Kevin's Family Visit

Kevin and family arrived here on Sat. Dec. 27. They had been traveling since before Christmas so had no presents from Santa. Fortunately, he dropped off their stockings here so they were able to open presents when they arrived. There was even a stocking for us with American candy in it! Wow! Effie had also baked cookies & banana bread, made homemade caramels, and brought us a large bag of her homemade granola. We have decided that she can come any time she wants to visit.

I knew our counters were low, but I hadn't realized just how low until Trent volunteered to do the dishes. I walked by the kitchen and this is what I saw. Not only are the counters low, but you can see just how narrow the kitchen is. We didn't eat many meals here--too hard to cook for so many people. We managed breakfast and some lunches.

However, for about 75 cents you can go to the local noodle shop for lunch and get a filling bowl of noodles. Notice that we eat them with chopsticks. The approved way to eat is to use both the small spoon and the chopsticks to get the noodles to your mouth. Then you lift the bowl and slurp down the broth. The owner of the shop was delighted to see so many western people come for lunch in his shop. We probably doubled his take for lunch that day. Notice we are wearing coats. The shop is not heated.

Saturday afternoon some of us went down to the Confuscious temple area to look around. I had been there before so didn't take many pictures. However, here is Kevin "dressed" like an ancient Chinese scholar.

There were some new displays that looked almost like blown up plastic images. Nicole and Morgan decided to join the scholars in their studying poses.

Trent and Todd are standing next to the largest bronze statue of Confuscious in China. Note the stone carving along the steps. These are very common in China and depict scenes or dragons or whatever.

Inside the temple are many murals like this one, depicting the life on Confuscious. The colors are amazing, especially since they are all carved out of jade. They must be worth a fortune.

We stopped for treats outside the temple. These are found everywhere. They are usually haw fruit covered with candy (ala candied apples) like the one on the left. However, since it is strawberry season we can now find strawberries dipped in the candy like Nicole has on the right. The others are ok but the strawberry ones are yummy!!!!!

Sat. evening Steven (Wang Wei), the student I have been tutoring, brought over his girlfriend and we introduced them to the family and played Phase 10. I think they had a good time. I have enjoyed tutoring Steven. He will go to Australia next year to get his masters degree Hua Bing, the girlfriend, also graduates this year. She will try to find a job in Beijing and live with his parents and take care of them. "Filial Piety" is a common term here and means that the children take care of their parents. Parents scrimp and save to put their children through school and then expect to be supported by the children as they grow older. I found it interesting that Hua Bing had not even met Steven's parents, but she was willing to live with them and take care of them. The parents are probably not over 50. My personal feeling is that they should get married and she should go to Australia with Steven. However, that isn't the way things are done here.

I took the family to my classes on Monday. My students were so excited to see a whole family of "westerners" and had a wonderful time asking them questions. On Tuesday they went with Jim to his classes. Here they are with some of his students. These are all graduate students, even though they look like they're 17. I am always amazed at how young the students look.

In the afternoon we took the family to the kindergarten where we sing English songs with the 3-5 year olds. Here we are doing "London Bridge" with the 3-year olds. They love it, but it is difficult to get them to get in line. They all want to crowd in. Of course, that's the way things are done here. No one lines up to get on the bus, train, etc. Everyone just crowds. I think that is a result of living in an overpopulated country.

Here we are with the 3-year olds. It was Parents' Day so many of the students had parents with them. The parents all wanted pictures of us so we lined up for the photos. The most fun was when we had the parents do the "Hokey Pokey" with their children. They were not sure just how to do that, but the kids had a wonderful time showing parents and even grandparents just how it was done!!!