Winter Break Travels--A Month around Southern China

Winter break arrives in Zhengzhou!  My students' semester end tests finished on Wednesday and my last class was Friday (Jan 14).  I took it as a chance to introduce them to Dunkin Donuts.  

That means that I have until February 21st free.  This Tuesday I’m starting my month-long travels.  A friend and I are going around Southern China while school is off for Chinese New Year.  We’re planning to go to Huangshan, 3 Gorge dam, Guilin, Kunming, Lijiang, Chengdu, Xi’an, Shaolin Temple, and Luoyang The map below highlights the route.  Hopefully we’ll make it to all the places.  With the Chinese New Year, the transportation system is overwhelmed as one billion people attempt to travel home and back for the holiday. Thus, we’re crossing our fingers that we can get tickets and hostels.  

Anyway, in between climbing Yellow Mountain, floating through mystically illuminated limestone caves, and holding a baby panda, I’ll check my e-mail at hostels, but will be mostly out of contact as I explore the culture of seven different provinces!

(click on the picture for a bigger image)

 

Fly half-way around the world to meet a friend.

Christmas in Sanya, I resolved to spend New Years in another great destination--Nanjing!  Actually, a Chinese friend from the U of M (Minnesota) who I met in SAFA, Sijie is her name, is from Nanjing and came back to China for winter break.  This was my only chance to visit her, because my first day of vacation is the day she flies back to the US.

My hostel was ideally situated in Fu Zi Miao (Confucius's temple).  Here's New Years morning along the canal near the Confucian market area.

To my European friends (Philipp, in this regards, I'm counting Switzerland as part of Europe, despite never joining the EU). Look!  China's got gates (Tor) just like Germany. This is the former city wall, which, unfortunately, had little more to show or offer.

CVS IN CHINA! This will go on Facebook and Keith needs to see it.  Needs to.

Does anyone know of Valentin's wheat bear?  The logo looks like a mix between Franziskaner and Paulaner colors, but I've never seen Valentins in Germany.  I smell a fake.

Here's Sijie and me in Nanjing!  She was a great tour guide and taught me about the history of Nanjing and how it was the origin of the Nationalist party in China, founded by Sun YatSen. (His statue is behind Rick's head)

Sijie enjoying her favorite Chinese candy--山楂 (shanzha) (known as Hawthorne berries in English)--they are on a stick and covered in a thick sugar glaze.  And Sijie, being as proper as she is, took the time to remove the seeds into a napkin instead of spitting them onto the street like the other 95% of Chinese.  Thanks!

As we walked to visit Sun Yat-Sen's mausoleum, there were vendors along the road selling a variety of things, including sugar carvings of the Chinese zodiacs!  Being the year of rabbit, I had to indulge in a  sugar bunny.  Don't forget, this is the year of the rabbit in China, MY YEAR, and I happen to be in China!  Rumor is, I have to wear something red all year long.

At Sun Yat-Sen's Mausoleum, atop a beautiful park, which is very popular in Nanjing.

Probably among the most important thing in China is the food.  What made it even better was to see Sijie thrilled to eat all these things because she hadn't been back to China for 1 1/2 years.  We had egg rolls, sesame red-bean cakes, coconut sticky rice, soup baozi, pork dumplings, and candied lotus roots.

In the Confucian Temple market area, Sijie and I went shopping.  Zoom in on the mad in this picture.  Note the stare?  That's the laowai stare--the foreigner stare.  In every city around China, people will stare at foreigners because we are such an anomaly.  In bigger cities, it's not terrible, as I'm seldom the first foreigner they've ever seen, and they know it's impolite to stare. Yet, farmers who have moved to the city will stare to no end.  Children stare too, as if I'm a zoo animal.  One girl wouldn't even sit next to me on a bench because I looked so different to her.

Sijie and I bargained for everything at this market.  My best accomplishment was a scroll that that woman said 150 yuan, I appeared really upset, spoke in Chinese, and got it down to 30 yuan!  Here the man is making my name chop.  It's a stone that has my Chinese name engraved in the bottom of it; it acts like a stamp.

Sub White Sand for White Snow

If I can't have white snow at a wintry Minnesotan Christmas, I'm going to opt for white sand.  What's the best place in China for that?  It's indisputably Sanya, "the Hawaii of China".

After the Christmas concert I hurried to the airport and flew to this tropical paradise, filled with cliche shorts, beach-side restaurants, and time to relax in the sun!

I made it to Sanya!  This is a picture on December 24th!  This is the first time in my life that I'm wearing a t-shirt outdoors on Christmas eve!

There are coconuts everywhere in Sanya.  It's quite a good business for the locals, because they simply need to scurry up the tree and chop off the ripe coconuts then sell them for 10 yuan ($1.80) (along the beach, 4 yuan ($0.83) in town).  Second, this is the Chinese style bathing suit.  It's not only very short but it's tight.  I opted for lying on sand instead of swimming, as I did not bring a suit and didn't want to buy one of those.

Of course I had to try a coconut too!  They chop off the top, tap into the coconut, insert a straw, and you're set!  It tastes like light coconut Gatorade.  In some countries they use coconut water in hospital IVs, because it's filled with natural electrolytes and is sterile.

Trying Hainan tea to bring back home as a Christmas gift.  (Hainan is the province that Sanya is in).

This is how I spent Christmas eve, with a chilled beer sitting along the beach in the shade.  Fantastic.

Christmas eve dinner was certainly memorable.  We had a barbecue at the hostel!  It's a good way to meet others and share the holiday.  Here I'm grilling my very fresh shrimp.  When I say very fresh, I mean they were still alive and kicking when on the grill.  I had to hold the stick on the grill so it wouldn't fall off as they squirmed under the heat.  So different.

For Christmas day I laid on the beach the entire day.  Here's one of my favorite pictures.  The woman has a life vest...on shore.  Plus, she's got an umbrella so she doesn't get any sun...on the beach.  People bring tents (like in the background) so they can stay out of the sun.  I, on the other hand, loved it, hoping to change my skin tone from reflective to pale.

Christmas dinner (number 1), at a restaurant along the beach with some people I met at the hostel.

Christmas dinner fish!  Sweet and sour sauce with pineapple over the fish, the entire fish.  They don't cut off the head or tail in China.  It's considered lucky if the head points at you when the server places it on the table.

Christmas dinner (number 2).  Someone in the group that I met at the hostel had made dinner plans with a Chinese guy the night before.  So, we all went and it turned out to be a banquet with his family.  (totally awkward, but so much so that I won't forget it.)

Follow that with a full-body massage (we 5 all got one and we were in the same room together, fully clothed, of course.  1/2 of us were ticklish so we ended up all laughing the entire time, instead of ever really relaxing.)  which ended an unforgettable Christmas!

Chinese Christmas? What a paradox.

What is Christmas like in a country that doesn't recognize the holiday?  Simply summarized, very unique!  Being token foreigners, one thing we did was hold a Christmas concert, as is tradition at our school.

Let me recount some of these memorable Christmas moments.

A student gave me a Christmas gift!  This has the head of a dragon attached to a blossoming flower.  I was floored to get a gift from a student.  How nice and flattering.  Turns out this is a common pen holder!  How cool!

Preparing for the Christmas concert, I rehearsed with soloists and in the music room is this guzheng 古筝 (a "zither" in English) which my student, Silvia, can play.  Before we rehearsed we simply had fun chatting and exchanging music.

For one class, my students picked a Christmas song and made pictures based on the lyrics.  Here in "Rockin' around the Christmas Tree" are the lyrics "Later we'll have some Pumpkin Pie".  What better way than to have Silence and Messi pie Michael in the face?  Poor Michael lost the coin toss.

In the same fashion as above, the girls' group sang "Here Comes Santa Claus" and thanks to my horrible photoshop skills, we have Susan as a hilarious Chinese female Santa Claus!

Another group chose "Home for the Holidays" and the lyrics "I met a man who lives in Tennessee, and he was headin for Pennsylvania..." lend themselves to a long road trip.

In our last-minute rehearsals, the students also helped me decorate!  Note how big the bow is.  I think it's fantastic as Catherine shows it off.

The Christmas decorated auditorium reading for the following day's concert.

Here name is NoNo and she has a beautiful voice as she sings the intro verse to "When Christmas comes to Town"

The class voted to simply sing a song, but I made sure they were like a choir for that.  All in red and fully rehearsed, they sounded good.

Zoe played the accompaniment.  This was amazing as she and another student, Trista, learned the music in only one week after learning that their classmate couldn't play it.  Trista did very well, but when Zoe sat down, she had the whole thing completely memorized!

11th graders singing "When Christmas Comes to Town" opening our 2010 Christmas concert.

The exchange students performing their  "Santa in China" skit.  On the left is Klaus Markus, German, playing Santa Klaus.  He's wearing a traditional Beijing opera mask.  Max, the American, stands to the right.

This student from the China--Australia class is performing a Latin dance at the Christmas concert.  I don't know what Latin dancing has to do with Christmas, but that didn't stop the Chinese from including it.  We four foreign teachers had planned our programs to last 50 minutes--perfect.  At the last minute we heard they were adding acts (none of which related to Christmas, actually).  The concert went from 50 minutes to 2 hours.  This is China.

Michael, a foreign teacher here, wanted students to learn the story of Christmas as they performed the nativity play using their bedsheets as the perfect costumes.

Remember the pictures that my classes made?  One group chose Feliz Navidad and never came up with any picture ideas.  So I decided they would dance.  And they did--it went over great, actually.  (Note who's the 3rd person in the row.)

Another shot from the Feliz Navidad group.  Here in front is Swave (that's his name).  He's at the top of the class and a really positive student.  What a great beaming smile.

Here's the students in concert with photo backgrounds.  They sang "You will get a sentimental feeling when you hear" with this in the background.

The full layout of the Feliz Navidad dance.  I thank marching band, which totally helped me plan the stage positioning (blocking).

L-R, (me), Ellen, Jim, Della, & Ms. Dong.  Ellen and Della are our Chinese liaisons (unfortunately, Michael and Sean took off right after the concert, so they were not around for the photo.)

Merry Christmas!

The German in Zhengzhou

I've abandoned any sensible order of blog posts.  Here's Philipp's week in Zhengzhou!
 

We took a day trip to Kaifeng, a former Chinese capital only 40 minutes East of Zhengzhou.  Walking along small streets, there are vendors selling every sort of good, including these bulk dried food (nuts and fruits). 

Fortunately, Kaifeng is not a popular tourist city but has a long history and played a significant role in Chinese history.  That combination means incredibly ubiquitous and inexpensive souvenirs!  Here I'm looking at the 4 meter scroll of 清明上河圖 or Along the River for the Qing Ming festival.  I got it for 30 yuan (or $5)

Look at the cool dragon!  Like my Lederhosen in Germany, I had to get a traditional coat in China.  Again, note the improving bargaining skills.  They wanted 100 and I got it for 55.  In Nanjing the woman wanted 150 for the exact same thing.

As Philipp and I came back from Kaifeng we were greeted with this train station.  A hall completely crowded as we struggled to understand what the chaos all meant. (We made it back, clearly.)

Note the startled, stung, unusual face Philipp displays here.  What could possibly throw off this well-tempered German?

We find our culprit--Baijiu (白酒)--Chinese rice wine.  It's the most common drink among Chinese men.  It's typically around 50% alcohol and unforgettable.  It is a must-try experience in China.  But trust me, one taste will satiate an unaccustomed tongue, as it, well, takes a lot of getting used to.

Wednesday morning Philipp and I took a bike tour to the famous Yellow river.  It's very shallow but incredibly wide.  The loess in the water colors the river a yellowish hue.  English may have the idiom, "when pigs fly" but Chinese has "when the yellow river flows clear".

Proof!  We made it the 25 km here on a mediocre road bike and a really crappy strolling bike.

(Mother, note the jacket and how safe I'm being.)  This is the river after which my province is named.  I live in Henan province, which means "South of the River".

At the yellow river, there is a pleasant park along the shore where one can actually ride a camel.  (We didn't, though.)  Admittedly, we didn't discover the park right away.  First we went on the incredibly busy bridge over the river, not knowing of a park.  Only on our return journey did we find this tranquil area.  If only we'd see this first!

This was the "highway" to the river.  The road suddenly stopped and turned into a huge construction site.  No worry through, you drive right through.

 

And despite the clear construction, lack of an access road, and absence of foot traffic, there are these hundreds of advertisements completely covering the facade of any building.  This is China.