I Love to See the Temple

Chinese Art, Dancing Girls, and Random Ramblings

In order to renew my teaching certificate, I need 15 credits or 150 clocks hours every five years. My certificate is expiring in June, 2012 so I need to take classes. A class offered at the University of Washington for teachers caught my eye: "Visual Art of East Asia: Art History of China and Japan." Perfect! I love China. I enjoy art. Should be a fun class. It was a fun class, but it was VERY hard and VERY intense. Most of the other teachers in the class taught at East Coast high schools that feed into Ivy League Universities. ALL of the teachers were either world history or Asian history or art history teachers. Except me. I had heard of the Ming and Tang Dynasties and that was about it. In addition to all the art history reading and FOUR papers I had to do in one week, I had to give myself a crash course in Chinese and Japanese history. I also had to give myself a crash course in Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism, and Shintoism. I have never worked this hard for a teacher class before. I had very little sleep last week. I ended up learning a lot. Our teacher was fabulous and extremely knowledgeable.

Our end project included analyzing art at the Seattle Art Museum. I took a few pictures to include on my blog because I have nothing else to show for this week.

This was one of the pieces I analyzed. I thought it was so beautiful...especially the way it was displayed. It was in a display case in front of a window so the light shone through the dragon.  Notice the smaller dragons on the larger dragon's back.

I've always been fascinated by ancient Chinese pillows.

I'm sure I'd get a good night's sleep on this pillow....

Or this pillow.....

I think I'll just stick with my pillow.  I wonder if my pillow will ever be in a museum 2,000 years from now. I wonder what people 2,000 years from now would say about my pillow?

I have never thought about it, but the Chinese Zodiac has been around for a long, long, long time. These figurines are from 366-585 Northern Wei Dynasty.  That's a long time ago...

I'm a monkey.

Rachel is a snake.

Erin Joy is a ram.

I'd like one of these scary looking guys to guard my tomb too!

When I saw this picture of a woman playing polo from the Tang Dynasty (618-907), I was excited. Perhaps women were valued and could even play sports.

My excitement was short-lived when I read the placard that went with this beautiful vase. I'll let you read it for yourself.

The vase was full of this boy....wishing for male offspring.

I love Landscape Paintings so I stuck one in just for fun...

And now for the glorious conclusion of the otherwise meaningless post....

....my girls performing their own choreographed version of "Splish Splash."

Zion/Grand Canyon/Bryce

Some of my friends from Taiwan flew to Salt Lake City.  They have other friends living in Provo, Utah and we stayed with them for a few days. We then drove to Southern Utah where we enjoyed camping at Zion National Park.  We then stopped briefly at Lake Powell to cool off in the refreshing water on our way to the Grand Canyon.  We camped at the south rim.  We then went to Bryce Canyon where we stayed at a Bed and Breakfast. It was great to stay at a Bed and Breakfast and clean up after camping so long. We then met my parents and sister at temple square in Salt Lake City. My parents babysat kids while my sister and I went to the temple. It was wonderful!

I should write more details, but I'm tired. Maybe later.

I should mention that it was so wonderful to be with our friends whom I haven't seen for 15 years. I especially enjoyed speaking Chinese with them. It has been so long since I was a missionary in Taiwan. It has been so long since I have been surrounded by the Chinese language. I certainly forgot a lot. I called a freezer a dragon. I said "rocks" when I meant "firewood." Sheesh...how embarrassing!

It was great for my children to be around Chinese too. Rachel especially asked quite a few questions about what different words mean.  My girls and the other children played together quite nicely even though some children were speaking English and some children were speaking Mandarin.

We are planning on going to China and Taiwan next year. It will be wonderful to see our friends again next year. It will be wonderful for my girls to visit the land of their birth. I hope to stay long enough so they can pick up a little of the language. My feeble attempts to teach them what I know and attending Chinese dance class on Saturdays isn't enough.  They really need to live there in order to learn to speak fluently.

Anyway, here is a movie of all of our latest adventures..the music quality is terrible. YouTube get rejecting my music because of copyright issues. I gave up and just played music in the background. It is really tacky.

Message to Jack and Ann: I will send you a good copy of the movie in DVD format. I can format the DVD for playback in USA DVD players and Taiwan DVD players. I will send you a copy of both formats and hope at least one works. It should play in a computer if the DVD player doesn't work. I hope your flight back was uneventful. I hope you recover quickly from jet-lag and are able to go back to work and not be too tired. I love you!! I was so excited to see you and meet your boys! I look forward to seeing you next year!!

我的一些朋友從台灣飛往鹽湖城。他們有其他朋友居住在猶他州和我們呆在一起他們幾天。然後，我們驅車前往南猶他，我們喜歡在錫安國家公園露營。然後，我們簡要地停在湖鮑威爾冷卻水在清爽的道路上的大峽谷。我們駐紮在南緣。我們隨後來到布萊斯峽谷，我們住在一張床和早餐。這是偉大的留在一張床和早餐和清理後露營這麼長時間。然後，我們遇到了我的父母和妹妹在廟方在鹽湖城。我的父母babysat的孩子，而我和妹妹去了寺廟。這是美好的！
我應該寫更多的細節，但我累了。也許以後。
我應該指出，它是如此奇妙地與我們的朋友誰我還沒有看到15年。我特別喜歡跟他們講中國。它一直這麼長時間，因為我是一個傳教士在台灣。它一直這麼長時間，因為我已​​經被包圍了中國的語言。當然，我忘了很多。我所謂的冷凍龍。我說：“石頭”當我的意思是“記錄”。 Sheesh ...多麼尷尬！
這是非常適合我的孩子要圍繞中國了。雷切爾特別問了不少問題，什麼不同的話的意思。我的女孩和其他孩子一起很好地發揮，即使有些孩子講英語，有的孩子說普通話。
我們正計劃將中國和台灣明年。這將是美好的，看看我們的朋友明年再。這將是美妙的訪問對我的女孩出生的土地。我希望留足夠長的時間，使他們能夠拿起一個小的語言。我的軟弱試圖教他們我所知道的，並出席中國舞蹈課，星期六是不夠的。他們真正需要居住，以學習講流利。
無論如何，這裡是一個電影的所有最新的冒險 ...音樂質量是可怕的。 YouTube上得到拒絕，因為我的音樂版權問題。我放棄了，只是播放的音樂背景中。這實在是俗氣。
消息給傑克和安：我會送你一個很好的副本電影的DVD格式。我可以播放DVD格式的DVD播放機在美國和台灣的DVD播放機。我會送你一個副本兩種格式，並希望至少有一個工程。它應該在一台計算機如果DVD播放機不工作。我希望您的航班回到了平靜。我希望你盡快恢復從時差，並能回去工作，不要過於勞累。我愛你！我非常興奮地看到你，滿足你的男孩！我期待著明年看到你！


Part One:




Part Two:

Fourth of July and Other Fun Times

We are enjoying time with our family in Idaho and Utah. We had a great time at the Idaho Falls parade where we waved at our nephews who got to ride in the car with Miss Idaho Falls because they won a random drawing.  We returned to my parent's house where we had a "chips and salsa" reunion. After reading Stephen R. Covey's book, Seven Habits of Highly Effective Families, we learned that all families should have a family motto. Our family motto is "chips and salsa forever" because we want to enjoy chips and salsa forever as a family.

Anyway, we had a little Mexican party for our Fourth of July celebration complete with dancing and a pinata.  The day ended with a few fireworks and a great candy cannon courtesy of my scientist brother.

Yesterday, we enjoyed rides and fun at Lagoon, an amusement park in Utah.

Family Picture

We ended our fabulous "chips and salsa" reunion with a family picture. It began with pictures of the children in their hats. It took almost 30 minutes to get a picture of all the children in my family. I have a wonderful large family--my parents have 7 children and 21 grandchildren. I'm a teacher. I would love to have only 21 students in my class. Why is it so hard to get 21 children into a picture??

Fun Times!

We had a blast with our cousins last week. We camped at our church's property across the river from my house because my house is too small to accommodate 16 people--5 adults and 11 children all under the age of 10 including two nursing babies. We enjoyed a Mariners/Braves game even though the Mariners lost (my brother and his family were rooting for the Braves...) We enjoyed playing at parks, going to the Pacific Science Center, and camping at Mt. Rainier.

This video is really long. Probably only family members are interested.  Here it is for those who really want to watch: