Today we had a festive lunch with Chuck’s friend Joni to celebrate Chuck’s birthday. Monday is the day but I work in the afternoon and Joni will be in Zhongdong, the new east district in Zhengzhou, for the week working there and we would not be able to celebrate. Joni also had a friend of his from work, Kerry, join us and the restaurant owner (a friend of Joni’s) also joined the celebration and brought a friend to the celebration. Nate and I will take Chuck out again for dinner on Tuesday evening and I give him his gifts on Monday. Today was nice with a traditional Chinese meal called ‘HOT POT’ but it turned into the show off your foreigner friends so once the celebration was over we got home, changed clothes and went back out on our own. We were able to return the DVD that we bought yesterday that didn’t work in the player, just wouldn’t load, sorry Nate! It was his pick that was acting silly. We are still looking for ‘The Simpson’s Movie’ the store didn’t have it but they had seasons 1-22 on DVD. After that we went on a search for books and found the campus bookstore for another college in town. They have a large selection of English/Chinese books and we were able to get some classics for Nate to read and some classics that I want to read again. In my English class last week we were working on pronouns and the passage we were working on is from Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” and that is one of the books that I found for me to re-read. I also got ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Wuthering Heights’ the Bronte sisters are being well represented here. I also took a look in the primary section and found a book that is simple Chinese and has pinyin. The most exciting part is that I opened the book and recognized several symbols. Check out the pictures as I got some at Wanda Plaza when we went grocery shopping at Wal-Mart on Saturday and some of the events of today. I don’t know what the reason is but Wanda Plaza had lots of bamboo plants in front of Pizza Hut in the lobby of the mall. I am thinking that this is just a spring display as I know of no reason other than spring is coming and blooming things have started to bloom. Well, my nose told me that this week. With the demolition and pollen in the air my sinuses have been having an interesting week. Well that is all for now. Talk to you more in the week.
DISCLAIMER: As Expats we are allowed to teach using home school, however the residents of China are not allowed to use this form of education.
We have been homeschooling for so long (since Nate was Pre-K) that there isn’t much of a challenge with it. However Friday’s English assignment did prove to be difficult. Nate’s assignment was to read instructions on how to make a paper frog out of a dollar but we had to use a Yuan, which is a bit smaller than a US dollar but still doable. The difficult thing was actually doing the folding of paper, which is origami Nate experienced a hard time folding the bill into the frog which is where I came in. Nate read the instructions to me and then I folded the Yuan. I have a photo of the results of our experiment on here so please check it out. Homeschooling this year has taken more of a turn this year. Since Nate is in 8th grade this year I’ve been having him do more independent study, he still has his required curriculum that he does but now more of the classes are independent study. The move to doing this created problems at first, not being motivated to take classes seriously and not doing book work, but those things seem to have gone. So many of the classes that he takes are on line and offer a way for parents to check up on what is being done, and he knows I check, that he will do the work and get everything done and done well. Also, since we are living in China he is allowed to use our outings as part of his history and phys.ed classes requirements. Tonight’s a wonderful Thursday night. Just tried pear flavored Tang today, a new flavor that is being tried out it is yummy! Well let’s see what have we been doing since last I posted…
Monday was my first day teaching my teachers class and that was fun and it was fun today as well! Tuesday and Wednesday were chill days, we went out and did a few errands and then had things around the apartment fixed. Seems like everything waited until the demolition around us to fall apart. The tile in the main room started to buckle and come up, the heater part of our water machine stopped working, our land line stopped working and our cable went from about 100 channels to 7 but now we have a new receiver, way more than 7 or 100 channels and the phone works again. The tile and heating element were also repaired. The repairs didn’t take long once the workers got here and we are very pleased with them. Chuck loves having the TV and has found the English channels. A few days ago I wrote several haiku. Yes I see the humor in that I am American, and I write using a traditional Japanese poetry style and I do this sitting in front of my computer in the middle of China. You can go here to read my writings: http://www.fictionpress.com/~ladytoni Check out the pictures I have uploaded too. Date Night something that we just started is a night for Chuck and I to reconnect as a couple. Now that Nate is getting older and can stay at home a few hours on his own we are taking the opportunity to spend time on us. After dinner as a family we went to the bus stop and got on the 59 bus. We took the 59 down our street to a market where they sell EVERYTHING and I mean everything. We saw lots of pretty spring and summer dresses and skirts we also saw men’s clothing too but neither one of us was too very interested in buying clothing today we did lots of looking. We did find how we can walk and get to 2 7 square and we saw the double pagoda tower with lights for nighttime. Check out the picture in the picture section. I also snapped some pictures of Christmas or winter themed scenes in neon lights on a building in the square. And I found out from Chuck that there is a restaurant named Christmas Tree here in China. Don’t know if that was the restaurant or not. We tried meat on a stick that was actually barbeque like we would have in the states but because of this provinces love of hot and spicy, the barbeque sauce was hot and spicy, my lips tingled a good 15 minutes after eating. They had watermelon and pineapple on sticks and Chuck got some watermelon then we went to McDonald’s and got ice cream sundaes. That was our evening just a few hours but it was nice to get away. A few people spoke to us in English but the majority of the people we saw spoke to us in Chinese and even though we don’t know a great many words in Chinese yet, we were able to get what we wanted with hand motions and pointing.
I was told a week ago this and have been processing it since. “Unfortunately some of my country men do practice prejudice and prefer a ‘White’ American over a ‘Black’ American. In my book that is okay, I will not change who I am to fit someone else’s idea of what an American should be and I can’t do a thing about my skin color. If there is more than one race or ethnic group in a place then there will be racism and I can’t change that; I am me and that is that.
Today is my tutorial in Chinese with Carol. I look forward to it so I can learn to say things in Chinese and communicate with people better. Nate and I did some errands after my tutoring this afternoon. We had a snack because we rode our scooters to McDonald’s and on the way we stopped at a shoe store and I got a pair of ankle high boots then we rode to a pharmacy and I got my much needed high blood pressure medicine and hay fever meds for Nate. We finally made it to McDonald’s had our snack and then headed back home. Check out the pictures. I am rather happy with the day. This morning we went to KFC for breakfast and Joni came with us. Not a new person the same one the spelling of his name is different he still pronounces it as Johnny but spells it like Joni. I find that a lot over here, my English assistant was telling me her name was Jen and I then found out that it is Jane. Anyway, we went to KFC this morning, it is raining so we walked but we were going to ride our scooters originally. When we got there we all ordered our favorite meals for breakfast and honestly, as long as I got my hot soya milk I’d have been good with whatever was put in front of me this morning. We got our food and one lady just kept hanging around our table, like she hadn't seen foreigner’s before (this is KFC an American company) and she acted like if she went away we would cease to be there. Joni spoke to her in Chinese several times but she never answered and just stood there with a serene smile on her face; kind of creepy really. Joni told me that if I have any free time I should have Chuck message him and he could introduce me to some of the directors of foreign schools that he knows. My free time is accounted for with my writing and studies in that so I don’t think that doing extra things for income is going to be what I do. I took some pictures so enjoy!
Today was the last day this week that the university will be open for classes. Chuck taught but I didn't teach at the university today. About half of his classes were there. The holiday coming up is Qingming Festival or Tomb-Sweeping Day. This is a time when Chinese remember family and friends who are no longer with us. Burning ‘spirit money’ for the dead is something that will happen and cleaning out tombs if you have one in your family. Other than that people can and will enjoy the out of doors.
Today after school, both Chuck on the campus and Nate and I here in the house, we took a ride on our scooters to Dashang Market where we had lunch and then went grocery shopping. We always buy more than we have on our shopping list and today was no exception. Lots of cookies made their way into our shopping basket as did fermented milk (yogurt drink). When we got outside and out scooters were loaded Chuck and I took a minute to get pictures of us on our scooters. Tonight Chuck and Nate took me to Yo Pizza and Abnormal Frie, both near Zhengzhou University and not far from our house. These are two places that the guys found while I was doing consultant work east of the city. Yesterday, Easter March 31st we drove our scooters down to a People's Park; past ‘2 - 7 square’ in an area where there is a large statue of Chairman Mao. This park had pigeons in an area with their own roosting spot, rides, food, places for live performances, a big screen TV and an arts and crafts area. It was very neat to see that the pigeons were kept to a section and the rest of the park was bird free. They seemed to understand that they need to stay on the grass area that was roped off with wire and fly from there to the house that was nearby for them to roost in. We really enjoyed walking around and trying some of the different foods. Nate and I tried Fried Bananas and Chuck enjoyed sushi and we watched as the sushi was made fresh to order. In the arts and crafts area all ages of people can buy the blank pictures and statues and paint them as the paint by numbers dictates or as they want. Since we rode to People's Park on our scooters we got lots of stares. Most of the time when foreigner's are seen they aren't seen riding on their own scooters but perhaps on bikes and in taxis. More often than not foreigner's keep to themselves and don't go out much.
Today April 1, 2013 is Monday, the first day of my new job, I thought. It wasn't because this week we have Qingming Festival or Tomb-Sweeping Day and the school will be closed for this holiday. Nate and I went on the bus today to the new campus and I got a new watch and some other items from the stores there and we also had lunch. Funny thing is that when we came over here I was not at all into wearing a watch and since having it I missed it this past week. This one is pink, my other watch was purple. While waiting for the bus to come home I talked with some of the teachers that I met last semester and enjoyed myself. It's good to be back! |
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