Unexpected Conversation

I was wearing this shirt last night to English corner and it happened to prompt an unexpected conversation.

Student: "Is that your university?"

Me: "Yes. It's Texas Tech University."

Student: "Is that shirt a uniform?"

Volume 3, Issue 5

As the semester draws to a close, our thoughts are toward the future including summer plans and returning to China next year. Currently we are piecing together our summer schedule trying to arrange ways to see as many of you as possible. You have provided tremendous support and encouragement to our family and the students here in China. Please know that we appreciate each of you deeply and hope to express our appreciation to you personally this summer.

If you are not already, please prayerfully consider partnering together with the Father’s plans for this nation and joining the support team.

Inside Advanced Oral English

“So, you are an English teacher in China. What does that mean? What do you teach and how do you do it?”

I realized that many may not know what happens as an English teacher in China so I thought it would be cool to give you a peek into the classroom, from preparation to students. Advanced Oral English is a class that I could do anything with as long as the students are improving their spoken English and our organization provides a “Resource DVD” filled with curriculums from previous teachers. This semester, since my students’ English level is remarkable, I decided to challenge the students with weekly debates. Each week, the students are given a homework assignment to research information for the next week’s debate. The semester’s topics include the rising tuition costs, unemployment, gun control, examination based assessment, and internet censorship.

The class begins with a simple warm-up activity in which pairs of students talk together each giving their opinion on the topic (ex. Foreign educated Chinese have an obligation to return to their homeland upon graduation for the betterment of China) and the other student plays “Devil’s Advocate.” This activity really challenges the students to think outside the box and examine opinions contrary to their own. The class continues as we learn about the different aspects of the debate including resolutions and syllogisms (ex. Wars cause death and destruction; death and destruction are immoral; therefore, wars are immoral.) before we conclude the class with a formal debate pitting two pairs of students against each other.

We have found that by teaching the students to think critically inside the classroom, they are more likely to begin to think critically outside the classroom. The hope is that this deep thinking will eventually lead the students to question their worldview and examine/consider “the other side of the coin” including eternal matters.

72% of freshmen students responded ‘I am…none’ when asked what they believed; additionally 16% responded ‘I am atheist.’ ”
Freshmen Oral English class survey 2009

Jiaozi Birthday Party

While I'm on the video uploading kick, I may as well share the video from my birthday party earlier this month. We had several students over to make jiaozi. (You can read more about that here.)

Ever wonder how to make jiaozi, or much less what is jiaozi? Check out the video to find out.

Tuesday Morning Image

These eggs were colored by our students to celebrate the holiday this weekend. The holiday celebration was the first time for most of the students to hear the story behind the celebration. Please remember these seeds that were planted that they may grow into beautiful fruit.

Volume 3, Issue 4

Team HEU playing Settlers of Catan

Money to Burn

Today (April 5) is Qing Ming Jie, or Grave Sweeping Festival in China. The holiday is akin to Memorial Day in the states as a day to remember and honor your ancestors. But Qing Ming Jie is about so much more. Qing Ming Jie has religious overtones and turning honoring your ancestors into ancestor worship. In China many believe there ancestors' spirits enter a spirit world that still influences the living world. As a way to remain on the "good side" of these spirits, people burn items the spirits may need in the afterlife; the foremost item is money. Of course no one would burn real money, so vendors throughout town sell paper "hell money". The dead spirits may need other things as well including paper cars, houses, cell phones, bank books, or other paper items. The items are burned at intersections so the dead spirit can travel from any direction and receive the burned offering.

As we walked home observing all the fires burning to spirits my student explained what she thought about Qing Ming Jie. While she does not believe in the tradition, she said seeing all the fires made her afraid. She's afraid of ghosts and afraid a spirit might show up during the festival and scare her. I began to question if this fear actually meant that she did believe in the festival. If she really didn't believe, then she would have no reason to think a spirit might show up. So on one level, as with many Chinese, she does believe.

Upon hearing my birthday is on April 5th, many in China immediately respond with comments like “Oh, what a bad day to be born” or “That’s very unlucky.” I have come to like embrace the date of my birth because I couldn’t choose the date and it leads to an easy transition into a deeper topic. Qing Ming Jie traditions always prompt great conversations with Chinese. So thank you mom and dad for my birthday, because now I can always find a way to bring up the festival anytime of the year because it's always on/near my birthday!

Jiaozi Party


Students over to make jiaozi

We did get to celebrate my birthday with students. As an update on this semester’s goal of doing nothing alone, we have come a long ways. We currently have students over at least once a week and have another group over every week as well.

So for my birthday, a group of freshmen girls came over to cook a birthday meal. They arrived at 9:00 AM and immediately took M’Lynn out to buy the needed vegetables. Once they returned, the cooking began. They were making jiaozi (a traditional Chinese family food akin to boiled dumplings) and also dishes. Jiaozi making is an all day event. First they make the dough while another student chopped the ground pork and cabbage to a fine pulp. Next the dough is rolled out into little circles about the diameter of a small biscuit. Then the pork/cabbage filling is inserted into the circle and the dough is presses to make a dumpling. Finally the dumplings are boiled and served with a soy sauce/vinegar mix.

The students were great! It was amazing to hear one comment that it feels like they are at home in our apartment. We have been meeting with the students all semester and are beginning to see the trust level deepen. We are hopeful for the relationship to continue as the semester rolls on. They will be back here for Easter eggs…

Kanyon Corner


Reading Chinese by hand

Finally, but not least is a little update on the little man. He continues to climb most things including the couch and chairs and loves to read books. The newest addition to his toy box includes a basketball that was a gift to his papa that he just loves. His newest trick is climbing stairs. Up and down all day nonstop. If he notices some stairs while we are out for a walk, he immediately pulls us in that direction.

He doesn’t speak much yet, but can make some word sounds that we could swear sound like he is really speaking. The other day we were singing “Ol McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O” When we got to the next line we stopped to let him fill in the blank, “And on that farm, he had a ___.” And little Kanyon said something remarkably similar to “cow.” So it definitely won’t be long before he is talking up a storm.

Lunch and English Corner

I had lunch with a student today. It is the first of hopefully many times to the student cafeteria to eat, talk, and get to know the students outside of class. We talked about the getting to know you stuff about hometown foods, favorite sports teams, and the weather.

The talk turned interesting when we learned some of the Chinese traditions when it comes to food as gifts/superstition. Turns out that pig's feet are customarily given to new mothers when they are recovering with their baby. Somehow the pig's feet have good nutrition or maybe just some superstition. The mother doesn't get all the feet, because as we know the pig has four feet, so maybe we give the mother two and keep the other two for ourselves. Pig's feet are just too delicious to give them all away.

English corner is always fun to go and get the random conversations about anything. The topics today began on the Harbin Winter sports games for all university students worldwide (read China-wide, or maybe even Province-wide). We quickly ran out of a winter sports talk so we moved on to building a snow cave to survive, to backpacking, to preparing for bears, to hobbies, to student schedules, to pets, to food (snake is good, dog is bad), and then to my favorite topic model airplanes or more specifically model helicopters. He could talk for hours about this. And I even got to watch some videos of his Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift radio controlled drifting car drifting around his model helicopter. And yes a video of the helicopter flying. Not to mention the video of the student dressed in a suit ice skating. You just never know what you are getting into when you head outside in China.