Letters from Overseas

October 2008

• The Amity Foundation
  Education Division
  71 Hankou Road
  Nanjing, Jiangsu 210008
  CHINA

Greetings from Lanzhou!

When you read that the highlight of my week was finally finding a decent-sized garbage bag, you might conclude that this has been a fairly routine week. And so it has. However, the search for the right-sized garbage bag has been a fairly significant one. The quest started at the beginning of January when China declared that plastic bags would no longer be used in supermarkets: the program seems to be going well. Most people are carrying fabric shopping bags—and there are so many to choose from! I managed fine until the summer with my stock of bags from the first semester, but when I returned at the end of August, I was quite desperate to find garbage bags. Now that I have located them, I feel foolish that I had not figured it out sooner!

We had one of our classes at the wedding of one of the students. Before going in we met and talked about some English vocabulary (with clip art pictures) and, throughout the wedding, the students interpreted for me in English and we discussed similarities and differences between Chinese and Western weddings. This week we took a picture walk through Heather and Brian’s (my daughter and son-in-law) Western wedding. My students really were baffled by the garter ritual. Fortunately the previous teachers had left a garter in the office so I was able to clarify what was involved.

Anyway, back to the September 27 wedding. Mickey and Minnie, looking fresh from Disneyland, led the couple in amid showers from confetti cannons. At the steps to the stage, the music changed to the theme music of a popular cartoon about a pig family. Apparently, the male pig always carries his wife on his back so Howard gave his bride a piggyback onto the stage! In the ceremony the parents gave gifts to the in-laws and the bride or groom switched from calling them "aunt" and "uncle" to "mama" and "baba."

Many of my students are the right age to be experiencing pressure to drink so I observed that at the wedding. Young men, friends of the groom, go around to the tables encouraging guests to down several shots of "bijou," strong Chinese alcohol. It is considered impolite to refuse to do so. One of my students offered to drink in my place. I appreciated that but I didn’t really like to see any of them downing the alcohol in this way. Interestingly, on the previous Thursday, during our class in which students select and lead an activity, one of the girls taught us a counting game with specific actions associated with each number. In class, if you missed you had to do a small performance. It did not take them long to turn that activity into a drinking game—one of the disadvantages of having adult students!

One real advantage of having adult students was the freedom to design our own class assignments. The students did an assignment on famous Western poems, like "Dreams" by Langston Hughes and "Hope Is a Thing with Feathers" by Emily Dickinson. As we shared these poems back at class on Monday, many had memorized their chosen poem and everyone related a Chinese poem with a similar sentiment. They bring such a richness to their studies!

Tomorrow we will talk about Canadian Thanksgiving. Next weekend I’ll be visiting Gary MacDonald, also here with Amity and The United Church of Canada, to celebrate Thanksgiving. Gary lives in Zhangye, about eight hours west of here. I will travel partway by bus on Thursday afternoon and then continue with Karin and Christine on Friday morning. On Sunday I will return to Lanzhou by train—my first solo train trip.

Love,
Mary

Mary Fraser is a United Church of Canada Overseas Personnel serving with the Amity Foundation in China. The work of this ecumenical partner and the work of overseas personnel are made possible through your gifts to the Mission and Service Fund of The United Church of Canada.