Jo’s BJU Approved Blog

Tonight at church a girl I barely know came up to me and gave me $150 for my China trip. I have nearly 1/3 of my support now.

Some of our group got split up to different places this year, but I got to stay at good ol’ ILTC where I taught last year. I had lots of fun times despite the heat. I had thirty students and team taught with Kristin.

Today we had the kids go around and say where they would go if they could go anywhere and tell us why. We had 4 say they would stay in China. One guy said that he would come visit me and Emily. An A+ for him. 2 girls wanted to go to Japan, some wanted to go to Australia, Korea, Germany, England, Hawaii, and Ireland. I thought it was interesting, and it gave them a chance to talk and for us to get to know them better. My favorite was Harry who wanted to go to another planet and start his own country.
(Harry and Chris)

In the afternoon I went to McDonalds with Julie, Missy, Bri, Anna, and Ruby (one of Lari’s students). We went to buy some DVDs after lunch. I bought Hitch (because apparently 3 times on the plane just wasn’t enough:) ), A Series of Unfortunate Events, Princess Diaries, Sixth Sense (I don’t care who doesn’t like it, it is still one of my favs), and I Am Sam. We had a debriefing meeting with Mr. Trainer in the evening. I enjoyed it. I know I haven’t even left yet, but I can’t wait to come back to China. He hopes to have 15 return from Northland.

Sidenote: I’ve been trying to find semi-interesting journal entries to post, but have had no luck. I know you are probably thinking did she think the other ones she posted were interesting? I know it was hard to tell, but some of the rest of my journal entries are pretty mind-numbing. I was very tired by the time I wrote most of these at night. This one was ok comparatively.

Today we talked about Indians, tv, Thanksgiving, and more about their speeches. I got to talk about Gilmore Girls. Fun times…Everyone should know about Gilmore Girls. I also talked with some of the kids about Law & Order and CSI. I was glad we finally got around to discussing something important in class. We have 6 hours of class today, so we showed Finding Nemo in our afternoon session. We had them write down words and phrases that they didn’t know. Not many of them wrote anything down, so Emily and I ended up writing down things that we thought they wouldn’t know. Emily was funny b/c she hadn’t seen it before so she was reacting to stuff and the kids thought it was hillarious. Some of them talked a lot through the beginning of the movie, but most of them got into the movie eventually. My favorite phrase from Nemo that we taught the kids was “You want a piece of me?” And they thought movie watching wasn’t educational. That phrase alone will bring them great success in business.

For dinner, Emily and I tried a new place the Vanilla Sky Cafe. We had fun, but I don’t think I’m going to be a repeat visitor there. The place smelled like a garage. After dinner we went to a different coffee place. This one was called Good Wood. It was a nicer place so obviously the coffee was more expensive. I’m going to stick with the Beanery. We were trying to find someplace that was open before classes, but we’ve had no luck. The earliest a cafe opens is 9am. I think that is really strange. I miss my morning coffee Pete’s is open for breakfast, but I swear they use Maxwell House or something. I’m not a big fan of their coffee. Not enough to get up and walk all the way there.

It is still strange not getting up for church. I stayed in bed til almost 10 and then got up and showered and went to Pete’s for lunch with Allison. We went back to the foreign bookstore and watched Conspiracy Theory. I love that movie. We went to the Rome Restaurant for dinner. I had spaghetti with mushroom sauce. It was nice to have some relatively normal pasta. Some of the pasta here is pretty funky. We had our worship meeting at 8. It was fun to hear about the weekend camping trip. They went grass skiing and white water rafting. I still think that is was best for me not to go. I enjoyed the rest and I’m feeling almost back to normal.

Most of the kids in our group went to the mountains. They were going to go camping on the snow capped mountains, and I was still getting over my cough so I thought it would be best to stay behind and rest. [later I found out that they actually camped indoors ]
Allison and 3 other people from NBBC stayed back as well. I slept in until 10 which was really nice. In the afternoon Allison and I went to the bookstore, Grandma’s Deli, the Coffee Beanery, and TrustMart. I bought a lot of books at the bookstore because they were so cheap. I’m gonna have fun times trying to get those back in my suitcase. We also picked up Oreos, soda, and pretzles for our movie night. We watched Ever After and Mulan. I enjoyed having no room or suite mates for the weekend. I like having time to myself and that is a rare occasion over here.

We talked about music and Christmas in class. I played a variety of music and discussed it with the kids, and then Emily talked about Christmas. We taught them Away in the Manger. We also had them sing Jingle Bells because that was the only Christmas song they already knew.

This evening we took 20 of our 36 kids out to eat at Pizza Hut. Some of the kids had never used forks and knives before. I told them they could eat with their hands, but they didn’t like that idea. A lot of the kids liked the supreme pizza, but they were dumping ketchup on the cheese one. They claimed to like that one too, but I saw a lot of people running for Ramen when we got back on campus.

After Pizza Hut, we were going to go shopping with some of the girls, but we noticed the guys weren’t heading for the bus stop. We asked them if they were going to go shopping with us, and they said “Of course.” It was so funny. They all enjoyed shopping. I’ve never seen guys enjoy shopping so much, especially clothes and shoe shopping.

Kevin, David, Bob, Louis

Matt, Beyond, Harry, Jacky, Linken, Mark

Today we had our first make-up class. Interesting times…When I got there for afternoon class, Louis and Chris were waiting outside of our ILTC building. They told me that the guard wouldn’t let them in the building because they were morning students. I took the 2 of them with me to the guard and pulled out my nametag (yeah the one that says foreign expert  ). David told the guy that they were with me. He looked suspiciously at us, but reluctantly let the guys in. When we got up to our classroom on the 4th floor (I certainly have been getting my exercise on this trip), there were people in there already. I wondered how they had made it by the guard when I suddenly looked around and realized that they were not my students. I went back downstairs where more of my class was being refused entrance to our building. I tried to explain the situation to them. I finally got through to Chris and David who explained in Chinese to the rest of the kids that we didn’t have a classroom. We just stood around and waited for Emily C. to get there Emily finally showed up and went to talk to Deng and his secretary. Ten minutes later the kids are starting to get restless, and I am wondering what is taking so long. I get the guard to let the kids into the lobby where it is at least a little cooler. I checked on Emily who was still waiting for them to figure out a new classroom assignment for us. I went back down and got some more of the kids inside. Now there were about 30 kids and me standing in the lobby. We were getting some funny stares from the staff. Finally Emily came down and told us that our new assignment was 504. More exercise…
We got upstairs and took roll. We were missing three kids. I knew King was claiming to be sick, but JoJo and Puty should have been there. I figured the guard must have stopped them. I ran downstairs hoping that they hadn’t left yet. There they were standing outside. You would think that the story would have sounded a little more believable to the guard the 32nd time, but such was not the case. I brought them in with me. We finally got in and settled and discussed sports. We covered golf, hockey, football, tennis, and basketball 1st hour. After 1st hour, 2 of the girls came to me and said they had left their bags in our 4th floor classroom. I wend down with them and hoped that the class was on break as well, but of course not. I interrupted the teacher in that classroom. I was nervous because he was Chinese, but he spoke excellent English, and was very kind. On the way back to the classroom, the girls sang “A Hero Comes Along” to me.  It was very amusing. During 2nd hour we covered baseball and soccer. We taught the kids the song “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”
3rd hour we tried to teach the kids “Knock Out” but it didn’t go so well. The boys didn’t understand it very well, but they still had fun. Only one of our kids had a basketball, so we had to use a soccer ball as a bball. The girls kept saying the game was too hard for girls and they wanted to go home.
Finally, after 20 minutes we let the kids go ½ an hour early. Emily and I were heading back to the dorm when David and Chris asked us if we would stay and play basketball with some of them. We stayed and played for ½ an hour. I had a blast. We had to leave and go get ready for the evening after that. Emily, Allison, David, Sarah, and I went to a Chinese noodle place for dinner. Everything was in Chinese. Emily was having trouble letting them know what she wanted. They were trying to draw a diagram of the menu and point and stuff.  Finally they figured out just to write the price down. I saw a picture that looked like spaghetti with beef. I just pointed to the picture. When I did, the woman rang up the same thing that my friends got. I looked at the picture again and noticed the characters on the pic were the same as the one on the menu that they had been trying to order. They felt really dumb when they realized they could have cut down on the drama and just pointed to the big picture on the wall.

When I got to the Brennecke’s (6th floor, more exercise for me), Naomi and Jeana brought in lilies. I was like “You have got to be kidding me.” Mrs B. took them out of the room so I was hopeful, but I realized that she was just putting water in the vase. I was far from them so I thought it would be ok, but then they turned on the fan. She talked for 15 minutes and then let another lady talk. In the transition, I got my friend to tell Bernson to get the flowers moved. I felt bad, but I didn’t want to get really sick. After the Brennecke’s I went with Larissa to Peter’s to get ice cream and coffee. I still had to work on lesson plans when I got back, but Emily told me if I got some music together that she would just write up the plans.

It is weird not having church be a part of the routine. It is hard to remember what day it is. Class was fun.
King slept through it, but other than that…We talked about mysteries. We collected compositions as well. They had to write about a first time experience. Most of them that handed one in did pretty well. I was very impressed with several of them. One of the guys, Dick , didn’t make any grammatical errors. Another guy, Sky, wrote us a note at the end of his that said.
“I think that you want 2-5 sentences so I think that I cannot finish my story.” It was so cute because he really didn’t finish. We meant at least that long because some kids were just writing one sentence. We wanted to get at least 2 out of them.

Bad news…we got out of our teacher’s debriefing meeting a little late. Emily C. and I were disappointed because we were excited about setting things up in our classroom, and we figured by this time all the students would be in there already. When we got upstairs to our 4th floor classroom, no one was there. What are the chances that all 30 something kids would all be late? We figured that it wasn’t very likely so Emily went down to the office to see if they changed our room number. They told her that we were in the right classroom. She came back and still we had no one so she went to find Dr. Bennett. Apparently there was some kind of confusion and the kids had shown up yesterday and gone home when no one was there. They ended up moving our class until Tuesday. We were sad because we were so excited to get started. I ended up helping Emily B again. I was sitting in the back row while Emily was talking about mysteries when suddenly this kid
Robbitt (sp?) turned around and said to me “Trust no one, Mr. Mulder.” I laughed so hard. I used to love the X-files. The same boy asked me why I was wearing my ring on my little finger. I told him I was fatter than I was in 10th grade when I bought the ring. He said that in China wearing the ring on the little finger means you want to be single, fourth finger means that you are married, and on the middle finger it means “you are receiving hot love.” Yeah you never know what those kids are going to say. We had some interesting questions to deal with. Eventually after trying to get a better idea from some of my Chinese friends whether he really meant it how he said it, I told him probably saying you are involved in a romantic relationship would be a more appropriate expression of the thought than the afore mentioned phrase. I laughed crazy hard at and with that kid. He’s great.

I went to Carrefour in the afternoon with Larissa. I bought a CD, a radio, and a DVD. I also went to Peter’s 3 times.
(me and my favorite Pete’s waiter, Daniel)
They laughed when I came in the 3rd time because I had already had lunch and dinner there. I just had a cup of coffee while Emily C. had dinner.

After dinner, I watched the Incredibles with Eunice, Emily B’s roommate. She cracks me up. I love her laugh. I enjoyed the movie, and I’ll enjoy not being mocked anymore for having not seen it. I went to bed right away after that. I didn’t have to do lesson plans because Emily C and I were already ready for today and didn’t have class.

It seemed weird to get up today like it was just anyother day. The school took us to a museum about 1 1/2 hours away. I sat with one of Julia’s students, Rachel. She is so gifted. She speaks excellent English. We talked about all kinds of things. She was happy that we had things in common. We both like spicy food, playing tennis, reading, learning about other cultures, and of course the most important thing coffee. We also both hate math. We had a lot of fun. She is so cute and they are all so giving. They are so excited that we want to spend time with them and be their friends. We went out to eat at a normal Chinese restaurant. It was a bit of shock after a day of American type food, but it was much better than the food at the University. I guess that makes sense though. I would hate to have anyone judge American food by Northland cafeteria. The only thing questionable that I ate was pig heart. I am glad they never tell me what things are until after I have tried them. It tasted good actually. I tried everything except for the fish soup. They had tomato soup with pork meatballs. Larissa’s student called them “pig balls.” It was very cute. We told him that in America we say pork or ham or beef. It is confusing for them because we say turkey, fish, and chicken. Oh well…I also like the eggs and waterbuffalo. The eggs weren’t cooked as much as I would have liked, but the Chinese kids loved them and kept serving them to me. Naomi warned us about them doing that. The Chinese students were impressed with my chopstick skills. The one girl felt that I should hold them higher, but I haven’t made a mess or anything.

After lunch, we travelled about 50 minutes to the panda reserve.
A lot of the pandas were inside because it was so hot. The Chinese girls had umbrellas and Larissa and I asked her student Allan why they had umbrellas when it wasn’t raining. He said that they were afraid of becoming black. Lari explained that in the US being tan is generally considered a good thing. They couldn’t believe that.

Emily C. and I planned our lesson for tomorrow the rest of the evening. We are excited to finally have students. We have been the only ones without students all week.

Today we went to the market as a group. We took a public bus. That was an experience.

It only cost 1 yiuan (taxis cost 1.4 a km), but it was crazy crowded. They kept letting more and more people on the bus. It is hard to ride a packed bus while standing.

At the market I bought 2 bracelets and 2 wall hangings. One was a winter scene and the other was summer.
(The painter, his wife and my roomies) The people wanted me to buy all the seasons, but I only wanted the one so I compromised and bought 2. I also bartered. I don’t enjoy it, but it is nice not to be ripped off just because we are Americans.

After the market, we all took taxi’s and went to Pizza Hut, and the Brennecke’s house (our “contact”). His family is so sweet. We had ice cream there and just hung out. One of the students Jodi came. She seems very open. Hopefully some good opportunities will come from her spending a lot of time with the group.

A little explanation of the picture for those who were not on the team. Eunice and my roomies were at DuFu’s cottage when Eunice got an attack of what we had been calling Montezuma’s revenge. We couldn’t find a bathroom anywhere and no one spoke English to ask. We finally did find the toilets and a sign in English. We decided to take a pic on the way out to remember the drama. Our suite decided that in honor of Eunice we would call diarreah DuFu’s from then on. It really caught on and by the end of the trip, most of the team was referring to their gastrointestinal distress as DuFu’s. I’m not sure whether or not we should be proud of inventing the new name, but it was amusing to see how fast it caught on.

I’m shooting myself for not having a photo of this, but this story was too funny not to share. Some of my friends were eating dinner and the host threw a live octopus into the soup. Well the crazy things starts trying to crawl out. They were hacking limbs off till the thing finally fell in and eventually died. You totally had to be there to appreciate it, but use your imagination.Sidenote: eating octopus boiled is like a mix between chewing fat and tires.

I helped Emily Bjorkman with her class again. They are great kids. We talked about expeditions. I thought that was a strange topic. I don’ t like the textbooks much. We went out to Peter’s Tex-Mex for lunch. The place has great food and the best part of all…Western toilets! I had a chicken quesadilla and chicken fajitas. When they brought out the chicken and vegetables they were still sizzling. It was so good. I just couldn’t eat any of the food at school lunch today. I even tried the tofu that I usually like and I couldn’t handle it.

After lunch, Emily and I went to DuFu’s Thatched Cottage. DuFu was China’s greatest poet.
I bought a painting for my aunt and also finally found some postcards. I didn’t get any mosquito bites. Everyone else that has gone did. I also got a book with DuFu’s poetry in Chinese with the English translation on the other page. I thought it was pretty cool.

In the evening I went to Carrefour which is like Walmart. I bought Icy Mint Sprite. It was interesting…I think I liked it. I was not sure what to think at first. It tasted like I drank Sprite while chewing gum, but it grows on you. I learned today how to say Sprite in Chinese. I bought the Incredibles DVD and My Big Fat Greek Wedding for about only $3 US. I’m hoping to buy some more on another trip.

I was so excited that this morning I got my first e-mail from one of my Chinese students, Zero
.
I am so glad that some of them want to keep in touch. I miss them already. Hopefully when I go back next summer I can see some of them again. Most of them live 3 hours away from the university, but I’m sure we could work something out.

I locked myself out of the room and ended up going to Emily’s (Bjorkman)class. I taught for a little bit. I was not nervous at all. She is teaching the same level as I will be on Monday. Some of her kids have funny names like “Shine” and “Popeye.” Missy said one of the kids in her class wanted to be called J. Lo, but Missy said no. Phil has a kid named “Hello Kitty” in his class. In the afternoon I went on my first Chinese taxi ride [I already posted Emily’s view of the ride on my site] The ride to the department store wasn’t mad except for sometimes the guy drove down the middle of the road. Our ride back to the university was crazy. Our taxi hit 2 cars. He actually continually rammed into one car until it got out of his way. He also had some interesting music playing. One was in English. It was ver touching. Here are the lyrics:
“I’m saying good morning, good afternoon, good evening baby. Yeah I’m saying…” I was deeply moved. It might be my new favorite song.

At night I watched Chinese TV and news in English (YEA). I watched Dick van Dyke on Mary’s computer with April. Fun times…

They made a lot of changes at the morning meeting. It didn’t really affect Emily C. and me though since we don’t teach until Monday. We are hoping to be able to look at the curriculum soon. After our meeting, some of the Clearwater people took us to exchange money and look around the immediate area. For lunch I ate some sort of fish. It didn’t have any bones in it like the one last night did. I also ate some beef and broccoli, very spicy clear noodles, tofu, eggs and tomatoes, and something I hope was chicken. After lunch today Emily C. and I went to the Coffee Beanery. I had an iced American and a hot Americano. We spent an hour there. The menu had English on it as well as Chinese. That was a blessing since I know no Chinese. The sofas there are really comfy. Emily and I had a nice chat. We hadn’t really talked much this past year so we caught up a little. The Beanery isn’t far from the North Gate (near my dorm) so I think I will definitely spend some quality time there this month. I’ll have to get Emily Bjorkman to go there with me. We normally spend a lot of time (and money) at the Grind back at NBBC. I think that it is going to be interesting rooming with Mary, Katy, and April. I was disappointed that they didn’t put me and Emily B. together.

So our nametags say “foreign expert on them.
That really cracked me up. I am a foreign expert English teacher at Sichuan University’s Intensive Language Training Center. How smart do I sound? Unfortunately I am well aware that the name tag has no direct impact on my IQ. Another newsworthy event. I got into my dorm room by myself. Great personal accomplishment. There are 2 doors before you get into the suite itself and then another door to get into my actual room. It is crazy. I also have keys for the balcony, desk, and wardrobe.

You’ll never believe what I found myself doing the other day. I was at a local Wal-Mart equivalent store called Trust Mart. All I needed to buy was some body soap, a seemingly easy task. But that is not so easy when you are the only English speaker around with no translator. So I went to the first worker I saw and said, “Soap?” I got a puzzled look. “Wash.” Still nothing. “Um, shower.” Nope, not a chance. So I resorted to the only thing I knew to do, pantomiming taking a shower. Here I am in the middle of a crowded store, rubbing my body down, trying desperately to break through a very thick wall called “the great wall of language barrier.” Finally, after about 10 seconds of my amazing dramatic presentation, the worker’s eyes lit up. She began leading me through the store. I was so excited; finally, I could get my soap and go home and take a real shower. But much to my disappointment, she stopped at a rack of those puffy body wash scrub things and handed one to me. Oh no! My performance must not have been as flawless as I had first imagined. Maybe I was holding my hands in the wrong position, causing her to mistake the very distinct bar-of-soap shape for the puffy-body-wash-scrub-thing shape. Well, I sure was not going to put her through any more torture, so I looked for others to help me.
from Aaron’s Dear Mom Letter

Eating with chopsticks is a topic most Americans might feel inadequate speaking about. Not so for our team. Many of us have learned how to multi-task while eating a Chinese meal. Since the Chinese serve their meals on a round, center turntable, and since we eat directly from the center dish, it has become very easy to mix the dishes together, thereby cutting our work in half. For instance, as one brings the succulent pinecone fish from the center toward himself, small amounts of fish and/or sweet and sour sauce might drip into the tofu. Thus, the next person eating tofu does not need to turn the table to get fish since he has already gotten that in his tofu. This type of eating is an efficient use of our time and energy.
-from Bernson’s Dear Mom letter

Yes, he did name himself Lucifer…

taken from Emily Claypool’s “Dear Mom”letter

I went for my first taxi ride recently. Considering I’ve never, ever ridden in a taxi before, I especially enjoyed this experience.

My friend Joanna and I were heading back to campus from shopping where we hailed the cab. From the moment he started driving, things were a little crazy. I think our driver was determined to get us to our destination as soon as possible. So much so, that he would drive in between vehicles to get farther along the traffic during a red light. On one such occasion, another car decided to squeeze in between the same vehicles we were squeezing between. The drivers kept honking their horns at each other, but no one would back down. The two cars ended up sideswiping each other! But no worries—our driver just rolled down his window, fixed his mirror, and kept driving as though nothing had happened! Joanna and I were cracking up. We had never seen anything like it!

Not more than five minutes later, our driver once again clipped the corner of a truck. He just rolled down his window, fixed his mirror again, and kept going.

We actually did make it to our destination without any problems. I have since ridden in many more taxis, and I haven’t had any more problems with the drivers. I thoroughly enjoyed the ride, so don’t worry.

Psalm 139
1O LORD, you have searched me and known me!
2You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from afar.
3You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4Even before a word is on my tongue,
behold, O LORD, you know it altogether.

17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
I awake, and I am still with you.
23Search me, O God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
24And see if there be any grievous way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting!

The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

I survived my first night in China. The bed was harder than I was used to, but I slept well anyway. My congestion is finally starting to clear up. I’m really hoping not to get bronchitis while I am here. My flights all went well. They were long, but but no problems. I watched Hitch 3 times and Pacifier twice. I got a couple of hours sleep on the way to Korea. We had a banquet last night with the ILTC officials. There was so much food. They had 22 dishes. Naomi said that there isn’t always that much food. There was just that much because it was a banquet. None of the food made me sick yet. I ate rabbit, water buffalo vocal chords (super gross), some weird grey pasta, tofu, lotus root, pepper steak (yea), shrimp, random vegetables, chicken and onions, tomatoes and eggs, and lots of Coke. They kept refilling the cups and since the food was very spicy I had to keep drinking. We aren’t allowed to drink the water (obviously). We have to brush our teeth with bottle water as well.

I will be teaching with Emily Claypool.
We will be teaching Level 3. Our class doesn’t start until Monday so some of the people who are a little stressed about teaching today are a little jealous. I have to go to the opening meeting and then I am free until lunch. We have to go to three meals a day at the school’s restaurant the first week.

On the way from Korea to Chengdu we were given the choice of western food or Korean food. I didn’t mind Korean food for dinner, but when breakfast came around I was looking forward to my eggs and toast and coffee. Unfortunately, I was sitting with a Korean man and his family on the plane, and he felt led to order for me. So I had shrimp fried rice and some other weird stuff. My body was so messed up from the timezones it wasn’t really breakfast time in my mind anyway so I figured I might as well eat the food. Well I started to eat and the Korean man leans over and tells me to put on the hot paste. I told him that I didn’t really need it. The man grabs my tube of hot paste and says “Here, I’ll help you.” He opened it up and squeezed it all over my food. Then he looks at me and tells me to stir it. I didn’t really know what else to do, so I did. The man told me I needed to get used to spicy food because the food in Sichuan even makes Koreans cry. I lived through it. I was afraid I might get sick on the plane, but alas I did not. That was my first interesting experience on the trip.