The Most Popular Costume of the Night Was ........

Halloween Trick or Treat

To finish out the week the other English teachers and I had a Friday night Halloween Trick or Treat Party. We decorated the large space outside the elevator doors on our 6th floor living quarters. We had the required candy along with popcorn and tang. Students were required to wear a costume to attend. I was a witch and my duty was to stand at the elevator doors and not admit the ones without a costume. The majority of them had to be ENCOURAGED by the wicked witch to put on their masks. Some of them actually made their costumes with paper and pen but the majority took the easy way out and bought a mardi gras feathery mask to wear. No spiderman, kung fu panda, iron man to be seen in the bunch. There were lots of screams and lots of picture taking. The students were a little loud but we managed to finish up the party by 8:30 and clean up by about 9:00 so we only bothered the hotel guests for just a few hours. The hotel manager did pay us a visit and was a little mad – but we didn’t feel too guilty because we live with their hotel guests playing loud card games in their halls till 11 or later. The hotel has an open area from the 4th floor to the 6th which amplifies all voices to “can’t sleep” levels”.

Pictured above from left to right is me, Andrea the young English teacher from Michigan, and Penny my ever present Chinese side-kick, helper, and friend.
Photos from the last 2 trips and Zac are listed in the "BLOGROLL" on the bottom left hand side of this window so if you want to see more mummies etc.... just click.

Halloween @ ZUFE

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. In class to get them into their spirit I divided them into 4 or 5 groups and handed out a roll of toilet paper to each group to make a mummy. Winner was the group that finished their Halloween Crossword puzzle and their mummy first. Of course they had to use every sheet. It was hilarious.

Side Note: I was watching my magic Slingbox (my Georgia TV on my Mac laptop in China) and had the CNN Headline News on and I saw an advertisement for HANGZHOU CHINA. It is the same one that runs constantly on CCTV 9 the only English TV Channel here. It was so weird hearing that exact ad on American TV. Why not come –I got Zac here for less than 1000 dollars for a round trip ticket from Atlanta to Shanghai, which is right next door to Hangzhou……

Teacher Trip

Every term the Foreign Affairs Office and Language Department takes the foreign teachers out for an “adventure”. This term we went on a boat ride. The members of our group included (Andrea was under the weather and skipped the rainy outing) Rachel and JP, Steve, Emily, the 3 Japanese teachers and many more from both offices.

We rode a bus for about 3 hours to a spot where we got on a boat. It was the head waters for the QianTang river that runs by our campus. The scenery was sort of a poor-man’s Li River Cruise. It had nice mountains, but I have been forever spoiled by the unique shapes of the mountain in Guilin and Yangshua. We stopped about 4 times – once to hike up to a nice water fall, to eat, to see a historic battle site and the last stop was to pick mandarin oranges. You were allowed to eat as much as you wanted and you only had to pay for the fruit you left with. So Steve and I went around tasting the fruit from different trees to find the sweetest tree. After sampling about 6 bushes we found a good one. We each took a big bag back of the really cheap and really good fruit.

Zac - My Show & Tell

I am not above using all my resources to entertain my students so when Zac came to China I requested that he meet my 4 English Major classes and answer a few questions. He seemed to enjoy everything until photo time. He is not crazy about having his picture taken and he is definitely not comfortable with the number of photos taken in China, but I still tried to take as many as he would tolerate.

Zac and The Cheap Water Guy

I have one stall where I get my water whenever I go to Sunday’s West lake English corner and he usually charges people 3 yuan – I only have to pay 2 yuan. He always laughs at me trying to say hello and goodbye in Chinese.

Zac at West Lake English Corner

I took him to West Lake’s English Corner. We walked up to a spot in the shade and Zac asked me “What do we do here”. I replied “Just wait” No more than 20 seconds later he was surrounded with people that wanted to talk to him. He did fine and seemed to handle the crowd without distress. Americans and Chinese have a different sense of personal space that can take a little getting used to.