In Chengdu

We arrived in Chengdu on time and the driver from The Loft Hostel had no trouble finding us. While we, technically, only registered for two nights, we got closer to three nights of use. This is because once we got in to the room, we both, promptly, went to bed. While lights out, on the train, was at 9:30pm; things only started to quiet down about 10:30pm. Even then, there was the constant boarding and disembarking of passengers through the night. Then, about 4am, the crew started bumping around. So, when the lights went back on at 4:30am, most people were already up and awake. This made for a pretty fitful night of sleep.

After getting properly rested Zeneta and I got up and went for a walk to the Peoples Park. This park featured a memorial to the 1911 revolution and is a major attraction of Chengdu.

We spent a couple of hours walking through the park and seeing most of what it featured. I say most, not all, because as we were leaving we were approached by Tray Lee, an independent guide (or, from his card, Cultural Interpreter & Ticket Agent) , who pointed out to us that we had missed the Bonsai Garden. We then spoke to him for a while longer and he made an effort to spark our interest in the Sichuan Opera.

Of course, he was selling his services as a guide to the opera. The opera was something that Michelle and I had wanted to do on our previous trip to Chengdu; but, we ran out of time. This was still something I wanted to do and Tray Lee's offered price was less than the price of the trip offered by the hostels (90RMB verses 120RMB). He added to the pitch by claiming that the performance we would go to was the afternoon performance, not the evening performance He claimed that the evening performance was intended for tourists, while the afternoon show was for the Chinese. He stated that he would sit behind us and insure that we fully understood the performance.

I was noncommittal in the park; but, when I returned to the hostel I did a search on him on the Internet and found a lot of good testimonials. I then sent him a text message, which he promptly replied to, and we were set with an activity for the next afternoon.

Normally the hostels have their own restaurants; however, this ones was under construction. So, Zeneta and I set out to find the restaurant that the hostel was trying to steer us toward , The Woodfish. Because of the large amount of construction going on, most of the street signs were down and while the directions included the instruction to go down four streets before turning, at one point, the question has to be asked; precisely, what constitutes a street? Is it a street if it wide enough for a person the squeeze through, what about wide enough for two people to pass? Possibly, it is a street if it is wide enough for a car; but, does it need to be wide enough for a car to pass another. Of course, street can mean any of these things, depending on the mood of the person who is deciding what a street is.

As I am sure you can see, we did not find The Woodfish on that night. That was not a problem. we went into a cafe that, surprisingly enough, had an English menu. Other than having the names, or brief descriptions, of the food in English the cafe was entirely Chinese and served a variety of local dishes. I ordered several items and we did not finish all of them. I have to say that some of them we only tasted. All done though, it was still less than the bill would have been at a western restaurant (20 RMB). We than headed back and turned in early, seeing as we had a full schedule for the next day.

To Chengdu

(Pictures will come later, I am writing, and posting this, in a Hostel In Xian)

Zeneta and I are finally on our vacation. We started a bit late and the first leg did not go as planned; however, it worked out. And, for a bit more information, I am writing this on my new toy.

Zeneta and I had listed a number of items that we were interested in doing at the beginning of winter vacation. However, there were a number of limiting factors, Then, both I and the
dog were sick. The dog being sick is an issue because I was not willing to leave Gao Jing in a position where she was trying to both deal with a sick puppy and prepare for her exams. My illness was just a cold; but, I was not interested in traveling while under the weather.

once we were all better Zeneta went to get tickets. The problem was that the tickets were not available so I quickly came up with two alternate itineraries. The first alternate was a no-go; but the second worked.

The plan was to go to Chengdu then Xian. The reason for Chengdu was simple. It was to see the pandas. Getting to Chengdu involved taking the D train to Hankou, or, what most people think of when they think of Wuhan. The second leg was a twenty five hour ride from there to Chengdu.

The stop in Hankou was an eleven hour layover. We had some concern because, while we were coming off of a D train, the next leg was hard sleeper. Very simply, we did not want to spend the eleven hours in a hard waiting room. Well, I had no real trouble getting them, the functionaries at the train station, to let us in the soft waiting room, which was, albeit poorly, heated. This lasted for several hours. we used the, clean, if Chinese, facilities, enjoyed our tea, I plugged in my PDA and charged it while reading a book on it.

Then, about midnight, the soft waiting room closed and they sent us to another room. This room was not bad and was not excessively crowded, like the hard waiting room would have been; however, like the hard waiting room, it was very cold. To put things in perspective, it was well below freezing (apx. -2c) and all the rooms, but the soft waiting room, do not have doors. They open directly to the outside. As stated, we were cold.

It was a bit of a relief to get on the train. At least it was heated. Both Zeneta and I had top bunks, which I have talked about before. Further, we were on opposite ends of the car. However, we both, quickly, went to sleep.

As usual, the trip itself was uneventful. The next day the lights were turned off early, about 9:30pm, because Chengdu was the end of the line and it was scheduled for 5:30am.

dinner... with extra smoke

I realize that this is a bit out of sequence; however, seeing as I am back in Xinyang I decided to write about it for a bit before returning to a recount of our short vacation.

It is still snowing here; so, that makes about two weeks of snowing. Of course my bicycle and scooter are under a bump in the snow. The result of this is that I do not expect to use either of them in the immediate future.

Yesterday I got a call from the office informing me that I had a package and, of course, they also wanted me to come by to pay the power and water bill from last month (apx. 368 RMB). So, I bundled up and put the sweater, harness, and leash on Wa Dou and walked over. They have impressive bars on the floor that the Foreign Relations Department has occupied, of the new building. However, the latch requires no key on the inside and with just bars, it is a simple matter of reaching through and opening the lock.

Well, the package was the Ubuntu http://www.ubuntu.com/ disks that I had requested. Ubuntu is a popular, free, distribution of Linux. I requested the disks on their web page and they sent them to me at no cost. Now that I have a second university computer here in the apartment, I was thinking of trying to see if I could get it to connect to the network.

After that I wandered across the street to the café. One can quickly see that even the Chinese consider this to be cold because a lot of the shops that cover the sidewalks, bike lanes, and spill out in to the street, are gone. Of course, the ice is pretty thick, making walking a bit rough.

When I went toward the café, the first thing I noticed that not all the doors were open. Normally, in China, the doors are left wide open for air. The next thing I noticed, when entering, was the fire. This building has no fireplace. Instead of a fireplace a fire had been built in a large, low, metal pan and consisted of a couple large lumps of coal with wood put around them. No, there is no chimney, this is part of the reason that the doors need to be left open, even in winter. I still smell the smoke...

It is times like this that one regrets not having a camera with them. I also noticed, while eating my meal, a mother pulling her children down the side walk on a wooden sled. After finishing, having some food prepared for Zeneta, and arranging some deliveries to my flat, Wa Dou and I wandered back.

End of fall/winter 2007 Semester

The semester is now at a close. Some of the teachers have left, several to never return. Zeneta and I are planning our vacation. And, the snow has started to fall.

This is pretty much the end of the semester. I have given my finals and am, nearly, done grading papers and submitting my grades. The final was pretty subjective; so, what I am grading on is: first, did they answer the question, and second, can I make any sense of the answer. This can be phrased as, did they clearly state a position and support it. This is being graded quite loosely because the Chinese method of education assumes that there is only a right answer. It is not necessary to say why it is right; because, it is right.

This, of course, tests if they understood the question. Because I sometimes speak in obtuse circles the questions were reviewed by several teachers, all of whom used the same questions. We did this to insure that the questions were simple and clear and that we, the foreign teachers, were providing some level of consistency.

I also did something that I have done with some of my classes before. It is a much harder assignment than it seems, both for me and the students, because it tests reading, comprehension, vocabulary, and speaking.

I gave them, in pairs of two students to one story, newspaper shorts. These are short two to three paragraph stories from China Daily, the official English language news paper of China. The assignment is to discuss the newspaper story with their partner, using as much English as possible, and prepare to tell the class about the story. I will then find a way to force both partners to speak during the presentation, usually by asking a question or by just asking if there is anything more that the other partner can tell me about the story.

This is a lot of work for me because I, first, must know enough about each of the, over fifty, news stories to both ask questions and lead the presentation; let alone know if they have interpreted it correctly. I must also move to all of the pairs of students (and with classes that often exceed eighty students, this involves a lot of moving) and check to see if they have any questions about the article or the words in it. I then put some of the words on the board, really a projector, as it is easier for the students, in the back, to read. Those words, or phrases, such as, "stock trade," and ,"obstetrics," would then be explained to the class. While I realize that, ideally, the articles, at this point in the class, should not include any new educational material, the use of authentic material, for exam purposes, almost guarantees that there will be some new words, or uses of words.

There were a couple of surprises when I used this exercise. This is the first time I have used it as a general exercise; as a result, I was not prepared for some of the issues that arose. The first thing that surprised me was that the Chinese students have no sense of world, or even national, geography. By this, what I mean is that the students were, at many times, unable to even identify the names of the Chinese Provinces and Autonomous Regions as being places in China. World geography left the students batting a total zero; they simply have no idea where the countries of the world are (on a different exercise, when I asked some students where Europe was, they had pointed to Canada). I was told, by a student several years advanced from them, that this is a result of the "memorize it and forget it" approach to education in China.

The second interesting thing from this exercise was what they were trying to read into the news stories. This is also a result of the educational system and the nature of reading material for students, in China. The students kept trying to tell me what they should learn from the story in the form of a message or moral.

Almost immediately after delivering his last exam, Collin Brown, the very experienced teacher from Australia, left China for the last time. His wife, Bronee had already left, in order to complete her M.A. and the physical separation was unworkable for them.

He informed us of this the Sunday before he left, before church services. We then arranged for a going away dinner for him on Thursday. Of course, we also put in dibs for his stuff. About all I needed, that he had purchased here In China, was his laser printer. Arrangements were also made to donate several items, such as the TV and DVD player he had purchased, to the local Lutheran church.

On Thursday we all mt at the restaurant, near the East Gate, where we like to eat. In particular, Collin likes the sweet and sour pork and we have been told that it is made with chicken, not pig. The cook makes a lot of other food we like, including candied bananas. In general, it is a popular place with the westerners; even if it is a hassle to get to.

Before going to the last dinner with Collin, Zeneta, Gao Jing, He Zhi Qing , and I went to pick up my suit. Before going to the tailor, Zeneta needed to go by the Veterinarians, with Jing, for Wa Dou. As a result, I waited in the flat, with He Zhi Qing for Zeneta to call us and say that she was dome at the Vet. Well, she never did call. It seems that she had, again, left her phone behind. As a result we got to the tailor well after she and Jing had arrived.

So, instead of just picking up my suit, I was told that she had commissioned three dresses to be made. The owner of the shop still wants me to help his son work on his English over the winter vacation and has offered to make me a free suit if I can do this. His son is attending a university in another city; however, he will be back for a month as the schools release all of their students. I have told him that I will wait and see if I am in town.

At that point we caught a cab back to the restaurant and were in time to meet all of the others. Unlike the cab Mark and Joe took earlier in the same year, our cab did not get stuck, while passing a truck, in an open manhole on the sidewalk that the driver did not see because it was covered with water. There were so many things being done wrong in that last sentence that it elicited an, "only in China."

I am not sure if I will be in town because Zeneta and I have not finalized our plans for the holiday. My travels this year will be a lot less than they were last year, when i traveled with Michelle. On Zeneta's list of, "must do," things is to see the Panda Bears (xiong mao). This is best done at the Giant Panda Research and Breeding Facility in Chengdu. She also wants to go to Hong Kong (Xiang Gang) to see both Disneyland and the LDS Temple (who we have no way of contacting). However, Getting to these places is further complicated by train schedules and Wa Dou's illness.

I did not want to leave him with the girls when he was sick and that leaves us trying to get our tickets at the last moment. Further, for train rides that will take more than a day, I am a bit insistent that we travel in sleeper cars. This has left us facing a shortage of transportation. Today Zeneta and Jing will go back and try to get tickets in a manner that will do what she wants.

There is the final little thing that it has been snowing all weekend. Collin was worried that it would start snowing before he got to Wuhan, on Friday afternoon, as Mr. Gao, the head of the college was driving him there. However, it did not. It started on Friday and continued through the weekend. Wa Dou is not all to excited about the snow. He was already unhappy with the cold and the snow is, to him nothing but cold in a more tangible form.

New Year parties

Following the Christmas parties, there were several New Years parties. Keep in mind that while Western New Year has already taken place, Chinese New Year is yet to come. What is more, the school will be closed down on Chinese New Year.

As a result, we had a couple of New Years parties. The first was with the administration for XYNU and the foreign affairs office. The second was at Hau Rui.

The dinner with the administration was at a restaurant that I had been to before; however, it turned out that most of the other foreign teachers had never been to it before. As usual we went to a large room with several others. About half way through I realized that Ju Hai Ying, Mrs. Jhang, and another person who had come with us were not present. I discovered that they were eating in another room and, considering that some of our party had left, heaving plenty of room for them, found them and asked them to join us.

I ended up eating something that did not set well with me and spent the next week with a sour stomach. These things happen on occasion...

Later in the week several of us attended a New Years celebration at Hau Rui. It was in H2, the new building, on the fifth floor in the new sports room. Last year, the place that this room is now, was an empty, open air, patio.

The master of ceremonies was one of the English teachers.

Of course, the head administrators needed to speak.

The teachers chior provided the singing.

And, there was dancing.

There were also games.

The goal of this particular game was to push hard enough to pop the balloon without knocking your partner over. Near the end, we, the foreign teachers were asked to go up and sing a song for the other teachers. In all it was a good time; however, several of the western teachers were glad when it ended, simply because it was getting cold ( remember, no heating).

New Suit

Today, Monday, was the first day of our Western New Year vacation. We had Sunday off; however, we had to work on Saturday. The reasoning behind that was that we only, officially had Tuesday and Wednesday off. So, in order to have Monday off, we worked on Saturday.

It makes some demented sense. The fact that we even have a Western New Year holiday is new to this year. The Chinese government is trying to bring about a change and go away from the Chinese system of a few long holidays, where the entire country shuts down for a week several times a year, to the Western model of several short holidays. How well it works out is something that only time will tell.

At church on Sunday I had noticed the suits that both Mark and Joe were wearing. Both were somewhat similar and tailored to fit them. In further discussion they told me that they had been made locally. The process is somewhat simple and we decided to go on Monday and see about having a suit made for me.

After church I spent the day trying to get all of the data files moved over to the new computer that the college had issued me. After that I had my violin lessons.

The lessons are going pretty well, the teacher speaks pretty good English and comes over to my place once a week and gives a lesson. She is very fixated on teaching songs, somewhat before I have even gotten the basics down cold; however, I am learning some. He Zhi Qing also comes with her in order to help with the lesson. Seeing as she is, for all intents and purposes, taking part in the lessons, I have already decided that I will give her this violin as soon as I get a better one. This one is fair, but not great, when I got it I really did not know what I was looking for. Now I have a much better idea and, after my vacation with Zeneta, it is due for replacement.

Monday I called He Zhi Qing, arranged for her to come along, and the minor confusions ensued. About forty-five minutes later she called to inform me that she was waiting at the main gate. I then told her to come up to my flat while I lit a fire under Mark and Joe. I had spoken to them about an hour prior, about going, and they had said that they would get ready. Well, they were still lounging about in pajamas.

About this time Rachel, a Chinese Tourism student, arrived to help them during the day and they started moving. We then went down to find a cab and realized that there are four seats in a cab, and with the two girls, there were five of us. The good thing is that neither Rachel nor He Zhi Qing are very big and we had no issues with a couple of pretty girls sitting on our laps ( to give you an idea, next to He Zhi Qing [who, by Chinese standards, is not small] Debra looked like a giant; and, as you may recall, had giant sized problems finding clothing to fit).

We went to a clothing market that neither I nor He Zhi Qing were familiar with. Outside the shops were large bolts of fabric with the better fabric inside. We wandered to the shop that Mark and Joe had previously gone to and I looked at the fabric and pointed to a long bolt of a Grey wool. At that point the haggling ensued; little details, like the material and cost of the liner, for the coat, had to be discussed.

I will say that Rachel did an excellent job of working on the price. So, the first thing I did was to purchase the cloth. Then I was measured and arrangements were made to phone He Zhi Qing if there was a need for re-measurement. At that point the fabric was packaged for a courier to pick it up, by motorcycle, and take it to the tailor who is to turn it into a coat and pants. The total cost is 450RMB and the current exchange rate is about 7.6RMB/1USD. I have to say I am very curious how it turns out; if I like the end result I will probably order more.

After that we (Mark, Joe, Rachel, He Zhi Qing, and I) wandered for a while, until Mark and Joe saw the electric massaging chairs in a shop. At that point they were lost into their own little land of bliss and He Zhi Qing and I wandered off.

Those ain't sheep

Christmas Parties

What a day, first an all schools English teacher (and any other foreigners that could be roped in) lunch. Then a big activity planned evening and formal dinner with the city outdoor activity club.

I barely have the energy to sit down

(added to the 5 kilos that I have probably put on today)

The plan was actually worked out well in advance; pretty much as soon as it started getting cold we began over-planning the Christmas dinner. For the Chinese this is a reason to have more loud parties.

When the Western New Years and Christmas parties were combined, there were a total of nine parties that I was expected to be at. Zeneta misunderstood one of the invites and thought that the fourth was intended to be a business meeting, it was no business meeting.

All but the second were very Chinese; however, only the third, the one with the bike club, was truly Chinese, more of which I will explain later. The first party was hosted by Hua Rui College, which is a division of XYNU and is where I teach (and is the correct spelling, according to Ju Hai Ying, aka, Julia).

Most of the college leaders were there already when Julia walked us over to the restaurant on campus. It is one of the two main restaurants on campus, not counting the canteens, and is well within the old residential section (as I have said, this "small campus" is a city of over fifty thousand residents, many of whom live here year round).

The meal was very typically Chinese, served on a large revolving table and featured a great deal of toasting. One of the harder things for westerners to become accustomed to is the Chinese hesitance to drink alone; they will toast someone when they intend to drink, which leads to, what seem to be, loud, uproarious, meals.

It was also at this meal the we gave Julia her Christmas present, in order to insure that we got something proper we assigned a few of our aids to help shop for her (One teacher's idea was to get her some satin sheets, it was at that point that I decided to ask some of our girls to be the Julia shopping sub-committee). We ended up getting her a silver necklace.

The party was pretty much normal. One thing I noticed was the older man next to me was putting water in his bi jiu (a Saki like drink) cup. By doing this he was able to get away with drinking a lot less because, as one of the main leaders, it seemed that everyone wanted to toast him at least once. It was a good, if sneaky approach. My approach was to just tell them that I did not drink bi jiu (Wo bu he bi jiu).

There were no real shocking stories from this party. We all had a good time and the westerners all left sober.

The next was one held at one of the coffee shops in town and was hosted by the westerners. It was attended, not only by the teachers here, but also by teachers from the Agricultural College (Don't expect much from the Agricultural College, it is no Davis. It has a very small campus in the center of town and has no farm. The Ag project is a small, trash strewn, concrete pond in the center of the campus. [here is a List of Higher Education Institutes in Henan Province]).

The Coffee shops are not what an American would think of as a coffee shop. They are a chain of restaurants that serve western style food and are generally very plush. Due to some confusion we were not given a room but combined some tables in the front of the restaurant. The main confusion was caused by our attempt to reserve. The Chinese seldom reserve for dinner so they did not understand when Ken went to reserve several weeks in advance. We all took a guest so there were also a large number of Chinese students, I took Gao Jing and Zeneta took Huang Yun. It was necessary for both Zeneta and I to take an aid because I was going somewhere else after the dinner and Zeneta still has trouble getting around town by herself; so, Huang Yan was there to insure that Zeneta made it home.

From there Gao Jing and I caught a cab over to the bike shop. The bike shop was hosting a Christmas dinner and activities for the outdoor club. The first things done were a couple of skill challenges. There was the standard cone weave and there was a track-standing, or slow riding, competition. I was not on my own bike and ended up borrowing a bike from the shop. As a result, I did not do as well as I would have hoped; however, I did not do poorly. I could not even get Gao Jing to try to compete, she was busy talking to a Chinese club member who had been to Nebraska, USA, to study American farming techniques.

It surprised the people there that I did not hit a single cone. There is a trick to the cone weave; it is simple, do not look at the cone that you are coming to. You have already set up your angle, either you will hit it or you wont, look at the next cone.

After the contest (where I won both the foreigner class and the foreigners over forty class) we went to a nearby restaurant. I was surprised at the number of people there and we used quite a few tables. The food was very Chinese and I ended up next to my doctor who at least understood my eating preferences and habits. Of course, the toasting was de rigeur here too. As an interesting variation on the pattern, many people wandered from table to table pouring drinks and, by way of a common toast, leading the table in the making of a loud roar. I asked Gao Jing if we were supposed to be forming any particular word, she told me, "no, just noise, but it is important to be loud."

After the dinner we went outside for the fireworks; in China, any excuse is a good excuse for fireworks. This is the first time I have really looked at the launching of the mortars. A common method is the use of a prepackaged box. The box has a single fuse that is lit then there is no longer any timing or operation issues. Two boxes were lit off and then we went back inside.

When we returned back inside the tables had been cleared of the meal and snacks, such as nuts and oranges, were placed on the tables. At this point the show started. It was an interesting observation; for a people who do not plan much of anything, they do plan their parties. The schedule was full with presentations and dances. I received an award that essentially says, "foreign friend."

Later I was asked to present some gifts; however, I had trouble understanding what they were asking. I was to select five names and read them out. I was then to give them awards of the Olympic mascots. As stared, I was having a bit of trouble understanding just what it was that I was being asked to do. So, there I was on stage, they thrust a microphone in my hands and the first thing I said was, "Jing Jing, where are you?" She promptly waved, smiled, laughed at me, and returned to taking pictures of me, up on the stage.

It is noticeable how the whole country is excited and proud of the planned Olympics. It was not like this the times that the Olympics were in America. I hope I am wrong; but, I foresee disaster.

When the program ended, like most Chinese events, everyone quickly filed out. The people here do not linger and mingle. Gao Jing and I quickly found a cab and headed back to the college. The rule is that students are not to ride in cabs onto the campus; so, I rode the cab through the gate, where the cabbie told the guard' "I have an American in the car," and we were flagged through. I then sent her, and the car up to her dorm. It was too late for her to be out walking alone; particularly considering that a couple of students, both girls, had been killed walking through the woods, on campus, at night in the previous month.