Category: Life in Xining
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Well, I found out this week about the "speech" I am being encouraged by my Chinese conversation teacher to give. It should be a real doozy! If I didn’t already have a good relationship with this teacher I definitely would have declined the offer. But since relationships are so important and recipricol (the term is…
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This week has felt really busy. It seemed like every time I thought things would slow down I realized that I had something else on the horizon… Start of the semester activities and actual class work have kept me pretty preoccupied. Here’s a very important word that I learned this week. I actually learned it…
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Today has already started out in true Xining fashion… This morning when I was getting ready to go to school, I looked out our front window onto the "lawn" area below. I saw a women (probably in her 40s) exercising…with a hula hoop! Round and round she kept that circular ring a-spinnin. It…
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"See the world in green and blue, See China right in front of you… It’s a beautiful day, Don’t let it get away." U2 "Beautiful Day" (I am in Xining) I squeeze through stone arches and onto campus. I have joined the flow of students; we are like salmon swimming upstream. They seem to…
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When the early morning dawn sets our bedroom a-glow, my eyes touch on the things which surround me: a commissioned bookshelf half full of books that were mailed across the ocean; a large warddrobe that guards the left side of our room (because closets do not exist here); a creeping mold that has wedged its…
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Prepare to be amazed! You’d better sit down before reading this post. I didn’t know when I woke up this morning, but it turns out that today was destined to be very momentous. Earth-shattering, in fact… With my two hands, carefully applied wind to my vocal cords, and some strategic flaps of my tongue I…
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Sorry for taking four days off but I’ve felt as if there hasn’t been much to blog about lately. Good things are happening with Lent and I’ve been praying for various things, but I haven’t felt too motivated to write. (Finally) language study will start up again soon…and to be honest I can’t wait for…
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Our plane touched down in Xining at around 2 p.m. today (yesterday now). We were gone just 5 days short of a month. It seemed strange to land here again, to see the mountains covered with snow all around our little valley, and to think of this as our "home" now. Being back in our…
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I recently purchased a sub-standard DVD version of Peter Jackson’s latest, King Kong. I haven’t watched the Hollywood blockbuster just yet, but I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to buy the movie. Especially, after reading the critic’s praise on the back of the film. (Remember this is a Chinese product.) Allegedly, Sean Burns of the…
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I went to the bank last week. Here in Xining I have an account at the Bank of China. In the States I have an account at the Bank of America because it just makes sense to keep your financial transactions at an institution with your country’s name in its title. Anyway, the bank was…
yeti speak... 