Month: November 2010

  • Happy Thanksgiving!

    Last week for class I taught my students about Thanksgiving. We went over the Thanksgiving story, Thanksgiving food and discussed things we were thankful for. The majority of my students chose “family” or “parents” as the thing they were most thankful for. Most students don’t [can’t] have any siblings, but the students that do truly…

  • XTU

    Here are some pictures of things we see daily around XiangTan University. If we take a shortcut from our side of campus to the other side, we pass a sewer and some cool gardens (but the proximity of the two is a little close for comfort). I have two options of routes to go to…

  • Hālì Bōtè

    There are a few differences with movie theatres here than back in the States. All of the foreign teachers here (about 15 of us) wanted to go see the new Harry Potter film that just came out. As much as we love China and the culture, it’s always fun to do a western activity to…

  • The Students

    Our students have become a big highlight of our time here in China. Always friendly and looking for chances to speak to us and become our friend outside of class. They made us feel so welcome from the first time we met them. Many of them have never met a foreigner before and have told…

  • Zhangjiajie: “Avatar Mountains”

    If you’ve seen the movie Avatar, you must be familiar with “the legendary floating Hallelujah Mountains of Pandora!” The mountains on the movie are pretty unbelievable and look like they must have been pulled deep out of someone’s crazy imagination. Surprisingly, these mountains are based off of actual mountains here in China. We (me, Doug,…

  • HyperMart

    I know a lot of you got the “Wal-Mart in China” email forward. So, to answer your questions if those pictures are true- yes. They are. I’ve only been to Wal-Mart in China once in a neighboring city and was not impressed. In our city we have something called “HyperMart”. It’s essentially the exact same…