Gung Hay Fat Choy

Happy New Year to everyone. We celebrated quietly as has been our habit for many years. We rang in the new year with Vladivostok, Russia, which is two hours ahead of Haerbin time. We went to New Years dinner with the younguns and then left them to their own devices while we went home. Earlier in the week we attended an end of the year bash for the foreign languages department. Each of the teaching groups were expected prepare some entertainment. A small group of foreign teachers, with only the barest amount of rehearsal sang "It's a Small Small World" a cappella. Walt, turned over in his grave, I'm sure. We checked out the skating rink on a beautiful sunny day last week. Nonie passed on the experience but came down to take this picture. Branson is now claiming Canadian citizenship as he has skated, watched a hockey game and ridden on a Zamboni, or at least the Chinese equivalent. Tom, Nonie and I will be taking that under advisement. He still needs to make a snow angel, curl eight ends and dine on yellow snow.

Nonie has completed all her classes while I have two left . Our last classes have been strictly fun and games with no serious learning going on. It has been a joy teaching the Chinese grad students. Our goal at the beginning of the semester was to increase their confidence in speaking English. Most of our students have been taking some form of English language training for at least ten or more years but had never talked to or heard a flesh and blood native English speaker before. Most started their conversation with "I'm sorry, my English is not good" or just froze up and developed a serious stutter when we called upon them to speak in class. As a final exam, we challenged the students to have a six minute conversation with a partner on any topic they wished. The conversation was to be planned but not scripted. Scripts were the order of the day, of course. I am on the fence whether the Chinese can be spontaneous but they clearly demonstrated their confidence in speaking English. I would hope that indicates that we were successful.

Our travel plans are in place and we will arrive back in Canada on January 12. We will leave the next day for Ottawa and will be back in Kelowna on January 20. We will return to Haerbin on February 19. We are getting excited and looking forward to seeing some of you sometime in the next few weeks.

Merry Christmas from Haerbin

Merry Christmas to all our friends and family. We miss you all and look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks. We are a day ahead of you, one of the perks living in Asia. Not sure how Santa manages the different time zones, but he did manage to find us buried in amongst 1.3 billion Chinese. What a guy!




We spent a quiet Christmas morning with a few hundred kindergarten students. Could not have been a more special moment. Brian and I had a whole class to ourselves. Thirty 4-5 year olds with a whole lot of energy. We played, we coloured and we smiled a lot.

This little girl is creating a Christmas card for us, writing the whole thing in English. Truly amazing. Her handwriting was better than 90% of North American doctors and imminently more readable than my scribble.

The young of China have discovered Christmas in a big way. The entire school was decorated with Christmas trees, Santas and brilliantly coloured garland. There was a life size Santa at the entrance to the school beside a five foot, fully decorated tree. When talking about this phenomena with our grad students, they called Christmas a good excuse to get together with friends and have a party. As good a reason to celebrate Christmas as any. They have created a tradition of giving beautifully wrapped apples to friends on Christmas Eve. The pronunciation of Chinese for apple is close to the pronunciation for Christmas Eve so it seemed appropriate.

Massive gift giving has not caught on yet, but I am sure it will not be far behind. Valentines Day was recently embraced and has become one of their bigger consumer spending days. The commerializaion of many Chinese holidays is also becoming a problem. During the Fall Festival, they have a tradition of giving Moon Cakes. These are little sweet cakes specially made for the holidays and are given as gifts to friends and family. The government had to pass legislation which stated that the packaging of the moon cakes could not cost more than the acutal cost of the moon cakes to prevent people from spending too much money. A lesson for North America? Maybe.

A Haerbin Blizzard

It was all hands on deck. Haerbin has been struck by the same blizzard like weather currently being enjoyed by our Canadian bretheren. The snow plows were quickly called into action clearing snow from the major streets and bus routes. No salt used here.

Front end loaders quickly moved the snow into huge piles along the roadsides awaiting the three wheeled dump trucks to come so they could load the piles of snow and truck /cart it away. Chinese efficiency at its best. Fourty-eight hours later,and there is little evidence left that any snow had fallen. When you have 1.3 billion citizens, you don't require gas guzzling heavy equipment. You just throw manpower at it till it goes away.

On campus, the snow is shoveled or swept into piles then shoveled into the many tree wells scattered around campus. There has been a lot of it lately so in some cases it piles up and is then compacted by foot and vehicle traffic. When this happens, they send out armies of students armed with shovels to chip away at the ice and compacted snow. They push it into piles along the walkways and roads. A small flatbed truck with a gang of workers comes along behind them to shovel the snow into the back of the truck and haul it away. It is an amazing process to watch. Haerbin is a big city and even a small snowfall leaves a tremendous amount of snow that is removed almost completely by hand. Another lesson for Canada? I think not.

This is an archeological sample of a piece of compacted snow. The gray colour is caused by the soot that is always in the air. More so in the winter. This piece was the result of two snowfalls. The first snow was not removed quickly, so you can see a line of soot was formed before the second snowfall occurred. The winter climate here is drier than the Gobi Desert so given enough time, the ice and snow not hauled way, evaporates and leaves most surfaces clear.

Christmas: Made In China

Check it out. Tree ornaments made in China. One point five metres of well dressed Christmas tree. The little ornament elves were busy and created a vision of Christmas that will carry us into the New Year. We were overwhelmed by the creativity and artistry of all the participants. It certainly got our Christmas spirit headed in the right direction.

There was little room to move in the living room but it did not stop the creative juices from flowing. Amazingly, no paper cuts, crazy glue miscues or scissor incidents marred the evening.

The winning ornament was an almost lifelike rendition of Santa Claus, complete with a fuzzy white beard found in a bottle of pills. We now have it proudly displayed on a wall in the kitchen. The tree is nicely tucked into the livingroom and ready for presents. I intend to uphold my annual tradition of doing all my shopping on Christmas Eve.

Eduardo, our Italian connection and Brian are organizing the Christmas dinner for the younguns and ourselves. Sounds like the Holiday Inn with a show and dancing after. We will enjoy Christmas day off. Nonie has reorganized her exams for this Friday and I have crammed mine into this Thursday so our Christmas morning will be free. To all our cinnamon bun recipients, we will be thinking of you all. I am hoping Nonie can work a miracle and buns will be waiting for me on Christmas morning.

It Was Two Weeks Before Christmas and all through Haerbin....

As the sounds of Christmas carols played in the background, we carefully pawed our way through the Christmas tree section at the local Metro. We were early, so selection should be good or so we thought. Boxes and boxes of trees were stacked everywhere. We had our eye on the $5.oo CAD model that we had scoped out the previous week. Alas, the only one left was the floor model and for some reason, not clear to us, floor models are not for sale, even if it is the last one in existence. Do you smell the old bait and switch.? Suck you in with the cheap model then upsell you to the more expensive model. Nonie wanted her Christmas tree so we bit the bullet and got the $10.00 CAD model and then blew another $2.oo CAD on some gold garland. She eyed the wreathes longingly but we had blown our budget and had to leave without it. Maybe next year. We are now the proud owners of a 1.5 metre pine like Christmas tree, made in China of course. We will be hosting a small but growing Christmas ornament making party this weekend. I will post pictures of the finished product on our next blog.

The Chinese seem to have discovered the opportunities that await those cultures that celebrate this special day of Christmas. Not, I believe for the religous aspect of the holiday, but more for the gift giving and of course buying aspects presented by the holiday. Even in the smallest corner store, you'll find tacky little cardboard Santa Clauses and glittery signs wishing you a Happy Christmas and a Merry New Year. On occasions, they have problems with their adjective selections. The Chinese are gift giving by nature and I could see them embracing this day with gusto. They just need to figure out how to include it on their list of holidays. We are constantly being suprised by the small gifts we receive from our Chinese friends and aquaintances. On a regular basis, the sweet laundry lady is dropping off a healthy selection of fruit for us. Even the foreign teacher contingent has taken this custom to heart. Re-gifting must be done with care in such a small community.

Nonie's arm is doing well. She went for a followup visit with her GP and got a thumbs up, the universal sign for "Everything is good". It is healing well and she does not have to buy the fancy brace to provide additional support for the arm. She was having some difficulties with the traditional sling as it left her arm too free for use. Not conductive to healing. We went on line and found an upright sling model that would immoblize the arm so she would quit trying to use it. The Doctor seemed quite impressed with it and spent some time looking at how it was constructed. Our Chinese aquaintenances continue to be amazed by the way Nonie has been dealing with her injury. They work on a 100 day principle of healing. It seems if you break any part of your body, you must rest a minimum of 100 days before you do anything. They struggle to understand Nonie's attitude to her recovery. They just don't know Nonie and the power of a good frenzy.

The last few weeks have been quiet. I had the opportunity to co-host a live local radio program with one of our Foreign teachers, Branson. Branson, along with his teaching has taken on the challenge of a daily English radio program on the University Radio service. The show is canned usually but once in a while they will do a live broadcast. It is broadcast on an FM band here in Haerbin as well as on the web. The station can be found at http://www.newschooltime.com/ and is called Easy English, Easy Time. It broadcasts at 6:00 am (10:00 pm PST) and 2:00 pm (6:00 am PST).

We received a lovely Christmas card from our friends, Harry and Barb Konkin. It was great to touch something from home and created a few moments of homesickness for me, missing family and friends. No this is not a hint for more cards and letters, but if you need our address! We do appreciate your emails and gossip. Never enough gossip. Loneliness has not really been a problem. E-mails, Skype video and telephone calls have kept it at bay along with the shenanigans of the younguns. We are busy working on our holiday return to Canada and will keep you posted as it firms up.

A Haerbin Thanksgiving

No, your are not mistaken. Artfully displayed on that little saucer is a delicious mountain of silky white, creamy, buttery mashed potatoes. Nestled along side is a dark, moist, steaming piece of dark perfectly cooked and carved Chinese turkey. It was buffet heaven. No belts or tight clothes for the Cornell's tonight. Expandomatic pants were the order of the day. Thankfully, we are wise in the ways of buffet. Wisdom that we passed on to the younguns. Rule 1. Wear loose pants, leave the belt at home. Rule 2. Make a plan. Don't grab a plate and start filling. Survey the buffet, take stock of everything offered. Rule 3. Small portions. Rule 4. Eat slowly, methodically, buffet time. Rule 5. Take rest periods between courses. Rule 6 Start with the expensive stuff first. Rule 7. Bring your own doggy bags because they frown on them at most buffets. Please note that Rule 7 has been newly added to our list. I gotta have my turkey sandwiches.

Some of the younguns brought Champagne or at least a Russian version of the bubbly. Very nice though a tad sweet for the turkey. Nonie and I sprang for a bottle of Chardonnay from Washington State. Expensive but a perfect compliment for the turkey. Like a little taste from home, just further south.
The buffet was huge and included everything that any decent Thanksgiving buffet table should have. Of course, there were a few Chinese twists. A table covered in whole crabs and huge shrimp with eyes that would follow you as you wandered past the buffet tables. A station serving fresh made California Rolls and thinly sliced Sashimi. A small table with a humongous slab of roast beef including Yorkshire Puddings. Actually, more like Yorkshire Muffins. A nice surprise, Scalloped Potatoes were discovered hidden in a small tray at the back of the buffet.During our initial survey of the buffet, we discovered a serious omission. No Mashed Potatoes. GASP! Brian, our American gourmand immediately leapt into action and had words with the Chef. A short time later a large bowl of perfectly prepared Mashed Taters appeared on the table. The night was saved.

A five star hotel deserves a five star wardrobe. Notice Nonie is wearing a dress and I , the dreaded tie. Something I swore never to wear again except for weddings and funerals. Takae was stunning in a traditional kimono and was the centre of attention where ever she walked. You don't really walk in a kimono though, it's more of a gracious shuffle.

The night was a great success, including some purloined turkey, ham and roast beef that followed us home and made delicious sandwiches the next day. A Thanksgiving without family can be a lonely dinner but the younguns more than made up for our missing family. We went home to bed, sated and happy, while they continued on to an after buffet party. All with loosened belts and kimono sashes.

Getting More Ping in Your Pong

The 1st Annual HIT Foreign Teachers Ping Pong Tournament was a success for all participants. Players competed in four events (A,B,C,D) for fabulous prizes. The A event final saw a powerful American (Branson) up a against a cagey Frenchman (Romain). The match was a "best out of five" final, going down the the fifth game before the winner was declared with the wiley Frenchman overcoming the raw power of the American to win the final game and take home the beautiful solid glass trophy. The B event saw the crafty Russion bear (Irena) blow away the timid yet beguiling Canadian (Brett) with her sheer bravado. Zhou Yan from the small but speedy Chinese contingent overcame her opening jitters to take the C event in straight sets over the softer yet determined and only female member of the American contingent (Leah). The D event was a dog fight with a tall and rangey American (Brian) overcoming the smaller but tenacious Chinese player (Justin) with game going full out. Despite some tournament friction, all the players went for pizza and beer afterwards.

The evening ended with icecream and fruitsalad at the the Cornell's with the younguns moving on to the club scene afterwards. Stay tuned for our Thanksgiving feasting in the next blog.

Nonie's Got An OWWEE!

One of the worst fears that we carried into this glorious adventure was that at some point in our travels we might have to face a serious health issue. That fear finally materialized last Monday though thankfully more scare than life altering . Teaching her first class of the week, Nonie tripped while stepping up on to the raised podium at the front of the class. She fell hard on her right arm and managed to break it near the shoulder. To you medical types, she has a fracture of the greater tubercle on the anterior humerus as well as two small bone chips floating about. Nonie, like the trooper she is, finished her class and waited for my arrival before doing anything about it.

I contacted our local support guy, Guodong to come and take Nonie to the campus hospital, expecting that I would follow along quickly after my class. Nonie was in, seen by a doctor had ex-rays, referred to a specialist, saw the specialist, had a catscan, saw the specialist and then her original doctor again and was virtually out the door before my class ended 1 hour and 45 minutes later. She came away impressed by the speed and professionalism that was displayed by the Chinese medical system. She has to return in two weeks for a follow up and may need to wear a brace for another two weeks. Right now she is making do with a simple sling. According to her, the pain has been quite manageable and she seems quite comfortable with ibuprofen for pain relief. She was back teaching both her classes on Tuesday. What a women.

Other than that one setback, the past ten days has been very quiet with little happening other than work and the odd nap. Nonie was to give her presentation on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic preparations to the school on Wednesday so we were busy putting the final touches to her speech and powerpoint presentation. We had the pleasure of attending a power point presentation prepared by Branson and Brian last week. Quite impressive so went back to the drawing board to jazz up Nonie's. Luckily the presentation has now been put off till next week due to her injury so we will have further opportunities to add some glitz. An interesting note: Haerbin was one of the Cities that applied to host the Olympic Winter Games. Hopefully they are not going to hold a grudge.

Haerbin winter has come on strong this week. Today has been the coldest day yet as we woke up to -17 degrees Celsius. Still managed to get out for a 5:30 AM run. That's just how tough I am. Actually, I had already run to the track which is only a block away before I realized how freakin cold it was. Any skin that was exposed was instant popsicle. Since I was already running with the regular early morning track gang, I did not want to appear as a wimp and leave before they did. Bad mistake as I lost the feeling in my fingers and toes within the first ten minutes on the track. Which at the time, did not feel bad, but when I got home and they began to warm up. *#+@#%$%!

We had the pleasure of attending another symphony concert on Tuesday. The concert was to celebrate the upcoming World University games that will be held in Harbin around the end of February, beginning of March. According to the press, students from all around the world be be coming to Haerbin to compete in the usual games that one would expect from a winter event. I am looking forward to the hockey and curling events. Both will have strong representation from Canada. The ski competitions will be held in a resort about 3 or 4 hours away from Haerbin called Yabuli. I am hoping we can fit in a weekend there for some skiing in March. I must remember to bring back a Canadian flag when we return for the next semester so Nonie and I can have something to wave madly about during the games and when the Canadian teams kick butt and win all those gold medals.

Nonie and I are organizing a ping pong tournament for this weekend. More on that and some pictures in our next blog.

Take Two and Call Me In The Morning

An exciting weekend was enjoyed by the foreign teachers. Thanks to the HIT Foreign Affairs Department we were treated to a full day of sight seeing. Starting early we headed out to our first stop, a pharmaceutical factory located on the outskirts of Haerbin. The company is one of China's largest manufacturers of traditional and herbal medicines along with standard drugs whose names I could recognize. Pictures were not allowed in most areas but I managed to capture a few candid moments. The biggest thrill for me was a tour of the steam plant. Too cool! Coal fired and the cleanest plant I have ever seen. Tried to talk with the shift engineers but they would not let me into the control room. A huge bird cage filled with chirping birds and a shallow pond filled with fish and water lilies was located in the centre of the boiler room floor. If the fish and birds lived then the air and water was considered safe to release and if not then ???? Saves the problem of all those pesky air and water quality tests.

Our next stop was the small town of Acheng. Over a thousand years ago this area was the capital for the Jin dynasty. The Chinese have built a stylish museum to display the various artifacts that have been recovered from the area. You can still see remnants of the earthen wall that surrounded the ancient City. The Jin ruled from approximately 1000 to 1240 AD. Ghengis Khan's rise to power concided with the Jin Dynasty's disappearance. We had lunch in a small roadside diner near the museum. The menu offered traditional Heilongjiang village dishes not available in the big city. One chicken dish was especially tasty and enjoyed by all. That is until the head of a chicken floated up to the top and stared at us for the rest of the lunch.

Back on the bus and back to Haerbin for a visit to the Jewish museum, the Haerbin New Synagogue built in the 1920's. Haerbin was home to a large population of Jews that emigrated from Russia over the previous 20 years to escape the various pograms that were inflicted on them during this period. It was eventually home to over 50, ooo. Like immigrant Jews everywhere, they flourished in their new home building schools, businesses and finally the synagogue. Forced emigration in the fifties saw most travel to the newly created country of Israel. The building was designated a museum in 2004 and has been meticulously renovated to its original condition. Since then, many Jews have returned to visit and to reconnect with family who were buried here.

The highlight of our trip was a visit to the Siberian Tiger Park. The park was established to save the Manchurian tigers from extinction. The tigers have been declared an endangered species with an estimated population of less than 400 tigers remaining in the wild. The park also has a large number of lions in residence as well. The park is quite large, broken up by fenced compounds. Each compound contains a small number of tigers or lions. We were told that the park has over 800 animals in residence with about 200 allowed to roam in the various compounds. The tour was carried out from the safety of a bus which roared us around the park, stopping to provide quick photo ops of the tigers and lions. We were then dropped off at an elevated walkway that meandered through some smaller compounds containing dozens of tigers. They mostly ignored us, playing with each other or just lazing about with bored expressions on their faces. Close up, they are just over sized kitty cats only with paws the size of baseball mitts and claws the size of butcher knives. They rough housed with each other just like little kittens do, emitting a low growl with lots of bass. Definitely not a purrrr! If was quite cold so we did not spend a lot of time in the walkway. We will definitely return when the weather is warmer.

HALLOWE'EN IN HAERBIN

Happy Hallowe'en from the gang at HIT, Haerbin.
We celebrated the scary event a day ahead of the rest of you. That is if you do not live west of Beijing. Hallowe'en is not celebrated in China so we had to be inventive in coming up with costumes. Nonie was a Pirate of the Haeribean and I was the better looking Hansen Brother of Slapstick fame complete with a cardboard CCM hockey stick.

Father Tom came out of the closet for the evening complete with a solid gold plastic cross and considerable amounts of Holy Beer. He blessed anything that moved and somethings that didn't. He was constantly creating full glasses of beer from empty ones. It was one miracle after another. Please note his altarboy in the background. He made sure of an ample supply of empty beer glasses for Father Tom.

Meet Takiya (Please forgive my spelling Takiya) our one and only Japanese teacher. She carved her very first pumpkin with partner Bransen. They actually were not pumpkins but with imagination and some knife work on the base they were transformed into pumpkins for the evening.

Justin was also a virgin pumpkin carver. He completely got into the obligatory gutting of the pumpkin and with little direction from us, created the friendliest pumpkin of the evening. He was unclear on the scary part of pumpkin carving.

Voila. Four magnificently carved gourds/squash/pumpkins. Three scary ones and one with a huge friendly grin. Not a bad looking bunch if I do say so myself. Congratulations to Jackie, Elle and Tyler, visitors from Mudanjiang, who won the competition for the scariest pumpkin. It is the second one from the left with the really evil grin.

It was on to a fancy hotel restaurant for a Hallowe'en feast of various dishes that I can pronounce but not spell. Much beer was drank. We were located in a small private room. Lots of Lookylou's checking us and our costumes out. We may have gotten a bit boisterous from time to time. What is it about wearing a costume that causes you to lose all inhibitions and take on a different personality?

From there on to the Skye Bar who were hosting a Hallowe'en bash. Skye is the local ex-pat hangout near HIT. It was filled with foreign teachers of a dozen nationalities. All wearing the greatest costumes. My favourite was Sonny and Cher. The guy in the Cher costume looked entirely too comfortable wearing it though. Nonie and I stayed long enough to enjoy the atmosphere then headed home and left the younguns to the parteh! Not sure how it ended as we have seen no one today.

Ten Reasons You Know Winter is Coming to Haerbin

REASON # 1

It started about two weeks ago. They are every where! Leeks, cabbage, turnips and onions layered on the top of walls, hanging from balconies or placed out on sheets of plastic draped over the sidewalks. The vegetables are being dryed in preparation for storage and used for future cooking needs in the winter.

REASON #2

The entrance door handles have grown little woolen booties. We are guessing that as the weather gets colder (sub-zero), the booties are to protect our bare skin from becoming permanently welded to the steel of the door handle when they are grabbed. I remember those stupid kids ( I may have been one) who on a dare would touch their tongue to some cold steel out in the school yard, requiring an emergency response team of teachers rushing from the staff room and armed with hot coffee or water to coax tongues off the frozen steel with out losing too many layers of skin from the daredevils tongue.

REASON #3

When we arrived the entrance doors into the dining halls were draped with flimsy plastic strips that you would push through to enter and exit. We assumed it was to keep out flies and weather. These flimsy plastic strips have now been replaced with heavy insulated canvas blankets and have started showing up on store entrances all over the city. A sign perhaps of a windy winter.

REASON #4

The radiators in our apartment have started to gurgle. Most buildings in Haerbin are heated with hot water from central heating plants scattered around the city. No one gets any heat until someone in charge decides that it is time to turn on the boilers which we are told is traditionally the last two weeks of October. Nonie and I like it cooler so this has not been a hardship for us. Can you imagine if they tried to implement something like this in North America. Hah! There are no thermostats for the radiators in our apartment so opening and closing windows is the only way for us to control the temperature.

REASON #5

All the little dogs are starting to sport cute little coats and berets. The Chinese love their dogs. We see dozens being taken out for a walk on the mornings we go for our runs. The dogs are well behaved. Usually little dogs tend to be yappy. The only time I have seen them bark is if they have come across a cat. The cats are usually bigger than the dogs. I saw one cat a few days ago that was being inconvenienced by four little dogs all at once. The cat did not bat an eye, just calmly stood his ground and stared the dogs down as they circled around him ferociously barking while keeping a healthy distance from him. I suspect this was not the first time this cat has been accosted.

REASON #6

Nonie has purchased a down filled winter jacket and and it is now her jacket of choice for evening wear. I was shopping in the local COSTCOesque like store last week and found a lovely goose down vest on sale. To my suprise I found that it was made in Canada. The label clearly stating "Fabrique en Canada" Imagine that. Something in China that was actually made somewhere else. There is hope for us yet.

REASON #7

The leaves have definitely started to change colours. Yellows seem to be the basic colour palette. No vibrant reds or orange. Kind of boring. Not all the leaves have changed yet, so there may be hope.

REASON #8

We have experienced a number of small, light and fluffy snow flurries lasting only a few minutes. One flurry occured during Nonie's early morning class. When this fact was brought to the students attention, she said they all got very excited and ran to the windows. I guess you are never too old to get excited by the first snow fall of the season.

REASON #9

The big smoke stacks that dot the landscape we can see from our balcony and have lain dormant since we arrived, are now belching a thick dark smoke. The air quality has dropped and we are starting to lose our view of the City as the smog thickens and obscures our view.

REASON #10

The naked jogger is now wearing a shirt. During our morning runs we often run across this older Chinese runner. No matter what the weather was, his outfit always consisted of running shoes with white socks pulled up to his knees, a pair of old gym shorts and a pair of white cotton gloves. Nothing else. I saw him on Friday morning. The temperature was hovering around zero and he had added a cotton tee shirt to his ensemble. I can't wait to see what he will wear when the real cold weather hits. I feel like such a wimp wearing my insulated running tights, two shirts, jacket, hat and gloves.

National Holiday

Meet the "Gang": From Nonie's right is Pat (American), Armen (Canadian/Abbottsford), Tom (Canadian/Edmonton), Milly (American), Takiya (Japanese), Will (British), Leah (American) and Brian (American). Missing are Meaghan (American), Eduardo (Italian), Roman (Italian), Irena (Russian) and Branson who was the Foreign Export MC for the evening. We are at the gala banquet to celebrate the National Holiday.

Nonie's new friend. While riding the ferry over to Sun Park we were asked to pose for pictures with a few of our fellow riders. This happens quite often. We are an oddity for many Chinese who have never met or talked with a foreigner. They need the picture to prove to their friends that they have met a foreigner. The folks we met on the ferry are probably on holiday from one of the neighbouring cities or villages where few if any foreigners are found. Haerbin is well visited by foreigners, especially Russians who come here to holiday and shop. We are quite often mistaken as Russian and greeted with a "Pryvet" or "Dosveydonya". Sometimes by other Russians.

Branson receiving a blessing from a vacationing monk. We ran into him while visiting Sun Island. He was thrilled to practise his English with us. This activity is quite common as well. With few foreigners around, the Chinese are ecstatic when they get a chance to practise with a native English speaker. We spent some time in conversation with him and as time passed were were surrounded by dozens of Chinese who were curious as to what was going on with the foreigners. Again, not an uncommon thing to happen.

The view from Sun Island. The skyline is dotted with many tall buildings. Single family housing is very rare in cities unless you are very wealthy or hold a high position in government. The apartments are are very efficient with no wasted space. Most have some form of balcony which is used for storage and/or for drying clothes. Washing machines are quite common now in homes but clothes dryers are very rare. They are very expensive and use too much energy. Something we might want to consider getting rid of. It does however make doing the laundry a challenge. I can just see the Strata Councils reaction with all sorts of laundry hanging in and off the balconies of our complex in Penticton.

Old and New China. While exploring the back room of a souvenir shope we came across this poster guy for old China. He was surrouned by old furniture and knicknacks. He chatted away to us in Chinese and was quite thrilled to pose for pictures with all of us. He is seen here sitting with what we think was his granddaughter.



Our holiday week ended with serious inflatible accident. Despite our warnings that the inflatable tower was ready to collapse, Tom continued to walk under the tower. He is fine but understandably skittish around these towers now. He will have to get over it as these inflatible thingies are ever where. The Chinese believe if one looks good, then hundreds will look a hundred times better. Not sure I agree.

CHINA FAQ- ZUP

Keeping busy here has not been a problem. In the beginning, much of our free time was spent in developing lesson plans for our first few weeks. HIT provided no curriculum. In their exact words; "Do what you want". Sounds easy but it is actually is a lot of work. Thankfully Nonie's twenty years as a career TOC kicked in and we quickly developed some basic ideas to plan our lessons around. Then I jumped on the Web and went looking for lesson material that would fit with those ideas. There is tons of stuff out there so it takes a bit of effort to find material that is appropriate for the level of students we are teaching. We can both teach the same lesson to all our classes with the only differences being in our delivery mostly due to our differing personalities. We are now in our fifth week and the lesson planning doesn't require as much of our time leaving us with free time to explore and socialize.

We must also deliver two one hour lectures each semester which will be open to the entire department to attend. No pressure there! We have chosen our topics. Nonie is doing "Penticton, My Home Town" and "The 2010 Winter Olympics". My topics are "Ironman,Extreme Endurance Sports" and "Seperatism in Canada". Nonie is scheduled to deliver her first lecture on October 8th. I will not be attending as she says it will make her too nervous.

Thanks to a couple of veteran teachers we have started to spread our wings and explore areas outside the campus. Our first foray was to the Russian section of Haerbin. The buildings have all been beautifully renovated and it is the go-to-place for Haerbiners to do some high end shopping. The area consists of a 6 block pedestrian mall with dozens of exquisite Russian style buildings lining the street. The buildings house hundreds of shops selling anything you could possibly want. The mall extends down to the Song Hua River. There a linear park called Stalin Park extends both up and down the river for miles each way. We went on Sunday and the place was packed. We enjoyed lunch in a small food court on a side street off the mall then a leisurely stroll along the river with the intentions of hitting a street market along the way.

The market specialized in pets and pet supplies. As we entered the market, we found fish and fish supplies. As we moved up the street and deeper into the market, we found every imaginable type of dog for sale. It is no Petcetera. From huge mastiffs and huskies to tiny little dogs no bigger than a Guinea Pig. The noise and smells were incredible with animals packed into all sorts of crates and boxes or tied to anything that would not move. The animals all looked in good shape and seemed for the most part to be well cared for. A week later, Nonie and I returned to the market on our own by bus. She had seen a glass container in the market that could hold some bamboo shoots and provide greenery for our apartment. We stumbled through our first price negotiation at one of the stalls and managed to walk a way with solid glass container for $4.00. The best price of course??? It now graces our bookshelf with four bamboo shoots.

From the market we explored some back streets as we made our way back to the mall. It is a different world once you leave the tourist areas. Here the buildings have not seen any love for quite some time although there does seem to be some plan in place for renewal. We came across a street where on one side, the buildings were beautifully restored but empty of people. The buildings on the opposite side were occupied but crumbling, almost ready to fall down. The only thing that seemed to be holding them up were the clothes lines strung between the buildings and the electrical poles. No matter what the living conditions, we always found the residents friendly. Initially they appear stern, even angry as they stare at you. Simply flash them a smile and they immediately smile back. Give them a polite Nia Hao and the smile gets bigger.

We have been able to attend two concerts. The first was provided by three piano students making their stage debut while the second was a full 30 piece professional concert orchestra. Both were enjoyable with the full concert orchestra providing some great music. This concert started at 6:30 pm precisely but people continued to wander in and out through out the performance. The hall seating was made of wood with zero padding and if you were not careful when you folded the seat down, it would SLAM and make a terrible noise that resounded through the hall. This happened dozens of times throughout the perfomance. It was quite disquieting for us foreigners (Nonie) but did not seem to bother the Chinese audience or the orchestra.

We closed off the week with a picnic and by attending a gala dinner to mark the beginning of the national holiday week. The holiday celebrates the creation of the Communist Party. The dinner was held for all the foreign teachers, experts and exchange students. The president of HIT was in attendance along with some local political bigwigs, so it was quite prestigious. Nonie wore a dress and I broke down and wore a hurriedly purchased dress shirt and tie. It started off as any typical gala dinner with a delicous buffet dinner and standard speeches. But after dinner it took a bit of a Chinese spin. First we were serenaded by the President. I gather this was quite an honour. I cannot imagine the Chancellor of UBC singing to his dinner guests. The evening ended with some rocking Karaoke tunes from the head of the Foreign Affairs Department, one of whom confided in me that he really wanted to be a performer. We closed the evening off going out to a fancy hotel drinking a few wickedly expensive beers as well as some cheap ones we snuck in and hid under the table. Probably won't be going back there too soon.

The next day we jumped in a taxi and headed back to the Song Hua river. We stopped along the way to picked up some sub sandwiches at a local restaraunt that specializes in a western menu. A quick ferry ride across the river brought us to Sun Park where we found a little chunk of beach, laid down some blankets and enjoyed a picnic lunch under partly sunny skies. We took some to time to explore the park and while wandering we met a monk / Lama who was holidaying in Haerbin. Didn't think Monks would need holidays but I guess they do. He spoke excellent English and was thrilled to find someone he could practise on. He took a moment to bless one of our group. While visiting with us he was constantly chanting under his breath, while listening to everything we said and responding to our questions. Very Cool.

This pretty well catches you all up on what keeps us busy. I apologize for the length of this weeks post. Now that we are caught up, they should be more manageable. We have settled in nicely and are looking forward to many more adventures.

China FAQ- FOOD!

It has just been brought to our attention that the Chinese sign you can see in the foreground of our blog picture says "Do Not Lean on the Rail". Lucky for us the guard was taking the picture or we could have got in trouble.

In this weeks blog, we will try and answer one of the questions that we are sure you have a burning desire to know.

WHAT DO YOU EAT?

There are at least four dining halls on campus. Each with two or three floors. We calculate that over four thousand people can be fed at each sitting. Each dining hall specializes in a different ethnic cooking style along well as standard dishes that are served in every hall. The smell provides the first clue as to what to expect. The smell of spicy cooking is quite distinctive.

The food is served from behind glass enclosed counters, cafeteria style and dished out of big pans into bowls and plates. If you arrive early, the food can be reasonably hot, come late and it will most likely be cold. If you want to stand in line for while and pay a bit more, there are lots of opportunities for hot dishes prepared while you wait. But beware. When they run out of prepared supplies for the dish, they shut the station down and you are left in line with an empty bowl. Upon arrival at our selected dining hall and floor, we spend our first five minutes wandering up and down the various stations looking for something that catches our eye. At first we leaned towards food the looked like home. We soon discovered that looks can be deceiving.

We have tried to be as adventurous as possible when selecting our meals. We quickly learned to recognize the more spicier dishes. They use hot red chili peppers for most of their spicy foods. We can recognize the small bits of pepper in the dish or if the dish has a red hue to it indicating chili powder. We have discovered a number of wonderful dishes and if we can just remember which dining hall and which floor we got them, we could enjoy them again. Oh well, we have another nine months to find them.

Thanks to a some colleagues who have lived here for a while, we have explored a few of the many restaurants in the area. The 50,000 plus people living in a small area have spawned dozens of places to eat. Our favorite has become the local pizza parlour. The owner/chef/delivery guy is very friendly and produces a pretty good product. Again, not totally the same as our pizza but with some interesting Chinese variations. We have named this place as our "go to restaurant" on Friday nights. Two beers and a "spicy beef" pizza costs us about $4.00. So far we have eaten at a Mongolian, two Muslim restaurants and last weekend went to a bone restaurant. At least thats what our host called the place. The restaurant specializes in cooking meat with the bone left in. The eating utensils include a plastic glove for holding the bones while you tear off the meat and a straw for sucking out the marrow. Interesting to watch the locals eat. They get right into it, sucking the last shred of meat from each bone/rib.

Except for the pizza, we have managed to stay away from McDonalds, KFC and Pizza Hut. We did take a break from Chinese food this weekend and went to the "Bullfighter". It is a Chinese restaurant trying to be a steakhouse. Again, we had been cautioned by others on which steak to order and that we would probably have to send the steak back a few time to reach the desired state of medium rare. Also, not to expect everyones food to arrive at the same time. All of which came to pass. In China, most dishes served are common and everyone would share from the same dish. So dishes come out as they are ready which does not work as well when everyone orders their own dish. Everything was great and probably in another five of six weeks when we feel the need for MEAT, we will go back.

Not a lot of cooking going on at the apartment at the moment but it will probably increase as time goes on as eating out every meal can get a little monotonous.

Bon apetite everyone!

Welcome to our Neighbourhood

Welcome to our neighbourhood. This is the entrance to the courtyard of the Foreign Experts living complex. The complex also houses foreign students as well as graduate students. There are Canadians, English, Americans, Russians, Iranians, Syrians, French and a number from various french and english speaking African countries. Our apartment is located on the 15th floor and can be seen in the background. (extreme ight hand corner, 2nd floor from the top)

Nonie is standing in the courtyard ready with the mop for some serious apartment cleaning. The entrance to the building is manned twenty four hours a day and locked after 12:00 Midnight. We are told that teachers will most likely be let in but students will not be. Not a problem for us, as we are usually in bed well before then anyway. When we go out for our runs at 5:15, the guard unchains the door for us.

Our office is located in a huge building built back when the Russians were in charge. As you can see not much has changed. It is actually four different buildings that have been added to over the decades with the newest one built in the Fifties and the first in the Twenties.

The campus is quite small considering it houses over 40,000 people. It has a lovely pedestrian mall running through the middle of it. The second picture is one of many dining halls that are located on the mall. This one has three floors and can sit over 3,000 students at a time. Nonie is standing in front of the only service area on campus. There is a grocery store, our bank, copy place and some private food stalls.

Basketball seems to have caught on here. The first picture is of the 20 or 30 basketball courts located in front of the complex. The students are out there at first light till well after the sun has set. There are few lights but they continue to play in the dark. Check out the cool motto of the local security company. Words to live by.



These three wheeled delivery carts are everywhere and you would be amazed at the size of the loads that these delivery guys can peddle. They are the "go to" guys if you purchase something big and need to get it home. The last picture is the local Bike Barn outlet in Harbin. They can fix anything on two wheels. You find a lot of these entrepreneurs on the street fixing everything from cell phones to disposable lighters.

Zai Jian (good bye) from our "HOOD".