Tuesday, July 23, 2009

July 23, 2009
My classes today were really good. I was able to log on to the NY Times website and during the first class (professors), we watched a little but of Obama's Rose Garden discussion about health care (not the long speech last night), which sparked a great conversation comparing American and Chinese health care systems. I thought China had universal coverage, but that’s not true. Health care is job related, and there is very little health care in the villages. (Of course, this is one of the reasons that the SABEH, the non-profit of which I’m a board member exists--to help health care in our village of Pang Liu.)From that, we started talking about many other comparisons between our countries. Here’s a chart we talked about:

Five largest cities, US & China
#1--NYC--8,274,527 Shanghai--17,000,000
#2--LA--3,834,340 Beijing--13,200,000
#3--Chicago--2,836,658 Guanzhou--12,000,000
#4--Houston--2,208,180 Shenzen--8,815,000
#5--Philadelphia--1,449,634 Tianjin--8,200,000

Amazing, eh? Of course, China has 4x the population: 1.3 billion to .3 billion

Then we talked about types of dwellings. Most people in China live in apartments, which they sometimes purchase. Ownership lasts for 70 years in China, and they were surprised to learn that Americans own the property they buy until they sell it, can’t pay the taxes any more, or die and will it to someone else.

The class with younger students was fun, too. Students are practicing sentences which include information on “Where are you?” and “What are you doing?” and, among other things, they’re drawing cartoons & playing variations of Charades and Pictionary. I asked them to bring in pictures of where they live or have traveled and be able to explain them to us. These kids are amazing: they’re bringing in powerpoint presentations that make anything I do look like baby work (which is basically what it is.) They really really really work hard!

True to my long-standing tradition, tomorrow is Scrabble Day in my classes. Because I only have my computer for Scrabble, though, I’m also letting them bring in their favorite games, which they have to teach me (and play with whomever.) I hear we’re going to be playing mahjong and poker (yes, five card stud), among other things. Should be fun.

After class, Duo and two of his high school friends from Lanzhou who are also in the class, Leon and Wanny, Kacie, & I went to the Olympic Park. FABULOUS! The architecture of the Bird’s Nest is amazing. I had thought of it as sort of wispy, which of course it is not: the steel structure is massive. The nicest thing about it all, though, was how very many people were there--the park is huge and thousands of Chinese were roaming around, looking, taking photos, laughing. Kacie had us jump when we were having our pictures taken--wonderful shots!~ She says she does this in front of every famous monument she ever visits. On my pictures I have a great shot of Kacie and Duo; when Leon sends me his pictures, there will be one of me!

After a quick shopping trip, we got home fairly early. Kacie and I are busy uploading pictures, typing blogs, and planning for tomorrow (let’s see, a straight beats four of a kind...)

Thanks for reading--Chris