N: ≥70,000 words

K is simply doing an amazing job at writing for this blog.  I mean, yes we share it ,but as you can see with all the “K: this and that” or “K: the other thing, ” the ratio of my writing to her writing is in favor of her.  Many have heard the proverb  pertaining to a picture is worth a thousand words.  There is (a perhaps) phony Chinese proverb that says that a picture is worth 10 thousand words.  I truly don’t believe either one.  Every time I add pictures to my grad papers, the prof never gives me credit in the word count.

The banner has changed (thanks again to CreatureBug) to a more festive appearing banner.  The picture was taken in China for K’s birthday the first year we were here.  Don’t we look WAY young in the picture?  Transliterated has been added to our China Ddots.  The friend behind the writing lives in what he calls “the Cleveland of China” and we think he has some good stuff to say.  I also included some pictures  below with captions that may or may not be next to the picture.  They are close though.  Click on them to see the larger image.

Waiting for something at my cousins wedding this past summer.

Family Frame.  We finally got some pictures up of family.  We got them in a large frame in our livingroom right before we had the thanksgiving party.

I volunteered to cook one of the turkeys.  I felt that it would cook much better, which it did, if I cut it in half.  Luckily, I had my “knife for cutting bones.”
The most creative box sender award goes to Claire.
For our weekly team “men’s night” we went bowling.
Talking and teaching.
A message board on campus.  We mostly just look at it and say stuff like “look at all the pretty colors” and “oh! oh! oh! I know I what this sentence means!”

K: 'Tis the Season

'Tis the season for quiet foggy frosty mornings.

'Tis the season for receiving packages. N got a phone call this morning from a man at the China Post and between broken English and even more broken Chinese, N figured out that he needed to make a trip into the Old City to retrieve a package? two packages? On arrival, he discovered that he had to juggle no less than five packages. Thanks to our moms; our SIL, Kelly; and A. We're feeling the love today!

"Tis the season for opening the home. The Saturday after Thanksgiving in lieu of our weekly foreign fellowship meeting, we opened our home and the vacant apartment across the hall from us (which in years past has also been occupied by a foreign teacher and to which we keep the keys) for about fifty folks to come and celebrate Thanksgiving with a sumptuous potluck spread including two turkeys brought in from Beijing and all the trimmings. My favorite moment was walking into the dining room to see N huffing and puffing and then stomping on a Tupperware lid being consumed by acrid flames. It seems the decorative candle on the food table got crowded and set fire to the plains. We lost a paper Indian and his Pilgrim friend as well as the tupperware lid before N got the situation under control. The afternoon also appropriately involved a rowdy game of touch football. The highlight being trying to explain "they used their blitz" to a Romanian who thought he was going to throw long when he went down before he knew what hit him.

'Tis the season for opening the home again. This past weekend on Saturday night, all the foreign teachers and one of the foreign students opened six homes between us and invited an innumerable amount of students to make the rounds eating different foods, making different holiday crafts, and generally being oh so merry. My favorite moment of the evening happened in the dining room while I was manning the craft in the living room. A guy N places soccer with leaned in and nodding towards the girl with him whispered, “She thinks you are very robust. She wants to hug.” After some banter N discovered he was serious when he glanced at the girl and she nodded. As he moved in for the side shoulder pat, she grinned from ear to ear, threw her arms wide, and pinned his arms to his side in a giant bear hug. Comedy. We ended the evening as a choir gathered around a brilliant Christmas tree in an empty building on campus singing Christmas songs. The short video here is the Chinese version of Silent Night (the second time is in English). Thanks to the team from Wichita, Kansas who came for the week and brought all of the crafts and the spirit of the season along to make this annual party such a glowing success.

'Tis the season of Hope, Peace, Love, and Joy. Hope yours is full of such things too.

K: Thanksgiving off?

We didn't intend to take Thursday off as it's not a holiday in China. We could have; our contract allows us to cancel classes (without having to reschedule) for Thanksgiving and Christmas. But if we cancel our classes for one day during a week, then one section is ahead of another, and that messes with the syllabus which messes with the material which messes with the exam which is the making of a migraine. So the other option is to reschedule the class which means trying to climb over that language barrier and synchronize personal as well as class schedules with the class monitor. It turns out to be more restful to stay the course and begin those classes with a cheerful, "Happy Thanksgiving, class!" The choral response of "Happy Thanksgiving, Teacher!" is almost worth it.

I thought you said you didn't intend to take the day off. We didn't; we planned to teach those 8:00am classes this morning, and go out for Beijing Duck for dinner tonight as has become our Chinese Thanksgiving day tradition. But nick went to bed queezy and woke up sick, and I wasn't actually feeling fabulous either, so I put on a pair of jeans instead of the usual fair (clue #1 that all is not as it should be) and took a sticky note to class instead of the lesson plan I had prepared (clue #2). My class caught on very quickly and got to work on the assignment I set them. I went to Nick's class to give them their day's assignment:

Call: "Good morning. Is this Nick's class?"

Choral Response: "Yes!"

Call: "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Response: "Happy Thanksgiving!"

Call: "My name is..."

Response: "Kim!"

Call: "I am Nick's..."

Response: "Wife!"

Commentary: Encounters like this make me believe that there are times the fish knows he lives in a glass bowl.

Call: "Nick is ill this morning."

Response: "Ahhhh," followed by a cacophony of get well wishes.

Call: "Please open your books and work through the material on pages 48-51 and 58-59. Nick said you would know what to do."

Response: Pages whisper. "Yes, teacher."

Some foreign teachers are annoyed by the "group think" phenomenon we inevitably encounter in the Chinese classroom, and agreed, it can be annoying when trying to initiate a riveting discussion on something or other and get the same answer in thirty different voices (if in any voice at all). But there are times that it is endearing, especially when their eyes and smiles prove the sentiment is genuine. We hope he gets well soon. Happy Thanksgiving, teacher.

And Happy Thanksgiving to you too. Enjoy your (scheduled) day off in good health.

K: Culture

1.) A noun meaning intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it. 2.) A noun meaning the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another. 3.) A verb meaning to grow (microorganisms or other living matter) in a specially prepared nutrient medium.

Since I can’t read the labels on the bags of “potting soil” that I buy for my plants, I’m sure there is some of the third definition going on somewhere in our apartment.

I realized yesterday that I forget that there are other definitions than the anthropological one (#2) for the word. Observing, misunderstanding, and adopting ways of living from a culture that could not be more foreign leaves little elbow room inside the word for other interpretations.

I forget that in my past life when the most foreign place I had spent a significant amount of time was Britain, when I studied literature at university, and lived in Denver where theatre/concert tickets were easy and affordable enough to come by (our favorite is still 2Pianos 4Hands), if someone had used the word culture I would have thought instantly of the first definition and tossed in a quote from some poet to solidify the argument.

Now, culture is a word so vast I will never plumb the depths of it and so dense my understanding will never light the whole cavern at once. Culture simultaneously excites and exhausts.

But there are moments when culture and culture collide, when the works produced by intellectual and artistic activity transcend the dimensions of one culture into the realm of humanity and up there without the interference of misplaced manners or a lamentable vocabulary, one can just employ the senses to enjoy well managed talent.

We had just such a restful evening yesterday. Beifang Minzu Daxue (our college) is fortunate enough to employ a couple from Russia/Kazakhstan, who are concert musicians, as teachers in the music department. Last night Olga accompanied three of her students in a concert for which they must have spent endless hours preparing. A couple of clarinets and a saxophone as well as the grand piano presented a sumptuous selection of celebrated classical pieces.

The evening reminded me that even in the grueling (but satisfying) work that is intercultural living there is culture to be had and enjoyed.

"For without culture or holiness, which are always the gift of a very few, a man may renounce wealth or any other external thing, but he cannot renounce hatred, envy, jealousy, revenge. Culture is the sanctity of the intellect." [William Butler Yeats]

N: Good for Me, Good for Everybody

My schedule has recently become less labor intensive. Our organization does an excellent job at keeping our teaching hours at a reasonable number, not so much that we go crazy and not have time for students, and not so little that we go crazy and not look like teachers. In order to help our school, I agreed to tweak our schedule so that I could complete an entire semester of teaching in nine weeks. You see, the seniors begin internships in week 10 or 11 but they still need credit for a complete semester of class. So we doubled my load for 9 weeks. I’m grading their final exams now. 

In about week 5 I decided to start a list of things that I wanted to do when I had completed teaching the seniors.  Some of the things on the list are sleeping past 6, watching a couple episodes of Alias (okay fine, the entire series), listening to music, reading something other than resources for lesson planning, hanging out with teammates big and small, and cooking (there is a whole other list for that).

Life will indeed be different now. Good different or bad different depending on who you talk to and when. No longer will I have an excuse for why I don’t pick up my dirty clothes and immediately put them in the hamper. Good for K. Bad for me. I was K’s alarm clock and now that I’m sleeping, her routines are out of whack. Good for me. Bad for K. I’ll be cooking again. Good for both of us. 

K: Stereotypical

We had our third (weekly) Ping Pong Club meeting today. Yup, that's right. Ping Pong Club rocks! About four weeks ago, one of N's senior students approached him and asked if N and I would be interested in joining a Ping Pong Club meeting every Saturday from 3-5 at the school gym. Doing something active on a day off? Regular time with students? Where do we sign up? I must say though that I did hestitate for just a moment. I mean, while I know the rules to ping pong and I've won a game or two in my life, I do live in China. Isn't it required to be good at ping pong to be Chinese? Whatever. Activity? Time with students? I'm there.

Like I said, Ping Pong Club rocks. There are eight of us. Four Chinese. Four Americans. Four Guys. Four Gals. We play rounds, doubles, and single tournaments and as our program says, the objectives are to get to be friends, have some fun, and be prepared for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We're meeting at least two of those objectives and I can edit the third one to be gaining an appreciation for the ping pong players who actually will compete in the '08 Olympics.

I realized after the first week that I'm supposed to be the massive underdog because I'm a.) American and b.) female. Let it be known that they underestimated me. A moment to toot my own horn - I have learned to play holding my paddle upside down (Chinese style) and I find that I have much more control over the ball. I'm even getting a little tricky and can play an evenly matched game with my hubby... who's good by the way. He still usually wins, but I make him work for it and I beat him from time to time. I think realizing that I was pegged for the underdog made me a stereotypical American. "I'll show you underdog!" It fuels rather than discourages.

All of that to say, today was a stereotypical Saturday here in Yinchuan. We went to fellowship this morning, ate autumn colored food at the themed potluck after fellowship (we took shepherd's pie), and met the Ping Pong Club. We like Saturdays. 

K: Smart and Funny?

On our very well balanced team last year, we had a running joke. (Actually, we had many, but it's only one I'm focusing on right now or I'll just sit here at my computer and laugh for the next hour instead of writing which is what I'm supposed to be doing.) At the beginning of the 2006 academic year as we were working through our team building materials, I had to answer a question: What do you wish more people knew about you? I said that I wished more people knew that I can be funny. The other two members on the team, who are funny, looked at me and smiled pityingly... apparently, a person cannot be smart and funny and I'm already pegged. I said that I didn't think that was fair because I consider both A and N incredibly intelligent as well as funny, and they explained that one characteristic must outweigh the other and it is the heavier characteristic by which people are known. In the end, because my wish involved the opinions of others and I had two others with unalterable opinions, I begrudgingly acknowledged my intelligence and they conceded that I have funny moments.

It's probably because of this alleged gap between intelligence and humor that I admire so much people who can simultaneously write intelligently and humorously about China. It's a delicate matter to write about China at all from the outside in - being in and among the culture but undeniably and irrevocably separated from it by the state of being foreign. Delicate because it's undesirable to trivialize or misrepresent the issues and experiences that happen here, especially to an audience of other foreigners whose input about this place already comes from the skewed or at least incomplete viewpoint of other outsiders in forms of media, movies, impressions of Chinese abroad, etc. Ironically then, it takes a certain amount of courage to write because it takes a willingness to be wrong, inappropriate, and/or misleading. That's not to blast the information we have, it's just to say that I am reluctant to contribute to a misrepresentation of this intriguing and complex country, and that seems almost unavoidable if anything is going to be written at all. At the same time it is compelling to write because there's just so much fodder. So, while I try to develop the courage and delicacy to write about what I see, hear, experience and perceive, I'll refer you to a couple of articles I read this morning that meet my criteria for admirable writing about China because it's intelligent and humorous. The first from That's Shanghai is an accurate parallel between playing golf and being a foreigner in China, China Handicap. The second is an observation of the effect the approaching 2008 Olympic Games are having on the foreign population especially in Beijing, Mean Streets. If you have time and interest to follow these links, I guarantee you will be entertained, and you'll probably learn something too because like I said, they're smart and funny.

K: Liberation Week and a Note on the Knives

This past week was a holiday week. Imagine the equivalent of a cross between the Fourth of July (minus the fireworks, plus crowds) and Thanksgiving (minus the turkey, plus crowds). October Holiday is a celebration of the Liberation by the Communists in 1949 to form the new People's Republic of China, and it's the only weeklong holiday in the fall semester. While we don't necessarily celebrate the liberation by the Communists, we certainly celebrate the liberation of students and teachers from classes for a week. In the past, we spent the holiday making trips to the desert (see the banner picture) and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, but this time we stayed at home and spent time with friends, N got and is recovering from a cold, and we worked at that very comfortable work/rest holiday pace. The weather has been gloomy so we've spent most of the days inside or poking around the city, but one day we did make a trip out to the mountains northwest of the city for some hiking.    

I realized after posting pictures of the apartment last time that I really need to comment on the knives. Most of you may know that N is the cook in the family, not because I can't or won't cook... coming from a heritage of Lancaster County, PA goodness and growing up with southern comfort cooking, I've picked up a thing or two... but as long as I've known him, N has loved cooking (and kitchen gadgets) so I've taken that as a gift and gotten out of the way. That said, our last apartment came equipped with a block of knives, so we just had them sharpened and called it good. This apartment didn't have any such convenience so having the opportunity to choose our own block sent us hunting for that perfect set. We knew we had found them by the brand name: Good Husband. The set included a "knife for cutting bones", a "more used chef knife", a couple of smaller knives, a pair of kitchen shears, a sharpener and a "watermelon knife". I don't know about needing a knife especially for cutting watermelons, but having a block of knives that affirms my good husband's presence in the kitchen might be as good as it gets.

K: There and Back Again

I've never really calculated how much time it takes to travel between the US and China because I always lose track somewhere between the multiple layovers and the international dateline. What the flight attendant says it is when we land is what time I accept that it is, so I'm always gambling my next connection that she knows what she's talking about.

I've been back in China for two weeks today after making a very quick trip home to bury my Grandmother. There are many good things that came out of that trip for me - like  spending precious time with family that I hadn't seen in two years and getting a few more days with my parents.... and I finally figured out how long it takes to make that trip. It works out a bit like a logic problem. If K leaves her home in China on Tuesday morning, travels to America and spends four days there, and then returns to her home in China on Monday night, how many days did she spend on airplanes? If I could turn the answer upside down at the bottom of this post, I would, but since I'm not that savvy, the answer is three... it takes three days to go from here to America and back.

Since I've been back, I've begun teaching. Two weeks in I can confidently say that teaching this term is a blast. I'm teaching a course in the Good Book as it relates to Western Literature for sophomores... at the university's request. My favorite things in one place: The Book, literature, and teaching. The students are into it too, or at least they're good fakers. The first week I sold 62 Textbooks to Chinese college students. I'm still marveling. My other class, for teachers who are preparing to take the British entrance exam for foreign graduate students, begins this week. That one will rock because it will be a small class of mature, motivated students who need a lot of practice speaking... and though not universally loved, I think pronunciation drills are really fun.

My other project since I've been back has been making our new apartment home. It's really coming along and though it's not finished yet (I've still got to get some pictures framed and hung, and organize the office, and I think I want new curtains... to name a few), we did have our first group of folks over for chili on Saturday night, and if the house is ready enough for them, then I guess it can be ready enough for pictures. 

N: bachelor, baccalārius, 單身男子, εργένης

K has been gone a week.  She gets back tonight.  She spent a quick week in Pennsylvania attending the funeral of her grandma and visiting with her family that lives in the area.  I know she enjoyed it but funerals can be tough.  Her grandmother lived to be 99.

So the past week has been a journey back to the time of being a bachelor.  Not really though.  I never lived alone when I was a bachelor.  I mean Levi and Tahoe were around.  Scott was there.  Peter too.  And Deulen.  Oh Deulen.  Remember when you jumped off the third floor….into a large pile of snow…wearing….oh nevermind.  It was awesome though.  I know because there are pictures.  *chuckle.  Let’s also not forget the hair sandwich, snow pants, Crazy Jet Fighters and NBM.

So this week has not been filled with people jumping off of balconies in states of undress. Much time has been spent planning lessons for my senior oral English majors and putting a syllabus together.  For nine weeks I get 5 sections of seniors for 4 hours a week.  Seniors are pretty awesome.  Some are already packing their bags to try to find jobs and I can tell they have ants in their pants.  There is such a difference between our current school and the school we were at last year.  We loved our school last year, but opportunities to be involved with students are exponentially higher here.

Before K left we went as a team to a new park in our city.  I think the park was called Forest Park.  Apparently they have planted 70,000 trees as they developed the area.   I liked the water spraying to music thing in one of the small lakes they have.  I’ll give you both pictures that I took on the train of the team.  Neither is too good, but if you mentally piece them together, you’ll see that our team is 8 adults and 4 kids.  Age 3 to…. older than 3.

N:Old News is Good News

Written a week ago, I couldn’t simply delete this.  Nothing really new to everyone, but it does give me an excuse to post some pictures of the NW.
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We traveled to Seattle and the Portland area for our last couple days in the U.S.   Visiting with friends was good and being able to hangout in the NW was awesome.   We left from Portland after having spent a couple days at A’s parents house (A was there too).  The team formerly known as Club Med spent time motorcycling around the family farm, picking blackberries, eating, and running a few errands.
      We were in Beijing for 4 days meeting up with other teachers, training, and new team stuff.  Kim and I also managed to squeeze in a visit to the second largest Ikea in the world to buy some chairs. Priced nicely we bought two and had them immediately shipped to Yinchuan.  For a cultural outing we went to an artsy area of Beijing.  Some have described the area as something similar to New York’s SoHo.  Being the highly selective artsy guy I am, I thought the best thing was the Mao Zedong rice sculpture.

We arrived to Yinchuan on Tuesday.

Most of our time so far has been setting up our apartment.  The school painted the apartments over the summer and, after they sanded off the rough look of the paint, left a fine layer of dust to clean up.  I don’t know how many times I’ve swept and mopped, but I continue to plague the floor with imprints of my sandals in the dust.  I think I’m making some progress though.
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Checking In

We're here! (Here is Yinchuan, Ningxia, China.) We're getting settled into our new apartment because we've moved across town to another university. We plan to post before and after pictures of the apt once there are after picts to be had.

N will start teaching on Tuesday of this week. K doesn't start until September 12th because she will be teaching Sophomores and they're in their obligatory army training now which will be rewarded with a week's rest before classes start. Don't pity her. She won't be bored.

We had a wonderful time in the States this summer. Thanks to all of those who hosted us/spent time with us. We really value that time. For those we didn't get to see, we wish we had had enough time to make all the rounds because we genuinely missed you.

We learned this morning that K's Grandma Weaver went to be with the Father on Friday around noon in PA. We are simultaneously relieved for her because she longed to go home and grieved because she was a gift to our family. The funeral is scheduled for Friday, September 7th.

We don't actually have access to the internet yet. We're borrowing from some gracious teammates. Hopefully, we'll be up and running soon and then we'll have more to say and more opportunity to say it, so for you who have been faithfully checking and finding only Texas BBQ for nearly a month, stick with us and we'll try to make it worth your trips to ddottodd.

K: You Know You're in Texas When...

...you eat barbeque for three days in a row, and like it. We've been in Texas now for about a week, and a very full week it has been. My brother got married on Friday night and as N and I were the Best Man and Woman and this being a good southern wedding, we had events just about every day of the week. We had a blast and were so honored to stand with Neil and Kelly. Congrats again, you two.

N's brother turned 30 on Thursday and his wife and N have been scheming up a surprise party since before we left China so on Saturday after we saw Neil and Kelly off on their honeymoon, we drove down to San Antonio for an afternoon indoor soccer game and barbeque for dinner.

It's good to be in Texas.