Qing Wendy

The Rainbow Bridge! 48.38 miles/week ! Coming from Southern California, commutes are not usually associated with restful, relaxing, and green. All three are true of my walk from my apartment in “faculty village #1” to the foreign language building.   Our apartment is on the north-east side.   The foreign language building is on the south-west side.   Therefore, every day that I have class, I walk the hypotenuse.   As a result, my fitbit tells me that I’m frequently walking upward of 50 miles each week.   Let me take you on my walk! Over the rainbow bridge So, first you walk over the “Rainbow Bridge.”   Yes!   We have one.   It connects the faculty housing to the campus.   Unfortunately there are no pets on the other side.   There is a security detail and many, many cameras, so I feel very safe. Next, you walk along this very beautiful, leafy avenue with, yes, more cameras.   At about this point, there is an intermittent flash, taking pictures of any cars tha

Wendy and I visited the Muslim quarter today.  You can really sense that you are on the old Silk Road.  Men and women wear traditional Muslim hats, head scarves and spices and scents of the Middle East are in the air.  Check out these different kinds of bread!  We tried the one with the decorative edge.  There were small seeds in (sunflower, I think) and it was delicious.

My students have required military training.   All young people in China do this.   Girls and boys both.   When we first arrived, there was an impressive army of students on the athletic field marching.   Young men and women both!    I have spoken to a young Chinese friend, a college student,  who told me more about it on Wechat.    She wrote,  “We do running early in the morning, around 6 AM, then have breakfast.   Then spend about 10 hours the rest of the day marching.”    I asked her about what the whole experience is like and if her uniform and boots were OK .   She wrote, “It’s kinda boring because we are required to repeat the same actions all the time and sometimes stand still at military poses for hours.   Quite suffering.”   She added, “The shoes are comfortable, but her heels and legs do hurt.”  Finally, she noted  “Girls need to learn military boxing and boys are going to learn shooting.”   Seems like they take it in stride…

View of the moat Bell Tower in the Foreground Drum Tower in the distance (the city center) I can’t believe that we’ve been here more than 3 weeks, and haven’t written at all about the actual city of Xi’an!   Xi’an is probably best known for the Terracotta Warriors.    But the city itself has a lot to offer. Hua Pagoda, or Pagoda of the South Gate Xi’an started out with the name Chang'an, long peace – which is somewhat ironic, or maybe just wishful thinking   I wrote a little bit about the Tang dynasty (618-907), when I wrote about the pretty park near our house.   ( Aren’t these dates amazing?   Think about what was going on in Europe at this time ).   That’s when things started getting going in Xi’an.   The Silk Road – a trade route between China, Southeast Asia and Europe – was established. There was wealth, multiculturalism, artistic and philosophic thought, great sculptures and scientist – a real flourishing society. Cute couple in traditional dress

The mid-Autumn festival has come and gone.   I had some moon cake!   These calorie dense cakes are essential for the holiday.   Mine had a sweet potato filling, but you can find them in all kinds of flavors, including chocolate, matcha, tarot and others.   A little bit goes a long way.   I love the decorative boxes you find them wrapped in.   The presentation is key. I want to share some hints for successfully transitioning into life in China.   Our first night here we had a big problem with mosquitoes.   Our friends Ai-ping and Ning took us to a large department store, Metro where we bought this amazing mosquito repellent that worked like a charm.   You plug it into the wall like and air freshener and it lasts about two weeks.   I can’t say enough good things about it. Xi’an is supposed to be quite dry, but fact is it has rained a lot lately.   Our friend June told us about a shoe store that has boots and shoes that fit westerners’ big feet.   Carrying boots on the plane alo

Today my students did a skit based on the following prompt: •         You prepared a 3-minute skit with your partner(s) to present at the beginning of week 3 in front of the class.   One can play the role of a journalist and the other a superstar, model, Rock-star or artistic figure.   If you are in a group of three, there could be one journalist and 2 artistic collaborators.   •         The artist(s) are trying to deflect questions about their recent romantic break-up and focus on their new album.   The journalists are hunting for juicy news to put in their tabloid newspaper. My students' skits were creative, well-acted and at times very funny.   They kept each others’ rapt attention.   They did their skits often without notes, fluently and great expression.   I was impressed.   The only area I could think of for improvement might be to have them slow down a bit and work on enunciating a bit more.   I will address this further with them. One special effect that was

No class today!  Long Weekend!  Today is Autumn Festival. I just received a WeChat card that reminds me that  classes are cancelled on Friday for Mid-Autumn festival.  Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates family reunion and peace.  The festival is celebrated when the moon is the biggest and fullest.  A full moon is a symbol of prosperity, happiness and family.  The festival celebrates by viewing the  moon with your family and lighting lanterns The festival has a history of over 3000 years. It dates back to the moon worship in the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BC).  Countless poems, stories and legends are written about it.  One famous poet, Su Sui, wrote the following poem, expressing his longing for his relatives and friends far away.  That is fitting for us, today! Prelude to the Water Melody   --Su Shi "When will the bright moon appear?" I raise a cup of wine and ask the dark blue sky. I wonder in the palace of the heavens, this night is which year? I wish to soar with th

I love teaching my Jiaotong University students in EF81.   EF stands for English/French and these second-year students are majoring in both English and French.   I have 17 students total and meet with them for 100 minutes on both Mondays and Tuesdays, from 8AM to 10AM.   So far, we have had two really fun weeks together.   They are interested in learning English, come to class on time and are ready to practice speaking.   Little by little, I have been learning their English names. Everyone in the class has one since their Chinese names are too difficult for most non-Mandarin speakers to pronounce.   Wendy, my wife and the creator of this blog, recommended I have them write their names on a piece of paper and fold it up into a name plate to put on their desk.   I recommend this to all teachers to consider!   It really helps to get to know them.   My students are Ann, Anna, Daisy, David, Doris, Estella, Jasper, Julvina, Lilian, Lynn, Mary, Pat, Sally, Sophia, Tiffany, Ursula and Zoey.

I mentioned earlier, we have a beautiful park, across from the University.  About a week ago, Dave and I spent about 2 hours exploring it.  I’m not sure there is an equivalent in the US. It is filled with families, children, and always groups of older people who have gathered, presumably to talk about earlier days.  There is a lot of music.  Groups of 20 or more people blast romantic Chinese music, or hip hop-ish type tunes or pieces that sound like they come straight out of period Chinese dramas.  And the groups of people dance to the music.  The dance is extremely intricate – complicated ballroom dancing, elaborate step-dancing, not un-like Irish step dancing.  Another common site is a group of older folks with ancient musical instruments.  Sort of a viola that you balance on your knee.  Sort of an oboe/trumpet that you blow through.  Sometimes a windy flute-like instrument.  Always a block of wood to keep time.  Sometimes a karaoke machine, with an older woman singing reedy tun

Student:   “Oh no!   I thought I had a Chinese teacher this term.” Me:   “Surprise!” [Uncontrollable giggle.) That was an exchange that I had with my English 83 students on Friday.    Despite the initial disappointment, the students have been quite wonderful – engaged, willing to laugh at and with me, and at themselves, as well. One complication to teaching in China involves names.   Of course, all of the class lists are in Chinese.   The lists also provide the students’ ID numbers, so that I can match the body to the Chinese characters.   But, again, this is not much help when teaching.   Thus, besides their Chinese name, each student has an English name as well.   They chose it early in their education, when they started studying English.   Thus,   it frequently is the name of a character in a movie or on an English TV show – I have Lisa and Katherine, Anna, Ann and Zoey, Ursula and Estella.   Others however, go off on their own, finding English words that they li

The English Dept: Chinese and Foreign Teachers Teaching started up at the beginning of the week.   We started with a faculty meeting on Saturday…yes, Saturday.   Weekends don’t seem to have a lot of meaning here! In the meeting, we went around the room and introduced ourselves.   There are approximately 20-25 Chinese teachers and 5 non-Chinese teachers.   Three of the foreign teachers have been here for 2-3 years. All three of them were educated at Cambridge.   This isn’t that surprising, because the app that I used to get the job was a UK app.   One of the teachers has been working at Jiaotong in the summer program.   She just completed her MA at Colorado State and is here for the full year with her Columbian husband, a doctor who will also be teaching in the med school.   Dave and I are the only brand-new-to-Jiaotong teachers.   All of this is comforting.   It seems as though people like it enough to come back. The international teachers The meeting started w