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.