This Week in China

Dear Family and Friends,

Well, here it’s been awhile since we contacted any of you. Welcome to China! Our internet has been down for five days and counting. We feel really cut off when the internet doesn’t work, because we REALLY get spoiled with our instant communication through e-mails and Skype. It was so fun to see and talk to Ed, Julie and their girls last week, the video cameras work really good! And we got to talk to Warren on Skype. We also got to e-mail our other kids and keep up with what is going on in their lives. We e-mailed several of you and told you we were going to Beijing Friday to pick up our passports. Well that’s the same weekend the winter holiday ends, so it was super busy. It’s also the same weekend that tens of thousands of students return to universities here in Tianjin, so the internet was inundated with simultaneous use, and I guess it just couldn’t handle it. We have asked our girls at the front desk when they expect to have it fixed, and they just shrug and say, “Maybe tonight or tomorrow, or pretty soon.” I asked our students about it, and they say this happens every year, and we usually get it fixed in a week or two. I guess it still beats “snail-mail.” Shaun and Kelli sent us a really cute letter and valentine’s card. They mailed it on Feb. 2^nd, and we received it on Feb. 24^th. We loved getting it, and look at it every day on our kitchen table! And it helps us appreciate that all of our communication is generally much quicker than that! We remember when we had to write to Teresa in Russia because they didn’t have e-mail yet, and it took two weeks each way every time! And now we are complaining when it’s down for a week? Boy, do we get spoiled.

Last Friday we got up early and caught a 6:30 taxi with our friends from downstairs to enjoy the weekend in Beijing and pick up our new passports. We were to catch the 7:45 fast train to Beijing, where we can make the 90 mile trip in about an hour. We were to meet another couple at the train station who teach at Tianjin University a few blocks away. They had told us at the embassy to be sure to bring our old passports and the receipts for the funds paid for the new passports. Well, as we pulled into the train station I took our passports out and my wallet to pay the driver, and realized I had brought my passports, but not the receipts for the new ones. So Olsens met the Lowders at the station, told them why we weren’t there, and went on to Beijing. ReNee and I rode the cab back to our apartment and got our receipts, but now of course we have missed the train to Beijing. We had to go to the China Post office on the other end of campus and buy some more train tickets, then take the taxi back to the train station. Fortunately, they have a fast train that runs every hour, Unfortunately we lost about three hours because of my mental lapse. Plus the taxi fair and extra train tickets. Fortunately, some things are less expensive here. Fortunately, the train tickets are only about 50 yuan, and the taxi each way about 40 yuan. Unfortunately, that’s “each.” Fortunately, in US dollars, the total for both of us was only about $25 US. Unfortunately, we didn’t get into Beijing in time to go play with our friends. Fortunately the Subway in Beijing goes directly from the Beijing train station to Silk Road, which is only a block from the Embassy, so we went to the Silk Road. Unfortunately, the embassy is closed from 12-2 for lunch, and we got to Silk Road just after 12. Fortunately, at the silk market there is a Subway Sandwich shop! We were in Heaven! We shared a foot-long Subway Club on Honey Oat bread with all the trimmings. Unfortunately, they don’t have a Subway shop in Tianjin. Fortunately, we found the one in Beijing! Yummmm! With Salted Vinegar chips and a large Diet Coke! What more could one ask for in life! (Can you tell we have recently done the “Fortunately/Unfortunately” lesson recently? It’s a fun lesson.)

After lunch we wandered through the Silk Market, which is a five-floor shopping mall that specializes in all kinds of awesome stuff from silks, levis, coats, shoes, anything you can think of! There are about 200-300 various shops on EACH floor, and it’s fun to shop, because if you find something you like you bargain for it, and often end up paying about 1/3 to ½ of their original asking price. They expect you to bargain! Mom bought some pearls and a silk scarf, and I just looked at a lot of stuff. It wasn’t very busy that early in the day, so the shopkeepers were friendly and it was fun to bargain. I think they also like to practice their English. We had a fun visit with a couple of girls in a coat shop. They were selling North Face knockoffs pretty cheap. I had already bought one earlier in the year, but it was fun to look, anyway.

At two we walked over to the embassy and picked up our passports. It only took a few minutes, and I wouldn’t have gotten them without the receipts, so I’m glad we went back. Otherwise we’d have had to make another special trip to Beijing to get them. After that we took the subway across to the Pearl Markets to pick up some electronic stuff for our classes, a laser pointer with a built in slide-advancer for our powerpoint presentations. We looked at some pearls but didn’t buy any, and walked through the toy market and had fun talking to everybody. Again, this is a market where they have about 300 little shops with every kind of toy you can think if. The biggest problem with shopping here isn’t the price, most of them are really great. The big problem is how to get all this stuff home! We are only allowed two bags each on the airplane, and they can’t weight more than 50 lbs each. And it costs $40-50 to ship home a 100 lb box. It doesn’t take long for it to cost more to ship than the value of the items! So I really have to remind mom that we don’t have to buy EVERYTHING for ALL the grandkids! It would be so fun if we could! We could buy Christmas and birthday presents for the next five years for all 17 of the grandkids AND their parents!

Anyway, after the Pearl Market we took the subway back over to the station closest to our hotel we had booked near Beijing Normal University. The university is about 1 ½ miles from the subway station, and the taxi’s wouldn’t take us there because it wasn’t far enough away. So mom and I had to pack our suitcase and backpacks there. Kind of a long walk with 40 lbs of luggage plus the junk we had bought at the markets! We finally made it after missing a turn and walking an extra half-mile. Have you ever tried to ask directions to someone who only speaks Chinese and doesn’t understand ANY English? We had a card with the address on it, but had to try three different people before we found someone who had even heard of the place. Can you imagine someone living in a city of only 25 million people and not knowing where Beijing Normal University is? It only has 30,000 students. And after all, there are only 10,000 universities in Beijing! Is that really so hard? J

Of course, once we got checked into our room, it was almost 6:00 and we were hungry again. The other couples had checked in, but didn’t know when we were coming, so they went to lunch earlier, so ReNee and I just went to a little restaurant on campus and ate fried rice and sweet & sour chicken. It tasted really good, then back to our room and settled in. The others came back from eating and we had a fun visit comparing our afternoon experiences. I guess they had also gone to Silk Alley, and we just barely missed them. They were there while we were in the embassy, then they went to the Pearl Market about the time we left.

Saturday morning we got up and had a cinnamon roll and orange juice for breakfast, then went to another market near our apartment at the university. We went with a China Teacher couple who are teaching at China Normal, and it was fun. At 10:00 a.m. we walked back to the subway (at least this time we weren’t dragging our suitcases!), popped in to McDonalds for a fruit pie, and grabbed the subway to North Beijing, where we walked another mile in huge crowds of people who were traveling back from holiday. We caught a bus up to BaDiLing, where the Great Wall is closest to Beijing. It was a great trip! Until you have seen and climbed the Great Wall, you can’t even begin to comprehend the scope of that project! Near Beijing the terrain is extremely mountainous, and they build this wall along the ridge of these huge steep mountains! It weaves and doubles back like a huge snake. The wall took over 200 years to build, not including maintenance, and is over 6000 kilometers long! (That’s 4000 miles!). It stretches from near the Northwestern border of China in the Gobi desert to the East Coast. It actually ends near Tianjin! And it’s steep! We just hiked a tiny portion of it, and could hardly keep from dying on the uphill parts and sliding down the downhill parts. It’s hard to imagine how many people had to be employed to build it and maintain it. Let along the number required to guard it for so many hundreds of years. It was started over 500 years BC, and was added on to or rebuilt through all of the dynasties since, as it still is. The part that went through downtown Beijing has been taken out, as it effectively divided the city when it no longer needed dividing, but they kept one of the huge gates and watchtowers where we caught the bus for BaDiLing. It’s really impressive!

We did have to hurry back from the wall, though. I’d like to go there again sometime when we could spend more time. We needed to get back to go to our Priesthood leadership meeting that was part of our China International District conference. It was at 4:00, then we had an adult session at 7:00. Elder Halstrom of the 1^st Council of 70, a member of our Area Presidency, was presiding. It was really a good session. President Toronto of our District Presidency also spoke, as did several members of the branches. We had the Beijing branch, Tianjin branch, Jinan branch, and Xi’an branch there. Xi’an members had to ride the fast train for 3 ½ hour to get here. There were about 200 people in attendance, and it was really a good conference. No remember, we hadn’t eaten anything since our cinnamon roll for breakfast, a fruit pie at 10:00, and now it’s 6:00 p.m after our priesthood leadership meeting. As we came into the hotel where the church is, I spied a Dairy Queen near the front door! As we sat in our meeting, I visualized a big brazier burger, fries and a chocolate blizzard! (Remember Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? I was back near the first level! Cold And hungry!) After the meeting I went running down to the first floor all set to order my hamburger! Yum! NOT! This stupid Dairy Queen is shared with a Japanese food restaurant! So instead, I get a bowl of rice with mushroom gravy and tofu! Yuck! It’s the same as Chinese, only more bland! I don’t need more rice! I need Protein! MEAT! Where’s The Beef???!!! Hey, I’m at the TOP of the food chain, remember?!!! Grumble, grumble! But they did have a DQ ice cream bar, and I did get my blizzard! The only redeeming grace! An almond nut one! They don’t have a chocolate avalanche one here. They did have Oreo blizzards, but I like my cookies with milk in front of the TV. And strawberry.

Sunday morning we had a general priesthood session at 8:00, and the general session at 10. After that session we had to catch the bus back to Beijing, so mom and I popped into the DQ and I had an M&M blizzard and mom got a strawberry one to eat on the bus on the way home. Of course no breakfast before conference, as no place was open that early, and I wasn’t about to eat rice again for lunch, so we waited till we got back to Tianjin and ate a hamburger.

Conference was very good, the main theme on Saturday was strengthening the family and building family ties. Sundays was about the growth of the church in East Asia. The East Asia Area includes four countries: China, India, Pakistan and Indonesia. Of the 6.4 billion people in the world, half of them are in our area. Do you think the Lord is interested? We have two stakes in India, full-time missionaries in and from India, Indonesia and Pakistan. Forty percent of missionaries in India and Pakistan are natives. Fifty missionaries from China serving in areas around the world not in China. Of course, there are no proselytizing missionaries of any kind serving IN China, although there are two couples in Beijing serving as Humanitarian Aid missionaries. But it is interesting to see the progress here, and the interest in religion. The Catholic church, it was reported in the China Daily News, has worked with the Chinese Government and the Chinese Catholics to agree on a new Bishop here in China, a first, and they are even talking about maybe having the Pope visit China during the Olympics. It doesn’t sound like much, but it is a BIG step! China doesn’t do anything on impulse. It is the Chinese way, and I think there is great wisdom in working things through before making significant decisions.

Our classes started up again Monday, it was really fun to see our students again, and talk with them about the fun things they and we did during our winter holiday. Of course, they are from all around China and Korea, so they had fun stories to tell, many of them about the extraordinary weather we have had, many about fun things they did with their families and friends. ReNee and I each have three classes with the same students we had last semester, each class only about 15-20 students. We each have classes with some returning students and some new students, but they are smaller this semester, as these juniors and seniors are not required to take two semesters of foreign English. My Tuesday afternoon class only has 10 students, ReNee’s has eight. We talked to the English department, and they said often students will add the classes for the first week or two, so we may end up with more. We hope! It’s hard to hold meaningful discussions and debates with so few students. My Wednesday class last evening only had eight, but I had two visitors that may add it. Also, my Friday class only had three sign up, so they may move into my Wednesday class instead, as they cancelled the Friday one. I guess it still may go if more sign up before next Friday, but this Friday it’s cancelled. If it stays cancelled, they will probably give me an adult English class again through continuing education. I guess we’ll see. They do things differently here, we had no idea when our classes were or who our students were for this semester until we got back from Beijing Sunday night. Then there was a note at the front desk that said, “your classes will start tomorrow morning in rooms such-and-such, and you will be teaching these subjects.” One of our students last semester said we’d probably have pretty much the same students, so we had prepared with this in mind. We were glad, as we were ready when we received official notice. I guess they wait till the last minute so they can see how many students are coming back and which classes they register for. TIC. (This is China!) It was really fun to see our returning students, we got really close to them last semester, and it was almost like seeing family again when we went to class. We just kind of picked up our discussions where we had left off, and laughed and talked a lot. We had a few new students, and I think they were really surprised at how relaxed and open our classes are. It is such a departure from the formal structure they have grown up with. Sometimes it’s really hard to draw the students out until they find out they don’t get in trouble if they speak up in class and ask questions. Traditional education here is strictly lecture, the teacher is ALWAYS right, and it is extremely rude to even speak to ask a question or make a comment. To do so is to challenge the knowledge and authority of the teacher, and is strictly forbidden. It takes us several weeks to change to the way we do things, and we have to tell them that it’s ok, and that in America students learn from each other as well as from the teacher. Once they see how it works, they get quite excited.

The weather here is up and down, about the same as most places, I guess. The week before we went to Beijing it was just like spring, up into the 50’s in the day, mid 20’s at night. The rivers and lakes are melting fast. But Friday morning when we went to catch the train, it was snowing! Most of it had melted off by the time we went at noon, but we still had a bitter cold breeze all day. Saturday at the wall, it was sunny, but quite cold. When we were in the sun, it wasn’t too bad, but if you got into the shade it was cool, and if it was where you weren’t protected from the breeze, dang cold! Sunday was better, less wind, and Monday and yesterday quite nice again. Today it’s up to the mid to upper 40’s again. Will be interesting to see how it goes. We both have classes this afternoon, so we’re hoping it will stay warm until we get home at 6:00. Neither of us has classes on Thursday, so we’ll go to the market Thursday morning and get our groceries for next week. We have to go to three different markets to get all the stuff we need, as none of our stores has all of it in one place. We have to go to one to get our milk, canned goods, sugar, etc. Another for our eggs, bread and fresh fruits and vegetables, and still another if we want anything western, like syrup or cereal. We have finally gotten to know who has what, so it doesn’t take as long as it used to, but still takes all morning. We also need to drop by the tailors tomorrow to pick up some things mom dropped off to have shortened or mended. It seems strange, but there is a little shop over by the fruit market that does a really good job really cheap, and we don’t have a sewing machine here, so it’s easier just to have it done than to try to do it by hand. Going to be hard to get used to doing all these things by hand when we get back to the US! We get spoiled! Of course, it would be really nice to just go to Broulims or Albertsons and get everything you need in one trip! And can you imagine just putting it into your car and driving home???? No taxis or bus? And then packing it all up four flights of stairs? An armful of bags each time from each market? Boy, are we getting good exercise, though!

Well, I guess I’d better get back to preparing for my classes. If anything else happens between now and when we get our internet back, I’ll add it to this. We are really enjoying our experience here, and truly feel that this is where we are supposed to be at this time in our lives. We truly, deeply miss our family and loved ones, but they seem to be doing quite well without us. I hope they never get to where they prefer it that way! We desperately need all of you! Remember how much we love you and miss you. Have a good week. Love, Mom and Dad.