June 10, 2018 - Winding down - in Suzhou

Yes, we are back in America, but we have a couple more entries before we wrap up our China experience.  First of all, we need to cover our final weeks.  So this entry will cover our last English Corner, our last medical class, and our wedding anniversary celebration in Suzhou, one of the "water towns" close to Shanghai.

To start off, June 12 was was our last English Corner, a Tuesday night class open to any university students who want to practice speaking English and learn about American culture. We celebrated by giving them Costco Chicago mix popcorn we brought back from the States, with a slide show about Americans and their love for popcorn. We also showed some slides recapping our time in China and told them that June 12 is our 34th wedding anniversary.

But the English Club students who help with English Corner knew that - they came prepared with a cute anniversary cake for us. They also came with a slide show of pictures they took of us throughout the year, put up disco lights in the classroom, and played Karen Carpenter's "Yesterday Once More" to honor us. It was a song they encouraged everyone to sing along with "because you all know this one." Some of their other English teachers teach them popular (!) English songs from various genres.

Note the traditional Chinese shirt. The
students loved it.

The cake had rose petals lining the sides.
The students gave us beautiful goodbye gifts.

We also taught our last medical English class. By now we know a (very!) little bit about some of the differences between health care in China and the U.S., including things like the importance Americans place on privacy vs the rather public nature of Chinese health care at their facilities and the fact that Chinese patient information is shared freely with family members (sometimes not at all with the patients). 

Our class was a challenge because even though the students were
very nice, their culture is such that they are not accustomed
to interacting with each other or with the teacher during class. 

After our last class, a surgeon walked us to the curb at the hospital to help us call a taxi. He insisted, because he wanted to be a good host. But taxi drivers do not always like to pick up foreigners. When one stopped for him and found out that he was actually getting a ride for us, the taxi driver refused. At least we think so. What we know is that the two had a long, heated discussion. At one point the surgeon motioned for us to get in the cab. When the driver kept arguing with him, we climbed back out and told him we would call a Didi, which is China's version of Uber. 

But now the surgeon's honor was involved. After arguing still more, the driver ended up pulling away, and the surgeon ran down the street, still holding onto the passenger side window to continue the discussion, being carried along by the vehicle and finally taking a tumble. Cell phones and batteries flew everywhere; the surgeon's arm got scraped up (and it turns out he cracked a rib or two). A crowd gathered; one woman had a picture of the license plate of the driver for the police. We felt bad and he was embarrassed about his show of temper. Hopefully the camera on the corner documented what was necessary for justice. 

We have a  34-year-long tradition of celebrating our marriage by "getting away" for a Friday night over-nighter near our anniversary. This year we revisited the ancient water town of Suzhou with our friends and then stayed an extra night.   

Ansteads took a picture of us and we took a picture of them as
we opted for interesting conveyances to our hotel.

Suzhou, although it attracts tourists
because it's an ancient water town,
is still a major metropolitan area.
This is a pedestrian area that has a
lively, social atmosphere day and night.

Some girls outside a store modelling for
pictures. We think it's some kind of a
game store.

One of the reasons Suzhou is famous is because it has so many beautiful traditional gardens. We visited the most famous one, "The Humble Administrator's Garden." 

This garden had buildings like other
gardens we've seen, but these had
more windows. The Humble
Administrator could use these buildings
to entertain visitors or to contemplate nature.

Pingjiang: a wonderful old street of vendors to explore

This water town is called the "Venice of the East."

We took a boat ride, of course.
And he sang for us, of course.

Our anniversary dinner included a
famous Suzhou dish that was a tasty
sweet and sour fish, presented with
maraschino cherry eyes.

Our anniversary weekend coincided with the Dragon Boat festival.
Sources differ about the origins of this holiday. It was a school holiday,
but none of our students were going to see any of the dragon boat races.

We saw boats in Suzhou that would become dragon boats for the races.

We visited a quiet little island, riding around enjoying lotus blossoms.

It's easy to see why Chinese people prize lotus blossoms. They're breathtaking, and we enjoyed a great anniversary even during the busyness of finishing up our school year. Next? Finals and packing and more goodbyes.