it's sunday afternoon as i write this... tonight- me and two other teammates (aaron and jonathan) will be headed out on an overnight bus ride to Wenzhou (a seaside city) to visit some students/friends! AND i only decided to go on this trip last night too. haha.. i wasn't planning on it at all because i had a few things to do, didn't want to spend more money traveling, wanted to get some lesson plans done, pack for thailand, etc... but i felt a tug on my heart and called to go visit Amy (jonathan's student but I meet up with her to have a study) and see her hometown, family, and life! so- as last minute as last minute can be- I decided to take a risk and get out of my comfort zone and agenda of staying to go to Wenzhou!
please be thinking of us on this trip that it will be a sweet time and fruitful... and for traveling mercies- since we happen to be traveling right before the biggest holiday in china- chinese new years! the day after we get back i'll be headed out to thailand with rachael and laura as well... so lots of traveling going on this week! i'll be back to post stories and pictures when i can :)
oh, here's a video of our song that we wrote for the school but sang for the china media!
first we awkwardly sing it in chinese, then english, then you can see the crazy paparazzi.. haha
chorus lyrics for "Hand in Hand" (aka the ultimate cheesy china lyric song hehe- also to the tune of marvelous light
hand in hand you give us friendship
we give our hearts to you
as your teachers we want to say
we wish you happy every day!
Saturday, January 17, 2009
pictures for the blog below
sorry no numbers and no particular order (it's actually a little backwards)... it took me WAY to long to post these blogs up.. haha.. oh china internet... enjoy :)
what a morning!!
Preface: these past few days have been pretty uneventful and not that interesting at all... it was time something strange happened in our lives here "blog-worthy" stuff ;)
this morning.. we were told that we would have a chinese new year celebration with several school officials and the "governor" of our town to celebrate the first days of the spring festival! we were suppose to eat dumplings, make a toast to each other, maybe sing a song for the governor...
we were wrong.
we were gypped.
we were violated with code 92177 section 440 against SD-6 (sorry, been watching alias too much-haha)
because blogger is sometimes uncooperative, here’s the captions with the picture number
(#1,2) so 10AM the "school officials" arrived... more like local/national media men, reporters of big reportings, and our FAO, with his faithful assistant. immediately they had us girls wear bright red chinese dresses (and silky chinese shirts for the guys) and pose with several red objects
(#3,4) then they wanted us to post some lucky red stickers on the windows and pose doing that... shannon and i did about 4 times with them clicking away at the camera, video, and lights
(#5,6) after that they brought out some dumpling mix and wanted us to wrap it, pretend to have good conversation, and have the chinese person (me) teach them
(#7,8) next they wanted us to say together some chinese phrases (which i'm still not sure what it was or how to say it) and say some typical english phrases together, once again holding the red stuff
(#8,9) of course you can't have a chinese party without some kind of performance! so we had to perform our song that we wrote for the school to the world of china and laura did a few ballet moves for them too
(#10) followed by that we got to cut the cake and sing to the tune of happy birthday but instead sing happy new year and then blow out the candles together
(#11,12)oh but that is not all... alas we ate a few dumplings that we cooked with the governor sitting at the head of the table for only 5 minutes (which I do not have pictures of), then left abruptly... along with the news crew and media men... then we all the look of "what just happened?!?" haha..
it was a crazy morning in china... just waiting for the day we turn on the TV and we see ourselves preparing ourselves for the chinese new years.. haha.. it was fairly frustrating though knowing that it was a set up and we could do nothing about it.. but we got some free dumplings and a story for our blog :P
this morning.. we were told that we would have a chinese new year celebration with several school officials and the "governor" of our town to celebrate the first days of the spring festival! we were suppose to eat dumplings, make a toast to each other, maybe sing a song for the governor...
we were wrong.
we were gypped.
we were violated with code 92177 section 440 against SD-6 (sorry, been watching alias too much-haha)
because blogger is sometimes uncooperative, here’s the captions with the picture number
(#1,2) so 10AM the "school officials" arrived... more like local/national media men, reporters of big reportings, and our FAO, with his faithful assistant. immediately they had us girls wear bright red chinese dresses (and silky chinese shirts for the guys) and pose with several red objects
(#3,4) then they wanted us to post some lucky red stickers on the windows and pose doing that... shannon and i did about 4 times with them clicking away at the camera, video, and lights
(#5,6) after that they brought out some dumpling mix and wanted us to wrap it, pretend to have good conversation, and have the chinese person (me) teach them
(#7,8) next they wanted us to say together some chinese phrases (which i'm still not sure what it was or how to say it) and say some typical english phrases together, once again holding the red stuff
(#8,9) of course you can't have a chinese party without some kind of performance! so we had to perform our song that we wrote for the school to the world of china and laura did a few ballet moves for them too
(#10) followed by that we got to cut the cake and sing to the tune of happy birthday but instead sing happy new year and then blow out the candles together
(#11,12)oh but that is not all... alas we ate a few dumplings that we cooked with the governor sitting at the head of the table for only 5 minutes (which I do not have pictures of), then left abruptly... along with the news crew and media men... then we all the look of "what just happened?!?" haha..
it was a crazy morning in china... just waiting for the day we turn on the TV and we see ourselves preparing ourselves for the chinese new years.. haha.. it was fairly frustrating though knowing that it was a set up and we could do nothing about it.. but we got some free dumplings and a story for our blog :P
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
ghost like town...
spring festival: a chinese new year holiday, equivalent to our christmas/winter break; a time when people leave their jobs/cities/schools and journey back to their hometowns to spend time with their families.
since i'm journeying back to america during this holiday- my few fellow teammates and i are stranded in a ghost-like town- well at least on our campus it is! I'd say 90% of the stores/restaurants/vendors are closed and left to go home for the holidays... by the end of next week I wouldn't be surprised if they were all closed. i've done the calculations and this is the formula i've created:
spring festival madness + students going home + local vendors/restaurant owners going home
=
empty campus/b-ball courts + no food from vendors/restaurant + expanding my cooking skills
hm. all alone.. that's a strange thing in china!... the back gate street that use to be alive.. haha
before from earlier this semester- this is a not-so-populated day either, i think there was a tournament going on or something too.. you see the clothes hanging from the dorms too?
now... not a soul (occasionally maybe 3 random people playing) and no clothes hanging from the dormitories.. :(
it's a little lonely and quiet sometimes but a change of the campus and a challenge to my team to find out how to feed ourselves. :) but i know he's faithful and provides! he's also blessed us with MUCH warmer weather this past week.. we're in the 50's almost 60's degrees now!
since i'm journeying back to america during this holiday- my few fellow teammates and i are stranded in a ghost-like town- well at least on our campus it is! I'd say 90% of the stores/restaurants/vendors are closed and left to go home for the holidays... by the end of next week I wouldn't be surprised if they were all closed. i've done the calculations and this is the formula i've created:
spring festival madness + students going home + local vendors/restaurant owners going home
=
empty campus/b-ball courts + no food from vendors/restaurant + expanding my cooking skills
hm. all alone.. that's a strange thing in china!... the back gate street that use to be alive.. haha
before from earlier this semester- this is a not-so-populated day either, i think there was a tournament going on or something too.. you see the clothes hanging from the dorms too?
now... not a soul (occasionally maybe 3 random people playing) and no clothes hanging from the dormitories.. :(
it's a little lonely and quiet sometimes but a change of the campus and a challenge to my team to find out how to feed ourselves. :) but i know he's faithful and provides! he's also blessed us with MUCH warmer weather this past week.. we're in the 50's almost 60's degrees now!
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