December 25 - Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from China!

I have been extremely busy for the last little while with everyone seeming to want to celebrate with me. I've got a bunch of things I'm planning to share on here, but it may only be possible in a few days from now.

I'm celebrating today with some students who will come over to make me traditional Chinese food. Yesterday, I had lunch with the vice-president of the school, and was introduced to the three-glass toast. Three wishes for good luck - three glasses of wine in quick succession to go with them. Needless to say it was an interesting lunch. They even gave us a Christmas gift. I'm now the proud owner of a brand new paperweight. Not sure why they thought of giving us paperweights, but what can I say.

Hope you all have a happy holiday.

December 18 - Informal attendance at a formal gala

Last weekend, I was asked to be a judge for the finals of the College of Foreign Studies English debating competition. I told you about judging the semi-finals in a previous post. Irene (she refuses to tell me her Chinese name) took me to the previous competition, which was held in an office building's conference room with maybe thirty people in attendance. The setting was really intimate and quite relaxed. That was, at least, until the debating teams really started ripping into each other.

December 13 - Chinese Lessons

I've started taking Chinese lessons on Wednesdays and Thursdays. I only get 4 hours of instruction per week, but it's much better than nothing. Plus, it's all free! I couldn't ask for a better benefit of being a foreign teacher here. I have two different classes. One class is for grammar and reading, the other is for speaking. Each class is two hours long. My teachers are very nice young ladies who are fun to talk with. They're serious about teaching me and they prefer that I speak only in Chinese with them, but they also like to chat and experiment in Chinese conversations rather than just stick with the textbook all the time as I have seen some other Chinese teachers do.

December 9 - Singing Patriotic Songs and Busy Weekend (Warning: Epic Post)

I had planned for a relaxing weekend on the fourth and fifth after feeling sick on Thursday and Friday, but life had other plans for me. After class on Friday, I was invited by a young woman to go see her 功夫 (gong fu; kung fu) class on Saturday and then by Arthur to another impromptu basketball game (Arthur being the guy who first invited me to play basketball a little while ago). Even though I was feeling quite under the weather, I agreed to both. Arthur and I planned to meet at 3 o'clock, but we ended up missing each other in an unfortunate coincidence. I wasn't at the basketball courts when he arrived, so he set out to my apartment. I left my apartment and headed for the basketball court, arriving at 3:05, but we took different routes. As a result, he ended up waiting at my apartment for 10 minutes then heading back to the courts, while I waited for 20 minutes at the courts looking for signs of him. When he finally showed up, we even managed to miss each other briefly at the courts themselves, even though I was standing right in the entranceway. I was facing the wrong direction, since he took a route I wasn't expecting and he somehow missed the tall white guy standing right in front of the one and only (small) entrance to the basketball courts.

December 1 - Checking in

I've just learned that my last day of classes for the semester will be on December 24. My parents are considering coming to see me here during the Christmas break, so finishing on Christmas Eve will be perfect. I've still got to give my students a final exam though, which will take place in the following two weeks or so. Either way, after I finish marking exams, I'll be off until the end of February. In China, they don't do one long four month summer break like they do in Canada. Instead, they split the breaks into two month periods with one half in January and February and the other in August and September. I'm not sure how the students can handle the heat of June and July, but apparently they cope. Also, June and July is the rainy season in China, so I guess that helps too. It's not much fun to be on break if it's always raining.