Engagements, Hospitality and the Seaside...

If you have been following my blog posts, you know I am a big fan of my Chinese students. So prepare yourself for a little bit more about them in today's post.

One of the things I enjoy about my students is their willingness to engage in classroom activities that I concoct. You may recall from an earlier post (Travel is Fatal to Prejudice, Bigotry, and Narrow-Mindedness..., 11/8/2018) where I gave a lesson on stereotypes -- what Chinese students thought Americans were like, and what they thought Americans thought the Chinese are like. I was thrilled with their enthusiastic engagement in the process.

This past month, I taught a couple lessons that required high levels of student involvement...and the students did not disappoint me. When I teach, I often teach about American culture (they crave information about America and Americans!)...my lessons always include opportunities for the students to speak with one another in English -- practice, practice, practice.

The first activity we did was called Running Dictation. I had a very short story -- six sentences. I put each of the sentences on a strip of paper, and then placed them on a desk, but I placed them out of order. My students were divided into teams of four...one person was designated as the reader / memorizer, and another student was selected as the scribe for the team. The reader had to come up to the desk and memorize one of the sentences (all in English, of course), then run back to his/her team and tell the scribe the sentence. They repeated that until they had all the sentences transcribed. Then the team had to unscramble the story and put the six sentences in order. The winning team received a fabulous prize from the teacher (candy).

As mentioned, the students were enthusiastically engaged, some running from their team to the front of the room, then back. Here's a short (< one minute) video of the activity (there were a couple of near-collisions before I fired up my phone video recorder):

Chinese Students engaging in classroom activity

Dating is seldom part of a young Chinese person's adolescent years. In fact, out of 265 students this semester (six classes), I would say fewer than thirty have ever had even one first date. Their teenage years are spent studying, studying, studying, and preparing for the national Gao Kao (college entrance exam). And their parents expect that same attention to academics and the same level of study to continue at the university level, and so continue to discourage their children from dating while in college.

So I did another cultural lesson, this one about dating in America. As part of the lesson, I explained Speed Dating, and showed a short video clip of a speed dating session. Then I had all my kids go outside and participate in a Speed Dating session. The video below shows one of my classes engaged in the activity. You'll note the obvious enthusiasm and fun they were having. (Note: most of my classes have very few boys, so each class -- including this one -- had to have girls pretend they were boys.)  And yes, I had to remind about half of them to speak English!  :-) 

 Chinese students participating in Speed Dating Activity

Last semester, I made friends with a Chinese citizen (Qiao Hong) who also teaches at our university. Once I introduced her to Bonita, they became BFFs, and they have done many things together. She lived in America during a three-year sabbatical, and was so thankful for friendly, warm American friends she made there, that she sought the opportunity to return the favor when she returned to China. When she learned we wanted to go to Qingdao, a beautiful seaside city 225 miles from Jinan, she told us her husband was working in Qingdao (pronounced Ching-Dow) and had a flat there. She said, "Let's go to Qingdao, and you can stay with us!" So last week we spent a three-day weekend with them, and it was a tremendous delight. (FYI -- it is not uncommon for one spouse to work many miles from home, returning to his home and family only occasionally throughout the year.)  Here is a picture of the Han family:

Qiao Hong, Helena and Han Kao Kong -- good friends!

Helena (sorry, I didn't get her Chinese name) is their daughter, and had just returned from her freshman year at Ohio State University. We were there when she saw her father for the first time in a year, and it was a sweet experience to see their reunion, and their subsequent closeness while we were there. It was nice to stay with this Chinese family in their home. Mr. Han was over-the-top hospitable -- making sure our stay was pleasant and comfortable, and that we had enough to eat (and eat and eat!). Our friend Hong served as our tour guide and we went...and went...and went to places to see in Qingdao. (We walked nearly 21 miles in two and a half days!)

We will long remember the warmth and sincerity of the Han / Qiao family hospitality.

Qingdao is a beautiful little seaside city (population: 5.8 million) on the Pacific Ocean.  Here are a few pictures from our Qingdao adventure:

Bonita loves, loves, loves the ocean.  Here she is in her happy place:

                                             Daniel and Bonita on the rocks in Qingdao.

This older gent's granddaughter approached me and explained that she had brought her grandparents from the countryside to Qingdao for a visit (their first time to a large city), and her grandfather was wondering if he could take a picture with me, as he had never seen a foreigner before! I was able to practice my Chinese with him...and even though it was a short conversation, he understood me and I understood him.

And a picture of the older gent and his lovely bride.

And now a few more random pictures:

We often see groups of old men gathered on street corners and in parks, watching a game that is going on:

We saw another crowd about a half-block away and our tour guide (Hong) suggested we get a closer look:

Hong explained the game was sort of like chess.

As we are nearing the end of our semester here (sigh), a group of my students wanted to take Bonita and me to dinner. We met them at a barbecue place near their campus, and had a delicious meal and wonderful association with them. As a group, they are some of my favorite students. These six gals are all roommates (and as you may have learned from previous posts, that is usually the case -- my classes are made up of seven or eight six-roommate groups). Here's the restaurant:

Here's the meal (after we'd put a serious dent in it). It consisted of roasted peanuts in a delicious sauce, skewers with fish, pork and chicken (all delicious), mushrooms, a yummy soup with lots of good things in it (and a bit of a kick!), and rice, eggs and vegetables all together. All of it was great.

On our trip to Qingdao the week before, one of our meals consisted of abalone, jelly fish, squid, octopus, cuttle fish and donkey...I liked this meal much better (although the abalone was superb!).

And here are the gals -- my cute students!

Berry, Icy, Amy, Bonita, DQ, Albus (yes, after Dumbledore!), Coco and Nicole.

I'd like to bring a couple of these gals home with me in my carry-ons, but I think there are laws against that.

Until our next visit: Zai jian! (Goodbye / see you.)