Chinese Lessons

Chopsticks! (Spoons with Chinese silverware)

Hanging out at Papa John's. Lily is in the red.

Well, our group finally started taking Chinese lessons this week. I am not sure if I have mentioned it before or not, but Cory (the returning teacher of our group) is married to Lara, a Chinese girl. We've gotten to know her pretty well, and she will be tutoring us once or twice a week in Chinese. So far, we've had three lessons. I don't know too many new words yet, but I am at least learning how to pronounce things after I've seen them in pin yin. The language is so difficult, but it doesn't seem as impossible as it did a week ago!

Yesterday, a big group had a 20th birthday party for our Chinese friend, Lily. Lily went with us on our vacation to Yangshuo. Lily has been one of the local Chinese that has befriended the Zhong Relations group members over the years here. It was fun hanging out with everyone at Papa John's (for some pepperoni pizza!) and then heading back to Taylor's apartment to play games. We played kick the can and chopsticks (Spoons, just with chopsticks). Everyone had a great time, especially Lily. I was glad we could do something to show her how much we appreciate her.

Last week, I had an interesting conversation with a guy at Mr. Mai's. His English name is Thomas. I've talked with him a few times over the last few weeks. I noticed him by himself a lot, so I wanted to go talk with him. It turns out, he is a very smart guy who wants to get his master's in Linguistics in America.

This night, we started talking about politics which led to a discussion on religion. According to him, "All truth is relative. I believe in truth with a lower case t, but not a capital T." We had a very interesting debate on that, the reliability of the Word, and other topics. It was very fun and frustrating at the same time. I can tell he's very smart, but he thinks he has it all figured out. He said the burden of proof is on believers. I said that's fine as long as he thinks with an open mind. Be thinking of him as I hope to have more conversations with him over the next few months.

Everything is still going well here. I finished up tutoring Xiong Shi-Tong today. I think he is much more confident with his English and interview skills than he was two weeks ago. His interview with Cambridge is on Thursday. I'm hoping to hear from him soon after about how it went.

Finally back to normal!

The stadium was packed for the track meet!

Well, I think I will FINALLY be back to a normal schedule (or at least as normal as it can get in China). It's been pretty hectic the last month or so. For National Day "Vacation" we had about 9 days off. I have this in quotes because it's not really much of a vacation. The government wanted a long holiday so a lot of people would travel which would help the economy. However, to make up for it, we had to work two weekends. So we worked for 9 straight days, then had 9 days off, then we were supposed to work 8 straight days. However, we ended up having this past Thursday and Friday off for a school-wide track meet. Basically, it's been crazy trying to keep classes on pace and get any kind of a routine. It's finally over, and it will be good to get back to normal!

The sports meet was a lot of fun. It's similar to an American high school track meet, but it was only for our school. Classrooms were competing against each other. It's cool to see so many students competing and having their classmates cheer them on by yelling "Jai-yo!" Anyone can compete, so there's a huge gap in competition. There's kids ranging from the top athletes in the country (they can fly!) to just average kids who rarely exercise.

Some of our team ran in a co-ed teacher's 4 x 100 relay race. They ran hard, but didn't do too well! Mostly because some of the Chinese female teachers were ridiculously fast. I think our group was 6th out of 7 teams! It was fun to have them be a part of it though.

Recently, I've been tutoring a senior named Xiong Shi-Tong who is trying to get into the University of Cambridge. His English isn't great, so I'm trying to prepare him for an interview which he has in about two weeks. He's trying to get one of five scholarships that Chinese students can get. It's currently narrowed down to 55 people. Needless to say, he's very smart!

Last night, our team hung out with Troy Peterson, a staff member from Spring Arbor University. My home town and Rebecca's (my teammate, not sister!) alma mater. He traveled to Wuhan because SAU has a partnership with a local university here. Neither of us know him extremely well, but we had a good time eating dinner with him. He lived in Taiwan for 18 years, so he was able to order us some new and interesting dishes! Plus, it's always good to talk with someone from home!

A few nights ago was one of our team's most depressing nights so far. While we were walking home, we passed a string of restaurants that is right next to our apartment complex. Out front was a man who had some dogs in a cage. He was taking them out and beating them to death with a stick so his restaurant could serve dog meat the next day. I guess this is a common way to kill them since there are no guns here. I knew dog was a fairly common meat here, but I hadn't realized how brutal their deaths are. It's definitely not quick and painless. We could hear dogs yelping from quite a ways away. It made us all sick to our stomachs.

I'm a huge dog-lover, but I was up for at least trying it when I came here for the experience. I definitely won't be doing that now unless I'm eating with someone who would be extremely offended if I didn't! It was a very sad experience. Honestly, the only way I could console myself that night was knowing that the Father is saddened by these things (as well as much more serious things) much more than I am.

Other than that, I am still having a great time here. My sinus infection lasted for two weeks, but I think I'm over it. Everybody else seems to be feeling better as well. Hope you all are doing great!

Vacation!

Kirk and I enjoying our chips on a stick at Snack Street.

We hiked to the top of Moon Hill.

Our group dressed up in Ancient Chinese garb. Apparently, men dressed like Snow White.


Li River boat cruise. This was my pose of the week.

Hanging out with our new friend Shane at a Yangshuo coffee shop.

x

Well, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve given you an update on my life in China, so here it is.

The first week of October in China is a holiday: National Day (kind of like our Independence Day) mixed with mid-Autumn festival (not sure if that has any historical importance). Sixty years ago was when the Communist party took control of China, so it was a pretty big deal here. There was a big parade in Beijing, but I didn’t watch any of it on TV.

Since we had the week off of school, the other teachers and I hung out with some friends here in Wuhan before heading to Yangshuo for a few days. We went to a local Wuhan hot spot called Snack Street, which was a lot of fun. Basically, it’s a street that is maybe a half mile long with TONS of vendors selling just about every kind of Chinese food that exists. I had some noodles, a fried banana, barbecued lamb on a stick, and potato chips on a stick with ketchup and pepper. It was all really good and really cheap, about 13 yuan ($2).

On Saturday afternoon, we took a train to Yangshuo. The train ride took about 14 hours. Sitting in seats that long wasn’t great, but it was fun talking with the other teachers as well as some Chinese people. By the way, I dominated the hour of Uno we played! After an hour and a half bus ride, we arrived in Yangshuo around 7am Sunday morning with no sleep.

Yangshuo is a common vacation spot for both foreigners and locals. It has some amazing scenery. There are hills/mountains all over. We hiked some of them which was a lot of fun. We also took a boat cruise on the Li River and saw a lot of water buffalo up close. We visited a famous Banyan tree that is 1,500 years old. While there, we dressed up in ancient Chinese outfits and took some pictures of ourselves. I’m not sure who took more pictures of us, ourselves or the Chinese people around us.

A few of us teachers went to a local Chinese market which was kind of depressing. As I’m sure most of you know, dog is a fairly common food here. In the market, we saw dogs (among other animals) in tiny cages about to be killed and cooked.

While we were in Yangshuo, I got a really bad sinus infection that spread to my left ear. The night after our train ride, I didn’t fall asleep until almost 4am because it hurt so bad. I still have it a little, but I think I’m mostly over it. A few of the other group members are struggling with a cold, so we are all hoping to get better soon!

Other than that, things are still going well here. I’ve had some pretty cool conversations with Chinese students at Mr. Mai’s. Many of the foreigners who go there are brothers and sisters, so conversations are commonly about the Father. One friend of mine just became a brother after talking with another foreigner. I’ve also talked with a few students who are interested. They would just like to know more.

Hope you all are doing well. Below is a short video of Snack Street (if it works).