This is China!

Last Monday we went to another part of the city and met the two BYU couples that are teaching at Ocean University. We all got on buses and went to an area called Jai Dong. It was a wonderful mix of old and new and was a bustling mass of humanity. In this area we found WalMart, KFC, Pizza Hut and McDonald's but we also found interesting little alleys with shops that remind you of swap meets. One narrow little store that we went in had lots of needlework kits, mostly cross-stitch, wonderful wall hangings and frame shops and then little collectible stores.

Jane found an original pair of shoes that had been worn by a woman whose feet had been bound. They had beautiful embroidery and couldn't have been more than 5" long. No wonder they were in such pain all of the time. The binding would also have had to fit in those tiny things.

One of the most fascinating things was the building that housed tailor shops. It was probably about 70' x 200' and could easily have housed 100 stores. Each little shop was about the size of a booth at a fair and most were full of bolts of fabric. Some had sewing machines and the ones that I saw were powered with foot pedals. Several of our group were measured and ordered clothing. We decided to go down again when there weren't so many of us. The beautiful men's suits were being tailored for $80-$130 depending on whether you wanted 2 pair of slacks with them.

Our Church experience is an interesting one. We sing in Korean and English at the same time. One of the sacrament prayers is read in English and the other Korean. All talks or testimonies are translated into the other language. We did divide into separate SS classes yesterday but last week we read sections of the RS/Priesthood manual in our own language and followed silently in our own language. Yesterday we had 5 young people who went to BYU Idaho but have graduated and are teaching in a University several hours away. I think they said they got up about 4 AM to get ready, catch trains and buses and get to our 10AM meeting.

There are many things that we are learning to appreciate that we have taken for granted. We are very grateful for this experience.

It has been an interesting week. Mike taught 3 classes and truly seemed to enjoy himself. He has juniors, 2 with business students and 1 in the trade department. I start my first class this next Friday. Most of my students are freshmen and they have some type of military training before the semester starts for them so they start on the 28th. I'm in the process of having my schedule reviewed. Our contracts say that we will teach 14 hours. My original load was six 2 credit courses and preparing for and sponsoring the English Salon (club) but they called and added Appreciating English Poetry with 107 juniors. The only poetry I have ever studied was in Freshman English in 1960 and perhaps a day or two then. The true magic is that there is NO book, not even for me. Thank goodness for the internet. I have requested that our waiban check into my schedule however. I am the only teacher with that load and it is above our agreed contract. Personally I think that no one on the faculty in the English department in the Teachers College wanted to teach the class and they had failed to schedule it so they combined three classes of students into the one, put me in the auditorium and gave it to the new American teacher. This is China!

We are grateful to be here and hope that we can be a positive influence here.