Wednesday: Tailored to Please!

(Ms. Luskin)

My day proved to be quite a departure from our usual Wednesday…

I’d been asked to speak to Hu Kun Lin’s (William’s) year-two English classes during the first two periods, so I knew that I’d miss the early class for Team China today. I’ve really enjoyed chatting with these classes, and find they quite enjoy a mixture of stories about America interspersed with my responses to questions that they are brave enough to ask eventually. These young people hang from every word when I talk about student life at DS: class length (long); lunch time (appallingly short!); passing time (almost unthinkable, since the kids here stay in the same classroom for most of the day, but do expect their customary 15 minutes free between classes!); the wide variety of club and sports activities (astonishing!). Every classroom has had its own topics of interest, but student dating, the upcoming Presidential election, and US university admissions are recurrent themes. All the students are remarkably attentive; I’d anticipated a polite lack of yawns, but these kids are completely engaged in what we Americans have to say! (After lunch yesterday, Team China accompanied me in pairs to speak with two eleventh-grade classes, which changed the classroom dynamic quite a bit!)

Overhead projectors here are “old technology” now, and rarely have worked in the classrooms I’ve visited, so while one of my photos zigzags down the left aisle, a similar photo makes its way down the right aisle. Eventually, the pictures travel forward again, while kids chuckle and point out this-and-that in the pictures. Fun to see them relax from their earnestness, too!

After the English classes, I headed back to the English office to drop off my photos, only to find that my box from the States had arrived at long last, more than five weeks after it was shipped! Naichuan has been bickering with Customs, who wished to charge a goodly amount of additional duty on this package, so I was delighted to find out that he’d prevailed upon them to knock the price down considerably. (Who knew you could bargain with a government??) With Cui Hongxiang’s (Helen’s) help, and to my unending relief, I unpacked the box and brought a load of gifts safely to my apartment around the corner. (I’d been a bit tormented by nightmares of the box remaining in limbo while we headed home, bereft of American thank-you gifts to share with our friends here!) This happy task took us right up to lunch time; in our lunch room: the familiar wide variety of food, the familiar visit from our chef, the familiar chatter of all the young folk. As the kids headed to English Corner and I ran off to get a bit of emailing done, we agreed to meet at 2:00, since Cui Hongxiang had volunteered to take us silk shopping. Woohoo!

If you’ve ever seen last year’s blog, I’ll tell you that our experience was quite the same. At the silk warehouse, there were numerous samples from which to choose, but many colorways of a pattern proved not to be in stock. In the end, people winnowed their preferences down to one each: a silvery-grey-and-white happiness symbol for Drew, a classic ink-blue dragon fabric for Nick, a lovely green tone-on-tone pattern that haunted Cady through several compare-and-contrast pairings, and a stunning plum blossom (in plum!) with a gunmetal background for Emily – oh, and a peacock blue plum blossom pattern for me. Next, we trekked off to the marketplace across the street from school for lining fabric, and then found that our tailor happened to be in her shop there as we passed by, so the measuring began! We don’t yet know the timing for delivery, but soon enough, the guys will have their vests and we womenfolk our dresses, each with of the details we requested from out tailor. Look out, prom night, here comes Team China!