Beyond Gushi and back

I was starting to get bored so I had the idea of going for a bike ride. I had actually been thinking of this from the beginning of the summer. However, my first plan didn't work because I did other things.

So, with the new plan, I thought an interesting route to take would be the road to Shanghai. This follows National Highway number G312.

I then went and purchased a set of panniers (saddlebags) for the bike and had a cargo cage placed on the front rack. It was at this point that I noticed that one of the brackets for the front rack was broken and I returned to the bike shop and had it repaired. They added a new brace at, again, no charge. At this point, the front rack was probably stronger than it was when I purchased the bike, and the light was no longer bouncing around.

I also got a hammock. I went all over looking for a set of ratchet straps but was not able to find any. Along with the hammock I got an atlas for China.

I then went to the office and told them that I intended to ride to Shanghai. They went ballistic. I was told that it was forbidden to go by myself because it was not safe and I would have to find someone to go with me. Well, I had already checked with the riding club and there was no one that was able to go with me. The office staff then offered to go on a ride "around the lake" with me on some undetermined weekend in the future. I told them that I do that almost every night with the riding club. To them the idea of making a 20km ride as a short evening ride was shocking. They then offered some 100km ride, again, at an undetermined time, that would go, the large loop around the lake. I pointed out to them that I had done that the previous weekend.

The point of telling them that I had been going on long rides was to let them know that I was already an experienced rider. However, they were rather adamant that I could not make a solo multi-day ride through China.

My response was to tell them that I would instead ride to Luoshan; of course, from there I intended to ride to ride to Huangchuan, to Gushi, to Anhui Province, to Luan, to…

I started my ride in mid-afternoon, which was not the best of plans. I skirted the town instead of riding through downtown with a full load on the bike. This took me a while as it is a larger town that it looks. I can easily believe the population estimate of over 2million in this "small" town.

On the first day I rode about 85km and was about 25km from Huangchuan when I decided that it was time to start looking for a place to sleep. That is when I came upon, what turned out to be, a great idea. Instead of going with my plan to sleep outside, I tried something else. I remembered that most of the schools are boarding schools and this was summer. That meant that the dorms were going to be empty. I remembered that the colleges often open the dorms in the summer for travelers and decided to try getting a dorm room.

I rolled into a school and asked for an English teacher, so that I would be able to explain what I wanted. There was no English teacher and I was about to roll out when someone shouted, "Wait!" I turned back and called a student to translate for me.

It turned out that they were hesitant to offer me a room because the conditions were very poor. I told them that my other option was to sleep under a tree.

I was then offered a teachers room and the teacher in charge of the campus, and his wife, prepared me dinner. The dinner was good and, although we had many language difficulties, we managed to talk for a while. I was in Zhai He at the number two middle school. I have to say that I never did see a number one middle school. I was surprised by the number of students that were present. It seems that some of them can, for various reasons, some of them financial, return home in the summer, others were the children of the other teachers that were on campus through the summer.

The best English was spoken by one of the girls. She was in the eighth grade and she did a lot of the translating for us during our dinner. Before dinner I was kept busy working with the students by reading their English study books to them.

I was also asked to sit with them and watch the foreign television channel with them. This is a Chinese station that plays Western news and some old documentaries. The teacher told me that this was part of the problem. He was trying to work on his English and was simply unable to understand a word of what was being spoken. I was asked to tell him what was going on in the news story, which I did. However, I saw his problem right off. The upper caption in the picture was E&F. Yes, you can guess, the reason he was unable to understand was that the news program was in French and there was nothing, that he was able to read, to indicate that it was not English. Even the subtitles were French (and without them I would not have been able to have told him what was going on in the story).

The bed was a cot made of bamboo slats, the toilets were about 100m away. I was advised to use the assembly field during the night instead of walking the distance. In the room, there was a small fan for ventilation and a coal fire (keep in mind that it was already quite warm) to keep the water hot. I was also provided with two plastic pans for personal washing. After washing, I also used these to wash my jersey and riding shorts so that they would be clean at the start of the day. Of course, the next morning the teachers wife took these and washed them, I do not think that she realized that I had washed them during the previous night.

The next morning I left after being taken to a breakfast in the small village and getting my riding clothing off the line. It is hard to leave because the people had been very nice and they want the company. However, I had planned a full day of traveling.

In short order I passed through Hunagchuan and continued on. I decided that I wanted to be in Gushi before lunch and made it by about 12:30. The road actually skirted Gushi so I never saw the town on this side of the trip. I strung my hammock and took a short nap until I was interrupted by some children who started shouting, "Hello," at me. When I did not respond they tried shouting louder and from a closer distance. When I finally did respond, they began shouting even louder and closer. At that point, I rolled up my hammock and rode off; there was no way I would have been able to nap. I was not trying to be rude; however, I wanted some rest. As I pedaled away I heard one of them shout, "sorry."

I stopped at a truck stop, with a church just down the road, and had my lunch. The truck drivers were very amazed at the distance I had come from.

From Gushi, I continued to ride until I entered Anhui Province. Shortly after this the road went to hell (became dirt). I stayed on that until the road I was on, G312, turned onto the expressway. This was a problem, first, bicycles are not permitted on the expressway, along with everything except trucks with four or more wheels (four wheels is not a given), autos, and busses. All the same, I saw pushcarts, trikes, motorcycles, and, of course, bicycles. My bicycle on the expressway did not even garner a passing glance from the police as they drove by.

This section of expressway was not on my map and it looked to be new. However, I also saw no alternate route. I rode about 20km on this but ran into two problems. The first was water. Generally, when riding I empty one 600ml and start looking for a place to purchase another. By the time I find a place I am about done with the second 600ml bottle; so, I buy two. I also keep one in reserve on a general basis. However, along the expressway there are not the little shops and stands along the road and so I was concerned with finding water when I needed it.

The second issue was simply that riding along the expressway was boring. I saw a sign saying that it was another 40km to the next stop and 150 to the end of the stretch of expressway and I turned back.

Now, what I should have done, but I did not think of at the time, was to wave down a passing long-distance bus and put the bicycle in the hold while riding the same bus to the end of the expressway section. Like I said, I just did not think of it.

Instead, I turned back and made it, almost, back to Gushi. I was about 20km short of it when I went looking for another school to stay at. This school did not provide as warm of a reception. They were under the impression that I was a spy, after all, why else would a foreigner be riding around China. Again, my student spoke to them and assured them that I was her teacher, not a spy, and they allowed me to stay in a room for the night. They did not provide dinner, which was fine, I washed and went to bed early and rode out early.

There were no real attempts conversation with these hosts and I heard a phone conversation between them and the PSB that was about me, I ended up under the impression that the PSB were fully aware of my ride. This impression was, in a large part supported by the reactions by the people at the toll stations I rode by. At the first toll station there was genuine surprise to see me go by; but, from then on there was no surprise. However, as I came in to view, there were phone calls being placed.

I must have entered Gushi from a different angle because the first time, as I said, I bypassed it; however, this morning I rode through it. This was convenient because I was ready for breakfast. I was concerned though because, for over an hour, I was on roads that I did not remember from the previous day.

As I returned to G312 I decided that there was no reason to not take a bus, as I had planed to return by bus at the beginning of the trip. The first medium-distance bus I caught up with, while it was stopped, did not take me because I told them that I wanted to go to Xinyang. They did not want to take me because they were not going that far.

It is a good thing that I missed the first bus; as, while I was riding those additional hours I came across a funeral procession. I, simply, had seen none in the villages in China (sorry, no pictures, that is considered very poor form). The previous day I had also seen a new funeral mound that still had the fans leaning against it.

About an hour or two later I chanced upon another medium-distance bus. This time I did things a little different. I first looked at the destination sign in the window. Then, when they asked where I wanted to go, I told them Huangchuan. After I was on the bus I told the attendant that my final destination was Xinyang. As a result, when we got to Huangchuan they stopped across the street from the long-distance bus station and shouted to a driver; by doing this, they made sure that there would be room for my bike in the hold.

This bus took me all the way back to Xinyang in air-conditioned comfort. As I passed places I had slowly pedaled by just short days before, I thought that what advantage the bus had in speed, it lacked in the ability to add wisdom and experience. In about two days, and nights, in the Chinese countryside, I had pedaled 315km; of course, that did not count the time and distance on the busses.

Two warnings for travelers

There are two issues that any westerner considering spending part of their life in China must be aware of. The first is the driving, I have alluded to the suicide taxi rides in the past, I will elaborate; the second is the practice of trying to drink the guest under the table.

The driving I will discuss in more detail as I describe the visit to the high school. The second I will also discuss in that trip; however, it is common to many of the formal dinners that we have had in China. It seems to be a bit of a game here to try to get the guest drunk. This is accomplished by a plenitude of toasts directed toward the guest followed by the, ever common, "bottoms up." There is an expectation that the guest will down the entire drink, along with the host, that is, generally, some form of vodka. However, one must consider that there are, generally, at least four hosts to each guest; thus outnumbered, the guest will generally loose this game.

Following our return from the park, and an afternoon of rest, several of the teachers met for dinner. Instead of going to one of the usual places, we allowed some of the students that were with us to make a selection.

They chose a small restaurant. However, this restaurant did not have an upstairs dining room. So, instead of eating inside of the main, and public, dining room, at the restaurant, we had our tables and chairs set up on the sidewalk in front.

Dinner with some of the other teachers

The next afternoon, on Sunday, I went for another of my long bicycle rides. I followed the route that the bus generally takes into town, stopping at a store near the base in order to get some shoes and to price a pair of boots. I then rode into the main part of town and past the point where the bus turns. This route took me to the opposite side of Xinyang City. At that point I turned back and rode, following a very indirect route, back to a bookstore that I had seen earlier in the week.

The thing that I had noticed about this bookstore was that the signage was in English. It was clearly marked as a bookstore. I was interested, considering that they had taken the trouble to put up an English sign, if there would be a good selection of English books. This was in no way a sure thing, considering that many of the buildings sport English signage; however, it was definitely worth checking.

I had first seen the bookstore when Michelle and I were returning with our new bicycles. However, at the time it was not convenient to stop so I simply filed it away, mentally, as a place to return to. I am reaching the point where I can, generally, go to the places that I want to within Xinyang. Riding around on my bicycle, instead of relying on cabs and buses, has definitely helped me in learning the town.

A main street taken from a pedestrian overpass

Many of the roundabouts have statues and sculptures, such as this one, in the center

Some of the many plazas

In the bookstore I discovered that the English selection was very limited. There was one, small, wall that contained about a dozen older works and texts. All of the books were clearly intended to help the reader learn English language and culture. An example of this would be Mark Twain's book, "The 1,000,000 Pound Note." The book contained the story along with study exercises and insert pages describing clothing in the 1870s and how they differ from common western clothing today.

From there I went to the computer shop where I had gotten my power adapter several weeks prior. I needed a particular computer part (it didn't do what I wanted; however, I wanted to try) and while the shop owner ran to get what I wanted I sat, in the shop, and had the tea that was brought to me. They also provided me with an extra network cable at no additional charge.

From there I returned to the bicycle shop and had my brakes adjusted. They were not working well and I was able to show this to the people at the shop by holding the brakes and moving the bicycle forward. By doing this I demonstrated that the brakes were not holding, thus stopping, the bicycle. Having recently purchased the bicycle, this maintenance was preformed at no charge (cable adjustments are normal after a bicycle has been ridden a while initially following purchase).

From the bike shop I continued riding around town making semi-random turns that took me through several plazas. I then followed the road that runs along the river that is near the campus. This road sees very little traffic and runs next to several parks including one that we had previously taken pictures at when Zeneta and I visited it with Summer and some other students. There is an alleyway that runs between this road and the road that is in front of the campus. This alleyway ends almost directly across the street from the main gate of the school and is how I returned to the housing area.

Pictures taken along the ride home, I find the little catamarans to be interesting

On Wednesday my routine was altered somewhat. Normally, I show a movie for my students. However, I, and the other English teachers, were invited to dinner. So, I did not stick around a watch the movie with the students. Instead, I showed them how to operate the projection equipment, and I ran off.

The source of the dinner was rather unexpected. It turned out the Colin was asked to be in an advertisement for a furniture store here in Xinyang. As a way of thanking him, the English teachers were invited to dinner at one of the nicer restaurants here in town.

With us, the western teachers, there were also several nonwestern English teachers, the director of teaching, the chair of the colleges board of directors and his sister, the director of the finance department. There was also the host and his immediate family.

Left to right, director of finance, director of teaching, chair of the board of directors

We started the evening by watching Colin's commercial. In it he spoke Chinese. He had been thoroughly coached on the lines that were necessary.

After the showing of the commercial, and some time spent chatting, we had dinner. Wendy, one of the teachers, sat next to me in order to insure that I did not do anything to embarrass myself. Her advice consisted of translation, telling me which foods were to be eaten with which utensil, how to properly respond to toasts, and the like. She has assisted me at several formal dinners and has also been a great help at work. She teaches one of my classes (fifth class) in their grammar class. She has reported that my students enjoy my class and consider it to be of great value for them, which is something that I was glad to hear.

Director of teaching, Wendy, and myself

The dinner was the typical Chinese arrangement with a large round table with a large rotating platform in the center of the table. The platters are then placed on the rotating centerpiece. Each person then takes a small portion off of the platters and eats it. There is a small bowl that is used for soup and most of the other food is eaten with chopsticks.

A very nice example of the normal table setting

Later in the evening we were served some small crabs. It seems that these freshwater crabs are served as a token of esteem and are considered to be delicious.

Colin and Bronee in the picture on the left, The picture on the left is Dez and Lynn, in that same picture Wendy is on the left and Julia (not the same Julia we went to Zhenzhou with) is on the far right

Zeneta and I with the teacher who translated and advised Zeneta, also a picture of our host and Mr. Zheng

Cloin, Bronee, and the wife of our host and a picture of Julia with the finance director

After the dinner we all stood for pictures. The way that we managed to get the entire party into the picture was to have the waitress operate the camera. At that point, the drive home was provided by the chairman of the board in his Volvo wagon. Zeneta and one other rode in the back, Wendy and three other English teachers (yes, that is a total of four) rode on the middle seat and I rode in front. It turned out that the director is a great fan of western classical music and has a great investment in high-end audiophile equipment (I have to compliment Wendy for translating from the center seat, with someone sitting on her lap, while speeding through Chinese traffic at night).

The entire dinner party

Thursday I had arranged to have dinner, after English club, with two of my students. On of these was Warlik, whom we have invited for dinner in the past, and Mary, a student who had asked me a question after class. On our previous dinners with Warlik Zeneta has assisted him with some of his English poetry and he has given me permission to include his work here, in my blog.

The Lord Of The Ring

--Light the Dawn

Highly stand you at the top of the mountain

Surveying the starry sky of hometown far away

May be you could have fall in sleep now

But the duty on your shoulder makes you forget the tired

How sad the eyes in the darkness

And the undiscribed pain floated little by little

Who will hold your hand

Go along with you even the future is unknown

God won't leave you

And your weak heart will go longer feel lonely

Stars will round you

Even comes the dark clouds and the heavily snow

Gently breeze whispered

Take your missing to the friends in the hometown

Received the regards from there

The voice of storm are not so terrific

Stars glaring your journey

The earth welcome you with her broad chest

You buried your own happiness

In order to light the dying candle of the mankind

You get on the way far from home

You get on the way full of danger

You never be hesitated although the road is rough

You never afraid of the great length of return journey although back may become

A dream that will never come true

But your faith will lead your direction to go ahead

And your heart will never lost in puzzle

Only you

Fighting with the difficulties

Debate the chanllenges with your wisdom

With the weak shoulder you carried the heaviest duty

The duty to save the world

Your beautiful wish is to built a bridge

Between the painful reality and the wonderful paradise

The songs from your heart heard happily

Your faith will lead you sailing to the dawn

Lofty mountains murmured under your feet

And the fate lead you to the highest height you ever touch

Difficulties ,sadness, loneness and the lure

Everything you conquered as they are just weeds

You'll surely go ahead

For the old men in the ruins calls for your determination

For the women and children crying for their helpless calls for your hope

You'll sure go ahead

Although the road full of horrible storm and heavily blow

But the colorful clouds will make up your destination

And every waiting for your return to crown you

Every bloody track will blossom flower after enter the heaven

The thing hidden in the frightened shaking every time is a beautiful

Forget the under feet thorn and

Stare at the starry sky upon to go ahead

The running river will guide your way

And the flower in the shadow of the trees' will mark your road

Carry on with the friendship ,sincerity and trust

What go away is the passed sadness

The wonderful world you'll see in dawn is created by yourself

Zeneta also arranged to go shopping with Mary. It seems that Zeneta has had trouble finding pants here, in China. Mary told her that she knew of places that would suit her, both in size and in style. My only concern was that she would not miss any classes to assist Zeneta.

This is a problem; the students will cut a class in order to assist us in activities in order to spend the time practicing their English. While I have no doubt that it is a productive use of the student s time, I cannot condone or assist any cutting of class. It turned out that she did not have any classes on the Friday afternoon that she had scheduled to spend with Zeneta and even had the class monitor with her when they went to go shopping with Zeneta.

Friday morning we, Zeneta, Colin and Bronee, and myself were asked to do something different by Mr. Lu and Mr. Zhang. It seems that they had been contacted by one of their former students, who was now the headmaster of a local middle and senior high school. They were asked if we could come and speak to the students at their school and they, in turn, asked us.

We were all glad to go and speak at the school and assembled at the main gate 08:00 on Saturday. From there we were driven, in chauffeured Volkswagens and Nissans, the 65km to the school that was still, technically, within the Xinyang School District at speeds that were often in excess of 150km/h.

One of the biggest things that bothers westerners with the driving is the amount of the time spent on the wrong side of the road; There is the constant expectation that the other driver will dodge. These drivers were no exception. There was the constant passing people by entering the opposing traffic on the four lane road with a double line. Our drivers often found themselves on the wrong side of the road on sections of divided roadway and this is considered normal. The driver will just hug the right (the dividing wall) and keep on going. This is clearly so common here that when we passed a police officer while traveling above the speed limit by over 50% and on the wrong side of a divided road we did not even warrant a glance.

We have adopted the local attitude of fatalism, if the driver kills us then it was our time and if he doesn't then clearly it just was not our time. However, this driving practice is something that a newcomer must be mentally prepared for. It can be a bit unnerving to be in a car that is driven off the road to pass someone on the right; at above highway speeds, or to be passing a lorry that is passing a lorry (leaving you in the #2 opposing lane) with two lanes of traffic ahead and closing fast.

Upon arriving at the town where we were scheduled to speak we turned off of the highway and entered a small town that looked like what we expected; when we agreed to the assignment of the school, that we are now at, we were told that we would be in a small town. This was a town with very few cars on the, often unpaved, streets that were shared with horse drawn carts and lorries with a families riding atop the load of goods in the rear.

We pulled into the main gate of what was, clearly, the most modern and well-kept building in town. Before we even exited the autos we saw what was one of the most surprising differences (however, not the greatest difference) between American and Chinese middle schools (ages 11-17). What we saw was dormitories. Both the students and the teachers (along with most of the administrators and staff) live on campus. There are small shops on campus to supply the students, a canteen, apartments for the staff and faculty, and separate dormitories for the male and female students.

The student dormitories

At the end of the row of dormitories was the main teaching building

The teaching building itself was a relatively new building, having been built only two years ago. It was a large square with an open central courtyard. In the center of the courtyard was a large water fountain with coy in the moat that was bridged at four places. On three sides were the fifty classrooms; on the side furthest from, and facing, the entrance was the administrative area and the teachers' offices. Each teacher's office was a shared office with six to eight teachers.

In the center of the teaching building is a fountain that is surrounded by a bridged moat

The teaching building was very large and the students were eager to see us

This school had over 4,000 students and a combined staff and faculty of about 300. This provided for an excellent student teacher ratio, in terms of schools in China, of approximately seventy students per teacher.

Throughout our entire time at the school we were being video taped by what I suspect were various local news crews and school personnel. They moved from room to room to insure that they recorded some of each of the teachers providing lessons to the students.

School personnel taping my presentation

I discussed the differences, which I have observed, between American and Chinese schools. I ended up delivering the same lecture three times with it being cut short in one class.

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Here I am delivering my presentation

the students were looking in the windows of they could not get a place in the room

The reason that I was cut short was due to an underhanded trick played by one of the teachers in order to get me into her classroom. I definitely compliment her on her ingenuity and recognize that she was a woman who was willing to go the extra mile for her students.

The teacher in the first class I visited

As I was near the end of my lecture in one class, the first I spoke to, she handed Zeneta and I water bottles and told me to follow her when the bell rang. I did this, not being aware that her class was not the one I was supposed to be going to. I entered her class unaware that there was a fight about to break out between this teacher and the teacher whose class I had been scheduled to go to. They discussed it in the hall so that it would not interfere with my lecture. However, once Zeneta discovered what was going on she called to me that I had to cut this one to no more than five minutes. This compromise satisfied both teachers. It meant that I would not walk out on the class whose teacher had been so enterprising, in providing her students the first chance of their lives to see and hear a foreigner, and that I would still be able to go the class that I had been scheduled to speak in.

my second presentation (I think that this is the best picture of me in any of my classes)

While she did not speak to any of the classes, Zeneta was kept busy managing my schedule, which was being developed on the fly. It is interesting that Bronee was doing almost the same thing for Colin as he was also making his presentation before several classes. We really did enjoy the rock star treatment as hundreds of teenagers came to us requesting autographs. Just before the lunch bell rang we were taken to the, waiting, cars so that we would not be blocked in by, literally, thousands of students, all wanting to see and speak to us.

Leaving the school

From there we went to a local restaurant for a large lunch with the school vice president, the headmaster, and the teachers for whose classes we had been scheduled to provide lectures. Also present was the party that had accompanied us from the University.

The vice president of the school and the headmaster on the right

I spent some time before lunch talking to the teacher who was still a bit upset about having me led to a class other than hers when she had been next on the schedule. The time I spent talking with her helped her practice her English and appeared to go a long way to smoothing any ruffled feathers.

The lunch was a typical Chinese business lunch with only one difference; the drink of choice was excellent quality vodka. The food was a typical Chinese fare with a bias, based on our request, toward beef instead of pork. There were still the traditional fish and chicken dishes. Both of these dishes were served complete with head.

The third (supposed to be the second) teacher whose class I spoke to and lunch

After the lunch we were provided with excellent, and unexpected, gifts from the school. In all, it was an unexpectedly good time; even if I did spend the later part of the afternoon in my flat, sleeping off lunch.