I'm sure many of you were concerned about us this week (shame on you if you weren't!). Super Typhoon (aka Hurricane in the West) Wipha showed up on Wednesday night! Granted, Huangdao (our little suburb of Qingdao) didn't get the full blast, but it was still a rather interesting day. It rained quite a lot while Wipha was here, and we had the flooding to prove it. The flooding wasn't limited to the outside however; it somehow made its way to the 5th floor as well (sideways rain and balcony doors to blame)! One might think that classes would be cancelled during a typhoon providing torrential downpours, flooding, and 75 mph gusts - one would be wrong. Thus, our brave Darbie made her way out among the, calf-high floods, uprooted trees and inside-out umbrellas to teach (it was my day off!). She wants me to note that it was much worse than 'Lake Lambuth.' To me, typhoon sounds much more fun than hurricane, and for Wipha, that holds true.

Saturday night we were told (not asked) that we were going to be the judges for an English-speaking speech competition. 12 students talked about what global citizenship means (rather, what they think it means). After their prepared speech they gave an impromptu speech usually based on a political cartoon, and last but not least, had to answer questions given by yours truly (being Darbie and Kendall. I'm not quite sure yours truly has a plural?)! Enjoy some excerpts from the prepared speeches:

-You don't have to accept but you have to respect. I am eating tofu; you are not. I have to respect that. You like cheese, I don't but I respect your cheese.

-...when suddenly a policeman appear and shout at you "Freeze!" Dare you move? You dare not, who knows, you may get shot!

-Let me end my speech with a few sentences from the song, Heal the World...

-For example, do not litter anywhere, do not split anywhere, do not pour wasted water anywhere.

-Thinking about the War-mart, lots of people know that it is an American company.

-Listen, 12 teenagers are using their hearts to show us the world full of love. Tenderly holding your face, let me wipe away your tears, my heart forever belongs to you, tell me you will never be alone, together we strive, together we dream, we treasure the same love in our heart.

We may laugh, but the students were very impressive. I can't imagine giving a speech in a second language. With that said, the "respecting cheese girl" won, which I didn't like too much, but then again, I have to respect her cheesy speech.

Chinese Moon Festival is coming up on Tuesday, and hopefully we'll have another blog around then to let you know about that (unfortunately it has nothing to do with showing your butt to strangers).



Splitting is a bad habit,



DB & KM

PS: Sorry, no real pics, but we've been spoiling you.

Peach of a Beach

A weekend at Golden Beach - Jin Sha Tan. The weather is still warm here, but beach season is on its way out. Still people flock to the beach, not to lay out and get a tan, but simply to socialize. After a bus ride of around 30 minutes, we finally arrived. The beach area is surrounded by a well kept park complete with a mini-fair which you can see in the background of the picture below. The beach is wide, especially at low tide. The sand, from which it derives its name, is a golden brown and very wet and hard. A great beach for bocce ball, riding your bike, or renting an ATV!


The first part of the beach is surrounded by statues and umbrellas, tables, and tents for rent. There are people who follow you around the entire beach asking you to rent something. We started a feud between 2 women because we rented one woman's table (less than $3 American for the entire day!) over another that had been following us around. They kept shouting for about 15 mins after we had sat down and even shouted at us! But our renter ended up being very nice, and Kendall was quite pleased with himself because he was able to read the chinese characters she wrote in the sand.


Standing in front of the Sea of Japan. The water is a bit cold but very clear and clean (surprisingly).
I got quite a few stares when I took my cover-up off to lay on the beach. All the other girls were wearing full outfits (even playing in the ocean in nice pants and tops), while I was in what I feel is an actual bathing suit. We also got strange looks for bringing towels with us; apparently no one brings a towel to the beach....
There were a few girls wearing bathing suits like below with tops and skirts for bottoms. But most were in one pieces if they were in a suit at all. Full coverage is key.
One of the best ways to amuse yourself at the beach is to cover your friend or yourself with the wet sand as seen in the background below. Most of the kids, from toddler to about teenage years, prefer to do this completely naked.
Another beach activity is to climb the rocks jutting out into the sea and hunt for mussels, shrimp, and squid which they grill right there next to the water. They smelled good, but I'm sure you'd regret it soon afterward.

By far though, my favorite people watching moments were when the guys frolicked through the sand with their matching speedo boy shorts. That, or see-through boxers is the choice cool man beach outfit, no matter your size or stature!So after a day that consisted of watching men drive dune buggeys around trying to persuade us to rent them, being continually stared at and pointed at, being asked to take pictures with people (perhaps they believe we could be famous, but who knows?), seeing a lot of little naked boys, and having a generally fantastic people watching experience, I think the beach trip was a success!

DB & KM

All About Activities

Folks, buckle up because we have one action-packed blog for you today with loads of photos. So without further delay, let's get started. Saturday morning was move-in day for the freshman. Unfortunately, move-in day means that music is played over the loud speakers all day long. After a while they got to the bottom of the playlist, John Denver, Rascal Flatts (I'm not saying either of these are bad - although Rascal Flats is - I'm just saying this isn't typical Chinese youth music.) and other interesting selections. Once the parents said goodbye to their kids, the military took over. The first week of school for freshman isn't really school at all, its military training!



Their training is mostly practice on how to march in formation. Sounds easy, until you realize that they are doing it from 6:30 AM until 6:00 PM. Yep, all day just marching and listening to drill instructors tell you that you got it wrong.

Sorry, Miss. You're going to have to do that again.

When the older students (that have already started class) have some free time from class and studying, we've been encouraged to find that they spend a lot of it outside. This is likely because they share cramped dorms, and really don't have any reason to be inside when they aren't sleeping. We walked around and took some pics of the students and their hobbies. We think you'll enjoy them.

As you can see, Ping-Pong is seriously popular here. I would estimate there are about 50 tables around campus, and that's just the outside tables. Personally, I like the shaded "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" tables in the trees. Oh! Another thing you're sure to see here are student surveyors. They are everywhere, and they are wild about surveying.

Martial Arts club practices in the afternoon. They often use bo staffs and samurai swords. Don't mess with them.

Coming in a close second to Ping-Pong in popularity is Badminton. Nets need not apply, here students just play wherever there's open space; even we have fallen victim to the Badminton craze!

Next we have two very popular sports at American Universities, volleyball and basketball.

So there you have it, Shandong students really get after it. I'm looking forward to bringing my game and my "special sauce" to these basketball and volleyball players very soon. While I don't know if they'll truly appreciate said "sauce," I do know they'll go crazy when I tell them I played with Bron-Bron back in my high school days and that he called me "Pippen." One last photo is waiting below, be sure to scroll down and check out the sweetest hobby on campus.

Are you ready for it?

Sweet nunchuck skillz dude, do you think you could teach me a move or two?

Until next time!
DB & KM

Babies and Bar Hopping

The clothes in China have been interesting. Mostly the young people wear normal things but a few of my favorites are as follows. I was expecting the love of jeans even in the hot and humid weather. (The weather here is great by the way, warm but with great breezes) The girls love short skirts and shorts with leggings paired with shirts that have english sayings on them with most of the words misspelled. There is no hope of purchasing a cool shirt with chinese writing on it. They wear high heels everywhere even on bicycles and even though most of the roads in China are made either of very wobbly stones or just mud and dirt. So inevitably, I look very much the tourist in my flip flops (which they consider bath slippers). I especially love that the main use of umbrellas, which are for sale on every corner in every color, is as a parasol so they can stay as white as possible. The strangest looks we have received are when we are enjoying basking in the sun. The whiter the better and more beautiful. The boys have an inclination to wear their pants as high as their armpits as if they've watched Family Matters once too many and misunderstood Urkel's sense of style as a distinctly cool western fashion. Hopefully we will get a picture of this soon, its really a great sight. One thing that is going to take some getting used to is the underarm hair. Girls love to wear sleeveless and spaghetti strapped shirts and show off that little black tuft peeking out around their arm.

By far though, my favorite and the one I will never get used to is pictured below - crotchless baby pants. When we were looking at some ancient paintings we saw the children pictured wearing these kind of pants. I understand it then, no diapers. But now? Moms and dads just walk down the street holding their child (baby and toddler) with the front and back of the crotch wide open. At least its easy to distinguish the sex of the child. We sat next to one on the bus yesterday and all we could do was cross our fingers that the child didn't feel the need to relieve herself. Potty training in China mostly consists of teaching your child to squat on the side of the road which we have experienced many times. The practice doesn't seem to wear off once you know better and are able to feel embarrassement because we definitely saw a 15 year old girl taking a squat by a bus stop. I tried to get the baby below to turn around for a frontal view but I thought that might be a bit much.
The only shopping we have done so far is for necessities but considering the fashions we have seen thus far, I don't think we will be buying many things. Nothing is as cheap as I was expecting, mainly because the clothes that are decent are made by expensive western brands. Oh well, no need for a big wardrobe as everyone pretty much wears the same thing every day anyway.

The last 2 pictures are of our first experience with the night life with some of our fellow teachers. Below from left to right are Kendall, Paul (from the UK), Dan Brown (not the author, he's from Canada), Royale (as in Royale with Cheese from Texas), and Joachim (from Norway and our next door neighbor). An interesting and lively bunch. We went to an American owned restaurant where we got to have french fries and I accidentally ordered an entire bottle of wine. Gotta love the language barrier!

Next we ventured onto another American owned bar (Catch 22) where we partook in foosball and darts, then proceeded to a bar (Revolution) owned by an New Zealander. Pictured below is me with Brendan the owner and another English teacher from India whose name (Ujawal Jha) I will never be able to pronounce. All in all, a good night and I am sure we will be frequenting the establishments in the future.

Our experience with other "English Teachers" so far has been intriguing. Many own bars, restaurants, or other shady business ventures. Teaching English is almost a way to earn some quick, easy money. But, it never hurts to have friends that own bars, so no complaints here.

Who knows, maybe we will have a joint venture by the time we return home!

Til next time,

DB & KM

Back to School

This is Shandong University of Science and Techonology as seen from our balcony on the 5th floor. As I'm sure you can tell from the photo, the university is really a beautiful campus. Mind you, its not the typical beautiful USA college campus (they let the grass grow longer here for instance), but Shandong University has a uniqueness about it. The campus is very spread out, especially when you consider there are 36,000 students here and at no time does it ever feel really crowded. The campus is also surrounded by mountains, which can usually be seen, although fog sometimes provides a cloak. We both have fairly easy teaching loads - 5 classes. Darbie teaches 3 listening classes, 1 oral English class, and one extensive reading Class. Kendall teaches 1 movie appreciation class, 2 Survey of English Speaking Countries classes, 1 oral English class, and 1 extensive reading class. So while we both will be busy with planning and preparing, we are both very thankful that we can usually enjoy 3 day weekends! The next picture is a view of the main gate which you'll see standing in the background. The building where we do most of our teaching is standing to the left there.

There are many man-made water features here, though we would recommend you stay out of the water. The landscape is also filled with many different types of flowers. There is a huge field of rose bushes, but the one pictured below is the prettiest. These flowers are just about as tall as Darbie, and in the background you can see the school clock tower.
There are also many different types of structures and statues decorating the campus. They include an area of about 7 statues of Western thinkers and scientists. Though, there are no plaques or info about the statues, so you have to guess who they might be. One of the most striking structures on the campus is below.
Once again, nothing that you'd find on a college campus back in the states. Through 2 classes, the students seem to be very well behaved and dedicated to their studies. They have English names (given to them in middle school) and some can be quite interesting/hilarious - Snoopy, Papaya, Echo are just a few. The average student here studies 9 hours a night according to one eager English student named Rainbow. At 6:30 each weekday, music plays over the loudspeakers around campus to wake the students. They also play pop music (from all over the world) around their other breaks (lunch, and after class). Unfortunately, it seems the selection is limited, and I've heard entirely too much Kelly Clarkson lately.

So, that's a little bit about the campus we're calling home for a year. Next time, we'll be sharing the apartments that are given to "Foreign Language Experts" at Shandong U. Here's a preview:

Oooo! Always leave them wanting more.

Until Next time,

DB&KM

Shanghai and Dry

We are still alive.

And, we are in Qingdao! There is so much to relay to all of you, but I guess its best to start with an overview of our orientation week in Shanghai. After flying into Pudong Airport, we were responsible for getting ourselves and our bags (hen duo - Chinese for very much/big) to the Jiao Tong University Faculty Club. Fortunately, this wasn't too hard and we were able to sit back and enjoy a scenic ride. Taxi rides in China are always an adventure, as is any involvement with public roads for that matter. Lots of people + Lots of cars + Lots of motor bikes/bicycles + No real "rules of the road" = mass chaos, but it is pretty fun to experience once you get used to it.


Our first day of sightseeing took us to Old Town Shanghai (you'll see some pics below) After Old Town, I was fortunate enough to have my first Chinese Public restroom experience, or trauma (I'll leave it to your imaginations).


We don't want this blog to be boring or tedious to read through, so we'll fast forward (for now) and say that Shanghai was amazing, despite being a bit smelly and loud. We were fortunate to meet some great people during our orientation, and experience more of Shanghai. Here's a quick rundown of other things we were able to do: Eat banquet dinners (this deserves and will have its own blog) at a Uighur and an amazing vegetarian restaurant, visit Shanghai's (current) tallest building - the Jin Mao Tower, view the Shanghai Museum and The People's Square, browse the Shanghai City of Books, ride the always crowded subway, see a Chinese Acrobatic show, cruise the Huangpo River, hang around the Pearl Tower, observe the Jade Buddha Temple, and walk the famous West Nanjing Shopping District. It sounds like a lot because it was, especially with orientation classes in the mix. Now, we can relax for a little bit in Qingdao before classes start on Thursday (? we think).


We'll be able to blog at a little better pace now, thanks for hanging in there! Here are some Shanghai pictures. We'll try to post a full album of these on facebook sooner than later.



Cruising the Huangpo River

Chinese Acrobats

Shanghai's tallest building - Jin Mao Tower

Missippi Girl hanging out in Old Town Shanghai

More Old Town

More to come soon!

DB&KM