Getting ready for Lab 3.

After a holiday we found the students to be more tired than usual.  Rod felt they needed another day to be ready for his 3rd lab.  And before he could prepare the students, he needed to check out the equipment here to make sure it was working properly.  So, he hooked up the oscilloscope and connected his PSoc 1 board to see if HE could produce the square waves he wanted the students to see in lab.  Voila!  It worked.  So here he is at work in the shared office space.  Please notice the various labels in Chinese!  No, his Chinese is not that good to be able to read those. ;)

Rod also wanted to try to figure out a way to determine a basic lab that all 40 students could do and then an extra component to stretch and motivate the stronger students. This idea proved to be an improvement.  To be discussed in the next post.

Day 2 of our Trip to Hangzhou

This was our day to go visit the Xixi (pronounced sheshe) Wetlands.  This required hiring a taxi and was a 30-minute drive through Hangzhou.  This time we were to travel along the Xixi River and again we got to ride on some special boats.  The River winds in a circle with waterways through the middle going North and South and East and West.  It also had an island area where we docked and ate and saw some actual dragon boats practicing for races the next day.  We also stumbled onto some special Chinese Opera.  The wait to get onto our first boat was nearly 45 minutes.  Once again it was a very hot, muggy day.  But we thoroughly enjoyed being out on the boats.

Catching our final boat back to the entrance took longer than Lilian thought and by the time we caught a taxi back to our hotel, we hit some pretty bad traffic.  We were starting to get nervous about catching our 4pm train back to Shanghai.  The taxi driver stopped at our hotel long enough for us to pick up our trolley and Rod's guitar at the desk.  Then we hastily headed to the train station.  Although the return tickets were purchased, we did not yet have the tickets in hand.  Lilian tried to book a later train as we were cutting it really close on time, but there were no more seats on any trains from that station leaving that evening!  The taxi driver dropped us off and Lilian dashed off with our passports to collect Rod's and my tickets and Jenny took us to the security checkpoints.  The police would NOT let us go through without our tickets and passports in hand.  Lilian came running and the 4 of us dashed into security, begging to crowd ahead of others to catch our train.  We grabbed our things off the inspection belt and RAN for the train gate.  Rod thinks we ran for nearly 5 full minutes, even down stairs, and then made it to the train about 3 minutes before it departed!!! Whew!  We were so thankful to make that train and head "home" to Shanghai. Lilian booked a taxi to meet us at the Shanghai train station to drive us back to our hotel near the college campus.  What an exciting end to our Trip to Hangzhou!!!

 

I forgot to mention that another friend of Lilian's, Breanna, joined us for the day at Xixi Wetlands.  Breanna is a native of Hangzhou and was a great guide for us. Jenny and Lilian are in the front 2 seats and Breanna is sitting behind them.

Day 1 Part B of our Trip to Hangzhou

We spent a while on our little boat and then it docked at an island in West Lake.  We walked around and enjoyed the lush green vegetation.  Due to the holiday weekend, we did have to stand in some lines and were enjoying the beauty with LOTS of other people.  Hangzhou is a popular place for Chinese people to visit on holidays.

We rode a larger boat back to the edge of the lake and then walked to find a nice restaurant to eat our dinner together.  Lilian chose the Green Tea Restaurant.  There was quite a waiting line but we found some seats and waited about 45 minutes for our number to be called.  When it was, we were taken upstairs...maybe to the 3rd or 4th floor and seated.  Just entering the restaurant, I smelled some very delicious smells.  It was full of tables of families and friends and the dishes on the tables looked interesting and tasty.  I should have mentioned that Lilian had a menu to look over during our 45-minute wait and we chose fried rice, a tofu dish, an eggplant dish, a beef and pumpkin dish, roasted chicken, a green salad, hot soup, "green tea pie", and some nice, cold drinks.  Jenny chose a blended, creamy avocado drink which was good and Rod and I had a citrus drink. The green tea pie is in one picture...round like a pie (or cookie) with a sesame outer layer.  It all was super delicious!  And the company could not have been better.

After our meal, the sun had set and we headed back to the lake's edge to enjoy the colorful lights on the boats and the large fountain in the lake, plus music playing.  I have never seen so many people holding their cell phones to take videos of the colorful fountain!!!

When the music stopped, we walked back to our hotel.  The girls came over to our room and we enjoyed sharing music together.  Rod played the guitar and we sang "O Shenandoah", he played a classical guitar piece, and we sang a Christian song we learned last summer in Germany and then a song in Chinese called "Jesu Ai Ni".  The girls then sang a few Chinese songs for us.  Jenny also plays the guitar.  It was a full day.  The girls are fantastic hostesses!!!

   

Day 1 Part A of  our Trip to Hangzhou!

We had a longer weekend due to the Dragon Boat Festival so Lilian planned an overnight visit to Hangzhou to see West Lake and the Xixi Wetlands.  She kindly arranged our train tickets and our hotel.  We caught our bullet train around 11am in Shanghai and got to Hangzhou around noon.  We took a public bus from the train station to our hotel and got checked into our 2 rooms--one for Rod and myself and the other for Lilian and her very good friend, Jenny.

We walked nearby to scout a place for lunch.  Then we began our walk to West Lake.  The ladies rented bicycles for us and then found 2 other bikes that they rented.  I could not even guess how long it has been since I (Jean) or Rod last rode bicycles.  There was a bike lane for the most part but busy traffic of cars and buses right next to us, and lots of other bikers with us and sometimes passing us...plus pedestrians walking in the bike lane!  I was just a tad nervous I'd hit someone.

After biking most of the way around the lake, we locked up the bikes and resumed on foot.  We headed for the various lake boats to have a little cruise.  It was LOVELY out on the water!  It was also quite hot and muggy.

Rod’s Observations #1

Looking back over our 3 weeks in China, here are some observations.  For simplicity, I will write short sentences in list form:

1. Our 13 hour flight from LA to Hong Kong had the longest series of “heavy turbulence” that I’ve ever experienced.  Only three hours into the flight, I began to wonder how much more I could take.  But I found peace and endurance by praying to God.  Thankfully, the 3 hours from Hong Kong to Shanghai were more comfortable.
2. Jean and I are here for 7 weeks as I teach (with great assistance from her) two accelerated courses: a technical course (Embedded Systems Technology) and an Oral English one.
3. Our school/college is called Aurora, and we live in a nice hotel owned by them, about a one-mile walk from campus.
4. We have a cohort of 40 students, all but one with an English first name they’ve chosen.  At this point, we know them all by first name: Alex, Jay, Emma, Joker, Pizza, Yves, Lucian, Bourbon, Rita… They are precious young people around 19 years old in most cases.
5. Shanghai’s population is about 20 million.  We are staying in the northeast region of Shanghai, about 1 hour by car from the downtown center.
6. We did not see any other Westerners for the first 7 days—and then only a senior couple at the metro station (about a 2-mile walk from our hotel).
7. Many people ride battery-operated electric motor bikes, and they are very quiet, which can be dangerous for us pedestrians.  Our hotel is on a busy highway with lots of trucks passing by.  There are three types of “travel lanes”—two lanes each way for cars and trucks, a protected lane for bikes and electric bikes, and the side walk for “imperial walkers” (pedestrians).
8. Most of our walk to campus is along a fairly narrow “country lane” that has several factories and a prison in the first third, then we reach a band with farming on both sides (vegetables on the left and grapes on the right), and the last third, after crossing a bridge, has small shops and little one-room restaurants.
9. Everywhere we go, people stare at us.  But we feel love for them and are not bothered, in general.  Yesterday, was the most gawked at day of all.  On the highway and along the country lane people seemed to turn their heads a lot and “gawk”.  I felt concern for some who were driving on the electric bikes as they might crash while not looking ahead. J  Interestingly, I do notice a number of the men gazing at my lovely wife. ;-\
10. During our walk to/from school, we often just greet the people with “ni hao” (“knee how”), hello, or good morning (“zao shang hao”).  Most of the time, we get a warm response and a bright smile, showing surprise that these “wai guo ren” (foreigners) can speak their language.  So, overall, the people of this part of China seem quite friendly.  Since our days in Singapore, I have made a habit of learning Mandarin daily for 10-15 minutes.  It is encouraging to finally use it in the “mother country”!
11. Our life here has been quite exhausting but rewarding.  The language barrier (many are weaker in English than we fully realized), pre-requisites they haven’t had (which we thought they did for the technical course), and for some students, their own lack of discipline (“no enough” sleep, poor attendance, coming unprepared, talking in class) make us feel like we are in Bootcamp—and we’re the Drill Sergeants!  On the other hand, it is a privilege to be here and try to help them grow—both in maturity and academic discipline.

Teaching students to take notes in class

Fridays are free of teaching but full of tasks like sending laundry off to be cleaned, grading papers, and planning lessons!!!

We have been busy little beavers in our hotel room.  Rod is grading his first Embedded Systems Technology exam and Jean is grading the 2nd English test.  We have been trying to map out what is coming in both courses, how to do the final exams, and how to better engage the students.  Lunch was cup-of-soups with boiled water and some ice tea plus soda crackers.  Dinner will probably involve walking to the campus to order "cold pot" which is stir fried veggies and tofu that we select with noodles and some rice. (see our May 7th photos of "cold pot") We also need to request materials to be printed for tomorrow's (Saturday's) special class day--since it will be a holiday here on Monday and Tuesday [Dragon Boat Festival].

Have a good Memorial Day Weekend to those of you readers in the US!  We will be on a special outing for a couple of days with Lilian and friends of hers to Hangzhou by bullet train!

P.S. Well, our "Cold Pot" shop was closed, so we got a piece of chicken, some bakery rolls, plus fruit and juice for our dinner from the bakery on campus.  The fresh watermelon-pineapple juice was the best part!  And we got to capture the sunset from our hotel window.  :)

Thursdays are normally our final day of the week to teach.

We celebrated by walking about 2 miles to a KFC for chicken nuggets and a pkg of french fries to share and a citrus ice tea containing a slice of orange and little limes.  Just across from the KFC was a Starbucks.  We posed for a photo and then rode the escalator upstairs to a larger grocery and department store to make a few purchases.  When we hauled our goodies back to the hotel, we stumbled upon some older ladies dancing to boom box music.  Here is a very short clip.  Sorry it is both dark and short, but still it was a fun thing to see.

I should also back up with a few photos from our walk.  The first corner near our hotel we paused to capture the typical power lines here.  Then a little further down, we passed a collection of bicycles, that you can rent using your cell phone.  

Just outside the KFC you see a LOT of people's scooters and motorcycles parked.  This is a very popular mode of transportation here.

Lab 2...here's a video to give you an idea what it is like doing lab with 40 students in a small space!  At least I HOPE you can watch this short video.

A Rainy Monday!

I, Jean, am rather accustomed to rain, having grown up near Seattle, WA.  But rain in Asia can come down harder and quickly cover streets and driveways.  Monday, after we got to the college, it started to rain.  My one photo doesn't really do it justice.  I snapped this from the windows just outside the office we share with Lilian.  It views out toward the school track.  Anyway, at the end of Monday, we had to walk "home" to the hotel in the rain. The tile floors inside the campus hallways can be rather dangerous when they get wet.  And the streets we travel along, especially the rather narrow lane connecting the 2 busier streets has a fair amount of traffic with truck deliveries, people on their scooters, and some impatient car drivers...and the rain narrows the drier spots I prefer to walk on.  But the grandaddy shock for me was the entry to our hotel.  It was flooded...and it looked impossible to get to the front doors without wading in water--soaking my tennis shoes...the shoes I wear every day!  I was not a happy camper thinking about smelly, wet shoes that might take a while to dry for our walk to campus the next day.  I had to work through holding onto a grumpy attitude or letting go of it, and then shifting to think of so many things to be thankful for.  My attitude was really a choice.  And, the next morning, though my shoes were still damp, the water had receded and we had a fairly dry path to walk to the campus!!!  True confession.

Saturday in Shanghai--catching up on lots of grading!

Today was a busy day trying to catch up on grading in both classes.  Jean worked on the English class work and Rod worked on the Embedded Systems Technology work.  At one point in the afternoon, we walked over to the campus to take some of the graded work, reload some water bottles to use in our apartment, and to buy some fruit for our dinner.  We had been given some special zongzi or sticky rice dumplings wrapped and tied in bamboo leaves, since the Dragon Boat Festival is coming in a week.  Whenever we walk to campus or around the neighborhood, we find interesting things to capture in photos.  The other night we saw a trailer parked or broken down in a nice neighborhood, loaded with rattan furniture.  Today we saw a man on a bamboo ladder handling electrical wires ever so casually!!!  We also saw 2 different men on tall ladders on the college campus, moving their ladders while standing on them...moving them like stilts.  Ladder-walkers Jean called them! So even though we keep very busy, we still try to capture some things to share with you in photos!

The man behind me is a ladder-walker.

Zongzi cut open to eat plus green tea.

Special lunch with Aurora leadership.

Our normal teaching routine is Monday through Thursday with Friday open for preparations, grading, etc.  But today we were invited to a special luncheon at a very nice restaurant.  Rod was able to answer questions and observations about the potential of IoT for job possibilities for our students and also to comment on the students' performance thus far.  We ate around a traditional round Chinese table with a center "lazy Susan" of sorts where the various dishes are brought one at a time and rotated so each person can try them.  We had so many dishes to try, I don't think I can name them all.  We started with some spicy chicken wings, then a green iced African vegetable with horseradish sauce, some shrimp, beef and mushrooms, pork, eggplant dish, a Shanghai specialty of smoked, fried fish chunks, a bread that looked like a big spotted mushroom but contained minced red beans and meat, also a bowl of soup with tofu.  There was a sweet, sticky rice dessert and slices of watermelon.  It was really a feast.  We have been warmly received here!

 

This rickshaw was a fun decoration at the entrance of the restaurant.

Thursday was regular classes plus an evening English competition!

After finishing teaching, we walked downstairs to some food stalls and bought some milk tea for Rod and fresh watermelon juice for Jean--to hold us over until our dinner. Rod was to participate in the IoT team's presentation, explaining how to improve your English.  Then Rod and Jean sang a song for the audience.  We chose an old American folk song--"I've Been Working on the Railroad".  And Jean was asked to sit on the judging panel and then be the spokesman at the end, reporting which teams came in 3rd, 2nd, and 1st.  We later were told this was the first competition of this kind so there were a few "bugs" to work out.  Also, they have never had foreigners attend/participate.  We don't have photos of our musical performance, but there were many cameras snapping us on stage.  Later on I'll add one if I can.

There was quite a variety of talent, and for a culture where the norm is to stay in a group with no one standing out--this was a unique opportunity to try something and be vulnerable.  I think for a first time venture, they did quite well.  Of course, there is room for improvement, too.

At the end, Jean was asked to proclaim the winners...but she had not seen the tallied scores by all the judges.  She was supposed to make some kind of comments about the performance, but had not been told that in advance.  And when she was given the results, they were handwritten in Chinese. As you can see, Jean took it in stride.  :)

Lab days are exciting!

Whenever Rod teaches in the lab, the 40 students seem to come alive.  Something about connecting wires and integrated chips to a breadboard and learning to use a multi-meter interests all of them.  The challenge is how to help 20 teams of 2 test their breadboards, troubleshoot problems, and verify a truth table.  Mr. Liu is a huge help and also explains things in Mandarin in addition to Rod's teaching in English, but still.....the lab took an extra hour to check all the breadboards.

 Mr. Liu is in the blue shirt on the right.

Rod is not scolding but explaining to these 2 students.

        

Cell phones and how to control them in class...

From the very beginning we have had two big challenges in both classes--sleeping students and distracting cell phones.  Many students LOVE to use their cell phones to play video games and to chat.  Jean has very actively patrolled around the classroom, having students put their phones away and pay attention.  The sleeping problem is due to students staying up until the wee hours of the morning and not getting enough sleep.  Our son Josh suggested we try something that one of his professors does--have students put their phones in a pocket holder (like a shoe holder) at the back of the room, so they won't be tempted to look at them.  We have seen a big improvement in class attention since trying this.

Here is Rod sitting at his workspace in Lilian's office.

Also a couple more school cafeteria photos.  We use chopsticks and a soup spoon.  So far, we have been able to do that. Today we had a scrambled egg and tomato dish, plus some garlic cucumbers, rice, some chicken, and soup.

Another unusual Sunday and very unique Mother's Day for Jean!

Lilian wanted us to see some tourist attractions here in Shanghai--the Oriental Pearl Tower and the Bund.  It is more than an hour's ride by car to the downtown area.  It was interesting to have a look at tall buildings, and some old buildings, as we made our way toward the Bund.  We got out and began walking to the Bund--a pleasant walkway along the Huangpu River with great views of downtown buildings and the Oriental Pearl Tower.  We had fun taking photos and it was also our first time to see a few Americans and Europeans.

Up in the Oriental Pearl Tower

Though the skies are often grey here, the views of ships on the river were fascinating.  After several photos, we walked to the famous Nanjing Street and went upstairs in one building for a simple local lunch.  After that we took a Metro train under the river to the base of Oriental Pearl Tower.  There are several levels for observing the city.  One is a glass deck where many people pose for photos, while viewing the city under their feet!!!  It was really an amazing day, with a pleasant Metro ride home.  Below are a few of the photos.  Enjoy!

View from the Bund

I am laying on my back on the glass deck

Our lunch