Soccerfest '99

Manchester United was going to play the Shanghai Shen Hua team in what must have been the biggest soccer game in the city in a decade. Who the heck is Manchester United? Who the heck is Shanghai Shen Hua? And why are those guys on TV kicking a black-and-white ball around? I still don't know, but we decided to have a super-bowl style soccer party with our students anyway.

This was while we were teaching at Shanghai Jiao Tong High School. Wuhao had told us before about the big game coming up, and it was all over the papers and TV, and all our students seemed to want to watch it. However, they all lived in the school dorms so they didn't have TV. It was a perfect combination; We had a TV, which they lacked, and they actually had lots of enthusiasm for watching a televised soccer game. So we invited them over and a good time was had by all, even though I bumped my head sometime during the course of the evening and had to wear a band-aid for the next few days.

Travelling with the Folks at Shanghai Children's Palace

Teaching at Children's Palace was fun in part because the other computer teachers were about our age. In addition to running around with these folks throughout our time at the palace, we took two weekend trips with our students and fellow instructors to Su Zhou and a local attraction called Xi Bo.

The locations themselves were pretty standard Chinese tourist fare, with tour guides telling ridiculous stories about the mythical historical significance of fairly ordinarily looking rocks, trees, and buildings-- and there was lots of picture taking too. But the high quality cast of characters made it a good time. There was Li Cong, our fan-wielding, go-playing, computer-teaching compatriate, who never lacked an interesting bit of information about where we were going. Wu Hao came along too, and contributed a fair number of good jokes, as did Fan Zheng. Chang Hong Xia, the lovely lady of Logo, came back from the trip with massive quantities of dried tofu that she had bought. Also there were about 15 students running around, and I think my favorite part of the trip was when we tried play a chaotic game of frisbee.

The Fat Boy!

I was busy talking to some reporters during our huge zoo of a lego competition at the end of our stint at Children's Palace, so I missed the outcome of the final rounds. The kids were still challenging each other when I finished, so I went outside to where they were still running their robots and asked Li Cong who had won the competition. "Blah Blah Blah", he said. In fact, he didn't really say Blah Blah Blah, but instead someone's Chinese name which I didn't recognize. "Who?" I asked. He paused a moment to carefully place his English words, and then said loudly and enthusiastically, "The FAT BOY!"

Claymation Videos

One day in the afternoon everyone seemed to need a break. We decided to show some students how to make claymation videos with the camera Sharp had donated to us. They made some pretty strange videos.

A Weekend in the Life

This weekend was a particularly good weekend. Hesky and Roger went to the English Corner of the People's Park for some good conversation in the morning, then proceeded to check out the Shanghai Museum (featuring the Egypt exhibit!), and later met the Budweiser girls. Meanwhile, Reid played some frisbee in the Shanghai Ultimate Frisbee League and walked up a Mountain called She Shan with Sammi and our friend Fan Jing Song.

Roger the Goofball

Roger always has an abstract way of looking at things, whether it be posing upside down, or hugging a pole, or who knows what else. Without further ado, here is a collection of pictures exemplifying Roger's unique photographic style.