Tongli, Suzhou

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.

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.

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.

Last Solo Excursion in Xi'an

Last Sunday was the last trip I would be taking into Xi'an and environs -- this time. I decided to touch base with my Taoist leanings and go to Ba Xian An, or the monastery of the Eight Immortals.

I have had some contact with other Meiguoren interested in the Eight Immortals, particularly a tai chi teacher in the Boston area, so it was kind of cool to make this, um circle, no pun related to yin yangs intended.

I threw all caution and some Yuan to the wind and hailed a cab to get there. I have been taking cabs with Y and buses on my own, fearing somehow that I would ripped off as a white female if I was by myself. However for this trip, I wasn't sure which buses to take and the internet was vague on that point. I did know about where the place was, so when i got into the cab and told the driver where I wanted to go, I figured I could "do something" if I was being led on a Wild Goose chase. (Like what, given my limited Chinese? Say some key phrases? : "Not here! There!" "Yes, I would like tofu!" "Stop driving""My bicycle is not expensive!"" I teach history. " "Thank you, I am only a student of Mandarin. " "I am enjoying Xi'an" "The food is very spicy here!""Everything I do, I do for the People." ) The cab ride was about 30 minutes, but I know Xi'an enough to know that in fact the guy wasn't driving around willy nilly. The ride cost about $3 American. OK.

Outside the temple, you could see dozens of vendors with their wares on blankets or in stalls, and you had to walk through this to get to the temple itself. It was a little like one of the large temples in Tokyo where there was a giant bazaar at its doorstep as well, but this was, as Y would say Chinese "style", dustier, older, edgier in a way. I was also reminded as I was in Japan about the money changers and the sellers of animals for sacrifice outside the Great Temple in Jerusalem like the Bible describes. (Earlier in my time here, I read Anne Rice's Christ the Lord and she wonderfully describes this scene as Jesus first sees it as a boy.) I am sort of digressing I guess, but the intensity of the commerce outside this temple dedicated to the Tao was a little incongruous, I would say.

It has been fun to speak the Mandarin I do know when I get a chance, but occasionally if I do speak, it opens a torrent of Chinese from whomever I am speaking to. For example, as I walked through this bazaar, people would pick up things and show them to me. I have gotten beyond "Bu yao" which means literally "Don't want" to "How does that work?" for example, when one guy showed me a sort of trick lock made out of brass. He went on about something, but did show me. Y thinks people are surprised a white person would know any Chinese and also that my pronunciation is understandable. This is good, but it also means I have to manage the energy of interacting with people a lot. This also can be very good, but it means I am not anonymous, although I stand out here no matter what, especially in non-touristy areas.

The Chinese concept of personal space is very different than what we are used to. People will tug on you, hand you things, and stand very close. If they bump into you, they do not say "Excuse me" usually and if they want to get past you, they just move you out of the way. They do this to each other; it isn't just a thing they do with foreigners. I took some pictures with the video camera, and this old guy just came up behind me and looked over my shoulder to see what I was recording. He didn't even try to pretend that he wasn't doing that. So, you can't just stop to look at something without an interaction. I have also learned to say "Just looking, thank you". Though one woman said, "Look at this!" and then handed me something. But I wasn't in buying mode.

The temple was quite a contrast energetically -- very peaceful with many halls for prayer and incense vats. A fair amount of people were there praying and it looked like the monastery had an active membership of male and female monks. In the back garden, they had a rock walkway where they had created a stone ying yang and the eight trigrams of the I Ching. Many of the doorways were octagonal as well. The temple had been renovated by the Empress CiCi as she used it hide from people at one point and it had many intact steles and statues. In the hall of the Eight Immortals, a young monk was on duty and he talked to me, I am guessing because he was bored sitting there. He showed me how to pray and kowtow, asked my nationality. He was very nice, really just a young guy who seemed like he was glad to see something different at his post.

Once I finished there, I wanted to go to the Muslim area to get something to eat, and thought I would hail a cab again. But for the life of me, I could not come up with the name of the street, so I said "Mosque?" "Muslim quarter?", in English and the guy didn't know any English. But before I could pull out the dictionary, he said, "Wait," in Chinese and pulled out his cellphone. He then called some woman and said in Chinese, "Speak." So I told her in English I wanted to go to the Mosque or the Drum Tower, and she said in English, "I understand your meaning. Give phone to driver." So, I handed it back, and he listened for a second, then said to her, "Dui, Dui, Dui, so, so, so," which roughly means, "Gotcha" and we drove off. He was a very nice guy, you could just tell that really, and I thought that whole thing he did was very clever. I wonder who the woman on the phone was!

It was fun to be back in familiar territory actually, and it was also one of the nicest days weather wise we have had. The area was much more crowded than the day we were there with the kids, however, and I made my way down past the largest numbers of people to a restaurant where they were cooking outside. I had lamb and what I thought was potatoes (I didn't ask), but was tofu and some bread. Again, about $2 American. The Chinese people paid me no mind, but a white guy came into the place at one point with his girlfriend and we just stared at each other for a second. "Ni hao!" I said. He laughed and said, "Ni Hao!" His girlfriend found the place unsuitable as there were "No spare tables," and pulled him out of there. I hope someone clues them in on the "If There's a Seat, Sit in It, Even if There Are Other People At The Table" Rule that applies in these sort of eateries.

I wandered a bit. There were two Italian women trying to find the Mosque, and I had watched them unsuccessfully ask a Chinese woman first in Italian and then English, so I just went up to them and offered to point them in the right direction. (In English) They'd tried an alley someone had suggested, but it was closed off and had construction work in it. It was nice to be able to tell them another way. I had remembered this place from '04, and this was the third time I had been in the neighborhood this trip, so I felt like an old hand.

Then, I was done. I walked back up to the main street to a taxi stand. The first driver didn't want to drive out to where the school is I guess, but the second guy didn't mind, so I got back to school in one piece.

All Dressed Up

We have discovered a number of things we didn't know before we came to China and one of them is that any future groups from SHS would not be working at this particular school, but at another campus, the Tang Nan School. Last Saturday, Y, the kids, and I, wearing our finest, visited the other campus before we went out to a "western" lunch, hosted by none other than Madame Jiao. ("Get as dressed up as possible, " were my instructions to the crew, knowing their travel wardrobes were somewhat limited.)

Kids arrived at school Saturday morning all gussied up. Back home, when we'd told them to bring something to dress up in, they complained, but I think they were glad to. They looked nice. I wore my suit, justifying for the second time its weight in my suitcase. We drove in the familiar van to the campus which was more towards the center of the city than our current location. When we got there, Y said, "Look everyone! They're ready for us!" They sure were. They had a marching band with a majorette in school uniforms standing on the sidewalk and a phalanx of people holding bouquets of flowers, one for each of us, kids included. Throughout our entire day, we were also photographed by someone with a still camera and someone else with a fancy movie camera. Despite the fact that I am certainly un-photogenic, I would love to see some of this footage.

We were escorted to the schoolyard, led by the marching band. The kids were photographed with their Chinese student hosts, and we were led to seats under a large banner. Madame Jiao never speaks to me -- she knows no English -- but she always interacts with me, takes me by the hand constantly, and in this case in a typical Chinese manner, just pushed me, not at all unkindly, into the seat I was to occupy. Alrighty then. We had our photograph taken and went inside to a conference room with fruit on the table.

The table was oval shaped, and Y initially suggested the kids alternate -- American student with Chinese student -- but The Plan was to have the Chinese students on one side and the Americans on the other. The discussion was led by the Chinese students, and by one girl in particular who spoke truly excellent English. Her first comment was how "handsome and beautiful" all the American students were. She said this again later; I think she meant it. She said one boy looked like Beckham the soccer player which Y and I thought was pretty funny. Our guy has a buzz cut, but is very dark and looks nothing like Beckham -- maybe all westerners look alike. The kids talked back and forth for a while. They got onto the subject of "grounding", which our kids defined as no cell, no computer, no going out, no TV, etc. One Chinese student laughed and said he was always grounded -- meaning he never had access to any of these things, not as punishment but because it was his way of life. Another girl pointed out that he was top student, however, so maybe "there is something to this."

I had a chance to talk to their English teacher, the woman who will coming to the US for their side of the exchange and liked her very much. Her English in terms of pronunciation and vocabulary, syntax, all of it was really excellent, and it was clear she had done a terrific job teaching these kids. She talked about how when she was young she listened to American music to expose herself to English, and that she really liked The Carpenters. Well they certainly had great diction and understandable music. We discussed Karen Carpenter (no I did not tell her the Mama Cass joke) and while she did know poor Karen had died, she did not know she was a drummer. The teacher said Karen had a "beautiful and special" voice, and being a fellow alto, I did agree. [I actually do think she had a beautiful voice. I told her about singing "Close to You" in a karaoke session while I was in Japan, which was met with huge approval. The Chinese teacher especially likes "Top of the World" which I said was a cheerful song. "Rainy Days and Mondays" was also reviewed. (Of course I like that sad tune better.) I am embarrassed to admit I could easily sing all of these songs right now. I picked "Close to You" in Japan because it was in my range and I knew all the words.] She also said that I spoke "almost British" English, that it was very clear and that I had a good vocabulary. (I have even been avoiding words like "ameliorate" and my personal favorite "deleterious" since I have been here. ha ha) I wonder what she thinks American English is like, or who she thinks epitomizes American spoken English. She has not traveled outside of China, but has met "foreigners" before.

After the Q and A was over, the kids piled into the van again, but Y and I got to ride in Madame Jiao's chauffeured car, a beautiful Honda sedan with tinted windows. Her driver, who we'd met on several occasions, is a nice guy, as are all of her people, as I've said before. We drove to the Bell Tower Hotel in the center of town, the same hotel R and I stayed in last time we were in Xi'an. They have a "Western Restaurant", according to the sign, and that's where we went -- what was used as the breakfast room in '04.

Some of the food was not Chinese, certainly, which was appreciated by many of us. There was a great selection, served buffet style. The kids stuffed themselves silly and Y tried a little of everything. Madame Jiao wasn't right next to me, so I got to choose my own food for the most part, except she sent one of her assistants to get jiaozi, dumplings, for me at one point. Of course I ate them.

After lunch, we said goodbye to the Chinese teachers, packed the kids into the school van and sent them off, and Y and I got into Madame Jiao's Honda to go shopping. I really was not into this, but it was another example of doing whatever you have to do for work. The trip was to get gifts for the superintendent and the former superintendent which Y and were to take back.

We drove to a fancy department store where her driver parked with the few other cars there on the sidewalk -- this is common enough -- no street parking in Xi'an really. Y and I helped pick out blouses for the two other ladies, and then Madame J insisted that Y and I pick out something for ourselves. In the ladies department of a Chinese department store? I was concerned as well as embarrassed by her generosity, although I am very aware of Madame J's financial position; it wasn't going to hurt her in any way, let us say. Y and I ended up in a section of the store where "Tang Style" clothes were sold. These are Chinese-ish modern style things - interesting cut, colors, and Mandarin collar. I found one thing, but the driver, who had been following us around and dealing with the money -- he is really an assistant, not just some guy who drives--picked out something else and I tried that on. Everyone agreed I should get this one particular blouse. I like it, although it is sort of fancy. It makes me look a little like a diplomat in a Star Trek episode, somewhat Vulcan-esque, but I can probably find an occasion to wear it. It was very expensive. Y got another thing from the same department. We be stylin' now.

We got dropped back at school and Madame Jiao mentioned that we will have another dinner with Shang before it's all said and done here. If it is warm, I will wear my new blouse.

In the Mountains

Again, this is a late entry, happened last Tuesday, and today is Sunday, but here it is anyway.

Tuesday, we went to Mt. Huashan with the group from Brookline and had a hike in the foothills of what appeared to be serious mountains, southeast of Xi'an. Each school divided up into two smallish vans and we drove through the city, then a suburb and then the countryside to reach the mountain.

Suburbs in China are not like suburbs in the US, not surprisingly, and visible declines economically and with regard to the infrastructure were sudden once we left the "city proper", whatever that is. It didn't take us long to get out of the high rise section of the city into areas with brick buildings, and small communities divided into villages or neighborhoods with gates. These should not be confused with "gated communities" (ala Hilton Head or something) except that's what they were in the most basic sense. All through China, you can see collections of one floor brick or tile buildings or housing developments of apartments that are closed off by walls and courtyards with a gated entrance. In some cases, the gate or door itself is no longer there, just the opening where one once was, but frequently, these openings have a sign over them. These are names that the communities have been given at one point or another.

We also drove through rural areas with various plants, trees and flowers planted. These were all for some sort of crop or farming use. Mulberry trees, for example, make nice juice which is served frequently here, but also feed silk worms that help create beautiful cloth. This part of China is not a rice growing area -- though it is served three meals a day in the dining hall -- so we didn't see paddies, but there was lots of stuff growing.

To get to the mountain, we drove through a kind of "resort" area, with basic hotels and restaurants. We stopped at one point because our guides had to contact the local guide and notify him of our arrival -- for our "protection." They have been very concerned about our "protection" lately, more to follow.

The mountain had an official parking area and place to pay. It was clear that we were in a much larger range of mountains, and like the time Ruthie, my mom, and I went to Fussen, Germany and got up an Alp for an afternoon, we were not going to see the whole thing, for sure. We walked for over an hour up a fairly steep granite walkway which at several useful points had stairs as part of the route. Y remarked at one of these places that it was like "another Great Wall." Sort of. It was steep anyway and with a view, to be sure.

The weather was in our favor, and we were also blessed with beautiful blossoming trees. As well, there was a large brook or stream that had been managed and routed down the side of the mountain. We stopped at a pagoda part of the way up and took pictures. I remembered Flat Stanley for this trip, but forgot my hat. I took a picture of Flat Stanley against the mountainous backdrop and also one with the Brookline teacher's 6 year old son holding him.

When we reached the top of this part of the mountain, more or less, there was a large lake with boats in it. Our trip had been paid for and arranged by Madame Jiao -- she footed the bill for our restaurant lunch there later and the bus and the guides -- and she had made it clear that no one was going boating: too dangerous. There was very brief and very mild grumbling, but not much,really. A couple of girls I was walking with contented themselves with scrambling up a boulder and looking into a fairly extensive cave. What I thought was great is that one girl asked my permission first: "Ms. Beebe can we please climb this rock and look down the cave?" This is exactly the sort of thing I would have wanted to do, so of course I said yes. "Please avoid splitting your skulls open," was my reply, or words to that effect. I totally forget I am a grown-up half the time here. They didn't want bats in their hair (nor did I-- theirs or mine) so when I asked them to come back down, they did so obligingly.

Several food hawkers had established small businesses up there, and we walked past them to get to the tourist attractions -- the wind and ice caves. I am not sure which was which, but they were caves all right, real ones you had to duck and/or crawl through at different points. The landscape in general was a little strange -- Star Trek (The Original Series) meets Planet of the Apes -- but it was natural. The interiors of some of the caves though were silly. Whether actual stalagmites or stalactites had actually formed or not was difficult to determine as they had plastered versions of them in the caves. Were they real, just plastered over, or fake? I have no idea. This is a kind of symbol of some things Chinese anyway, particularly the Tang Paradise Park we'd also visited with the Brookline group. I would love to learn the Chinese character for "Ersatz".

We'd brought several people from the school and Madame Jiao's office with us to make sure we did or didn't do something, I am sure. They were all very nice. We paused before lunch to have several group pictures taken. We posed, passed cameras around, and the other Chinese people also hiking up there found all of this fun to watch.

Lunch was in a castle-shaped (not the least bit Chinese on the outside) restaurant overlooking the lake. We sat at three tables -- I was at the grown up table with the guides. As has been the case at our restaurant meals here, the food was very good. Lots of vegetable dishes and locally grown chicken (saw some of the relatives of our protein source on the way up, most likely) and locally produced eggs. There was also a sweet treat-- Chinese meals are not about dessert -- that was a hot pumpkin cookie, for lack of a better way to describe it. We have been eating a fair amount of pumpkin here in restaurants. Yummy.

We took more pictures on the way down. Mr. Zhong, who had accompanied Y and George and me to the center of Xi'an when we first got here, gave me suggestions as to what to photograph. He is a great guy actually, and also drags a camera around with him. I think he appreciates the hobby and may have a good eye for it as well. I took his email address at the end of the day to send him some photos. Zhong is another of Madame Jiao's assistants -- I am not sure of his function, though it may be translator or something like that. All of her people are very nice and easy to get along with. She is too, amazingly so considering her considerable wealth, influence, position and the fact that she speaks absolutely no English.

Our trip down the mountain was not particularly eventful, and certainly easier. The weather still held, so we had a pleasant time of it. I walked for a while with the Brookline teacher's 10 year old daughter who is one of those great girls -- pretty low key, but very bright and articulate. I got lots of information about how they managed to leave their home and dog and come to China as a family, which was interesting.

Kids sacked out on the ride back -- we took a different route and so saw more of the mountain range out of one side of the van. It was good to see some more of the countryside. China has many mountains, and many with temples and monasteries that I would like to see for more than one reason. It would be a different way to see this part of China -- there is so much to see here, so many layers, so many types of experiences.

Field Trip

This actually happened on Monday of this week, but here I am getting around to officially reporting on it. It seemed like a long time ago, but it has only been a few days, this time-shifting a theme likely to be repeated one way or the other, I bet.

Xi'an is full of official things to see, being an ancient capital and all, and one idea Y and I had was to take the kids to the Big Wild Goose pagoda (not to be confused with the little wild goose pagoda, which also exists). Turns out, about half of our kids had been with their host families, so we decided instead to go as a group to the Shaanxi provincial museum. I'd been there in '04, but also really wanted to go again. The Friday before we left, we'd asked one of the school officials to check on the opening times and Monday hours specifically.

Monday, we all piled into a school van and headed off to the museum. We got there, and it appeared that it wasn't open yet. There were groups of people standing outside the mechanized gate and the guard was standing inside the gate looking at every one. Y got out of the van and determined that opening time was 9:30. At 9:30, the guard stepped into a doorway and brought out a sign that said "Museum closed for repairs". With that, he turned on his heel and went away.

Bell broken please knock. Don't nobody get to see the wizard, not nobody, not nohow.

This is actually typical of China -- we saw things like this all the time last time. The person on the phone had answered our host's questions, but didn't tell her that the museum was closed the next business day, Monday. The guard knew the museum was closed, but waited until opening time to tell all the people in the drizzle about it. So, now what? Our plan was to go to the museum then into the center of town to the Muslim Quarter for lunch and shopping. We decided to just go downtown. But our driver was only supposed to take us to the museum, and refused to drive us downtown, so we had to figure out own own transportation. We walked for about 15 minutes to a main street and hailed three cabs.

The cabs did not come in rapid succession, so saying something to the drivers like, "Follow that cab!" wouldn't work, like it does in the movies, so the kids gave the drivers the name of the main tourist street in the Muslim quarter. Y and I were in the last cab, and once we were dropped off, found half of the kids easily. Apparently, the other half had been dropped off in a slightly different location. I went with a couple of the girls in search of them and found them in a McDonald's! We were all reunited in not too long a time and we sat in the land of golden arches and figured out what to do next. We decided to take the money we would have used for a group lunch and divvy it up among everyone, let people go off on their own, and gave a time to meet later that afternoon.

The fact that Y and I decided to do this without hesitation is really a comment on these kids. Neither Y or I are particularly permissive, boundary-less people or teachers, but time and time again, these kids have proven their ability to be sensible. And some of them had gone out to different parts of the city with their host brothers and sisters anyway. So we let them go with the stipulation that they stay with at least one other person. Y and I decided to split up too, figuring we could take adult privilege and break the buddy rule, I guess.

I wandered the bazaar and bought a few gifts. I had already been in the bazaar earlier in the trip, but there were a few things I still wanted to get. Bargaining is a curious process. People suggest a price, and I automatically counter with a another about one half as large. They counter, I counter, and in the end I decide if I want to pay the amount it is going to equal in American money. Sometimes, I have walked away when they refused to meet my final price and they say "OK OK". Some non-Chinese folks make a huge game out of haggling and I think it is embarrassing. I do not discuss my purchases with many Americans here because it turns into this contest about how little you can pay. I hate contests like that and I also know that in terms of my own income, I can afford to pay what I do pay, and I am getting a lower price than I would pay at home. Why be mean to the Chinese people about it? It is true that local folks assume I have a lot of money and they sometimes suggest ridiculously high prices for things. So I have to counter with another price. It doesn't always feel good because they are trying to get as much money as they can out of me, and this feels slightly sketchy. I am not a great shopper, but I don't need a lot of this stuff anyway. I also have a space issue in my suitcase and in my house when I get home. I tried to be very careful about what I did purchase. You could knick knack yourself to death. Something else to collect dust or for the cats to knock over.

I had a lot of fun on the street full of restaurants. I brought my video camera with me instead of the still camera and took some footage of all the outdoor cooking and various vehicles. I ate in a small restaurant that was managed by a beautiful but curt Muslim woman in a lovely outfit. Her workers only smiled when she stepped away from the stand to buy fresh vegetables for the restaurant. I ate noodles with spicy sauce and dumplings. I tried to be very careful in shooting pictures in that area as it was clear that many women in particular did not want to have their pictures taken. I was shooting generally and tried not to aim the camera at anyone in particular. In the food area, there were no signs for amounts, so I had to say what I wanted, then ask how much. My lunch cost me 7 yuen, or a little more than a dollar. There were many carts with vegetables and fresh and dried fruits for sale, and again, no signs for amounts. I think this was another case of where the proprietor would set a price depending upon who his customers were. As you walked further and further down the street, you saw only locals. The Muslim quarter is off one of the main touristy sections of Xi'an, but many people don't make it past the big restaurants on the square and down the side streets very far.

I also walked around the big square there. When I was here in 2004, the square was there of course, but it wasn't as polished up. This is a theme for what i have been seeing of the tourist spots in China. (The same was true of the Terra Cotta Warrior complex -- very spiffed up in the last few years.) Underneath the street in the center of Xi'an, there is a subterranean pedestrian concourse connecting the drum and bell towers and the hotels and restaurants that line the giant traffic circle. I walked through this and popped out of one exit to find a huge mall. In 2004, this same building was a very basic 2 floor department store. Now it had 7 floors with an internal atrium and there was a trick bicycle exhibition going on inside. The store sold familiar and unfamiliar brand names. One shoe company was called Senda Woman -- the bags and shoes just had a logo that said Senda. There was another shoe company called Love Cat. I don't know if this was an adjective/noun combination or an imperative.

As we thought, the kids came back at the appointed time -- we rendezvoused at the McDonald's again. A couple of them had bought knapsacks and T shirts with Chairman Mao and communist logos on them. Many had also picked up stuff for friends and family back home. It was sweet how excited they were about the things they had bought for other people. We divided kids up into groups based on the location of their host families' apartments and hailed cabs again.

Y and I rode back to school alone -- she in the front speaking rapid Chinese to the driver. I sat in the back and watched Xi'an go by. Another good day.