After Shanghai, I figured nearly anything would be an improvement -- well maybe that's not fair to Shangahi, which wasn't ALL bad -- so hopping on a bus for an hour and a half ride to Tongli was OK by me. It was also an opportunity for a little down time.
To think that China is all dragons and pagodas or is now only the burgeoning and/or already established industry and bustle of its cities is to miss alot of it. A great deal of China is visible as you drive from one place to another. On the ride from Shanghai to Tongli, for example, you could see the skyscrapers of the city give way to new homes, give way to bricked older communities, give way to places that surely no one lived in as they looked bombed out and had no windows -- but people do live there -- to shallow rivers and canals where people poled wooden boats as they had for centuries. I know some of the kids looked out the windows from the bus while some just talked and looked at each other. I am sure some did a little of both. I hope they took some of this in. In the Shanghai area, there in the vicinity of the Yangtze's delta, is where you saw rice paddies. We passed people fishing from banks and with nets and a great deal of agricultural land tilled by bent backed farmers with straw hats. I was also rewarded with a view of the marsh birds -- cranes and others, Chinese versions.
Tongli was an interesting mix of a real fishing village and a resort town. I thought of Monhegan Island, Maine, which it resembled visibly not at all, but because of this mix of commercial fishing and boating with tourism and the likely uneasy balance each needed to play out in the area's economy. We rode from the bus parking area to the tourist area on a tram, which saved time and walking on cement through a construction site. Our lunch was again a tad disappointing, but better than much of what we ate in Shanghai. Some of the difference was just the style -- more yin I would say that Xi'an, and the yang of the northern food was what most of us in the group seemed to favor, interestingly. Well, we live in a northern climate ourselves, right? Who knows. we were near the ocean, but the feel was more river, there up the Yangtze a bit.
After lunch, we all took a gondola ride through the canals. Some tourist book somewhere made the analogy to Venice, which Y verified, but I had no idea. There were a lot of narrow streets and narrow canals, certainly. It was a very photogenic place, and of course I took a lot of pictures. I also walked around on my own a bit and got a look at the real people who lived in the town, some of whom used the river for everything, washing, their own fishing, transporting goods by boat. On one of the bridges, I offered to take the picture of a Chinese group all together -- they had been rotating who held the camera while they posed in different combinations. This sparked a small queue of other people wanting me to take their pictures, and one group wanted me in one of their group pictures since I had taken their photo earlier. So somewhere in China, there is a picture of a group who went to Tongli and a mysterious anonymous white woman. The presence of my camera means that I likely know something about taking pictures and also that I am probably not going to steal someone else's camera.
It took about an hour to get to Suzhou from Tongli, meaning more looks at the country side and sitting quietly on the bus. The kids generally would settle down and listen their iPods and/or sleep on bus rides of any length the entire trip, so it was quiet.
Our hotel was very nice -- large, beautifully appointed, attractive crisply uniformed staff, polished marble, plus a bathroom in the room with many amenities including a tub and a toilet with all the accessories. The kids found the toilet fascinating, and some just had to share which of the fancy cleansing options they had tried. I guess we all got just a bit closer on the trip. At any rate, our lodgings reminded me of the hotels I stayed in in Japan. The TV also had stations with English speaking channels on them due to a satellite, so I saw the financial news and CNN while I was there. Top that off with a real Western breakfast if you wanted it, and the option to relax and transition out of the scrabble of China was easily attained. Both nights we were there, some kids came into my room to use my laptop for email or what have you.
Our Suzhou day started out rainy, so some of us borrowed umbrellas from the bell captain (very fancy for me -- the hotels Ruthie and I stay in do not have bell hops or umbrellas for loan). WE also had a slight mishap on te way to the garden we were to visit.. Just as we were stopping for a light, we were rear-ended by a smaller truck. The truck was damaged a bit, but drivable, and thankfully no one was hurt. Our big bus was not the least bit damaged, although the incident delayed us a little. The kids all climbed on the back seats and peered out the back windows to get a look.
The garden we went to was actually a home of a businessman in the 18th century and it had covered walkways. This meant we could see everything and not get wet. Nothing in the garden was real, including the large Koi pond and rock formations, but it was beautiful. The materials were real, but they weren't there originally. One room was given a title that meant roughly "The Room of Doing Nothing" It had bookshelves and a large space in which you could meditate, I think. Y thought I would like to have room like that in my house, which I would. I wouldn't mind an Asian style garden or pond either, come to think of it.
In the afternoon, we took another boat ride, this time on the Grand Canal, in a power boat. While we were waiting on the wharf, some the kids practiced squatting flat footed like we had seen people do all over China. It is not easy to do. But some Chinese people, usually men, will wait for a bus or play checkers or smoke a cigarette while squatting on the road or sidewalk. (Not to be confused with what you need to do in Asian toilets, by the way.) It happened that all of the Asian kids in our group tried this at this particular time, and they were all squatting in a circle. It was kind of a joke, though not really disrespectful -- our group members, Y and I included, had all tried squatting at one point or another during the trip. Well, someone got off of one of these boats and came over and took a picture of all the Asian kids squatting. Then another white woman decided to try it, so she joined the circle, then I squatted down. It was actually funny, because the woman who joined us knew what we were doing while the doofus with the camera I think thought he got a picture of local Asian kids squatting. But it was really a few American High School students.
The boat ride was interesting as it took you past real people's homes, and they weren't all beautiful waterfront properties either. The lifestyle on the Grand Canal was more about shipping than fishing, but people were still using the river for their household chores, to be sure. We got dumped up the Canal from where we embarked and had a chance to wander through another tourist area. I just watched a music performance on traditional Chinese instruments at a sort of bandstand after briefly looking around. One store had swords for sale, and when I was looking at one, a man offered me a discount price off the tagged price by typing a number on a calculator-- typical Chinese sale tactics. I laughed and said "Bu yao, xie xie ni" to him and he said "Hey eBay!" EBay. It wasn't a bad idea, but no. We got our last photos and set off for dinner.
Our last night in China was pretty low key and pleasant, and the dinner was better food than we'd had since Xi'an. We were all going to see each other in school anyway, we all knew that. I wondered which of the kids would stay friends or how that was going to play out. All of us I think really had done a great job in China, and there could have been much more of getting on each other's nerves or actual fights or something. We were lucky, but I think all 10 of us tried really hard in a way too.
Back at the hotel, kids packed, used the computer, hung out, and some went out for a little while for a walk. It was a nice base and a very easy place to be as we let go of China bit by bit.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Shanghai-ed
I have no idea why at the end of the trip, just like when I came in '04, you end up in Shanghai. It is busy, quite citified, and very westernized. Last time, I thought I must have missed something because I was so over being in China for three weeks in 100 degree heat, and this time too I was left wondering if I missed anything, but I am not sure I did.
We left the school at 5:30AM, not without tears from some of the kids, some kids who had stayed up with host brothers and sisters half the night and no breakfast. There was supposed to be stricter restrictions on the baggage allowance at the airport, but the girl checking us in didn't care. My carry on was supposed be a certain weight as well, but the security guard at the x-ray belt just said, "It's heavy for you!" I had to have the magic wand passed over me (and I REALLY wanted to click my heels together and say there's no place like home, there's no place like home and wake up with friends and animals around me) because I set off the metal detector. I got to stand on a cylindrical pedestal like at a gown fitting when they did this, too. It wasn't that much fun. Part of the problem was my money clip and the other was my pedometer which I had to explain. Maybe it looked like a timer of some sort. My suitcase was underweight, but set off a siren. I think it was a clock inside with the Chairman on it. We just got waved on.
I also had a slight food emergency in the airport, and ended up paying some ridiculous amount for a pre-made egg and ham sandwich on white bread with cucumber and a V8. It wasn't all that bad. I'm glad I ate it because I slept through what I think was a slightly frightening breakfast on the plane.
We were met at the airport by our guide, Shirley, and taken to a restaurant we ate at in '04 with elephants in it. Well, not real elephants. The restaurant looked a lot more worn than last time, but there was a floor show with dancing and drumming, performed in a somewhat desultory manner by, I think, the same people who worked the tables. We were the only people in the place who clapped for it.
I will make this aside for movie buffs out there. This will not make a lot of sense to all you intellectuals, most likely, so you might want to skip ahead to the next paragraph. Our guide has a Chinese name, but told us, "Just call me Shirley." This has created a raft of jokes based on or stolen from the movie "Airplane." That "film" has been quoted and re-quoted for a couple days now. The first thing said, of course was "Stop calling me Shirley." But it has gotten progressively "worse" and repetitive. The other strange thing is that my sub at SHS has the same name as the "star" of that movie Airplane. Now some of the kids are going on about this because of our guide's name. Funny huh? Hopefully our plane will only be arriving at only one gate in Boston. ;)
ANYWAY, we saw some things in Shanghai over a couple of days: the TV tower, which was big and touristy. Y got an earful there from a Chinese woman who thought she cut her in line. At first, this was about how "foreigners" have no rights in China, then Y corrected her, and said she was Chinese. Then the woman went on about how Chinese living in America have no status in China anymore, who did she think she was, etc. It was ugly. The woman was really raving for about 10 minutes as we snaked our way around the lines to get on the high speed elevators to the top of this thing. Her daughter started crying. I felt sorry for her. Y stayed cool.
That first night we saw an acrobat show which was great. Lots of balancing -- about 8 people high on chairs, plate spinning, juggling, as well as old school clown type stuff with see saws and flipping through the air. There was also a magician who did a legerdemain act with cards and scarves which I had a lot of respect for. There was also a silly bit about knife throwing that was a cheesy comedy routine. There is more real comedy at our department meetings at school than that little skit provided. There was an interesting combination of music throughout the acts that included beautiful flute music, hip hop and other stuff. Some of the juggling and see saw stuff included modern dance moves as well. It was fun, and the auditorium was full of a bunch of white people. I have not seen that many Caucasians in one place since we left home, no joke.
At breakfast the next morning, a man started yelling at one of the staff because they told him he wasn't supposed to smoke in the breakfast room. He chain smoked anyway. Then when we went downstairs to catch the bus, he started yelling again, and included in his remarks that the rules of the hotel trying to oppress him was as bad as "what the Americans were trying to do in Beijing." That said no doubt for our benefit. Nice.
After this display, we went to the Shanghai museum in the morning, and had to wait around for a little bit because we "weren't on the list."Apparently you couldn't get in as a group unless you were on a special list. Our guide straightened that out, and we got in eventually. I had been talking to a Canadian woman who was on her own teaching in China. In retrospect, I think she was trying to get in line with us, then when it was clear we were not being successful, she just ran ahead and put herself with another group for entry without so much as a goodbye or anything. Clearly she has learned the Chinese way of doing things.
The museum was too much for some of the kids, and they hung out in the tea room there for most of it. Others, though, checked out the museum and seemed to enjoy it. I enjoyed seeing it again. We were fairly early and it is a huge place, so I could see what I wanted easily. I spent a lot of time looking at the huge diorama of Ancient Greece as it would be set up for the Olympics, a special exhibit, and looking at paintings and calligraphy. The May Day holiday meant a lot of Chinese people from different class backgrounds were in the museum and it was interesting to see the variety of people.
After lunch, we went to this huge shopping place -- three floors of it -- that sold everything from knock off Rolexes to Buddha statues. I walked through and got so tired of being assaulted by people selling things, that I went out the back door and wandered down the street for a while. I went into a neighborhood that was really for locals, and people-watched and took pictures. It was quite festive there with lots of food being cooked outside and people walking around. Much more interesting than the giant souvenir place.
We then went to the Bund, which I was leery of. The Bund is an esplanade along the waterfront where if you look across the river, you can see the modern buildings and if you look across the street in the opposite direction, you can see the older western buildings that really show the colonization that occurred in Shanghai. (The Party TV channel that night showed a very good program about the westernization of China, from the nationalist perspective of course.) Shanghai can best be described still as an international city. The Bund was mobbed as it was mobbed in '04. However, we still managed to get a look at the river and the giant barges. We also spent some time in a beautiful tea shop where a lovely lady in a pretty outfit poured us a couple different types of tea. Several of us bought some, including me. I had to give my tea away when I left Xi'an because I simply had no way to carry it given the alleged baggage restrictions. It was a beautiful tea shop selling beautiful tea and because we sat through her lecture/demonstration, we got a good discount, actually. And after that, supper.
The food in Shanghai was really god awful. All of it. Even y didn't really like it. Some of the boys chomped away at some of it though. I actually missed chili peppers in everything because it would have had some flavor to it. It was also extremely oily and/or deep fried. I gave up eating at meals except for rice, although at breakfast I found some toast. When we got back to the hotel, I wandered around on the street to take some video footage of the night market there, but also to buy some fruit.
Our street was a little sketchy, so I didn't stay out very long. The bar nearby played "Scarborough Fair", not sung by S & G, though, as well as "Vincent" (aka "starry Starry Night") sung by some woman with a nice voice, but they played these tunes over and over. You could hear them quite clearly in the room. The street had vendors selling the usual Chinese stuff, but the most interesting and sad were the live fish swimming in shallow tubs awaiting their fate. There were flounder,those fish that look like fish,skates, abalone,small sharks, shrimps, a big variety of fish, really, plus some chickens and snakes in cages in case seafood wasn't your thing. However, I just purchased some bananas, a peach and something I am not sure about. It needs to be peeled, which is delaying me.
The room was nice and clean didn't smell weird, so that was a great change from Xi'an. Also, surprisingly, there is less air pollution in Shanghai. Shanghai has a lot of neon, and reminded me of Tokyo in that way. Still, maybe I am missing something. It would be interesting to come through here again -- maybe -- without a group to deal with or be a part of and look for something else. Maybe.
Next stop, Tongli Village and Suzhou.
We left the school at 5:30AM, not without tears from some of the kids, some kids who had stayed up with host brothers and sisters half the night and no breakfast. There was supposed to be stricter restrictions on the baggage allowance at the airport, but the girl checking us in didn't care. My carry on was supposed be a certain weight as well, but the security guard at the x-ray belt just said, "It's heavy for you!" I had to have the magic wand passed over me (and I REALLY wanted to click my heels together and say there's no place like home, there's no place like home and wake up with friends and animals around me) because I set off the metal detector. I got to stand on a cylindrical pedestal like at a gown fitting when they did this, too. It wasn't that much fun. Part of the problem was my money clip and the other was my pedometer which I had to explain. Maybe it looked like a timer of some sort. My suitcase was underweight, but set off a siren. I think it was a clock inside with the Chairman on it. We just got waved on.
I also had a slight food emergency in the airport, and ended up paying some ridiculous amount for a pre-made egg and ham sandwich on white bread with cucumber and a V8. It wasn't all that bad. I'm glad I ate it because I slept through what I think was a slightly frightening breakfast on the plane.
We were met at the airport by our guide, Shirley, and taken to a restaurant we ate at in '04 with elephants in it. Well, not real elephants. The restaurant looked a lot more worn than last time, but there was a floor show with dancing and drumming, performed in a somewhat desultory manner by, I think, the same people who worked the tables. We were the only people in the place who clapped for it.
I will make this aside for movie buffs out there. This will not make a lot of sense to all you intellectuals, most likely, so you might want to skip ahead to the next paragraph. Our guide has a Chinese name, but told us, "Just call me Shirley." This has created a raft of jokes based on or stolen from the movie "Airplane." That "film" has been quoted and re-quoted for a couple days now. The first thing said, of course was "Stop calling me Shirley." But it has gotten progressively "worse" and repetitive. The other strange thing is that my sub at SHS has the same name as the "star" of that movie Airplane. Now some of the kids are going on about this because of our guide's name. Funny huh? Hopefully our plane will only be arriving at only one gate in Boston. ;)
ANYWAY, we saw some things in Shanghai over a couple of days: the TV tower, which was big and touristy. Y got an earful there from a Chinese woman who thought she cut her in line. At first, this was about how "foreigners" have no rights in China, then Y corrected her, and said she was Chinese. Then the woman went on about how Chinese living in America have no status in China anymore, who did she think she was, etc. It was ugly. The woman was really raving for about 10 minutes as we snaked our way around the lines to get on the high speed elevators to the top of this thing. Her daughter started crying. I felt sorry for her. Y stayed cool.
That first night we saw an acrobat show which was great. Lots of balancing -- about 8 people high on chairs, plate spinning, juggling, as well as old school clown type stuff with see saws and flipping through the air. There was also a magician who did a legerdemain act with cards and scarves which I had a lot of respect for. There was also a silly bit about knife throwing that was a cheesy comedy routine. There is more real comedy at our department meetings at school than that little skit provided. There was an interesting combination of music throughout the acts that included beautiful flute music, hip hop and other stuff. Some of the juggling and see saw stuff included modern dance moves as well. It was fun, and the auditorium was full of a bunch of white people. I have not seen that many Caucasians in one place since we left home, no joke.
At breakfast the next morning, a man started yelling at one of the staff because they told him he wasn't supposed to smoke in the breakfast room. He chain smoked anyway. Then when we went downstairs to catch the bus, he started yelling again, and included in his remarks that the rules of the hotel trying to oppress him was as bad as "what the Americans were trying to do in Beijing." That said no doubt for our benefit. Nice.
After this display, we went to the Shanghai museum in the morning, and had to wait around for a little bit because we "weren't on the list."Apparently you couldn't get in as a group unless you were on a special list. Our guide straightened that out, and we got in eventually. I had been talking to a Canadian woman who was on her own teaching in China. In retrospect, I think she was trying to get in line with us, then when it was clear we were not being successful, she just ran ahead and put herself with another group for entry without so much as a goodbye or anything. Clearly she has learned the Chinese way of doing things.
The museum was too much for some of the kids, and they hung out in the tea room there for most of it. Others, though, checked out the museum and seemed to enjoy it. I enjoyed seeing it again. We were fairly early and it is a huge place, so I could see what I wanted easily. I spent a lot of time looking at the huge diorama of Ancient Greece as it would be set up for the Olympics, a special exhibit, and looking at paintings and calligraphy. The May Day holiday meant a lot of Chinese people from different class backgrounds were in the museum and it was interesting to see the variety of people.
After lunch, we went to this huge shopping place -- three floors of it -- that sold everything from knock off Rolexes to Buddha statues. I walked through and got so tired of being assaulted by people selling things, that I went out the back door and wandered down the street for a while. I went into a neighborhood that was really for locals, and people-watched and took pictures. It was quite festive there with lots of food being cooked outside and people walking around. Much more interesting than the giant souvenir place.
We then went to the Bund, which I was leery of. The Bund is an esplanade along the waterfront where if you look across the river, you can see the modern buildings and if you look across the street in the opposite direction, you can see the older western buildings that really show the colonization that occurred in Shanghai. (The Party TV channel that night showed a very good program about the westernization of China, from the nationalist perspective of course.) Shanghai can best be described still as an international city. The Bund was mobbed as it was mobbed in '04. However, we still managed to get a look at the river and the giant barges. We also spent some time in a beautiful tea shop where a lovely lady in a pretty outfit poured us a couple different types of tea. Several of us bought some, including me. I had to give my tea away when I left Xi'an because I simply had no way to carry it given the alleged baggage restrictions. It was a beautiful tea shop selling beautiful tea and because we sat through her lecture/demonstration, we got a good discount, actually. And after that, supper.
The food in Shanghai was really god awful. All of it. Even y didn't really like it. Some of the boys chomped away at some of it though. I actually missed chili peppers in everything because it would have had some flavor to it. It was also extremely oily and/or deep fried. I gave up eating at meals except for rice, although at breakfast I found some toast. When we got back to the hotel, I wandered around on the street to take some video footage of the night market there, but also to buy some fruit.
Our street was a little sketchy, so I didn't stay out very long. The bar nearby played "Scarborough Fair", not sung by S & G, though, as well as "Vincent" (aka "starry Starry Night") sung by some woman with a nice voice, but they played these tunes over and over. You could hear them quite clearly in the room. The street had vendors selling the usual Chinese stuff, but the most interesting and sad were the live fish swimming in shallow tubs awaiting their fate. There were flounder,those fish that look like fish,skates, abalone,small sharks, shrimps, a big variety of fish, really, plus some chickens and snakes in cages in case seafood wasn't your thing. However, I just purchased some bananas, a peach and something I am not sure about. It needs to be peeled, which is delaying me.
The room was nice and clean didn't smell weird, so that was a great change from Xi'an. Also, surprisingly, there is less air pollution in Shanghai. Shanghai has a lot of neon, and reminded me of Tokyo in that way. Still, maybe I am missing something. It would be interesting to come through here again -- maybe -- without a group to deal with or be a part of and look for something else. Maybe.
Next stop, Tongli Village and Suzhou.
Friday, May 2, 2008
Zai Jian Xi'an
The last couple of days, we've been traveling and are in Shanghai right now, so the end of our Xi'an time was never duly recorded.
Our last official act as a group was the farewell ceremony. The farewell ceremony was held in the school upstairs cafeteria, the "nicer" one, where we ate lunch every day. (As opposed to the George Orwell Dining Hall downstairs on the ground floor.) The kids and Y and I had been warned ahead of time that we would be making speeches, so the kids worked on them with the Chinese teachers.
They had set out a buffet table in the cafeteria and a PA system that was playing Western Elevator style music. At the appointed time, Madame Jiao gave a fairly lengthy speech in Chinese which was translated fairly well by her assistant. It was classic -- how wonderful the Sharon students were, what a fortuitous start our collaboration, Y and I were praised, etc etc,. There was also a few aphorisms like "we will be separated by distance, but friendship is eternal" -- that sort of thing. Then the kids got up and gave their speeches. What I noticed, even though they were reading them, was how much more fluent their Mandarin was. It seemed like they understood the Chinese and were reading words, not just syllables. They had progressed so much beyond the phrasebook Mandarin some of them were speaking at the beginning. Y was very proud of them, understandably. The kids received some sort official certificate from the school as well.
I had to give a speech too, and other than hello and thank you, I spoke in English. Y assigned me that task as she would be the translator. I had written the speech standing at the windowsill in the classroom while the kids polished up theirs with the Chinese teachers. I used notes, mostly so I wouldn't forget to thank anyone, but it is pretty easy for me to talk, and this was actually less formal in some ways than the whole speech thing in Japan was. It is a different culture than Japan, and in this case, I had a personal relationship of one sort or another with most of the people there. My main point was that although we came to China as American students, teachers, and citizens, that we were leaving as better citizens of a wider world. I also mentioned that the kindness and generosity of the Chinese people we met would be things we would bring back to our friends and colleagues along with all the photographs and souvenirs. blah blah blah. Very Chinese speech-like and with the same level of sentimentality we had heard in everyone else's speeches in China. But, I meant this, actually.
Make no mistake about it, the Chinese government has many flaws, and the system that runs the country has made many mistakes. We lived in an area that was driving out poor people, that was polluting the air, and the Chinese students we lived with there stood in the yard everyday doing exercises Mao would have liked. But the individuals we met or interacted with were also kind, helpful, interested in knowing more about us, patient, all sorts of things. I liked most of them. Some of them liked me, I know. They were really just people. One student on a card the kids made for me with notes on it wrote, "Please support Beijing in 2008." This wasn't a grand political statement; it was a request person to person. She said "please"; there were no exclamation marks. The Chinese people want to hold the Olympics. The Chinese people include this 16 year old girl who listened to me talk about American history at 7:30 in the morning. It is hard to hold all the things China is and represents in both hands sometimes.
Before we could eat in friendship, or whatever, however, we went out to the front courtyard and took a million pictures. Some were done by a professional photographer, some by individuals. There were all kids of permutations and combinations of teachers, kids, host parents, Madame Jiao, and on and on. When we got inside, everyone was ready to eat. The chef had done an outstanding job. Where he is when the regular food is served out of that kitchen, I have no idea. There was quite a variety including spam and cucumber sandwiches and little tiny whole shrimps that i couldn't see without my glasses so ate anyway. They were crunchy and tasty. There was also rice and vegetables, fish , chicken, passable sushi and other stuff. One of the best things for me is that it wasn't laced with MSG. I sat with the grownups and managed to choose my own food, the only exception being some oxtail soup Madame Jiao had the serving girl bring over. Y said it was a delicacy. I told her my line that delicacies to me are either weird animals you have to eat or weird parts of regular animals. In this case, the whole thing was weird. I ate some anyway, naturally.
At the end, people just left. The kids went with their host families and I changed clothes and went for one more bike ride. We had one more day to tie up loose ends, and Y and I had one more fancy dinner with Madame Jiao and Shang.
We were concerned about the weight limits on domestic flights from Xi'an to Shanghai - 20 kilos or about 44 pounds, and the word was that the airports ere going to be very strict. We were set to travel on the May 1 worker's holiday (don't even ask me why) so traffic all over was supposed to be more intense than usual. The day before we left, Y and I decided what to do with our personal stuff, clothes we thought we could with out and in my case of course the pounds of books I had brought.
We gave some stuff away and regifted things to people in the school. I left some books on Chinese topics with the school for future groups. I also left my bicycle for the use of whomever and then for the next group from our school if it survived that long. Y mailed some of her winter clothes to her parents and I left a couple of things on the clothesline, hoping some kid or worker would find them and make use of them.
The night before we left, y and I had one last dinner with Madame Jiao and Shang in a very fancy restaurant in a private dining room, as we always had with them. We had hot pot cooked meat and vegetables, but they cooked the food for you "off stage", so to speak. Shang picked everything as he always did. They brought the meat out before it was cooked for his inspection, a little like they uncork wine for you I guess. We sat for a couple of hours and ate and drank tea, excellent oolong tea. At the end of the meal, we were driven home by Madame Jiao's chauffeur. It was time to go.
Our last official act as a group was the farewell ceremony. The farewell ceremony was held in the school upstairs cafeteria, the "nicer" one, where we ate lunch every day. (As opposed to the George Orwell Dining Hall downstairs on the ground floor.) The kids and Y and I had been warned ahead of time that we would be making speeches, so the kids worked on them with the Chinese teachers.
They had set out a buffet table in the cafeteria and a PA system that was playing Western Elevator style music. At the appointed time, Madame Jiao gave a fairly lengthy speech in Chinese which was translated fairly well by her assistant. It was classic -- how wonderful the Sharon students were, what a fortuitous start our collaboration, Y and I were praised, etc etc,. There was also a few aphorisms like "we will be separated by distance, but friendship is eternal" -- that sort of thing. Then the kids got up and gave their speeches. What I noticed, even though they were reading them, was how much more fluent their Mandarin was. It seemed like they understood the Chinese and were reading words, not just syllables. They had progressed so much beyond the phrasebook Mandarin some of them were speaking at the beginning. Y was very proud of them, understandably. The kids received some sort official certificate from the school as well.
I had to give a speech too, and other than hello and thank you, I spoke in English. Y assigned me that task as she would be the translator. I had written the speech standing at the windowsill in the classroom while the kids polished up theirs with the Chinese teachers. I used notes, mostly so I wouldn't forget to thank anyone, but it is pretty easy for me to talk, and this was actually less formal in some ways than the whole speech thing in Japan was. It is a different culture than Japan, and in this case, I had a personal relationship of one sort or another with most of the people there. My main point was that although we came to China as American students, teachers, and citizens, that we were leaving as better citizens of a wider world. I also mentioned that the kindness and generosity of the Chinese people we met would be things we would bring back to our friends and colleagues along with all the photographs and souvenirs. blah blah blah. Very Chinese speech-like and with the same level of sentimentality we had heard in everyone else's speeches in China. But, I meant this, actually.
Make no mistake about it, the Chinese government has many flaws, and the system that runs the country has made many mistakes. We lived in an area that was driving out poor people, that was polluting the air, and the Chinese students we lived with there stood in the yard everyday doing exercises Mao would have liked. But the individuals we met or interacted with were also kind, helpful, interested in knowing more about us, patient, all sorts of things. I liked most of them. Some of them liked me, I know. They were really just people. One student on a card the kids made for me with notes on it wrote, "Please support Beijing in 2008." This wasn't a grand political statement; it was a request person to person. She said "please"; there were no exclamation marks. The Chinese people want to hold the Olympics. The Chinese people include this 16 year old girl who listened to me talk about American history at 7:30 in the morning. It is hard to hold all the things China is and represents in both hands sometimes.
Before we could eat in friendship, or whatever, however, we went out to the front courtyard and took a million pictures. Some were done by a professional photographer, some by individuals. There were all kids of permutations and combinations of teachers, kids, host parents, Madame Jiao, and on and on. When we got inside, everyone was ready to eat. The chef had done an outstanding job. Where he is when the regular food is served out of that kitchen, I have no idea. There was quite a variety including spam and cucumber sandwiches and little tiny whole shrimps that i couldn't see without my glasses so ate anyway. They were crunchy and tasty. There was also rice and vegetables, fish , chicken, passable sushi and other stuff. One of the best things for me is that it wasn't laced with MSG. I sat with the grownups and managed to choose my own food, the only exception being some oxtail soup Madame Jiao had the serving girl bring over. Y said it was a delicacy. I told her my line that delicacies to me are either weird animals you have to eat or weird parts of regular animals. In this case, the whole thing was weird. I ate some anyway, naturally.
At the end, people just left. The kids went with their host families and I changed clothes and went for one more bike ride. We had one more day to tie up loose ends, and Y and I had one more fancy dinner with Madame Jiao and Shang.
We were concerned about the weight limits on domestic flights from Xi'an to Shanghai - 20 kilos or about 44 pounds, and the word was that the airports ere going to be very strict. We were set to travel on the May 1 worker's holiday (don't even ask me why) so traffic all over was supposed to be more intense than usual. The day before we left, Y and I decided what to do with our personal stuff, clothes we thought we could with out and in my case of course the pounds of books I had brought.
We gave some stuff away and regifted things to people in the school. I left some books on Chinese topics with the school for future groups. I also left my bicycle for the use of whomever and then for the next group from our school if it survived that long. Y mailed some of her winter clothes to her parents and I left a couple of things on the clothesline, hoping some kid or worker would find them and make use of them.
The night before we left, y and I had one last dinner with Madame Jiao and Shang in a very fancy restaurant in a private dining room, as we always had with them. We had hot pot cooked meat and vegetables, but they cooked the food for you "off stage", so to speak. Shang picked everything as he always did. They brought the meat out before it was cooked for his inspection, a little like they uncork wine for you I guess. We sat for a couple of hours and ate and drank tea, excellent oolong tea. At the end of the meal, we were driven home by Madame Jiao's chauffeur. It was time to go.
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