Odds and Ends -- Typhoons, Art and Teaching
10 August 2005
We got busy all of a sudden. After our first week of half-day classes, mostly in Mandarin, we started teaching this week in the mornings at a local middle school (grades 7-12) and then attending class in the afternoons. But there are chunks of time here and there and we've been out doing odds and ends--a little more pedestrian than before. Learning where the big grocery stores are, dealing with homework. Finding restaurants that have variety. We also had a little typhoon come through here last weekend. Typhoons are what they call hurricanes in the Pacific. This one was a Category 1 when it hit shore south of us and mostly we just got a couple of days of rain, but we also had one windy night. Overall, not really much damage though a few trees were down and part of campus was flooded. I slept through the windy part. So last weekend (6th and 7th) we changed exploring plans from excursions out of doors to excursions indoors. I actually climbed in a climbing gym on Saturday--it was kind of lame but pretty fun anyway. And Sunday we went to the Shanghai Museum which was great. I especially liked the paintings. This coming weekend promises good weather and a trip to a water village about two hours from here--supposedly very beautiful. We're looking forward to that.
By the way, blogs are blocked here in China so although we can post and see our posts here in edit mode while we make them we can't actually go to the blog and read any comments. So if you are trying to reach us through comments to the blog, please just e-mail us (kdriese@uwyo.edu or poohsway@yahoo.com).
Here's the running track on campus after Typhoon Matsa. The track was under about 6" of water. We run here early in the morning when it is only 80 degrees out (it's too hot to even think of running later) and I headed out to run that morning only to find a foot of water on the route to the track.
I'm not sure if these bikes were toppled by wind or were just laying here before the storm.
More bikes. More water. The photo is a little foggy because it was so humid that I couldn't keep my lense clear.
On Sunday it was still raining hard from the typhoon, so we went to the Shanghai Museum. It was great. Paintings, jade, silk, textiles, sculpture, calligraphy and lots of other stuff. The paintings were fun to look at. There were lots of peaceful scenes of people looking out on landscapes. I enjoyed finding little pieces of the scenes to photograph.
Shopping remains a central activity and it's time consuming. We're still learning where to find things and still interested in the strangeness of the markets and even of the modern stores. There is a "fresh market" down the street where I go every morning to get dumplings (jiaozi) for Bei and bread for Ellen for breakfast. I always walk through and people there recognize me now, especially if I bring Bei. Then there are the big modern markets like the French supermarket (Carre fourre). I'm not sure I spelled it right but I'm sure it's huge. And crowded. It's Walmart like but packed to the gills with people.
The local market at night. It stays busy there until around 7 p.m. when people start to shut their stalls. Then it gets busy again early in the morning (it's always in full swing by the time I get there around 6 a.m.).
Here's the checkout area at the big "French" grocery.
Here's Ellen checking out SOMETHING (seaweed??).
Here's part of the meat section. I'll take the little pig.
And finally, here are some shots from our teaching practicum. It's at a middle school and it's a special session for the top students to get to work with us native English speakers. The kids are about 17 and very very smart with an excellent handle on English, though they are a little shy about using it.
The practicum started on Monday with a welcome ceremony--very formal with speeches and lots of clapping. That's not important though. What's important is to notice those little baskets of food on the table. These were treats for the foreign teachers. Later some students offered me a little candy in one of the attractive foil wrappers. It turned out to be a duck part. Maybe a liver. Maybe a heart. Maybe cooked. I fell into the trap of accepting it without being able to read the package and I literally had to stifle my gag reflex as I popped the salty flesh into my mouth. Just say no to little foil packets. That's my new rule.
The students work on a dictation exercise.
Students Irene (English name) on left and Kim (also English name) on right try to guess food items that are being described by their classmates. Irene gave me the duck part (and was unable to tell me in English which part it was).
That's it for now--we're off to class in a few minutes. I'll try to update again this weekend.
We got busy all of a sudden. After our first week of half-day classes, mostly in Mandarin, we started teaching this week in the mornings at a local middle school (grades 7-12) and then attending class in the afternoons. But there are chunks of time here and there and we've been out doing odds and ends--a little more pedestrian than before. Learning where the big grocery stores are, dealing with homework. Finding restaurants that have variety. We also had a little typhoon come through here last weekend. Typhoons are what they call hurricanes in the Pacific. This one was a Category 1 when it hit shore south of us and mostly we just got a couple of days of rain, but we also had one windy night. Overall, not really much damage though a few trees were down and part of campus was flooded. I slept through the windy part. So last weekend (6th and 7th) we changed exploring plans from excursions out of doors to excursions indoors. I actually climbed in a climbing gym on Saturday--it was kind of lame but pretty fun anyway. And Sunday we went to the Shanghai Museum which was great. I especially liked the paintings. This coming weekend promises good weather and a trip to a water village about two hours from here--supposedly very beautiful. We're looking forward to that.
By the way, blogs are blocked here in China so although we can post and see our posts here in edit mode while we make them we can't actually go to the blog and read any comments. So if you are trying to reach us through comments to the blog, please just e-mail us (kdriese@uwyo.edu or poohsway@yahoo.com).
Here's the running track on campus after Typhoon Matsa. The track was under about 6" of water. We run here early in the morning when it is only 80 degrees out (it's too hot to even think of running later) and I headed out to run that morning only to find a foot of water on the route to the track.
I'm not sure if these bikes were toppled by wind or were just laying here before the storm.
More bikes. More water. The photo is a little foggy because it was so humid that I couldn't keep my lense clear.
On Sunday it was still raining hard from the typhoon, so we went to the Shanghai Museum. It was great. Paintings, jade, silk, textiles, sculpture, calligraphy and lots of other stuff. The paintings were fun to look at. There were lots of peaceful scenes of people looking out on landscapes. I enjoyed finding little pieces of the scenes to photograph.
Shopping remains a central activity and it's time consuming. We're still learning where to find things and still interested in the strangeness of the markets and even of the modern stores. There is a "fresh market" down the street where I go every morning to get dumplings (jiaozi) for Bei and bread for Ellen for breakfast. I always walk through and people there recognize me now, especially if I bring Bei. Then there are the big modern markets like the French supermarket (Carre fourre). I'm not sure I spelled it right but I'm sure it's huge. And crowded. It's Walmart like but packed to the gills with people.
The local market at night. It stays busy there until around 7 p.m. when people start to shut their stalls. Then it gets busy again early in the morning (it's always in full swing by the time I get there around 6 a.m.).
Here's the checkout area at the big "French" grocery.
Here's Ellen checking out SOMETHING (seaweed??).
Here's part of the meat section. I'll take the little pig.
And finally, here are some shots from our teaching practicum. It's at a middle school and it's a special session for the top students to get to work with us native English speakers. The kids are about 17 and very very smart with an excellent handle on English, though they are a little shy about using it.
The practicum started on Monday with a welcome ceremony--very formal with speeches and lots of clapping. That's not important though. What's important is to notice those little baskets of food on the table. These were treats for the foreign teachers. Later some students offered me a little candy in one of the attractive foil wrappers. It turned out to be a duck part. Maybe a liver. Maybe a heart. Maybe cooked. I fell into the trap of accepting it without being able to read the package and I literally had to stifle my gag reflex as I popped the salty flesh into my mouth. Just say no to little foil packets. That's my new rule.
The students work on a dictation exercise.
Students Irene (English name) on left and Kim (also English name) on right try to guess food items that are being described by their classmates. Irene gave me the duck part (and was unable to tell me in English which part it was).
That's it for now--we're off to class in a few minutes. I'll try to update again this weekend.
posted by Ken, Ellen and Bei | 10:27 PM
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