Finally I have a chance to post some photos of my students in class! On Tuesday Erika observed me while I taught class 9 of my Senior 2 students, and she took some pictures. I used the song "Every Breath You Take" by The Police to teach my students this week. They were all very excited to listen to a song in English.  After listening to the entire song, I taught them some new vocab from the lyrics, had them work in groups to answer a few questions, and at the end taught them the chorus so we could stand and sing it together. 

The lesson went very well in most of my classes. During my last class on Thursday, however, we had some outside disturbances during the group work portion of the lesson. The wind started howling, and we could hear doors banging open and shut. The students on the side with the windows pulled back the curtains to see that the sky had turned dark and dust was swirling around. Then there was lightning and a deluge came pouring down. Most of the students couldn't help staring at the unusual weather. Just like back home, here it is a very dry climate and it rarely rains. It was still raining when it was time to go home and I got soaked as I walked to the street from the school grounds. 

After my classes on Friday I enlisted Lisa's help with getting a haircut. She took me to a place very near my home. It was incredible that the cost was only 20 RMB ($3.16), and they even washed my hair before and after the cut!

On Saturday afternoon, Erin helped me bargain for a new pair of walking shoes. She was able to get the seller to lower the price to 90 RMB down from 128 RMB. After I bought the shoes, Erin came with me to have dinner with Mr. Wu. He had invited me again and when he heard of my plans with Erin he invited her too! This time Mark the English teacher came again, but another of Mr. Wu's best friends, whom I had never met before, was the fourth member of the party. It seems like almost every male teacher Mr. Wu introduces to me is his "best friend"! During the meal, this best friend, another Chemistry teacher, received a phone call. Mr. Wu, Mark, and Erin started laughing after a few seconds. I asked what was so funny and they told me that the Chemistry teacher had told the person on the phone that he was having dinner with "a foreign friend". 

"He's very proud," Mark told me. 

It still feels strange to be someone who gives another person status here!

Introducing the song with the help of the smart board

Students discussing in groups 

Monitoring

My students waiting for the chorus. Can you believe how many of them have myopia?

Last Monday night I ate out with Jane, Erika, Todd and Bob for Bob's birthday. Almost every dish in the restaurant included plenty of various types of hot chili peppers. I don't like spicy food so I picked around the peppers. I'm not sure if it was from this food, but the next morning I became very sick. I called my school and said I suspected I had food poisoning. Although I didn't believe going to the doctor would help, I asked my colleague and friend Lisa to take me. Why? Earlier when I caught a cold the school thought that I wasn't really that sick because I said I didn't need to go to the doctor.

The experience was worth it. We took the bus to Lisa's family doctor, an elderly practitioner of traditional Chinese medicine. When we walked in I immediately caught a whiff of all of the herbs stored in little lockers. The elderly doctor and a young doctor both examined me. Lisa acted as the translator. They had me stick out my tongue first. Next they scrutinized both of my palms, drawing their fingers along my skin. After this the old doctor left and the young doctor took my blood pressure and had a nurse prick my finger to test my blood. Finally the young doctor had me lie down while he patted my stomach in several places to test for pain.

My diagnosis was "a weak stomach". The doctor prescribed both Western and Chinese medicine. Additionally, he told me to abstain from cold foods like ice cream, to avoid eating raw vegetables, and to make sure not to drink any cold water. I think this will be the first time that I will completely ignore my doctor's orders.

It's impossible to order cold water in restaurants here. The Chinese believe that it's bad for your stomach and they always drink water that's just been boiled. I've been told that they still drink hot water in the heat of the summertime.

The cost of my visit plus the medicine totaled 30 RMB, which right now is about $4.75. Plus, I did not have to fill out any forms and only waited about three minutes.

After I paid for the medicine Lisa invited me to have lunch in her home which is just across the street. She said apologetically that if my family had known I was coming, they would have prepared a meal that was more special. I considered the purple porridge they served quite special enough! The unique color came from purple potatoes. Besides this they served several side dishes and steamed buns. I was very satisified after the meal. Lisa's parents and grandfather invited me to come again.

On Friday night I had a wonderful new hot pot experience. Bob and Erika took me to a restaurant they've eaten at several times before. When you walk in it's just like going to the supermarket. You pick up a basket, choose your pot with whatever soup base you want (we all chose tomato) and then pick out all the vegetables, noodles, tofu, fish, poultry and meat you desire. You then pay for it and area shown to a table. There is a table where you pick up your bowl to put your food into after it's cooking in the pot. All of the condiments, such as vinegar, minced garlic, chillies, etc. are there for you to choose from and mix in your bowl. They also have complementary juice, oranges, cucumber, two types of clear soups, and some type of chip-like side. The food was really good! Across from us were two English teachers and their friends, who introduced themselves and requested a photo with us. There were also about five other people who came and took photos of us secretly throughout our time there, but when we saw them we were happy to pose.

Saturday I was supposed to meet two of my students at the school to go have dinner. I was a bit late. Maybe they left before I arrived. I waited for half an hour. My friend and colleague Lisa invited me to have dinner with her and her friend Wing (who has helped me with my computer several times). But as we were leaving the school Amanda, one of the music teachers called Lisa. She speaks very little English and wanted Lisa's help to invite me to dinner. So the three of us went to Amanda's house. After eating Amanda insisted that I play the piano. It's been so long since I've practiced so I didn't play so well but everyone complimented me anyway.

On Sunday afternoon I took a walk to and around the nearest park to my apartment. It's quite small but still contains a lot of beauty. I look forward to the summer, when everything will start to bloom and turn green here in Baiyin.
 

I should have posted this last week, but after these photos took two hours to load I was too tired to write about them. From April 2-4, I had three days off for Qing Ming Festival (or Tomb Sweeping Day). The Chinese take this time to travel to their ancestors' graves, clean them, burn spirit money, and set out food offerings. 

Unfortunately, I did not know exactly which days I would have off until the Friday before. So I did not have time to plan a trip. However, I enjoyed some things around my city.

On Saturday the 31st I made rice cooker chicken for dinner. Yes, you can cook chicken in your rice cooker. Isn't it a great idea? I found myself wondering if this was possible after I picked up three chicken drumsticks at the supermarket and was pondering the easiest way to cook them. Through a Google search I found http://bits-of-taste.blogspot.com/2010/09/rice-cooker-chicken.html. The recipe posted there is simple but I adjusted it to make it even simpler. The first time I made it I  placed the chicken in the rice cooker pot, sprinkled it with Mrs. Dash, and added some green onions. I turned the machine on, and in 20 minutes it was done. Oh my goodness. It was SO good! Maybe it tasted better to me because until that point at home I had eaten only vegetarian meals with soybean sprouts and tofu being my source of protein. The chicken was so tender and delicious. I was extremely satisfied. When I made it the second time, I decided to create a vegetable medley. Why not cook my vegetables in the same pot? They turned out great.

Wǒ ài wǒ de diànfànbāo!  I've used it to cook rice, lentils, millet and pearl barley. It's the easiest and most forgiving appliance I own. Oh, did I mention I'm learning Chinese? Jane, my foreign affairs officer, gave me my first two lessons during the long Qing Ming Festival weekend. We're working on pinyin right now.

On Wednesday of that week, two of my Senior 2 students took me to a few places around Baiyin. Their English names, chosen from a list I gave my students the first week, are Isabella and Victoria (They're both Twilight fans). We went to Jinyu park in the city where families were strolling around and flying kites (a popular hobby here). We also enjoyed a little kiddie roller coaster ride.

After leaving the park, we walked across the old center of town to a plaza where the KFC is located. Numerous vendors of socks, jewelry etc. were selling their wares. There was some type of advertisement going on and little children were leaving the plaza with inflatable 1000 ton hammers. Some young Chinese were handing out fliers for a company that takes wedding photos and a booth selling drinks had a speaker that repeated "Huānyíng guānglín! Huānyíng guānglín!" over and over. The pungent smell of stinky tofu permeated the air, but there were other types of street food available that did not offend the nose. 

My students treated me to my first taste of street food. It was fun to watch the elderly woman make it for me. She poured some batter on a hot griddle and then used a tool to spread it into a large, thin circle. She then cracked an egg and spread it on top, before flipping the crepe over. Then on the other side she spread a type of thick soy sauce, crushed two of some kind of chip, added a sausage split lengthwise and finally a Romaine leaf. To finish she rolled up the unique sandwich into a square. It wasn't too bad.

That evening I played badminton with Erin, a student from Erika's school. Her English is incredible compared to her peers. 

Rice Cooker Chicken

Yum!

Some died chicks being sold at the plaza

Statue of the founders of Baiyin at Jinyu Park

A view of the park from above in the roller coaster ride

Isabella and I

The artificial lake in the park

Erin and I at a private badminton and ping pong gym

My School's International Women's Day Dinner

Here are some more photos Erika shared with me.

Giving a toast with my chamomile tea

A duet with Erika in the karaoke room after dinner

Serving my pineapple and raspberry filled cake

My lovely fellow teacher Erika is sharing her photos with me. I did not have my camera on several important occasions and so here are some of her photos. The first photos are of the celebration I had with the other foreign English teachers.

L to R: Bob (from England), Thomas (from Washington), Erika (from  Michigan), Me.

Yummy dumplings!

The following photos are of the welcome dinner for Erika and I with the Baiyin Experimental School leaders. They were going to hold the dinner earlier, but because of a conflict postponed it. Before my last class on my birthday Lavender informed me that they would have the dinner that night so they bought me a birthday cake!

Lavender helps me open my cake

Jane (my FAO) with Erika

Okay, I saw some page views so I think I owe whoever you are a post. I had planned to compose at least one post a week, on Sundays, but this Sunday I was too sick to even think about it. It is surprising that I did not get sicker sooner. I had a bit of phlegm stuck in my throat a week ago and thought maybe it was due to the dust storm we had that day.

Every morning at 9:20 am some energetic and patriotic sounding music plays over the loud speakers and all of the students file out onto the basketball courts. Then for about eight minutes they do some exercises while I stay in my office (unless it's Thursday or Friday when my classes start later in the day) and listen to the counting: yi, er, san, si, wu, liu...

But last Wednesday the exercises were cancelled due to the bad weather. I thought all of the dirt in the air might have had an effect on my larynx, although I had been wearing my face mask.  The next day my students stared at me when I called out my usual energetic "Hello!" in a deeper voice than usual.

Modeling my dust mask and demonstrating how I've been feeling lately

I probably should have stayed home from Erika's birthday dinner on Friday. She is the another foreign teacher at my school. She only teaches there on Tuesdays and Fridays, as she also teaches at the #8 middle school in Baiyin. We had a variety of dishes in a little room with Bob (the middle aged teacher from England) and Todd from Colorado, who had just arrived four days before. The hosts were the family of a student (Erin) at Erika's school. During the dinner the student father and uncles (really family friends) were gan bei-ing at an alarming rate of about four beers in 20 minutes and I had to turn my head to cough every now and then. Because I do not drink, the family ordered a jug of juice for me, and expected me to gan bei with that. The sugar of the juice and the birthday cake which we consumed first didn't do any wonders for my throat. I'm not sure why but it seems to be tradition in China to eat birthday cake before the meal. That's what was done at my birthday dinner with the leaders of my school.


That evening when I returned home I went to bed early and woke up at 3 am coughing up so much phlegm that it was like I was having a hangover. The next day instead of going to Lanzhou, Gansu's capital, with the other foreign teachers I stayed home. I also canceled the private English lesson with the cute little six and eight-year-old girl who live in my apartment complex. I started teaching them for an hour every Saturday three weeks ago. I called an English teacher at my school to cancel the appointment I had with her to make dumplings the next day. She was alarmed when I told her I had a cold and said she would take me to the hospital. I'm guessing she didn't know exactly what a cold is. I declined but allowed her to buy some medicine for me. She brought me some Chinese traditional medicine as well as Western medicine.


I wasn't feeling well enough on Monday and Tuesday to return to work so I asked for those two days off. I had several visits. Ms. Hu called to see what was wrong on Monday and came over to see me. The next day Lavender (the teacher at my school assigned to help me with basically anything I have a concern about) took me to the market near my home and bought some fruit for me. That evening Mr. Wu called to ask why he hadn't seen me lately and when I told him I had a cold he said he wanted to visit me too.

While I was eating dinner, Mr. Wu arrived.  He brought milk (the low lactose kind that doesn't have to be refrigerated and is stored in the same kind of boxes we use for juice in America), a loaf of bread and a personal sized cake from AILI, the local bakery. 

The lovely little cake from Mr. Wu

Despite the fact that dairy, sugar and starch were about the worst things for the congestion that was still lingering in my throat, I was touched by Mr. Wu's kindness yet again. He looked at the millet, bean sprouts, carrots and squash I had cooked for my dinner and said, "Very simple. You eat cake." He opened it up, handed me the cake and the little plastic fork that came with it. 

"Drink lots of water," he advised me for the third time before he left. 

However, because the water had just been turned off without notice, I didn't want to do that. I didn't have any extra water to force the toilet to flush, you see. Thankfully, the water was back on before I went to bed.

Today I felt much better and returned to work. I was quite excited to finally give my lesson on pirates. I taught my students to say, "Arrgh!" but for some reason couldn't get them to make hooks with their fingers. They seemed too embarrassed to do it. The top class did really get into the role plays I had them do later, however. They were grabbing things in the classroom such as badminton racquets and triangular rulers to use for makeshift weapons. Their role plays were fun to watch, though I was a bit disappointed when the top student announced that her group's role play was a silent one! She narrated while the others mimed. I guess next time I'll have to make it clear that I want each student in the group to have a speaking part!

I have been quite busy since coming to China and apologize that I have not started blogging sooner. Originally I thought I would have plenty of free time, but so far I have not even had spare time to pursue my favorite hobby of reading. 

Currently I am teaching Senior one and Senior two Middle School students at the Baiyin Experimental School in the city of Baiyin in Gansu province. My students are the equivalent of sophomore and junior students in America. I teach 20 different classes a week and have over 1,000 students. It's strange to be treated like a celebrity on campus. I walk about beaming and saying hello to students. Some of them, especially the Senior 3 students (who do not take oral English because they are studying for their college entrance exams which only test English grammar, reading and writing), looked shocked and don't reply. Others say "hello" first and some boys love to shout "Hi!" from the third story windows. Sometimes groups of girls in two or three sidle up to me quietly along the walk to the main teaching building. Occasionally I don't notice this until I hear soft giggles and then one of the girls bravely say, "Hello teacher" and ask a few questions. I have learned to be very patient in conversations with people here in China. I often need to wait for 5 to 30 seconds for them to think about how to express something and finally spit it out. 

In class many of the students are very shy. Baiyin is a small city in Northern China where the only other foreigners are three fellow English teachers. Most of the students have never had contact with a foreigner before. I am very glad that a few of them who are very excited to learn English are also brave enough to speak in class. I am starting to get used to being the most popular person in the school. My colleagues are very friendly and helpful, sometimes overly so!

Pictured above, from left to right are Mark (the head of the English department), Mr. Wu (a Chemistry teacher bent on improving his oral English), a Chinese teacher, and Lisa, a Senior 2 English teacher. The photo was taken at a fancy hot pot restaurant Mr. Wu treated me and the others to. During my second week Mr. Wu surprised me by paying for my vegetables at the nearest street market from the apartment building we both live in. He simply said, "You're my English teacher". Lately he has been coming into my office, pulling out a few dried dates or other little goodies for me and then presenting one of his yellowed English textbooks from college. He'll point to the chapter headings and ask me to read words he is unsure of how to pronounce. He has a cute habit of nodding his head once vigorously and saying "Thank you" with force every time I teach him how to say a word. He will also say this at inappropriate times during conversations due to his lack of vocabulary. 

Backtracking to cover the month and a half I have been in China will take too long, so for now I will cover some recent events. Today the school held it's first English corner. In class I feel quite confident but I was completely unprepared for this. I was notified just two days prior and told that the students would simply ask me questions and that I did not need to plan anything. However, when I arrived the teachers expected me to have games and activities prepared! I was feeling rather tired from a lack of adequate sleep which hampered my creative and improvisational skills. I felt that the two hours was mostly wasted because I was not prepared. There were some highlights, however, such as when a few students dared to sing some English and Chinese songs for me, and the young man who instead of asking about my favorites, as most of his peers did, asked boldly, "What do you think of me?" The only response I could think of was, "You're too young for me" to which he answered, "Yes, I think so too" as his classmates giggled.