Nan Shu Foo Zong is the name of the school I teach at.  This is the IB area.  The hallways are open air and we are up 100 stairs!  No elevator.

My colleagues at their desks working, or napping.  Lunch is one and half hours, so a “siesta” is accepted at lunch time.  My Tex-Mex language seems to pop up when I am trying to speak in Chinese.  the other day I asked for water and said “Agua Por favor!”  and someone commented was that a dialect of English, yeah if you are in Texas!  No it is Spanish and I am speaking it here and no one understands Spanish, nor my choppy Chinese.

My desk is right behind Peter, my Aussie colleague.  Looking out the window from our office you can see a wonderful highrise, that is my apartment complex.  I will be moving soon, this makes me very excited.  It will be a short walk to and from  school, no more taxi’s and city buses to school.  It will cut down on expense, the bus is 2 RMB and taxi is 14RMB.  How much is that in dollars?   A lesson on money:

The yuan (sign: 元; code: CNY) is, in the Chinese language, the base unit of a number of modern Chinese currencies. The distinction between yuan and renminbi (RMB) is analogous to that between the pound and sterling; the pound (yuan) is the unit of account while sterling (renminbi) is the actual currency.

A yuán (元) is also known colloquially as a kuài (块 – “piece”). One yuán is divided into 10 jiǎo (角) or colloquially máo (毛 – “feather”). One jiǎois divided into 10 fēn (分).

This is what I had in my purse.  If 6.7 yuan = 1 US dollars.  Can some one tell me how much yuan I have?  The large coins are 1 yuan each, the gold is .5 yuan and the tiny coin is .10 yuan.  IF you can add it up correctly I will send you a Chinese post card!  Why am I giving you a math lesson, because my friend Linda in Friendswood told me she has given my blog site to her friend who teaches 5th grade.  These students are reading my blog and learning about the culture for their English class.  I thought to keep them interested I would do some teaching from across the world to them!

Yesterday I taught the Chinese IB faculty about my life through a power point presentation.  I gave a show about my family, Thanksgiving and how we pray and eat, Christmas, a craw fish boil in Austin, going on vacation to Taos and the Native American Pueblo, Tahoe, Galveston, Wimberly, San Fransisco, and Durango.  I had pictures of pets, snow, my backyard and art studio.  Many of this was very foreign to my new colleagues.  The comments that I received in my email from the TOK teacher are this:

Susan,

Thanks a lot for the presentation, nice. What I found most amazing is :

1.  the muddy houses    very very simlar to the ones where people in Shan Xi province used to live. The only difference is ours are cave-like houses. But mud.

3. Budda

I can’t believe it.

One thing I am learning is we are all the same, but different.  The next thing I am learning is a good teacher is always a student.  This student (art teacher) is learning more than her little Rolodex brain can hold.  I feel like it is spinning and information cards are flying out.  Anyone still have a Rolodex?  Does this tell how old I am or just that I have an antique vocabulary.

Speaking of antiques, I made mention to Jonathan (British colleague that has lived here six years) I can’t find very many old architectural buildings or antiques shops.  He told me the Chinese government had the people destroy all the old artifacts years ago and much of the old architecture is destroyed for newer buildings.  I’ve seen more Asian jade art in the Crow Museum in Dallas than I have found here.  I will keep looking, it has to be here.  Religion is non existent.  I have seen the Buddhist temple, no Buddhist tho and one Catholic church.  In Texas there is a Baptist church on every corner like McDonald’s!  My new Chinese friends don’t practice religion, that I can tell.  School will meet this and next Sunday for regular classes. (Remember we have a funky holiday next week and we work weekends for the weekdays off)  I will have to Google my church in Dallas to read what is going on, and listen to the podcast to get my religion fix or go to the Buddhist temple and light incense and say a prayer.  That is a nice way to pray.  I will let the wind carry my prayers in the smoke from my incense to God.  Like I said all the same, but different.