July 24, 2006: Christmas! That’s right, today is Christmas in China. This morning we had our Tai Chi and Chinese language classes today as normal and afterwards we prepared for our Christmas presentation.  The plan is to have several places or stages for the different classes to go to: one is snowflake cutting; another is going to make stockings and our fireplace out of construction paper and other classes.  While they all do that I am going to practice with a small choir made up of willing participants who want to sing Christmas Carols for the rest of the school.

On top of that I have to play Santa Claus, one of the wise men in the Christmas pageant and say a little something at the end as to what Christmas is really all about.  You see in China, Christmas is for the most part a commercial holiday. It is only about giving gifts and the sappy things that come with that instead of remembering what Christmas is really about…I guess that is kind of what Christmas is like here too.

(Later Monday Night) Well, everything went well.  My voice has felt better but other than that things today went fine.  All the kids thought I was a very funny Santa Claus.  I took my inspiration from the Mall Santa Claus from the movie “A Christmas Story.”  Lots of HO HO HOing and what not. I was also very loud.  It was funny, so I thought, to suddenly HO HO HO so loud that the kids would jump

The day before we had them make cards for each other with a handwritten complement inside for each student.  At the Christmas celebration we gave these to the students and also a piece of chewing gum.  Not a lot I know, but our budget was somewhat limited. 

July 25, 2006: Today was a normal day of Tai Chi and Chinese class.  Today is the second day of Narnia and we are just starting to get into the dilemma of Edmund and his lying and betrayal.  It is interesting to discuss character traits with these children because they don’t divide along black and white lines as we might suspect from children.  Rather they see small undercurrents in all the characters or possibly inescapable situations that the characters are engulfed in. My students have a discerning eye for seeing all sides of the argument even if they conflict with objective truth. I think that this may be something individual to Chinese people.

The Chronicles of Narnia is such a great book to teach these children. Along with being full of English idioms and other phrases, the book has such a strong message to tell.  I am very pleased we are teaching it.

The students came to my room tonight.  They stayed late and had a lot of fun.  I think that they might enjoy my company or maybe it is just my UNO cards.

July 26, 2006: Today was pretty much the same stuff.  In class we continued our discussion of Narnia.  We also practice our small talk with a game called Small Talk.  I had written several questions on small cards and the kids had to ask each other the questions and then respond to the questions with a logical English answer. After the question and answer from each they would switch cards and go ask someone else.  The game might seem rather silly but it is one of the best for getting kids to speak English to one another.  For the most part, Chinese children are okay at writing English and reading it but engaging in conversation is difficult which is why we are there. It helps just to hear a native speaker speak the language.

July 27, 2006: In class we had the children create coats of arms for themselves. We showed them what the various shield designs, bars and pictures meant and then let them design a coat of arms for themselves.  The funny thing is that almost every child chose designs that reflected a feeling of “hopefulness.”  The schools do a good job I think of encouraging their students.  There is this idea that all of these students i.e. this generation will do great things and turn China into an industrial and economic giant. Regardless they chose these traits and tomorrow we will use these traits they have chosen in an interesting way.

Tonight is movie night.  We are going to watch the movie “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.” It is a wonderful movie and even better book.  The kids very rarely eat the popcorn we make for them in fact several kids asked me the first time we watched Cinderella if this was a cultural thing in America to have popcorn with a movie.  I told them it was and they ate a little bit of it. I find the little kids will eat almost anything. The older kids are a bit more discerning.

July 28, 2006: Today is the coronation of the kings and queens of Narnia.  We are going to take the traits the kids used on their coat of arms and then use those traits to crown them over certain areas where those traits are reflected.

July 29, 2006: Well, today is the day we go to visit The Great Wall. We are going to drive by van north about 180km to The Great Wall. The Great Wall stretches about 6500km so seeing the whole thing is a bit unrealistic.  It was built in several stages during concurrent dynasties. Most of it is actually just a large hill at this point farther north than the brick and mortar Great Wall we know from pictures.  In fact, during the early dynasties the wall was built out of layers of mud and bamboo not out of brick. However, the romantic pictures of the great wall we see today was mostly built during from about 1300-1600 AD.

Well, I won’t try to give you a history lesson.  You can read a book for that. I climbed the section we were on to the top and by the time I got there I was so sweaty you could have wringed out my shirt. It was muggy and overcast that day which was bad for pictures but good for staying moderately cool. Otherwise it would have been really hot! The day was amazing and I could talk about all I saw but I think it might simply be better for the pictures I took to speak for themselves. 

July 30, 2006: Today is Sunday and instead of going with the group again I decided that I would stay home and worship with my Lutheran Worship I had brought with me and listen to a sermon I had downloaded from The Lutheran Hour. It was kind of selfish but I really wanted to hear a Lutheran sermon and to sing Lutheran hymns.

That afternoon we went to Cultural Street again to pick up some gifts for friends and family.  Afterwards we went to Pizza Hut and indulged ourselves in a little bit of western food.  Pepperoni Pizza is one thing that translates across all cultural boundaries.

Pax

Ryan A. Drevlow

[Home] [About Zion] [Professional Staff] [News & Events] [Ministry] [Gallery] [Links] [Sermons] [Ryan Drevlow]