TIC (This Is China)

Karen and I at the reception. Not sure what we're laughing at!

Cory and Lara with her parents at the "Bride Pick-Up"

For people who have lived in China, you've probably heard this phrase before. TIC would be the best description of my last few weeks here. Different...funny....kind of weird.....and fun!

Last Saturday (Apr. 3), Cory and Lara had their wedding. It was fun to be a part of such a mixed-tradition experience. In Chinese culture, the groom has to drive to the bride's home and pick up the bride to take her to the reception. The bride is hiding in a room. The man and his groomsmen have to get through her bridesmaids as they have lots of different challenges: answering questions, singing songs, doing push-ups, giving money, etc. Lara's hometown is an hour and a half away from Wuhan. We were supposed to leave at 7:30am to pick her up. We didn't end up leaving until after 9am, and traffic was terrible on top of that! Because we had to hurry back for the ceremony (and because we were a group of foreigners!), the bridesmaids went easy on Cory. He only had to pass out a few money envelopes, answer some questions about Lara, and then we all sang a Backstreet Boys song outside Lara's bedroom door to convince her to let him in.

After that, we headed back to Wuhan for the American-style wedding ceremony and Chinese reception. It was a learning experience for everyone there. We got to see a Chinese wedding reception, and they witnessed a wedding ceremony. Chinese weddings just consist of the bride pick-up and a reception. After that, Cory, Lara, and Cory's family headed off for a family vacation around China.

Kirk, Rebecca, Adam, Ben, and I were invited by Lily (a Chinese friend) to go to the park to fly kites the next day. I received a kite for my birthday from a Chinese friend, so I decided to give it a try. We decided to bring a football and frisbee "just in case." I'm glad we did. As we were putting my kite together, we realized that it was missing some pieces. It was still flyable, but barely! I think Kirk had it up in the air for awhile once. Most of the other attempts ended with us trying to get it untangled from a tree.

Since the kite wasn't working too well, we decided to start throwing the football and frisbee around. Foreigners will attract a crowd any time, but foreigners playing games they haven't seen very often will attract big crowds, and kids who want to play as well! It was fun teaching them how to throw, but it's easy to see why Chinese kids are often called "Little Emperors." They don't like to share, and they love to push and shove others to get what they want. We played catch with them for awhile, and then decided it was time to head home before one of the kids hurt each other!

Last Friday, Molly (Chinese teacher) invited Kirk and I to go to a golf driving range with her 6 year-old daughter (Shirley) and her friend (Winnie). I've done a few things with them now. I love talking to Shirley and Winnie. They can both speak a little English, and they're actually two of the best people for me to learn Chinese from! I can ask them to repeat the same word over and over and they never get impatient with me like most Chinese. It seems like most adults think that I should understand them after they speak once at their normal speed!

We arrived to the driving range, and the workers immediately greeted us and were excited to teach us how to hit a golf ball. They didn't realize that Kirk and I had been playing golf longer than them. We stepped up to hit our first balls, and a lady with high heels was trying to tell us to keep our heads down, spread our feet apart, etc. We tried to listen nicely, and then both hit our balls 200 yards or so. She looked at us and said, "Oh, you guys have played before." It was pretty funny. After that, they tried to sell us a membership to the range. I like to play golf, but I'm not paying to be a member at a driving range!

After golf, we went out to eat with Molly and the girls. We went to a pseudo-Western style buffet that was pretty good. I'm glad I've been able to do some things outside of the office with Molly. She's a little more "traditional" Chinese. I've been sharing an office with her this whole year, and I feel like just the last month or so she's finally started to relax around me and the other teachers.

That's all for now. Hope you're doing well!

The longest birthday I've ever had...

The birthday crew

Hello again everyone. A lot has happened since my last post, so I'll try to catch you up as much as possible!

Last week, I was about to leave my office when Molly (a Chinese English teacher) asked if I wanted to sit in on a class that she was about to teach. It's an extra class for students who are really interested in English. Quite a few of my students are in it, so I thought it would be fun to visit with them. Molly was subbing for another teacher, so I thought she just wanted me to come, so she could look good in front of the students that didn't know her. Even though the students are used to having us around. There's a "buzz" when we walk into a new class.

I sat down in the front row to watch. Then, just before the bell rung, Molly said "How about I teach the listening section and you do the speaking section?" In the past, this would have terrified me. After living here, I'm used to these surprises. Now I'm just nervous instead of terrified! I asked her a few questions about what she wanted me to teach, since I had no idea. It didn't seem too difficult, so I winged it for about 20 minutes. It went okay, and I think the students enjoyed being surprised by a foreigner.

I've really enjoyed getting to know some of my students better over the past few weeks. At the beginning of the year, most students were excited to listen to me, but scared to come talk with me. The last few weeks, I've had the chance to talk with some students about different issues.

Two girls, Sara and Leah, visited me in my office one day to talk about the politics and history of Tibet for a school project. This is a VERY touchy subject here, so I was nervous. I don't know a lot about this topic, and I didn't want to offend them. However, they were very interested in hearing what people outside of China thought. It was a great discussion, and they were very willing to discuss China's positives and negatives.

I also recently had a good conversation with Daisy, a student who is concerned with her weight. You probably already know, but Chinese people are extremely thin overall. It makes me feel at home! :) Daisy was telling me that she skipped meals quite a bit because she wanted to lose about 20 pounds! She is not big at all, but since she's not as naturally skinny as other girls, she said that some people were making fun of her for being fat. I told her to ignore those people and that skipping meals wasn't healthy. We've talked a lot on QQ (Chinese Facebook), and she really enjoys those times. I think she respects me quite a bit, so I'm hoping I can use that to influence her in a good way. I'm going to continue checking up on her over the next few months.

With Easter coming up, we have been able to talk about the real meaning of this holiday with our classes. It can be frustrating trying to communicate this story to students with the cultural and language barriers, but I do think most of them understand a little more about JC's life.

Grade 1 is having a basketball tournament, and I've been a "celebrity" spectator. Last Friday, I went out to watch, and just about every single one of my classes was playing. Most were playing each other. Each class was trying to persuade me to cheer for them over the others. It's fun to watch the students relax and have fun, even if the basketball is terrible. And I can't emphasize that enough: Most of them are awful! But they do play hard!

On Sunday, I turned 26 years old. I'm still not sure what is more weird: That I'm 26 or that I live in China. Ben, a foreign teacher at another school has the same birthday as me. Since we know most of the same people, we had a co-birthday party. First, we went to Papa John's for some pizza, which never gets old! Then we watched "Alice in Wonderland" in English at the movie theater. I thought the movie was pretty good. But I hardly ever get to see movies in the theater in English, so I might be biased!

With the 12-hour time difference, I had a 36-hour birthday. 12 in China only, 12 in both countries, and 12 in America! We also celebrated our birthday on Saturday instead of Sunday, so it felt like my birthday was all weekend, which is pretty cool I guess!

That's what I've been up to recently. Adam Carpenter arrived last night. We had lunch with him, and he sat in on one of my classes this afternoon. It's always good to see a friend from America. I'm looking forward to having him hang out with us this weekend.

Saturday is Cory and Lara's wedding. I think I'm going to be some kind of groomsmen. It's going to be a mix of American and Chinese traditions. I don't really know what to expect. All I know is that I might have to sing and do push-ups to help Cory get Lara out of the house and to the wedding. Needless to say, it'll be interesting....

That's all for now. Go Butler!

It's All Downhill From Here...

It's hard to believe that there are only 3 more months of school this year. I'm starting to get really comfortable with the lifestyle and culture, and now I will have to make decisions about next year very soon! Just another "What am I going to do with the rest of my life?" time. Those are always interesting! When I came to China, I was pretty set on only being here for one year. However, I've really enjoyed the experience and getting to know so many Chinese as well as other foreigners in Wuhan. I've started looking for other jobs, but it's going to be a VERY tough decision.

There is not a lot of big news right now, but I wanted to send out a quick update.

We started the new term on March 1st. I wasn't ready to go back, but seeing my students again has been great. Plus, I feel much more confident about what I'm doing and how to lead the classroom. So confident, that recently I taught a class with my fly down for 20 minutes! I finally realized it, but I had no idea if my students had noticed. They were probably whispering about it in Chinese the whole time!

Beyond that, the weather is starting to warm up. I think we made it through the really bad winter weather, and no one is happier than me! I've been out running a few times as well as playing basketball with the students. I don't think I've ever been so ready to get back into being active. The cold weather made me feel like just sitting in my room all the time!

Adam Carpenter, the Zhong Relations leader, will be coming to visit in early April to catch up with us, meet with some school officials, as well as attend Cory's wedding. I don't remember if I've mentioned it before, but Cory is already officially married to a Chinese girl (Lara) here, but they are going to have a wedding with family and friends on April 3. It will be my first traditional Chinese wedding, so it should be interesting!

I think that's everything for now. Enjoy watching the greatest sports event on earth this month. I know I will!

Spring Festival Vacation

Relaxing on the pier in Hua Hin, Thailand

Daniel looking confused at the Bangkok Night Market

The home for Thailand's king: The Grand Palace

The skyline view of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Kirk and Sally at our hostel in Kuala Lumpur

Me at the Batu Cave (A Hindu Temple) in Kuala Lumpur. I felt like doing a 5-year old sports pose.

The Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. They used to be the tallest in the world.

The skyline of Singapore

We went to a Night Zoo in Singapore. These guys were breathing fire at the entrance.

Hanging out with some of Daniel's former students in Hong Kong

Sizing my hands up with Jackie Chan's at HK's "Avenue of the Stars"

The three of us decided to grow Spring Festival beards. Well, at least Kirk did. Me and Daniel just tried.

Hello everyone! I had a great time on my vacation traveling all over Asia. Over a span of about 3 weeks, I traveled to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand with Kirk Ransom and Daniel. We had a lot of fun, and I LOVED the heat. It was probably 90-95 degrees almost every day on the trip. Along the way we met up with two of my high school friends (Kirk Lacy and Joe Bentle) in Hong Kong and one of our teammates from Huangshi (Sally) for the rest of the trip. Since I went to so many different places, it'd be practically impossible to fill you in on everything. Here's a few pictures from my trip, and I'd love to tell you more if you have questions! Happy Chinese New Year!

Vacation!

Saying goodbye to Solomon

Hey everyone. My Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) vacation started this past week. It's been nice to sleep in and just relax for a few days, but I'm starting to get a little bored. Kirk Ransom, Daniel, and I are getting ready for our mini Asia tour vacation which starts Thursday. We will be going to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand for about 3 weeks so this will be the last update for awhile. I'll be sure to take plenty of pictures so I can share some of my experiences with you. I might look a little different in them because the 3 of us have decided to grow Spring Festival beards, or at least try!

The first leg of my trip will be even more fun because two of my best friends from high school, Kirk Lacy and Joe Bentle will be with us. I grew up playing and watching football with them almost every Sunday, so it'll be great to (hopefully!) watch my Colts win the Super Bowl with them in Hong Kong. While I'm sure the trip will be a blast, please "think" of us in our travels. I hope there are no problems that arise traveling to so many different places in such a short time. Little problems become a lot bigger when you're in a foreign country!

The last week of classes went fairly smoothly except for one occurrence. As I have mentioned before, I have about 700 students total, which makes it impossible to know all of them. Two of my students knew this and tried to take advantage of it for their final exam. For one class, we ended the semester with an oral examination. I called out each student and just had a short conversation with them. One student was really nervous about it, so he had a friend go out and take it for him. Most of my students could have gotten away with this, but he is one of the few students that sticks out because he gets on my nerves since he rarely pays attention! I talked to them both after class, and had to give them both zeroes for their final grade. I gave their English teacher the score they both would have gotten if they had not cheated and told him he could do whatever he felt was necessary for their final grade in the class. It was frustrating that students tried to take advantage of me, but hopefully it sent a message to the rest of the class to not try to cheat again!

On my last day of teaching, I told my classes that I would probably teach them again next semester, but I didn't know for sure since the school might change our schedules. After one class, a student brought up his textbook and a marker to get my autograph! I thought it was crazy, but did it anyways. Before I know it, there were about 20 kids surrounding me with their books! Now I know why athletes just scribble their names when signing autographs. That can tire your wrist out!

Last Thursday night we had a goodbye party at Papa John's for our Chinese friend, Solomon. He is going to study electronic engineering in Australia for two years. Solomon is a "brother" and a great guy. I always had a blast hanging out with him. I'll definitely miss him, but I'll be able to stay in touch with him via Skype and Facebook.

Our foreign fellowship was canceled last weekend, so a few of us teachers went to a registered Chinese church with another Chinese friend, Jolie. While I didn't really understand anything being said, it was cool seeing a different type of worship style and meeting with other brothers and sisters. Our Father is everywhere, but I kind of laughed to myself when I pictured Him listening to an interpreter. I mean, can HE even understand this language!!?? :)

Over the past few months, I've also been sharing a little about the Book with another Wuhan friend. His name is Jesse. He's had a lot of questions, so I told him about what I believe. I could tell he was interested, so I wanted to get him a Book for himself. Cory picked a few up at a registered church, so I was able to give him one last week. He was really excited and wanted to pay me back. I told him that it was a gift. I just wanted him to read it, so he could learn for himself and continue to ask me questions. I haven't been able to talk with him much since, but I am excited for our future conversations.

On a sad note, be thinking of my friend Taylor. He is an American who works at the coffee shop I've mentioned a lot. He was an English teacher at my school for two years. I actually live in his old apartment. He flew back to America two days ago to have some doctors look at his skin and possibly undergo surgery. He might have melanoma. I don't know much more than that, but we're hoping for some good news soon.

That's all for now. I hope everyone is doing well back in the states. I am looking forward to letting you know about our trip. Go Colts!

Almost there!

Hey everyone. I'm down to my last week of teaching before our Spring Festival vacation begins. I haven't been this excited for a vacation in quite a while! The constant cold has been really frustrating for me. Those of you who know me, know that I HATE being cold, and it is usually somewhere in the 30-50 degree range everywhere I go, inside or out. It's hard to get motivated to do much of anything with the weather.

After this last week of teaching, we will have about 5 weeks off. Kirk, Daniel, and I will be traveling to southern Asia for about half that time for some warm weather. We're going to Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand where the temperature is usually somewhere in the 80's. I can't wait.

Other than planning the trip, there's not much new going on. I'm still enjoying getting to know a lot of new friends and old friends even better. I don't really have any complaints other than the cold!

Last week, we foreign teachers played a basketball game against some Chinese teachers. We played full-court 5-on-5 with a scoreboard and everything. I was excited just to get to play a full-court game so I could get out and run. It was a lot of fun. We stormed out to a huge lead and were up by 20 at halftime. In the second half, the Chinese teachers made a big comeback and cut the lead to just a few points, but we hung on for the W. I think the final was 70-61. I thought we would play a shortened game, but I think we ended up playing a full 40 minutes!

Last weekend, we traveled to Huangshi again to celebrate Sally's (our Zhong Relations teammate) birthday. We did KTV yet again and then went back to her apartment for some American brownies that were awesome. It's always fun to get together with our whole team. It's a really fun group to hang out with.

We had a great surprise just a few days ago. We have a string of small restaurants about 100 yards from our apartment, where we usually eat because there is not really anything else close to us. As we walked there one night, we saw that a bakery had just opened! Finding good bread is not always easy over here, and it usually takes a 2-hour grocery store trip to get it. Our friends in Huangshi have a bakery right by their apartments, and Kirk and I were just talking how it would be nice to have one by us as well. And the next day, there it was! They have bread, cookies, and even some Western drinks there.

I think that's everything from here. I'm hoping to post at least one more update before we head out on our trip in early February. Hope you're all doing great!

Christmas in China

Hi everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year's! Sorry it's been so long since my last update. A few weeks ago, I got a virus on my computer that wouldn't let me connect to the internet. Everything else worked fine (even Skype), but I couldn't go to any webpages. Some of you probably have gone through the re-booting process before, so you know how much of a pain that can be. Being in another country definitely didn't help either! It took me about two weeks, but I think my computer is finally back to normal, and I didn't lose any files.

Computer problems have been the story for our group lately. I had a virus that caused me a lot of stress, but Rebecca's definitely trumped mine. Rebecca is the only one of us to have her own classroom. A few days before Christmas, she left her room for a few minutes only to return to find her computer missing. We think a cleaning person stole it while she was gone, but we never found it. Her parents have bought her a new one, and one of our friends is visiting America for Christmas, so she will pick it up and bring it back. Needless to say, we hope we're done with computer issues for the year!

Not being home for the past few weeks was definitely the hardest part of the year so far for me, but I still had a great time. Here's a few highlights of the past month or so. As I've said before, I hope to post updates more frequently, so I can give you a little more details about my life here in the future!

1. Every Monday we have English Corner at our school where students can just come and practice their English with us. The Monday before Christmas, we decided to teach them some Christmas carols. Kirk borrowed a guitar, and we sang 6-7 traditional Christmas songs. I could tell the students loved it. They reminded me of 5-year-olds hopped up on sugar. They were so hyper. With all the stress they're under, it was good to see them have fun and let loose a little bit.

2. For the week of Christmas, all of us teachers were able to talk about the real meaning of the holiday. We read from Luke 2 as a class (try doing that in America!), and then told them why His birth is so important. It's always hard to tell how much the students are understanding, but I can tell that most of them are at least starting to pick up how important the Word is to us.

3. It was strange working on Christmas Eve, but the school did at least give us Friday off for Christmas. A few weeks before, our team did a Secret Santa drawing for Christmas morning. I drew Lara (Cory's Chinese wife). I ended up getting her some candles, Dove chocolate, and a season of the TV show Monk. It's one of my favorite shows, and I know that she enjoys watching American TV to improve her English. I think she liked what I got her. She actually ended up drawing me and got me a nice blanket, which is nice because I was wanting another one!

4. I Skyped with my family for a little bit (their Christmas Eve) and then we all headed to Papa John's for some pizza! I don't know if I've ever had pizza for my main Christmas meal, but it was awesome.

5. That night, the English Club threw a Christmas party/performance during their dinner break since they had classes that day. We went and sang a few more songs for them. Then we played some games like musical chairs. Daniel and I played and lost. What we didn't know was that when you lose, you had to sing a song in front of everyone (about 200 people). At the beginning of the year, I played Timbaland's "Apologize" for my class to practice their English. For some reason, ever since then my students want me to sing that song all the time. As you can imagine, Daniel and I belted it out even though we didn't remember all the words.

4. On Christmas night, our team watched "It's A Wonderful Life," which is a tradition for my family, so I enjoyed that. Later, I Skyped with my family (Mom, Dad, Becca, Rachel, and Papa) while they opened their presents. I actually had 17 gifts to open myself. Somehow, my Mom was able to jam them all into a package and ship them to me! I got a few CD's, movies, books, and clothes. It was a lot of fun. It didn't feel exactly like I was home, but as close as we could do it!

5. Even later that night (about 1:30am), we decided to try out some fireworks that Daniel had gotten Cory for his Secret Santa gift. I've never used a cherry bomb, but from what I've heard, these things are similar to those. We went out and set a couple of those off. My personal favorite was a metal trash can. It didn't destroy it, but man was it loud! As you can tell, Christmas was definitely abnormal this year, but still a lot of fun!

6. The Sunday following Christmas, we threw a party for the Chinese teachers at our school. We didn't have a huge turn-out, but we had fun hanging out, singing Christmas songs (Again! I think Kirk was sick of playing them by the time it was all over!), and playing some games. It was good to get to know some of the teachers better outside of work.

7. For New Year's Eve, our team went to another district of Wuhan and played games with some of our friends. When we got back, we set off the rest of Cory's fireworks. When I say fireworks, I mean fireworks. The kind you go to see on July 4th. We shot off 16 of them, and they only cost about $20 total! Rebecca's birthday was also that day. We celebrated it on New Year's Day though. The rest of our team came down from Huangshi and we all went to KTV (karaoke) with some Chinese friends. We had a blast.

8. Today, Kirk and I went to a park with Molly. Molly is a Chinese English teacher that I share an office with and have become good friends with. She has a 7-year-old daughter named Shirley that loves to crawl all over Kirk and me. We grilled lamb, shrimp, potatoes, and cucumbers. It was really good. After that, we walked over to Monkey Hill which is exactly what it sounds like. A hill where monkeys are roaming everywhere. We fed them and took some pictures. It was definitely another China experience!

Well, that's a little overview of my last month. I hope you all had a great time with friends and family over the holidays. I'd love to hear from you. Merry Christmas and Happy 2010!

Here's a few videos if they will play for you:

Christmas Morning

Apologize