instruction we got all day. It was a lot of fun, besides our boat almost flipping and throwing Meshea into the ocean. The water was really rough that day.

 After snorkeling they took us to a tiny beach and we had a cook out. Really good food, but then the boat that was supposed to take us back to our island broke down and we were stranded for about 2 hours. We still had fun!

 This is the whole group on Phi Phi. These wonderful friends teach in Nanchang and Taiyuan. We had a great time hearing all about each others semesters and just getting to know each other better. Awesome people!

 Our final stop was Chiang Mai, for the conference. Our first night we ate at Miguels. I had eaten there 3 years ago when I was in Chiang Mai working at a similar conference. That week was when this journey really started for me, so it was really cool to be back in this city and eat delicious Mexican food!

 The last night of conference we had a big banquet at the Shangri La. The food was delicious and Travis Cottrell performed and lead us in song. It was a chance for all of us to get dressed up and, of course, take lots of pictures! It was a great way to close out the conference.

Our very last day in Thailand we went to Tiger Kingdom to play with baby tigers. You could also go in the cage with adult tigers but none of us were quite that adventurous. We got to pet these little guys and feed them.


And that is the end of our adventures! We're now back at school and settled into our teaching routine. Vacation was wonderful and warm, but I was very excited to see all my sweet little Chinese babies again. 
Thanks for reading! See you all soon!
Rachel

Mr. President

A few months ago, before the election, I had a funny/strange/somewhat disturbing conversation with Julie, one of our co-teachers who sits across from me in the office. It went something like this...

Julie- "Rachel, (lots of words I don't understand) you like (more words I don't understand) Obama."
Thinking she was asking if I liked Obama, I replied, "Um, not really, he's not my favorite person."
Julie-"No, no! (this time with hand motions) Your face... it is like Obama."
Me- "WHAT? I LOOK like Obama?"
Julie-"Yes, yes! Your face is like Obama."
Me- "Ok... I'm not sure... I don't really see that... oh dear..."

Meshea and her co-teacher Mr. Wang were listening in on our little chat and I looked over and saw them laughing hysterically.  Ever since then Mr. Wang has referred to me as Mr. President and even wrote me a little note on the day of the election that says "Congratulations! You win again." The other day I came into the office to find a student doing some work at my desk. Mr. Wang walked up to him and said, "How dare you sit in the President's chair!"

I'm not sure Julie thinks its funny.

Chinese Fieldtrip

Confession... I wrote this about a month ago and had internet issues and never got around to posting it. So it wasn't actually yesterday...

Yesterday we experienced a Chinese field trip with our kiddos. We’ve been hearing about this for a while, and even had one planned but it got cancelled for kind of known but also unknown reasons.

Monday we heard the news that on Thursday we would have a field trip. This means… no class!! And one less lesson plan to write for next week. So although it was short notice, as usual, we were all pretty excited. Plus we would all get to spend the day with our students.

I set out yesterday morning with one of my co-teachers, Shirley, and class 8. All four of my classes went on the trip but I was assigned to class 8 for the day. We left at 8:45 for the nature/science museum.  It’s really cold here, like highs in the 30s, so all the little ones were bundled up and cute as could be!

Within the first 15 minutes at the museum there were at least 50 pictures taken by the other teachers. Every 2 or 3 minutes we had to stop for a picture. I was worried the whole day would be like that but they eventually calmed down. At one point the head teacher made us stop to get a teacher’s-only picture and all the kids just kept going and left us behind! We had to run to catch up and make sure they didn’t get lost. 

The most entertaining part of the day was definitely lunch. I had heard stories about how all the kids bring TONS of snacks from home for field trips, and how they try to stuff it all in your face! On Monday when we went to class we saw huge black trash bags full of food. Actually, that’s how we found out about the field trip. Yesterday all the kids had backpacks full of food. 

As I was walking around with the kids we ran into another one of my classes who had set up camp on the floor of the museum. There was food everywhere! As soon as I walked over to say hello they started handing me food and putting food in my mouth. At first I tried to be brave and taste the things they handed me, then I gave up because it was just coming at me too fast. In just a few seconds I had my arms full of food and it was falling all over the floor. They were handing me hand fulls of chips! Those ended up smashed all over my shirt. I got away as quickly as possible.

Around 10:30 my class decided it was time for lunch so we found an empty floor space and sat down. They started handing me food immediately but this time I had a bag and I was ready. I got more chips, some sausage, a lot of things I can’t identify, and tons of suckers. At one point the kids were just throwing food at me! When they were done eating they started handing me all the things they didn’t want. I said to Shirley, “I think the kids are just giving me all the food they don’t want,” and she said, “Oh, you can understand them?” Apparently they were saying to each other, “Just give it to Miss Rachel!” Somewhere along the way we ran into another one of my classes and I was showered with even more food. I ended up throwing about half of it away while the kids weren’t looking and still had a book bag full. 

It turns out lunch was kind of the main event of the field trip. After it was over we killed some time and then loaded the childrens back on the bus and back to school we went. We have another field trip to look forward to in the spring which means… more Chinese snacks!! Can’t wait.

Happy Surprises!

My last post was about a day of unpleasant surprises. Well this past week we were SHOCKED by a most pleasant surprise.

Our head English teacher, Ms. Meow, is an adorable little person only a year older than me. She’s really cool, too. She took us to KTV and sang her heart out to some Shania Twain. Also at our school is a PE teacher who’s name is… well… actually we’re not sure, because he changed it. His Chinese name is Ding Laoshi. His English name is either Todd or Dean. We call him Ding Laoshi. 

Anyway, we have noticed that Ms. Meow and Ding Laoshi hang out quite a bit. He came with us to KTV. They are regularly seen together at lunch. But as far as we knew, no dating was happening, so we took it upon ourselves to plan their future together. We talked about it many times. Kimmie didn’t know if it was culturally appropriate to suggest it to Ms. Meow, seeing as how they are colleagues, so instead we just talked about it to each other. We were so convinced of their happiness together that when Ms. Meow brought another “friend” with her to KTV who was talking to Ding Laoshi a little too much we started planning to take her out.

The candy tin :)

Monday we came in to work as normal. I was sitting at my desk when Ms. Meow came over and put a little tin of candy on my desk, without saying anything, and walked away. The tin had a bride and groom on it. I thought, oh, she must be handing out candy for someone who got married. I wonder who got married? Then the office went crazy! Ms. Meow got married!! To DING LAOSHI!

We couldn’t believe it! No one, even the Chinese teachers in the office, knew they were dating. I think some of them suspected though. Can you imagine a girl in the US keeping a secret from her WHOLE OFFICE of 90% women that she had been dating someone for 1+ year and she was getting married? Yeah, it wouldn’t happen. 

So it turns out that Ms. Meow was way ahead of us. In fact, that night at our Fall Party for the teachers, we found out they had actually been married since August 15^th. (We think?) They won’t have their big wedding celebrations until January, then it will OFFICIALLY be official. 

What a happy surprise!!

A Day in the Life...

As many of you will see in the next few weeks, in my next newsletter I talk about learning patience. Ask anyone in my family- patience is not my strong point. So funny that I chose to write about it just last night, and then there was today…

Sunday we met a sweet sister named Liz. She texted me Tuesday and asked if we could meet for lunch. I said yes, and we set the date for today at 12 pm at McDonalds. (It’s one of the few places we know how to get to without Kimmie. She’s currently out of town.) I have learned from previous experiences that hanging out with Chinese people sometimes requires you to eat things you don’t want to eat, to go places you don’t want to go, and to do things you don’t want to do. Knowing this, when I woke up this morning I quickly asked for patience for whatever our “lunch date” might bring. 

We decide to be brave and take the bus to lunch. It takes a lot longer, but it’s a lot cheaper, and it makes us feel like we know what we’re doing. To take the bus we needed to leave at 11 am, one hour early, even though it’s only about a 15 minute taxi ride away. At 10:55 we’re about to walk out the door and I get a call from Liz. This is what I hear…”Hello, Rachel? I am here with my friend. Can you come early?” Ok, guess we’re taking a taxi. 

I go next door to collect Meshea. I’m standing outside her door waiting for her to use the bathroom and I start hearing panicked screaming coming from her apartment. I ask what’s wrong and she says, “I just dropped my iphone in the toilet.” So we take a detour to find some rice. Prayers for the iphone appreciated, its fate is still unknown.

We get to McDonalds. Thankfully her friend, Alyssa, can speak better English than her, so Alyssa ends up translating a lot of conversation for us. Towards the end of lunch Liz asks if we would like to go meet some of her friends at Bai hai park. I was halfway expecting this, so yes. We would love to go. I ask, “Is the park close?” She says, “It is near. It is 4 bus stops away.” 

Translation- “The park is far. It is 4 bus stops AND 15 subway stops away.” Here’s the thing about Chinese surprises- they would be far less frustrating if they weren’t surprises, but because of the communication difficulties, everything seems to be a surprise. You may ask what’s happening, and you may get an answer, but it probably won’t make any sense to you, or it may only be half of the truth. Ours was obviously half the truth. 

So about an hour later we get to the park. It’s an intense park. You have to pay to get in. Surprise! Luckily, it was cheap. We sit and “have a rest” for quite some time while we wait for the friend to meet us. The friend doesn’t come. We quit waiting and start walking. Without our knowledge, Alyssa buys us some candied fruit on a stick. We are scared at first because it’s a mystery fruit, but this turns out to be a pleasant surprise and it’s actually pretty good. Another pleasant surprise- the park is beautiful! It's on a lake with tons of weeping willows and beautiful landscaping. The weather is also perfect for a walk in the park.

Here are some funny things that were said today…

Liz- “Before you come China, you can’t touch the Chinese?” Whaaaat? Not sure how to answer that, or what it means exactly, but her attention is diverted by a phone call from the missing friend and Lacey and I just look at each other and smile. Later on...

Lacey- “Oh, that’s cool, interesting.” Me- “What happened?” Lacey- under her breath, “I have no idea.” This happens often. We smile and say ok, yes, mm hmm, and actually we’re totally lost but it takes too much effort to understand what’s really going on so we move on gracefully.

We walk around the park for about 2 hours. We finally meet the friend, Ocean. He is a photographer/director/we’re not really sure? As we’re walking, Liz grabs my hand. It’s pretty common to see girls holding hands but it hasn’t happened to me yet. I’m in shock at first, then I walk along normally, then I start to feel awkward so I suggest we stop to take pictures so I can get my hand back. I keep my hands occupied from then on. 

Somewhere along the way a bird poops in my hair. 

We decide it’s time to leave and instead of taking the complicated bus/subway route, we are going to hop in a taxi and pay up. Easier said than done! We walk to the end of one street. There’s a traffic jam so very few taxis are actually passing by. The ones that are have their break sign up. We decide we have to take the bus. We walk to the bus stop and join 23049283 other people waiting for the same bus. The bus comes and all 23049283 of them try to get on an already full bus. They are pushing and shoving and the doors wont even shut because of all the people. We decide the bus isn’t for us. We walk down the street the opposite direction. Still no taxis. I’m losing hope that we will ever see our home again. Thankfully, Lacey has much more patience than I do and she is just going with the flow and *trying* to keep me calm. We decide to take a different bus. It’s been about 45 minutes since we tried to start our journey home. 

Our friends are very concerned for us. Liz looks ill and when Lacey asks if she’s ok she says, “I’m very worried about you getting home.” They are so sweet. As we’re waiting for the bus again, Alyssa runs down a taxi and talks him into taking us home. Hope springs new!! As we’re getting into the taxi Liz looks like she’s about to cry. She tells us she loves us.  She says next time we will go to a different park. 

Over dinner Lacey and I talk through our 6 ½ hour “lunch date”. I realize that I still failed in the patience department. Lacey, in her wisdom, says she realized halfway through the day that seeing how happy they were to spend time with us made it worth while. I’m so glad I’m not doing this alone. I need someone to help me put things into perspective!

More stories full of surprises to come, I’m sure. When you think about me take a second to ask for some patience! I’m always in need of it.