A Candle in the Dark

Our Friend's a Winner!

Our student from Jurong, China has been working as an intern at a company in Shanghai. A team from his business won the championship in rhythmic gymnastics! Congratulations, fanjaicai (English name, John). We’re proud of you!

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2006 at the White’s House

In China, we dreamed of sending home some tall Chinese porcelain vases, but our city had insufficient shipping facilities, even at the post office. Small by Chinese standards, with a population of 600,000, Jurong city lacked the means to mail large items.

To our delight, our daughter, Anne, found in Chinatown, USA three wonderful vases for us.


Two now sit by our front door and one we filled with roses for our Christmas dinner table.

This picture is our traditional Christmas decoration, a hand-knit set of nativity figures that I’d bought in Dubai, UAE, years ago.

This picture is the e-card
our dear Chinese friend, Mr. Pei lin, sent us for Christmas from Jurong, China.

Learning Chinese! Aaargh!!

Today I fell off Mt. Everest.

Whatever am I doing, as a seventy-year old “beginning” Chinese student ?

Today in class we had a ten-minute test--in written Chinese--four questions. I needed seven minutes to recognize that the typed characters on the page resembled my chicken-scrawled practice ones. Before I half-way deciphered the questions and answered two, time vanished. And for sure, I'll visit the Dollar Store for stronger reading glasses before the next exam.

Chinese is memory, memory, memory work. I've always learned concepts quickly, but at age nine I gave up the impossible-feeling task of memorization. That was the year my piano teacher said I had to play from memory in a recital. (I also gave up recitals that year.)

However, today, I climbed part way back up Mt. Everest, when I understood Teacher laoshi as she raced through sentences in Chinese, a first for me after 11 lessons. Partly I understood because we heard so many words from today’s lesson when we lived in China. In China, we had no idea what the vocabulary meant. Today, I did.

Today, Llaoshi also explained more grammar concepts. Concepts…I love them.

Each class, I’m surprised when a rustle of papers as students stash notes and books in back-packs announces the end of class. I think, ‘But we’ve only been here five or ten minutes.’ Laoshi’s fast pace captures my interest and I don’t realize how quickly class goes.

Will I really learn Chinese? My ancestors were Vikings. We’re fighters. Plus, our friend in Jurong, China, Mr. Pei lin, believes in me. Thank you dear young man. I’ll try climbing Mt. Everest for another day.

Language Learning

I’ve survived two weeks of Chinese classes at the University now…that’s ten hours of instruction. Sometimes I feel like learning the language compares to climbing Mt. Everest. Remembering the characters that represent syllables and words gives me the most problems.

The teacher impresses me a lot…she’s passionate and enthusiastic about teaching Chinese. She speaks the language very quickly in class, something we didn’t do when teaching English in China, but is a good way to teach.

In this photo, taken when class ended, she’s explaining a concept to a student. You can see how attractive she is. She’s as pleasant as she looks, and is from Taiwan originally, but is an American now.

I especially appreciate the bits of humor as our "Laoshi" instructs the class…humor helps me remember better. For example, she calls one character, while she writes it on the whiteboard…’The big-headed kid”. That one I’ll not forget. And she speaks of ‘recycling’ characters…I love the term…and have discovered that some characters are used over and over in different words. That also helps me memorize them, too.

Home

We no longer live in China. Being back in our own home feels wonderful, as does spending time with old friends. However, we’re enjoying e-mails from our Chinese students and fellow teachers in China which makes us realize how much we miss these wonderful people.

What am I doing in the USA instead of teaching full time? Studying Chinese at the University of Oregon!
Since we’re no longer working in China, why would I now learn the language?

If our age doesn’t interfere and health permits, who knows but what we’ll someday return to China?

More important at this time, I want to communicate well with the family of our future daughter-in-law, the lovely Hseih wanyin (Diane).
Our son, Dan, presented her with an engagement ring and they’re discussing when to have weddings, one in Taiwan and one in the USA.

47th yesterday, 47th today

We spent our forty-seventh wedding anniversary at Pudong Airport, in Shanghai, China. We celebrated (at least I did!) by spending our last Chinese yuan. I found some lovely Chinese gifts, although I knew they cost more at the airport than downtown somewhere.

Late afternoon, we flew to Los Angeles, crossing the International Date Line. We arrived another day, but still our forty-seventh wedding anniversary, becasue it was the same date on the calendar! So we had two 47th anniversarys this year!

We celebrated the second one with our oldest daughter and ate good old American hamburgers, something we’d not tasted in nearly a year.

I loved having two 47th anniversary celebrations!

Quoted by a New Yorker!

A young writer from New York City, Sara Pepitone, read my blog bit about the Beijing Opera. She e-mailed and asked for a quote to use in an article about priceless things for a Mastercard site. Sara posted her article last week.

Beijing Opera is a famous Chinese art, very different from Western operas. Costumes, mime type stage movements, elaborate masks and traditional stories have been mostly unchanged for centuries. Even knowing no Chinese, story lines often seem obvious based on actors’ body language. Understanding the symbolism of colors, masks, characters and costumes adds to the pleasure of watching this ancient form of music and story.

For Sara’s short, informative and interesting article please go to this website: http://priceless.com/articles/a159.html

Chinese 'Rockeries'

Chinese Rock Gardens

In Chinese rock gardens, we saw…rocks, all quite strange. Most of the rocks are huge, have unusual shapes and are full of holes.

A TV program told how one man earns his living mining these rocks. After removing them from underground he soaks the rocks in a lake for up to a year. Limestone dissolves away, leaving the strange configurations and holes.

The results resemble a prehistoric, otherworldly monster skeleton to my eyes. But they seem important to Chinese people and tourists come from many places to view some famous ‘rockeries’.

Here I am, with a college student by a rock at General Mountain Park near Nanjing, China.

I love Beijing Opera

Some evenings I watch Beijing Opera on TV. I don’t understand the dialogues but the costumes and sets are wonderful and the body language expressive and amusing. I can often guess much of the usually hilarious story.

Many Chinese singers are accomplished gymnasts or martial arts experts. The singers have excellent voices, a Chinese falsetto.

The plots are from classical literature, folk tales, and epics of ancient China.

Masks, facial paint, movements, and the color of costumes tell the audience who characters are. Four types of roles are typical and each may have young and old actors. The roles are leading male, leading female, clown and another type called. Jing characters.

Movements around stage are graceful with pantomime type walking or running. The costumes are heavily embroidered and many have flowing sleeves far longer than an arm. Characters often wave these sleeves numerous times to uncover their hands.

Generally, costumes and face paint in red stand for heroism and honesty and black for righteousness. White symbolizes evil and harshness, while yellow represents cruelty. Warriors wear blue. Green often symbolizes characters with a sense of justice. Gold represents spirits and the Buddha. Old men wear long white beards that cover their mouths as well as chins and chests.

English Shirts

Our Chinese college students often wear T-shirts printed with English words. Usually the English is inaccurate or meaningless, but the students don’t realize that. They like the shirts, no matter what they say.

Here's one of our students, happy with her shirt, totally printed with English words, and delighted about being included on my blog.

Sometimes, I bring an interesting shirt to the front of the classroom(student still inside, of course) and challenge the kids to find the error in the writing. They respond with enthusiasm to such puzzles, maybe because many are bored with their English lessons. They’ve studied the language for years, although cannot speak or write properly. Their reading comprehension seems good, however…or at least long enough to answer questions in their workbooks.