Post-Beijing

Sorry about the lack of posts since Beijing. I see that we have had plenty of visitors, so I feel obligated to put up some pictures. In the week back after Beijing, us teachers had to turn in exam forms for periodical exams. This meant that we had to come up with appropriate tests, which was a lot of work. The next week we administered the tests on Monday and Tuesday, and graded them on Wednesday and Thursday. [On a complete tangent, a 23 year old guy from Wisconsin who works in my office asked me how old I was. I told him 30, and he said "huh". When I asked him why he asked, he said that he put together a math problem from one of his exams, and he used what he thought was my age as the answer. The answer, though, was 42! He tried to explain it away by saying that I was a lawyer with three kids, which seemed 'mature' to him. Strangely, I cant get it out of my head that someone thinks I look 42.] Back to the story, there have been few posts because preparing and grading ("marking" as it is called here) tests takes a bit of time, and little else has gone on other than what is shown in the following pictures:

Here is a picture of Dan with a few kids from his school. They went on a school trip to Dinosaur Park, which is an amusement/learning park close to our house. He came back that evening very tired, after having enjoyed himself quite a bit. (He said for lunch he ate crackers and soda, and only ate candy the rest of the day. Kids get away with that here. The adults spoil the kids so much, if they say they want candy instead of a sandwich, they get the candy).
Here are a few shots of Evelyn, who is doing quite well. She acts as if she understands Chinese, and she may very well not be faking it. If Jiu Jie says something to her, she will respond with a yes or a no, making me believe she understands. Every time Evelyn sees a camera now, she immediately goes into a pose, usually with hands on hips and head slightly cocked:

Here is a pose too often used by Etain, lying on the ground at your feet crying. People say she must really be a Chinese child, because she is getting quite spoiled. Every morning, the kids get up about 45 minutes too early. As a result, we just let them do whatever they want while we stay in bed. During those 45 minutes, not a single cry is heard. As soon as we stick our heads out our door though, crying is normal and everyone turns needy. Etain will be fine until she sees someone, and then she starts crying in hopes that she will be picked up. (She is getting better though, as I explain later).

Last Saturday, Jane and I were invited to the opening ceremonies of the new sports complex in town. It is a very cool dome shaped structure with lavish grounds. Changzhou has no sports teams though. Further, they are building another one right across the street from it, with the full expectation that they will both sit empty. Changzhou is, from what I hear and see, anxious to become a bigger, more important city. It therefore spends money to impress, and it seems to have plenty of money to spend. Everywhere you look there are construction cranes building new structures. Supposedly 40% of the construction cranes in the world are in neighboring Shanghai.

Here is a shot of the entrance, though not a very good one, admittedly.
When we got to the stadium, all foreign teachers and business owners were told to stand in a group because we were going to be in a parade. We all grouped together, making small talk while we waited for the parade to start. Around us were many other groups, from police to sanitary workers to local teachers, etc. They all were in perfect formation, with rows of ten. We were told to get into rows of ten, which never really worked out. When we ended up starting the parade, everyone marched perfectly in step, except for us, who traveled like a big oozing blob.

Here is a picture of me with the nurses, the group that was right in front of us.

Here we are traveling around the inside of the stadium. It was an awesome experience, because the stadium was packed with local citizens. Everybody in the stadium was either given clappers or those inflated thunder-sticks, and they cheered crazily. It was pretty wild to have 40,000 people going wild for some local teachers. In this picture, just under the red banner are the mayor of Changzhou and the Chief of the Southeastern Division of the Chinese Communist Party (I was told).

Here is a picture I took of ourselves on the jumbotron. If you can zoom in (if interested) we are on the far right side of the screen, in white.

The opening ceremonies were pretty incredible. There were tens of thousands of performers, all in elaborate costumes. They danced around in perfect formation. Hot air balloons dropped confetti over the crowd. In one portion of the stands, an entire group of people held up cards the entire time to make large pictures that changed for each act. Here are a few shots of the final few acts.

It turns out that all of the performers were kids from the City of Changzhou. The pride in the city was pretty cool.

After the opening ceremonies, Jane and I and a few other foreign teachers went to the outdoor bar, a popular place among foreigners. They served tiny little meat skewers, along with grilled green beans. Here, I am getting my shoes waxed, for 4 quai, about $.75. We gave him a meat skewer as a tip.

After exams, our school had a sports ceremony as well. Here is the school's performance, out on our track.

After opening ceremonies, the students were involved in numerous athletic competitions. Here are Dan and Ushi in their school track suits. (No matter how many times I tried, I can not get this picture to load correctly).

Here is Dan approaching the start line for his race, the 100 meter.

Judging by the looks of this start, I do not know how well he did (he is much younger then everyone else, though). He had a good time nonetheless.

The biggest news of the week was that Etain's birthday was yesterday; she is now one year old. To celebrate, we had McDonalds and cake (and lollipops for the non-cake eaters). Here is Etain eyeing her cake, which was very elaborate, the only way cakes here are made.

Here she is with mom at the beginning of the sugary meal.

Here are a few shots of her further into the meal.

After she ate and got cleaned up, Etain did the same thing that Dan did on his first birthday: she walked! She has taken a step or two in the past, but this time she really took about 10-15 steps, making it all the way across the room. Even within the past 24 hours, she seems to prefer walking to crying to be held, which is good for us all. Below should be a 8 second video of Etain eating her cake, feeling the effects of her sugar high.

We have a 3 day weekend, which we initially planned on using for a trip to Shanghai, but instead we are going to stick around here. We are going to a birthday party tomorrow for a foreign teacher who has a son Dan's age. Tonight, some teachers are getting together for a game night. Also, today Jane went out and picked out furniture for a new apartment that we are planning on moving into in a few weeks. I will write a bit more about that once it becomes more of a reality. I will try to put up some more posts in the next few days.

Zaijian (tsi-chen), which means goodbye, see you soon.