Happy New Year, everyone!

        Christmas was very nice for me here. My American friend Anne came to visit for the weekend, and we had a great time. Mostly we ate. We at out, and we cooked much of the time, too, since we had two duties to fulfill for the weekend. One duty was to introduce Anne to various Sichuanese dishes and snacks. The second was to try to recreate in my kitchen Christmas-like foods, or at least foods which reminded us of home. This was not easy because we had no water for almost the entire weekend. Lately I've been losing either water or electricity on an almost daily basis. While the electricity is usually out for only an hour or two, the water tends to stay out for days at a time. Despite this drawback, we succeeded in cooking everything we wanted, although the kitchen became quite messy with no water for dishwashing. The culinary highlight of the weekend had to be the fresh pumpkin and honey pie that we made on Christmas Day. It was a little bit of heaven on a Father Christmas paper plate.

        The most unusual part of the weekend, however, occurred on Friday afternoon, when we attended the joint Contribution Ceremony and Christmas Talent Show event at my school. Indeed, the first part was in honor of the Flowers' donation to the school. (They donated several pieces of equipment for the web page-making class, including a new computer). The second part of the event was ritual humiliation again, but with a little more preparation. Thursday morning, my boss called me to his office to suggest that we foreign teachers prepare a song to sing together. As I was leaving for Chengdu almost at that moment and wouldn't return until the event the next day, I told him that we would just have to do a Christmas song off the cuff. I assured him that this would be okay, but I turned out to be the only person who knew all the words to "Rudolph the Red-noised Reindeer." If I must be truthful - and it pains me to say it the Flowers botched it up a bit. Oh, the shame! I concluded that the performance wasn't quite as bad as I thought when a reporter from Ya'an television pulled me out of the meeting to interview me on camera.  (Supposedly this is because I am teaching the web page class next semester, but really I think it is because they like to put foreigners on television). Although I understood all the reporter's questions, I fear my responses were incoherent. Luckily I never turn on my television, so I didn't have to see what bad Chinese I spoke during the interview.

         Immediately upon returning to the room, I was called upon to give my performance, but because I didn't think that the song "Part of Your World" should be repeated, at least not so soon after the last party, I had something else prepared this time. I recited a Chinese poem from the Tang Dynasty, and it was a big hit. The students called for an encore, so I recited another poem, this one a famous one, so famous that everyone joined in for the last few lines. I don't think we in America really have any poems which everyone knows and can recite on command, but there are several in China. It is amazing. Luckily, a second encore was not
required, because that was my entire repertoire when it comes to Chinese poetry recitation.

        In other news, the weather is significantly colder here this week. We have had snow a couple of times, once early in the morning and once later in the morning another day - while I was teaching class. This meant that none of the students could pay attention, because they almost never see snow, so they were all staring longingly out of the window and making "ooh-ing" and "ah-ing" noises. I must say, coming from Minnesota, snow that doesn't even stick doesn't impress me quite as much as it does people here, but the cold is another matter. I finally had to buy a warmer coat and double-layer pants to go over my long underwear, because lately I've been freezing all the time. This time I didn't mess around; I bought a hooded goose down coat that does down to my knees. It is Pepto Bismol pink, only brighter. This color is a result of going shopping with a Chinese friend and capitulating to the Chinese sense of fashion. My friend refused to allow me to buy a black coat because, in her words, it made me look "severe." Although I look like a big piece of bubble gum, I am much warmer now.

        On Friday the new bridge in Ya'an opened. This is great because it cuts the commute time from the old campus to the new one in half. What's not great is that this only does me good for the remaining two weeks of this term because next term we are moving back to the old campus. Yes, that's right. After spending a huge, huge sum of money building the new campus - four big buildings with classrooms and offices, two big dorms, a dining hall, etc. - the school has to abandon the new campus after one term because they have no money. I cannot believe the stupidity of this whole affair. What I don't understand is how they are going to manage to fit everyone on the old campus. The campus population has increased dramatically this year because the school merged with another middle/high school in Ya'an, a school called Jian'an School. Right now, middle school grades 1-3 and high school grade 3 are at the old campus, while high school grades 1-2 are at the new campus. Next semester, somehow, another 1700+ students and their teachers are supposed to fit into the two buildings at the old campus. Students and teachers are already filling every classroom and office as it is. I honestly don't even know how this merger is possible. What it means is that they will be combining classes in a major way, so instead of having 50 students in a class, I will probably have more like 80 or more. These students will probably be sharing desks if they are lucky, standing if they are unlucky. I have never encountered such poor planning. The most terrible thing is that it was not even the school's decision to merge with Jian'an School or to build a new campus. It was the local government's bright idea. In fact, Jian'an School had begun building this campus, and when they merged with Yazhong, (my school), the latter had to take on the financial burden. The end result of this debacle is that Yazhong, with its 100-year history and reputation as one of the best schools in this part of the province, has already lost many of its top students and best teachers. They have seen that the school is headed in a downward spiral. What a mess! All I can say is that they better give me a microphone to teach those classes next semester. However, because they don't have enough money to pay the teachers their salary, it doesn't seem likely that they will spend money on new equipment.

        I will stop venting now so that I can go to sleep. Since I only have a space heater in my living room, the bedroom is what one might call a bit on the chilly side. The thermometer indicates that the temperature is 5 degrees Celsius. I've taken to sleeping with my head under the covers, hugging one hot water bottle and curling my toes around a second one. Ah,
winter!

Molly