Smoke & Beauty

Many things that James and I experience here are juxtapositions. I snapped both these photos today.

The first is of the gorgeous cherry blossoms that are decorating branches all over our city. The sky may look blue in the photo, but it's actually a very hazy gray. Our city has been in a drought for three years, and forest fires have been breaking out all over the mountains recently. The second photo, taken from our apartment this evening, is of the setting sun obscured by smoke. Both the flowers and the fires seem wildly noteworthy to me, but locals have waved off my interest with comments like, "Yes, yes, pretty flowers," and "It's not smoke, it's just fog because it's so dry." I wonder what beauty and dangers I have been completely oblivious to at home simply because they're commonplace.

recent happenings

Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is always a really busy time for us and our friends. But now that the holiday is over, it's back to the grind. One big change we've made this semester is that I'm studying a minority language. I'm using the same learning style we used for Chinese called GPA (Growing Participator Approach). GPA's emphasis is on comprehension and speaking with little to no reading and writing. This approach leads to lots of hands-on activities and community participation. Going to the market to learn how to buy produce is one of the lessons. Another would be going to the "Home Depot" part of town to learn how to buy tools, etc.

One of our good friends got married not too long ago, but it was right in the middle of Spring Festival and many people (including us) were out of town. So she and her new hubby had a reception of sorts after the holidays for people who couldn't attend. It's tradition for wedding guests to give a 红包, or "red envelope" with cash inside. The money ranges anywhere from $15 to $100 depending on your relationship with the couple. Chinese couples often have multiple weddings, one in each of their towns. This makes for quite a stressful wedding day (or weekend) but the money rolls in so there's often not too many complaints :)

Our old Chinese teachers who are now in Kunming studying for their master's degree in Engish translation also came back for the holidays to spend time with family. They took us and a few other foreign students out for a local chicken hot pot dinner. Chicken hot pot consists of a vat of continual boiling chicken broth with chicken parts in it (some good, some not). Throughout the night, you add other vegetables to the broth, such as mushrooms, potatoes, carrots and various leafy greens.  My favorite part is the little bowls of peppers, salt, cilantro, tofu and MSG that you add broth to and dip your chicken meat and vegetables in to give it that extra bit of flavor. Mmmm... But seriously, it really does taste good!

Lastly, we've had some beautiful weather around Lijiang the last few weeks. It seems like Spring has come early. The cherry trees are blossoming, many of the local orchids are for sale in the market, and the weather is peaking in the 70's during the afternoon. Laura was able to grab some snapshots of the mountain after a nice snow storm.

Pantry Re-Do

Over winter break I tackled a little organizational project. Our pantry desperately needed some TLC.

I really had fun giving this corner a face lift. Maybe some of you recognize a few care package items--they now have a spot in storage that's worthy of the effort it took to get them to us! Thanks to all of you who've helped make our pantry more exciting than a Target grocery!

Cookie Decorating Differences

This Christmas, James decided to get in on the last few minutes of cookie decorating. I was surprised and pleased to think he wanted to participate!

Looking over his handiwork, I asked him why his gingerbread men all look miserable or leprous. "Because they're about to be eaten!" he replied.  Of course.  Silly me.

just noticed...

For the past two years, Laura and I have been studying Chinese in the same exact classroom. This classroom is bittersweet for us. Some days, we feel like we can speak and understand so well, and other days we feel like we're all the way back at day one! In general, we spend 8 hrs/week learning how to speak/listen, and another 1.5 hrs/wk learning how to read/write. As you can imagine, our reading/writing comprehension has moved at a snail's pace, but we've seen a lot of improvements during this semester. As our reading comprehension grows, we've discovered a whole new world of advertisements and signs. It's actually been really fun discovering the advertising techniques of Chinese companies as well as other signs and markers explaining what things are. For example, our classroom where we've been studying for the last two years has one sign on the door and one above the door. See picture below.

The dark blue sign on the door says, "Foreign language department classroom." This is appropriate, all the classrooms in this hallway have this same sign on the door because it's the foreign language dept wing. But the light blue sign above the door is only above our classroom. Well, it says this, "Mental consultation room." Haha! This is even more appropriate then the dark blue sign! I feel like after every class I need to seek mental consultation. When asked why this sign is above our classroom, our teacher said that our room was originally intended for this use, but later changed as the foreign language dept moved in. We told her that it was still an appropriate place for the sign as we often leave the classroom with mental headaches!