Jinshanling
It has been almost two months. I’m a pathetic blogger. Instead of writing down events from my life, I ponder how my life is like that of a Chinese kindergartner. (except they can speak Chinese better than I can) I still marvel at how we acquire language when we are very small and how it is different from actually learning/studying a language. My Chinese reading ability is actually better than my speaking. It’s a bit odd but I’ll take what I can get. My speaking confidence wavers. My excuse for this is that I don’t want to sound like an idiot when I don’t know how the sentence is put together. So, I just don’t speak. I actually prefer charades and grunting. 🙂
Things are going well in the Capital City. Temps are low but spirits are high. We had a great Christmas party with a large (250-300) group of Chinese friends. Christmas Day was also fun as we exchanged gifts among our FOCbeijing family. I really could not ask for a better group of people to work with this year! I’m so blessed!
Below is a smattering of photos from the past weeks in Beijing. Included in this group are some photos I took of my most recent excursion to the wall. This time it was to a different place. This is my new favorite place! 🙂 Enjoy the photos
See that painted Chinese character above us? That's "chai" 拆。 This means "demolish" or something like that. Unfortunately this character was found on the outer wall of a favorite restaurant of ours. Most likely this restaurant will be torn down to make room for yet another fancy new building where people can't afford the rent. Thankfully, Handsome Chuar Man (not pictured) has informed us of his new location! 🙂 The restaurant no longer exists. 🙁
These are my 4th Grade Hooligans. I love them dearly....most of the time. I have two Saturdays left with them and then I get a much needed break!! 🙂
On the left is Fiona, on the right is Gretl. I love these girls!! 🙂 This was taken at the Christmas party!
These are some of the Tuesday night B studiers. From L-R: Peter, John, ZhaoWei, Me, Gary, ZhaoShu and Jessica is in the front
One view of the wall
Me, Tim, and Fiona pondering life...
