From Grits to Chopsticks

In China, apartments are individually owned (like western condos).  So when our landlord needed to move back into his apartment, we had to find a new place to live.  Fortunately, we were able to find another apartment about 100 yards away in the same complex:Our new apartment is on the 16th floor near the top-center of the picture (the only one without a glassed-in porch).  Some friends welcomed us with flowers for Susan:This open porch will give everyone in the surrounding apartments a good view of the foreigners and their laundry.  The new apartment is not as nice as our old one and needed a lot of cleaning and repairs before we moved our stuff.  We spent a day cleaning the kitchen, the drain on the kitchen sink needed replacement,and some of the cabinet doors were loose and only attached with a single screw: The curtains were grimy, so Susan washed them, dried them on our old porch, and we re-hung them: The master bathroom needed a lot of help.  We pulled out the old sink and scraped/scrubbed the walls and floor:replaced the sink/vanity,and installed a light fixture (simple bare wires were protruding from the wall):Since the move was nearby, we transported a lot of stuff ourselves:For the big stuff, we hired “Ant movers” (notice how their truck looks like an ant from above): We still have a long way to go before the apartment becomes “home,” so we will be busy when we return to China next week!

A few weeks ago, local friends gave us some durian:

A durian could easily be used as a battle weapon – large, heavy and covered with very sharp spines.  Our friend told us there’s a saying that if your husband comes home late from work, he should kneel on one as punishment:Actually, the danger is not confined to the outside:

Wikipedia has this to say: “Some people regard the durian as having a pleasantly sweet fragrance; others find the aroma overpowering with an unpleasant odour. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust, and has been described variously as rotten onions, turpentine, and raw sewage.”We have been told that, if you eat enough of it, you will learn to love it:Some hotels in Asia prohibit bringing durian into the room:But Susan is resourceful; instead of letting it go to waste, she baked a loaf of durian bread (kind of like an “interesting” version of banana bread):

Actually, the bread isn’t too strange (if you ignore the aftertaste).  But we still have quite a ways to go before labeling ourselves as durian lovers…

If you were able to complete the title of this blog, you must be about 60 years old.  When Paul Simon recorded “One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor” 45 years ago, I never thought he was talking about our future in China:

When a person buys an apartment in China, it’s basically a unfinished concrete box.  In order to make it livable, it must be “decorated” – requiring several months of construction activity to install flooring, wiring, plumbing, a kitchen, etc.  Our upstairs neighbor recently hired “decorators,” and the hammer-drilling was often unbearable: click here to listen: Hammerdrilling

The deafening sound and vibrations make you wonder if the ceiling will collapse.  And one afternoon, a chunk of concrete did fall into our kitchen:

The construction worker came down, broke away the center piece, and wired a board up from above: He filled it with concrete, came back several days later, and plastered the gaps:

Other than the perennial rust spot where he flattened the wire, it doesn’t look too bad:

“It’s just apartment house rules
So all you ‘partment house fools
Remember: one man’s ceiling
Is another man’s floor.”

(Paul Simon, 1973)

It is hard to believe that we’ve been teaching here for seven years.  This year’s graduates were just starting High School when we first arrived in China.  The graduating class seemed larger than ever: Graduates 2017The faculty representatives marched in to the Star Wars theme (click to view -> Star Fleet Academy).

The spectators gallery was a bit sparse this year:We had ballet dancers from our school of arts:and a special presentation for a group of foreign graduates from Thailand: Some of my students have already started their International Trade jobs, so hopefully, they will be able to use skills learned in my classes! We were also invited to join the post-graduation class dinner:As with all “fancy dinners,” there was a plate of bacon and bugs:

and quite a bit of toasting:I was granted the honor of making the first cut into the graduation cake:and Susan received a nice bouquet of flowers:Time has passed and another year is swept away – we will miss these kids!

Last week, our Sunday afternoon walk took us along the north shore of Dianchi Lake:It was an unusually clear day, providing good views of the distant cliffs of Western Hills:We started our walk in a park where people were catching crawfish by hand,learning to sketch,dredging out seaweed, and scooping up critters:Outside of the park, the path narrows down to a small seawall:We walked on top of it, passing by fishermen,an old abandoned seafood restaurant,and casings of departed dragonflies.After a long hike through tall brush, we emerged in a decaying village area:with chickens and laundry:These places are quickly disappearing as China rushes into modernization.  When we walked along this canal a few years ago, this pile of rubble was a thriving village:Things change quickly in China.  Stay tuned to future blogs to see more…

Almost each week I have the privilege of eating lunch with some of my students.  Our school cafeteria has a quite a variety of options, and I enjoy having the students choose something for me so that I learn new foods: It’s really great to spend time with these special young people!

As a follow-up to my previous post about the flood of rental bikes in our city, we have finally been able to get my smartphone to unlock some bikes:Depending on the bike, it costs about 30 cents an hour to ride it anywhere in town and leave it wherever you choose.  We rode about 15 miles last Sunday afternoon on two different brands of bikes (ofo and MoBike): We rode through a nearby park (click here for the video:Biking in Park )At the end of the ride, the APP gives a map of your route and the final price:Surprise!  That weekend, the bikes were free!  Talk about cheap entertainment!

PS. Although the bikes can be parked anywhere, some people choose spots that are rather inconvenient…

And the oversupply problem is growing: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-05-21/chinas-oversupply-of-shared-bikes-clogging-up-city-streets/8543720

{Warning – the following post might not be suitable for typical readers. Proceed with caution unless you are an engineer!}

When living in a foreign country, it can often be difficult to replace things when they break (unavailable, language barriers, transportation limitations, etc).  That provides us with the “opportunity” to try and fix things.

Recently, there have been three “opportunities.”  The hinge pin on our portable oven door broke and I needed to rivet it back together – an easy fix.  Except, I needed a small washer to secure the end of the rivet and couldn’t just run down and get one at Home Depot.  Fortunately, one of our friends with a workshop made some on his drill press:

It was just the right size to secure the end of the rivet on the hinge:Everything worked great – sort of.  For some reason, the oven thermostat began to fail at the same time.  The elements eventually stayed on continually, creating a fire hazard (and making it difficult to cook dinner).  I took out the thermostat and wondered how to get a replacement:Interestingly, my friend with the workshop (also an engineer) happened to have an old broken oven.  He removed its thermostat and gave it to me, and I installed it into our oven:The good news is that it works OK.  The bad news is that the temperature settings are wrong (and non-linear).  Susan is able to use the oven, but she has to adjust the temperature based on a thermometer on the rack inside.

Another opportunity arose when white and black speckles began to spread across the screen while using our PowerPoint projector.  This is caused by failure of the DMD chip:Unfortunately, extracting the DMD chip was not a trivial task:You can buy a “nearly new” one on TaoBao (Chinese Ebay), but I’m wondering if it will have the same problems as my old one.  Hopefully, this job will only need to be done once…

I also took apart my Toshiba laptop to try and fix an overheating problem.  After cleaning everything and putting it all back together, it still wouldn’t startup.  Fortunately, a young friend found that the BIOS battery had failed and had it replace for $40.  After a week of reloading Windows on our slow internet, it’s almost ready for use!

In addition to our usual teaching responsibilities, we often have the opportunity to get involved with extra activities.  Last week, we participated in an “English Culture / Easter” presentation that was organized by a student committee:Student groups and individuals sang pop songs in English and Chinese:

played traditional Chinese instrumental music:and danced:

As usual, young children from the audience played in front of (and sometimes, on) the stage:

At the last minute, they asked if I would tell a short story about Easter.  I used an empty plastic egg to talk about the empty tomb:Also, this semester, a fellow faculty member is teaching a class about English speaking countries.  Our network of international friends has provided us with the opportunity to arrange guest speakers, including one from the UK:  and Canada: Each week, there is also an English Corner on campus, allowing teaching and small group interaction:It’s appropriate to end with a blurry photo – our daily life here is often very busy, leaving us in a blur!

As we travel around town, we often get a chuckle out of “interesting” uses of the English language (previous similar blogs are here and here).

This diaper brand name aptly describes what usually happens when changing your baby:

Not to be outdone, the competition chose a similar sounding name:

A “New Balance” shoe store just opened up across from our school back gate (in Chinese language, the word “xin” means “new”):

Interestingly, there is a strong cultural bias toward certain numbers.  This very popular number in China would rarely be used in a Western advertisement:

It’s quite rare to get a stack of pancakes in China, so I was interested to see this English idiom on an apartment advertisement:

Apparently, if you buy one of these apartments, you get a free ipone7 (but is it real?):

If you want to get the shape of your nuse adjusted, you might be careful before choosing this plastic surgery clinic:

While you’ve probably shopped at the most popular retail store in the world (with 60,000+ stores),

we will soon get to shop at it’s lesser known cousin down the street:

We only hope that it doesn’t forbid customers from bringing their rabbits inside (like our local grocery store):