Circle, Happy, and Moon 2

Imagine you are teaching your first English class in China, and someone has helpfully made you a list of all the students with their English names. You scan the list: "Vera, Vivian, Happy, Circle, Roony, Sunny, Snow White, Cinderella, Emily, Sarah, Echo, Adaline Undumbara."

"Is this normal?" you ask yourself. Yes. And then you find out Sunny is a boy.

Some Chinese students pick pretty normal English names, but there are many more who are drawn to old-fashioned names (Edna, Eunice, Beryl) or names that are -- how shall we say this? -- not names.

Beta
Roice
Clover
Moon 2 (a boy who had a brother with the English name Moon)
Black Sister
Shmily (short for "see how much I love you")
Remmer's Tears
Show
Seven
Arble (Seven and Arble are both in my Christmas decorating post below)

The English name phenomenon is a never-ending source of amusement among ex-pat teachers. Everyone has their stories of the nutty names they've encountered. I usually try to gently advise a name change, but if the name isn't too outrageous, sometimes I allow it. So I still teach Clover, Roony, Cinty, and Lisara, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't love it.

*Note: All names in this post are students I have known or my teammates have taught.

Squatty Potties

What does a normal Chinese bathroom experience entail?

• Sitting? No.
• Squatting? Yes.
• Closing the door? Sometimes. (In some public restrooms there are no stalls, just dividers. Even if there are stalls, not everyone closes them.)
• Bringing your own TP? Yes.
• Flushing your own TP? No. Toss it in the overflowing wastebasket.
• Bringing your own soap? Yes.
• Watching where you step? Yes.
  
• Enjoying sparkling clean surfaces and fragrant aromas? No.

I think bathrooms are one area in which most foreigners don't succumb to the standard of "normal" here. We like our bathrooms clean and well-stocked, and we want to be able to sit for a minute or two in privacy, doggone it! Many foreigners have a few "sweet spots" in hotels or Western restaurants around town where they can pop in for a visit to a clean, Western-style toilet. (Qufu, of course, is not over-burdened with fancy hotels or Western restaurants.) My personal tactic is just to wait until I get home.

Let me introduce you to the restroom just down the hall from my office in the English department:

Here we have our standard squatty and waste basket accompaniment. Be glad I didn't take a shot of the clogged one in the next stall. Ew.

And finally, the sink. Don't be fooled by the soap dish -- the foreign teachers put that there. You can also see the tub for the mop. There's always someone mopping, but I'm not sure it accomplishes much.

Actually, "mopping" could be a post all on its own. China is big on mopping. And that concludes the first edition of Is this normal? (Yes). Stay tuned for more culture tidbits.

Is this normal? (Yes)

Dun da dah! That was the trumpet announcing the start of a new series on the blog. I was thinking the other day about all the small aspects of Chinese culture that seemed strange at first, but are so common they soon ceased to catch my attention. And since they are no longer catching my attention, I've never blogged about them.

It's time to remedy this situation. In this series of posts, I will introduce you to my new "normal" -- a world filled with squat toilets, hot water, and marshmallow babies. Enjoy!

Christmas Decorating

Yesterday a group from the student fellowship came over to help me decorate for Christmas.

I love hanging out with these kids for several reasons: First, it's great to be with sisters and brothers, and encouraging to see students excited about their faith. Second, it's rare on this campus for students from different years to be good friends, much less different majors. I like seeing a more diverse group. Finally, they are just good company!

I put all my Christmas decorations on my table, gave the students a few instructions, and hoped the result wouldn't be too outrageous.

Getting started on the tree

Creative wiring

Jessie and me

Enjoying the fruits of our labor

Our patchwork wall display

Gift tags on my door -- the girls spent about thirty minutes on this design!

Students, snowflakes, and smiles

Presents!

If you were returning from a family wedding, what gift would you choose to give your foreign teacher?

...some "Happy Family" candy?

...some cakes?

...or perhaps a nice pack of cigs?

The correct answer? All three! My student presented these to me after class yesterday. She said she knew I probably wouldn't use the cigarettes, but she wanted me to see the character on the front. (I think she said it was xi -- anyone know?) It might be my favorite gift I've received in China.

In an unrelated gifting, I also got a decorative plate yesterday. Teachers are often given a token of appreciation when they help out with student events. I had supplied some composition topics for a writing contest, and so I got this lovely plate. It is unique among the other tokens of appreciation I have received in that I actually think it's kind of pretty.

You can thank me later for posting this flattering shot on the web for all to see. :)

Yantai Thanksgiving

"'Twas the night of Thanksgiving,
And all through the foreign teachers' building
Not a teacher was stirring
Except the four of us, who were killing time before our midnight train to Yantai."

So began our Thanksgiving weekend. We caught the night train and arrived in the beautiful city of Yantai on Friday morning, where our American friends greeted us with an American breakfast. Mmmm.

For lunch, we went to a place the Yantai team calls the "Happy Restaurant," which faces the sea and has American food. I think you can guess why it's so happy.

With Elizabeth, my host for the weekend and friend from training, enjoying the seaside behind the happiness restaurant

Now I will mention my only non-food-related item of the weekend: After lunch, we walked down the boardwalk to Yantai Hill, where the European embassies and settlements were located after the Opium War. Yantai became one of the port cities that was forced to open in the unequal treaties that followed the war, and many people from Germany, England, and other countries settled there. One highlight was seeing Hudson Taylor's former church.

Church

Chinese rose, European building

Some of the explorers on the Holly Path

We went back to the campus. Sara and Jess and I peeled two dozen apples for the next day's pies. We only meant to peel 12, but we got carried away comparing our peeling techniques and pretty soon there was enough apple to fill a huge wash basin, or approximately three pies.

Excessive apple peeling in Liz's living room

For supper, we ate Joni's homemade chili.

The next day, we had more homemade delights for breakfast, including Liz's pumpkin-chocolate-chips, Alan & Connie's granola, and Tarah's banana bread.

Then came the big meal. We were all VERY happy that team Yantai had managed to secure turkey, because they are hard to find in China!

Sue with the turkey, baking to perfection in the restaurant oven

The restaurant kitchen where our two turkeys were baked, because their ovens were the only ones big enough. (My oven is the size of my microwave, and team Yantai's are no bigger.)

Elizabeth welcomes the group

Some of us walked off the meal by heading up the hill to the 80th anniversary park the school just built.

We had a Thanksgiving service together, played some cards, and ate more food. Then we had some cookies and went to bed.

On Sunday, we took our 8-hour bus ride home. All in all, it was a great weekend. I loved seeing friends and seeing a new part of Shandong Province. And the best part is, I'll never need to eat again.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving Eve

It is less than an hour away from Thanksgiving here in China time. I think most Americans feel like holidays "sneak up" on us, which seems a little funny since most major holidays have a build-up of at least several weeks. But there's no build-up here -- I haven't yet seen any harvest decorations, Thanksgiving sales, or turkeys in the grocery stores -- so the "sneaking up" didn't really begin until just a few minutes ago when I realized that Thanksgiving is tomorrow. My teammates and I are planning a short trip to Yantai to feast with other American teacher friends.

This helpful tourist map shows a few destinations you might recognize: Qufu, where I live; TaiShan, where I climbed a mountain a couple weeks ago; Jinan, where I buy my cheese; Qingdao, where I visited a student last year, and Yantai, where I'm going for Thanksgiving!

Some of you might have heard about the stampede in Cambodia yesterday. I read some of the stories today and was horrified at the abrupt, scary, painful way that so many young lives were ended. Please be lifting up my organization's team in Phnom Penh as they help their city process this tragedy. One of them writes on her blog:

This year our Thanksgiving celebration will be juxtaposed with a National Day of Mourning here in Cambodia. As the country mourns for those lost, there are still many unanswered questions about how this could happen. Our friends and students have been unable to sleep for the last couple of nights, many scared by the thought of ghosts wandering the city and other superstitions. Even our house helper, who is a Sister, said today that she is afraid of the ghosts because she lives near the hospitals where many victims were brought. She said that 20 people in her own neighborhood died in the stampede, including a family of five. For us and our teammates, this is a time to listen to our Khmer friends and to speak truth and love.

Finally, thanks for the words of sympathy regarding my grandma's death. Losing a family member while abroad is exactly as you might imagine: hard, and a little surreal. As I sit here and think about it in light of this post ("Thoughts on Thanksgiving Eve"), I think the death of both of my grandmas this year has reminded me of how good the Good News actually is. They both had put their faith in Jesus and could approach their deaths with their eyes confidently fixed on heaven. It's a lot better than reaching the end of 8 or 9 decades of life and having the sudden panicky feeling that you lived for the wrong things or you never made your peace with God. So I'm thankful first for God's Good News, and second for my grandmothers' good examples.

And I'm also thankful for all the good food I plan to eat in the next three days. Happy Thanksgiving!

Goodbye, Grandma L

My Grandma Lentz passed away yesterday after a short bout with a very bad pneumonia.

At age 95, she still lived in the house where she and my Grandpa had raised five children. My Grandpa died about 15 years ago, and Grandma lived alone since then. She had an active garden, cooked great meals whenever we visited, and was always working on a craft project or a crossword puzzle. She lived so long and so well that I always thought she'd make it to at least 100.

Checking out the garden before I left for China

In many ways, Grandma Lentz reminds me of the woman in Proverbs 31:

She "set about her work vigorously... She watched over the affairs of her household and did not eat the bread of idleness." (v. 17, 27). I'm amazed at the productivity of her life. She went to Iowa Normal School (now UNI), and later put in time as a one-room school teacher and telephone switchboard operator. She worked as a county auditor for many years, probably one of the few working moms in local government back then. She saved the ballot bags from election day and was known for turning them into everything from clothes to quilts. She baked pies, canned tomatoes, and made awesome pickles... She painted, quilted, and embroidered. She taught me how to crochet. Even in her 90s, she would go out and rake the leaves if the yard guy didn't get there fast enough.

Presenting me with hand-embroidered dish towels

1990: Painting wooden ducks with the grandkids

"She opened her arms to the poor and extended her hands to the needy." (v. 20) My favorite example of her willingness to volunteer is Meals on Wheels. We got a kick out of the fact that she delivered meals to shut-ins who were years younger than she was. I think she continued driving around these meals until she was almost 90. She was a faithful church member and a good neighbor.

"Her children (and grandchildren) arise and call her blessed." (v. 28). I think all of Grandma's relatives are guilty of bragging about her at one time or another. In the twenty-six years I knew her, she changed very little. She was always working on projects, managing an active social calendar, staying involved with the church, and maintaining her sharp wit. She seemed to age about one year every decade. And somehow she managed to raise these yahoos, which only a truly blessed woman could do and maintain her sanity:


It's hard to know which memories to share here because so many of them are flooding my mind. Most visits to see Grandma in New Hampton shared a few elements: Playing cards or Skunk, rummaging around in the closets for some childhood memory of my dad and his brothers, firing a few rounds on the potato gun out back (which always worried Grandma), and being fed until we burst. When I was really little, a visit to Grandma's also meant that we could go down to the table in the basement and pick out a toy or decoration that Grandma and Grandpa had made together.

At Christmastime, the house always looked the same: the nativity scene and the small artificial Christmas tree sat on the same tables where they sat 50 years ago when my dad was growing up. I spent almost every Easter morning of my life hunting for eggs and candy in Grandma's house, sometimes getting the grand prize of a dollar for the win (or settling for the 25 cent consolation prize).

Every visit ended with Grandma stepping out the back door and raising her arm in the signature Lentz wave to see us off when we left her house. I will miss her, and I will miss the things I never had a chance to learn from her.

Goodbye, Grandma L.