January 14 & 21, 2018

We'll catch up on two weeks here - and you already know from last week's spoiler that we survived finals, as did our students.

But during that week (January 8-14) one surprise was when we found out we were to give our Business English finals together in the same room.  Good thing we had already planned to use the same final - just one of those surprises due to lack of communication that seems to be a regular part of life in China.  And good thing that particular room was big enough for two classes.

We had a fair amount of grading to do before grades could be submitted. One of the things we did in each of our classes was assign students to select a “self-improvement goal” and write in a journal throughout the semester about their progress. At the end of the semester, they also had to write a 2-3 page “Thought Paper” about their project – really a summary of the goal and what they accomplished.

So, besides the final, we had journals and this “Thought Paper” to read from each student. It made the end of the semester a lot of work for us, but it was so rewarding! Many of our students shared quite personal aspects of their lives. In one case, a female student had a goal to lose weight. During her project, she got very discouraged because she wasn’t losing weight in spite of hardly eating anything. Then, she came to recognize the influence of the media and realized that women don’t have to accept this image – they can feel beautiful even if they are not skinny. It was wonderful to see how the project had changed her, but mentally more than physically, and it was valuable growth.

The journals were windows into their souls. Our students work so hard! They are so respectful! And they turn in their assignments with both hands and a bow. They are a delight to work with.

We began our celebrating by (finally) going to a Shanghai Sharks game and watching Jimmer play. It wasn't as high scoring - either for him or the team - as is usual for them, but they still won over the Beijing Ducks.

Jimmer #32

We did have a challenge that week.  Kathy tripped and fell "up" some stairs, but had her hands in her pockets.  She mostly caught herself with her elbows, except that her face hit a step.  Well, her glasses did.  They didn't break, but hit hard enough to push the frames to cut into her eyebrows, and to twist the frames.

Kathy says, "Let it be known that this was very minor and didn't hurt
anything but my pride. Good thing I brought an old pair of glasses!" 

Our end of semester celebration continued with a visit to Shanghai Disneyland.  It's about an hour away by subway. John made friends with three 5- and 6-year-old children on the subway.  They were friends with a day off from school headed for Disneyland, too (with parents).

Shanghai Disney, the good and bad (when visiting in January)

Bad:

• It was an unusually cold day. Yes, it was January, but colder than normal.
• More was in Chinese than expected. Signs were bilingual, but dialogue in the shows was not.
• Fastpass was broken most of the day.
• If there is too much pollution, they don't use fireworks for the final show, only the lights.  Still spectacular, but not the same.  

Good:

• Okay, mixed. It's a relatively small park. We think it will expand as other Disney locations have, especially as well as this park has done financially.  So fewer rides, but easy to get around the park.
• Cheaper than other Disney sites we've been to.  This was about $55 USD per person.
• Lots of shows in addition to the rides. Jack Sparrow having a battle in a vertical wind tunnel was amazing!  Did you know Jack speaks Mandarin very well?  But with the same inflections and swagger as we expect from Jack.
• The Pirates ride is the best ever! We understand they spent 20% of the cost of the park, or $1 billion, on this ride alone. It's an "under the sea" experience for part of the ride.
• It's Disneyland.  

Jack Sparrow in the show.

The fight in the air. They are suspended only from the air
blowing up from a wind tunnel.

Heading in to the Pirates ride

This Pirates ride takes you under the sea. Very spectacular!

Kathy rode the Tron ride. Fastpass only gave us one pass instead of two - and she likes roller coasters a lot more than John does.  She made a friend from Nanjing University, the girl who sat next to her on the ride.

See Kathy on the ride?

Another highlight was a Shanghai city tribute and thank you for "high-level talents and foreign experts" in the city. I guess we must be one of those.  We were taken by bus to the Shanghai Theatre building - a beautiful venue where opera and concerts are performed in downtown Shanghai.  The event was an anthology of arts - a children's chorus, opera, ballet, acrobats, a tenor trio, concert piano, etc. It was some of the top talent in China performing, along with reminders between the pieces about how important the partnership between Shanghai and foreign experts is and how we are contributing to all that Shanghai is accomplishing.  It was a delightful evening - but with a very definite message.

Roses and Ansteads, the only BYU teachers at Tongji University

We finished with week by seeing "Star Wars VIII."  It got to China a month later than the US.  Our version included text on the screen explaining the back story of some of the main characters.  The Chinese are not very familiar with this franchise - it wasn't shown here 30 years ago with the saga began.  Most of our students have never seen a Star Wars movie and this one did not do well here, either. But we enjoyed it very much. In our next post, the celebration continues...