Meeting the Mayor of Maizidian

Thursday night we were invited out to a New Year’s celebration at the Maizidian community centre. Maizidian is a sub-district of Beijing with about 35,000 people (although I suspect the actual number may be much more). The theme of the evening was, “The Olympics and Foreign Friends in Harmony for the Chinese New Year”. The stated intention was to introduce foreigners (of whom there are many in the area) to traditional Chinese culture and to help Maizidian citizens learn to speak English. We set off without any clear idea of what we were attending, but the evening turned out to be quite pleasant. We were directed to a table stacked with New Year’s treats and Chinese wine. Our tablemates were all Chinese and spoke very little English, but we smiled and gestured a lot. I exchanged business cards with several gentlemen. They seemed very concerned that I try as much of the food as possible. There were oranges, bananas, cooked sweet potatoes, odd tasting candy and what I would call sweet desserts but very strange. One was a coconut ball with bean curd inside, another was cold dough rolled around some sort of bitter spice and sticks of toffee fruits. I tried everything but didn’t have any seconds, except for the dumplings and wine! There were several traditional craftspeople making candy ornaments and also jianzhi (paper cuts).

Shortly after we arrived, the entertainment started. There was a juggler juggling a huge clay pot, a fashion show with middle-aged women in traditional dress, a dumpling-making competition, African and Greek folk dancers, a face-changer, a calligrapher and a magician. Eunice, one of our friends who teaches with us was called up by the magician to turn paper into money. You’ll see her in the pictures; she is wearing a white jacket. There was also a lot of media there, perhaps 12 or 15 professionals taking stills and video. Which explains how I came to be seated with the mayor. I was up taking pictures of the face-changing dancer and one of the mayor’s aides came and asked me if I liked dumplings. Next thing I knew I was eating dumplings at the head table next to the mayor. The accommodations at the head table were very nice – crystal, ivory chopsticks and gold edged plates. Anyway I ate several dumplings while the media clicked away, spoke with the mayor, toasted, exchanged cards, shook hands and smiled. I suspect I appeared on some morning news show – the white face with the mayor! Anyway, it was all very jolly; we had fun and were home around 10.

New Years celebrations are upon us in earnest; we have been hearing and seeing fireworks for about a week, but the pace is increasing. This morning we began hearing them at about 6 AM and they have been going off all morning. I feel a bit like I imagine our students felt at Christmas. I know there is a celebration, but I don’t know what to expect. We noticed some shops and restaurants closing earlier in the week as the owners and employees visit their families. I also noticed that there were more people in the streets with suitcases than usual. Most Chinese people we know are traveling home to their native village for the weekend. So it is just as well that we are leaving Beijing today as I think the whole town might close down for a day or two. We are leaving for the airport for a 5 PM flight to Hanoi. Xin Nian Kuaile, Happy Chinese New Year!

Beating the Winter Blues

We’ve been pretty focused on teaching for the last couple of weeks. Brenda says she is working far too hard for someone who is retired! We both agree on that, but we don’t know any other way to do it. Report cards went out two weeks ago and we have some chastened students. English continues to be a problem for many of our students and despite intensive ESL classes, it is becoming apparent that some of them will not grade. Or at least, they will not meet the Canadian standard for a pass; we don’t fool ourselves about how the profit motive may affect final grades.

However, after a week of serious faces, last week was our winter carnival at school and we worked hard at building school spirit, wearing funny costumes and teaching students how to have fun, Canadian-style. One of the things we have noticed about our classes is that they are not very responsive, but I think we made a bit of progress with participation this past week. Our little middle-high school group of about 80 students is really starting to feel like a school. I’ll include some pictures of me as a superhero, TechMan, and a hippie.

We have had a few interesting adventures. Last weekend we went to a huge tea market and purchased some tea and some teapots and such. One of the school secretaries knows a lot about tea and she has been teaching us about it. It is no simple subject and comes in many different varieties – oolong tea, pue-er tea, green tea, jasmine tea etc. There are all kinds of herbal teas and flavoured teas too with many different claims from weight loss to beauty! Some of the teas are quite old and quite expensive and are purchased as an investment like stamps or paintings. The flower teas that are flavoured with flower blossoms fascinated me. When you pour the hot water on them, the dried blossoms puff up and twirl in the water – very pretty and tasty too. The ladies spent hours tasting and looking; luckily for me there was a huge photography mall on the top floor of the market so I spent a hour or so up there ogling cameras both old and new – some amazing bargains on collectibles – Leicas and Rolleiflexes and roll film cameras. I was tempted but ended up spending $10 on a portable reflector to use with my students. I am teaching photography now to two classes – what a surprise! They are working on a photo essay on Beijing, which is a joint project with River Valley MS. We have had a field trip around the school neighbourhood and I hope to get them further a field after the break.

The weather has been great for the last week. It feels like winter is over. The highs have been 10 – 15 degrees Celsius; the kids have been playing on the field at noon in shirtsleeves. This morning, Brenda and I went for a walk in Chaoyang Park, a huge park behind the school; we started in ski jackets and we had to unzip before long and I just stuffed my jacket into my backpack for the walk home. This has been a golf weekend for me; there is an organization called Beijing Golfers Club which runs weekly tournaments here. I signed up for their first event of the season – the Polar Classic on March 3. From what I can gather most of the courses open after the New Year holiday, which means the first of March. I also went to a nearby golf course and driving range with a group of teachers. I didn’t know it was there, but it is only about 3 kilometers from the school. It is a little 9 hole executive course and a driving range in the midst of a forest of apartment buildings so that is quite handy! We pounded balls for about an hour again in our shirtsleeves.

This upcoming week is the last one before the New Years holiday; it is the year of the pig! We are going to Hanoi, Vietnam and the Ankor Wat temples at Siem Reap, Cambodia and Phnom Phen, Cambodia. I think this trip will be less western than anything we have seen. We need to get some American currency as well because apparently it is more readily exchanged than the local currency. I am planning to leave my laptop behind on this trip, so news may be a bit sporadic until we get back on February 26th. Happy New Year!