40 people that Steve knows as a result of his China experience1. Linda DeAmicis
2. Jan DeAmicis
3. Justin DeAmicis
4. Charles Tyzack
5. Sam
6. Nathalie Cachet-Gaujard
7. "Lady" Jan Engsberg 8. Nobuo Yamaguchi
9. Joel
10. Rhett
11. Willie
12. Guo Yongsui
13. Luo
14. Guo's daughter
15. Yang Xinping
16. Yang's husband
17. Yang's daughter
18. Ye Biyu
19. Lilong Zhang20. Scott Ballantyne
21. Dahlia
22. Luo Shiping23. Chen Yuxiu
24. Alex (in office)
25. Zhuang Hongshen
26. Marie Paul Deiss
27. Jean Pierre Deiss
28. Belinda
29. Guan Sen
30. Lily
31. Laurie
32. Rita
33. Jay Jay
34. Michelle
35. Jane
36. Tom Hodges
37. Peter Gibson
38. Mhairi Gibson
39. Bill Brown
40. Sue Brown
2 comments:
Jan and Linda, thanks for this sobering memory teaser, which has rather rudely exposed the limits of my memory of names and faces that must have been more familiar to me when we were neighbors in the Xia Da Foreign Guesthouse eleven (!) years ago.
Of the 40 names listed here, 3 are names I don’t ever recall hearing. Three others are people I know I was introduced to, but don’t remember talking to. And four others are people I don’t remember having more than a single conversation with.
I guess that would earn me a grade somewhere between a 75% “C’ and a 92.5% “A,” depending on your grading scale. I submit the following list of names for extra credit (some you know, most you don’t):
1. Mr. Su, who consistently underestimated the number of years I’d been at Xiada.
2. Natasha, the Russian teacher from Belarus (1994-1995) who served me a great chicken and potato dish one night when Mari was away somewhere. Mari later learned to make the same dish.
3. Sam O’Neill, who has also contributed a list to this blog (an iTunes Celebrity Playlist). One day a few years ago we were walking down the sidewalk to our apartment on Foster Avenue here in Chicago when Sam pulled up beside us. He was in town to attend the wedding of one of his friends and recognized us from behind. Amazing.
4. The members of the student Reading Club I started in the spring semester of 1995 and continued until the spring of 1998, my last at Xiada. A few notable members (in addition to Lily/Li Yue, who made the original list): Amanda (Liu Hui), Jennifer (Pei Zhen), and Archie (Yiaqian Lu), all of whom went on to doctoral programs on this side of the Atlantic (Amanda in Georgia, Jennifer in Idaho, and Archie somewhere in Canada—Alberta, maybe?)
5. The Maersk employees who attended the weekly ESL classes I taught: Linda (who invited Mari and I to her wedding celebration at the Holiday Inn and also had us over to her house to celebrate the Chinese New Year), Steve, Charles (a former student of Charles Tyzack’s), Michelle (a former student of Jan Engsberg’s), and Sam. I earned more teaching two hours at Maersk than I did teaching a full schedule of courses at Xia Da.
6. Maggie and Joan Hu, The two star students in the American literature classes I taught near the end of my stay in China.
7. Xiao Mei, the only teacher who attended every session of the American Culture Through Film class I was asked to offer to my colleagues in the College English department. We gave her our VCR when we left China.
8. Li Cheng, a friendly College English colleague who had me to her apartment for tea one afternoon. She jokingly described her humble living quarters as a “concentration camp.”
9. The head of the English department (whose name I can’t recall right now!), who approached me after I’d given a talk about Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day and asked, “So, you’re saying that this is a tragedy within a comedy?” To which my delighted reply was, “Yes!” (He’d expressed the sentiment more succinctly than I had to that point).
10. Chen Yi Xiu’s son, William, who was also one of my students. When Emilio was born in the fall of 2005, Chen sent us photos from William’s wedding. It was William who first introduced me to Sid Meier’s Civilization. I don’t care to calculate the number of days I have since given to that temptress.
11. Andrew and Cecily, whose wedding we attended on Gulangyu. Cecily recently sent Mari a passel of photos of their two beautiful children.
12. Iona Gibson (born March 13, 1998), the first baby Mari and I had ever spent much time around. It has been a joy watching Iona grow up, getting to know her little brother, Aedan, and introducing them to Emilio.
13. Emily Topper, a graduate of Swarthmore, who came to a few of my American Culture classes during the Spring of 1997. I recently found out that she later graduated from film school at USC and has directed a few films.
More Extra Credit:
Quattro Memorie Degli Amici DeAmicis.
1. Weekly Spaghetti night. I don’t know why, but for some reason I remember best the sauce we dropped on the floor near the shoe rack . . . and ate anyway. It tasted great while I was eating it, but later, when it was in my stomach and had time to think about it a little more, I had mixed feelings. I also remember sharing one of these meals with Justin when he came (he entertained us all with his spaghetti-eating acrobatics).
2. Thanksgiving dinner at Lady Jan’s with you all and Charles Tyzack.
3. Christmas caroling with the same gang.
4. Super Bowl XXX, which was broadcast at an early morning hour that I usually don’t see. There was no way I was going to miss it. I had even knocked on the door of the manager of the Holiday Inn (Henry was his name, I believe) in the wee hours so that I could watch the Cowboys-Packers NFC championship game just two weeks before (we won, 38-28). But eleven years later, I am ready to confess that when I answered the knock at the door that morning wearing my bathrobe, I was surprised to find Jan and his coffee cup there because I didn’t remember inviting Jan into my Cowboy cave for the event. As Jan and Linda (who came for the second half) now know, I am something of an intense Cowboy fan and when we’re losing, I can get ugly. Fortunately, though, the ‘Boys were victorious (27-17) and aside from one regrettable aside—someone claimed that all he cared about was that it was a “good game” (meaning a close and exciting one), which is sacrilege to a Cowboy diehard who defines “good” as a winning blowout—our guests were gracious as always and a good time was had by all. Except Steeler quarterback Neil O’Donnell (woo hoo!).
Who would have believed then that the Cowboys win only one more playoff game over the next eleven years?
Post a Comment