WEEK NINE AND A NEW MONTH
Trip Start
Aug 30, 2009
1
9
Trip End
Ongoing
Yangshuo, Guangxi Zhuang, China
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
I HAVE NO IDEA
SUNDAY, November 1st: Don't ask me I think I lost a week someplace but that is normal.
I seem to loss track of time as I get closer to going back to the USA.
Starting a new month I think I am back on track.
It is Sunday and I was thinking "WESTERN" breakfast as I was walking a long the river park I ran into Dennis and a few of the students from Hainan. So I invited them all to join me. I had my western breakfast and they had a variety of breakfasts. Yangshuo Noodles with peanuts and spicy chili, Steamed buns with some sugar, Rice grule (porage).
Some even dared to try a western breakfast and used a knife and fork for the first time. It was to say the least very interesting. Kind of a reverse roll thing.
I think we drove the waitress crazy with all the different meals but she must be used to it. I think I will just order a western breakfast for everyone next time. Many just could not decide but once the saw what it was they all wanted it. Even the local cat has become a regular at my Sunday breakfast.
Sat in on the tutoring classes. One of the level one classes is going to move up and become a level two and all have signed up for another 3 months of courses. According to their parents they can see good improvement in their kids. Made us all feel great.
Once again we had our Sunday dinner.
The students from Hainan came by and got some money to go shopping and off they went about 6 of them. The brought back bags and bags of stuff. Timing was good they were able to prepare just as the last tutoring class was ending. Then Judy came she is one of the students from one of the other schools and she decided to do some of the cooking alone with Gina one of the Hainan students. Several people dropped in and by dinnertime we had about 20 people to feed. And the dishes just kept on coming out of our little kitchen.
After dinner all the Hainan students had to go back to school for some night classes. Our open talk was a little small tonight but that is good. Had about 6 Chinese and 3 foreigners a good ratio. Questions seemed to revolve around dating habits of each country. Good talk.
Monday, November 2nd: Decide to go for a walk in the river park and I ran into Dave the guy from Canada. He was learning how to play mahjong so I joined in on the lesson. I liked it. I think I will by a set for the juice bar. By the way we have almost completely phased out the Juice Bar. We are now a “shop or a store” have not decided on a name yet. We played for a couple of hours and I think I got the hang of some of the basic moves. I can tell it is one of those games that you can understand the basics but it would take a lifetime to really get into the strategy.
Afterwards we all went to the place by the hospital for lunch. I like it because you can pick and choose what you want in your dish. So this is the only time I do not have to worry about getting bell peppers.
Open talk tonight was good. We had two. One at 5pm and than one at 7pm. It was still nice so we can have it outside. The group seems to grow at about 8pm. I can see every so often one will go way to answer their cell phone and then all of a sudden a few more turn up. Word of mouth advertising. Had about 25 tonight at the late group. Even had a couple more of the headmasters from the training school stop by to see what their students have been talking about.
Tuesday, November 3rd: Had some of my friends come over to the “juice bar” and we completely rearranged the place. They had some good ideas and some crazy ones. I keep telling them that this was only a temporary thing and I was not going to knock down any walls to make it bigger and was not able to get rid of the furniture be cause it belongs to the landlord and must stay as part of the shop. So they worked all day cleaning and arranging. Took them all out to lunch. We still have not come up with a name. But the majority thinks we should just call it BOB’s. That way it can be anything. They said when it was the 49 Juice Bar all the locals referred it as Bob’s Juice Bar. Maybe we will see what happens.
Lots of people came back for open talk I was surprise. It was pretty cold so we had it inside. Had a new group from Hunan who found us. They are from the Changsha Aviation College. I guess Changsha must have a hundred schools. Again they are only here for less then a week and just for the purpose of meeting and talking to foreigners. It is ok because we had foreigners tonight from Canada and Germany and Holland. Everyone thought the shop looked good. We brought back a few things after lunch. Not sure if we will ever sell anything but it is fun.
Wednesday, November 4th: Worked in the shop bring more stuff down; mostly the pictures have lots of pictures still. Went around to some of the other shops that sold flowers and vases just to get an idea of how to price ours. We can sell ours for 50% less and still make money but I think we will keep the prices just below theirs for now. I also bought myself a Mahjong game. So I think I will begin learning this weekend if I can find a teacher available. I got the normal size set. It is big and very heavy. Not sure what it is made of I think it must be some kind of stone. The set I played on with David was about the size of a thumbnail and I could not read it even if I could read the Chinese characters. This one is 4 times bigger and they have the number is Chinese character and normal number (1,2, 3). I think it will be easier.
Had one of the headmaster of one of the big schools stop by and talk to me. He liked the idea of my open talk and wanted me to help some of his Chinese English teachers. I told him to send them over and they could practice with everyone else. He asked how much and was surprised that the rumors were true it is free.
We had our two open talks tonight one for Hainan students and one for everyone else. None of the Chinese English teachers came. Oh well. But we did have a couple of teachers from the Middle School come. They are from Germany and just graduated from High School and were hired as volunteers to work as English teachers at the public middle/high school here. To say the least that is interesting. But they we pretty good guys and really wanted to learn more about the Chinese and the life in China. What a great way to do it. They get free room and board on campus.
Everyone had lots of questions for them and about Germany.
Thursday, November 5th: The sunrises from my apartment are fantastic. Each morning something a little different. The way the apartment is set up the windows the one side picks up the sun in my bedroom like this scene. Then in the evening I can go to my living room window and get some fantastic sunsets.
I guess it is the session here. Just the other day we were talking about how universally children games seem to change magically. One of the games we talked about was the sudden appearance of “trading” cards and how every place has them and they all play with them in different ways. Today I notice a couple of boys for the first time playing with cards.
Been a little cold in the evenings so we have moved the talks inside which works fine since we are only doing tutoring on weekends now. Had a small group but as always very interesting questions.
Friday November 6th: Shelly called and asked if I would give a class on email and take some pictures of the students at her school. The program is moving along but like everything in China something new starts slow. We were able to get the computer lab of a couple of hours during lunch. This meant those who came would have to miss their lunch and nap. We had about 25 students and one teacher come. It is a start. The lab is not as bad as I thought but most of the computers did not work right for one reason or another but we found enough working ones so that they all got their first email address. We even had time to start a short letter to their email pals in the USA. I took pictures of each student and told them to send me a copy of your email and I would attach you picture. I am not sure how this will work or if it will work but my plan is to visit a couple of the schools back home who showed some interest in doing the same. Time will tell.
By the time we got back and had dinner it would have been time for open talk but I told everyone that if the weather was cold we could not have it because they would be tutoring inside. Lucky for all the weather had turned warm again and we had it outside. The crazy thing is that we had almost a record group. At one point someone told me they counted more then 35 people. It was great and went on till almost 10pm. A young couple from Scotland came. They had seen the blogs on travel pod and wanted to come to work as teachers in Yangshuo for a month. I told them all the schools were looking for part time volunteers and most would give you room and board but no pay. They thought it would be great. I told them I would make some calls for them tomorrow.
Saturday November 7th: Not much going on today. Sat in on the tutoring that went from 8:30am to 8:30pm. A few new students. I would just go in for a half hour just so they can hear a native speaker and then I would go for a walk.
As I was out walking I saw this group of fishermen on their rafts with their fishing birds heading down river. You can still see some of the traditional sites herein Yangshuo. While I sitting there a mom came up with her baby and we went into a marathon HELLO talk. They all want their babies to respond to Hello for some reason. It was fun and lasted almost an hour.
Evening talk was gain too big about 30 people. But had several teachers for several of the schools show up. It was interesting. I guess their students drug them here.
But everyone enjoyed it. The Scottish couple came so did people from Germany and Australia.
Sunday November 8TH: Went out and had my traditional western breakfast. I met up with my friends from South Africa, Ruari and his friend Sonny. We talked about how we will all be heading home for the winter. Also about what a great experience we all had in Yangshuo.
Sat in on the tutoring again. Yesterday 10 classes and today 8 classes. It was great they are all coming along very well. But it almost ran into our preparation time for our dinner.
Dinner was fantastic we all got involved. New rule you have to shop, prep, cook or cleanup to eat for free. So everyone was very busy doing it all. Had about 20 guests and ran a little over our time so some of the Open Talk people started to arrive about 6:30 and we invited the to join us. We had everything you can thing of on the table again. Beer Fish (which is a local specialty), Chicken (Hainan style), about 8 dishes of vegetable with various meats and mushrooms, soup, and a place of sweet cooked apples.
The Open talked ran from dinner to about 9:30. We had the Scottish couple their again. We tried to help them with some suggestions of schools that would give them room and board for part time teaching. Peter the Canadian and Mike the Australian were there which took off some pressure from me to be always talking. Then one of the Germans came. He is teaching at the Public High School and he has just graduated himself from High School. Go figure why they wanted him but has something to do with the relationship of the school and Germany.
Discussion seemed to be all over the “map” which is great. Lots of geography talks where is this? How did you like this place? What is it like to travel alone?
Monday, November 9th: Met with some friends who might want to do a project and want to have use of the old Juice bar. They are from a minority people. China has about 56 Minority peoples in China. The Majority of China is the Han people. They want to organize a festival of their minority in the park across the street and wanted to use the Juice Bar as their headquarters. I told them that I would be gone. It sounded good to me but they would have to clear it with Bobo my new assistant here. They want to have booths with food, and crafts and have dancing and singing. I hope I am back for it all.
Open talk was good tonight. A small group of regulars and an equal number of foreigners so we had a nice little discussion about how the learn about the culture behind the language when you are learning a language. How important is it? Everyone agreed it was important but how to do it was the problem.
Comments
Really cool, looks like everyone is having a lot of fun at your open talks!
I hope business gets going at the shop, and I agree, you should call it "Bob's".
Louise