How to Replace a Microwave in China

A couple days ago I decided to heat up something in the microwave. I opened the door, and it promptly broke. I don't know why, but its long life suddenly came to an end. The "laoban" of the building helped me drag the dead microwave downstairs. She gave me an unused microwave from an empty apartment on the second floor, which was still in its original box. Jodi and I took the "Galanz" brand microwave out of the hefty box, plugged it in, and.... nothing. It also didn't work. Who knows why.

So now the Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) is in the process of trying to buy us a new one. That will take a few days or weeks, however. First the FAO assistant came to make sure the microwave was really broken. She doesn't own a microwave, and has never used one, it seems. Microwaves haven't quite yet hit the mainstream in China. I had to demonstrate that it actually didn't work and wasn't doing a single thing for a few minutes before she was satisfied that it really didn't work. The laoban also tried to turn the microwave on with our TV remote.

Next, the FAO has to "fill out a report," which then must be signed by the university's vice president and president before a new one can be purchased. Is that called micromanagement or red-tape or something? And it's rather difficult to believe that the president of a 50,000-student university and one of the few appointed representatives in China's People's Congress will have to sign off on a microwave purchase for two random foreign teachers.

In other news, teaching has been going better than I expected, although I'm pretty worn out because of classes and the 95 degree heat in the classrooms. I've been hanging out with some old students, and the Father is already putting some new students on my heart. For example, He put a girl named "Echo" on my heart to talk with. Her English is the best in the class, but I notice the other students never talk to her. So this afternoon we went to eat bamboo rice for lunch together in one of the student cafeterias on new campus.

Although Echo is initially reserved, she quickly opened up. I discovered that she doesn't have many or any friends, because she studies so much and is afraid of being abandoned. She has a difficult time trusting people. I asked her why, and she explained that her parents divorced when she was a child, and her mother got a new husband, had a son, and basically forgot about her. She has felt abandoned ever since. On the outside she seems confident and extremely smart, but on the inside she is lost and lonely.

Wow, I got a little shivery when I heard her story. My story isn't the same, but it is similar, and I got to share it with her. I also have divorced parents, and I used to put on the same facade. On the outside I seemed confident and was a top student, but on the inside I was hurt and couldn't trust very well. And what is stranger, is that maybe only one student out of 150 ever has divorced parents in China. It is pretty rare, at least in comparison to America. And He happened to put a burden for her on my heart before I even had known anything about her.

It's a lot like what happened with my student Reborn last year. I hardly ever noticed Reborn last year until she was crying in class one day. You know the rest of that wonderful story! So perhaps you can also remember Echo.

Today I also had Chinese tutoring with my friend Amy, and I didn't feel quite as discouraged this time. That is my biggest obstacle in China - learning the language.

Then there is a teacher on campus, a young Chinese man with the English name "Mark," who teaches engineering or something on the new campus. I had met him randomly on a city bus last year, and somehow he has managed to track me and my class schedule down. He seems to be an admirer. His English is worse than most of my students, but he loves to sit in on my classes. Hopefully he will get tired of sitting in on my classes and will stop coming.

Anyway, I've included a picture and a video with this blog post. The pictures are when I ate lunch the other day with some of my dear old students, Wendy, Peter, Karen, and Sophia. Peter is the boy who was so painfully shy in my class last year. He would stand totally hunched over his desk when he had to answer any question. By the end of the year he stood nearly straight up, and could speak in complete sentences without looking like he was going to melt into the floor. That was one of the proudest moments for me. :) And the video is of Peter singing a very popular song called, "One Night in Beijing." It is so funny, especially at the end.