Chinese friends

This is me and some of my crazy boys. The boys in my class were a mess and so much fun. Since we are teaching an English class, we try to give our students English names if they want one and didn't have one when they came to class. Last summer and this summer, I gave my students names of my friends and family back home. It is always fun to come home and tell your friends that there is a Chinese student across the world with their name. This summer I had an Ivan, Amos, Charles, Ricky, Josh, Kinzie, Sydney, Amie, John, and Elana. My friends with those names should know I am talking about you if you read this blog entry. I may post pictures of my students with those names sometimes. Some of the boys are in this picture.

This is the tailor that we usually go to when the American's come in the summer and have clothes tailor made. Most of the time, girls have Chinese silk dresses made and guys have suits made. He made my silk shirt and pants last summer. This summer I had him make me a long red dress with gold dragons on it. He does an amazing job, and the dress only cost me $30.

My student, Sydney, is on the right. She was my last student to come say good-bye to me the night we left Xide. Many of the other teacher's students came to say good-bye to them. They didn't want to leave us. You couldn't help but cry when some of them were sobbing as they stood outside our bus as we drove away to the train station.
Some of them even followed us to the train station in town.
Adam and I team taught together. These are the three students of ours that came to give us gifts and say good-bye when school ended. They were such sweet girls. Our team also commented frequently on how beautiful all the people were.

This was a mother and son that I was not expecting to see but was overjoyed when I saw them. A couple friends and I named them Jack and Jill last summer. She sells phone cards just outside the gate to our dorm on campus at Sichuan University. Last summer, I would pass her everyday and wanted to say hi to her by name. She didn't know any English, so I decided we should give her an English name so we could say hi to her by name. Once we had picked out the names, my roommate knew enough Chinese to let her know that we wanted to name her Jill and her son Jack. She was so excited. She ran over to where Jack was playing with one of the dorm workers and was calling him Jack. From then on, I would always say hi to her by name.
When we first were in Chengdu at the beginning of the tripthis summer, I went by the University to meet up with some friends from Northland. As we were walking to the dorm, I saw her on her little plastic seat at the dorm gate. I was surprised but very excited. I caught her eye and said, "Hi Jill." She looked at me and recognized me. She gave me a big smile and said hi. I motioned to ask her where her son was. She told me he was sleeping. I came by about an hour later and he still was sleeping. I didn't think I would see him before I left.

But on our trip back to Chengdu at the end of the trip, I ended up going by the dorm again and saw them both. I was elated. She was so excited to see me too and show me Jack. He has gotten so big since last summer. One of the girls from Northland who taught at Sichuan University last summer and this summer told me that everytime they came by the dorm this summer would answer to Jack and come running up to them as they picked him up. I was thrilled to see that that relationship that had been started last summer was able to be carried on.