Obama Chocolate: The (Obligatory?) Elections Post

First Tuesday in November every four years brings so much action via social media. (I'm going to have to stay off Facebook for the rest of the week to maintain any semblance of sanity. The bickering, arguing, debating, and snide remarks drive me nuts.)  That said... here's my "social media" contribution, for those who are wondering what the political climate is like in my international community bubble as of late...

As soon as the election results tipped the scale of electoral votes in Obama's undefeated favor, tallying more than 270 electoral votes and the majority of the popular vote (by a narrow margin, at that point in the ballot count), cheering and screaming for joy (literally) echoed through the halls of AIAN. It's a good day to be a U.S. citizen living abroad.

During my departmental (world language dept) after-school meeting, a mini celebration was thrown by my French-Canadian and Chinese colleagues for the two of us U.S. citizens present (out of eight people). They insisted on CHOCOLATE cake, in honor of Obama's four more years to come. (I've observed that Chinese are not afraid of being overtlyfactual about race and color--much like some latinos I have encountered.)

Celebratory cake at our meeting!

I thanked my international friends for the cake, and they profusely thanked me for the reason to celebrate, and for my vote. It struck me again just how important my vote is not only to have the freedom to "voice" and submit my say that theoretically impacts the direction of our country, but also the impact and influence our U.S. politics have on a large majority of the rest of the world. Not to mention that the WA state elections this year were a doosie, and mighty important to be voting on big hot-topic matters as well: legalizing pot, gay marriage, charter school issues, and many local and state positions up for (re)election.

Reflection time... I've voted via overseas absentee ballottwo presidential elections in a row. How interesting that I have been able to vote (via absentee ballot methods) forthe same man twice now: first from Costa Rica in 2008, (then again during thiselection's primaries when I was living in CR for a second time), and now fromChina! Thanks to technology for making absentee (online/electronic)ballot submission a possibility in this election! Mailing an absentee ballot from China is notas easy as it was from CR (and that's really saying something!).

The Halloween Post

Kari expressed it well: (put this jingle to music...)

Halloween is the holiday that will not end. 

It just keeps going on and on my friends.

Some people started celebrating not knowing what it was, 

and now they just keep celebrating it, forever and ever and ever... just because ...

I think this year's festivities are the most drawn-out celebrations for an event that I classify as a non-holiday. (As a matter of my opinion, at least, I don't think Halloween is a true "holiday"; there's no vacation time, and it's not really CELEBRATING anything, other than giving an awesome reason to creatively adorn yourself in fantastic character fashion.)

Note of clarification: Halloween was celebrated here in Beilun by many in the international/expat community, and is not to be confused with our AIAN school celebration of UN Day. My last blog post was talking about UN Day--not Halloween. UN Day celebrates international cultures, while Halloween is, well, Halloween. Candy and parties and costumes. (Though yes, we did dress up in various cultural garb with which we associated and attributed to our "home" countries, so it could be seen as another "dress up" or "costume" day).

Some of you have asked about whether/why Halloween is celebrated here in China. It is considered an "American" holiday, as media and globalization spread cultures, the reach of Halloween traditions and celebrations have traveled to far corners of the globe. Yes, Día de los Muertos, labeled predominantly as a Central American "Day of the Dead" is a semi-spiritual holiday in some cultures, celebrated around the same time as Halloween. All Saints Day, a Christian holiday, is also celebrated around the same time. But let's not get into lessons of history or religion right now. I digress.

Basically, my point is that AIAN is an American-based (American curriculum) international school, and so Halloween is celebrated amongst our teachers and students here. Any excuse to dress up. (Furthermore, in the larger Beilun and Ningbo city communities, any reason to dress up and go out to a bar to have a good time--albeit even on a weeknight--is a great reason. So why not party it up Halloween style?!)

The PTA moms came to school mid-October and decorated the entryway and stairwell in a matter of hours. Take a look:

Rats on the stairs and masks on the bulletin board
from Family Picnic Day (Oct. 13)

Tombstones are tradition here at AIAN. The PTA had "spies" (aka their children)
help with the epitaphs this year. Mine was right on.
PULLING ANSWERS OUT OF TEENAGERS.... GRRR!

So, our Halloween celebrations began last Saturday really. Some Chilean friends of ours were hosting a family costume Halloween party. The mom goes all-out on decorating their apartment and being an awesome hostess. We love this family. We continued our party at a local bar, where we carried on in our costumes of Bat(wo)man (me) and Robin (Clara) and a gypsy (Kari) and a Día de los Muertos skeleton (Kate, another fellow AIAN teacher-MS Science). Long night.

We were a superhero set: Bat(wo)man, Batman (the son of the party hosts), and Robin

Kate was a Día de los Muertos calavera (skull/skeleton)
and I composed a gypsy outfit for Kari to slip into
(the bottom half really made the outfit, so it's a shame
I didn't get the genie pants and jingle skirt in this shot)

Then Wednesday at school was Halloween. Some students dressed in costume all day. I went to school as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz... which apparently is NOT a known story over here in Asia. So I got to tell and re-tell the story that I know oh-so-well to all of my elves in class. Good storytelling/listening activity that actually kept them entertained! I carried around Kari's childhood stuffed animal (her "Brown Sugar" doggie), and Kari was the Cowardly Lion. The kids loved us.

Ms. Lichten (Dorothy),
Kari's Brown Sugar stuffed dog ("Toto"),
and Ms. Lanham (Cowardly Lion) 

We had a shortened schedule (each period cut 5 minutes), in order to use the last hour of the day at school for a school-wide parade and Halloween festivities. Don't get me started on the issue of using school time to celebrate a frivolous holiday. Let's get our kids all jacked up on sugar and hyper and forget about why we are at school! Kids were so confused and exhausted of all the changes in the schedule that week! (And this week we have our first-Wednesday-of-the-month "regular" early release day, to add further confusion to the mix!)

School costume parade around the track. There were A LOT of witches, vampires, spiders, goths, and magicians

During the parade, we found our witch and broomstick--
no joke, this is what the Ayis (cleaning staff)
use as a broom to sweep/rake leaves around campus.

That night, we "followed the yellow brick road" and went out to the local bar's costume-themed night, where throngs of local and foreign/expats made appearances as a variety of characters. Kari and I kept our Oz-themed outfits, and Kate and Clara joined in as the Tin(wo)man and Scarecrow, respectively. Dancey times and games to be had. But alas, I tried to turn in early, as it was a school night!

Tin(wo)man Kate, me as Dorothy (with Brown Sugar making another appearance as "Toto"),
Clara as the scarecrow, and Kari as the Cowardly Lion

Thursday, was back to the "normal" school schedule, thankfully, after so much irregularity and festivities of UN Day and Halloween within such a short span of time. Kari accurately reflected, "Okay Toto, we're back in Kansas now. Time to go back to work for just a real, typical, normal school day."

Friday, we were invited to a night of Día de los Muertos poetry reading and costumes (read: calavera/skull face paint)... get this... at a Greek restaurant in Ningbo. Unfortunately, we were costumed out and just needed a chill night to relax and catch up with friends here in Beilun.

Wandering in Ningbo... sightseeing and heading to markets. Family portrait on the bridge.

But to top things off, the week culminated in an Oktoberfest in Ningbo. On Saturday, we went shopping and spent the afternoon in Ningbo, and then passed the evening at Oktoberfest at the Howard Johnson hotel. We have friends in the band that plays there every year. Though we didn't have to dress up for this festival, we were pretty envious of the Lederhosen outfits and German/Bavarian dresses, wishing for ones of our own. The irony of the evening spent at Oktoberfest wasn't lost on us:

1. It is no longer October.
2. We are in China, celebrating a German festival/tradition.
3. We are not Chinese, nor are we German. We are four American girls (all products of Western WA upbringing).
4. We speak neither German nor Chinese languages fluently.
5. We sang and danced to German and Asian (Chinese and Korean!) tunes, such as Gangnam Style, which is to a Korean song.

I know it's pixelated (blame it on the phone's front camera... poor resolution)
But this was the food part of Oktoberfest...

It was truly a fun evening, despite all the cigarette smoke (how are the Chinese considered to be "healthy" when the large majority smokes like chimney stacks, and the rest are smothered in secondhand smoke?

For those who are interested in seeing more photos, here's the LINK to Kari's blogpost on Halloween.

UN Day & All-Nighter Lock-In

Our school, being an international school, celebrates United Nations Day... though many of us wish for the title of "UN" to be changed to "International Cultures," so that students from places such as Taiwan can be recognized and celebrate the pride they have in their culture and region (Taiwanese are not allowed to proclaim sovereignty from mainland China; Chinese look down upon independently recognizing Taiwan's own flag). PC. But fair to our students who want to celebrate specific cultures, such as Hawaii (which is not a sovereign nation or kingdom of its own anymore).

Friday was our UN Day celebration. We cancelled classes for the day, and festivities ensued...

... a play and musical presentation about diversity:

... a parade of traditional dress/attire (some of the historical and cultural costumes were pretty elaborate and spectacular:

With some of our Chinese staff in their traditional garb

... a community-focused art project, in conjunction with the Sunshine School, which is a local school for students with disabilities. The art project was to create banners with phrases about "global community." The kids were put in groups comprised of mixed ages, grades 1-12, as well as students from Sunshine. After group brainstorming, they creatively designed banners with phrases of what "global community" means to them. Some were pretty poetic and very colorful (mixed media). Our art teacher is pretty ingenious. These banners will be sent away to be made into stickers, which will then go on the stairs of our school. (where the Halloween decoration of the rats are on the steps right now)

Art supplies and painted decorated banner papers in the background

Rats and Halloween decor that is currently on our stair steps

Sample banner that got put up on one of the stairs today

... an international food potluck, which was, of course, the best part of the day!!! Tasty foods from all over the world--Korea (kim chi, desserts), Japan (sushi, yakisoba), China (seafood and a little bit of everything, rice desserts, noodles, etc.), U.S. (baked mac and cheese and Starbursts, haha), Chile (cakes, desserts), Germany (more delicious desserts), Iranian/Persian (meat sauces and bread), Indian (fry breads with mango chutney, ), Thai (peanut sauce salad), and more!

So many international foods!!!

(We had to sample some of nearly everything!)

...followed by ending the school day with age-separated activities (elementary did country presentations, middle school broke up and did grade-level presentations in rotations, and high school listened to guest speakers and wrote pledges discussing the new UN Charter for Day of the Girl).

2nd grade: Korean, Chinese, German, and various other nationalities of children
doing a Hawaiian dance. That's diversity!

As if UN Day was not enough excitement, Friday night was the high school StuCo (Student Council)-sponsored all-nighter lock-in event. First, I took a 20-minute nap Friday in between UN Day and the start of the Lock-In. And then I chaperoned the all-nighter.  They showed a movie, ate dinner, and then we had a murder mystery drama. Yes, I was recruited to be one of the main characters. It was all fun and games, involving lots of AIAN (school) drama between teachers, PTA members, and students. None of the teams really solved the mystery of who the murderer was (it wasn't me though!), but all of them came up with very creative, complicated, and twisted accusations.

Roundabout 2am. 17 of the 29 were zonked.

Then came zombies vs. humans, and I was in for a long night of chaperoning ahead. I only had two zombie casualties to take care of (not too much blood and gore, and no lawsuits, thankfully). The night was anything but boring. Then came sardines, card games, movies, the giddy screaming and running around halls at night, candy, cookies, sugar sprints, etc etc. Only 60% of the teens fell asleep. My "shift" was up at 4am, and I came home just before 5 to get a few hours of sleep before the weekend's pre-Halloween festivities began... (but that's all for another post)

The legendary compost

This, is the story of the neglected compost that spawned the largest breeding of fruit flies known to the history of this apartment #1203. 

The backstory: My plan was to get some urban composting going as soon as I got here. A colleague has a worm compost project going in her classroom with her 3rd graders, and I was just going to nab some of them for my own vermiculture venture. But alas, her worms died (or the ayi threw them out thinking they were a failed, dirty experiment), and my compost was piling up. 

My secondary intention was to collect it in a 5-gallon container, with a tight lid, and then bury it every week or every other day, if I got ambitious. I just didn't want to be throwing all this organic waste in a dumpster when it could be nourishing and enriching the crappy red-clay soil (not the best composition for encouraging the decomposition process).

So, the compost was molding in the bin under my kitchen sink. Excuse me. OUR kitchen sink. Kari was affected. She couldn't understand why there was such an overabundance of fruit flies... especially within the last week. 

Compost bin under kitchen sink

After coming back from Shanghai with Clara, there were more flies than ever. It was time to take care of this situation once and for all. Just after dusk, with trowels in hand, we took to the ground, scavenging a nice plot that needed nourishment, longing for our fly-filled compost. We found a toad, some hard ground, some bushes, and finally, a soft spot where the grass was bald from this last typhoon season. Perfect. 

Crouching, we dug with the trowels for a while, until I decided it was more efficient just to dig like a dog and excavate more significant amounts of dirt. I was digging like a crazy woman. Was the hole deep enough to fit all my compost? Nope... gotta keep going. Clara gave up and just watched me. I was digging my way to... oh wait, I'm already in China. Back to the other side of the planet then? 

Measly hand shovels

We elevatored upstairs and grabbed the compost bin, which was emanating flies. Literally. We're afraid the elevator security camera caught them seeping out of the bin, and will eventually peg us as culprits. We hurried outside to our hole, dumping the contents of the 5-gallon tub into the ground, and buried it with the freshly-dug earth. Yes, people stopped to watch throughout the process. A grandma doing her nightly calisthenics talked at us as she walked by. Whatever, grandma. We're saving the earth. As we covered the goods, we thought of all the activities that could have been assumed we were working on (nefarious or wholesome): we could be planting a tree, burying a dead animal, hiding incriminating evidence... which was sort of what we were doing. We were the gnat-culprits that polluted the elevator. (though better than people who smoke in the elevator! Talk about polluting the air in a confined space!) 

You know that whole saying about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar? Yeah, about that... we set out honey and sugar water all over the kitchen, turned all the lights on, and shut the doors. No flies caught. Turned all the lights off. Still only a couple gnats. I think they just fell in by accident. They weren't attracted to the honey (in that spoon in the photo below and only a few gnats in the honey/sugar water and juice cups). 

Clara and I thought we'd had our workout at our hour and a half long dance aerobics class that fated afternoon. But we were in for the jumping, smacking, clapping, whipping, pounding workout of our lives. Never had our eye-hand-fruitfly coordination been so good. We were on a roll, nabbing those bitches. Oh wait. This is a family blog. Sorry. We were just so mad at the darn punk fruit flies. We were mean, fly-catching machines. Our floors and countertops were peppered with the carnage of hundreds, wait no, thousands of fruit fly bodies. Expert fly-killers. Clara started losing her mind, seeing fruit flies that were no longer there.

Fly swatting and smacking extravaganza.

Never again will I neglect to dump the compost.

I will be starting an eco "green" club after school activity at school, and aspire to initiate a compost system for a new garden plot that I've been eyeing with high hopes. Then I can bring all my leftovers there and not worry about having to clandestinely excavate compost graves!

I am happy to report that now, three days later, the apartment is essentially fruit fly free.

Space Cadet Elf

I have got to come up with a title for my series of school stories that I publish on my blog.

Today, the 6^th grade elf (ELL student) I affectionately refer to as my “space cadet,” bless his heart, seriously had his thoughts in outer space. This kid is so ADD and all over the place. He usually forgets his homework, doesn’t complete assignments, and when he does bring his hw, the packet is likely to be snarfed and torn, or half-missing because of the black hole that is his backpack, and oftentimes he completely misses instructions because he is off in his own world, humming la la tunes, playing with his translator, pens, eraser, or his own clothing. As annoying as he can be with all his distractions and forgetfulness, I do love him for livening up the classroom.

While doing an assessment about learning styles in class today, Space Cadet Elf randomly started talking about how small the earth was. Something to the effect of, “Gee EAR-sch so smarl. Tiny. Gees biiick” (motioning a small increment with pinched fingers). The thing is, I barely understand Space Cadet Elf most of the time, especially without context since he is prone to speak about random topics, because his accent is so strong and he slurs his words and has a bit of a speech impediment. His verbal skills are always teeming with extensive and seemingly random stories, writing profuse and expressive, but grammatically hard to follow stories. And his oral speech is oftentimes hard to follow. So, I had to have him repeat his random interjection multiple times before I finally caught on to what he was saying, realizing it had nothing to do with our current learning styles assessment. Ooooooh, “The Earth is so small. Tiny. This big” (motioning).

Laughing, I attempted to sternly tell the Elf that his head was in outer space, and I needed him to come back down to earth—as small as it may be indeed—and complete the assessment we were working on. The other little female elves giggled and agreed that their classmate Elf was too creative and should learn to focus better in class. Learning styles identified: Linguistic/Verbal-Spatial. (Caution, learning styles do not account for random behaviors or creative outbursts.)

Yes, this is the same student who wrote about hating pets.

Clara Arrives! (Shanghai weekend trip)

On Thursday, I coordinated with an English-speaking taxi driver (well, his english is really only so-so) in our international community to get one of our drivers to purchase a bus ticket for me to travel from Beilun to Shanghai on Saturday, to meet Clara at the Pudong airport. (She will be visiting for a few weeks! Yay sister time!)

Leaving my apartment a 11am, the taxi driver and I had a nice Chinglish conversation about Chevy vehicles and how his car gets really good mileage (that's right, Blade fam!). Or rather, Kilometraje. How do you say that in Chinese? 

Bus ticket, Ningbo to Shanghai

I sat at the bus station for a few minutes before boarding the 11:35am bus, all the while subject to the stares of dozens of Chinese. The usual. No surprise that I was the only laowai in the 
terminal. I politely refused the badgering of taxi drivers who wanted to persuade me that it was cheaper for them to drive me, for 100 kaui (~$16USD, when I already had a bus ticket in hand that had been purchased for 115 kuai. Maybe that's something to look into arranging for another trip, maybe with more people. But I think the bus ride went more smoothly than driving in a car with a crazy driver would have been. And I wasn't looking to get ripped off and stranded in the middle of Shanghai when I really just wanted to get to the airport and pick up Clara. Perhaps such an adventure will be left for another opportunity.

Hangzhou Bay Bridge

The ride was not unpleasant, aside from the dude next to me who kept falling over onto me in his nodding sleep (I definitely nudged his head and body away from me the first couple times, but to no avail, and eventually just gave in and let it happen. Hah.). Also, the undulating, bumping rhythm of the bus going over China's many uneven bridges and not-level roads wasn't the best for grading paper (I quickly gave up that endeavor and employed my observational skills instead, which was much more interesting anyway). Chinese bus movies, while still quite violent, but in a more understated fashion, are thankfully much quieter than those shown on TicaBus (A big Central American bus line). 

Mudflats leading out to Hangzhou Bay

This is the service centre of Hangzhou Bay Bridge;
A 10,000 square metre service centre called
Land between the Sea and the Sky

Oh, window seat. Ever my saving grace on road trips. In all my travels, I never tire of looking out the widow and observing... This time I was taking in the scenery of: vineyards, rice paddies, fields of other crops and smaller vegetable patches in rural areas, tall bamboo and other reed-like brush in the swampy marshland areas along the side of the highway, polluted canals, green mountains off in the distance, trees and pretty flowers and landscaping planted around larger, more urban areas, urban sprawl and apparently rapid development of roads and overpasses and sky-scraping buildings, a life-sized cardboard cutout of the back end of a police vehicle propped up on the shoulder of the highway that was placed where I'm assuming was a strategic point before a series of tunnels, and eventually the sights along the world's longest sea-spanning bridge, across Hangzhou Bay and connecting the northern Ningbo area to Shanghai. Oil rigs and refineries could be spotted in the hazy distance, with the occasional line of round hills that appeared to be islands.

(The Hangzhou Bay Bridge is the red line.)

After driving along the bridge for about a half hour, we came onto land again had a 15-minute pit stop around 1:30. Other than a tour group of about 20 Spanish-speakers, I was still the only laowai. The sun was shining and I connected with my friends Matt and Julie, who just had their twin boys up in Shanghai on Friday. Matt and I coordinated meeting up to buy train tickets together for our return trip to Beilun on Sunday. 

I arrived in Shanghai around 2:45pm, walked through the underground passageways and got an awesome cream puff pastry. There was a Starbucks and of course a McDs and even a Cold Stone in this Shanghai South railway station. I got a map and did some research on return ticket options for Sunday then waited for Matt to arrive at the ticketing booth at the station. I also got some grading done, in between rounds of people watching. I even had my photo taken a couple times.

After all that waiting, it turned out that Matt and I ended up at two different stations. I went on 
my way, headed towards the airport cuz Clara's plane would be arriving in an hour. Matt was able to buy our return train tickets for Sunday night. So we had all day to hang in Shanghai tomorrow!

I loved the signs at the station:
Sign #1 in the background: "Ttickets"
Sign #2 in the foreground:
what the heck are "artificial tickets"?!
(I'm thinkin' maybe disposable, one-use passes?)

I rushed through the easily navigable subway metro station and switched lines. On the subway, I observed the usual crying babies, dozing passengers, crammed cattle car rush hour style packed cars, plus typical Chinese behavior of spitting and not covering their mouths when sneezing or coughing, but nothing too much out of the ordinary. Glad someone told me about the mid-line interchange of trains. Same line, but there is a split in the track. 

Thus far, I noticed a lot more people speak English around Shanghai not as many just blatantly stare at me, the foreigner. I was even pleasantly helped by a few people! 

I arrived at the airport around 6:20pm, 45 minutes after Clara's plane landed. It was perfect timing, because I waited 5-10 minutes, and her flight was coming out. I was the first person she saw, because, as she says, my sandy brown hair is not hard to pick out in a sea of Chinese. We caught the shuttle to the hotel, and were checked in at the Ramada airport hotel by 7pm. 

Ramada Pudong Airport Hotel in Shanghai

Rested and freshened up, around 9:30pm, we shuttled back to the airport to catch the metro into the shanghai town center, on the 10pm last train. A lot of people were rushing to queue up and purchase their tickets/passes for the last train. There were probably about 30 people, and only 2 operating machines, in a row of at least 10. I bypassed the automated machines and purchased two 24-hour passes from the lady at the booth. The second we went to enter the turnstile, it must have turned 10pm, because none of the turnstiles would accept tickets. So we crawled under the bars and made a run for it to catch that last train that we had purchased passes for! Subsequently, we had to crawl under the turnstiles when exiting the metro system an hour later, because our tickets were not recognized as having been used in the system! Less than 5 hours in China, and Clara (and I) had already committed criminal acts!

Clara and I reunited in Shanghai

The great thing about China is that it's not uncommon or uncomfortable to
take photos of yourselves in public places, such as the subway.
(I mean, my students take photos of themselves in class, for Pete's sake!)

At 11pm, we arrived in People's Square and the metro subway system closed. So we took a taxi to a neighborhood full of pubs and had dinner around 11:30. The neighborhood reminded me of an urban Portland-area neighborhood atmosphere, with houses, businesses, pubs and breweries and music playing on the streets, in a well-greened space with many trees and much foliage all around the paved streets.

Dinner in Shanghai at a brewery. Clara had to wait until
the following day in China to actually eat Chinese food.

After our late night out on the town, we had a relaxing Sunday morning, repacked Clara's bags (with my stuff as well), and headed back into Shanghai via the metro system. It took about and hour and a half, a straight shot on one line to the hospital where Julie is at, where we dropped off our bags. We arrived around 2:30pm and headed out without all the luggage to explore the area. We found an international mall complex, where we ate Chinese traditional food (dumplings galore, sipped on a really yummy milk tea ad a iced mocha, dumplings, and mango cream mochi) all for under $12. Then we wandered around the malls department stores and markets, looking at and trying on clothing. Walking along the streets back to the hospital, we impulsively decided to get hour-long manicures, for 40 kuai each (less than $6). 

Tourists in Shanghai

E-bike with bunnies and birds and turtles.
TIC. (This is China.)

Manicure time!

Manicure time!

Japanese mochi at the international mall

Munching on mochi

Train seats have more room than plane or bus!

That evening, around 7 pm, Matt, Clara, and I headed to the metro and boarded our bullet train around 8:00pm. We were moving by 8:14, only 5 min after the declared departure time. Very good, by Chinese standards! On the bullet train back to ningbo from shanghai, traveling at speeds of 200km/hr (120+ mph), we had a nice and smooth ride, bathrooms on board and with only a few stops at other main stations along the southbound route. In comparison to my bus ride from Beilun to Shanghai the day before, I wouldn't have cared if Clara had infringed on my personal space and had fallen asleep on my shoulder. (She had slept in my lap on the taxi ride home the night before.) It's so nice to have a little sister visiting :)

We arrived in Ningbo at around 11:00 pm and our private driver, Mr. Fan, picked us up at the station, driving us the 40 minutes back to Ningbo. We were home and unpacking in the Li Ren apt by 11:45 pm. Late night before starting the school week! But a good weekend excursion!

Culture.

I know this post looks long, but it's a lot of video, with a little writing to explain.
You'll enjoy it --you know who you are  ;)

Chinese Fireworks.

The #1 sound you get used to in China (in addition to honking, screeching breaks, and random music blaring)... at all hours of the day and night. Weddings, birthdays, parties, holidays, and any other occasion that provides an excuse to make some noise, whether or not you can see the colorful sparks. Case in point: I woke up to fireworks every day for 4 days. At least it was a nice, consistent alarm! Then, the other afternoon, Kari and I were having a conversation in my room, when fireworks started going off. Neither of us flinched a pinch. Fireworks are normal. Until... sparks and pieces of the fireworks started hitting our windows, from all the way 12 floors below us in the parking lot of our building, hitting windows. I tried to get video of it, but as soon as it started rolling, the fireworks ended. Of course. Later in the day, I found firecracker remnants in our laundry room. The window had been open during the explosions.

International Culture.

The PTA (Parent-Teacher-Association) at AIAN, our international school, hosted a Family Fun Day picnic and activities last weekend at school. Organized and recreational games in the warm fall rays, potluck style international foods, and many languages. Great atmosphere.

Volleyball & soccer & relay races @ Family Fun Day;
our school buildings are in the background.

Families compete in relays on our back field/track.

International Festival Stadium Opening
On Tuesday night, we teachers at AIAN were invited to an opening ceremony/inaugural event for Ningbo's Third International Festival at a new stadium here in Beilun. It was insisted that we sit front and center in the middle of the crowd, presenting the "foreign faces" of Ningbo. The show was entertaining. Enjoy some images and video clips of some of the highlights of the three-hour presentation (captions/explanations for each image are below each video or picture)

Dance... this video is just a sample of one of the many dance presentations we saw. Other styles included Riverdance, African Congo, and Asian dance routines. (Check out the prima dancer's killer ponché and nice extension at right around 25 seconds.)

The famous singer Yang Kun, who I gathered was a pop sensation by the male dancers flocking all around her, sang a few songs (it was hard to tell, but I think one of them was in English... "Cinderella"?

Another musical performance was delivered by Chinese celeb, Sprite, who was one of the semi-final singers and now judges on the American Idol-esque "Yang Kun's Team of the Voice of China" (SUCH A BIG DEAL HERE!), to the audience's great pleasure. As you'll see in the videos, security guards had to restrain and warn fans and paparazzi (@ around 31 seconds into the video clip). Also, you'll observe some outrageously up-close and personal camera work. The first performer of the night actually pushed the cameraman away because he got too close. Ummm... I think that's what they created "zoom" for?? But I could be mistaken...

Some of our teachers were even featured in a 'welcome to Beilun' video short, by a Frenchman who is married to one of our Mandarin teachers. Faces on the big screen in front of thousands of Chinese business people at the international festival! Exciting! Kari was even featured! (She has a video of that, but is quite displeased, since they had told her what to say, and it was pretty slow and elementary.)

There was some pretty spectacular Acro (Chinese acrobats acted out a story, about cavalry, I gathered)

These were just some of the tricks they presented, jumping on flexible boards as if they were trampolines, about 8-inches wide, would be my guesstimation. This should be a new Olympic sport, to complement gymnastic events such as balance beam, vault, rhythmic gymnastics, and trampoline!

Aaaand, insert random fashion show?? 

Now let's add some crazy tropical beach men?

Some fantastic opera was sung towards the end of the night.

Closing to Ningbo's Third International Port Festival

Abby, Kari, (ME!), Shelley, and Alice

International Festival, cont'd: Fair Foods
Last night (Friday), some of our Chinese friends took us to the International Festival in downtown Beilun. Our friends are Shelley, Abby, and Alice (who are TAs at AIAN), Alice's boyfriend Meow Meow (not sure how to spell that, but yes, the pronunciation sounds like the noise a cat makes), and some other friends of theirs. We walked around, enjoying the music and the sights of the festival. Or should I say, the Asian faces stared at the sight of me and Kari. Per usual, we caucasian foreigners (laowai) had camera barrels pointed at us and clicking from all directions. Well, mostly Kari. Because she's taller and is redheaded, and my hair was pulled back, and therefore less conspicuous (maybe?).

Nutritious dinner: strawberry ice cream,

fried banana, and almonds.

We sampled various types of international cuisine--though mostly Asian--a smorgasbord of fried foods and sweets such as cotton candy, ice cream, and sugar-coated/hard-glazed fruits, and some Indian nan bread and crepe-like pastries with bananas enveloped in its thin layers. Being vegetarian, I of course, only partook in the healthiest of choices: ice cream, bread, a fried banana with a tomato paste squirted on it (mmmm, sounds revolting, right? a new combo of strange ingredients, even for my eclectic and creative tastes), and a sampling of other nuts and sweets. I abstained from partaking in the meat extravaganza.

Delectable-looking sugar-glazed fruit.

Kari contemplates the hard-coated/glazed persimmons
(think Chinese version of caramel apples)
as Abby looks on in disbelief... 
Kari contemplates getting adventurous!

Fried banana

I sorta tower above Alice and Shelley.
I'm tall in China. (?) Weird.

Also, check out Kari's blog about the Port Culture International Festival: http://thetravellingstrawberry.blogspot.com/2012/10/port-festival-by-video.html

On another random note, let me just say... it is really amazing how fast the two of us (Kari and I) can chow down on brownies. A pan a week (however, finished in 2-3 days!). Pretty impressive. It's amazing we don't weight 2,000 kilos. Each. We should be breaking the elevator. Good thing I take the stairs a lot. 12 floors cancel out the calories, right?