Last Sunday, after I completed my blog post, I went to Lavender's house to make homemade dumplings. She invited several other teachers. I was surprised at how nice her apartment is. It seemed like it was the first time the other teachers had been there because they were all admiring the lights and curtains and so forth. Before we started, I looked at Lavender's two wedding photo albums. Wow! She and her husband had four different changes of outfits in the photos. In one, Lavender wore a wig. The photos were obviously enhanced. I'd read that the Chinese spend a lot on their wedding photos and that some middle aged couples who couldn't afford wedding pictures are now having it done, using makeup and technology to make them look younger. The album had English phrases and love poems. Most of them had correct grammar, but of course there were some mistakes.

Making the dumplings was fun although I need some more practice. The other teachers, who must have done this countless times before, made their dumplings quickly and with beautiful designs. Beside them, I ineptly struggled to just seal the dough without letting the filling squish out. Although mine didn't look flattering, they all tasted good. We sat down together with one of the teacher's husbands, and one of the teacher's sons to meet them. The 14-year-old son was Jolloe's. I ate dinner at her house once before. Her son hadn't said a word to me and kept his head down in his bowl most of night, only occasionally glancing up curiously at me. This time, whenever I looked up his eyes were on me, but he still didn't speak to me. He didn't speak to anyone else either, though.

Thursday Mr. Wang treated me out to lunch and another teacher whose name I do not know joined us. The two men finished their beef noodles (loads of egg noodles in broth with a few teeny bits of beef) quickly and waited patiently for me. I have not mastered the noodle technique with chopsticks, and the egg in my bowl was so slippery that it was impossible to pick up. Furthermore, the dish was not at a comfortable temperature until I was finishing. I don't understand how Chinese people can bear drinking water that has just stopped boiling!

After I finished eating I hopped on the bus that took me to the supermarket to get some groceries. There I found Jordan, the teacher who treated me to lunch last week. He was with his one-year-old son and mother-in-law. He asked if I would mind posing for a picture with his son. I didn't, but the latter started fussing and crying just at that moment.

Following my classes that afternoon, Mr. Wang and the other teacher we had lunch with took me on a short walk as promised. We stopped inside an interesting store filled with Buddha and Guanyin china figures, Mao Zedong statues, porcelain urns, and monkeys and men carved of jade, bearing peaches. The most interesting figure was a woman riding huge pig. Mr. Wang translated for the store owners, who jokingly said it was a “happy couple” from the famous Chinese literary work, Journey to the West.

Next time, when I'll be sure to remember my camera, we'll stop in again, and they'll also take me to a historical museum nearby which I didn't know existed. Yay! I love museums.

Saturday, I was back to teaching just my first two private students. Jane, my FAO, texted me late the night before to tell me that her friend's daughter needed to prepare for her piano exam, so she wouldn't be coming anymore. I wonder if there was another reason.

That afternoon, Jane helped me shop for a pair of dress shoes. Due to limited space, I only brought a pair of tennis shoes, hiking boots, and black flats with me. Knowing that I will also have limited space when I return, my aim was to buy a pair of shoes that could match with many clothing articles. The first pair I tried on were a cute opened-toed off-white pair with fancy looking bows and low heels. I decided to look around more. There were several other pairs that I liked, but whenever Jane asked for my size (40 in China) they didn't have it. According to Chinese standards, I have big feet. There was one other pair that they did have my size in. They were pink and more comfortable than the first, but wouldn't match with as many outfits. So, at last, I bought the first pair. I also bought some nylons, which, to my annoyance this morning, turned out to be way too short. I think I'll give them to Jane because they would probably fit her.

Just as I got off the bus after returning from shopping, bearing some other things I purchased beforehand, I spotted Mr. Wu, who waved to me. He had invited me to dinner and Lisa, who would be our translator for the evening, was supposed to call me in just a few minutes. Instead of going home, I waited on the corner with Mr. Wu and Lisa arrived shortly. We took a taxi to a mini hot pot restaurant. We ordered potato, pumpkin, thin potato noodles, two types of mushroom, lettuce, and two different kinds of mutton. Mr. Wu announced that he wanted to lose weight and ate surprisingly little. He kept putting more food into my bowl and sometimes Lisa's, even when we protested that we were too full.

After our meal we walked to Goldenfish park. The square connected to the park was full of people walking around, playing badminton, and using the exercise equipment. I tried some of it for the first time. It's funny because in the U.S. only children would use this kind of equipment, but in China adults use it too!

When we walked further we found some middle-aged women doing a traditional Tibetan dance in perfect synchrony. There was also a group of older couples waltzing in another area. In yet another spot, a large group of people crowded around a group jumping rope with one long jump rope. They were all adults. Any fun exercise activity is welcomed here. On the other hand, Chinese adults shun popcorn as it is seen as a child's snack only! Reflecting on these things, I think that American adults would improve their fitness by being more like the Chinese.

 I did the listening task this week in my classes. These tasks are boring dialogues or worse, informational articles. They don't help the students learn because they are too difficult and uninteresting. They are so difficult that I must replay the tape many times and it takes up an entire lesson period. The students have answer books so they can easily cheat and zone out. Unfortunately, the school has asked me to do these tasks. Maybe instead of doing the activities that go along with the listening text, I could come up with my own questions and tasks and occasionally have them do dictation. It would be even better if I could do my own listening tasks instead. Teaching English songs or showing movie clips can allow students to practice their listening skills, but in a fun way. 

Wednesday morning I had a nice surprise after my first class. Lavender and another teacher or staff member whom I don't know came into my office. They gave me 50 RMB ($7.89) and said it was a prize for participating in the English Corner on Saturday that we had a long time ago. I had to sign my name on a list. Apparently they gave out some cash prizes to several teachers. It was totally unexpected.

On Thursday morning two senior 3 teachers caught up with me as I was walking from the school to the nearby supermarket to pick up some groceries. They offered to treat me to lunch. So after I bought some groceries we walked to the western fast food restaurant just a few feet away. We had chicken sandwiches and fries. One of the teachers also insisted on getting more food for me even though I told him three times that I didn't need more. He got me a "salad" and some fried fish kebabs. The salad was diced carrot, cucumbers and corn doused in thousand island dressing. It was interesting. I had expected a green salad. The Chinese don't eat them and in my classes when I talked about food none of them knew what a salad was. They always cook their greens, and salads might mean things like cucumber in vinegar, tomato and sugar, or noodles with strips of carrot and other veggies.

Yesterday morning I taught my private students some clothing vocabulary. I made a paper doll for them to dress as a fun hands-on activity. Sally and Amy loved it! 

Last night Erika had a dinner party at her home. She, Bob, Todd and I all cooked something and we treated Jane, our FAO, as well as Erin (a student at Erika's school) and her family. We had plenty of food. I bought eight chicken drumsticks and cooked them in Erika's pressure cooker. Not everyone had one, so I took home three that were leftover. 

At the party, Jane asked if I'd like to teach junior students at a different school in Baiyin next year. I'd live closer to her and Bob and would share an apartment with a new female teacher. Erika and Todd will leave in the summer, but Bob will stay another year. I'm not sure if I want to accept the offer yet or not.

After my church meeting via Skype, I called Mr. Wu because he had called this morning when I Skyped home. He said he had some food to bring me. On Friday at school he said he'd invited me over either Friday or Saturday but he didn't call. When he said, "I'm sorry", I didn't know what he was talking about. I had actually forgotten. What an apology he brought! He gave me a box of "Pure milk" (little packets of low lactose milk that doesn't have to be refrigerated), and lots of cakes. He said, "You can eat these today and tomorrow." But he brought enough to last me a week or more. He gave me ten little muffins, two larger muffins, a very large bun, two round cakes that are very light like angel food, a package of flat and crispy macadamia nut cookies, and a package of little square things embossed with a nice design. They smell like tea so I won't eat them.

Names

Sitting in a posh restaurant that serves Western food on Monday afternoon, I heard something that I least expected. I was enjoying a mini hot pot of wild mushrooms with roots, goji berries, jujubes and longans. With me were two people. Jolloe, an English teacher from my school, and her friend, an engineer. He confided in me that he would be getting a divorce on Thursday.

He asked what I thought of Obama and that brought up a brief explanation of political parties in America. Then he asked if I believe in God and when I affirmed this he said, "I believe in Guanyin". I understood because before coming here I read about this goddess of compassion in a book about Chinese culture. This man also told me that he is a member of the Chinese Communist Party, that he joined when he was young, but that he doesn't believe in its ideals anymore. I felt bad for this man, who looked weary. He sipped his beer and I sipped my water. Jolloe commented, "He's looks like an unhappy man".

The engineer nodded and quickly said to me, "But, I am happy to meet you today. You are a happy person. When I saw you I felt happy".

I wished I could share with him my beliefs that make me happy. As the three of us shared some bread and fried rice and leaned against our couches embedded with jewels, a familiar melody began to play. Earlier I passively noted that the songs the restaurant played included both Mandarin and English selections. Now, as I recognized the melody I tried to think of the name of the song, but couldn't. Then, as the words began, I realized it was my name song, “Aubrey”. However, it was sung not by the original artist, but by an unknown female artist. How uncanny to hear the song my mother found my name from in a country thousands of miles away. I smiled a secret smile.

The next morning, I arrived at the school a little later than I usually do on Tuesdays. My first class starts at 9:40 am, and the students have exercises on the basketball court from 9:25 to 9:37. It was 9:22, and I was walking towards the teaching building as the entire student body walked the opposite direction. Often I try to get to the school by 9:15 to avoid this. However, it was kind of nice to see all of my students. One of them shouted, “Hi Aubri!”. It was nice to hear that because many of the students don't call me anything.

On Friday night, I sat in a little restaurant with Mr. Wu and Mark. As we waited for the food to come out, Mark told me that a Chinese teacher, one who had come the first time Mr. Wu invited me to dinner, had chosen a Chinese name for me, after much consideration. I read a delightful and insightful little book before coming to China called, Dreaming in Chinese. The author, Deborah Fallows, comments on how foreigners in China need two things to be accepted as a real person, a phone number and a Chinese name. Finally I have the second! The name chosen for me is Shu2 Mei3 (The numbers indicate the tones). The first word means “comfortable” and the second means “beautiful”.

As I stuffed myself with the mutton Mr. Wu heaped on my plate, I wondered how the Chinese teacher had taken into account the meaning of my English name, which I had revealed to him, through Mark, who had translated. The meaning is “Fair ruler of the little people”. After trying bitter melon for the first time, and two wild vegetables that Mark informed me had saved many Chinese lives during times of famine, I still wasn't sure.

Saturday morning brought me a new private student, a ten-year-old girl that Jane had insisted I take on. I taught her once before in payment for a Chinese lesson Jane gave me. When she arrived I introduced my other students to her and then gave her an English name, Allison. I wonder if my students will keep the English names they have or change them when they get older. 

Last week I only had to work one day, Wednesday, in the middle of the week. It was odd and a bit annoying, but I was glad for all the time off I did have.

On Monday I was supposed to go to the Yellow River Stone Forest, but due to rain, I went to a nearby little village outside of Baiyin called Four Dragons instead.

The first thing we did here was to enter a nice hotel resort area where government officials from other countries have stayed. The Yellow River runs through it. My student's mother, Mrs. Li, paid for a little speed boat ride. Mr. Li, she told me, didn't like boats. After the ride she added that it had been her first boat ride because her husband thought boats were dangerous and didn't want her or her son to ride on them.

“But,” she said, “now I don't think they are dangerous.”

I think she really enjoyed the thrill of the ride. With the cold water splashing up from the sides of the boat and the wind rushing fiercely against our faces, it was quite enough to wake us up! As we approached the bridge over the river, I expected us to keep going straight, but the driver surprised me by making a sharp turn and heading back to the dock. It made the little kids in the boat giggle.

After the ride we toured the Economical Gardens, a giant greenhouse with artificial mountains but real plants. Walking around inside, I really enjoyed the abundant greenery, which brown Baiyin lacks. With the humidity I felt that I had entered a rain forest. There were a few brightly colored birds in cages hanging from above in one section and an artificial lake in the middle, with a board walk you could sit on above at little tables to have tea and eat. There was a stage across from the tables but no performances going on.

As we walked through I received many stares and one college student requested a photo with me, and I obliged. We stopped to eat at some tables on the edges of the garden. Mrs. Li brought cherry tomatoes, pears, oranges, and boiled eggs. Mr. Li, who has a great sense of humor according to his family, used my camera to take a bunch of photos of me while I ate. After leaving the garden we walked to a farmer's restaurant in the village but it was busy and service was slow so the Lis wanted to eat elsewhere. I thought we might as well have stayed there because we ended up walking quite a ways along the muddy highway. There weren't any other nearby restaurants. Luckily, a young woman eating a banana on the side of the road we passed must have taken pity on us because of me. She came over,excitedly shook my hand and greeted me in English. Then after speaking rapidly in Chinese with the Lis for a few minutes, she threw her banana peel in the air and kicked it into a trash heap in an oddly graceful way before quickly disappearing through a gap in a wall. She returned with a man in a car, and they drove us to the nearest restaurant.

This tiny place surprisingly had no rice, nor did they have noodles. All of their vegetables were pretty spicy, which isn't to my liking. However, their steamed bread was good and I had donkey meat for the first time here. I'd heard that it is a specialty in the area. It tasted similar to beef and was quite tasty with the sauce and herbs it was served with.

After lunch we walked along what I guess was the main drag of the village for a few minutes. There was some raucous noise that was very disagreeable to me. It got louder and louder as we walked and I realized it came from a speaker. I asked Mrs. Li someone was listening to the radio. She said yes, that it was a type of folk music. I couldn't believe this noise could be called music! First there was a high jabbering female voice and a male voice answering it, sounding like a car commercial announcer. It sounded like they were just talking, not singing.Then there would be a sound like someone was beating on a metal bowl. A bit later an erhu joined in with the banging. I love the sound of the erhu, but I think it seemed out of place here.

There were several men in vans picking up people and taking them back to the city. Mr. Li paid one and a group of college students joined us. They all wanted to talk with me, but were too shy. Only one had the courage to reply when I asked some questions and then he posed a few of his own.

Tuesday morning I got up early again to meet Bob and Erika and go to the bus station. We paid 22.5 RMB for the hour long ride to Lanzhou. Strangely, it was 24 RMB for the ride back. I noticed with interest one other foreigner on the bus. I wanted to talk with him and ask a few questions. I haven't met any other foreigners in Baiyin. However, he sat in front of us and seemed intent on ignoring everyone else on the bus. I was surprised when his phone rang during the ride and he answered with “Wei” instead of “Hello”. Then he spoke with fluent Mandarin to the person on the other end.

After we got off the bus we found some bathrooms. I'm used to squat toilets now, but this bathroom was just one trough with running water. There were low walls about two feet high that separated each stall but no doors in front. It was awkward when two Chinese women came and one stood while she waited for her friend. There was absolutely no privacy.

Following this episode, we walked out to the street corner to catch a taxi to take us to the park we wanted to visit. This was truly mission impossible. Erika and Bob, who have been to Lanzhou several times, told me that hailing one in ten minutes would be lucky. There were very few taxis on the road, and to our bafflement, the few that were empty didn't stop for us! We joked that maybe Lanzhou had passed a new law: No foreigners in taxis.

Thankfully, after twenty minutes a voice from behind us asked, “Do you need help?” A man holding the hand of a young son was there. He explained that because it was May Day, it was especially hard to get a taxi, as many taxi drivers decided to take the day off. He kindly walked us to a bus stop and told us which bus to get on to go to the park.

White Pagoda Park was basically a series of steps up a mountain. There were a few pavilions and a little temple with a Buddha in it which I couldn't photograph. The park was very busy and several people requested photos with us. We joked that we could start a good business (3 RMB for a photo with one foreigner, 5 RMB for a photo with all three, 8 RMB for an autograph). We also were amused by the T-shirt slogans in English that we saw. English on anything is popular in China, but it's usually fraught with all kinds of mistakes and rarely makes sense. A guy in a pink shirt followed us for quite a while, lagging a few yards behind, and stopping whenever we stopped. It was a bit annoying because he never talked to us. If he had, it wouldn't have bothered us. We almost called Jane, our FAO (Foreign Affairs Officer), but then he finally disappeared.

View of the Yellow River running through Lanzhou from White  Pagoda Park 

When we got tired we spotted some tables above us where people were sitting. We looked around and couldn't figure out how to get up there. There were some steps but they were blocked by a vendor selling drinks. We finally figured out that the steps were the only way to reach the area. We saw some people walk around the cart so we did too. We took the last table and a woman came to take an order. Apparently we had to buy something to sit there. Erika, whose Chinese is good enough to order foods, asked for two beers for her and Bob and a juice for me. The lady went back down the steps to the vendor and returned. She then said “twenty” plus something else in Chinese that we couldn't make out. Bob gave her 100 RMB and she only gave him 40 RMB back. So, we were all charged the outrageous rate of 20 RMB for our drinks. I couldn't have bought that juice for 3 RMB anywhere else. There wasn't anything we could do about it, unfortunately.

Before leaving the park, we paid 3 RMB each to a woman out of curiosity. We saw others paying her and then going down some steps. What we found was quite sad. It was a little zoo. There were some monkeys in an area with just dirt and concrete. There were also some rabbits, chickens, and a turkey locked up in tiny cages.

We left the park around 2:30 pm and crossed the bridge over the Yellow River to find the Pizza Hut. It was quite busy and the guy outside wearing an orange apron and short tie under a white collared shirt gave us a slip of paper and said in English, “Forty minutes”. We walked around a bit and got some ice creams at the KFC while we waited. We hadn't had lunch and were getting hungry. Dessert first is the Chinese way, anyways.

When we finally went got our table we still had to wait quite a while. Inside the restaurant looked very upscale for a Pizza Hut. There were many young Chinese couples, so it seemed like this was a popular place to take a date. The menu included some Chinese food as well as the pizza and pasta. We all ordered one large pizza each so that we could take some home with us. The waitresses probably wondered why these crazy foreigners ordered so much. My pizza had corn on it and my salad had corn in it. I didn't mind it but it was interesting. Another interesting kind of pizza they had was topped with Tilapia.

After teaching on Wednesday Ms. Hu invited me to lunch. We walked inside her apartment complex and she pointed out a large gated house, not quite a mansion, in the middle. It was the first house I've seen in Baiyin. She told me the owner of the apartments lived there. It almost seemed like a castle in the midst of its kingdom. We turned out onto a street lined with little shops and restaurants. We enjoyed a traditional soup dish with potato noodles, greens, little bird eggs, beef meatballs, pork sausage, little drumsticks (maybe from the same type of fowl that laid the eggs), and some type of green sea vegetable.

On Friday morning I went with Bob and Jane to observe Erika do a demonstration lesson at a primary school. We asked to use the restroom first and they pointed us to some primitive ones outside the school. These were sort of like camping toilets. They were just pits in the ground separated with low walls. Brick walls enclosed them and above there was a cloth covering held by wooden poles. Due to the primitive bathrooms, I was surprised when we walked into the classroom.

Inside there was a computer and a pull down screen. The desks were large and made of fine wood. The chairs matched and had velvety pink seat cushions. It looked like a lecture hall, not a classroom for eight-year-olds. Erika did a great job teaching body parts to the kids but the classroom was not designed for this kind of teaching. It was a bit difficult for the kids to turn around in the big chairs to do group work. We saw some of the other classrooms as we walked by which had regular desks and stools. After teaching the level 3 kids, she taught the level 4 class, but in this one some kids came in with stools to attend and there were a lot of repeat students who must have really enjoyed the first class.

We had lunch with some of the English teachers at the school afterwards. They asked us about our teaching style and commented on the differences between ours and theirs. They wanted to know how to make their classes more fun because they noticed that the kids loved Erika's class but were bored in their classes. We couldn't give them a lot of great advice because in their classes they have a set reading and writing curriculum, so the teachers say, they don't have time to play games. The teachers also asked us grammar questions, such as, “Which is correct? The bird is in the tree or on the tree?”. These are the types of questions they put on English exams! Sometimes more than one answer is correct or none of them are right.

On Saturday morning I taught my private students at my home as usual and I finally remembered to get a photo of them. Aren't they cute? I teach them lots of songs with actions because they love to move!

L to R: Sally (6), Sally's mother, Amy (8)

Saturday night I made a fun dinner with my favorite color! I found some little purple sweet potatoes at the supermarket that I just had to try. I'd never seen them before. Then when I realized I also had purple cabbage and  purple onion I decided to throw them together. I added baby bok choy and tofu and steamed it all in my rice cooker. It was pretty satisfying.

Vitalizing, Violet and Vegan!