Red Undies

When we go to the store these days we see many displays of red underwear - both ladies and mens. In China people wear red during his or her zodiac animal year and it is easier just to wear red underwear. Wearing of the red keeps bad luck from happening. This coming year is the year of the Ox, so if you were born in the following years be sure to get your year's supply of red underwear.

People born within these date ranges can be said to have been born in the "year of the Ox," while also bearing the following elemental sign:

• 19 February 1901 - 7 February 1902: Metal Ox
• 6 February 1913 - 25 January 1914: Water Ox
• 25 January 1925 - 12 February 1926: Wood Ox
• 11 February 1937 - 30 January 1938: Fire Ox
• 29 January 1949 - 16 February 1950: Earth Ox
• 15 February 1961 - 4 February 1962: Metal Ox
• 3 February 1973 - 22 January 1974: Water Ox
• 20 February 1985 - 8 February 1986: Wood Ox
• 7 February 1997 - 28 January 1998: Fire Ox

Here is a picture from the ads from the store where we buy our groceries.

Last Friday when we were going to judge the dubbing contest they said we were going to the "Legion Hall". At least that's what I thought they said and when I asked about Legion I found it wasn't the Legion Hall it was the "Lixon Hall".

Here are pictures of some of my students at the dubbing contest. They were taken as the prizes were awarded.


These two students were MCs. He is in my Oral English class and she is in my British History class.

The two pictures above are students from my Oral English Class. They dubbed to the movie "I am Sam."

The two girls are in my history class. This group won first prize, but I am sure it was because of the boy. They did the movie "Little Red" and there was a character in that movie who sang everything he said and he sang a western folk type song and the boy was wonderful at singing it. They asked him to sing it again when the prizes were awarded.

Dubbing Contest

Last night we went over to the other campus to be judges in a "Dubbing Contest". It was a contest where a four minute section of a movie was shown without the sound and a group of students would stand in front of it and dub in the words. They were extremely proficient and did a great job with the lip sync. There were 18 groups to judge and there were 8 judges - 4 Chinese teachers of English and 4 native English teachers. There wasn't one group that didn't do well. Luckily there had previously been run-offs because something like 70 groups originally participated.

I didn't really understand what was to happen so when the first group came on I thought that they were showing us the movie with sound and then the students were going it act it out, but about 3/4 of the way through I realized that the sound was coming from the students. They did scenes from such movies as "The Devil Wore Prada", "I am Sam", "Gone with the Wind", "Madagascar", "Shark Tale", "Lord of the Rings" and others. The performances were exceptional. However, it was funny to hear their Chinese accents come back as soon as they finished performing.

There were students from two of my classes who participated.

a better picture of the purple flowers

Wonderful News

This morning when I checked my e-mail, there was an airline itinerary from Darwin and Amber. They and their three children are arriving in Shanghai on the 27th and will stay until the 1st January. I can hardly wait.

Another week gone by

This past week I have had a cold and have been really draggy. It makes it hard to get things done and there is a lot to be done in the next two weeks. When I get my exams prepared I will feel better.

Last Sunday evening we did English corner again. The group is getting smaller - probably because it is getting closer to exam time. When we do English corner we leave our apartment at 4:30 p.m. and don't get back to this campus until 10:00 p.m. and the next morning I have 8:00 am classes and have to catch the bus to the other campus at 7:00 am.

We hope to get our Christmas tree and decorations up today or tomorrow. So far all we have is a decoration on the front door.

A word of advice to anyone who comes to China - don't bring envelopes or try to buy them in the stores here. We had some letters to send home and Bob finally found some envelopes in a store. We addressed the envelopes and got them ready to mail and I took them to the campus post office. The lady wouldn't sell me stamps and wanted me to buy stamped envelopes. The stamped envelopes are .5 yuan cheaper than the stamps. I didn't want to rewrite the addresses and said I wanted stamps anyway. Well she didn't have that many stamps so I had to go to another post office and got the same spiel about stamped envelopes. This clerk was willing to help me readdress the envelopes, but finally gave in and put the envelopes I had through a machine. Now we know why they don't sell envelopes in the store.

On Friday evening they turned the heat off in our building so they could check the gas. The heat came on next day but we were all day without hot water. It was good to get the hot water back on.

The weather has been very changeable lately. It was 20 degrees C. on Wednesday afternoon, but during the night it gets down to 2 or 3 C. above. It is hard to decide what coat to wear when you leave in the early morning.

December 13th was the anniversary of the 1937 Nanjing massacre and the sirens sounded for 10 minutes at 10:00 a.m to remember those who died in the massacre. Bob didn't know this was coming and he was somewhat alarmed when the sirens started.

They don't plant flowers in the flower beds. They put out pots of flowers in the beds and they look like flower beds. This week they have changed from the red and yellow flowers that have been up for the last couple of months. There are now flowers that look like cabbage and cauliflower plants. They are really very pretty and have frilly leaves.

Zhenjiang

Last Saturday the liason from the Faculty of Applied Foreign Studies, for which I teach, took Bob and me and another couple on an excursion to Zhenjiang, a city along the Yangtze between Nanjing and Shanghai. It was one of the colder days we have had here and I was ready to cancel out but we decided to go anyway. We met Catherine and her friend at the gate of the University at 7:00 am and went by subway to the train station where we traveled by a fast softseat train to Zhenjiang. It took about one-half hour on the train.

Zhenjiang is known for it's three "mountains" and also for it's vinegar factory.

We visited two of the "mountains". Jiaoshan Mountain is a ways out of the city on an Island in the Yangtze river. We traveled by taxi to the Jiaoshan Mountain area.

We had to travel by boat to get to the island.

There were pedal boats, bumper cars, archery lanes, rafting opportunities and peacocks at the bottom of the "mountain".


This is what remains of a canon fort once used to stop enemies from going up the Yangzte. The British were held off here for 6 days in July 1842 before defeating the defending soldiers.

The top of the Ten Thousand Budha Pagoda

View from the top of the mountain (my new camera)

We love the signs we find here in China. Following are pictures of a few we found that day. (Click on them to make them big enough to read.)

We caught a bus back downtown, had lunch and then went to one of the other "mountains", Jinshan. It was originally on an island in the Yantze, but the river changed it course and now it is right in the city. We were all getting tired and cold by the time we came here and mostly just hung around. There was a place to rent costumes and we watched people get their pictures taken dressed like an Emperor or Empress.

The City is getting pretty close to the mountain.

So we returned to Nanjing via taxi, train, and subway and got home around 7:00 p.m.

More Beijing

We went to the Beijing Chaoyang Theater Acrobatics World on Saturday evening. It was a very entertaining show - fast moving and up to date with all the laser lights etc. - well worth seeing.

On all tours by law the guides have to take the groups to various sites where we can spend our money. We went to a Jade factory where they showed as how they carved jade and had many expensive items to sell. We also went to an enamel factory where they made beautiful vases and items which were also expensive. They would ship the large items to your home for you.

Our group went on a quick tour of the Heavenly Temple, but we skipped out and went to the pearl market across the street.

We also spent some time at the Silk Market. I made a few purchases there. I wanted a small camera that I could tuck in a pocket and have handy whenever I came across everyday sights that I wanted a picture of. However after I bought what I thought was a camera and got it back to Nanjing, I found out it is an MP5 player and it isn't very easy to take pictures with - too many buttons to click to get to the camera. Here is a picture I took with it.

The merchants are getting into Christmas.