Shutter At the Thought: 2007

Monday, December 24th 2007

Sunday night, after our full weekend of classes, hundreds of our students came back to school for the Future 2 Christmas party. There was food, games and three floors of performances. Most do not celebrate Christmas, but malls have adopted the season's decorations and Christmas trees are not hard to find.

Playing violin
Dalian, China

Dalian, China

Garp and Lena
Dalian, China

Garp and Lena, both age 5, are two of my CP1 (child parent class) students. They performed a Chinese song and dance together.

Monday, December 17th 2007

The pictures going up this week are from my year spent abroad in Spain. All three are from one of my favorite Catalan traditions, the correfoc (fire run). Most well known are the correfocs that happen during La Merce, a large festival that takes place over three days in September to celebrate Barcelona's patron saint. During a correfoc a group (or in the case of La Merce, lots of groups) dress up like dragons and devils, dance to upbeat drum rhythms, play with the crowd and carry massive sparklers. Spain has really great festivals don't they?

La Merce 2005
Barcelona, Spain

Gran Via Neighborhood Correfoc
Barcelona, Spain

Monday, December 11th 2007

First snow outside Dalian Financial University
Dalian, China

Dalian, China

Wang Jia Cun at sunset
Dalian, China

Monday, December 3rd 2007

As happens with everyone, the people closest to you influence your work. It has gotten bittingly cold in Dalian over the past week, so while I have dutifully carried my camera with me all week, my snaps have been limited to the indoor people I know variety. Long johns may be in order for next week.

Shawn Abraham, English teacher, enjoying dumplings at "Grandma's"
Dalian, China

Enjoying some niu rho jiao zi, dan chow fan, and di san xian at a nearby restaurant.

Shawn Abraham, our apartment
Dalian, China

Woody, Frank, Linda and Jason from my C1 class
Dalian, China

C1 is the first level class students can take without their parents. Most of my students are between 5 and 7 years old. Any digital camera is a great way to keep students out of their seats not listening to you. They love to have pictures taken of them

Monday, November 26th 2007

Turtles
Qingdao, China

These turtles were being sold on a pier overlooking the city of Qingdao.While they were most likely being sold as pets, turtle can easily be found at many restaurants in the North.

Wedding Photography
Qingdao, China

A bride waits to have her wedding pictures taken in a park with the fall leaves. These two brides were among a dozen or so other brides who were crowding the park with the same idea in mind .

"Muscle Beach"
Qingdao, China

Temperatures down around 7 degrees Celsius didn't stop locals from their workouts at Qingdao's version of Muscle Beach. Speedos prevailed in a variety of activities including swimming, volleyball and weight lifting.

Wednesday, Novermber 21st

Hot Pot Restaurant
Dalian, China

Hot Pot is an extremely popular meal here in Dalian, as well as in many other Chinese cities. It features veggies of all kinds and sliced meats (usually pork) which you cook yourself in a heated broth at your table, which tend to change regionally.

Skyline from the Beach
Qingdao, China

Qingdao is a coastal city a bit further south than Dalian where the Sailing portion of the Olympics will be held in 2008. The city is also known for its German architecture and the Tsingtao Brewery.

Child with barbecue
Qindao, China

Chinese Barbecue, which can range from meat on a stick to vegetables rolled in tofu skins to spiced squid, is found on many a street corner at almost any time of day.

A few extras

Shendong River Boatman

Yangtze River, China

Shendong River Boatman
Yangtze River, China

The Shendong River Boatmen operate in a tributary of the Yantze River. There are famous in the area for their unique boating style, which invovles pulling their boats along shallow parts of the river using bamboo and ropes made from it.

Miao Minority Woman outside on Ping'an
Longji Rice Terraces, China

The Longji Rice Terraces are located about four hours out of Guilin, boasting some terraces that climb up to 800 meters. As tourism in the area increases so does the strain, with fresh water supply being one of the main issues.

Harry Young, Chinese Teacher at Future English
Dalian, China

November 12th, 2007

Clear sky reflected in a puddle
Wan Jia Cun, China

The haze and smog from the summer months has finally lifted and Dalian is seeing more and more crisp, clear blue days. Hopefully, they'll stick around for winter too.

Sylvia, age 3, studying
Dalian, China

Sylvia (pronounced Si-rai-uh), age 3, the daughter of an ex-model and my English protege, reads to herself in Chinese during our English lesson. Our bi-weekly sessions are largely playtime with a side order of English. There is a high demand in China for children to attain fluency in English even at such a young age .

Temple in the later afternoon haze
Da Hei Shan, China

Dalian is a peninsula surrounded by mountains and Da Hei Shan (Big Black Mountain) is one of the more popular areas for hiking. This temple is located near Jinzhou, outside of Dalian.

November 5th, 2007

Vegetables Hanging in Wang Jia Cun
Dalian, China

Dalian, being pretty far north, is coming up on winter quickly. Since the temperatures dropped we have noticed quite a lot of vegetables being stored outside windows and dried along the street. Our boss offered the explanation that mostly the 'older generation' does this as a way to make sure they have enough fresh veggies in the winter when prices rise.

Making Tea
Dalian, China

One of our neighbors making a large pot of tea in Wang Jia Cun.

Halloween
Dalian, China

Halloween is not widely celebrated in China, in fact, many of my students knew little to nothing about it, except what had been imparted on them by previous foreign teachers like me. That being said, this little bit of Halloween popped up at a nearby mall.

Enjoy!