It feels
like FOREVER since I've posted an update. After returning to China it felt like we were
on a non-stop bullet train going at an extremely fast pace. I’m hoping that now we have passed a few
crazy weeks, I can be better at posting. It may have just been the craziness of a new
semester.
LAMP SOAP
So, what has
been happening here? School is going
great. We are super busy with preparing
lessons, giving lessons, revamping lessons, trying to come up with new ideas
for lessons, etc. It is a little more
difficult when we are not given a curriculum to follow. We have to come up with all our own lessons
and we are gradually learning what works and what doesn't, hence the revamping
portion from time to time. But, we love
what we are doing the and students are wonderful. Truly, the best parts of this gig are the
amazing students we are privileged to teach and get to know. We recently did a project with our students
that required some research on BYU and the degrees that are offered there. It was incredible to hear the research they
came back with in regards to the motto and theme from BYU, etc. Part of the presentations included them
talking about what facilities are offered here at XISU. One girl talked about the “canteen” where
they eat all their meals. Her power
point presentation (ppt) showed a picture of a yummy bowl of noodles and broth. It was labeled, “Lamp Soap.” It looked much
tastier than lamp soap, in fact, it looked a lot like lamb soup!
SPRING & ZIP LINE
Spring is
definitely here in Xi’an. I spent an
entire day going from park to park enjoying the blossoms and beauty all
around. It was amazing! There were people everywhere enjoying life!
One park that I love is called Qujiang and is
situated around a beautiful lake. Every
time I've been there I have trekked to the top of a hill with tower that has a
zip line across the lake. No one has
ever been there to let me zip line….except for this last time. I drug a friend along with me to the top,
thinking we would not see anyone up there, but lo and behold, there was a
little Chinese man sitting in a hut having breakfast. I motioned for him to come out and then
pointed up, hoping he would realize what we wanted to do. He hesitantly came out and gave me a slight
nod, which I took for a full on YES…so up we went! It was a whopping 80 yuan ($12.85) to fly
through the air across a beautiful lake.
So, of course I went! I have to
admit I had a few reservations when I saw the contraption that was going to
hold me onto the cable, but took a deep breath and went for it anyway. It was awesome! When I finally reached the other side, a
small Chinese man was waiting to grab onto my leg as I flew by, to stop me
before I slammed into a crude plywood wall with old carpet stapled to it. He DID catch me…thank goodness! It was worth the ride!!!
MORE ON TAXIS
We have
decided that 1 out of 5 taxis stop to pick up foreigners here in Xi’an. For some reason, it is almost impossible to
get taxis to stop for us. I think they
just don’t want to risk having to take someone somewhere that can’t speak the
language. But, we always go prepared
with a paper in Chinese indicating where we want to go, so I wish they would
just STOP ALREADY!!! I have noticed that
they WILL stop for foreigners that have grey hair. However, I’m NOT going to go grey just
yet. I’ll walk first!!!
RACCOON OR BADGER?
The other
day I was ironing and looking out the window when I saw a very large, what I
thought was a raccoon, wandering across the grounds! I couldn't believe my eyes! We are in the middle of the city! Later, another teacher here said he saw the
same animal but believed it to be a badger.
Since I have no idea what it really was, I’m just going to call it a “Badcoon”
and hope I never come across it in the dark!
CREATIVE COOKING
Did you know
you can make almost anything in a crockpot?
The other we had a gathering and I made a 7 layer lasagna in our little
crockpot. It was pretty darn good!!! Everyone was quite impressed with how it turned out. We definitely have to get creative with our
cooking skills here.
TRAVEL IN CHINA
We have
taken 2 trips in the last 2 weeks. Since
there was no school for Qingming Holiday (grave cleaning day) on April 4-7th,
we signed up to see more of China! The
first trip was a 3night/2day cruise on the Yangtze river. We went from Chongqing past Wuhan to
Yichang. Then we took a bus 4 hours back
to Wuhan to fly home. Quite an
adventure.
The Yangtze River is the longest river in Asia and the third-longest in the world. Along with the Yellow River,
the Yangtze is the most important river in the history, culture and economy of China. For thousands of years, people have used the
river for water, irrigation, sanitation, transportation, industry,
boundary-marking and war.
The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze
River is the largest hydro-electric power station in the world. Due to the construction of the dam, ships must be
lifted or lowered over 300 feet. Because of this height, the water pressure
required for a single lock would be too much for one gate to withstand.
Instead, the dam uses five locks, each raising or lowering the vessel about 65
feet.
The two sets of staircase locks, one moving downstream and the other upstream, each consist of five stages and each can handle vessels weighing up to 10,000 tons. From midnight to 3 am on the last night of our cruise, our huge boat went through this series of 5 locks, each transition taking about 45 minutes. Pretty cool...but a little noisy.
Now before you get too excited, just remember that a “cruise”
in China is very different than a cruise in America. We flew to a city called Chongqing (chong
ching). It is about a 1.5 hr flight south
of us. We had a pretty good chuckle when
we were checking in at the airport…when the check in lady asked dad where we
were going he suddenly had dyslexia and said Qingchong (ching chong). The lady asked him again and he repeated the
backwards name. She looked puzzled. About this time I realized what was happening
and told her the correct name. She
looked relieved and chuckled to herself.
We called it ChingChong for the rest of the trip.
Upon
arriving in Chongqing, we met up with 30 other BYU teachers from all over China
and toured the city for the rest of the day.
The highlight was a visit to the Flying Tigers museum. Flying Tigers was the nickname of the first
American Volunteer Group (AVG) of the Chinese Air Force in 1941-1942. The Flying Tigers helped fight against the
much stronger Japanese Air Force, shooting down over 2600 Japanese aircraft. This cemented a profound friendship with the Chinese people while fighting side-by-side in the
Anti-Fascist War in China. Being the immature child I am, it was really
hard for me to concentrate during the tour because our guide must have said “Frying
Tigers” about 2600 times. It NEVER became
less funny, in fact the more she said it, the funnier it became!
After the
city tour and well into the evening, we boarded a pretty big boat. We were hustled into the big dining room
where our tour guide informed us we would be in rooms with twin beds (something
that is conveniently left out of the information BEFORE the trip) and that if
any of us wanted to upgrade to a nicer room with a nicer bed, we could do that
now. Jordan’s hand shot up instantly. Surprisingly, we were the only ones that didn’t
want twin beds. Strange. Anyhoo, we toddled off with a little gal to
go see what rooms we could upgrade to.
There were two choices, an executive room which still had 2 twin beds,
but offered a slight bit more room (hardly noticeable from the regular twin room),
OR the Presidential Suite with the ONLY kingsize bed on the boat. You can probably guess which room we chose,
and since it was a last minute change and no one had booked it, we received the
deal of a lifetime and it only cost $300 p/person for the 4 day trip to
upgrade. It was a NO BRAINER! It would have been a really great trip if it
would have just stopped raining. It was
a deluge for the entire trip. So, the
nice private deck with lounge chairs just sat there taunting us for the entire
trip. Sad. We did have one day where we took a little
side trip in a smaller boat and luckily, it stopped raining for exactly 40
minutes while we were on that small uncovered boat, exploring up a small
tributary. All in all, we gave it a
solid 3 out of 5 possible stars and only because we had the presidential suite
to kick back in and feel spoiled for a few days. We had a living room, den, dining area, large
bedroom and bathroom.
Two funny
stories on the boat:
First
story: There was a motion sensor light
in a small hallway leading from the bedroom to the living room. Since the hallway was quite close to the bed,
if I rolled over too quickly in bed it would blast on a spotlight that would
wake the dead! We would have to either
lay there for 5 minutes until it went off, or try the ninja technique and head
over to the off switch and then sneak at a snail’s pace back to the bed and try
to not set off the motion sensor again.
This was difficult and quite frustrating as we are not very good ninjas.
WHO puts a motion sensor light in a
bedroom??????
Second
story: One morning I received a phone
call in the suite. Here was the
conversation:
Me: Hello?
Them: Get you flute.
Me: Get my flute?
Them: Yes
Me: I don’t have a flute.
Them: Get you flute.
Me: What flute?
Them: Yes, get you flute.
Me: Uh… wo bu ming bai (I don’t understand)
Them: One minute prease.
After consulting another employee…
Them: Bring you flute?
Me: You want to bring me a flute?
Them: Yes.
About this time Jordan yells from the back bedroom, “Maybe they are
talking about fruit!”
Me to self: OH! Duh!!!
Them: Ok? Bring you flute?
Me: Yes prease!
The last day
of the trip Jordan got quite sick as did many others on the boat. It was good to get home and back to teaching.
I will save
our 2nd trip for another posting.
It is getting late and I need to get to bed. Jordan already has a 3 hour head start on
me!
Until next time....
cindy
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