The first was a “snow teacher.”  The snow was not the kind that stuck together very well, so it must have been difficult.  Here is a view of Nora working on it that another student took:

and here is the finished product:

I thought they were very clever in finding materials for the personal details. They built the arms around pieces of wood, which made it possible to give it gloves.  Those plus the hat and scarf were all donated by Vera.  The heart-shape consisted of pieces they pinched off the bushes in front of the house, and the red part of the heart is a piece of candy from the dessert dishes in the dining room.  The glasses are an old pair of mine they found someplace in the house.

They wanted me to pose with the snow teacher, so I did the best I could to imitate her pose.  I look like some kind of monster, don’t I?

Naturally, we wanted a group photo with the artists and their creation, so Mason took one.  Notice that now it had been given an umbrella so that the sunshine wouldn’t make it melt too fast.

That evening Ms. Snow teacher became Mr. Snow teacher because Vera was going to be leaving on Christmas morning and we needed to dry out her clothes.

Because the weather turned very cold right after Christmas and because we got more snow every day for more than two weeks, the snow teacher actually lasted a long time.  Little by little, pieces of it would fall off or blow away, but the final little bit melted on Jan. 24, which meant it had lasted for an entire month.  That is a long life for a snow figure!!!!!

I told you in the introduction that sunshine is quite scarce in this part of the country in winter.  However, the weather gods gave us a wonderful gift by bestowing two full days of beautiful sunshine and blue skies.

The visitors were interested in seeing what the neighborhood was like, so we all took a walk of about two kilometers.

Mason decided he wanted to imitate a Sumu wrestler…………

There was a time in this neighborhood when one might often have seen large groups of people out walking, but that has gotten less common as the age of the people still living here has increased and there are fewer and fewer families that have children living at home.  Thus, I suspect there might have been those who were surprised to see all of us out having a good time.

Along the way we saw some decorations in various families’ yards and took the opportunity to pose with them.  For instance,  Here are “Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus”

and here are some “children” telling Santa what they would like to get for Christmas:

We also took a group photo with this less-than-pleasant-looking fellow, who was a decoration on my neighbor’s lawn.  He is a Grinch - a very angry character in a famous children’s Christmas story - “The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.”  The grinch lives on a mountain that overlooks the village of Whoville, where all of the Whos have a wonderful time each Christmas.  The grinch, however, can’t stand to see them all being happy when he is always feeling angry.  Thus, one year he decides to destroy their Christmas celebration by stealing all of the gifts, decorations, etc.

Much to his dismay, he sees that the Whos still have a wonderful time, since they realize that the real happiness of Christmas lies in the love that people feel for each other and not in the fancy gifts or decorations.  In the end he is caught up in that happiness and becomes a changed person.

I’ve always been rather fond of the story; I suppose in part because it deals with a city full of Who’s.   Mason said that each year when he was little and the story was shown on TV, the next day his classmates would kid him because he, too, of course, was a HU.  By the way, since there were two students visiting this year that are named Hu, there were four HUs in the house over the holiday - the most there has ever been. :>)

The remaining five students were scheduled to arrive by bus within an hour of each other and were coming from two different places.  Mason was driving in from NYC and met them plus me at the bus terminal in downtown Pittsburgh because my car can only hold four people besides myself.  It was great fun waiting for each group to arrive.  Then our two cars made their way back to Murrysville.

I also really enjoyed watching the students as they greeted each other for the first time since graduation.

In the first picture are, from left to right, Vera, Mason, Bin,  Kitty, and Lucy.

Here is a closer photo of Bin since he is almost invisible in the first shot:

Nora, Ina, and Lydia:

Lydia and Reina:

After some time to chat, we had our first meal together.  For that I have to thank Vera, Kitty, and Ina.  They had helped me select which sandwiches to get at the Subway shop earlier in the day.  Then, while I was in Pgh. at the bus terminal, the three of them got the soup out and heated it and cut the sandwiches so that  it did not take much time for me to get supper on the table.  It was a simple meal -

SOUP (the largest pot of soup I had ever made) that I had cooked before anyone arrived so it would be ready:

and Subway sandwiches, which the three students cut into smaller pieces so that people could try different varieties:

It certainly was nothing fancy, but all of us were very hungry, and we ate quite a lot.

Here are, from left to right, Bin, Lydia, Reina, and Ina

and on the other side of the table, from top to bottom, Nora, Vera, Kitty, and Lucy.  Mason was at the end of the table opposite from where I was sitting.  So, the ten of us were all safely home.

After supper we played a memory game  at the table that had us all laughing and trying to help each other when our memories began to show the results of fatigue.  We then broke up and people began to get ready for bed.  One of the things I heard as I drifted off to sleep were the voices of  students who continued to chat after getting into bed.  I went to sleep with a big smile on my face, as it reminded me of when Mason was young and my two sisters and their children would all visit.  Naturally, they, too, talked well into the night as they so seldom were all together.

The first year (2007) I returned to the U.S. after resigning from SISU there were six former students among those who were getting their Master’s degrees in the U.S. that came to visit me at Christmas.  The second year there were three, and this past year there were eight.   So together with Mason and me, we made a large family of ten.  I do not use that word loosely.  We truly worked together and played together like one big happy family.

The students that visited this year included seven who graduated from the Song Jiang campus in 2009 and one who graduated from the Hongkou campus in 2007.  Four were from the Washington, D.C. or Virginia area, three from the Chicago area, and one from Ohio.  They were:

Chen Shutian (Reina),  Zeng Zhini (Lydia), Kong Xiaoqing (Nora), Hu Siming (Ina), Wang Yixuan (Kitty),  Hu Xiao Yi (Vera), and Wang Bin, - all 2009 graduates - and Lucy Zhang, the 2007 graduate. Later you will see photos of the entire group.

The first to arrive was Vera on the afternoon of Dec. 22.

She was so very helpful.  We did go out for supper that evening and drove around some neighboring areas of Murrysville to view a few of the decorations, but she spent a long time helping me bake the cookies that would be decorated by the students on Dec. 26 and then arranged all of the cookies and candies that I had bought so that they would be available to people as they arrived.  She is far more artistic than I am. Look at the wonderful job that she did!

A few days earlier I had gone out to photograph some of the outdoor decorations on the homes around mine.  The first shot is of the front of my house.

People do not follow any particular pattern.  Rather, they select what appeals to them and their view of Christmas.  Some prefer white lights.  Those below are of snowflakes.

Others like colored lights better.

There are those whose decorations concentrate on the religious part of the Christmas holiday.  Below is a decoration meant to illustrate the supposed conditions of the birth of Jesus Christ.  According to the Bible a very bright star shone down from Heaven around the time of his birth.  You will note the star and the “rays” shining onto the place where Jesus lay surrounded by his parents Mary and Joseph.

Here is a closeup of the three figures shown in the earlier view. Legend has it that the baby was born in a stable because there was no room at the inn for his parents.  Notice the straw, which is meant to give the appearance of a stable.

This same house had another decoration that some people are now using. It is rather hard to see, but I am including it because it was the only one like it that I found. It is actually a picture from a projector that is shone onto a flat surface like a garage door or the front of the structure.  This one says “Peace on Earth” and shows two angels.

Now the day of departure had arrived - much too soon as far as Mason and I were concerned.  Two of the teachers (Yang Xiaoyan and Shen Xiaohong) and Lucia came to our apartment in the morning to help us with our luggage, etc. and accompanied us to the airport.  Because we reached the airport faster than we thought we might, we had time to have lunch together:

But then it was time to go. I had seen dozens of former students and friends - many more than I had dared to hope I would be able to see as well as several of our relatives. Mason had gotten to renew acquaintances with people he had met before and got to know several more.

Mason and I were overwhelmed by all the things that people did to help us and make us feel comfortable.  I know we both felt a little guilty at how much trouble everyone had gone to.  We will be eternally grateful.

I do not know when there will be another opportunity to return to China, but both of us feel such a strong connection to the country that we want very much to make another trip sometime in the future.   People were often surprised when they asked where I felt more at home - the U.S. or China - and I always answered China.  I have finally gotten over the readjustment to being back here and not teaching, but those six years at SISU will always be counted as six of the happiest and most fulfilling years of my life.

It is good that we decided to make the trip last fall, because Mason is probably going to begin another consulting job - at a bank in NYC - in the next week or so, and he never would have been able to get a full month off once he started there.   Below is one final picture  I took of Mason as we waited to board the plane.  I think the expression on his face and his body language both express the sadness we were feeling at having to leave.

Both of us send you our many, many thanks and our love.

On that final visit he also made friends with their newly purchased duckling.  It isn’t a very good picture of Mason, but the duck is cute. :>)  I know it looks as if it only had one leg, but it really had two.  Mason truly does love anuimals.

Oct 14 and only one day left.  Two of the teachers kindly stopped in to say farewell.

Guo Xiao Mei:

and Nie Wei (Willa):

Fortunately, I hope to have a chance to see Willa again sometime in the coming months in the states, as she will be at the State Univ. of New York at Albany for one term.

There was also one student Yue Liu (Barbara) who graduated from the English College in 2006 and whom I had gotten to know very well that stopped by that last morning to visit me.

She was kind enough to accompany Mason to visit the City Planning Building so that he could see the model of Shanghai.  Mason greatly enjoyed the opportunity to see it.

There is a possibility that she might be making a trip to the states sometime in 2010, so I am hoping she will also have an opportunity to visit me in my home.

The final dinner we spent together with Ms. Huang, Mr. Song, and their daughter Lucia at the restaurant in the building where we lived - just as we had done on the first night we arrived.  They were all so extremely kind and helpful, and I fervently hope I can someday repay their kindness. Here we are taking the chance to get one more picture together:

Emily, my former auditing student, is not living in Shanghai, but on Oct. 11 Annie did pay me a visit.  Not only did we have a wonderful afternoon together, but she also was able to give Mason information about something he was researching.

Back when I was going out to SJ several times a week, I met a teacher from the English College.  We got to know each other quite well during our conversations, and she kindly invited me to her apartment multiple times, during which occasions I also got to know many of her family members, including her adorable son.  She has now moved to SongJiang and has a very busy schedule commuting back and forth to the HK campus.  Fortunately, there was one lunch hour when we were both free and she was in HK - Oct. 13 - so we met at the KFC near the elevated train station in HK.  We managed to eat some lunch, but mostly we talked and tried to catch up on our lives in the years since we had seen each other.

Han Laushi:

That evening three students that graduated in 2004 came to my apartment.  One of them had accidentally met Lin Hao, who had visited me  earlier.  He gave her my phone number, so we were able to set up a meeting time.  I guess I was really getting forgetful as I had forgotten to take a picture of one of my student on Oct. 10, and this evening I forgot to take any of them.  I do recall that I intended to wait until all three were there, but…..  Fortunately, I realized my mistake right away and asked them to send me at least one picture of themselves.  I heard from the final student just a few days ago, so I can include all of them.  They were:

Li Danni:

Lin Wei JiangL

and Chen Yan Xia :

I still have all my grade books, so before I left the U.S, I made copies of the names of people in each class.  This made it possible for the three of them that evening to go down the class list and tell me something about many of their classmates.

Before they left, my former student who had so generously loaned me her computer for the whole time we were there came with her husband to retrieve it.  We all talked for a few minutes before the 2004 graduates had to leave.

Although I felt badly that Ashley (Yan Jia Yu - graduated in 2005) and her fiance had to make another trip to our apartment, I was very happy for the opportunity to see them again. It also gave me an opportunity to take a photo of the two of them together.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.  Most of the country is mountainous. This  means the majority of the population lives in its capitol Port-au-Prince, which was the epicenter of the quake. Unlike the Sichuan quake in 2008, there was not a strong government and army to rush heavy equipment and troops to the scene to help.  In fact, there is little heavy equipment of any kind in the country since it is mainly an agricultural economy.

There is one airport with one runway, and the seaport itself has been heavily damaged so that much of it cannot be used to dock or unload ships carrying rescue supplies. Because most of the hospitals collapsed, there are none to treat the wounded.  Many of the doctors and nurses, of course, were also killed.

Nations from around the world have responded.  A Chinese dog and human search team was among the earliest to arrive.  Unfortunately, rescuing the people after they were located was not always possible because there were no cranes to lift the heavy slabs of concrete.

There are many charitable groups from the U.S. that work in Haiti all the time and they are doing what they can, but supplies, etc. are still mostly unavailable. Roads from the airport, where the materials are being flown in, are few and often blocked so that it is incredibly difficult for the supplies to be taken to the people.   It will be getting slowly better, but help will come too late to save many people.

I sometimes feel that certain countries must exist just so there will be places for awful things to happen again and again and again.  Haiti is one of those places. Those of us fortunate enough not to live in such areas may think that others’ problems are of no concern to us, but they should be. All six billion of us are in this life together. Please keep the victims in your thoughts, be thankful for all the blessings you have, and if you are able to make a small contribution to the relief effort through the International Red Cross or another reputable organization, please consider doing so.

This article in Time Magazine describes how the practice is common in Sweden.

Here’s the place to discuss the topic in the Forum

http://grandmahu.b1.jcink.com/index.php?showtopic=129

(don’t discuss it here - it’s harder to follow the conversation because new blog posts are always arriving)