The Legend of Dan Chao Fan

About my second month in China one of the foreign teachers that I work with was telling me a story about one of his students. Each of the students in my school are given an English name. Typically the foreign teachers give them common names such as Eric, Tom, Bill, etc... Sometimes, however, the students will take it upon themselves to come up with a quality name. Which results in students that have names like Basketball, 11, Matrix and a boy named Sue (ok I admit I gave that name). One of the teachers had a student that named himself after one of his favorite foods--Hamburger. Now as far as I can tell Hamburger was a quality student. His choice in names inspired me to come up with my own Chinese name. I decided I would choose one of the few Chinese words I knew at the time, Dan Chao Fan, or Egg Fried Rice in Chinese. I kind of joked about it. Then I told it to my elementary age students and they thought it was just about the funniest thing they had ever heard. After that students that I didn't have in class would walk up and call me Mr. Dan (Mr. Egg), or Dan Chao Fan Laoshi (Egg Fried Rice Teacher). Eventually the older students caught wind. I had one teenager come up and ask me, "Are you the one they call Dan Chao Fan?" Soon it got to be to ridiculous, when the school staff started asking me why the kids were calling me Dan Chao Fan. After class the students would introduce me to their parents as Dan Chao Fan Laoshi. Every time I walk into school the staff looks at me, smiles and says, "Dan Chao Fan hao ma?!!!" or Egg Fried Rice how are you?

Anyway I just thought you all might think that story was amusing. I'm sorry I havent written anything in awhile. The main reason is I haven’t been on any exciting trips in the last few weeks. I have just been hanging around Qingdao teaching, watching movies, and studying some Chinese whenever I get some motivation. My parents will be making the trip to China in about two weeks. We are going to spend a few days in three cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Qingdao. I am really looking forward to it so remember to check my blog so you can read about how everything goes. I think my mom is excited but my dad is a little jin zhang (nervous). With only six months left of my time in China I have started thinking about what I want to do when it is all over. Anyone have any suggestions? I have been exploring several possibilities such as going home for awhile and then teaching in another country like Thailand, Brazil or Korea; finding a teaching job in Missouri; or just move back and see what happens. Let me know what you all think, or if anyone has a job offer let me know. As always I love hearing from people from home whether it is on facebook, email or comments on here. Let me know how everyone is doing.

The picture above was taken on the great wall. When I was there I was wearing my Cards hat since the third game of the World Series was being played. When I was up there I saw a guy wearing a Tigers hat. I found out that the Cards had won the third game on the great wall so I got the chance to talk trash to the guy. Good times.