I know it's been longer than
expected without a journal entry (especially
here at the first of our adventure)
but I really didn't have anything to
report (anything that was positive
that is.) We've all been sick with what
is known as Mao Tse Mao's revenge,
and the jet lag has been a
killer. Being sick really
slants your perspective on things, all I wanted
to do was go home. If there
had been a plane from Jinzhou I would have
been really tempted to be on it!
Now however, we are all healthy again,
although Julie is still complaining
non stop about missing her Nanny.
I've been meeting many many new
people. There have been several students
that knew previous teachers and have
maintained email contract with them,
that have come for a visit.
Judi P, Sarah really is a dear, she's been
over several times with Nancy and
Kathleen. I also got to help a student
chose an English name. This
particular student told me she liked poetry so
I suggested the name Elizabeth, you
know as in Elizabeth Barrett
Browning. All three of the
girls tried to say Elizabeth and decided it was
to much of a mouth full so I
consulted the ole baby name book and looked up
nick names for Elizabeth. We
decided that Elise would be a good
name. Elise then asked my name
and when I told her Karen, she said "oh I
like that name" I told
her she could have it as well, but I think she
chose to stick with Elise.
I've also met a family. The
father, William, is an engineer at the power
plant and his wife, May, works there
in the data control department. They
have a baby who is 9 months old and
looks amazingly like Julie did at that
age. William wanted me to give
him private English lessons, but right now
taking on outside work is something
I'm really not interested in. They've
been over a couple of times to visit
and today had me over to show me their
home and prepare jaozoi, a delicious
spicy meat filled dumpling.
Their apartment is what I understand
as being very typical of the average
Jinzhou city dweller. It is on
the 7th floor (no elevator) Over here
instead of having several apartments
per floor there are only two, there
are just many more staircases.
So a building may be very long and have
many apartments but for each
"stack" there is a stairway. This particular
building only had 7 floors so we
were on the penthouse floor. Williams
apartment had two bedrooms for his
family (oh did I mentions his in-laws
live with them?) Grandmother
and grandfather have the larger bedroom which
was the only one with a bed.
William and May had mats on the floor. There
was a fairly large bathroom with a
western toilet, but there wasn't a
shower or tub, just the plumbing for
one. I assume the whole bathroom,
which had a drain in the middle is
considered a shower? The kitchen area
was about 6" by 10" and
had a Chinese stove, which is kind of like a
Coleman double burner, but it is
enclosed and gets much hotter. Stir
frying requires much hotter
temperatures than our stoves in the US
typically put out. (Just ask
Jamal, one of the other teachers here, he is
constantly burning something because
he puts the fire on high and goes to
his room.) There was also a
sink and a water purification system, but
William told me you still
can't drink that water, it is just cleaner. The
living room area was kind of
separated into two areas and the room was
probably about 12" X 20".
William told me the whole apartment was 56 sq.
meters (around 750 sq. ft)
Everything was very neat, but what we'd
consider sparse, you know, not a lot
of junk to dust!
We had a very nice time with our new
friends and the jaozoi was
wonderful. Grandfather also
prepared a very delicious soup for us. This
was all served with Almond juice.
Another first. The can said it was made
from almonds, water and sugar, and
contained vegetable protein. I though it
was pretty good, probably very high
in calories too, but it didn't taste
oily so I don't know. Julie
and Charlie didn't really care for it
though. Oh the new smell and
flavors we are encountering! I'm going to
have to check into a Chinese cooking
course, I understand they are available!
Two new teachers from the US are
scheduled to arrive tomorrow, so I won't
be the "new kid on the
block" ha ha ha. I've still got sooooooooooo much
to learn!