怎么办，没办法！

The beautiful warmer weather shone through today. Today is "Womens Day" and all women teachers at our school were given the afternoon off, so there was time to take the dog for a walk and enjoy the warmth. I also parked myself on the window seat in my bedroom, in the sun and had a coffee and studied Chinese language for an hour or so. This semester has been so busy it's difficult to find time to do anything much. It was refreshing this morning to speak to a couple of Junior 3's (who constantly complain to me how much work they have to do...all students complain about this here) but these two girls greeted me with a warm smile and whilst they said they are very busy, they feel happy and not stressed, even though this semester will decide which senior high school they will go to. Here in China it starts from kindy...If you don't get your child into a good kindy, hard for them to get into a good primary school, then hard for them to get into a good middle school, then senior school, then university....it's a big problem.
Being here in China though the changes are occurring every minute of everyday and changes will already start to take place next semester. The girls today gave me a refreshing answer saying you can't look at the negative and must see the positive, no point in being stressed and unhappy.
The kids here do have to work so hard but constantly complaining can't help them. I too work extremely hard and this semester have 22 classes per week, Monday and Tuesday consuming 14 periods of that week between them, it's exhausting, but Is there any point in complaining, definitely not here...没办法 ! So if you can't change it, why suffer by making yourself unhappy. It's not the thing or the situation that makes you unhappy, it's how you think or view that thing or situation that has the ability to make you feel one way or the other.

励志警句

I love this one,

"It's imperfection that is the cause of beauty"
Ajahn Brahm

新年快乐 Happy Chinese New Year/The art of making Jaozi

The closest equivalent to our Christmas in China is Chinese New Year/Spring Festival. Today is Chinese New Years Eve and I am enjoying the day with my Chinese family :-). So far we have had an amazing home cooked lunch of things like Chicken Hotpot, Mushroom and Pork, Jellyfish, Pig Liver, Chinese green vegies, Bamboo, Tangyuan, home made soy milk and Jaozi...All very delicious. The video is of Netties Dad making Jaozi and making it look easy, If you can see some not so pretty Jaozi on the tray, that would be my attempt
 :-) Very tricky getting the little folds. If you really can't handle loud noise this is not the time and place to be in China. Crackers go nonstop ALL DAY.You can hear them in the video. Tonight at midnight is something that can't be explained , it's a definite have to be here kinda thing. The sky lights up bigger than any sky show in Australia and the noise is so loud you can't hear anything at all. Every New Years Eve there is a Chinese new year festival gala on TV, showcasing the countries biggest stars. The country will all watch this in between eating and letting off fireworks and crackers. You really are lucky if you can get to experience this event in China, nothing else quite like it in the world.

These photos are us not really enjoying setting off fireworks and crackers on the roof last night :-)

Too funny :-)

励志警句

 “By believing passionately in something that does not yet exist we create it. The nonexistent is whatever we have not sufficiently desired.”Nikos Kazantzakis

Snowed under

 The cold winter has been biting hard this week. It is amazing for me when it snows during the night and totally transforms the landscape outside your window. Like someone put a coat of white paint over everything.

  It looks very beautiful but I have been thinking lately about how peoples actions can seem to lay as heavily as the snow.

Why does the person that does an unkind act such as deliberate racist or prejudice action effect the mind more than the person who then does something really kind, like offer you their seat on the bus. If I encounter many good people why is it easier for the mind to ruminate about the unkind people, usually rolling like a snowball gathering as many bad thoughts as it goes?

  I recently read something that said the secret to happiness is choosing to be happy, no matter what...It seems sometimes this is an easy thing to practice but the majority of the time it is most challenging for the mind to get around.
It seems a little unfair to use bad similes about the poor snow, it really does look beautiful and I really enjoyed spending an afternoon walking around the city with the snow falling all over me....WOW i'm Zen I think? :-)

The more I Learn

The longer I live here in China, the more I see just how much I don't know about this place and the Chinese people. In fact it often feels like the more I learn the less I suddenly realise I know.

renewing my faith in human nature

Had a bizarre ferry ride home today. About 10 huge buckets of live catfish were on board with us, of which I thought "I guess the poor things are going to the restaurants for tonights dinners". Then something strange happened, half way across the Yangtze, the boat slowed down. At first I  thought it must be going around passing ships or avoiding bad currents, which they do sometimes but then something totally amazing happened.Everyone on board started tipping the fish into the river to freedom, Hundreds of small Catfish...saved....for now anyway :-) then the ferry turned around and went back to where we left??? I was just going home from a lazy afternoon meandering around "Walking Street" with Moli...I'm not sure what happened but I just stayed on the ferry(  after everyone collected their buckets and got back off) which proceeded to take the normal route second time around. Some of the people were singing some Chinese buddhists chants at one point. ANYWAY...So lucky I got to witness it, not everyday in China you see such a thing. Wonderful ! I did speak to a lady to try and find out what was happening but Yichang dialect even harder than mandarin to understand. I think it was a "World in Crisis" kind of group but I'm pretty sure I did understand her when she said something about many people around these areas just don't understand The good thing is there was a whole boat load (well 20 or so) who did understand today and a Ferry willing to participate.