Picture Time!

Posted on by Seth
Today’s post is going to be pictures from Amanda’s camera. Just stuff that hasn’t made it onto the blog yet. To start off with, we were asked to participate in a race with the other teachers at the school. Here we are standing around wondering what’s going on and how this race will be done.

Here you have Amanda doing what I like to call “running”. We’re not the kind of people who are up for much in the way of physical activity and she didn’t have anything to help keep her..umm…huge tracks of land…from bouncing around. It got quite the reaction from the crowd but by this picture was taken she had slowed to a trot.

Here I am going full steam, not that it mattered at this point. My team, the English department, was a solid last place. I was atleast trying to be impressive by trying to make long strides with my legs.

We give out disney pins to some of our students. The girl with the lanyard there has two pins, but she’s covering them with her hand. So we’ve got our own little pin trader going. Her name is Zoey, the girl on her right in Arlene.


A marching group of something. I’ve no idea what, but they were going one way, us the other. Amanda had her camera out so she grabbed a picture. Every once in a while we do see a group of people all in uniform parading around, but we never know why they are or who they are. The on thing to note is that it was an all woman marching group.


This gentleman is playing a Erhu. Its like a violin but its set on your lap. I’ve not heard one before, but its beautiful. The fact we took an interest in it helped draw a crowd. He basically is a street musician and does this for tips. So we made sure to drop in some money, which spurred others.


Here we have a picture of the Hotel Management students balancing books on their heads. Later on in the year they had trays with a glass of water on it. So its not just knowing how to manage, but how to handle the various staff positions as well.


Our two sons. One we adopted, and the other adopted us. I’ll let you try to guess which is which. The dog is named Vash, who is being held by Jack. Jack’s parents want him to be an electrician like his father, but Jack wants to be an interpreter. He’s actually getting a lot better by hanging around us as he picks up new words from us and also helps him to get over being shy. The Chinese also worry about being wrong, or looking foolish. So if the option is to speak and be wrong, or not speak at all, they won’t speak. Jack has learned that we aren’t bothered when he gets words wrong, and when he does get them wrong, we correct him, so he learns more. I wish more students were like him.


Vash is trying to help me sleep. This happens every night.


Here is a picture of Amanda making chicken soup. We can’t wait to come back to the States and make chicken soup for everyone. Getting the head is very lucky! Maybe you’ll be lucky when Amanda makes you soup!

Here is a picture of how trash is handled. It gets burned. I believe this is where most of the polution comes from. Rain seems to wash it out of the air, but if it goes a stretch without rain the air can start getting really bad.


Some of the kids who live on the alley along the side of the school. Its the backway into town, but right now the mainway due to road construction going on. Amanda went by one night as there are a row of shops, and when school ends students who live locally head out home. Small vendors will try to sell them snacks. These three are children of the small vendors and they love the camera.

Twilight is rather popular over here. Dammit. The students are always disappointed when the subject comes up and I talk about how bad it is. I say the same thing when Justin Beiber is brought up. “Do I look like a teenage girl to you?”

That’s all for now. Tomorrow I’ll get the pictures from our trip to ChungDe, getting lost, found, lost again, and then finding out we weren’t lost after all.