Rob Rogers writes about his life in China.

Rob Rogers, my friend and rugby coach, had an article published in the China Daily, China's English language newspaper.  He sent me the information and link on Yahoo.  I will get that information to you as soon as I finish using my netbook and get to the big Mac.

Speaking at the American Welding Society meeting

I got a chance to speak about my time in China during the September meeting of the American Welding Society.  It has been a while since I actually spoke in front of a group and it has been a long time since I have done a presentation about where I have been and what I did.   I could do it better the next time.  I showed pictures of welding in China, places I had visited, food that I ate, and just some things that I thought were interesting.  Ava Zhong went with me and listened to me speak and ate a steak.  I enjoyed the chance to talk and like I said, I could do it better the next time.  I how I get another chance.  I enjoyed my time in China and I enjoy talking about it.  One of the class assignments for my Chinese students was to give a presentation and use their talk as a way to teach me new Chinese words and teach me about their country.   I did not realize until the semester was almost over that my students had never given a talk in front of a group before, not even speaking in Chinese.  Some of my students did very well and many did a good job, considering everything.    Like I told them, "You have to practice."   
I practiced but I also brought Chinese hard liquor for my crowd to taste and had door prizes for them.  That always helps.

Here I am with the other members that have serve as a Chair of the Peoria Chapter of the AWS.

This is a picture of Phil England with his door prize, a Chinese style welding helmet, a pair of sunglasses stuck in a piece of cardboard.  Some of the people that I saw welding did not even have this much protection.  I do not understand why people do not protect their eyes but I am glad I work in the USA.  What is strange to me is that even in this country with all our regulations you can still see people doing things wrong.  At the Cougarplex, a contractor was grinding on the concrete floor and worked at it for over a week, no ear plugs and no safety glasses.  I know what he will say to his grand kids, "what." 

Thats me with the Chinese photo pose, the victory/peace sign.

QQ and my Chinese students

I am still able to keep in touch with my Chinese students, using QQ, a Chinese social network.  I have about two hundred people that can communicate with.  I use the netbook for this and check it for a virus many times.  It is not hard to get a virus in China or on a Chinese system.  The netbook is mainly just for me to use to email my Chinese students.  With QQ you can look at others peoples pictures and see what people are doing and my students look at the pictures I post and see what I did in China and what I am doing here.  They have seen the July 4th parade, our home, my college, the farmers market, and soon will see the orchards and the fall produce.  I enjoy writing to them and sharing some of my life with them.
I enjoyed my time in Xian but I really enjoyed spending time with the students.  I know my having a QQ number helped me get to know more students.  When I told my students that I had QQ, I think the students realized that I was not going to just leave and never be heard from again.  When ever I would ask a Chinese student if they had QQ, which they all do, their eye would open wide and they would say, "you have QQ?"  I gave out my QQ number to everyone.
I met a girl on the bus and she figured out I was a teacher at Xian International University, because I was an American, and I was on the 300 bus that takes you to Xian International University.  If I had been a tourist I would not be going that direction and I would not be on the bus.  We talked for about 20 minutes total.  The main topic is almost always, " how can I improve my English skills?"  I have sent her information on how to check on ICC's Website and use the Tumble Books.  We still chat on QQ and she is in Holland now.  I was chatting with a student on QQ and found out he was in my class but had never came to any of them.  He did show up for the last class.  Our conversation was like this, "who are you", "I am in your class but I have never came to any of them.  Sorry."  I said OK watch what the other students are doing and try your best to do your presentation for the final.  Every day in China something happened that made you realize that this was a new experience.  The experience could be a new food, a new smell, meeting a new students, seeing someone spit in the hallway at the hospital, seeing a city bus drive pass you going the wrong way on a city street, having a person yell out the window of the restaurant, "hey, tall man.", but every day something new and different happened.  That is what I really miss about China.  I can see new things here but it is not as exciting.  If you are driving a car that is probably a good thing.

No more cell phones

While I was in Xian I had to carry a cell phone because if a student needed to talk to a faculty member I had to be able to answer the phone and listen.  When someone is going to the hospital, you need to know that bit of information.  I was sending text messages as I was boarding the plane to return to the USA.  Since I have been in the states, I do not carry a cell phone or actually talk on the phone.  I just did learn how to check my voice mail at work.  When you don't do something for 6 months you tend to forget.  I am back on track now.  After six months I had three messages and all of them were current.  One was to check a reference on a student that had made the study abroad trip to China and one was to help out with a community project that was welding related.   I think I was a little late on the employment reference and I am sorry about that but he got the job and I was able to reinforce the fact that he will be an excellent student worker.
The community service project went well and I was able to, not only cut their steel rebar, but donated a marble top table to their garden area.  More important, while I was cutting the steel, they unloaded the table from my van.  I have moved that table for the last time.  I did not get any pictures but they did and I will post the link and share that project with you, when I get back in my email.

My first talk on my experience in Xian

On September 22, I think, I will be speaking to the Peoria Section of the American Welding Society, about my time in Xian.  I will talk about welding and the other jobs I was able to watch people do, while I was in China.  I will also talk about life in general, as I observed it.  This will be the first time I will get to talk to a group of people about what I did in China and what I got to see.  I need to go through my pictures and get them on a thumb drive so I can just talk about the pictures.  I did take pictures of people just working and going about their every day lives, and many of those people looked at me like I was nuts.  I will enjoy getting the opportunity to talk about a place that I enjoyed so much.  I even have treats, Chinese cigarettes, hard liquor, and I will put together a Chinese welding helmet, a pair of sunglasses stuck in a piece of card board.  You strike an arc and close your eyes.  The Chinese word for personal protective equipment is Mei you.   Mei you, pronounced, May yo, like in what you spread on a turkey sandwich, means "not have."  I have been posting a lot of pictures on my Q-zone, so my Chinese students and friends can see what I did during my time in China.  It is interesting for me to go back through the pictures and see what I did in China.  I will enjoy added pictures to the different files as I prepare for this talk.
I will give a talk that will be very similar to the final exam that I gave my students.  All my students had to teach me about 5 to 10 new words in Chinese and talk in English for 5 to 10 minutes.  It took a month to get them to actually understand the assignment.  These were college students but I found out that none of them had ever given a speech before, not even in Chinese.  The school system is different from ours, very different.  I told all my students to talk about something you are interested in and to practice you talk  until you are comfortable with it.  That is what I need to do, get my pictures ready and practice.  It will not be difficult to talk about China because I enjoyed the experience so much.  Did I mention I was going to have samples of hard liquor that I brought back from China.  I will have more details after the AWS planning meeting this week and will post the information on the blog and facebook.  I just hope the room will be big enough for everyone.

Q-zone and other things.

I have been busy trying to learn how to post pictures and blog on QQ, a Chinese networking system.  I am trying to share my life in the USA with the students and friends that I met in Xian.   I am starting to adjust to life back in the USA but more important I am busy on other projects and working towards my goal of retirement and moving to Silver City, New Mexico.  That is something I hope to do in June of 2012.  I will add a few things to this blog as time allows and things happen but I will be writing a new blog about a project that I am working on now, a solar coffee bean dryer for Guatemala.  I have been working to get a team of people at Illinois Central College involved with this project and we hope to come up with several models that could work.  What I know about coffee is that I like to drink it.  I hope to learn more about coffee, solar energy, Guatemala and more important meet interesting people that know more about all of the above than I do.  Once I get a name for the new blog and get it started I will let people know.

Link to a show that is similar to what we show at Xian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrUnEKE1hgQ&feature=related



While we were in Xian we show an outdoor show that was visually one of the best shows I have every seen.  They would not let you take any photographs but in the West Lake area they have a show that is similar and visually is very interesting.  I thought I would share this link with you.  The show in Xian was different but still done on the water.  They could raise and lower the floor and the different lights.  It is hard to describe but it was amazing.