Jackson had, in fact, checked with his mother, but his father said that Bert had to return. It was a very sad and confused Bert that was returned to my office. He refused to come out of his house and was just not happy. The good news is that another little girl said her parents had actually BOTH talked about the notion of getting a hamster, so Bert went home with her. WORST case scenario, there are 2,000 students at this school so I will be long gone before they run out of places to send him.
I was stupid, I mean brave, I mean....never mind. Last Tuesday I participated in an English Speech Competition for Nanshan District English Teachers. The topic was, "Key to Success." My speech started with my typical lawyer answer of, "It depends." It was a reallllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllly long day of Chinese teachers and a few Western teachers saying the same things over and over. We all agreed that in order to share a key to success, you first had to define "success", and I swear, every. single. Chinese, teacher. ended their speech with, "Thank you for your listening." It really made my hair stand on end. I came in second, but before anyone gets excited, the places were done in groups, so second place was only a small step away from the Chinese version of a participation ribbon! The Chinese teachers were not necessarily thrilled that we chose a quasi expensive Western style restaurant for lunch.
All I can say was that I realllllllllly miss salads! Hot veggies, mystery meat bits and bones, and white rice gets really old, really fast.
This past Sunday, Chris (the only guy in the pic above and a fellow teacher at XiLi Elementary), his partner, and myself experienced the joy of a proper British Tea. The tea was amazing, the cookies and sweets awesome, and the sandwiches, well, the entire country of China could use a lesson on making a sandwich.
This was not our tea set as I forgot to take a pic, but this was what I had, except I had hot tea instead of fruit juice and it was served in a small pot and I drank from fine bone china! It was wonderful...until the screaming child arrived, and then it was time to run!
Today, I went in search of a bank branch to print me out a bank statement. There is no real mail in China, and the online banking site is all in Chinese, so even if I could set it up to view at home, the instructions are in Chinese so it is a waste of time. Today, I exited at the Civic Center stop of the Red Line and this is what I saw.
I stopped in the food court in the Metro station and had sweet and sour pork and dumplings. It was pretty good, and I remembered to NOT order white rice. I managed to get my bank statements and man-oh-man was it a process. I had to wait to speak with a bank service agent, and then give them my bank card and my passport. I was finally given the 7 page statement, complete with red stamps. The Chinese realllllly love them some red stamps! ANY paperwork you get in China will bear the red stamp. In Thailand, apparently the color is blue.
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