Here's the link to the pictures from my Inner Mongolia trip. There are also pictures from training if you haven't seen those already.
http://picasaweb.google.com/kyleghansen/InnerMongolia#
http://picasaweb.google.com/kyleghansen/BeijingTraining#
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Inner Mongolia: Beautiful scenery, not so beautiful transportation.
I have a long story to tell but it’s rather comical so it might be worth your time…
Last year, while I was studying here for 3 months, I had dreams of going up to Inner Mongolia to ride camels in the Gobi desert and go sand boarding on the dunes. Unfortunately, since Chongqing is in the southern part of the country, it would have been something like a 36 hour train ride (one way) to make it that far north. Therefore, I abandoned the idea and traveled to locations closer to the school.
Beijing, however, is a mere 10½ hour train ride from Inner Mongolia. So, what I thought was a dead dream, became a reality during this last week during our 5 day break before our first teaching session begins. Four other year long facilitators and one of the Chinese staff members (Chris, who happened to have a nephew up in Inner Mongolia) and I headed up on the train this past Saturday night. Yet, we had multiple frustrating and hilarious complications in getting there (and back).
First of all, we had paid for a sleeper train which accommodates you with a soft mattress and air conditioning in a compartment with only 3 other people. So, after hauling our luggage from our campus, on a 15 minute bus ride and then almost an hour and a half long subway ride with 3-4 transfers, we arrived at the train station 25 minutes before our train was to leave which was at 9:40pm. Perfect timing right? Well, under normal circumstances it would have been, but upon looking at our ticket, Chris realized that we had come to the wrong Beijing train station! As a result, with 25 minutes to work with we frantically rushed back to the subway and began making our way as fast as we could underneath the city to the other station praying with all our might that God would either speed up our subway or delay the train. Yet, to our dismay, we arrived 17 minutes after it took off (China, for once, was actually efficient!).
At this point, I thought we were completely out of luck and that I had just thrown 250 kuai ($37.50) down the drain. But, after talking with someone at the train station, Chris was able to get us on a different train at 11pm that same night. The only problem was that we did not have a seat and were told that we may have to sit on the floor or stand during the trip.
This is where the “fun” begins. After eating dinner at McDonalds, we walked to the terminal, past the comfortable sleeper boxcars that we should have been on 2 hours earlier, and down to the “hard seat” part of the train. Here we were met with absolute chaos. The train was 300% overbooked and was more like a cattle car than an actual train! The seats, which only cost 76 kuai/person compared to the 250/person we paid for the sleepers, were all full and dozens of people were standing in the aisle in a single file line due to the crowded condition, with their luggage sprawled all around them. It was so packed that one of the train attendants had to loudly yell at us to squeeze closer together in order to get the doors shut. There were people sitting against their luggage in every nook and cranny possible. Being an American didn’t help our situation at all. For the first 10 minutes or so everyone couldn’t stop staring and laughing at us. Being foreigners, it was simply assumed that we would be in the sleeper cars, and they got a kick out of our misfortune.
To make matters worse, I got stuck right next to the only two bathrooms available for the hundreds of people in our section of the train, and was forced to stand there for the first 4 hours of the trip from 11pm-3am. Therefore, people were constantly coming in and out of the horribly smelly “squattie pottie” bathroom, and lining up right next to me to wait their turn. The doors were constantly slamming shut adding to the noise and the overall messy situation. Furthermore, this part of the aisle was no more than 3 feet wide, and I had my large suitcase at my feet which made it very difficult for people to get by. I constantly had to move back and forth to make room for people to pass, and on two occasions they pushed a snack cart (like what you see on an airplane) through this 3 foot section – and I had to lift my 35 pound luggage above my head to allow them to get through while being careful not to step on the people sitting around me!
As if this wasn’t bad enough, before the train even left the station there were more than 6 Chinese men smoking within 5 feet of me. And, in such a small space with no open windows and weak air conditioning, there was instantly a tobacco hotbox that made me feel even more claustrophobic and nauseated. This smoking continued throughout the journey.
By 3am, a handful of people got off the train at one of the midway stops and I was able to move away from the bathrooms and back towards my friends. Yet, without an actual seat, I had to take turns with Tim sitting on his uncomfortable luggage to rest our legs. Then, at about 5:30am, when I thought I could stand up no longer, I was offered a seat by someone who was getting off at the next stop. Exhausted but grateful, I sat down and fell asleep with my head on the table in front of me within seconds. When I awoke we were still about an hour and half out, but I couldn’t sleep any longer because my throat was too sore and scratchy from all the second-hand smoke.
Finally, at about 10:30am, the train pulled into the station. We slowly made our way off and were welcomed by the sunny Inner Mongolian weather. We went to the parking lot and were greeted by Chris’ nephew and uncle. They had managed to borrow two cars from some friends, and while we had hoped to go directly to a hostel to sleep, Chris’ family told us it was a perfect day to go to the Gobi desert and so we decided to go. This included a three hour drive, where most of us were able to catch up on a little sleep. Once we arrived we realized that the suffering we had experienced the night before was all worth it. The desert was beautiful as the pictures will reveal, and we were able to go on almost an hour long camel ride in what ended up being a thunder and lightning storm. We also were able to go sand sledding, and enjoyed two rainbows and the sunset over the Gobi.
The next day, we took a trip out into the Mongolian grasslands and stayed overnight with a family of shepherds in a traditional Mongolian yurt. There, we ate multiple authentic Mongolian meals and were able to go on an hour long horseback ride (As a side note, I now have much more appreciation for people who lived earlier than 150 years ago and rode horses for hundreds of miles. My whole body hurt after this, especially you know where, but it was still a great experience.)
Additionally, I should mention that the yurt was rather unusual. While it had no running water and the bathroom was the open range, the family had a satellite dish and had wired in cable TV. Also, while we slept in a traditional Mongolian yurt, it had a television and sound system and so we watched the movie “Hitch” once the sun went down. Furthermore, while the family was shepherds, they used a dirt bike to herd the sheep!
In the middle of the night, I was awakened from my slumber by a loud thunder storm accompanied by bright lightning that lit up the entire inside of the yurt. The rain water hit hard against the metal roof and prevented me from going back to sleep. So, I crawled out of my covers, put on my rain jacket, and precariously leaned out of the yurt to watch the lightning. This was an amazing sight to see. Gigantic lightning bolts were striking a mere 2 miles away, and they lit up the entire night sky. I was immediately thankful that God controls the storms and decides where each lightning bolt will strike!
In the morning we hiked to a nearby shrine which consisted of a large pile of rocks and multiple cow and pig skulls. Our host family told us this was an offering to the “sky god” and locals come from miles around and put a rock on the pile and make a wish after sacrificing an animal to this “god.” This was very fascinating, and I couldn’t help to think of the pagans in the Old Testament who made idols of wood and rocks and made sacrifices to make-believe gods.
Next, we drove back to the city of Hohhot and went to a hostel where we stayed for our last day and a half. We explored the city that afternoon, and chatted with other travelers at night. We also had traditional Mongolian hotpot for dinner. This tasted good, but didn’t sit so well with many of our stomachs. We were in and out of the bathroom multiple times during the next 24 hours drinking pepto like it was a juice box.
On our trip home, we took a sleeper bus instead of a sleeper train from 7:40pm to 5:30am. This mode of transportation was only slightly better than our train disaster. One problem was that the beds were not built for lengthy 6’2’’ people, but rather for 5’6’’ Chinamen. Consequently, my legs had to be continually bent to where my knees would hit the two metal guard rails on the side of the skinny bed. Other frustrations included constant bumpiness due to pot holes and poorly constructed roads making sleeping almost impossible, blinding lights due to other vehicles leaving on their high beams, toll booths every 20 minutes with multiple speed bumps further hindering my ability to sleep, people smoking on the bus, and 4 separate bathroom stops including one 15 minutes into the trip, and then one half hour stop at 1am at a restaurant for people to eat a “midnight snack.” Ridiculous.
A few lessons learned:
1) Never miss your train. Ever.
2) While the train ride was specifically taxing, it allowed us to empathize with the Chinese working class. It was humbling to think that millions of Chinese take trains like that every night.
3) Pack lightly. I lugged around my huge suitcase with bedding in it because I thought we would need it if we stayed in one hotel room with 5 people. Next time I’ll take the floor, or rocks, or sleeping sideways on a picket fence for that matter if it means I don’t have to haul that suitcase around.
4) Sometimes God ordains suffering so that we will appreciate His beauty and His grace more than we otherwise would. The desert and the grasslands were a sight for sore eyes after the miserable train ride.
Lastly, I’ll mention that our first session starts this coming Monday and I will be in Beijing at least through September because things have fallen through once again at the “new campus.” I’ll update at the end of the first week.
Kyle
Last year, while I was studying here for 3 months, I had dreams of going up to Inner Mongolia to ride camels in the Gobi desert and go sand boarding on the dunes. Unfortunately, since Chongqing is in the southern part of the country, it would have been something like a 36 hour train ride (one way) to make it that far north. Therefore, I abandoned the idea and traveled to locations closer to the school.
Beijing, however, is a mere 10½ hour train ride from Inner Mongolia. So, what I thought was a dead dream, became a reality during this last week during our 5 day break before our first teaching session begins. Four other year long facilitators and one of the Chinese staff members (Chris, who happened to have a nephew up in Inner Mongolia) and I headed up on the train this past Saturday night. Yet, we had multiple frustrating and hilarious complications in getting there (and back).
First of all, we had paid for a sleeper train which accommodates you with a soft mattress and air conditioning in a compartment with only 3 other people. So, after hauling our luggage from our campus, on a 15 minute bus ride and then almost an hour and a half long subway ride with 3-4 transfers, we arrived at the train station 25 minutes before our train was to leave which was at 9:40pm. Perfect timing right? Well, under normal circumstances it would have been, but upon looking at our ticket, Chris realized that we had come to the wrong Beijing train station! As a result, with 25 minutes to work with we frantically rushed back to the subway and began making our way as fast as we could underneath the city to the other station praying with all our might that God would either speed up our subway or delay the train. Yet, to our dismay, we arrived 17 minutes after it took off (China, for once, was actually efficient!).
At this point, I thought we were completely out of luck and that I had just thrown 250 kuai ($37.50) down the drain. But, after talking with someone at the train station, Chris was able to get us on a different train at 11pm that same night. The only problem was that we did not have a seat and were told that we may have to sit on the floor or stand during the trip.
This is where the “fun” begins. After eating dinner at McDonalds, we walked to the terminal, past the comfortable sleeper boxcars that we should have been on 2 hours earlier, and down to the “hard seat” part of the train. Here we were met with absolute chaos. The train was 300% overbooked and was more like a cattle car than an actual train! The seats, which only cost 76 kuai/person compared to the 250/person we paid for the sleepers, were all full and dozens of people were standing in the aisle in a single file line due to the crowded condition, with their luggage sprawled all around them. It was so packed that one of the train attendants had to loudly yell at us to squeeze closer together in order to get the doors shut. There were people sitting against their luggage in every nook and cranny possible. Being an American didn’t help our situation at all. For the first 10 minutes or so everyone couldn’t stop staring and laughing at us. Being foreigners, it was simply assumed that we would be in the sleeper cars, and they got a kick out of our misfortune.
To make matters worse, I got stuck right next to the only two bathrooms available for the hundreds of people in our section of the train, and was forced to stand there for the first 4 hours of the trip from 11pm-3am. Therefore, people were constantly coming in and out of the horribly smelly “squattie pottie” bathroom, and lining up right next to me to wait their turn. The doors were constantly slamming shut adding to the noise and the overall messy situation. Furthermore, this part of the aisle was no more than 3 feet wide, and I had my large suitcase at my feet which made it very difficult for people to get by. I constantly had to move back and forth to make room for people to pass, and on two occasions they pushed a snack cart (like what you see on an airplane) through this 3 foot section – and I had to lift my 35 pound luggage above my head to allow them to get through while being careful not to step on the people sitting around me!
As if this wasn’t bad enough, before the train even left the station there were more than 6 Chinese men smoking within 5 feet of me. And, in such a small space with no open windows and weak air conditioning, there was instantly a tobacco hotbox that made me feel even more claustrophobic and nauseated. This smoking continued throughout the journey.
By 3am, a handful of people got off the train at one of the midway stops and I was able to move away from the bathrooms and back towards my friends. Yet, without an actual seat, I had to take turns with Tim sitting on his uncomfortable luggage to rest our legs. Then, at about 5:30am, when I thought I could stand up no longer, I was offered a seat by someone who was getting off at the next stop. Exhausted but grateful, I sat down and fell asleep with my head on the table in front of me within seconds. When I awoke we were still about an hour and half out, but I couldn’t sleep any longer because my throat was too sore and scratchy from all the second-hand smoke.
Finally, at about 10:30am, the train pulled into the station. We slowly made our way off and were welcomed by the sunny Inner Mongolian weather. We went to the parking lot and were greeted by Chris’ nephew and uncle. They had managed to borrow two cars from some friends, and while we had hoped to go directly to a hostel to sleep, Chris’ family told us it was a perfect day to go to the Gobi desert and so we decided to go. This included a three hour drive, where most of us were able to catch up on a little sleep. Once we arrived we realized that the suffering we had experienced the night before was all worth it. The desert was beautiful as the pictures will reveal, and we were able to go on almost an hour long camel ride in what ended up being a thunder and lightning storm. We also were able to go sand sledding, and enjoyed two rainbows and the sunset over the Gobi.
The next day, we took a trip out into the Mongolian grasslands and stayed overnight with a family of shepherds in a traditional Mongolian yurt. There, we ate multiple authentic Mongolian meals and were able to go on an hour long horseback ride (As a side note, I now have much more appreciation for people who lived earlier than 150 years ago and rode horses for hundreds of miles. My whole body hurt after this, especially you know where, but it was still a great experience.)
Additionally, I should mention that the yurt was rather unusual. While it had no running water and the bathroom was the open range, the family had a satellite dish and had wired in cable TV. Also, while we slept in a traditional Mongolian yurt, it had a television and sound system and so we watched the movie “Hitch” once the sun went down. Furthermore, while the family was shepherds, they used a dirt bike to herd the sheep!
In the middle of the night, I was awakened from my slumber by a loud thunder storm accompanied by bright lightning that lit up the entire inside of the yurt. The rain water hit hard against the metal roof and prevented me from going back to sleep. So, I crawled out of my covers, put on my rain jacket, and precariously leaned out of the yurt to watch the lightning. This was an amazing sight to see. Gigantic lightning bolts were striking a mere 2 miles away, and they lit up the entire night sky. I was immediately thankful that God controls the storms and decides where each lightning bolt will strike!
In the morning we hiked to a nearby shrine which consisted of a large pile of rocks and multiple cow and pig skulls. Our host family told us this was an offering to the “sky god” and locals come from miles around and put a rock on the pile and make a wish after sacrificing an animal to this “god.” This was very fascinating, and I couldn’t help to think of the pagans in the Old Testament who made idols of wood and rocks and made sacrifices to make-believe gods.
Next, we drove back to the city of Hohhot and went to a hostel where we stayed for our last day and a half. We explored the city that afternoon, and chatted with other travelers at night. We also had traditional Mongolian hotpot for dinner. This tasted good, but didn’t sit so well with many of our stomachs. We were in and out of the bathroom multiple times during the next 24 hours drinking pepto like it was a juice box.
On our trip home, we took a sleeper bus instead of a sleeper train from 7:40pm to 5:30am. This mode of transportation was only slightly better than our train disaster. One problem was that the beds were not built for lengthy 6’2’’ people, but rather for 5’6’’ Chinamen. Consequently, my legs had to be continually bent to where my knees would hit the two metal guard rails on the side of the skinny bed. Other frustrations included constant bumpiness due to pot holes and poorly constructed roads making sleeping almost impossible, blinding lights due to other vehicles leaving on their high beams, toll booths every 20 minutes with multiple speed bumps further hindering my ability to sleep, people smoking on the bus, and 4 separate bathroom stops including one 15 minutes into the trip, and then one half hour stop at 1am at a restaurant for people to eat a “midnight snack.” Ridiculous.
A few lessons learned:
1) Never miss your train. Ever.
2) While the train ride was specifically taxing, it allowed us to empathize with the Chinese working class. It was humbling to think that millions of Chinese take trains like that every night.
3) Pack lightly. I lugged around my huge suitcase with bedding in it because I thought we would need it if we stayed in one hotel room with 5 people. Next time I’ll take the floor, or rocks, or sleeping sideways on a picket fence for that matter if it means I don’t have to haul that suitcase around.
4) Sometimes God ordains suffering so that we will appreciate His beauty and His grace more than we otherwise would. The desert and the grasslands were a sight for sore eyes after the miserable train ride.
Lastly, I’ll mention that our first session starts this coming Monday and I will be in Beijing at least through September because things have fallen through once again at the “new campus.” I’ll update at the end of the first week.
Kyle
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Shopping and Sightseeing
After two weeks of a regimented training schedule, the other facilitators and I finally had a weekend off. I spent some of my free time on Saturday going to the Silk market which is similar to the Pearl Market where you can buy almost anything from actual silk to electronics to tapestries to shoes. Most of it is obviously fake, but if you enjoy haggling, it is a great place to practice your skills. While it took about 45 minutes to get to the market including a bus ride and 3 subways, it literally cost 45 cents to get there! The transportation here is awesome. Seattle should take lessons.
So anyways, I personally had a lot of fun at the market because I have learned how to barter in Chinese and enjoy joking around with the vendors who tend to be small 5 foot 2, 100 pound Chinese women. In one encounter, the girl said "Do you need a belt? Very cheap price for you!" and I said, "mian fei?" which in Chinese means "free?," and in English she said, "I kill you!" Needless to say we scurried away from that stand pretty quickly. In the end I bought a pair of knock off Oakley's for myself for about $7.50 and then bartered for my Chinese friends (the Chinese staff) who were baffled by my ability to stand firm on the price they wanted. They were happy because I probably saved them $20-30 in all.
Apart from going to the market, we also checked out the Beijing International church this morning. It was in the lower level of a very fancy shopping mall, and has been sanctioned so that only International passport holders can attend. The sermon was pretty good, and was a little more "meaty" then the English service at the Chinese church, but my friend Dan and I have decided that our best option may be to videocast, Driscoll, Piper, etc. on the 10 foot projector in our lounge. This will provide deeper, more challenging sermons for us, and save us about 2 hours of our limited time off.
Finally, I think I will start to post my favorite "Chinglish" quotes of the week. The top two this week were.
Chinese Staff Connie: I want to be able to speak English better than Americans
Facilitator Geoffry: Not going to happen. (jokingly)
Chinese Staff Connie: It is happens!
(She meant to say "It is going to happen")
When walking through Yuan Ming Yuan park and looking at an old Chinese monument, my friend Dan had the following interaction:
Dan: What is this monument?
Student: Oh, uh, its a "China something."
The students are always so eloquent in their descriptions. :)
Alright, thats all I got.
Kyle
So anyways, I personally had a lot of fun at the market because I have learned how to barter in Chinese and enjoy joking around with the vendors who tend to be small 5 foot 2, 100 pound Chinese women. In one encounter, the girl said "Do you need a belt? Very cheap price for you!" and I said, "mian fei?" which in Chinese means "free?," and in English she said, "I kill you!" Needless to say we scurried away from that stand pretty quickly. In the end I bought a pair of knock off Oakley's for myself for about $7.50 and then bartered for my Chinese friends (the Chinese staff) who were baffled by my ability to stand firm on the price they wanted. They were happy because I probably saved them $20-30 in all.
Apart from going to the market, we also checked out the Beijing International church this morning. It was in the lower level of a very fancy shopping mall, and has been sanctioned so that only International passport holders can attend. The sermon was pretty good, and was a little more "meaty" then the English service at the Chinese church, but my friend Dan and I have decided that our best option may be to videocast, Driscoll, Piper, etc. on the 10 foot projector in our lounge. This will provide deeper, more challenging sermons for us, and save us about 2 hours of our limited time off.
Finally, I think I will start to post my favorite "Chinglish" quotes of the week. The top two this week were.
Chinese Staff Connie: I want to be able to speak English better than Americans
Facilitator Geoffry: Not going to happen. (jokingly)
Chinese Staff Connie: It is happens!
(She meant to say "It is going to happen")
When walking through Yuan Ming Yuan park and looking at an old Chinese monument, my friend Dan had the following interaction:
Dan: What is this monument?
Student: Oh, uh, its a "China something."
The students are always so eloquent in their descriptions. :)
Alright, thats all I got.
Kyle
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Ahhh! It is so great to be out of quarantine!
(Pictures coming soon)
Life in China is chaotic and constantly changing, and is beginning to redefine my idea of “flexibility.” These first few weeks have been a rollercoaster of ups and downs as the program is continually evolving even as I write. There is currently a 20 day TIP session that is going on now with 350 students, and is being led by a short-term summer team. While this session is going on, the seven other new year-long facilitators and I have been undergoing extensive, intensive training that will last almost 3 weeks. It encompasses everything from how to teach in a small group or large group setting, to how to cope with culture shock and homesickness. We have also learned about the history of China and the history of “our religion” in China.
Furthermore, we have been able to participate in multiple 20-minute practicums where I have co-taught with another facilitator, and we were in charge of game time a few nights ago where we played a game called “Find the candy” and “Move if.” “Find the candy” is where one student is blindfolded and his teammates hide a piece of candy and then give the blindfolded student directions for finding the candy. The students’ practice giving directions and listening to directions and have a lot of fun doing it. “Move if” is a game that most people have probably played in school or at camp where there is a large circle of chairs which everyone sits in except for the person in the middle. This person’s job is to say “Move if you like ____” or “Move if you are wearing ____,” etc., and if the people sitting in the circle like or are wearing what was stated then they must make a mad dash across the room to find a new seat. Then, the person who can’t find a seat is stuck in the middle and says “Move if____.” While this game is very simple, the students have a blast and fight and push (similar to getting on a bus sometimes) for the last seat! It is hysterical to watch and play.
Of all the training we have done, practicum and the prep work that goes into it has been the most fun. While there has been great advice given from alumni facilitators who taught last year, nothing teaches better than hands-on experience. It is great to be slowly eased into the teaching process though, and so I am grateful for the long training.
There are a plethora of things that I have learned during my time here so far. Here are four:
1) When you think you are speaking English slow enough, you should probably s l o w d o w n to half that speed and then you may be close.
2) While this program is now in its 4th year, each 20-day session can be vastly different and therefore not only will every month or every week be an adventure, but every day! This, of course, forces me to trust and rely on God. It’s like He planned it this way or something!
3) The Chinese teachers we are teaching tend to be very respectful and easily loveable, and those who are in the lowest classes who know the least amount of English are childlike even if they are 50 years old. You could roll a crayon back and forth across the desk and they would love it.
4) God is faithful in providing other Christians for accountability and fellowship. I have been meeting with Dan, a fellow facilitator from Texas who is 43 years old, and is a genuine man of God and he has agreed to mentor me this year.
There are also a few very specific things I need prayer for. First of all, my friend Tracey, who
came to faith last year, is considering working here as an Administrative Assistant for one month. If she likes the environment and the Chinese staff likes her, she would be able to come on staff full-time. How providential would it for me to be able to work with a friend who I was able to help (in part) come to faith! Secondly, the administration is planning on starting a traveling TIP in about a month and a half, and they are asking for some facilitators to come with them. As of now, I have very few details regarding this because they simply don’t know where it will be except that it will probably be in the province of Yunnan (which is beautiful by the way). Please pray for God’s discernment as Dan and I consider this opportunity (if the program is better organized), and pray for Tracey and her decision for whether or not she will work here for a month and then potentially join the Chinese staff.
Thanks!
Kyle
Life in China is chaotic and constantly changing, and is beginning to redefine my idea of “flexibility.” These first few weeks have been a rollercoaster of ups and downs as the program is continually evolving even as I write. There is currently a 20 day TIP session that is going on now with 350 students, and is being led by a short-term summer team. While this session is going on, the seven other new year-long facilitators and I have been undergoing extensive, intensive training that will last almost 3 weeks. It encompasses everything from how to teach in a small group or large group setting, to how to cope with culture shock and homesickness. We have also learned about the history of China and the history of “our religion” in China.
Furthermore, we have been able to participate in multiple 20-minute practicums where I have co-taught with another facilitator, and we were in charge of game time a few nights ago where we played a game called “Find the candy” and “Move if.” “Find the candy” is where one student is blindfolded and his teammates hide a piece of candy and then give the blindfolded student directions for finding the candy. The students’ practice giving directions and listening to directions and have a lot of fun doing it. “Move if” is a game that most people have probably played in school or at camp where there is a large circle of chairs which everyone sits in except for the person in the middle. This person’s job is to say “Move if you like ____” or “Move if you are wearing ____,” etc., and if the people sitting in the circle like or are wearing what was stated then they must make a mad dash across the room to find a new seat. Then, the person who can’t find a seat is stuck in the middle and says “Move if____.” While this game is very simple, the students have a blast and fight and push (similar to getting on a bus sometimes) for the last seat! It is hysterical to watch and play.
Of all the training we have done, practicum and the prep work that goes into it has been the most fun. While there has been great advice given from alumni facilitators who taught last year, nothing teaches better than hands-on experience. It is great to be slowly eased into the teaching process though, and so I am grateful for the long training.
There are a plethora of things that I have learned during my time here so far. Here are four:
1) When you think you are speaking English slow enough, you should probably s l o w d o w n to half that speed and then you may be close.
2) While this program is now in its 4th year, each 20-day session can be vastly different and therefore not only will every month or every week be an adventure, but every day! This, of course, forces me to trust and rely on God. It’s like He planned it this way or something!
3) The Chinese teachers we are teaching tend to be very respectful and easily loveable, and those who are in the lowest classes who know the least amount of English are childlike even if they are 50 years old. You could roll a crayon back and forth across the desk and they would love it.
4) God is faithful in providing other Christians for accountability and fellowship. I have been meeting with Dan, a fellow facilitator from Texas who is 43 years old, and is a genuine man of God and he has agreed to mentor me this year.
There are also a few very specific things I need prayer for. First of all, my friend Tracey, who
came to faith last year, is considering working here as an Administrative Assistant for one month. If she likes the environment and the Chinese staff likes her, she would be able to come on staff full-time. How providential would it for me to be able to work with a friend who I was able to help (in part) come to faith! Secondly, the administration is planning on starting a traveling TIP in about a month and a half, and they are asking for some facilitators to come with them. As of now, I have very few details regarding this because they simply don’t know where it will be except that it will probably be in the province of Yunnan (which is beautiful by the way). Please pray for God’s discernment as Dan and I consider this opportunity (if the program is better organized), and pray for Tracey and her decision for whether or not she will work here for a month and then potentially join the Chinese staff.
Thanks!
Kyle
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Pagodas, Pandas and Wild E Mei Mountain Monkeys
(So I got an Asian style haircut the other week for about $2.30. They gave me two 5-10 minute hairwash headmassages and shaved for me. A pretty sweet deal eh?)
One of my recent adventures in China was hiking with five friends on a sunny afternoon to the top of Jin Yun Mountain where a giant pagoda sits. We left around 4:00pm, took a five minute taxi to the trail head (its amazing how close our campus is to the great outdoors), and began our ascent hoping to make it up and down before dark which would hit at about 6:30pm. The hike itself was great exercise and filled with beautiful scenery along old country roads and narrow dirt paths. We saw waterfalls, bamboo forests, mountainside farms with Chinese people working their land, and many of their barking dogs. The view from the top was also pretty beautiful, though unfortunately we missed the sunset and found ourselves standing on the top resting from the climb in the dark! And of course while I brought my useful headlamp all the way to China, I decided against taking it on the hike. So, our group found ourselves precariously hiking down in rather dark conditions dependent on the backlight’s of our iPods and cell phones, and the bright pictures we could find on our cameras to light our path. To make matters worse, the stone steps, and dirt paths themselves were rather slippery or muddy and there were multiple times where one of us would slip. In fact, one of the girls with us ended up slipping two or three times due to her poor quality shoes acquiring some minor scratches and mud stained pants. Yet in the end, I think while we all agreed that while hiking during the day or at night with a head lamp would have been better, we enjoyed our little escapade. (pictures below)
Another awesome opportunity I had was going to the city of Chengdu this past weekend with a big group of friends for a four day trip. In fact, nearly our entire class of 32 students ended up staying at the same hostel together in the middle of the city, though I kind of explored the city with a smaller group of 7-8. The hostel itself was very accommodating and rather eccentric. The walls were filled with hundreds of quotes, pictures, and artwork from past visitors, and the rooms themselves were well-decorated. Furthermore, the hostel even came outfitted with a western style toilet, hot showers, and two cute kittens that would cuddle up in your arms and refuse to leave!
Apart from our impressive and inexpensive lodging (about $4 a night), the city itself and the surrounding “attractions” were also exciting. Our first night there we enjoyed eating at Peter’s Tex-Mex – a western-style restaurant where many of us ate tasty burritos, enchiladas, cheeseburgers, and mouthwatering chocolate-peanut butter milkshakes or hot fudge sundaes. I enjoyed two separate meals there as well as a third trip for a mid-afternoon snack. We also found a store filled with a plethora of other western food. They had everything from bagels and crème cheese to Chex-Mix. Unfortunately, everything was overpriced even for the States, but I was stoked to find some Nature Valley Granola bars to remind me of home.
However, our primary reason for taking the four hour train ride to Chengdu was to visit the Giant Panda Reserve and stay a night at the top of 10,000 foot E Mei Mountain which is home to the bold scavenger monkeys and arguably the most beautiful sunrise in the world. First of all, seeing the pandas was a pretty neat experience. We went early in the morning when the panda’s were “most active.” Yet pandas are never really very active and we soon learned that as we would stare at one panda for five minutes and watch it barely move! Thankfully some of them were more playful and we saw a group of three of them wrestle for a tire for almost ten minutes. (see pictures below)
Finally, probably the most exciting part of our trip was our adventure on E Mei Mountain. Though getting there was rather tedious. In order to get to the mountain itself, we had to take a fifteen minute bus ride across town in order to get to the bus station, and then a three hour bus ride from Chengdu to the bus station near the base of the mountain. Then from there we had to take a taxi ride to another bus station and then a bus that took two hours to drive us up the mountain. Once we were dropped off at the end of the driven road, we realized that we were still a two hour hike away from the peak and at that time it was already dark outside. And, while all common sense said that we should have just stayed at the hotel that was available to us at that elevation, my friends and I refused to settle for staying any lower than the peak of the mountain. So, we paid the $2.50 it took to rent large black and red down jackets for a day, bought some water and a few cheap flashlights (thankfully I had my headlamp this time!), and we made the arduous 2 hour trek in the chilly 35 degree weather to the top.
Once at the top, we stayed in a relatively cheap hostel (about $7/night) and woke up at 6:15AM with high hopes to see the sunrise. But sadly we were fogged in and stood around for an hour and a half freezing our tails off! Nevertheless, the trip wasn’t ruined as we were able to see the Golden Summit Elephant Statue and some crazy wild monkeys on our way back down to the bus. Then of course we had the reverse bus commute back, but this was a good time to take a nap and rest from the hiking.
Alright that’s all I got! Enjoy the pictures below. I’ll probably post once or twice more before I head home in two weeks! I’m looking forward to seeing everybody soon!
Kyle
Tracey terrified by a monkey.
Three rather active pandas battling over a tire.
I'm not exactly sure what was going through my head here...
A semi-blurry picture of Andrew, Tracey, and I on the bus in Chengdu.
A cute kitten we found to play with.
Read the Chinglish carefully. I evidently didn't and look what happened.
Our hostel rooming situation. Just like church camp all over again!
Aboard the 4 hour train ride to Chengdu. Fairly comfortable for only costing $14 round trip.
Bamboo breakfast.
So on our way back from E Mei Mountain we needed to get to the bus station and instead of taking a normal taxi our group of 8 piled in 4 rickshaws and raced to the bus station. Josh and I happened to be losing so Josh jumped out of our and gave us a healthy push. We won!
Our Chinese friend Tracey with David in a bicycle rickshaw.
Feeding those crazy monkeys.
This monkey stole that orange right out of Josh's hand. No fear.
This lazy panda was actually sleeping like this!
People burned candles on top of this elephant statue i guess for good luck?
This statue was literally about 50 feet tall. Unfortunately the fog complicates things...
It was so cold in the hostel we stayed at that we had to wear coats during dinner! Thankfully the electric blankets in the rooms saved us.
This was at the top of the mountain close to campus with the pagoda.
Some bamboo forests and waterfalls.
One of many ferocious barking dogs that we saw on our way up to the pagoda
Some friends that hiked down in the dark with me from the pagoda.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
A trip to the Terracotta Warriors, a gigantic spider, everyday life, etc.
Xi'an!
Ahh how my time has flown by here in China! It feels like I updated my blog just a week ago but it’s been nearly three! And boy have they been a fun, an exciting, and a somewhat terrifying three weeks.
I’ll start by recapping our five day excursion in Xi’an – the home of the Terracotta warriors that happened about a week and a half ago. The plane ride to this relatively small city that used to be the capital of China and the home of the Emperor’s of old, was only a mere hour long. The weather was also quite inviting as it is North of Chongqing and therefore less humid and chillier which reminded me of our typical October weather in Seattle. The food there was a bit different (a pleasant difference) then at the University, and the first night we were there we enjoyed a dumpling feast where we were able to sample 18 different dumplings. Many of the dumplings were cooked in the shape of what was inside of them. For example, the dumpling that had fish in it was shaped like a fish, and the dumpling that had duck in it was shaped like a duck. Most of these were delicious. Furthermore, the Tang Dynasty Dancing and Music Performance that we saw after we ate dinner, though a bit boring was very colorful, and the dancers and musicians were pretty impressive to watch and listen to (pictures below).
The Terracotta soldiers themselves were pretty awesome to see as well, though it was a bit different than I was expecting. I didn’t realize that so many soldiers had been found, and I was surprised to see so many of them almost fully intact. I was expecting that they would have been in more pieces since they were made thousands of years ago, but amazingly many of them did not fall apart or deteriorate over that long period of time. We also went to the Shanxi history museum while we there too, and we were able to see other artifacts as well as some Terracotta models up close. I’m not a huge fan of museums, but this was a fairly worthwhile experience. Then of course we had to go see the Big Wild Goose Pagoda, which is an ancient relic of the city. I really don’t know how it got its name, and after seeing so much other Chinese architecture in other cities this wasn’t anything special.
Apart from seeing the soldiers, the museum, and the Goose, we spent part of a morning on top of the city wall walking around and taking in the sights, and an afternoon shopping at an underground market where most people picked up some stylish knock-off clothing and accessories. And, while my conscience is still a little uneasy, I must say I’m pretty happy with the one Nike and two North Face dry-fit shirts I picked up and the soccer jersey and shorts I bargained for. After seeing the Chinese locals buy their clothing in the underground markets, I guess this is just a part of engaging the Chinese culture that we American’s have found acceptable. As the saying goes – “When in Rome, do as the Romans.”
Yet, as fun as bargaining for fake gear was, it almost got a friend of mine named Troy and I lost in the middle of the city after dark! I had been bargaining for a pair of soccer shorts with one of the shopkeepers for quite awhile when all of a sudden I realized it was 5:57pm and we were supposed to meet up with our group at 6pm at a restaurant that was a fifteen minute walk away. And, the hard part was that the tour guide who had brought us to the market had taken us through this underground walkway that had 6-8 different stairways leading to different streets throughout the city! So, upon realizing how late it was I quickly bought the shorts by succumbing to the lady’s price, and Troy and I hurried our way through the maze of shoppers towards where we hoped we could find our way back to the restaurant. We ran into our first problem when we realized we couldn’t even remember where we had entered the underground walkway. We walked and walked in almost all directions hoping to find it. I recognized a “China Post” building and so we ran toward that and thankfully found the entrance. Then, there was the whole problem of figuring out which exit to take. We would have had to try all of them and hope that we recognized something at the top of one of the staircases, except for the fact that Troy remembered that he had randomly taken a photo of the entrance on our way to the market. What luck (or gracious providence)! The picture happened to be extremely blurry, though thankfully we were able to make out the name of the right exit and we rolled into dinner about 25 minutes late. Next time I think I’ll just pay the extra .75 cents the woman wanted for the shorts and head back with a large group of people who hopefully know where they’re going!
Besides our trip to Xi’an, everything here on campus has been pretty low key. Again, while I don’t have a lot of class work, I am constantly finding myself doing something whether it is playing soccer or ping pong with fellow SPUer’s, hanging out and getting to know some of the Minnesota students, or working on my Chinese while exploring the campus and the city with the Chinese girls I have befriended. In fact, I have really enjoyed finally knowing enough of the language to make or at least attempt to make sentences when I’m with Chinese friends. And, while I’m still not sure if I will ever really master Chinese, I feel that it is respectful to the Chinese people to make an honest effort to learn as much as I can while I’m here.
Finally, I must tell a brief story about the scariest, most disgusting spider I have ever seen outside of a bullet proof glass case in a zoo. Over a week ago now my roommate and I had been getting ready for bed around 12:30am when all of a sudden we heard Andrew, who lives across the from us, say (after a bit of yelp) in a rather high-pitched and petrified voice, “Guys… come here quick!” Foster and I hustled to our door to see what was up and were met with the sight of a 5-6 inch in diameter spider that was running across the hall from Andrew’s room to our room! And, while I wish I could say that one of us would have shrugged our shoulders and said “Oh. Its just a spider. I’ll take care of it.”, we both started yelling and nearly peed our pants! Before we knew it the spider had ran into our room, up the side of the wall and was resting by our door jam. It was then, when it was sitting still, that we knew we had to get a picture to document the size of this thing because we knew no one would believe us otherwise. So Foster snapped some pictures (below) and I ran like a little girl down the hall to ask a Taiwanese friend from Minnesota if he had ever seen anything like it. When I told him and his roommate about the spider and mentioned that we were going to try and whack it with end of a mop, he calmly said something to the effect of, “Ah. Don’t kill it. I’ll get it out of your room for you.” He then preceded to walk into our room, chase it off of the door and into the bathroom. Once in the bathroom, he asked if we had a bigger towel because our hand towel was too small (and obviously Kleenex wasn’t going to do the trick like it usually would). Both Foster and I didn’t want a giant spider touching one of our shower towels. So Ethan, our brave friend, ran and grabbed his towel from his room and brought it back to the bathroom. Then, the situation got a little crazy. The spider somehow escaped Ethan’s grasp and ran out of the bathroom and directly toward Foster and I! We back peddled instantly practically knocking over our computer chair and damaging Foster’s $3,400 Apple Mac Book in the process! The spider took cover under our mini-fridge and Ethan was able to coax it out and catch it in a towel while Foster and I watched from the top of our beds completely terrified (Oh what chickens we were!).
Once it was caught, Andrew, Foster, and I contemplated pulling a rather cruel prank on two girls’ room by unleashing the spider there, but thought better of it once we realized how scared we were. So Ethan took the monster up a floor and tossed the him off the balcony into some bushes. Foster and I then proceeded to check every part of our room to ensure that another one wasn’t lurking somewhere waiting to end up on one of our faces while we sleep. The scary part is that these beasts can go under doors and since we are on the bottom level of the dorm, one could easily crawl into our room again. Therefore we have put a towel in front of our door almost every night since then to deter any other spiders from joining our slumber party and look for another.
Alright, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading this far if you made it!
Kyle
So that door hinge is about 5 inches long...
That beedy eye was staring right at me I swear!
The most disgusting thing I've seen yet in China!
A striking resemblence my friend Josh and I found while in the Shanxi History Museum.
A picture below the Big Wild Goose Pagoda which you can see in the background. These candles were just a few of over a hundred that were being burned outside a Buddhist temple.
Inside the underground market. See any shirts you want me to bring home for you? =)
Wild Goose Pagoda - we climbed the stairs all the way to the top. All 7 levels. It was okay but nothing magical.
A picture of the thousands of years old Terracotta - unfortunately the lighting wasn't the best in there.
Hanging out on the infamous city Wall in Xi'an
Terracotta Soldiers
More of them!
I think this guy was the Commander.
A tasty .75 cent snack.
A sketchy looking street vendor reminiscent of the one that left me sick for 3 days, in the hospital on IV's, and forced to get a shot in the butt!
There were dozens of these little clothing stores throughout the markets.
My friend Rob and I enjoying pancakes, a sausage, and a hashbrown at Mickey D's. We've been meeting one on one to talk about life, Scripture, etc. and McDonald's seemed like a fitting place to read and discuss His Word.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Darn Those Sketchy Street Vendors!
Wow it’s hard to believe that my time in China is already half over! Today happens to be the midway point for this unique adventure, and therefore I think a good day to update the blog. Most of it will unfortunately be a rather unpleasant, but somewhat comical story:
This past weekend on Saturday night I was in downtown Chongqing (pictures below) which is about a 50 minute bus ride from the University with a group of six fellow students. We arrived a bit early for dinner and therefore decided to grab a snack. And, while there was a great supermarket with all kinds of American snacks about 50 yards away, a few of us decided to eat some spicy, sketchy looking “lamb on a stick” from a conveniently located street vendor. At the time, the meat tasted fine and myself and the other students enjoyed a nice night in the city shopping for DVD’s and clothes, and eating at Pizza Hut for a taste of home.
When we got back to the University, however, my stomach began to hurt. I was hoping it would be just another stomach issue that could be resolved by Tums, but as I watched a movie with my roommate and a couple friends, the pain in my stomach slowly began to increase. By the time I was ready to go to bed around 1:00a.m., it had compounded to the point where I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. Therefore my roommate convinced me to throw up (thankfully in our dorm rooms here we all have our own private western style toilets!). So I tossed the pizza, which was relatively expensive by the way, and popped some NyQuil hoping to pass out for the next 8-10 hours. Unfortunately, this plan backfired because I woke up about half an hour later feeling very groggy, disoriented and extremely nauseous. I limped my way to the bathroom, puked a second time for about 5-10 minutes and basically for the next 6 hours I puked 3-4 more times, dry-heaving. My body became very achy, and a fever flared up accompanied by a migraine. I tried eating oatmeal around 6a.m. but my stomach wouldn’t have it. That went too. To top it off, by the morning the food was coming out the right end but the wrong way!
Then at 8a.m. I called Robb Willett who came with another Chinese friend and they helped me limp up to the campus hospital which was about 10 minutes away. They translated my symptoms to the doctor who had me take a blood test. After discovering how dehydrated I was, they put me on an IV drip for 9-10 hours. And, while in the States this wouldn’t have been too eventful, the Chinese hospital was a bit different. The room they put me in was only a little larger than my dorm room and already had 3 other patients in it with 3-4 visitors. The bed I laid on was a bit dirty and had unwashed sheets with urine and bloodstains, as well as saliva from past patients. There were ant’s crawling on the ground eating crumbs, flies buzzing around the room, and the bathroom was a stinky squattie pottie with no soap, paper towels, or hot water. The IV equipment itself thankfully wasn’t that sketchy, but everything else was and I was in terrible shape being dehydrated, dizzy, nauseated, and exhausted though unable to sleep. To make matters worse, my fever wouldn’t go away so the nurse had to give me a shot in the butt in front of 7 other Chinese people! My bed was in the middle of the room and she had me roll over and pull down my pants. The shot wasn’t quick either. It took about 15 seconds to administer and made me sorer than I already was for over 2 hours! (While this was humiliating it was rather hilarious and my friend Tracey who is a Chinese student here who stayed with me in the hospital to translate taught me “Wo pigou tong!” which is “My butt hurts!” and the nurses got a kick out of me telling them this when they asked how I was feeling.)
When I finally got out of the hospital that night around 8:00pm, I tried to eat some rice porridge for some sustenance but my stomach said no and I puked twice more off of a 30 foot balcony outside the restaurant. Thankfully, however, when I got back to my room I was able to take a long, hot shower and once I took the 3 Chinese medicines the doctor gave me I slept rather well for 9 ½ hours. The next day I went back for another IV for about 2 ½ hours. For the next two days all I ate was rice, crackers, and bananas and I stayed home from class to rest. And now, five days later, I am slowly getting back to being healthy, though my diet is still rather meager. While this experience wasn’t glamorous at all, it is something I will always remember and I will definitely be more appreciative of American health services.
Aside from this painful experience, everything else over here has been going well. My classes have very little homework so I find myself with a lot of free time. Somehow, however, I feel as though I almost always have something to do especially since I am in the International Dorm and have made friends with the Minnesota students and other foreigners. I’ve spent time playing soccer, ping pong (losing to Chinese freshmen girls on the tables outside the other day was humbling), playing badminton, reading the Bible (Robb, Andrew, and I are reading it in 90 days), tutoring and being tutored 2-3 times a week (Tracey is teaching me Mandarin, and I’m helping her English pronunciation and teaching her “big” words), watching movies/tv shows (a group of us are watching “Freaks and Geeks” right now – a classic one-season-wonder TV show about the 80’s), and exploring the city and 2-square mile campus.
This next week our group is going on yet another traveling adventure to the city of Xian which was the capital city of China during six of the early Dynasties and is home to the Terracotta warriors. I’ll update again sometime after that with hopefully some sweet pictures!
A couple more observations:
1. Charades or other games like it would have been great to play before coming over here as we continue to struggle to explain what we are trying to say using body motions and hand signals.
2. Since such a small amount of Chinese people own cars, they walk nearly everywhere here. And besides the times we opt to take a motorcycle taxi (a little freaky – I’ve only done this once), or a campus bus, we also walk everywhere. Therefore I find myself walking up to 3-4 miles in a day sometimes. Quite a different story than in the States considering at home I’ve definitely driven from Ashton to class before!
Downtown Chongquing. As you can see I'm nearly a head taller than most people and am therefore able to see over the masses that were there during the holiday weekend.
Some delicious little fruit pancakes we found in downtown Chongqing.
A couple of friends in downtown Chongqing showing me their beautiful smiling faces.
A statue of the infamous Mao ZeDong on the SouthWest University campus. I still need to walk around campus and the local city BeiBei and take some pictures.
This past weekend on Saturday night I was in downtown Chongqing (pictures below) which is about a 50 minute bus ride from the University with a group of six fellow students. We arrived a bit early for dinner and therefore decided to grab a snack. And, while there was a great supermarket with all kinds of American snacks about 50 yards away, a few of us decided to eat some spicy, sketchy looking “lamb on a stick” from a conveniently located street vendor. At the time, the meat tasted fine and myself and the other students enjoyed a nice night in the city shopping for DVD’s and clothes, and eating at Pizza Hut for a taste of home.
When we got back to the University, however, my stomach began to hurt. I was hoping it would be just another stomach issue that could be resolved by Tums, but as I watched a movie with my roommate and a couple friends, the pain in my stomach slowly began to increase. By the time I was ready to go to bed around 1:00a.m., it had compounded to the point where I wasn’t going to be able to sleep. Therefore my roommate convinced me to throw up (thankfully in our dorm rooms here we all have our own private western style toilets!). So I tossed the pizza, which was relatively expensive by the way, and popped some NyQuil hoping to pass out for the next 8-10 hours. Unfortunately, this plan backfired because I woke up about half an hour later feeling very groggy, disoriented and extremely nauseous. I limped my way to the bathroom, puked a second time for about 5-10 minutes and basically for the next 6 hours I puked 3-4 more times, dry-heaving. My body became very achy, and a fever flared up accompanied by a migraine. I tried eating oatmeal around 6a.m. but my stomach wouldn’t have it. That went too. To top it off, by the morning the food was coming out the right end but the wrong way!
Then at 8a.m. I called Robb Willett who came with another Chinese friend and they helped me limp up to the campus hospital which was about 10 minutes away. They translated my symptoms to the doctor who had me take a blood test. After discovering how dehydrated I was, they put me on an IV drip for 9-10 hours. And, while in the States this wouldn’t have been too eventful, the Chinese hospital was a bit different. The room they put me in was only a little larger than my dorm room and already had 3 other patients in it with 3-4 visitors. The bed I laid on was a bit dirty and had unwashed sheets with urine and bloodstains, as well as saliva from past patients. There were ant’s crawling on the ground eating crumbs, flies buzzing around the room, and the bathroom was a stinky squattie pottie with no soap, paper towels, or hot water. The IV equipment itself thankfully wasn’t that sketchy, but everything else was and I was in terrible shape being dehydrated, dizzy, nauseated, and exhausted though unable to sleep. To make matters worse, my fever wouldn’t go away so the nurse had to give me a shot in the butt in front of 7 other Chinese people! My bed was in the middle of the room and she had me roll over and pull down my pants. The shot wasn’t quick either. It took about 15 seconds to administer and made me sorer than I already was for over 2 hours! (While this was humiliating it was rather hilarious and my friend Tracey who is a Chinese student here who stayed with me in the hospital to translate taught me “Wo pigou tong!” which is “My butt hurts!” and the nurses got a kick out of me telling them this when they asked how I was feeling.)
When I finally got out of the hospital that night around 8:00pm, I tried to eat some rice porridge for some sustenance but my stomach said no and I puked twice more off of a 30 foot balcony outside the restaurant. Thankfully, however, when I got back to my room I was able to take a long, hot shower and once I took the 3 Chinese medicines the doctor gave me I slept rather well for 9 ½ hours. The next day I went back for another IV for about 2 ½ hours. For the next two days all I ate was rice, crackers, and bananas and I stayed home from class to rest. And now, five days later, I am slowly getting back to being healthy, though my diet is still rather meager. While this experience wasn’t glamorous at all, it is something I will always remember and I will definitely be more appreciative of American health services.
Aside from this painful experience, everything else over here has been going well. My classes have very little homework so I find myself with a lot of free time. Somehow, however, I feel as though I almost always have something to do especially since I am in the International Dorm and have made friends with the Minnesota students and other foreigners. I’ve spent time playing soccer, ping pong (losing to Chinese freshmen girls on the tables outside the other day was humbling), playing badminton, reading the Bible (Robb, Andrew, and I are reading it in 90 days), tutoring and being tutored 2-3 times a week (Tracey is teaching me Mandarin, and I’m helping her English pronunciation and teaching her “big” words), watching movies/tv shows (a group of us are watching “Freaks and Geeks” right now – a classic one-season-wonder TV show about the 80’s), and exploring the city and 2-square mile campus.
This next week our group is going on yet another traveling adventure to the city of Xian which was the capital city of China during six of the early Dynasties and is home to the Terracotta warriors. I’ll update again sometime after that with hopefully some sweet pictures!
A couple more observations:
1. Charades or other games like it would have been great to play before coming over here as we continue to struggle to explain what we are trying to say using body motions and hand signals.
2. Since such a small amount of Chinese people own cars, they walk nearly everywhere here. And besides the times we opt to take a motorcycle taxi (a little freaky – I’ve only done this once), or a campus bus, we also walk everywhere. Therefore I find myself walking up to 3-4 miles in a day sometimes. Quite a different story than in the States considering at home I’ve definitely driven from Ashton to class before!
Downtown Chongquing. As you can see I'm nearly a head taller than most people and am therefore able to see over the masses that were there during the holiday weekend.
Some delicious little fruit pancakes we found in downtown Chongqing.
A couple of friends in downtown Chongqing showing me their beautiful smiling faces.
A statue of the infamous Mao ZeDong on the SouthWest University campus. I still need to walk around campus and the local city BeiBei and take some pictures.
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