End of week 4

Today marks nearly the end of 7 weeks in China already.  Its astounding how fast time seems to go when you look backwards.  Turning and looking at the present, I am equally astounded at how normal everything seems that a life in China entails.  Strange sounds, unfamiliar people, odd tastes, a language that makes little sense to me, and social expectations that make equal sense are all becoming less and less foreign. 

Some words tonight, because the sun has set and it is 7:30 PM (1930 because everyone here uses the 24 hour clock) here but only 3:30 am in Alaska, on this normalcy that surrounds us in our daily lives at Sichuan University Jinjiang campus.  First is basketball.  Luke and I just returned from playing with some students we met last night and I had a blast, which is a big surprise and I’ll tell you why in just a second.  First of all, basketball seems to be the heart of the campus.  The courts, of which there are about 12 in a large fenced-in square, are in the middle of my life at the school.  If I want to leave the school, I walk through them; when I go to class I usually walk by them; and when I’m done with class I often watch people playing as I walk back to my room.  Basketball is the sport that all the sporty kids do.  It’s stars are my go-to examples in class for people to write about (If I had an airplane for a day, I would fly to Yao Ming’s game and play with him….).  The NBA are three English letters that all the Chinese know regardless of their English knowledge; most of them have NBA jerseys they wear like crowns.  “What’s your favorite NBA team or player?” is a common introduction on the courts.  Everyone seems to play and love basketball.  Football?  Maybe 6 or 8 guys out on the field at a time.  But basketball!  Basketball draws a crowd when the pickup games are good and the recently completed semi –finals for the department tournament drew a crowd that encircled the court.  Noting this cultish fascination with basketball, I knew I was going to have to learn.

Before this week, I had never played a game of basketball in my life.  P-I-G and such on afternoons on Brendan’s driveway, yes, and a short 2-on-2 with Peter Drake and Luke and Willie in Colorado, but that was about it.  I can’t dribble, I can’t shoot, the ball feels enormous and unwieldy in my hands, the strategy besides get the ball in the net is as foreign as Chinese, and all that contact seems like a fist fight to someone who has played no-contact sports all my life.  With that background information brought to light, you can now fairly judge the incredulousness of the statement “I had a blast playing today.”  I first played with Luke and some PE teachers yesterday and got thoroughly embarrassed.  Everyone quickly realized my ineptitude and soon whenever I got the ball, everyone would step back and let me shoot.  I still missed every time.  That was fun in the end when I started to get it.  But today was the breakthrough.  It was 4-on-4 pick-up to 3 and losers gave up the court.  I did not suck completely against all expectations—I made a few baskets and played some OK defense.  I even dribbled around the court a few times.  But mainly I had a blast and wanted to play more.  Success.  Expect to see me more out on the courts, and to get some basketball shoes. 

Next is badminton.  I played this afternoon as well with two of last year’s Chinese teachers.  Also a blast.  B Dawg, you would love it here.  The students who play are very competitive and have very expensive rackets and ruin the birdies.  I felt worked after an hour of chasing drop shots and long shots.  The nets are along the fence on the square of basketball courts and thus, are a part of the campus’ sporty heart.  Today, a Friday afternoon, all of the courts and nets were completely filled with students playing.  This large showing of athleticism impressed me and gives the campus a lively feel on a Friday afternoon.

The students here are a stark contrast to the students in America.  Walking around you see lots of girls holding hands.  Its not that they are gay, its just a cultural trait—girls hold hands when they are close friends and are talking or feel a little nervous.  That got me the first few days here.  From my experience, they don’t usually bring a pen and notebook to class, and they don’t expect to be called upon or ask questions.  They have curfew at 11 (taps being played on loudspeakers announce when its time for bed) and their power gets cut to enforce it.  Dorms are male and female segregated.  They have a course load that is staggering.  20+ hours of class a week is normal.  But the greatest difference is found on a bottom shelf at the convenience store below our apartments.  In the middle of the drink aisle, taking only one shelf about 3 feet wide on the bottom is beer.  First, imagine if on your American campus, about 40 yards from your dorm, was a convenience store that sold beer.  How big would their beer section be?  How much would they sell of that section every Friday night?  It would be the entire aisle and maybe a second, needing a refill every weekend!  But here, I feel that the American teachers are the only people who buy beer from that store.  I have never seen any student buying beer, no matter how late it is on Friday night.  At first I found it shocking, but than as I talked to more and more students, I realized that if they aren’t playing sports or in class, they are studying in the library or classrooms.  All they do, it seems, is study (at least the ones we can talk to in English).  And if they aren’t studying, cutting loose and having fun is playing video games late into the night. 

This intense focus on studying all the time is the biggest difference I can sense in the students here.  Back home, people study really hard, but then enjoy their free time.  Many of the students I talk to are studying for big exams that will determine the fate of their lives, which they will take in 2 months or even 4 sometimes.  And I can understand- the stress of a test like that is incredible.  Back home, it was just a cycle of free time and small tests you had to study for.  The written test for graduating Biology was a joke compared to these tests. 

I have yet to be persuaded that these stress-packed exams are…… effective indicators of learning.  I wonder at the difference between book knowledge and analytical thinking, if real-world preparedness and test scores are mutually exclusive.  Maybe there just isn’t a more efficient way to sort through the immense numbers of graduates in the world’s most populous country.

And off to bed for me.  Somewhere between the lines I watch Seabiscuit with Luke, wandered around campus and saw the campus concert going on outside the dining hall, and ate some sub-par ice cream.  Have I written than Chinese ice cream suspiciously doesn’t taste like ice cream?  It might be lactose free.  And chocolate doesn’t have cocoa I suspect.  Its always nice to watch and listen to an American movie.  Such a world seems so far away…. 

Goodnight

Sick in China

Sadly but not so surprisingly, I am sick again in China.  The first time was caused by some unknown foods at a Hot Pot restaurant across from the college.  Luke and I were movie-ridden for a week, only going to class and eating about half a meal a day.  This time was more catastrophic, involving (once again) Hot Pot.  This time was in ChongQing and it involved some undercooked cow stomach, which was forced upon us by our host, who said it will give you a strong stomach.  Nope.  Besides being gross on the way down, it was gross on the many repeated efforts to come back up the next day as we traveled back to Pengshan on the bullet train and bus system.  After a terrible day (the worst yet), I thought I was better yesterday, and ate like I felt.  Today I am paying for it.  Called off class and stayed in bed almost all day, listen to my stomach gurgling like an aquarium (a phrase I picked up from my dad describing his past stomach maladies) and running to the bathroom all too frequently.  Not much to tell on this end, but two surprising things happened today because of this:


1) About 10 minutes after I texted the class leader that class was cancelled, my phone rang off the charts with messages of good wishes from students.  From advice to encouragement to simply saying feel better, they succeeded.

The gems:
"Matt.  You should pay attention to the body to improve.  Everyone worries about you.  Eva"

"Mr. Matt: wish you get well soon.  Bonnie"

"We are very about you hope ~ that you can care of yourself"

"Matt ~ I heard you had a illness.  I am taking care of you.  Hope u take care of u.  And come back soon.  Annie"

"Hope Mr Matt take care of yourself and we will be looking forward to your return"

"Take more rest and drink more water.  Anita"

"Matt: is that you?  Monitor that you are ill, take your number so that we greet you, regard to hope that we will not disturb your rest!  You better hurry up!  Hope to see you earlier!"

"Teacher Matt.  I am your student sally I heart you are sick we all worry.  i look forward you have good health"

And an e-mail:

Matte:

         Hello!

        Heard you have fallen ill, has caught cold right?  Some worried about you!

        We here weather cloudy clear does not decide, you must pay attention add the clothes! You remember to take medicine on time.
       My friends and I still waiting for you in class too! Hope you recover soon!     

        Rina

 It took getting sick to realize how wonderful the students are, despite their cold and shy appearance in the classroom that is so alien to a westerner.

2) Luke and ALex talked to Dr. Zhou and she was also very worried about how much I have been sick.  (They failed to mention that its always the Hot Pot)  So, she talked to the chefs at the teacher's food area and is working on getting a western dish option at the meals.  The problem: no one knows how to cook western food!  Luke's solution: have foreign teachers teach them, like Matt!  OK, I like it.  And then baking came up and Dr. Zhou learned that I have experience in a bakery.  Her new goal: acquire an oven for the kitchen and have baking lessons.  I'm excited.  Luke's excited.  Alex is excited.  We shall see.  

My stomach is saying time for bed.  

gurgle...... gurgle....... gurgle......

Foods I have missed today: toast, ice cream, and TOAST!!!  Whole wheat toast.

Teaching

Week 3 done with classes.  Having survived three weeks of classes, an equally impressive feat for both the students and myself, I am sure, I have gained a great deal of perspective.  First off, I don’t know how in the world my mom rarely came home after a day of teaching and didn’t complain.  If I had a family to come home to, I would definitely have some whining to do, or stories to share, or frustrations to vent.  It is not as easy as she made it look.  And I don’t remember her working at night making lesson plans or thinking of activities, which has become, sadly, my routine.  I hope that with time I become more time efficient.  So, my hat is off to you mom and all the other teachers in my past.  You made it look easy.

       Secondly, I am learning that being the teacher is artful, tactful, mindful.  You blend exercises like a painter does colors to keep the audience’s attention.  You are tactful in your lesson plans, thinking of different ways to present to all of the learning types and how to be efficient at it.  And you are mindful of the future, both over the semester’s and the student’s future; trying to make the lessons build in a logical and useful way.  It is harder than I expected.

       Some words on my classes: I have three classes, all are the same topic (New Concepts English 2), and all have the same majors: second year art majors (non-english).  Two of the classes are 47 students and one is 27.  That’s a lot of students.  At first, I thought this would be easy- having to only prepare the same lesson for all three classes twice a week.  Wrong in 3 ways.  #1: Assessing students’ abilities.  Day one was going into it blind.  I had no instructions from the Dean on what to teach besides “just make them talk and teach them something,” so I did a nametag game, a class counting game, and a questionnaire for each person.  Immediately I discovered that no one understood what I was saying- too much English.  So I became a mime and acted as much out as I could for directions.  Class was painful with the main success surviving and getting the questionnaires back to assess their writing abilities.  Deciding that I was starting from square one, the next class I went in with a bunch of fruit and had them repeating what is what, doing a worksheet, and then an activity asking how much prices are.  I thought it a hit and even had fun.  This week, however, I heard that one student went and complained to their teacher from last year, exclaiming “we aren’t in kindergarten!  I know what an apple is.”  That got me down for a moment, but it made me reflect on the fact that students here in China have a huge disconnect between their written knowledge and their spoken knowledge. Classes rarely ask students to respond to a teacher or use the lessons creatively.  Instead, its all about tests and worksheets.  So, while they are really good at writing about apples, asking them in front of the whole class to identify the apple was like asking them to kill a kitten.  So, #1: writing skills > speaking skills and now my goal is to make them speak English.

       #2: Teacher obstacles.  This is how I’m used to it working: the teacher comes to class with all the handouts already copied at the teacher copier, the projector turns on instantly, and class runs smoothly.  After asking the teaching assistants for English to make me 131 copies twice and seeing the shock on their face, I knew something was wrong.  Turns out, teachers do not make the copies in China.  In China, I don’t think they usually make copies or handouts much at all.  ‘That’s just not in the budget.’  Instead, the students all pay into a class fund at the beginning for copies and one student, the monitor, is the one in charge of it.  So, if I need a handout made for class, I have to give it to them at the beginning and have them copy it during the beginning of class.  These copiers are independent operations in little shops in the college and 47 copies runs about 14 RMB (~2 USD).  This hinges, however, on the monitor being there.  This person is supposed to be very responsible, but one class has a monitor who’s been consistently late (karma biting me back I believe) and another who’s been totally absent before.  There’s also a tech who unlocks the projector/computer/speaker box at the front of the room at the beginning of class.  No student = no key = no projector.  That has happened unexpectedly.  And when the monitor was late one day, I had the tech girl do copies and during the break (more about that), I found her charging each individual student for the copies.  Another day the electricity simply didn’t work in one room.  Top floor on a hot day, no fan, no projector, no lights.  Teaching in China is rife with unforeseeable obstacles. 

       The class schedule is also a thing of brilliant chaos.  The first class starts at 8:50 and goes until 9:35.  10 minute break and then class goes again until 10:30.  Then from 10:35 to 11:20 with a 5 minute break and then class is over at 12:05.  The afternoon is equally baffling.  This amounts to the bells that ring around campus meaning very little if you aren’t in class as well as myself continually worrying I’m missing a class at some weird time. 

       #3: my classes are at different units in the book.  I assumed they were all at the same lesson because no one told me otherwise, but that became visibly wrong when I told one class to open to page 225 and I almost had a riot for a classroom.  They were only at 135- didn’t I know?  After some rough patches, I now know that my three classes are at Lesson 27, 28, and 34 respectively.  This week that meant three lesson plans, but once I can catch the one class up a lesson, only two for awhile. 

       Already some students have emerged as gems.  Shelly from the 27 student class gave me a mooncake last week and wished me a happy Mid-Autumn Festival (which was this Monday and is the traditional Mooncake giving and eating holiday).  And Apple and Emily did as well yesterday- these small acts of thoughtfulness make me feel like I’m back in Whitman.  Barton- the BIG guy who sits in front, everyone refuses to sit next to him, but he always has a big smile and will give answers loudly.  My goal is to make him the cool kid in class.  Lewis is in another, who answers anything loudly and has a great sense of humor.  He’s also my go-to guy.  Madam, who sits in front of the small class, is up there simply because I like to say “Madam, what is your answer?”  Some names that stand out on the roster: Rax, Rain, Eiffel, Windy, Monkey, Atland (from a small Western village- also a gem- who I silently call Asland in my head), Oven, X, Bok, Ix, Zva, Brilliancy, Beyonce, Nova, Jade, Daisy, Eleven (I think of the House character 13), and Bella.  131 names are way too many for my poor brain to learn quickly, but I hope to get them sooner than later.

       Life on campus is like how I imagine life as Brad Pitt must be.  Today after class, I was walking back to the apartment and I saw a girl hiding in the bushes taking photos of me as I walked by.  I smiled, waved, said hello, and then posed for her.  I thought she might die of embarrassment.  The paparazzi is everywhere, be it students staring as we walk by or camera phones following us whenever we go about.  Already we are the popular dinner dates with students, with one such tonight.  Knowing Alex has been a blessing because we get to meet senior English majors who carry on great conversation and love to answer out questions and laugh with or at us.  I’ve truly enjoyed many of such outings and we are planning a big trip for next weekend with Alex, Serene, Cassia, and the two of us.

       At first I was very surprised that I was teaching non-major English classes to low level students.  I thought that I was being underutilized.  But after being here for 3 weeks of classes and talking to many major students, I realize that the education here orbits around tests.  And for most of the English majors, there is one test that is the center of their universe (what it is called escapes me at the moment).  One major student told me that they never take a writing class in their 4 years here.  They all work very hard, ridiculously hard day and night (that topic is another posting entirely), but all that work is geared toward bookwork and passing a certain test.  Can you tell I’m judgmental?  With this in mind, I realize that its safe for the college to put me in charge of a classroom that isn’t accountable to scores on a test later.  Its safe for them and gives me freedom for what I’m teaching.  Maybe next semester (I don’t think this is a year long class), I can do a majors only writing class after the tests are all done in December.  The Dean promised to reshuffle the schedule later (‘sometime’ is the common Chinese timeframe for doing things), but who knows what will happen.  For now, I’m an entertainer with hopes to make them excited about speaking English.

       Tonight there is a competition that sounds like “America’s Got Talent” but “Sichuan University Jinjiang Campus’s Got Talent” with most of the students filling the audience and there being actual judges.  Alex and Luke and I have decided to sing Jason Mraz “I’m Yours” tonight to please and humor the paparazzi.  We shall see- Luke and I sound pretty good so far in rehearsal.  Who knew that I’d be in China singing to the masses?

       Thanks for reading!

~4 hours later~

       Well, it happened.  We went to the competition, which was a stage set up next to the track with an enormous line of people waiting to compete.  A panel of judges, 20-30 second sound bit, and no musical background to accompany you was the obstacle to reach round 2 of the competition.  We were told immediately from some friends that they knew the judges and it would be ok for us to go for fun.  It took some egging, but Alex, Luke, Stone (a singing English major we met on the way) and I all ended up on stage in front of a rather big crowd of Sichuan University students with mics in our hands.  We sang the first stanza and chorus of the song, all the while flashes were going off throughout the crowd.  A cheer greeted us onto the stage and bid us farewell.  Luke and I agreed the judges and crowd would have let us finish the song had we wanted.  And as we got off the stage, we were rushed by ‘fans’ all wanting photos.  It was so funny, and fun, to be a rock star for an evening.

       Then we regrouped with the rest of the American teachers and went to the teacher’s KTV lounge, where they serve you free beer and food trays in a private room and have 5,000 English songs to pick from.  Highlights: Homecoming by Kanye, I’m Yours, ChumbaWhumba TubThumpin’, Alicia Keys I Keep Falling, Jessie’s Girl, Ghostbusters, Robyn singing Frosty the Snowman, REPLAY BY IYAZ (Willie, you would love it), and Bohemian Rhapsody to end the night, everyone together.  A day of singing; my vocal chords and ears hurt.  Success.

       Off to Chungqin tomorrow for a 3 day adventure to a new province.  Taking the bullet train there, where the food is said to be the spiciest and the women the most beautiful in China.  Funny how places get reputations…..

Moving

One phrase has stayed in my mind since moving from Shanghai to Pengshan- moving upstream.  In Shanghai, the water was a dark, thick, murky green with a nauseating smell that increased its potency when someone came through on a small boat and dredged the muck below.  I still wonder what he was doing.  In Shanghai, the water wasn't water; at least it wasn't the water I know.  What fish you might catch would never be dared eaten, no filter could make it drinkable again (or so it seemed).  The water was a receptacle for waste that needed to be moved.  I stood on the Bund, leaning against the railing and watched barges pass, filled with coal and logs and metal containers and who knows what else, all moving along the river.  I looked down and saw: soda bottles, candy wrappers, cigarette butts, iced tea bottles, plastic take-out containers, all floating downstream.  The river only served to transport things now.  Gone were the days of people drinking from its banks in cupped hands, of eating from its harvest.

Looking out to the east from atop Emei Shan as the sun rose, I thought again of the murky green road-once-river.  I thought to the day before, when I played in the clear pools of the high mountains, of how the water was so inviting to swim in.  Many people, young and old and in between,succumbed to the temptation; I saw people drinking water off the cliffs as they dripped in the warm afternoon.  We reached to the headwaters; we moved upstream. 

Simon Winchester wrote that to travel upstream in China was to journey back in time.  The farther you went, the less technology, modernization, and pollution had their hold on the land.  In three quick weeks I found how true his words are.  The rivers take the burden of modernization here, as well as the air.  Our college is not at the headwaters; the stream running along campus is the same uninviting murky green; we are somewhere in the middle of the river's course here near Chengdu.  But were are close to some headwaters, close to the mountains.

Emai Shan

The first week here at Jinjiang was like Camp Whitman part 2, only quieter.  No students were here and the shops and restaurants that define daily life now were but locked doors and shuttered windows then.  We spent the first day exploring campus and the eateries outside of campus, then the afternoon in downtown Pengshan with Dr. Zhou at the supermarket.  I highlight downtown because it isn’t a really a downtown compared to Chengdu and Shanghai.  There are a few buildings above 8 stories and the streets feel crowded, but there are only 2 grocery stores, branding Pengshan as a ‘village’ by my students.  For most of my friends and family back home, you would laugh immensely at this rating if you visited downtown Pengshan because it is most definitely not a village but a city and bigger, I suspect, than Anchorage.  As always in China, perspective…….  I’m glad Dr. Zhou came because we couldn’t read any labels in Chinese and without here, I most definitely would have gotten some fish sauce and not peanut oil.  Most memorable of all was a lady perched near the soap section that corralled me into the hair products and was adamant that I not leave until I had bought the shampoo and conditioner and body soap that she believed I needed to be beautiful (despite everyone on the street going to great lengths to tell me I already am by Chinese standards).  I couldn’t help but notice that it was the most expensive.  Finally I broke free from her snares and dodged her back-up that was there in case of such an escape.  I found Dr. Zhou and asked where the dish scrubbies might be- it appeared they did not exist in China.  She innocently took me back to the shampoo assailant and asked her.  Snared again to my dismay…..  Once the dust settled, I had a scrubbie, no shampoo or conditioner or body wash, and had checked out.  Whew.

The highlight of that first week was travelling to Emei Shan, the nearest mountain and one of the 4 most sacred Buddhist sites.  Emily came along as translator and guide, which proved invaluable as we made about 6 bus transfers just to get there.  We took a bus halfway up the mountain on a narrow, zig-zagging road and hiked through the jungle for an hour and a half to see the monkeys.  It was incredible.  Finally, we had reached the end of urbanized China and the beginning of forested China.  The jungle covered the steep sides of the valley we hiked up as a sheet covers an unmade bed haphazardly- lots of wrinkles and texture.  Everything was new and green, exciting and beautiful.  We hiked along a lake with ancient looking hotels on the sides with tea houses dotting the side, walked along stone walkways that twisted and curved, stepped and bended over rises and bridges.  Birds I couldn’t recognize caught my eye and then disappeared in the underbrush.  The jungle was so thick and dense it looked impregnable; indeed, the stone steps were the only place that was welcoming to all of the feet we walked among.  Except for the water.  The river we followed was inviting.  Cool , clear, inviting.  Inviting.  Images of the green, slimy water we walked along in Jiading every morning flashed in my mind and I laughed, wading through water so clear and crisp that few could resist.  Kids and adults alike played and laughed in the shallows and the sunshine.  Paradise.  This was the first clear water I had seen in China, an odd thought for someone who grew up in a place where water is taken for granted, deemed clean unless marked otherwise, where clean water is in excess.  Being surrounded by dirty water had been harder for me than I thought.  It made me happy to see people leaning under rock outcroppings with mouths open, letting the cool water fall into their mouths unfiltered.  I felt at home again.

The monkeys were a riot.  A troop of Macaques stealing, posing, and fighting among the tourists gawking.  I loved it, but I also found the people watching fascinating.  So many Chinese are terrified of the animals, some of all animals I have discovered, that being near the monkeys was of the worst and most inhuman tortures imaginable.  A sign of a lifetime of urbanization, of a lifetime disconnect with the ecosystem and components around them.  I know this exists in America too, but I wonder if its to a higher degree here.  Baby monkeys stole the show while bigger monkeys stole water bottles and snacks out of the hands of visitors too scared to move when the monkeys got close.  I laughed as I left, a monkey jumping on my shoulders as I passed under an awning.  I felt his grisly fur against my skin, his surprising weight as he settled down for one moment, and smiled as he jumped off nimbly and lightly, off to find someone who would be afraid and a more lucrative target.  Good luck little friend.  Its amazing how much they look like us up close.  How anyone doubts our commonality is beyond me……..

We got on the last bus heading near the top of the mountain and arrived around dinner time.  The busses stop about 1,000 feet from the top at a small village of hotels and shops all trying to make you pay a whole lot of RMB.  To go up, you either walk or take the chair lift, which was closed for the night by the time of our arrival.  Emily, Penny and Robin (Penny the chemistry teacher, Robin her daughter of 9) stayed at the village for the night.  The rest of us began the hike up.  Up so high, it was cold again.  The first time I’d been cool in China outside.  Up so high, there were firs in the forest again.  The first trees I recognized in China.  Up so high, the birds had room to be heard in their sunset songs, the sunset had clear air to be seen through, the path mostly solitary for the first time in China.  Up so high, I got lost in the silence and the music of the jungle and hiked alone, watching the sun set slowly in a show of pastels.  Luke met some Chinese people along the way and made friends, both parties working on their non-native language.  I drank in the quiet solace of the woods I love so much and had some good time to center myself.  One step after another; indeed, they had built a staircase of stone all the way up the mountain; one step after another, past the closing shops and looks of locals at the wai gou ren (foreigner) and all the people headed down; one step after another and I was to a small Buddhist temple near the top as the sun finally set in the horizon.  I sat on the steps soaking all of the sounds and sights and smells in, as people walking by saying high and taking photos with and of me.  So, this is what being a celebrity is like.  I didn’t mind.  With all of my clothes on, something I did not expect as I was at the bottom that morning and sweating in a t shirt and shorts, we regrouped and decided to stay there that night.  After much negotiating and figuring, we decided it was cheapest to stay at the ‘hotel’ than go higher, and we couldn’t stay at the Buddhist temple (which was cheaper) because we didn’t speak enough Chinese.  We ate glorified instant ramen noodles and played Chinese poker (American asshole on steroids) late into the night with Luke’s new friends.  Stuart and I shared the softest bed we’d had in China yet, Luke and his friend in another (I wasn’t jealous), and Dina and Sam in the third.  I think it was $200 RMB total, so not bad for being on top of the mountain.  Just avoid the bathroom.  I stayed out late that night staring at the stars.

   Even at an observatory in Arizona, the stars were never this clear. There are so many of them, thousands and thousands of stars, you get dizzy trying to make out their  shapes.  It reminds me of nights in Walla Walla, biking far out into the wheat fields and lying on the cut grass stalks, looking up and naming what you saw.  But there is more here.  Even halfway across the globe the shapes are familiar.  They are a moment of    familiarity in between days of infamiliarity.  There are just so many… I remember reading something someone once wrote: “imagine if the stars only came out once in a year, or once in a century, or once every thousand of years.  How man would marvel at that one sighting!  How it would be an event anticipated and celebrated and then recollected like none other. What wonder it would inspire.” And how little everything we make compares to its immensity and beauty now.  Was that Emerson or Wendell Berry?  All I know is  that I don’t want to sleep- just stare at the stars all night.  This view won’t be waiting back down in the lowlands.

I still remember that night fondly; I do indeed miss the stars down here.  We awoke the next morning at 4:40 with the goal of hiking up to the top and seeing the sunrise.  The hotel owner came around at 4:45 waking everyone else up to go see the sunrise.  Only in China do the hotel rooms get a 4:45 wake-up call!  We had a refreshing walk up in the dark and awaited the sunrise from the highest balcony on the highest temple on the highest mountain to the east of the Himalayas in China (or so it seemed that morning).  The east stretched out before us in clear detail, the lights of the city and busy cars the only light in the distance when we arrived.  And slowly light came to the world.  It was a slow sunrise and when we turned around, we could see alpenglow on the snow capped Himalayas behind us.  We think they are the first 20,000 foot mountains of the Himalayan Stepp; they called to us and we both felt their draw.  As the sun moved closer and closer to the horizon, the crowd grew from latecomers.  When the sun finally peaked its red eye onto our temple, the crowd ‘ooooed’ and ‘awwwwed’ as if it were the first time such an event had occurred, as if its occurrence had been uncertain in some way.  Perhaps we haven’t lost that reverence Emerson or Berry spoke of after all.  

The rest of the morning was spent walking around the enormous golden Buddha statue with 10 heads and 4 elephants with 6 tusks each or admiring the views in every direction- Sichuan spreading about in unbroken clarity.  It was an awesome sight.  As the day gained momentum, as did the crowds, the magic began to wear off as tour guides with microphones and groups in tow broke the revered silence.  Clouds began to fill in the view of the east, obscuring even the city below which seemed so close not two hours ago, and we realized that the view and experience we received that morning was a rare and magical one for anyone in China.  Emily confirmed as such with her excitement at our descriptions and pictures. 

The rest of the day was spent sleeping on busses as we went back to the University.  Luke and I talked a long time about Game of Thrones and the characters- it’s a hefty task to keep up with them all.  Every one thought we were talking in a different language.  And now, over 2 weeks later, the magic hasn’t worn off and I return to the sunrise and jungles of Emei Shan when the traffic and clouds of Pengshan are just too much.

Manifest Destiny

-Saying farewell to Tim and Robby, our teachers at SI in Shanghai

I was thankful to leave Shanghai when we did.  I was tired of the smog, tired of the zooming scooters and beeping horns, and tired of the concrete jungle.  I longed to see flowing water that wasn’t slime green and looked like your skin might melt if you touched it; I am certainly not made for big cities.  We had been told that the people of Chengdu live life at a slower pace and that its cleaner out there.  With that in mind as I awoke on Saturday, I was excited to make the taxi journey (which is always an adventure, more in a sec) to the airport.  First, taxi caveat: taxis drive like there are no road laws in China.  One night on a drive from Shanghai to Jiading, the taxi driver would slow a little as he approached a red light, look both ways, lay on his horn, and drive through the intersection.  We stopped at 2 lights in an hour and most every intersection we went through was red.  The driver to the airport exuded particular dominance of the roadway in a maneuver that almost made me pee my pants.  Needing to turn left at an upcoming intersection that was red with traffic filling all the lanes oncoming and with us, he swerved into the oncoming lane as the light changed and split the oncoming traffic, somehow darting in a small opening.  He didn’t even flinch, but I sure did in a major way.  On the drive I was once again struck by how big everything is here.  The overpasses we went under are mind-numbingly tall and wide, the power lines are stacked taller than the ones feeding Las Vegas, and it just keeps going and going and going.  We got to the airport alive, whew, and got the run around with the airlines.

       Looking back on it, airlines in China are not used to people with lots of baggage.  Standing in line to check in, I was amazed with how little people were checking.  Even families of 3 only had a bag the size of a carry-on to check, and here I was with two bags to check and two carry-ons.  At the desk, the lady looked at my passport, my ticket, and at the two bags on the scale and said, “you are overweight, sir.”  (I’m sorry, its all that delicious food around the campus we were at, its not my fault, really, its just that I haven’t been able to run in awhile and and and…. Oh, that’s not what she means)  Thus began the Chinese airlines run-around.  I had to go to another desk which sent me to a supervisor desk because my middle name was wrong on my boarding pass, to which to supervisor just crossed it out on the boarding pass and wrote it right.  Then I had to go back to the original desk and give them a piece of paper from the first desk that said how overweight my bags were.  Then I had to pay them 25 RMB per kilo they were overweight, amounting to 500 RMB (~85 USD).  Oh, but before all of this I had to go to a special bag screening room where they opened one bag and exclaimed when they found my computer battery in it and said I had to carry that on.  And finally, with the receipt in hand, back to the first desk to get my boarding pass back, which had been held hostage while I paid.  If the overpriced fee didn’t dissuade you, the runaround at the airport is enough to keep you from packing heavy in China.

       The airplane plowed through a fog as thick as a blizzard; indeed, I could barley make out the hangers on the side of the runway as we took off.  I had looked forward to a glimpse of Shanghai as we left the city behind us, but the smog and clouds were in too deep of an embrace of the city.  Up and up through the gray we climbed, emerging into a world of rich blue sky that stretched from horizon to horizon.  I smiled.  I think the only windows that were open on that flight were the ones with Americans next to them- the Chinese keep them closed for all of the flight and glare at you in annoyance if you do not comply with the same rules (more to come on this).  It was a beautiful sight (I realized that in two weeks I had forgotten how blue the sky is) and I couldn’t get enough of this world that extended as far as you could see, the ground a rolling and billowing gray devoid of high rises, overpasses, highways, overflowing trash cans, fresh puke puddles, underpasses, and endless shops selling the same bottled drinks.  For three hours, this new world was everything to me.  It gave no indication of what was below us, what urbanization of the Chinese lowlands we were passing over, what geography or geology we were missing, except for one.  Near the end of hour three, one solitary piece of black broke through the ground of grey of the blue world.  It seemed daring, strong, resilient- it was the triangle of a mountain peak breaking the clouds, symbolizing the ground far below.  What I view, I thought, to be a lone figure standing on that peak right then, to look around and see no other land as far as you could see.  Passing over, I couldn’t tell if there was anyone standing on top of that mountain.  It symbolized the west we were coming to, a ruggedness that I recognized, adventures to come, and it awoke excitement in my heart.  After the mountain, we began our descent.

       The sight that met the airplane window on the other side of the cloud bank almost made me cry.  Green.  Sichuan province was made of rolling hills covered in green.  The fog was eerily the same as out east, but that green was enough to make me forget about such trifling matters.  And that green seemed to continue all the way up to the runway.  I left Shanghai peering out a window with a frown.  I landed peering out with a smile.

       Landing in Chengdu in a group of 6 was very comforting and fun- it felt like we were on some big mission together.  (One small side note was that Luke couldn’t put down his book as we landed and when he finally finished his chapter as people were getting off, I saw the faint glimmer of tears on the corner of his eyes- an indication that what is to come in the books were are reading isn’t easy.  He wouldn’t tell me and when I found out weeks later, I definitely shed a tear)  We got our bags and passed through the gates of Chengdu to meet Dr. Zhou.  She is a sweet lady- short and in her late 50’s, she speaks is if there isn’t any rush to the world.  He English is great and carries on conversations with a laugh.  She met us with a big smile and handshake, as well as an assistant named Nicole and a school bus.  Awesome.  We rode the next hour into Pengshan talking with Dr. Zhou about the school and our apartments and our classes and what we were going to do for the next week since we didn’t teach for a week and about our classes and about our….. She was a champ.  In Pengshan, her second but main helper named Emily was waiting at a fancy hotpot restaurant for us (the staff had stayed late past closing waiting for us) and they treated us to an amazing dinner of hotpot mushrooms, one of the best meals in Pengshan I think, and maybe Sichuan.  The server (fu yuen) said that there were 14 types of mushrooms in the soup, as well as dofu (tofu) and chicken.  And there were amazing dishes on the side that I’ve forgotten about, but I can’t forget how happy and full I was that night.  We didn’t talk too much once we got there, just ate and reveled in the thought that we were now home, at least for the next year.  Emily took us to our rooms on the campus that night, and after a very short look around and exclamation that “this is incredible!” I passed out.  First night at Sichuan University Jinjiang College and in my new home.

A move from the big city, a dead computer, and some advntures in the meantime

I'm back, and hopefully this time for good.  The short of the computer problems: my motherboard fried on the Mac.  The solution to come.  For now, Shanghai.
Urban China's first impression is an affront on the immediate senses- your ears are constantly surprised by passing horns, your eyes are always catching stares as you walk anywhere, and your nose gets the worst of it all.  Be it the delicious smells from passing restaurants that you want to explore or the repulsive scents that linger along the streets from the waste cans and street vendors selling cooked meat that has probably been in that cart every time you've passed this week without being changed out, your nose endures it all.  Some highlights from Jiading: the wet market we visited, where many people get their produce and meat in the neighborhood; there were countless types of fish, crawfish, snakes, and eels swimming in crates of water as well as turtles without their shells on the side.  The diversity of fishes struck me- more than I could keep track of.  One thing has proven true about the Chinese: they eat most everything that grows in their country.  The same goes for the produce section in the market- the variety made my mouth gape, as well as all of the types of eggs they eat.  How could there possibly be 8 different types of eggs to eat?  I never could figure out what the ones covered in mud/clay were.....

A case study illustrating the mentality of the Chinese workforce became immediately evident outside of the hotel from day one.  The University we were training at had started a massive project to re-do the drainage system of the walkways around campus because they always flooded.  When we arrived, most of the walkways were gone and almost none of the rebuilding had begun.  Tim offhandedly said "yea, this will look nice in about a week when they're done," and I took it as a joke.  Who wouldn't- the walkways in question cover most of the campus.  The area they were working with was huge.  But from when we got there, the crews worked non-stop.  From when I awoke at 7:00 and well into the night, around 9 to 10, they worked on those walkways and drains.  One aspect that surprised me is that these construction workers didn't look like construction workers.  In the US, you think of ripped and chiseled young guys or weathered and tough older men.  Either way, you wouldn't pick a fight with them.  But these Chinese construction workers didn't look extraordinary in any way.  They looked like regular skinny Chinese people and almost indistinguishable from everyone else on the street.  In fact, they wore regular street clothes and regular street shoes on the job.  One night as I was walking back to the hotel, I passed a woman on the crew shoveling gravel into the holes of the once-paths-and-soon-to-be-paths and she was schooling them.  Working twice as fast I reckoned, and she was this short skinning Chinese woman.  I was very impressed.  And the pace of the workers wasn't a hurried one.  They slowly plotted along, no outwardly rushed aura to them, but they worked longer than most people in the US would (they were there through the weekend as well).  They had these ancient 4 wheelers that looked as if they were the prototypes for the original WW2 Jeep, and they had a big bucket mounted on the front for hauling material around the site.  All day long, they puttered and spitted and backfired through campus, dripping oil and coughing black fumes like an 80 year old lifetime smoker.  I wasn't surprised the couple of times I came across one with a wheel off and the axle supported by blocks, surrounded by a pool of oil.  But the next day it would be sputtering along once again.  Every day I would swear would be its last, but those rusty machines and those skinny workers finished the walkways in a week and a half. I was amazed.  It must have been the day after they finished when the rains came.  And when it rains in China, it rains hard.  A deluge.  And how did the new drainage system handle this deluge you might be asking?  I had to take off my shoes and socks, roll up my pants above my knees, and wade through the foot deep lake that was the newly completed walkway.  Shaking my head, I said to Tim and Luke as we forded the lake, "Only in China......."

I ended last time with the circus.  THE CIRCUS BLEW MY MIND.  I did not expect much and that probably made it all the better.  I kept looking over at Luke with my mouth completely dropped (and I would notice that his was as well) and then they would do something even crazier.  I can't do them justice here, except to say that it was so crazy that you won't think I'm serious.  A guy on a balance board (skateboard balanced on a long cylinder) that's stacked 5 boards high tossing bowls onto his head- 5 total and then a spoon, acrobats jumping through some stupidly high hoops (should play ultimate, they'd crush Willie), then they did triple backflips off a teeter-totter that others were jumping onto, then that wasn't easy enough so one guy did it on stilts, then another on a single stilt, then 8 motorcycles driving around and around a steel sphere that should only fit about 4, a couple swinging from a long scarf high above the crowd without safety wires, and a guy spinning a very large vase on his head and catching it there as well.  Again, only in China.

I quickly discovered that the bulk of Chinese beer is Utah rated 3.3% alcoholic beer that does more to hydrate you than have its other desired effect.  But it makes for a refreshing anytime of the day in the hot and muggy weather.  The plus side to being in Shanghai was that real beer wasn't impossible to find.  Stuart, one of the teachers who came to Pengshan with us, had his birthday on the second week and Stuart likes the fine things in life.  Stuart also likes drinking, being the recent college graduate he is.   So, Stuart wanted to go drink fine beer for his birthday, to which we all happily obliged.  He found this brewery in downtown and after a communication mix-up and Stuart taking a taxi across town to the brewery we were at (the thought that there could be multiple Boxing Cat breweries completely slipped us) we were drinking double IPA.  It was easily the best beer I've had in a long time.  And we ate our first western food in China, making it a double delight.  All were merry, Stuart got Breezed twice (Ices don't exist in China,but Bacardi breezers do) and became impressively belligerent and we all missed the last train back.  Good thing an hour long taxi ride only costs 140 yuan ($22 US).  On the last day of our training, 
-Hold that thought one moment.  Remember last post when I said that even when its sunny in Shanghai, the sky isn't blue because of the pollution?  Well, I just walked outside to the balcony here in Pengshan, far to the west of the coast, and was immediately struck by the blue of the sky.  Its blue here!  Yahoo!  Not Alaska blue, which I didn't know was a unique blue until now, but far closer and warmer than the big city.  It turns out my pollution indicator is the color of the sky...

Back to the last day of training: Luke and I walked down to the big supermarket and found some very special beer.  Very, very special.  Black and gold PBR!  It was PBR in a black can with gold printing for a very steep price of 8 yuan.  What made this most exciting for me was the memory that in college, Rose once got a 12 pack of black and gold PBR from California that was Pabst's Genuine Draft- PGD.  The Chinese PGD, it turns out, is Pabst's Stout. It was the perfect celebration beer and I was thankful I bought 2.  Too bad there isn't any here in Sichuan.  I wonder if China PGD would be a hit in Crested Butte....

The rest of the time on Shanghai was spent eating, studying Chinese, and a little teaching.  My second class was holidays and it went better than the first time.  It even boosted my confidence about teaching, which was a welcome effect.  I was very thankful for that aspect of the training; I can't imagine going into the classroom here for the first time without that practice.  Eating: my favorite snack quickly became Shao Kao (pronounced like an excited kung fu chop), the street side BBQ stands that appear as the sun sets.  Choose what you want from the fridges of ingredients on a stick (lamb, sliced potatoes, green beans, and onion stalks are the favorites now) and then they get grilled with spices, oil, and MSG.  Delicious after a night of KTV.  Another favorite was the street-side soup shop along food row where you picked out your ingredients (more options than you had guesses) from two large fridges and they boiled them all together for your soup.  Usually 9 yuan for more than you could eat.

And slowly, ever so slowly, my Chinese got a little better.  The main breakthrough came when I arrived to Sichuan, when one day I realized that the noises that people were making actually were sounds I could hear and distinguish as distinct instead of the stream of nonsense that I had been surrounded by for the last two weeks.  This realization gave me a lot of hope.  Our teacher in Shanghai was named Peter, an Australian who'd lived in Shanghai for a long while.  He was really comical and entertaining and taught us a basic toolkit to get us through the essentials in China; namely eating.  The way he ran the class was new to me- a language class dominated by him talking and us reciting select phrases.  One memorable day for me was one when I sat on the end of the tables.  At first glance, this would not seem folly, because it is just the end of the table; there is no difference from the middle in regards to foot space or table space.  But the key point is that Peter began reciting from the ends, and this day he favored my end, and this day was a day of very long sentences.  Chinese had never been so hard.  I remember one in which he said it twice and then pointed to me; to which I just threw up my hands and said “pass”.  Not a chance.  But everyday gets a little better, especially with Luke’s help.  I’m thankful for his patience- I can’t imagine how annoying it is to be asked how to say _____ in Chinese over and over and over.  
All for now.  More to come soon- that’s all of Shanghai; next is journeys to and around Pengshan, Sichuan, China!  Miss you all from Zhong Guo.  And bacon and good coffee.  But you all the most.