The Things Kids Say

This week we studying Extreme Faith. Here is an exert from a conversation we had after reading Hebrews 11. Student: Miss Chaplin, what's a prostitute? Me: Um, a woman who sells her body to men? S: Yuck! You mean, she like cuts off her body parts and sells them? M: No, that's not what I meant at all. S: Then what do you mean? M: Hum, a prostitute is a woman who has men pay her to sleep with her. S2: Miss Chaplin, you mean, they sleep TOGETHER? The next day the students had to give reports on one of the people from Hebrews 11. One group was assigned Rahab. On the way to the front of the room I overhead another student make this comment. "I have to say the disgusting part, or my partner is going to make me pay him $5." There report started like this: "Rahab was a prostitute. That means she sells her body to men. That means she lets them pay to sleep with her. (audible sigh)"

China Day 3

On our third day in China we went to the Summer Palace. We did not explore it as completely because we didn't have as much time, and it was HUGE! The Summer Palace had a lot more open areas. We somehow missed the middle, where the actual palaces and temples were, but walked around the outside. Towards the end of the day we got back on the right path, and ended up at one of the Empresses palaces by the water. One of the Empresses got this car, but she didn't like it because the driver was higher than she was. She made him sit on knees to drive, but as you can guess, that didn't work very well either. In the end, she decided she didn't like cars!

The summer palace is built on a lake. This is from one side of the lake looking back. It is built around, so we were still at the palace looking back at the palace.

One thing I liked about the Summer Palace was that they reenacted parts of imperial life. This was a traditional show of dancing and music that was performed on the stage where the imperial family would have been entertained. It was very interesting to watch.

This is a marble boat. Well, it's not really a boat, because it wouldn't float, but it was built to look like one. The story goes that an important battle/campaign was lost because the army ran out of money. Where was all the money? Being used to make this boat for the Emperor to have tea in!

There were lots of passageways leading between the different palaces areas. Lots of them were locked, but some of them were open so we could explore.

What was I thinking?

I will come back to China, but first, I need to ask, "What was I thinking?" This month my students are supposed to be learning about the economy, so I decided it would be fun to create companies, make products, and have stores. Somehow, my ideas always get a little out of hand! I introduced the idea to my students last week. Needless to say, they are very excited about it. They brainstormed ideas for companies and got to work preparing. Each company had a budget, based on the number of members and had to fill out a company plan. Since then, they have learned to write checks, keep a ledger, order raw materials, decide on and pay wages, and advertise. Today was the first day to put it all together. We took the last hour of the day for them to shop. I invited a few other adults to shop as well. When Gretchen (our principal) showed up, she decided that she would rather run her own store than shop at theirs, so she did! She set up a booth selling pictures of aardvarks and turned my orderly shops into an open air market! It was a noisy lesson, but the kids had a blast. Now on Thursday we have to make sense of it all. There will be a lesson on making a deposit, and then evaluating the success of their companies. Hopefully they will learn something and the next time we have store it will be a little less hectic. :)

China Part 2

The second day we were in China we went to the Great Wall! There are a lot of different sections you can go to, but we went to one where you could luge down the mountain when you were finished. It was about a 2 hour van ride from the city to the wall, which gave us time for a quick nap since it was an early morning. When we got there, they said you could either climb stairs up the mountain to the wall, or take a lift...before we arrived we had decided we would climb, after all, we wanted to have the full experience. When we got there, our brains came back, and we realized there were lifts for a reason!This picture is actually towards the end of the day. I started off with a short sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt, a winter coat, hat, gloves, and scarf. As you can see, but the end, I was thankful for the short sleeves! At the top of the lift, you could go left or right. Left was older and steeper, right had been redone and had more towers. Of course, I chose left. Why wouldn't I take the hardest way possible? This picture is looking down at the steps we had to climb....do you see how they just kinda disappear? I was tempted to take the path on the right, which was actually also steep and go to the roof. The inside stairs weren't as steep, but I chickened out at the last minute. It was amazing to think that the wall we were standing on had so much history. We didn't have a guide with us as we walked, but I overheard other guides saying that as people were working on the wall, many died. They just buried them right inside. This is the beginning of the day, all bundled up! The wall went on and on and on. After we did the part to the left, we hiked back to the middle and decided to tackle the right. We could see a tower way in the distance on the top of the mountain, and decided that was the end. It was a struggle to climb there, but we kept thinking, if we get there, we can say we walked this whole section. After struggling up the wall, we finally reached the tower, only to see that it went on and on and on and on behind the mountain! It was a good thing we ran out of time, because I don't think my legs could have made it another tower. However, we did have to turn around and walk back to the middle again! While I was walking at the wall, I just kept being reminded that the works of the hands of men are futile. Thousands and thousands of lives were given in making this wall. The touristy sections have been rebuilt and restored, but beyond the signs at the end of a "section" the wall is crumbling proof of how short life really is. Things of this world will pass away, and we will be left with the things of God.

China Part 1

This is the gate leading to the section of the city where we stayed. At the Forbidden City In the Imperial Gardens at the Forbidden City Sorry I haven't been very good at blogging lately! For awhile, it seemed like nothing exciting was happening, and then life got really busy. So, here's the "quick" update. Two weeks ago we had spring break. I really needed it, as did my students. I took off for China early Sunday morning and stayed for a week! It was WONDERFUL!!!! SUNDAY: It took us most of the day to get there. Had to be at the airport at 6:00ish, so another $30 taxi ride. When we got there, they weren't checking people in yet, apparently Chinese airlines don't think you need to be there two hours in advance. Played banana grams during our 5 hour lay over in a random airport in China. The best part were the stares. The airport was fairly deserted, and we transferred to the domestic terminal, so there weren't a lot of AngMo (white people) there. A few people came up and stood behind us and watched and talked in Chinese while we played. Somehow, our arrival hadn't been confirmed early enough, and there was no one at the airport to meet us. The problem was, we don't speak Chinese, and most taxi drivers don't speak English...and it wasn't like we could hand them the paper and ask them to go there, it was English also. We went to the VIP counter, figuring they might speak English there, and had them write down the name of our hotel in Chinese characters. Then, we went to the "taxi stand." At the airport in Singapore, there are taxi spots, and someone has the job of directing you to which taxi you are supposed to get into, because there is a line and an order. However, in China, it was a free for all! People just started running into the street and getting into whichever taxi was free. Well, when in Rome. (or in this case China) do as the Romans...we also ran to a free taxi, handing the driver our Chinese paper. He started asking us something in Chinese, which of course we could not answer. He started driving, which we took as a good sign, but soon he was asking us more questions in Chinese. Finally, he asked for a phone number (all through charades of course) and we handed him that. The people at the hotel were able to give him directions, and we made it there safely! We didn't actually stay in a hotel, we stayed in a hostel, but had a private room. The staff was very friendly, and it had a great location. Once we arrived, we headed to our room for some sleep. We knew we had a big day ahead of us! MONDAY: On Monday morning we headed to Tiananmen square. It was within walking distance from our hostel, although the tuktuk drivers did not agree. They followed us all the way there, telling us it was so far, we needed to ride. When we made it to the square (which was less than a 15 minute walk, we started walking around and looking at the monuments. There were a LOT of guards there, standing very stoically and seriously at their posts. As we walked by one guard, he stood very still and serious like everyone else, until just after we passed him. Then he started calling out to us in English saying "hello!" We weren't sure what was going on, or what we'd done wrong, but decided we'd better stop and turn around. He pointed to Kristin's guide book and there, on the page we had been reading, was a picture of that very guard! We asked him if we could take a real picture of him, but he said no. It was crazy! There were also a lot of people lined up to see Mao's body, but we decided that wasn't a top priority. Instead, we left the square in search of some good food. And we found it! The amazing thing was, that Chinese food in China is much more like Chinese food in America than Chinese food in Singapore. It was amazing. The English descriptions weren't always that helpful, we ended up ordering "diced chicken with paste." We asked what the paste was, but again, they didn't speak much English, so we gave it a try. After lunch we headed to the Forbidden City. The Forbidden City was where the Emperor lived along with the imperial family. There were a lot of different palaces and each one had different stories to go with it. It was actually a pretty depressing place. Everything was stone, even the gardens. (Although they were definitely my favorite part.) It told about how the concubines didn't really have anything to do, and so they would fight amongst themselves, sometimes even killing each other to try to gain a better position. So sad! It was interesting though, I kept trying to imagine what it must have been like for the women and children living there, knowing that you couldn't leave. We walked for over 5 hours that day, and were exhausted when we made it back to the hostel. We ended up eating supper there and playing Canasta until we called it a night. It was a great way to start our trip to Beijing!