Category Archives: art

Autumn Moon Festival at Confucius Temple

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September 22nd was the Autumn Moon Festival, celebrated by eating moon cakes.   A moon cake is given to friends and is a pastry with a variety of fillings.  I’ve tried a few and some have lotus or bean paste inside.  One had a honey, brown sugar gummy bear texture.   They taste somewhat like a Fig Newton.  Cute as a button, they have Chinese characters stamped on top.

The Moon Festival is a myth about Chang’e the goddess of the moon, and once a year she can come down from the moon to visit her husband and family.  The Chinese regard this day as a national holiday and to see the reflection of the moon in the lake is a good omen.  We went to Confucius Temple (pronounced Foo Zi Meow!) last night to view the moonlight, but alais the mist and rain clouded our vision of the moon.  The temple was an education in Confucius (Kong Zi) philosophy from 500BC.  The book I purchased discusses his personal and governmental morality along with justice and social relationships.  He is a leader in the teaching of benevolence.  As stated in my book;  “If the emperor is fond of benevolence, he will be unconquerable all over the world.   Now some princes want to be unconquerable in the world, but do not implement benevolence.  That’s just as someone feels extremely hot but is unwilling to take a bath.”   The lesson goes on to state if a person has the desire to help others, he will be kindly looked upon.  Is this not a lesson we should be teaching our children?  What a peaceful world it would be to have kind feelings or express goodwill toward one another.  Have I become a student of Master Confucius or maybe I was a student in a past life?

The temple was full of interesting legends, history, sculptures, stelai, one large drum, a gong bell and different presentations.  It was a plethora of information.

I so enjoyed the musical presentation by a Chinese singing, bell ringing and instrument playing team of Chinese ritually dressed young people.  The music was typically old style Chinese and I wanted a CD, where upon Alice said I could find this kind of music in the disc stores around town.  We also saw a stick puppet presentation by puppiters behind a sheet illuminating the figures  through it.  Now this was clever to watch as the wolf  attacked the man and the tree spoke philosophy with a mouth.   I believe this is for children, but the adults were mesmerized including Alice and me.  Sawyer smiled and laughed.  If you saw the movie  “Karate Kid”  released this summer, you will remember the puppet drama is the same.

We walked up and down the streets by the temple where vendors sold trinkets, which I bought many of.  The brightly lit stores lined the street full of people with umbrellas and wet feet.  It was a delight to behold.

Faculty dinner and the back door

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The high school had a lovely dinner for all the new teachers, IB and the public school teachers the other night at a very nice restaurant.  One fun tradition was lifting your wine glass and cheering, each table would walk around and cheer you, then your table would stand up, walk to each table, toast and cling each glass.  We had six large tables of twelve each so it took some time.  The food was served with appetizers first, some vegetarian dishes, red wine and some kind of boxed booze, everyone said stay clear of that stuff.  It was 45% must be an “Ever Clear!”  Dinner was many dishes of meat, whole fish, a bowl of guts in a sauce, BBQ beef, pork and chicken.  All my meat eating western friends, did enjoy these dishes.  John and I waited patiently for the vegetarian food and it finally did arrive, but to our surprise was in chicken broth.  We just gave in and dipped out the mushrooms and set them on our plate and ate them.  We had a bowl of steamed weeds, that is the best description I can give.  John liked them, I could hardly get them down.  Reminded me of the seaweed soup I had the other day.  Every time I took a sip, smelled like fish and  just couldn’t eat it.  Melons came and we all enjoyed that.  Someone set off a major fireworks display on the front door of the restaurant, causing me to jump and check it out.  WOW this was spectacular and right on the sidewalk.  My sons would have loved this and gone outside to see the action.

My school has a back door entrance, mainly an exit to purchase food from the local street vendors, but you can see all kinds of activates, from men playing checkers, to ladies washing children and vegetables, to many types of food for sale.  I’ve had Thai food, steamed dough dumplings with different fillings pronounced bowser, milk chai tea and fresh fruit.

Coming back in from an excursion on the back street to the high school grounds, one finds serenity and peacefulness.  Yes, this high school has lovely gardens and a stream with fish.  It has many multistory dorms, for those students who come from a long distance to school.  Many buildings are open air including our teaching facilities.   It is a wonderful campus.

I sometimes like to stand by the stream and look at the fish or listen to the waterfall.  It is so calming and makes me realize how relaxing this is for my overtaxed, multitasking American brain.  Yesterday in the corridors of the first floor, students were learning Karate.  The master teacher was so fluid in his high kicks showing them how far and hard he wants them to kick.  Partnered up, one student would kick and the other held a padded hand paddle to kick too.  They would kick and laugh trying to get their feet up in the higher pose.  Each day is so delightful.

I saw a UFO!

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I saw a UFO night before last!  Walking back to the hotel about 9pm looked up and this set of green lights in a semi-circular pattern were flashing on and off.  It was hovering around and then would change the light pattern into a triangle.  I saw the hotel guard and signaled for him to see it.  He agreed “UFO”– universal word, as he spoke no English.  Other people walked up and some showed me on their English/Chinese hand held computer translator they thought it was a kite or a helicopter.  NO way Jose, this is a UFO.  It was higher than the skyscrapers and just floated around, maybe twenty minutes.  I went to my room and tried to photograph it but can’t seem to get the shutter to stay open long enough.  Need to read up on time exposures  in my Nikon book!  Alas no proof, darn!

Woke up to a Chinese cooking TV show this morning.  Ok sauté some garlic, add some chili powder and water, looks like soup we are making, um.  Now the main ingredient oh my gosh it is a fish head!  They sprinkle it with a dark vinegar (No  soy sauce is used here at all!  Surprise, that must be a Japanese custom) and fry it.  Then plop that head in the soup and add some fresh eggplant, tomatoes, green beans with a corn starch thickener.  Ok I am going to pass on cooking or eating this!

Infomercials are here too. I saw one for buying uncirculated Chinese yuan, probably proofs.  Another was a rubber set of breasts with a hole in them to increase your bust size, yet still have nipplies and the last was a Blender-Boiler to make hot soy milk!  My favorite TV show is the Spanish Bull fights translated into Chinese!  I’ve never really seen a bull fight — so this has been a new education, watching the matador get pierced in the leg by a bull’s horn.  He tries to save face and not look like he is dying from severe agony and continues to hobble and coax the bull to ram his cloak.  I think the Chinese like “blood and guts” on TV.  I saw a news show with a child that was backed over by a car and the driver just didn’t see him.  He then proceeded to drive forward, hit him again, open the door jump out then the car rolls back over the kid.  What a mess, I never could figure out if the child survived.  In America we just wouldn’t see all the gory details.

Walking toward the back entrance of the University I meandered by a sweet little pond, with huge red-orange goldfish.  I heard the sweetest melody, someone is singing a Chinese opera song.  I saw a very old gray haired lady just strolling around the pond singing I guess to the fish.  I was transposed and couldn’t move.   She looked up, saw me, smiled and kept on singing.  What a charming moment in time!  Walking on, I come to a tunnel with a ten inch thick cement door.  Ok now what is this?  I walk in and see the  light at the end of the tunnel.  (Spiritually I am looking  to see the light at the end of my tunnel!)  As I walk though, I realize it might have been a bomb shelter, damp, dank, with exposed wires running the length of it for lights and a trench on the sides collecting water and what ever else is wet and smelly.

Leave the tunnel, and hop on a taxi.  Today it is sunny and I notice my cab driver has on a short sleeve T shirt with pull on sleeves he has added that tie at the wrist and upper arm, plus white gloves.  Well this is an interesting fashion statement!  Later I learn that the Chinese want to stay light complexed  and I am wearing a tank top to get what little bit of direct sun I can find to tan. We have the windows down even in the heat, and we drive past men pulling carts with piles of Styrofoam packing pieces, one with used cardboard boxes flattened and tied down, and another with old lumber pieces bouncing around.  All of this looks like trash to me, but may be someones treasures, I don’t know.  I see a biker with twenty or so helium brightly colored balloons, maybe he is going to the hospital down the road.  Another man is walking balancing two large bowlfuls of fruit on ropes with a stick across his neck.  Then out of the blue we stop at a red light and I hear this god-awful coughing up and hocking of a loogie right next to my window.  Seems this is quite accepted and I hear and see this many times a day.  The thing is, don’t step on it when walking!  Another reason to leave your shoes at the door of your home.

A lesson in math for Texas 5th graders!

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Nan Shu Foo Zong is the name of the school I teach at.  This is the IB area.  The hallways are open air and we are up 100 stairs!  No elevator.

My colleagues at their desks working, or napping.  Lunch is one and half hours, so a “siesta” is accepted at lunch time.  My Tex-Mex language seems to pop up when I am trying to speak in Chinese.  the other day I asked for water and said “Agua Por favor!”  and someone commented was that a dialect of English, yeah if you are in Texas!  No it is Spanish and I am speaking it here and no one understands Spanish, nor my choppy Chinese.

My desk is right behind Peter, my Aussie colleague.  Looking out the window from our office you can see a wonderful highrise, that is my apartment complex.  I will be moving soon, this makes me very excited.  It will be a short walk to and from  school, no more taxi’s and city buses to school.  It will cut down on expense, the bus is 2 RMB and taxi is 14RMB.  How much is that in dollars?   A lesson on money:

The yuan (sign: 元; code: CNY) is, in the Chinese language, the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The distinction between yuan and renminbi (RMB) is analogous to that between the pound and sterling; the pound (yuan) is the unit of account while sterling (renminbi) is the actual currency.

A yuán (元) is also known colloquially as a kuài (块 – “piece”). One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo (角) or colloquially máo (毛 – “feather”). One jiǎois divided into 10 fēn (分).

This is what I had in my purse.  If 6.7 yuan = 1 US dollars.  Can some one tell me how much yuan I have?  The large coins are 1 yuan each, the gold is .5 yuan and the tiny coin is .10 yuan.  IF you can add it up correctly I will send you a Chinese post card!  Why am I giving you a math lesson, because my friend Linda in Friendswood told me she has given my blog site to her friend who teaches 5th grade.  These students are reading my blog and learning about the culture for their English class.  I thought to keep them interested I would do some teaching from across the world to them!

Yesterday I taught the Chinese IB faculty about my life through a power point presentation.  I gave a show about my family, Thanksgiving and how we pray and eat, Christmas, a craw fish boil in Austin, going on vacation to Taos and the Native American Pueblo, Tahoe, Galveston, Wimberly, San Fransisco, and Durango.  I had pictures of pets, snow, my backyard and art studio.  Many of this was very foreign to my new colleagues.  The comments that I received in my email from the TOK teacher are this:

Susan,

Thanks a lot for the presentation, nice. What I found most amazing is :

1.  the muddy houses    very very simlar to the ones where people in Shan Xi province used to live. The only difference is ours are cave-like houses. But mud.

2. the claw fish   that’s almost the answer why you like Nanjing without knowing it. People in Nanjing are crazy about claw fish and it’s almost a scence in summer.
One table with a big bowl of claw fish, some people sitting around the table…

3. Budda

I can’t believe it.

One thing I am learning is we are all the same, but different.  The next thing I am learning is a good teacher is always a student.  This student (art teacher) is learning more than her little Rolodex brain can hold.  I feel like it is spinning and information cards are flying out.  Anyone still have a Rolodex?  Does this tell how old I am or just that I have an antique vocabulary.

Speaking of antiques, I made mention to Jonathan (British colleague that has lived here six years) I can’t find very many old architectural buildings or antiques shops.  He told me the Chinese government had the people destroy all the old artifacts years ago and much of the old architecture is destroyed for newer buildings.  I’ve seen more Asian jade art in the Crow Museum in Dallas than I have found here.  I will keep looking, it has to be here.  Religion is non existent.  I have seen the Buddhist temple, no Buddhist tho and one Catholic church.  In Texas there is a Baptist church on every corner like McDonald’s!  My new Chinese friends don’t practice religion, that I can tell.  School will meet this and next Sunday for regular classes. (Remember we have a funky holiday next week and we work weekends for the weekdays off)  I will have to Google my church in Dallas to read what is going on, and listen to the podcast to get my religion fix or go to the Buddhist temple and light incense and say a prayer.  That is a nice way to pray.  I will let the wind carry my prayers in the smoke from my incense to God.  Like I said all the same, but different.

A Chinese holiday or holidays Chinese style!

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Woke up to torrential rains and a massive headache.  Could it be the barometric pressure causing my head to spin?  Up early and out of here, need to catch a taxi before everyone else gets going.  Umbrella in hand, rain jacket on and Keens on feet, a hike to the taxi stop and then a 20 minute wait.  I get a female taxi driver and off to school we go.  Michael fixes me a strong coffee for my headache, maybe I am caffeine deficient he says.   He maybe right!  How nice to have a man fix me anything.   What wonderful colleagues I am working with.    By noon I’m back to normal.

After classes the IB coordinator and I check out the Art Supply shopping district!   Oh my a new “hog heaven” for me, and some one tell mom it is right next door to the antique vendors.  We need to take a day and go shopping.  Yes, next day off I will return for an art and antique expenditure day.

Speaking of next day off — we have three days off next week, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.  It’s a holiday, or maybe not!   To get this holiday, we teach our Wednesday class on this Sunday and the following Saturday and Sunday we teach our Thursday and Friday class.  Someone explain to the Chinese that we don’t give up weekends for three days off in the middle of the week!  Maybe it is like a “Chinese fire drill”—- were things get lost in translation and everyone does things “bass ackwards.”  Oh well, guess that holiday will be my art and antique shopping day!

I realized today that most all my students wear glasses, no contacts!  I suppose Lasik is out too.  No makeup on women, no bleached hair, no manicures or pedicures– no nail polish on anyone, but my little toesies!  (No manicure shops for that matter)  No need for botox, or stomach stapling, no one has wrinkles or is overweight.  People are healthy looking here, all this walking and biking, no wonder.  Most Americans would have a coronary within a week of living in this environment.  And by the way, they don’t like Air Conditioning or cold anything, including water and beer.  Even yogurt is hot.  The weather is somewhat like Galveston, hot, humid and gritty.  I always said I was the one person that liked Houston weather, well here I am on the same latitude lines!  Must admit, I like it tho.  Daniel told me today he drew a picture of the sun and put it on his desk!  He misses the sun with all the overcast, smoggy, cloudy or what ever these skies are days!   I’ve always liked warm, just need to get use to no AC!  That is hard.  I am too Americanized –soft!

Eating, praying, shopping!

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Saturday I spent the day with Alice and Sawyer.  We started our day eating, what else would you do?  Eating is so much fun here.  Maybe shopping is as fun, but will save that for later.  My new favorite place is the JiMing Temple, today we light three incense sticks, put them in the sand table and said prayers.  We prayed for each other.  It’s raining so we scurry up the steps to the top of the temple where the restaurant is and order our vegetarian meal.  Today we have dumplings (like a bread ball with veggies inside) fake duck and beef, fried rice and their delicious plum juice.  Another wonderful meal with my new Chinese adopted grown children.

Sawyer says now we must have Coffee, so off to “Sculpting in Time” the western Coffee shop.  We order our Cappuccino and Lattes.  I notice a John Lennon paperback for sale and bring it to the table to ponder over.  It is philosophical sayings by John in Chinese.  Alice opens the book and translates to English for me.  It is about Communism and how John didn’t really believe that there was Communism.  The three of us have a long discussion on the Beatles and politics.  Off we go to a mall called MUJI, somewhat like the Galleria in Dallas.  So many cute and very fashionable outfits and hundreds of shoes.  At this time I realize sizes run small – if not tiny and many won’t fit my size 9 body.  I need to be thin as a pencil to wear Chinese fashion.  Shoes are hard to fit, Chinese feet are thin, I can find the right size but not wide enough.  Later Alice shows me a shoe shop by the University that carries Merrell’s’ and Timberline, American walking/hiking brands. (John Garrott you would be proud!  You trained me well about good walking shoes, thank you.)

Take the subway to a bus stop. Not so bad, but then I have translators with me.  The University street has many cute shops and I find a  jacket and sweater to layer with my T-shirts.  Then on the bus we go to Alice’s mom’s home.  Jump off and walk into a bakery.  Alice wants to order a birthday cake for her mom, will be ready in 15 minutes, so we walk up a back street and eye food while we wait.  I find a woman selling live frogs to eat.  We see all kinds of cooked meat to purchase, including feet,stomachs, colons, duck heads, gizzards and livers.  There were other  parts I couldn’t even guess where they came from.  Sawyer wants meat, so he gets a sampling of things boxed to go.  Up four flights of stairs to Alice’s mom home.  Mrs. Wong  is simply daring with chopped short hair and teeny tiny reader glasses half way down her nose.  She has lived in this home twenty years, where Alice grew up.  The kitchen is small but she has every space utilized, chopping all shorts of vegetables.  Sawyer’s favorite is a bitter gourd, which is bright grass green in color, long like a cucumber but has warty bumps all over it.  Xiao Wong slices it in half and then in thin pieces.  She pours boiling water on top and lets it soak, drains, adds salt and vinegar and that magic powered spice I saw Sarah use last night.  She stir fries snap green beans with a bit of chilies.  A second dish of sliced carrots mixed in a variety of mushrooms including a fungus mushroom is fried.   The last stir fried dish is a fresh chive like plant with long thin sliced mushrooms.  All of these were tasty except Sawyer’s favorite dish the bitter gourd.  I just couldn’t enjoy the taste like he did and he proceeded to eat the entire bowl.   We had a lovely bottle of 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon to toast to Xiao Wong’s birthday and new friends.

Time to cut the cutest birthday ever, with fresh fruit on top and in the filling.  I so enjoy the family style atmosphere the Chinese continue to cultivate in their homes and during their meals out.   This is something we as Americans have given up for fast food and always on the go lifestyles.

Designed by Tim Sainburg from Brambling Design

Teacher Day and a real home cooked meal

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Friday was Chinese Teacher Day, it is a  special day for teachers, when students call them, give them gifts, cards and flowers to express their appreciation.   I arrived and found a large bouquet of violet tulip like flowers, cards and gifts on my desk from various art students!  What a thrill.  I have a new coffee cup and snow globe now.   Students love telling you to have a nice teacher day, it is on TV and I think it is like a National Holiday.  I like this day.

Alice showed me how to catch a bus, ok not so hard, just lots of people, will have to keep my purse and possessions very close to me.  We took two buses to the University and it dropped us off in a nice shopping district I want to check out later today.   Time for clothes and shoes.  I like shoes, thanks to my mom!   I brought ten pair from my collection of sixty and I am missing some favorites!  Need red ones now!

I gave a call to Sarah, the mom of Filo, one of my art students.  Sarah is the lovely lady that  hooked me up with my apartment.  She was cooking dinner and wanted my company.  Yes, I will be right there.  Hopped on a Taxi and off I went back to the other side of town.  It’s dark now and the town comes alive with lights and it’s misty creating a surreal look about.  Sarah is so excited to see me, off with my shoes and on with house slippers.  I want to see what she is cooking, this is so much fun.  She has a pot of Balsamic rice in the rice cooker, sautéd tomato and fried egg dish and pork meat ball soup with mushrooms,  green chowder peas, and onions (oops forgot to tell her I was vegetarian!)  I watched her cut up some skinny green peppers and sauté them with sugar, salt, soy and some other ingredients-this was a spicy dish and very delicious.  She had fresh greens in a colander — they had red centers, never saw this plant before.  She poured a wee bit of oil in the pan and tossed these in, adding some spices and then water.  The water turned red from the plant and the plant turned dark green as it wilted.

Filo did not want to eat dinner with us, so she played on the computer in her locked room!  Sarah and I feasted with our chopsticks and small rice bowl.  Here you just pick a bit from any bowl you want and eat it.  You don’t make a plate of food.  I am getting quite good with the chopsticks and can pick up peas individually.  The rice turned pink from my greens I put on top…. and that was glorious to see.  Dinner was very good and it felt so comfortable to chat with another mom about husbands, children, our homes, our family, our life.  She had TV that was connected to a Chinese station that was in English.  ( I do not have this station at the motel, darn!)  The main news was of Teachers Day and how exciting it is for the students to make things for their teachers.  We had instant nescafe coffee and Swedish chocolates for dessert.

We admired her apartment, she has been here for over three weeks.  She and her husband live out but the drive is con-jested even though it is not far.  This is her place to stay for the week and then they travel back home during the weekends.  Many parents do this, as the high school I work for is a desired place for their children.  As we look out of her balcony the spectacular view makes me anxious to move.  I get a lesson on how to wash clothes and hang them to dry on the balcony.  Looks like I need to buy a clothes drying rack at Carrefour.

I get back to the motel, walk in and three young men students  from Nigeria, France and Morocco ask me to sit and chat.  Wow what a world talk we have about our Chinese speaking, our experiences and how long we have been here.  The cute Moroccan is working on his PhD and has been in China six years.  The other two just arrived this week and are in some culture shock but loving it.  I enjoy meeting new faces.

Military Training and Rikisha ride

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I walked onto campus greeted by a thousand students in uniform doing tai chi.  Now that was overwhelming and very wonderful to watch.  A nice start to the day.  Had lunch in the canteen (school cafeteria) with my Chinese colleague lady teachers.  There is a meat and vegetarian option.  YEW HAW!  So this is what I had:  bamboos shoots steamed with chili peppers, sauteed julienne sliced celery, sauteed sliced potatoes, a Chinese steamed spinach, sauteed cucumber, rice and a bowl of water soup with a see through square vegetable-looked more like a Jello cube.  Each item was it’s own dish.  The soup was blah but everything else was pretty good.  I just didn’t recognize the taste of the potatoes as a potato!  I get free lunch with my school card.   What a deal.

Class consisted of three delightful DP HL students working on individual art projects.  Class was an hour and a half.  Off to the bank  to open a checking account.  There is a 45 minute wait, and then much stamping of documents with the ever familiar red chop to open my account! I get my debit card and some other card with scratch off numbers on the back.  Is it a lottery card?   No it’s extra pin numbers when you login to your internet account.  Ah ha, something we should do in the states — extra security.  Walk back to school and everyone is out playing badminton when I return.  I have to weave in and out of  hundred plus kids swatting their rackets at the little birdie.  What a sight.

I just make it in time to see the Military Training presentation put on by the Pre IB or foundation students.  During the summer these students are required to attend one week of military training about two hours away in the countryside.  They showed videos of their training, did skits, played music, sang and gave each other awards for a variety of good deeds.  The program was in Chinese but the skit was about how to be a good military student, respect your officer and be disciplined.  Maybe we should do this with American students!

I am told I can leave early, cause the program is in Chinese, so I head out for a taxi!  By now there are none to be had so I walk a ways, stop get a iced latte (maybe a long walk and need to stay awake).  Still can’t get a taxi, so one of the police men point down a smaller street, so I walk that way.   I check out a pastry vendor, shoe store and a cosmetic shop.  (found some fingernail polish  and the clerk gave me  free lotion!)  Walking to the corner see a McDonald’s, ah good spot to get a taxi, no way!  Now it is between 5 and 6 pm –shift change for taxi drivers, darn!  Then out of the blue this swarthy guy with an electric powered rikisha pops up and motions he can take me, so off I go on an open aired three wheel bike for the price of two fingers.  We make a couple of cut through turns and end up in a seedy area.  At this point I am thinking this guy in his “Bobby Gang” shirt and pink Crocs might just turn down a dark alley and take my 3oo yuan. ($45)  But we pop out onto a street I recognize.  Then he stops and picks up a metal pipe he sees in the road and stores it for later under my seat.  He lits up a cigarette and motions I should take a hit!  Think not.  Off we go again passing hundreds of people, bikes and cars.  I see the familar McDonalds on the corner by the University.  We made it.  I hand him two yuan and he gets madder than a hornet.  He pounds his fist and stubby fingers demanding more–so I think he says four, still not enough. I motion for the University guard to come over and so does a college student, now this is getting loud and lots of Chinese verbiage is flying.  The college girls asks me what he said he charged?  I remember the two fingers, well I guess I didn’t get the figure or fingers right.  He wanted 40 yuan (almost three times a taxi ride!)  I looked at her and said I had gotten taken, she agreed, and I gave him 37 and just walked off.  Geez what a night.  I need to learn more Chinese and how the bus system works!

Renting a high-rise apartment

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It was raining cats and many dogs when I walked two long blocks to the apartment complex with Sophia, the school secretary our person that gets everything done.  Isn’t it always the secretary’s and shouldn’t they make more money than all of us?  She is pregnant and followed me down the street with her umbrella, commenting she loves the rain.  Well I will admit it was an experience in wetness, not sweatness.  We met the land lady on the 27th floor to view the space.  Removed our shoes and put on slippers.   I always wondered why they left their shoes at the door.  I know now.  After walking in the mud puddles, no one would want these dirty shoes in their homes.  It is a wonderful custom, and I think everyone should do it.  So if you come to visit me I will have slippers for you at the door.

My new apartment is a split level, making it both  27th and 28th floors.  The master bedroom view is to the south, highly prized by the Chinese.  (Good Fortune!) The kitchen is cute with a huge view of the three pagoda looking hotel and freeway.  It is about 1000 square feet I am guessing, plenty large with a living room, extra bedroom and bath and a half.   I asked for it to be cleaned and the lights to work in the bathrooms!  Geez what is the deal, no lights?   So the landlady agreed and will take two extra days to get it ready.  She is a nurse and her husband a surgeon.  How convenient in case I get ill!  Afterwards back to school, I had night guard duty.  Just watching the kids as they do homework.

This evening I watched Sawyer do Tai chi with his master.  The master has a large stomach, the better to hold his chi, I am told!  He gave Sawyer a little box with a baby on it.  It is a gift as his wife just had a baby girl.  They give gifts to all their friends to share in their joy and fortune of the birth of their new one.  Lovely tradition!   I came to school the other day and found a porcelain pig wrapped in pink sheer fabric, one of our teachers just had a baby girl and I got to share in their fortune!  Goodie a gift for me!  I like gifts.  The pig has candy in its belly, yum.  Alice was showing me her dance moves as she is learning Latin dance.  Some one tell Yulia, she may have met her match.  (Yulia was one of Andy’s best lady friends.  They took us Salsa dancing once!  Yulia is fast and furious on the dance floor, Andy and I admired her for that.)  So I took pictures of Sawyer and Alice in their poses.  They are just too cute. Alice told me today is her mom’s birthday, low and behold she and I are born in the same “birth year.”  Alice didn’t know her new Texan friend was so old!

Yoga again and this time we did one of those flip over poses, toes over your head and on the floor.  I remember Oprah speaking of muffin top on TV.  Well my muffin top had flipped over drooping into my boobs and then smashed into my face.  Last class when I did this I got stuck and the yoga teacher had to come flip me back.  What a pretzel I am!

Are you ready for a good laugh?   OK, your already laughing envisioning me  as an inverted muffin, but I got hit on tonight, you know a guy tried to make a pass at me.  I was waiting for Alice in front of the University and this white guy came barreling toward me, all excited to see the only white older lady in town.  He is a Math teacher from Montreal, wanted my phone number, very persistent, luckily Alice came along and helped me escape his clutches.  She said he was not my type!  I think he was just excited to see a white face!  HELP, just eat, pray teach……no LOVE.

Tiger Paw and Dragon Breath

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September 7, 2101

In foundation class today we did the “upside down man” drawing.  My past art students and teacher friends know this assignment where you take a Picasso drawing flip it upside down and draw it.  It opens the right side of your brain.  Chinese students think this is difficult, but they are much like American students when they draw.  I had four students flip it over when I went to my desk and draw it right side up and one traced it.  I told them “no, no this is not acceptable!”  When the 20 minutes was up,some where not finished.   They did not get the concept to stop as I was teaching a project in a time frame.  Two wanted to take it home and finish it.  They are serious students, too serious.  I think they need to loosen up!

Alice and I talk about our trip to Mi Jing Temple and what a good time the three of us had.  She makes a comment that I am laughing at everything I see, I do, I hear.   It makes her happy to see me happy.  Her husband has smile wrinkles when he laughs.  I told him that the more wrinkles he has, the happier he must be.  He liked that.  I am happy.  Alice even said that when many bad things have happened to you,  it turns around, and happiness fills you equally.  So the year of sadness, loss and unhappiness is over, I am in the year of happiness, smiles and many new things to laugh at.  I like her philosophy.  I smile, I laugh and I adore Alice.

Lunch with Peter at the corner mom and pop cafe, for a family size bowl of fresh tomato and egg drop soup, with two different  rice dishes on the side.  Our lunch was 17 yuan about $2.25.  The reason is was so high Peter had a Coke!  After school I walked to the bank and transferred my American bills into Yuan.  Now that was an interesting process, they Xeroxed my passport twice and ran all my bills though a machine to see it they were real.  25$ keep spitting back out! (Much like Dragon Breath, will explain later)  The teller called two other tellers over and they examined the bills, ran them though many times, held them to the light and chattered in Chinese for at least 10 minutes.  Are they going to haul me off for counterfeit American dollars?  Wasn’t this the money I had got at my bank in Texas?  At last after I signed three official documents I was given my RMB!  On to the coffee shop for a latte and 2 baguettes, one cheese and the other a cream filled and powered sugar on top.  This will be dinner!  Stopped in a little shop that had cute comfy tops, they are made of Bamboo fiber, this will be nice for my Yoga class, get one  and off to a taxi and home to the hotel.

Yoga class with Yan, my IB coordinator colleague and the Norwegian Massage/Acupuncturist.  I moved to the front of the class to see the instructor, I like her but can’t understand what she says, so I must watch her closely.  She teaches us Tiger Paw where you make a claw with your fist and slap it on the mat, that was noisy and silly.  Then we did a pose on our knees where you breath in, lunge forward, open your mouth, exert a loud breathy noise and stick your tongue out, I called this “Dragon Breath.”  We repeated this many times and I would look up and see my Chinese yoga classmates with their tongues out at me, I started laughing.  Looked over at the Norwegian and she was laughing so hard she had tumbled out of her pose and fell to the floor.  Another good Yoga class. Hitched a ride with Yan.  Her husband came to pick her up, nice to ride in a beautiful car with wood grain trim, like my Eos convertible.  Alias the Eos has moved on to someone else and I some where else.

Now it is time to dress and go to school, need to brush my teeth and remove the Dragon Breath!