Going Home Today

Well, this is the last 6 hours before I leave for the airport. I guess my take-aways would be:

1) great food, I am quite adept at chop sticks now and of all the food I have been offered, I like all except chicken feet and dove heads. Even the Pig stomach wasn't bad. You have to try the octopus on a stick. I have had it twice so far.

2) friendly people from the co-teachers, vice deans and deans to the two families that Wangping had me meet.

3) The students are hard workers once they understand what to study. My final test grades averaged 80% in Materials with 3 students failing and one got a 100. That is they get one more chance to take a similar final next semester and if they fail again they retake the class. In my Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing class everyone passed with a 88% overall average. One person got a 100.

4) The extreme contrast between China and America will have a lasting impression. There are no grossly overweight people that I have seen. In fact 98% are trim. Most women dress very stylishly and the guys too to a lesser degree. Few people own their own home and even fewer have a vehicle. When they ask about my living and I say a 3,000 ft^2 home and 3 cars, I am humbled. Many chinese men and young men smoke.

I didn't get this sent off in Shanghai because I lost the connection. Actually I am in the Portland airport at the moment waiting to get the last leg home and the internet connection and speed are amazing. Here are some misc. pictures and movies that are downloading extremely well. One movie is a great picture of the octopus tenticles, the other a pet store I stumbled on. Pictures are of a bike rack and my last dinner with the co-teachers. It was a Chinese Muslim restaurant. They said this type of food was eaten mainly in western China. The beer was dark (they called black beer). I would campare it to a US micro brew versus the other stuff I have had here. The most popular beers here are similar to coors, or bud.

I'll have to think about some other stuff. So long, it has been a blast doing this. I will have to print it out and keep it for prosperity.

Dinner and a Movie??

Tuesday after work, my Chinese co-teacher, Dr. Li, said he would pick me up and we would go out. I arrived back at my guest house at 6:15 pm after a grouling day at the office (that is 6 hours of teaching) and he was waiting for me. Here is another picture of this fellow. Really nice guy, married, with one 13 year old (who recently hurt her knee and is on crutches) who will be taking her "exams" next weekend to get into high school. Very important for her and her family because it means getting into a more prestegious high school if she does well.

Well, we go out to a restaurant on campus and he orders 4 dishes. This time nothing that was too gross, eggplant, some kind of beef that had a lot of fat on it (very flavorful though), fish (of course, fish is very important to the Chinese and they eat lots of it, they say very healthy), cucumbers in some kind of milky sauce (best I have ever had), lotus root, along with peanuts on the side. And to drink he ordered Chinese wine (53% alcohol) - tasted and looked like vodka. We drank the wine out of tiny shot glasses (with stems). He says this is very much a Chinese tradition to eat and drink this way. Well, the way they drink is that every drink is a toast of some kind...degrading to "cheers" after about half the bottle. The problem is that you need to participate drink for drink. I'm glad it was a small bottle!

On the way back he says we must get our feet massaged.....a Chinese tradition, of course. I don't really want to but I go along. Well, I now see why people get massages. They start out by soaking the feet, then put some kind of therapeutic salts in, then go to work. I even documented the event for you as you can see. This lady supposedly was a healer of some kind. It was great. Probably an hour worth and it cost 40 RMB (RMB and yuan are used interchangeably) or about $6.50 US. I'm beginning to think many things this fellow enjoys doing is a "Chinese Tradition." As he rolls his pantleg up, I notice he has leggings and long underwear on. That along with the sweater and coat he always wears elps to explain how he and others might cope with the cold building we teach and have our offices in. I would guess that maybe the home apartment is cold also. The temperature has been in the 50's but always a little damp.

I also found out today that when a Chinese says yes to a question that it means that they understand the question. It does not mean that they are answering yes to the question. Now I understand all the mix-ups when I first started teaching and the students were not prepared with homework like I thought we had agreed to the day before.

To finish out, let me show you my typical lunch (5 RMB). One lady on the right is the other co-teacher, Shangguan. If you remember I went to Hongzhou City with her husband. She and I had the same dishes, rice, shrimp, and two kinds of vegetables that they did not know the English name for.

Adventures in eating

Yes, that's right what you see are chicken feet. This picture was taken at a street-side market. I guess this is favorite for some, my co-teachers are fond of them. We had lunch together once and they ordered them. I did try one, but didn't see what they saw in them. All you can really eat is the very outside of them since the inside is grissly bone. This same fellow delivered a final problem to me last night and took me out for a beer on campus at one of the restaurants. He asked what I wanted to eat and I told him I would be happy with anything. He ordered two dishes. One was seafood that he couldn't give me the English name for but it was nickel-sized little grissly-like jellyfished shaped thngs that had tiny tenticles on them. Not all that tasty. The other plate was a dove. They prepare their fish and birds by cutting them up and cooking bones and all. Well, dove was blackened and I thought I saw a shape that looked like a beak, but as we ate down the meat and bones, there was no mistake about it. It was the dove's beak, head and neck. Well, he ate it.

Saturday night I was invited to dinner at Wangping's friend's home. June, William and their two children, Cynthia and Garret. We ate in the restaurant in the bottom of their appartment building. They have been back to Shanghai for 6 months after years in the states. He is a citizen and she has submitted the paperwork. Great time. Best English I have heard or spoken in 4 weeks. I feel that my speech is evolving into a slow, repeating monotone voice. Students, co-teachers and everyone here.

I'm sitting in one of the guest houses writing this because it has an internet connection. I just met a Swiss guy that is here for 5 months working on a dissertation. He speaks English quite well. He was just in Beijing for a week in an intensive Chinese language course. He speaks Spanish, German, Italian. Very interesting to hear about impressions that the world has on what is going on in America these days.

Bye for now-I have to make sure I'm prepared for class tomorrow.

Day to Day life in Shanghai

I wish I could view all the comments! It will give me something to do when I return....only one more week to go.

Here are some pictures of the environment around where I am living. I live on campus in a guest house. The one I am in is for foreign students. I think I am the only adult. But it is quite and they all treat me very well, from the maid, to the front desk, to the servers in the canteens. Unfortunately, no one speaks any English. So we smile and I say either "ne-how" hello or "tsia-tsia" which is thank you.

The first picture is the fruit stand and the fruit guys (along with a gate guard that was standing there). It is just down the street. Then comes one of the vendors that are continously busy making a kind of tortia that has either vegetables and meat or egg, and bacon. Very good and very greasy. Even when I don't stop to buy something, this fellow will wave at me.

Next is the bakery lady. She is there I think from early in the morning to about 9:00 pm when things begin to close up. I get bread-type things for my breakfast (I have to leave for the bus before anything opens up). I usually have a cup of tea, piece of fruit and seetbread.

The coffee guy is in the orange outfit. It is a little booth where they make drinks for the students. It really isn't coffee, more like warm chocolate, but it is the closest thing here to coffee.

Then there is Sarah's. A restaurant with "american" food. They even have silverware on the talbes for you to use. My first visit there was great I thought. I had western style rice it was called. I even ordered a beer. It wasn't all that good, but I thought I just ordered the wrong thing. Next time I looked at the menu closely and all they really had was the rice and spagetti. I guess students that think this is american eat there. I won't go back. I kind of am getting to like Chinese food I guess.

I though outside the gate and down the street to the first intersection here is a typical picture of a scooter rider with a mask (The air isn't all that pristine here, kind of reminds me of Denver). In the background is a street vendor selling grapefruit. All along the streets are folks selling some kind of food. All for now.

Travel to Hongzhou City

It turned out to be a 4 hour trip to get there, with all the bus stops in between, but a trip to the "Lake City" Hongzhou to the southwest of Shanghai was an educational experience.

I traveled with my materials course co-teacher's husband. Shangguan, who originally was going to accompany me, had her sister visiting for only one day from out of town and handed the baton to her husband, Tory. Yes, that's right Tory is his name. Nice guy. His English wasn't quite as good as his wife's but we got along fine. One stop was at the Buddist Temple in town. That is Tory and Tim in front of the Buddist Temple. The conversation between him and I about worshiping as a Buddist or Christian was very interesting. We don't realize how many similarites exist in religions until you try to explain yours to someone that is not familiar with it.

I toured a silk factory, tea plantation, and of course had a boatride on the famous lake. All with my Chinese touring companions, Chinese tour guide and Chinese fellow tourists. Needless to say I was a minority. Everyone was friendly and smiled a lot. I had help buying a silk scarf and some tea. No negotiations at these places though. The prices were set.

On the lake I saw a boat that "Tori's Tory" would die for. Take a look at that Dragon Boat.

The day began at 6:00 am waiting for the bus and ended at 10:00 pm back "home." I definitely needed the next day off.

Dinner with the family

Before I get started, I think I added two movies to my previous post.

I was fortunate to get a dinner invitation from my colleague's (Wangping Sun in my department who is from Beijing) aunt and uncle. I was picked up outside where I am living by Jack, His mother and father and someone else. I never did make that connection. Jack, was visiting with his wife who are from NJ, working as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs in NYC. His wife has a job at Lehman Brothers (I think another investment firm). They just happened to be here for a 2-week visit with their family and speak excellent English. Well, it turns out that his mother and father weren't the aunt and uncle, they were invited to a family get together with the aunt and uncle. They are related to the aunt and uncle through marrage (I think). First picture is (R to L) the aunt, uncle, me, Jack's wife, Jack (couploe from NY), wifes's father (husband of the aunt's sister, they own the company), and Jack's parents.

The aunt and her sister own a business called Shanghai Junle Refrigeration Control Company. The uncle is the President and General Manager. Also seems to be the patriarch of the family. I got a tour of the business. 300 employees making pressure control switches and heaters for air-conditioning and refrigeration systems. The level of technology reminded me of most US plants in the 40's. Many people doing tasks that would typically be mechanized today. I asked if I could take a picture, but was told no because of the competition seeing how they do things. I got a laugh to myself out of that. But, everyone was happy, the sales manager who took me around felt that it was a family atmosphere and most people had worked here 10 or so years. There were dormitories at the plant where the workers from far provinces would live and only return home during holidays. The owners lived at the company during the week and had a modest house just across the yard. I can see why they are successful.

At the dinner in a very nice restaurant were about 30 family members. I never did figure out if the event was for me or they had already planned it. I did sit next to Mr. Zhang Ren Jun and his wife???? Great food and wine and lots of it. Mushrooms, squid, fish, beef, pork, pig's stomach (the second time for this, I'm developing quite a taste for it...wonder if I can pick some up it at Alberton's). What do you think about the lazy-susan that they use to serve. The food just keeps coming around. Typically you do not load your plate up, just take bites with your chop sticks as the plates revolve around. There were about 10 toasts. Different individuals would walk around the tables and say something (no clue) and toast you. It was great. Very hospitable people.

My social calender is filling up. Tomorrow I visit the "Lake City" south of Shanghai with a tour group and one of my co-teachers. Next Saturday I have been invited to dinner with some of Wangping's friends from college. They have asked if it would be ok for them to also invite one of their friends that is a professor from a "top college" in Shanghai to talk about collaboration with OIT. It seems very important to indicate status or prestige in the Chinese culture. (The school I am teaching at is ranked 96th. I guess there are about 6,000 different types of universities or colleges in China).

Then there is a goodbye dinner planned with the dean the following week. I then want to invite my two co-teachers, international hostess and all their spouses and one 13 year old to dinner before I leave.

All for now.

Pictures, Pictures, Pictures

I'm getting a few complaints about my prose.....maybe a little wordy. So here are some pictures of the local scenery and people. First, my Tai Chi friends. These are older Chinese participating in this exercise and mind cleansing activity every day outside my room. My first uploaded movie.Let me know how it turns out. It seems there is no option to format where it goes on the page for movies though. The internet connection is not letting me upload a movie. I'll try again some other time.

I traveled to Zhujiajiao, Shanghai's water city, nicknamed the Venice of China, Friday with Yiming, my administrative hostess. It was about an hour and half car ride. We had a driver from the university drive and then wait there for the 2-4 hours we toured around. Walking down the narrow streets there were stands selling food, art, knick-knacks, and then just people living. Very interesting. Pictures are of the boatride, me of course, and my hostess, Yiming. She works for the international program office. Speaks very good English and has coordinated my trip from start to finish. Always worried I am not eating good or spending too much time preparing lessons. One last picture of the water city is of "Free the Fish Bridge." Walking across the bridge ladies were selling small goldfish in bags, so that you could free the fish of course into the water. Looking at the water, I think the fish were better off in the bags. 36 bridges in all in this little city.

To conclude the water city tour, we find me standing in front of a Buddist Temple. This is a tree where people have hung red ribbons. Each has a wish written on it, e.g., good life, live well, happy life, etc. The two major religions are Buddist and Taoist. I think I can tell the difference between the two types of temples.....good skill to have I understand.

Next is my walk to the bus stop each morning. Takes about 10 minutes from my room. I watch the sun rise...always red (polluted skies unfortunately). And last of all a walk crossing the street about a block outside the gate from the school. I've always wanted to live in a gated community (guard and everything). Lots of traffic, bicycles, pedestrians, motorbikes, and more. I think I have already said that most folks in the road regard the definition of a red light as something that means stop if you can't avoid oncoming traffic.