Halloweenie

Sometimes the Chinese students pick strange English names. I just started co-teaching a class on Photography, and there is a girl who choose Weenie as her name. I haven't had a chance to talk to her yet to find out how that came about, but I will surely recommend that she change it!

So you didn't know that I was an expert in Photography, eh? Well, it so happens I'm not. But we started teaching these extra-curricular activities and I choose Frisbee - but it isn't being offered this term so I have to team up with someone else in their activity. Lukas, an Economics teacher from Poland, is an expert on photography and he's really teaching it - I'm just sort of tagging along and helping. So we've had a couple classes and it has been interesting so far - maybe I'll get a new hobby!

Halloween is next weekend. You do see a few things around that acknowledge it - usually in a store or mall. But it is not really celebrated here and the idea of trick or treating would never fly... But there will be a few parties around, mostly ex-pats I imagine. Many Chinese think that you must dress up in something scary and don't know that you can really be anything you want...

The weather has really taken a turn towards winter this weekend. It feels like we haven't had any significant rainfall in a few weeks at least, but this weekend it's been raining and cold the whole time. It helps clean out the air! In about 3 weeks they'll be turning on the heat, which hopefully will be about the time we need it. Until this weekend, the temps have really been nice and mild...

I spent last weekend in Guangzhou at an AP Conference. As usual, there really wasn't much time to go out and do some exploring. We did go to a restaurant that was recommended, but we had no Chinese people with us and we had no clue what to order. So what we ordered was not very good and I decided I would've been happier visiting the McDonalds next to the hotel. (I actually did go the 2nd night - the very first time I went to a McDonalds here in China - and I must admit it was tasty...) It does no good going to a good restaurant if you can't order the good stuff!! Guangzhou is a huge city (3rd largest in China I think) and is known as a place to go for work. There really isn't much touristy stuff there - there's a TV tower (which is 2nd highest in the world or China?) - but how much of an attraction is a tv tower - and there are some ferrys you can apparently take around the rivers through Guangzhou. Anyways, not on my top 10 list of places to visit again...

I'm trying to get my pictures sorted out - hopefully next time I'll have a few pics to throw in here!
Boo!

My cup runneth over...

A popular form of natural medicine here is "cupping." It involves placing empty jars on one's back and creating some type of suction to draw the skin and blood up. I'm not really sure what it's supposed to do, but I thought I'd give it a try:

This woman used fire in a jar and then placed it on the back. The fire would suck up the skin as the air sought oxygen. The feeling as this went on was not remarkable. The woman did say that she was afraid of setting the hair on my back on fire (she had never done a Westerner before). They leave the jars on for about 15 minutes and then break the vacuum seal and take them off. The dark circles remain on your back for about 2 weeks before they fade away. It felt like I had a heavy backpack on my back during that 15 minute period. It was an interesting experience but not one I'm likely to repeat as I can't determine any benefit from it!

This next video I took in a mall here. It's common for the employees or workers in a store or restaurant to all get out and do a dance once in a while to attract attention.  I thought this one was interesting as it was all the chefs from the restaurant behind them. Locally, the hair salons do these dances often to attract attention to their store. I think they do it because they're bored to death because they have so many workers and they are often just standing around doing nothing:

I didn't do much during the week off for the national holiday. Sky took us to the local zoo one day. My expectations were pretty low, and for the most part they were met. Many of the animals were injured or maimed which was why they were in the zoo. I was impressed, however, with the circus. Yes, they have a circus performance at the zoo! This guy came out with 12 Siberian tigers and ran a routine with them. It was actually quite impressive and worth the price of admission (which was pretty steep - even more expensive than an American zoo). They also had a water show with dolphins, etc. but we couldn't make both of them...

We taught on Saturday (yesterday) to make up for one of the days we got off on the holiday. This upcoming week will be the first one in a while without interruptions. Next weekend I am off to Guangzhou for a 2-day AP workshop. I went to one last spring in Suzhou that was pretty good and this one should be too. They attract high quality speakers from the US to give the workshops. This one for Calculus next week has the head honcho for AP Calculus coming in. I am looking forward to it.

The next holiday that I'm aware of isn't until New Years Day. I think we get one day off. They also might give us Thanksgiving and/or Christmas Day off too, but that is at their discretion. The next significant holiday is at the end of January for the Chinese Lunar Festival that marks the beginning of the new lunar year. That vacation is usually 3 weeks long... But as usual, they won't firm up the dates for these things until about a week beforehand. Crazy way to run a school system I say!

Today reminds me of a nice, crisp autumn day. Sky and Jenny took me to see a movie, Inside Out, that is supposed to be good. It was advertised as being in English with Chinese subtitles, but when it started it was all in Chinese (dubbed) with no subtitles. So Sky said let's go... he tried to get a refund but they're just giving him the runaround so he doesn't think it'll happen. One thing I've noticed here in China is that once they have your money, your chances of a refund are slim to none...

I am waiting for this funk I am in to get over. It has not been much fun at the start of this school year, but it can only get better, right? : )

Mid-Autumn Festival redux

Today, Sunday, Sept.27 is the mid-autumn festival holiday. It must go by the lunar calendar as I notice last year it was on Sept.8. It is a holiday, so there is no school - but then this is Sunday so there isn't any school anyways. They don't reschedule holidays to fit on a Monday and make 3-day weekends. Heck, they don't even have 2 day weekends!

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...

Sometimes a Great Notion...

I don't know where I got it, but I had this strange idea that the 2nd year in China would be easier. I'd know the ropes a little better, know some people, and get around easier. (Notice speaking the language is not something I mention...) Well, it's been ok, but not the smooth ride I was hoping for...

Our foreign math department here is supposed to be made up of 3 math teachers. For whatever reason, they have had a hell of a time trying to recruit the 3rd one - and they look no closer to getting that person now then when the school year started 2 weeks ago. So we've been operating with a skeleton crew of 2 - and the only way to do that feasibly is to cut down on the number of courses we're offering/teaching. So we're not offering the Chinese students the amount of foreign instruction that we're supposed to, but there's little we can do until a 3rd teacher is hired. Then the other half of my department suddenly declared that there was an unequal division of labor in our department and he was going to quit immediately if it was not rectified. As we were both teaching the same relative number of classes and had the same number of preps, I was a bit flabbergasted. It put the principal in a tight spot - either appease him, or lose another math teacher and be down to one. So I got another class added to my load and he got one subtracted. Not really what I would call equal but at least he's still here and happier (so he says) and I'm not fending for myself... You can have leverage here that wouldn't work at all back in the USA. They'd have told him to pack up his stuff and git - then use subs until a permanent replacement was found. Well, no subs here and a replacement is probably at least 2 months (if that) out. So the first 2 weeks of school have contained a bit more excitement than I'd like.

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of Gaoxin High School in Xi'an. To celebrate, the students put on performances last Saturday that they'd been practicing all week. All sorts of dignitaries present and it was a huge deal. It made the first week of school difficult because the students were being excused all the time to practice. It's weird how the priorities of the school suddenly changed (the bosses feel obligated to put on a big show). I will insert a video production put together by a company that had drones flying all over the place. It's about 5 minutes long - hope it works:

Due to the performances (which we were obligated to attend) being on Saturday, that meant we started off the school year with 7 straight days of school (we started on Sunday). The school actually had meetings scheduled on the day after, Sunday, as well, but only made them mandatory for the Chinese teachers and not the foreign staff.

So the second week of school has been normal (Mon - Fri) for us. The October National holiday is coming up on Oct.1 - 7 and we are all looking forward to being able to do some relaxing during that time. Not really thinking of doing much traveling during that time as I learned last year you're competing with a billion other Chinese people for the tourist activities.

If you are able to watch the video, you may notice the blue skies! That is something that has been different this year - much cleaner air! I have been able to see the surrounding mountains many days and the pollution index has not been in the heavily polluted range. I don't know what's causing the difference this year, but let's hope it is better in the winter as well (winter tends to be more polluted). I noticed that during the World Games in Beijing they managed to bring the pollution levels down significantly - Beijing is usually one of the worst cities. It has been going up since the games have ended, however.

The internet filters in China seem to be more troublesome right now. We have had many times when it has been difficult to get a good connection. Or you finally get a good connection and then get dropped after a few minutes - very frustrating!! But I have managed to sneak around a little bit and get on Netflix once in a while. I became addicted to Longmire and have now watched all 4 seasons. Haven't decided what will be next... I'm reading a book called the 6th Extinction (or something like that - you never know what you're reading on a Kindle) that is very interesting but paints a very bleak picture of the future here on Earth. It looks like the rats may still be around though so not all is lost!

Well, I'm cutting loose on this one right now. The video is still uploading so I don't know if it will make the cut or not. I'd just put the link to it on our school website  but I don't know that you'd be able to view it in the US...

Here we go again!

Well the summer literally flew by, and the first day of school here in China on Year 2 of the Dipont contract is right around the corner.

I arrived back in China on August 20 after fulfilling a very busy and productive summer. On the morning of August 21 I went out apartment hunting. I was able to find a good apartment - and it was only the 2nd one I looked at! I really wanted to stay in my old apartment, but the landlord sold it out from under me during the summer, so I had to move out as soon as possible (this was after several assurances from him that he was not going to sell the apartment and I could stay there as long as I wanted). I am now on the 19th floor of a 20 story apartment building (previously I was on the 11th),
and the complex is not quite as close as before, but definitely walkable (having said that, I have been riding my electric scooter in every day so far). It has wood floors, a bit unusual around here (and probably packed with formaldehyde), but has a much more homey feel. In typical fashion here, the bathroom and kitchen were incredibly dirty and I have spent a lot of time making them decent. So I moved into the apartment on the 22nd (took about 4 or 5 trips - accumulated some junk!), and then promptly had to fly out to Wuxi for the annual induction ceremony for Dipont (the company I work for). The workshops and meetings lasted for 2 days, but we spent 3 nights there. The hotel we stayed in was incredible - very large and literally a maze to get around. Rooms were huge and luxurious. The downside - it was in the middle of nowhere and to get into town involved a long taxi ride. Wuxi is not on my top ten list, so I just stayed in the hotel...
So we got back to Xi'an on the 26th and we were free until the 30th to get settled and sorted out. On the 31st, we started our 3 teacher prep days (Aug.31, Sept.1, Sept.2). So here I find myself on the 2nd no  better prepared to start teaching than when I arrived! I've been helping the new teachers figure everything out (part of my new duties), get them computers (still not successful with this one) and generally get my head around everything. The internet has been very spotty with us so far and has led to a lot of frustration. Rumor has it that the Chinese government was cracking down on internet filters during the Beijing World Games that were going on - it is over now so maybe things will settle down...
It has been tough to get started on the prep because they haven't finalized our classes, teaching schedule, and many of our Chinese cohorts that we work with are not around yet due to various activities. And so it goes...
It is a late start this year due to a new national Chinese holiday - September 3 is the 70th celebration of the end of the Anti-Japanese war. And they are making a 3 day holiday out of it by extending it to the 4th and 5th as well. So that means the first day of school is Sept. 6. What? That's a Sunday? Who keeps track of these things?? We also have a meeting on the afternoon of the 5th (part of the "holiday") which is the first time that ALL of the teachers of our school (foreign and Chinese) will be there. So the afternoon before the first day of school is our first opportunity to talk with our Chinese colleagues about how we're going to divide up the teaching duties. Some things just don't seem to change....
Well, I had to get my feet wet and get started on the blog for this year. I don't know yet of any specific plans for us ex-pats for this holiday. I'll update on the new staff next time - we have 7 new teachers this year and it looks like a good crew - from all over the world.
The weather has been hot and muggy every day. In the 90's. The a/c in my new apartment works great in my bedroom, not so good in the living area. Looking forward to the cool down!!
The Chinese want to know, who is this Trump guy??
 

Summer Vacay

Wedding was yesterday - it was a nice affair attended by about 300 people (maybe more).
The bride and groom got a little bit teary (as did I), but it went through without a hitch. In typical Chinese fashion, they haven't decided yet where they will go for a "honeymoon."

My summer schedule looks like this:
I leave today, Tuesday the 7th, for Shangri-la in the Yunnan province in China. I will be there for 5 days, returning to Xián on the 12th.
On the 14th, I fly to Portland and the USA for the rest of the summer.
Early on the morning of the 18th, I fly to Phoenix to visit sister Lori in her new digs there. I return to Portland early on the 20th.
I then fly to Philadelphia to visit Dylan on the 23rd, returning to Portland on the 27th.
Then on the 3st I leave for Glacier National Park with Mom and meet up with Jan. We will get back to Portland around the 8th.

I then remain in Portland until the 19th when I fly back to Xián. How's that for a packed summer?!

Have a good one, everyone!!

Yi, er, san ...

qiezi!
I heard a lot of that on graduation day. One, two, three ... eggplant! (for some reason they say eggplant instead of cheese - don't ask me...)
We had to arrive at 7:30 am for photos, the ceremony started at 9:00, and when I left at 12:30 (I snuck out a side door) it was still going strong. They didn't call the students up individually and hand them their diplomas (certificates here). They just got them all up there as a group, said something, and then everyone applauded. And of course they had to make their vows to the flag and put their fists up in the air several times. It seems a bit unnerving but the students tell me they don't really take much of it very seriously... The rest of the ceremony was taken up with the graduating classes putting on skits. The skits didn't seem to have any common thread or underlying messages - just a bunch of random stuff (and all in Chinese). And of course there were speeches by several big wigs. I don't think a short speech exists in China. Hence my early exit...
Last Monday was Dragon Boat Festival. Not much really happens here as there is no large body of water in Xián. The legend that it's based on goes back a couple thousand years. A short version: A famous Chinese poet/diplomat became distraught when his state was taken over by another (China was not unified at the time). He committed suicide by drowning in a lake or river. People raced out in boats (they all had dragons carved in the front)  to try to save and/or collect his body before the fish ate it. They threw food into the water so the fish would eat it instead of eating his body, and also medicine to ward off the evil ghosts. They beat drums in the boats to scare off the spirits. That's the nutshell version that probably has many errors but if you ask a Chinese you'll get a different version from everyone. So anyways, we ate these rice cone things that symbolize what they threw in the water, and bought several scent bags that contain the smelly medicine to ward off the evil spirits. So that, in addition to having the day off from school, was the extent of our Dragon Boat Festival!
Tomorrow begins our last week of school before the school year ends. It has been very painful for me these last few weeks as the students have completed their last exams back in May. This time is used to get a head start on next year. All of this material will get covered again in September, but it seems there is a race with the Chinese teachers to get as much covered as possible by July 4 (the last day of school). But the students know that what they are doing now isn't really important (since they'll get it again), so the motivation on their side is extremely low. And I'm sitting here thinking this is all really insane... Not all of the international schools here in China operate like the one I'm at - and some have already called it a year, but I guess I got lucky and landed at one that likes to do it this crazy way!
Ah well...
Sky's wedding is July 6. He's asked me to say some words and give a little toast. Since most of my talk will be in English (it has to be!), it will be short (I don't think most of the guests will understand it, but a few will...). I think I pretty much have my speech ready...
Then on the 7th I leave for Shangri-la in Yunnan province for 4-5 days. It is somewhat close to Tibet and promises clean skies and breathable air... Then back to Xián to return to Portland on the 14th.
The big question - will the Trailblazers have their roster set by then??
The Chinese were excited how well their women's soccer team was doing - but Sky says they simply were no match for the big and strong American women...
And, being a math teacher, I can't leave without saying Happy Tau Day! (Tau is the Greek symbol for 2 times Pi). 6.28!!