Notes from the Far East

The Fast Way Home

2006-08-23T05:18:00.000+07:00

My last days in China were busy with giving away most of my things, tutoring a friend in German to prepare her for spending 2007 in Germany, shipping four boxes of goodies home, and savoring the food and friends and bustling streets that I'll miss. The morning of my departure from Zigong, several friends came to see me off. The foreign affairs office provided a driver to take me to Chengdu, where the Peace Corps doctors gave me a final exam.

I flew from Chengdu to Ko Samui, Thailand, via Bangkok. Here I stayed at a health spa and experienced a 7-day colonic cleanse. I've never gone without food for 7 days, and it was an experience I'll never forget, except for maybe a few light-headed low-sugar moments! The people fasting that same week became a fasting support group of sorts, meeting at the dinner table for our soup broth - hmm with or without herbs? - it's almost like food.

After I finished my fast, fellow PCVs Maria and Rick came to stay at the spa and to eat lots of their yummy, super-healthy food. Together we enjoyed the wonderful food at the spa and did some island touring, including a day of birding (Rick brought a Birds of Southeast Asia book) and hiking to a famous waterfall. Fellow faster Kerrie and I went snorkeling at Ang Thong, the island where The Beach was filmed. My island tour continued with yoga instructor Mike, who took me on the temple circuit.

After two and a half weeks, I flew to Seattle, where I spent a week at my friend Amy's house, touring the city, hiking, kayaking, etc.

1. Good-bye Zigong!

2. Sunrise view from my bungalow.

3. Downed a detox drink of psyllium husk 5x per day.

4. Only veggie broth and coconut water for 7 days.

5. Took acidophilus and fiber capsules 5x per day.

6. Malaysian friends at the detox bar.

7. Enema setup

8. Fetching our last morning coffee.

9. Friendly dogs joined us most mornings at the yoga sala for meditation, and sometimes yoga

10. Broke our fast with mango softie and a fruit plate - yum.

11. Happy to be eating food again!

12. Swimming at Na Muang Waterfall #2.

13. Went snorkeling at nearby Ang Thong Island, where The Beach was filmed.

14. An unheard of site (Wat Sumret warehouse) - a left side-reclining Buddha.

15. Yoga sage Mike pontificates about the wheel added behind Big Buddha.

16. Big Buddha

17. Cousin Alison and I, Snow Lake, Seattle.

18. Picnic at Snow Lake.

Semester Highlights

2006-07-11T00:31:00.000+07:00

This semester the university asked me to teach English classes for the foreign language Department, rather than continue to teach environmental protection to Environmental Engineering Department students. This involved me moving to an apartment on a campus closer to the Foreign Language Department office, and closer to the other foreign teachers, allowing more opportunity for collaboration.

Highlights from the semester are listed here and shown below in photos.
- An American Football Superbowl (I served as photographer)
- Meeting with some Foreign Language department teachers about establishing a teaching methods exchange network
- Each of my students gave a 7-minute English lesson to their classmates
- Student teams planned and guided me on tours of Zigong

Here are results from the end-of-semester evaluation of "How will I use the knowledge and skills I got from this class?"

In my future job (as a teacher, tour guide, etc.) 53

To speak freely with a foreigner, help a foreigner 43

Work on a team 39

Guide a tour in English 37

Plan an active lesson 33

Make a plan before taking action 28

Deliver an active lesson effectively, in English 21

Plan a tour 19

Plan an interesting, active, flexible course - incorporate assessment, small group work, and projects that require planning 17

Speak English with classmates and teacher more confidently 16

To research about, apply for a job, perform well in interview 10

To perform well in future classes and graduate school, study with others 9

Make a travel brochure 5

Make a travel itinerary 1

Always learn from others 1

Improve development of China by giving tours 1

Understanding English newspaper articles 1

Get on well with others 1

Volunteer at the Beijing 2008 Olympics 1

Write a report 1

Be a good citizen

1. Superbowl -- the winning team

2. Superbowl -- all participants, including sitemate Daniel

3. Teaching Methods Exchange -- Talking Turkey

4. Teaching Methods Exchange -- Happy happy first(?) meeting!

5. Lesson Plan Structure

6. Student teacher helps student with an activity

7. Brochure - Old Street

8. Brochure - Miao Guan Temple

9. Local Traditional Hand Crafted Arts Store

10. Rollerskating (!) at the Sports Stadium Grounds

11. I learned to cha-cha at the "Palace for Youth"

12. Temple Tour

13. Salt mining well on Old Street

14. Local antique shop - is it real or a fake?

Women and Development

2006-07-10T02:01:00.000+07:00

This semester, I was involved with several activities that addressed women's issues related to development. The United Nations website has a lot of good information, if you're interested in browsing http://www.un.org/womenwatch/.

The students in this semester's Women and Leadership Workshop helped guide two discussions, one about sexual assault and domestic violence, and the other about balancing career and family. At the sexual assault meeting, my sitemate, Daniel, and I gave a self-defense demonstration. At the career and family meeting, a leader from the Foreign Language Department, who is also a mother, joined our discussion.

At the beginning of June, volunteers from around China gathered at two meetings to talk about the women, gender, and diversity issues and activities at their site. Several Chinese friends joined the discussion. We generated a list of actions that the group wants to take to help new volunteers adjust to life here, and to help volunteers guide activities at their site. Our first action was to have dinner together after a long day of talking. We ate at a restaurant along a river in Chongqing that overlooks one of the city's five downtowns. The population of the greater metropolitan area is 33 million.

1. Sexual Assault/ Domestic Violence: Open Conversation and Awareness are Critical

2. Sexual Assault - Group Reads and Discusses News

3. Self-Defense Demo - Twist and Escape

4. Career and Family Discussion - Read and Discuss Article

5. Career and Family - Mother and department leader Pearl shares her experience

6. Career and Family - Students share information from their research

7. Women/Gender/Diversity volunteer gathering – meeting

8. Women/Gender/Diversity volunteer gathering - dinner

The 2nd Largest Buddha Around

2006-06-18T03:14:00.000+07:00

One of my English teacher friends is from a Zigong prefecture city called Rongxian. Rongxian was the first city in Sichuan to declare it's liberation, as the Kuo Ming Tao was driven out and the Republic of China was born.

Fan Min invited me and two other teacher friends, Guo Yung Ping and Wang Xue Mei, to spend the weekend with her family and enjoy Rongxian. We ate dou hua (tofu specialty in peanut milk), saw the 2nd largest Buddha in Sichuan, took a boat out into a large reservoir (notice me rowing while the boatman kicks back with a smoke - lol).

1. Me rowing around the reservoir while our boatman takes a smoke-break

2. Buddha at entrance to the big guy (Buddha up stairway in back)

3. Buddha face (needs a little cover-up for those acid-rain blemishes!)

4. Buddha from top of first staircase

5. Friends and I share a meal of dou hua (literally tofu flower) in peanut milk - so yummy!

6. One of my student friends is an Yi minority; the other day she brought over her traditional festival clothes to show me (after the trip to Rongxian)

7. Walk with eyes close, arm extended from 10 meters away; if you touch the characters, you'll be lucky

Hainan Dao

2006-05-30T09:26:00.000+07:00

Hainan Dao, or Hainan Island, is a large tropical island off the southern coast of China. I spent most mornings on the beach, reading and swimming on a beach frequented by Russian tourists. Hainan is the "Hawaii of Russia," they say. Mid-day I escaped the hot sun in my hostel's movie room, and spent evenings walking and eating seafood or (one night) making jaozi with other hostelers.

These photos show a day-trip I took with some Brits who teach up in Xian Province. We hiked up to a summit in the Jianfengling Nature Preserve. I flew back to Chongqing, where I had a chance to hear fellow PCV Jens perform live at a bar before catching a bus home to Zigong.

1. Jianfengling Summit

2. Scorched and Smiling

3. One of two houses we saw at the nature preserve

4. Cheers - we made it!

5. Sweet sounds

Yang Ning's Visit to Milwaukee USA

2006-04-22T06:59:00.000+07:00

Yang Ning (aka Emily) is my Peace Corps' cordinator here in China. In January, she went to Goshen, Indiana USA to take a four month course at Goshen College along with four other college administrators from various Chinese Universities.

Over Easter weekend, Emily and Juana (one of the other Chinese women) took a train to the Chicago loop where my Mom and stepfather Larry picked them up. They visited the Chicago Art Institute there before driving to my Mom's home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

They toured Milwaukee and shopped for computers. They also ate at the Alpine Village Restaurant which had been owned many years by my Grandmother Millie, Grandfather, and his brothers.

My family were impressed by their Chinese guests and enjoyed the visit. Their guest's English was excellent.

1. Larry and Mom pick up Emily and friend Juana in downtown Chicago and visit the Art Institute

2. Dinner at the Alpine Village Restaurant with Uncle David, Larry, Mom and my Grandmother Millie

3. My Mom and Grandmother Millie enjoyed music provided by my Cousin Ferd

4. Emily relaxing in my Mom's home

5. Juana's new laptop. Yes, it was made in China

6. Last picture before returning to Goshen, Indiana - a great visit!

Colorful Chinese Minority Culture

2006-04-22T04:07:00.000+07:00

A six-day trip to Guizhou Province, just to the east, was a great chance to see some other volunteers, and to sample some minority culture. Kaili, two hours east of capital city Guiyang, is home to the most dense population of Miao people in China, and therefore the world.

It was a wonderful coincidence that the weekend I could travel was the same weekend Kaili celebrated it's biggest festival of the year, Sisters' Festival. We began by helping a very generous Miao family celebrate the recent (the Wednesday before that weekend) tomb-sweeping festival with fire-crackers, card-playing, and feasting and drinking home-brew alcohol at mountain-top graves. The Sisters' Festival offered dancing, shopping, and riverside bustle.

1. Guiyang's Qianling Park - Walk with your eyes closed toward the wall. If you touch the Buddha�s belly, you'll have good luck!

2. Park 2

3. Singing ladies at the park

4. Our Taijiang guesthouse hostess

5. John, Kathryn, and I at a quick lunch stop in front of a wood stove

6. Miao woman dons pesticide tank

7. Erosion control on mountain side

8. Climb up to graves for tomb-sweeping celebration

9. Mountain air and cell phones and card playing

10. Tomb offerings (after clearing brush from tombs)

11. A feast for us all at the gravesite

12. Dinner feast

13. Two Brits and our host - a toast!

14. Miao traditional dancing

15. Miao woman shopping for traditional clothes

16. Early morning fishing

17. Miao peasant

18. During the Sisters' Festival, young women wrap multi-colored rice in a scarf and give it to a man (I think one they admire)

19. More Miao women shopping

20. Miao kids dressed for the festivities

21. Miao teens

22. Back in Kaili - traditional Miao noodle dish fired in individual casserole pots

International Women's Day - March 8th

2006-03-28T08:53:00.000+07:00

At home in the U.S. I don't think I even knew that International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8th. At my university here in Zigong, Sichuan, China, all of the teachers had the afternoon off and the school held a competition between the women of each department at games like jumping rope and hoola-hoop. In China, many organizations, public and private, give women the day off from work.

Well, Peace Corps volunteers are encouraged to give a campus-wide lecture on Women's Day. My half-hour PowerPoint lecture was followed by a discussion between attendees and a panel of local foreigners. The panel consisted of me, Daniel, a social worker and teacher from Tennessee who is also a PCV, Linda, a chiropractor from Michigan who is pioneering chiropractic in China, and Anne, a retired (Berkeley) professor of theology who teaches at our university. Right after my lecture, each panelist introduced a question or statement to fuel the discussion.

Students asked great questions, and even offered some affirmations about recent, positive changes in China. Their questions spanned the gamut from women balancing work and family to relationships between men and women to women's job opportunities and discrimination to choosing a last name for your child (father's or mother's?).

Many questions, from both male and female students were directed at Daniel, and it was pretty clear at the beginning of the discussion that many were wondering what he was doing there. The question Daniel posed before the discussion, "What is the role of men in empowering women?", drew a lot of laughs from the crowd, and I smiled to myself. The ensuing discussion showed that a lot of young Chinese are trying to sort out the answer to this question. Our answers about the need for talented women to be active in our societies, and how that does not threaten men like Daniel, but only enhances the quality of his life, resounded in the corners of the hall.

1. Rebecca introduces Anne's books

2. Daniel asks "What is the role of men in women's empowerment?"

3. Lots of student questions

4. Lots of guys asked questions

5. Panelists photo op

Ton Soi Beach, Thailand

2006-03-25T02:39:00.000+07:00

Southern Thailand has a number of sunny, beautiful beaches where it's easy to forget about your worries. If you start itching for some activity after a few days (or weeks) of lounging on the beach and reading and enjoying delightful Thai food and drink, there's plenty of opportunity for snorkeling, diving, swimming, and paddling. Ton Soi, the beach I decided to go to, offers all this and also attracts rock-climbers from around the world to its many limestone faces.

1. Limestone Formation

2. Arrival

3. More Limestone Formations

4. Ready to Paddle

5. Paddlin' Fun

6. Happy Paddlin'

7. Longtail boats transport tourists from one beach to another

8. Rock Climbing

9. Rock Climbing Classes

10. Sunset - oooh! ahhh!

Bangkok

2006-03-18T09:11:00.000+07:00

Bangkok serves as a travel hub for Southeast Asia. At our guest house, we could book cheap air fares, buy train and bus tickets, bus trips to the airport, send emails, all, while sipping on a decent beer - finally (Thailand's beers beat China's beers hands down)! While quite commercialized, we didn't have to wander too far to meet locals and sample some food besides the common, albeit delicious, rice curry. What's more, if we brought something we didn't need, there were lots of sales stands that bought and sold everything. Here's a few photos:

1. Bangkok Environmental Education Center

2. Chao Phyra River view from Commuter Ferry

3. Music school near my guest house

4. Water, pop, or coconut milk?

5. Wat Phra Kaew - Grand Palace - Making an offering to the Goddess of Mercy

6. Grand Palace is surrounded by 112 of these bird warriors wrestling with 2 Nagas (evil snakes)

7. Bird warrior guard entrance of Royal Palace

8. Chinese statues, thought to be from merchant ships, guard many Grand Palace buildings

9. Wat Po - Another Temple grounds

10. Wat Po - 46 m long reclining Buddha

11. Wat Po - Reclining Buddha's feet bottoms

12. Wat Po - Statue on temple grounds

Angkor Wat (Cambodia)

2006-03-10T05:54:00.000+07:00

The cultural/historical highlight of my winter vacation was definitely the three days spent at Angkor Wat, the largest religious temple in the world. Ankor Wat and surrounding temples were the hub for the Khmer Empire that ruled much of Southeast Asia between the 9th and 12th centuries. "Angkor" means 'capital city' or 'holy city,' and "Khmer" refers to the dominant ethnic group in modern and ancient Cambodia. At it's height, Angkor capital area contained more than one million people and vast waterworks and grand temples.

The best photos of this temple and the temples and pools that surround it for miles around are at http://www.angkorwat.org/. I also caught a few unique shots...

1. Sunrise at Angkor Wat

2. Entrance to Angkor Wat

3. She sold me fabric

4. Don't stand on the toilet! (some Asians have never used a western toilet before)

5. Terrace of the Elephants

6. Faces of Bayon Temple (37 towers each having 3-4 faces)

7. Trees melting over Ta Prom, another temple

8. Coiled serpents of Neak Pean temple

9. Doorway carving of Pre Rup temple

10.View from Pre Rup towards Angkor Wat

11.Bas Relief at Ta Som Temple

My Winter Vacation, aka The Great Escape, Part I

2006-02-20T04:28:00.000+07:00

This winter vacation I sought sunshine, warm weather, historical places, water sports, and an escape from China, where I've been living for the last year and a half. Cambodia's capital city Phnom Phen and Siam Reap offered a good introduction to this poor country. Fellow Peace Corps volunteer Michele and I flew into Phnom Phen and then took a boat up the Ton Le Sap River to Siam Reap, a small city that caters to tourists who visit Angkor Wat, the largest religious temple in the world.

With only one night in Phnom Phen, I found myself wishing I had more time to explore local neighborhoods, the Russian market, museums, the Royal Palace ... Siam Reap is the most commercialized city I've seen in Asia, and given that Siam Reap is the largest city for miles makes the place a western-priced oasis in a very poor place. Us volunteer-back-packers-on-a-budget really had to look for inexpensive guest houses and local restaurants. Regardless, the visit to Angkor Wat was worth it. What I neglected to take into account was that the three days we visited Angkor Wat coincided with the three holidays given by the Chinese government for Chinese New Year. So, my Great Escape from China was thwarted! Wat's with that?!? haha Ok, here's another "Wat" joke I got some laughs from: Jews worship in a synagogue, Christians in a Church, and Thai's in a Wat?

Michele visited the local Landmine Museum in Siam Reap, where she learned that there are an estimated 6 million land mines still in the ground in Cambodia. Cambodia was a refreshingly undeveloped land, except for Siam Reap. We heard it wasn't safe to be out in the evening, which gave it an inaccessible feeling at night. Still I left the country with memories of a beautiful land, a history of intensely powerful Khmer empires ruling from the 9th through 13th centuries, delicious food, friendly faces, and a curiosity for more.

1. Settling into my sleeping berth on the train ride down to our city of departure

2. Seven serpents hiss from a fountain near Phnom Phen's Independence Monument

3. Phnom Phen's Independence Monument

4. Saleswoman at Phnom Phen riverfront

5. Michele and I ride tuk-tuk's to the market

6. Eating my favorite Cambodian dish: jin jun

7. Cambodian family I picniced with one day - she and I could communicate in German

8. Cambodian Countryside

9. Cambodian abode. Most are on stilts to stay above water during the rainy season

10. View from a local restaurant

11. Gam, our wonderful guest house hostess in Siam Reap

The World Comes to China

2006-01-07T21:37:00.000+07:00

In early November the Environmental Education Peace Corps Volunteers met in Chengdu to attend a lecture by Jane Goodall about her Roots 'n Shoots service learning program. The lecture hall was packed with maybe 300 attendees, and some who could not get a ticket stood by the doorway. Most of the attendees were Chinese, and about 20 anglo-looking foreigners attended.

On New Year's Eve, a fellow PCV and I traveled to Chengdu. During the day we saw a Picasso exhibit at the Art Institute. In the evening, we met a Chinese friend of mine and her husband, who took us out to a northern Chinese food restaurant. After dinner they went on to see a Russian Ballet performance of Swan Lake. My friend and I tried unsuccessfully to scalp tickets to Swan Lake, but the prices were too high. So we joined some fellow foreigners and a few Chinese friends to bring in the New Year at a bar called the Shamrock. Friends, new and old, from America, Nigeria, France, Spain, Nepal, China, and Australia joined us there.

As the New Year begins, I think about what kinds of wishes and goals I have for my life here. Winter mornings are sometimes spent too long under cozy covers, arguing with myself about whether to stay in bed or risk getting up just to have the power go off (and thus have no heat). Morning rides on my stationary bike (no small task to assemble) are spurred on by a kind of nervous energy, hoping that the water will stay on until after I have a chance to take a shower.

It seems that I can wish to leave immediately and stay here forever in one moment. The uncomfortable-ness, the inconvenience, the dust and pollution in the air, the lack of empathy and hugs - how can I stand it? And then I wonder, How will I be able to leave? The lack of judgment, the smiles, my movie-star status, the way people will invite you to their homes for dinner after just meeting you, how things just take as long as they do, the way some people work so hard under miserable conditions: cold, long hours, really hard physical labor (even for older folks), etc. Most weeks, my goal is to not get mad when people laugh at me and/or refuse to speak Mandarin to me and/or are just afraid to speak to me at all.

Another goal I have set for myself lately is to embrace my student's China, or at least give it all a try. Until recently I've resisted certain aspects of life here. I'll never love shopping, but I did finally learn the words to the Carpenters' "Yesterday Once More." My students sing this song, along with another favorite, the theme from the movie Titanic.

They celebrate Christmas in a way that for a long time bothered me because they seem most interested in Santa's face and some Charlie-brown-branches-missing poorly decorated Christmas tress. Why borrow from someone else's culture in such a superficial way (most of them do not understand the religious story behind Christmas)?

But lately I see a new layer to it all: another reason to sing and dance, warming bodies and spirits, when it's 38 degrees Fahrenheit, inside and out?; or simply a way to bring more cheer and beauty, or maybe romantic memories, into a world (and recent history) that seems so much bleaker than the movies and photos from the west? Or maybe just another reason to be able to ask the lumbering (all 5'4" of me) foreign teacher to "give a performance"!

Picasso Print

Keeping Warm This Winter

2005-12-23T04:13:00.000+07:00

Here are some photos that show some of the measures I've taken to keep warm this winter.

The Winter Solstice gathering drew a huge crowd of students and teachers despite chilly temps in the high 30s F. Remember, most people here have no way of heating buildings, so that means 35 deg inside and outside. The Environmental Student Association posted a sign inviting all to gather at 8pm on the Solstice, instructing each person to bring an unlit candle.

On the evening of the Solstice, after dinner with some teacher friends, we headed over to the designated location. At 8:05 I lit my candle and passed the flame to some friends surrounding me, who passed the flame back to others in the crowd. Once we were all "lit" we sang songs. This merriment segueled into the bunny hop and some dancing - the 3 step (waltz-like) and something called the 35 step which is very similar to the hustle. A number of students were still teaching each other dances when I left at 9pm

I imagine the students are a bit restless, with finals approaching, and also because the huge theater/movie hall and the dance hall buildings were both condemned in the last year. Their smiles and enthusiasm warmed my heart!

1. Students at Winter Solstice Gathering

2. Solstice Circle of Candles

3. Dog slippers for my "dogs" - plus a snuggly dog who I sit for

4. Holiday Lights

5. Portable radiator (left), space heater (right)

6. 3-layer insulation on study window: emergency blanket, rice bag material, curtain

7. Air conditioner in bedroom - warm clothes

Thanksgiving in Chongqing

2005-12-01T04:46:00.002+07:00

Some volunteers organized a Thanksgiving potluck, followed by football the next day, in Chongqing. It was my first chance to visit the heart of this mega metropolitan area that is inhabited by 33 million people. About 15 volunteers and 10 other foreigners gathered at the bar designated for our potluck, where we dined on turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkin bread, apple crisp, and other scrumptious goodies. I brought bread that I made in the oven I bought in September.

We drew quite a crowd of on-lookers the next day playing American football. The China 11s (new volunteers) beat the China 10s (volunteers who have been here about 15 months, like me). Wait until those China 11s have been here a year! $%#^&*!

Later, with my tail between my legs, I joined some other volunteers in a trip to Walmart to stock up on spices, olive oil, pasta, etc.

1. Birthday Cake with frosting sculpted goat on top (my Chinese year-sign)

2. Eating one of my favorites, Da Pan Ji - Big Plate of Chicken - at Muslim Restaurant

3. Light Rail 1

4. Light Rail 2

5. Walmart

6. Making mashed potatoes the old-fashioned-way

7. Kay and Thalia - Happy Happy Thanksgiving!

8. Linh and Thalia sample sticky, sugary fruit

9. We ordered a Turkey (not Daniel, my sitemate, carving a slice - he's pretty cool)

10. Marisa and new puppy "Chet" (yes that is a real dog)

11. Happy campers Jen and Jim and Katherine

12. Best smiles from Mel and Anna

13. Hosts brought a microwave

14. Offensive line ready to go!

15. A tough day on the field for Ian

16. Mao knows American football

17. Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut are downtown

Bamboo Sea

2005-10-17T04:56:00.000+07:00

Sichuan's 12,000-acre Bamboo Sea is about 100 kilometers south of where I live. The forest contains about 30 types of Bamboo, along with the requisite food stands, restaurants, road signs, and several hotels. It does contain some fairly large stretches that show now evidence of commercialization except the trail under your feet. However, we didn't explore any of these (next time) because we were on a Chinese Day Out.

A Chinese Day Out is similar to a traditional Chinese meal in that you never quite know when it's going to end. We were lucky to have generous hosts to drive us here and around this vast park, showing us the highlights. Among our hosts were my fellow volunteer's tutor's grandparents. They are members who visit about once per week.

The day began with several stops at key vistas. After a gondola ride across a steep gorge, we walked for about an hour before a late lunch. Little did we know, lunch was so late because we were behind schedule. The rest of the afternoon became a race to see the last of our 7 planned stops before our designated departure time - there was no discussion of omitting a stop. Grandma and Grandpa led our group of 12 on a jog through the park's museum and we never did end up finding the bamboo wares shopping district, despite picking up a woman on the side of the road who was to lead us there. Beautiful sights, cheerful group, entertaining day!

1. Bamboo Sea entrance gate (made of bamboo)

2. Bamboo Sea hosts (Grandma and VP of local school district)

3. Bamboo Love (Fellow PCV couple who's tutor arranged our trip)

4. Bamboo bedrock inspection

5. Tall Waterfall Glides Through Bamboo Sea

6. Buddha of Safety at Jade Corridor of Bamboo Sea

7. Reclining Buddha at Jade Corridor

8. Scenic Waterfall 1

9. Scenic Waterfall 2

10. Bamboo Sea Trip Hosts

11. Rice Steamed in Bamboo

12. Friends and peacocks next to bamboo bridges

13. Linh and Ian providing the "waterfall effect" in lieu of the biggest waterfall we didn't see because time ran short

14. Bamboo trash can

15. Bamboos leaning towards the sun

16. Bamboo ticket booth

Li Jiang

2005-10-09T23:58:00.000+07:00

Li jiang means "pretty river in Chinese." During my visit to Lijiang, the Jin Shan Jiang (golden sands river) was among many beautiful sights. I'll let the photos do the talking...

1. View of Zigong "Fu Xi He" River as I wait for my bus to the airport

2. Naxi Traditional Music and Dance (ala boom box)

3. Naxi Old Town Rooftops

4. Li Xiou Ju - The Carnation Guesthouse Proprietor

5. The Carnation Guesthouse Courtyard

6. (Ubiquitous) Mao

7. Making Friends

8. En route to Tiger Leaping Gorge, the bus driver purchases three bags of la jiao (hot pepper)

9. First day hiking at Tiger Leaping Gorge with Brittish trail mates

10. Mountain Flowers at Naxi Guesthouse - first night on the mountain

11. Edelweiss?

12. Fellow hikers Yannay (Israili) and Siddharth (Dutch) carried full packs!

13. Don't miss lunch at the Tea Horse Inn - they have the best Naxi Sandwiches!

14. Lunch Menu

15. Lunch table overlooking the gorge

16. Forgot my jacket back at the Tea Horse Inn - this helpful horseman helped me retrieve it

17. Trail Warriors!

18. View from the endpoint of our trek

Mom Visits Waiban

2005-09-27T09:59:00.000+07:00

1. Traditional Banquet

2. Mom and I and Foreign Affairs Office Friends

3. Yang Ning and me

Mid-Autumn Festival 2005

2005-09-27T09:29:00.000+07:00

Here's a poem I wrote, for Mid-Autumn Festival, which I celebrated with some friends on September 18th.

A circle of bowls and chopsticks set for four.
A circle of smiles share Mid-Autumn lore.
The lady in the moon gazes down at our feast
As her jade rabbit brews celestial remedies.
A walk ‘round the campus reveals rings of candles and song.
Surrounded by moonlight and bright voices, we relish our “yuan.”

NOTE: In Chinese, yuan means circle and unity and also money.

Mid-Autumn Festival

Kunming Airport

2005-09-19T10:53:00.000+07:00

While waiting for our flight from Kunming to Dengguan, mom and I saw some interesting sights.

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Mom's Last Days in Dengguan

2005-09-19T10:52:00.000+07:00

We took some photos of the campus during mom's last days in Dengguan during the first week of July. Her month-long visit gave us time to do some great traveling and for me to show her a little bit about my life on campus. We made some great meals together and charted new territory with rice-cooker recipes! We cooked in often after my mother discovered that virtually all Chinese dishes, while often very tasty, contain a lot of oil. Some of her parting words to me were about food: "I'll never eat vegetables for breakfast again!"

1. My Apartment Building

2. My Office Building

3. Campus Walkway

4. Student Dormitory

5. Green Beans & Pumpkin - two of our favorites

China's "Spring City" - Kunming

2005-09-19T10:48:00.000+07:00

At the end of June, my mother and I visited a tailor's shop in Kunming to have some silk clothes made for her. Next, we set out for Kunming, known region- and world-wide for it's flower exports, grown year-round here because the temperature rarely strays beyond a 17 deg to 25 deg C range. I'll let the photos tell the story of our week of adventures in Kunming. Here's a journal entry I made about a walk I took in Kunming one morning.

July 1, 2005
On this morning's walk, I watched the city of Kunming come alive. I headed west out of the hotel gate. Mom walked with me just past the bridge that crosses the Pan Long Jiang, which runs north-south through the city.

Yesterday, mom and I walked north along this river to visit a zoo. We strolled through seemingly endless corridors of wonderfully landscaped, wide paved walkways and boulevards through stands of fir and bamboo trees and open spaces that sometimes offered tables for playing majong. While some of the living spaces for the animals looked cramped and dingy, the animals looked health. The coyotes looked the worst, with a pack of 3 to 6 in a cage smaller than my Dengguan bedroom. The peacocks' freeroaming area was a new experience: albino and regular peacocks strutting around or lazing on the grass, head lolling in a peacock's slumber. Not sure I've ever seen a peacock sleep before! Just beyond the peacock park was a butterfly park. We saw the pinned-and-framed who butterflies and designs made from cut wings and opted not to go into the butterfly house. On the way out of the zoo, we caught the last few minutes of a circus-like show with tigers and horses, including a tiger riding a horse!

Continuing west on Dongfeng Lu, I met the signs and sounds of a Chinese city slowly stretching out with it's first yawns and eye-flutters of the day. On my right, old men chatted amid the din of their caged birds. Several groups of women flowed through Tai-Chi-like forms, some with a red fan in one hand and a red cloth in the other. In Sichuan, groups of women who practice morning Tai Chi typically carry swords. These Kunming women held fans and handkerchiefs and ornate red drums that brought back visions of the previous evening's minority performance that mom and I and a fellow traveler, Bethanie, attended. The venue was located next to our hotel. We stopped to check the menu for dinner and ended up enjoying a splendid evening of colorful ethnic minority song and dance, dazzled by the skills of tea-water pourers, who refilled tea cups from about 5 feet away by pouring hot water from a long-necked container. They never spilled a drop!

On another part of the sidewalk, workers were painstakingly inserting small mum-like flowers into a street decoration about 10 or 15 feet tall that was probably for the Greater Mekong (River Basin) Summit. All of the SE Asian countries in which the river flows sent representatives to meet with Chinese to discuss the health of the river, and the economic viability of the communities in it's basin. The source of the river lies in China

I soon came upon a part of Dongfeng Lu where the traffic headed underground and the street gave way to a large pedestrian-only plaza. To the right, an arrow points hungry strollers to the local McDonald's restaurant. To the left is a Super bookstore and some other modern, Chicago-looking department stores. The mall also offered several outdoor coffee stands and lots of tables, tented from Kunming's daily (light) rains and searing mid-day sun. Their signs advertise that they carry Nescafe.

Up ahead about a half-mile, the mall became a road again and I continued on the sidewalk to a pedestrian overpass. The overpass delivers me to the pale-golden-yellow Yunnan Provincial Museum building, shining like a heavenly beacon that marks the end of Dongfeng Lu. On the way back I passed a very large Bank of China building and then saw the Chinese symbols for flowers and birds - I'd found what I was looking for. Kunming's famous flower and bird market is famous for it's variety of minority craft shops and other more generic jewelry and gift stores. Strolling into the alley I saw most shops still had their steel, wash-board "garage" doors down. Continuing on, the alley became a network of alleys. At restaurants here and there, people were having a breakfast of noodles. I turned east into an alley that I could see met up with a thoroughfare. On my left colorful, animated faces perched on little bodies gawked at me from the wall of a shop. Their exaggerated genitals reminded me of the well-endowed elephant we saw at the zoo the day before!

At the end of the alley, I turn right onto another pedestrian mall with trees and bushes planted in rows on a mostly paved way. It leads me back to the Dongfeng Lu mall. To my relief, the only time I've felt crowded in here was when we took a cab through heavy traffic back to the hotel from the zoo. My lungs expand in a deep breath, taking in the roomy Kunming streets as a turn left and head back to the hotel.

1. Silk "Chipau" Dress - mom and her tailor

2. Statue in Kunming

3. Recycling in Kunming - as in other parts of China, trash was in both bins - my work is not done here!

4. Music & Dancing by Ethnic Minorities Ã– 1

5. Music & Dancing by Ethnic Minorities Ã– 2

6. Paddle Boat at Green Lake Park

7. There are many twins in China

8. Yuantong Temple

9. Street Art

10. New Friends! Meking (River Basin) Summit Emblem in Background - the source of this SE Asian river is in China.

11. New Friends Eating Muslim Food

12. View of Kunming from West Mountain

13. Western Gate Guard - Statue on West Mountain

14. Artist Carves Name Stamps

15. Street Life

16. Fountain

17. Climbing West Mountain

MOTHER-DAUGHTER PANEL

2005-09-19T10:43:00.000+07:00

On June 24th, my mother and I attended a special English corner here. I coached the English Corner leaders about how to moderate a panel discussion, and they were smoother than Oprah! The panel consisted of my mother and I and of a (Chinese) English teacher friend of mine, Alice, and her mother. For the students, it was an opportunity to practice their English by talking to foreigners and a Chinese English teacher and to learn about cultural differences and similarities. I was impressed with how the "audience," always translated to English for my mother and into Chinese for Alice's mother, never getting lazy or shy about it. This made both mothers feel comfortable and, while at first Alice's mother was shy about speaking, soon she was sharing parts of her life story and her opinions.

For me, it was an unexpectedly powerful experience. I felt so proud of the interesting questions and boldness from the students who participated; many of them were in my classes the previous year. We talked about how our mothers supported us while we were growing up. My mother started her career in training and organizational development when I was a little girl. I remember going to her graduate school office when I was about 10 years old. My friend's mother's husband left when she was a little girl and her mother worked late into the night to earn the money to send her to school. This story reminded my mother and I about stories from her father's generation, who emigrated to the U.S. and struggled through the depression.

One student asked us to tell each other that we loved each other - my mother and I did this with beaming smiles and a hug, while Alice and her mother smiled, and were more reserved as is typical of the modest Chinese culture.

1. Me, my mother, Alice (Yong Heng) and her mother in front of announcement board for mother-daughter cross-cultured panel.

2. Panel

3. Mom tells the crowd what a great daughter she has :)

4. With our panel facilitators

My Mother's Visit

2005-07-10T22:33:00.000+07:00

My mother arrived for a month-long visit just before my last week of classes started. I primed my students with information about my mother and suggested they come up with questions to ask her. They covered all kinds of topics from Sino-American relations to managing organizations to guns! Some thought she was a Julie Andrews look-alike, others saw Margaret Thatcher in her. We ended several classes by singing "Edelweiss," a song that is special to us because of our Liechtenstein heritage.

1. My Mother

2. Rebecca's Classroom

3.
Singing "Edelweiss"

Mount Emei

2005-07-07T10:50:00.000+07:00

After a week of attending my classes, my mother was ready for some sight-seeing. Our first stop was Chengdu, where I needed to attend a work meeting. We spent a few days shopping for silk scarves and minority folk art, tasting local Muslim food and ex-pat favorites including an Indian Restaurant and the famous Grandma's Kitchen, and even (mom begged out of such a late night) attending a drag show.

Our next stop was Mount Emei. On the 1-hour bus ride from Chengdu to Mt Emei, a local professor overheard us planning to stay in a hotel listed in my travel book and took pity on us. "Your book is outdated," he said. And indeed he was right. His friend picked us up in the town of Emei in his VW Passat (just like mom's car at home), and they drove us 15 minutes to Emei mountain. They first took us to the hotel listed in my Lonely Planet, which cost 770 RMB per night, 440 with a discount, far more than the 280 RMB listed in my book. They suggested another hotel - "same quality, better price." Sure enough, just around the corner we stopped at another grand hotel, where our new friends graciously bargained down the price for a night's stay to 180 RMB!

Known for its gorgeous canyons and medieval network of monasteries and temples, Mt Emei reaches 3099 meters above sea level. During our first night at the base of the mountain, we peeked into the Emei Mountain Tourist Bus Station, only to be greeted by the smiling face of Nathan, a local restauranteur and hotel owner. Nathan recommended a suitable hike for the time and ambition we had, and invited us to eat at his restaurant when we returned. The next morning, we woke early and took a bus to the summit, and then took a bus down to the middle of the mountain to do some hiking. We fell into hiking with a group of Brits who were on a 3-week whirlwind tour of China. I chummed around with the the Chinese guides to practice my Chinese, and got some good advice about the trails. After a day of mountain-top views, peeking in temples and monasteries, wandering through breathtaking gorges, crossing beautiful bridges, and feeding some monkeys (one latched on to mom's leg, determined she would take her with us!), we checked into a monastery room for three with a hearty Frenchman named Jean-Jacque and ate dinner with our English friends. I paused to stretch my legs on the way to bed, and chatted with a former Check-now-British woman as we gazed up at the full moon through the trees.

We awoke on Solstice morning, and had a breakfast of pancakes and omelets before our hike down. On the way to checking the next day's bus schedule, we ran into two local Tibetan students who attend the local college. We spent a wonderful evening dining with our new friends, who gave us a tour of their campus and, through their photo albums, gave us a tour of Lhasa, Tibet.

1. On top (or the “bottom”) of the World

2. What a View!

Biggest Buddha

2005-05-13T20:17:00.000+07:00

Last weekend, my friend Huang Yan and I went to Leshan, Sichuan to visit the Grand Buddha, or "da fo." Even though Chengdu is farther from Leshan then Zigong, the buses from Chengdu to Leshan take about 1 and a half hours. Our bus from Zigong took four hours - and the ride was the bumpiest one I've had yet! Fortunately, our bus had air conditioning on the way back, because it was a much hotter day.

We arrived in Leshan, me armed with my Lonely Planet travel guide and Huang Yan with her cell phone. As we got off the bus two local university students approached us, asking if they could practice some English with me. They were wonderfully helpful, and rode the local bus with us to the downtown district, where our hotel was. They recommended we stay in another cheaper, but equally clean hotel nearby. They also told us which bus to take to get to the Grand Buddha Park, which turned out to be a wonderful maze of paths through nicely-landscaped areas and a number of temples and statues, including the Grand Buddha. They told us to follow the path for "2 mountains" we would reach the boats that ride past the Grand Buddha cliff face carving and carry us back to the city.

The Grand Buddha is a 71-meter-high carving of a sitting buddha on the face of a cliff. Qualifying as the largest buddha in the world, his ears are 7 m long, insteps 8.5 m broad, and his big toe toenail is 8.5 m long. A buddhist monk named Haitong organized the workers to carve the figure beginning in 713 AD. The project was finished 90 years later, after Haitong died. Haitong hoped the buddha's presence would subdue the swift currents below, where boatmen used to vanish into a below-water hollow. His wish came true because some surplus rocks from the project filled in the river hollow. Inside the body, hidden from view, is a water drainage system that prevents some erosion weathering. Last month I saw a news article describing the damage that acid rain is starting to do to this riverside guardian.

Leshan is also the hometown of a famous Chinese writer, Guo Mo Ruo, who was exiled to Japan from 1926 until 1937. The museum in the Grand Buddah Park did not explain exactly what about his writing caused his exile. Well, this guy must have been a very charismatic ladies man, because he was married 13 times. One woman he married here in Leshan lived alone in their home her entire life! We saw Guo Mo Ruo's statue in the Grand Buddha park and in another local park, where the centerpiece of the park is dedicated to Guo Mo Ruo.

1. Jerri and I in front of a Guo Mo Ruo statue

2. Guo Mo Ruo Park

3. Me becoming more beautiful at the "Da Fo" Park

4. Me becoming more lucky at the "Da Fo" Park

5. The designers of "Da Fo" Park

6. The Big Buddha (Da Fo)

7. View of Big Buddha from boat

8. A guard on is carved into the rock on each side of the Big Buddha

9. The Reclining Buddha

10. Taking a carriage ride at Guo Mo Ruo Park

Yibin - wonderful city just an hour south

2005-04-20T04:37:00.000+07:00

Last weekend I traveled an hour south of Dengguan to Yibin, my tutor's hometown. We stayed with his parents, who were wonderfully gracious and also interesting to talk with. My tutor's father, Mr. Ye, has been an English teacher all his life, and told about how the government asked him to stop teaching during the Cultural Revolution. Mr. Ye showed me his coin collection, which has some pieces that are more than 1000 years old.

On Friday, we went to a wonderful local park, Liu Bei Zhi (floating cup pond) where I tried to play the er-hu with a group of local musicians - my skills need some work! In the park is the floating cup pond, where local legend says poets used to come to write. Each poet would bring a cup of strong drink and place it in the pond. When a cup floated to a poet's place, he would drink from it. I suppose the poems flowed more easily as the day went on! At another place in the park, my tutor showed me his uncle's writing on a rock. His uncle was a locally famous calligrapher when he was alive.

On Saturday we climbed up a small mountain to the White Pagoda. On the way, we could see confluence of the Ming Jiang (Bright River) and the Chang Jiang (Yangtze River). When we reached the top we looked across the river to see a black pagoda. My tutor told me the local tale about how at night, the two pagodas could come down from their respective mountains and play together. One night, they were enjoying playing together so much that they did not notice dawn's first light approaching until very late. In their haste to return to their respective mountains, the Black Pagoda forgot his hat and the White Pagoda mistakenly grabbed the black pagoda's hat. That is why the White Pagoda has a black top, and the Black Pagoda also has a black top.

We visited the White Pagoda in lieu of going to the Bamboo Forest, where my tutor thinks scenes of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" may have been filmed. So instead, I had to settle for a morning's hike up to the White Pagoda hike, an afternoon lounging in local hot springs - oh well! That evening I tried the local Ran Mian noodles, which are the best I've found in Sichuan.

1. Mr Ye shows me his coin collection

2. Tutor and friend sit at Floating Cup Pond

3. Entrance to Floating Cup Pond

4. Above Floating Cup Pond

5. Band in park

6. BandMan teaches (?) me to play Er-Hu

7. Tutor next to his uncle's caligraphy

Dazu - Big Buddhas

2005-04-02T04:05:00.000+07:00

Last weekend I went to visit fellow Peace Corps volunteer (PCV) Anna, who teaches English in a suburb of ChongQing called YongChuan. Anna is of Korean descent, and is often (usually) mistaken for a Chinese student. She has a lot of interesting stories about Chinese people not believing she is an American citizen, who attended grade school through college in America.

On Friday, we climbed the mountain/big hill behind her campus. It gave us a wonderful view of the lake and open-air square on campus. On the way up the mountain, we saw some grave-stones and used our newly-acquired Chinese language skills to read most of the writing on them (!). At the top we saw that the white peach blossoms were at their peak. Other hill-top patches offered the wonderful smells of the bright yellow rape-seed flowers, a wonderful visual relief to all the grey in Sichuan. Stunning beauty and intoxicating smells - what a treat! We worked up a good appetite for dinner with Anna's PC sitemate and with a man who last served in Kenya with Peace Corps and is now teaching English at foreign schools as an independent contractor.

On Saturday we headed for Dazu, famous for its grotto, or stone carvings. What we thought would be a two-bus 2-3 hour trip turned into a five-bus 5-hour trip, which is not uncommon in China. The trip took so long primarily because we stopped, sometimes every few minutes, to pick up and drop off travelers at the roadside. This is a common form of transportation; however, I have never seen a bus make so many stops. When I returned to my site, many of my Chinese friends explained that on the weekends, people transport goods and use the buses more. I'm still not sure why we changed buses so many times at bus stations in cities along the way.

Fortunately, a few minutes after we arrived, cold and a bit frazzled from our bumpy, dusty, crowded stop-and-go bus experience, we found a restaurant that offered an hour's respite before we toured the grottos. After several interesting conversations with the restaurant owners, which included seeing the fish they offered, alive and flopping on the restaurant floor, we settled into some seats at a table next to a warm-air-blowing air conditioner and ate a pretty tasty vegetarian meal. This was really a treat for us because most restaurants at our universities do not have heat (they even closed the doors!).

Well, the trip was definitely well worth it. We visited the Baoding Shan, a site 15 km north of the city, where tourists walk through a peaceful canyon of grottos that people believe were carved into the canyon walls by Yoga monks between 1179 AD and 1249 AD. My photos do not do the Dazu grottos justice, perhaps because it was a cloudy day and surely because it's difficult to capture the magnificence of these figures with a camera. Also, in a few areas, photo-taking was restricted. Highlights include three 8-meter high large boddhisatvas, which I believe represent the three sects of Buddhism. One of these figures holds a 3-ton pagoda, and has stood for hundreds of years because it's robe supports its pagoda-holding arms. My photo of the indoor 1007-arms Goddess of Mercy (Avalokitesvara) in a dark room is really difficult to see. Each has an eye in it.

The most famous figure at Dazu is the reclining Buddha. A magnificent 31-meter-long Buddha lying on it's side next to one of the many natural springs in the area. One of the last grottos we saw on our walk through the Dazu was among my favorite, and reminded me in some ways of Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, Spain. The carving was on a long, wide part of the canyon. On top were gods or government figures at pulpits. As your eyes travel down the rock face, this fades into a series of hellish, torture scenes below, reminding me of how the heavenly figures at the top of the Sagrada Familia melt into flames that become hellish figures near the base of the church. A few of my photos show the "hell" of ghoulish figures torturing unfortunate victims, throwing them into cauldrons, etc.

During the cultural revolution, Red Guards headed to Dazu to deface the sculptures. Apparently, a leader named Zhou Enlai gave an urgent order for them not to - and thank goodness. This is the first really magnificent cultural offering I have seen in the Han (central, non-minority) part of China. And while it is heavily influenced by Yoga sects from India, it also has some influences from Confucianism and shows that Yoga sects thrived in China at one time. Also, it's deep in the heart of China and near many cities, allowing easy access for citizens. Except for one tour group of Germans, all the tourists looked Chinese. However, the tickets were 70 kuai a piece, making this place unaffordable for many Chinese.

Well, after an exhausting bus ride that morning, and a stroll through the grottos, and some serious bargaining at the tourist shops, we arrived at the Dazu bus station to learn we had just missed the last bus back to Yongchuan! Well, this may have been the proverbial blessing in disguise, because we had to instead take a speedy, roomy one-hour taxi ride back to the city for 100 kuai ($12), a bit more than our 9-kuai bus ride that morning. A bit pricey, but 50 kuai definitely didn't bust our budgets, and a smile of relief grew on my face as the miles fell behind us...

The weekend ended with a leisurely trip to the market, which gave Anna and I a chance to exchange ideas about cooking healthy food in China - beans and brown rice with curry and bread are some of my favorites. The bread in Sichuan is sweet and cakey, and many of us miss the hearty grain and banana breads from America. There's a lot of recipes you can cook in a rice cooker, including bread, so long as you can find baking power... We had scrambled eggs and some great hash browns (alla Anna) and looked out her window at the campus lake - a peaceful end to our weekend adventures.

1. Anna Among the Peach Blossoms

2. Anna"s Campus

3. Gravestone

4. Rape - Seed Flowers

5. Recycling bins are new on many campuses, but usually not used properly.

6. An amazing tower of cigarette boxes.

7. @!%$(@!#=#! Buses

8. Dazu - First Carvings

9. Large Face

10. Other Figures

11. Three 8-meter Boddhisatvas

12. Wheel of "Destiny"

13. Boddhisatva holds 3-ton pagoda

14. Avalokitesvara (Goddess of Mercy) with 1007 arms

15. Reclining Buddha - 31 meters

16. Seven Dragon Fountain

17. Another Buddha

18. Hell - Grinding Victim (see below wheel)

19. Hell - Ghoul Poking Victim

20. Hell - Ghoul Hoisting Victim into Vat

21. Praying at Carvings

22. Last Carvings

23. Back at Campus - English translations are often entertaining.

24. Breakfast on Easter Sunday

Pandas!

2005-03-20T07:06:00.000+07:00

Last weekend I traveled to the Chengdu Pandas Research Station. There are two other places in Chengdu where you can see pandas: the zoo, which sounds like a depressing visit to see pandas in cages, and the Wolong Nature Reserve in the mountains north of Chengdu, which sounds like a wonderful place to hike and, if you are lucky, to see a panda in the wild. Because Wolong is usually a 2-day trip, and because it's pretty cold this time of year up there, my companions and I decided to check out the research station.

My companions were Jason, a Peace Corps volunteer in Mongolia who worked at a number of zoos in the U.S., and Jim a Canadian Montessori-Principal-turned-volunteer working with Jason in Mongolia. And fellow Peace Corps volunteer in Chengdu, Gilberto, hosted us for the weekend. Jason's background with animals, my Chinese language skills to get information from our driver, who spoke a handful of English words, and Jim's curiosity turned out to be a wonderful combination for touring the research station.

The place was top-notch: a heron rookery near the entrance, a great educational movie at a well-designed interpretive center, breeding facilities that draw international experts, large areas for pandas to roam, and a really pleasant, lush place to walk around. The adults (6 years and up) and the older cubs were grouped in 3s and 4s in habitats that were about 1/3 acre big outside (with indoor facilities attached). The six or seven 1-year-olds were together on a site with a huge gymnasium for them to crawl on. Jason was impressed with the care the animals seemed to get.

Much of what I saw, of course, was the giant panda eating. Because their diet consists solely of the arrow bamboo, which is nutrient-poor, they have to eat constantly. Our driver, who knew a lot about the reserve, said the pandas there eat 60 kilos of stems and 40 kilos of leaves each day. I never learned why there wasn't some kind of Darwinian shift to a more energy efficient diet. In fact, we learned that pandas used to be carnivorous - go figure, reverse Darwinian(?)!

What I didn't expect to see were the playful one-year-old giant pandas. They climb and run and chew on each other and wrestle like any young animal, albeit a little slower, and, of course, eat lots of bamboo. We also saw some red pandas.

1. Rookery at Entrance 1

2. Rookery at Entrance 2

3. Giant Panda Drinking

4. Giant Panda Buddies

5. Three-Month-Old Giant Panda

6. One-Year-Old "Hanging" Out

7. One-Year-Old Playing

8. Hewey, Dewey and Louy?

9. Red Pandas in Tree

10. Red Panda

11. Jason, Gilberto and Jim

12. The End!

Xiahe - Tibetan Buddhist Outpost

2005-03-13T08:39:00.000+07:00

After a 2-week conference in Lanzhou, I took a 6-hour bus ride to get to Xiahe. Xiahe is home to a Tibetan Buddhist monastery that is visited by more Tibetans than any other monastery outside of Tibet.

The community of monks that lives there was re-established after the Cultural Revolution in the late 1960s. The monks are primarily from Mongolia, and their community consists of rich and poor monks, and even servant monks. One traveler at our hostel was a Frenchman who was writing his dissertation about the Xiahe monastery revival, and another was an Aussie who writes for Frommers, and both helped my travel companions and I learn a lot about the place.

The monk's living quarters are encircled by a Pilgrim's Route, which is a path that visitors walk, spinning "prayer wheels" along the way. It takes about an hour to walk the path if you spin every wheel. After the first day, some of us complained that we had "wheel arm," and skipped spinning on the second day. When we took it (several times) it was pretty crowded. This is because some people take it every day, and because pilgrims were starting to arrive for the February 9th New Year and the Tibetian New Year, which is somewhere around the 20th.

The townspeople were really warm and outgoing. We only knew how to say "hello" and "good-bye" in Tibetan, and many of the restauraunt owners knew Chinese, but other townspeople did not know English or Chinese. Because we could speak Chinese, we could order lots of interesting food - yak meat, pancakes, dumplings - yum! And even though there was a language barrier between us and those who spoke only Tibetan, we got many smiles, some hand-holding, and some invitations into people's homes as they began to feast for the New Year. One woman and I held hands and walked and sang the word for "hello" in Tibetan for a while.

It was also really wonderful to see that some of the New Year's rituals and traditional clothing that many people were wearing. On New Year's Day it snowed, giving me the magical feeling I had as a child when it snowed Christmas morning back in the Midwest (U.S.).

The Chinese say that the first things that happen to you on New Year's Day are omens for the upcoming year. Well, the first thing I saw was the snowfall, and then I took a walk on the Pilgrim Route with one of the Aussies at the hostel. Sound like pretty good omens - eh? That evening altitude sickness hit and I threw up - I wonder what that means!

Xiahe is nestled in a beautiful, arid mountain valley at about 3000 meters. I took a hike one day and there were some wonderful views (see photos). I would have done more hiking, but after four days of wheel-spinning, shopping, hiking, and eating wonderful food I got sick. Probably a combination of altitude sickness and food poisoning - still not sure. All I know is that food was not staying down. After two days of it, I headed back to Chengdu to recover with the help of the Peace Corps doctor.

1. Temple Grounds - A Community of Monks

2. Prayer Wheels 1

3. Prayer Wheels 2

4. Photo of Buddhas (Inside) amd Me and "Newest Temple Top (Reflection)

5. Newest Temple Rebuilt after Cultural Revolution

6. Inside Newest Temple

7. Newest Temple Tour Guide (Monk)

8. Tibetan Woman

9. Tibetan Kids

10. Store Owners and Child

11. View from Peaks 1

12. View from Peaks 2

13. New Friend :)

14. Happy New Year - Snow on Pilgrim's Route

15. Boy Setting off Near's Fireworks with Father and Grandfather (?)

16. Made it back to Chengdu with Altitude Sickness

17. Peace Corps Doctor (right) and Her Sister Took Me to My Room

Lanzhou, Gansu

2005-03-11T04:38:00.000+07:00

In Lanzhou, the capital of Gansu Province, the China Peace Corps volunteers met for two weeks. In addition to our training and idea exchange (through volunteer-led sessions), there were a number of opportunities, many arranged by the Peace Corps, to see some tourist destinations in Lanzhou. I saw one Chinese temple and two Muslim mosques.

As you can see in the photos, I did not get a photo of the temple, but did get a photo of another volunteer and I harnessing up to take a ride across a big valley on a line after we saw the temple. Photos also show how the Muslims at the second mosque treated us to a wonderful feast of nuts and fruit and other treats.

One photo also shows some friends and I at a local tea house, sampling some of their baijiu. Bai jiu (pronounced "bye-joe") is a very potent alcohol drink that I usually try to avoid, but sometimes it's good to try local traditions - when in Rome - eh? This place had flavored baijiu - something new (but not necessarily better tasting) to me.

Travelling to an ethnically diverse part of China has really broadened my understanding of this country. My campus is located in eastern Sichuan, where virtually everyone is Han Chinese. The Han people populate most of China; however, China is home to 55 minority groups, and many live in provinces including Gansu, XinJiang, Yunnan, and Tibet.

The landscape and the rich traditions and architecture of this northern area (Gansu) have some wonderful character. In Lanzhou, many minorities have histories that relate to Kazakstan and Mongolia and other nearby countries. We saw many hui and zang (tibetan) people in Lanzhou.

For centuries now, the Han people have considered playing music and other artistic expression as a lowly activity of ethnic minorities. This attitude has been reinforced by the destruction of many culturally significant buildings during the Cultural Revolution earlier this century, and by government controls on certain festivals, etc. This explains why Han Chinese clothes and architecture, etc. have a western look and so little influence from the past. A lot of cities look like mini (or in many cases mega) malls, sprawling in all directions.

One of my favorite parts of my time in Lanzhou was the wonderful noodle dishes we could try. The noodles tasted so fresh, and restaurant owners are happy to throw in your favorite veggies and tofu. I also discovered Japanese tofu - now my favorite tofu dish. And I ventured off of my vegetarian diet to try yak meat. Dishes were generally not as oily or spicy as many Sichuan dishes.

1. Bridge to White Temple

2. Harnessing Up to Ride the Line Across the Valley

3. Muslim Mosque 1

4. Muslim Mosque 1 - Only Men Can Enter

5. Muslim Mosque 1 – Classroom

6. Muslim Mosque 1 – Scripture

7. Muslim Mosque 2

8. Muslim Mosque 2 - My Tutor and I

9. Muslim Mosque 2 - Grand!

10. Muslim Mosque 2 – Carving

11. Muslim Mosque 2 – Ornate

12. Muslim Mosque 2 - Feast 1

13. Muslim Mosque 2 – Feast 2

14. Good Times

Train to Lanzhou

2005-03-05T08:30:00.000+07:00

After a semester of teaching, I was excited to re-convene with my fellow Peace Corps volunteers for two weeks of training and information sharing, and then, afterwards, for some travelling. Our in-service training was in Lanzhou, Gansu Province. Here are some photos of the 22-hour train trip from Chengdu to Lanzhou. About 10 volunteers took the train trip together.

I fasted during the trip and got a good night's sleep and arrived in Lanzhou feeling fairly fresh. The rest of the gang munched on a really nice picnic of foods and beverages that they packed and bought ahead of time. Food and beverages were also available on the train. There were also some good games of Yahtzee, crossword puzzles, and good conversation with each other and fellow passengers (a nice chance to practice Chinese). Lanzhou Chinese have less of a local dialect, so it's easier to practice our Mandarin with them!

Train #1

Train #2

Train #3

Babies

2005-03-05T08:27:00.000+07:00

After my first semester of teaching at a fairly remote campus, I was really looking forward to re-convening with my fellow Peace Corps volunteers for some training, and then, afterwards, to some travelling. On the morning of the day I left to head north to Gansu Province, I heard wonderful news. My dad and brother both called to tell me that my neice was born! That day, my bulbs bloomed - see photos below.

My neice's birth suggests a "Chinese babies" theme. Chinese babies are often dressed in very colorful clothing - very padded in the winter. Their clothes have a space at the crotch so they can "do their business" easily, using the sidewalks as their latrine - mothers often look for cracks in the sidewalk. Grandmothers, who often live with their daughters and sons, often take care of their grandchildren, carrying them everywhere. Some parents use diapers and some don't. The disposal method (throwing them on the ground) is the same as for other garbage. Enjoy these photos!

Aurelia's Flowers

Kids Walking Home from School

Diapers as Garbage

Baby Standing

Grandma Carrying Baby

Baby Doing Its Business - Mom Helping

Baby Standing – 2

Back of Baby Standing

Big Cheeks Baby

Big Slippers Baby

Sichuan Province Countryside

2005-01-17T01:09:00.000+07:00

TITLE: Sichuan Province Countryside

Geologically, Sichuan appears quite interesting. I have yet to get my hands on some good maps; however, observation tells part of the story. From Nanchong to Chengdu to Zigong, the northeastern part of the province, it's the same hilly, dusty terrain. I hear the southwestern part is more mountainous. Below are some photos I took during walks down the road that runs through and past our campus and during walks along countryside paths that the farmers use.

A walk out into the countryside shows that all the hills, almost evenly spaced apart, are rock layers turned on their side. Sometime way back, there was some serious tectonic activity that turned these rock layers 90 degrees. The result is a view of rolling hills that rivers weave their way through. Based on a sketchy conversation with a Chinese geologist this summer, whose English was about as bad as my Chinese was, I think it's limestone and sandstone layers. And some layers are loess, or very fine particles that the wind picks up easily. Thus the dusty, dirty cities.

A closer look reveals ancient, and sometimes sustainable, agricultural practices as well as recent, destructive practices that may do permanent damage to China's environment. For centuries, Chinese farmers have used human waste to fertilize their crops, a perfectly sanitary practice that eliminates a lot of sewage and the need for importing fertilizer. "Humanure" is being revived in the U.S. by some including Joseph Jenkins http://www.jenkinspublishing.com/humanure.html.

It's also pretty plain to see that almost every tract of land that hasn't been urbanized around here is used for farming. With terraced, plots and irrigated rice fields, not much land is left unused. At first I thought the forests were untouched areas. But a lot of those trees are growing in straight rows (quite a hint), and I'm realizing just about every forest I hear about is "restored."

A few of my friends who have walked with me in the countryside say that about 5 or 6 years ago, there was no "white noise," a term they use for those plastic bags at grocery stores and for Styrofoam take-out containers. As you can see from the photos, there's a lot of garbage out there. And women hitting clothes with rocks and sticks to wash them. And anglers. And people playing mahjong. And stray dogs and cats - not many people have their pets fixed and most are treated much like scavengers. And, in my area, stone quarries and tombstone makers.

1 - Trees and Garbage

2 - Limestone Quarry

3 – Outhouse

4 – Wall

5 - Kids

6 - Woman Washing Clothes

7 - Flower on Bean Plant - Hu Dou

8 - Bridge Near My Campus

9 - Woman Washing Clothes 2

10 - Fellow Teacher and Friend - Huang You Jun

11 - Playing Majhong

12 - Dressed to the Nine's

13 - Kids 2

14 – Laundry

15 - Limestone Quarry 2

16 - Woman Washing Clothes 3

17 - Lactating Dog

18 - Badminton - and a Dynamite Country Outfit

19 - Glass Collection (Recycling?)

My first set of wheels

2005-01-13T09:24:00.000+07:00

On Tuesday, two of my students from fall classes helped me shop in the nearby small city, Fushun, for a bike. Pictures below show me, these two young guys, and my new bike.

I started out wanting to get a used bike, because I don't care about how the thing looks, I just want good components: derailer, gears, brakes. But I soon learned, with the help of my students, that used bikes around here are pretty low quality. We tried a few and the brakes or the gears never worked well, and the experience always ended with the store proprietor promising to fix them.

So, very early in our shopping adventure, I decided to go with buying a new bike, which I heard can cost as little as 150 or 200 yuan. Well, we went to a number of stores, but only at one did the proprietor seem to take a lot of pride in his bikes and actually know how to adjust them with his own tools. So, we decided to go back to him after checking at some other stores. My students and I planned our bargaining strategy. I would plead "poor" and they would talk about how I was their teacher and a volunteer and wanting to make me feel welcome here. Well, we talked him down from Y 380 to y 280.

A big reason I don't want to pay a lot for a bike is that bikes are stolen frequently here. One or two volunteers who have bought bikes already have had theirs stolen. I'm keeping mine locked in my office, which is on the 3rd floor (my apartment is on the 5th floor and the stairway is narrow). My first rides on the bike have been pretty good. The gears are not as forgiving as bikes I've had in America and it's pretty heavy. I think half of my work-out is lugging it up to my office! But, hey, I only paid about $US 30 for it! The stores had some more expensive bikes with smoother gears, but they were touring bikes with thinner tires, and I wanted thick tires. The roads here are in pretty good condition in many places, and there are places where the pavement is cracked as all get-out. I'll probably have to repair it often, but it sounds like repairs are usually a standard Y1, plus possibly some cheap parts. Hope the bike is with me for 2 years!

I am making some compromises with my health by riding a bike. I'm breathing harder when trucks with smoky exhaust go by, which can't be good. But, I suppose I speed through it quicker than when I'm walking(?). If I ride in the early or mid morning, and after lunch, during their "siesta," there should be a bit less traffic and smog. Either way, the exercise feels good and I have another option for exploring my world here. There are some small mountains to the south that might take a few hours to get to... :)

1 - Me and my "wheels"

2 - My student helpers, Stephen and Frank

What Students Want

2005-01-10T10:49:00.000+07:00

Despite no available way to heat their dorm rooms (with 4-6 students per room), few school supplies, and undependable power, my students are generally up-beat, high energy, and, in many cases, creative. My end-of-course evaluation brought out some interesting thoughts from them. And below are a few more photos of some of my students giving their final presentations (a few weeks ago).

On the last day of each course, I asked students for an evaluation. The table below shows students' responses to the question "Have any of your behaviors changed since taking this class?"

Improve Speaking Skills - 25 answered yes

Raised my consciousness about environment - 24

Speak English louder, with more courage - 21

Read more news - 9

Try to make less waste; throw it in trash cans - 8

Like speaking, studying English more - 7

Improve Listening Skills - 6

Speak English outside class more - 2

Value teamwork now - 2

Exposure to a different culture - 2

Tell others to not pollute - 2

Improve Reading Skills - 1

Use reusable lunch box instead of carry-out styrafoam - 1

Respect others' ideas, even if I don't like them - 1

Quit smoking - 1

Using a reusable lunch box (third to last) is a key way students here could clean up the campus and will be among the first lessons I teach in each class next semester.

During several class periods this fall, we read news stories about pollution and about how China and other countries are balancing development and environmental concerns. It seemed very interesting to them, and evaluation results confrim this. The list below shows student responses to an open-ended question on the class evaluation, "What other comments and suggestions do you have for this class?" It shows they want more information about and pictures of pollution.

More information about pollution - 9

Continue interaction, active learning, discussion - 9

More speaking - 7

Show us more pictures of pollution - 6

More about American culture - 6

More games! - 4

Field trips - 4

Play music - 1

More lessons - 1

Watch English movies - 1

1 - Oh, how can we help the environment?

2 - Fishing in the clean river - 30 years ago.

3 - Protect Animals

4 - Recycled T-shirts to make a mop

5 - I will marry you prince, if you promise to protect the environment.

Christmas in China

2005-01-07T10:11:00.000+07:00

My holiday season has been a time of strange discoveries. It started with my first brown-out on Thanksgiving Day. Since then, in this region with chilly temps that now are just above zero degrees Celsius and where indoor heat is a new idea, we have had numerous brown outs (scheduled power outages). In early December, we had a whole week of them all over the greater Zigong area, usually running from about 9am to 6pm They make sure people have power in the evening. Recently, as temperatures dipped to near zero, my campus was spared a whole week of power outages that another campus had.

Christmas was especially strange. On the face of it it's very difficult to understand why Chinese people would embrace a western holiday, and only the commercial aspect of it, with such vim and vigor. There's lots of holiday cards and presents to buy here and many people have gift exchanges. Many of the decorations in the store are festive, but to be frank, tacky - more color and less charm. Christmas is called Sheng dan jie, which translates as "saint born festival," which I imagine many Christians would take issue with. I did not talk to one Chinese person who celebrated the spiritual aspect of the holiday, although many educated people sound like they know the basics of the story of the Christian Bible. But this all is part of the Chinese people finally having a chance to learn about and explore, since the 1970s Opening Up, customs of other countries. And, I suppose, how different is it than how many Americans only celebrate the commercial aspect of Christmas?

An "interesting" tradition that started in 2000 at one of the public squares in Chengdu is a gathering and hitting people with inflatable bats and hammers. Some of the hammers are designed to look like the American flags, and we heard that it's especially desireable to hit foreigners.

My students were wonderful, making it almost impossible to feel homesick around Christmas. I received many cards, with many fairly lengthy holiday greetings, written in English. :) They also pooled their money to buy me flowers, chocolate, a beautiful pin, and a small Christmas tree. Other volunteers at less remote campuses, where students have more $$, received some really nice things, like batik wall hangings, etc. I spent the Christmas weekend in the capital of this province, Chengdu, with eight other Peace Corps volunteers. We cooked meals because it's very expensive to eat out in Chengdu. We sang holiday carols, went roller skating, and had a gift exchange. It was a really cozy, simple, warm way to spend the weekend.

What was eye-opening to me was to see the difference between my campus and the campus we stayed at in Chengdu. The standard of living is miles apart, there are no power outages, and there are many foreign teachers at this campus, so my coworkers are not as much of a spectacle nor a solitary resource. The New York Times has an interesting series that talks about a growing rift between the have's and have not's in China, called The Great Divide. I have been reading some of the articles, and they capture a lot of what I saw that weekend. So much materialism at the top and so much struggle at the bottom...

Students

2005-01-03T22:18:00.000+07:00

Students have become an inspiring part of my life here. I remember back in September when I had to interview all 170 environmental Engineering students to see if their English language skills would allow them to benefit from my environmental classes (next semester I will teach some more basic English classes).

Some of the guys, especially, were so funny. Many of them wore suits. They often would not sit until I sat, even though I asked them to sit down - cavalier. In an effort to show off their English, and perhaps butter me up to get into my class, they often told me I was beautiful. I didn't have the time or the heart to tell them that in America, their behavior was bordering on sexual harassment! After the interview, a good number tore out of my office in a fast run, apparently so relieved they made it through the interview or out of nervousness, or both.

Since then, I have had the pleasure and honor of working with some students with wonderfully creative minds and great energy. In course evaluations, when asked whether their behaviors changed because of the class, one young woman wrote that she now only uses her metal lunch box for take-out, rather than the styrofoam take-out containers at the restaurants. Sounds like a must-teach lesson for next semester! Another guy said he was quitting smoking. I never specifically suggested either of these.

Perhaps my favorite final presentation was about recycled fashion. I usually walk to my classroom building and get the key for the classroom on the first floor. Well, the key guys told me my student had already opened the classroom up. I entered the room to see the wonderful chaos of all five presentation teams making final preparations. There were students reciting to themselves in the corners, students talking in heated excitement in groups, and a student setting up the computer. What a wonderful night, what first-rate performances and advertisements about why and how to protect the environment.

The recycled fashion presentation was last. The lights dimmed, some 1960 Jane Fonda-movie-ish sexy music came on... Chica chica shaaa, {pause} chica chica shaa... And the runway show began. We saw recycle cans made into armor, battery jewelry, an ashtray made from an aluminum can, and a paper hat! The whole class was practically rolling in the aisles as we watched their "modeling." After the show, the team told us about information they found on the internet about recycled fashion for sale in other countries, including a recycled tire purse for $US 149 - not a bad way to earn your way.

At the end of the semester I tell students that the skills they are learning will help China. The teamwork, leadership, environmental problem-solving skills, skills to persuade and debate with others will be important the economy and the society here changes so quickly. They are the next generation of consumers and decision-makers, and they can make a difference, I say. And then I hold my breath, and hope I am right...

Environmental Student Assn (ESA) Promo

Environmental Student Assn Leaders

My students attending ESA event - 1

My students attending ESA event - 2

Industrial Ecology - pollution from products - 1

Fish Family

Industrial Ecology - pollution from products - 2

Industrial Ecology - pollution from products - 3

Sorting Waste Talk

Where to Throw Waste

I am a tree!

It's who you know!

2005-01-03T09:58:00.000+07:00

Now that I have a few good friends here, I am starting to get some real insight into how the societal system here works. They aren't telling me any secrets. Especially since China established it's Opening Up policy, the country is openly discussing corruption in its financial, business, and educational sectors, and the people now feel very free to explore their curiosities with all things foreign.

Of course, everywhere in the world, "who you know," or networking, is an important part of career building and improving one's life. However, to an American, the Chinese have cornered the market on this path to improvement. They call it guanxi, pronounced "guan-shee." A number of friends tell me about how it is very difficult to leave many jobs without hurting your guanxi. And if you are a Chinese person and you work outside of the system, say for an American organization, and then try to re-enter, you need some guanxi too allow you to get back in. I have a few Chinese people who are working outside the system, and they are taking a risk that they will not be able to find a job here if/when their other job ends.

Of course, guanxi can help you to overcome some tough obstacles in a country where unemployment is currently very high. It is perfectly legal for a company to reject a candidate for employment if they are too short, too ugly, or if their breasts are not the same size (kid you not). However, if you have guanxi, there is a chance this can be overlooked.

China has a long history of working and doing for the common good. An American's first reaction to guanxi would probably be very negative, but I always need to remind myself to look in the mirror, and to imagine walking in their shoes (excuse the overuse of expressions). There is much that Chinese people love about their country and many reasons to balk at traveling. Unfortunately, they are often ill-treated abroad. Also, there is almost no violent crime here - something many countries, including American cannot offer.

Photos of Dengguan Campus

2004-12-17T23:15:00.000+07:00

These photos show how Dengguan campus was designed with some fairly interesting architecture in mind. I hope you can also see that the campus is full of lush sub-tropical plants - the newer campuses are almost all cement.

This campus is dirty for two reasons that you may be able to see in the photos. First, the ever-present dust in this region makes the buildings look dirty. Second, people throw garbage on the ground instead of in the waste bin all too often. When I gave a presentation about environmental protection about a month ago it became clear to me that many students are disgusted with the condition of their campus.

However, efforts to change this face many obstacles. For example, the leader of the Student Environmental Protection Association applied to create the Association when he was a freshman and finally got approval this year, his junior year. The university requires the student associations to do clean-up projects in other parts of the municipality besides campus. Also, the association can only earn money from membership dues or selling things to non-students. They cannot raise money through events on campus or selling t-shirts to students, etc.

1 - Girls Dorm

2 - University Entrance

3 - Internet Café

4 - Outside Internet Café

5 – Pagoda

6 - Basketball and Frisbee in Pagoda Water

7 - Architecture 1

8 - Architecture 2

9 – Garbage

10 - Sports Field

11 - Overlook of Sports Field

12 - My Favorite Baozi Restaurant

13 - Street Separates Campus and Our Staff Housing (the only street here)

14 – Another View of Street

15 - Favorite "Fast Food" Stir Fry Woman

16 - Favorite Convenience Store Woman

17 - Favorite Tree

18 - Pond

Meet you at the school gate

2004-12-06T03:40:00.000+07:00

"Meet you at the school gate" is a phrase I probably use every day. All of the universities here are enclosed by a wall and have several or many guarded gates. My campus has just two gates, and the main gate is a meeting place for people, buses, and cabs. The gate is on the one road that runs through this area. On one side of the road is the university campus, which you can enter through the main gate. On the other side are dormitories for teachers and university staff (student dorms are on campus).

The road is the only thoroughfare for trucks through these parts. The market and shops are just east of the main gate and a stroll over to these places means hearing lots of blaring horns, because there are no sidewalks. There are also some pretty nasty exhaust clouds coming from lots of the buses and trucks.

Main School Gate

A Cab Driver I Know

School Gate Guard

Bus Leaving from School Gate

Truck Passing the School Gate (and the Market, Restaurants, Shops ..)

Countryside and Forest

2004-11-29T01:38:00.000+07:00

Both last Sunday and this Sunday, I had a chance to go to two forests near here. To get to the forest, we biked (last weekend) and walked down the road (this weekend). The countryside is picturesque from afar, but up close, you can see that farmers have not yet discovered garbage containers. My tutor told me that four years ago, trash cans were introduced for the first time on my campus! The view of the countryside for me has always been from the road, where truck horns blare, and vehicles in poor condition choke out smoke. So, to reach the pine forest is a treat - no roads, no noise, just soft pine and lots of fern. And both days, the sun came out for longer than I've seen it out ever here in Dengguan :).

Last Sunday's bike ride turned out like any half-baked plan. We rented the last bikes available and my seat was way too low and the brakes were not very good, so my hands were worn and aching by the end from squeezing so hard as we biked 17 km of hills (one way). My chain came off 3 times, and Shirely's tire went flat on the way back. But we made it to a beautiful forest to the south of here. We plan to go back (by bus!) and hike around. See photos.

This Sunday, I was invited to a picnic at the wu-li-po, a hill to the west, by the freshman environmental engineers. What I understood to be a 3-hour round-trip turned out to be a somewhat unorganized cookout (at least to the organized German in me) that kept me away from home from home for 6 hours. And a 6 hours well spent it was! I put my fire-building skills to use, had a great lunch from 3 woks, and discovered a new place nearby to enjoy some nature. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera.

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A Thanksgiving to Warm Your Heart

2004-11-28T11:12:00.000+07:00

Well, I woke up Thanksgiving morning to no electricity and no running water - my first brown-out in Dengguan. It also happened to be the first day of true winter weather with about 5 deg C for the high. This might not sound bad to you - until you sit still in it for, oh, about 15 minutes. Oh yes, add a good dose of dampness in the air.

I learned that electricity and water would be restored at 6:30 p.m. Yesterday, I managed to learn from a shopkeeper that we might not have water on Thursday, so I had filled my tea kettle last night. Sure enough, the tea kettle sprang a leak!

So, here I am, a cold woman in China on a 5 deg C day with no water, no electricity, and no tea kettle!!! Still, I had a warm Thanksgiving. First, I had a class at 8:15. With limited light and cold and no computer to show my lesson plan, I was not expecting a lot. We ended up having a great class - standing in a circle to keep warm - talking about human comsumption in the world (we noted that no one on campus was consuming electricity right then - haha). Then my tutor helped me find the guy on the street who patches up tea kettle. He did it in 4 hours for 4 kuai! For lunch, my neighbor brought me a "Happy Thanksgiving Dove chocolate bar." (there are no turkeys in China - except maybe me!)

And the best part of the day came just as I was getting really worried about how I would keep warm without wearing the same long underwear every day. My father's package of some new long underwear that he sent a month ago finally arrived!! These things are designed for ice fishing and winter camping and won't let you get cold! One design suggestion - a nose warmer? My nose is always cold! I find I can warm up by taking a walk for 20 or 30 minutes or playing badminton, but if I need to sit still for more than 15 minutes, I am finding I need a blanket. It's nice to have some electricity for my portable radiators too. Fortunately, I have a gas range and leftovers, so I didn't have to cancel my plans to have my neighbor over for lunch. Also, I am learning that if I keep my apartment closed up, it's maybe a bit warmer and a bit dryer than outside. Too bad my kitchen is separated from t! he rest of my apartment by a porch - it would warm it up. However, it does keep any cockroaches (I haven't seen one in about a month) out of the rest of the place.

Thanks to friends and family for some warm Thanksgiving greetings (I am just seeing the emails today now that the electricity is back) and packages (dad). Happy Thanksgiving from China!

Routine

2004-11-22T11:13:00.000+07:00

Some friends and family have been asking about my daily and weekly life. It's been difficult to answer that question because things were changing a lot while I was training in Nanchong and while I was settling here in Dengguan. Now, with a schedule of classes, and two months in my new home, I have a work routine, and some other activities have become part of my routine.

I teach environmental classes Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings, and Monday and Wednesday evenings for a total of 12 hours in the classroom. Before my Monday and Wednesday evening classes, I hold office hours, during which students come to talk to me about assignments or just to talk in English. All of my students must select a week during which they will present our new vocabulary words, and they need to meet with me beforehand to review the words, so I have a lot of traffic going through my office. Some students will just come to practice speaking English and they sometimes have a script of sorts written down. One young woman came to talk to me and gave me a great photo of the dinosaur skeletons in the local (internationally famous) museum. The photo is much better than the photos I took with my digital camera, which turned out poorly because of the lighting in the museum.

When I walk to class in the morning, I like to take the path that runs past the statue of Madame Giverne because often students are reciting English there. There are lots of other oases like this on campuses, usually near water or among trees, where students independently practice oral learning. One big reason for this is that in the lion's share of their classes in middle school, high school, and college, students are expected to be silent in class. My host cousin in Nanchong told me that some of his high school teachers had students cross their arms flat on their desk and, if they raised their hand, they were not to let their elbow leave the desk! When I get to the classroom, I turn on the computer and projector to see if they work. If they don't, which happens about once per week, we move to a different classroom. This week it happened six (!) times, so I called the Foreign Affairs Office, and they are going to get the computer technician to check it out. If the computer works, I wait a few minutes to let it fully boot up and then connect my U-disk, which has my PowerPoint presentation for class. In the meantime, students begin to arrive and the students who are responsible for the week's vocabulary words write the definitions, and an example, on the board. My classes generally involve reviewing last week's homework, new vocabulary words (presented by students), a short lecture, an activity that gets students talking to the class or in small groups, and, if there's time, Q&A about anything -- this usually is about America, China, or my hometown and life and can be quite entertaining. Most of them knew that Yassir Arafat died last week and we talked about peace and how complicated having peace can be.

About once per week Yang Ning (photo below), my friend from the Foreign Affairs Office visits and helps me with repairs to my apartment, my office internet connection and computer (that's a long story), and other school and living logistics. About once per month, I meet with Yang Ning and my on-site supervisor, Yan Jie, who is the dean of this university's Chemistry and Materials Science Department. I also make time for campus activities. I attend every Environmental Protection Student Association event I can and will give a presentation for them next Saturday night -- they are a really enthusiastic bunch. And, I try to stop by the English Corner on Sunday evenings where students are hanging out and speaking English.

Cheng Lu and Yang Ning

Language learning takes up another chunk of my week. I meet with my tutor, Cheng Lu, on Tuesdays for lunch, and on Thursdays at 11 a.m. for an hour. Above is a good photo of him. He is a nice guy who is unabashed about his desire to not work very much. He spent about five years as a Chinese language teacher for rich American and Canadian kids who toured China for the summer, and he made enough $$ to have about five months off every year. He is helping me to start to learn to read Chinese Hanzi characters. I am starting to be able to say more complicated sentences, but my listening skills need some help, so, whenever I can ma! nage to be at home at 9:15 a.m. and 3:15 p.m., I tune into the television's CCTV English channel when they have a 15-minute language lesson. And finally, on Mondays and Wednesdays and the weekends, I listen to my language tapes from my training this summer, often while crocheting. I am taking on my first non-blanket project -- a wool vest. Am about half-way finished - just made the second button hole and it looks like it will fit.

If it is not raining on Tuesday, Thurday, and Friday afternoons, I can always catch up with Annie and Shirley and friends for a game of badminton. They often call to try to tell me they are heading up to the campus courtyard where we play. Once or twice a week, I walk Shirely's dog, Goofey, in the afternoon. I take a lot of walks anyway, and this puppy is a lot for her to handle with her 20-hours-of-classes-per-week-schedule. He's really cute, too -- his photo is a few blogs back -- first week of November I think.

About twice per month I have a potluck dinner, usually with Annie and Shirley and some other people here. My apartment is the only place around here with enough room to do this. I may have a potluck for Thanksgiving or Christmas and I may have one with my fellow teachers in the Environmental Engineering department. I also eat out a few times per week and get some nice invitations to eat over at other people's apartments a few times per month. Tonight, I am going over to Jerri's place for dinner. She is an English teacher who I like talking to when we run into each other on campus, and this will be my first chance to get to know her. I am bringing over devilled eggs. So far I have made them for Annie and Shirley and some of our friends and also for Yang Ning from the Foreign Affairs Office. They all delight in this "exotic" treat. A few wonder why I would serve cold food in the fall, so I think this may be my last batch for a while.

Exercise is also an important part of my routine. When I'm not playing badminton, I take lots of walks and do some yoga and tai chi. I started running at the track, but my foot injury started acting up, so I stopped. I can tell that keeping warm will become a bigger and bigger part of my routine as we move into winter. Yesterday was back into the 60s F, but earlier this week we had highs around 50 F, and it was chilly. If it is 45 degrees F, that means it's 45 degrees F EVERYWHERE except under a blanket. I did more yoga this week. Fortunately, my foot isn't bothering me much, so I am doing more walking to get warm too. Fortunately, the volunteers who lived here before have accumulated a few really warm blankets, and electric blanket that I sometimes turn on for a few minutes when I first get into bed.

Evenings often involve movies or reading or sharing a dinner with someone. The last volunteer who lived here bought a nice DVD player, and especially during my early weeks here, I spent a lot of time in front of it. It provides a nice way to escape after a day of trying to communicate in another culture. Cultural immersion is at once wonderful and exhausting!

And there's always email -- another double-edged sword. I love to communicate with family and really enjoy the planning I do with the Peace Corp HQ in Chengdu. However, it can be painfully slow to get online some days. Others are just fine, so I've learned to just give up when the server seems to be down.

On the weekends, I like to read and to explore the area. I brought some great books with me that I've been meaning to read about sustainable living. Also, Shirley is borrowing some classic novels by Dickens, etc. from the library for me (the campus library doesn't want to issue me a card). I have even had a few weekends already where I had enough time to read a whole (short) novel -- something I haven't done for years! At first my exploring was in the major city here, Zigong, primarily to shop for things for my apartment. Also, the Foreign Affairs Office took my site mate, Daniel, and I on some tours of the famous dinosaur museum and the famous salt mines, which was the first industry here. Since then, I have visited Zigong once to hang out with Daniel, and also to spend time with Yang Ning shopping and one day we had a massage. Today I will go with a Chinese friend to a nearby town to check out the supermarket (none in this village) and to have lunch and see what else is there. I hope to find some kind of place where I can relax and read, like a bookstore or cafe, but I'm trying not getting my hopes up too high. I also hope that the supermarket has some of the non-perishables that I have been importing from Zigong.

In fact, it's time to meet my friend in a few minutes at the school gate!

Ancient City Xian Shi

2004-11-14T07:39:00.000+07:00

Last weekend I visited the ancient city of Xian Shi with Shirley and Annie and their partners. It is one of three ancient cities in the Zigong metropolitan area.

We started out by catching the bus at the campus gate, which is about 500 feet from my apartment building. Once the bus came we sat in it until it was full, which is what most buses will do before leaving. Usually, you don't have to wait too long for buses to fill up; however, you can wait two hours for the next one if you don't get on before it fills up. My Chinese friends asked the bus driver if we could catch a bus about half-way to Zigong to get to Xian Shi, but we couldn't. So, instead, we went all the way to Zigong (east - 40 minutes), took a city bus to the train station, and caught another bus to go back (southwest) to Xian Shi.

The ancient town is 1400 years old and is currently inhabited by residents and many (not very upscale) shops and restaurants were open on the main road. There were several temples that look just like the other temples I've seen so far in China. I've read in a few travel books that others have the same experience, once you see one temple, you've seen them all. However, we got to ring a bell for luck at one temple -this was new for me. Also, we could take a ferry across to an island and walk around. My friends humored me as I practiced "Amazing Grace" on my tin whistle, which I played at the Enviromental Association's party on campus that evening. I'm the association's advisor.

We ate a great lunch there. Because we weren't familiar with the restaurant, we asked them for some boiled water - everyone has a big thermos here in their apartment or business - and rinsed the bowls just to be safe. I told my dad this on the phone and he was flabbergasted. I suppose I am already used to all this. Everyone heir boils there water, and sanitation is a problem. On the other hand, violent crime, for example, is almost non-existent because the government doles out severe punishments for weapons possession.

Anyway, we had a really nice meal and ate douhua (literally "tofu flower" - this area is famous for this form of tofu). It's pretty tasty!

One-two-B

Three-Four

Six-Five

Eight-Seven

Whattaweek: Election, Birthday, Supervisor Visit

2004-11-11T11:26:00.000+07:00

Wow, what a week this was - the first week of November 2004. The week that the majority of Americans said they still prefer George Bush for their president. The week of my 37th birthday.

The weather this week was unusually nice for this place. We saw the sun a few times (which is rare anytime except summer) and it's been around 21 deg C or around 68 deg F. This allowed me to take more walks, and to go further, into the countryside, which I can get to in just five minutes from my dormitory apartment building. The trails that I walk on, which farmers use to carry food to our campus food market (on their backs), are pretty narrow, and if it's rainy they are treaturously slippery. Some trails fall straight off on one side so that if you slip off, your foot, or all of you, goes down 4 or 10 or 20 feet.

Anyway, this dry, cool, sunny weather has been wonderful. On Tuesday (my birthday), I had a morning class. Then a friend from the Foreign Affairs office, Yang Ning, came up for lunch. I made some cream of cauliflower soup, some Thai tofu with peanut butter sauce, and some Sichuan-style eggplant. She gave me a silver pin shaped like a pineapple that I really like. We took a walk out into the hills and discovered that the fragrant juhua flower is blooming, and set to each picking ourselves a boquet. Chinese women put the flower in a warm bath to make their skin softer and more fragrant. I felt like a little girl picking flowers out in the sunshine!

After that we had some work to do, so by the time dinner came around I was a bit bushed. I had invited the friends I've made here - mostly English teachers - over for a potluck dinner. Well, they just came in and lit up the room and made me forget my tiredness! I may have already mentioned that I've already tried one potluck with some of these people, so I knew they were all comfortable with having multiple conversations and that I wouldn't be a center of attention the whole night. I serve wine sometimes when I have people over for dinner, and my Chinese friends always drink just a few sips. We had a really open conversation about drinking during the potluck and it obviously loosened some of them up when I told them that I don't like to get drunk, but enjoy wine to relax. They all had more. Except for one guy who has the genetic allergy to alcohol that about 20% of Chinese people do. He turns really red and can get sick if he drinks too much. We also talked about taking a day trip to a nearby ancient city, and it looks like plans are set for us to go tomorrow - hooray!

Potluck Dinner

Overall I really have a nice existence here. I have a wonderfully cozy apartment, some nice friends, I like my job as a teacher and advisor to some student groups, and I am helping the University here connect with some international groups. Still, I find that my evenings are pretty lonely. I sometimes have nice dinners with friends, rent a movie, read, walk, but out here in this small-town area, I'm not finding anyplace to "hang out." I sure miss the cafes, bars, and bowling alleys from back home - I know many of the larger cities here have these. And getting out of this village by bus is a whole experience in itself (a topic for another blog). I can see that in time, taking a bus will get easier and that I will get used to the ever-changing schedule. That's why I am so delighted that my friends will take me on a tour of an ancient town tomorrow!

I tracked the U.S. Presidential election all day, and was pretty impressed with how up-to-date the coverage on the English new station here was compared with the statistics I got from the internet and from my dad when he called.

At the end of the week, my new Peace Corps program supervisor came for a visit. Her English name is Sandy and it was really nice to meet her. Because us volunteers don't have cell phones and I was out of my apartment much of the day, I didn't know until about 4:30 on Thursday that a driver was coming around 4:45 to bring me to the city for a dinner with my sitemate! It was a banquet-style dinner, which can be a silly display, usually by men, of college fraternity-like drinking contests. But this group of University Deans and Foreign Affairs Office people is fairly mellow, professional, mature bunch, thank goodness. Not sure if my insistance at the first banquet on not drinking because I had a cold, or my drinking just a bit of wine at the second had anything to do with it, but they just served wine and it was a really nice dinner. A nice way for everyone to touch base and to meet my new supervisor.

What I am most pleased about from that night (besides the wonderful food!) is that the Foreign Affairs Office and the Dean of my school made a committment to meet with me up here in Dengguan every two or three weeks. I proposed this last week because my Chinese language skills and my Dean's English language skills are just not good enough right now to communicate about some of the work we are doing together. And my counterpart (helper) teacher in the department also does not have good enough English to help us. Because we need help communicating, and because some of the international connections we are working in involve the Foreign Affairs office, it all just makes sense to have regular meetings, even if they are not very long. This really hasn't been an issue in the past, since someone who worked for the Foreign Affairs office lived up here until last year. Anyway, it seems we are headed in a good direction, and I am glad Sandy saw all this happening - she will be very supportive in making sure that I am not forgotten up here at this rural campus.

Well, time to sign off and have some lunch and practice some tunes on my tin whistle. I am the advisor to the Environmental Protection Student Association on campus and their welcome party is tomorrow night and they want "a performance." It's the tin whistle or telling jokes...

What have I been up to?

2004-11-11T10:51:00.000+07:00

We are having a bit of a heat wave here. Unfortunately, I cannot enjoy it as much as I'd like because I have another cold. Hopefully, this means I will be virus-free this winter. The Peace Corps requires us to send a Check-in letter to document our first seven weeks of service, and I have attached it. They ask us to describe our work, give a preliminary assessment of our community, and candidly describe our adjustment to our new life. It's pretty long, but it's a great summary of what I've been doing.

Rebecca Cors, Environmental Volunteer
October 31st, 2004

Peng Chuang Zhong, Program Supervisor
Peace Corps China
Sichuan University
No. 29 Wangjiang Road
Chengdu, Sichuan, 610064
P.R. China

Subject: Check-in Letter

Dear Peng Chuang Zhong,

This Check-in Letter describes my activities during my first seven weeks working as an environmental educator in the Environmental Engineering Department at the Sichuan University of Science and Engineering, Dengguan Campus, Zigong. Overall, the University seems receptive to my style, my activities, and the opportunities I am introducing. The most fulfilling aspects of my experience so far are involvement with two student associations, making a few new friends, and the small successes I have had in learning language, finding my way around, teaching, and finding ways to have a comfortable life here. The most frustrating aspects have been obstacles to language learning (i.e. local people refusing to speak Mandarin), my limited ability to communicate, and the slow pace at which University is moving on some opportunities that they say they are interested in for international connections and funding.

When I arrived at site, I was exhausted from our intense training schedule and I was in the first days of an awful cold. As a result, my first weeks in Dengguan were overwhelming and even somewhat miserable. Moving into a new apartment and starting a new job are always stressful, and with my cold and communication skills, everything seemed really difficult and tiring. Well, it looks like my persistence (stubbornness?) seems to have won out, and I am really starting to feel settled in here. And even though it's still challenging to establish a weekly routine because some things end up taking an unexpectedly inordinate amount of time (!), I have a nice network of friends and colleagues here who help me when I have questions. I feel like I am learning a lot from being immersed in a new culture and I also feel good about some of the help I've been able to offer this community. I am enjoying cooking, studying Chinese, journaling, crocheting, and reading fiction and Chinese history and environmental books in my spare time.

Soon after I arrived at site, the Environmental Engineering Department leaders told me their students do not have to pass the BAND-4 test to study in the department. Therefore, they suggested I interview all 170 students to determine their English language level. On September 15th, 16th, 18th, and 19th, I held 5-minute interviews with students individually, scoring them on oral and written skills. This evaluation, along with guidance from Jane Zimmerman, Peace Corps China, helped me to determine that I could teach about half of the students. The other half of the students' English language skills were very low, and I have emailed you a request to, if possible, get some Basic English teacher-training at our January 2005 IST training. I received some Basic English teaching books from Jane and think I can provide some courses this spring.

Huang You Jun is a teacher in the Environmental Engineering Department and is my counterpart. She helped me organize my student interviews, set my fall schedule of classes, learn how to use the multi-media classrooms where I teach, and learn where to make print-outs at the department, and find a vendor to make copies.

Yan Jie, the Dean of the Environmental Engineering Department, met with Huang You Jun and I after my interviews to approve my teaching schedule. All together I teach 12 periods (hours) of class per week and have four hours in my office, during which I meet with students. I started teaching during week 4, the week of September 27th. I teach two classes: Green English and Environmental Decision-Making.

During the National Holiday week I emailed some industrial ecologist professors at American universities to ask about any good lesson plans for environmental engineers. The response was excellent. The University of Michigan sent me some great example lesson plans and papers I can adapt for my classes here. Also, this produced the unexpected, aforementioned invitation from the prestigious Journal of Industrial Ecology (JIE) for the Sichuan University to join their Asian academic partners program. Yan Jie expressed interest in this program and we are currently filling out the paperwork to join this program. Membership includes a free subscription to this journal about environmental engineering worldwide.

I am also helping the Sichuan University to explore a possible connection with my alma matter's, the University of Wisconsin's, Asian Partnership Initiative (API). There are possible opportunities for collaborative research and applying for funding. So far, I have introduced the Waiban people and Yan Jie to the opportunity and suggested they look at the API website and generate a list of needs. With last year's consolidation of three campuses, everyone is very busy, so I do not know when they will want to take action on the API. The application to the JIE is also moving slowly.

Yan Jie has expressed an interest in me speaking with his faculty about American approaches for teaching University engineering classes. Before working for Peace Corps, I worked closely with the University of Wisconsin at Madison's Engineering Learning Center and attended and published articles with the American Association for Environmental Education, so this request is a great match with my background. I encouraged Yan Jie to consider having me talk with more than just the environmental engineering teachers and he seems interested. I am waiting for meeting to be set and see a possibility for a connection between the University of Wisconsin and Zigong, if the University is interested.

The Waiban people have overall been helpful in my settling in here in Denguan. Yang Ning helped me to fix leaky water pipes and Li Yong Mei helped me install my smoke and CO detectors. It is difficult to see my building stairway at night because the entrance is not well lit and the stairwell lights burn out periodically, so I carry a flashlight at night. Overall, I don't have any safety and security concerns. My office computer email did not work for a while and finally was fixed last week, and Yang Ning for the Waiban was very helpful in that regard. Unfortunately, the computer is so slow that emailing from this computer is very inefficient; therefore, I check my email at the local internet cafe or at one of my teacher-friends' apartments. Many people have told me I should not keep my laptop at the office, to prevent theft, so I just bring it when I need to download files for teaching, etc. I download files from the Peace Corps files, files to use for teaching, and files from organizations that I have contacted about connecting with University.

I started meeting with a Chinese language tutor, Cheng Lu, on September 22nd. We meet twice per week and I like working with him. I also practice my Chinese every time I go out to buy supplies for my apartment or for class. The shopkeepers in Dengguan are getting to know me well because I shop often and I learn a lot from them because none of them speak a lick of English. Some shopkeepers and bus drivers will speak Mandarin with me and some will not. It's so exciting to be able to have longer and longer conversations with local shopkeepers about what I am buying and about other topics. In contrast, its very frustrating to be making a huge effort to speak slow, probably poorly pronounced Mandarin only to get no effort from the person I am talking to. Some of the restaurant owners, shopkeepers, and post office people, will outright refuse to talk with me in Mandarin. My tutor reminds me that they are embarrassed to speak Mandarin, but tells me that many of them have a working knowledge of the language. Like many people learning a new language, I always feel I wish I knew more and feel frustrated that my progress isn't faster. Still, I can see progress each week and feel good about the efforts I take to allow many of my experiences to contribute to my language learning.

Several women in Zigong have become nice friends and companions. One woman from the Waiban is my age, and in addition to work-related meetings, we also meet for tea or to shop. I am also enjoying the company of several English teachers here. Spending time with them is a great opportunity for language learning for everyone, and also for cultural exchange. We compare teaching and other aspects of our countries, and enjoy playing badminton, sharing meals, hiking, dancing, and (of course) ping pong. These women also help me with shopping and errands that require more Chinese than I have right now, and sometimes they coach me as I complete a transaction. I have lent one of these teachers an environmental textbook. I am grateful for their companionship.

Most of the students are very responsive to my lessons with the exception of many of the lower-level sophomore class and the juniors who, according to Yan Jie, have a very heavy course load. If anything stands out, it is how well the freshman speak English compared to sophomores and juniors. Here, students' English language skills are less advanced than my model school students in Nanchong, so I have adjusted my teaching approach.

Recently, I have become involved with the Dengguan Campus English Association's Sunday evening English Corner. This two-hour session is usually a time for informal English conversation amongst Chinese students. During my first experience at the English corner, an English teacher and I were surrounded by a throng of students and they sang the Jasmine flower song for me in Chinese and I taught them "You are my sunshine." Since then, I have worked with the coordinators to organize different formats for the talk that allow all students to interact with me and other guest English teachers, and that are more comfortable for the teachers than being surrounded by a mob of students. The first meeting was a "talk-show" format where several English teachers and I were guest speakers and a moderator helped us talk with a group of seated students about topics including 1) how to learn English and 2) differences between China and America.

Most recently, I have working with the campus Environmental Association. I met with their leaders on Friday and helped them scope out a brief list of short-term goals: 1) increase membership, 2) conduct fall and spring (probably Earth Day) awareness and action campaigns, 3) conduct an investigation of the campus environment. They have invited me to their November 7th welcome meeting for new members and asked me to present my suggestions about their goals by giving a presentation in November. I plan to talk to my supervisor, Yan Jie, about whether these activities could be my secondary and 3-week summer Peace Corps projects.

Last year, the Sichuan University of Science and Engineering merged three campuses under administration of one institution. I hope some of the aforementioned international connections can help to support the many changes that accompany such an undertaking. I am ready to use my experience with grant application writing and networking to help guide this process. I will learn a lot about their challenges once they produce a list of needs and interests for connecting with API and JIE. Regarding campus students, my sense is similar to what I saw in Nanchong: these kids want to TALK. I am working hard to give them opportunities to talk during each lesson. I am very proud when I see their eyes light up and when I can tell they are gaining confidence in their speaking skills. My lessons endeavor to build on each other, with reviews of last week's homework, and slowly increasing the complexity of activities. Each student needs to visit my office twice during the semester to complete two presentations, and so far, their energy and enthusiasm for meeting me and presenting are exceeding my expectations.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Cors

My Apartment

2004-10-11T10:48:00.000+07:00

My apartment in Denguan is pretty big and spacious. Everyone knows where I live, or quickly reminds themselves when I tell them where I live that, of course, I live in building 21 - it's the nicest building on campus. The foreign teachers used to live in a hotel that's about a city block away, and the other week one of the women at the foreign affairs office helped me raid some furniture from there, so my apt is well furnished.

The front door opens to the living room, which is pretty big, maybe 14 x 25.

Off of the living room are doors to the bedroom, the front porch, the office, and another room with a table and a chair and the refrigerator.

Bedroom

Study

2nd Bedroom with Fridge - I study Chinese here

If you walk through the front porch, you get to the bathroom, laundry, and kitchen.

Laundry, shower & toliet

Kitchen 1

Kitchen 2

There is great logic in this, because cockroaches always start in the kitchen. I have only seen (and killed) about 5. I hope I am keeping them at bay by keeping the kitchen clean and never leaving food out. My sitemate and I are trying desperately to find roach bait - roaches are attracted to it and eat it. The stores here in Zigong do not have it, and so he is trying to find it up in Chengdu this week. This is supposed to be the best way to prevent build-up of cockroaches for which you need spray.

Off of my bedroom is a small porch where I sometimes read, and where I hand laundry (there are no dryers). There is a beautiful view of the countryside, and a cement plant in the distance. I keep my chives out there - my friend Shirley helped me plant them the other week. They are not exactly chives but are some kind of onion with a bulb and I can't wait to use them for cooking!

Northwest view from back porch

North view from back porch

Northeast view from back porch

The place has dark grey cement floor, which, unfortunately, will make it cold during the winter and definitely do not help with aesthetics. When I first moved in I was so depressed by the dark floors and dingy walls, which have an old coat of light blue paint, and overwhelmed by the many literature quotations on the wall, that I painted my bedroom on the 2nd day I was there. It's a light green and it looks nice. I also bought some baskets and a lamp and cleaned the place, and it's actually starting to feel homey.

Wall literature 1

Wall Literature 2

I'll tell ya, I sure miss my host family's place in Nanchong with its beautiful dark wood floors and light walls. And their place seemed to be sealed pretty well. There are many openings, especially at doors and windows that I'm going to try to seal up before winter. I have two radiator units, but it sounds like they won't prevent the place from getting pretty cold. This is according to the last Peace Corps volunteer who lived in my place. We have been corresponding by email and it doesn't sound like she did a lot to insulate at windows and doors - I'll have to ask her. Anyway, I'm determined to do something and would sure appreciate any advice. Anyone have some great ideas about insulating here? I have been collecting some packing materials like cardboard, plastic bags and wrapping, and styrafoam. I think I'll use the plastic for one window, and may try to see if my hardware guy has some caulk - that'll be an interesting conversation.

Happy National Holiday

2004-10-02T20:27:00.000+07:00

Today, October 1st, is the first day of the week-long National Holiday (Zhongqingjie) to celebrate the 55th anniversary of the establishment of the People's Republic of China. Professionals get three working days off, universities and colleages get seven, and it looks like shops don't close - at least they are not closed here today. Lots of students and faculty want to be with their families for the week. Fortunately for me, a few of my new friends are here for the break, so I have some playmates. I really enjoyed when Shirley and her boyfriend made me dinner last night. Her boyfriend is a great cook!

Peace Corps asks volunteers to stay at their site during the first three months, so, during the next week I will be limited to some visits to Zigong's metro downtown, and to spending time on my suburban Dengguan campus. This is okay with me - I'm starting to like the life I am carving out here for myself. After 3 months, travel time will be the critical factor that will determine how far I can travel. For example, it is a good 5 or 6 hours from Zigong to Nanchong, so I probably won't hop over to see my host family for just a weekend. On the other hand, there are some volunteers that I hit it off with that have been placed in Chengdu (2.5 hours by bus) and Chongqing (3 hours), so these are very possible weekend trips.

Today is the first day I have actually felt cold here in China. I stayed in bed a bit later today, enjoying the warmth of a cozy down comforter that the last volunteer left behind. Then I got up and checked out the three portable radiators that I'll use to heat my place this winter. The buildings are not heated here and I don't know how many people have radiators like I do. I don't think they are cheap. I am finally glad that I lugged some of my winter clothing along with me through Nanchong and Chengdu to get it to my post in Dengguan. Today I am wearing my jeans, a polypropylene turtleneak, a fleece vest, and a windbreaker.

I am looking forward to this quiet week, during which I can prep my apartment for winter, reflect on how to develop my classes now that I have met my students, journal, and read this great Chinese history book that the last volunteer left me. Shopping for stuff for my apartment has become a great way to practice my Chinese because the shop keepers don't know a lick of English and because they have an incentive to try to talk to me (and play charades if need be) in order to have me spend money on their wares.

My favorite hardware guy mimes with me more than any other shop keeper, probably because I am not always looking for an item, but for a solution, such as "a mechanism to hang my towels." Sure, in the U.S. you would buy a towel rack, and they may have them here. But more often, people use a sturdy rope or cable tied to two nails. I still need to go into town to buy a hammer, which they do not sell out here in the suburbs. So far I have been using a can opener as a hammer, with marginal success. I also have a favorite fruit vendor, favorite convenience store lady, favorite yogurt guy, and a favorite family restaurant who makes a good stir-fry-to-go. They all know me and smile or wave when I pass by. I am getting pretty good at using my Chinese to shop and am even striking up simple conversations with them. Then they compliment me on my Chinese and I respond in true, modest Chinese: "bu tai hao" - "oh, it's not so good." I see these people A LOT, primarily because it takes a relatively long time to figure out which store has what I want and then to ask for it. Oh yeah, did I mention that bargaining is a regular part of most transactions - especially at the food market. I never thought shopping would be such a big part of my life here. Although, I don't know how much more efficient I want to be - I sure need the Chinese language practice!

Some of you have been asking about what I miss or what is hard to buy over here. Well, I can't believe how much I missed my blue jeans! They made it here on Tuesday, thanks to an emergency mailing by my mother, and I have worn them every day since. Blue jeans are also very popular here and people wear them in professional settings often. Similarly, inviting friends and family out to KFC and McDonald's, which are more expensive here, is equivalent to going out to a "nice" restaurant in the U.S.

I think I will miss cheese a lot here. If you want to send something, send a box of Macaroni and Cheese! Cheese is hard to get here and is only served in American restaraunts, and since I'm in a more remote area, I don't really get to these place much. I couldn't go to them often even if they were nearby because of how pricey they are. And the toothpaste tastes funny here. Also, I can't beleive how hard it is to get a good ball-point pen - they all explode or run out so fast! And towels cost as much as a dress from the tailor's. Fortunately, the volunteer who lived here last left some decent towels. Reading lamps and school supplies are also, unfortunately, pretty expensive. I can afford to get two nice reading lamps with the "settling in" allowance the Peace Corps gave me. I can also afford to buy some supplies for class on the volunteer pay I get. But the students from rural families can't afford any of it. This is really sad, especially when I see how really earnest they are about learning.

I am an Egg

2004-09-29T23:18:00.000+07:00

Many times in the last two months I have felt like an egg, because so many people around me are working to make sure I don't "break." My host family was always telling me about thieves and how I should be careful with my purse and how staying out past midnight (which I rarely did) was dangerous. In fact, according to the Peace Corps security director, violent crime in is extremely low in China when compared to the U.S. because there is a zero tolerance policy for weapons possession. Anyway, it is wise to be careful about petty theft, which is pretty common, and to use common sense to stay in safe situations.

In Nanchong, if a host family's volunteer stayed out past midnight they would call other host families - even if their guest volunteer told them they might be home as late as 1 or 2. We started to explain to our families that we wanted to come home from bars, kareoke, discos in groups, which sometimes meant waiting until others were ready to go. Still, they were all convinced that at the stroke of midnight the streets became incredibly dangerous. My host family was always holding my hand when I crossed the street, to make sure I didn't get run over by the crazy traffic - right turn no stop.

Truth be told, I appreciated that help. And some host families went to great lenghts to make sure we volunteers were getting enough sleep, food, etc., to the point of treating us like young children. And now my counterpart, Huang YouJun, a peer faculty person here, also treats me as though I might break, telling me how to be safe and making sure I get a seat on the first bus to department events. Even the Dean of the Environmental Engineering school relayed a message to me through Huang YouJun to "enjoy the National Holiday week, but don't hurt myself."

If I am not an egg, then I have three heads. There's really no other explanation for the way people stare at me! They will stop, struck dumb, and watch me walk by or eat. And little kids - especially the 2-3 year olds - sometimes cry when they see me!

Or else I am a movie star. People call out "hallooo!" (hello) from to my left and right and behind me. It's usually children and young men. I also turned heads at the hair salon - but I don't think it was my stunning model-like looks. When people get up the guts to talk to me, it can often be pleasant and they practice their English and I practice my Chinese. However, it can also be strange. If they are nervous, the first words they often blurt out are about how we should be friends and I should give them my phone number. I am finally getting used to this all. People in this remote area are even more nervous about talking to me than people in Nanchong, and often do things like this.

Without understanding and reminding myself of the motivation (to meet their first foreigner and practice their English) behind these actions, the experience can be quite disturbing. All this attention might sound great, but the glory and feeling of glamour sure gets old - fast. And it's easy to let yourself feel stifled by it. Don't forget, it's also really crowded here and, during most of my weeks here, I will not see another face like mine.

Or maybe I am becoming a jock. It's a great way to meet people and, of course, exercise is a great way for me to keep an even keel. I sometimes just walk around campus with my basketball if the courts are full, since I'm not really good enough to play a pick-up game and just want to take some shots and maybe play horse. One Chinese woman approached me when I was just shooting and she kicked my a-- at playing horse (we used a Chinese word, of course). I met another woman when walking around campus with my basketball in hand. She had her basketball in hand too, and we saw each other from across the walk. Our eyes met as though it was some kind of "love connection!" We both stopped and approached each other slowly and talked for a good while before she asked for my phone number. At first I did not give out my phone number to anyone I just met once, but I think I'm going to start giving it out to athletes. They like to talk to me, but they also want to play the game! It really takes the pressure off because then I don't feel like the center of attention so much.

I am also a friend, at least to a few women on campus. Annie and Shirley, these english teachers who I have mentioned, have become regular buddies of mine. We eat together or play ping pong or badminton or frisbee a few times a week - often with a few other teachers. We are waiting for a nice weekend to take a hike into the countryside. And Shirley and I may go into Zigong to a wine bar during the National Holiday next week! And Yang Ning from the Foreign Affairs Office is great. She works up at this campus about once per week and we have hit it off, asking about each other's families and likes, dislikes, etc. She had taken me on most of my shopping trips to buy things to shape up my apartment. We plan to go into Zigong next week to visit the tailor and have a massage!

And I have the delightful opportunity to be a famous teacher. My students adore me and will do just about anything I ask of them.

And I need to keep reminding myself that to many people here I represent OPPORTUNITY. The way people respond to me here can make me uncomfortable, and if I can get past it, I can be part of a great exchange.

2004-09-29T22:49:00.000+07:00

Ambassador Clarke Randt and Me

2004-09-29T22:48:00.000+07:00

Marisa and I with families at Hot Pot

2004-09-29T00:49:00.000+07:00

Here is a photo of my host family taking a break during our hike up the Nanchong XiShan (west mountain) on 8-15-04.

Heavenly Haircut

2004-09-26T23:06:00.000+07:00

That's right, if you don't come to China for the food or the sights, come for the haircuts and massages!

After about three or four months without a haircut, I decided it was high time to find a salon here in Zigong. I was really nervous, but several Chinese women I know recommended some places with confidence. I ended up going to a place in a downtown center of Zigong. A few fellow volunteers had haircuts in Nanchong during our training weeks and told me to expect a bit of scalp and/or shoulder massage, but this experience yesterday was over the top!

I've never had my hair so thoroughly washed. The hair-washing woman, a young woman with a wide face with delicate features who had short, streaked hair, had me lay down in a reclined chair. At the end of the reclined chair was a washing basin for my head, like most salons in the states have. Well, she spent a good ten minutes shampooing my hair with some lemon-y scented shampoo.

And, by the way, the reclined chair vibrated. It had a wonderful cycle of slow and fast pulses and at the end of the cycle it sped up with a constant pulse so that it started to sound like it was going to blast off out of the salon. But it soon subsided and started over with slow and fast pulses. Well, the vibrating started as soon as I lay down for my shampooing and continued through a 20 or 30 minute (I lost track of time) upper body and scalp massage by the shampoo woman.

Then, off to the stylist's chair. The shampoo woman gave my shoulders a quick massage and then went to check to see if my stylist was ready. Since he was stuck in the middle of a perm, I had to wait for about 10 minutes - during which the shampoo woman continued to give me a good back and shoulder massage!

The stylist seemed to really get into his work, checking many angles and looking at me and my hair from all different angles so that he reminded me of an artist. And the cut was as good as some of the best I've had in the states. I got the salon business card with his name, so I can go back. All of this for $20 kuai ($2.50 or a bit less than a day's pay for me)!

More About Splitting Pears

2004-09-26T22:57:00.000+07:00

My host cousin, Bin, read my blog about how splitting pears is a dangerous thing for friends to do. He offered an explanation for this interesting superstition (his English is very good):

Bin wrote: "My mother has also told me of this. It's a play on words really. The Chinese word for pear ... pronounced more or less "lee" ... sounds the same as the word for to leave, or to depart. So, if you split a pear in half with a friend, you "split leave"...and the superstition is that your friendship will be doomed by distance, death, etc., some sort of divide between you and your friend. This is why pears are never split."

Dengguan Campus

2004-09-24T22:46:00.000+07:00

I am teaching in the Environmental Engineering Department at the Dengguan campus of the Zigong Institute of Science and Engineering. Dengguan is pretty remote. The downtown is small and just serves the campus, which is about an hour’s bus ride from downtown Zigong and the other campuses.

The weather here is constantly humid, but I don’t notice the humidity unless I'm exerting myself physically because the cool fall weather is here. Temps are in the low and mid 20s C, high 60s and mid 70s F. It can be breezy here, and this also makes the weather pleasant. I hear in the wintertime the temps can get down to 5 C, which feels very cold because of the dampness. Fortunately I have two heating units for my apartment. I hear the classrooms are not heated.

We don’t see the sun much, but it’s not because of the air pollution - one advantage of a remote site in China is less air pollution. It’s just that it’s almost constantly cloudy. Probably, at least in part, because the weather moves slowly through the Sichuan basin. I wonder how long the skies here will stay clean. Zigong is growing quickly and may soon sprawl out this far. Also, many of the cars and trucks and buses that pass through Dengguan do not look or sound like they would even come close to passing a U.S. auto emissions test. Many have black fumes coming out of their tailpipes and/or don’t sound like they are in the best of shape.

There are no sidewalks in Dengguan, so when a vehicle passes through, it beeps and honks almost incessantly. And this is not the only noise pollution around - at least from my standpoint. This will make those of you who have ever lived with me laugh. The campus has a PA system that plays a kind of death-by-icecapades music (“Somewhere Over the Rainbow” is one song and others are more upbeat), along with announcements or patriotic talk or something. The sound system has a lot of static. It plays every weekday all over campus at 6:30 a.m., 2:10 p.m. (to wake you up from your after dinner nap and get to 2:30 classes or return to work), and 5:30 p.m. to mark different parts of the day. I had an awful cold when I first got here and was trying to nap and sleep in and was foiled by this crazy noise! I am actually kind of starting to get used to it now. It’s a strange thing, though. In addition to being annoying when I want to sleep in, the concept of a controlled environment, or being prompted to follow a community schedule, goes against every grain of American individuality in me.

I am finding some wonderful friends here. Of course, everyone wants to look at and speak with “the American.” People stare at me constantly and even just stop to watch me eat because they have never seen “one” except for in the movies. Fortunately, two wonderful English teachers have “adopted” me and have me over for dinner and help me find things I need to buy, and are starting to become people I like to socialize with. Annie and Shirley are a lot of fun; they like to laugh and just hand out. Sunday night I went out to eat with both of them and Annie’s husband, who was in town from Chengdu, and Shirley’s boyfriend who works in the library, and Shirley’s younger sister who is a student here. Afterwards, we played ping pong - VERY popular all over China - and we were practically crying with laughter at the crazy doubles show-down moves at the end of the evening.

Shirley knows of some wine bars in downtown Zigong where they serve wine by the glass - something that’s very hard to find in China. I think we’re going to head down to one during the National Holiday, October 1-7. During the same week I will go to the tailor’s and to a massage parlour with Yang Ning, a woman at the Foreign Affairs Office who is helping me settle in. Yang Ning is great. She’s about my age and she’s a very calming presence that I appreciate so much when every little thing seems so hard to figure out. Getting a massage he! re is so different than in the states. First, it’s relatively expensive - 30 kuai, which is a day’s pay for me. But that’s only $4, so keep it in mind if you visit! You leave all of your clothes on and go into a room with several beds, so you often go with a friend. I may have described in an earlier post about how I went with a fellow volunteer in Chengdu. It’s a great time to relax and maybe talk a bit.

The Environmental Engineering department here doesn't require the “BAND 4” English test, so many have low English language skill levels. I had to email the Peace Corps office after I interviewed all 170 students and confirm that I could not teach about half of them because I don't have the training. Peace Corps may offer some Basic ESL training for me and other volunteers in January, so that next semester I could teach the students who didn't make it into my class this semester. What's great is that the EE (environmental engineering) Dean is giving me license to propose course topics and sizes and to do what I want as far as teaching. I will teach 4 EE courses - Green English and a more advanced Environmental Decision-Making course. I will also teach one of each of these courses to other majors on campus, who have passed BAND-4, so these courses will probably move along more quickly.

Now that we have ironed out my schedule, I will start teaching classes next week. Some volunteers started teaching two weeks ago - just days after they reached their sites! I hear a few others won’t start until after the National Holiday (October 8th). It looks my courses run through the 17th week of a 20-week semester. This means September 6 - December 30 (I’ll start late this semester) and February 28th through about June 24th.

In February all of China celebrates the Spring Festival - sounds like a wonderful time of moon cakes and colorful festivities! There’s a good chance that I will travel to Gansu for three weeks during this time for in-service training with Peace Corps. I would love to do this, since Gansu is an arid, multi-ethic province and its cities are located on the ancient Silk Road.

First Days in Zigong

2004-09-21T23:56:00.000+07:00

Zigong, my post for the next two years, is about two and a half hours south south east of Chengdu and about 3 hours west of Chongqing. The municipal area has a population of about 3 million people, and Zigong proper has about 500,000 people. At a banquet-style lunch on Friday, the Foreign Affairs Director said that Zigong is considered a small city because of its low population and said there is an interest in becoming a bigger city. This echoes what I hear when I talk to many Chinese: growth and economic development is success. Still, many also recognize that social priorities need to come into the equation too. The Chinese government asked the Peace Corps for some volunteers with environmental experience because of this. And many of the well educate people I talk with are keen to figure out how to learn from what America knows about environmental protection, including some fellow professors h! ere in Zigong. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. It has also been interesting to talk with some women about the high suicide rate for women in the countryside and about other women's issues here that will need to change as the country develops.

After the swearing-in ceremony at the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu, we had a lovely banquet at a nearby 5 star hotel. Embassador Randt even stayed for this, and gave a nice, short speech. He really spent the whole morning with us, when I'm sure he had many things he could have run off to take care of instead. Many of the volunteers were honored by his presence and I know there were also some high-caliber Chinese officials from the Ministry for Education at Randt's table. This all reflects how important the Peace Corps program in China is becoming.

Anyway, after a tasty Chinese meal, the Zigong University faculty took my site-mate and I back to the hotel and we loaded up a van and headed south for Zigong. On the other end of the trip was a banquet with beer and yogurt for beverages at a very nice hotel in downtown Zigong. I stuck with the yogurt for my toasting. Daniel can handle his alcohol much better than I and was fine with beer. Daniel and I both met our counterparts, a faculty person who can help us with all of the details about moving in and learning the ropes in our respective departments, at the banquet. We also me some more people from the foreign affairs office and I met the Dean of my department, the Environmental Engineering Department at Denguan campus, who is turning out to be a good guy to work with so far. But more about that later.

After the evening banquet, where we ate some crab and some other crustacean (yum), we dropped Daniel off at his apartment. Daniel's apartment is on the old campus in downtown Zigong and he has broadband internet in his apartment. There were about 6 of us who helped Daniel carry his stuff up to his spacious, new place. Then I said good by to everyone except Huang Youjun, my counterpart, who rode with me in the van back to the remote "suburban" Denguan campus where I live and teach. Now that Zigong has established a 40 mph speed limit between Zigong and Denguan, it takes about an hour to get there, not the half-hour that the Foreign Affairs people suggested earlier. As we neared the campus, Huang Youjun called her friend, "Shirley," to help with my bags. Shirley, an English teacher who is becoming a wonderful friend of mine, and Huang Youjun are both about 5 feet tall and were both wearing high heel shoes, like many women in China do.&n! bsp; Well, the driver watched as the three of us struggled and panted and groaned as we dragged my 6 heavy bags filled with books, safety equipment, etc. Yang Ning, a woman at the Foreign Affairs Office who has been looking out for me during my first weeks here later asked me about whether the driver helped, and was not surprised when I told her he did not - typical in China, she said. Ever since then, even if I just have a little bit to carry, she has the cab driver help me up the stairs. In China, Peace Corps volunteers are in the enviable position of getting about the best the country has to offer, since learning English and learning American ways of dealing with economic development and environmental protection are so critical to their development. I have felt so welcome here and I am so delighted that the Foreign Affairs Office and the University see my work here as a priority - it's going to be an exciting two years.

- Rebecca Cors (Ke Li)

Sworn In!

2004-09-19T12:38:00.000+07:00

Well, I can't beleive I've gotten access to my blog again. I've had an awful time with internet access since I came to Zigong, my post for the next two years.

So, where did I leave off? Well, all 46 of the China - 10 volunteers gathered in Chengdu for about 5 days for a little more orientation and for our swearing-in ceremony. And for a little fun...

Chengdu has a lot to offer an American who is homesick, or just sick of the Chinese monoculture. There's Grandma's Kitchen, which serves mac n' cheese and salad and pizza and more. There's a great Indian restaraunt and a Thai restaurant whose Philipino band performs jamaican and popular music and gets the patrons to join in on exotic dances. :)

And there are some great massage places. A fellow volunteer and I got an 80-minute massage for 30 kuai a piece! That's $4 - of course, it's about a day's pay for a Peace Corps volunteer, but sometimes we splurge. The non-Chinese restaurants are always a day's pay for the food and add more if you want wine or beer. Massages are very different here. The reputable places, where there are no "extras," if you know what I mean, take you and your companions into a room of comfy beds. Sometimes you get your feet soaked in a bucket of hot water for starters. You leave all of your clothes on. I've only had one massage here, and it was really nice. Some of us have heard that blind masseuses (sp?) are the best and give a deep tissue-type massage. Iwant to go a few times a month if I can find a good place in Zigong. My campus is about an hour by bus to Zigong, where another volunteer is at the other campus for Zigong's Sichuan Institute of Science and Engineering.

But more about that later. I can't forget to tell you that the U.S. embassador to China, Clark Randt, swore us in. The affair was really something - very fancy and very tastefully done! After our week of more orientation, receiving more safety and security stuff (including a bike helmet, CO detector, smoke detector, and fire ladder!), more shots, listening to some good speakers, finding out about our site assignments, and meeting some staff and faculty who came to take us to our posts, we got up Friday morning September 10th (?) and took a bus over to U.S. consultate. I wore my black chipau (traditional Chinese dress) and a lot of other volunteers also wore some traditional silk clothes. We all took lots of photos, and after the embassador swore in our group he was gracious enough to take a photo with each of us! He sounds like a durn busy guy, and yet he took the time to talk with some of us instead of rushing out. A few of us listened to him tell about how he started his career with the U.S. government in the air force and soon had a happenstance chance to be assigned to learn some Chinese! Afterwards there was an amazing banquet with wonderful food and some distinguished speakers. I sat with my site-mate, Daniel, and the faculty and foreign affairs people from Zigong who had come to pick us up and take us back to Zigong.

Well, immediately after the swearing in - acutally about an hour before - I started feeling sick. I ended up with an awful cold virus and have been dealing with all that crap - stuffy head, aching throat, deep coughs - during my first week in Zigong. The support staff and faculty have been great, and I can't wait until I can start to enjoy this all more. More about Zigong soon!

Rain, Rain, Go Away!

2004-09-05T12:56:00.000+07:00

The rain here is making thing tough. Which I sure need to qualify, because I have been living the pampered life of a king over here in Nanchong, Sichuan Province, PRC. I have breakfast and dinner cooked for me, have my own bathroom and bedroom, have a host family that adores me, and am getting some pretty good language and cultural training.

Still, this rain is something else! Between yesterday and the day before, it rained and poured and stormed for about 36 hours straight! It stopped raining around 4, which was great because we volunteers had our host families all together at an appreciation dinner at the central Beihu Park and could stroll around afterwards. Still, the humidity just stays up there, even though the weather is cooler ~ 75 deg F.

So, why does this pose a problem. Well, let me tell ya - it goes way beyond just making my life dreary. First, whenever it rains a lot, the university (my host family's apartment is on campus) shuts down some of the electricity - namely the TV and the internet. And, as luck would have it, this is my first free weekend since I've been here and I can't watch any TV (they have American HBO and international news in English) or use the internet at home - ugh (how spoiled does that sound)! Heavy rain can also cause electricity black-outs, flooding, and cut off water supplies. Some of my fellow volunteers have had no shower water in the a.m., but we've been ok at my place. Once and a while the electricity goes out, usually just for 10-20 minutes. And I hear about flooding in nearby cities. Nanchong city streets flood with almost every heavy rain, but the flooding subsides into a network of underground tunnels and a moat-like canal that encircles the city.

I suppose my second-biggest gripe is how slowly my laundry dries. All my problems seem to come back to laundry - eh? Well, I washed a few things yesterday (Saturday) morning, and I'm concerned that they will not be dry before I have to head out to Chengdu on Tuesday a.m. Between the humidity and the rain, everything dries at a snail's pace. And only the very rich have driers and clothes cleaning services.

Also a problem is the increasingly pungent smell of my Chaco sandles. A day of sun helps the stench to subside, but many of us voluteers are struggling with this problem during these long stints of rain, humidity, and clouds. I welcome any advice about how to take care of the smell. In true Chinese style, my host mother pointed to my shoes and then to her nose and then to my sandles and then to the window sill where I now keep them because they smell too bad to be kept by the door with the other shoes. Remember, Chinese people are very comfortable talking about how much you make, how fat you are, and how bad your shoes smell and mean no offense. In fact, some have walked right up to two of the larger women in our group to touch their arms to feel how fat they are. From an American point of view, this spitting, arm-pinching, male shirt-up-when-hot culture seems to have no value for politeness! Still, they are so polite about invitations -they will never say no to you. It will always be "I can't make it tonight" or "I am busy" and we need to learn to do the same.

The worst part of this rainy season is how awfully slow and undependable email is. At my host home, it's just plain not working. And the internet cafe is touch and go. And lots of times I am using email and I get an error message and have to start over, waiting the 3 minutes to log on, the 3 minutes just to check my mail, and another 3 or so minutes to see a message. Today things are better, but often it can be this slow. There's a good chance that the university I land at in a week will have broadband (fast) service or that I will be able to pay for a better ISP. Cross your fingers!

Gambei!

2004-09-04T13:39:00.000+07:00

We made it through our last week of training and I am exhausted. This last week had several highlights, including my introduction to the Chinese BANQUET.

Unlike American "banquets" - large dinners, often to honor someone - Chinese banquets are small affairs that take place at one or two tables at a restaurant. Often the tables are set off in their own room in the restaurant. The person with the highest level of responsibility (president, boss, etc) always sits opposite the door and thier napkin is bigger and more interestingly folded than the rest. As American teachers, we learned we should expect to be asked if we want to sit in this seat and should (obviously) immediately refuse. We learned this and more at a lunchtime banquet/ language training session this past week.

When out at bars and restaurants that serve beer, most of us volunteers have been toasted. All over the city, and I suppose all over China, beer is served in small shot-glass-type glasses. When a Chinese person sees an American and gets up the gumption, they will often come over and toast us and welcome us to China, ask how we like it, etc. In this situation, this is often a harmless, friendly gesture. But we are learning to beware. "Gambei" means "empty your glass. And toasting one person in a group and then not toasting the rest is a severe insult to the latter group, as it makes them "lose face." A few fellow female volunteers went out to a bar recently (I didn't go) and toated, from afar, a table of Chinese who sent over some fruit to their table. This led to a visit to their table by two relentlessly toasting Chinese! It sound like they were hard to get rid of. It is usually much worse if you are male, as women can more often get away with sipping rather than emptying their glass. One of the male volunteers in our group ran into a lot of pressure when his familiy took him to a banquet in the early weeks of our training. He responded to the first toast he received, which felt like a warm welcom to China, with vimm and vigor and toasted the person back. Well, every other person at the banquet immediately wanted to toat him too. He did his best and was able to move from emptying his glass to sipping. Sounds like it was a challenge to avoid drinking more than he wanted to.

At our "training" banquet, we learned to say "Panbei," which means cheers (rather than "empty your glass") and many phrases about why we cannot drink this or that. Most of us PC volunteers have decided to tell our coworkers that the Peace Corps said we can't drink with co-workers. This is not far from the truth, since Peace Corps has a strict policy about alcohol-related rowdiness, accidents, low performance, etc. And, since having one drink at a banquet can easily lead to drunkenness.

I had the great fortune to be able to practice my phrases twice later in the week. That evening, I made my family salad, an American adventure for them. Email suggestions from friend Jill and my mother helped me to compose a recipe for a relish-type salad with a corn-cucumber-red onion base, and some dressing. They invited two guests and even bought some bread, butter, and wine. In my desperation for wine (I have yet to find wine served by the glass here) I may have mentioned that Americans always drink wine with salad. The salad itself turned out moderately well, and led to great opportunities to practice my Chinese. First, I spent about an hour in the kitchen with my host mother, who speaks only Chinese - now that's a way to learn a language. I will never forget how to say "that's enough!" And at the meal my host father toasted me and I had a chance to try out a few of my toasting words. Then, a few evenings later, we went out for hotpot with another volunteer and her host mother. Knowing I like wine, my host family took the trouble to bring wine into the restaurant (I'm not sure if the restaurant did not sell wine or it was just to expensive). Everyone toasted everyone, wishing them good fortune in life, thanking each for support, friendship. I was able to use my broken Chinese to thank my friend's host mother for taking my to the tailor for the first time, and to tell her I've gone twice on my own now! I was also able to thank my host father for the learning experince I have when speaking with him. My host mother's toast reflected her traditional thinking, and I'm not sure what else... She raised her glass to me and apologized for cooking me inadequate food.

Good Old American Party (?)

2004-08-28T18:15:00.000+07:00

Yep, last night all of the volunteers tried to have a good ol' American party. One of the volunteer's host family opened their home up to us - they were wonderful. We all sat around with our shoes on (no slippers) and ate pizza and drank beer and wine and enjoyed some wonderful appetizers complements of the host family whose home we invaded.

The evening was nice, and a great opportunity to say good-bye to one of our language teachers who has to leave early (today) to go back to teach at a University for the fall. Jia Ya Mei was a really passionate, fun teacher and we will all be sorry to see her go. Sam, one of the volunteers is great at drawing and created a custom-made card that showed us 10 environmental education volunteers. We also bought Jia a silk scarf from one of the many shops around here that sell them.

It was also a celebration of sorts for our Peace Corps training group, because we completed the model school teaching practice. This is terrific, because now we can focus more on keeping up with our language class - writing lesson plans in the evening was becoming quite a distraction. We will still have a full morning of language, and training in the afternoon, but no homework in the evening except for language. I know many of us will use the time to talk with our tutors.

Back to the party... Keep in mind that at the local noodle shop, I can get a decent lunch for 3 yuan, and at the local restaurant, lunch might run 4 to 6 yuan. A bottle of wine was 22 yuan - a few of us paid 70 in the park a few weeks back for the same bottle! Some big, maybe 24-oz beers are 3 yuan per bottle. And the pizzas were 50 yuan a piece - we got 15 because they are pretty small. The 10 of us, with a little help from our teachers and site coordinator and the host family polished off all of the pizzas. Most Chinese people do not like heavier food like pizza and do not like tomato sauce, so it was mostly us Americans downing the pizza. And the pizza was pretty durn good - a bit greasy and very cheesy. Many of us have been missing cheese. So the total for our feast was 460 yuan. Not incredibly expensive in $US - $80, which the 10 of us split. $8 per person isn't bad at all for a night of drink, pizza, and a movie. However, considering that right now our allowance is 25 yuan per day, 46 yuan per person is getting a bit steep.

While the pizza was a taste of home, the movie sure was NOT. Many of the DVDs and VDVs(?) here that you rent are bootlegged. That is, someone goes to the movie at a theater and videotapes it and rents it out. So, King Arthur didn't work - I actually wanted to see it - heard it received ok reviews just before I left the states. And the Day After Tomorrow was so dark in some scenes that you really couldn't see what was happening. I really am starting to miss movies - I hope I can somehow see some good ones once I make it to my site.

This morning we heard from the woman who assigns sites. It was so exciting to hear about all of the needs of the Universities we will work at. They want us to teach all different kinds of classes from Environmental, or "Green" English to Geography. And they want help training their Professors in English and many want us to start or help maintain and grow an enviromental resource center. We find out in just less than two weeks - 9/10 - where we'll be assigned!

Never Split a Pear with a Friend

2004-08-25T20:04:00.000+07:00

... that's right, Chinese people NEVER split a pear with a friend. In fact, a (Peace Corps volunteer) couple here attempted to do so, and this was followed by meyhem, as their host families shouted and lunged to stop them! You think I exaggerate? Well, perhaps a bit, but not much. There are a few things that all of us trainees are getting used to, and one is this interesting superstition about what bad luck it is to split fruit with a friend. So, what's a body to do it one doesn't want a who banana or pear. Well, we've learned that it's perfectly all right to cut the fruit into many pieces and place them on a plate for everyone, even if just two people split it that way. However, word has it that some clandestine fruit-splitting is still going on behind closed doors at our meeting place - the foreign affairs office "Waiban" - by some of us volunteers.

Other things we are getting used to... Chopsticks (food and sticks still fly and drop); house slippers (some of us have different pairs for different rooms); constant spitting and "hocking luggies," which is VERY acceptable for both men and women here; the innocence of the Chinese - they approach us to talk and laugh at our pronounciation mistakes - and each other's misfortunes(!) - but very very very rarely mean any harm; and men walking around on hot days with shirts hiked up to their shoulders and their nipples showing - while shorts are not very acceptable for women (?)!!

At the same time, it sure isn't tough to get used to the food here if you like veggies and tofu and meats and rice. Sichuan has it's own special pepper called "huajiao" that makes your mouth numb. I'm not a big fan, but a lot of regional people like it. And a lot of the buildings are grey, but the central Beihou park here is full of ponds and fountains and bridges, and the air pollution really isn't very bad here because Nanchong is not a very industrial city. Us volunteers are learning that we were feeling winded because of the smog AND the very high humidity this summer. Yes, summer is in the past and fall started - last week apparently. And i's very welcome to THIS Wisconsinite! Temps seemed to drop from 40 deg C to 24 deg C overnight last week. And I saw goosebumps on my arm yesterday! It's been raining a lot - usually a light, steady rain for a few hours at a time. I love the rain - I was preying for it for the last three weeks.

Back to the strange and different characteristics of the Chinese culture. What's been somewhat comforting is to have a chance to visit other volunteer's host family's homes and to realize that their families are as different and weird and warm and dysfunctional as our families back in the good old U.S! We have host families who love to own pets, who are hypochondriacs, who like to socialize, who may be manic depressive, who like to cook, who like to eat out, high tech families, humble families, quiet families, rich families, simple people, quiet people, dog lovers, etc, etc. Perhaps the biggest differences from American families are that people stay closer to home. All of the young people I talk with want to end up working near home when they finish University, even those getting a PhD. And most of our host parents live near thier parents. Also, families need to pay the government if they have more than one child, so most have just one. Sometimes at the end of a class period, if we have extra time, I answer students' questions about me and about America. They always want to know how many siblings I have. When I tell them I have a whopping three brothers, they oooh and aaah. Many Chinese families still value boys more than girls, so they might have four kids, but they would only do this because the first three were girls!

Today I am very happy because the Peace Corps helped some of us get language tutors and I met with mine today and she's great. Her name is He Bing and she's a geography undergrad and wants to be a professor and is into fitness and her Mandarin is great. Also, she has a lot of maps of China and the world - these are hard to find anywhere. I'm hoping she can help me buy a good map of China for travelling. I have an extra map of Wisconsin that I'm going to give her. It's tough to fit in time with her because we teach until Friday, but I'm going to push to fit it in. I want to get my language skills in tip top shape for when I land at my site in two weeks! I hope to talk He into an afternoon of table tennis, hiking, and/or basketball this Sunday!

Shop Til You Drop!

2004-08-22T18:40:00.000+07:00

Some things are universal, like the way women bond when shopping! I am not a big shopper, especially when it comes to clothes, but I took the opportunity to bond with my host mother and host sister this weekend during two shopping trips. It has helped us to become even better at communicating, which has been tough for a couple of reasons. First, I am on a condensed training schedule, so I don't have a lot of time to practice communicating with them besides mealtimes and a few hours here and there. Second, I recently learned that my host mother, Bai, is painfully embarrassed about how bad her Mandarin is - she speaks a local dialect. Finally, my host sister is VERY focused on practicing her English on me and I have had to wear her down by asking her literally every time she speaks a sentence to also speak it in Chinese.

Well, Saturday at dinner I was feeling pretty beat from the week, and from a nice time out at Nanchong's central Beihou Park - wine and beer next to the water at an open-air restaurant - with some fellow volunteers on Friday night. Bai and Irene asked me if I was still planning on going dancing with my "pengyou" (PC volunteer friends). I said that our plans had changed and that we were meeting at 7:30 to go out for a bit, and that I might just see if some of them wanted to go for a walk, because I was pretty tired. I asked them what they were doing and they said that there are some really good deals at the clothes stored now and they were going shopping. In Chinese I said really "zhenda ma?" Suddenly, there was for the first time some connective energy between us and we were talking about when we should leave (immediately after dinner), what all we needed to buy, and how to negotiate a good price. Our language teachers have taught us phrases for "too expensive!" and "forget it!". And, as I saw later in the evening, negotiating can indeed be quite heated in China.

The shopping itself was not very productive for me in that I didn't find any clothes to buy. However, I did learn that Chengdu, the nearby capitol of Sichuan has better prices for clothes. I also learned that department stores cater to the younger generation, and women in their 20's buy teeny-bopperish clothes. There were a few departments with more mature women's clothes. Older women have their clothes made at tailors, especially if they want pants. Many volunteers have clothes made at tailor shops too. So far, I've had a silk outfit made and, more recently, a dress. Our Chinese teachers have some great clothes that we have borrowed to bring to tailors to ask them to copy. At the mall with Bai and Irene last night, I saw only fashionable clothes, and no Eddie Bauer/Lands End/REI type clothes, and felt so glad I have begun working with tailors. There is one American-type store that sells outdoor REI clothes, but it is not at the malls we walked to . I hear and read that China is catering to its young, single children, the first generation who has not known hardship and struggle, and who are sometimes considered "spoiled."

Anyway, the next morning Bai and Irene and I ventured out again, this time to the market. I had asked Bai earlier in the week about taking me shopping for food, since I will want to do this once I am placed at a University site. Like farmer's markets just about anywhere, the veggies and herbs were beautiful. I love the enormous winter melons that, when cooked are a semi-translucent, melt-in-your mouth treat. The greens and eggplant are also favorites. I took lots of photos and hope to get them on the blog in September - the internet connection here is too cubersome to try to do it now. PHotos show how farmers weigh their food on balance scales made of a metal stick that is marked to show "jins" or 1/2 kilos. Then the food is weighed against a 1-jin weight to get the price. The jin weight and the tray for the food hang from the metal stick by strings.

The meat market was a very NEW cultural experience for me. Live chickens, rabbits, and fish are stunned, killed, and sometimes fired (to burn off scales, etc) when purchased. Pork and beef is sold from wood slabs and sellers and buyers touch the meat and their $$ without washing their hands. Very different that the butcher's in the U.S.

I decided to start eating meat again in China; however, I prefer tofu and encourage Bai to cook it by complementing her tofu meals. She DOES cook a mean doufu gan! I am not eating fish - the Peace Corps suggested we avoid it because of high levels of contaminants which could include mercury. Anyway, I suppose Bai cooks more meat than I would prefer, but she is a great cook and I hope I have time to learn a recipe or two from her before I go. Bai and Zhou say I eat like a Chinese person, with a love for veggies and "shifan," the tofu-and-rice porridge.

Every morning I drink a bowl of warm tofu milk (once and a while we have the porridge instead). They also give me boiled rolls and peanut butter and jelly. The rolls are boiled because ovens are scarce here. The PB&J is my American food. Bai often gives me a banana or peach or pear and a boiled egg, which I often take for a light lunch. Having a light lunch helps me have a good appetite for dinner, which usually consists of several veggetable dishes, some with meat, and sometimes a tofu dish, which may also have meat. If Zhou cooks, which is rarely and only when Bai is gone, he makes a tomato and egg dish that is a mainstay here in Sichuan. Bai's doufu gan that I mentioned earlier is one of my favorites. It's smoked tofu and can be served with any veggies, and Bai's medly of herbs and greens just makes it the best.

I also have a penchant for the "yuxiang qieze," the fish-sauce eggplant. The place that has the best version is the Beihou park restaurant I was at on Friday. Yum - baked eggplant with this great sauce and a 1/2 bowl of rice that we always dump into the sauce. And Friday, I finally had some wine. I'm not a beer drinker and Chinese bars usually sell bottle only by the wine, so I can only have wine if some people will share a bottle with me. The bottle cost about 12 times what the meal cost, but it was worth it. Not a bad red - maybe like a house cab sav.

A/C Addict

2004-08-15T12:43:00.000+07:00

Well, the heat broke a bit for the weekend. We were up to about 38 C on Wednesday or Thursday, now I think we are back into the low- and mid- 90s during the day. I am ashamed to admit it, but I am so hooked on air conditioning here. We don't have any for language class, which is from 8 a.m. until 12 noon in the teaching building; however, when the electricity works (usually does) we have fans. We do have A/C from 12 until 3 in the Foreign Services Office, "Waiban," on campus. Then it's back to the teaching building to teach from 3 to 5 and then back to the Waiban for evaluations from 5 to 5:30 or 6 p.m. And on weekends I turn it on in my room when I work on my computer and when I sleep. On the really hot nights I pray it will not give out because of one of the frequent power surges that reset our clocks. I may try to sleep with just a fan tonight, as I don't always feel very refreshed after sleeping with air conditioning on - turning it up to 26 or 27 deg C helps. We just have four more weeks here in Nanchong, one of the hottest parts of Sichuan Province. To make it all hurt just a bit more, we keep hearing reports about how our fellow volunteers in Chengdu are getting rain almost every day and how they are having the coolest summer in recent memory! ugh!

On top of the heat, the A/C usage is creating electricity shortages. Because of this, the campus internet is shut down and all of our host families' email services do not work. So, here I am at a dank, dingy internet cafe - ugh!

This morning, I finally had some time to spend with my family for longer than a meal. Because of our condensed training schedule (covering 11 weeks in 6), we have had less time than expected - not more much time than meals usually - to spend with our familes. This has created a tension for us volunteers as we try to keep up with a fast-track language class, spend time with our host families to practice language and learn about the culture and show our appreciation for thier hospitality, AND keep up with model school. I have taught before, but some of the volunteers who haven't taught were feeling pretty frazzled this week, and I sure didn't have much free time. Well, the dust is starting to settle now that we are into teaching and just need to create a few lesson plans every week.

Anyway, this a.m., I talked my host family into taking me up to West Mountain (Xi Shan), a hill where a Buddhist temple is. We caught a bus that took us about a mile to the western edge of the city. Then we climbed through some construction and found a stairway that kept going up and up and up.... After a number of breaks, and climbs through cedar and palm tree forests with red sand floors, we arrived, glistening with sweat, at a beautiful pagoda at the top. The main worship hall is ornate and grand and colorful, with a huge Buddha figure commanding attention at front center. From this temple is a great view of the city, a sprawling urban collection of dilapitated and new buildings side-by-side, surrounded by a canal, that my family says is for flooding. When it rains here, it ususally pours at night and the streets are flooded for a few hours into the morning. Our Chinese teachers say these local storms occur in a number of urban centers like Nanchong because the heat from the urban density creates highly concentrated convection. It stormed the first Friday night we were here, and all of the host families postponed our outings from Saturday until Sunday. Some of the families didn't have power for Saturday a.m. - we did.

Bai and Irene prayed by bowing three times. When I asked Irene why she prayed, she said "because we beleive." When I asked her what she beleived, she said she didn't know very much about it and she also had no idea about the historical pictographs that were inside and outsides the temple. I know that the Chinese do not considser themselves to be very religious, but I am not sure about how much of her "non" answer is due to how Chinese do not see themselves as religious and how much is due to her limited exposure to Buddhism readings. She said she usually goes to the temple once per year with her family, during the Spring Festival (I think that's Chinese New Year), and that they consider themselves Buddhists. Anyway, it was a good way to try to get some exercise. And I sure needed some. I may try to go every Sunday a.m. while I am here.

The Underwear Incident

2004-08-10T20:06:00.001+07:00

Well, I knew hygiene would take on a whole new meaning for me when I came to China, but things are definitely not what I expected. There is no doubt that sanitation and sewage is handled differently here. My host family's apartment is very clean and has two bathrooms. Everyone besides me uses the larger bathroom, which has a closed-in shower and a western toilet. My bathroom is one room that has a squat toilet (a hole in the floor), a sink, and a Eurpean shower head. The bathrooms in the school buildings wreak of a nasty sewage smell, but my bathroom just has a faint odor. And occaisionally I see a cockroach in my bedroom or the bathroom. When I pointed out the cockroach to my host-sister, she said that most of them lived in the kitchen - oh, thank goodness!

Even surrounded by sooty air, smells of sewage, and a gaggle of cockroaches, my host mother, Bai, suggests some very traditional personal hygiene practices. As I compare my situation with other volunteers', I am learning that my host family is more traditional than many families. First, I have three towels: a face towel, a body towel, and a foot towel. And, I have two basins: a face basin and a foot basin. Like all families, we leave our shoes at the door and slip on cheap plastic "slippers."

The Chinese find it is very good for the health to soak your feet in hot water each night during the winter - thus the foot basin. So, at first, my host mother Bai just gave me a face basin. Several of my fellow volunteers have noticed that bathroom water is usually put in a basin instead of falling into the sink and we are not sure why this is a preferred approach. I never use my face basin because I can just splash the water on my face and this takes less time (and she can't see me do this). Well, a few days ago, Bai gave me a foot basin. I found out tonight that this is because I don't take a shower at night like most Chinese and she is trying to keep the bed from getting dirty! So tonight, I took a shower (didn't wash my hair), which I needed anyway because host-nephew Bin and I played basketball. It was a quick cool-off shower, and I don't think I would mind taking two showers a day in this heat, and all the better if it makes the household here happier. By the way, we seem to be having a heat wave. The temps are around 37 deg C and the humidity is UP.

So, washing clothes the other night was quite a battle between Bai and I. All clothes besides underwear go in the washer. Because the washer water is too dirty, underwear is done in a basin (not my face or foot basin) by everyone on campus. Bai was making dinner, so I just asked her, with the help of some not-too-perfect translation from host-sister Irene, to get me started. She put the underwear in the basin, filled it with water, grabbed a bar of soap, and proceeded to scrub the begeesus out of my underwear (which, mind you, I would like to use for the next to years) on the scrub-board ridges on an inclined side of the sink. I was horrified because she was using so much soap and elbow grease that I was concerned that very little of my underwear would be left when she was finished - and what was left would be very stiff with soap! After using some of my broken Chinese and retrieving Irene to translate, I finally got back in the driver's seat and began to gently scrub my underwear. Bai came out of the kitchen every minute or two to make sure to check on me. She was there when I started to rinse, and put out her hands to help. I thought it was pretty obvious I was rinsing because I was using only water and wanted to let her help because she seemed so eager and I felt some remorse for getting angry before about her vigorous scrubbing. Well, darnnit if she didn't take that bowl and grab a bar of soap and begin srubbing the heck out of my underwear AGAIN! So, after another 5 minutes of me using every Chinese word I knew for "no" and "no thank you," and retrieving Irene to translate, I got back in front of the sink to wrinse my underwear! They have no dryer, so we hang our clothes in the bar-enclosed window porches, just like the rest of the apartment dwellers on campus. When I leave home every morning see the apartment buildings grey with soot and decorated with lots of hanging laundry.

Sunny Students

2004-08-10T20:06:00.000+07:00

Today was my second day of teaching "model" (practice) school. The Peace Corps trainers recruited students from local high schools and the college to participate as students for us 10 environmental volunteers for three weeks. Most of them just really want to learn English, and some care about the environment. It's a great chance for us to experience what it's like to teach Chinese students before we go to our posts and teach semester-long classes.

The English names of the students are really great. I think many of them were named by very "creative" English teachers. One of mine is named Kangaroo. One volunteer has a student named Tinkle - no kidding! Sunshine and Angle are very popular.

Two wiseguys in my class are Sky and Rain. They have been messing around and not participating, and I explained that if they didn't want to participate, they could leave. I finally figured out that Rain's English is pretty poor and that he really wants to be in the class. He started ignoring Sky once he figured out that his friend was getting him in trouble. Sky asked to talk to me after class, when he presented me with a speech (of moderately good English) that he read from a script he prepared about how great his English is and how he already knows about everything I am talking about in the class. I congratulated him on his great English language skills and told him he had a choice: particpate and help other students or leave. He came back for the second half of class. We'll see if he shows up tomorrow.

I named one guy who looked like he needed confidence, Thor. Another guy, who I named Alex, seemed very nervous the first day and I thought he would be one of the quieter, nervous ones (they are almost all VERY quiet and definitely do not like to raise their hands). Well, Alex has become one of the leaders during small group discussions in his group, representing his group at the board and to report out. Here is what he wrote for his first day of homework:

"Why I am in this class:

We will pleasantly spend the 20 days. My pronounciation is not exact and spoken language isn't be trained, but next term I will take the bachelor's degree examination of China. I wnat to improve my listening ability through this study. I'm short of the ability in listening and speaking. I dare to face the fact and challenge myself. Only like this, I can embrace ??. I hope that I can communicate with you. Let's your students' advance elimate your lonliness which for from your homeland and beloved ones. Thank you give me a beautiful English name, Alex. I like it very much. Hope you have a healthy appetite.

Your student Alex 2004 8/8"

The General's Beef

2004-08-07T15:36:00.000+07:00

Wow, I've only been here in China two weeks and it feel like it's been so long because of all that's happened... So many new experiences and changes.

Last Saturday my host family and several other volunteers and their host families made the three-hour drive north to Langzhong, one of the four famous ancient cities in China. The drive, courtesy of my fellow volunteer, Marisa's, host mother, was really as exciting as our touring in Langzhong. Marisa's host mother, Xiou is about the gutsiest-drivin', gamblin, rheinstone-on-toenail wearin' woman I've ever met. She and my host father teach in the same Nanchong University department - Public Government Policy or something- and I know that my host father, Zhou studied Marx and currently does compartive analyses of governments around the world. Can't wait until I understand more. Since my host family has no car, and Xiou does, we have done a few things together. Anyway, she is expert at dodging and out-driving mopeds, emergency vehicles, buses, cabs, and as we got out of the city, chickens and peasants with their loads, and landslide material on the highway.

One of Langzhong's most famous figures is General Zhang Fei, the "dark general" who lived around 200 A.D. during the Ming dynasty. At this time China was divided into three regions dominated by three competing powers. Zhang Fei was the brother of a king in the Langzhong region and was known for his dark skin, which shows as dark as many African Americans or Indians in depictions but, from what I understand he wasn't much darker than I am with a good tan. He was also know as a great war general who was abusive to his soldiers. A few murders went down, including (I beleive from all of the bits and pieces we put together that day about his story) one of his brother. Zhang Fei told his soldiers they needed to help avenge his brother's death. Because the soldiers were reluctant to help Zhang Fei, and because they feared how Zhang Fei would retaliate when they didn't help them, they took the initiative and murdered Zhang Fei as he slept in his bed in Langzhong.

We visited his the tomb that holds decapitated body. Apparently, no one ever recovered his head. What was interesting about touring the tomb site, beside seeing some depictions of this story, was that it was under rennovation and various artisans with their tools and rich paint colors were at work. A large beautiful, ornate pagoda with several teirs towers over the site, and some artisans were working on painting a life-sized figure of Zhang Fei next to his horse. The only disappointment was that the gold-plated statue of the general was under wraps.

Besides a thick, dark vinegar that you can buy at just about every one of the many street market stands, Langzhong boasts a specialty dish called Zhang Fei's beef. We all stopped at a noodle restaurant where we ate the beef, which is often smoked and reminded me of some good beef cuts at home, with a hint of a corned beef flavor.

And then we got in the car for the thrilling, 3-hour car ride home. Fortunately I took my language training book in the car. The training is pretty intense right now. Four hours of language training in the a.m., four hours of x-cultural training and lesson planning in the p.m., and 2-5 hours of work per night. They are fitting in about 11 weeks of training into about 6 or 7 weeks because they didn't get clearance to start up the program until the end of the flu (SARS) season this spring. By the time the logistics were worked out, they could only get us here about 8 weeks before the semester starts.

I think Thursday or Friday was the last really tough day. Saturday a.m.'s are also scheduled as training. Today we did an ice-breaker with our host family and some scheduling of our practice "model" school that starts next week, and then went out to eat with our teachers, who watched us order and pay for our food using our Chinese language skills.

The computer internet connections here are not very good during the week, so I am not able to do as much as I would like with answering emails. I read them all, though, and appreciate your well wishes!

Host Family

2004-07-31T14:13:00.000+07:00

Wow, only a few days living with my host family and getting into language training and I'm experiencing so many new, interesting things. The ten of us environmental volunteers took a 2 1/2 hour bus ride to Nanchong onWednesday. We arrived at the Xi Ha Teacher's College, where our host families met us, at about 3 p.m. We are already surmizing that our host families have a variety of economic situations, even though both parents often work at the College. In my family, Zhou, my host father, teaches some kind of politics or government courses and Bai, my host mother, is a nurse or nurse practitioner (as my Chinese improves, I am looking forward to understanding more specifically what they do. I am already falling in love with them. They both speak only Chinese and I therefore expect to learn a lot because this drives me to learn so I can communicate with them. Their nephew Bing, a 20-year-old computer science major in Chengdu is home for the summer and so far spends time at our apartment whenever I am around. His English is really very good, and he is helping me work hard on my pronounciation and on my tones. I don't know how long he is "assigned" to me like this, but I hope he sticks around for at least a few more weeks.

Zhou and Bai do not have the chubby faces that many Chinese have. The skin on their faces is tighter and a bit darker (which is no supposed to be attractive here) and, along with their wrinkles and larger, distinctive noses, I think they could pass for Native Americans. Zhou and Bing picked me up on Wednesday and we walked a short ways to their on-campus apartment. Chengdu is very hot and humid and, beleive it or not, Nanchong is doubly so! We all slogged, sweating, up five flights of stairs with my luggage to the apartment. The next day I learned that some volunteers are on the 10th floor, and none of us have elevators. I think Zhou and Bai are VERY middle-income because they seem to have a medium sized apartment compared with what my fellow volunteers describe about their host family apartments. The place is pretty spacous and they have good room air conditioners. The bathroom I use, which I think is also the guest bathroom, is separate in that you don't have to go through the kitchen to get there. This is going to sound strange, but we are learning it is very typical of middle class apartments: the squat (hole in floor) toilet is in the half of the bathroom with the shower head, which is a detachable European type that I can hold and move around me or set up in its hanger. So far, no one else is using my shower. I think Bai and Zhou use the other bathroom, where I think there is a shower.

Bai came home late last night from a nurse's conference in Yunan Province, a place that's supposed to have the largest diversity of plants, animals, and ethnicities (human) in China. Qing, their 24-year-old daughter comes home Monday from a few weeks of studying English in Chengdu. I am not sure where she is going to sleep (they gave me her room) or shower. I am really looking forward to meeting her.

So far, my relationship with Zhou is my favorite. He regularly speaks in long stints to me even though I have no idea about what he is saying. I make a point of looking at his face when he does this to encourage him to continue doing this. And after just two days of language classes (4 hours per day), I am able to pick out a word or two. Also, Zhou is protective of me in a kind of "fatherly" way. The first night he and Bing walked on either side of me around the well-known, large, beautiful downtown park of this 9-million population city. We saw beautiful bridges, a statue of the second in command under Mao Zhe Dong, women line dancing in a courtyard, and couples dancing in another place. Zhou watched the kaotic traffic carefully and put his arms out to make sure I didn't get in the way of any cars. He also take great pains to make sure my water bottle is full of cool (boiled and then cooled) water. The first day he dumped my good cool water and put in boiling water (yikes - tough to drink in this hot weather), but by the second day I was able to point to thewater in my bottle (we can fill up during our afternoon training) and say good water, hao sheu, and he didn't dump it and just added warm water to it - whew! A lot of students bring hot tea to class, but I haven't figured out how to ask whether they drink it - I'd love to try some, as I think I'm already getting used to this heat.

New Friends

2004-07-27T06:37:00.000+07:00

I am starting to adjust to the time over here, which is 13 hours ahead of Chicago time, pretty well. So when it is 7:30 a.m. here, it's 6:30 p.m. in Chicago. For the east coasters in our crowd, it's an even 12 hours diferent. Sounds like I will probably wake up around 3 or 4 a.m. for a while more, but I am getting to sleep pretty well.

It helps to have a good group of fellow volunteers. The group of 47 is diverse in age, experince abroad, work experience, and attitude. The average age is probably 27, several have been in the Peace Corps before, 16 are married (8 couples), one is an attorney, and about 12 of us have master's degrees. We are starting to see that China has a keen interest in stepping up their involvement in the Peace Corps program and wants to bring more volunteers to more provinces in the future. Peace Corps sees equally interested in expanding.

As a result our training sounds like it will be very intense - four hours per day of language training and 2-3 hours per day of model school or teaching practice with Chinese students at our training sites. We all receive our Chinese names yesterday. My name is Ke Li and is pronounced "cuh lee." Li means pretty. Lots of women have names like Li and Mei, which mean pretty and beautiful. Ke is my last name because that's the closest they could come phonetically to my last name. It is comprised of three symbols. The first is a tree and the second is a mouth, but none of us volunteers can figure out what the third is.

Also, the US Consulate Rep in Sichuan speaks to us today. AND in September Peace Corps hopes the US embassador to China will swear us in!

It has been great trying to explore Chengdu University and the town around the campus. And it's been entertaining to try it with almost no language skills! Breakfast and lunch are across from the hotel, and then we go in groups to dinner and to try to buy things. Then the next day we share our adventures and blunders with each other over breakfast and lunch and on walks around the campus. And when one of us finds a laundry or ice cream stand or good restaurant or mall, the word spreads quickly to others.

I think last night was the best so far. I went with two volunteers to find some dinner. Finding a place for dinner is sometimes as tough as ordering (the Peace Corps gave us a menu we can point at). We decided to try a campus cafeteria-looking place where we could just point at the food, which was served from a buffet. Peter had his flash cards out and a Chinese student who had just gotten his food saw them. He asked us if we were learning Chinese and said he was learning English. He, Zhou Xiang Ji or "John," asked whether he could join us. After dinner, we went back to his dorm room to watch part of the Kutar-China Asia Cup game and then went to play ping-pong at the campus rec facility. John was pretty good at ping pong, but I beat him once - I guess all that practice in my cousin's basement in Indiana when I was a kid really helped! The rec facility looks like a space ship out of a Star Wars move.

The architecture on campus seems to mirror what I have seen of the archtecture in Chengdu. Bombed-out abandoned-looking buildings alongside modern wonders of architecture alongside buildings under construction. And the gray drabness of the old, dilapatated buildings is a stark contrast to the sometimes colorful, sometimes mirrored new ones.

John's English was really very good. It was only difficult to understand him when he spoke quickly, which sounds like an objective of his training. He kept asking us whether everyone in the US and England spoke as quickly as the BBC reporters. And at one point he asked us to listen to him recite some kind of world new press release at break-neck speed. We couldn't understand the content at all until we convinced him to slow down. I wonder whether a lot of our student will come from this kind of training... The rest of the evening was just regular conversation - in English - and some word sharing back and forth.

Last night about 10 of us went to a restaurant that served food from a Northwest province that abuts Kirzikstan, an area with muslim influences. We had nan bread and rice and a great eggplant and bell pepper dish with a mild red sauce. We also ordered chicken and lamb dishes. The chicken dish included some feet!

Made it to China

2004-07-25T16:53:00.000+07:00

Landed last night after a long day of bag-dragging, airports, and buses. We all got to bed around 11:30 p.m. Chengdu time last night, and slept until various times this a.m. - Peace Corps gave us the morning off. I left the window curtain open in hopes of getting up with the sun and I did - 6:30 a.m. Walked around campus and ate breakfast and then took a longer walk around campus with some fellow volunteers. One part of campus has a beautiful pool whose four corners are covered in yellow, white, and pink lily-pads (or are they lotus plants?). An island in the middle has a pagoda on it.

Our accomodations have been really nice so far. The Hampton in downtown Chicago was really nice - firm beds, pool, workout room and near Navy Pier, the new Millenium Park, etc. I think our hotel on the campus here is, relatively speaking, as nice. However, by American standards it might be considered seedy with its water-stained walls, dark hallways, and single air conditioners for each room. For breakfast and lunch, we go across the street to a cafeteria that I think is for faculty and visiting students. I had dishes with eggplant, soybeans, broccoli and lots of other healthy foods - all really tasty.

Tonight we are on our own for dinner for the first time. At the same time, everyone is tired. They are giving us a lot of info and, along with the realization that we are really here and that we have no language skills to help us get around, I think a lot of us are overloaded. My plan is to relax and read, and maybe play some ping-pong down the road. I'll probably get with a few volunteers and practice my characters - some of us started getting into this during our 14-hour flight over. Tomorrow night some of us are going to try to go to an Asia Cup soccer game downtown - hope it works out!

On Wednesday I leave with the environmental group, 10 of the 40 of us, for some intensive training in Nanchong, which is 3 hours east of Chungdu. Sounds great, cooler than here and cleaner. Its pretty steamy here, but not too smoggy today because we had a good rain last night.

It Takes a Village (?!)

2004-07-23T05:25:00.000+07:00

Wow - we leave for China tomorrow (7/23). And I can't beleive what it took to get here!
- sorting my things for a rummage sale
- holding the (wildly successful) rummage sale
- a lovely good-bye picnic on Madison's Capital Square
- drafting a research article with my advisor before I left - finished 7/15 - thanks Pat!
- sorting-packing-sorting, ad nauseum
- two trips by my dad to pick up boxes to store - a thousand thanks!
- help from my step-dad and brother Dylan to move me out of my apartment Saturday, store MORE stuff at dad's (ever-generouse with his space), and wisk me off to a Milwaukee farewell party at a Thai restaurant hosted by my mother and step-dad (no small task indeed) on Saturday 7/17. Highlights were some wonderfully encouraging words from my brother, which he shared through a speech by Theodore Roosevelt www.geocities.com/Rainforest/3745/tr.html and - no surprise if you know my family - a rousing/contentious game of Charades.
- more sorting-packing-sorting, ad nauseum - until the morning of 7/21
- a nice dinner with friends the night before I left - 7/20
- dad drove my "chariot" to the Milwaukee Amtrack train station in Milwaukee, where I caught the Hiawatha train to Chicago - 7/21

I've been savoring some familiar sights, sounds, and tastes over the last few weeks - ones that I know I'll miss. Dad's smile, the smell of a cool Wisconsin summer's evening when the prairies are just starting to blume, the faces of some good friends, a good bowl of Wheaties with raisins, the dreamy, surreal feel of summer in Madison, the laughter and smell of brats and peaceful water view at the University of Wisconsin Memorial Union Terrace... And my step-dad was so patient as I messed up the house with my 3 days of "final packing." And some friends lingered, talking about nothing, on the phone and at my car after meeting for dinner, not wanting to say good-bye...

Now a day and a half later it's all becoming real. Wow, I guess it "takes a village" to send someone to work in China with the Peace Corps - eh?

Last Hurrah in Madison

2004-07-09T00:27:00.000+07:00

Join me for a "goodbye gathering" at the Concert on the Square in Madison on Wednesday, July 14th. The concert starts at 7 p.m. and will feature a pianist, Jason Peters. If we all bring blankets, a dish to pass, and our own plate and utensils, and maybe a bit of wine/beer :), we should have a nice evening. As far as a meeting place, let's roost on the Capital grass between Wisconsin Avenue and Pinkney Avenue. So, if you head towards the Capitol on Wisconin Avenue, take a left when you reach the Capitol, and look for friends on the grass to your right. {Rain location will be my apartment at 450 North Few Street, #8.}

It would be great if a few people could come early with me, to spread out some blankets - let me if you can meet me at my office at the other end of State Street, next to the bookstore at 5:45ish, and we can walk up together: 251-1668, cors@epd.engr.wisc.edu.

Jason Peterson, piano
Capitol Square, Madison
Wed. July 14, 2004
7:00 p.m.

Great Travelling - and Reading - Advice

2004-07-09T00:03:00.000+07:00

Just got back from a visit with Chris, a woman on campus here at UW-Madison who has travelled all over China. She taught English in Changsha, capitol of Hunan Province and also Jishou, a small river town also in Hunan. A number of friends and family have talked with me about how beautiful Vietnam, Laos, and Thailand are, and I've been thinking of them as destinations for my vacation time. Now Chris has turned me on to travel destinations in China. Two I don't want to miss are 1) Dazu, a city with a plethora of Buddhist statues and temples, and 2) Zhanjiajie, the most popular tourist place for many Chinese - lots of limestone features - in and out of caves - 200-year-old stallagtites/mites. Chris, who has a doctorate in endrocrinology (?), had such great perspectives on how to make travelling pleasant, and on how to try to interact with Chinese people. Bargaining is how most purchases are made (my friend Andrew also says so), always bring toilet paper with you, dry soup and tea are good travel food (I may want to avoid travel food), and TRY to speak the language. What's great is that it sounds like travelling, so long as you take sensible precautions, is very safe, even for a lone woman.

I'm getting more and more interested in visiting Yunan Province, which is just sounth of Sichuan where I will be, because it sounds like it's where a lot of conservation and environmental awareness activities are happening. Chris suggests I visit the province's Eco-Museum(s). Andrew, who I met last week, worked in Eco-tourism in Yunan a few years back and is now involved with a biodiversity project there. And, Sue and Sara, who work in my department office here at UW, helped me discover that the International Crane Foundation (based here in good old Wisco) has a monitoring site in Yunan. Hmmm... I need to plan a summer project... maybe a field trip for Sichuan students to Yunan?

I am just cracking open "Rivertown" this week, recommended by relative Vicki, and also want to read "Iron and Silk," recommended by Andrew. Chris also recommends watching the video "Once upon a time in China." After seeing all of her photos, I want to read more about China's history. The dynasties, Mao, Buddhism, etc. I plan to ship some books to myself, so I'll have to get a few good ones before I go. I just picked up the Lonely Planet travel guide, on Chris's recommendation. Chris also said to look out for good maps of Chinese cities - they can be hard to find, both here and in China.

First Posting

2004-07-02T01:28:00.000+07:00

What great help I am getting in preparing to travel to China for two years to serve as a Peace Corps environmental educator volunteer in Sicuan province! My dad is helping me store my belongings, my step-dad is helping me set up a computer, my mom is making sure that I have a proper send-off, and my brother and his mother-in-law are giving me good tips about books. And so many people here in Madison, including a number of return Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs), are helping me make great connections with people who are working in China with environmental issues.

If only I could take you all with me!