This term has been strange due to H1N1. The campus was on lockdown for about 2 months+. Starting on last Friday, the campus is now open with students able to go off campus to return home or simply to go out into Siping. I’m sure the businesses around the campus are happy because of this change. They can now visit us in our apartments as well. Student visits have been nil for a long time.

Wu confirmed last week that our last day for teaching classes will be Christmas Eve. Our final exams will take place the week of Christmas or the week before. Since the schools in China function on the solar calendar, we will not have to teach again until Monday, March 1st, 2010. Spring Festival is on February 14th next year and then two weeks later school commences. Of course, I am in the middle of planning my trips from when classes are done until they begin. Figuring hotels, flights, and dates for 2 months+ takes a lot of logistical working and plenty of time on the Net searching for prices on all of these things.

This coming weekend I will be taking the HSK (汉语水平考试). It’s the Chinese test that foreigners take for gauging their Chinese levels. The last time I took it was completely for the purpose of knowing what to study and to see where my gaps were. In gathered that I needed to write less characters, improve my listening, and increase my knowledge of characters (for reading) and grammar (for sentence creation and clozes). With the reading class that I have been taking this term, I feel more equipped for the exam on Sunday. I basically think, “If I don’t know it, I don’t know it. So there’s nothing I can do about it now.” I do have a lot of confidence that I will do well – especially for never having formally studied Chinese in a university or school. All the Chinese I’ve learned has been within the time range of teaching classes full-time over the past five years. 加油!

On Halloween morning, I woke up to snow on the ground. Temperatures hovered around the low 30s for a couple of days. Siping shot up to around the low 50s, but the temperature has again lowered. I am writing this with snow falling down quite quickly. Winter has officially arrived. Last week, my building turned on the coal radiators, and warm weather has completely disappeared. With the change of weather comes more cold weather as opposed to snow. This weekend we are scheduled to hit the mid teens. Yikes!

In other news, the team has finished Week 10 of teaching. All of our official teaching schedules will end on Christmas Eve. My thoughts have been turning to Thailand, as planning for my conference time commences. The team has secured a 4-bedroom home in Hua Hin, Thailand before our conference time. I’m not sure of the exact dates, but around 10 of us will be staying there for a week before heading to Chiang Mai. I know Wu is really looking forward to warm weather, poor lil’ small guy! I love this weather, and, like a bear, I’m soaking it all in. Siping’s wind is heavy, and it can feel like knives on the face with the freezing cold, but, at some sadistic level, I still love it.

Inquiry into university graft widens (October 16, 2009, Xinhua)
Investigators probing a campus graft scandal in central China over student apartment construction have uncovered a web of deceit. They were first tipped off by the wife of the apartment developer who was placed in custody and then cooperated with authorities. Prosecutors said more executives at the prestigious Wuhan University in Hubei Province were likely to be involved since both vice president and vice Party secretary of the school have been arrested for allegedly taking bribes over major infrastructure construction projects, People's Daily reported yesterday.

Software Pirates in China Beat Microsoft to the Punch (October 18, 2009, Reuters)
At shops in the bustling Xinyang market in Shanghai, fake Apple iPhones and Bose speakers were displayed alongside bootleg copies of Microsoft's Windows 7 operating system, a week before it officially was to go on sale. People in mainland China have been able to buy pirated copies of the newest version of Microsoft's Windows franchise this month for just 20 yuan, or $2.93, each - a fraction of list prices, which are as high as $320.

Beijing has 200 A/H1N1 flu cases each day (October 28, 2009, Xinhua)
There are 5,800 confirmed cases of A/H1N1 flu in Beijing, as of 12:00 am on Monday, xinhuanet.com reported Wednesday. The fight against A/H1N1 flu in Beijing has become more serious, Fang Laiying, the top leader of the Beijing Municipal Health Bureau, said at late Tuesday night. 200 new cases were confirmed each day over the last two days, Fang added. Fang said this year's flu wave came earlier than normal and added that the combination of the A/H1N1 flu and traditional flu may mean a record number of flu cases this year. Flu season is usually in December and January.

Beijing reports more violent crimes on campus (October 28, 2009, Xinhua)
A Beijing court has reported an increase of violent criminal cases on university campus in the past five years. Since 2004, 20 cases of intentional injury or homicide were heard at the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court, involving 26 college students, Wednesday's China Daily reported. There were four such cases between 2004 and 2006. This number grew to ten from 2008, an increase of 150 percent, a court press officer surnamed Guo was quoted by the newspaper as saying. The crimes were mostly caused by trifles, love affairs, or post-drinking provocation, the court was quoted by China Daily as saying.

Here’s an article on a Christian view of the use of the Internet. It was translated from China’s Three-Self Church’s magazine.

Visit zgbriefs.com for more stories about China.

With the past weekend being Halloween, the team took an early evening trip to the countryside where we cooked hot dogs and roasted marshmallows around a warm fire. We actually woke up that morning to snow – on October 31st for crying out loud! It was truly cold, really fast; it was around 20 degrees Fahrenheit. But we decided to brave the elements anyway with hot dogs and smores.

One of our Senior English majors, Alan, was nice enough to arrange the place and firewood for the event. We went to his uncle’s farm. We had a simple time, enjoying around 3 hours of eating and fun. By far, the most exciting event was the bonfire’s – how shall I say it? – explosion. First of all, the wood that was brought out had nails in it. I know that’s not good as those can somewhat explode as they’re metal. For the entire time, the fire made abnormally large “mini-booms” as I think nails were melting or slightly exploding. No one was hurt of course – thankfully.

Anywho, we had secured a nicely-paved area for the bonfire. About 3 hours in, there was a massive “boom”, – I didn’t see the fire as I had turned my head – but the sound caused me to jump up and run. In unison (minus the children), the team ran away from the fire. In sheer parental speed, Daren had picked up both Jude & Will in a dash; Samantha was actually away from the fire trying to play with the dogs that her parents kept saying to her, “Sam, NO!” Come to find out, the cement under the bonfire had cracked. I guess with it being so cold, then being heated up by a bonfire, this caused a massive, localized cracking of the cement. At the boom, pieces of cement broke away from the ground, throwing wood, ash, and coals in a massive spray. Mark actually got hit in the head with a piece of wood. Charcoal chunks flew over Nancy’s head, one of Alan’s younger cousins who came with us. It was hilariously dangerous, but everyone was okay. :-) You can see pics of this event from our “team photographer” Kat on flickr.com.