Chinese New Year

Was invited to spend New Years with my friends the Xie’s. Not sure what I would do without their support and treating me like one of the family! Was told to arrive at 2:00 pm to start the festivities. Mr. and Mrs. were in the kitchen preparing dinner and others were scattered throughout the compound. I went out back to play some basketball on their full court facility. I did not last long against the younger and much faster young lads, I held my own though, as they were not used to shooting over anyone six foot tall with their arms up. Was a very lovely day out in the 60’s and the sun was out so I sat and watched the kids play and enjoyed basking in the rays. Around 5:30 we all were summoned in for dinner. Lots of dishes as normal were arrayed upon the usual round table with the requisite lazy susan. I did notice a large pot in the corner sitting on a brazier of coals bubbling away.

While I was looking at this cauldron of dubious origin my host motioned for me to try some, there were no English speaking persons here today yet, so I agreed and received a bowl of soup and meat from the pot. Dinner then was in progress and the usual toasting and devouring of dishes proceeded with abandon! About midway through dinner a cousin arrived who spoke English, he asked me how I was enjoying the traditional dishes for New Years. I said I very enjoyed all of them to be polite. He then said he was surprised as most Westerners he had met would not eat DOG! I said “OMG no way” but I was to be denied as to having avoided having man’s best friend for dinner. Mrs. Xie had a little too much to drink and had to retire for the evening. This is not uncommon for dinners and not to be looked down upon in Chinese culture.

After dinner we went to have tea, they brought out some of their best tea which retails for around $2000 USD a Kilo. It was very good and much better than some of the other tea I have had. I really like Da Hong Pao as it is a much more robust in flavor and aroma than some of the others.

Then after tea we went in for some Karaoke, fortunately for me there were really no songs in English on their systems so I got a pass, we also watched some New Years program on the television for a hour or so. Then finally it was midnight and we went up on the roof to set off fireworks. I had purchased a box of fireworks and Mrs. Xie had laughed when I showed up, not sure why she had until I saw what Mr. Xie had ready for us on the roof. After a great show it was time for us to head home. I had a great time and enjoyed it immensely!

Yummy Ducks

Psssst, hey buddy you want to buy some duck???

WP to FB Blogorama

Just checking out a link from my blog to the FB site, hopes this works!

LD’s Excellent Adventure

I swear I had the best intentions! For the Winter Holiday (Jan 21 – Feb 21) I was going to go with Lynn, one of my students to her small village and teach the grade school students English. She had made this speech in class about her village students had no teacher to instruct them in English and how she was going to spend her holiday doing so. It struck a chord with me and I volunteered to go with her for a couple of days to help out. So on Friday morning in with light snow falling, we boarded the wonderful modern bus <eyes> for our 5 hour trip to the County City of Zhenghe. They forgot to tell me that we had to wait in Jian’ou in the unheated bus station for about an hour and half on the way. I froze my tushy off! We met some of Lynn’s classmates at the station and chatted with them to pass the time, then got on another bus to the next leg of our trip. After arriving in ZhengHe we then waited for a short time for the last bus to her village. It is a very small village of only around 1500 people, very rustic, a farming community.

They grow mushrooms as their specialty. We dropped off our luggage at Lynn’s Uncle and Aunts house where we would be staying, and then headed to the classroom to met the kids and spend the afternoon with them. There we met the Headmaster, and also a retired teacher, a friend of Lynn’s who she grew up with in the village, and of course the kids. We spent a couple hours over simple alphabet and phrases, and they asked me a lot of questions. I was the first foreign person who has ever been in their village, as far as the headmaster and villagers could recall. Then I was asked to give all 40 students English names, I asked each student some question such as “What is your favorite color, or pet” and proceeded to give them all names. It is a Chinese thing to have an English name if you are a student. We then toured the village, and was invited by the village leaders to have dinner that evening. Of course dinner with the Chinese people is also a huge drinking event at the same time. I was able to not “GanBei” too many times and survived! The leaders then found out about my interest in Tea and invited me to their brand new community center to have tea with them. They were very proud to show off their new building, the most modern in the whole village. Of course though there was no heat as there really is in most of the dang country! Next we were walking back to the village and the ladies were out in the street dancing a traditional Chinese style line dance of sorts. I was told they came out every night and danced as for both a social and relaxation time. Then it was off to bed, ummm no heat again remember and it was probably in the low 30’s brrrrrrr. But I bundled up in a huge quilt they gave me and was quit toasty in bed. The next morning we went back in ZhengHe to meet Lynn’s former English teacher Mr. Zeng. He was very nice and took us climbing up to the top of the mountain to see the view. Lots of steps! We also met

the local senior citizen who was a youth advisor for many years and was awarded the country’s award for such. He was 81 and very spry and welcomed us into his home. At this point I was planning on going back to Lynn’s village and spending another day to teach the kids, but was diverted by a force of nature known as Mr. Zeng. He was there to pick us up, but he wanted to take us to dinner before driving us home. So we went to dinner and had a really nice time, he then wanted to get me a room at the nearest hotel for the night and also take us to his night club. I tried to refuse, but was foo fooed and told we should not insult his kind offer. The hotel was 5 star and very nice, oh and warm too J . We all went to the night club which turned out to be a lot of fun, of course we had to drink more with everyone, and also the clubs patron’s as they all came by to toast with the foreigner. The next morning, I was picked up and driven to my next students house in PuCheng instead of taking of the bus by Mr. Zeng. I will relate my trip to PuCheng and Rose’s house in my next post!

My Serious Side

So today I would like to actually speak about my resident home at this time.

China is certainly a world of vast disparities, both in economics and culture.

While travelling on the trains, I noticed something that at first I did not really catch,

but now makes me ponder on its significance. I marveled at how the Chinese farmers

use every inch of ground to grow everything from tea, to vegetables. I watched as these

farmers were harvesting all their crops manually without the aid of modern machinery.

Groups of people doing back breaking work of gathering in all the vast amounts of produce

to feed the 1.5 billion people in China. Then it struck me, all the people doing this work were

quite elderly, in their 60’s and on up it looked from my vantage point. There were NO young

people down on the farm. I mentioned this to some of my Chinese colleagues and they agreed

that since the early 90’s most of the young people have either moved to the large cities in the East

along the coast or are working in factories at cities closer to them. I thought to myself, OMG

what are they going to do in 10-20 years when this generation of farmers are gone? Michael

Larkin my outspoken Irish friend said that China will just impress people from the Western reaches

of China to the farms. They certainly have that power and have not been reluctant to use such in

the past when it comes to relocation for projects here. I though perhaps also that maybe more

automation of their farming methods could help also (are you listening Hesston?). In college my

Economics professor said something that has always remained with me “when you attempt to change

anything in the dynamics of the economic system, it will always react much like nature, you will

never forecast completely all the outcomes of those actions.” Then finally it also came to me that

in the U.S. we face the same problem perhaps not on the same scale with the ever decreasing

population of the family owned farm, although it seems we are countering this with the

corporate owned farm, and perhaps importing our labor force from outside the country?

So that is my view for today!

Christmas In Wuyishan

I missed getting to post on our Christmas Holiday, so here is a late update.

We first had a dinner party with the Foreign Affairs Office at the school, it was very nice although Connie Zhang made us all stand up and sing a song. It is a Chinese culture thing to do so, and they even expect you to be very bad at doing it. I sang a jazzy mashup of Dashing Through the Snow a.k.a Harry Connick Jr. lot’s of fun (for the audience).

We were invited to our good friends Mr. and Mrs. Xie’s house for Xmas dinner also. There were several important Party officials there and also some business people, Chinese/Americans from California, being entertained by Mr. Xie. Unfortunately we had to toast and GUNBEI (Chinese for “Drain the Glass”) way too many rounds. I think we were drinking Jet Fuel too, which can be easily obtained from the Chinese Air Base nearby. Anyway we had a great time, I actually spent the night as I was in no condition to go anywhere! Mr. Xie gave me some very nice tea which I really like out of all the tea I have so far, I gave him a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black so he can serve his clients.

Alive and Well!!

Well after some considerable time away, I have managed to return to updating the blog from China! Look forward to my new updates as soon as I have a little more time to work on them.