I have posted pictures that I found on my camera and didn't post before; the icy river in the park near our house, students leaving on New Year's vacation, and one I took today of the newest display at Vanguard...ENJOY
Today is a quiet day; since it is Saturday we had a relaxed day. Chuck went out early this morning to redeem shopper’s points at a local super market and did some grocery shopping. Nate and I read some until he got back and we had breakfast, then we talked to my mom, always a thrill when we get to talk to mom. After that I hit the books and studied my Chinese so my tutor won’t think I’m a total slacker tomorrow. For a break I went to the store and got some much needed lotion (go through tons of it in this cold) more lip gloss and some nail buffers. Nate has stayed in the house today and with the wind sounding like it does that wasn't a bad call. It has been windy for the last few days and the wind whips up the steps of our building and rattles the doors. Unlike in the US our apartment doesn't have doors to stop the weather from coming up the stairs. That is something that I miss about apartments in the US. My apartment complex in VA was all enclosed and it being a walk up meant no more than three floors, our seven makes coming here like an Olympic event but we are certainly getting more fit!
I have posted pictures that I found on my camera and didn't post before; the icy river in the park near our house, students leaving on New Year's vacation, and one I took today of the newest display at Vanguard...ENJOY Well, that is another Christmas we have survived. LOL We had a lot of fun at the New Campus playing a song and then listening to the other songs that were played. Some of the music was in Chinese of course but surprisingly (actually it shouldn't be a surprise) some of the music was also in English and a lot of the English songs were rock songs from the 80’s and 90’s. That was cool! I could sing along in China!!! They also did something that was different for a college party; they had games like musical chairs, and a chocolate eating contest (a twist on a pie or cake eating contest). Nate had a great time joining in on musical chairs and even saying hello on stage before the game was played. We all enjoyed ourselves and I am very thankful to my student, Kathy, for asking me to play and inviting our family out. Today is a chill day for us, Chuck does have to go to school, but I will be home with Nate.
Students here are required to take English lessons in their Freshmen year and those that want to learn more English can take elective classes after that in the following years. Chuck has taught the Freshmen this semester and I have had Sophomores and Juniors. Classifications like that are more American than here, students usually refer to themselves as first, second, third, or fourth year students. I also found out that if a student want's to study and get a Masters in English, the student needs to take Japanese as well. It does make sense as Japan is a close neighbor of China. I just found it odd since I don't think there is a requirement to learn a third language if you want to major in one in the US. Well, I'm looking forward to my mini vacation until I teach for the last time this semester on Jan. 8 and then I have six weeks off from teaching. I will be doing lots to get ready to teach again and we are arranging it so that Nate is also off during this time as well. We had our Chinese lesson today and we learned a lot of new words. Nate is a pro at saying Chinese words and I'm doing good at writing the characters. I have to work a bit harder to get the correct tones. Writing is coming along nicely too.
Yesterday Chuck and I went out with Johnny and had breakfast at KFC and then went to Dashang Market to price some things for Christmas. We also had to go to see Qi Yan who had her little girl hand me a card that was sent. Mail from the states gets here in roughly a month's time and the card was a birthday card for Nate. On our way to get the mail, we rode past some Chinese students getting ready for some Cosplay. What stopped us was the girl with blue hair that Chuck saw. He wanted to find out what was up. Later that night we were taken to a Tae Kwon Do class that we are going to enroll Nate in. Of course since the lessons are in Chinese he will get much better faster with spoken Chinese and I'm okay with that, we are looking at this as a way for him to meet kids his own age too. It feels like 19 degrees Fahrenheit outside staying in the house for the night. I did get some Christmas Shopping done today and we will finish up tomorrow morning. Looking forward to playing with Nate on the 25th for the Christmas Party that some of my students are throwing. Dongzhi Festival is a festival celebrated in: China, Japan, Korea and Vietnam. It is celebrated on the winter solstice the shortest day for daylight in the year falling on Dec. 21 this year. This festival also finds its roots with the Han Dynasty in China, in northern China; people typically eat dumplings on Dongzhi. It is said to have originated from Zhang Zhongjing in the Han Dynasty. On one cold winter day, he saw the poor suffering from chilblains on their ears. Feeling sympathetic, he ordered his apprentices to make dumplings with lamb and other ingredients, and distribute them among the poor to keep them warm, to keep their ears from getting chilblains. Since the dumplings were shaped like ears, Zhang named the dish "qùhán jiāoěr tāng" (祛寒嬌耳湯) or dumpling soup that expels the cold. From that time on, it has been a tradition to eat dumplings on the day of Dongzhi. Old tradition also requires people with the same family name or from the same clan to get together and worship, a grand meal is always served after the worshiping.
In southern China and overseas Chinese communities the making and eating of tangyuan (湯圓) or balls of glutinous rice, which symbolize reunion is how they celebrate. Tangyuan are made of glutinous rice flour and sometimes brightly colored. Each family member receives at least one large tangyuan in addition to several small ones. The flour balls may be plain or stuffed. They are cooked in a sweet soup or savory broth with both the ball and the soup/broth served in one bowl. It is also often served with a mildly alcoholic unfiltered rice wine containing whole grains of glutinous rice (and often also Sweet Osmanthus flowers), called jiuniang. Well, we are coming to the end of 2012 and before we enter 2013 we have Christmas Day. Christmas will be a little different for us this year as we are preparing to celebrate in China. Some Chinese do know about and celebrate Christmas even though it isn't a traditional Chinese holiday but some are traditional Chinese and don't celebrate the day. When we came over here to China we were thinking that we wouldn't have any of the trappings that are Christmas in the US but we were surprised. I've taken pictures of our Christmas decorations in our house, we have them because Wal-Mart sells the decorations. When we go to stores, we hear Christmas Music playing. My students are having a Christmas Day party and I have been asked to play a song for the event (well me and Nate LT&N has it's first China gig!)
It is also snowing again tonight! Chuck and I noticed the snow starting as we were coming home from the spa and when we got back to our apartment, Nate yelled down from the roof to tell us that the snow was falling down. Tonight, we all went to the campus and turned Chuck's speaking class into a forum where we discussed the believes of American's of Chinese and those of Chinese of American's. We talked about the fact that Chinese don't just eat rice and noodles and they asked if American college and high school students like to party more. Chinese have more to eat than rice and noodles and compared to Chinese students, American students do tend to party more. It was a good night and fortunately the bus driver didn't get lost on our way home from the new campus tonight. Well, let me get Nate's school work graded before I turn in for the night. As Nate will sadly tell you today was a school day. During our trip to Hong Kong, he didn't have school but since we are back home, school was what he had to do today.
I am glad that we use www.spellingcity.com with the premium membership that I have from them I am able to put some of the Chinese words that our tutor has us learning into Nate's spelling word list. I have to write the words in 'pinyin' and I can't have any punctuation like when words come from Google translate, but I can put in the meaning of the words and create a sentence that can be used with the words. So far we have learned to say: apple, cherry, tangerine, orange, pear, banana, watermelon, peach, and, and grape. We also learned words for push, pull, door, doorbell, and how to say push the doorbell. I learned a few more words than Nate did but that is okay, he will learn them as I get better at saying them around the house. We also learned some not so nice words in Chinese as we had cable installers at the house Sunday and when they hit their fingers with the hammer that was putting nails into the wall to hold the new cable they were running I'm sure we learned all manner of curse words. They didn't hurt their fingers in our apartment, but we could hear them on the floors below us shouting loudly their displeasure. Re-Post from July I want to tell everyone about the wonderful site that I have found that helps me with teaching spelling words and making the learning fun for my son. This site has wonderful games that can be played with the spelling words so that learning the words isn't difficult. I also like the ability that I have for making my own word lists. We print out spelling tests so that we can have a physical copy of what he is doing in school. Spelling words have transformed into something that is fun for my son. I've recommended this site to some other homeschooling parents and they to enjoy the success that we've had with Spelling City.com Disclosure: I've been given a premium membership to SpellingCity.com for a candid, personal, online review. VocabularySpellingCity helps students study word lists using 25 different learning activities such as Word Search, Hangman, WordFind,and Crossword Puzzle. Parents can create their own spelling lists, find published lists already available on the site, or use any of dozens of free teaching resources on topics such as Compound Words and Multiple Meaning Words. Be sure to come back in three weeks to read about my experience. There might be more free memberships available for bloggers. If you're interested, find out how you can review VocabularySpellingCity.com. Today was the first day of my lessons with tutor Michael. Both Nate and I are taking lessons in how to speak and I am taking lessons on how to write the Chinese characters. Michael had a textbook for me today and I've been working on homework. Me doing homework after all these years! Imagine that.
The awesome part is that this can be something that Nate does for credit for a foreign language. I'm posting pictures tonight too! Here we are at Hong Kong International Airport. Soon we will be winging our way back to our China home.
The flight was about 2 hours from Hong Kong to Zhengzhou our real travel adventure happened once we landed after circling the city in the air for about 5 minutes. Snow was the cause of our air delay and our ground delay also; it took us 4 hours to get back to the apartment once we landed. Snow in Zhengzhou made driving from the airport difficult. Yesterday our last full day in Hong Kong was a chill day. After breakfast Nate and I played on line in the guest house and Chuck went and wandered the city. Our Hong Kong visit this time around has been wonderful. We got here on Sunday and were able to get our passports submitted for new visas. We just got them back and the company we worked with is great! Shoestring Travel Ltd. Is truly awesome they were open Sunday when we got in, we gave them ALL of the paper work they needed and they got our new visas back to us by Tuesday. We also arranged for our travel home with them both in November when we first tried to get our visa’s (with another company) and this time. Working with them has been painless to say the least!
While they have been working on the visas, we have been sightseeing; I mean how often one in Hong Kong right is? We went to the Hong Kong Space Museum, Temple Street Night Market, and Che Kung Temple so far. Tomorrow, who knows what we will see. We have started each day in Hong Kong, with McDonald’s for breakfast done our touristy sightseeing thing and then lunch and dinner in Chinese restaurants. It's been a while since I posted. Things are going smoothly here, just had a hard time getting on the blog for a few weeks. We are getting ready for our second trip to Hong Kong. Still working on our visas and hopefully all will be taken care of this time. We are looking forward to the time to visit with the family we met while we were down there last time.
It is cold here. Funny but when you ask natives if we get snow here they all say no however this past weekend we had snow flurries. I'm guessing that they meant none that sticks. Nate is doing well with his studies and while in Hong Kong, I'm going to see about getting some more books for him. We also finally have a Chinese Tutor and we will start the week we get back from Hong Kong. Tonight I judged an English Speech contest along with four other teachers of English, but I was the only native English speaker. It was fun, we heard 13 contestants and they all spoke on 'Marching to Your Dream' We heard a variety of different abilities and I'm proud to say that they all did a great job in that they took what they are learning and used it in such an out of the box way. I look forward to being able to do this again. I have some video of my playing guitar here on Youku.com China's version of YouTube. Email me and I can get the address for you. I also have a video of our first dusting of snow on Dec. 1, 2012 don't think you can actually see the snow on the video, but trust me it was snowing, very lightly it snowed all day and there was NO accumulation at all. Also, I have been working on writing. I've submitted to a few contests so I should find out by January if I have won anything. Not many pictures, but I'm sure I'll have lots to share of Hong Kong! |