I don't know what I was thinking when it comes to some of the clothes and random motley I packed to bring to China, But I am pleased I thought to tuck some Remembrance Day poppies in my suitcase. Ross and I wore them around campus today and lots of people asked about them. One teacher asked if the poppy had something to do with APEC, currently being held in Beijing, as she had noticed that many world leaders were wearing a poppy.

In China, November 11th is known as "bachelor's day" or "singles day" which has to do with the lineup of four "1's" in the date. And back in 2011, November 11 was a very popular day to get married. 

The Chinese do not use this day for commemoration of their war dead. According to Wikipedia, Singles Day is the biggest online shopping day in the world, which means it outranks Christmas online shopping in the West. 

Did you see pictures of the beautiful installation of poppies at the Tower of London? There is a ceramic poppy for every British and colonial soldier killed in the Great War. It's an work of art that's drawn an enthusiastic response from the public. 

The concept reminds me of Chinese artist and dissident Ai Wei Wei's Sunflower Seed display. 1,600 craftspeople made 100,000,000 hand painted ceramic sunflower seeds. The seeds can be taken as a representation of the Chinese people, forced into conformity when Mao was alive, and a reminder that every person is an individual.

School started the first week of September (and I'm seriously behind-hand with my blog posts). I was still living downtown when school started, so I took the teacher's commuter bus to school. There is a regular commuter bus as well, but if you take the teacher's bus, you get to watch the guards at the gatehouse salute as we pass through.

To my surprise, I saw a long, long, seemingly-never-ending column of young people in uniform marching across the plaza. I learned that they were the first year students, who spend the first two weeks of college life doing military drill. Every plaza, basketball court and sports field was taken up by the boys and girls who were marched back and forth to the strains of martial music for hour after hour.

Over the summer, I had an opportunity to teach Business English to the employees at the Shandong branch of a large multinational company. This was my first crack at teaching in a corporate setting so I was relieved when they said they didn't want grammar (they'd had plenty of that in school), they wanted oral English. 

The classes were held in a neighboring city. A car and driver picked me up (!?!) in the morning, drove me to the company, over an hour away, where I taught for three hours in the morning and another three hours in the afternoon, then I was driven back home. A long day, but the students were so pleasant that I never minded it.  Plus it was a valuable experience for me. Plus, did I mention -- a car and a driver for Pete's sake, like I'm some kind of hot shot.