Children's Day pictures

This is Marcel. He is a kleptomaniac. He was trying to take off my fingers so he could hide them in his pocket and not give them back. We have lost many tokens to his pockets.


This is Emma. She is in Bruce's home room class. She is as tom-boy-ish as they come. You can't tell in the picture, but the first inch and a half of her bangs are cut to the stubs; I think she did it herself. She insisted I put her hair in pigtails like the other girls.


This is at the actual performance. Kitty is in the front. Behind her are Kaysee and Emma. They look like angels in those dresses.


One of the Chinese teachers put together a fashion show for the kids who weren't in very many performances. They wore recycled stuff. As Zooie (the one with the white spotted shirt with a blue flower on it) walked out, her yellow skirt slowly shimmied off her waist and down to her knees. She posed in her underwear, and then pulled it up. We got it on video! So cute! We will have it up on youtube soon.


This is my darling Drew. He is sporting the green eyeshadow and pink blush worn by all the boys.


This is the makeup we wore for our Lady Gaga performance. The kids loved it!


These are just a few of the pictures from the performance, let me know if I should post more. Most of them are on my Facebook (Katie's).

Lady Gaga and Marcel

On Friday 5-28 we had the annual Children's Day performance at our school. Most of our students' parents came to watch, and many of our students were in three or four shows. It was kind of like a stake roadshow. A few groups sang songs or played traditional Chinese instruments. Katie and my kids sang "Bingo," and the other ILP teachers' kids sang "Lollipop." Later, the ILP teachers all sang the Hannah Montana song, "The Climb." Bruce played guitar and someone else played the piano. Then, to end the talent show, we were the second-to-last act. We got on-stage and performed a dance choreographed to Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance." Katie learned it and spent the past two weeks teaching it to us. It was so much fun! We dressed in all black with sequins, and painted our faces like halloween, and ratted up our hair. It kind of felt like "Thriller." We got a huge applause, and the next evening the school principals paid for us to go out to eat, because the parents liked it so much.

On Saturday, Katie and I went at 8am to teach at the kindergarten. One of the kids is named Marcel, after a monkey from the TV show "Friends." He is kinda quiet, but one day he saw one of us teachers getting a token to put in our apron. He decided he wanted the token, jumped out of his chair and started clawing the token out of the teacher's hands. The teacher screamed, but Marcel just kept climbing up on her and clawing at her hands. Once he got the token, he never gave it back. So on Saturday, Katie was teaching Marcel when he did the same thing to her. She was able to whip out the camera and snap a photo of him:

*our internet is not letting us upload right now so we will gets those pictures ASAP*

We do dishes in the shower

This is Katie teaching at the public school. Tyler is the kid in the center, facing the camera.

So there I was (Bruce), teaching at the public school. My lesson for the food category was to pour juice into a cup, and use a straw to drop some in everyone's mouth without ever actually touching them, like a pipette. (We talk in English the whole time about what we are doing). At first I would tighten the juice cap so tight that the kids couldn't open it. I would pass it around the table, and when no one could open it they gave it back to me. I would dramatically blow on the cap, and unscrew it as if it were effortless (I actually had to twist pretty hard, but the kids believed it was magic). I tightened it again, passed it around, and all the kids would try blowing on it before opening it. Again, none of them could open it. Before we moved on, I would have everyone at the table blow on the juice cap at the same time. Then I would take the cap off like it was easy. After all the kids had gotten a few drops and I was done with my lesson (20 minutes), we would rotate kids and I would start over with a new group of about seven kids. After all four rotations, we were done for the day and I was saying goodbye to the kids as they walked off down the hall with their parents. But one kid, Tyler, had other plans. He is our ADHD kid who just got back from Beijing where they tried to cure him with traditional Chinese medicine. Tyler ran past me into my room, jumped over my chair, and squatted down in the corner where my juice bottle was sitting on the floor. I immediately knew what he was doing. He was trying to get some more juice! As I started pacing towards him, I could see him struggling to get the bottle cap off in time to drink some before I caught him. With no success, and upon seeing me, he freaked out and started blowing on the bottle cap as hard as he could. I started laughing so hard I could barely get the bottle away from him.

We ar like your Dinosaur Dance

This week we have been practicing a dance we choreographed for the kids that they do to "Bingo" (there was a farmer had a dog...) The kids worked so hard that we decided to give them a break and let them play on the playground. With us teachers being their play buddies, our little 1st graders were able to reach new heights! Bruce started lifting up the kids that couldn't reach, so they could play on the monkey bars. Then he helped them climb up to the top of the bars! The kids were so excited, and it was neat to hear them do it all in English - "Teacher, teacher, I want up!"

Katie helped Kim, our star English speaker, make a sand cake. Kim told us, "I will go to school in Shanghai with my sister, and if my English is good I, I can go to America."

You're like my own personal enzyme...

This was the most relaxing weekend ever! So Yantai is a city about an hour and a half west of us. There is a Brazilian family that comes to Weihai to meet with us for church every week, the Machados. Brother Machado has been asking us to come visit and have a real Brazilian BBQ at his house for months now. This weekend we finally went. Brother Machado and his wife are in their late 30's and have two boys; one is 3 and the other is 5. Their boys are very active. They have been in China for over a year, while Brother Machado works as an electrical engineer on an oil rig in the ocean. Nine of us squished into a shrunken mini-van built for 7 passengers. It was really tight! We sat four to a row (instead of three) and one lucky person got shot gun. It took a little longer than expected because our driver didn't really know where to go, and there was a ton of road construction and detours. We left Weihai at 4:45pm and got there at about 6:30pm. The first thing he did was take us out to dinner to an American restaurant. It was THE BEST American food I have had since I have been here! Oh, we had sour cream, guacamole, lemonade, pork ribs, Caesar salad, fries, twice-baked potatoes; Bruce got a chimichanga, and I got Parmesan chicken. It was heaven! I didn't realize how good food can be. It was indescribable bliss . . . They had to roll us out the door after we finished eating. We got home and played with the boys before going to bed. They go to an international school, and can speak Portuguese, English, and some Korean and Chinese. Sister Machado said they hated being so far from home at first, but now they have made friends, mostly Brazilian and Korean.

The next morning I woke up to what sounded like gun shots in a war zone. It was the Chinese shooting fireworks for a wedding at around 7 am. Then I smelled something yummy . . . Brother Machado made us pancakes with real butter and maple syrup! After breakfast we held church in their living room. Their home was small but beautiful! I loved how they decorated it! It didn't feel like China at all. It was like going home for a nice break! The talks were inspiring and uplifting. The rest of our stay was devoted to bumming around and eating yummy food!! Brother Machado made us Brazilian-style beef ribs and steak for lunch. It was the best. I felt so full and content. It wasn't just the food, though. They were so welcoming and the boys were so funny to watch. I could feel the love they have for each other. It made me miss our family. Unfortunately, it couldn't last forever. This coming week we are preforming at our Daguanghua school for Children's Day (which is on June 1st). I can't believe it is June next week!

Chinese Childhood

I took this picture a in front of the International Market in Weihai. While his mother waited for the public bus he wandered off to look at the balloons. This scene represents typical middle-class China - street vendors, toddlers with potty hole pants, electric scooters, the guy is smoking, bright red Chinese signs, and too many stairs. (We have looked through lots of toddler clothes here, and they ALL have the potty hole in the crotch. Normal toddler pants as found in the US are completely obsolete.)

As a side note, Bruce was so intrigued by the convenient design that he is commissioning a seamstress at the local market to sew him a pair that he can wear for the remainder of his stay in China.

Just kidding.

"Teacher! This is your . . .*Snip Snip Snip*"

While walking around downtown we found a lady selling something weird. It was in the shape of a star, with the texture of hard jelly. She tried to tell us what it was, but we didn't understand. We bought one! (It was only 15 cents). She handed it to me in a baggie with water. When we started to play with it, the lady started talking in Chinese and motioned for us NOT to poke or pinch it, and to keep it submerged in water. Weird. We brought the star home and put it in a jar of water. We are going to Yanti this weekend to visit some church members there. I wonder what we will find when we get back?? The only two guesses we have are: 1- it will absorb the water and expand to a ridiculously huge size; or 2- it is filled with fertilized fish eggs and food, and after a while we'll have a bunch of fish swimming around. Any guesses, looking at the picture?

Funny Story: I was teaching a game at the EDK (kindergarten) yesterday when one of my favorite students, Candice, walked up to me. She showed me a small sticker of a strawberry. I said, "How cute!" and continued my lesson. A few minutes later she stuck something wet on my hand. I looked down and saw the sticker covered in spit stuck to my hand. It was a cute gesture, and little gross, but cute! (The sticker wasn't sticky anymore, so she used her saliva to make it stick again, and then gave it to me as a symbol of her friendship).