The double bonus this week was having the heat turned on and we had beautiful weather.   The irony of the heat coming on is that it’s now too hot in the apartment so I have to open the windows.  We have no thermostat … heat is either on or off but the radiators are great for drying laundry.  It was also enjoyable getting out for a walk every day and exploring a few new streets close to campus.  I haven’t had a haircut since coming to China so I wanted to check out a couple of places.  At the music store I enjoyed listening to the students taking lessons on various Chinese instruments.   

Thursday afternoon I went with a student and another English teacher to look at bikes and we went out for dinner afterwards.  Friday I looked at bikes again and got a good deal on a used bike, so Saturday we rode out of the city and explored some of the smaller villages on the plateau East of Xi'an.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.  I loved the ride, the villages and the people … just a wonderful day.  You'll notice all the corn is harvested and now drying and winter wheat has been planted along with vegetables year round.  There are also brick ovens everywhere.  I hope to add a slide show with more pictures but here's a sampling of the beautiful 40 mile ride.

If you do any traveling over the holidays and have a chance to pick up a post card, I’d love to hear from you.  My students love seeing post cards and I post them outside my office.  I will be going to Beijing for Thanksgiving and eating Duck instead of Turkey.  However, last night the BYU teachers and the program coordinators who are here visiting had a great turkey dinner including pumpkin pie at the Village Cafe ... they put together the dinner just for us and it was delicious.   I am grateful for each of you and wish you all a very blessed Thanksgiving.

Mailing Address
Karla Thompson
School of Foreign Studies
Xi'an Jiaotong University
No 28 Xianning West Road Xi'an
Shaanxi Province
P.R. China 710049

                         If you double click on the pictures you can view them in full size.

Village Road

Social Corner of the Village

 

Brick Furnaces

Old cave dwellings - thousands of them all along the mountain side

 

Once on top of the plateau it's very flat

funeral

 

In Front of School

Hanging noodles out to dry

Recycling - he's puling the cart with a rope over his shoulder

picking persimmons

Music Lessons

Hair Salon

Keeping Warm at the market

Mailing Address
Karla Thompson
School of Foreign Studies
Xi'an Jiaotong University
No 28 Xianning West Road Xi'an
Shaanxi Province
P.R. China 710049

November 10

November is going by quickly and this week my students were very interested in the American Presidential election because this was also the transition of new leadership in China.  However, here there are no surprises so the close race and all the media coverage of the American election was interesting.  In class, students held their own debates, voted, and even did mock interviews with President Obama and Governor Romney.  I was very impressed at how well informed they were and how many students had watched the debates.  The biggest challenge was understanding political cartoons ... humor just doesn't translate very easily.

Student Monitors at the speech contest

Sunday morning I had a little more excitement than I was looking for when the shower drain didn't drain and I flooded the apartment.  I had just gotten out of the shower when my doorbell rang.  I thought it was the gal across the hall so I peeked out the door while I'm wrapped in a towel but instead of my friend at the door, it was two Chinese men trying to tell me that water was leaking into their apartment.  Since I really didn't know what to say I just invited them in to see what was happening and while I went and got dressed they were kind enough to clear out the drain and mop up all the water,  What kind neighbors!

I hope you enjoy these video clips from my classroom visits and pictures from an after school English class I helped with at a Muslim  School located in the city center.

 

Lights in the city after class waiting for the bus

What a heavy load

He really thought we were funny looking

Mailing Address
Karla Thompson
School of Foreign Studies
Xi'an Jiaotong University
No 28 Xianning West Road Xi'an
Shaanxi Province
P.R. China 710049

Elementary School Visit

A highlight this past week was when I visited Xingzhi Primary School on Wednesday afternoon which was a lot of fun and I'm going back again this week.  The kids all study English so they wanted to say hello ... some of the boys wanted to "high 5" ... American Basketball is very big here so they all know "high 5".  They were excited to have a visitor and even presented me with flowers.  Classes were all over 50 students so they did a lot of choral reading and reciting but everyone was engaged and wanted to show me their work.  Tomorrow night I am volunteering with another teacher teaching English to 6-8 year olds in another part of town.  Getting out in the community is like being in a "living classroom."  I am learning so much each day it's a little overwhelming but also very energizing.

Xingzhi Primary School has 1400 students

Flowers

Hugs

Carpool Lane has a different look :-)

Last week I also judged a speech contest and at the end they asked me to speak for 5-10 minutes while the scores were added up.  What a cruel trick on Halloween but I did it and it seemed to go well ... even if it didn't, they'd still say it was wonderful.  One of my students won the contest which was exciting.  They had to give a 3 minute speech on "What they cannot afford to lose" and they did a great job talking about family, faith, passion, communication, environment, roots etc.  Then they were given an impromptu topic and had to speak for 2 minutes.  All the prepared speeches were great but the top scores went to those who also did well on the impromptu part. 

Halloween was fun and students loved learning about traditions and how to play American games ... Pictionary, Charades, Boggle, Bingo, cross word puzzles, making words out of Halloween etc.   I also showed them little Halloween scenes from movies like ET, Ghost Busters, Wizard of Oz and they loved it.  A couple of masks had been left in my apartment by previous teachers so I took them to class and they were a big hit.  One restaurant I ate in had up decorations ... for Halloween and Christmas.

 I have now experienced my first "sand storm."  Friday night we had high winds which blew in fine sand from the Gobi desert so everything was covered in a fine dust.  My eyes burned and my throat was scratchy but today we had blue skies and the air seemed to have cleared.  It is now dipping into the 30's at night but we still haven't had a frost so most trees have their leaves and the roses in the park are still blooming.  It's brisk and feels like fall but still very pleasant during the day.  Have a good week.