Annie

One of the things that I love about an international community, and especially the one we have in Beilun, is how tight the foreigners are. We're a transient community, most people staying from 2 months to about 3 years. We automatically welcome new comers, and celebrate like crazy the good times we had when it's time to say goodbye.

This week I met Annie.

The basics:
Annie and her husband are about my parent's age. She was born in Korea, met her husband in Taiwan, and currently lives in Hong Kong. Because of this, she speaks 4 languages (Koeran, Cantonese, Mandarin, and now English).

Why she's here now:
Annie's husband has been commuting to Beilun from Hong Kong for FIVE years! He spends the work week here and goes home for the weekend. He has always stayed in a hotel. This week, they're actually considering getting a more permanent residence here, so for the first time they left the hotel and started to explore Beilun. To their surprise, they found this GREAT community that's been here the whole time, and they were welcomed with open arms. They've already joined different language classes, church groups, and spend the evenings with new friends at good ol' Joes. I love this community :)

After several chats, Annie finally confided in me the reason for the move. They lost their 18 year old son during a surgery about 7 months ago. They've spent a great deal of time in mourning. He was supposed to attend to Penn State this year. This is just heartbreaking to me. When it came time to try and find a new beginning and a new life without their son, they decided Beilun might be a good idea. Annie's husband advised that they should not mention their son to their new friends, in order for it to truly be a new life. But Annie feels, and I think rightfully so, that their son was a great part of their lives, and should still hold a place in their hearts, even in this completely new community who never knew her son.

I think that is one of the most common things I hear from people who have lost a loved one. They just want to be able to talk about them without getting a major pity parade from everyone.

How she learned English:
I asked her how she learned English, and it really had a great deal to do with their son. They enrolled their son in an international school when he was in 5th grade. Then he also went to school in the State's while Annie's husband completed his masters in Phoenix.

First Annie said she had received basic English classes as a girl in Korea. But just the basics. "She is a girl." And, "That is an apple." Well of course it is! Not exactly the necessary vocabulary when sitting at business dinners with her husband and Canadian customers. But she was too nervous to speak up and make mistakes. She listened, and slowly gathered basic vocabulary and grammar.

When her son started at the international schools (in this is really why I just LOVE this community) the wives all had a club to get together, since they were all lonely and all had very basic English. She described a massive game of charades just to have basic communication, but by taking the risks and practicing the language, they all improved.


Insights on details:
From Annie's time spent in the international communities and in Phoenix, she has come to the conclusion that Americans really pay attention to the details. As a society, we are quite independent and deal with many problems. In Asia, you usually specialize in dealing with one kind of problem. Because we're used to taking care of the details, when a complicated situation arises, we are prepared to deal with it.
Example 1: Start with your grocery list. America gave birth to suburbia, and idea that you actually have to plan ahead your meals, because the store is not the corner fresh food market on every block.
Example 2: When we travel, we plan things. She was shocked to learn that some people will plan even a whole year in advance! We do research on the hotels and what attractions we might find most interesting. We really plan our trips. She said all over the Asian world you just pay money and go on a tour, no planning at all.
Example 3: Banks in Asia ... you just bring your money, and the teller does everything for you. Sometimes I'm waiting an hour and a half while the teller does all of my paperwork for international transfers. Annie was shocked when she went to the bank in the States, and she had to have all of the paperwork prepared before she even spoke to a teller.
Example 4: Because she lived in Phoenix, she was really close to the Grand Canyon. She was really impressed with the National Park Rangers, that they were educated geologists, and put on great programs for the public. Apparently museums in Asia are just starting to catch on to the audio guide, but typically don't have people who walk you through and talk you through things.
Example 5: The different approaches to education goes without saying, but Annie was really impressed by a mock AIDS summit her son participated in for high school. The idea of analyzing all the players in a problem, their perspectives, their motives, and trying bring it all together into a diplomatic solution was mind boggling. She couldn't believe the learning style that her son was being taught, and in the same breathe, she couldn't believe that learning could be so interactive or interesting.

Anyways, I love how our conversation developed. I hope you enjoyed Annie's story. I thought her insights were worth sharing. I love this place. And I love meeting people.

Home Sick

Due to a slightly emotional week ... (nothing so stressful as to wear down my immune system or anything) on Thursday I woke up with the beginnings of a head cold, sore throat and fever. Chugging airbourne, I tried to make it through the school day, but by lunch I could tell that I actually had a fever. Many of my colleagues toughed out a similar illness, but I also didn't want to get my little ones sick when I was clearly in the early stages of contageous-ness. I arranged for cover and went home to rest.

Friday morning I had every intention of working all day. Friday is my easy day, and I knew that my coworkers were also feeling run down and under the weather. However, my head of department and ELL teacher conspired against me and sent me home. My ELL teacher, Pat, took my class for the whole day, and I think she really enjoyed them, she has taught all of them before.

When Lara got home, she brought all manner of get well soon cards that Pat had had the kids make. Also, Lara said my high schoolers were very concerned for me and insisted that she bring home this yummy rice-seaweed-fish concoction, that was sure to make my tummy feel better!

Keep in mind, some of these are the same card, they just had multiple flaps for me to open!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanksgiving Sandwich!

Holidays are arriving! Not only is that apparent in the students' behavior but also the teachers scrambling to gather ingredients for all our favorite holiday dishes. We all have those favorite holiday recipes, but this is China, and not all ingredients are here.

I actually had a huge success this holiday season with preparing food and drinks. I was sooooo proud. I also made 4 crucial cooking mistakes this week, and here they are in the order that they occurred:

1. Monday morning, since I was out of yogurt, I decided to supplement it with a banana. Lara's bunch was getting really ripe and I though she could use a little help finishing them off. Of course around the holidays I need to be thinking, since she was actually preparing to make 4 loaves of banana bread ... oops. It was a good banana!

2. I asked mom for Grandma's bread recipe, since I wanted to see if I could get a hold of all the ingredients to make the bread here. The recipe says to use a mixer, so I actually emailed mom back and asked her if it is possible to make Grandma's bread without the use of a mixer, since I don't have one. Mom of course replied, "That's the way your Great Grandma Z made it." Doh!

3. When I made wassail the second time this week the wassail looked mysteriously orange and didn't taste like apple at all. Later I noticed Lara pouring orange juice into the mulled wine she was making, which I thought was strange as I had just hand squeezed 8 oranges for her to use the juice. We had no idea that we had mistakenly bought orange juice instead of apple juice. I know I'm getting better at reading Chinese, but there were pictures on the containers too! Whoops. Maybe that's why the wassail didn't taste like apple.

4. Erich asked me to help out at the cafe and make his Uncle Bob's rolls recipe. It called for eggs, and between Dana, Adolfo and I, we were trying to decide who had the best egg cracking abilities, so I just went for it. Of course, I failed miserably and just couldn't get the egg to crack. That's when I remembered Erich saying he wanted me to prepare the deviled eggs after I finished with the rolls. The egg was hard boiled. Oh dear ...


This week's holiday agenda:
- Thursday night Thanksgiving hosted by the last American family that attends our school.
- Friday holiday gathering at our place.
- Saturday's Cup of Joe Thanksgiving potluck for foreigners.
Hence, the Thanksgiving Sandwich.

For actual Thanksgiving day, the food was SOOO delicious. I have never eaten so much variety at a Thanksgiving meal in my life. I think I was just really craving something not Chinese, and something more complicated than cheese. Also, everything was actually home cooked. I made wassail and it was an absolute hit. Although some were disappointed that it wasn't alcoholic, the whole 4 L pot was gone. Yum yum yum! The taste of the holidays!

Lara and I and the Thanksgiving feast.
I am also modeling my new cell phone pouch that I knitted so I don't lose my keys anymore.

This is a candid shot of our Head of School holding the baby of one of our Mandarin teachers,
and Kates reaction at the adorable sight.

FOOOOOOODDDDDDDD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On Friday Lara and I hosted a small get together at our place to decorate for the holidays. We had a gingerbread house (our house now smells of gingerbread), sugar cookie decorating, snowflake cutting, Christmas music and movies, more autumn spice drinks and an awesome game of catch phrase. We had our American friends, some Chileans, Italians, and our token Canadian. We were surprised how much our non American friends were very confused by the party. They had never made a gingerbread house, didn't understand why it would be fun to decorate cookies, and thought it was silly that we always wait till after Thanksgiving to start playing the Christmas music. Despite the confusion, Lara and I really enjoyed getting into the winter holiday mood.

The food decorating table.

Dana and Line knitting while watching "A White Christmas"

I was hoping to eat Javier's cookie.

Catch Phrase

The girls decorating ...and the men standing on the outskirts,
not wanting to get too close to the frosting for inexplicable reasons.

Cookies :)

Last, since the Shortes family home wasn't big enough to host the entire AIAN community for Thanksgiving day, Cup of Joe hosted ANOTHER Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday for all the foreigners to come, enjoy, and share in our traditions. This is when I actually got to participate by making rolls for Erich and making deviled eggs. I did peace out for the bean casserole though, I thought I would push my luck with that one. After the preparations we had a flag football game. And then after dinner we ended the party with two games of charades ... I had to act out bread (category: things in Cup of Joe), and Monsters Inc. (category: internationally known movie titles). The last tie breaker clue was creme brulee, and I was the one who knew what they were trying to act out, but I didn't remember the name of the dish! So I whispered to Dana and she ended up winning the game for us! We also playing the hand tap game around the table, and some camp songs around the fire. The call/response song about the bear wearing tennis shoes was quite popular.

Jett was also really into the football game as you can tell. And that last video is my Saturday/Thanksgiving Day interception!! Almost the most exciting play that I made in the game. I also almost scored a long distance throw touch down, but I caught the ball literally inches short of the end zone.

Diego (Grade 3) running with the ball. Itzuki (Grade 9) blocks Kate (MS science teacher)







 

 

 

 

Jett Update

Jett is doing REALLY well in our apartment. He seems to be accepting the fact that he is mostly going to be an indoor dog, and that suits him because he HATES the rain. If it's raining when we take him out, he tries to dig his paws into the tile ... and of course he just ends up sliding along behind us.
He's learning so fast, and it's crazy what we learn from him.

He can sit .... stay, come, and lay down. He also shakes without being asked and we have successfully seen him play dead 3 times. It's so exciting!

It seems every day we learn something new about him. I think he has had a close call with a car because he is terrified of car wheels. It's really difficult to take him on walks outside of Li Ren because China doesn't really have sidewalks and even if there are sidewalks, the Chinese will drive on those too! And Jett is just petrified anytime a car comes within 5 feet.

When I have taken him on bike rides (which Lara and I use as a form of trimming his claws) he always gives me the look like, "What magic is this?!" because suddenly I'm faster than him :) But when we went outside of Li Ren, he was so scared of the cars (and I had planned for this) that I had to put him in my side saddle purple Brenthaven bag, and he was actually quite content to just hang on my hip with the wind in his ears.


Whenever I walk into the study, aka Jett's favorite place to have accidents, I always tiptoe while singing "Highway to the Danger Zone" in my head. Every time. When I shared this with Kate last week, I found out she actually envisions me doing Kronk's theme song from Emperor's New Groove. Now I have choices for music to my life!

One of my favorite parts about his personality is that he doesn't beg very often. He pretends to get close to you under the pretense of sniffing your food, but really he's going for a sneak attack kiss to the face!

And here it is ... some of you have seen this video, but it still cracks me up everytime. Our floors are very slick, which made it very difficult to teach him how to sit. Each time he sat down, he would slowly and unintentionally slide into a laying down position. At first it would really freak him out so he would try and sit up, only to slide back down again. But now he's just accepted it.

Kids say ....

That's right .. this post is all about my elves and the silly things they say. But of course, I can't write anything without writing about Jett. They say we talk about Jett more than Matt and Julie talk about their 3 week old twins!

And let me just say, nothing beats sunrise walks with Jett, or coming home and chasing him around the apartment until he's so tired, he can't only makes it halfway onto his bed before collapsing to take a nap.

The more time I spend with Jett, the more similarities I see between him and my elves. Both at the moment are loosing their *baby* teeth. I'm teaching both to sit and stay. Both will do anything for a treat. And the similarities became quite uncanny when I spotted a small puddle in my classroom. There was a brief moment when I totally overreacted, before I realized that no one peed on the floor, it was just a spilt water bottle.


In the classroom:

My elves have been writing pen pal letters. We have one elf in particular who still confuses letter sounds when writing. Instead of writing that his teachers were Ms. Lanham and Ms. Silket ... he read Ms. Lanham and Ms. Silket, but he spelled it Ms. Lame and Ms. Suck it.

Our student council shows a movie every other week, and usually there is a contest. This week was Wallace and Grommit, the the contest was coloring the cartoon. One of my elves colored Wallace's nose bright red. When another elf asked why, the first elf replied that Wallace had been drinking a lot of "bai jiu". The second elf nodded in sympathy and undersatnding. Bai jiu is a very strong alcohol that mostly people from the country drink. It's so common, even my 7 year olds understand!

In science we have moved from plants and animals, to a unit on habitats. When defining habitat, my elves asked, "Ms. Lanham, what is your habitat?" I responded that I like my habitat to be realatively cool and rainy, because then it is good for being outside and the surrounding area is always full of flowers and trees. Hearing the fact that I like a lot of plantlife around, the elves exclaimed, "Oh! Ms. Lanham loves the science!!!" Kate (middle school science teacher) would be so proud!

Of course we recently had Halloween. And with elves (meaning ELLs, meaning English Language Learners ... just in case you forgot), every moment is a teaching moment for English vocabulary and grammar.
On Halloween my elf asked me for some candy:
Elf: "I want."
Me: "How do you ask?"
Elf: "Please?"
Me: "Nope."
Elf: "May I?"
Me: "Nope. Silly, it's Trick-of-Treat!"
Elf: "Ohhhh yeah!"

The very next day:
Same elf: "I want."
Me: "How do you ask?"
Elf: "Trick-or-Treat?!"
Nope. Just ... just no.


Chicken was one of our spelling words this week, so for our morning routine when they correct sentences from the whiteboard, I thought it would be fun to write, "which came first, the chikon or the egg?" For the first 5 minutes they thought it meant "witch" like from Halloween. Once they figured out it meant WHICH ONE they had 10 more minutes of debate before asking me in exasperation, WHICH CAME FIRST?!?!?!?! Will you just tell us? Oh if they only knew how many people have debated this question for much longer ... I am growing mini philosophers in my class :)

This kiddo cracks me up. Her journal entry from last night: "How to mack a book! Frist you need blanck paper. Next you need to draw a leter's. Then you need a paperclob and you clob it, not too manny. Last you read a book with a coffie, you drink the coffe and read it. You can read with your family or read byy your slef. With TV is not ok." She's so right.

Our New Family!

So the news is out ... here's the story.

Obviously last year, I lived alone in the apartment, and it's huge, and I was, well ... lonely! This year Lara came to live with me and arrived a little over a month ago. (Then there were two). Next, Lara's friend Clara came to stay with us. She's a student taking online courses, and her dad is a pilot so she gets EXCELLENT deals when she flies standby. (There there were three).

Me, Lara, Clara

Clara ended up saving a little black pup, whom you now know is Jett, from getting hit by one of our school buses. While Clara and Lara tried to find the owner, he just chilled in their arms, so happy, so content. The students and other staff members told us that he must be a stray because he sleeps outside and only eats garbage. Only one student seemed to know who the owner used to be, but told us the owner didn't want him.

Now, being dutiful non-dog-napping citizens, we decided to let him go. But 5 minutes later Lara found him in our school cafeteria snooping for food. What could be do? We took him home, Lara got
a collar with a matching leash, made him a bed, and kept him for the night. In the morning he was quite distressed when Lara and I left for work, so Clara let him go. At school we found out from the same student that the owner REALLY didn't want the dog. At the same time when Clara was walking to school, Jett found her and bolted out of the bushes. Clara also ran into the owners who showed her baby pics of Jett, said he had his shots and everything, but that he didn't want the dog and was excited that we wanted to keep him.

So ............. MEET JETT!!!!!!!!!!!!

He's perfect, adorable, and smart. He sits for Clara, He already takes morning and evening walks
with me without needing a leash. He listens when I say no. And usually he just lays in front of
kitchen door and watches us cook. He's PERFECT! Better yet, we have slippery floors, so he can't
sit. He tries, but his hind quarters always slide out from under him. Too funny!!!

Also ... for those of you who know these dogs, he looks just like Hadley, the Michel's dog, and he's just as cuddly. But when you take him outside, he's just like Jiggy. So smart, stays right by your side, energetic, and just happy to be with you!

We will have to say goodbye to Auntie Clara soon, but Auntie Kate is stepping up and going to help
us watch him and care for him.
Awkward family photos!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TIC

Here's some typical China experiences that have happened in the last couple of weeks...

First, our window got actually HIT by fireworks. There's fireworks all the time, but we've never found them in our laundry room before.

Sharing of food seems to be very popular here. The ayi always has something on hand to give me. It's usually something small ... anytime you're eating something. This season is the small oranges. So many people walk around with a bag of 20 oranges, just in case they run into someone so they always have one to give. My volleyball kids always give me some piece of their snack. I don't want to take their food, but the Chinese ALWAYS accept it ... I think even the polite "no thank you" is actually impolite.

I think I've mentioned how a lot of the students seem to grow up with mom doing everything for them. I didn't realize how apparent this was until I took my middle schoolers and high schoolers on the volleyball field trip. One student always has her hair in pig tails, but they got messed up on the bus. I let her know that she should fix it, but she didn't know how. Her mom does her hair every morning. Then later at McDonald's, she couldn't make an order ... her mom always does it and she didn't want to make a decision. Oh my.

Also, one thing I've noticed with frequenting the evening scene ... the people here, are light weights. And it makes sense, they're so tiny. But the girls and I have caused some issues with overly aggressive men at the bars. The singers in the band joke that I need to wrap my hair up in a scarf when I go out. One night, our waiter, who has gotten used to keeping an eye on us, asked if he needed to call the police. The security guard was standing right next to him. I had to ask .... what do you guys pay him for? Apparently the "security" guard is not able to provide any actual security.

Happy Halloween!

I don't know about you, but our celebratations lasted about a week ... not something you want when you're taking care of the younger grades.

First the PTA did their traditional decorations. This year the students actually came up with some of our tomb stone ideas.

"Died from fatal volleyball spike to her neck!" Ever since, I've been trying to
figure out which one of my volleybal players offed me!

Jack uses his 5 apple computesr daily.

Lara almost cried from laughter for how true this is.

Since we can't make purchases on taobao (Chinese ebay),
 Elaine helps all the foreign teachers with online shopping :)

I think maybe mom can relate to Shelley.

Line, our knitting club leader!

*Gasp* My elves would never kill Alice!!! ... I hope ...

TJ is our go to guy. He takes care of EVERYTHING at school.

Abby, the new kindergarten TA. I feel her pain.

Kate, Middlen School Science teacher.

Masks that the kids painted on Fun Day in prep for Halloween.

Beautiful decorations done by the PTA in a matter of hours.

Beautiful decorations done by the PTA in a matter of hours.

Beautiful decorations done by the PTA in a matter of hours.

Then, on Saturday after I got home from 15 hours in HangZhou with volleyball, one of our Chilean families hosted a massive party for the entire AIAN community. Lara and Clara laid out a gypsy outfit for me for when I got home. It included the belly dancing skirt that my Grandma Margaret gave me as my initial going away gift for China :)

Dana the Corpse Bride, and Kate the Dia de los Muertos Skeleton

Lara and Clara. No explanation necessary :)

Kate the Dia de los Muertos skeleton.
And myself as a gypsy, the extra jewelry and snazzy pants complete the outfit a little better..

Then, we had ACTUAL Halloween at school....

I think I'm telling them that we have to pause in a minute.
Every class in the parade had to pause and show off their costumes. And of course shout Happy Halloween!

Grade 2 :)

And ACTUAL Halloween at home. For this, Lara, Clara, Kate and I dressed as characters for the Wizard of Oz. I was going to be Dorothy, especially since Brown Sugar would be perfect as Toto. But wearing the red heels was not for me, especially since I'm already a giant here. So here is the gang: Kate as the tin woman, Lara as Dorothy, Me as the lion, and Clara as the scarecrow!

 

 

Also, Brown Sugar *ahem* I mean Toto, may have had an interesting night ... I'll think he'll be staying in after this.