From Grits to Chopsticks

We’ve heard that the northeast US is digging out from a blizzard and that the Atlanta area still has snow on the ground from a very rare white Christmas.  So depending on where you live, 46 degrees might sound pretty balmy.  But not for those of us who live in the unheated homes south of the Yangtze river.  […]

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Our school year is drawing to a close and final exams will begin next week.  After they finish exams, most of our students will head to their hometowns for spring festival break (about 6 weeks long!).  Today, we held our final English Corner of this school term.  This time, Angie volunteered to lead the lesson about Christmas.  […]

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We’re thankful our son, Stephen, chose to visit us this month.  He arrived after 11:00pm on the 7th, and in spite of jet lag, joined us for lunch with students the next day.  He was just a “tad” taller than they were: He then went to Mark’s school and attended his afternoon class: Over the next few days, […]

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We want to mention one more little detail about our visit with Timothy.  One night while we were sleeping in his apartment, we had a guest who helped himself to a bite of a banana that was left on the table: It was a rat!  How do we know?  Timothy has seen their tails and […]

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In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a special day for “Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father.”  In his proclamation, he invited all Americans to give thanks, including “those who are sojourning in foreign lands.”  We were privileged to travel an hour north by plane and join other sojourners around a wonderful table of thanksgiving: It was so good to spend […]

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Based on historical accounts, it is very possible that the “fowl” on the table during the first Thanksgiving in 1621 was actually a duck, not a turkey.  In order to accurately re-create this first Thanksgiving experience for our students (also, because you can’t get a turkey in our city yet), we had a Beijing Duck […]

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You see some of the craziest things printed on tee shirts in our town.  We often laugh at the mixed messages and confused “chinglish” on the shirts, most of which are probably not understood by the wearer.  While walking to a meeting a few months ago, we saw this girl wearing a shirt that spoke […]

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When my dad went to work for the DuPont company over 50 years ago, he joined a “safety culture” that did everything possible to avoid on-the-job injuries.  That culture found its way home in 1963 when he drilled holes in the floorboard of our old Studebaker and bolted in some seatbelts, adding a new measure of closeness to our family of seven.  So […]

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Since some of the girls at our English Corner were interested in learning how to cook American food, our friend Angie invited them over to her apartment to cook lasagne.  While it’s probably not technically “American food,”  it’s certainly more American than the “squid on a stick” that we saw at the park yesterday: But I digress.  Chinese […]

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Our students here are very friendly and seem glad to help us.  Last Saturday, three came to our apartment to fix a traditional Chinese meal of dumplings, fish soup, and fried eggplant.  Growing up in China, most guys and girls are trained to cook.  They all seem good at chopping with giant meat cleavers: The dumplings are stuffed with […]

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