Jean L. Dibble

07/04/2023

Need a house? PM me!

For sale: 3 bed, 3 bath, 2,494 SQFT house. Upon entering this 3132 sq... $435,000.

23/06/2022

Haven't been back to China since right before covid but I still work for the same uni teaching online. We are in the middle of finals now. Thanks to time zones I'm up at 4am all week!

Here is a photo that one of the sophomore groups sent me, a lovely note, and a screen shot of how we do the video call exam.

28/08/2020

28/08/2020

It's over.

I was unable to return to Xi'an after the winter break due to covid, and though still teaching online, I can't get back. So I've had my stuff boxed up and am wrapping my head around this chapter being over.

I wanna say thanks to whoever looked at these China pics during the three years I lived there. I hope they showed how eternally surprising the place is.

I'm re-posting a few fuzzy selfies here because I was not able to say a proper goodbye to anyone, which, you know, breaks my heart.

01/11/2019

Halloween was hilarious. Students decorated, dressed up and told ghost stories, enthusiastically.

12/09/2019

First time meeting with freshmen today. Most have studied English for 10+ years and some have never, ever spoken to a non Chinese person. They know what it means to like someone and that if you really like someone it turns into love. So today I had a few 17 or 18 year old girls shyly telling me, "I love you". They are breathtakingly sweet.

19/06/2019

Before yesterday's final exam, one of the sophomore classes brought in a cake! We've been working together for two years. They aren't offered "Oral English" next year so it was kind of a goodbye party. So sweet!

30/05/2019

Took a short trip to Inner Mongolia. It's a Chinese province. Shares a boarder with Mongolia, the country. I'm easily entertained, we know this. But have to say, this place was amazing.

19/05/2019

A few weeks ago I went to Luoyang, the other city that claims to be the first (or last) stop on the Silk Road. Buddhist cliff art was the draw, but I wound up exploring the temple where kung fu was born.

01/05/2019

Another mall adventure. Students invited me to a Japanese restaurant. Great food and hilarious conversation.

11/04/2019

Here's "Mathew" and "May". I had dinner with them at one of the campus cafeterias yesterday. Mathew is planning to be an accountant and May wants a stable job as a teacher in her home town. It's not easy to get students to talk about professional ambitions. Sometimes I wonder if they even think about it, but maybe they just dont want to blurt it out in class. They're young yet. These two know what they want though, and dinner was pretty good.

29/03/2019

This was fun. I was invited to attend a meeting of the people teaching "Intercultural Communication" at my U. After presentations they asked me to confirm or deny. Here's what they were surprised by: We in the US dont generally ask each other how much we paid for things (Here in China that's normal). We dont ask women if they are married or not (I said that's because it doesn't matter and the younger women in the room nodded their heads-probably tired of being asked about their own marital status). Women and men shake hands (Turns out that's a bit shocking. Here nobody shakes hands). Men do 40-ish% of housework (Here maybe 15%). They asked if its ok to call people fat, how much personal space we need, how do we accept a compliment, etc. I learned it's normal here for parents to give their elementary school age child's teacher a huge amount of money or big gift card, to ensure their kid won't be forgotten in the 60 + student classroom. Everyone's mind was blown.