"Hey y'all, this here is Buford."

Have you ever wondered how the rest of the world views American English? If so, you're in luck, because I can tell you! At least I can tell you what Chinese textbooks say. I found the picture below in my students' English textbook. They were covering a unit on the difference between America and Britain, including the differences in language. This story about Texas was included in the unit, with the intention to show Chinese students how some people in America speak. 

Enjoy....

Really? When I was just a pup? Try explaining what that means to Chinese students! This is funny, but I did try to explain that most people don't actually talk like this. At least after reading this, I understood why so many students chose the names Buford and Lester as their English names!


Last weekend, we took a quick overnight trip to Wuhan to meet all of the new teachers working with Zhong Relations and to catch up with old friends. While we were there, we took a trip to Metro, which is basically the Sam's Club of China. Camille and I were so excited over all of the Western treasures you can purchase there! For the first time since moving to China over a year ago, we have actual cheese at our home AND sour cream AND pita bread!!!! Being away from home really makes you appreciate the little things in life!

Look at all these yummy treasures!

Olympians visit Huangshi!

Last week, I started noticing all of these new structures being built all around the city along with thousands of flowers that were brought in to decorate Huangshi. After a few days, I realized that the structures (like the one pictured below) all had something to do with ping pong. Well, believe it or not, there was going to be a ping pong festival in China! Who would have thought? But this wasn't just any tournament. This past weekend, Huangshi hosted the 2012 Women's World Cup. I was amazed and excited that our little city had the honor of hosting something so big. There were table tennis players from all over the world here to compete.

All of these structures were hand  made out of flowers! So beautiful and quite impressive!

Even more exciting was that the opening ceremony was held at our school gymnasium on Friday. We have the newest and nicest gymnasium in the city, other than the public stadium in the park. Our school was decorated with banners and lanterns and hundreds of people showed up Friday to be a part of the ceremony. 

Prepare to be even more amazed! The opening ceremony featured the world champions of table tennis and the 2012 Olympic medals winners!!!! What?!?! Olympians are in Huangshi? What? Olympians are at my school!

I, of course, had a ticket to attend the opening ceremony, but due to the continuous miscommunication and language barrier that is my life in China, I missed the entire thing!!! Thats right, the whole thing! My boss, Diana thought that the event would take place all day so I waited until after my morning classes to go. As she and I were about to enter the gym, all of the spectators came rushing out because the event was OVER! All of my students were running up to me, either saddened almost to the point of tears because they didn't get an autograph or elated because they were one of the few that got something signed! So there I was, standing in the rain, only feet away from Olympians, that I would never get to meet. As if to rub salt in the wound, all my students asked me why I didn't go to the event, that if I had gone I would have been the only foreigner in the building so I certainly would have gotten to meet the Olympians, take photos, and get autographs! 

I had to get the following photos from one of my students who did get to go the opening ceremony...

The first photo is a group of the Olympic team, including gold medal winner, Zhang Jike and silver medal winner, Wang Hao. The other two pictures are of the ceremony inside of our gym. I still haven't even been inside the gym, but it looks amazing! 

This is the picture of Zhang Jike and Wang Hao receiving their medals this summer. 

 I was only feet away from what was most likely my only chance to meet Olympic medal winners! But, considering I had to google all of these people just to figure out who they are, I think I'll survive :)

It was more fun to see how excited all of the students and teachers were over meeting some of their country's champions. After all, ping pong is a very big deal here!

Day trip to Huanggang

I hadn't even been back in China for a whole week before I was off traveling again. Just a few days after arriving, my boss Diana called and asked if Camille and I wanted to visit with her later that day. Of course we said yes and just a few hours later, Diana was picking us up from our apartment, along with her husband and daughter. I thought we were just going to have dinner somewhere in the city and the next thing I knew we were getting onto the highway to leave Huangshi. Little did we know that a short dinner would turn into an 8-hour day trip to Huangang, China, a city just an hour outside of Huangshi!

Camille and I had to laugh…because of the language barrier there are often miscommunications. And I do mean OFTEN! Most likely I misunderstood something while speaking on the phone, which is always more difficult than in person. I have a tendency to just say YES and figure out “down the road” what crazy situation I’ve gotten myself into. And poor Camille, since often times my thoughtless “yeses” include her being dragged along as well. Fortunately for us, this ended up being one of the better surprises.

I saw Mr. Wu and Yue Yue (Diana's husband and daughter) for the first time since returning to China and we got to give Yue Yue her birthday gift. Diana and Yue Yue went on a vacation together to Europe this summer. Because of this, Diana had her daughter choose and English name to go by and she chose the name Flora. Sometimes, I refer to her as Flora, so just know that Flora is Yue Yue and Yue Yue is Flora!

  

Flora wearing part of her birthday gift!

We met up with some of their incredibly kind and welcoming friends, who live in Huangang, who took us to see the home of a famous Chinese General, Lin Biao and Dongpo Red Cliff. I did not know about either of these, but they are both very famous in China.  

In front of the General's home with Diana's family.

Their friends.

Once again, many random people asked to take photos with us. Can't you just feel the excitement on my face?!?!

Another view of Lin Biao's family home.

Oh Yue Yue! She is always ready to strike a pose for the camera!

Here we are about to enter Dongpo Red Cliff. I know Camille and I look a wee bit silly in our shorts and rainboots. Let me explain...it had been raining earlier that day in Huangshi and we had to walk to our friend's apartment for Ch.urch. Had we known we were leaving the city, we most certainly would have changed! Everyone probably assumed it was some new foreign trend!

It was an incredibly beautiful place to visit.

I told you she always knows when the camera is on her!

Next to the red cliff. 

These are all perfectly hand written Chinese characters from a very long time ago. It must have taken an incredibly long time.

These characters have all been carved in stone. The large character means "long life".

View from the top of the cliff. 

At the park, there was a section of games and rides for children and Flora really wanted to try out this jumping one. She was very excited at first, but then got scared if she jumped too high! 

After leaving the park, we stopped for a famous Huangang snack, on the way to dinner. haha

The snack was either black tofu or potatoes covered in a red sauce. The sauce was actually pretty good. I wound up like the food in this city much more than in Huangshi. Go figure! Thats me about to take my first taste of black tofu. It really wasn't bad. 

The top is tofu and the bottom is potatoes.

Camille about to be brave and take a bite. You can really see how black the tofu is in this picture. 

One more pose before the post ends! Hilarious! She is so cute and funy!

China: YEAR TWO!

Lesley Goes to China: ROUND TWO!

Hello dearest friends and family! I am back in China full swing for year two. I can’t believe its only been 2 weeks so far. We have been so busy these days that it feels like much more than that!

Mostly, we have been trying to get settled in and readjusted to life here, but it has been crazy from the very moment we landed in China. First off, on our flight from Shanghai to Wuhan, Camille and I wound up sitting next to the only other two foreigners on the plane and guess where they are from! Just guess! They are from Louisiana! What are the odds? They are both studying in Wuhan and were returning from their summer home in the states just like us! This kind of thing happens to us all the time, we are strangely always running into people from Louisiana and it is always such a Blessing to us!

We landed at midnight and our wonderful boss, Diana, picked us up from the airport and drove us back to Huangshi, a two-hour drive. Diana insisted on taking us to get something to eat when we got back so we ate street food at 3 in the morning! I couldn’t even make it one night without Chinese food and my stomach did not appreciate such a fast switch into China mode!

At the Lafayette airport wearing our panda neck pillows...those are cool in China, I swear! There were so many tears this day. I'm sure people were confused why these two girls were crying so much just to go to Dallas, only the first stop of many to get to China! 

All of the wonderful family who came to see me off for year 2!

I think that this year will be a lot easier than last year, because I have learned so much more about the culture and language since moving here. But there are still many changes. One of the biggest changes is that our school has moved. I am still teaching at the same school, it just has a new name (Huangshi No. 1 High School) and a new location. The school is brand new and incredibly huge, but it is out in the country about a 25-30 minute bus ride from the old school. The school is still under construction, and several parts of it are not ready, including the gymnasium and teacher apartments.

Because the school is so far from the city, and our current home, the school has provided a student dorm room for all of the teachers to use while at school. This means that during the lunch break, I could take a nap there or if I have early classes, I could just sleep at school. Pretty nice, right? Well, don’t get too excited yet! Camille and I have a dorm to ourselves, complete with 6 bunk beds that have a wooden mattress. Did you catch that part? Yes, I mean a literal plank of wood as the mattress! And the bathroom is located outside on the balcony, with a standard eastern style toilet, meaning a squatty potty. But is ok, we are used to that now. The outside bathroom should be pretty interesting experience in the wintertime, eh? I know it sounds pretty rough, but honestly once I got used to it, it really wasn’t so bad. Because I have early morning classes, I usually take the bus at 6:25 or 7:10 in the morning. I'm starting to fee like a real teacher, with these early mornings! I think this week, I will try spending my first night at school to get a break from the bus. I’m actually kind of excited about it! Maybe I’ll just think of it like going to camp!

Camille resting on her uber comfortable wooden bed!

This is our room, but this is exactly what the students' dorms look like. 

Outside bathroom.

SQUATTY POTTY!

Class wise, Camille and I are teaching Senior 1 classes and only the top 3 classes of Senior 2. We are quite disappointed about this because we were hoping to continue teaching our students from last year that are now senior 2.  We really love them and are currently pushing to get a few more classes put on our schedules! I have high hopes that it will happen! This will be my second week of teaching and it was exciting to meet all of the new students. Our former students are used to us now and treat us like normal people, which is fantastic, but the new students who met us for the first time last week were a wee bit excited. They clapped for us when we walked into class and I had to pose for tons of pictures and answer endless questions! The Senior 2 class that I taught last week was so excited to have me as their teacher again, that they lined up in the hallway before class so I would have to walk through them all as they clapped for me! haha it was so funny and slightly embarrassing! But I love them SO MUCH!

One of our offices, on the 5th floor of the teaching building. We actually have TWO offices, not that we need them, but the other one is in the admin building far from the classes. I don't have a picture yet. The school is so big that I hardly use the other office because I get tired of walking across campus. Plus, there are NO elevators so my legs are exhausted from climbing all of the stairs. Most days, I walk up about 30 flights of stairs!

View from my office!

Another from the office. This is library, but it is still under construction.

The gymnasium. Isn't beautiful out here?

The brand new track and field with stadium seats. This is by far the most beautiful campus in Huangshi!

This is an unused classroom. The school is so big that they don't even have enough students to fill up all of the classrooms. 

An unused science lab. They are hoping to have up to 5,000 students here in the future!

A bamboo ladder in the hallway, just a normal sight.

The teaching building where my office is.

Oh you know, just a temple on the mountain right behind the school. The usual!

Floor 1 of the cafeteria.

Floor 2. I will have to show pictures of what it looks like when thousands of students are all in here at one time! Its a zoo!

When we arrived at school for the first time this year, our old students were so excited to see us and we were just as happy to see them! A few students that we had a close relationship with even gave us hugs, which is unusual for Chinese people! Camille and I were thrilled at the display of affection and felt truly loved by the people here. We had both had such a rough time saying goodbye to all of our friends and family for the second time and these hugs made me feel like it was all worth it!  Even amidst all of the craziness that comes with daily life here – the noise, the language barrier, the crazy teaching schedules and bus rides – I still love this place. I know that this is a love that  can only come from the One who sent me here and it fills me with trust for His plan for this year and me! I can’t wait to see what happens! 

Another post coming soon about the day trip we went on with our boss's family!