Christmas in Xi'an . . . and a glimpse at home!

We have had a wonderful Christmas in Xi'an, though very different from what we are used to. The highlight for us was being able to speak with and see Chi and David and kids and to talk with Adam and Kimmy and all their kids. THEN to make it even more special we received an email from Nya telling us all about their Christmas, her gifts, and the school play she is going to be in. That was such a treat. I think hearing from our kids and grandkids is the greatest joy we can think of. We have loved our weekly visits from Chi and family on Skype. Being able to see the kids growing up is really neat. We have missed having a similar experience with Patrick's and Adam's families. Adam has been traveling and their at-home computer died so we were thrilled to hear that they have a new computer at home for Christmas. Patrick and family don't do Skype so we really miss seeing and hearing from them but have appreciated Patrick's taking the time in recent weeks to write us an update about each of their family each week.

We are really enjoying our experiences here, as difficult as they are but all the same having contact with family makes a very special difference in our lives. It was wonderful to receive a picture card from Adam's family, though their envelop of pictures has yet to find its way to us. Hopefully sometime. China mail is not easy!

On Christmas Eve I gave my last two oral finals from 2:00 until nearly 5:00 pm, taking bus 313 from Rainbow bridge rather than my bike since we were getting our first snow of the season! How's that for perfect. A white Christmas!


After the final I scurried home to get the last touches of my dinner ready. I had done the earlier preparation in the morning. We had two couples and two single sisters in our branch for dinner to try to brighten their homesickness for family. One of the singles is a widow and Christmas without her sweetheart is a very difficult time--I can't even imagine it! We had an Italian/Norwegian dinner with artichoke/chicken/tomato panzanella salad, tomato basil soup, Ruby River-like yam disks, deep fried then served with cinnamon butter, and for dessert Norwegian rice and cream. Yummy (Thanks to Elaine's recipe from years ago), fruit--oranges, grapefruit (well here it had to be pemmellos, and pomegranates) as well as Christmas cookies I figured out how to bake in my TINY oven using a flattened 9" aluminum pan. It was a delightful evening, admittedly much smaller than our usual Christmas Eve open houses in our Maryland and Salt Lake years, but fun anyway. It made Christmas Eve for us too.


On Christmas day we slept in! We were bushed and had no little people to roust us out early. We enjoyed a Christmas breakfast of cinnamon rolls, orange juice, hot chocolate, granola/fruit/yogurt. It wasn't like going to Little America with Gledhills for our traditional outing but it was yummy, and we didn't end up eating as much.

In the afternoon we went to our branch president's house--they are back in town to make their official move to Xiamen, though they have been there for a couple of months, kind of camping out. It was wonderful to see them again.

For the Christmas Night party we had all the branch (all 21 of us) plus visitors who are here volunteering at the foster home. They had come from Norway, Sweden, Canada, Indonesia, etc. Wonderful young people, traveling around to see the world and stopping along the way to lend a hand in service. It was a pleasure to meet them--and to sample their contributions to our meal! Helena, the Swede, is a chef. Oh my! Once more we came home very tired but happy, so glad to be with good friends and feel the joy of the season.

Elise and Ed Britton spoke in our Sunday meetings today and they really touched our hearts with their desire to serve the Lord wherever He wants them to be. Turning their lives over to Him and allowing Him to lead and guide them has blessed them with great miracles, as we know happens to all of us when we do likewise.

After church today we had a pot luck while we all waited for our turn to give our tithing settlement declaration to Pres. Britton. Not many units in the Church where that can be done in one afternoon! I made Hard Rock Cafe's baked potato soup from the left over mashed potatoes and Aunt Margie's salad, and no-knead bread.

Because we never have the opportunity to have homemaking meetings, we took the first five minutes of our Relief Society time for me to demonstrate how to mix the bread and then put a batch I had brought with me ready to form and raise for second time, set it to raising and baking as part of our potluck, though it didn't get done in time for the main meal,it served its purpose and was gobbled up after dessert when it finally came out hot from Ruth Ann's little toaster oven.

John and I, with the Brittons finally dragged ourselves to the bus stop to catch our respective buses home. It has been a very long but very good day. Because John is not only first counselor but also the branch clerk we were there for the duration to get all the signed declarations, collect the little bit of tithing, and have all paper work in order. He has decided that one of the important reasons he is in Xi'an is to get the branch clerking tasks organized! He may be right!

We hope that your Christmases were filled with the greatest joy of the season and that you will treasure being together with your families. We love and miss you all. Next week sees the last of my finals--then I have hundreds of papers to correct and grades to give for my writing students. John gives his finals on January 4 and then he faces millions of papers to grade in order to wrap up his semester. But we will get it all done and deserve our upcoming break in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Southwestern China, and Gulangyu (Xiamen) directly across from Taiwan.

This Week in Xi'an

December is racing by so fast I almost wish for a Narnia-like delay of "always winter but never Christmas" just so I can get more done in this month before Christmas arrives, hard pressed by the New Year at its heels. But despite my wishes, Xi'an days do fly by.

John rarely gets away from his desk at home, grading his piles of papers or preparing a new powerpoint for the next day, but finally Saturday I got him on bus 700 and headed to the remarkable Xi'an fabric market to try to find material to have him some new trousers made. We had tried to buy him some new pants but everything he tried were floods on him so we decided to go the custom-made route. Dozens of shops loaded with fine woolens line several streets. Each has its tailor who can size you up in short order and write up an job slip before you have even decided that you are going to buy! Our tailor came highly recommended to us by our branch president's wife so we hoped we were in good hands. We came away with having ordered three pairs of trousers as well as a herringbone top coat, all for about $120. We are to pick them up on December 29 and then we will know how well the money was (or wasn't) spent.

Xi'an continues to provide sunshine and very crisp days that feel more like late autumn than winter. My students' journals all bewail their not having any snow to play in yet, but John and I are not complaining. It can stay this way all winter in our book. Christmas Eve is actually supposed to see a snow flurry so who knows, we just might have a white Christmas after all. That is OK with me (as long as it all blows away on the 26th!) It is invigorating to still be able to ride my bike to class--even bundled up in my down coat, Pashima shawl, gloves, and ear band.

Friday I taught my last classes for the term. John still has a week and a half to go (but he started much later than I did, so all is fair!) I still have finals to give and grade so the pressure is still on. This week I gathered all my students' personal narratives and formatted them before having them published in a little book called "Growing up in China"--my Christmas gift to them. I took it to be printed and bound with a nice red cover at the college print shop (two copy machines jammed between vegetable bins on one side and clothing racks on the other). When I picked up the 32 finished books the next morning and paid the bill it came to only 144 yuan--about $20, or about 62 cents each.

Besides school stuff I also made my monthly visiting-teaching trek to see Amanda Delange at Starfish foster home and had fun helping to weigh and chart the littlest babies before they are bathed and then fed. It was a busy place since Amanda is being pushed out of the four apartments she has had nannies and babies in for the last several years and the renovation of her new quarters is not yet finished but somehow Amanda will move, lock stock and baby, by the end of the month. She is a remarkable person who seems to me to do the Savior's own work in her service to the weakest of His little ones. She often has volunteers from all over the world who come to help out and take part in whatever way they are needed.




My favorite outing this week was a long-anticipated visit to the artists' street, just inside the city wall. Elise Britton, back in town from Xiamen for Christmas, met me with her artist daughter Bethany on Saturday morning so Bethany could show us all the treasures of this area. Because she loves art, and speaks Chinese, she has found a number of friends amongst the artists who are there working their craft as they welcome visitors to their shops. Many of these shops had been renovated and they were beautiful with wonderful doorways that drew us in to admire their works. Along the way we stopped to buy hot breads that were stuff with veggies to keep up our strength as we wandered. It was a lovely morning.




We wish you all a sparkling holiday week filled with love, laughter, good food, and music. Have a very Merry Christmas.

Children and Christmas in China

Since we came to China we have been entranced by the beautiful Chinese children and the riveting attention we see paid them by parents and grandparents alike. No sacrifice is too great to allow that child every opportunity money and time can buy. In this vast country with its burgeoning 1.3 billion population (and its strictly enforced, one-child policy--at least in the cities), we see young people who paradoxically long for a sister or a brother, while also fearing to share their parents love with any other child. But certainly these children are treasured as the embodiment of their hopes and dreams for the future. We just enjoy seeing them and their parents as we come and go.

It seems amazing to us that December is here already and Christmas is just around the corner. We love celebrating the season, wherever we are, but I have been surprised in large supermarkets like Walmart and Vanguard to find myself surrounded with tacky Christmas decor and clerks with Santa hats on while Christmas songs blare. I don't really like it much and can't quite explain why, except that it doesn't some how feel just right.

It is as commercialized as any American effort in order to make every day count at the register. I didn't care for that in the USA. I like it even less in China where any effort to celebrate our holiday is just on the surface--just for profit--with nothing under that surface. No understanding of the real Reason for the Season. And the worst part of it is that I can't tell anyone what is wrong with that picture.

That said, we are so glad that we do know what is beneath all the tinsel and the holiday cheer and are so grateful that the Savior was born into this world and that He was not only was born but also lived His sin-free life of love and service and died that each one of us--even the 1.3 billion Chinese who don't know of Him--might live again.


A Bright,
Shining Star

“There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus the Christ.”

—President Thomas S. Monson

Downhill to the End of Term

Another week has flown by faster than I can believe. I can still remember as a kid that every day past Thanksgiving lasted 48 hours--not the usual 24. And Christmas Eve. . . well, I didn't think Christmas Eve would ever end so Christmas could come. But that kind of time warp happens in reverse for us oldsters in Xi'an. I have only two more class periods for each of my six classes and then we have exam weeks.

Examination time sends Chinese students into a panic and I don't blame them. The pressure they carry on their young shoulders is something to behold. My students keep daily journals, turning one in to me each week while they write in their second one and I read and comment on the first. Because I have the luxury of classes under 20 students (not like John's 40+ grad-student courses) it has been doable to read over 100 journals a week. I find it an awesome way to help them improve their ability to communicate in English but I also find it a very interesting way to get into their heads a bit. I am privy to their occasional fights with dorm mates, their successes and tragedies (their word) if they don't absolutely sparkle in every presentation, quiz, or role play they do. They are very competitive and "lose face" with themselves and anyone else around them if they aren't at the top. Since it isn't possible to have them all be at the top on everything--they are all in the same classes--there are always those on a high and those in the basement in their reporting their joys and woes.

Back to exam time for these kids. The standard for grading at JiaoDa is for course work to count 30% and final exams to count 70%. We have both successfully argued to alter those to 40% and 60% but could not get them any lower. A student could do very well in the coursework and bomb the final and seriously risk losing his or her spot at the university. The consequence for that is a very, very bleak future ahead. My kids are English majors. Most of them didn't choose that major--they got assigned to it. Overall they try to make the best of their lot and try to keep dusting off their dreams for the future. My writing students are junior and so are worried about how they are going to find work. Some of the kids freely write that they are trying to get in the Communist party in the hopes that it will augment their job opportunities, and explain that they all say this and that at the meetings to be viewed as they must be viewed. It doesn't seem to always mean a lot to them beyond that, though they are very loyal to their country. I hope they will do well in their exams. Suicide is all too common in China among students.

Thursday night we go to English Corner to sit around and talk with anyone who shows up and wants to talk English. John decided that would be a chance to catch some of his students for conferences he hadn't fit in and this week he sent an email saying he'd be there from 8-10. He had about eight of his kids come and they had a great time talking about their writing and then eating plums and peanuts that the students supplied. I spent the time talking with a half a dozen others who were very interested in American politics and politicians. Interesting views they have of our country seen through their "red" lens. They have inquiring minds and good questions and know a lot more about our system than we do about theirs. We even had a five-year old come to English Corner this week with his mother determined for her son to get a head start on English.

The weather in Xi'an continues to be more autumny than wintery, but today was windy and dusty. The street sweepers are an absolute must around here and we are grateful for their constant efforts. If you ever get to thinking your life is dull or boring, just consider how you would enjoy doing nothing but sweeping the roads and dirt 18-20 hours every day, seven days a week. I can't imagine having every Sunday just another day in the week.

Our Sunday, on the other hand, abounds with the blessings of the Spirit as we take bus 408 for 1 yuan each (about .15) for 40 minutes to Church. We arrive to enjoy together a wonderful community of saints with whom we share the sacrament, our testimonies, Sunday School lessons, and our Priesthood and Relief Society, all working together with our few numbers just as well as in your large wards. Today John (as acting branch president, reorganized our RS presidency, moving me to first counselor, since Elise Britton has moved, and adding LaRee Phillipi as second counselor. How grateful we are that we all have each other. We try to make everyone feel at home and a part of things. In that effort, today we celebrated the 21st birthday of our youngest Relief Society sister, Bethany Britton, with chocolate cake and flowers.

Overall we are faring well physically with an up here and a down there. Mine this week has been a dislocated rib on my left side which has made getting out of bed a bit tough. On top of that I caught another cold with an accompanying cough. It isn't good to have a cough while dealing with a painful rib!

How have we managed to survive? While we were still in Utah serving in the Salt Lake Second Branch we were very blessed to have a reflexologist among our missionaries. For months Sister Cyr treated us twice a week to get us in shape to leave. The last few months she also began teaching us how to treat each other so that we would have the help we would need in China. She blessed us with a great gift which we have made regular use of! Just after arriving we ordered a massage table to make it possible to work on each other without having to lean over so much. What a boon that has been! More times than I can count, one or the other of us has been put on the table to have knees, or ribs, or feet worked on to help survive the next day. We are so grateful for her tutelage. Her efforts have proven to be our finest gift!

We also continue to improve our little apartment. Not only did we add swags to our ceiling in honor of Christmas, but we also have a new bathroom sink! Our former one had a lot of cracks and chips in it as well as a 3/4 inch gap at the back that had been filled with dirty caulking. John had noticed for weeks now that there was a filthy, but new looking sink on the floor in the corner of our bike garage. He finally got up the nerve to "ask" (by pantomime) if he could buy it. The nice lady--whose kitchen counter is inside the garage itself--gave it to him. He brought it home, cleaned and scrubbed it in John's thorough fashion, and got it ready to install.

While he was working on cleaning up the sink I was out trying to find my way back to a little market street where I had ordered a hood made for my down coat. Not only did I finally find the place again, but also had my hood put on the coat with a dandy zipper attachment for easy removal, while I sat in the shop and read the student papers I had fortunately thought to bring along. With my hood now attached, my next destination was to try to find Home Depot. Yes, there is one in Xi'an. I even had its business card someone had given me.

On my way out to find a taxi to take me there I came across a wonderful find! A street vendor with a huge wash tub full of what looked to be smoked pig meat items, ears, organs, and, what caught my eye--what looked to be a ham hock. I had earlier purchased bags of split peas at the "Hole in the Wall" (that is yet another story) restaurant supply and had tried making split pea soup with Chinese ham and, though it wasn't bad, was just not the same as having a real ham hock to cook in it. I quickly added that hock to my purchases and headed for where I could catch a cab.

Grabbing a cab just as someone else jumped out of it (the BEST way to get one!) I confidently handed the driver Home Depot's business card showing it to be on DaQing Lu. I knew it was somewhere on the other side of the west city wall, somewhere to the north of me. The driver looked at the card made a phone call and then waved his hand at me in the typical Chinese fashion that means "No way, Jose." Apparently the card (nor the person on the phone) were helpful in telling him where the place was. He wanted me to get out and go and I didn't want to. I figured that at least if he got me close to DaQing I could maybe find it on my own so I pointed in the direction I thought he should go. The driver, deciding that to get me out of his cab would be harder than just driving where I pointed to, laughed and drove, following my gestures to turn here or there.

To make a long ride a short story, bless him, he got me there, stopping more than one passerby to ask something unintelligible in Chinese. I happily paid him his 15 yuan and waved him goodbye and headed into the illusive shop to find a drill, a hammer, and a putty knife for John and his projects. Successfully finding most of what I needed, I headed out into the night to try to find my way to a bus that would get me home. Along the way I discovered a little plumbing shop that had the last item (which Home Depot didn't carry) that John needed to finish his bathroom project.

We end the week with a lovely new sink, my improved rib--much better this morning after John's reflexology treatment on it last night--and grateful hearts for all our blessings. We continue to keep you all in our thoughts and prayers and hope your life's opportunities and challenges--even when they are really, really tough--will prove to be blessings in sometimes ugly disguises.