Snow Dome

This is what my school looked like this morning, from the third floor balcony, looking over the entrance toward the street.  The snow is still falling, and it seems to be getting heavier.

Stay warm.

Valentine's Day

First, to my mother:  Happy Birthday!  I hope you enjoy your present, and the company of those you love.  I wish I could be with you to share it, but know that I am thinking of you.  Hopefully I can call you later.

As I write this, my mother's birthday is just beginning where she is, but for me (some 16 hours ahead by the magic of time zones), it is drawing to a close.  The rest of the world knows this as St. Valentine's Day.  Now, this originated as a Christian holiday, and is still known as a Western holiday, but even in China it is recognized (at least by the younger generation) as a time for couples to celebrate their relationship.  Then, how is it that I will not be spending it with my sweetie?

Well, it's also the week of Chun Jie, a.k.a. Chinese New Year or Spring Festival.  My girlfriend's hometown and parents are in another city, some 3 hours away by train or 6 hours by bus.  I reminded her repeatedly to come back in time for today, but she delayed purchasing a train or bus ticket until it was too late, and she won't be back until Saturday.

So, tell me:  What would be appropriate consequences for a girlfriend who, through poor planning/time management, fails to meet her boyfriend for Valentines's day?  Besides her making me dinner, and cleaning up afterwards, of course.  She'll already be doing that.  Thoughts, anyone?

Correction: The PRC Does Regulate Fireworks

In my last post, if you remember, I talked about the Chinese cultural obsession with fireworks, and the apparent dearth of regulation or restriction on the sale or use of such dangerous pyrotechnics.  Later that evening, when I went out to buy some bananas for my morning cereal, I found evidence that there are in fact restrictions on the sale and use of fireworks in China.  Here it is, photographed this morning.

The 1st photo shows the full set of posters, which have been put up at the end of my apartment building, within the past couple of days.

The 2nd photo apparently shows a list of three "No-no's" with regard to fireworks.  However, the pictures seem unclear to me, and I don't clearly recognize enough of the characters to make more than a guess at what it says.

The 3rd photo is much clearer.  These are obviously places where fireworks are not allowed.  (1) No fireworks next to a hospital.  (2) No fireworks under power lines.  (3) No fireworks next to public...what exactly?  It's a picture of a Buddhist temple or pagoda, and the first character means something like "public".  Any guesses?  (4) No fireworks next to gas stations.  (5) No fireworks on airplanes.  (6) No fireworks next to high-rise buildings.  (I've seen this one broken.)  (7) No fireworks in the woods.

(Understand that here, exploding rockets and powerful/loud firecrackers are available for private use without a pyrotechnics license.)

The 4th photo seems to be a list of regulations.  But, as I can only read the numbers, it doesn't help me much.

The 5th photo seems to be a warning to buy your fireworks from a licensed vendor.  Fair enough.

The 6th photo doesn't seem to have any more regulations, merely a reminder to have a happy (and presumably safe) Chun Jie.  I can't tell for sure.

So, I was wrong.  There are regulations on fireworks in China.  They are merely more permissive than fireworks regulations in California, outside of native reservations (and perhaps Chinatown?).

P.S.  Fireworks can be purchased here at any time of the year, not just during the festival season.  So, next 4th of July, I'm definitely celebrating with fireworks.  Just try and stop me.

Chinese New Year

Well, it's been a while since my last blog entry.  Part of the problem has been a lack of time, but, more importantly, I've had difficulty accessing Blogger even when I did have time to try.  I have recently been able to set something up that may make it easier.  We'll see how it goes.

When last I posted, I was working for Wuxi Korean School, an accredited international school in Wuxi New District, run by the South Korean Chamber of Commerce, and serving South Korean families working in Wuxi and Suzhou.  It seemed pretty good at the time.  The pay was quite good, the hours were good, and the curriculum was not bad.  I had been warned by word of mouth that the management was a little funny, but it seemed OK when I started the job.

Others may have different accounts of this, but, from my perspective (and those of my colleagues), it became apparent that the administration did not provide the necessary discipline options for managing a class of middle-school students.  With no sufficiently deterrent punishments at my disposal, many students quickly realized that they could do pretty much what they liked, short of actual violence against the teacher.  Well, eventually, my frustrated attempts to control them by psychological means crossed an invisible line, and the school decided that they didn't want to work with me any more.  After thinking it over, I decided that the feeling was mutual.

Fortunately, a better job was not too difficult to find.  Wuxi International Child Care is right down the road, and they had an ad on Dave's ESL Café for a preschool/kindergarten teacher.  Rather than responding to the ad by e-mail, I simply walked down the road and spoke to Samantha, who was very friendly and very open to working with me.  A tour of the school, a demo class, a final interview with Tony (the head of operations), and I was hired to teach a Toddler class.  The pay is fairly good, the teaching demands are moderate, and the environment is less stressful than any I've seen before.  I do have to help the children manage their ADL's, but that's OK.

As an added bonus, since I'm working with very little children, my spoken Chinese skills are improving.  These kids are mostly too young to use English for communication, and even their Chinese is very simple.  My colleagues also use simple Chinese when speaking with them, so as a result I can pick up more words.  I am allowed to use Chinese in the classroom (although not during lesson time), as long as I accompany it with the equivalent in English.

As most of you probably know, Sunday was the first day of the Lunar New Year, as observed in traditional Asian cultures like China and Korea.  Here they call it Spring Festival (because "Spring is coming"), or Chun Jie in Chinese.  This is the last week of my three-week holiday from school.  I've mostly been trying to relax.  As long as my girlfriend Sophie was in town, she wanted to spend it going out and going shopping (although I tried to restrict the actual buying of anything expensive).  Since she's gone to Xuzhou for about a week to visit her family, I've had some time to relax, read, knit, and do some laundry.  Not bad, really, except for the fireworks at night.

Oh, yeah, the fireworks.  As I may have mentioned before, Chinese like to celebrate everything with fireworks.  Birthdays, weddings, funerals, starting/reopening a business, moving in to a new residence (this may be more of a pagan superstition), and any and all festivals, especially Chun Jie.  Fireworks that would be professional grade in California are available for private purchase and use here, with apparently little or no restriction but that of how much money you want to spend.

So, at midnight of Chun Jie, and again the following evening, many families set off firecrackers and rockets.  In an older neighborhood it's quite impressive; like 4th of July times 100.  I saw (and heard) it last year.  This will also happen to a lesser extent every evening this week.  Here in my newer "international" residential complex, it's not so intense, but it still would make it hard to get to sleep early.

Since I'm on a "stay-cation" this doesn't bother me too much, but I'm going to try to get my sleep schedule back to school-time standard before school starts.  Mostly it'll be a matter of forcing myself to get up at a reasonable hour, instead of sleeping in to almost noon.

Knitting

I've been working on a grey version of Hanna Cuviello's Saxony Scarf for Sophie.  As some of you may know, I knit an off-white version for myself while I was still living in California.  Here it's hard for me to get appropriate yarn for this, so I had to ask my mother to send me some (Thanks, Mom!) as well as the pattern, which may be found in the Holiday 2010 edition of Interweave Knits Gifts, in the "Big Yarn" section, pp. 95-97.  The prescribed yarn was hard to get, so I'm using Cascade Yarns Baby Alpaca Chunky, color 554, "Koala".  My mother was an angel and balled it up for me before she re-mailed it, since I don't have a swift or wool winder here.  The yarn label calls for US size 10 needles, which is, I believe, what I used last time (some straights from my mom's collection).  This time I'm using size 11, as the pattern calls for, some nice resin-impregnated bamboo DPNs with caps on the ends so I can use them as straights.  (I'm not swatching for gauge.  How could a scarf not fit?)  The pattern often calls for two cable needles used simultaneously, which I don't have; I just use some extra DPNs  from the same set, which works pretty well.

My mother, hopefully having done some yarn math, and being a generous mom, sent me six balls.  In truth, I used almost two for the first half (it's an invisible-cast-on, center-out pattern), which should leave me two left over.  (Hats, anyone?)  I hope I can get it done while there's still some cold weather left for Sophie to wear it in this season.

Prayer Requests

Please pray for my relationship with Sophie.  We love each other dearly, but communication is sometimes difficult.  Her English is at the Intermediate level, which is good enough to communicate effectively if you try, but it's not always easy.  In fact, I would say it's never easy for her, and when she's tired, often she'd rather not speak at all (in any language).  This makes me wonder if our relationship has a real future, but she still seems to think that, after having been together for more than 6 months, we should be making marriage plans.

Well, I had a relationship before her, that lasted about a year, and in the end it became clear that it was not going to work out.  Here the issues are different, but I still have doubts.  I will work on it.  Please pray for wisdom and discernment for me, and that we would be able to honor God with our relationship.