No Opening Those Stocking Ahead of Time

Under the Tree

Merry Christmas from the VanNoords

In the courtyard of Interntional Christian School where we work and attend school.

Roasting Chestnuts

For over forty years, I have listened to, hummed along to, and even sang along to the Christmas classic “Chestnuts Roasting Over an Open Fire.” What could make for a more all-American Christmas than roasted chestnuts from an open fire? Well, actually, a lot of things it turns out. I had never actually had a roasted chestnut before.

That was true, until ironically, I came to China. Vendors roast and sell them on the streets here.

I figured I’ve enjoyed the song so often, it was time to try one.

I bought a small brown paper bag’s worth. They come in a shell which is soft enough to peel.

Inside is a nut the size, texture, and color of a lima bean.

They are okay; warm, slightly buttery, a little bitter. Not sure they deserve their own song.

I think the cashew would be much more worthy.

-Jack

A: Knock, knock

B: Who’s there?

A: Cash

B: Cash-who?
A: No thanks, I’m allergic to nuts

Christmas in Hong Kong

Ghost of Christmas Future

Every December, the Culture Wars in America heat up over how Christmas is commemorated in the public square. In fact, this perennial acrimony has acquired its own name: The Battle for Christmas. Focus on the Family has a website that rates retailers by their Christmas-friendliness so that you can avoid the stores that are the most egregious in offering “Holiday sales” and you can reward with your business those retailers that display “Merry Christmas” in their windows.

As the ACLU and self-appointed separation-of-church-and-state killjoys continues to squeeze any semblance of religion from the public square during the yuletide season, it seems possible that in the not-so-distant future, Christmas in America -outside of or our homes and churches- will be reduced to reindeer, snowflakes, shopping, tinsel, and the big guy in the red suit.

Alas, I have seen that future.

If the over-used term east-meets-west ever applied, Hong Kong is it. As a truly international melting pot, Hong Kong has had the luxury of cherry picking from the world’s cultures including Thai food, Pakistani tailors, and double-decker buses.

And cherry picking is exactly what Hong Kong has done with Christmas. When it comes to excessive, year-end consumerism, Hong Kong gives The States a run for its money. Gaudy decorations, Christmas music, and sales, sales, sales are everywhere these days. Christmas has come to Hong Kong.

Well, kind of.

Despite the effort by retailers to pull out all the stops, for the life of me, I cannot find a manger, a stable, a camel, a wise man, or a shepherd in the stores, in the malls, or on the side of a bus. It’s all candy canes and garland and snowflakes.

Outside of our homes and churches, the secularization of Christmas in Hong Kong is complete.

And I am happy to report that we are all a-okay, thank you very much.

I have no idea what the future holds for American culture and the commemoration of Christmas, but here is what I do know. If -worst case scenario- Christmas in the public arena gets stripped of all religious meaning like it has been in Hong Kong, we are all going to be a-okay. The gospel message is alive and well throughout Hong Kong despite the lack of nativity scenes in shopping malls and office building lobbies.

So if the ACLU succeeds in telling your town hall they can’t display a nativity or your local library that they can’t have a star atop their holiday tree, join hands and take a deep breath. We are all going to be just fine.

As Hong Kong has demonstrated, it’s possible to have a completely secularized “Holiday” taking place in the public arena and to still have the gospel message surviving and thriving.

-Jack

The girls were assembling the used three-and-a-half foot Christmas tree Julie had purchased back in October. I was saying to the girls how sad it was that we had didn’t have any of our ornaments from home. I started to reminisce about some of our favorites: the little antique red ball, the sparkley orange slice, and of course the glass pickle.

The girls were just starting to get a little sad, when Julie called them into our bedroom area because she needed their help with something or other.

The girls walked around the big wardrobe that doubles as a room divider and there laid out on the bed were some of their favorite ornaments from home including the red ball, the orange slice, and the glass pickle. The girls started jumping up and down.

Also laid out on the bed where their Christmas stockings.

Last January, eight months before we were to leave for China, as we were packing up the Christmas decorations, Julie had the where-with-all to set aside a few of the girls’ favorite Christmas things in anticipation of packing them and bringing them to China with us.

Julie is such a good mommy.

-Jack

American Hairlines

If you ever find yourself in the Shatin area of Hong Kong and are in need of a haircut, here’s what you do. Exit the Shek Mun train station and head west. When you hit the river, turn left and keep walking, you should see the Star Floating Seafood Restaurant on your right. Go until you find yourself under the first of several bridges.

Every day from the hours of 1:00 til 7:00 you should find a little old Chinese guy under the bridge. He has a chair, an apron, scissors, and a pair of battery operated clippers.

He will cut your hair for you for HK$25.00. There will be some really grating Chinese opera music playing on a cheap transistor radio. He speaks absolutely no English.

Don't go at the very end of the day. You run the risk of having his battery operated clippers run out of power mid-haircut.

If a little old lady in a burgandy sweater wanders by and appears to be friends with the barber, don't ask her to take your picture while you are gettin your hair cut by The Guy Under the Bridge. She has never held or used a camera in her life.

Expect to get the thumbs up and a smirk from any westerners who happen to walk by.

My father started his career as a barber over forty years ago. As you're getting your hair cut by The Guy Under the Bridge, please keep my father's advice in mind: The difference between a good haircut and a bad haircut is about three days.

HK$25 is about US$2.80

-Jack

Overseas Teaching Positions Available

International Christian School where Julie and I work generally functions with two-year teacher contracts. So theoretically, in any given year, half of the teacher’s contracts are up for renewal. Before we all went home for Christmas break, those teachers whose contracts were up, had to declare their intent. Most of them are returning, but a few of then -for a variety of reasons- are not.

Moving a family half way around the world, learning to navigate our way round a new country, and starting two new jobs has been challenging. But at the end of the day, we are so glad that we accepted this challenge. Hong Kong rocks and ICS is a great place to work and a great community to be a part of. We are able to live comfortably on the salary they pay us.

If you know of any teachers who might be interested in an overseas experience at an explicitly Christian school, please pass along the following information. Feel free to have them email (jjvannoord@yahoo.com) me with questions. Of course, you can always route them to our blog.

2010-2011 Openings:

-Kindergarten Teacher (3 & 4 year olds)
-Lower Elementary Teacher (P1-G2)
-Upper Elementary Teacher (G3-5)
-Elementary PE Teacher
-Elementary ESL Teacher
-Secondary Music Teacher (Strings & Choral)
-Secondary Special Education Teacher
-High School Social Studies Teacher
-High School French Teacher

More information at http://www.ics.edu.hk/

-Jack

Our Very own Park N Shop

We are feeling pretty settled in to life in Hong Kong. It hasn’t always easy. Showing up three weeks late and missing new-teacher orientation didn’t help.

One major milestone was when we figured out how to order groceries on-line and have them delivered. Hauling a week’s worth of groceries home on the subway is not a good time.

About a month after we moved here, people started to move into the brand new estate buildings (apartments) that we look out onto. At the base of the two apartment towers is a free-standing building that stood empty of the first four months we were here. We didn’t know what it was supposed to house. We dared not hope.

Then about three weeks ago, electricians, carpenters, and painters descended upon the interior.

I am happy to report that our very own Park N Shop is now open for business.

Granted, it’s a small grocery store, but it’s a whole lot better than a 7-Eleven. The other day, I forgot that it was my turn to bring a yummy snack to our eighth-grade team meeting. No problem. I dashed down the Park N Shop. I was back in four minutes.

Our new Park N Shop has been open for business for less than ten days and we are already wondering how we ever got by without it.

Park N Shop, I love you.

-Jack

Red Bean Cakes and Sticky Buns

Getting Home from Shenzhen (part 3 of 3)

We finished up our KFC and got back onto the streets of Shenzhen. Annika made me carry the Straw Hat. We had emerged from the subway into a heavy-duty commercial area and there was not much to see except for concrete skyscrapers. We were hoping to see a section of the sprawling Shenzhen that had a little more flavor and character.

I stood on the street corner and looked down each of the options. I tried to read the city by watching the people. I saw a guy riding a bike with ten five-gallon water jugs attached to it coming toward us. From the right, I saw a group of three fashionably dressed young women. Across the street we a group of shool boys in uniform.

“Well Annika, what do you think?” She took a moment, looked at the options, and pointed down one avenue “Let’s try this way.” We repeated this process three or four times over the next ten minutes. Our urban intuition must be improving, because we turned the corner and we found ourselves in an older section of town that was bustling with street vendors and shoppers.

We picked one particularly lively alley and ate our way from end to the other. We bought a sticky bun from one vendor and sweet red-bean cakes from another.

The afternoon light was threatening to fade and our packs were becoming increasingly heavy. It was time to get back. It is my usual method to wander a city, get myself completely lost, and then jump in a taxi to get back to the station or hotel. It’s a stategy that had served me well in the past.

We waved down a taxi and hopped in. It only took us a moment to realize that we had found the one taxi driver in Shenzhen who spoke absolutely no English. He kept asking us in Cantonese where we wanted to go. I pulled out my passport and found the word “Hong Kong.” I traced my finger down to the Chinese characters that more or less matched up. I pointed at them. It didn’t seem to help. He kept asking me more questions in Cantonese. We were all getting a little frustrated.

I looked at him in the review mirror and said “Look buddy. Look at my face. Do I look Chinese? Where do you think I want to go? Take an educated guess here. You can do this.” I pointed forward indicating for him to just start driving. I figured we had a 60% chance of ending up at the train station where we needed to be, a 20% chance of ending up at some international hotel, and a 10% chance of ending up at an airport.

He started to drive. Because we had taken the underground subway, nothing outside the taxi window looked familiar. Ten minutes later, our driver pulled up to the curb outside a large municipal looking building. I looked up and -sure enough- in large letters it said “Shenzhen Train Station and Border Crossing.”

See, I knew you could do.

I paid the driver and gave him a large tip.

I am such an bad American. It's a good thing I have that large Canadian maple leaf sewn to my backpack. I sure would hate to give my home country a bad name.

An hour later, Annika and I were through immigration, on the local train, and on our way back to our apartment.

Note: Julie, I am sorry that you are finding out about this for the first time via the blog. Sweetie, you know that I make half of this stuff up anyways, don’t you.

-Jack

On the Streets of Shenzhen

Wandering Schenzhen (part 2 of 3)

No plan. No map. No idea where we were or where we should head to first. Now this is the way to explore a city.

Annika and I took five minutes to figure out the Shenzhen subway system and then got on board the train. We arbitrarily got off three stops later, made our way above ground, and started our urban exploring. We had emerged in a pretty non-descript commercial area with lots of concrete and eight lane highways. God bless Annika, she was being a real trooper. We had just spent a week on the Mainland so Annika was pulling her wheeled suitcase and I was wearing my large thirty-pound backpack. We took turns carrying the large-brim straw hat I had bought in Yangshuo.

It was approaching noon, so our first order of business was getting some lunch. After a week of Chinese food, I asked Annika if she would be up for some McDonalds. Absolutely! We walked for a few blocks, turned a couple of corners and there it was: KFC. Close enough? I asked. Close enough, she said.

While eating our extra-crispy chicken sandwiches, Annika noticed the locals at the adjescent table were pointing at my straw hat that sitting on top of our stack of luggage. They were talking loudly and laughing. Annika was mortified. She scrolled through her mental rolodex of 53 Mandarin words and came up with “teacher.” What she wanted to say was “No, you don’t understand, my dad’s a teacher and he is buying this for his classroom. He didn’t buy for it himself. He bought it to educate American youth about Chinese culture.”

But what ended up happened was that she just kept pointing at me and saying “Lau-shi” over and over again. Somehow, I don’t think they quite got the full message. I’m pretty sure all they saw was an oversized white boy walking around this major metropolitan area of 14 million people with a straw hat that old Chinese women wear while working in the fields.

The little dollop of KFC mashed potato stuck on my lip probably didn’t help any.

If there had been a hole handy, I am pretty Annika would have crawled in it.

-Jack

The Streets of Shenzhen

Staying behind in Shenzhen (part 1 of 3)

The overnight sleeper train didn’t actually bring us all the way back to Hong Kong, it brought us back to Shenzhen, Hong Kong’s sister city of 14 million people just across the border. While still on the sleeper train, when we were about an hour from the border, I approached my colleague Mrs. Auty with the little speech I had been going over and over in my head since I woke up two hours ago.

“Mrs. Auty, you know that Annika and I were only issued double-entry visas.”

“Oh and I know how the Chinese government really sticks it to you Americans. What are they charging you Americans, these days?” she asked.

“US$125 each.”

“Ouch. We New Zeelanders only pay a fraction of that.”

“So an hour from now when our group crosses through immigration, Annika and I will only have one entry left on our visas.”

“Tsk. Tsk. So unfortunate.”

“Yes, it just seems such a shame to be passing through a major city like Shenzhen and not be able to see any of it.”

“So what I hear you saying Mr. VanNoord, is that you would like for Ms. Wun and I to take our nineteen students over the border this morning so you and Annika can stay back in China and explore Shenzhen for the afternoon.”

“Oh well . . . since you offered . . . “

“That’s fine. It’s a good idea.”

“Mrs. Auty. . . ”

“Yes, Mr. VanNoord.”

“I am down to my last fifty yuan.”

“You need to borrow some money?”

“I used up all my money paying the locals to let me take their pictures and buying straw hats.”

“Here’s 200 yuan,” she said as she pulled money from her hip pack. “No, you better take 300.”

After our sleeper train pulled into Shenzhen, Mrs. Auty and Ms. Wun lead our nineteen students toward immigration.

Annika and I headed for the Shenzhen subway.

-Jack

My Students' Breakfast on the Sleeper Train

Final assorted pictures of Yangshou

Shopping in Downtown Yangshuo