正宗花江狗肉

... authentic huajiang dog meat.

i don't have time for a long post about this, so i'll make it short and sweet.

disclaimer: dog meat is considered healthy by some people in china; it's said that dog meat will keep a person warm in the winter time.

it started with my students were telling me that they disagree with people eating dog hot-pot winter. i thought, 'oh, i must do that.' so, we did. our friend, angela, helped out and we found a good place to get famous guizhou dog meat.

that night, we sampled dog meat hot-pot, dog brain, and also medicine wine made from the dog's ... male parts.

圣诞节快乐 & 新年快乐!

shèngdàn jié kuàilè & xīnnián kuàilè! = merry christmas & happy new year!

i honestly cannot believe that christmas has come and gone. i cannot believe that we are now living in 2012, the year that has the majority of my chinese friends or students frazzled over the mayan calendar prediction. today was the first time that i had to write the date - that's when it hit me. 2012. 2012.

i was ready for christmas even before thanksgiving. (i couldn't hold back.) but, on christmas eve/day, i didn't do too much celebrate. christmas eve was a day of foc gift exchanging, feasting at a meat buffet for lunch, napping all afternoon, and ordering mcdonald's delivery for dinner. christmas day was also quite uneventful. the two greatest parts of the day were:
* a student of mine, inspired by my christmas lesson in class, begged me to take her to church. done.
* with not much to do in the evening, a small group of us felt ktv would be an appropriate way to celebrate.

new year's eve was another night of foc bonding. the 'lijibei lu' apartment held a gathering for us foc folk. there were snacks, games, etc. when the clock struck midnight, we shot confetti 'guns' off the balcony and toasted with cheap chinese champagne. a memorable way to ring in the new year.

i hope your holiday celebrations were also wonderful.

it seems that the only nap i took in all of the month of december is when wuhan had its first and only snow. therefore, i can provide no pictures of the short-lived snowfall of this winter. however, trips to the ice skating rink in the new international plaza have kept the spirit of winter alive in wuhan.

weekend update.

it has been a rather crazy week here ... and worldwide.

i'm documenting this so i can look back on this post later in life and remember this.*

so, let's start with the big news and narrow it down.

in worldwide news (12.17): kim j. il of n. korea died apparently of a heart attack after being 'overworked.'*
{http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSWN6Qj98Iw}

in china news (12.16): christian bale was 'roughed up' and chased away after attempting to visit a notoriously well-known spokesman against china's one-child policy.*
{http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/12/16/christian-bale-filmed-being-attacked-by-chinese-guards.html}

and, now, for the updates that actually apply to me ...

in wuhan news (12.18): tennis players - li na (2011 french open champion from wuhan, china), pete sampras (1993-1998 #1 world player from usa), carlos moya (1998 french open champion from spain and 1999 one of people magazine's '50 most beautiful people'), and sabine lisicki (wimbleton competitor from germany) - gathered at a stadium in hanyang, wuhan to hold an exhibition game. brian, dr. luke, jonathan li, julie, and i sat court-side in the second row watching. going to the game was pretty incredible for many reasons:

fave memory #1: the players were warming up; rap music was playing. the song contained plenty of f-bombs, n-words and much more. sampras dropped his racket, pointed both of his fingers to the sky, and gestured as if to say, c'mon, are you serious?! ... since, the crowd, filled with mostly chinese people, didn't understand the music or his gestures, the guffaws of brian, julie, and i were heard by sampras himself and we exchanged head shakes, shoulder shrugs, and sighs of laughter.

fave memory #2: the jumbro-ton. yes, we made it on the big screen. naturally, we started waving and dancing like fools. a few minutes later, we received text messages from colleagues, friends, and students to say that they were also at the game. oh, the humiliation.

fave memory #3: on the drive home, we were listening to the beatles' song, 'why don't we do it in the road?' ... jonathan li was jamming out and singing along when i asked if he knew what it meant. he said, 'i know what it means, but it could apply to anything ... for example, we just got some bbq and beer - where are we going to eat it? why don't we just do it in the road? ... and then, maybe that night we'll want to watch a movie too on a laptop and we can't go home. so, why don't we just do it in the road?' ^^

in wuhan foc news (12.17): we had our big christmas party. financed by churches in america, we were able to provide entertainment, snacks, and the bread of life, the word, with about 150 friends. i sat next to a girl, eva, who had never read from the bible before. i was blessed with the opportunity to share the christmas message and its importance with her. truly unforgettable.

in wuhan foreigners news (12.16): the wuhan bureau of foreign affairs was kind enough to put on a show for all the foreigners living in wuhan. it was a ecclectic display of acrobatics, singing, dancing, opera, piano playing, and more.

...the big two-five.

yup, last week i celebrated my 25th birthday, a quarter of my life gone by. the b-day celebrations seemed to be quite endless:

in class, one student (acting as the seven dwarfs in their fairytale performance) starting singing 'happy birthday' and was joined in by the rest of the class. that was touching.

i got plenty of text messages from students, several of who added 'i love you' in the text. that was also touching.

i went out to lunch with a student who basically ignored the fact that it was my b-day because she just wanted to practice english with me. that was disappointing ... but, afterwards, i met up with hankou group plus nicole for our weekly devotion/mini-birthday bash. cream cheese bagels, a 'happy gram' from miss joanna smith in america, and her amazing cake pops ... again, so touching.

aaron and i had to cancel our study that night because we had promised students that we would join a singing competition. (i hope to share pictures of this soon.) we finished quite late and were invited out for a late-night snack with some students. i won't blog about what we did that night. and, if you ask me what we did that night, i'll probably respond with, 'i'll tell you when you're older.' ^^ no, in all seriousness, we had a tremendous amount of fun and i have a 25th birthday memory that i pray will never fade. just know that i went to bed late that night with a big smile on my face.

so, my birthday was on a thursday, but the party continued until friday. i received many birthday wishes from students (since i have like a million classes on this day - aka six classes, but it is a lot). and, when school was finally over at 4:35pm, it was time for relaxation and pizza for dinner. the hankou group minus kelsey and three of our chinese friends, bonnie, shirly, and sylvia, met up for more papa john's pizza. it was a fun night of eating too much pizza and chocolaty brownies, hanging out with friends, and taking pictures of china's silly christmas deco. yet again, so touching.

everything on these days just seemed so perfect, so fun. just like many chinese people say, 'i was so moved by it.' i hope and pray that your upcoming holiday days are as cheerful as this. soli deo gloria.

... beginning to look a lot like christmas.

i know you're supposed to wait until after thanksgiving to decorate for christmas, but i couldn't wait that long. i decked out my little apartment for christmas about a week before turkey day. i don't have much deco, but i did what i could.

happy holidays! soli deo gloria.

a lovely birthday evening.

papa john's pizza (with garlic butter) + american chocolate cake + rum & cokes + games afterwards = a fun birthday night.

november 30th marks the birth of aaron, my fellow foc teacher at the wuhan foreign language school. several members of our wuhan team enjoyed a lovely night of feasting, bonding, and celebrating our dear friend.

monte cristo.

julie and i were invited to watch our former students from our old school perform 'the count of monte cristo'. the performance (which was also somehow a competition) was scheduled to begin at 6:30pm, but was suddenly bumped up to 5:30pm at the very last minute; thus, all our hopes of catching up with our past students were crushed. nonetheless, we sat in our plushy chairs watching the show occasionally catching what was being spoken only in chinese. we stayed for about two of the fours hours, but it was definitely worth it ... especially since we stopped for some amazing american food on our way home.

soli deo gloria.