Shell in China

Recent happenings in China:

1. Merry Christmas! (Shengdan kauile!) Christmas was a quiet affair in Chengxian. The town was decorated for the holiday for several weeks beforehand, even though it isn’t celebrated here. There seems to be a lot of confusion amongst our students about the Christmas story as well. The fact that the holiday is such a mixture of religious and secular stories has created some bewildering stories. One student, who just knew he had the facts down, told a story of Jesus Christmas and how he flies from house to house dropping money in the chimneys of poor families so that their daughters can get married. Not quiet the Christmas story that we teach at home, but I can understand how the Bible’s story and that of Santa Claus could be perplexing to someone outside the culture.

On Christmas day (Christmas Eve in the States) we made a round of phone calls home. Thanks to Kristina’s gift of a video camera for the computer for Matt, we were able to see Mom and Dad as we talked to them for the holiday. As we talked to each group of family members, we opened the gifts that they had sent. That was a fun way to be able to share the holiday with them. Our families really came through with Christmas gifts this year, even though I know it was a pain to send stuff to the other side of the world. (The irony in that is that the majority of the stuff says “made in China” right on it! It was just coming home!)

For Christmas dinner we ate with Sarah, who is a volunteer with VSO (the British version of Peace Corps.) She cooked us a traditional British Christmas dinner. After that we had a movie night with students in the library. We showed them Elf, which they really seemed to enjoy. I know it seems strange to spend Christmas showing a movie to college students, but we figured that it was best to be busy that day, and besides, that is what we are here in China for- to spend time with the students. As oral English teachers, we really just always want to have them speaking and listening to English and we have found that American movies are a great way to do that. Besides, maybe we were able to clear up some Christmas story confusion…or add to it by adding elves to the mix!!

Overall, Christmas was good. I have to admit that it was a little rough being away from home for the holidays. Christmas has always been such a bit deal with my family and we love not only the day, but all the build-up as well. It was tough knowing that I would not be a part of that for the next two years, but together Thad and I survived our first Christmas away from our families (and only have one more to go!)

2. Christmas program. The English department holds a Christmas program each year. This year it was put off until a week later since two of the foreign teachers were out of town for the holiday. The program was held on December 30, and of course, as foreign teachers, it was expected that we perform. Now, as much as we enjoy going to these things, we aren’t exactly a performing bunch, so we had to throw together something that was “Western” and entertaining and not to awful! Haha! We decided to sing “Jingle Bells.” We went with all three verses and had bells to ring to accompany us. It wasn’t exactly the highlight of musical performance history, but we had a good time and I think the students all enjoyed it. Our students filled the rest of the evening with songs and dances and skits. I really enjoyed watching my students as they presented what they had prepared. (Also, I was really proud that everything done by first-year students was in English. This wasn’t the case for the entire evening, so I am thrilled that they put in the extra work to do their skits and songs in English!) After the program, everyone who performed (along with school and Party officials) was lined up for a big group photo. We were expecting this, as the same thing happened in the fall at the last one of these events we attended. What we didn’t expect was the craziness that followed! All of the students wanted to have their pictures taken with the foreign teachers. I must have had 50 or more photos taken that night. The man taking them, I think, is a professional photographer that the kids can then go to his shop and purchase the pictures. (I think…that is all I can figure out!) I took pictures with a ton of my students and then many that I don’t even have in class. I have no idea where all of these pictures are going to end up, but I guess if I make no other impact on China, there will always be photos of me floating around Gansu!!
3. New Year’s Eve- To celebrate the New Year, Sarah hosted a small get together for the English department teachers at her apartment. She baked apple pies and we sat around and talked and listened to music until midnight. It was a quiet, but enjoyable evening.

Other than holiday stuff, we have been busy giving finals and getting ready for the end of the term. Students have a dead-week this week where they review for their tests and then most of their finals will be next week. Oral English classes give their finals early. I am not sure why this happens, but it seems to be consistent throughout Peace Corps sites that those of us teaching speaking classes give our final test a week or two before the other classes. That means my tests and grades are done, but this week I am to go to class and sit with them as they study their other subjects. Then next week we will help proctor final exams. Cheating is an issue at the college-level, so the school wants two teachers in for each exam and we said that we wouldn’t mind helping out with that.

With the holidays over, we are now looking forward to February, when we will travel. As of right now, the plan is to go to Chengdu for a week (where we have both been asked to teach sessions- Thad’s on technology in the classroom and mine on teacher training.) After that we are headed to Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc! We are looking for warm! J

Oh- one other interesting tidbit I heard this last week: apparently China is expecting a baby-boom this year. It is the year of the pig, but also the gold year. (I didn’t realize that there were colors that went with the years as well as animals.) Well, the gold/pig year only comes around every 60 years, but it is supposed to be a good thing for children who are born in it, so it is expected that there will be many new babies this year! If you are thinking of starting a family- this may be the year to do it!!!