All posts tagged: culture

December Special

Published by Sula H.

December 1. has come and the countdown has started! Can you tell Christmas is my favorite season of the year? I just love sharing the joy of this season with my students and friends. And it’s the only season I actually put up decoration for. So, the last couple of days I busied myself with giving my home a nice comfy Christmas look, and I even made an advent calendar, to help me count the days until Christmas! Today I get to have my first treat – a piece of chocolate and some candy from Germany (thanks to some of my friends in Germany for that). Well then, a merry Christmas season to all friends near and far! Photos of my advent calendar: For a tutorial on how to make this advent calendar, click HERE. Christmas decoration:

Saturday Feature: My First Advent Wreath

Published by Sula H.

Christmas is fast approaching. Tomorrow is the first Sunday of Advent already, and this year I have my own very first: My first real advent wreath in China. Well, not a wreath, really. But it is this advent thingy that can hold four candles, so it counts as advent wreath, I guess. In the last couple of years, I always just arranged some candles with some simple Christmas decoration on my coffee table, but this year it’s the real deal! My mom brought it from Germany where she had bought it at the end of last year’s Christmas season at my request. (Yep, did I ever mention that you learn to become very patient here in China?) Well, anyway, I finally have one. And since I had no candles to go with it, this morning’s main project was to hop on the shopping bus to the city and find some (there are no real candles anywhere here in town; Chinese people don’t usually use candles.) However, finding them isn’t actually the challenge, since I had …

Thanksgiving – Round 2

Published by Sula H.

So, every year there is this competition going on for Thanksgiving: The department for the international affairs of our school organizes the big official dinner for the foreign faculty (I posted about that yesterday), but the staff of our international housing also wants to offer a nice dinner for us. It sometimes causes quite some confusion around here, as we often don’t really know what’s going on until the last minute! The options between the two always seem endless, like … Options: Lunch (international department) & dinner (international housing), both on Thursday (which would mean a lot of eating in one day – not a good option) Vice versa (also not good) Lunch (international department) Thursday, dinner (international housing) Friday (possible option) Vice versa (same) Dinners both Thursday & Friday (not a good option, as some of the faculty always travels over the holidays and would miss all the good meals) Lunch Thursday & Friday (kinda weird to have the big Thanksgiving meal at 12:00 noon, and then two days in a row) Anything else …

Thanksgiving Special

Published by Sula H.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! I know, it’s not Thanksgiving for all of you reading my blog, neither is it actually Thanksgiving here in China (though I do get a lot of messages from my Chinese friends wishing me a happy Thanksgiving). But living in an American community, I get to celebrate this holiday and experience all the good things that come with it. I get a day off school, which makes me and my students really happy! I got to see my first ever American Football game live today, as some of my American colleagues try to continue their holiday traditions and organize a football match (the so-called “Turkey-Bowl”). I got to enjoy one of the biggest meals of the year, including a real turkey (that is making me quite sleepy right now). So, yes, there are many reasons why to be thankful for a day like today! Check out the Photo Gallery for some pics of today’s events.

November 15

Published by Sula H.

Today is the day everyone has been waiting for: heater day! At last, the heat has been turned on in China. For those lucky enough to be connected to the public heating system, the freezing is finally over – or will be soon, once the radiators are actually warming up the buildings and rooms. For many ordinary Chinese, though, the long and dreadful winter is just beginning. Around here – even though it can get very cold in the winter – most households don’t have any kind of sufficient heating, which means bundling up as best as one can, going outside to have the exercise warm up the body, or simply just this: freezing! As for me, I’m glad it’s November 15! Heater day!

Saturday Feature: My recent best friend

Published by Sula H.

May I introduce my recent best friend: He is called “Little Space Heater”. Little, because he actually is really small. But he plays a big role in my life recently. He keeps me warm. Every year in spring and autumn I can’t imagine living without him. The heating system is controlled centrally in the entire nation. So, no matter where you live or how warm or cold it actually is at the time, the heat is turned on each year on Nov. 15, and turned off on Mar. 15. As the temperatures have dropped quite low recently, especially at night, it has gotten pretty cold outside and even more inside, since the buildings don’t warm up as easily during the day. So Little Space Heater has become quite an indispensable companion of mine and he does a great job at making my home nice and comfy.

All My M&Ms

Published by Sula H.

You may remember that last week during Culture Week, I organized a game for which I filled up a water bottle with M&Ms, and had students guess how many were inside. The winner got to keep the bottle with the M&Ms. Not knowing how many exactly of the M&Ms would fit into the bottle I bought more than we needed and we couldn’t use them in our other games, so this week I got to have a little extra treat of M&Ms.  Funny thing is – even though every supermarket around here sells these little colorful chocolate pieces, most students didn’t even know what they are. It was a surprise to them that you could eat this stuff and that it’s chocolate. Even the winner of the contest had to ask me (when I handed over the prize) what exactly was in the bottle! I’m sure they enjoyed their chocolate treat just as much as I am enjoying mine now!

Settling it

Published by Sula H.

Taught my students how to play Settlers this afternoon and it made me feel good that I didn’t win this round ;-). None of them has ever played any board game like that and to them “playing games” is kids-stuff, until they realize that there are actually games that grown-ups enjoy just as much! Yay for my favorite ever board game!

International Day

Published by Sula H.

It was the grand finale! International Day – the last day of Culture Week – was celebrated with a great show. Dances, acrobatic and athletic acts, songs – the festival of cultures in all its diversity. We had dancers from India, Kirgistan, America, China, of course, and other places of the world. Even the little kids of the foreign faculty performed a little dance and won the heart of the audience in an instance. I loved the skater’s act – which well represents the diversity of our school. The fire acrobat’s performance was quite a hot act, and maybe the most impressive part was the performance of what I’d call the “vase dancer.” Someone was balancing heavy china vases all over his body and we were catching our breaths, always fearing the vases might drop and shatter into thousands of pieces. But he finished his performance without any accident, leaving us quite stunned at his ability. Of course, being in China, Kong Fu has to be part of every good show, so we got to …

Jon the Viking

Published by Sula H.

Meet Jon the Viking! He stopped by on European Day just to say hello, and even though he seems to come across a little bit rough around the edges, inside he has a heart of gold. Though this year, on European Day we missed the castle and the Eiffel Tower, which last year had drawn the crowds (they must have gone astray somehow), there still was quite a lot to see and do. Together with a friend, I had organized two chocolate games, which caused a lot of excitement among the students. And as a true European, I was glad to finally find some more modern day activities (like a soccer competition) among all the medieval hustle and bustle. Yay for that!