November 26, 2017

First, a couple of catch up items.  One of our students from Tibet invited us to a Cultural Minority event on campus, held even though there was light rain.  There are five autonomous regions in China, where there is a high population of ethnic background other than Han Chinese.  In some of these, Han is still the majority, but the minority is recognized.  Some of the areas are made up of Mongolian, Tibetan, Hui, or Uyghur (closely related to Turks) people.  Anyway, we enjoyed seeing some nice costumes and dancing, and sampled some foods. Yak cheese is interesting. The students were very proud of their heritage and eager to share it with everyone.

A week ago, we toured a glass museum recommended to us.  Didn't know quite what to expect.  What can you see at a museum of glass?  Turns out, a LOT.  We spent several hours there.  There were many rooms--full of past and present glasswork and some amazing ambience.  It was great!

Each of these has a Chinese character on it.
If you read the characters in the right order,
it tells a story about a princess. Sadly, the
story is a mystery to us. As are many things
in this country where we don't speak the language!

It's Thanksgiving and we've been reflecting on how very blessed we are!

Then there is Thanksgiving in China.  Some Chinese know of Thanksgiving and the history, especially students, but they don't know it very well.  Certainly, not a "Rose Thanksgiving," so we shared with them: the history, what Americans do (floats, football, turkey bowls), and what the Roses do - cook all day, eat, and watch the National Dog Show!

It's not a holiday, so we taught classes in the morning, then scurried home to start cooking.  We had invited Young Single Adults from our church over for dinner (singles 18 and older).  These are mostly students that are here.  Many brought a friend.  We ended up with 14 of us for dinner in our little apartment.

We don't have an oven.  We have a two-burner stove. A microwave.  A toaster oven.  And a slow cooker.

The day after Thanksgiving, our small fridge
was a Tetras puzzle. The microwave lives
on top of the fridge; Kathy can mostly reach it.

When the food in the living room
crock pot started cooking and pushing
the lid up, we anchored it with books
about China.

We borrowed two more slow cookers.  We made two pumpkin pies on Wednesday, one at a time in our toaster oven.  We cut the turkey in half and did half in a large slow cooker, and the breast in the toaster oven. We made two slow cookers full of stuffing, glazed yams in the microwave, a large pot of potatoes, gravy, corn and a huge bowl of whipped cream fruit salad (with some interesting Chinese fruits).  We made two chocolate pies and a banana pie using Digestives (English cookies) to make crusts.  We had been discussing the lack of graham crackers in a little shop where "The Avocado Lady" sells a lot of Western foods. A woman from the UK overheard us and suggested Digestives. All in all, quite a feast!

Our friends represented Tonga, Brazil, Turkey, USA, Germany, France, and Russia.  Several were not members of our church. One is Muslim. After dinner, we each expressed something for which we are grateful.  We had wonderful conversations and a nice time together.

On Saturday, it was another wonderful experience.  Another couple hosted an "Empty Nester" dinner, inviting many people whose children are grown to gather for a Thanksgiving potluck dinner.  We took two caramel apple pies (new recipe we tried that is a winner!).  It was another wonderful dinner, but more importantly, a chance to meet more new people, mostly foreign to China, who happen to currently live in Shanghai.  Great conversations and new friendships.

November 19, 2017

We have found that words do not really describe our experience in China - and pictures don't really, either.  The video we are using this week might help.  No, probably not....  The only way you can experience being nibbled by fish is to be nibbled by fish!

On Tuesdays we have a day off from teaching except for English Corner in the evening. This week we worked really hard to get student journals read and class work prepared, then we rewarded ourselves with a Tuesday trip to Zhujiajiao, an ancient water town near Shanghai.  There are several of these towns that are the Chinese version of Venice, and each is recommended based on how much there is to do/see and how close to Shanghai they are, which is a curse and a blessing.  Close for us means close for millions of other people...Tuesday threatened rain, which didn't materialize, and we got an early start, getting there by 10 am.  Fortunately, not many people were there when we arrived, and it really didn't get crowded all day.  The weather was overcast but pleasant, and we had a nice visit. We saw a watercolor museum, a beautiful garden, had a very interesting lunch (lotus root, anyone?), took a boat ride, and visited a Buddhist temple.

The water street where we entered.

Inside Kezhi Garden - one of the rock structures with steps to climb

up and sometimes cave-like tunnels to explore. Mr. Ma, who built

 the gardens in the early 1900s must have had kids or grandkids!

Nice fish pond and pavilion,

a nine zagged bridge!

And Roses in the garden!

Mr. Ma's wax figure (center) and his four elderly and prestigious
 (retired, I assume) friends would gather to discuss art and read poetry.

We ate lunch at a restaurant along the water and next to the most
 famous of the 36 bridges in this town, the Fangsheng Bridge.

We enjoyed seeing this cup on the shelf behind the cash register.
We finally found something in English! :)

This is where we ate lunch, pictured from the bridge.

We enjoyed a short boat ride - the oarsman in the background.

Several shops sold various cuts of BBQ pork.  In the first bin
is "pork trotters" - which is what that part of a pig does.  We
didn't try those, but did try the green things in front--rice and pork
tied and cooked in a green leaf.  One doesn't eat the leaf.

We ended our trip with a visit to pedicure shop

where they have tanks of specially trained technicians!

If you think you can bear it, you can check out our reactions to our pedicure 

at: Zhujiajiao fish pedicure

November 12, 2017

Today we invite you to join us for a walk around our neighborhood.

To the north of us is a busy business district. To the south is "The Bund," with lots of tourist attractions and the tallest buildings in China. To the west is the French Concession, where many expats live and there are lots of international restaurants. And in the middle of all that is where we live - a relatively non-cosmopolitan area just outside Tongji University. No tall business buildings - not much of anything taller than seven stories. LOTS of bicycles and narrow(er) streets - and lots of electric motorbikes sneaking up on you quietly. You have to always be on your guard. They share the sidewalks with pedestrians and bicycles and seem to use the streets, too. No place is safe! Immediately around us are no major shopping stores or high priced clothing. All small (some 6 feet wide), local shops. Very reasonable prices - unless you want milk. No clue we live in the heart of a big city!

As we walked out of our apartment one day, we noticed a "watch cat" on a nearby roof.
Notice the laundry poles sticking out of the windows of the next building.

This is our street.  The blue sign "Tongji Guest House" is where we turn in to our apartment complex.  The "Fry Hut" in front attracts college students fairly late into the night to eat sandwiches and sweet potato fries.  One time some English-speaking German students recommended the peanut butter / egg / corn / cheese grilled sandwich to us.  So John had to try it.  It was "okay."

Around the corner is the fruit market.  It's easy to dash there and get pomelos, dragon fruit, jujubes (a type of date with the texture of an apple), mandarin oranges, persimmons, interesting melons, etc. as well as apples, bananas and grapes.

Next to the fruit market is the baozi (a filled steamed bun) store (at the red sign).  There is a long line most mornings that we have to make our way through to walk down the sidewalk - unless we take the back path.  More on that later.

The hardware store next door seems to be having a sale - the last few days they've had a loud speaker yelling at us in Chinese as we walk past.  We're anxious to see what all these open-front stores do in the winter.

This is across the street from the main entrance to our university.  At the Metro (subway) station is a large collection of rental bicycles.  There are lots of  these rental bikes, each company using a different color and phone app to rent them.  OFO is yellow, Mobike is orange, etc. 

To rent a bike, you first need to get the app on your phone, register and pay a deposit. Then to ride one, find an unused bike (not very hard!), scan the QR code on the bike, your phone tells you the combination to the lock, and off you go. It's yours to ride where you want and leave where you want. When finished, you lock it back up and pay for the time you had it rented. They deduct the amount from your bank account registered with the company. 30 minutes is about 15 cents!

Rental bikes are big business here. What is different from other places we've seen is that there are not "stations" to rent them from and return them to. If you want to know more, check the link:   Merging China's bicycle startups


Now we'll return to our apartment the "back way." We use this route when the back gate is open, morning, noon, and night during commute times.

It's a wonderful, quiet walk away from the street and *most* of the bikes and scooters.

Today we see a grandpa and grandson investigating
something intriguing. We see lots of grandparents
taking care of children while the parents work.

There is a pigeon cote along the way.

Someone grew squash and it climbed the tree. 
We were surprised to look up one day and see
all these hanging from the branches

It is almost a mile from our apartment to the school if we take the long way. The last few weeks have been glorious walking weather.

Finally, for some news of the week, both Kathy and John were judges at the 16th annual English Star Speech Competition for the university.  This is a competition of the students' English skills in prepared and impromptu speeches. Fifteen contestants were judged with the top four going on to a city-wide competition in December, which then feeds into province and China level competitions.  Kathy was asked to give an impromptu speech for 5 minutes while the judges tallied the scores!

November 5, 2017

This week, we start with sharing what Halloween is like in Shanghai. A few stores or sidewalk shops decorate for Halloween, but we've only seen this in areas where lots of foreigners shop, not in our local neighborhood. I don't think the adults pay it any attention. The students, on the other hand, are quite interested. Our English Corner (Tuesday evenings) had lots of questions, including wanting to know more about the pumpkin "masks," like they think we put the pumpkins on our heads. We even saw an advertisement with pumpkin-head people, but not with faces on them.

 

Sidewalk vendors in an international area
decorated for Halloween.  We saw Chinese people
taking pictures of the decorations.  But then, so were we.

Carving the pumpkin (the biggest one we could find).

A week before Halloween, we carved a Jack O'lantern and took it to our English Corner. What a hit! There are a lot of questions about Halloween and there were several parties on campus Halloween night, but it seems they haven't actually seen a real pumpkin carved. There are the plastic pumpkin-shaped buckets in a few stores (mostly expat shopping places), but not many pumpkins, none that have any size, and certainly none that they just carve up. They really can't understand wasting a pumpkin that could be eaten, I think.

The finished pumpkin and some of our English Corner officers.

On Halloween night we went to a party that was for the English Club officers of three Universities. Probably 100 students there in a hotel ballroom. And we decided to dress up, but coming up with costume ideas was a challenge. We don't have a second hand shop nearby (if they have those), no costume type places, and we didn't bring anything. So we decided to be "mummies." We bought a cheap sheet and cut it into strips. We also got our tailor (more about that below) to donate 2 meters of white cloth (more strips). And on Halloween night, started costuming, with the help of the couple we teach with.

We have about a mile walk to the subway, and we were the only people on the street in costume. Many stares. We met our English Club officers at the subway. They were amazed - both at the costumes and that we would wear them in public. They put theirs on at the party. We were the only ones in costume on the subway. And the only ones (except for a few kids) at the mall we had to walk through to get to the hotel.

 

John on the subway.

Kathy at the subway waiting for a train.

Then we got to the party - and were the center of attention. They don't do costumes like this. Most had a witch hat, devil horns, or masquerade mask. Maybe face painted werewolf scratches or a cape. Nearly every student wanted a picture with us!

We had a hard time holding our costumes together for the
whole night! And we taxied home. With a chuckling driver.

On another subject, a major opportunity here - and in many Asian countries - is to get tailored clothes.  One can get two suits custom tailored for less than the cost of a single "bargain" suit in the USA.  Same for women's clothes.  There is a "soft material mall" here that is a three story building filled with shops that do this.  We were referred to "Kate and Kevin."  Kate runs the shop and Kevin is the tailor.  They are very popular with many expats, because they do good work and she speaks English so well.  This is a great advantage for discussing clothing style and fabric options. John got a couple of suits and two shirts made.  Kathy took in one of her favorite skirts and had them make two "copies" in other colors. 

One of the aisles of the Soft Materials Mall.  Every few feet is a stall of one tailor, each stall about 10' wide. It's coat season!

The funniest part of all this was when we went back to try on our clothes.  We find the Chinese people are very direct and say what they think.  When John tried on his suit, Kate told him it makes his belly not look so big.  The Ansteads (the other BYU teachers at Tongji Univ.) went, too, and also got clothes.  When Clay tried on his suit, the slacks didn't fit quite right in the front, so they needed to redo the pants to fit right.  As he went back towards the fitting room to take them off, Kate (30 something) told Clay (just turned 60) that "your butt looks nice" meaning they fit well in the back...

Looking at the chandelier and
some of the levels above.

We decided we needed to go back and check out the mall we walked through to get to the Halloween party, so returned Friday night for dinner and to check out the mall.  Wow!  What a mall!  9 Levels of mall, with two of them dedicated to food.  Everything you can image in clothing, sportswear, accessories, and jewelry.  Authentic American items were VERY expensive - Lee jeans were over $200 USD.  There were gold necklaces at $10,000 and up.  And a movie theater, fitness center, spa, video arcade and much more.  Every kind of food you can image, from Subway, KFC, and Pizza Hut to noodles, dumplings, hot pots, sushi and American Angus steaks!  And a grocery store. 

Looking down at the escalators
from the above.

View of part the grocery store
from the level above.

The adventure continues!