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.