The Holly Spirit

In our Sophomore Western Culture classes we talked about American holidays. We even reserved an entire class period to talk about Christmas. Classes are two hours long so the first hour was the Christian Christmas story (where we read and summarized parts of Matthew and Luke) and the second hour was about the secular American Christmas.

During review week we played Christmas Pictionary. A student would draw a random Christmas word or event from a bag and then sketch it on the chalkboard for the class to guess. One student drew the word "holly." I asked her if she remembered what it was, and she confidently said yes. Then she stepped up to the chalkboard and sketched a pregnant woman with lines for wind running across her belly. I was baffled. This image looked nothing like "holly." I whispered in her ear, "What did you think the word was?" and she said "the holy spirit . . . that came upon Mary and made her pregnant."

Wow. What an awesome mistake. She had forgotten all about holly, but had remembered the importance of the Holy Spirit in the Christmas story. I could not have been more pleased.

Not Your Normal Christmas

On Christmas Eve we ate a dinner of only red and green food (a family tradition of one of our teammates), a tradition I would like to adopt. Then we went to the Three-Self (government run) church in Qufu for the Christmas Eve service. While we don't understand the language, we recognized Silent Night all 5+ times they played it. The service was delightful, lots of singing and dancing--women in red sweaters with green fans, then women in green sweaters with red fans, then dancing with candles, pink and yellow scarves, you know, what you'd expect on Christmas, right? Then three men dressed in terrible Santa suits threw peanuts into the crowd, and we all got apples as we left.

Students have also given us many apples for Christmas (and they are surprised when we tell them this really isn't an American tradition), so Chip has been baking all sorts of apple treats--apple fritters, apple muffins, apple sauce, and apple pancakes. . . so far. There are still more apples in our kitchen.

On Christmas morning, Chip and I opened some packages from home, then talked to our families on Skype. Then we had brunch and exchanged gifts with our teammates. We watched, "Miracle on 34th Street" and then went out for pizza (we really wanted something Western).

On Christmas evening, we were invited to a Freshmen Christmas party. This was a strange experience on many levels--we don't teach freshmen so we didn't know most people there, and we were the guests of honor. They gave us warm milk tea when we arrived, later candy canes, had arranged translators for us, and expected us to give a performance. Chip and I sang "Jingle Bells." We also got photos taken with several non-English speaking students, and I think our phone numbers got passed around. How did we become celebrities?

On the 26th, we had a Foreign Teacher's Christmas Gift Exchange and potluck. This included our four ELIC teachers, six American teachers from Skidmore College, a French teacher, and a Russian teacher and her son.

I thought Christmas would be a difficult time to be far from home, but I have really enjoyed our community of teammates, students, and fellow teachers. In fact, I am sad to see the Christmas season ending. Maybe I'll leave my tree up awhile longer.
This has truly been a blessed Christmas.

Teaching Christmas

This year Chip and I have had the amazing opportunity to "teach Christmas" to students who know very little about the holiday. We have taught Christmas in our Western culture classes, read the Christmas story from The Word with interested students, watched The Nativity movie with a small group of students, had Christmas parties for both the sophomore and junior classes (photos below), and have been blessed to have deeper conversations with students individually on the topics of Christmas and religion.


Sophomore Christmas Party. Making snowflakes, singing carols, etc!

The Christmas story as enacted by Sophomore English majors.
Baby Jesus is a teddy bear.

Juniors Christmas Open House in our apartment. Cookies and card-making.

Christmas cards posted on our door. Take a peak inside of the cards:

Dear Mallary,
I love your smile, always be happy and smiling.

Dear Chip,
You are so cute. I love U very much. Merry Christmas

Dear Chip and Mallary,
I'm so happy to be your student. Every time I see Mallary, I'll feel happy and excited. It's a great pity that Chip doesn't teach me. But I've heard that you are charming and lovely, and all the students like you. You are happiest couple I've ever know. I hope your marriage can last forever and be happy forever. At last, I want to say, Merry Christmas.

To Mallary,
You are so charming everyday.

To Chip and Mallary,
You are so cute. I love you two.

Street Food Qufu Style

This is my friend, the sweet potato (di gua) lady. I eat a sweet potato about five days a week after yoga. They are warm on wintery days and always delicious. When I walk up I always say, "Wo yao xiao de" which means, "I want a small one" because otherwise she will try to sell me a huge one. This week when I walked up she shook her head and said "xiao de, xiao de" as if to say, "Don't even say it, foreigner, I know what you want."

Handmade Noodles. Chip loves 'em. Check it out.




Pizza Bread! Well, there's no sauce, cheese, or your average toppings, but something about it looks like pizza to us, and it tastes a tad Italian.


Fried Potato Sandwich--Alison, our teammate, eating fresh-made bread filled with shredded potatoes. We ate this a lot when we first got to Qufu. It's deserves to be on the list of favorites, but right now, we are taking a break from daily fried potato sandwiches.

Below is a video of one of my favorite non-Chinese tasting street foods. Chip and I like to call it a "crunch wrap supreme." It is a thin bread with egg (or "bu yao jidan" for those adverse to eggs) with cilantro, green onions, bean paste, chili peppers, and something crunchy.
Almost Mexican, right?



...and there are many more kinds of street food. We just aren't brave enough to try them.

Chip's Chewable: Jesus to become neighbor with Confucius as Qufu plans for church

Chew on this:  "JINAN, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- The hometown of China's great philosopher, Confucius, in east China's Shandong Province, is scheduled to build its first large Christian church." 
(Please click on the link to read the entire article)

UPDATE:  Check out this article for the latest news about the new church in Qufu
http://asiancorrespondent.com/44578/church-plan-in-hometown-of-confucius-draws-protest/ 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/8228243/Chinese-church-plan-at-birthplace-Confucius-sparks-protests.html

Chip's Chewables: Value of a Chinese College Degree: $44?

Chew on this...

"American college students facing the misery of an anemic post-graduation job market have company in an unlikely-seeming place: China.

Despite entering a robust economy that seemed to weather the financial crisis as if were it a middling squall, China’s college graduates on average make only 300 yuan, or roughly $44, more per month than the average Chinese migrant worker, according to statistics cited over the weekend by a top Chinese labor researcher and reported today by the Beijing Times. "

(please click on the link to read the entire article) 

Anything to Stay Warm

When in China, do as the Chinese do!

Bike handle covers: At first glance, these hand warmers on bikers look quite ridiculous. But if you are cold enough, you'll try anything.
Day 1 with handle covers, and I'm loving it.
No more breeze up my sleeves.

Masks: Great for blocking out some pollution, reducing the spreading of germs, and for our purposes, keeping our faces warm as we bike to class.

Pass the Pigs

One night Chip taught some students how to play the classic game "Pass the Pigs" in our dining room while I taught other students "Killer UNO" in the living room. They'd played card games before, but throwing rubber pigs for points was new and fun. It was probably one of my most favorite nights hanging out with students in Qufu. Their smiles and laughter brought Chip and I so much joy!

Shmily

Our students all choose English names their freshmen year. I teach sophomores, so my students already had English names when I arrived. Most of them are decent, but I do have a Beryl, Rainbow, Star, and I asked Turing to change her name to Tori. I also have an "Ashliy." I asked her on Day 1 if she wanted to change the spelling of her name to the traditional American spelling, but she prefers the "i."

And then there's "Shmily" (in the yellow flowered dress above). Go ahead. Say it out loud. It's funny. I recommended "Emily," but she insisted that she loved the name Shmily. Some people have weird names in America. Who am I to judge? But it wasn't until this week (after I accidentally misspelled her name) that she told me what it meant:

See
How
Much
I
Love
You

Yantai Thanksgiving

View of the city of Yantai

Hudson Taylor's church in Yantai where he did some of his ministry.

We had a joyous Thanksgiving in Yantai (known among our students as the hometown of apples). Yantai is a seaside city in our province (Shandong), but it was a nine-hour train ride there, and an eight-hour bus ride back to Qufu. It was a lot of travel for a weekend, but it was absolutely worth the trip to be with fellow Americans for a Thanksgiving feast.

What am I thankful for this year? Well, my students told me they are thankful for their families, friends, and Harry Potter. And I told my classes, in all honesty, that I am thankful for them. There are a lot of difficult things about living in a culture that is not my own, but what I enjoy the most about being in China is the loving students we are blessed to teach each week.

Pink Polka Dot Birthday

I recently celebrated my 28th birthday.

An interesting fact about Chinese birthdays is that they do not celebrate their birthday on the same day every year. Chinese birthdays are celebrated according to the lunar calendar. Also Chinese people consider newborn infants one year of age at birth.

For the most part, my birthday was low key. I never announced to my classes that my birthday was coming, and so I was not expecting anything from my students. So my birthday came and went with a few well wishes, no hoopla.

In our office, shared with a few other foreign teachers, was a small gift bag with pink polka dots and a pink bow. It never occurred to me that the gift bag could be for me. So I left the bag sitting on the table in our office for a couple of days thinking it must belong to one of my fellow teachers.

A couple of days after my birthday, Mallary and one of the other foreign teachers decided to look in the bag to decipher its owner. Surprise, surprise, the small gift bag was full of birthday wishes from one of my Sophomore classes.

A few of them read:

• Happy Life with Mallary!!!
• Dear Chip Happy Birthday Best Wishes to you and Mallary!
• Chip: Happy Birthday to you! Have a happy life with Mallary :) !
• Happy Birthday! May my blessing be around your ears like sweet sounding bell and stay in your heart forever.
• Happy Birthday! Be forever with Mallary -- :)
• Happy Birthday -- So humorous you are
• Happy Birthday! Healthy - Happy - Lucky - Passionate
• Happy Birthday -- Chip I love your T-shirt
• Wishing you Chip, Glad days filled with friendliness, bright days filled with cheer, warm days filled with happiness to last throughout the year. Have a wonderful birthday.

Mallary and my teammates cooked a great Mexican themed dinner and a delicious chocolate cake for my birthday.

For my birthday, I went to a local tailor to get a coat made. I took a photo of a coat from a popular online retail store, picked out fabric, and a few weeks later, had a custom-made jacket.

Self-esteem Boost

This wedding photo is sitting out in our apartment.

We had some students over last week and I overheard them talking about it. A few of them were wondering who the girl was in the white dress. One student boldly informed the others, "Oh, that's Amy Adams, a famous American actress."

Hey, I can take a compliment!

Chip's Chewable: One Dog Policy

Chew on this: "For the last 30 years they have been banned from having more than one child in their family. Now the residents of Shanghai are facing a new limit over the size of their household - the one-dog policy." (please click on the link to read the entire article)

Tai Shan

Saturday we climbed to the top of Mount Tai. It's a "must visit" location in Shandong province. Mount Tai is a mountain of historical and cultural significance in China. It is one of the Five Sacred Mountains. It is associated with sunrise, birth, and renewal, and is often regarded the foremost of the five. Mount Tai has been a place of worship for at least 3,000 years.The tallest peak is the Jade Emperor Peak, which is 1545 meters high but more importantly, over 6,000 (often steep) stairs all the way to the top. We stopped often to rest our legs, but we are proud to say we made it to the summit. It was no easy feat!

Check out our photos in the slide show below. (Click on the album for a larger view).

NBA Lovers

Three eager fans and "superman." Mallary and the cheering crowd!

This video is especially for Chip's mom. :)

Chinese people love the NBA. Why? We really aren't sure. Just last week I had a female student tell me the entire life story of Kobe Bryant. He is her idol.

So Chip has been playing basketball with our fellow English teachers, and honestly, he plays pretty well compared to his older, shorter Chinese teammates. The time commitment of playing basketball was much more than he imagined, but fortunately, the season is now over.

One of our favorite cultural stories from the basketball season was when Chip's team had a game that started before his class ended. The Assistant Dean of our department told him to let his class out as early as possible. Moral: Basketball trumps classes.