BYO T.P.

I just can't believe that tomorrow is a new month. Then again, I think I say that everytime I turn a page in the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta calendar (the nicest piece of art on our walls--thank you Granny and Grandaddy). There are no more China surprises. Nothing on the streets of Jinan phases me anymore. Its November, and everything has become...normal.
It has become normal to sleep on a very firm surface: a 3 inch pad seperating me from a wooden board.
It has become normal to pour myself a little milk from a bag, to bleach and peel the skin off of fruit, and to carry toilet paper in my pocket.
It has become normal to ride my 1-speed (sans helmet) to work in a mob of bicycles, scooters and rickshaws.
Its normal to see cars in the bike lane. Infuriating, but normal.
Its normal to see taxis and cars using the oncoming lane of traffic for their passing lane.
Its normal to see toddlers eliminating on the sidewalk, little dogs in bicycle baskets, and caged chickens on the sidewalk.
Its normal to see people carrying large bags of soy milk, raw meat, or tofu. Normal to see a tower of steaming bamboo cookers, and hear bull horns advertise corn on the cobb over and over.. and over.
Its normal be pointed at and stared at.
I hardly notice the incessant horn honking. Give it another two months and I might even spit on the ground. But lets hope not.

Dancing Bear Routine

A week ago, I got a call from a Chinese woman called Susan. She told me that she was from the English department and that there was an English meeting on Tuesday night. I told her I was free and could make it. The last thing she said was: "I will call you back on Sunday and tell you what the topic is."
The topic? I assumed she meant a meeting for English teachers. How else would she have my name and phone number? Josh guessed right away that it might be what his brother, Jake, had experienced a time or two here: 200 students in a lecture theatre and you up front with a microphone and an hour to fill.
When Susan called back on Sunday, I asked her what exactly the meeting was about. She said it was just a chance for some Chinese students to communicate with foriegners and there would be no lecture. Okay, I could handle that. I didn't mind going along on a Tuesday night to chat, as long as I didn't have to prepare anything. After teaching in the morning and taking class in the afteroon, I can't promise my wits will be completely about me come dinner time. Susan came by the apartment to take me to the meeting at 5:30pm. As I put my shoes on, she suggested I give a short performance.
Uh, what kind of performance?
A song or a dance would be fine.
Josh was sitting on the couch, completly amused by the whole thing.
No thanks, I don't think I will perform. I haven't prepared anything and I don't like to sing.
If there is one thing I have learned how to do since I came to China, it is how to say "No". Because of the language barrier, you can't rely on polite and subtle hints that signal that you are not available. You have to say "No"---sometimes two or three times. "No" is essential to keeping some personal time for yourself. Otherwise, you could easily promise all your free hours away to students and strangers who want to "become friends" (practice English).
I made sure that Susan understood me very clearly. We got to the "meeting" and slowly the auditorium filled up with 250 undergraduate students. There was stage with a few chairs set up, a couple of microphones and some bottles of water. Susan introduced me to the hosts of the event and they prepped me on the questions I would be asked. I was at ease and even excited. There was also to be an Australian student and and a Tanzanian student at the Q & A session. The hosts asked us questions about our relationships with our parents, impressions of China and religious beliefs. Then, the students had a chance to ask us some questions. Just about all the questions were for the "American teacher", but Louise (the Austrlian student) felt more qualified to answer a couple of them.

Q (from student in audience): My foriegn teacher is also American. I told her that I like Bon Jovi and she laughed at me. Why did she find that funny?
A: (me standing up with the microphone)...hmmm....well,
A: (Louise seated behind me with no microphone) Because its so gay!!
A: (me again) ...no..I don't think thats it. I'm not sure I can tell you why she laughed. Its fun music to sing along to. Maybe she was envisioning you singing along to "Livin' on a Prayer".

Louise was not afraid to speak her mind. She was especially animated when she spoke about how disgusting she thought the toilets were here and how annoying she found the sound of people cracking sunflower seed shells with their teeth (you see/hear a lot of that around here). In those moments, I was a little embarassed and concerned that all the students would see us as the same person because we looked and sounded alike.
But, they loved her performance. Yes, Louise had prepared a short Chinese song to perform and she got a standing ovation. In fact, she said many amusing things that scored generous laughter and applause from the audience.
With all of the special attention foriegners get around here, you could really get the wrong idea about yourself. As we left the auditorium, students caught up with us and asked for phone numbers and to pose for photos. Susan held my water bottle while I wrote my email address in loads of little notebooks and stood for some photos. It can be quite the head trip.

With Josh's permission, I get to be the bearer of some rather exciting news of his. His boss at the Australian school has been really impressed with the progress he has made with the students and the suggestions he has made for the course. They asked to help write an ESL text book and to sign a contract to work full time with them from Sep '06-July '07. He has officially signed the contract. So there you have it. Just like that, he has enthusiastically committed to another year in Jinan.

Changes in the air

In the past two days, the temperature has dropped greatly. We venture out in layers of fleece and down, looking like we've stepped out of an REI catalog. If anyone is prepared for the cold, it is surely Josh. He has enough warm gear to camp on the ice in Antarctica. In fact, this cold weather has him wishing he were on top of a mountain with the wind burning his face, stirring up Swiss Miss on his whisperlite stove. He really comes alive when the temperature drops. I am the exaggerated teeth chattering type who says "It.Is.Frr-ee-zing!" every 5 or 10 minutes. But I am enjoying it too. What I have most enjoyed is the new street food that is appearing with the new season. Candied crab apples and sweet potatoes. Every street corner accomadates a man in army surplus gear with what looks like a kiln full of baking sweet potatoes. The wrinkled skin peels away to steaming orange sweetness and it reminds me of Thanksgiving.
We did actually get an American food fix recently at Jenny's Cafe. It was like stepping into a cafe anywhere in the Western world. You could have a latte on the sofa, a Budweiser at the bar, or deluxe nachos at one of the tables. Josh and I split a salad, nachos and french fries. The nachos were a great dissapointment, six chips arranged on the plate with beef, lettuce tomato, and hardly enough cheese to register carefully piled on each chip. It was a comforting meal, but cost us nearly six dollars, so we won't be eating there often.
We have begun our Chinese classes, which have turned out to be rather intense. Our teacher speaks mostly in Chinese to us. We can't understand what she is saying, but we know when to repeat after her. Right now, we are working on tones and pronunciation with a few vocab words thrown in here and there. The language really breaks down into sounds, and each sound may have four different meanings, depending on what tone you say it in. Its going to be a long road ahead, but I want to learn the language more and more everyday, so I am glad to finally be in class. I keep my students updated with my progress, which they find endlessly amusing---maybe not a good sign.
As of yesterday, we have eaten in the campus cafeteria twice. The food is extremely cheap and apart from not always being as hot as I would like it to be, its really tasty. There are three floors with a variety of vegetables, meats, soups, buns, seafoods, eggs, rice and tofu. We fight through the crowds, swipe our card and take a plate full of what looks good. The cafeteria swarms with thousands of students at the designated meal times, I feel like I am having an experience I missed out on in college. It would be interesting to study the culture of college cafeterias around the world. Here, the students sit down with a full tray of food and eat it fast. Nobody seems to take of their jacket, or work on any math problems with dinner. I wonder if students in France linger in the college cafeteria, savoring each morsel?
In keeping with the theme of change for this entry, I took a trip to the Red Leaf Valley today. Josh was busy with work, so I jumped on a small bus with 20 foriegn teachers. In a rather reflective mood, I decided to venture out on my own as soon as we arrived. It was a perfect cold, sunny Fall day. The scenery really took my breath away today. I don't know what it was, a combination of everything maybe...the smells coming off of the grills, the ducks, the waterfalls, the weather, my mood...I thought, maybe, it was the most beautiful place I had ever seen.

Red Leaf Valley

Fumbling back into the light

The internet has been down for three days and I've suffered a range of withdrawal symptoms that might indicate I have an addiction. At first, I was frustrated. I looked for a distraction, but found myself repeatedly opening up the Google page in disbelief. Was China mad at Google?..and hotmail...and Oprah...and everyone??? Next came a sense of abandonment followed by an eerie calm. Tonight, the internet has come back into our lives and I am overwhelmed. So many choices...pictures, and pages, and options, and keys! Where do I start? Do I even remember how all of this works? The lesson I have learned is not to become too attached, the Internet may decide to leave my life without notice at any moment. Next time, I will be ready.
On a lighter note, there are many new experiences to write about.
I was beginning to worry that we were getting so adjusted that I may no longer have anything new to write about and the blog would become dull with the occasional grumbling entry.
Its late now, but I wanted to make it known we are back in the cybersphere....although, China might indeed be mad at hotmail because that page still "cannot be displayed".
Every night, I visit http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/personal.html?sort=2 and let my imagination decide what you are doing.

Party of 25

I wanted to organize a lunch meeting that students may attend on Thursday's and figured that if each student brought 5 yuan, I could make up the difference. Shandong University gives me a little bit of extra money every month for my transportation costs. Since I am riding my bike, I pocket all of that money and thought a good use for it would be to subsidize lunch for a group of students. I told both of my Monday morning classes that they were welcome to meet me on Thursday at noon for lunch and a chance to practice English outside of class. As they left the classroom, about 10 of them said "See you Thursday". I thought that ten students seemed like a lot of people for lunch and eventhough probably not all of them would show up, I figured I better not tell my classes for the rest of the week just to play it safe. I presumed I would have other lunch days available to other classes. On Thursday, I went to the main gate at noon and within five minutes, twenty five of my Monday students arrived. I suppose it was naive to think that I wouldn't get a big turnout when there was food involved. We walked to a nearby restaurant and packed in at two large round tables. (Many restaurants here have large round tables with "Lazy Susan"s in the middle). As you might guess, the majority of the lunch time discussion was in Chinese except for the 5 or 6 students nearest to me who asked me to compare Western food to Chinese food among many other questions related to my fondness for Chinese dishes. It was all rather chaotic and the bill was very large. The students insisted I accept 8 yuan from each of them, playing the "it would make us uncomfortable if you pay so much" card. It was nice that they helped out more, but I was embaressed because they could have spoken to each other in Chinese and eaten in the cafeteria for 3 yuan.

Second attempt:
Josh has office hours at our apartment on Wednesday nights. About ten or twelve students sit in the living room laughing and carrying on about interesting topics for a couple of hours. I am always envious because he gets to see personalties of his students emerge and hear what they have to say about politics, loveless marriage and a wide variety of topics that can't be thoroughly discussed in the classroom. I decided to plan some office hours of my own, but it was proving difficult because I live on another campus. It is too far for my students to commute in the dark and cold. Also, far too time consuming of a journey (unless you are bike) in the city's bumper to bumper traffic. At last I found a classroom on the other campus that could be unlocked for me between 2-4 on Mondays. Today, I went to the classroom and within minutes I had forty students (including five people I had never seen before). The worst of it was they all looked at me like it was a class and waited for me to speak. I tried out a couple of dicussion topics, but a discussion with forty people just wasn't happening. Eventually, we broke into five groups and had free-talk time. Many students were dissapointed. It felt like a problem without a solution. I went around a participated in each discussion group for 15 minutes, but we all left feeling rather dissatisfied.
One solution is to have seperate office hours for each class, but another solution is to not have office hours at all, and I am leaning towards the latter. Afterall, they can find ways to practice English on their own, right?

This week I am teaching each class how to write a business letter, cover letter and other practical communication skills as well as some Western manners.
My students were absolutley shocked and embaressed when I told them it is uncommon to end an official letter in "Yours very truly". I went as far to say that you would probably not use "yours" unless you have a close relationship with the person you are writing to if not a romantic relationship. Many of my students have written me emails with the close "Yours very truly" and I know they had to be a tad embaressed when I brought this up. There is a chapter in their textbook about official letter writing. The authors suggest you use "yours very truly" or "yours faithfully". I was very surprised to see this. For the longest time I've believed it was too personal. Am I wrong?

Googled

There are some things that are very tempting to write about. For instance: the dynamic between all the foriegn teachers in this apartment block. But I resist...because, eventhough I would write harmless characterizations and comical scenarios, they could one day be discovered by a late night web surfer and I would feel just awful. Its like saying something behind someones back, and then the next time you see them you are paranoid because there is that chance they have heard through the grapevine. Just out of curiousity, I wondered what someone would have to search in Google to discover this weblog. One combination I tried was "Betsy China". This blog did not appear on the first page of results, but I did discover http://www.betsygoestochina.com/ (See? The late night surfing takes you places you would never expect!). This woman is interesting. Her life sounds like a lot of fun and she takes amazing photographs. You should visit the site for the photographs alone. Many are regular sights we see around here that I have not been able to capture.

Wanting more

Yesterday had its ups and downs. The students I see on Tuesday's have earned themselves a reputation of being quiet and unwilling to participate in class, so I am always a tad apprehensive as I head to work that day of the week. I have noticed that I too am slightly unwilling to give as much of myself to them.
There are times when I ask a simple question to the class and suddenly, as I look out at the class, all heads have shifted carefully and slowly in order to avoid eye contact with me. First, I give them the benefit of the doubt: that they did not understand the question. I phrase it again, slowly and clearly. Same response. Then, I feel a mixture of dissapointment and frustration. I am tempted to move on, but instead I wait. I look out at them and I silently count to ten in my head. By 'seven', we are practically suffocating in akward silence, but it is rare that a student is willing to break the ice with a response. Then, I move on and I sense that my point has been made. This is an approach a veteran foriegn teacher suggested to me. Its excruciating, but I must find a way to reach my Tuesday students.

This week, the students gave presentations on regions of the United States they have been studying for a couple of weeks. Many of them were visibly nervous in front of the class--wavering voices, looking only at the map or at the floor. The most common mistakes they made were in pronunciation. "Th" sounds like "Z" (souzwest, zis and zat), Virginia turns to "Wurginia", and quite often an "uh" sound blurs one word into the next. Theseuhmistakesuhare ubiquitous amongst Chinese English speakers. It is not as if the English is beyond comprehension, but it would be nice to find a way to get the students to think about these details as they speak. My Wednesday students are very playful and talkative. The two hours flow smoothly with them, and it always feels we have made some progress. We did pronunciation drills today, really exaggerating the movement of our tongue and lips. I cringed throughout the whole excercise because I felt I was insulting their intelligence by asking them to repeat after me over and over. But, in fact, I was pleased to see that it made a difference in the clarity of the presentations today.
I think I am finally warming up to the idea of what it means to be a teacher. In other words, for the first 5 weeks, I was hesitant to correct the students. I was quite happy to teach, but I delicately tried to avoid pointing out their mistakes. With many students, it feels like trying to coax a shy kitten to come over to you. You don't want to make any sudden movements and scare it back into the corner. You have to be encouraging. Today, I was more critical (constructively) and it paid off.
My fear is that some students are thinking: Who is this young, rich, American kid and what are her qualifications anyway?
Ah well, English class is mandatory for them and it just so happens I am fluent in English, so here we are. Each day is something new and different. I am sometimes frustrated with cultural differences and my inability to have a meaningful conversation with anyone Chinese. I also get cramped with the feeling that there are some topics that are tabboo here, feeling like there is a big elephant in the room that nobody will recognize. I want to know what they think about the television strategically going blank for seconds at a time during the news or about not being able to access some web pages, but in this indescribable way I feel like their lips are sealed or their level of English fluency just won't permit it. Pride, fear..? Perhaps we just haven't found the right setting for it yet. And I suppose we haven't been here that long.

Today had ups and downs and stops! I got my brakes fixed.

You live, you learn

Life in China is coming together quite nicely. Today, as I rode my bike to work for the very first time, I felt so happy and peaceful. I though to myself, if this solo ride across town somehow ends badly, I just want my friends and family to know I was really happy when I went. That didn't come out quite as light and frothy as I had aimed. Suffice it say that our simple lives in this corner of the world are rather delightful.

A few days after I returned from Qingdao, I met a few students downtown at the Black Tiger Springs. It was nice to be out of the classroom and feel like friends. As we ate lunch, they asked me how many countries I had been to and what my life back home was like. As the conversation progressed, I wanted so badly for it to sink in that I am lucky to have literally all the choices in the world, with everyone I know backing me, telling me to just do "what makes me happy". They told me that it is unlikely they will ever get to leave China. We sat there, four 22 year old women, pasts and futures vastly different. I have still not discovered if youth here are just as satisfied and dissatisfied with their lives as I am with mine. With the language and cultural barrier, I am not sure that I will ever know the answer. In the moments we were laughing and eating spicy cabbage, it seemed we were exactly the same.

Josh and I ate lunch at our favorite spot again yesterday--I still don't know the name of it, but it doesn't make a bit of difference. Lately, we have had the same sweet and smiley young waitress. When she brought our change over, she handed me a note. She must have assumed that we read Chinese because of how quickly we order off the menu (we are still getting mileage out of pointing to something on the menu and waiting for a surprise to appear from the kitchen). I took it with both hands and said thank you. She lingered and looked at me for a moment and then we left. I was so anxious to find out what it said. The possibilities were endless: "Why do you come to this restaurant every other day?", "I think you should know the other waitresses don't bring you what you order and they have a good laugh in the back because you are so clueless when your food arrives" ?
I took the note to work this morning and had one of my best students read it out to me: "Older sister, would you lend me 10 quai? I will return it to you soon. Thank you."

Josh's reaction: We should never go back there. It was very wrong for her to ask customers for money. And if you lent it to her, she may ask again and again.

These were all undebatable arguments and I waited until he finished before I told him what I did. I had my student write a reply: "Hello, we do not read or speak Chinese..yet. I had to have someone translate your note to me. This is our favorite restaurant. ~Betsy" and without even thinking, I folded a 10 quai note up in the paper and delivered it to her at the restaurant on my way home from work.
I didn't think of the possible repercussions until I was riding home. I imagined that a senior waitress may have ripped the note out of her hands, seen the money and told the boss what she had done.
I suppose I just assumed it must be important and it was impossible for her to come up with the money another way. But now, I believe I should have left it alone. We could have gone on eating there pretending that we never knew what her note said.

If this entry seemed a tad lack luster, it is because Explorer "performed an illegal operation" in the midst of me publishing my original entry! Is there anything more infuriating?

Mail

Everyone has their own opinion about receiving mail in China. We have heard the best and worst of it. Most recently, I heard that UPS is a winner. I think it all gets here...eventually.

Here is our address:

Betsy Quicksall and/or Josh Burt
c/o International Office
Shandong University
Jinan,Shandong 250100
China

Back from Qingdao

Qingdao was much quieter and cleaner than Jinan. Fresh off the train, we asked some students to help us find the hotel we booked at the Ocean University Campus. They escorted us all the way there, even rolled a couple of our suitcases. After we checked in, they asked to be our tour guides. We agreed to meet them for an evening tour of Qingdao: the best vantage point, the square and a seafood dinner. In fact, we met them three more times after that for more touring. It was rather nice to get to kick back and follow the group around. I wanted a break from speaking ESL English, so Josh and I often lagged behind or ahead of the gang.
On that first night, we saw some stalls selling touristy junk set up along a pier. Naturally, we wanted to peruse the stalls and marvel at the seashell trinkets. One of our student guides, who called himself David, escorted us making sure we kept our hands on our wallets and didn't make any purchases without him being present. He would lose face if something were to happen to us in China under his care. Now, I couldn't tell if the place was shady, or if I just got that vibe from the way our young guide was behaving. He really fretted over us straying too far from him. Belinda, an American teacher with us, had her eye on a stone turtle. Our guide quickly appeared at her side while she took bargaining into her own hands offering to pay half the quoted price. David looked nervous. Next, David spoke some English to Belinda, took her arm and they walked away. The man selling the turtle was furious and loudly berated David causing heads to turn on the crowded pier. This all ended with some debate later that evening. Belinda simply wanted a stone turtle with some Chinese characters painted on it. She didn't mind paying far more than it was worth because it was still only $6 US. David thought that price was exploitive and wouldn't allow it to happen under his watch. I was in the camp of 'whats the big deal, this is a little dance that tourists and locals do all over the world. Let her buy the junk for an outrageous price.' Josh disagreed with me. Care to weigh in?
On day two, we went to the infamous LaoShan--Qingdao's seaside mountain. And so did 10,000 other people. We jumped on a bus in town, prepared to stand for the two hour ride. It was much cheaper than hiring a driver. What I wasn't prepared for was how many people they would allow on the bus. When we got on, I had never seen a bus so full, but sure enough we made about 15 stops on the way up, and at every stop, another 6 or 7 people boarded. A woman was there to push people on. At one point, I was almost off the floor of the bus. Mei, our smallest traveller, was twisted, pushed and pulled in all directions. It was mad. And I said that out loud. "This is mad!" I shouted everytime more people crammed on. Of course nobody could understand me....I assumed.
On the train back to Jinan, as the cars filled with smoke from the dozens of cornhusk fires along the way, I got an excited feeling. I realized that it was that nice feeling of returning home. Jinan feels like home. It may not be as clean and fancy as Qingdao, but I like the way life spills out onto the streets here---even if it gets a little messy.








As is shown above, it is not uncommon to be stopped by groups of students who wish to spend a few minutes practicing English. Belinda is the blonde and Mei is in the sunglasses.
In a few hours, those fish will be on skewers cooking over some hot coals, selling for 1 quai apiece.
Our helpful guides.

Karen in front of a delicious lunch. Fried squid, pork and eggplant, an egg and mushroom soup, tofu, spinach roti wraps.

The city almost looks European.
I consume more tea here than I did in New Zealand. Its all we drink in restaurants.

Tones of Home

And here again...Josh Burt...

Slowly, Autumn is working its way to us in Jinan and beginning to reveal itself bit by bit. A few days ago the temperature started a labored decline from damned hot into the comfortable 60's and 70's. If the locals are to be trusted, the decline will continue unabated straight through the pleasant range and into damned cold with a couple of months' time, but for now we are enjoying life out of the air conditioning a great deal. Today we even enjoyed a pleasant breeze in town and enjoyed a bike ride to the West end. Out and about I thought I detected an odor in the wind other than the familiar peanut oil and garbage. There was a faint hint of Fall in that breeze. For a moment my mind wandered back to October in northeast Ohio: color, the apple harvest, and highschool football on chilly Friday nights. Then someone hocked one onto the sidewalk in front of me and I was in China again.
I've been keeping a keen eye on the trees around town. The leaves haven't turned quite yet, and there aren't any Maples around to lead the charge but I'm expecting the color to begin any day now. It was reassuring to first arrive in Jinan and see the streets lined with a number of familiar faces: willow, ash, sycamore, aspen. I've even noticed a few green plants growing in the margins next to sidewalks that back home are identified as invasives. They look so smug sitting in their comfy little millenium old niche, knowing full well that they're reeking havoc back home. Makes a fellow daydream about filling his pockets with burdock seed or a beech nut or two. Just a pinch here or a pocketful there and this country would start to look a little bit more Midwestern. But then again, the first Starbucks have opened in Beijing. I guess we're even already.
Tomorrow we leave for the sea-side town of Qingdao. We've been told to expect clean air and an attractive little city with visible German influence. I'll be interested to see what sort of animal is the product of such an unlikely pairing. Will Qingdao be a city which is very efficiently chaotic or will the menus include steamed buns with sausage? We have already heard of the great Tsingtao brewery, founded during the German occupation. I would be fascinated to meet the brewmaster there, likely a jolly fat Chinese man with red cheeks. In reality, the local culture there has likely found a way to take every remaining hint of German influence and turned it into something distinctly Chinese. Such is the way with most things foreign here, over time they take more from the locals than the locals take from them. I've heard that the big problem Hong Kong Disney experienced on opening day was that they couldn't find a way to make Chinese queue. Off to dinner.

Bike Ride Across Jinan

Tourist attraction--Daming Lake.








I thought Jinan was a picture of perfection today. The gutters are filling with crunchy brown leaves, the temperature is cooling and the sun is shining. We have been enjoying Jinan on bike for the last couple of days exploring directions we have never been before. My bike is old, heavy and I like to say the brakes are 'all or nothin'. Josh went off to Wal Mart and got himself a new fancy mountain bike---which he has three locks for and the only time it leaves his side is if we can sit at a table near the window and watch it while we eat.

Where the foriegners are

Today is the first of three days dedicated to celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of China. I am on vacation until the 10th of October. Josh will have to go back to work (for his teahcing job with the kids) on the 6th to make up for having this weekend off. On Monday morning, we will take a train to Qingdao with Mei and Karen. Its a sea-side city in Shandong Province where the residents are "arrogant because their city is so clean" according to one my students.

Last night, we did a little National Day celebrating with representatives from many different nations--at an 80's party! The party was thrown by a 20-something woman from Cincinnati called Rebecca. She reminded me of Drew Barrymore. Including Josh, there were three Cincinnatians at the party--they had exclusive inside conversations about Skyline Chili, Graeters Ice Cream and even discovered that they knew people in common.
Americans, Australians, Canadians, Brits, Irish, a Kiwi, a Norwegian, three Chinese,and a Zimbabwean mingled and danced to 80's hits. The three things we all had in common were that we spoke English, taught English and remembered bits and pieces of childhood in the 80's---slap bracelets, Oregon Trail, hypercolor t-shirts, CHIPS, Duck Tails, jellies, Pee Wee Herman and so much more.
I don't plan to run with a foriegn crowd and miss out on China, but it is comforting to know they are all out there somewhere--and easy to spot in a crowd!



The self-portraits are getting a bit old, I know, but I thought you could get a glimpse of our costumes (and what facial expressions we must think go with the 80's).
Josh borrowed from the Miami Vice: sleeveless shirt, sports coat with rolled up sleeves.
For me, a side pony, off the shoulder sweater, cuffed jeans and chucks.
It was rad!