The Blinkin' Lights!

I have spent the last two weeks trying to figure out how to get Christmas lights that don't blink! I've purchased 3 different strands expecting no blink...and for 5 minutes, they didn't. So, I stranded them on my little Charlie Brown tree and plugged them in only to find that they were blinking! This wouldn't be a big deal, but only half the strand was blinking. So, I unstrung them and bought new lights that didn't blink, that is, until I put them on my tree!! I just so happened to have the old blinking lights plugged in and when I turned around after discovering my new lights were also blinking, I found my old lights completely constant and beautiful like they should be! No blink. Ugh, all the work gone to waste. So, once again, I unstranded the new lights and replaced them with the old ones. And for 3 days there was no blink. It was awesome. Then yesterday I turned on the tree and there was the blinkin' blink! So it's staying this way. I'll just have to deal with the temperamental blink. Here's what my tree looks like. (Keep in mind I had to time the picture just right in order to capture the whole thing lit up!)

So this week I'm teaching a Christmas lesson to my students and I've been exposing them only to the most important aspects of this beloved holiday: I begin with Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You". Then we have a riveting discussion about how it's not about the presents underneath the Christmas tree or wishing for snow...it's about being with the people you love. See, she speaks some truth afterall! Then I show them some pictures of the Nativity and explain some vocabulary before singing "Silent Night". They love singing, but the best part is explaining the "Round yon Virgin Mother and Child" line. Students don't know the definition of virgin, so they also receive a little sex-ed in this lesson. Then I restrain myself from singing "Deck the Halls" (only to hear the fa la la la la part, haha) and instead we sing "Jingle Bells". I love watching the smiles across room as they sing, because they know this song. And finally we finish up with reading the Christmas Story...not the you'll-shoot-your-eye-out one...the real one. I have to stop and explain some of the events, like why Joseph wanted to divorce Mary at first and why the baby was placed in a manger. Telling the story to fresh ears has made me appreciate this Season so much more. Although China has caught on to the economic benefit of selling Christmas goods, I'm refreshed by not being surrounded by people who take the Story for granted and forget the amazing Gift that we received. This has kept me from taking it for granted myself, and I've enjoyed experiencing the newness with students.

Speaking of new things, last Saturday I was finally able to meet up with the girl who wanted to try peanut butter and jelly. She carefully and cautiously made her own sandwich after watching me do it, and then she took several small bites before expressing with a mouthful that she thought it was very delicious! But she couldn't understand why we would eat it for lunch and not breakfast. : ) Later in the day, I took two of my writing students to the Honey Pool for coffee and cheesecake and it was their first "coffee shop" experience. Chinese people usually don't eat much sugar, and I'm pretty sure I pumped 'em up with enough to last them for a month.

Last night my team held a Christmas party for some of our Chinese friends. It was complete with hot chocolate, great music, a Christmas tree, a white elephant gift exchange, and…a Christmas pageant. Ryan narrated the story while Jon and I assumed the roles of Mary and Joseph. Amelia was the angel, Tim was the shepherd, and Cameron was the wise man. Amelia’s stuffed frog played the role of the precious Baby, and he was wrapped in our finest swaddling cloths (a.k.a. my blanky). We laughed a lot and the students loved it – I’m afraid to know what will happen with all the pictures they took, but here’s a peek for yourself...





Hope your Christmases are all very merry as well!!!

So thankful...

I am overwhelmed with gratitude right now. It's Thanksgiving Day, but it doesn't really feel like it. I woke up this morning at 6 am to get ready for my 8 am class. This is the first time I've worked on Thanksgiving - but I told my students this morning that if I had to work today, I'm glad that I got to come teach such awesome students. I could see little smiles all around the room - I love it when they smile.

I'm not watching the Thanksgiving Day parade or smelling any amazing food that my mom is cooking...instead, I'm waiting for a student's reply to my invitation to come over and eat peanut butter and jelly with me. We tried to do it yesterday, but she called me in tears to let me know she had to cancel. I've never seen anyone as excited as this girl was to have peanut butter and jelly - she'll truly be overwhelmed with gratitude if it works out. :)

I was reminded this morning before class that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be right now. At the moment I don't feel sad about not being at home with my family - I definitely miss my family and all the wonderful food we usually share this day, but I've been brought to China for this time right now, and for that I am so thankful! Plus, I've been showered with "Happy Thanksgiving" messages today - it's only 11:45 am, and I've received 18 text messages from students and teachers telling me thank you and wishing me a great Thanksgiving. The first one came at 7am! How awesome is it that they care enough to recognize the importance of this day for us? Tonight, my team will cook some American food, bake some cookies, spend some time thanking the One who brought us here, and replace the football watching tradition with watching a movie. :) Then this weekend, we will all travel to LangFang to meet up with the other 7 members of IECS plus our leaders Newt and Claire and Tony and Lily. Here we'll have some traditional Thanksgiving food!! Can't wait...

My heart and mind are so easily distracted by what I do not have sometimes. This week I've battled to have the right focus of being thankful for what I do have: an incredibly loving team who fulfills the call to carry one another's burdens, amazing friends who love me and encourage me even from across the world, an opportunity to experience my Maker in this new setting, and a chance to pour out Love that has so richly filled me and can no longer be contained.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

In Need of a Lil Fixin'

The coolness of fall has finally settled over Baoding. Fortunately, it’s been an abnormally warm autumn, because China has a regulated “heat day” which starts on November 15th. Until then, our rooms will continue to be about as chilly as it is outside.

It’s been fun to experience fall in China – I mean it’s no “Boston in the fall” – but I’m finding that I appreciate it differently than I do at home. I have to look for the slight color changes in the leaves, but when I see it, I’m elated. Elated is one of the vocabulary words for my writing students. : ) Recently, I assigned students to write a scary short story in honor of Halloween. It was a fun assignment to give, and now I have the wonderful task of reading almost 80 scary stories, and many of them are legitimately terrifying! One day after class, I was sitting in my cold room by myself when I received this text message from one of my students:
If you found yourself in a dark room…


Walls around you are red…


And blood comes from everywhere…


Don’t be scared!


You are in my heart!

I couldn’t help but sigh in relief and laugh, cause I was spooked out at first as I scrolled down on my phone to finish the message!

Anyway, I think reality has set in a little deeper that I’m in China for this next year. I’m realizing that people at home can’t possibly understand everything that goes on here, and it seems even more impossible for me to adequately relay it all in a nutshell. Accepting this a hard pill for me to swallow sometimes, and this is when homesickness begins to set in a little. However, there’s always something pulling at my heart to look at the bigger picture. The same something also always reminds me that hard times are necessary for growth and strength. The most ordinary thing happened today that made me remember this.

After a couple of weeks of knowing that my bike tires were getting flat, I finally decided to stop to pump them up. There’s an alley that we often use to exit campus and two bike-fixing businesses are always there day in and day out fixing bikes. The husband and wife duo were the ones whose business I chose to use. At first, the guy handed me the pumper thing to do it myself. I successfully filled the front tire – and, as always, I was a spectacle for all the passer-bys. But when I tried to do the back tire, it wouldn’t fill. The man had to come and help me. Quickly, he found the problem and carefully showed me what needed to be fixed. I can’t tell you how quickly he tore the bike apart and pulled off the tire and kept track of every nut and bolt he was unscrewing. He knew exactly what he was doing, because fixing bikes is probably the only thing this man has done his whole life. It might sound strange – even a little cheesy- but I couldn’t help but relate my life to my poor old bicycle as I was standing there waiting. I often think that I only need to be filled up with a little air and I’ll be all fixed up and ready to go. But really, I need so much careful detailing and pulling apart to get to the heart of what really needs to be fixed. Especially since I’ve been in China, I’ve appreciated so much more the great Bicycle Fixer in my life. He cares for every nut and bolt, and carefully examines me to show me where I’ve gone wrong. He knows what He’s doing – because loving and caring for broken lives is His occupation. There’s no reason not to trust Him, and even when I feel a little isolated or disconnected, He is there to put my old and broken thoughts back in order and make them new and whole again. I’m sure I’ll have to return to the bicycle guy again sometime – but it’s okay, cause I know that only means I’ll have a stronger bike in the end.

And just for fun, here's a picture of the building I live in. This was one of my favorite weather-days in China.




And this was when we celebrated Ryan's birthday. Tony was with us from Beijing, and he thought it'd be funny to write numbers on our faces in frosting and line up to take a picture. :)



So, that's all for the beginning of November...

Outweighed

I keep talking about the great differences between Chinese and American culture, because they continue to astound me. This past Monday my team was instructed to cancel our classes, because we needed to go to the capital city of Hebei Province to get our physicals. These are physicals that we were instructed to get in the States before we came to China, but we had to get them again. So, at 7 am on Monday all of the new teachers loaded a small bus and drove 2 1/2 hours away to get a routine physical. You know, just the basics: pee in a cup, eye check, blood sample...chest X-ray exam...EKG...and yes, an ultrasound. The latter two were the most interesting. I laughed the whole way through the ultrasound, but the smiles were gone as soon as it was EKG time. The lady giving it yanked up whatever she wanted to and clipped and clamped whatever she wanted to. Luckily the whole deal was over before I could complain. We all made it through and were able to laugh about it on the way home.

Everyday there's something that happens that I can't explain or make sense of in my mind. I often try to figure it out only to end up feeling frustrated. I'm learning that I don't always need to ask why...like, why did I have to get to an ultrasound? Or why did we need to get physicals that we already got? Trying to figure it out only takes away my focus for being here. While we were in Beijing this last weekend with the other IECS members, a few of us shared our most favorite and least favorite things about being in China. It was so amazing to hear how much everyone's favorite things far outweighed any of the not-so-good things. I shouldn't have been so surprised because the truth is that "our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."

While I'm talking about favorite things, I'll mention a few of them from the past week. I got to see the Bird's Nest and the Watercube in Beijing when we were looking for the finish line of Brad and Peter's marathon!! No one else was quite as excited I was...I think when I saw it, I had a "whoa, I can't believe I'm in China" moment. Those happen every once in a while and they catch me off guard. After the race, a bunch of us went to get lunch at a place called Texas Pete's. Walking into the southern homestyle atmosphere, I felt like I stepped out of China for an hour and into the U.S. We got big burgers and fries and finished it with the most amazing ice cream I've ever had. I'm pretty sure we'll visit again. I was quite thankful for this burger experience, cause later in the week I was asked by a student if I wanted to try Baoding's famous donkey burger. I've heard a lot about them, and it was inevitable that I would have to eat one sometime, so I accepted her invitation to "have a try." It actually wasn't as bad as I thought...it resembled pulled pork, only saltier. I think my tolerance for trying new and very different food is improving!

Ok, but my favorite part of this week happened tonight. All of the foreigners were invited to participate in English corner, because they were having a pumpkin carving night and wanted foreigners to show students how to do it. We walked into a room FULL of students applauding and yelling in excitement at seeing us. They had us introduce ourselves, give them a background on Halloween (which I was lucky enough to be appointed by my team to do), and teach them how to carve a pumpkin. It was so much fun!! I accidently forgot to carve in the bottom teeth on the pumpkin, and when I asked my group of students what we should name it, they said "Grandpa pumpkin." So then, they carved a second one with no bottom teeth and named it "Grandma pumkin."

A small picture of what the night looked like:




Then the students had a contest to see whose pumpkin was the best....
"Grandpa and Grandma" didn't win, but I was glad cause they said the winner had to sing a song. Not my idea of a great prize, but somehow the whole room ended up singing "My Heart Will Go On." And all I can say is, oh China...how different and how amazing you truly are! Being here far outweighs anything else I could possibly be doing right now...

Completely Surrounded

There have been several ways in which I have felt completely surrounded this past week. On Friday my Baoding team left for Beijing to meet up with the other International English and Cultural Studies people. We traveled by train, and since this last week was a National Holiday for China, everyone was taking the train. At least that's how it felt. We got to the station and found the line (a loose definition) for our train. The"line" began to move, and we inched our way forward to a small opening that led us to the train. I thought the worst was over until I boarded the train and wondered how in the world I was supposed to get to my seat. Instead of an aisle to walk through, there was a sea of people to climb over, push, and shove past. See, the train sells many more tickets than available seats, so it's standing room only. Unfortunately for us, our seats were at the back of the train car, so we had to shove through an incredibly thick line of people. But we made it! Through my frustration and being completey overwhelmed, I remembered that there was one who came to this world and was continually surrounded by people in undesirable places, and he had compassion for the crowds. I long to be the same!

Once we arrived, Tony met us to take us to our hotel, and since the other two teams weren't coming until Saturday, we spent the afternoon shopping at the Pearl Market. You can buy anything you'd ever want there and pay almost nothing for it in American money. Most of us got some warmer clothes and coats for winter. It is here that I was completely surrounded by vendors grabbing at me and yelling "Pretty lady, you want silk scarf? Lady, you buy shirts for husband? Lady, come see beautiful purses!" You can't browse or seem interested in anything or you're doomed. Amelia and I decided to check out some jeans, and of course you can't buy jeans without trying them on, so we asked where we could do that. She smiled kindly and held out two larger men's shirts and said "yes, yes...right behind here." So, right there in the middle of the market, we backed up into the corner and changed behind the shirts with the kind lady watching us. I'll tell ya, this way you won't ever question if you should buy it, they'll tell you it looks just perfect and that they'll give you a good price!


The next day was such a blessing to reunite with the other seven members from IECS. We all went out to lunch and celebrated the birthdays of Peter, Tony, and the soon-to-be birthday of Tony's baby, who should be coming this week! Afterwards, we had great time of giving thanks and sharing words of encouragement with one another. It was truly a time where my heart and soul felt refreshed. I was surrounded by a team who shares a love so deep, and it was so evident while we were together that it is because of this love that we're in China. Here's the whole group: From the top left: Peter and Shannon Lucas-Roberts, Courtney Corder, Amelia Martin, Jess Shamblee, Brad and Jessica Distad. Bottom left: Ryan, Tony, Tim, Jon, Me, and Will Corder.

Another memorable moment from Beijing was when Amelia and I ventured out on our own to go see the China Salsa Congress. She loves salsa dancing, and it was a coincidence that this congress was there the same night as us. It was a new experience for me, and I had a lot of fun. In the taxi on the way there, we were unpleasantly surrounded by the stench from the driver when he decided to use the steering wheel to pull himself forward and let a huge one rip. We couldn't contain our laughter cause it was so loud and so stinky. He didn't seem to care at all.

Overall, my time in Beijing was very refreshing and a very good way to end my holiday. I'm looking forward to teaching again this week and to being surrounded by my students each day.

Just a little info

In my last post, I forgot to give my mailing address in case anyone wants to send mail. I'm not sure how long it would take to get to me, but I'd say it's worth trying... :) I'm in the process of trying to find a post office here where I can send stuff out. Here's my address:

Emily Green
No. 2 Building Rm. 205
Overseas Student Hotel
Hebei University
No. 180 Wusidong Road Baoding City
071002 Hebei Province, China

Also, I wanted to post some pictures of my room...it's a pretty nice place.

Here's the bedroom:

And the kitchen:

My bathroom/laundry room/ ?? room:

The little shower head right next to the toilet:

There ya go...a little tour of my new home! I hope it makes you want to come visit. :)

Mariah Carey??

Ya know how we Americans often think that Chinese people all look the same? Well, 1) I'm definitely finding this to be false and 2) I think they think the same thing about Americans. Tony, our Chinese IECS guy, told me earlier this week that I look like Mariah Carey. He tried to convince my team of the resemblance, and they half-heartedly agreed for his sake. I just laughed.
There are so many unexpected things that have happened so far in China...Mariah only being one of them. Today for lunch with some school officials, I ate duck neck and and I "fished" around for a piece of fish meat right underneath its little fin. Even more unexpectedly, I somewhat enjoyed both!
Earlier this week we to K-TV (a popular karaoke place) with students and had so much fun with them singing and dancing around. Americans do karaoke to make fools of themselves and show everyone how bad our voices really are, and Chinese people do karaoke to show how incredible their voices really are. It's fun to listen to them sing their hearts out! We look forward to K-TVing again.
I was previously under the impression that China had no good coffee to offer, but we have found this wonderful little place called the Honey Pool that serves great coffee and amazing cheesecake. Any hopes of me eating healthier in China are now out the window! :)
Oh, funny story...at dinner the other night, Tim asked Tony how to say the name of this new little potato dish we were eating. Tony thought for a second and said "I forgot" in his Chinese accent. I looked back to Tim and saw sincere concentration on his face as he repeated "I-fah-got, I-fah-got," thinking that he was learning the Chinese name for the dish. I gently informed him that Tony really had just forgotten the name, and we all laughed pretty hard at Tim's blunder.
Well, I'm through my first week of teaching, and I'm already on a break. We have this week off due to National Day in China. On Friday we're going to Beijing to meet up with the other IECS people, so it should be a lot of fun.
As for now, I'm gonna go get me some dinner to replace the duck neck from earlier today...

Out with the old. In with the new.

When I was packing to leave, I kept saying that I felt like I had not enough of anything and too much of everything. Now that I've settled in a little bit, I think I packed just the right amount for this new place - my home. The definiton of home has changed for me a little bit in the last few months. Some would say that home is where your rump rests...and I'm beginning to see that this is true! My old view of home is having a stove and a sink in the kitchen. My new view doesn't have these things; it has a water cooler for sanitary drinking purposes and a microwave. My old home has a bathroom with a shower head enclosed in a tub of some sort. My new home has a shower head that sprays directly on my toilet...no tub. It also has a new rule: thou must not flush toilet paper. My teammates Ryan and Jon tested the validity of this rule for all of us by choosing not to abide by it. Unfortunately, the rule is there for a reason, because they returned to a very flooded room earlier this week. Now we know!

I'm sure all of you are aware of my previous mode of transportation...the classic blue, wood-paneled mini-van. I need to inform you, much to your dismay, that its days have come to an end. However, I have a new mode of transportation now! You might call it an upgrade...I bought it from this place:


Amelia and I bought used bikes today to get around campus a little easier. It will allow us to get to class faster and also to get to places like the market in Baoding, because it's huge. We paid 90 yuan for our bikes, which comes out to around $13. The guy in the red shirt helped us find the place and bargain the price. I will say that every mode of transportation in China scares me to death. So think of me as I ride around on my new purple bike. :) Oh, and about the market...I've never experienced more people or more things to buy in one place before. Everyone on my team had carts loaded up to the brim, which isn't customary in China due to the fact that the market doesn't provide bags for you. So whatever you buy, you carry somehow. This was a wake-up call once we got to the check-out line. We had to have a taxi take us back to the university.


So, out with the old and in with the new. I've learned a lot about what this really means this past year in terms of getting rid of the old self and putting on the new creation that I am. I'm so excited to continue to learn about this in this new place. More stories of new things are yet to come...