Moving On

Good news, train tickets can be exchanged without too much trouble in China. Yeah! We will go to Beijing the day before our plane leaves for Anhui and enjoy that yummy Western food and visit the coveted Foriegn Language Bookstore.

The semester is almost over...3 classes left to teach!
I had a moving experience with my class. I teach mostly faculty so they can further study abroad or people from abroad can work in their labs. I thinkit's a great program that they offer for the staff, I wish I had a job where my employer wants the whole company to speak another language and they invest in training classes for us. Oh wait I have that job, let me say I wish in America I had that opportunity. Anyway I also teach 2 classes of students. They are just there to better their English speaking skills. There are no grades, that part I love! Knowledge for the sake of knowledge, wow! Anyway, in one of my student classes, they are a sweet bunch of students, very honest and open. So we were talking about names and then we got on the subject of adoption. And one of the students told me how she had read a book about a girl being transracially adopted. The girl used make up because she wanted to look like her mom. So I said, oh yeah. It will be a difficult thing to be adopted out of your culture and race. I told them how just the week before princess blue eyed/blonde hair feels lost here in China where everyone has black hair and brown eyes. She took the black marker and colored her hands and her hair and legs. They said, she wants to be black? I said, noooo, she wants to be like everyone else, we didn't have the exact skin tone marker and she just wanted not to be different. So then they asked where little guy was born in a village or city. So I was honest and said I don't know, and talked how maybe because it is illegal to abandon kids that maybe the people rode the train from one place to another and left him in a different city, I don't know. I thought that sounded callous and so I reworded and said, "in my heart, I can't believe that this was done with malice. I think it was done out of poverty and lack of education. I think they loved him and when they realized he was deaf, they didn't know what to do. In fact maybe it wasn't even the parents, it could have been the grandparents. Maybe they got pregnant again and decided they couldn't afford him. And what's just as sad is maybe he's deaf because of mercury piosoning. Maybe his mom thought she should eat lots of fish and the fish contained mercury. Even in the USA there are cases of deafness associated with eating too much tuna. So here is someone trying to do the best for their baby and it causes this, what caused the mercury in the fish, environmental pollution, who buys the things the things cause the pollution, its all so sad. I don't think any of this was done out of malice." So I look up and 3 of the students eyes are brimming with tears. The only guy in the class had one running down his check. I was so moved that they were moved. So, I said we are glad to be getting him, and moved on to the class topic.
The summer palace is a nice cool place to visit in Beijing. Incredible buildings, a lake, Temples and trees. We even saw a traditonal style singer playing in a courtyard. Our student guide did not like his music. Despite the crowds our young princess charmed a shopkeeper into giving her a free drum. I think that only could have happened in China, people are so nice here. Teenager did not visit the palace last year, she had a bad experience with something she ate and stayed at the hotel. Maybe she will visit it this year.

Harbin, China