January 7, 2018

After Kristina's visit and our trips to Hangzhou, Beijing, and Harbin, it was time to focus on finishing our first semester at school.  This week we'll share one quick, fun story and then share pictures of the campus where we teach.

On Friday, January 5th, some of the other BYU China teachers were in town, so the three of us couples who teach in Shanghai met them for dinner at a Thai restaurant. We enjoyed the meal and then a mariachi band came to serenade us.  Well, okay. They came to get us to stand up to sing and dance with them.  So we had a dozen Americans and Canadians, eating at a Thai restaurant in China, singing "La Bamba" with a band from the Philippines!  How's that for diversity?

As promised, here's a look at our campus from pictures we've taken throughout the year:

Tree lined streets, but very few cars.

The building in which we both teach.

One day we found so many rental bicycles
that some were stacked horizontally.
Periodically excess rental bikes get hauled away
in vans or on carts pulled behind... bicycles.

(See earlier blog for discussion of rental bicycles)

This is near the main "canteen" or cafeteria on campus.

A water feature with bridges.

Some pretty fall colors

There are still roses here in January!

Fun zig-zag bridge on this side of campus.

This one is hard to figure.  The bridge is solid stone stepping
 blocks. But lined with rickety 1x2 railing?

There are LOTS of cats on campus. They are everywhere (outside).

This one seems to own a scooter!

Kathy's classroom for Oral English class. When the students are
in class this time of year, they are all bundled up in coats and
scarves and lined leggings. Central heat does not exist here, and
people are used to living without it. Except for us...we're not
used to teaching in coats and long johns.

John's room is right across the hall. The Korean on the back
chalkboard adds to the ambiance in this foreign language building.

The classroom where Kathy taught Business English.
The picture is from English Corner, which has a lot more
students in the room than Business class.

And the broom in the corner outside
our classrooms is a very happy one!

Cafeteria style food on the third
 floor of the canteen. There are
 three stories of food service areas,
with at least two or three stations
on each floor, except the 3rd floor,
which is smaller, for "teachers only."

A tomato and scrambled egg dish,
a duck dish, and (probably) beans.

John loves the sweet and sour pork spareribs.
99% of the food served for lunch is hot. No drinks
are served, except on the 3rd floor where we
have the option of a soy drink or drinkable yogurt.
Most people just eat lunch without a drink.

Everyone on campus eats between 11:35-1:30. Here you can see
a line of teachers waiting to select food. It's very busy at lunch time
on all 3 floors, but the lines move fast. The place is full of
people wielding chopsticks in large bowls of noodles, plates
of fried rice, or cafeteria trays full of other choices. The vegetable
dishes are all very flavorful. Dumplings abound.

We are happy to report that we administered our finals, graded them and the last of the assignments, and successfully turned our grades in, in spite of computer systems in Chinese, mixed-up class lists between the two of us, people just taking the final who had not been in class all semester (it's an allowable if not prevalent thing), and the student with chicken pox who will have to do his final at the beginning of next semester. For some reason only known to some, our finals were a week earlier than the other finals the students took. Now we're all on break until early March to celebrate the new year and the Spring Festival!