Category: Life in Xining
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Well, we’re here (in Xining) for another year. (Hooray?) I think so. We recently had our student visas renewed (good through August 2007) and we started classes this past week. Christa and I both have Tibetan teachers this time (different ones) teaching us spoken Chinese. Crazy, huh? I am pretty happy with my spoken language…
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From here it’s easy to forget holidays like Labor Day. I hope all of you, my fellow American citizens, will be eating a delicious barbecued meal on Monday–enjoying some summer sunshine. (Eat some Cool Ranch Doritoes for me!) Above is a picture of Sarah laboring to eat with chopsticks. She’s doing a pretty impressive job…
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Language classes start next week (maybe?) (In my nostaligia, I wish we were in a typical western class with lots of textbooks like these, but the reality is that we usually have only one or two books and we spend most of our time talking.) We typically don’t get our schedule until the day before…
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OK, so it’s not China’s anniversary, it’s OUR anniversary (the Johnson family’s) –our FIRST year living in China. On August 22nd of last year we arrived here in China (Xining). (I am pretty sure that’s when our plane touched down at least, but my records are a little fuzzy around that time.) The 22nd is…
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You know that old saying, "When in Rome…" You don’t even need to finish the proverb (i.e. …do as the Romans do [paraphrased]) to know what it means. "When in Rome" means adapting to the cultural norms in the environment that you are in. Living cross-culturally here in Xining, our family has attempted to do…
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While riding in a taxi-cab in Xining today I thought of a very odd thing. You won’t believe this strange revelation. OK, here goes: Nothing in Xining has seemed overly WEIRD lately. That’s right. No chicken-feet eating commuters. No Chrysler LeBaron driving Xining natives. No Joe-Pesci-like Tibetans inviting me to eat breakfast with them. It’s…
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It’s 1 o’clock in the morning and I can’t fall asleep! My mom was hinting at the fact that I’m coming more unglued (actually she didn’t hint at all; I think the words she used were "stark raving mad") the longer I am away from my wife. Not really sure why I can’t sleep tonight. …
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My friend Mark and I were in a cab yesterday. Our driver, who obviously thought it was more important to show us how loud his stereo was than to actually allow a civil conversation, turned up the volume on an old song. This tune made Mark and I laugh. The song was funny because of…well,…
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Last night I was craving oatmeal. So I searched the cabinets and found a bag of Chinese brand (Sea Mild) instant oatmeal. Only one problem: the instructions on the back of the package were in Hanzi (汉字) a.k.a Chinese characters. I couldn’t make out some of the important instructions…but seriously how hard can it be? …
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I realize some of you, dear readers, are going through some pretty bad heat waves right now. I’m not making light of it…and I hate to rub this in, but I’m going to anyway: Typical Xining weather has returned. Today it is sunny (blue skies) and (currently) 75 degrees. We had a few days of…
yeti speak... 