China Journal - 4/21/2008

April 23, 2008

Dear Family and Friends,

How did it get to be the late middle of April already? I can’t believe how fast time flies! We MUST be having fun! J Now I just have to remember what we’ve done since I wrote you last!

There is a shopping place here called “Culture Street” where they sell all kinds of fun China stuff that is part of China’s culture. Mom wanted to go and see if she could find an authentic jewelry box to put all of her new jewelry in. I told her it would all fit in a match box, but she said it wasn’t classy enough. So we walked Culture Street for two hours and she didn’t find what she wanted. She and Joyce Lowder, our good friends who are also China Teachers, looked in ALL the shops and stores, and Larry and I sat on steps, boxes, benches and whatever and enjoyed the spring sunshine and visited while our wives shopped. I’m beginning to believe more and more all of the time that for women heaven would be a huge shopping mall, and for men hell would having to go shopping with them. After all that shopping they bought a bunch of stuff, but not one thing they had gone to look for. And yes, we carried it home for them. It was kind of fun to see the huge variety of stuff, and Larry did end up buying a gourd flute that a lot of people play here. He was a music teacher in Anaheim, and loves music and musical instruments. He and Tiffany, another of our members played a clarinet and piano duet in church yesterday and it was really nice. “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer.” Of course now they want to look somewhere else for what they couldn’t find. We still have a lot of places we haven’t looked yet, like Drum Tower Street, Walking Street, Warehouse Markets, plus all of Beijing! I can hardly wait! Not.

We had a “preposition walk” in my alternative class last week that was really funny. This is my class that has a hard time understanding English, they are on a lower level than my other classes. The week when I was sick, ReNee taught the class for me, and so I reviewed all the things that she had taught, about how prepositions indicate directions, like up, over, around, through, left, right, down, etc. Then I gave them a sheet of paper that had directions of how to go on this little hike on campus. For instance, go out of the classroom, down the hall, turn left at the top of the stairs, go down the stairs, out the front door, across the street to the sculpture, around the statue, look through the sculpture, what do you see above the building, etc. There were two different sets of directions that sent them opposite directions so they couldn’t follow each other, but they did anyway. It was hilarious! I sent them in four groups of five in each group, and told them to work together. By the time the fourth group was out the door, the first three were lost. I went down and they were wandering all over. If they couldn’t understand what was wanted, they just ignored that one and did the next one, regardless of where they were. It took them about an hour, and finally they all ended up back in the classroom and we had a short discussion about asking questions. By then the time was up and they all left. But they had a lot of fun and we all laughed and talked a lot, some of it even in English (at least when they were talking to me!) It will be fun to see what they have to say in their journals this week. At least it was different than having to sit in their seats and listen to another 3-hour lecture!

Last Wednesday night we invited my Advanced Oral class that only has 12 students in it to go to dinner with us after class. They were pretty surprised, but we had warned them last week that we would probably go. We brought them over to the restaurant by our apartment, they put us around a big round table that has a lazy-susan in the middle of it, and we ordered eight different dishes of Chinese food. It is all served family style, and you just turn the lazy-susan around to get what you want. I told them that they could only speak English except when they were ordering, and they did really good. We had a really fun visit, I am forever impressed at how smart and caring these kids are. Dinner usually takes about 1 ½ hours in the restaurant, and the food is REALLY good! Gives you a good chance to get to know each other, and we got to ask them a lot of questions about where they are from and what they like to do. Since the big TEM-4 (Test of English Mastery-level 4) English test was last Sunday, most of them wanted to go home and study, so when we finished eating, they all left and we came back to our apartment to do our homework. It is still kind of neat that we can take ourselves and 11 students down and feed them all in a NICE restaurant for about $30 US. It will be fun to see what they write in their journals. They think it’s neat that we eat with chopsticks and can get by pretty good with them.

Mom had one of her oral classes come up to our apartment last week in the morning and taught them how to cook pancakes. It was fun, but I wasn’t here, I had classes during the time. Most of them have never cooked before, and they thought it was really strange to mix the ingredients and do the stuff. But they sure liked the pancakes! I’ll have to let her tell you more about it when she writes. Yesterday she had a different class come up and taught them how to make tacos and cookies. She had to teach them how to use a can opener, as none of them had ever seen one before. They thought the hand mixer was really awesome, but you can’t buy them anywhere we have found in China, we use the one we brought from the states.

Last night I had my other advanced oral class come for dinner, then afterwards they came up to our apartment and we taught them how to play parlor games. We taught them thumper, do you love your neighbor, wink-um, the dot game, and Chinese writing. We really laughed and had a lot of fun, and I think they were surprised that us two old fogies could still laugh and have fun with them. They were more relaxed now that the test was over, and we played until almost 10 p.m. Then we gave them fresh-baked sugar cookies for dessert and they finished them off for us. I wish we could do it for our other classes, too, but they are just too large, and they are on the satellite campus, so it’s too hard for them to get here and back to their dorms. Maybe next year!

This weekend we are going out to the Tianjin harbor with the rest of our teaching and branch friends. It will be fun to see it, as we’ve heard about it a lot since we’ve been here. It’s one of the largest shipping ports in Northern China and should be pretty interesting. It’s about an hour by bus, and we have a member out there that is going to show us around and be our tour guide. Then on Sunday after church we get to go to a baptism! A sister and two of her sons from Taiwan are being baptized. They have been coming to church for about 4-5 months, and we’ve really enjoyed getting to know them. The husband also is attending, but doesn’t feel he’s ready to be baptized yet as he’s still struggling with a smoking habit, but he’s working on it. The oldest son is 13, and is going to Youth Conference in Shanghai, and wants to be baptized before he goes, so they decided to go ahead instead of waiting any longer. We’re pretty excited, because it’s a pretty rare event to participate in!

Next week is Memorial May Day, which is a big holiday here, so we get a couple of days off from classes. We’re going with the Kennedy Teachers on a float down the Yangsi River in Central China that is supposed to be really awesome this time of year. We mentioned it to some of our students last night, and they said this was the time to go. The cities of Chongqing and Wuhan we will be visiting are usually know of as the “oven of China.” The weather forecast for those cities calls for rain, so I hope we don’t get rained our frozen out like we did on our SW tour over the winter holiday. It does say the temp is supposed to be in the 70’s though, so maybe it will be warm even if it’s wet. Oh, well. We’ll let you know how it goes. I think most of the time will be on a boat, though we may get to stop along the way some. We do get to go through the huge 3-Gorges Dam, the largest power dam in the world. To get around the dam you have to go through a series of locks like at the Panama Canal. Should be interesting!

The trees on campus and the flowers are absolutely beautiful this time of year. They have lots of fruit and flowering trees that are in bloom, and they have been doing tons of landscaping in preparation for the Olympics. The torch relay goes on the road right past our campus, so they have put in fountains and a beautiful river walk along the road. We got a few days of rain this week, so the grass is beautiful and the air is fresh and clean. We are so amazed at how fast they do things here. Where this fountain is now, two weeks ago was just a grass strip between the street and the river. Then they came in with a big crew, a crane and some trucks, and a week later it’s a huge fountain with flowering trees and a paved walkway.

It’s fun to see how the kids are the same here as all over the world. Romance is in the air, and kids are walking hand-in-hand, they write in their journals how they are secretly in love with so-and-so, most of them are shedding some of their many layers of clothing, though so far no shorts. It’s really fun to see their enthusiasm for life. They also write about how important it is to drink more water now that the weather is getting hotter, and be sure to eat more fruits and vegetables so we can stay healthy and avoid spring colds. Good advice! I’m still struggling with the residual effects of my chest cold, though am feeling a lot better than I was a couple of weeks ago. I’ll have to be more careful to listen to their advice!

Well, I guess I’d better get this sent. We truly enjoy and appreciate your letters. I’m sure you all are as busy as we are, I think it’s part of the time of year. I hope things go well with you, and that you remember that you are in our thoughts and prayers, even if we don’t get you written to as often as we would like. We are truly enjoying our experience here, and it’s going to be hard to come back to our “normal” lives in the US, even for a few weeks. It’s kind of nice to not have to worry about gas prices (that’s the taxi driver’s problem!) and all of the other headaches that come with maintaining a house and yard. Here we don’t have to mow or water the lawn, or even take out the trash. Spoiled? Yeah, I guess! J I hope you are all well and healthy, that your bellies are full and your days are empty, that you can take time to enjoy the newness of spring, and that we can all reprioritize the important things in our lives to make time for the things that REALLY count. May the Lord bless you and keep you,

Love, Dondavid and ReNee.

Angela – 3-31-08 “A Meaningful Lesson.”

It was a happy week because there was coming the Pure Brightness Festival during which we could have 3-day holiday according to the new law. In addition what made me enjoy this week the most was the good begin of this week—Mr. Powell’s meaningful class on Monday morning. I had joined so many classes from entering the primary school and the class has become one of the best classes which was so interesting and meaningful that worthy to write down it for an everlasting memory and lesson.

First of all, the Hot Family’s wonderful presentation brought us an interesting start. Steve’s news about the “Spitting Day” taught us the importance of civilized manners in the society-especially before the Olympic Games which would held in Beijing where thousands of people around the world would flood into. Gabra’s clear and slow voice led her five idioms be understood by us more quickly and easily.

As Mr. Powell said, we should live and breathe English as an English major. In my opinion, the most interesting program was Cherry’s tongue twister. It was so funny! “When we were walking we watched window washers wash Washington’s windows with warm wash water.” This was the first tongue twister I had ever learnt and it must be a decent skill I could boast about to my roommates and classmates! (I’m kidding!)

The most important and meaningful part of the whole class was the question, “How can you speak and understand English faster?” and the answers consisting of ten ways which included:

1. Self Esteem 6. Call other people on the phone in English

2. Teach Others 7. Group participation

3. Learn and sing songs 8. Memorize new words and phrases (and use them)

4. Talk to the TV and radio 9. Interpreting for others

5. Read aloud and read often 10. Read, write and memorize poetry

While Mr. Powell was introducing all of these methods, I couldn’t help nodding my head and listened carefully. I got a lot out of his remarks. I liked the first method best. In my English study, I lacked confidence. Improving my self-esteem was my preoccupation. Study hard and make good progress and then I was proud to say that I was getting better every day. Besides, it surprised me that the 5^th, 8^th, and 9^th methods were familiar with my own ways which I had followed for several weeks since the winter vacation. I made a word collective notebook to record the new words and memorize them. I read the texts or articles nearly every morning. Besides, I called my boyfriend and chatted with him in English instead of Chinese. We both made good progress with our pronunciation. Furthermore, I usually interpret the other’s remarks or the actor’s monolog in the TV to myself. Although I attempted these ways for just several weeks, I could see clearly that I was better and better everyday. I approved greatly of Mr. Powell’s 10 ways and would try my best to follow the rest.

Then the screen of the laptop appeared second question” Why do we have to write two journals every week?” I approved of Mr. Powell’s explanation very strongly as well as the first question. As he said, many precious things and experiences would die out when time passed so fast What we should do was to write down our grandparents, parents, friends, and our own stories lest we should forget them. When we become old, we recollected the interesting things we did 40 0r 50 years ago and shared them with our beloved ones from those diaries and journals. I believed that moment we must be one of the happiest time in our life.

From this short but meaningful class I’ve learnt much more than I heard in the 90 minutes class. I gained much confidence in my English study and the proper ways I insisted on. In addition, I understood the importance of journals more deeply. Every week I always hand in two long journals not because I want to get a high mark. I regard writing journals as a precious chance to write down my life and experience in the university. Many people maintained that university life is extraordinary significant in our life. I think so, too. Writing my journal thoroughly and patiently, we will obtain the best wealth in life—precious memory and important lessons.

Thank you, Mr. Powell. Thank you for your wonderful class which has given me a lot. I will remember it and continue to do what I have learned from the class. Thank you for your patient and meaningful remarks!

How did it get to be the late middle of April already?

I can’t believe how fast time flies! We MUST be having fun! J Now I just have to remember what we’ve done since I wrote you last!

There is a shopping place here called “Culture Street” where they sell all kinds of fun China stuff that is part of China’s culture. Mom wanted to go and see if she could find an authentic jewelry box to put all of her new jewelry in. I told her it would all fit in a match box, but she said it wasn’t classy enough. So we walked Culture Street for two hours and she didn’t find what she wanted. She and Joyce Lowder, our good friends who are also China Teachers, looked in ALL the shops and stores, and Larry and I sat on steps, boxes, benches and whatever and enjoyed the spring sunshine and visited while our wives shopped. I’m beginning to believe more and more all of the time that for women heaven would be a huge shopping mall, and for men hell would having to go shopping with them. After all that shopping they bought a bunch of stuff, but not one thing they had gone to look for. And yes, we carried it home for them. It was kind of fun to see the huge variety of stuff, and Larry did end up buying a gourd flute that a lot of people play here. He was a music teacher in Anaheim, and loves music and musical instruments. He and Tiffany, another of our members played a clarinet and piano duet in church yesterday and it was really nice. “Joseph Smith’s First Prayer.” Of course now they want to look somewhere else for what they couldn’t find. We still have a lot of places we haven’t looked yet, like Drum Tower Street, Walking Street, Warehouse Markets, plus all of Beijing! I can hardly wait! Not.

We had a “preposition walk” in my alternative class last week that was really funny. This is my class that has a hard time understanding English, they are on a lower level than my other classes. The week when I was sick, ReNee taught the class for me, and so I reviewed all the things that she had taught, about how prepositions indicate directions, like up, over, around, through, left, right, down, etc. Then I gave them a sheet of paper that had directions of how to go on this little hike on campus. For instance, go out of the classroom, down the hall, turn left at the top of the stairs, go down the stairs, out the front door, across the street to the sculpture, around the statue, look through the sculpture, what do you see above the building, etc. There were two different sets of directions that sent them opposite directions so they couldn’t follow each other, but they did anyway. It was hilarious! I sent them in four groups of five in each group, and told them to work together. By the time the fourth group was out the door, the first three were lost. I went down and they were wandering all over. If they couldn’t understand what was wanted, they just ignored that one and did the next one, regardless of where they were. It took them about an hour, and finally they all ended up back in the classroom and we had a short discussion about asking questions. By then the time was up and they all left. But they had a lot of fun and we all laughed and talked a lot, some of it even in English (at least when they were talking to me!) It will be fun to see what they have to say in their journals this week. At least it was different than having to sit in their seats and listen to another 3-hour lecture!

Last Wednesday night we invited my Advanced Oral class that only has 12 students in it to go to dinner with us after class. They were pretty surprised, but we had warned them last week that we would probably go. We brought them over to the restaurant by our apartment, they put us around a big round table that has a lazy-susan in the middle of it, and we ordered eight different dishes of Chinese food. It is all served family style, and you just turn the lazy-susan around to get what you want. I told them that they could only speak English except when they were ordering, and they did really good. We had a really fun visit, I am forever impressed at how smart and caring these kids are. Dinner usually takes about 1 ½ hours in the restaurant, and the food is REALLY good! Gives you a good chance to get to know each other, and we got to ask them a lot of questions about where they are from and what they like to do. Since the big TEM-4 (Test of English Mastery-level 4) English test was last Sunday, most of them wanted to go home and study, so when we finished eating, they all left and we came back to our apartment to do our homework. It is still kind of neat that we can take ourselves and 11 students down and feed them all in a NICE restaurant for about $30 US. It will be fun to see what they write in their journals. They think it’s neat that we eat with chopsticks and can get by pretty good with them.

Mom had one of her oral classes come up to our apartment last week in the morning and taught them how to cook pancakes. It was fun, but I wasn’t here, I had classes during the time. Most of them have never cooked before, and they thought it was really strange to mix the ingredients and do the stuff. But they sure liked the pancakes! I’ll have to let her tell you more about it when she writes. Yesterday she had a different class come up and taught them how to make tacos and cookies. She had to teach them how to use a can opener, as none of them had ever seen one before. They thought the hand mixer was really awesome, but you can’t buy them anywhere we have found in China, we use the one we brought from the states.

Last night I had my other advanced oral class come for dinner, then afterwards they came up to our apartment and we taught them how to play parlor games. We taught them thumper, do you love your neighbor, wink-um, the dot game, and Chinese writing. We really laughed and had a lot of fun, and I think they were surprised that us two old fogies could still laugh and have fun with them. They were more relaxed now that the test was over, and we played until almost 10 p.m. Then we gave them fresh-baked sugar cookies for dessert and they finished them off for us. I wish we could do it for our other classes, too, but they are just too large, and they are on the satellite campus, so it’s too hard for them to get here and back to their dorms. Maybe next year!

This weekend we are going out to the Tianjin harbor with the rest of our teaching and branch friends. It will be fun to see it, as we’ve heard about it a lot since we’ve been here. It’s one of the largest shipping ports in Northern China and should be pretty interesting. It’s about an hour by bus, and we have a member out there that is going to show us around and be our tour guide. Then on Sunday after church we get to go to a baptism! A sister and two of her sons from Taiwan are being baptized. They have been coming to church for about 4-5 months, and we’ve really enjoyed getting to know them. The husband also is attending, but doesn’t feel he’s ready to be baptized yet as he’s still struggling with a smoking habit, but he’s working on it. The oldest son is 13, and is going to Youth Conference in Shanghai, and wants to be baptized before he goes, so they decided to go ahead instead of waiting any longer. We’re pretty excited, because it’s a pretty rare event to participate in!

Next week is Memorial May Day, which is a big holiday here, so we get a couple of days off from classes. We’re going with the Kennedy Teachers on a float down the Yangsi River in Central China that is supposed to be really awesome this time of year. We mentioned it to some of our students last night, and they said this was the time to go. The cities of Chongqing and Wuhan we will be visiting are usually know of as the “oven of China.” The weather forecast for those cities calls for rain, so I hope we don’t get rained our frozen out like we did on our SW tour over the winter holiday. It does say the temp is supposed to be in the 70’s though, so maybe it will be warm even if it’s wet. Oh, well. We’ll let you know how it goes. I think most of the time will be on a boat, though we may get to stop along the way some. We do get to go through the huge 3-Gorges Dam, the largest power dam in the world. To get around the dam you have to go through a series of locks like at the Panama Canal. Should be interesting!

The trees on campus and the flowers are absolutely beautiful this time of year. They have lots of fruit and flowering trees that are in bloom, and they have been doing tons of landscaping in preparation for the Olympics. The torch relay goes on the road right past our campus, so they have put in fountains and a beautiful river walk along the road. We got a few days of rain this week, so the grass is beautiful and the air is fresh and clean. We are so amazed at how fast they do things here. Where this fountain is now, two weeks ago was just a grass strip between the street and the river. Then they came in with a big crew, a crane and some trucks, and a week later it’s a huge fountain with flowering trees and a paved walkway.

It’s fun to see how the kids are the same here as all over the world. Romance is in the air, and kids are walking hand-in-hand, they write in their journals how they are secretly in love with so-and-so, most of them are shedding some of their many layers of clothing, though so far no shorts. It’s really fun to see their enthusiasm for life. They also write about how important it is to drink more water now that the weather is getting hotter, and be sure to eat more fruits and vegetables so we can stay healthy and avoid spring colds. Good advice! I’m still struggling with the residual effects of my chest cold, though am feeling a lot better than I was a couple of weeks ago. I’ll have to be more careful to listen to their advice!

Well, I guess I’d better get this sent. We truly enjoy and appreciate your letters. I’m sure you all are as busy as we are, I think it’s part of the time of year. I hope things go well with you, and that you remember that you are in our thoughts and prayers, even if we don’t get you written to as often as we would like. We are truly enjoying our experience here, and it’s going to be hard to come back to our “normal” lives in the US, even for a few weeks. It’s kind of nice to not have to worry about gas prices (that’s the taxi driver’s problem!) and all of the other headaches that come with maintaining a house and yard. Here we don’t have to mow or water the lawn, or even take out the trash. Spoiled? Yeah, I guess! J I hope you are all well and healthy, that your bellies are full and your days are empty, that you can take time to enjoy the newness of spring, and that we can all reprioritize the important things in our lives to make time for the things that REALLY count. May the Lord bless you and keep you,

Love, Dondavid and ReNee

Angela – 3-31-08 “A Meaningful Lesson.”

It was a happy week because there was coming the Pure Brightness Festival during which we could have 3-day holiday according to the new law. In addition what made me enjoy this week the most was the good begin of this week—Mr. Powell’s meaningful class on Monday morning. I had joined so many classes from entering the primary school and the class has become one of the best classes which was so interesting and meaningful that worthy to write down it for an everlasting memory and lesson.

First of all, the Hot Family’s wonderful presentation brought us an interesting start. Steve’s news about the “Spitting Day” taught us the importance of civilized manners in the society-especially before the Olympic Games which would held in Beijing where thousands of people around the world would flood into. Gabra’s clear and slow voice led her five idioms be understood by us more quickly and easily.

As Mr. Powell said, we should live and breathe English as an English major. In my opinion, the most interesting program was Cherry’s tongue twister. It was so funny! “When we were walking we watched window washers wash Washington’s windows with warm wash water.” This was the first tongue twister I had ever learnt and it must be a decent skill I could boast about to my roommates and classmates! (I’m kidding!)

The most important and meaningful part of the whole class was the question, “How can you speak and understand English faster?” and the answers consisting of ten ways which included:

1. Self Esteem 6. Call other people on the phone in English

2. Teach Others 7. Group participation

3. Learn and sing songs 8. Memorize new words and phrases (and use them)

4. Talk to the TV and radio 9. Interpreting for others

5. Read aloud and read often 10. Read, write and memorize poetry

While Mr. Powell was introducing all of these methods, I couldn’t help nodding my head and listened carefully. I got a lot out of his remarks. I liked the first method best. In my English study, I lacked confidence. Improving my self-esteem was my preoccupation. Study hard and make good progress and then I was proud to say that I was getting better every day. Besides, it surprised me that the 5^th, 8^th, and 9^th methods were familiar with my own ways which I had followed for several weeks since the winter vacation. I made a word collective notebook to record the new words and memorize them. I read the texts or articles nearly every morning. Besides, I called my boyfriend and chatted with him in English instead of Chinese. We both made good progress with our pronunciation. Furthermore, I usually interpret the other’s remarks or the actor’s monolog in the TV to myself. Although I attempted these ways for just several weeks, I could see clearly that I was better and better everyday. I approved greatly of Mr. Powell’s 10 ways and would try my best to follow the rest.

Then the screen of the laptop appeared second question” Why do we have to write two journals every week?” I approved of Mr. Powell’s explanation very strongly as well as the first question. As he said, many precious things and experiences would die out when time passed so fast What we should do was to write down our grandparents, parents, friends, and our own stories lest we should forget them. When we become old, we recollected the interesting things we did 40 0r 50 years ago and shared them with our beloved ones from those diaries and journals. I believed that moment we must be one of the happiest time in our life.

From this short but meaningful class I’ve learnt much more than I heard in the 90 minutes class. I gained much confidence in my English study and the proper ways I insisted on. In addition, I understood the importance of journals more deeply. Every week I always hand in two long journals not because I want to get a high mark. I regard writing journals as a precious chance to write down my life and experience in the university. Many people maintained that university life is extraordinary significant in our life. I think so, too. Writing my journal thoroughly and patiently, we will obtain the best wealth in life—precious memory and important lessons.

Thank you, Mr. Powell. Thank you for your wonderful class which has given me a lot. I will remember it and continue to do what I have learned from the class. Thank you for your patient and meaningful remarks!

Tibet--My Opinion

Dear family and friends.
Bonnie Bird, one of our closest friends and a fellow teacher here with us in Tianjin, wrote this about our feelings concerning China and the Tibet situation. It mirrors our feelings exactly, and those of our students we work with every day. I feel so bad for China and for the negative press it is getting that is so flagrantly distorted and inaccurate. Like Bonnie, we have come to love and appreciate the Chinese people. Many of our students are volunteers for the Olympics, spending hundreds of hours learning English better and preparing to act as hosts without charge to people from all over the world who will come to visit China, mostly for the first time, so newcomers will not get lost, and will be able to see and enjoy the 5000 years of heritage that China has to offer. There are already over 800,000 unpaid volunteers donating their time to make this event successful. I can not remember ANY time in the past where our entire nation was so excited and involved about any even as China is for the Olympics! People nationwide are cleaning, rebuilding, sprucing up, and preparing to meet the world. The government is spending huge sums of money and manpower to build new roads, add subway lines, landscape, and build new buildings as venues for the Olympics. Can you imagine the preparations for the Salt Lake Olympics of 2002 on a national scale? It is awesome!
I hope you are all well and happy. We are loving our experience here in China, though we're even busier than we were before we "retired!" Funny how that goes. I remember after my Uncle Bob he retired, I asked what he was doing with all his time, and he said, "If I'd known I was going to be so busy, I'd have saved more money so I could hire help!" May the Lord bless you in all you do, and just remember, No country has a "corner" on propaganda. Love, Dondavid and ReNee.

Don & Bonnie Bird Wrote:
Dear Friends and Neighbors,

Much of my English Corner today was taken up with a discussion of "the Tibet issue" and the world's reaction to it. We've received several emails asking our opinion on that issue and, of course, my opinion is based upon my experience here in China and my close association with the Chinese people. Those who call China an "oppressive" nation and accuse her leaders of being "goons" have obviously never been to China and certainly never lived here. We've now lived here for almost three years and see a people who have so much more freedom than we expected or the world knows and a booming capitalistic economy who have welcomed us with open arms and have almost put foreigners on a pedestal. This nation has come a long way forward from the days of the Cultural Revolution and the Great Leap Forward. Obviously they are still in the development stage and still have a long way to go as we cannot share our belief in God with the Chinese people and have even signed a contract saying that we would not talk about religion. So we don't have our heads in the sand, things are not perfect here and we know full well that this is a communist government; however, it is not the same brand of communism of the former Soviet Union or of Cuba. This is more of a capitalistic communism, which is working well for this nation at the present time, but is in a constant state of evolution.

People who think Tibet has been mistreated have obviously not studied both sides of the issue because the Chinese government has poured millions of dollars into Tibet to bring them a little further into the 21st Century. They have even built a fast train to allow easier access into and out of Tibet across mountains so high that many travelers have to use the supplied supplemental oxygen to breathe normally. They may have even given them too much as I personally know my students from Tibet don't have to meet the same academic standards as my other students. They are given special privileges as is Tibet itself because they are considered minorities. As most of us certainly know, giving someone too much, even when done out of care and kindness, can cripple and handicap those we are trying to assist. Historically, Tibet is a part of China and I wonder if those Americans who call for her independence would be so generous if Texas or California suddenly wanted its independence from the United States. Surely as Americans we should understand the desire for a nation to maintain its historical boundaries as we ourselves fought a civil war to keep the southern states from separating from the rest of our nation.

I have had fears of terrorists coming in to disturb the Olympic Games here in China and now I feel that this Tibet situation is a terrorist plot in a little different form. My personal opinion is that this is a staged event and was well planned to damage China's world image and to disrupt the plans for China to showcase herself to the world through the Olympics. This nation has spent millions of dollars to give the world an event to be proud of and to let the world in to see the real China and her people. Now there are those who are trying to humiliate and shame a people who don't deserve this to happen to them. If this thing escalates into a full-fledged boycott and world opinion backs China into a corner, I fear for the repercussions in the future. It hurts me through and through as I see the disappointment of my students who were so looking forward to welcoming the world to China, particularly as I know that if the current situation continues and even expands further, their heartache will most certainly turn to resentment and anger. The Chinese people feel that they were humiliated and shamed by the Japanese in World War II and they will not allow this to happen again. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me."

Love to all,

Bonnie

Sufferin' Succotash

Hi!
Just thought I'd drop you a note and let you know what's going on this side of the world. Our internet was down again for four days, it's a holiday weekend here because it's "tomb sweeping day" which is a holiday kind of like our Memorial Day. It used to be a week-long holiday, but they changed it this year because the crowds were too big and it put too big a burden on the trains and airports, so they made it a 3-day weekend. It is Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and we don't have classes on Friday anyway, so it's a normal weekend for us, except the number of people at the stores and on the streets is larger than normal. And everybody goes on vacation, so they shut the servers on campus down, even though the students couldn't leave, so we were without internet. Oh, well. We sure feel cut off from the world when it's down, we sure miss hearing from all of you. We felt especially bad, as Mom and I both had messages to send to Amber on her birthday Friday, then couldn't send them because it was down.
The weather here has really turned nice, on Thursday we walked with Birds over to TGI Fridays for dinner and it was about 70 degrees out, so we just walked down some of the shopping streets and enjoyed being outside in the spring. It was nice yesterday, too, but a little breezy, but we enjoyed being out for awhile. Today it's overcast, forcast of rain showers, but I guess spring rains are nice too. It will help all of the new trees and bushes they are planting right now. We walked past a little park they have on campus, and all of the trees are in bloom there, it is lovely. There was a bride and groom having their pictures taken with the blossoms, and it was really cute. They are doing so much landscaping and changing preparing for the Olympics, even here in Tianjin, I guess because some of the Olympic venues will be held here. They have been knocking out whole blocks of old buildings and putting in parks and beautiful landscaped areas. They are putting in walkways along the canals, putting in massive rock sculptures along some of the city streets, putting thousands of trees and bushes where they just had grass, it's going to be really beautiful. It reminds me a lot of Salt Lake City before the olympics of 2002, with the construction and landscaping, and when it's over, the beauty remains. The whole nation here is excited about it, and everybody is trying to make China a better place. They are sure doing a nice job of it!
This week has been really busy, as it's the Foreign Language Festival. Three of us went and sang a couple of sings for the opening ceremony, we sang "This Land Is Your Land" and "You Are My Sunshine" and they seemed to like it OK. The mikes weren't working good, though, they had two mikes for the three of us, and one of them didn't work, so one side was really loud and the other you couldn't hear hardly at all. It kind of ruins the balance and harmony, but they were kind and didn't make a big thing of it. I think I told you about it last week, didn't I. That's the nice thing about getting old, every day is a new day! Anyway, I helped judge a "Dubbing contest" Wednesday night where the students took foreign movies and dubbed in new words in a different language. It was pretty interesting, they did some in Russian, Japanese, French, German, and of course, English. It was a pain judging the foreign ones, because I coudln't understand if the words were right or not. But it was fun and they were excited about it. I'm supposed to go do the finals this Wednesday night. Yesterday Mom went and judged a debate contest, and came back really frustrated, as they didn't know what they were doing, and nobody could tell her what criteria she was supposed to use to judge, so she felt it was pretty much a waste of time. But at least it's done. We did decide to learn to say "NO!" when they ask us to do these things in the future. We were supposed to help with their feast today, but they coudln't tell us what day it was until about Wednesday, and we had told them that if it was on Sunday we couldn't do it. Well, it's on Sunday and they were a little upset when I told them we couldn't come. I'm conducting in church this month, and we meet from 1:00-4:00, which is right when the feast is. Oh, well. They wanted us to cook something American that would feed 300 people. We weren't too disappointed.
Well, our semester is almost half over, I can't believe how fast it's going. We're enjoying our classes, the kids are awesome and excited, and it's fun to see the progress they make. Mom is correcting a lot of papers from her writing classes, and I'm glad I'm not teaching writing.
Next week is our Conference Sunday, today is normal Fast Sunday. We wait until we get the CD's from the church, then set up and watch the sessions during church the next Sunday. I guess we could stay up all night and watch them on the web, but nobody seems inclinde to do that.
Well, I guess I'd better start getting ready for church. Hope you are all doing well, and that life is settling down for you. Hard to imagine school being almost over for you for the year. How time flies. Have a good weekend, we sure love you!
Love, Mom and Dad.