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.