I was looking back on last year's blog to see if I described the holiday. I did mention that families get together and sit outside and eat mooncakes and look up at the moon. No moon here today - it's cloudy. And mooncakes are sort of an acquired taste - they are a very dry and flaky pastry. The first bite is not very enticing, but it gets better. Why mooncakes? The legend has it that a long time ago there were 10 suns in the sky. A very talented archer shot down 9 of them, leaving only the one. The gods thanked him and gave him some medicine that would make him immortal, but he would live on the moon. He didn't want to take the medicine because then he would leave his wife behind and he loved her very much. Once, when he was away, some men came to steal the medicine because they wanted immortality. The wife, not wanting them to get it, saw the only way to prevent them from taking it was to drink it herself. So she became immortal and went up to the moon. The husband, then, would peer up at the moon to try to see his wife. And then the whole mooncake thing started. It is interesting to ask the Chinese about the legend because they all have a bit of a different take on it. I think it has morphed throughout the ages but I just gave you a down and dirty version...
This upcoming week at school is a short one - just Monday through Wednesday. Then the national holiday on Oct.1 - 7. What is this holiday about? It celebrates Oct.1, 1949 when the Communist party won over China. The losers went to Taiwan where they reside today. I don't think many of us foreigners are going anywhere distant over this time. I checked into some airfares and they were expensive, plus large crowds would be anticipated. So I took a pass...
We had our 3rd school performance in 3 weeks on Friday. The first was celebrating the 20th anniversary of the school (I had a short video clip of it in last week's blog), the second was the opening ceremony for the school (not the same as the anniversary), and the third was 2 days ago to celebrate the start of the soccer/basketball season. It seems crazy to have a school-wide assembly on sports seeing as how the school doesn't really emphasize sports at all, but President Xi has declared he wants China to become competitive in soccer and for the schools to do more to bring it up - so there you have it! Look out soccer world! All of these performances has created a crazy schedule of rehearsals and it has been near impossible to have any type of continuity in your classes. It was not unusual to be conducting a class and suddenly hear a whistle blowing outside your classroom signalling the students to go out for practice. Even David, our principal, said it was crazy even by Chinese standards. Well, after this October holiday, things should settle down...
I hear President Xi of China has been visiting Obama. I told Sky he was given a 21-gun salute and he said why would they do that? Guns are illegal in China and he didn't understand the symbolism behind the gesture at all... I don't know if anything about cyberattacks will come out of this meeting, but maybe some headway on pollution in China? If they want to know how to do it, just ask Volkswagen. That is exactly one of the problems in China - you can't trust any of their statistics because people will massage the numbers so they won't look so bad or get in trouble with their superiors. And everyone knows that is the way it is. Very difficult to change...
I will be one happy camper when this holiday is over. They have constant musical performances in the park outside my apartment window and it goes on all day until 10 at night. It'll drive you nuts.
And so it goes...
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