Eventful week

We woke up the last 2 mornings without electricity. So many things happen without knowing why, because of our limited language.

Xiao Zhang was pickpocketed yesterday while she was at the market. Our house keys and her scooter keys were in the wallet, so she ran home and we ran back together to protect the scooter from theft while she called her husband to bring extra keys. We had to buy a new front door lock in case we were somehow watched.

Savana came home yesterday, it was very exciting for all of us. She’s now the adult kid visiting home. Crazy. Lexi & Wyatt are busy rehearsing every day for their performances of Beauty and the Beast coming up in November. Lexi is Belle


and Wyatt is Lefou.


Lexi always wanted to be Belle. She wore this same dress to tatters as a little girl. And Wyatt is quite the comedian.

October 1 is National Day, China’s “4th of July,” celebrating the revolution and founding of the PRC in 1949. The family is going with the college to Guilin, which is one of the most scenic areas of China. Last year they took us to Dali which was one of the highlights of our first year here. We are looking forward to it. More info here if you are interested: Guilin.

Teach-arrrrrrre!

Ikmal
While I was at the school this parade passed by. I have no idea what they were celebrating.
Some of the English Immersion students

Can you believe Jeff's back? That freaked me out! Teaching is going well. I feel like I walk the entire city and ride the bus for hours to get to the schools, but not really. Trying to figure out my way around has been quite interesting. My first time on the bus back from teaching, I was trying to figure out where I was, and a friendly older woman had the entire bus entertained trying to tell me where to get off. I was so embarrassed. That was a week ago, and now I feel like I have ridden the bus so many times that I was at the back of the bus taking a nap with all the other Chinese when the friendly lady got on the bus again today and waved "hi"!
My responsibilities continue to grow at the immersion school, and it's happening so fast I don't know what to think. I guess I mainly feel sorry for all those that keep asking my advice or look to me to start a SCHOOL! I thought I was just going to teach English, and now I am teaching half the subjects, writing staff and student policies, choosing curriculum and organizing the schedule. Gd help us all.
My kids are great. Although yesterday one of the girls cut another girl's hair with scissors. The disciplining also seems to be my department. My name is Teach arrrrrrrrrrrrrre. All the kids call me Teach arrrrrrrre. It is too funny. It is great spending time with these kids. We have 5 students right now, but the boss seems slow to add new students. He wants things in order before we take on new students, although visitors seem to come everyday.
We are currently studying Judaism, and will also cover Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Confucianism and Hindi. It's always so interesting listening to the kids grapple with these concepts.

Firecupping or Gigantic Ancient Chinese Medicinal Hickeys

I woke up with really bad back spasms the other morning. I decided to go to the massage place in our neighborhood for the first time. It seemed a little dicey as far as cleanliness. As far as ‘appropriateness’ it is no problem. It’s a small room with two tables open to the street. No funny business possible.

But the cat lays in there all day and the workers smoke and the idea of the linen goes against some of my OCD tendencies.

But I was desperate. The massage helped and it only cost 40 yuan for an hour (about $6.30). She suggested firecupping (details here if interested). She just showed me the globes. At the time I didn’t know that it was called fire cupping or what I was in for. I figured I didn’t have much to lose.



This was the result. My back feels better but I don’t think it’s because of the gigantic hickeys. I'll not be doing this again. Edit - The marks don't hurt.

Ghosts

Downtown Kunming
There are many blind masseuse downtown
KFC is everywhere in China
Next Sunday we will be attending this Three Self Church.

What a week! I taught 8 classes this week, and today I get to rest! I love what I am doing, but it took some time to work out the kinks and the schedule. I think I will be thrilled with my new schedule. I am teaching at two schools which are owned by the same people. In my neighborhood I am teaching English two evenings. Mon – Thurs 12:30 – 3:30 I teach at an English immersion school science, social studies, computers and now probably art…………. I am not an artist, but I love art history!

I currently have 4 students at the English immersion school; two Muslim students from Malaysia, one Korean and one Chinese. Their ages run from 9 – 11 and I absolutely love them! The school is awesome and so is the staff I work with. I am so blessed!

It was a heavy day yesterday. When I asked my class to give me an example of a theory, one of my students shared how a ghost visits her house every night. She and her brother explained how it comes to her mom during the night and calls her by name. They are all very afraid. Later, when I went downstairs to share with my boss about this little girl’s story, another staff member ran up and started sharing about her close friend who is constantly harassed by ghosts. They too are all very afraid.

I had a chance to tell her about the One who is greater than all this. I hope she will find Peace. MANY people here see ghosts and evil spirits. It is heavy indeed.

Please keep our family in your thoughts and our special friends. Please let us know if you are following our blog. A check or a comment keeps us writing! We are never quite sure if anyone is following ;)

Gilligan’s Cotton Candy and Speeches

This guy was in our neighborhood yesterday. He just uses the bike pedaling to run his machine. Pretty ingenious. And the cotton candy is extremely shiny and in a perfect ball. As you can imagine, he was quite popular with the kids coming out of our neighborhood school.

On Tuesday, I had to go give a speech in An Ning. That is the school’s other campus, a little over an hour away by bus. I begged my way out of teaching there this year as I would’ve ended up with about 3 hours of commuting a day. But, there are events out there that we have to attend. I gave a speech to several thousand freshman. They stood on the athletic field at attention for an hour. My speech (3 of 6) was very short, just encouraging them to take a risk with their English. Many of the students had never seen a foreigner before.

We had an hour tour of the campus and a banquet lunch. I was given the honor of sitting between the President and Chairwoman of the college (they are husband and wife). It was an honor but I would have preferred NOT to be the center of attention. There were 17 people at the table, all high officials. At one point the highest Vice President (on the President’s right) began telling me jokes in English as the whole table watched us. I couldn’t understand him. It was a bit uncomfortable for a few minutes.

I have to go back to An Ning on Friday for Teacher’s Day. More speeches and banquets. The new Australian teacher has to give the speech for that. I am bummed because I have classes in the morning and will be gone all day - and that is Savana’s last day with us. But we are excited for her to head out.

Beethoven Joke

Pictures: Markets, things for sale like Russian and Mao flasks.

Monday morning here in Kunming. It's just me and Savana in the house...... we move her to Wenshan Thursday. The first time one of our children will leave the house. So many emotions! And to such a big commitment. I will have 4 days with her in Wenshan before we say "goodbye". I am looking forward to seeing and experience what her life will be like.

Finished the teachers workshop last week, and it stirred up many questions. One was, "How do I know if an American boy likes me?" Really? Love is supposed to be more simple in English than Chinese? It was interesting to learn, that most of the teachers struggle with when and how to discipline. We spent a lot of time discussing values in the classroom. I love that part. And of course learning phonics.

We went to a neighbors house last night and made dumplings. YUMMY! Wow! It was a great time. If you are not aware there has been a one child policy in China. I can never go very far into a discussion before the Chinese bring this up. It is a very great heart ache. Raising millions of an "only child" is and has changed the face of China in many many ways. The law has recently change to two children, but they must be 5 years apart . I am always at a loss with how to respond to this struggle, and last night was not any different.

The family that hosted us had two friends join us, since one was an expert at making Dumplings (she was from the North) and the other was gifted at telling jokes! Here goes........ while lifting up her index finger she said, "How come Beethoven did not use this finger while playing the piano?" Long silence....................... of course we didn't know "why" says us. "Because this is my finger not his!" lol!