Trip to Hainan Island

I am flying to Hainan Island in South China for New Years!  It is a very warm place with nice beaches.  I will be sure to take alot of pictures and post about my adventures soon.  I will post again as soon as I get there.

Trip to Yichang

Yesterday, I took a trip to Yichang yesterday, which is a scruffy little town of 4 million in the western part of Hubei province.  It is about a two hour train ride from where I am located in Wuhan.

Yichang is on the banks of the Yangtse river and is a launch point for boat trips to the three gorges dam and river tours of the scenic three gorges area.  I was out there to meet students at a local middle school to discuss what American High School is like and to answer questions.  The company I work for conducted a larger presentation about the student exchange program that sends chinese kids to US schools.

The train ride was through alot of farm land full of small villes and farms.  Alot of the farms had crops that were planted and green, even with some snow on the ground.

Upon arrival in Yichang, I went to a restaurant with several other people from the company.  I had some very tasty dumplings.

I gave my speech and then was asked to speak again, so I had to make up a 5 minute talk about chinese american relations and the need to develop better cross cultural understanding.

After the presentation, everyone from the company went to a private dinner party at a local hotel.  We had a room to ourselves that had a sitting area complete with a flat screen TV.

This was a sort of banquet.  We sat around a rather large table.  People sit according to their importance and then according to age.  There is alot of ritual to how the seating is handled.

We were attended by several waitresses, who would come with dishes and to refresh the supply of "white wine".

White chinese wine is really a misnomer.  It is actually a sort of spirit made from Sorghum and called Bao-gin.  It has a vague sweetness and at first reminded me of annise seed liquor like Sambuca.

We sat around eating, and every so often, someone would stand and extend a toast to someone else.  This obligates the person being toasted to drink a small shot of Chinese white wine.

At each seat, there is a small decanter that was filled with white wine by the hostess. You then pour the liquor into a very small shot glass.  You need to keep your shot glass always full, because you never know when you will be toasted by someone.

In a short while, I was pretty buzzed.

Unfortunately, my new chinese handler and I had to take a train back to Wuhan.  I ended up getting back to my apartment around 1:00 AM.

My new chinese handler is very nice.  She is also very petite, standing under 5 feet tall.  We make quite a sight; a 6 foot tall western man and a tiny chinese woman.  When people call her my assistant, I tell them, no she is my boss.  So far we get along.  She is young and I need to learn her some things.

Working at doing nothing

So, I have really had alot of downtime over the time I have been in China.  You see, when I came here I was supposed to work at two public schools.  Subsequently, one public school is no longer with my agency, so I only taught there twice.   I know it was nothing I said, apparently it was an issue between my company and the school.

The public school, where I live and eat in the cafeteria, has only asked me to give two lectures.  Thats right, two hour long lectures, since I moved in here last November 4th.

The work I have been doing has almost entirely consisted of work at a private school run and owned by the senior english teacher here at the school where I live. My home/school is a language oriented school, and a good one at that.

Anyway, for the past month I have been told to wait while preparations are made for me to conduct a twice weekly language club lecture. I finally was told I needed to prepare an assessment to administer to the students, so we could select the higher fluency students for the club.

I completed the assessment in a day.  That was three weeks ago.  It has taken until today for them to administer the test, which is being given to the entire school.

This has allowed me alot of time to sleep, watch youtube videos about reptilian aliens who rule the world, and to sleep.  Did I mention I sleep alot?

My work primarily consists of me going to the private school and working on Saturday and Sunday for 18 hours.  Since my employment contract says I only work a maximum of 20 hours I week, I am inclined to think that when I finally do start teaching the club, that I will get overtime...

To be fair, I had been going to the office of my agency several times a week to work on various things,

I am going to make it my new years resolution to venture around the town more.  I have largely stayed in my room and watched internet videos.  I need to get back to working on my Chinese.

Since coming to China, I have seen a few sites around Wuhan, have been to Hong Kong for three days, and went to the Wudangshan.  Next week is winter break, and I hope I can take a train to Shanghai.  

Merry Christmas

I haven't been good about posting, which is largely because I have been busy.  I have been to three christmas parties at two of the school that I work at.  I will post some pictures below of the parties.

Christmas is really wierd here.  The Chinese have adopted all of the secular, folk aspects of christmas, but do not really have a grasp on what Christmas is about.  One chinese teacher I met thought that Jesus was born in the USA.  I have done my part as a patriotic citizen to try my best to build bridges by explaining what Christmas is all about.

Explaining the nativity is actually more difficult than it sounds.  Words like Nativity, Adoration, Shepherd, Magi, Manger, etc. have poor translations in Chinese.

Last Friday I went to school at 11:00 AM and basically played around on the computer all day while the Chinese teacher got ready for a christmas party.  The party was from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM, and for some reason my presence was requested at 11:00 AM.

At one point, a teacher started playing a very grating to my ears version of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas".  They played on a loop, so it played over and over.  Much of the day involved me staying out of listening distance from this song.

The party involved one teacher dressed in what looked like a white wedding gown directing the students in a variety of games.  This "Christmas Princess" had about a half dozen other Chinese teachers dressed in fancy gowns who were the "Christmas Maidens".  They all looked very cute.

I was supposed to be Santa, but the costume didn't fit me very well.  Instead, I dressed like a toy soldier in a faux military jacket with epaulets and gold piping. I felt like I looked like a bell hop at an upscale hotel.

One of the teachers had some jello shots of vodka.  They were in small vials and I am pretty sure several teachers has some.  When I asked if it was a good idea, I was told "you can't smell the alcohol."  People of my heart.

On Monday of this week, I went to a two hour "Christmas Party" which was basically a school assembly that featured dancing, singing and small skits.  It was done entirely in English, except for one christmas song in Japanese performed by students in cos play attire.  Two of the singers wielded swords  while another was in knee socks, a mini skirt and a giant blue haired wig.  The japanese cosplay and references to anime really put me in the christmas spirit.

Two of the songs sung also got me in the Christmas spirit.  Avril Lavigne's song "Girlfriend" was the unedited song and included such profane words as "mother fucker".  This song was for a dance number.  There was also a rather funny use of Ke$ha"s song that has the line "brushed my teeth with a bottle of jack, cuz when I'm gone for the night there ain't no coming back."  These two songs really were appropriate for a school assembly about Christmas.

The kids really do speak english very well.  The MC's sounded like announcers for a Chinese game show.  They had great intonation.

There was alot of dancing.  My students did great.  The assembly was held outside in the parking lot in front of the administrative building.  My feet got very cold.

These pictures are from the Christmas party I went to on Friday and Saturday.  Four hours of party time.

Gold and Silver tinsel trees.

Jello shots anyone?

Santa on his red rider sleigh.  The reindeer looks like a pit bull with a bad attitude.  Note the polar bear floating in space above Santa.

Crazy christmas games.  This one involved dueling with inflatable mallets.

Merry Merry!

A christmas maiden greets a guest.

Christmas in China

Christmas is basically a shopping holiday in China.  The pretense of religion is politely done away with and it is purely a commercial holiday for everyone who is not christian.

Oddly, the germanic symbol of the christmas tree endures, as does the jolly old Saint Nicholas/Santa Claus.  This makes for a rather odd situation.  The major shopping mall near where I live and work has a giant abstract triangular pyramid thing that looks like it could have something like ornaments on it.

It is rather wierd to have the trappings of a well known family oriented holiday re-presented in a wholly different social context.  Below are some odd images.

Below is a blue eyed, father christmas image with something written in Chinese.  I believe it says "Merry", as I have seen other images of Santa with simply the words "Merry".  In this image, if you look closely, you will see Santa's beard is very abstract and rather odd looking.  In his magic beard are toys, a christmas ornament and what looks like an evergreen bough.  The blue eyed Santa definitely has a wierd beard.

 Sorry this is a bad picture, but here Santa has brown eyes, but still has a beard of interesting things.  I think there is some fascination with copious facial hair because most Chinese men don't really have any.  Taoist monks grow beards, so there is something mystical about Santa's beard.  Note that here the only discernible message are the letters X and S written on Santa's mystical beard.  I am inclined to think they proprietors of this establishment knew of XMas, but did not know the correct spelling.  At least they tried.

This image has Santa, flanked by a female and male snowman.  In alot of eastern religion there is symetry, so it is only natural that Santa should be flanked by a male and female snow person.  Santa appears to be holding some sort of rabbit or rain deer.  The male snowman has a scroll over his arm, implying he is into accountancy or some such official list keeping.  Santa also has a pipe blazing, which is technically in keeping with the ancient christmas fable. If you zoom in, you can also see that Santa appears to fly on a sort of disk shaped device.  There is also a mini-santa in the foreground, much like a mini-me type pygmy sidekick.

Many Chinese exchange gifts on this day, with no real understanding of the holiday itself.  It is quite interesting.

Registered with the Police

Today I went to the giant new police station to register.  The new police station is in a giant building with a giant sign written on it proclaiming it to be the "Wuhan Citizens Home".  From a distance, I thought it was a sports stadium.

Inside, I was confronted with hundreds of windows and kiosks where the Citizens go to get things like building permits, registry of cattle, and various other bizarre bureaucracy. It was kind of daunting the magnitude of the bureaucracy.

After visiting three information desks, my Chinese guide and I went up to the second floor.  I was instructed to fill out a form that requested the "color of the eyeball".  Presumably, the color of my eyeball is an important statistic duly logged in the gigantic annals of the state.

My Chinese guide was another english teacher.  She was very nice to take me on this odyssey.  I deeply regret not taking pictures to describe the cavernous lobby and looming structure of the grand edifice that is the "Wuhan Citizens Home".  My eyeballs were popping out of my head.

Next week, after about a month of submitting paperwork, traveling to Hong Kong, and providing in triplicate the color of my eyeballs, I will have the actual, usable work visa attached into my passport.

Last friday, I received a document much like my US passport called the "Foreign Expert Certificate". Below is a picture.

Wudang Shan Part 3

While walking on the path that leads to the golden summit, I went through several temples.  At one of them, I drank some water from a spring that is reputed to heal illnesses.  I will have to wait and see about that.

The steps became somewhat icy due to hail that started to come down. I am actually very glad for the hail, because if it had been rain I would have gotten soaked and would have been very cold.  The hail, at least, bounced off me.  It wasn't that difficult to walk on, because it remained crunchy.

While walking along, I came to a promontory where about 12-24 birds were flittering about in the trees singing.  I am not sure if they were agitated at me, but their songs filled up the misty woods and made for a great moment.

The steps were very icy and snow accumulated.

At a cliff temple, there was an incense offering bowl that literally extended out over the cliff edge.  At this spot, devotees had to walk backwards to the offering bowl, because turning one's back on the god is not allowed.  This made offerings at this particular temple a rather risky maneuver.

After I passed the temples, I had a very long hike to the summit.  At intervals, the path is broken up with gates.  Each is inscribed.  The following is the 3rd gate of heaven.

This is the view through the 3rd gateway of heaven.

Just outside the gateway was a piece of carving that seemed to have fallen on the ground.  There were many tablets in the woods and ensconced in the rock face along the path.  At one point there must have been more temples or shrines.  Some have been abandoned.

Below is one of the many small shrines I came across.  Some have statues in them, some are empty.

Many pilgrims leave stones propped up in niches in the rock wall along the path.  There are also small piles of stones left as a form of devotion of some sort.

All throughout the forest, the trees were coated with ice.

As I got higher and higher up the mountain, the hail had turned the forest into a very quiet and pretty frozen place.  The branches had beads of ice all over them.  As I entered the monastery, I turned the corner from the backside of the mountain and found that the front of the mountain was covered in wind driven snow. Passing through a last gate, I came into the front of the mountain.

The path was very steep and snowy.  Along the handrails were lengths of chain to hold onto.  Lovers and couples attach locks to the chain along the path to give their relationships longevity.

Inside the monastery are several temples.  There are many monks and taoist priests there as well.  One monk was interested in the pictures I took of the snow on the roof of one of the buildings.  He smiled and gave me a big thumbs up sign.  hehehe

At the summit I did a counter clockwise route through the main temple of the Golden Summit.  Just as I reached the top of the mountain, the sun broke through the sky and I could see a tiny bit of blue.  It was a great feeling to finally be at the top, looking down and to have the warm sun shining.  The actual temple on the top of the mountain is a piece of solid bronze.

Below is a view down the steps from the summit.

The next is a picture of me near the summit.

As I made my way back down through the monastery, I heard a loud announcement over the intercom, telling me to hurry with speed to the gondola tramway because the service was ended soon.  I scampered down in time to catch one of the last gondolas.

All the way down, the gondola passed through rain and fog.  I was so glad to have made the summit and seen the sun.

I had a very good experience on the mountain.  I personally enjoy misty weather and was very glad it didn't rain.  It was really a perfect weather day because it kept the throngs of tourists away and gave me a chance to be alone on the paths of the mountain.

Wudang Shan Part 2

After leaving the Purple Heaven Palace Temple, I wandered down to the bus stop.  There was a cute Pekinese dog there who wagged his tail at me.  He did growl when I tried to pet him.  I assume he has a very happy life for a dog in China.  Must be one of the nun's dog.

I was alone on the bus to the "trail head"where you actually begin the long climb to the golden summit.

I took a couple of detours on my way.  First I went to a side temple where there is a statue of Zhenwu and LaoTsu.  Below is a painting from the Lao Tsu temple.

Many pilgrims tie red ribbons with prayers on them to trees along the pilgrimage route.  They are weighted down with stones.

Some of these ribbons were on the tops of trees, hanging off the edges of cliffs.  Some pretty crafty people somehow put some ribbons on branches of extremely tall trees in extremely difficult to reach places.  I have no idea how. In some of the extreme cases it defies physics.

The path is stone hewn, but in many places very steep.  There appear to be older steps on some parts of the path.  Some of the steps appear to be of a green stone, making the steps, in effect, resemble a jade staircase.  In taoist lore, immortals ascend a jade stair to achieve immortality.

As you walk the path, you come upon a number of caves with shrines inside.  At one cave temple, I had a brief chat with a priest who was there doing his rituals.  This is one such cave shrine.

This one was near the shrine to the taoist thunder god.  I wanted to take his picture, but I definitely do not want to piss off a sky god.

As I walked the path, the misty wetness made the steps very slippery.  Leaving the temple of LaoTsu, I slid down about 5 steps.  I felt that this was a sort of warning by the local spirits to mind my step. I easily could have broken my neck along the path, which actually was so icy that I could sort of skate along the path without lifting my feet.

On one treacherous stretch, a man who I believe to be a taoist priest took my hand and gently led me down the steps.  I told him "wo de pong yo" which means, "you are my friend" he laughed and said yes I am.  : )

I got past a stretch of rather icy areas.  At one point I literally was taking each step, one at a time.  There was no one else walking the path with me.

As I came down a flight of stairs, there was a spider web, hanging from above and attached to the railing

Along the strand of fine spiders silk hung four or five beads of ice, like tiny diamonds.  It made me stop in my tracks for a moment.  I was enthralled by the delicate beauty of something so fragile, hanging there on a breath, the water coming from the mist and freezing there on the most minute of fibers.  Waiting for an eye to glimpse its delicate perfection.

More to come, in Wudang Shan part 3

Very terrible things at the schools in US and China

Terrible things happened when I got back from the really pleasant time I had on the mountain.  At the train station upon my arrival in Wuhan, I had two men get into a fist fight about two feet from me.  One of them pulled out a knife. When the police came, the assailant who threw the first punch AND pulled the knife was allowed to leave in a taxi.  I could not believe it.

The story that my experiences have led me to believe is that our civilization is one that creates violence.

Trip to Wudang Shan Part 1

I took my first trip away from my luxurious accommodations this past wednesday.  My trip was to an ancient mountaintop network of temples and monasteries called Wudan Shan.

On the advice of my Chinese handler, I went to the train station 4 hours early.  Of course, this was in case there was a line and so I wouldn't miss out on getting a ticket. Of course, within 5 minutes of my taxi arriving at the train station, I had a ticket in hand, and about 4 hours to wait for my 11:03 PM overnight sleeper train to Wudan Shan.

The train station in Wuhan is fairly enormous. I ate some tasty McDonalds and found a restaurant that let me have a couple of beers in peace.  The train station had several budget hotels, a place where you could play world of warcraft, and various other places.  It was also loaded with people.  It is by far the busiest train station I have been in.  It was built fairly recently and had a huge digital monitor of either end of the giant station so you could watch commercials.

Below if my ticket.  195 RMB for a ride and a place to sleep.

The sleeper car was clean and pretty comfy.  I had an older man who I think was afraid of foreigners because after about 15 minutes he joined his comrades in another compartment.  I soon fell asleep and woke up 5 hours later.

It was around 5:30 AM when I arrived at Wudan Shan town.  It was pitch black.  As I set foot outside of the train station, I had several people offering me a ride to the mountain, but I refused because I knew they would probably either rob me or rip me off in some way.

I wandered down the rather dingy street near the train station and found a restaurant that was open.  I had some hot steamed momo's and something that had egg in it but was drunk like soup.  Basically I had three steamed pieces of bread filled with some tasty meat type filling and grool. It did however fill my belly.

One of the pesky guys with a car had followed me, to which I told him bye.  Another man came up to me, but he offered to take me in his van full of people for 5 yuan.  That is less than 1.00.  I found out what a deal this was when I was dropped off at the mountain, as promised, 30 minutes later.  His van was like a clown car stuffed full of people though.

I was at the mountain before it opened.  It was pitch black.  Some other people had also apparently took a play from my play book and also arrived early.  We waited about 40 minutes for the gate to open.

There is a very big ticket selling building manned by paramilitary looking workers in black camo and red berets.  It is a little weird, to say the least.

I paid my 240 RMB for an all day bus pass that would take me to all of the temples.  Alot more expensive than my good hearted gypsy bus driver.

Up the mountain I drove.  After about a half hour, I got out at the first significant stop, which is Purple Cloud Temple.  I believe it is run by nuns.  I also could be wrong about the name, because there are no maps in english and I frankly had to riddle out how to get to the hiking area.  Here are some pictures of the purple cloud temple.  I will add that it was very misty that day, visibility was bad and actually turned to hail.  As you will see by later pictures, it was quite beautiful when I got up to the summit.

The interiors of the temples and the statutes therein cannot be photographed.  I am not one to anger taoist deities or the taoist clergy, so unfortunately you will have to imaginate the interior.  I do have a picture of one of the big dog statues guarding the gates.

There was also a cute pekinese dog that was wandering around the bus stop area.  He was well fed and well mannered and I assume he has a happy life at the nunnery or monastery where he lives.

Inside the gate, there are fierce protector deities.  Then the stairway is flanked by two enormous turtle statutes.

Inside the temple, there are two side temples.  One of them was to a taoist deity called the maiden of the big dipper or the goddess of the big dipper.  By my understanding, there is alot of astronomy involved in the taoist pantheon of deities.  The goddess of the big dipper statute looks like a hindu goddess, complete with four arms and three faces on three sides of her head.  I found that fascinating.

There is a reliquary or museum full of some artifacts I could not discipher, like old monks clothes, some funny looking roots, some texts, etc.

Inside the temple it looks like this.  You can try and find the monk who was walking around while I was there.  Needless to say, I did not harrass any of the clergy.  The ones I did speak to were extremely friendly and seemed happy.

The above pictures is where incense and offerings are burned for the deities.

Spot the monk.

This was some sort of offering place where paper and incense are burned.

I will pick up my post about Wudan Shan with my walks to the shrine of LaoTsu, Denwa and the Golden Summit in another post.  I just got back and am tired.

Ra ga mian

Ra ga mian is the local food that everyone eats for breakfast or anytime you want something tasty.  It is basically a breakfast type dish.  It is made with mian noodles that are boiled, then are added some peanut sauce, some salt, some other white powdery stuff, then some green onions, then some hot peppers, then some carrot bits, then some dried peas.  This may sound wierd but it is very good to eat.

The closest I can come to figuring out the american Chinese food equivalent is to cold sesame noodles, only nice and hot and spicier.  The basic taste if sort of peanutty. I like to add extra hot chili to make it spicier.

A bowl costs 3 RMB, which is about $0.50 USD.  Quite a bargain, but you can't eat it all day.  I think of it as a donut in noodle form with some delicious spicy sauce.

Pictures of my luxurious accommodations

Here are some pictures of my luxurious accommodations, courtesy of the People's Republic of China. Take note gentle readers, that I am living in a 5th floor walkup.  I have a view of the primary school playground, where most mornings the field is filled with kids doing calisthenics to cadences of nursery rhymes or the national anthem of this country.  I have a shared kitchen, which I never use because I have not figured out how to get the necessary.  Here are a few pictures of the outside of my apartment, and the view.

Also, I have a washing machine, but have to air dry my laundry.