Dinner Ettiquette

Several students come to visit us on Sunday nights since we arrived late August. We thought we'd do something special for them for Christmas. We decided to have them come to a spaghetti dinner with Elwin and me as servers.

First, Elwin showed them a PowerPoint show on table manners while Shirley finished up cooking. We then invited each of them to the dining room for the dinner. The dining room is a 9' X 12' room with a table and 4 chairs. We brought in an additional three chairs to accommodate all of them. They all sat crowded around the table, and we busied ourselves explaining how to eat spaghetti and the other items. We also politely pointed out etiquette "errors" for them to correct.

Oddly, none of these students are "ours", or, rather, none of them are students we have in classes that we teach. Four of the students were associated with the Leavitts who were in this apartment prior to us. One of the new students came with one of the original four that night. Another two we picked up are younger students; one is a young man who went to pick us up the night we arrived in Jinan, and the other is preparing to go to Australia and is the son of a lady doctor who has been helpful to us on occasion.

We all had a good time enjoying serving and being served. Of course, the Chinese students were kind of uncomfortable for a while as they kept on saying to us: you sit down and we'll serve you.

Jinan puts on the Ritz!

We were invited to a "Christmas and New Year Gala" for the foreigner investors and teachers on Saturday, Dec. 20 at the Pearl Spring Hotel. The event was hosted by the CPC of Jinan Municipal committee, Jinan Municipal People's Government, the Information Office of Jinan Municipal People's Government, Jinan Fordign rade and Economic Cooperation Bureau, the Foreign Affairs Office of Jinan Municipal People's Goverment, Jinan Cultural Bureau, Jinan Overseas Chinese Association, Jinan Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment, Openings Magazine Publishing House and Jinan TV Station.

The list of hosts was long, and the event was extravegant. We received a rousing welcome from the local TV crew who interviewed us as we went through the beautiful archway into the grand hall. The foreign investors wore a big red bow in front of them (as you will see in the slideshow below) and marched on stage to receive plagues from the mayor. An interesting dinner was served, following by the children and young adults performances.

After the dinner and entertainment, we were ushered into Chaoyang Theater on the west side of the complex to enjoy the "Acrobatics Macrocosm". Acrobatics, one of China's oldest art forms, showcased China's opera and dance. Enjoy the slideshow below.

cultural differences

I saw a beautiful agate necklace at the "Cultural Market" one afternoon. After negotiating for a right price, I picked up the necklace and proceeded to put it over my head. I told the saleman it might not be long enough. He looked very puzzled...

"why would you put it over your head?", he asked. I thought the question was odd.

"what would you do if you don't put it over your head?" I asked.

He said: "You put it in your hand and count the stones."

Well, some of you may have had this experience. I was holding the Buddhist beads. Now I know when I'm worried, anxious or unsettled, I need to count those bead I bought that I put over my head. But, not before I say my prayers.

teach the teacher

I told my students it was time they taught me something they would like for me to learn since I have been teaching them all semester. Well, it's really not accurate as they have been teaching me back too. But, this was a time set aside for them to teach me. What transpired was amazing! This is a list of things, but not all...

• A group of boys taught me simplifed Chinese characters because they saw me struggling with it. I was taught traditional and they were quite different. They also taught me some new characters, such as xin, 鑫 with 3 jins 金 staggered together. It went from jin to xin. Also 3 水(water) becomes miao 淼 ，signifying lots of water. Another one is 3 rocks 磊 which comes from the character, 石.
  
• The Chinese "myspace.com" is http://www.xiaonei.com, meaning "on campus". You can find friends, play games here.
• One group of girls told me about the wedding ceremony in their village. It was amazing they still follow very strict traditions here. The groom's parents pay for the wedding ceremony, including the banquet, give the bride's parents 11,000 RMB for losing a daughter, provides an apartment, and a bed. The bride's parents give the dowry which include all the furniture in the house except for the bed.
• 
  
• Holding the pencil: My students noticed that I wasn't holding the pencil correctly. They told me my hand would get tired easily. So, they taught me how to hold pencil correctly.
  

Rest the pen on my middle finger and hold it with my thumb and index finger.

Yes, you can teach an old dog new tricks! :-)

• A group of boys taught me how to do paper folding. They show me how to fold a shirt/jacket, but ran out of time to fold a pair of pants.

• More paper folding from a group of students: folding a paper crane
  

It's a beautiful crane!

• Jinan National Sports Meeting for China will take place in October 2009, hence all the contruction projects. (sorry we won't be here)
• Several hometowns that they would like for us to visit: Yantai (produces the most apples, pears, dates, etc.), Shandong, Weifang, Shandong (the kite center of China), and several cities from other provinces.

More paper folding

Thanks, guys and gals! I learned a lot.

A Visit to the Jinan Orphanage

The highlight of Christmas this year has to be the visit to the Jinan Orphanage. The smiles and the excitement expressed by the children were the best Christmas present of all. The children, about 20 of then, ranged from 1 to 12, with 2 teachers accompanying them. Most of them have some physical disabilities, but all can get around without much help.

Some little ones stretched out their arms and just hung on to us. It was such a sweet feeling just holding them. We should come back often since there are more than 200 children there.

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year from the Davis'

Click here to create your own video

Beijing Trip

Beijing Tour, the day after Thanksgiving 2008:

We set out to visit Tian'anman Square, the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Bird's Nest and also the Water Cube. We also had the famous Peking Duck at a special restaurant. It was very good.

Beijing seemed a lot cleaner, prettier, and friendlier than I remember from visiting here 5 years ago. The streets seem to be wider and decked with holiday lights. Many beautiful skyscrapers abound. For me, the most exciting place had to be inside the Water Cube. It was so amazing to stand there and see the beautiful pools where the diving, swimming and other water competitions took place during the Olympics. I could almost hear the cheers when Michael Phillips took so many of the gold medals.

One of the pictures showed the platform for the symphony orchestra in the Water Cube. They hold concerts there on weekends with a water dance show on the pool to the right. I can imagine it must be beautiful.

Shopping was a lot of fun. You all know I can shop until I drop. :-) On this Beijing Tour trip, Wynn Ferrell should get the medal for being the champion bargainer and he didn't even speak Chinese. Vendors flocked the tour bus wherever we stopped, and Wynn always came back with stacks of hats, purses, knick-knacks purchased at unbelievable prices. We visited the jade factory and the cloisonne factory. We didn't get anything there even though I fell in love with a beautiful jade bracelet which the sales lady claimed would calm the spirit, lower blood pressure and a few other things (like my wallet weight). The cost, $4500 USD. Hmmm...I don't need anything like that.

To top of the list, we went to the Silk Market and it was unbelievable. Vendors lined every possible space in the building. They had all sorts of knock off brands for a fraction of what they really cost. How do they do it? I wonder. I also was able to find the glass place at the Pearl Market (Hongqiao). My friend Glenda took me there 5 years ago when I went to Beijing the first time. They had LDS temple globes that were exquisite. I didn't get one at that time because it would take a week to get the temple I wanted. I have been dreaming about going back to this place. This was a 3-story building with rows and rows of shops. It was as if I were just there yesterday. I went up to the 3rd floor, made a right hand turn and walked up to the glass shop. I even recognized the sales lady. I told her that I met her 5 years ago, and she was amazed. She was so happy that she gave me 2 big apples from her orchard. She even had the Manti Temple globe there on display. The whole experience was surreal. Yes, now I am the proud owner of the Manti Temple Globe. You can tell Elwin was happy for me. :-)

Shirley with the Manti Temple globe

Hope you enjoy our slides of the Beijing Tour.

I have been DI'ed, again!

Remember those days when I spent lots of time doing DI (Destination Imagination)? I used to put in hours conducting training workshops, managing DI teams at Farragut Intermediate School in Knoxville, TN. I was also the regional director for DI East Tennessee, running DI regional competitions with 700-800 student competitors each year, over 1000 volunteers and many parents participating. I also played a role in bringing DI Global Finals to Knoxville, TN, using the facilities at the University of Tennessee. The Global Finals still goes on at UT each year with over 10,000 participating students. Well, just when I thought I was out of the loop, I was captured again.

In May of 2007, I went from St. George, Utah, to Knoxville, Tennessee, to volunteer as the interpreter for the Chinese delegations who came to compete in the Global Finals of DI at the University of Tennessee. I met the director of DI China, Li Xiao, the delegation from Shandong Provincial Education Department, several principals and teachers from schools, and also the competing student teams. Little did I know I was going to meet some of them again in Jinan, Shandong.

Li Xiao and I stayed in contact after the Global Finals. When he found out I was in China, he invited me to go to Guangdong to help him run a DI training workshop. The distance and my teaching schedule didn’t allow me to make the trip. I told him to let me know if he brought it to Shandong. I was joking, but Li Xiao arranged a training workshop in Jinan for Wednesday, Nov. 26 and invited me to be the speaker for the training. I was surprised, but delighted to be a part of DI again.

On Nov. 26, Wednesday afternoon, I went to the Shandong Youth Activity Center to help with the DI training. I found out I was going to be the keynote for the event and instead of training 20 teachers, 50 were going to show up. Wow…I know I can do it. I think I can, I think I can… Actually, the biggest challenge to me was doing all these in Chinese. Since I wasn’t familiar with the DI terminology in Chinese, DI China e-mailed me a copy of DI terms in Chinese, all 17 of them, not quite enough, but it would help.

Upon arriving at the Shandong Youth Activity Center, Tina was waiting for me at the front of the building. I met Tina in Knoxville when she brought a team from Beijing in 2007. I was her interpreter. It was a happy reunion, as we didn’t think we were going to see each other again, especially not in China. During the training, I showed a few pictures of the Knoxville Global Finals with Chinese students performing (I found DI pictures in my old thumb drive). During the break, one of the teachers came to tell me that those students in the pictures were from her school and they had that picture with me in it at their school. It was amazing. What a small world!

Below are pictures of some of the activities during the training.

The teachers who came to the training never did DI before. I was asked to talk about the philosophy of DI and the theoretical framework of creative thinking and problem solving skills. Since that was in my area of study, I was happy to comply. I was elated to teach the Chinese teachers about the paradigm shift from teacher-centered approach to student-centered approach in teaching and the need to maximize the students’ learning opportunities by enriching the environment. It was fun and I did most of it in Chinese.

We proceeded to do an “instant challenge” by organizing the teachers into 7 per team. They were given a problem to solve. Each team has 5 minutes to prepare a skit to showcase their solution to the challenge.

The challenge was for each team to present a PERFORMANCE in which they choose 3 different ways for team members to act in the skit. The action choices were as follows: Each team must choose 3 actions from the list.
1. One team member may not move.
2. One team member can only sing.
3. One team member can only walk backwards.
4. Two team members were glued together.
5. All team members are 80 years old.
6. One team member has 4 arms.

I’m not sure if the teachers ever were asked to do such silly challenges. Each team came out with some very interesting, humorous skits to incorporate the actions. It was fun and I hope they learned a lot from doing it. We ended the 3-hour training with Elwin speaking to the group about the importance of problem solving skills in work place.

And yes, I have been DI’ed again.

The Great Wall of China

On Nov. 29, we visited the Great Wall of China. It was a beautiful sunny day, but the wind made it cold. A little history from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China.

The Great Wall stretches over approximately 6,400 km (4,000 miles)^[3] from Shanhaiguan in the east to Lop Nur in the west, along an arc that roughly delineates the southern edge of Inner Mongolia, but stretches to over 6,700 km (4,160 miles) in total.^[4] At its peak, the Ming Wall was guarded by more than one million men.^[5] It has been estimated that somewhere in the range of 2 to 3 million Chinese died as part of the centuries-long project of building the wall.^[6]

Bullet train to Beijing

We decided to join the China Teachers from BYU to celebrate Thanksgiving in Beijing.

Step #1: Ride the bullet train from Jinan, Shandong to Beijing.
Distance: 500 km, or 300 miles
Cost: $306 RMB, or USD 45 round trip
Speed: up to 160 miles/hour
Ride: very smooth and w/ lots of leg room

The train stations in both Jinan and Beijing are very nice. They are almost like airports, with some security check, but not so many rules. You are allow to take as many bags as you can carry, arrive only 30 minutes before departure, and yes, you can carry water bottles, liquids.

We stopped at 3 small stations on the way, but the bullet train only stopped for 4 minutes. You don't get on fast, you miss the train. But, at Jinan and Beijing, they checked us in half an hour before it took off. It was very nice and pleasant. The tickets only go on sale 15 days before departure, but first class only go on sale 3 days before departure. In order to insure that we got on the train, our agent purchased second class seats for us. It was good enough.

Shirley’s Turkey Hunt

A Belated Happy Thanksgiving to Y'all!

Friday, November 21, Elwin and Shirley set out to find their turkey. Surely, China is so big, with 1.3 billion people, there must be some turkeys around here. Gobble, gobble, gobble!
First, we went to the shop with a giant roaster. “If I get a turkey, will you roast it in your roaster for me?” The man with sleepy eyes said: No, we only roast ducks. (case closed). Gee whiz, don’t they think outside of the box?
Next, we went in to the meat market to find our bird. “Do you have any huo-ji (turkey)?” I asked. The chicken lady said we had to go to the chicken store further down the meat market to get it. Simple, we walked and found the next chicken store. The lady pointed to her baskets full of live chickens. She said she only had live chickens, I needed to go to a different market to find turkey. Now the day is shot. We have to wait until tomorrow, Saturday.

Early Saturday morning, I got up to call a lady down the street to see if she would help me find a turkey. She called all her friends and told me I needed to take Bus #36 to the old East Gate, but to get off at 青龙 桥 Qin Long Qiao to find the open market there.
I took off to continue my quest for a turkey. I found the open market and it was a treasure hunt. I immediately was side-tracked…on the ground of this very narrow street, vendors lined both sides with anything imaginable; kitchen supplies, gloves, mittens, hats, socks, scarves, reading glasses, toys, cell phone decorations, quilted pants, jackets, shirts, vests, sheets, aprons, towels, quilts, comforters…then suddenly, Elwin’s voice came to my head (he’s not with me), “focus, focus”.

The warning brought me back to the real world – I’m in the market looking for a turkey. So, I started asking people: do you know where the meat market is? People pointed to all directions…yes, I’m Chinese, I should be able to follow Chinese directions. It took another 15 minutes of walking through seas of people, I finally came to an area where the meat vendors were located.

“Is there any huo ji (turkey) around here?” I asked. A chicken vendor told me to walk further down the road and I should find my huo ji. Another 10 minutes later, I found a chicken house with over 200 chickens in all different cages stacked on top of each other. A nice lady came out and asked me which chicken I wanted. I said I was looking for a huo ji. She said, “look, these are all huo ji’s”. I looked at her in total shock…my mind was racing. Her huo ji, and everyone’s huo ji here meant “live chicken”. My huo ji (in 3rd tone, instead of 2nd) meant turkey. I cracked up laughing. Now, she looked at me as if I was losing my mind. Then I told her the story. She laughed too…no turkey in Jinan.

This was a turkey hunt that was not going to involve any turkeys. After I explained this to my art teacher, with concentrated effort to differentiate 2nd and 3rd tone “huo ji”, she finally understood and thought that was pretty funny. She then told me I should go down to the next town called “Hongye Gu” and should find wild turkeys there. When I presented this to Elwin, he said: “we are not going to Hongye Gu, they may be talking about a peacock”. So, we’ll wait until we go to Beijing next week and see if we could find some turkey dinner there.

Happy Thanksgiving!

A special note: We were invited by President and Sister Lewis to their house Sunday for a delicious Thanksgiving Dinner. Yes, we had our turkey...after many long hunts.

Having dinner at the Lewis'

downsizing

A bike repair shop on the sidewalk, in front of a gas station
No overhead...
Besides, when business is slow, you can start a Chinese chess game right there...

downsizing

a bike repair shop by our apartment, near the gas station on Jinshi Road.

When business is slow, you can set up a Chinese chess game. I see vendors, taxi drivers, leaving their business, to play a game or two. Now, did this kid skip school to play a game of chess with these old dudes? (I need to stop calling people old. I'm probably older than all these guys.)

Jinan group happenings

Shirley and Jo Ann in front of the Soccer Stadium
a couple of blocks from our apartment

Our wonderful visiting teachers took us to the Dumpling House for lunch, yummm!

A visit to the Arts and Crafts show at the Provincial Museum

Ray and Maryann Andrus, Facilitators, China Teachers Program, came to Jinan to visit us. It was like having parents come to visit you when you were going to college. They interviewed us, visited our classes, talked to our Foreign Office Wai Ban (contact) to make sure we were treated well. But, best of all, they took us out to dinner. We went to Pizza Hut and had a grand time together.

Maryann and Ray Andrus, with the Thelin's in the back

The Cannon's and the Davis' at Pizza Hut

The Judd's at Pizza Hut

Judy, Judy and Judy at Pizza Hut

Judy made sure we were able to all sit together

Richard, the Andrus' and Dana (from right to left)

The Cannon's dance at the square outside of Pizza Hut

Are we having fun yet?

Shirley is having fun

Judy made 3 carrot cakes with cream cheese frosting for Shirley's birthday!
It was delicious and everyone enjoyed it! Thanks, Judy.