Happy Halloween Everyone

Halloween traditions develop within many young and old to enjoy; Irish Gaelic might

say "Samhain" to refer to October 31 and end of harvest and beginning of winter; and feeling closer at a time with spiritual awareness of those who passed away.

Here is a review of interview with Kate Delaney on America Tonight 25 April 2025. Thanks so much.

Maureen Armstrong’s book, Essences of Tongcheng, is now a reality. So in this edition of Newsgram, let’s take a journey—spiritually, emotionally, and quite literally—to the Anhui [On-Way] Province of China. That’s where Maureen went to teach English, and where she found something far greater than she expected: a deep cross-cultural connection, unexpected moments of trust, and the kind of transformation that only comes from stepping far outside your comfort zone. I know we’re talking about travel but her book is more than that—it’s a poetic portrait of a place most people have never heard of, but for Maureen, it was one that came to feel like home.

Maureen Armstrong – And so when I first got there, there was no lesson plan. I was just told my hours. And so I had to write up the lessons each day and I would choose topics that might be for the young adult, for example, or simple things like, you know, do they have an English name or how would you like to be referred to in class? Or this is the structure I would have. I would keep attendance, for example, in the classroom and the students would have their name. And so then we would choose a topic. I would introduce the words that were going to be spoken, but they might be about things like shopping or buying fruit, for example. Or what is your favorite color would be a simple lesson to start with. And then we might spend a little time individually and then we would gather together, you know, with five or six people and around the room. 

Once in the classroom, Maureen quickly realized that traditional lesson plans wouldn’t work. So she trusted her instincts. It was simple. And it worked.

Maureen Armstrong – Some of my classes were very large, maybe 40 students. So there would be maybe six, seven groups of six people talking about their favorite color or what would be their favorite country to travel to. What’s your favorite food? Simple things like that can expand their vocabulary. And so for the person who doesn’t know an English word, they might learn banana, for example, or peach, or I might discuss the trees outside. And so that’s how the vocabulary would expand to becoming comfortable, really, just like you and I chatting. The conversation would be very relaxed and certainly not dictatorial. It would be far more free flowing.

But not everything was easy. There was an adjustment period. She was a foreigner in a communist country so she had to report to the local police and navigate the complexities of a new society. Thankfully her colleague Maggie helped her through it. Her students became her friends. She had a private apartment that gave her some space to reflect. And she says the food was very good.

Maureen Armstrong – I had a lot of privacy and that was fine. I think keeping the atmosphere healthy was about eating good food. I was lucky that way. I could eat in the cafeteria and the food was good. And so I got a lot of rest and basic things like lifestyle things were the same for me. But I think the change is quite dramatic. You can really notice it because there in Tongcheng, you can go back to, I mean, people pulling carts on the street to lots of traffic. So there’s quite a gap from the old to the modern, which still exists.

I have to give her a lot of credit, the idea of teaching in a non-English-speaking country would intimidate me—but Maureen embraced the unknown and came away transformed. Being able to venture outside your comfort zone is something to be commended. 

Maureen Armstrong – I was lucky. If you went there alone, I think it would be absolutely terrifying.But for me, I had people built into my world that helped me through it. 

And she says when she returned for a second year, everything felt different—it was much warmer, more familiar. Her students were confident. the school had grown and the street vendor even remembered her hat.

Maureen Armstrong – And when I went back the second year, I went and there was the same lady selling her vegetables. And I came up kind of I wore the same hat and I had a little pin on it from my country. And she just had this big, big smile welcoming me back to Tongchan. And so there was a lot of things like that that I really thought was a win for me. It was really wonderful to feel kind of welcomed. And it wasn’t hostile like, oh, there she comes again. It was completely opposite to that. So I felt really great about it. You know, it was for the students. They were a lot more familiar, a lot more confident. And they just wanted to learn a lot, lot more. So I mean, but that can’t get any better.

We live in such a polarizing society and I think that is what I liked most about this book. The underlying message that we are not all the same and we are not supposed to be. 

Maureen Armstrong – Our differences diminish with each passing day. Sometimes if we keep talking with others, with discussions of topics of home, family and making friends, I hope that sometimes. They would be embracing the differences rather than feeling rejecting them, I think, is how I would put it.

Embrace the differences instead of rejecting them — I love that. In the end, Maureen’s walks led her to a classroom in China—but it also brought her home to something deeper: the power of connection..

You can find Essences of Tongcheng wherever books are sold—Kindle, paperback, hardcover, and audio. And who knows, when you read it, you might just find yourself—like Maureen—sitting across from someone new, feeling less like a stranger and more like an old friend.

Thanks for listening to this edition of Newsgram from Webtalkradio.com, I’m Sam Youmans.