Who says exams aren't fun?

So it's official, my students are hilarious. I was afraid that the tedium of speaking exams would bore me to a dull stupor. Instead I have been able to look forward to each one with glee!

Here is a snapshot of what exams this week have looked like. I am so proud.

Quxi: He is very handsome and kind.
Lamu: You are lucky.
Quxi: Thank you. Would you like beef?

Gu: ... Look there!
Qiu: Where!
Gu: There... (pointing wildly at me) who is she?

Huang Tao: Can you introduce a doctor to me?
Xiao Liang: Yes. Of course.
Huang Tao: What is he like?
Xiao Liang: He is so cool!

Daughter: She comes from America.
Mom: Cool, America is the most developed country at present.

Sang Zhu: He is cool and funny and friendly. Oh it's time for lunch. My mother is waiting for me. Bye!

BaSangDeJi: Where are you going?
CiDanZhuoMa: I am going to your home to ask you some questions about English.
BaSangDeJi: Oh.

Suo Guo: Why do you get up so early?
Suo Yang: because there are just a few days before final exam. I am afraid that I will fail my exam.
Suo Guo: Take it easy!

BaiMa: What is she like?
Qu Zhen: She is pretty and very friendship. She often give me happy.

CiRen: You can't help me, becaue my lovely cat is just death.
BaSang: You don't sad. I can help you. Yesterday my family's big cat give birth to three small cat. I can give you one of a small cat.
CiRen: Really?
BaSang: Yes, tomorrow afternoon two o'clock I give you a small cat.

JiLaMu: What a nice day! The air is so fresh.
BaSangLaMu: But it might be very cold at night. Put on more clothes please.

Ciba: yes in the morning I went to the hospital but I forget to bring money!
DanZeng: It's okay, Lisa can help you. I will call, she send some medicine.
Ciba: Who is she?
DanZeng: She is my sister she is a doctor.
Ciba: How old is she?
DanZeng: She is nineteen years old.

Does this count as an evaluation?

So this week has been speaking exams week. The students come in pairs to present a dialogue and then must individually answer questions.

Here is one example of their dialogues (an above average example)... maybe this will make up for the "elementary" foreign teacher's examination that I promptly failed (in the words of Mr. Wu "You should have cheated"). haha.

Luo Qu: Hi, Qu Zhen, how are you?
Qu Zhen: I'm fine thanks, and you?
Luo Qu: I am not bad. What are you doing?
Qu Zhen: I'm reciting English words.
Luo Qu: Is it grammar?
Qu Zhen: No, it's Ms. Kelly assignment.
Luo Qu: I heard that your foreign teacher is so funny at your English class.
Qu Zhen: Are you sure? Our teacher's class is very active.
Luo Qu: It is true. What is she like?
Qu Zhen: Oh, she is pretty, she has pair of beautiful eyes. She is very nice.
Luo Qu: If you have free time could you introduce her to me?
Qu Zhen: No problem, our teacher is very friendly. I believe you must like her.
Luo Qu: I think so, oh do you have her photograph?
Qu Zhen: I almost forget... have a look the photo. Are you have same feeling to me?
Luo Qu: Yes.
Qu Zhen: Oh, how is you find examination? How is review?
Luo Qu: I feel so so about it. We have a lot of thing to recite.
Qu Zhen: So do I, the students have many presure. We have many things to do.
Luo Qu: The score can't represent nothing.
Qu Zhen: I think so, we can try our best.
Luo Qu: What time is it now?
Qu Zhen: It's time to have a class.
Luo Qu: I must go.
Qu Zhen: See you later.

Good huh? Well you should see the "photograph" that they brought of me...

HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

What's not to love?

Take me down to the riverside...

Let the little children come to Me. Don't stop them...

I was supposed to be having a Chinese "lesson" from one of my Chinese teacher friends who is leaving next week. He suddenly revealed to me that he tutored people in language learning, a fact which made me demand why he had been withholding his skills from me... So in an effort to glean everything that I can in the few final remaining days of contact we set up an appointment for me to have a lesson.

We decided to ride our bikes down to the Lhasa riverside because there was such beautiful weather and why miss the chance to soak it in. We biked down there and climbed over the concrete barrier and found some flat rocks near the river to sit on... honestly the view was so breath-taking I wasn't really paying much attention as my friend tried to give me a crash course in tones, grammar, and basic pronouns (everything I would need to learn Chinese quickly according to him). Picture a slightly dirty river, with all variety of birds splashing across the water and ducking underneath for fish, cutting a line across the bottom of (impossibly) still green mountains which looked as though someone had pinched the earth together with their hand and top it off with the bluest of blue skies... yeah, all that grammar will remain buried under that scene forever I think. And my friend was trying so hard.

Amazing scenery or not, our lesson was destined to be interrupted.

Stumbling over the rocky shore a tiny little boy came straight toward us. Though he couldn't have been more than 6 years old, his clothes looked as though they had been on him all his life, grungy as though he had just sprung up from the earth. There were two dried up snot trails on his face and his hair was short but long in the back, a common style of nomad children, but his eyes were fresh, brown, and alive.

In one hand he carried a rope of some sort, in the other a rock. He looked very upset and held his toys out to us, imploringly. My friend began telling the boy to go away, but I quickly stopped him, motioned for the little boy to come closer, gently took the rope and the rock from his hand. I know what little boys like to do with ropes and rocks.

So I tied one end of the rope to the rock tightly. Then I picked it up and, as the little boy was holding the other end of the rope, I threw the rock a little ways off... the whole thing flew out of his hand and his previously sullen face broke into giggles and laughter brighter than the sun that was glaring over the water. He ran to go get it and brought it back to me. This time I motioned for him to hold the rope tightly and again threw the rock... it went out but, because he was holding the rope, bounced back to him. Again, this was somehow the most entertaining thing that had happened to him all day.

The Chinese lesson forgotten, this little boy stole every bit of attention I possessed. At one point he came up mumbling something, my friend told me that he was asking for food. Oh I wished that I had some, or that there had been some sort of vendor nearby... I would have bought this kid a four course dinner. All I had was just a bit of candy in the bottom of my bag. Gladly sharing it with him, I asked "ran mingla kada sigeyu?" (what is your name? in Tibetan) he stared at me in wonder and said "Dawaji".

I wish the story ended there but it does not.

A few seconds later a stern looking man came over fussing at little Dawaji. The man took the rock and rope toy that we had made and threw it down and then slapped Dawaji across the face with the back of his hand. In tears and with, no doubt, a stinging face Dawaji stumbled after the man.

See that you don't look down on one of these little ones, because I tell you that in heaven their angels continually view the face of my Father in heaven.

What did your face look like then, Father?

Some things just hurt...

I don't often tell you about the images that I see that haunt me. But here we go:

After a very interesting conversation over a banana lassi, I was walking back with my friend who is a monk here. I forget what we were chatting about at the time, and it doesn't really matter because our whole conversation was rudely interrupted by the scene taking place before us.

In the street there was a young nomad woman, dressed in the traditional garb with her hair in the standard countless small braids. She was silently, but nonetheless quite violently, weeping. In her lap lay the unmoving form of a dirty child: hair disheveled, face and clothes filthy, mouth slightly open, body limp. Beside the woman passers-by were laying small amounts of money. No one was really stopping.

I did. I couldn't help it. Humanity here is so raw and tragic that I often find myself stopping, helplessly, to ask for help from the only One who is able.

This time I tugged at my monk friend's sleeve and begged him to find out if we could do anything: call the hospital, pay for a cab, whatever. He looked at me, quite stunned that I was asking, and replied quite calmly "Kelly, I think is no problem, I think is fake, just for money."

I didn't know how to respond, we kept walking, but I must have been visibly upset because the next words out of his mouth are "Kelly, please don't cry."

A woman on a bus, a man on a bench...

Interesting things happen all the time, I'm sure this is not just a Lhasa phenomenon. I think it's what happens when you walk listening attentively to the Spirit... or even not so attentively listening!

Yesterday I went to do the most ordinary thing: pick up a package from the post office. An activity that I have completed successfully many times and has little adventure left to it, so I thought. When will I learn not to take it for granted that everything will be normal and that adventure wears off?

I hopped on a bus because I have had a cold and cannot breathe when I am riding my bike. The lady that I plopped down next smiled and in crystal clear English said "where are you from?" After regaining my balance from almost falling out of the seat (it never fails to catch me off guard when someone in this city speaks English, I don't know what I'm going to do when I go home) I responded and we had an extremely pleasant conversation for the rest of the bus ride. Next week we will have tea together... who knows what will happen after that?

Because I took the bus I arrived at the post office a little too early. Since I had half an hour to kill, I decided to walk over to the little park in front of the Potala Palace and rest and do a little people watching. I had only just sat down, seriously, the seat wasn't even warm, when this little Chinese man yells out at me "Wei!" and comes on over to share the bench with me. This man, unlike the lady on the bus, did not speak one single word of English, not even "hello". I know because for the entire half hour he proceeded to talk to me, even though the full extent of my Chinese vocabulary is maybe three dozen words and a handful of phrases (most of which are related to buying and eating food). After a while I explained to him (miraculously) that I had to go to the post office, so I got up to leave and from what I could understand he decided that he was going to help me, because I obviously did not speak Chinese and needed his help, at least so he thought.

However, I have been to the post office many times, and this man, from all appearances once we got inside, had never been. He was walking up to the wrong counters, he was talking to all the people, the ladies (who I KNOW because I've been there often) were speaking to me in English and he was translating for me into Chinese! We had to wait a minute while someone went to get the packages and the man proceeded to demand that they give me my boxes. Honestly, I had no idea what was going on, or what he thought he was doing, or what I was expected to do in response. After recieving my boxes from the confused postal workers I expalined to the man (miraculously) that I was going home. "xie xie ni" I called as I dashed out of the door for fear that he would "help" me get home.

And the adventure continues...

Instructions on buying ground beef

First of all: forget the thought of ground beef... think ground yak.

Second: Mention to your local friend that you need some ground meat, have a brief discussion on buying meat already ground versus buying meat and then having it ground. Choice B is better because then at least you know what is mashed up in there.

Third: Wander over to the section of the street that smells like congealed blood and is festively adorned with strips of animals parts hanging everywhere.

Fourth: Find the dirtiest looking man you can see. Duck under the frozen yak carcasses and engage in what appears to be a heated discussion on price per pound. After that decision has been reached, proceed to step five.

My favorite: Step Five: choosing the meat. Should it be fatty? Should it be lean? Should it be more frozen or less? Should it be gristly? What part of the animal do you want? For heaven's sake touch it and don't forget to smell it just to make sure. Note: master control of your gag reflex before attempting step five.

Sixth: Walk your plastic bag of semi frozen meat down the street two blocks to the lady who owns the grinder machines. Stand back and watch in amazement as she grinds two pounds of some part of yak in seconds.

Seventh: Find some additional plastic bags to double layer the one holding the freshly ground meat... wouldn't want that thing to break open on your twenty minute bike ride back home.

And there you have it, how to buy ground beef. So I'm thinking of a taco night in the near future.

Signs of the season...

I hear those sleigh bells ringaling ring ting tingaling too...

So I know in America there are probably candy canes in every shop, Christmas tunes bombarding every radio station, twinkly lights adorning most windows, inflatable Christmas characters in every mobile home park.

Here the signs that Christmas season is fast approaching look a little different....

Take picture one: what you have here is an assortment of nasty given to me, oh so generously, by the students. Some nuts, some yak cheese (think hard rotten yak cheese brick), some "sugar" aka dried up yak milk. It doesn't exactly replace the caramel popcorn and cheese straws that are standard in America, but the end of the semester is nigh and gift giving season(be wary traveler) is close at hand.

Picture two: No, that is not a radioactive rabbit head sitting on top of my book shelf, that is a humidifier. The weather here has (all of a sudden) turned quite bitterly cold (ignore the deceptive sunshine) and dryer than anything I've ever known, water evaporates basically instantaneously. The only way to beat it is to set up the delightfully designed humidifier and crank up the heaters...
Picture three: I just love this little tree. I love the ornaments, I love the lights, I love the way that it makes this whole place seem so much more like home... I can almost smell the woodstove, I can almost taste the broccoli and cheese casserole...

This is a great season of so much expectation... after all this is the time when we remember that a child is born to us! A son is given to us! And he will be our ruler. He will be called, "Wonderful Counselor," "Mighty One," "Eternal Father," Prince of Peace." Isn't He the gift that we all need? Way better than some rotten cheese hunks?