It’s very difficult to do midrash well. Unfortunately, my latest book review will not be highlighting an example of midrash done well. Babylon’s Falling by William G. Collins was extremely painful to get through.

In this book, the author attempted to fill in the gaps of what happened over the course of Daniel’s life. However, because the writing was so immature and shallow, I came away from the book with no additional insight or emotion about the character of Daniel. In fact, all of the characters in the book were flat and unremarkable. I’m not exaggerating when I say the book truly was painful to finish. The only reason I finally forced my way through it was so I could get another (hopefully better) book to review.

Do not waste your time on it. There are far better midrash options out there for you to enjoy. Just a few pages into this book, I realized that the tone of the book was exactly the same as the Barbie chapter books for children that I used to read the little girl I baby-sat before bed. For instance, in this short excerpt:

It was dark now and only the embers of their fire could be seen floating up into the sky. Daniyyel wondered as he watched them sparkle in the air, if Nebuchadnezzar was as tyrannical as everyone said he was. It would be a challenge for them to find themselves in a nation of pagans whose gods were an abomination to the Lord. He decided he would have to force himself to face the days ahead with a strong will and steadfast faith. (pg 15)

As you can see even in these few sentences, the author does far too much telling and not nearly enough showing. The entire book goes on like this, with obvious statements, little drama/action/intrigue. When there is something interesting happening,  you’re so annoyed by the simplified, dumbed-down language and grammatical mistakes that you miss the point.

I can’t even remember why the author calls “Daniel” Daniyyel. I think it may be buried somewhere in the first several chapters, but I can’t find the explanation now, if there is one.

In short, leave this one alone and research some great midrash writers if you’re interested in this genre.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

After watching, what are your thoughts?

Clearly, I was convinced (if you haven’t noticed the black protest banner at the top of our site

Living in a place where internet censorship is a daily reality makes me definitely NOT want anything that remotely resembles that in my own country. Enterprise is DEFINITELY hindered by the official censorship here, and it would be a shame for the US to follow suit.

I can’t put a lot of details publicly (so that the methods we use aren’t shut down), but basically 99% of our communication with all of you back home (including these blog posts) wouldn’t be able to happen if we were living in China using internet like the normal population here. WordPress is blocked, FB is blocked, Youtube is blocked, sometimes even Wikipedia and Google are completely blocked.

It really scares me that the US government wants to be handed over permission to censor internet as they see fit. Not only enterprise, but daily relationships have become so intertwined with these websites. If Congress showed up at our dinner table and said we weren’t allowed to talk about x, y, and z, I think we’d all be screaming “1984″ right?

Whether you agree or disagree with the ethics of FB having become a replacement/supplement to conversation over the dinner table, the fact is it probably has taken that role in your life.

I find FB invaluable for maintaining daily contact with friends and family with whom I can’t enjoy that daily connection in real life right now, so using FB and WordPress definitely takes an intimate role in my life.

Sorry, Congress, but I don’t want you messing with that.

If you also find this disturbing enough to do something about, visit americancensorship.org.

West Point’s not just a military academy…it’s a food section. Full of “Western” snacks, which mostly hail from Korea and Japan.

Got your instant noodles on the left, and “business” on the right.

What’s in the “business” section?

A “Hot and Sour Family” soup or “Refined Soup Chop Flavor”.

“Puffing food” is exactly what it sounds like: foods that make you puff up.

Last but not least, come to China if you need to buy “stereotypes”. They have a whooooole aisle of “stereotypes”. Just gettin’ some milk, bread, and stereotypes.

1. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Matt – moved outside of the western suburbs of Chicago
Angel – taught English as a legit teacher

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Matt – Nope and nope. I don’t even remember them!
Angel – What he said.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Matt – What? I don’t think so. Um…
Angel – Yes! Two dear friends from our home church both had their first babies not too long ago. I’m so excited for them!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Matt – Jen
Angel – Yes, 2011 was a sad year My aunt Jen passed away after a bone marrow transplant and a good friend from home passed away in a car accident. Both were so young. It’s still unbelievable to me.

5. What places did you visit? 

Matt – Arizona, LaPorte, Hong Kong, Beijing, Guangzhou
Angel – What he said

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Matt – Amazing Mandarin skills
Angel –  What he said

7. What dates from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

Matt – I’m not very good with dates, so this one is proving to be problematic.
Angel –  I’m also not good with dates, but Jen passed away Memorial Day weekend, and I will always remember that weekend as a terrible weekend, even if I don’t remember the dates. Matt and I were camping that weekend, and it literally rained the whole time, except for when were almost caught in a tornado at the campground while sitting in my car.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 

Matt – Feeling good about finishing the semester
Angel –  The first time I took the bus by myself in Tianjin

9. What was your biggest failure?

Matt – Not being able to help my dad sell his business before I left
Angel –  Every time I went to the printer’s office at our school

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Matt – Nothing serious, but the whole trip up to Tianjin, I felt like I was going to die from food poisoning.
Angel – Just a bad cold during the week of my birthday

11. What was the best thing you bought?

Matt – Macbook
Angel – Projector

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Matt – My dad for selling his practice
Angel – My awesome husband for being amazing every day

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Matt – In the news in general, Anthony Weiner.
Angel – Call me a cultural snob/elitist, but Chinese people who are constantly spitting everywhere. I just can’t get used to that. I still flinch every time.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Matt – Health insurance
Angel – Health insurance

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Matt – Food
Angel –  Having a Western bathtub

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

Matt – “You and I” by Ingrid Michaelson
Angel – a song I wrote earlier in the year after being laid off about things being difficult and depressing, but not giving up hope. It also came to my mind a lot during the week of Jen’s funeral.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder?

Matt – Happier
Angel – Happier

b) thinner or fatter? 

Matt – Thinner
Angel – I don’t know, I haven’t weighed myself since we got to China, but my pants still fit well, so hopefully thinner or the same

c) richer or poorer?

Matt – Poorer
Angel – Poorer, but with fewer expenses

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Matt – Trust that everything would be okay in the end
Angel – Organizing time with my students

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Matt – Worrying
Angel – Assignments for my students

20. How did you spend Christmas in 2011?

Matt – Went to church and rode around Tianjin with Ariel
Angel – Ate breakfast at McDonald’s with Matthew, went to the international fellowship, hung out with Ariel

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Matt – I fall in love every day with the same woman
Angel – Nope, just stayed in love

22. What was your favorite TV program?

Matt – Modern Family
Angel – Dollhouse

23. What did you do for your birthday in 2011?

Matt – Went out for Indian food with my whole family
Angel – I was super sick, but Matthew still took me out to Coldstone and to Walmart

24. What was the best book you read?

Matt – Oryx and Crake
Angel – this free Nook book called Mary Magdalene – A Woman Who Loved. I also loved The Hunger Games

25. What did you want and get?

Matt – A job in China
Angel – Lots of things, a Kinect a projector, to hang out with David in Chicago

26. What did you want and not get?

Matt – To hang out with my family for Christmas
Angel – An office chair and a memory foam pad. And a Chinese massage. (Maybe next week?)

27. What was your favorite film of this year?

Matt – Green Hornet
Angel –  X Men

28. Did you make some new friends this year?

Matt – Yes
Angel – Yes

29.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Matt – If I was already fluent in Chinese
Angel – Knowing the expectations of our school about teaching and grading, etc.

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

Matt – Old Chinese Man
Angel –  Boring teacher?

31. What kept you sane?

Matt – My wife. That means you. Though sometimes you did make me a little insane. You can’t have the honey without the macademias.
Angel – Matthew. Jesus.

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Matt – Fancy? What is this, England? That Kim Jong-un guy is pretty fancy.
Angel –  I don’t know, I guess Kiefer Sutherland because 24 got me through many hours of boring essay grading.

33. What political issue stirred you the most?

Matt – Occupy Wall Street
Angel –  Environmental Protection and Food Safety

34. Who did you miss?

Matt – My family
Angel – I probably missed our dog the most since we lived with her every day.

35. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011. 

Matt – Even if someone says the water is okay, if you suspect it’s bad, don’t drink it.
Angel –  Never trust a Chinese person giving you directions. No matter how confident they sound.

These past couple of weeks have been majorly stressful for us. We’re both teaching extra classes and feeling the crunch of grading, lesson planning, and oh, by the way, the administration of our school decided to move final exams week up by a week. They told us today, one month before we have to give students the exams. (Which we started writing today since we just found out they need to be turned in to the department by this Sunday. Guess it’s a good time to figure out what we’re teaching for the rest of the semester so we can put it on the exams…)

So needless to say, we love those little shining moments of humor that make English teaching a little more fun and a little less painful. Even when those moments also lead to incredible awkwardness.

Example One:

A few weeks ago, we were grading papers and working on lesson plans in our apartment. Suddenly, Matt started cracking up and read one of his student’s sentences aloud to me. She had written a persuasive paper about the importance of teaching sex education in schools. Here was her sentence:

“Some people think sex education is an awkward topic and embarrassing to bring to the public, and that the acquisition of the regarding information should be a process that children grope through all by themselves.”

After laughing for a minute, Matt read the next sentence:

“This is actually a false conception.”

Did she plan these puns? He talked to her later in class, and she was mystified about why she couldn’t use “grope” and “conception” when arguing about sex education. Matt explained the double meanings of the words, and then she laughed and realized why they weren’t exactly appropriate for a formal argument. Awkward, but funny.

Example Two:

I’m teaching my second-year students how to write MLA format research papers. To help them see a real-life example, I gave them a copy of a paper I wrote in college. Here is the first page:

My example research paper

The title of my paper is Incest: The Ultimate Cause of Destruction in “The Fall of the House of Usher” It was about the short story by Edgar Allan Poe, arguing that incest was the main theme of the story and the reason for the characters’ destruction.

I wanted to give my students an example of a research paper that had a title within the title, and this was the only one I had with a title like that. That was the part I focused on when I showed them the paper in class…”See how you format the title when there is another title in the title? You put quotation marks or italics just on the title that is in the title, not on the whole title of your paper.”

I didn’t think much else of my example paper until I started editing the first drafts of my last class. For some reason, none of my other classes did this, but in my last class, I had multiple papers turned in with “incest” in the titles. Here are some samples:

At first, I thought maybe Joyce has themes of incest in his works too. I haven’t read much of him, so I let it slide. But after I started seeing multiple “incest” appearances, I caught on to what was happening and went back to cross “incest” off the title. I’m pretty sure Joyce isn’t as creepy as Poe after all…

Incest is a big problem in Samsung…

Even though this student caught her mistake and tried to cross it out, I knew what was beneath that black mark. Incest: The Spanish Traveling Culture.

Incest: The Poyang Lake Devil’s Triangle in China. Like the Bermuda Triangle…but scarier. In many ways.

And my personal favorite…Incest: Green Tea Can Help People Lose Weight.

Matt was fortunate that with his student, he just had to explain the awkward misunderstanding to one person. But my little misunderstanding needs to be explained to my whole class tomorrow, since half the class has seen “Incest” added on to titles. (They had peer editors last week who looked over these papers…obviously, most of the peer editors also didn’t know that “incest” shouldn’t always be used as the first word in your research paper.)

An unexpected visitor

One of the puppies showed up in the cafeteria today while I was eating with one of my students. We’re pretty sure now that he doesn’t have an owner. But he is still alive and seems to be thriving off the generosity and attention from people at our school. I guess he is the school’s puppy now.

The best part was we were eating on the second floor. So my question is, did he take the escalator or the stairs?

Enjoying a nice sun patch after his meal

As I was reading, I thought how maybe I should practice what I teach from time to time. And what better place to practice than our blog? So here is a teacher’s descriptive essay of our apartment (post-massive-cleaning at the beginning when we first moved in, of course).

When you approach our building, the first thing you will likely notice is the broken front door. It’s an ugly shade of green and made of metal. Even though there have been many attempts to fix it, the front door does not latch all the way, unless you push it firmly shut. Even though you are not supposed to be able to get into the building without a key or a buzz-in from someone inside, 99% of the time, you can simply walk right in. This makes me feel unsafe sometimes, knowing that someone with bad intent has one less obstacle to face. But other times, I’m grateful for our broken front door (like when I don’t have the keys with me and Matt’s not home to let me in.)

Once you come inside the building, you have to climb three flights of dirty steps. Sometimes the cleaning lady mops, but the floors never stay clean for long. On the third floor, you enter our apartment on the left. We live across from an Arabic teacher from Iraq, who we usually never see. The middle apartment next to us is empty. Since our neighbors are non-existent or quiet, our apartment is fairly quiet. Every now and then we can hear our upstairs neighbor’s cell phone vibrate. (It’s so creepy because it sounds like it’s in the room with us.) Apart from that, and the occasional sound of firecrackers (which Chinese people set off for every wedding…there are some going off right now, in fact), our apartment is quiet.

When you open our door, you see a shoe and coat rack filled with shoes and slippers. When we’re busy, we usually have various pairs of shoes and slippers scattered on the floor near the door, as well as some miscellaneous school items (bags of students’ journals, the cart we use for transporting our class items, etc.) The hall area is dark, since it doesn’t get any direct light, but we have a ceiling light we can turn on when it’s dark and we don’t want to trip over our mess.

Directly across from the front door is our bedroom. There is a small closet built into the room, along with a separate wooden wardrobe that we rescued from the furniture pile outside and a fabric wardrobe that the previous teacher left for us. The fabric wardrobe is printed with a nice pastoral scene of two-story white houses next to an ocean with mountains in the distance. Sailboats sail on the ocean, and horses graze next to the houses. I’m sure the previous teacher bought the wardrobe in China, but the picture looks nothing like China. I think they were trying to include the most beautiful parts of America in one scene, but it really doesn’t even look like something you’d see in America.

We also have two wooden desks in our bedroom and two twin size beds pushed together. The desks are usually covered with schoolwork we are working on. We each have small plastic shelving units to organize our classes’ materials. Mine are always stacked with students’ journals. About a foot behind our desks, we have two twin size beds pushed together. We have mismatching blue/green sheets on them. Next to the beds, there are two small wooden side tables.

To the left of our bedroom, there is a living room. We have a small round table for eating, two red futons, a small coffee table, a tall bookshelf, and a shelf where we keep pictures and paperwork. When we aren’t using it for classes, we keep our projector on top of the bookshelf and project it onto the opposite wall to watch movies or play Kinect. The living room is my favorite room in the apartment because it lets a lot of sun in and feels brighter and happier than the other more gloomy rooms.

Down the hall from the living room, we have a bathroom on the left. The bathroom has a Western toilet and bathtub. The bathroom is the smelliest room in the house because the toilet leaks water out the bottom every time it’s flushed. There is also a drain on the floor next to the toilet that smells rancid, even though we keep it covered with a plunger to try and block the smell. Some days it doesn’t smell as strongly, but other days, like today, it reeks. To block out the smell, we spray floral air freshener in the bathroom.

The Western bathtub is a great luxury in China (most bathroom just have a shower that comes onto the ground near the toilet), so we’re grateful for it. The only bad thing about the bathtub is that the caulk around it is rotten and falling apart, so I’m a little afraid one day the bathtub is going to fall out. I definitely tread lightly whenever I take a shower.

To the left of the bathroom, directly across from the living room, is the kitchen. The kitchen has a small refrigerator and freezer unit, a washing machine, a small toaster oven, a rice cooker, a 2-burner gas stovetop, a sink, a plastic electric kettle, a small portable island, and a tall shelving unit. The kitchen floor gets dirty easily since water splashes out from the sink and the washing machine and then we track dirt all over the place. I used to avoid the kitchen except to help with dishes and laundry, since cooking stresses me out under normal conditions, and cooking in China stresses me out even more. (Precise measurements aren’t entirely possible here, because you have to substitute for a lot of ingredients, and they also aren’t measured out the way we would do it in the US.) But after our Halloween party, I manned up (or womaned up?) and tried out some baking. It went much better than expected, so now I’ve actually organized the kitchen somewhat and felt less afraid to go in it. So far my successful dishes include: Severed Witches Finger Cookies, Newt’s Eyes Deviled Eggs, roasted pumpkin seeds, and mutton and bok choy pizza.

Hope you enjoyed a descriptive essay tour of our apartment

Today I realized that even with a rubric, I grade my students differently depending on my emotions that day. I started grading the final drafts of my first class (cover letter and resume assignment) a couple of days ago and finished grading for that class today. When I was going back over the assignments so I could enter the grades in my computer, I realized that I had marked off more points today for the same mistakes I was being much more lenient on the other day. I’m a little more tired and annoyed with grading today, so my generosity is slipping away.

Oops.

So I had to go back and take away a few more points from the earlier people I was being nice to. Since each class has every single class together, and most of them live with each other, I figure there’s ample opportunity for comparing grades. I might as well attempt to be consistent.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had multiple puppy sightings. There are two little dogs who seem to run around our campus playing with whoever they can find. I’m not sure if they belong to anyone, but they definitely act domesticated. They’re super cute, and I always worry that they’re going to get hurt when I see them. (No leash, no obvious owner in sight.) But first, we don’t have time or money for a dog, and second, these puppies are SO friendly that I have trouble believing they don’t have owners. I’m afraid that if I pick one up and take it home, the owner will come around the corner and start yelling at me for stealing their puppy. (It’s crazy how many people walk their dogs without leashes here. Also crazy how many people even have dogs. Pet ownership is definitely becoming more popular.)

So with each sighting, I restrain myself from bringing home a puppy to Matthew. Even though he would love to play with them… haha

I haven’t had a chance to take any photos of these tempting puppies, so instead here is a picture of Matt at Pizza Hut. I took him out on Halloween since he loves Halloween in the US and was feeling sad. Pizza Hut and a borrowed hat made it a much more enjoyable Chinese Halloween. Then we went home and watched Zombieland (which even though it’s a comedy, is still too scary for me. I went to the bathroom at many strategic points in the movie. Next year it’s back to the Charlie Brown Halloween special.)

Matt at Pizza Hut

And here are a couple of videos I finally had time to upload – our trip to the Great Wall a few weekends ago and a trip in a motorcycle carriage that we took last month on my birthday (it’s a long video, but it will give you a good idea of what our neighborhood looks like and how uh, interesting, Chinese traffic can be).

But to our surprise, after he picked us up, instead of driving to his house, we drove to the fanciest restaurant we’ve been to in China.

We live in an area of Tianjin that is famous for its architecture. This part of the city was occupied by the British and other European countries back in the day when China was being fought over by Western powers. So all of the architecture is old and Western-style.

The restaurant that we went to used to be a residence of some British government officials. Now the center rooms have been turned into elegant waiting rooms, and each of the inner rooms has been turned into a private dining room filled with fancy antiques and decorations (some rooms are Western and some are Chinese).

When we first arrived, we knew it was fancy because the hostesses came out to meet us with umbrellas and walked us from the car to the door. When was the last time a McDonald’s employee walked us in with an umbrella? Um…never.

Then we were escorted to our private dining room where some of the professor’s friends were waiting. (The friends were the ones paying for the meal. We found out later that they want me to tutor their daughter. Smooth move, buying us a fancy dinner first. How could I say no after that? Haha)

When they told the waitress we wanted to order, she brought in an iPad menu. What??? We got to scroll through pictures of the dishes and touch the ones we wanted. Then a green check mark would appear on the screen on the ones we had touched.

At one point, the professor leaned over to us with the iPad and asked if we wanted shark fin. I looked down to see if the price was listed. Yup. 388 kuai. (That’s like an entire week’s worth of meals, including food for both of us.) We had just learned at the Aquarium of the Bay that eating shark fin is a travesty, so I politely told him that maybe we could try something else. He found another fish selection for us that he said would be just as good. (And it was only 255 kuai.) So that was one dish. We don’t know what the other dishes cost, but we’re guessing about the same general price each.

For six people, they ended up ordering 13 dishes, so we’re assuming the total bill came out to over 2500 kuai. Almost a month’s salary for one of us. Dang.

In light of the upscale-ness of the situation, I thought it would be prudent to try everything they ordered, no matter how gross it sounded. Fortunately, most of it didn’t sound too gross. (I think they were being sensitive to my American stomach.) But the puffer fish from the Yangtze river and the iced goose liver cubes wouldn’t usually make my list of things to try.

I’m glad I tried a bit of everything, though, because I did find that I liked it all. (Well, except the puffer fish wasn’t so great. It was too fishy tasting.) But even the other fish dish the professor recommended in lieu of shark fin was really good. And I normally can’t stand seafood in China, so I was pleasantly surprised. Here’s a look at a few of the more visually attractive dishes:

Delicious shrimp (this was one of my favorite dishes) with an incredible carved bird garnish that was, I think, made of carrot?

Tai Ji Soup, half of the soup is spicy and half is not spicy. Shaped like a yinyang symbol

Mashed Chinese yams in a fancy curly shape on top of a carrot slice, topped with a dab of blueberry jam

The most surprising of the dishes because it turned out to taste so good. Goose liver cubes inside a sculpture of ice. Literally, that teardrop sculpture and the plate underneath were carved out of ice. Amazing.

It’s true, most of our lives are very happy here, but I tend to just enjoy life when it’s good instead of writing about it. So lest our readers get a skewed perspective, here is a happy Monday night blog post!

After Matt got home from teaching his afternoon classes (which last until 5:40 pm, so late!) we decided we would not talk about or think about teaching all night! It was delightful. I am very grateful for my wonderful, amazing, best husband in the world!

We went to the school cafeteria (canting in Chinese, which actually sounds like tzahn-ting in a high-pitched tone) and ordered some rice dishes that we like to eat often. We had some good conversation and then came home and watched the movie Red on our gigantic projector screen.

The school provided us with a decent-sized TV, but the quality of the picture is really bad. It’s okay for watching the news, but for movies or other TV shows, you can’t see what’s happening when the scene is dark because  the color is so bad. We figured if we ever want to have people over to watch a movie or play Kinect, we should have a screen that they can actually see. We thought about getting a better TV, but the cheapest, smallest one we could find was still over 1000 kuai. So we started looking into the cost for a projector.

Most of our classrooms are not equipped with projectors, just a chalkboard. I haven’t used a chalkboard in about…oh, I don’t know, 15 years maybe? I can’t completely remember if my high school had chalkboards, but I’m pretty sure we already had whiteboards by then. So anyway, chalk is pretty nasty and it’s not easy to write a ton of notes on the board. It’s always possible to print notes and whatnot for our students, but when you have over 150 students, that’s a lot of time printing. We do get to print for free at our school if we use the printing office, but not all of the people who work there speak English, and our Chinese level doesn’t always get the job done like we want.

So we thought investing in a projector could kill two birds with one stone. We’d have a screen to watch things on at our apartment and we can take it to our classes and project powerpoint presentations and other media on the wall for our students instead of printing hundreds of sheets a week or writing tons of stuff on a chalkboard. (I also forgot to mention that I switch classrooms for every class, so I can’t even just write stuff on the board once and use it multiple times. Nope, I have to rewrite it for every single class.)

A couple of weeks ago one of our friends who has lived in Tianjin for a long time hooked us up with some of his friends who sell electronics. The projector ended up being a little bit more expensive than we would have paid in the US, but I feel like it’s been worth it. Teaching is a lot less stressful with the projector, and we get to use it in our free time as well.

Much better!

The original TV, now sitting in a corner behind the bookcase

In case you were wondering, Red was okay. Kind of weird, sort of funny but tried a little too hard. I guess we would give it about 2 stars. Now I’m off to read a little before bed and NOT think about teaching! There will be plenty of time for that tomorrow…