Jinan, Day 3 - 7

Day 7, Sept. 5

We got the phone call. Yes, the luggage was here. It came to Jinan on Wednesday. The delivery service had a hard time finding this place. Hey, I even got lost coming home. It’s not an easy place to find. It was like Christmas for us to open the suitcase and found all sorts of things we were missing.
We continue to work on the syllabi for our classes next week. We took some copies to the copy shop and were surprised at how much copying cost. To print thing on card stock would have cost us about $US 100. It had to come out of our pocket too. We decided to just run off the handouts for right now. It cost about $10 for us to do that.
Time to venture out to find the New World Market. The former teacher, Richard Leavitt e-mailed us on how to get there and we followed it and found the place. What a fun place to shop. There were stalls everywhere. We’ll have to go back. We did some grocery shopping on the way home and stopped at a coffee shop for light dinner. It caters to people who like western foods, so we had some delicious salads. It was indeed a fun, long day.

Day 6, Sept. 4

Our new friend, Henzer, the 5th year medical student, came to take us to the technology shopping center. We took a cab which only cost $2 or 12 yuan. The building has 5 floors of electronic things. It was like a Santa’s workshop. From the minute you walk in to the time you walk out, people would come to you and ask what you needed. They had things from thumb drive to GPS, to MP3 and anything else you could imagine. We bought an HP black ink cartridge which cost $US 22. I got a notebook stand, which was very nice. It had 3 fans underneath to keep the laptop cool. We stayed for a couple hours just wandering around. It was fun.
We then went to Bank of China to exchange some money. They wanted me to show the passport to cash traveler checks, or to use my saving passbook. We waited for almost an hour just for them to tell us they couldn’t cash our checks. It was frustrating. Can’t imagine how people do it w/o the language. We are grateful.
Henzer took us to his favorite noodle shop. It was nice and clean. It was a fun day. Still waiting for the luggage to show up.

Day 5, Sept. 3
A student volunteer, Ma Shilian came to visit us this morning. He was the one who came to meet us at the airport. He took us to a station to add money to the bus pass, to Quanchang Square shopping center, and also to the cell phone store to get a cell phone. Jinan is full of cell phone shops. One buys a cell phone at a place, then has to go to the mobile communication center to buy a card to put inside to activate the phone. Cell phone shops are everywhere. Everyone has a cell as you could see in this picture.
We’ll have the same challenge teaching Chinese students as we were told they text message during class. ☹
There are cell phones from many manufacturers here. Prices range from US $50 to over thousands depending on how fancy you want it. There are no free phones as we do in the States. Since we were advised to have a cell phone for emergency purposes, we thought we’d get one just in case an emergency arises.
Now we are the proud owners of a red Samsung flip phone. ☺

We met two very nice young men this afternoon. They were students/acquaintances of the Leavitt’s, former CTP (China Teachers Program) teachers. It’ll be hard to fill the Leavitt’s shoes as their students love and respect them. They admired their dedication and their love of China.
Henzer Kuo: a 5th year medical student, Henzer is from Shangzhen near Hong Kong. He’s a techno guy with an e-mail name debug01. Most of all, he helped us make phone calls to Air China to find Elwin’s missing luggage. He knew the city code to reach the Airlines, which we were unable to do. YES, WE FOUND IT. Elwin’s bag has been sitting at the Beijing Airport the past 5 days. They did not know where to send it even though we filled out the form with everything on it. In any case, they’ll send it to us and we should get it in a day or two.
Henzer has a brother and a sister to which we were surprised b/c of the China’s one-child policy. He told us Canton people love children. They rather pay the fine to the government for having more than one child. His uncle has 10 children and he pays !0,000 yuan every year to the government, but he’s poor and happy. Because he’s poor, all his children are not well educated and remain in the countryside as farmers or blue color workers. Henzer’s mom was illiterate as she grew up during the Cultural Revolution period. Her family had 6 children and made good living. She had to marry to Henzer’s dad b/c he was very poor to avoid being purged as from a rich family. She worked hard and saved to buy a house for less than US$ 1000. Because of the economic boom since Hong Kong was returned to China, the house went up in value 10 times. She was able to pay off the house, sent her children to college. She now does tai chi, visits friends, plays games, shops and enjoys life as she gets older.
We treated Henzer to a delicious Cantonese dinner at the Sports Arena coffee shop. He’ll take us to the electronics shopping center tomorrow.
Shack, Du Pailin came to visit around 7 pm. He is from a small town in southwest Shandong. He is quite a character. Shack is a medical student working to become a doctor. He brought us treats. We shared “cinnamin chocolate bears” with him and he loved it. He showed us how to download Chinese music. He’ll come back to visit and how us how to cook some Chinese food.
Shack has ideas about how the Chinese peasants work manual work, not exercise their brains. Consequently, their brain cells die instead of developing. He says he wants to become a brain surgeon.


Day 4, September 2

Elwin went out and got us soy-milk and onion pancakes for breakfast. Later we went to the Bank of China to open up an account. We ventured out to the Sports Arena to find a place called New World Shopping Center. We didn’t find it, but found many other things. We found a “Hero’s Underground Market” with blocks and blocks of shops. It was very modern, but filled with things mostly for women. We also found the Silver Plaza which is a high-end shopping Center.
The most interesting sight was passing by an elementary school when the school was letting out. We thought it was a festival or celebration of sorts, but turned out the parents and grandparents were there to pick up their “little emperors”. Since the one-child policy was in place in the later 70’s, parents cuddle their mostly their little boys, hence the name “little emperors”. According to an article by ___, some mothers quit their job, so they can devote their whole life to the raising of the little emperors. Some spent as much as 90% of their income to put the children in prestigious schools, or to be tutored, so they can go to prestigious schools. Pictures below show the marquee asking parents not to block the traffic when picking up their children. Some also show the children attending after school exercises with parents watching. These children in the picture are no more than 4 or 5 years old.
We ended up at the LT Market where we did some grocery shopping. They have everything you need there, even whole wheat bread. We ate at the restaurant there call “Yuan Ho Soy” which was a Taiwanese franchised place. It was good.

Day 3, September 1

We got up early and went to the local open market. There were chicken running, butchers chopping, vendors deep-frying their foods, merchants yelling for all to come to buy their stuff. It was very interesting. We walked to the south gate, then to the market, went all the way around to the north gate. By the time we got home, I have earned two blisters on my toes. No worries, we are spending the rest of the day home, because we had to face the fact, it’s cleaning day.
Cleaning Day: We did some dreaded deep cleaning. Now, we are official, we are living in Building 18, on the second floor. Watch out for the 3 step, it’s a lot higher than the rest of the steps. It’ll take another few stubbles, then, we’ll be so used to it that we would stubble if the third step is not higher than the others.
Our university contact, the course scheduler, Sunny Su came to visit. He brought us textbooks and the schedules. I’m teaching 9 Oral English classes to freshmen and sophomores.