The Vienna Boys Choir...

Last Thursday, I had was afforded the opportunity to see the Vienna Boys Choir with some of my friends. When I first heard about this event, I was very cynical. After several conversations, I became more comfortable with the idea of the Boys Choir singing at 3 Gorges University. I cleared my schedule and got pumped up for the concert. I mean, I downloaded songs and wikipedia'd info on the Boys Choir. I was going to be prepared for this celebration of the arts...then I got the call. My friend called me after several more rounds of translation errors to announce that it was a ballet from Vienna. Well, all that preparation would have went to waste had I actually done that. I am glad I just went back to my apartment before the Ballet to eat and watch Desperate Housewives.

The 8:00 pm ballet started promptly at 8:36 pm after a few rounds of my friends' own attempts to put on a ballet. (Pictures below.) And what a ballet it was. My student and first good Chinese friend, Sun Zhi, attended this ballet with me and some of my foreign friends. It was not a quality ballet but it was neat getting to experience some culture and sharing western culture with my Chinese friend. There were some good parts but overall it was terrible. However, I did love when the Austrian man and woman tried to speak Chinese. I laughed so hard. That is all I can say. I can't describe it. They kept saying in Chinese: "I love China. I love the Yangtze River. I love Yichang." It just made me laugh. Check out some pictures. These are all from Beth's camera. Check out what she caught with her mad skills.

Progress...

and other stories.

It has been a few weeks since I last blogged. For those of you still reading, I appreciate your dedication. I don't know what I would do if I lost 50% of my fan base. I know grandma reads every now and then but you mom, you cannot quit reading even if you have to read the same articles over and over again. Ha ha. Just kidding. I would give up on me too. I suppose if my brother starts reading he might double my present fan base and learn what good writing looks like. Seriously, send me your papers in the future. I will see what I can do.

Last week was the first full week of school. It was a pretty good easy week. I did intro stuff and finished unit 1 of the textbooks in my Oral English classes. English majors are so nice. I just have to stay on my toes if I am going to keep them motivated to listen to me. They will only respect me as long as I keep them intrigued by me and the English language. If not, they will realize their English is good enough that what I am doing isn't really academic so much as nit picky. "No! You pronounce S-M-I-T-H and smm...iii..th. Mr. Smiss is incorrect. Oh, and company is pronounced with the emphasis on the first syllable." Does it really matter which syllable is emphasized? I suppose it does to most people but as long as I can understand you, I think you are doing a good job communicating. But this opinion is coming from 1 of 2 people who apparently have communication issues. I think my Dad is wrong. Right, Mom? I suppose he can make it up to us by paying for my master's degree.

English Corner began last week. If you have read Beth's blog you will already know this; if you haven't, then I have the pleasure of telling you that I danced last week with Beth. You see, Beth came over to make me sing to my students even though they wanted her to sing. I said no so the students threw out an alternative - "Dance!" They cheered as Beth was trying to make her getaway. Well, I thought this would be a perfect opportunity to give her a taste of her own medicine. (Really, Beth. I am not bitter. I loved it.) I said, "Alright, let's dance. Come here Beth!" So we danced. The one thing I forgot in my rash decision was that dancing requires music. In the end I had to sing. However, singing a Waltz is pretty cool when you make it up as you go. It was refreshing to perform once again...but if you are a Chinese student clever enough to see a blog blocked in China, then know this: I hate performing.

The pictures below are things in my continuing slow decoration and presentation of my apartment: new bed spread and a refrigerator full of veggies. My dream. Really.

New Beginnings...

and some waiting.

A week ago today, I finally arrived back in Yichang with my friends. As I stood at the bus station packing the van which would transport us to the university, I enjoyed the light sprinkle of rain on my face, the scent of construction in the air, and the fear of eating pork tainted by some disease. Oh, it felt good to be back in China.

We arrived on campus in the middle of a rain shower so moving our things into our new apartments posed some problems but eventually the rain abated. Plus, several of our student friends join us in the moving process. Their alacrity was overwhelming. I probably could have just sat on the couch and watched the shifting of houses and the students would not have cared one bit.

I moved most of my stuff into my apartment on Saturday morning with the help of some students. Then I just laid around figuring out why I had brought so much stuff to China that I don't even use. I mean, what I am going to do with 20 piano books? Anyway, I am settled in now. I just have some decorating to do. I can't wait!

This week, I had 1 class. It was nice having the free time to catch up on sleep and the students' lives. It was also good for class planning. However, I wasn't so successful at that. It is now Friday, and I barely have any classes planned. Why can't I be like Beth and get my whole semester planned? Why?

Well, that is the overview of this last week. Future posts should be more interesting. I am really just using this post to figure out my blog once again. Sometimes it is in German and sometimes in Chinese. Proxy servers. Why can't I choose which countries they go through? Oh well, at least I have access to contraband websites and such. (And by contraband, I only mean sites blocked by the Chinese government like my blog. I like being considered an insurgent.) Below are pics of my apartment as of now. Hopefully, it will be more colorful soon. Ciao!

Dragon Boat What???

So for months now, I have heard about a wonderful Dragon Boat Festival that happens each year in a town about an hour north of Yichang. It wasn't until last week that I finally got to experience what all the stories were about. You see, last term, I heard a strong beating drum coming from the Soccer Stadium all the time. In my curiosity, I would go over to see the origin of this noise. Everytime I went to look, I saw 2 rows of strong men paddling with oars in the air. No water. Just men sitting in a boat-like shape swinging those oars to the beat of the drum. I asked my students and they told me about the Dragon Boat Festival. As I mentioned previously, I got to see these men perform last weekend. It wasn't so much of a festival as a gathering of Yichang people who wanted to watch 22 men in a boat plus the navigator and the drummer paddle down the river in what turned out to be an international competition. Team group after team group raced each other. Preliminaries were fun for maybe 30 mins so the gang and I decided to explore the area on our own. Most of us ended up down near the foreign teams because we had students who were translators. It was really neat to see my students or friends making good use of the English.

We got some fun pictures but the ones below were the only ones I wanted to show off. You will see the starting line. Pretty cool. I would like to see my dad and brother paddle that fast. Beth and I were asked to be on Yichang TV, however, we aren't sure that we made it past the editing room. All we had to say was "Yichang Wonderful!" We sounded very articulate as you can imagine. Then there is the group minus Amy. She was relaxing having her own Children-peeing-beside-her Adventure. But my personal favorite is the last one. We are standing in line. Why? The Pizza Hut lady pointed at a sign that said "please line-up". Hey, ok. We were the only ones standing there and how did she know we wanted to go to Pizza Hut? (That was a terribly bad sentence grammatically. So is this one. Maybe...) Anyway, we did what she asked. Then she went inside and laughed. Hmm...what is it about foreignors that makes Chinese people laugh? Enjoy.

Coach, I'm gonna stay on the sidelines...

So, several weeks ago (actually, it feels like months) one of the teachers in the Foreign Language College invited Brad and me to play on the department's basketball team. I just kind of laughed at the whole situation and never confirmed or rejected the invitation. Then last week, I got a call from the same teacher telling me that the basketball games were coming up. I, trying to be polite, told him that I am very busy and wouldn't have time to play. I did this for 2 reasons. 1) I can't play basketball 2) I didn't want to say no directly. Apparently, my indirectness was not good enough. He told me to meet him at the basketball court that day for practice. I then told him I had class that day and on the other days we were playing. (I was trying desperately to get out of it.) I did end up skipping that day after getting off the phone with him, after telling him I wasn't going to make it that day, and after he still thought I was coming. No amount of communication apparently was going to convince him otherwise.

To continue my long rambling, I didn't want to play basketball with them until I found out they were going to give me b-ball shoes and team clothes. Ah, sportswear, there is nothing more attractive than that. Well, maybe skipping the b-ball game to sleep or eat chocolate. Hmm....chocolate. I skipped the first game and attended the following 2. That was fun. I wanted to play more than I did but the team wasn't (and still isn't) accustomed to having substitutes. There were 5 Chinese who were on the team who have yet to play. I, at least, have Brad who just runs off the court and tells me to go in for him. (Maybe not quite like that, but I still get to go in.) So I have played 5 mins in one game and 10 in another. I play until they call a time-out to encourage Brad to come back in. I have heard he is the MVP. I don't know why I am not. I stand on the sidelines talking with all the fans. I mean, they didn't come to watch the b-ball game, did they?

So the championship was supposed to be today but it rained. Imagine my disappointment. But hey, I did something fun. I have new clothes. And most importantly, I have pics. There is one of Brad doing his super all-star thing and the rest are of me doing my thing...talking on the cell-phone, posing for the camera, and being confused. Yes, I went out there and had no clue which way my team was going. Oh, and by a weird twist of fate, my jersey is #12 - my old soccer number. Brad's is #17 his old number. I think the Chinese people did research. Maybe I should be a little bit more concerned.

The Cookout...

A couple of weeks ago we got the chance to grill-out. Beth returned from her secret excursion to Wuhan with a beautiful grill that now resides on the balcony of mine and Brad's apartment. Brad put this thing together and it was beautiful. On our previous trip to Wuhan, we purchased charcoal. We thought we had everything in order but someone realized we didn't have lighter fluid. Ok. We will pick some up. Nope. None here. (Though, we might be able to use Zippo lighter fluid. Who knows?) The bag of charcoal was opened only to reveal what is strangely reminiscent of pieces of coal straight from the earth. Yeah, nothing close to the charcoal briquettes we are used to in America. I am sure they use the same stuff in steam engine locomotives.

After doing some research on the internet about starting grills without lighter fluid, we decided we should come up with a better solution than a chimney starter. (It was too complicated.) Many ideas were passed around...paper? Nope. (Doesn't burn long enough.) Gasoline? Nope. (Too dangerous.) Who-dey? Nope. (We would rather have him in a soup.) What about Bai Jiu? Come on, it's alcohol...albeit terrible alcohol. What better use of this stuff? (Strong start but didn't finish strong.) So, how should we light these coals? Peach grabs a coal and brings it into our kitchen and proceeds to light it over our stove top burner. Not a bad idea actually. The coal is lit after several minutes of loudly vocalized fear from the foreignors. Hooray! Now let's go light the other coals. Didn't work. So we ended up boiling the hot dogs for dinner. (I prefer them that way anyhow.) Not a bad dinner and it was accompanied by a fabulous lightning show. Dinner was saved but we didn't grill because the coals wouldn't light. 4 hours after our attempt, the one coal that had actually started eventually started the other coals and burned them into ash. Well, half a bad of coal gone. We know now to start the grills 6 hours before cook time. Oh China...live and learn.

First Swim 2007...

Well, winter came, settled in, and ravaged Yichang for months. Our winter vacation to Southeast Asia was a nice break from the chilly Yichang weather. (Beth went to Harbin. I guess she wanted to play with the Russians and the ice sculptures.) Spring came and went in maybe 2 days. Now summer is here. Everyday, the heat increases greatly. Right now, I am camped out in my room loving my A/C.

A couple of weeks ago, we decided to go to Xia Lao Xi. It is a neat little place to swim. The swimming area is man-made. They blocked the river with concrete walls and now the water blows through nice and gently. It is clean, cool, and refreshing. It isn't very deep either so it is a great place to relax and wade around. We taught 2 of our friends to swim. I tried but failed. Beth did a better job at it. Before the end of the day, both Peach and Seheno were swimming around like pro's. Well, maybe not pro's, but they weren't drowning. (Good thing too! I don't know CPR and who knows how long it would be for emergency services to come to the rescue.) It was nice and serence for a while...then a 20 Indians showed up. No problem that they showed up; however, they just like to strip down to their underwear and take a swim. No shame. No shame. I suppose we will go swimming there often over the next month and a half. Oh, summer heat - glad you got rid of the winter cold but couldn't you back down just a little?