Yearbook Staff

Sumana S., Wendy X., Valeria W., Ji Eun R., Ga Hye P., Tim W.

These are the wonderful girls that I am working with to create a yearbook.

Local Chinese Restaurant

Just a pic of one restaurant up the block from the new secondary school. I pass by this daily. It is one of at least four similar restaurants in that block. They all look about the same and every block has 3 to 5 of them. The Chinese characters (in red) of this one say they sell Rice, Dumplings, Noodles, (no kidding, that is a surprise), they make most items with lots of cheap hand labor. Many people grab a chair and sit on the sidewalk to eat.

Singing Valentines

Laura, Rachel, Annie, Merlin, and John on Sax

Here is a pic of some of the students that did singing Valentines last Thursday and Friday at the Sec. School.

PD14

Tim Presents at the PD 14 Day on Computer Technology

All staff members attend the PD14 day

Saturday Feb. 14 th was a half day professional development day for our school. All teachers attended professional workshops that were designed, organized, created, and led by a team of teachers on a committee which I chaired. Lots of work to put that together in China. Every step is much more complex than it would be in the states. Overall it was a well received day and if the evaluation sheets are any indication of direction, we will probably have more of the same very soon. Here are some pics from the day and this a link to some of the presentations that were given that day.

Lantern Festival

February 9th, the 15th day of the 1st lunar month is the Chinese Lantern Festival and is marked with the first full moon after the Chinese New Year. This is the next day of celebration in China. It kind of signifies an end to the Chinese New Year Spring Festival. The date changes every year. The day is also called Yuan Xiao Festival in China. Children carry around small lanterns on a stick that are about the size of a oatmeal box. There are many fireworks and you must eat these small round yuanxiao (glutinous rice ball) that are very, very sweet.

Bev and I went down to the Seaworld Plaza, one block from home, to have a coffee at Starbucks and people watch. Here are a few photos that I took from 8:00 to 9:00 P.M. The fireworks went off all night long but this does mark an end to the guaranteed all night long fireworks we have had for weeks now. The fireworks are to keep the bad spirits away for the coming year.

Lunar New Year Celebrations

We did spend time in Hong Kong for Chinese New Year.

These are some shots of what we experienced. We spent three hours waiting in our little sidewalk spot to see the parade but were somewhat disappointed by a good but not spectacular parade. It was very dark, (nightime) and that made it difficult to see and photograph much, but most floats were lit-up.

It is the year of the Ox and in know to be a bad year as far as economic terms are known. The Hong Kong mayor shook a fortune telling stick out of a can of about 100 sticks and it was to predict the future for the year. It was the worst stick in the entire can.

Chinese New Year

It is time for the Chinese New Year Celebrations.

Our School has a number of student related performances. Every student from 2 year olds through Secondary IV's participate. These our some pics of this years performance.

New QSI Secondary Fenghua (Fen Wah) School

It was not long ago that I posted pics of what appeared to be the middle stages of construction on our new QSI Shekou Secondary School. Well construction happens fast here in China and that school is done, just 4 weeks later! The number of people that work on a project, and also live on site is huge. I think there must have been over 120 people on this little project. The landscaping is not yet done and the furniture is not all built and installed yet but that and cleaning will happen in about one week. Which coincidentally is when we start to move in. This is a pretty neat building with 4 floors and some great inside and outside spaces. It formally was a restaurant, somewhat famous bar hangout, and a number of very small retail shops. That was last Summer now it is a newly remodeled school. Major remodeling with the addition of 2 floors and much more.