11-21-98

@11:05a.m.

Since Hugh canceled his English Literature class this morning we are enjoying a lazy morning together. We talked about our situation here, just a rehashing of what we know already. We cleaned up the rooms and mopped the floor.

We have had a quiet day and night. I heated up some left over food for dinner. I am running the water now. If we are lucky we will get hot water tonight.

It is a good ending to a good day. We have hot water. All of us had a good bath and got really cleaned up. This is the first time inn 5 days that I feel really clean. I can sleep good tonight.

11-22-98

@1:50p.m.

It is a cold morning. I turned on the space heater but had to turn it off again because the electrical outlet where it was plugged in was making weird noises. I have told Hugh to inform the Foreign Affairs Office. The office had better call in an electrician to check all the outlets and the wiring. Everytime we plug in any electrical appliances we see sparks flying out of the outlets. It is dangerous. I am afraid one day one of us will get electrocuted.

We walked out to buy some "Chow bin" this morning. We see workers are putting up a fence around the field. They have left only one access to the field. Some students have told us that is inconvenient. They cannot just walk into the field and take short cuts to and from classes.

There is no hot water tonight. This week we have had 4 days without hot water, 2 days where we had warm water and 1 day with hot water.

11-23-98

@11:20a.m.

I woke up late this morning. Hugh came back and had a cup of coffee with me at 9:50a.m. Then he had to leave for his 2nd class at 10:00a.m. Mahala is waiting for Linda to start her class. I need to tell Lucy that she needs to slow down and concentrate on the easy fractions and divisions with Mahala.

Yesterday night Hugh and I talked about whether we should leave at the end of this semester. We have discussed this issue many times before. If we leave we will have to pay the school US$500 and also pay for Hugh’s ticket back to the States. I resent the fact that the contract is to their advantage. We have lost so much just to come here and we are losing more just by being here. Life is so complicated with its twists and turns. You never know what is right around the corner. I feel like I prefer being in Wyoming in the dead of winter than enjoy the mild winter here. Both Hugh and I have to work on this again and think about it more before we come to a decision about staying or leaving.

Mahala is coming down with a cold and so am I.

We have hot water tonight. Thank goodness.

11-24-98

@9:30a.m.

Hugh told me that Thanksgiving is on Thursday. I am not thankful to be in China.

Mahala has a bad cough. Have a sour throat and runny nose.

We woke up to a cold morning. I have the space heater on. It helps to warm up the room a little.

I dread cleaning my clothes on cold mornings like this. My hands get so cold when I scrub the clothes. I keep putting it off. So this morning I have left my clothes soaking in the bucket till I build enough courage to plunge my hands into the cold water.

I feel so depressed and sad. I know it is because of the primitive conditions that we have to endure. Like not knowing when the hot water is coming, not knowing when the electricity and water supply is going to be shut off, the lack of food, the unsanitary living conditions, the lack of health and safety codes. Now that fall is here and winter is coming the lack of adequate heating is another problem. All this compounded together makes me miserable. I feel so confined and restricted here. Not knowing the language is a barrier. On top of that the stares and pointing is another thing we have to contend with.

I opened up the can of corned beef and made some mash potatoes for lunch. I also made up a packet of gravy. We shared this with Lucy. She liked the mashed potatoes.

Hugh has an evening class tonight. So he is gone.

The electricity power went out again at 8:20p.m. The rooms went pitch black. At that time I was in the living room with Mahala. We had to move around in pitch darkness to find the matches and light our candles. Hugh had to cut short his class. On the way back to the hotel he noticed that the lights were on in at the faculty residences.

Both of us think that whatever the problem, the authorities will fix it tomorrow. So right now we have not lights and no water. It is now 10:00p.m. We just brushed our teeth and are going to bed dirty again.

Hugh says he is not going to teach feeling dirty and he probably will not go to class tomorrow.

The electrical power came on at 10:15p.m.

11-25-98

@9:50a.m.

It is a very cold morning. This morning we lost power at 6:40a.m. It came back on at 9:50a.m. This is getting old. Hugh was really mad because of the power outages yesterday and the fact that we have had no hot water. Right at this point we are seriously considering going home in February if the situation does not improve.

Around 10:30a.m. this morning Mr. Zhao and Mr. Xu came by with an electrician to check the electrical outlet that had sparks coming out of them. The whole outlet is burned and it needs to be replaced. The electrician cannot get to it until later because of the trouble the school is having with its own power outages. The source of school outages is known and all the electricians in school are working on that first. So we will have to wait. They hope to get to us this afternoon.

The electrician came by in the late morning and replaced the whole unit on the wall. So now I feel safer when Hugh or I use it.

11-26-98

@9:30a.m.

It is Thanksgiving today. What is there to be thankful for? We are still in China. End of statement.

Yesterday afternoon Mr. Zhao came by to look at the heater in the bathroom. I have been telling Mr. Zhao about our erratic hot water supply and my displeasure at what is going on. Mr. Zhao says he might be able to get us a new water heater but Hugh told me not to hold my breath for it. All we can do is to wait and see.

On top of that we had students coming and going . I swear some of them do not know when to leave. They stay for hours and make small talk. I get tired of entertaining them. They intrude too much in our lives. I do not know what I can do for them. I think they see us as miracle workers who can wave a wand and suddenly they speak perfect English. I know that all they really want is to practice their English but sometimes I wish they would practice it among themselves. Some of them can be real nosy and prying. I like to keep our private lives private. I try my best to be decent but it is difficult. It is fine when I just have to deal with a couple but sometimes there are just so many of them. I get tired of being asked the same old questions over and over again. I feel I have nothing in common with them besides the fact that we are Chinese. My interests and theirs are totally different.

It is a wet and drippy day. It is also cold to boot. I hate days like this, My mood is just like the day is.

Hugh told me today that he intends to hire Louisa and May for a month. He needs their help in one of his ideas. He plans to pay them 200yuan each. I am against that idea. I know Hugh. He is doing it because he feels sorry that he did not hire both girls as tutors. Both girls come from poor backgrounds. I do not mean to sound callous but we cannot hire every single student for those reasons. We are not a charitable organization. Besides we are spending 800yuan on Mahala’s tutors and if we added 400yuan on top of that we have a total of 1,200yuan. That means out of a take home pay of 2,200yuan we will only have 1,000yuan left for our expenses. That is too ridiculous. I am not taking kindly to that idea. I wonder if Hugh sees that or is blinded by acting the part of Mr. Bountiful. Hugh has told me to think about this idea and let him know of my decision.

Mr. Zhao has told us that students cannot come to use the spare room. The hotel management have been complaining to him that the students are making themselves too much at home her. They have been sleeping and taking baths here and are not paying for it. I am glad because that way we don’t have to deal with Apollo anymore. We told Mr.Zhao that we would still like to use the room for Mahala’s classes.

This morning we bought ourselves a little coal burner and a kettle. Now all we need are coals.

Some workers came by and removed all the bushes that were growing in front our rooms. They took out 6 tall bushes. We do not have much privacy in the backyard now. We can see and can be seen. Before when we sat outside in the garden we had a sense of privacy but now it is all gone just like those bushes.

Tom Liu came in for his remedial oral English. He failed his mid-term and Hugh is giving him some extra coaching to help him catch up with the rest of the class.

I have decided. I will tell Hugh not to hire Louisa and May. I do not think it is necessary to pay them to help him write out the flash cards. I like the girls and all that. But is it necessary to hire them to do it. I am sure the girls will do it if Hugh asked them to.

11-27-98

@10:30a.m.

We had no hot water yesterday night. It is beginning to bug me. Thanksgiving came and went. We did not have any special food. We had leftover rice and noodles.

Hugh really has a bad cold and he is slowly losing his voice. This is his 3^rd or 4^th bout wit the cold.

It gets really cold at night. We tried to buy coal yesterday on our own and the transaction did not go through. The seller was acting cocky. We understood the price to be 30fen for each piece of coal. We asked for 3yuan worth of coal. The man refused to sell us that amount. He said something in Chinese that we did not understand. There definitely was a lack of communication. So we walked away.

I told Hugh about my decision about not hiring Louisa and May. He seemed annoyed about that.

Mr. Zhao came by in the evening. He had a brand new water heater with him. The electrician is coming on Monday to install the unit.

We had some tea that Julie from Grade 1 had given to Hugh.

11-29-98

@12:25p.m.

Hugh had a bad night. He was coughing a lot and he is congested. He also had a low-grade fever. I told him to stay home but he insisted on going to teach.

Mahala has a temperature of 100.9F. She is looking bad. She must have what Hugh has. I gave her some medication to bring down her fever. Her temperature is now 100F. Mahala is lying on the brown vinyl sofa and is covered up to her neck in quilts. She looks so unhappy.

I found out today that one of my metal tongs is missing. We suspect that it was taken the day the workers came by to dig out the bushes. We have no proof of course.

We are using the spare bedroom as a drying room for our clothes. We keep the heater on in there hoping that will at least help dry our clothes faster.

Three little girls came by earlier asking for Mahala. I told them Mahala is sleeping and cannot play. She is sick.

It is no 3:40p.m. I took Mahala’s temperature again. It is 100.1F. I gave her more of fever reducer medicine. Then she had a bowl of chicken noodle soup. I am worried. I hope her fever breaks soon. She is sleeping right now. Has been asleep for the last 45 minutes.

We had real hot water tonight so I cleaned her up good and made her soak in the tub. She felt much better after that.

11-29-98

@7:35p.m.

Lucy and Wendy came in the morning. They plan to buy us some chickens and have lunch with us. Wendy also canceled her class with Mahala. She has a poster that she needs to finish today. It is for a school project.

We walked to the market and bought a 40yuan jacket for Hugh. We bumped into Lucy and Wendy buying chickens. Lucy helped me buy some fresh pork. All of us walked back together.

I made up a pot of rice and we had lunch with the girls. Wendy asked Hugh if it was alright to have a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship while in college. She was asking for herself. Wendy and Dan have that kind of relationship. Their teacher who is their Communist leader is putting pressure on them to break up. The leaders know that both these individuals have relationships but so far they have not found out that they are an item. Wendy has been pressured to reveal who her boyfriend is. The leaders have told her that they will question her friends if she does not reveal his name. That was when she started crying. The pressure is just too much. She feels afraid and is thinking of dropping out of school.

Elton and Jenny came by and sat with us. I put some eggs up to boil then helped Hugh mopped the floors. I totally forgot about the eggs, the water boiled away and the eggs got burnt and toasted.

Lucy and Elton bought us some charcoal. It is a huge bag about 70 jin. A jin is more or less a pound. The charcoal cost 40yuan.

In the evening Roy, Elton and Hugh walked out to pick up the soldered grill for our BBQ.

This is the 2^nd Sunday in a row that the 3 girls have not come to visit. We do not miss their company that much. We get tired of entertaining them after a while.

There is no hot water tonight.

11-30-98

@10:00a.m.

This is the last day for the month of November. Mahala and Hugh are fully recovered from their cold. We are still waiting for the electrician to install the water heater.

Mahala is having a slow start to her day.

The heater has been installed. The electrician had it all fixed up by 3:50p.m. Tonight we get to see if it works.

It is 7:25p.m. We are all cleaned up. Finally we can shower when we want to and not wait until 9:30p.m. What a blessing! The heater runs on electricity. The electrician will have to redo the wires to accommodate the increase of voltage. But we can still use the heater till then. The capacity of water that the heater can hold is small.

12-1-98

@9:21a.m.

It is raining and is cold. I have just had my 1^st cup of coffee for the day. I’ve hung my clothes out under the eaves. My hands are freezing cold. I turned on the water heater so I can take a hot shower and clean up. Looks like we have to stay indoors today. It is too wet to go out.

Hugh came back mad from his Grade 4 English Literature class. In class the students talk, whisper and laugh among themselves. It is directed towards Hugh. This morning he had only 35 out off a total of 80 students. So Hugh has decided to change his teaching methods with them. He is going to assign them each an English author and have them do a presentation in class. That paper will be 30% of the final score. They will receive a 0% if they do not complete the assignment. Hugh is getting tired of the students’ antics in the class. The students have been telling Hugh how he should conduct the class. The students in the journalism class behave the same way too.

On top of that Julia made him mad in class yesterday. Julia was second-guessing him and was telling her desk-mate that Hugh had pronounced the word wrong. Hugh walked up to her desk and told her in no uncertain terms that her English was not that good and to not second-guess a native English speaker. That tongue lashing nearly made her cry.

This morning the electrical power went out again at 10:50p.m. Mr. Zhao came around at 11:00a.m. He wanted to know whether the water heater was working. He told Hugh that at the end of the contract Hugh will receive a lump sum of 2,000yuan-200yuan for each month he is here. It is like a bonus. He also informed us that the school year ends in mid-July but we can leave before the term ends. As soon as the final papers have been graded. I wish we could leave in June. We asked him about the sirens we heard yesterday night. The cause of it had been a case of overloading of the electrical lines and because of that there was a fire not far from where he lived.

Mr. Zhao came back a little later. He had 2 envelopes with him. Both of them came from Grandma. One had magazines and the other a Beatle’s songbook.

We also heard that Keith a Grade 3 student had his pocket picked while on the train. He was coming back to Xinyang after visiting his family. The train was crowded standing room only. So Keith is poorer by 300yuan now.

12-2-98

@3:10p.m.

It is snowing. It feels terribly cold. The space heaters help a little but not much. To stay warm you have to sit right up against the heater.

This morning in Grade 3, Class 1 Hugh had to close up a broken window with a piece of plastic sheet. The window had been broken for months now but nothing had been done. This morning when he entered that class all the students were huddled in the back. The cold wind was blowing through the broken window.

In Class 2 Hugh had his students read their compositions. The topic was "My thoughts about My School". Julia read hers, which was 5 pages long. In it, she said that she had 2 good English teachers in Duncan and Tim. This year she has taken a fall. Reading between the lines she was lambasting Hugh. All the students know the real meaning behind her composition. Hugh is not too concerned about her feelings towards him.

We walked out at noon to buy food. While there we met some Grade 2 students. All of them have to attend a speech competition so their conversation class for tonight will have to be canceled.

Today at the restaurant we had to wait a while for our food. It was busy. While waiting we observed a young man who was sitting and watching television. He had a bottle of white wine in his hand. He kept hawking and spitting on the floor of the restaurant. There were other patrons eating their food around him. He must have spit at least ten times while I was in the restaurant. Finally we walked out because he was disgusting us. We brought our lunch and ate them at our lodgings.

Lucy and Jenny came by after lunch. We talked to them about Mahala’s progress in their respective class. After they left Mahala threw up. At 2:00p.m. Hugh decided to take a nap. But before he could do so, 3 students from Grade 2 came by. So he had to make conversation with them. The girls told me that they miss home very much. I told them they should go home if that is the case for a few days. They tell me that most of the time the trains are crowded and it is hard to find a seat. Sometimes you stand all the way till the end of your destination. One girl had to stand like 4 hours that’s how far her home is from Xinyang. The soldiers are especially rude. They will sometimes shove, push and hit their fellow passengers on the head with their caps. Then they left. After that Linda and Wendy came by to report on Mahala’s progress.

It is now 8:30p.m. The day is coming to an end. Mahala is sleeping. She threw up about 11/2 hours ago. She must have food poisoning. I laid down with her while she slept.

Finally at long last we have some peace and quiet.

Hugh just came back after taking a call. It was from a manager of a local hotel. The manager is interested in setting up an English program for his employees. He is coming on Saturday evening at 7:30p.m. to discuss it with Hugh.

12-3-998

@5:50p.m.

Mahala threw up twice yesterday. She looked pale. She must have food poisoning.

Hugh delivered his speech to the Grade 4 students on what he expects of them. Then he dismissed the class. He will not go to the afternoon class. He is tired of their attitude. He will resume class on Monday. Let the Grade 4 stew on his speech over the weekend.

The sun came out and melted the snow away. The roads turned slushy and muddy. It is still cold.

Tom Liu came by to have his remedial conversation class with Hugh. His class as a whole appreciates Hugh’s kind gesture in taping up the class’s broken window with the plastic sheet.

We tried to start a fire in our charcoal burner. As starter for the fire we used candles and papers. Instead we created just a lot of smoke. Originally we wanted to soak small pieces of coal with kerosene but we could not buy any. We did not know where to get it. The alternative was gas but that is too dangerous. The fumes alone will kill you.

Finally Lucy taught me how to do it. First you tear strips of used newspaper, crumple them and shove that down the burner. Then you add kindling. If you don’t have it then use used chopsticks. You break them up and add this on top of the paper. Then you find small pieces of coal and add that on. You light the paper, that will cause the wooden chopsticks to catch fire and that will burn the charcoal. If you do succeed in this then add more coals on top. In a while the coals should burn and get hot enough for you to cook on.

12-4-98

@11:20a.m.

I cannot believe that Christmas is only 20 days away. Right at his point I wish I were back in the States. This year will be the first time we are celebrating Christmas away from the U.S. We will feel very alone this year. Usually we have a tree be it real, plastic or paper. This year there will be nothing. If there really is a Santa then my wish is for all of us to go back.

I cannot seem to keep my hands and feet warm. They always feel cold.

Linda and I talked a little while this morning. She is the shy one of the 4 tutors. The conversation turned to the shower rooms in school. She was telling me that Jenny has not had a shower for 2 weeks. So yesterday being shower day for the girls both of them decided to take advantage of it. It was crowded as usual. Both Jenny and her found a spot. Jenny was washing her hair when all of a sudden the water stopped completely. Some of the girls were caught in a similar situation. Others were soaping themselves them. That happened 4 times. Jenny got very angry. The school has also increased the fees for showering. It is now 1.50yuan. For that amount the students should demand for better conditions in the shower room.

We have decided to let Mahala have a 2-week Christmas break. She will stop he classes on 12-21-98 and resume again on 1-4-99. Hugh is also going to give all his classes a 3-day Christmas vacation from 23^rd to 27^th December.

Monica came by in the afternoon. She looked upset and had tears in her eyes. She had just recently come back from visiting her parents. While there she heard some upsetting news. It happened in the middle school. Two students of the opposite sex were caught in a compromising situation. They were allegedly caught naked in the midst of having sex. The students were 12 and 13 years old respectively. The principal of the school expelled both of them. Monica personally knew the boy that was involved. She had once tutored this boy when he was in the lower grades. She described the boy as "he is just a short skinny looking thing". In her opinion the punishment was too severe. Because the parties involved are so young they should have been made to go to counseling. Last year a similar incident occurred at the same school. Then the parties involved were not expelled. Usually when things of this nature happen the gossip network is such that the whole town will know of it and the individuals involved. Being shamed like that is severe punishment enough. These two individuals now have nothing. Without an education they will not have much of a life. They will probably remain workers all their lives. It is a shame that it had to happen. We could see that Monica was terribly upset.

I asked her if the schools offer sex education to grade students. The answer was no. "The students here are too shy for those sort of things". There you have it. This is just a case of 2 adolescents that was just doing what came naturally to them. It was their bad luck to be caught and be punished for it. I am not saying it is okay to be having sex at that age. It’s not and there are repercussions that can occur. I agree with Monica that the punishment should have been different. You do not kick kids out of school for that. It is not a crime to be aware of the opposite sex and to have feelings for each other.

I empathize with those two students and their family. This is China and that is how they deal with those problems. Monica blames the school for not having talked to the students when the first incident of this sort occurred.

She also thinks if the students had lived on campus dormitories these sort of things would not have happened. The school authorities would have more control over them. But in that school all the students rent rooms off campus.

12-5-98

@11:45a.m.

We woke up late. Hugh canceled his American Literature class this morning so he could sleep in. Just before we walked out to run some errands the electricity power went off. We walked to pick up our grill but it was not ready yet. So we bought "Chow bin" and ate that by candlelight. The power came back on at 11:30a.m.

We also bought some Christmas gifts for Mahala’s tutors.

Elton came to visit. He told us he found a job tutoring a 10year old boy downtown. We asked him how he found out about this job. The job was offered to Amanda, then Dan. Both of them did not take it for some reason or other. So they asked Elton if he would like to try for it. Both Amanda and Dan are party members.

Mahala is angry at me because I told her, that her work is too sloppy. I told her to write in pencil so that it is easily corrected if she makes a mistake. She did not like that.

12-6-98

@4:30p.m.

We woke up late again today. We must have needed that extra time. It felt nice and warm in bed. It sure was hard getting up to the cold.

We walked out twice today. Once to get food and the other time to buy more gifts. We bought all those gifts from a shop located outside the school gates. We are planning to give each of the tutors a bag of toiletries. I wanted to buy some body powder but there wasn’t any at the shop.

Yesterday evening we had a visitor. It is the manager of the hotel in town. He had called Hugh up last week about the English program. The manager is a young man in his twenties. He had a bad habit of snapping his fingers at you when he wanted to stress a point. Actually he is the sales manager of a newly opened hotel in town. The hotel has a staff of 400 and he is trying to teach the "key" staff some basic English for the hotel trade. He is having a hard time because the staff is not too keen to learn the language. Hugh told him to speak to Mr. Liu of the English department because under the terms of Hugh’s contract Hugh is not allowed to do any outside consulting work without the school’s permission. Donald the manager speaks good English. He comes from northern China and has just started work in Xinyang. He is trying to save money and wants to join his girlfriend in Kuala Lumpur. His girlfriend is studying at Stamford College. Donald is keen on getting a degree in Hotel Management at the same college. It is relatively cheap to study there. He can get by on MR500.

Donald wants to sit in on Hugh’s classes. No problem just get permission from Mr. Liu. We found out that the hotel is owned and operated by a high-ranking official from Zhengzhou. The official has his family members holding all the key administrative positions even though those people are not qualified. That is why the hotel is not succeeding, as it should be. The hotel caters mostly to the successful local clientele, businessmen who wine and dine their clients there and also those who bring their women friends or mistresses. A standard room costs 329yuan. During the slow season the rate is 190yuan. There are over 200 rooms. Donald extended an invitation for us to visit the hotel. We were non-committal.

Donald was amazed at our living situation. He said the rooms are too cold and that the school could have done better than this. I totally agree with that. He said the school should put us up in their hotel where it is more comfortable. I am all for it. He has to persuade the school though. Donald left at about 9:30p.m.

When Hugh met Mr. Liu he informed him about Donald’s visit. Mr. Liu seemed agitated that he was not informed about it before. Mr. Liu also asked Hugh if he could take another student, a nurse, in his Tuesday remedial class. That makes three if the nurse shows up. Right now there is only Tom Liu and Julie.

12-7-98

@9:30a.m.

Our food supplies from the States is going fast. We have milk powder and soups left. The tuna is long gone. We are really looking forward to our care packages now. I hope it comes soon.

The sun is shinning but it is cold. We had the heater on most of the night because of the cold.

The electrical outlet to the water heater has not been replaced yet. It has been exactly one week since it was installed.

We had a power outage again at 10:10a.m. today. This is the 2^nd time it has happened in 3 days. The power came back on at 11:30a.m. I timed it.

Hugh has noticed that Apollo has been quiet lately, more subdued especially since his trip back home. He was waiting outside our door yesterday evening. He had with him 2 frozen packets of "chiao tze". He asked us if he could leave it in the freezer. It was fine by me. I do not know whether it is for us or not. Hugh asked about his trip. He told us "it is not a nice trip". He then left. I think his girlfriend dumped him. Before he left Xinyang he had bought a nice gift, a soft toy, for his girl.

This morning Julia was late to class. Hugh told her not to be tardy next time. After class she told Hugh that the vocabulary exercises were useless and to teach something else. Hugh replied that the exercises were good for her and left it at that.

The sun finally came out this afternoon. It did not feel so cold.

Hugh had to go to an English Club meeting tonight. Two students came by to invite him. At first he did not want to go but after much persuasion he said he would go this time only. He came back at about 8:30p.m. I asked him how it went. Hugh told me that there were about 200 students there. Most of the students barely knew English. Hugh gave a short 3-minute speech on his work with various ethnic groups.

12-8-98

@12:30p.m.

Hugh had only one class this morning.

His Grade 4 class is beginning to work out for him especially after he came down hard on them. He almost had a full class yesterday except for a few absentees.

Mahala and I walked out this morning to get some breakfast. We saw a woman in her 60’s wearing shabby clothes. She must have had 4 or 5 layers on. She had a rope tied around her waist, a cap on her head and was carrying a bamboo cane. She was walking up and down the street talking to herself. She could be a street person, homeless person or a schizophrenic.

12-9-98

@9:15a.m.

It is terribly cold. We had the heater on the whole night.

Yesterday Wendy asked if we had a Christmas tree. I told her no. She then proceeded to inform me that some of the students were going to get us one. I asked her where. She said the students know of a place on campus where they can get hold of one. I told her not to do it if they are going to get into trouble.

Around 4:00p.m. we walked to out to our usual restaurant to buy food. We saw two huge pieces of meat hanging by the doorway. I asked the owner what kind of meat it is in my best Chinese. She sort of whispered goat meat. We could tell one of the pieces was goat because of the hooves but the other looked suspicious. It was a quarter flank of some animal. The skin was tan and the meat looked really red. It was part of a hind leg with the spine and ribs attached. But the part that stood out was the five claws with nails on it. Hugh and Mahala said it looked like part of a dog. A big dog too. I asked the young owner of the shop next door what kind of meat that was. She told us in Chinese "Gu ro".

That confirmed our suspicion. Back at the hotel we looked up the word for dog. It was "Gu". There we have it.

I have known for a long time that dog meat is part of the Chinese diet but I have never seen the meat displayed out in public and sold openly like that. In Malaysia it was always a secret thing. People who eat dog meat do so in secret. It is not advertised. I have heard the students tell me that in winter the restaurants sell dog meat. It is cooked up in special herbs and the meat has a warming effect on the body. It is expensive to buy. Julie has also told me that downtown you can buy yourself "chiao tze" that has dog meat in it.

It threw us all when we saw that meat just hanging out there. We will have second thoughts about going back to that restaurant again.

It is 6:56p.m. We have had no water pressure for almost the whole day. With no pressure there was no water in the tank, so that means we have no hot water. So I could not get cleaned up. I do not know why the water was turned off. I feel dirty.

It is 6:56p.m. We have had very little water pressure since this morning. That means the hot water tank is empty. As a result of that I have felt dirty all day long and I hate feeling this way. We had to boil up water tonight for our bath.

12-10-98

@9:10a.m.

The water pressure this morning is practically nil. It is just too much. What use is the water heater when we have no water to heat.

The water came back on after 12:00noon. I made the most of it. I washed up 3 loads of laundry.

I always think of going home. The only thing holding me back is the fact that we have to pay the school if we break contract. What an abnormal life we lead? It is hard here especially because we are at a disadvantage. We are in a foreign land and a communist one at that. We do not speak the language and we have no control over our situation. It is so frustrating. I sometimes wish I could do something to make the days go that much faster.

12-11-98

@10:30a.m.

Mr. Zhao brought an envelope. It was from Mom. It had books and a card for Mahala. That will make her happy.

Hugh is beginning to lose all his muscle tone. He looks flabby. We must all look that way. It is a horrible thought,, growing old especially growing old in China.

The sun is out, so I have all the quilts airing outside. My laundry from yesterday is hanging out to dry. It is damp.

Mahala is happy and excited with the card and books that Mom sent her. She also found a card under the door. The card is from May. It is a Christmas card.

The same day. Mr. Zhao came by with a letter for us. It is from Mom.

In the letter she mentioned sending us a copy of Readers Digest and also some cash. We have not received those two items. Someone obviously have opened up our mail and taken the articles. It is against the law in the States to tamper with mail. This incident has confirmed our suspicions that our in coming mail has been tampered with.

12-12-98

@11:45a.m.

There is no electricity this morning.

We walked to the market to buy some food. When we came back the power was on already. I figured the power was out from 9:15a.m. or earlier until now.

Mahala and I were waiting in the lobby for Hugh to come back this afternoon. I was trying to remove a splinter in my thumb. This man deliberately bumped into Mahala. He had the whole lobby to walk through. Hugh tells me this sort of person is called "froteur".

Yesterday an incident happened while I was buying "Chow bin". Obviously my Chinese pronunciation was not good. Two young Chinese girls started to mimic my pronunciation then started giggling. I gave both of them a nasty look and said " you are rude". I then walked away. I have never been so insulted.

Lucy and a friend brought us branches of pine yesterday evening. They had plucked it off some trees. We soaked the branches in some buckets of water to keep it from drying out.

Then this afternoon we made wreaths out of them and decorated it with what we have with us. We have the wreath hanging in the bathroom. There is more humidity there. Hugh plans to take the wreath to Grade 3, Class 2 on Monday.

We had bought some sweet potatoes from the market this morning. We finally managed to get our stove to work by ourselves using the technique that Lucy showed us. The fire was going real good. We decided to cook up the sweet potatoes. I put sand in an aluminum pot. Then the potatoes. This I put over the fire. The fire heats the sand and the sand cooks the potatoes. I have seen my mother do that before so I decided to try that method. Since it takes quite a long time for the potatoes to cook that way we did not check on them. We walked out to get a few things from the shops outside the school gate.

I checked on the potatoes when we came back. The pot had melted in two places and the sand had drained out onto the fire. The fire was still burning though not as hot as before. The potatoes were cooked too. This method works though I managed to ruin a pot in the process.

12-13-98

@3:45p.m.

It is a cold Sunday morning. Wendy came by earlier with more pine branches for us. He had gone hiking with her fellow countrymen up a hill behind the school.

We had a good breakfast this morning. We bought some steamed dumplings or "Pao tze" from another restaurant across from the school. We also had some noodles. After that we went to the hardware shop. We needed some fluorescent lamps and starters. Walking back we saw a young man in dirty clothes. He had long matted hair and was wearing a pair of rubber boots. He was breaking bottles in the street by smashing them with his boots. He looked schizophrenic.

On our outings to buy food we have also seen young people with light complexions with sandy hair and light colored eyes. They have sharp features like Caucasians. I sometimes wonder if one of their parents might have been a Caucasian. There is this young boy of maybe 8 or 9 years old who I see on a regular basis who is really light complexion. I wonder if he feels like an outcast because of his looks.

Once when I was buying egg "Chow bin" there was a little girl of 2 or 3 buying the same too. While waiting for the food she kept playing and touching a pair of tongs that the food vendor used to turn his egg "Chow bin" with. He told her many times to quit that. He finally removed the tongs out off her hands. The girl then proceeded to squat down beside the stall and started to urinate there and then in front of everyone. No one seemed to mind too much. Everyone was carrying on as usual. Mahala and I were hardly 2 feet away from her.

All the little children from a year old to maybe 3 years wear pants that have slits behind their butts. Whenever the children feel a need to go #1 or #2 all they do is squat down and the deed is done. They do it under the trees, behind the bushes or wherever is convenient. I have seen children do it by the streets.

12-14-98

@2:20p.m.

It is 10 days till Christmas. This morning we received a letter from Lori and Clay. Lucy brought us a gift all nicely wrapped up. I suspect it must be the socks that she knitted. We also found out that there are 2 boxes waiting for us in the post office downtown. Mr. Xu will bring it by later.

Mr. Xu brought the boxes by after lunch. One of the boxes is from Mom. It had food and gifts in it. The other one was from the Civic Center. That box also had food and candies and some photos of the staff. It was meant to be a Halloween care package. Better late then never. The condition of the box from the Civic Center was bad. Milk powder had been spilled. Looks like the box had a terrible bashing.

We had fun opening up both boxes.

12-15-98

@11:30a.m.

Mr. Zhao collected Hug’s salary and brought it to him.

This afternoon Hugh will have 7 students come in. All of them are here because they have very poor oral English skills especially Tom Liu. He has real difficulty understanding and speaking. Sometimes we wonder how he has managed to pass his exams till now. Tom is smart but he should not be in the English program at all.

12-16-98

@11:30a.m.

Well I have finally finished with my morning chores. I have washed the clothes, taken a shower and washed my hair. Now I am done.

Hugh came back at 10:00a.m. He had a cup of coffee and told me he "kicked" Julia out of class this morning. She was reading a magazine while the rest of the class was reciting a passage. Hugh asked her if the article in the magazine was more interesting than his class. She answered sometimes. That was when Hugh asked her to leave. Julia is really questioning Hugh’s authority in class. I wonder where all this conflict between the both of them will lead. Hugh admits that he felt bad having to kick her out of class but he felt that Julia was goading him into it. He feels like a dictator and hates feeling that way.

Mr. Liu wants to treat us to a Christmas dinner. Both of us are not inclined to go. We feel uncomfortable about doing it. I thought we might tell Mr. Liu that we belong to the Jehovah’s Witness.

Hugh had Apollo help him in the Grade 2 class. Apollo plays the harmonica pretty good. They were going to have the students sing some songs accompanied by the harmonica. It was an exercise in oral English. Half of the class did not want to do it and the other half was shy about singing out loud. By the way there was only 30% turn out in the class tonight. So Hugh scraped that idea. Hopefully that will be the end of the class.

12-17-98

@12:45p.m.

When we walked out today we saw Julia. She did not acknowledge Hugh at all. She is still sore at him.

We walked to the toy store and bought ourselves 4 soft cuddly stuffed animals. We bought a gorilla, a dog, a mouse and a chipmunk. Hugh wanted to conduct some experiment with them involving the students.

When Lucy came she went for the gorilla. She liked the gorilla. Elton held the gorilla for a while and put it aside. The Monica came. She grabbed every single one and hugged them. She had them on her lap and all that time was toughing and putting the toys to her face and kissing them. She told us the gorilla is cute except for its color. It is black. Jenny said the gorilla is ugly. She did not even want to touch it. Mahala was trying to make her hold the gorilla but Jenny absolutely refused.

It is about 7:00p.m. Hugh is at his Grade 2 class. He is thinking about canceling this evening class if the attendance keeps dropping.

12-18-98

It has been a busy day today. We decided to do our first BBQ this evening. Lucy is supposed to come this morning to help me buy some meat at the market. We have invited some students to the party.

Mr. Xu came by with a care package from Mom. Lucy came at 10:00a.m.

We walked to the market together and with Lucy’s help bought chicken, pork and fish. I also bought some "Pao tze" and "Chow bin". I shared these with Lucy and Linda.

I marinated the meat and left them in the refrigerator.

Hugh had a class at 2:30p.m. I told him to dismiss the class early so we can get the BBQ started early since the day is getting shorter.

It took us a while to get the fire going in the BBQ. It finally did and when the coals was hot enough out came the meats. I had bought 5 "jin" of pork and 4 "jin" of chicken. I had also fried up the fishes. Besides that we had bought 12 "man tou"(steamed buns) and 12 packets of fried noodles.

Hugh had an audience while he was barbecuing the meat. The ladies from the hotel and the people from the photo copying shop came by to look at what we were doing. They seemed fascinated by the way we were cooking up our meat. We had quite an audience.

We had invited Lucy, Wendy, Jenny, Linda, Apollo and Elton. Monica showed up uninvited but that’s fine. We had plenty of food. Apollo left as soon as he finished eating. He had a date that night and they were going to go dancing. We ate most of the meat. The only food that was left over was the noodles or "mien". Hugh put the noodles in a plastic bag and threw it over the garden wall.

All of us enjoyed the food and company. The students had a good time. We did too.

After dinner it was time to open presents. The tutors each gave us a gift. Linda gave us mittens, which she had knitted, a wind chime and a cap for Mahala; Wendy gave us candies, mittens for me and a toy telescope for Mahala; Jenny gave us a box of candies and a wooden calendar for 1999. We had fun watching the tutors open up their gifts. They were very happy with it. Hugh gave Elton a dictionary and Monica received a soft toy. Mahala started making water balloons. It then turned into a game. Monica was accidentally hit with one. The balloon burst and water spilled all over her pants. Then Wendy broke one over herself and got the front of her pants wet. Her socks were soaked through. She borrowed one of Mahala’s socks to wear. Because Roy could not make it to the party I made up a plate of food for him. Our guests finally left at 8:30p.m. It was a good day.

12-19-98

We woke up late. We cleaned the place up. Then Hugh decided to patch up the cracks around the bathtub with some cement. He also did some repair work on the BBQ oven. Elton and Roy came over in the afternoon. They brought back my plates and took back the stools that we had borrowed from the class for our party.

12-20-98

@4:22p.m.

It is five days till Christmas. Woke up late. Then Wendy came for her class with Mahala. We walked out to get some breakfast.

Some little girls came by to play with Mahala. They left around lunch time.

There are 2 girls outside in the garden with Mahala now. One of the girls has terrible looking hands. They are cracked and dry. It looks wrinkled. Mahala gave her a soft toy rabbit. The other girl got a soft toy elephant. Mahala did that because she felt sorry that the girls did not have any toys to play with.

I hung some stars that I had made outside in the garden. Mahala started pulling them down. I told her to leave it alone. She kept doing it so I made her go inside the house. Hugh has started working on the final exams for the Grades 3 and 4.

He has just promised me that in 5 years he will build me a house with a big kitchen. It will have big bathrooms and walk in closets. He will put in big windows so we can look out at the nice view and have the sun shine in. I look forward to that day.

12-21-98

@9:08a.m.

We opened up our gifts from Grandma. We have not bought anything for each other.

This morning I heard Hugh telling Mahala that he will make it up to her next Christmas.

It is foggy outside and cold. I should wash my clothes but I will wait until the sun comes out before doing it. For the last 2 weeks the weather has been surprisingly mild. It is going to change soon. We are in for a cold spell.

The management of the hotel has been renovating the rooms upstairs. They are having new doors put in. So for the last week or so we have been hearing the workers using the jackhammer to remove the old doors. Then hammering and knocking. It usually starts at 9:00a.m. and goes on till 12:00p.m. There is a break then and the noises come back on again at 2:00p.m. Usually the workers stop at 4:00p.m.

Mary came by in the afternoon. She brought us a bag of peanuts and sweet potatoes from her father’s farm. I cooked up the potatoes but there were not sweet.

We had that for dinner plus some left over chicken and noodles. While eating Charlie and Ginger came by. Those two have been an item since their first year. They are both in Grade 3 and have part time jobs teaching English at "Little Star English School". I have mentioned the school before in my journal. The school caters to children between the ages of 3 to 11 who go there to learn English. The teachers use simple books as instructional aids. The titles of the books are "Snow White", "The Ugly Ducking" and "Little Red Riding Hood". The children learn 4 sentences from the book every time they go there. They learn to recite by rote the passages from the book. The children attend the class only on a Sunday.

Both Charlie and Ginger feel that is really not learning. They want Hugh to give them some ideas on how to improve their teaching skills and also to keep the children’s attention focused. Hugh talked to them for a long time and gave them ideas and books to work with.

Hugh had to leave because he had a phone call. When he came back he told us that the local television crew was coming on Wednesday to film the Grade 3, Class 2 that morning. He told Charlie to dress well and to tell the rest of the class to dress up that day. Everyone is going to be on television!

12-22-98

@2:57p.m.

Three more days until Christmas. Today is cold.

We walked to the Grade 3 class to decorate the Christmas tree.

Elton, Roy, Dan, Mark, Fred and Tom had somehow or other gotten hold of a pine tree. They went out one evening when it was dark and with an ax chopped down a little pine tree. We think the tree belonged to the school agricultural department. To cut a long story short we decided it was best to leave it in the class.

So here we are with our 20 feet of stars that Mahala and I made in different colors. We have little red ribbons and some of the students have made paper cranes to put on it. It looks like a real Christmas tree now. The class bought a strand of colored lights and it looked real pretty when the lights are turned on.

Wendy bought us a packet of frozen "Chiao tze". She had this interesting story to go with it. Today is a special day for eating "chiao tze". Your ears will fall off if you do not eat "chiao tze" today. We do not want that to happen so we boiled up the "chiao tze".

This morning Mr. Zhao came by with an invitation. He wants us to have dinner with the dean of the English department and some of the staff from the Foreign Affairs Office. We told him the same thing we told Mr. Liu when he invited us. I then told Mr. Zhao instead of that to just get us a fruit basket.

Monica bought us some curly pastries and sweet buns. They were good and we ate all of them.

Hugh did not feel like going to his Grade 2 class this evening. So when Monica left, Hugh asked her to convey a message to the Grade 2 students. Tell them classes for tonight and Thursday night have been canceled.

Hugh found out that he has the same classes to teach next semester. He still has to teach Grade 4 but this time only in Journalism. The department is going to find some one to teach English Literature. That cheered Hugh up. He only has to deal with Grade 4 once a week.

12-23-98

@9:11a.m.

Hugh came back at 10:00a.m. for a quick cup of coffee and had some news to tell me. The Grade 3 Class 2 students want to have a Christmas party. We were planning to have one but were told that the English department was having one too and that all the students have to attend. But the information was wrong, so we are going ahead with our own party after all.

We went out this afternoon to buy stuff for the party. Jenny helped me in the shops and Lucy and Wendy went to the bakery. We told them to order cakes for our musical walk. We came back to the apartment and started wrapping up the gifts. We had like 50 gifts in all. We had planned enough gifts for 40 students and any extra that might show up. We made up a box filled with candies and little trinkets. That is our piñata.

The Foreign Affairs Office delivered their oranges and apples today. I am going to share that with the students.

All of us worked from 2:00p.m. until 5:00p.m. wrapping presents. Lucy is an impatient present wrapper.

12-24-98

@9:14a.m.

Today is Christmas Eve. Today is our Christmas Party. I hope that a lot of students show up. It will be a fun time for the students.

Hugh has to go to one last class this morning. He will be back at 10:00a.m.

Mr. Zhao brought us our apples and oranges, 10 "jin" of each. He also bought us a freshly slaughtered chicken duly cleaned. All those gifts are in lieu of having Christmas dinner with people whom we really do not know.

It is now 4:50p.m. We will be going to the party that we are hosting in another 10 minutes. We still have a few last minute chores to do. Lucy and Jenny will be coming by in a few minutes to help carry the gifts. The cakes we ordered looks great. I hope it taste just as well as it looks.

We had a busy afternoon. Students dropping in with gifts and cards. The grade 4 students gave Mahala a soft toy that sang "Old McDonald Had a Farm". It worked on a sense motion. It drove us all crazy so finally we removed the batteries.

12-25-98

@12:56p.m.

Today is Christmas Day. It feels just like another day.

Mr. Liu came by with a gift for Hugh from the English department. It was a scarf and tie.

The Christmas party was a blast. Everyone who turned up had a wonderful time. We had games and dancing and each student went back with a gift. We made sure of that. We even had a Santa show up. Of course it was Charlie in a red suit. He looked and sounded funny especially when he started to Ho! Ho! Ho! Charlie will be the Santa at the party that the department is having the same time as ours. Mahala cracked up when she saw him. He had a gift for Mahala. We had gifts under our tree and some of the students had gifts for us and for Mahala. We had snacks and Hugh had them do a cakewalk. There were 3 winners and Lucy was one of them. Then Hugh taught them how to square dance. That was wonderful. I have not ever seen Hugh dance when he is sober. That reminds me, we had beer and everyone had a cup. Dan and Stella put up a short skit and that was hilarious. The dialog was in English and it involved a patient and a nurse who was too busy talking and gave the poor patient the wrong shot. We blind folded some of the students and made them hit the piñata. Jenny was good. She was like the 4^th or 5^th person to hit it. She smashed the thing and all the ping-pong balls went bouncing all over the floor. There were candies, erasers, bookmarks, small exercise books, pencils, boxes of matches and sharpeners. Those items scattered all over the floor too. The students were grabbing them as fast as they could. There were numbers written on the balls and the numbers corresponded with the gifts under the Christmas tree. Those who have more than one ball had to give it up to those who did not have any. Jimmy had like 4 or 5 of the ping pong balls. I had to make him give it some. Jimmy is Vicki’s boyfriend. Vicki is the monitor of Grade 3 Class 2. After that commotion had settled down we called out the numbers on the gifts and gave it out. The party died down after that and we called it quits. We came back with boxes of gifts.

Lucy and her dormitory mates came calling when we got back to the hotel. They wanted to share the cake that Lucy had won with us. Linda, Wendy, Jenny, Kathryn, Stella, Amanda and Lucy stayed and talked after eating the cake. They left after an hour. Hugh gave Kathryn a soft toy.

The electricity went out again this afternoon at 12:20p.m.

Mahala is jumping rope outside with some girls.

We are looking at the gifts the students gave to us. We have vases, clocks, tea sets, ceramic figures and decorative ornaments. We cannot possibly take them all back. We will have to recycle them.

The power came back on again at 2:30p.m. That was a relief.

Hugh is back on the computer. He is working on the final papers for his classes before the term breaks.

12-26-98

@10:51a.m.

We have a quiet day. It is Christmas day in the States. We wonder what the family is doing right now. Probably having their Christmas dinner.

Mahala is outside with her friends. Hugh is on his computer.

Lucy, Wendy, Elton and Dan brought the Christmas tree from the class over. They had carried it on the back of a bicycle that Elton uses to go downtown with. We left the tree in the backyard, with the decorations still on it. Mahala’s little friends are fascinated by the tree. They kept pulling off the decorations. I guess they have never seen a tree decorated like that.

Hugh was on television tonight. The camera crew had filmed him in class with the Grade 3 students and also outside talking to them. It was a short clip and lasted only about a minute. The program was about the school and Hugh just happened to be part of it.

Yesterday we were invited to a "Chiao tze" party. The Grade 1 students are having it in their class. So in the evening we walked over there. The students had pushed their tables together. They had 5 groups all together. There were 7 students in each group. Each group had a stove and on it was a pot of boiling water. The students were all kneading, rolling and wrapping the "Chiao tze". Some were boiling the "chiao tze". We were made to partake the "chiao tze". They tasted better than the ones we bought from the shops. Each group would put more and more "chiao tze" in our containers until finally we could eat no more. Some of the ‘chiao tze" had coins in them. If you found one of them it means good luck. We never found any.

The students had drawn a big Christmas tree on a large piece of paper. They had pasted cut out decorations on the tree. Behind each decoration there was a little gift. Before leaving the monitor of the class had Mahala point out a decoration that she liked. Mahala received a packet of gum. Then it was time to have pictures taken with the class. We were swamped especially poor Mahala. All the students especially the girls wanted to be close to her. Poor dear she did not know what to make of all these. It was a chaotic situation, more like a mob scene. We finally managed to leave with 2 containers full of "chiao tze".

I gave a container to the lady who runs the sundry shop in the lobby. We kept the other. May came knocking at our door a few minutes later. She was locked out from her dorm room because she had forgotten her keys. She was all dressed up too. She was supposed to meet a friend at the dance but the friend did not show up. So she decided to hang out with us. We offered her the other container of "chiao tze". She was hesitant at first but finally decided it was too good to pass up. She ate the whole container of "chiao tze". There must have been 40 of those in the container. She told us that she only had an apple the whole day. She is too skinny to be dieting. She then showed us the dance routine that she and a group of other girls performed at the department’s Christmas Party. She also told us that Apollo was the Master of Ceremonies that night.

12-27-98

@11:32a.m.

I did up laundry this morning.

Hugh is working on the test papers for the journalism class.

Mahala is playing with her friends outside in the back yard. They must be about 4 girls jumping rope.

We had sausages and cheese for dinner. We bought some crackers to go with it. They were onion-flavored crackers.

12-228-98

11:35a.m.

Sometime in the night we lost the electrical power. When Hugh woke up he had to light candles to see in the bathroom. Power came back on again at 9:30a.m.

There was no usual rude awakening from the blasted speakers this morning because of the power outage.

Our electrical kettle is showing signs of being on its way out. Water is leaking out from the it’s base. We will either have to buy a new one or have it repaired.

Believe it or not we had our 2^nd power outage at 5:00p.m. It came back on at 6:30p.m. That is twice in a day.

Elton came by and told us that the dictionary we gave him is missing 90 pages. I am going to write the publishers about that.

Lucy came to say goodbye. She is going to Kaifeng to visit some friends. She ended up staying 9 hours.

12-29-98

@11:59a.m.

The music was on low this morning so Hugh slept right through until 7:10a.m.

There is only 2 more days till 1999. That is scary.

We received a box of See’s this morning from Grandma.

I finished off a letter to Mom and also the publishers of the American Heritage Library. I will send them off tomorrow.

Hugh had his discussion group this afternoon minus 2 students.

12-30-98

@10:29a.m.

I woke up early and washed up 2 loads of laundry. Then had coffee with Hugh before he went to class. I looked out the window and it is snowing. The ground is all white. It is a wet and heavy snow.

I was hanging my clothes out under the eaves when I heard voices shouting for Mahala. Hugh had decided to take his class out to play in the snow, which of course will involve snowball fights. The students wanted Mahala to join them. She hastily dressed and ran out to the field. Wendy was waiting for her in the yard to take her down to the field. From the hotel I could hear the screaming and laughing from the students and Hugh’s loud booming voice shouting at them.

Both Hugh and Mahala came back at 10:00a.m. Both of them were dripping wet. Their socks were soaked through.

Hugh is going to take his other class out too. Now both these classes are the Grade 3’s. So at 11:00a.m. Hugh came by to pick up Mahala. This time I followed because I wanted to take some photos of the students having a snowball fight. It looks to me everyone was having a fun time hitting each other with the snowballs. They especially liked hitting Hugh. Mahala and Hugh teamed up and got the other students back.

Both of them came back at 12noon. Both were dripping wet from their heads down to their toes. I have jackets and shoes and socks hanging inside the room. I hope they dry out especially the jackets.

The snow is melting. The streets are turning to slush and the field into mud.

Elton came with some New Year cakes for us. Then Monica and Mary turned up. Elton left. Hugh gave Mary a soft toy. Monica left her jacket here to dry. She had gotten it all wet during the snowball fights this morning.

We had a surprise visitor this evening. Julia came by. I left her to talk to Hugh. She stayed for about 11/2 hours. She left at 7:30p.m. I wonder what wind blew her in here. I hope not an ill wind.

12-31-98

@11:37a.m.

Today is New Year’s Eve.

Last year I was working at the Civic Center New ear’s Eve Bash. This year is quite a change. It is just Hugh, Mahala and myself. Nobody else. It has only been a week since Christmas. I wonder what tomorrow and the next year will bring. I will need to remind myself to start writing 1999 in my journal beginning tomorrow.

I asked Mahala what is her New Year’s resolution. She replied "to get back to America". That is about how I feel too. Hugh feels the same way.

The school semester ends 1-29-99. There will be a break of about a month. The students will all return home then. I do not know what we will do for that entire month. The Chinese New Year falls on February 16^th and this is the year of the Rabbit.

Mahala is sorely trying my patience today. She is acting very stubborn. I have asked her many times to do her homework but she has ignored my repeated requests. She will not listen to Hugh either. She is getting difficult to handle challenging our authority at every turn.

She sits and stares at her homework refusing to work on it. I feel that she needs a good spanking if all that talking does not work. She has it all her way since being here. Hugh and I have been lax with her and she is taking advantage of that fact. It is time she listens. I hate having to scold her but she tests me sometimes.

She is growing up and developing her own personality but she still needs to listen to her parents. She can disagree and not like our decisions but she has to abide by them especially when it involves her schoolwork. I want her to start on the right foot for 1999.

It is hard on all of us being here and it does not help when she refuses to cooperate. She has to procrastinate over things like brushing her teeth and cleaning up. What is so difficult about doing those things? We have to remind her over and over again to do it. It frustrates me to no end. Hugh is not too bothered by it. What I ask are little tasks but it takes ages before she does it. Hugh and I will have to work on that.

I want the New Year to start out right!

1-1-99

@11:48a.m.

It is the New Year.

Yesterday was a day of reflection for Hugh and myself. We were both feeling down and sad.

Yesterday evening Elton came by with 3 packets of cooked dishes. The food was all made from bean products. He had bought them on the way back from his tutoring class. I made up a pot of rice and we shared the cost of some cooked potatoes and fried bean sprouts that we bought from the school canteen. We talked and ate and basically had an enjoyable evening. He stayed until 10:10p.m.

Wendy came by too. She stood outside the hotel gate and called for Mahala. She bought Mahala 2 little birds. She left as soon as she passed the birds to Mahala. We think the birds are larks or sparrows. Wendy did not stay long to tell us what there were. The birds make sweet noises. Thank goodness that happened after dinner. We then had to decide how to keep those birds. They were in little cages with a cardboard bottom. Hugh had an idea. There are a couple of old wooden cabinets in the kitchen and they had wire screens. So with Elton’s help they managed to carry the cabinet into the living room and Hugh proceeded to improvise a birdcage. It looked good. Now we have house pets. Mahala started to crack up sunflower seeds for her birds. She was happy about the birds. It gives her something to do.

We had no power early in the morning. It was from about 2:30a.m. The hum of the refrigerator stopped then. Hugh had gotten up to go to the bathroom then. He thinks it might just have been a tripped circuit because the lights in the bathroom worked. The power came back on again at 6:00a.m.

We had no water pressure yesterday evening. When it came to 8:50p.m. I finally walked down to the front desk. I asked the lady on duty why there was no water. She told me that the pipes were being worked on and if there was no water by 9:00p.m. then to expect none. She was careful to remind me that it is the city and not the hotel that has turned off the water. At 9:00p.m. I turned on the taps. There was enough water pressure for all of us to take a hot shower. I still believe that the management of the hotel turned the water off. Elton acted as interpreter.

Mahala is playing with some of her friends. There are 4 little girls outside. All of them have managed to remove all the decorations from the Christmas tree and having fun at the same time. The girls have ribbons strewn all over the yard. I will have to clean up after they leave.

May and Louisa came by in the afternoon. They bought us some fried chicken with bell peppers. After they left I cooked up some rice and had the fried chicken for lunch. Mahala is still playing outside and will not come in as long as the girls are out there. She will be hungry when she comes in.

It is a trying job to feed all of us here. We are always hungry and never satisfied with what we eat. We always want more food.

Ann came in the afternoon. She has either found a job with a local restaurant or is being considered for it. She was vague about it. Her job is to teach the waitress basic English. The restaurant is located in Xinyang’s newest hotel.

The water coming from the tap is dirty. It looked that way yesterday too. The toilet is stopped up. There must something blocking it. So Hugh is in the bathroom trying the unclog the toilet. We have no tools to work with. He is using a plastic bucket as a plunger. It got the job done.

The rest of the world might be celebrating the New Year but in Xinyang it is just another day. I did not hear any horns or fire crackers being set off yesterday to welcome in the New Year. Just dead silence. The world is slowly going towards the year 2000 but time stands still here. I will keep my journal going. I was going through my first two journals and it seems to me that I was basically unhappy up till Thanksgiving. I still feel that way except for the occasional moments when I feel better. I will be lucky to leave this place with my sanity intact.

1-2-99

@1:32p.m.

Hugh and I are counting the number of days we have been here, altogether 132 days. We have about 180 days to go.

We went to the market this morning. I bought some eggs and vegetables. I also bought 10 kilos of rice and some Chinese sausages.

I feel so burnt out her. Some days I wake wishing we were home and that Hugh has a decent job. It would be like a dream come true for me. Right now that is what I really want.

This morning one of the little birds died. We talked to Mahala about releasing the other one and explained to her that wild birds are meant to be free. So she set it free. We threw the dead bird over the garden wall where we have thrown among other things a dead rat, eggshells, noodles and left over food. I do not feel bad about doing it because at least the stuff we throw over the wall is bio-degradable, unlike the plastic bags I have seen just thrown all over the place. Hugh tells me that in class he has seen the students sweep trash into the corner of the room and leave it there. Broken glass is handled that way too. No one uses the trashcan. The general rule is "Out of sight, out of mind" or "its not my problem, let someone else handle it". We moved the converted birdcage back into the kitchen.

1-3-99

@4:15p.m.

All of us woke up at 9:00a.m.

Mahala has been acting up the last few days and I have been feeling upset over her behavior.

I had to boil up water over our charcoal stove. Our electric kettle has definitely seen better days. The leak is getting worse, and it is dangerous to use.

Wendy bought more fireworks for Mahala when she came by. She also bought 2 easy readers for Mahala. Its "Through the Looking Glass" and "Alice in Wonderland". Hugh insisted that she take 10yuan for the books and fireworks.

I cooked up the chicken Mr. Zhao gave us during Christmas. It was tough even after being boiled up for a long time.

Hugh wrote a letter to Grandma and I added two lines to it.

Hugh has classes tomorrow morning and a make-up class in the evening for Grade 4. The students have to read their test assignments. It will be part of their test scores.

Today is the 3^rd day into the New Year. I sincerely hope the next 6 months pass quickly. I sometimes feel I am being imprisoned here and want to scream out loud. It does not help when everytime we walk out we get catcalls, rude stares and off the wall remarks. Yesterday a group of children did all three things. I was so aggravated with their behavior that under my breath I said "F… off". I was that close to saying it out loud too.

1-4-99

@12:41p.m.

Mahala and I walked out on our own this morning to buy breakfast.

Mr. X was outside the school gate. When he saw us he showed me a letter written partly in English and mostly in Chinese. In English the letter read something like this "Dear Sir, I am sorry if I have caused you any trouble", or something to that effect. He was talking to me in Chinese and I could hardly understand what he said. He had an envelope in his hand and I think he was asking me to mail the letter off for him. I was not sure if I should take the letter from him. It might cause Hugh to get in trouble if the authorities found out. Goodness knows the contents of that letter. I decided on caution. I told him "I do not understand you" in an apologetic way and walked away. He seemed to understand.

Mr. Zhao came by with a letter from Mom. The letter looked like it had been tampered with. Whoever is opening our mail ought to be stopped. It is an intrusion into our personal lives. I hate that. In the U.S. it is a federal crime and you imprisoned for it.

Then Monica came. She bought us some sweet pastries. The locals call it "Tang Koa". It has sugar as its filling. Not bad to eat at all though it is a bit on the oily side. After she left Roy and Elton showed up. I teased Roy about him not buying us any roasted chicken. Then Monica came back.

Mahala starts her classes again today after the Christmas break. It was hard for her to get into the routine again.

It is 8:46p.m. I was going to take an early hot shower but there was no pressure. So I waited till now. There is still no water pressure. I walked down to the lobby and asked the lady on duty whether there was going to be any water pressure tonight. She said "Who pu cher tau" or I do not know. I got angry and started to cuss which I ever hardly do. I uttered to myself "Goddamn it, shit, what kind of place is this, you cannot even take a decent shower." I have to admit that I feel so much better after I blew off steam at the lady at the front desk. It is not really her fault but her attitude just makes me so mad. So I heated up water on the gas stove and added that to my ½ bucket of cold water that I had managed to collect. All of us used a towel and wiped ourselves down. Hugh got very angry.

I have been keeping track of the water pressure the last 5 days: Thursday-none; Friday-water came on late; Saturday-same as Friday; Sunday-very weak; Monday-none.

1-5-99

@10:25a.m.

When Hugh woke up this morning I asked him if there was any water pressure. Reply was yes. Yesterday we had no water from 6:30p.m. When we went to bed at 10:30p.m. there was still no water. Sometimes in the middle of the night I wake up to use the toilet. There is usually no water at all. The authorities or the hotel management turn off the water at around 10:30p.m. It is done arbitrarily at whim. This place is terrible. How I miss the comforts of home.

Hugh has finished with his morning class. He has a group coming in the afternoon for their usual oral exercises.

Elton came by and had a heated conversation with Hugh about communism, philosophy and religion. It became pretty intense. Was I glad when the students of the oral group came and the discussion ended.

Mahala and I found a new place to buy cooked food. It is across from the campus. The food is good and costs about 1yuan more. Both the husband and wife do the cooking. The man walks with a limp. He speaks very little English and is always asking us what a word means in English. I like the wife and him.

1-6-99

@6:49p.m.

I washed up the pillowcases this morning. In the process I found out that two of the pillows was torn and that the stuffing was coming out off them. One pillow looked like it had been chewed at the corner. A mouse or rat must have gotten to it and the hotel management passed it to us without even attempting to sew it up.

Hugh and I walked out to buy ourselves 2 new pillows.

Mr. Zhao came in the morning with 3 pieces of mail for us. Two was from Mom. She sent a birthday card and magazines. The other letter was for Julia from someone in Holland. Mr. Zhao had a favor to ask Hugh. He wanted Hugh to give a speech to students from the Xinyang Teachers Training College located downtown. Since Hugh was not home at that time he is coming again in the afternoon.

In the afternoon Mr. Zhao came by again. He explained to Hugh that the Dean of the English Department in the college would consider it a favor if Hugh could give a talk to the students of the English department. The college is a two-year college and train teachers for the Grade schools. The students do not have any foreign teachers at all and would like to hear a native English speaker. The topic of the speech is open and up to Hugh. The school would provide transportation to and from the school and also take us out to dinner afterwards. Hugh was not inclined to do it but he told Mr. Zhao he would only if there was no dinner involved. His request is to go to the school, give the speech, then come back here. There is to be no dinner.

1-7-99

@4:45p.m.

Mr. Zhao came at 10:00a.m. He told us the time and day of the speech. The school is fine with our requests. The speech is next Tuesday at 2:10p.m. There will be over 100 students and it should last for an hour or so. There will be questions afterwards. It is an informal affair.

Elton came to visit. After much hassling from Hugh he finally admitted that he had taken Monica out twice. (Now we know why Monica keeps following Elton around. Wherever he goes Monica is sure to be there.) The relationship is over now though. It happened like this. Monica returned home and when she came back again she told Elton that she had gone to a fortuneteller to have her fortune read. The fortune teller then told Monica that the man she is with now will only love her for a short time, or as Elton puts it "not her true love". Since then they have not dated though I sense that Monica would like to continue where they left off.

1-8-99

@9:54a.m.

I did a load of laundry at 9:00a.m. After about 5 minutes of scrubbing, the water pressure started becoming low until finally there was just a trickle coming out of the tap. Then it came to a complete stop. I waited to see if the water would come back on. By 9:30a.m. I walked to the front desk. I saw 5 of the hotel workers all sitting around eating sunflower seeds. None of them could tell me why there was no water. I told one of them to call Mr. Zhao. Mr. Zhao told me he will check with the school plumber. He came by to our rooms and told me that the water will be back on in an hour. The water lines are being worked on. It is now 10:36a.m. I should have water by 11:00a.m. I will wait and see. Also since the hotel is located on the east side of the campus their water comes from the school not from the city. So we will always be subjected to irregular water supply. He gave me the times when we will have no water:-

Afternoons from 12:00 to 1:00 and nights from 8:00 to 9:00.

During the vacation and holidays the times are expected to change again. During the times he gave me the school diverts the water to other parts of the campus like the canteen or dorms. I don’t know. It is confusing. No one has the right answer.

So this is what I will expect regarding the water supply according to Mr. Zhao. I will not always get water when I want them. The hours he gave to me are good when school is in session. It changes when the holidays begin. He will check on the hours for me for the school holidays.

I told him he should have informed us before. It was lax on his part. He admitted that he should have informed us about this a long time ago. A dollar short and a day late if you ask me.

I hope Hugh does not get too mad at me for talking to Mr. Zhao this way.

The water came back on at 11:15a.m. and I went back to my washing.

Linda came to pick up 3 rolls of negatives. It was from the Christmas Party. She was going to get them developed. In the afternoon I walked out with her and Lucy to pick the photos up. The total cost came to 30yuan. There were about 55 photos in all. Linda paid for them but later on in the day I passed Lucy 10yuan and told her to give it to Linda. That was our share for our photos.

Lucy told us that she wants to quit as she felt that Mahala was not interested in her class. We explained to her that Mahala was burned out with the work and might need a change. We told her to stop the Math lesson for a while and do other things with Mahala, maybe do World Knowledge, History or Geography. Maybe having the 2-week break might have affected Mahala. It is hard to get back into the learning process.

We decided to celebrate Hugh’s birthday today. We invited Elton and Lucy. We bought a cake and roasted chickens from the market. When Elton came over he bought us Chinese sausages. It is his gift to Hugh. I cooked all the sausages up for dinner. Lucy gave Hugh a battery operated shaver and hair clipper. Then we lighted 41 candles and made Hugh blow every single one out. We had lots of laughter. It was a fitting conclusion to the day. It ended on a happy note.

1-9-99

@12:00p.m.

It is a Saturday so all of us woke up late. There was no water and we sat around and bitched the whole morning. At around 11:00a.m. Hugh had to use the bathroom. I asked if there was any water. He said yes. Finally at long last.

I checked to see if there was any water in the water heater tank. There is really no way to check. I was going to turn the electricity on so I could heat the water to shower and clean up with. I do not want to do that if the tank is empty. I will take my chances and turn it on.

Elton came in the afternoon and stayed for 2 hours. He told us that he believed in religion and that his family are Christians and that they believe in Jesus and God. That is quite a relevation. You see Elton is a member of the Communist Party and if you are a member you owe your loyalty to Communist doctrines. He asked us not to tell anyone about his beliefs because if the Party knew then his chances of getting ahead in his schooling and career would be jeopardized. The system would not allow anyone with those beliefs to get ahead.

After Elton left, Lucy dropped by. She was talking about her future plans. After she graduates she is planning to teach in the high school in her hometown. I told her that she seemed pretty sure she will get the job. She said she is sure as long as she pays the Communist official in charge of the hiring process. I asked her how much she would have to give. It depends on how the relationship or friendship you or your family has with the official. The better or closer you know him/her the less you pay. The less you know him/her the more you pay. That is how it goes.

Lucy also told us what Apollo has said about Elton. This is because Elton has been getting pretty close with us as a family. According to Apollo, Elton "follows the fart wind worm". It means Elton is sucking up to Hugh. Apollo has also insinuated that Mahala’s tutors will do very well in their exams because they are our employees. What a rat he is. I think he is just plain jealous of the relationships we have with Elton, Lucy, Wendy, Linda and Jenny. I told Lucy that Apollo has a case of what we call "sour grapes".

1-10-99

@12:57p.m.

I washed two loads of laundry this morning. The water felt especially cold this morning. My fingers are frozen and my back is aching from bending over the tub to scrub the clothes.

I feel I have so little time in a day to do what needs to be done. Everything is a hassle from the cooking to the washing to the cleaning. Even boiling up a pot of water is a chore especially if you use the charcoal stove. It takes about an hour from the time you light the fire until you get the water boiling. I always feel rushed for time here when I have all the time in the world. It just does not make any sense. I feel like a woman on death row and I need to get my affairs in order before the execution date. So I rush around all the time trying to beat the dateline. I feel on edge.

Hugh and I walked out this morning intending to buy just cooked food. We met Jenny and Lucy on the way. I then asked them to walk with me to the market. They helped me buy meat and vegetables.

Wendy came by and showed us photos of herself and her friends when she was younger. It was nice of her to share them with us.

Some children came to play with Mahala. One of them a little boy had a real bad cold. He had stuff running down his nose. He sneezed and all the stuff exploded all over our cement seat. He then proceeded to use his fingers to wipe the stuff all over the seat. When he left I used some soapy water and cleaned the whole seat up.

He came back again. This time he had with him 4 empty syringes and was playing with them. Thank goodness there was no needles in them.

I checked on my clothes that were hanging outside. I was surprised to find them all frozen stiff. I imagine that my fingers and toes must have felt that way this morning.

I told Hugh about the boy and the syringes. He told me that the school nurses dispenses the hypodermic needles filled with medication to the students. They allow the students to use the needles on themselves. One of his students Kathryn showed him the needles with the medication in them and she just had a cold. They use penicillin for all infections. I do not know how the people dispose off the needles. How and where? Your guess is as good as mine.

I have seen children playing with empty syringes with the needles still attached. Once I saw a girl of maybe 7 or 8 running around with a syringe in her hand. Her parents were standing there and laughing at her antics. I hate to think of her jabbing herself with that needle. Chung Kwah plays with the syringes all the time. I have not seen him play with any that has needles attached to it. His parents know better.

It is 7:12p.m. We have a quiet evening. We had left over chicken for dinner.

1-11-99

@4:18p.m.

Today is Hugh’s birthday. I wished a Happy Birthday this morning before he left.

The students of Grade 3, Class 2 sang to him this morning in class and presented him with a wind chime as a birthday gift.

When Linda came at noon for her lesson with Mahala she bought Hugh some sweet pastries.

I felt cold and lazy this morning. I did start the charcoal stove to boil up some water for our thermos flasks. We have decided not to use our electric kettle until it is fixed. So every afternoon or late morning we build a fire in our stove. We can use the gas stove but we are trying to make the gas last.

Mahala is not progressing, as she should be. It shows in the work she does for the tutors. She does not show any enthusiasm or pride in her work. She used to write real neat but now she is showing sloppy penmanship. She cancels her mistake instead of erasing it. I cannot believe how untidy she is in her work. It worries me because I do not know how all this will affect her when she returns to a normal classroom structure back in the States.

This place has affected all of us in varying degrees. I feel it, Mahala feels it and Hugh feels it too. All of us feel it differently though. Our emotional and mental well being has taken a real pounding since being here. It is like hell here.

I wonder how all of these emotional upheavals will affect us when we go home. It gets harder and harder every day we are here. My earnest wish is to leave at the end of the semester. I wonder how we will survive if we have to stay until July. By then we will be driving each other up the wall and bouncing off the wall too. We might even end up raving lunatics if we are not strong emotionally. It takes will power to survive here and get through every day.

1-12-99

@5:54p.m.

This morning Mr. Xu came by with a box from Uncle Dick and his family. In the afternoon Mahala and I walked out to get some food.

Mahala has a class with Jenny at 12:00p.m. We canceled Lucy’s class because we are going to Xinyang Teachers Training College downtown.

We were supposed to leave at 2:00p.m. The car did not come until 2:20p.m. We were accompanied to the school by one of the teachers. The driver of the car took us downtown by a different route. He went by the "Sher Her" River. Along the way the teacher pointed out some of the more interesting sights.

We passed a dumpsite that was actually within walking distance from the school. There were crows flying around. It was an open-air dump. I saw a young man among the piles of trash. He was sitting down and was eating something he had found among the trash. He looked dirty and seemed to resemble the young man who was breaking bottles outside the school a while back. He is schizophrenic.

There was an amusement park. It was closed for winter. We could see the rides just sitting there. There were boats that you could rent to row around the lake in the park. We saw lots of shops selling a variety of goods mostly non-perishable. There was an outdoor hawkers market. It was crowded. There were buses loaded with boxes on its roof and passengers in it. According to the teacher a lot of business owners around the countryside come to Xinyang to buy and re-stock their shelves. The market is a wholesaler’s dream. Everything is bought in bulk for cheap.

We saw folks fishing in the river. There were women along the banks washing their clothes. The women were up to their ankles in water. Heir feet must be cold. The water of the river did not seem too clean.

We arrived at the school at 2:30p.m. We were taken to the Dean’s office to be introduced to him. He is in his early 40’s and spoke English reasonably well. We were admiring a volume of Shakespeare’s books in his bookcase. He told us he had bought it while in the States. About 5 minutes later we were taken to another building where the lecture hall was located.

There was about at least 150 students crammed into that hall. The Dean introduced us and left the stage to Hugh. The off the cuff presentation went very well. Hugh is good and had the students participating. Most of the students were shy in asking questions. The whole presentation was over at 4:30p.m. The Dean gave us some fruits, as we did not want to go to dinner.

On the way back from the school we saw an accident. It happened a few yards from the school gate. A huge crowd had gathered and there were a few policemen trying to move traffic along. As we passed by the scene we saw what had happened. A car had obviously side swiped a motorcyclist. It was not a life-threatening situation.

We had potato soup and left over rice from this afternoon for dinner.

When Wendy comes this evening I will share some of the fruits with her and the other tutors.

1-13-99

@11:21a.m.

Hugh received a birthday card from Sue. He class for this semester for the Grade 3, Class 1 is over. He only has to teach 3 more classes then the semester will be officially over for him.

Mahala pulled out 3 gray strands of hair from my head this morning. The first sign of getting old.

It is now 6:35p.m. It has been a cold day. We stayed indoors most of the time except when we walked out to buy lunch. Mahala ate three packets of oatmeal today. Hugh and I ate 2 bags of peanuts. We were all bored stiff. We hashed and re-hashed over the same issues concerning our lives and what we are going to do when we get back to the States. We all agreed that coming here has been a great mistake and it shall never be repeated again. If we do come back here it will be under different circumstances.

1-14-99

@11:50a.m.

Hugh has been on edge the last few days. This place has finally gotten to him. He snaps at everyone. I have given up talking to him because he snaps at me all the time. I do not know what to say to him.

The only thing that helps him is his little "Happy Thoughts" book, which he has started. He writes down all his plans for the future in this book. The book gives him a sense of objectivity in this forsaken atmosphere. It gives him something to work at and look forward to, besides just waking up every morning at 6:00a.m., getting ready, and going to class. I knew this system is not for a man like Hugh. He is creative and too much of a free thinker to last long here. Sooner or later he will want to break out. It just happened to him later than me.

I just bitch about the lack of basic amenities here that makes it a living hell. With Hugh it is much more different. He is being stifled intellectually.

I hope that his "Happy Thoughts" book makes life here easier and more bearable for him and in that way it would make life more easier and bearable for Mahala and I. With Hugh I feel on edge on all the time not knowing what will set him off and whether I will be the one to feel the brunt of his anger.

I feel that way all the time here. All of us are living on the edge. We never know what the next minute or hour might bring. Whatever we set out to do here is usually too much of a hassle or chore. It is never straightforward.

Julie came to visit and stayed for 2 hours. She was telling me about her family. She has a sister in the U.S. who is married to an American-Italian. Her parents are very angry with her sister and has not spoken or written to her for a while. The sister lives in Oregon and works at a bank. Julie has been corresponding with an American for a year now. Julie understands very little English much less writes it. I do not know who does the translation of the letters from Tom. The sister introduced them. Julie and Tom are planning to wed when he comes in July for a visit. Julie has never met him before and vice versa. Julie tells me that Tom is a vegetarian. Hugh teases her about that. We talked about what life is all about in the U.S. for me. I hope that Tom is nice to her for her sake.

Hugh is feeling a little down when he came back from his Grade 4 English Literature class. This is the last time he will meet with that class again for this semester.

1-15-99

@10:22a.m.

Lucy came by with a message for us from Hugh. He will be late coming back from her class because he is trying to finish up the presentation before the semester breaks. The last time he was late Mahala had a fit and cried. So now Hugh always lets us know if he is going to be late.

For the next two weeks all the students will be sitting for their mid-term exams. There will be no classes. That means Hugh will be spending time with us. The break will be good for him if he does not drive us crazy not having anything to do.

Mahala has finished half of the box of oatmeal. She really enjoys eating it.

I collected Hugh’s paycheck with Mr. Xu’s help. He offered to help Hugh put in a potbelly stove in the living room. That will help keep you warmer in the winter. All we have to do is to buy the materials for it. Mr. Xu knows how to install it. We told him we would think about it.

Lucy bought us a roasted chicken and 5 "Man toa" from the school canteen. The chicken was skinny and did not have much meat on it. She paid 6yuan for it. As we have had lunch she ate the most of the chicken.

After lunch Lucy walked with us to a carpenter’s shop. Hugh wanted to have some low stools and a table made. The shop was located across from the elementary school behind the school library. The carpenter wanted 5yuan for each stool and 60yuan for a low table. It seemed that he wanted too much. After talking to the carpenter we decided to just forget about the whole thing because it looked like he was too busy with his other projects to bother building the stools.

The shop was just a one-room shack with dirt floor. The walls were made of bricks. I did not see any bathroom in there. Against the back wall were his living premises. He had a bed in a corner and it was separated from the kitchen by a big quilt. He had a television in there and cooking was done on a gas stove. His living area was separated from the work area by a curtain. Everything was covered in dust. He had pieces of unfinished furniture stacked along one wall. There were two big pieces that stood out, an entertainment center and a huge closet. He was trying to finish it. I saw a combination saw and sander in a corner. That was about all the electrical tools that I saw. Most of it was hand tools.

The carpenter is a young man in his 20’s. Outside the shop there was a young woman selling sweet potatoes. She was also in her mid-20’s. I wonder if she is his wife.

When Wendy came by in the evening we had her take us downtown. She was going to show us where she bought her art supplies. The shop was located inside the Xinyang Teachers Training College. Hugh bought oil paints, brushes, canvas, palettes and other art supplies. We attracted quite a crowd while in the shop. Mostly students who just stood and stared. There was a young boy of about 10 years old who seemed particularly annoying. He would butt right in front of us. One time he butted me out of the way. I became annoyed and I held him gently but firmly on the shoulders and moved him out of my way. "Excuse me" I said. He stared at me and I said "Hello". He did not know what to make of that. There were 2 other little boys who stood there all the time we were in the shop. We were there for about an hour. Two young girls saw us while walking by. They stopped and came into the shop. They looked around but did not buy anything. Mostly they were looking at us. We had celebrity status for that one-hour. We also bought Mahala some jump ropes from another shop.

Lucy came knocking at our door 10 minutes after we got back. She wanted Hugh’s help with 2 papers that she had to do for the mid-term exams. Hugh spent an hour giving her ideas for her papers.

Mahala’s little friends came by when we came back from town. There is a little child of about one year hanging out with Mahala and friends. He is with his grandfather. We heard the baby crying. Mahala came in and told us that the baby wanted the jump ropes and started crying when one of the girls took it away from him.

Later in the night Mahala started to jump rope inside the house. I repeatedly told her to stop doing that but she totally ignored me. Hugh finally raised his voice at her and told her to stop it. She went into the bedroom and started crying.

1-16-99

@12:00p.m.

I had my gloves on the whole night because my hands felt so cold. I could not seem to warm them up.

Mahala is outside drawing with some of her friends. There are about 8 children out there with her. Some are drawing and some are jumping rope. Hugh set off some firecrackers. The children enjoyed that. Then 3 boys came over with more firecrackers. Pretty soon the three boys were throwing the firecrackers and started throwing them at the crowd that was passing below the hotel. That made Hugh mad and he chased them all away.

After that commotion little Change kWh pulled down his pants in front of us, squatted down and peed in the ground. He did not seem to mind that we were standing there looking at him. He did not have a care in the world.

Change Quahog’s grandmother gave Mahala a pair of shoes that she had embroidered by hand. That is the best gifting anyone could have possibly given to her. We will cherish it.

1-17-99

@1:17p.m.

Hugh sat in on Wendy’s art class with Mahala. He turned off all the lights, closed the curtains and lit some candles. Then he had everyone do a sketch with charcoal. Mahala finished hers real fast because she wanted to play with her friends.

Zola from Grade 4 came to visit. She wanted to ask some questions about their mid-term exams.

It has been a fine day so far. It was warm and felt good to be out in the sunshine. In fact it felt so nice that we sat outside for most of the day.

Later another Grade 4 student came by. He too wanted some information about the test. After he left Hugh told me that this individual was one of the many who skipped classes and when he is there acts cocky. Hugh does not care for him at all.

1-18-99

@11:51a.m.

Today is the first day of the mid-term exams for the whole student population. It will last over two weeks.

Hugh is writing a letter to his Uncle Dick and family thanking them for the care package. In his letter he talked about Gene and his memories of the last day with him before he died. He let me read that letter and it brought back memories of my own mother’s death. We both cried for sad memories.

This morning when I walked out to get breakfast Mr. X approached me again. He started talking to me. From the little I understood, Mr. X wanted to know when he could meet Hugh again. I told him in English that Hugh was busy with the exams. I hoped he understood me. He did not follow me after that. I do not know how to communicate to Mr. X that for now Hugh cannot help him. It must be frustrating for him. I wonder how many days has he been waiting outside the school gates hoping to meet one of us.

1-19-99

@11:40a.mm

It is cold this morning. I hate my life here. Nothing is working out right.

All Hugh talks about anymore are his plans on what he intends to do when he gets back. That is all good and fine. But he is consumed with all those ideas to the exclusion of everything else. He talks about his plans constantly and if I even show a little disinterest in those plans he flares up. He tells me I am not interested in our future. That is when he goes off on a tangent. Then he starts to bring in issues and situations that happened months and years ago, sometimes as far back as ten years ago. He is like an elephant that never forgets. He flings accusations into my face leaving me no choice but to defend myself. It is very unfair on his part to do that. Our life is hard enough here and the States without that kind of outburst from him. I feel it is childish on his part to behave that way.

Maybe that is why I find escape in my dreams. It does not take a lot to make me happy. I do not need lots of money. Just enough to make life comfortable. I am 42 going on 43 years. Look at me. I have nothing. Hugh complains and gripes about what he does not have. So, I am in the same boat too and so are a lot of people in our situation. Lots of people have achieved their dreams. I bet most of my friends have their own homes by now and are settling into a comfortable middle age life style. I am not bitter about what they achieved or gained in their lives. They did it themselves. I just wonder when we will ever find it that’s all. If ever I am to be so lucky as to be sufficiently well off, so be it. That will be wonderful. It would be wonderful not to worry about how to spend your money. But on the other hand if life throws me a loop then I will have to try to make the most of it. Being angry and bitter about it just makes it worse for you and your family.

Reading the last few paragraphs makes me think that I am perfect. I am not. Every once in a while I do screw up. I have learnt to deal with my life the only way I know how. I have not had a decent life either. Too many unhappy experiences that I do not want to talk or be reminded of. That is all in the past and there is where I want it to remain.

Mr. Xu brought back the electric kettle duly repaired. That costs 1yuan.

I think I must have a cold or a kind of allergy. Sneezing all day long.

Wendy is here for her lesson with Mahala. I drew Hugh, Hugh drew Wendy, Wendy drew me and Mahala did her own thing.

1-20-99

@7:24p.m.

It was quite a morning for us.

Hugh and I had walked out to mail off some letters and to buy some food. When we approached the gate leading outside the campus we saw Mr. X waiting there. He saw us. We posted the letters off and walked to the 3^rd Grade class to get someone to help us with Mr. X. We were looking for Elton or even Lucy. They were not in the class. The only person we could find and that we knew reasonably well was Wendy. We just told her we needed her help. She came with us.

We went outside and Mr. X was waiting where we saw him. He had a plastic bag with him. It had "Chiao tze" in it. He told Wendy he wanted to be our friend and had brought us some "ciao tze". Hugh insisted on knowing why he is always waiting outside the gate for us. Before he could reply Hugh got us across the street into a restaurant where it was much more private to talk rather than by the side of the street.

With Wendy translating we found out what Mr. X was all about. Mr. X wants Hugh to get in touch with the V.O.A. with some news that Mr. X had knowledge of.

Hugh: Why don’t you send it off yourself?

Mr. X: No money.

Hugh: Do you work?

Mr. X: I do not work. I used to work at a steel factory.

Hugh: You can mail the letter to Beijing if I give you the address?

Mr. X: They are watching me.

Hugh: Give me the stuff then. I will mail it.

Mr. X: It is too public here.

This conversation went back and forth for at least 10 minutes. I had to leave because Mahala was finishing her lessons with Linda at 10:00a.m. We had received mail from Grandma while we were gone. Dan had bought a little stool for Hugh too. He had found out that we were going to buy one. When Hugh did not come back Mahala started getting anxious. She started to cry and wanted to be with Hugh. I reassured her that Hugh was fine and was with Wendy. Mahala wanted to go over to the restaurant. So both of us walked there. Hugh was still talking with Mr. X. Hugh ended the conversation then. On the way back Wendy told us not to get involved with the man.

Back at our rooms Hugh had this to tell. Mr. X wanted to get in touch with someone through Hugh. Mr. X did not volunteer much information about himself and what was the message. Hugh feels very reluctant to do this favor for Mr. X because it will compromise our position here especially Hugh’s. Hugh told Mr. X not to wait for us any more outside the gate. We understand that Mr. X had been waiting everyday for us for the last 9 days. He usually waits in the morning. Hugh had told him this "I might be able to help you when we leave but right now we are also being observed."

We collated Hugh’s test papers when we came back. The test papers were printed on inferior low quality paper. The cover of the test with the section where the students write down their names are missing. So we had to write it in ourselves. This paper is to be given tomorrow at 6:30p.m. What a weird hour to be giving it.

There is not much water pressure. He cussed up a storm. A lot of the "F" words could be heard. In his own words "maybe the great Deng Xiao Peng can give us some hot water." He was really angry. He was screaming and throwing the plastic buckets around and hitting the doors. The strangest thing was after this the water pressure came back on. Maybe the ladies at the front desk heard the ruckus and decided to turn the water back on.

1-21-99

@2:11p.m.

Hugh walked out with Dan to buy some stools this morning. When Dan bought the stool it was only 5yuan. Hugh bought it from the same man for 5.50yuan. The price went up 50miao for Hugh. It was a special for the white man. Dan could not talk the seller down.

Hugh is gone. He is giving his first test this evening. He will be back around 8:30p.m. It is about 7:30p.m. Mahala is reading. It is quiet. At times like this my thoughts wander. I think about my family and our future especially my daughter. Mahala will be 9 years old soon. I hope that next year we can find a place that we can call home. I am tired of moving. I want a stable home where I can go to sleep everynight without worrying when we will be leaving again. I want my daughter to have security and where Hugh will be happy and not want to move anymore. Where people and the situation will not bother, irritate or bother him. Where he can be content and settle down finally. I will work my fingers down to my bones if only I can have that.

1-22-99

@9:45a.m.

Yesterday night Hugh came back from the test fuming. He had caught 5 students cheating on the test. He confronted them with it. They all made excuses and that made Hugh even madder. One of them cried, 2 of them accosted Hugh outside the classroom. When Hugh came back he was so disappointed and disgusted with the situation. "Let us go home! Do you want to go home?" Well that was a surprise and sudden. He has always been the one who acts rational and was always eager to give this place a chance. From the beginning I was the one who was unhappy and wanted to leave. Hugh has always persuaded me from the beginning to try and make a go of this situation and not give up too soon. I am as confused as anything. I cannot give him an answer. On one hand I want to leave but my uncertainty on what will face us when we get back to the States holds me back. Where will we go if we go back?

Mr. Liu came by early this morning. Hugh told him he had caught the students cheating. Mr. Liu had only this to say. Fail whoever cheats. After Mr. Liu left, Hugh sat down and penned a letter to the English department. In the letter he stated that he refuses to categorically teach the Grade 4 students and explaining why.

This morning Lucy walked out to the market with me. On the way there, across the street from the school Mr. X came by on a bicycle and just handed me a notebook. He said in Chinese "for the lao shi". I did not say anything and kept the notebook in my pocket. Lucy did not ask any questions though she looked curious about it.

1-23-99

@7:08p.m.

Mahala has just taken her shower. She is drinking a cup of hot chocolate.

Hugh is correcting his test papers. He is grading the essay part of the test. This morning I helped him in correcting Sections 1 and 2 of the test.

We invited Mahala’s tutors to dinner tonight. They will be going home soon. It is the spring break. I cooked up some pork and chicken. The tutors bought 4 different kinds of vegetables from the canteen and also "man toa". It was a good dinner and we enjoyed the company of the girls.

We also received Mom’s letter dated 1-11-99. Mr. Xu brought it over.

1-24-99

@11:53a.m.

It is a cold morning. Hugh is still grading test papers.

This is the last week of school. I have no idea what we are going to do when the semester breaks. Do we stay or do we go home? That is an unanswered question. Since the beginning of my journal I have always knew that life is never straightforward for me. My hopes and dreams have not borne any fruits yet and sometimes I think it never will. Life has never been kind to me in the way that I want it to. It makes me wonder what I am doing in this life.

It is 6:40p.m. We have just finished grading the Grade 4 test papers. He has decided not to fail the students who cheated. Instead he will penalize them by taking away 20% of their total scores. One of them came by this afternoon to try and talk to Hugh. I suspect he was trying to persuade Hugh not to fail him. Hugh told him to save his explanations and to go back to his dorm and study for his next test, which will be English Literature. The student then told Hugh that he has failed previous exams before and was afraid that he will be booted out of school if he failed again. Hugh told him not to worry, as he was not going to fail him or the other students that cheated. The student seemed relieved to hear that.

1-25-99

@2:45p.m.

Mr. Zhao came by this morning. That was a surprise. I asked him if anything was the matter. He replied that he came over to see if we needed anything.

The water pressure was low this morning. So I used one flask of hot water to clean up.

Hugh also gave the Grade 4 their 2^nd test this morning. It was English Literature. He kept a real eye on all the students especially the ones who cheated on the other test.

He wrote another letter to the English department this morning.

After lunch I sat outside in the garden. It felt good. The sun was warm on my skin especially after so many days of cold weather.

Zola was at the end of the garden. She was reading some text.

Hugh is in the 3^rd Grade class. Their Intensive Reading test is today.

1-26-99

@6:34p.m.

I had a bad night. I was feeling congested and was coughing. I could not sleep at all. I finally turned off the heater and that made it humid in the room.

This morning and afternoon I helped Hugh grade his English papers. It appears that 3 students had the same answers. He was suspicious of that and wandered if they might have been copying from each other. He had a message passed to these three students. Two of them Dolly and Susan came as soon as they got the message. They were both sitting next to each other during the test. Hugh questioned them at length and asked them if they can give an explanation on why their answers are the same. Both girls said they study together and also both bought the teacher’s manual to their textbook. So that may explain why their answers were alike.

I am still sneezing. It must either be the cold or an allergy. I am leaning towards the latter.

Mahala is playing outside with her friends. She has to come in at 7:00p.m.

1-27-99

We decided to have a BBQ tomorrow.

We saw Apollo walking in the field by himself. He had a bottle of "Ji Gong Sheng" beer. He was tottering around and was drunk. He told us someone had taken his wallet containing all his money and student ID. He then proceeded to tell us it is his birthday today and he had borrowed money from a friend to buy a bottle of beer and celebrate his birthday himself. He looked pathetic.

1-28-99

@9:43p.m.

Lucy and I went to the market this morning. She helped me buy the meat for the BBQ. I also bought 2 cakes one to celebrate Apollo belated birthday and an extra for our guests.

We had 20 students show up. It was standing room only. We did not have enough plates and cutlery to go around. The students had to bring theirs. The weather stayed nice and all of us had a good time. Most of the students will be going home and for them it is the end of a long semester. They will be gone for a whole month and during that period will also celebrate the Spring festival.

The campus will be dead and most of the eating joints will be closed. We will have to manage the best we can without the students help especially Lucy. It will be 28 days before the students come back again. All the students are looking forward to going home. I wish I were going home too.

I need to write to Mom. It has been almost 10 days since I wrote to her.

1-29-99

@7:20p.m.

Mr. Lu called us at 8:00a.m. He warned us that there would be no power today. So I was ready. I collected water in the bathtub. The power stayed on the whole day.

The students are all busy getting ready to go home for the holidays. Most of the ones we know are going home tonight and all of them are excited over that. You can see it on their faces. Lucy was dancing and singing when she came over to say goodbye. We gave her most of the gifts that the students gave us for Christmas. We had asked her before and she told us she would be glad to take it. I understand from Lucy that her sister is getting married over the vacation and Hugh and I thought that some of those gifts might come in handy. Lucy is going home around midnight tonight. The students from her hometown had arranged with a bus company for the trip home. Lucy will reach her home real early tomorrow morning maybe around 5:00a.m. I asked her if she was afraid to walk the streets that early. She told me that there would be some other students walking with her.

Louisa and May came to say goodbye too. Louisa bought herself half price ticket. That means no seating. She will have to stand all the way to Loyang her hometown. She still has to take a bus to the country where her parents live. May is leaving tonight with some of her country fellows.

Wendy and Linda are leaving tonight too. Linda is going to spend a few days at Wendy’s house. Both of them had bought tickets for tonight but at the last minute found out that this train has been canceled. They will have to leave by another train early tomorrow morning. Linda is certain that this train will be crowded because all the other passengers from the canceled train will be leaving on this one. Wendy and her will probably have to stand all the way. The journey will take about 6 hours. The only explanation is that the train authorities sold too many tickets when they did not have enough trains running that day. This is one of the busiest times for trains in the year. All the schools, colleges and universities are going on vacation and the students are all let out at the same time. It will be chaotic. Linda bought us sunflower seeds.

Elton and Roy will be leaving together by bus too. They are from the same town. Their fellow country fellows have also engaged the services of a bus company for transportation to their hometown. Elton came to say goodbye and stayed until 10:30p.m. Earlier on he had gone to his room but left immediately because he saw Apollo and Jenny in there by themselves. So he made himself scarce. His ride home leaves at 1:00a.m.

Jenny and Apollo came to say farewell too. They are leaving together on the early morning train on Saturday. Both of them are from Kaifeng. It is a place famous for the size of its peanuts. Apollo and Jenny have become an item. They bought us some bananas and chocolate candies in lieu of the dinner that they had planned to have with us.

Dan came by with some firing strips for Hugh. Wendy had mentioned to him that Hugh needed the strips to do some frames for his artwork. That should keep Hugh busy over the vacation, hopefully.

We wished everyone a safe trip home. We hope to see them next semester.

1-30-99

It is very quiet this morning. The music did not come on at 6:00a.m. That was good. We woke up at about 8:30a.m. There was no electrical power, needless to say no water either. Mr. Lu got his information wrong. On Friday we had power and water. It is today that the power will be shut off. Power was returned at 3:30p.m. Hugh told me that if the power is shut of consistently during the vacation we might as well go home. I am all for it.

This afternoon Hugh lost his temper over a remark I made about him not helping me. I felt so unhappy over that. I had to go outside to cool off. We had no water this afternoon. Hugh was mad because he had taken off his clothes and was in the bathtub ready to take a shower. He should know by now to check the water pressure before taking his clothes off.

It is 6:15p.m. It is twilight. Mahala is outside with her friends. Diana was here a while back. She was waiting for a friend who is taking his/her post graduate exam. Then both of them will leave for home together. Julie came by too.

I wonder if there will be any electricity and water tomorrow. Every day here is an adventure that we would rather not deal with. I may not have much of a life in the States but it sure beats being here. I had a job and friends. Now we have nothing and we will go back to nothing. That is what bothers me the most. I get sad and angry when I think about that. We should never have come here.

1-31-99

@2:09p.m.

We received letters from Mom and Kathy. It has so far been a quiet Sunday. We did not do anything much. I washed up 2 loads of laundry. The sun has not come out at all yet so my clothes are still wet. I cleaned up Mahala’s toy box and gave away some of the toys that she did not want to Chung Kwah. He is happy with his gifts. I bought some dried noodles and a case of "Chilvary" for 20yuan, a saving of 4yuan.

Hugh is taking a shower right now. It should warm him up and put him in a happier frame of mind.

Mary introduced us to her boyfriend. He is in the Chinese department. They have known each other for three weeks now. We called him Joe. Mary likes him a lot. They had bought a big carp, cilantro and green onions. They wanted me to cook it up for them. We have had our dinner. So Mary cleaned up the fish and vegetables. While I cooked up the fish and pot of rice Hugh entertained the couple.

Waterworld was playing tonight on the television.