Day 91: A Teaching Day

In spite of the fact that I'm suffering from a sinus infection, I had a pretty good day today. Got some papers graded, had breakfast, took a cab to school (I'm figuring out Didi more and more, and liking it). Easily made the bus on time, and graded a bit, but also chatted with Raymond again. My class was quite good: my students did a surprisingly good presentation. I say "surprisingly" because they are three of the quietest students in the class. But their work was well-organized, had examples, and was well-cited. And they didn't just read the information, either. The topic for today was "themes" in Gatsby, so we explored this a bit, as well as some resolutions in the novel, such as things that happen at the end of Chapter 9 (Nick leaving home, breaking up with Jordan, his final meeting with Tom). I will not be seeing this class next week because I'll be at Jilin U. I met with Bella, one of my students, after class. She wanted to ask me some questions; she is doing a project for her pragmatics class. She recorded my responses, and I was fine with that. I told her that Kerry as well as some of the SISU foreign faculty might be willing to participate in her study, and she seemed thrilled. We then had a great conversation about education in the US. She was under the impression that Americans all had great educations, and that everything in the US was fantastic in terms of education. I englightened her a bit about the cuts Betsy DeVos is proposing to education funding ($8 billion), and she was shocked. She seemed very happy that I wanted to work with her: "I like you!," she proclaimed at one point. "I like you, too!," I said back. I can't ever imagine an American student telling me that, whether they do or not. I've only had American students say that to me if we got to know each other a bit, particularly AFTER the class. After Bella left, I ate my lunch in the lounge area outside the class, and then went to the bus. I ran into Raymond while I was taking yet another picture of the Songjiang campus (it is SO beautiful), and he and I walked to the bus together. The bus ride wasn't as bad as two weeks ago: only a bit over an hour. I took the 745 home--ran into Grace--but it was SOOO crowded. Claustrophobic. Kerry and I just had leftovers for dinner, and then I worked on my presentation a bit. I also decided to extend our trip to the US by two days, so I called Delta and took care of that. I just felt like 8 days wasn't enough; I got permission via e-mail from Taozhen to do so.  So hopefully that's not a decision I regret.

Tomorrow we go to Suzhou. I will write again once that experience is over.

Days 88-90: Shanghai Cultural Excursion

Friday was the first day of our Fulbright Shanghai Cultural Excursion, sponsored by the Shanghai Embassy.  We had a pretty good time. We were a little bit late getting there, but only by about 7 minutes, and others were late as well. It was so good to see Mark and Connie and her family again, especially Meara. She's hysterical. The events begin with a Chinese tea ceremony, which smelled wonderful, and we tasted some good teas as well: black, jasmine, etc. My favorite was the fruit. The tea shop had many very expensive teapots, some worth $20,000.  I was joking with Mark and Kerry and we should play catch. The gentleman running the event showed us how he creates a froth on the top of the tea and then a design (such as Chinese characters) on top. Mark did one of a gift with a bow; I took video which I will try to post here. After this, we ended up at the Sun Yat-Sen museum, which I think was just an impulse. They still let us all in for free. We saw many different cultural artifacts from his years and those of his wife as well. We also had the privilege of visiting the home they lived in--next door. We had to put on plastic shoe covers to travel through it; apparently, it's temperature-controlled. After this visit, we strolled around the city a bit. Kerry found a meowing cat (huge surprise there).  And then we gathered back in the bus to go back to the Peace Hotel. We were given a tour of their Museum. It used to be called the Cathay Hotel, apparently, and they also have the oldest jazz band in the world that performs nightly. We saw a lot of elegant dishes and figurines from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and so forth. Charlie Chaplin stayed there awhile, as did the Prime Minister of Canada. Once this visit was done, we were treated to a nice dinner with a great late-night view of the Bund. The menu included a "celeriac" salad, kale soup with onion and cheddar (which tasted like potato), turkey with some vegetables, and then the best: a beef tenderloin with onion gravy and mashed potatoes.  So good!  Their pumpkin pie was interesting, too. Very non-traditional. It was a fun evening!  I liked getting to talk to Brooks and his wife (who was visiting), and a young man named Samuel, who just graduated Duke and is a student Fulbrighter.

Saturday had its good moments, but it wasn't as pleasant. To begin with, Kerry woke up not feeling well--he had complained of hurting knees with previous day, and now his hips and legs hurt him, too. So he decided to skip the excursion for Saturday. Once I got to the Peace Hotel via cab, we all took a bus to the old town area of Shanghai. We strolled around a bit, and I got some toy swords and a couple hilarious Engrish change purses. The weather was a bit nippy, but fairly nice. From there we went to a lunch, which, again, was more of a banquet-style event: lots of fish this time, including a fried fish that was so good I asked to take some home, and they obliged. During the event, we went two by two in the cooking area to learn how to make steamed buns. I went with Tracy, and she told me how to make one, and I filled it up with a pork stuffing. Quite good! Again, the meal ended with a duck soup, although by the time the end came, everyone was quite full. (I still don't understand why soup is served at the end of the meal here.) Once the meal was done, we went to a pottery shop to learn how to make a clay teapot. I was having a good time until I got stuck on the spout. I solicited help from the master potter, but he proceeded to basically finish the entire thing for me. I was kind of upset about this; I really wanted to finish it myself. It sort of destroyed the purpose of the event for me. I mentioned this to Tracy from the Embassy, and she said that when Chinese people do things for you, it's their way of showing that they care. They are much less individualistic than Americans. Lesson learned, I supposed, but it's still frustrating to me. I don't fully feel the teapot is mine now, and I like having artistic creative control (and, no, I'm not being facetious about this). Mark picked up on my mood and found me on WeChat later and tried to cheer me up. He's awesome! Fortunately, Kerry felt better in the evening, so we felt well enough to end the day by making pork chops and potatoes for dinner.

Sunday was mostly prep. I didn't feel great Sunday--woke up feeling all sinusy. Mostly just did Gatsby reading and grading. Monday is the last day with Gatsby, and I'm kind of glad. It's a depressing book, especially in this political climate. I'm not sure I'd assign it again. Maybe.

I hope I feel better tomorrow. School tomorrow, and then we leave for Suzhou Tueday morning.

Here are some pics from the excursion:

Peace Hotel.

Mark doing a tea design.

Meara and her bunny, Rosemary.

Image from the Sun Yat Sen Museum.

Pottery from the Peace Hotel Museum.

Shanghai at night.

Amazing steak we had at the dinner.

Canal in old Shanghai.

Me outside, with Meara.

Me designing a teapot.

The teapot I designed.

Days 86-87: A Very Different Thanksgiving

So last year around this time I was busily preparing for a meal for 15-18 people at my home for Thanksgiving. And we had a wonderful time; it was one of the best Thanksgivings I ever had in my life, in spite of my sister not being there. But this year, obviously, is very different, because we are not home, so it almost feels like there is no Thanksgiving this year, in some ways.

Wednesday I spent the entire day working on one of my presentations for Jilin U.--the one about Donald Trump and the State of African American Literature in the United States. I use Donald Trump's press conference about Frederick Douglass as a springboard for discussing the importance of African American culture and history in America today. I am hoping they will find it interesting. Kerry read it over and said he thought it was good. We ran out of hot water today, too. We didn't know what was going on, so we contacted Carol, our savior. :)   She contacted Miss Yang, who sent over a woman and a maintenance guy right away. It was determined that our gas had been turned off, so no use of the stove or shower today!  I had a half of a salami sandwich, a slice of cheddar, a banana, a cucumber, and some grapes for dinner. 

Thursday I caught up on my blogging and chatted with some students about their work on WeChat. One student told me that she wants to buy a Norton Anthology, but it costs 3000 RMB.  I thought she mistyped something, but she wasn't kidding: 500 US DOLLARS FOR A NORTON ANTHOLOGY. This blew me away; no wonder they want us to assign things that are online for the students!!  This makes much more sense to me now. Later in the evening, we had Thanksgiving dinner at Sasha's in the French Concession with Mark and Carol. The place was beautiful on the outside. I was pleased to get gifts from both Mark and Carol: Berea College stuff from Mark and a picture of the Fulbrighters at the US Ambassador's home. The buffet was good, but not great. The white meat of the turkey was very good, and I loved the mashed potatoes and salad. They also had a yummy brussel sprouts and bacon dish. But they were skimpy on the turkey portions and didn't provide me much dark meat. I also wasn't crazy about their stuffing or the Bloody Mary they gave me. They didn't have many dessert selections, either: an apple dessert, a brownie cake, and vanilla ice cream, all of which were okay but nothing to write home about. Still, I ate a lot. But I missed my home. I miss my family, and especially my mom.

Tomorrow--the cultural excursion event begins. Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving at Sasha's:

Looking sharp while waiting for a cab, outside our apartment.

At Sasha's.

Some of the Sasha's buffet.

Kerry, Mark, and Carol at Sasha's.

Days 83-85: Prep Work, Teaching, Dinner with Grace

So Sunday and Monday were pretty normal: nothing too exciting. Sunday I did prep for my classes--two of them on Monday. We're still doing Gatsby in Short Novels and my American Literature class. is talking about Jack London and Mark Twain. Monday, I went to class. The presentation on "color symbolism" by the group was okay, but I don't think they explained how "grey" is symbolic as well as they could have. Still, I think they did a better job with citation than most groups did. We also talked about literary theory and typical theoretical approaches that would work with the novel. Once class was over, I got bombarded with questions, as usual. Two students seemed very concerned about their overall performance in the course, but I tried to convince them to stay in it. They are not two of my best students, so I am worried about them, but I don't like to see people drop out, either. I advised them that since they are studying English interpreting, they should make more of an effort to talk in class and speak English whenever possible. After a brief respite in my office--it's always so quiet on the 3rd floor of teaching building 5--I went to my second class. We talked about the Final a bit. I still couldn't share the day and time of the final with them, much to my frustration. This hasn't been decided by SISU, which is so bizarre to me. The students told me that they usually don't know until mid- to late December. Then I did a lecture on London and Twain, followed by some discussion relating these authors to realism, naturalism, and regionalism. I managed to get home pretty quickly: the bus arrived back at Hongkou at 7:31, and I managed just in time to hop on a 745 bus home, at 7:41 pm. I actually got home at 8:05 pm, which really shocked me. I've gotten home as late as 9:00 some evenings.

We didn't have Chinese tutoring Tuesday, so I spent most of the day working on my "Online Teaching" presentation for Soochow and Jilin. Then in the evening--around 6 pm--Grace came over to copy and paste some things off of this blog. She is doing research on international faculty, and I have agreed to be one of her research subjects! So the blog provides good data for her. I warned her that not everything I say is positive, and she told me she didn't expect it to be. She also helped us figure out our TV a bit....I'm still not sure I get it, but I think I understand how to work it a bit better now. Apparently Smart TV is very popular in China; perhaps I am old, but I just don't get it. I'm too dumb for Smart TV. Then we left to go to Hongkou Plaza for dinner; we took a taxi. Grace was impressed that we knew how to use Didi; Kerry knows it better than I do. We went to the Shanghai Restaurant again. When I tried to speak Mandarin to the host, she immediately tried to correct me, using Shanghaiese dialect. One thing I sometimes misinterpret here is the tone and loudness of the Chinese people. She sounded almost angry to me, but Grace assured me that that wasn't her attention. We ordered shrimp, oyster beef, a pork chop, some bamboo shoots with shiiitake mushrooms, and Grace ordered glutinous rice balls.  During dinner, we talked a lot about cultural differences between China and the US. She seemed surprised that a lot of people in the US don't have health insurance. She also told us that, in China, white faces are considered beautiful, with double eyelids. She mentioned that both men and women will go to South Korea for plastic surgery because it's well-done there. We stayed until about 9 pm, when we basically got kicked out because (I guess) the restaurant was closing. Afterwards, Grace went home and Kerry and I went to Carrefour. We picked up hats and gloves, which apparently we are going to need here. It is colder here than I thought it would be. I mean, it's not as cold as MN, but it's very windy, so gloves are not a bad idea. No snow at all, though.

Day 82: I Hope You're Somewhere........Not Getting Glitter-Bombed

Saturday we went to the Jiashan Market again with Peter. We took a cab with Peter there, and another one home. We're getting used to ordering cabs through Didi. Kerry is more adept at it than I, but it's very convenient and not too expensive.  Neither of us likes standing around in cold weather. The market wasn't was much fun as last time, partly because of the colder, windy weather, but mostly because the Lebanese food stand wasn't there: no shwarma, hummus, or baba ganoush. Bummer! Still, we found some good dessert treats, including cheesecake, a Shanghai mug, and a couple gifts for others which I won't mention here. I did some grading/prep mid-day, and then in the evening we went to the drag party at Lucca 390, our first real gay event in Shanghai. Again, we took a cab there. We got there quite early at first--around 9:30--so we just walked around and explored. We ran into Summer Xia, a SISU student who is running the Rainbow Aliens group at school. It seems very undercover to me. Nothing public--everything seems to be on WeChat. There's no real public signage or advertisement for this group. Anyway, we got chased out of the original seats we were sitting in because we were told that "judges were sitting there."  Okay...   So we went downstairs to see the amateurs perform. The co-hosts were "Miss Banana" and a small Asian drag king. What's interesting is that the drag king always spoke to the audience in English FIRST, and then Miss Banana spoke in Chinese to the audience second. I would have thought it would be the other way around. So we saw the amateur peformerers, and most were pretty good. My favorites were a drag king who performed to the song "Linda Evangelista" and fired up the crowd with his moves and Emily, who Summer knew, who performed a sultry burlesque of a Chinese song. I found out later that Emily won (even though we didn't think her lip-synching was great). The disappointing moment of the experience was when a huge genderqueer performer came on stage wrapped in a white sheet with expressions like "FAGGOT" and "DYKE" all over them. This person was flanked by two individuals, one on each side. They performed "Praying" by Kesha and glitter-bombed the audience at the end. At first, Kerry and I thought it was amusing, but we realized quickly that THERE WAS GLITTER EVERYWHERE. Glitter in our shirts, our hair, our pants, our phones, etc.  The amusement factor lowered considerably after that, especially since we were told we had to wait 90 minutes for the professional competition. So we each grabbed our free drink (which was no easy task...the place was jammed), and left soon after. It was impossible to walk around near the end, and we had to escape. I was grateful that there was no smoking in the bar. One interesting thing: very few people were touchy-feely, which is very much unlike American gay bars. Almost no one was touching, not even a hand on a shoulder, except for Caucasians.

Here are some pictures from Lucca 390:

This is Erica, Summer's friend, who looked amazing! She won the amateur drag queen competition.

Long shot of the club.

Another shot of Erica, performing.

You can see the glitter all over me in this picture.

Days 80-81: Normal Days Again

I'm going to write just a brief entry here because not too much happened Thursday and Friday.  Thursday I just did some reading and prep work for me--American Lit. response papers on Whitman and Dickinson--and Kerry went to go meet with someone from his gaming group about a character. Then Kerry and I reviewed Chinese together in the evening. Friday was our "usual pattern" day: go to Chinese class, eat at Ciao Cafe, and I come home while Kerry goes gaming. In Chinese class, we are working on birthdays, days of the week, and times of the day (morning, afternoon, evening). It's all very complicated and a lot of information, so we typically feel very overwhelmed after class. But it was nothing that a spinach and bacon pizza couldn't cure: that's what I had at Ciao Coffee.  Kerry had his usual Ciao pizza.  We also tried their cheesecake, which was good. I then went home--it was pouring rain--and Kerry went gaming. Most of the evening, I was just grading response papers on The Great Gatsby. Most of them are writing about Nick Carraway's role as narrator or about how The Great Gatsby defines "The Roaring Twenties" in the US. Kerry came home about 11:30 pm--he walked from Jiangwan Town Station instead of taking the 745 bus, which we are liking less and less these days. Even today, when I took it, it was SO crowded! Lately it's super crowded and I don't understand why. I saw Grace on the bus coming home today, which was interesting, but we couldn't chat because the bus was as crowded as it was.

Saturday were are going to Jiashan Market with Peter again, and we will also likely go to a Drag Party at Lucca (gay bar in Shanghai) in the evening.  Hope it's fun!  I will write much more Sunday night or Monday.

Days 77-79: Students Getting Restless

I decided to title this post "students getting restless" because my SISU students are getting restless, and Kerry and I are also getting a bit restless as students of Chinese: both the language and the culture.

Regarding my students: Monday was the first day that I really had some serious complaints or questions come up. Before class, one student wanted to go over her response papers with me, which is fine, and she seemed happy with our discussion. Like many students, she really needs to work on her citation: they don't seem to know MLA citation very well here in China. Class was just okay--I gave some background on Fitzgerald, followed by a student presentation on "The Roaring Twenties and The Great Gatsby, and then we ended things with a brief discussion, mostly about Nick Carraway's role as a narrator. After class, another student (who was also partners with the first student) complained about her presentation grade a bit.  (Her partner remained silent through much of this.) This student was very vocal, though, and referred to my response to her concern on WeChat as being "narrow," which didn't thrill me.  She detained me for at least 15 minutes, which was mostly a vent on her part. However, I did try to convince her that I was trying to work with her, not against her, and that I did feel the grade I assigned was fair.  What's nice is that she and her partner did ask me, "What can I do to improve?"  So it wasn't just a bitch-fest, as is often the case with American students. Both she and I tried to approach the situation professionally, and I think we accomplished this. I had a better experience after class--I spoke with the student who is my class monitor. He wants to get into a prestigious graduate program in the UK, and he wants a letter of recommendation. So I told him that he has to improve his response paper grades a bit if I consent to do so. I agreed, and then I talked with him about how to do better on these papers. He gave me macadamia nuts as a gift--he told me he bought them as part of China's "Black Friday," which is 11.11 here.  (We were wondering why our ePer Market order had sales in variables of "11" and such.) The ride home took 90 minutes, followed by a CROWDED bus ride in which I kept having to inch my way towards the door.  Insanity!  I did get to talk to Raymond coming and going to school, so that was nice. We usually talk politics and culture--it definitely passes time. I'm not sure how I'd survive 2.5 hours of bus rides otherwise.

Tuesday, Kerry and I went to the post office...after studying over our post office conversational scenario a bit. I think he mostly understood what I was saying, but we got a bit messed up with asking for "Express Mail." All in all, though, I think my postcards and letter are on their way!  I feel so accomplished here whenever I can do the little things. On the way back, we saw a cute park: statute in the front, a gazebo with Chinese architecture, Chinese music playing, and people playing badminton. It represented more of the China I was hoping to see. Then Deborah came for our lesson. Kerry seemed to get pretty frustrated--I seem to have an easier time memorizing the words than he does. However, he's much better at pronunciation and he does a good jobs translating the sounds to pinyin.  Deborah mentioned that her friend who wanted someone to read for her child really wants to pay whoever does the work, which is understandable, so we are probably not the best candidates to do so. I'm mildly disappointed, but I am not allowed to take the extra income--nor is Kerry, for that matter.

Wednesday, we began the day with more China insanity. A woman came to the door demanding money for an electric bill. Of course we couldn't understand here, so I quickly got on the phone with Carol, who talked to her and got her to leave. Apparently, SISU covers our electric here up to a point, so there was no reason for the woman to come by. Strange! Later in the morning, I went to a Brown Bag Lecture at SISU given by Dr. Steve Kulich. Mostly grad students were in attendance. I was a bit late because the taxi dropped me off behind the school, and then I had to find the building--I arrived at 11:45, but it was okay because he hadn't started yet.  The lecture was on the 6th floor--and no elevators, of course. He provided an overview of research in intercultural communication. This isn't my field, but it was still interesting to me, and I even asked a question about gender studies and intercultural communication in China. I sense there's interest in gender studies here in China, but it's a field that's not developing here. I talked to Grace a bit: she wants me to be one of the subjects in her longitudinal research study on international faculty. I am excited about this and hope to talk to her more about it. She might even be able to use information off this blog!  On the way home, I had taxi issues. (You might ask, why was I using taxis today?  Well, I was trying to save a bit of time, and also my right foot is giving me serious problems.) Anyway, so the driver showed up in the wrong place, and I had to cancel the order...then I had to go to Chifeng station to under the second taxi. Once we found each other, we were fine--10 minutes to get home. At home, I spoke to Jeff, who told me about his interview, and to Taozhen, who went over my travel schedule with me over the phone. Burgers (that we made) for dinner. Readings of Gatsby. A quiet evening at home.

Days 74-76: And the Routine Continues...

So, blog readers, I'm sorry to report, but we're at sort of a lull in our excitement right now. This will pick up around Thanksgiving when we plan to do A LOT of travelling for about a month. But for right now I'll just share about our weekend.

Friday was our usual routine: we went to Chinese class, we had lunch at Ciao Cafe, and then Kerry went to gaming and I came home and graded response papers for the Short Novels class. I did manage to finish them--go me!  I am starting to feel more confident in the Chinese class. Kerry even said to me, "You did really well today."  We focused today on introducing people and "Where are you going?" (that is, issues of place).  Part of me wants to continue my studies of Chinese when I get back to the US--I don't want to lose my abilities with this language. At the Ciao Cafe I had my tuna panini, and Kerry had a ciao panini (which I think is ham and chicken). We also shared a brownie; they heated it up, so I wasn't crazy about it (I like cold brownies).  Soon after, the 745 bus came right away, so I had to run away from Kerry to make it. Didn't even say goodbye to him. Then, I just came home and graded...made myself some chicken nuggets for dinner (which I scorched a bit, but Kerry still ate them, bless him!).  Kerry got home about 11:30. One thing that I did right before we went to bed is I bought us tickets back to the US. We are flying Delta (Comfort Plus), both ways. We leave January 30 and have a 3-hour layover in Seattle, then fly Seattle to MSP. Returning on Feb. 8, we fly MSP to LAX, and then have about a 90-minute layover in LAX before we go to Shanghai. Coming back to the US, we have to pick up our bags in Seattle before the Minneapolis flight, but going back to China, our bags our checked all the way. Weird! Kerry and I are still debating how many suitcases to take back. I say 5-6, but he wants to stick to 4.  Regardless, I think half of them will be full of gifts (for ourselves AND others).

Saturday we got to eat with Xuewei again, this time for lunch. We took a cab to the Shung'Feng Restaurant, which was in a hotel. We were a bit late due to traffic and me being a bit lazy getting going this morning. I hesitate to call what we had lunch because the food--and drinks--never stopped: we had beef (chili beef and regular), pork, lamb, fish, soft-shell crab, deep-fried lima beans, a slippery bean dish that tasted peanuty (I loved this!), lotus root, soup with swordfish in it, and two desserts: steamed buns with papaya that we had to put a straw in to sip out of as well as fruit (including lots of watermelon). Just an absolute banquet!!!!!  After the meal, Xuewei's folk-singer friend and her husband sang some songs: her friend sang a Chinese folk song, her husband sang "Edelweiss," and then they did a Chinese duet.  It was charming to listen to and fun! It reminded me how people can do so much more after dinner than just watch TV or look at their phones. I absolutely loved it.

Here are some pictures:

Kerry and I (in the back) with Xuewei's family.

Me, Xuewei, and Kerry.

Then we gave Xuewei some books to take back with her, as she had volunteered to do so, and then her brother drove us to the subway station. On the way there, it was strange: we saw a mother in a car yelling at her kid in the front seat and smacking him a bit...not a common sight in either China or the US (well, perhaps more so the US). Then Kerry and I took the 3 line to the 10 line (16 stops!) to Wal-Mart. It took us awhile to find it, but once Kerry stopped into a Starbucks for wi-fi, and I had a peach iced tea, we finally figured things out.  Wal-Mart was on the 2nd and 3rd floors of a mall we were in. As soon as we entered, we were bombarded with Xmas decorations. I have to admit: we did cave and bought a small Xmas tree, a couple snowman ornaments, and some stuffed animals. Overall, though, the place wasn't really that different from Carrefour or Century Mart.  Mostly groceries and no cosmetics; they didn't even have an eye care section. This disappointed me, for I wanted lens cleaner. The checkout line was insane; there were 20-30 people in each checkout line. Our checkout person wouldn't let us get some tinsel we picked out just because it didn't have a UPC code on it.  Geez.  Afterwards, we took the subway and bus back: two transfers, the bus, and then walking home takes about 90 minutes, at least.  It takes FOREVER to get around this city. Last thing to mention: late in the day, before we went to bed, Kerry and I put up the little Christmas tree and decorated a bit while playing a Celine Dion Christmas album. I think we were a bit homesick. We plan to add more to the tree later; it really needs a star.

Sunday was pretty dull. Kerry woke up feeling sick, so he spent much of the day resting. I did prep work for my classes. We got an Eper Market order--mostly veggies--they came kind of late today (normally, in the 12-2 pm window, they come right around 12 or 12:30; today, they didn't get here until 1:30 or so). Also talked to Mark: he told me that he plans to come for Thanksgiving.  Yay!  Hopefully that will be a fun time.

One class tomorrow, and then I meet with Yanis (a student).  We'll see how things go.

Days 70-73: Not Much Going On

This week so far has been pretty dull, so this will be a pretty short entry. Monday I taught both my classes, and they were pretty uneventful. We finished up The Awakening in Short Novels and covered Whitman and Dickinson in my Honors American Literature class. The weather was remarkably nice on Monday--we had a high of about 70 degrees, which I'd never thought I'd see in November! Tuesday Kerry and I had another tutoring lesson from Deborah, from about 3:45-5:45 pm.  We practiced conversations on going to the post office and learned some new vocabulary words. I do think my Chinese is improving, little by little.  Deborah asked if either of us would be interested in reading to the daughter of a friend of hers: Kerry's not really interested, but I might be as long as it's not too much of a time commitment. I love reading to little kids because it brings back happy memories of when I was a child and my mom would read to me and Alison.

Wednesday I mostly just did prep work on The Great Gatsby: reading and working on a PowerPoint. Thursday was nice, though. Kerry and I went to this restaurant, Prego, at the Westin. We were cashing in on the raffle prize that he won in October. When we got there, we were pleased to discover that the "lunch" comes with a buffet of salads, appetizers, and desserts!  I helped myself to such treats as bruschetta, cheese, tuna and tomato salad, pumpkin and feta salad, white kidney bean salad, and caprese salad.  Yum! For the main course, I had beef with polenta and Kerry had pizza (of course).  We also had soft drinks. One thing we like is that the people in the Westin all speak English very well, so it's sort of an oasis for us!  I met the food and beverage manager, Danny, and he was very kind and gave me his card. Perhaps he can get us a good table when we go to the brunch for Kerry's birthday next month! That would be cool.

Tomorrow....our usual Friday routine: Chinese lessons, lunch, and then Kerry games while I grade.

Days 66-69: Chinese Lessons and Dining with Friends

Thursday, not a whole lot happened--work mostly...so I 'm just going to skip ahead to Friday. Friday we had Chinese lessons at SISU, from 1:30-4 pm.  It's a good class, but we always feel overwhelmed after. Our teacher, Wang Laoshi, gives us a lot of vocabulary, but I sort of wish we'd get more practice conversations, even though they are uncomfortable for us. In the evening, Kerry went gaming and I graded response papers.  Woo hoo.

Saturday, the big event of the day was having dinner--the second "Shanghai Fulbrighters Dinner"--with Connie (with her three kids) and Abram (who was by himself). We went to a Japanese sushi place near Abram's apartment, but it wasn't all that great.  Kerry liked the pork, and I liked the sashimi, but I didn't care for their sushi roll all that much, and Kerry didn't like their tempura. A key problem, again, was getting there. Abram gave us really poor directions, telling us to exit the subway at exit 7, when there was no exit 7 on line 3......which we did not know. And apparently neither did he.  But all was forgiven once the food arrived, and we had some good conversation.  Connie, especially likes to talk. I like how she's interested in gender studies and literature. Her daughter, Meara, is a precocious seven-year-old who kept trying to show me a bunch of pictures of her trip to Japan.  She, also, is quite a talker!

Pictures from the Shanghai Fulbrighters dinner:

(Left side) Me, Connie, Meara.  (Right side) Kerry, Abram, Rory, Kiernan

Me, Abram, and Connie: Shanghai Fulbrighters!

Sunday, more dining: we met up with Mark, his family, and his friends at a steamed bun restaurant near the Yu Gardens. I like that area a lot, but oh, is it crowded! And we are prey for scams there: one woman came up to us and asked if we she could practice her English with us, and we were pretty sure this was the "tea scam" we heard about at the Fulbright orientations. Also, several people asked us if we wanted watches, to which we replied, "Bu" (No). Anyway, we got to meet Mark's wife Carrie (what a coincidence!) as well as his son, Declan, and 1.5 year old daughter, Ellie. They were also with their friends Tad and Adrienne and their daughter, Eowyn (I'm not sure if that's the right spelling, but all I know is that it's from Lord of the Rings).  I had some pork and shrimp buns, and Kerry had plain pork. I also imbibed more chrysanthemum tea, which I'm beginning to like, as well as some egg drop and scallion soup, and Kerry had the soup as well.  I think I'm developing a taste for warm liquids, especially since the weather is getting increasingly cold here. We had a good time: Mark and his son sat at our table (we couldn't all sit at the same table), and we gave the kids some presents (Declan got a Frozen tin with cookies, Ellie got a pink Minnie Mouse bowl, plus we gave them pens and pencils--all from the Shanghai Disney Store at the airport).  We also gave Mark and Carrie a choice of two t-shirts from Taiwan.  Fun times! Afterwards, we perused a couple Xmas stores and shopped for other bargains: picked up some gifts. My favorite store was a "10 Yuan" store, which is basically like a dollar store in the USA.  They had some cool things, which I won't describe here because they might end up as gifts! My evening was taken up with school work--tomorrow's a tough day--two classes and I'm not home until 8:30 or 9 pm.  Sigh.  Mondays are really tough.

A couple pictures from the dinner with Mark:

Steamed buns in Shanghai!

From left: counterclockwise--Adrienne, Eowyn, Tad, Carrie, Emmie, Mark, Declan

Mark and the crazy Engrish shirt he chose.

Days 63-65: School, Xuewei, and Chinese Lesson

Monday I had my class--just one class because I'm now having my American Literature class only every other week. This week, actually, I wasn't too sad about this because I was so busy last week with all the Taiwan business. On the way to Songjiang, I got to talk to Alex English, one of the teachers here. It was nice getting to know him better. He likes board games and he told us how to get to a movie theater near us. He also runs the "brown bag" lecture program and asked me if I'd like to do one, to which I agreed. I'm interested in talking about GLBT topics there. We're still doing The Awakening in my class: a couple students did a presentations on male characters in the novel; we had an interesting discussion on Freudian theory. Then a lot of them asked questions after class, so, as expected, I missed the 3:00 pm bus, but I got the one going home at 4:30. I talked to Raymond on the way home. We have some interesting conversations about literature, politics, and Chinese culture. Right now he's reading a book called China's Hidden Children about adoption and China; I think I'd like to take a look at it myself. I got home about 7 pm and then kind of collapsed--Mondays usually tire me out. However, there was one bit of amazing news. KERRY FINALLY GOT HIS PACKAGE!  It had been held up in customs for SIX WEEKS. I even took a video of him opening it up--it was basically a care package with such things as voltage converters, parmesan cheese, chocolates, a coloring book, two small stuffed animals, and some recent mail.

Tuesday the big event was having dinner with Xuewei and her family. We went to a Beijing Roast Duck restaurant on Hongqiao Road--it took 11 subway stops on Line 3 to get there. The food was magnificent: duck (of course), but also pork, sweet and sour fish (squirrel fish, Xuewei said it was called), scrambled eggs with shrimp, tofu, crysanthemum tea, rice cakes, and many vegetable dishes. Our new Chinese tutor, Deborah, also joined us, so we got to meet her for the first time. The Chinese folks took great pleasure in watching us eat and in watching us make fools of ourselves (well, me, mostly) with chopsticks. Xuewei gave us mail, cheese, Kerry's parmesan crisps, peanut clusters from Barbara (our dept. secretary), and a card and gift from Beth, our dept. chair.  It was so wonderful--it felt like my birthday or Christmas!  After dinner, we walked to the subway with Deborah.  We plied her with a lot of questions about Chinese culture: Why do women dance in the street? What is "Mama ne shay?"  What are those cartoon cats?  She tried to be very patient with us.  We liked her immediately and looked forward to our Wednesday lesson.

Here's a picture of us with Xuewei and her family (that's Deborah, our new Chinese tutor, on the left):

Wednesday Kerry and I cleaned the apartment before Deborah arrived: I swept up and cleaned the kitchen table; he took charge of the bathroom. Deborah worked with us between 12-2.  We reviewed the letters and pronunciation, basic greetings, and talking to a taxi driver. She was very kind, again, with all our questions. I think having a private tutor will be good for us, especially since I think we're going to travel a lot and miss a lot of the Friday sessions at SISU.  All day long we ate leftovers from last night's dinner; tonight--chicken with onions and greens. Tomorrow we get the EPer Market order, and I'm glad because we're a bit low on groceries. Kerry went to Century Mart briefly today, but he didn't bring home much substantive stuff.

Days 61-62: Taipiei, Part Two

Saturday was the day we'd been waiting for for months: Taipei Pride.  We shoveled in some carbs from the hotel lobby for breakfast, and I watched the World Series.  It was fun not only to see the World Series in China, but also to see the Houston Astros kick LA Dodger butt!  In the game I watched, they went ahead of LA 2-1 in the series. As of this writing, the series is tied 3-3....we'll see what happens!  Around 12 noon, we took the subway to the Pride parade. It was very neat, clean, and orderly. The people queued to get on the train; they had subway tokens instead of tickets, as they do in Shanghai. As soon as we got out of the subway, people were handing us flags and stickers...it was so fun!  There were a few vendors here and there selling rainbow things, but no food, which really differed from Minneapolis Pride back home.  Things hadn't really started when we got there, so we walked around a bit. We ended up in a large area where a lot of people seem to gather; it got more and more crowded as the time wore on.  But people weren't rude or mean. A lot of people wanted to take our picture, and they were happy when we asked to take theirs. We noticed a genuine lack of attitude at this Pride, and we were happy that things seemed very bear-friendly. Eventually, the parade got started. It wasn't much to speak of, but we had a great view, and there were lots of interesting people: Goths, folks decked out in rainbow colors (including me in my tie-dye shirt), puppy players, S/M gear, men dressed as Sailor Moon, a man dressed as an Indian chief with rainbow feathers. Soon, however, we got hungry, and headed back to the subway. Before we left, I took a couple pictures of beautiful temples. I really didn't buy that much at Pride: I think I bought one rainbow scarf and one flag. However, Kerry and I together did manage to collect 23 (YES 23) flags that were given to us.  That's enough to give one to each of our gay--and even non-gay--friends.  We went back to the hotel and changed, and then went on to a Japanese restaurant nearby: I had sashimi, udon noodles, and tempura. Kerry ordered some meat kabobs as well...delish!  Excellent food!  And I loved how they said "Welcome" in Japanese to everyone who walked in.  (We know they were saying "Welcome" because we asked the waitress.)  In the evening, we did a bit more shopping--mostly for gifts--and walking around. The mall under our hotel had T-shirts with Chingrish (Engrish) on them---for about $3 each.  We bought a bunch.  Overall, we had so much fun that Kerry didn't want to leave!

Here are a few Pride pictures (mostly of me and Kerry...one includes us with a guy dressed as an Indian, another includes a guy fighting for marriage rights in Australia):

The next day, Sunday, we had to leave. Arranging a taxi was no problem. It was so nice to see so little traffic on the road. We talked constantly about how much we wanted to return to Taipei sometime.  "Let's come back for Pride," Kerry said. I reminded him how that would be hard to arrange in the future, considering my work schedule. On the flights home, I managed to get two window seats....the first time was because we saw one vacant row (from Taipei to Fuzhou) and Kerry asked the stewardess if we could sit there, and she allowed us to.  The second time, I was assigned a window seat...yay!  Rice and a chicken wing on the first flight; fruit and water on the second (Fuzhou to Shanghai Hongqiao). Still, it's better than the service we'd get on an American flight!  We took a taxi home. As we were walking out of the airport, we were accosted (twice) by men saying, "Taxi! Taxi! Only 350!" We knew better and ignored them. "175! 150!," they shouted, trying to bargain with us. We instead went into the normal queue line for the taxi and ending up paying only 98 RMB for the trip home...not too bad.  I managed to finish grading my response papers for the Short Novels class, which I had started on the plane, and even had time to read my critical article.  We ordered McDonald's delivery again for dinner....we're still experimenting and trying to find out what we like. I tried a burger with bacon, lettuce, and tomato on it...no cheese.  Not bad. I notice even McDonald's food here tastes fresher--it doesn't taste like it's been under a heat lamp for two days. I skipped the fries and had a side of corn, which isn't a USA option. I enjoyed it!