Week 2

October 15, 2007

Every morning at breakfast we have “joke of the day” by Rich and journal reading with “thought for the day” by someone in the group. Rich has a repertoire of jokes that seem to fit some happening in the group. My journal assignment was last Friday so I read mine this Monday morning.

This week we are teaching senior students level 1 at Rainbow School. Now that we know what to expect, we are more relaxed and used to the routine. We had a buffet lunch at a local restaurant near the school where the food was rather spicy. I learned that chilies are grown in this area so the food has more than the usual share of chilies. After lunch, we held “English Corner.” It went much better today than last week’s sessions as there were fewer students, in a more comfortable room which made a big difference. My group got to talking about food and what they do at home. It seems the students get home and fix their own dinner (microwave) and their parents come home from work late so the family does not eat together. I shared with them that dinner time was important family sharing time with our family when our children were young as they. I encouraged them to talk with their parents as much as possible even if they didn’t agree on everything and not isolate with TV or their own music. It is bad enough that they do not have siblings to share their experiences.

Tonight we attended the Tang Dynasty show and dinner. The show was quite spectacular with the music and dancing in beautiful costumes. It was a very tastefully presented show. After the show we went to an upstairs dining room for a dumpling dinner. There were 8 cold dish appetizers followed by 19 rounds of dumplings with the waitress explaining the different fillings. These dumplings are like won tons but in shapes representing the fillings. The fish came still steaming so the “fins” were still moving. The most unusual to me were the walnut and pumpkin sweet dumplings. The dinner ended with “baby” dumplings in chicken broth. We were the last to leave the dining room then rolled home after a fun evening.