November 14

Great evening. Mark Driscoll. Luke 12:21?

Finished up our Practicum. It snowed all day! We saw children building snowmen out our window on the 20th floor.

Jodi's mom's coming in about 15 minutes!

This is one of Gordon's students: he brings Gordon a sound card (because he doesn't have one on the PC provided by the apartment), and he found a USB that locks for Gordon.

:D

Buckle your seatbelts: Last weekend:

Thursday night: Date night turned into Hotpot with teacher friends
Friday night: Bolognese Pasta Dinner with 7 other Teachers at our apartment
Saturday morning: Life Education Class

For Saturday lunch, Gordon and I decided to venture off campus to eat something new. We were in a hurry because we had a ping pong appointment with some teachers. Gordon decided to ask a passerby in Chinese, "Where's that restaurant?" I rephrased it for him, "Where is a good place to eat?" She pointed us to a restaurant nearby and we went toward it. Next to the one she recommended, we saw a Korean restaurant with a huge red carpet coming out of the main entrance. We went in and were seated upstairs. We noticed it was a hotpot restaurant and we knew we didn't have much time to eat. The server said we could order dishes if we liked, so I hurriedly looked through the menu (not really knowing what anything said). I assumed that there were beef dishes scattered throughout the menu because the name of the restaurant had the word "steak" in it. I asked the waitress to recommend some good dishes, and she didn't really recommend much, so I randomly picked a meat (rou4), a tofu (dou4fu3), a veggie or kimchi cucumber (huang2 gua1), and a pancake (bing3) type thing.

We were hungry, and were in a hurry, not only that, were kind of stressed about how busy we were, so our faces looked pretty grumpy, plus the food was taking a long time to arrive. Finally, I saw the waitress bring a plate of meat on top of lettuce with some hot bean paste condiment on the side. We dug in. As we chewed the meat, I was like, hmmm, this beef doesn't taste as awesome as I would like. Really? Did I pay 36 yuan for this? Gordon chewed and he said, yea, it's not the best, it kind of tastes like lamb, but not really. I then casually mentioned that the menu said that this meat was cooked in the dog meat style (whatever that means). Gordon busted out laughing, "dog meat? did you order dog meat?" I just sat there and had no clue what was going on. Gordon asked, "Did you know that Koreans are known to eat dog meat? What did the menu read?" and I replied, "Gou3 Rou4" I started to realize what I did. We had not planned to be this adventurous today, but hey, now is as good of a time as any other.


We ate what we ordered and as we payed for our food, the clerk told us that there was a discount, we realized that this was the grand opening to the restaurant. The owner, latched her arm around mine and asked me in Chinese "so how was the food? It's a novelty that there are any minorities (foreigners) that could even possibly come to my restaurant. Please tell me what you think of the food." I told her "The food was good, but I couldn't read the menu very well and didn't know what to order." She said, "oh! you didn't know what to order? You must come back and I'll treat you." We said, no it's ok, we'll come back and try your food again later.


Saturday afternoon: Ping Pong with Teachers
Sunday morning: Go to the nearby church with students

Look outside!

Wow! We watched half of this Chinese Disney Movie - The Secret Magic Gourd, and we looked outside and the ground is COVERED with snow, it's still snowing outside - - visibility is very low!!!

I wonder what it will be like tomorrow - - -

November 2

Wow, It's been a whole month since we've blogged something!
Our camera is broken at the moment - fortunately, thanks to Jodi, we've been able to still share and take some photos with her camera.

Movie Night: The Blind Side


You know winter's approaching: these candied fruits are sold on our way to class: 2 yuan each.


Onions, cabbage are being dried EVERYWHERE.


At Olivia's Birthday Party: Us and Corbin.

Olivia's Birthday - Steve, Robin, and Olivia




On our date night, Gordon surprised me by taking me to the Student Center where there is a classroom full of electric pianos. He sang softly while I played. :D


A nice treat: on the same floor of the music rooms, there was a Chinese calligraphy classroom. One of the students invited us to try it out!

Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

We have 3 days of not teaching - Wed, Thur, and Fri. We decided to visit the town since we haven't done much of that at all since we came here, especially not by ourselves. We walked 5 km to Central Street (which is the pedestrian walking street) to go look for winter boots and warm winter Russian hats (ushanka). As we were double checking that we were walking in the correct direction, we asked a man walking past. He asked us in English, where are you going? We told him we were going to Central street. He said that he was going there too. We find out that he is an air force pilot and is in Harbin for ten more days learning how to instruct new pilots. We end up spending a great afternoon with him walking and sightseeing.




Zheng Chen Gong. Zheng is from where Hui gets her maiden name. This bust is sitting on campus outside the Student Center.



Entrance to Walking Street - Zhong Yang Da Jie (Central Street)



Underground pass on Central Street (instead of crossing a bridge to go over traffic, we walk under the road)



We watched a few guys write beautiful Chinese calligraphy near the river. We actually bought one of the brushes from the guy for 10 yuan.



End of Central Street. Just jump in the river and swim to the other side! - Sun Island



Notice: there's a train (with about 50 cars) crossing the suspension Bridge (the Bridge reminds us of the bridge in Charleston)



A mall selling all kinds of items (bathroom break)



St. Sophia's Cathedral (it was smaller than we imagined, a wonderful sized building indeed!)



Gordon and Jim



Look at how much cargo this truck is carrying



At the Mid-Autumn Festival Party for International Students. We were invited to watch singing and dancing all organized by international students. These guys were rapping in Chinese to the instrumental soundtrack of "Beautiful" sung by Akon.



What a big bunch of grapes! cornbread, swissroll, sweetpotato chips, bubble tea, mooncake




Thursday - Jodi made her a little nook in our study on the floor with the coffee table and we worked on our self-observation forms for teaching together.



Look at the loot we got! Hui bought a new pair of winter boots! We also walked to a street that sold Russian goods and bought some Russian chocolate. We might not buy Russian hats because some shed, and a quality one costs way too much.

Random

I'm getting my first haircut in China by our very own teammate - Jodi. Yee!



Look at the freshness of the Chinese chives! We had eggs and chives stirfry as one of the dishes that evening.



This second elevator only works during the traffic hours of 7:30-8:30am and 12:30 and 1:30pm.



During our visit at Harbin Institute of Technology - where else are you able to see people playing basketball alongside people in military training?



At the end of our picnic, Shelley showed us her instrument - Guzheng (Chinese zither).

First few days

It has been a great 2 days of teaching. What a blessing! Hui taught three classes on Monday and had today off. Gordon taught two classes for both Monday and Tuesday. We're feeling good, by His grace. Before class started on Monday, because Jodi and Hui had classrooms directly across from each other, we were able to talk to the Father before class. We were very encouraged.

Hui is teaching 6 sections of post-grad non-English majors in listening-speaking and one sophomore English major video class. Gordon's teaching 2 post-grad speaking sections and 6 sections for teachers at HEU.

We had a (girls day out) GDO this afternoon. Walked to the McDonald's and picked up four cookies n cream McFlurries then hung out at some benches along the brick canal (which by the way is dry).

I'm starting to stock up on food, now that we're settled in. Bought some flour, dried noodles, some bread and cakes for breakfast. Yesterday I went to Carrefour with Jodi - it's like a big super store with appliances as well as grocery items for sale.



Gordon met me for lunch and after lunch our first day, we went to the second floor of the student center and bought some really expensive coffee beverages. They were very tasty!



Harbin sunset from our apartment window.



We pass by these chickens on the first level of some other apartments on our way to class.







flour, bread, and noodles!



partner desks in the study



view out our apt. window (9:30pm)

Settled

http://picasaweb.google.com/111109148587648793693

We are settled in! The apartment is extremely nice. Some photos are on the picasa website - The video is not wanting to load. We will keep working on that. Like we probably mentioned in the states, it is true: all the furniture, appliances, utensils we need are already supplied in the apartment. We are truly thankful. Other than settling into the apartment, we've been spending some very quality and fulfilling time with our new teammates. We love them so much.

Here's a short list of what's been going on:

Arrived Aug. 29

Dumped our bags into the apartment

Met the Foreign Affairs Officer, who by the way is extremely sweet, friendly, and helpful.

Team building has happened for the past 5 days which consists of talking about the team dynamics in communication, conflict management, stress tolerance, being support for each other, and other specifics to strengthen and develop a team identity.

Between moving furniture around, dusting/cleaning our apartment, and unpacking, Hui's met her co-teachers for her Listening-Speaking class and Gordon's met the school supervisor, where we've both gotten questions answered about the class.

We've also gone to the health department to get another physical exam and to the Foreign Bureau office to obtain our residence visa for Harbin.

Now we are finishing up lesson planning because class starts early Monday morning at 8am for Hui and at 2pm for Gordon.

The weather is extremely nice right now - we really can't imagine it getting cold and below freezing. We'll see what that's like later October. Since it's been cool, our morning runs with another teammate have been very pleasant.

We haven't been cooking much recently, we just go to a nearby restaurant and eat. However, we've been enjoying sweet fruit and tasty rich yogurt in our apartment.

We had a great time of Singing tonight. The children joined us for Singing and a Story for them, then we heard a podcast together as a team after an intermission (when the children were put to bed).





On our way to Hamamas Coffee House where they serve Western food. We ate a beef steak sandwich with onions and a chicken sub. Delicious!


Hamamas Coffee House! This is near Harbin Institute of Technology, so we took a bus from our school over there (it took us about an hour to ride the bus because there were many cars.)


We met some friends that were introduced to us while we were in the states and enjoyed a delicious Nigerian/Chinese meal with them. Great fellowship and encouragement. They have been at HEU 3 years studying for their pHDs.


We went to this tea house for one of our teambuilding sessions. It's interesting: notice the English name "Bar for team." In Beijing, we went to the same establishment and it was called in English, "Be for Time"


Tea house! For just 18yuan a person we could get unlimited amount of drinks (eg. iced coffee, milk tea, fruit juices) and plenty of nuts and seeds.

Photos posted

Just added photos with captions to another picasa site. I'm having to upload photos 5 at a time because of some glitch. More photos to come. Check it out!
:D

http://picasaweb.google.com/111109148587648793693

tea and leather

As the winning group of our “Beijing Race” we had the great privilege of traveling with our teacher to a teahouse across town. Our culture teacher met the tea house owner who sings in the choir at the local church about seven years ago. The picture shows us enjoying our prize: we experienced a traditional Chinese tea ceremony. Our teacher said, “Be prepared to drink a lot of tea!” We started off drinking Oolong tea. There is an entire procedure/ritual about pouring the hot water in the tea pot, straining off the tea into the public pouring vessel, smelling the aroma from the aroma cup, then sipping the tea from the drinking cup.

The tea ceremony (cha2 yi4) is performed in seven rounds where each round symbolizes a distinct step in the cleansing and washing of the physical body and of the soul. During the last round, our tea instructor emphasized that we need Living Water to sustain us – without it, we are empty and cannot live. When we do allow the Living Water (metaphorically and literally the tea) to pour into us, we must let what goes in come out, or our bodies will pass away. Therefore, we must share/live out/and pour this Living Water into others.

One afternoon, after class, we and two others left the hotel. After much train hopping and map deciphering, we arrived at the “Silk Market and Pearl Market.” The eight floor market was directly connected to the subway terminal.

We were on a mission to get Hui a purse (this is a first, usually I dump my cell phone, wallet, and knick knacks into a backpack). As we weaved through the halls, we looked up and we saw stalls and stalls and stalls and stalls of bags! We squeezed by all the foreigners (we've never seen so many foreigner's in China before!) and managed to smile and ignore all the sales people telling us, “take a look at a bag.” “What kind of bag would you like?”

“Would you like a watch?” Gordon replies, “No, no, I like my watch thank you.”

“Would you like a pen?” “No, no, thank you, I have a pen and I like it very much.”

“Would you like a wallet?” “Actually, I have a wallet and I don't need another one, thank you.”

“A belt sir?” “The belt that I am wearing is a nice belt, see? I'm very pleased with my belt. Thank you.”

Sensory overload.

We stepped in one of the stalls and told the lady that we wanted a small black purse. She showed me a potential bag and said, “the price used to be ¥360, but because you're my friend, I'll let you have it for ¥260.” I couldn't really decide if that purse was the style I wanted, so I started walking away. As I walked out of the stall, I heard a faint, “here, best price is ¥100.”

We walked to the stairwell to talk about our plan of action and we decided how much we were willing to pay and what bag I wanted. Finally, I figured out that the Chloe purse I saw would suit me and I found it in another stall. The saleslady there started: “Usually, the price is ¥360, but because you speak Chinese, I'll make it ¥280.” I smiled at her and said, “no, no, how about ¥80.” She said, “How did you jump so low, here ¥185 is the best price.” Meanwhile, Gordon is laughing and saying, “We could get this purse for ¥100 next door!” I continued, “Mmm, I could get that price for ¥90 in another stall.” She continued, “come on, add a few yuan,” Meanwhile, I'm looking at Gordon next to me, and smiling, enjoying the moment. I look at her and say, “90Y.” She said, “¥100.” I came back at her with ¥90 and then she finally said, “¥95.” I smiled and said, OK. As I'm pulling my ¥100 bill out of my pocket, she asks us where we're from and we tell her we're from America and that I'm a Chinese American. She also told Gordon, “You drive a hard bargain.” We gave her the 100 and told her to keep the change – the fun was in the bargaining, and Gordon's a softie. We walked away with everybody smiling.

August 7

We've officially moved into the Ruyi business hotel here in Beijing. :D
Our parkas are flaked out in the closet, our handwashed clothing hang on the line in the bathroom, and the hum of the Chinese news goes on in the background as I think back on these past few days.

This morning we enjoyed our daily buffet breakfast in the hotel with three of our teammates (we have a total of eight on our team). We were encouraged to hear that even though it may be cold in Harbin during the winter, the heat inside is abundant. We heard we will be living in a foreigner's dorm on campus, 15 min. away from our classrooms.

We've had 2 full mornings of culture classes with about 50+ English teachers meeting in the hotel conference room. We've discussed and analyzed our own worldviews and how to live and be immersed in a new culture and way of thinking with the attitude of a learner. We ask ourselves, how can we be respectful to those around us as we learn to adjust to the new language, new way of doing things, unfamiliar sights, interactions, smells, and experiences? Our learning curve has been exponential because of our ability to communicate with the locals. This is a blessing!

After lunch with three of our families near the hotel, we enjoyed some ping pong (with our new paddles) in the fitness center in the hotel with a couple and their son. Afterwards, we continued our venture from yesterday to find a cell phone for both of us. The same lady we saw yesterday helped us in the electronic appliances shop and her salesperson friend seemed surprised that I couldn't read the Chinese, much less understand some of the lingo they used! HAHA. We thoroughly enjoyed bargaining down the price from 530 RMB to 450RMB and got a Nokia phone that has an English/Chinese dictionary on it.

So the day before yesterday, our first day out in Beijing, we were sent out to do the "Beijing Amazing Race." Our team consisted of another couple in our organization and two other Chinese students. We had an assignment to visit our assigned neighborhood, observe the traffic patterns, the fashion, and public social interaction, and other activities in an effort to gain the most points and win the prize of eating at a teahouse with our teacher. Guess what?! Our team won! Actually, there was a three way tie and the tiebreaker was that whichever team wrote down the most expensive tea was the winner. So we won with finding the most expensive tea to be 30,000 RMB for 500 grams!