Noticing the details

Aug. 30, 2009

By Kevin

She'd been standing in the middle of our living room for several minutes gazing at the photograph.

"It's wonderful," she repeatedly said with wonder. "So beautiful."

Lily, our Chinese tutor, marveled at the trees surrounding Ruth's parent's home in Georgia. She stroked the grass with her finger. Everything about it was so different from her experience. The home is on several acres of land, surrounded by lush green grass and trees.

"Is it made of wood?" she asked, noticing the texture of the walls in the background of a family photo. Many of her questions are things we simply take for granted.

She explained how most Chinese homes are made of brick or cement. Most Chinese people live in multi-story apartment buildings unless they live in the countryside. I thought about how I've seen Chinese builders frequently pull the rebar out as concrete hardens so they can reuse it to erect the next level of an apartment building. I wonder whether or not they left the rebar in our walls.

She was amazed that Ruth's parent's home was somewhat typical in America.

"Kevin, what about your family's home?" I'd forgotten to print out a photograph, but I explained that it too was made of wood, noting that the prevalence of earthquakes in California means more wooden homes because they handle the shaking better. My mind flashes to pictures of the damage done in the Sichuan earthquake two years ago and compare it to the comparatively light damage I've seen when the ground shakes in California.

"Is that your car?" Lily asked Ruth, pointing to the foreground.

"My mother's."

"Does everyone in America have a car?"

"Not everyone, but probably most people."

Her friend Cherry was amazed to discover that our families don't all live in the same city and that many Americans, particularly in more rural areas don't know their neighbors well because they hop into cars and travel from place to place rather than walking or taking the bus. "In my hometown there are 300 who all know each other," Cherry said.

Just before this, as they were paging through our America photographs, they gasped when they saw the skyscrapers of Chicago. "Did you take this?" She asked. We couldn't remember if it was one I snapped or if Ruth took it. "The sky is so blue," Lily said. "So beautiful."

She was shocked. "I had heard that most developed countries do not have clean air," she said. but the sky here is very clean."

It's interesting how they noticed all the little details in photos that we never think of.

They spotted the castle-like administration building in the background of Wheaton graduation photos, wondered why a skyscraper would be labeled "Westin," and giggled at photos of Abby and Hannah playing with a magnifying glass, remembering how they too played dress-up as young girls. Seeing photographs of family, they were shocked to discover that both of our grandmothers still wear makeup. "In China, most women stop wearing makeup when they are 60," Lily explained. They were also amazed that our grandparents are still independent that they don't want to live with their children, even though they are in their 80s. In a photos of family, their eyes were drawn to the fireplaces in the background. "Do people burn wood in America?" Cherry asked. "In China we usually burn coal."

After convincing Lily to set the photos down, we played a game of Uno. I was amazed because these were the first two Chinese students we've played with who actually pronounced the word correctly "Oooh-no" not "You-no."

Then, as we chatted, Cherry sat down and began to play with Ruth's stuffed giraffes Geoffrey and Gloria, teaching us the animal's Chinese name: cháng jǐng lù - which means "long-necked deer."

Finally, though, the temptation to return to their studies set in and we parted ways. These girls are seniors hoping to study Chinese as post-graduate students in Beijing next year, so they spend most of their waking hours studying for January's post-graduate exam. It's good to be back getting into the flow of China life.

Old Woman Enjoying Shaanxi Opera

Old Woman Enjoying Shaanxi Opera
Originally uploaded by kevsunblush

Shaanxi Opera is a special form of grating Chinese music that the old people here are quite fond of. Every weekend and most weekdays in the main city square, you can find groups of old people playing traditional Chinese instruments. There's generally a man or woman singing traditional opera (if you've ever heard Beijing Opera, aka Peking Opera, you get the idea). The other day, I even spotted several musicians practicing in the outdoor dining area at McDonalds (I wish I had my camera that day).

I just uploaded a bunch of photos of people playing and enjoying Shaanxi Opera in the city square, in addition to shots of the Sports Meeting, our trip to Xi'an a couple weeks ago and other stuff to flickr. Check them out here:http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevsunblush/

Just when you thought they might pass...

By Kevin

Here are a few examples of actual test answers I got today and yesterday (I just listed a few of the more absurd ones - these were chosen from a box of possible fill-in-the blank answers. Otherwise, I suspect they would have left it completely blank or created even more random offerings):

• The largest city in Scotland: Buddhists, Scottish
• This many people died or left Ireland from 1841 to 1851, as a result of the Great Potato Famine: Protestants, King Peter, Sinn Fein, England, German
• The political party of the IRA: King Arthur, Buddhists, Chaucer, Scotland
• Believe that the Pope speaks with the authority of Christ, as his representative on earth: Emily Bronte, Old English, Chaucer, Buddhists
• Believe that they have direct access to God through prayer and study of the Bible:India, Buddhists
• "Beowulf" was written in which language? England
• The 2006 peace treaty reached by the British and Irish governments for Northern Ireland: London, Cardiff, Japan, German
• This country was once part of the British empire, but is now independent: England
• Robbed from the rich and gave to the poor: Catholics, Sinn Fein, Gaelic, Glasgow, Northern Ireland
• Fictional king known for knights of the Round Table and pulling the sword from the stone: Buddhists, Japan
• Wrote "Hamlet:" Cardiff
• Wrote "Pride & Prejudice:" King Arthur
• Wrote "The Canterbury Tales:" King Arthur, Robin Hood
• Wrote "A Tale of Two Cities:" Protestants, Sinn Fein
• Labeled map of England as USA and its capital as Walta hood.
• Another labelled the Republic of Ireland as Germany (which wasn't on the map, by the way, it was just the UK and Ireland), then went on to call the capital of Wales "Berlin."
  
• Capital of England: Catholics, Sinn Fein, The Weald
• Capital of Scotland: Buddhists, Virgire, Catholics, Beacons
• Capital of Wales: Buddhists
• Capital of Northern Ireland: Magna Carta, Gaelic
  

As much as I wish this was an April Fool's Joke, it isn't. I'm extremely frustrated. I just got done grading exams for my "Society and Culture of Major English Speaking Countries" class. One class of 48 students down (minus a couple absences), three to go. So far, the rundown: 0As, 5Bs, 4 Cs, 8Ds, 31Fs. Actually, if I were to break it down into increasing letters for every 10 percent, it'd be 9 solid Fs (50-59%), 9 Gs (40-49%), 5 Hs (30-39%), and a whopping 7 Is -- yes, seven people scored between 20 and 30 percent on this exam.

I feel like a horrible, terrible, sorry excuse for a teacher. I've never been in a class in which 2/3 of us failed any exam. And I didn't even give anyone a zero for cheating like I usually would (clearly it didn't matter if most of them cheated - the person next to each of them had a completely different version of the test). And, going into the exam, I thought I made it easy. I told them what to study. I even gave them a study guide and notes to work with, since I figured that a large percentage couldn't understand the finer details when I speak. I even lifted numerous exact questions from earlier quizzes.

I had a hunch that they were bad students, but this is a little unbelievable. Even if I were to curve it so that the highest score (an 88%) got 100%, that'd only bring the 9 Fs up into the realm of Ds.

But since someone did manage to do that well, that means that someone learned something, doesn't it?

I can't decide. Is it because their English is that bad? Maybe they simply don't understand anything I say and can't handle the reading.

My hunch, however, is that most of them simply aren't good students. After all, they are all on the 3-year track here (something like an associates degree). Very few will move on to the 4-year track (if you pass enough tests you can become a 4-year student -- however one must study for two more years...kinda complicated). In fact, one student in that class said that only 3 were even trying to earn the 4-year degree. Apathy. So perhaps, when I assign a reading, the reason they groan is that they know they won't really read the 15 pages I'd assigned for the week (or at least won't read AND study them). The odd thing is that usually Chinese students are good at memorizing things. It seems like this content-heavy course should be right up their alley. Apparently it isn't.

How much grace can I give them? What am I saying if I pass these kids? Will they think that they actually learned anything about these countries (answering 20 questions out of 65 correctly makes me think they just guessed right). What am I saying if I fail them all? Will it make the school lose face? As glad as I was to have a chance to teach something other than Oral English, I'm rethinking that. Maybe I should just show them movies about the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, the US and Canada from here on out.

Tools and thanks

By Kevin

As we pulled into the bicycle repair shop at the end of the bike storage yard on campus, I wondered how much it would cost to get my bike back into riding shape for the next ride we've planned for Saturday.

I waited for the repairman to finish patching a tire, then Wes started to explain my predicament. Within ten minutes he had replaced my front tube, agreeing that indeed it was too big, noticed a buldge in the side of my rear tire, which he said was rotting, so he replaced it.

"Do you want to keep the old tube?" Wes asked me.

I briefly thought about how if I wanted to, I could make a tire patching kit out of it, but realized that it's so much easier to just bring it to the repairman when I get a problem.

"Nah, I don't need it."

"Are you sure, cause I'm sure he's going to patch it and sell it to someone else and make a profit off of you."

Thinking back to all the repairs he's done for us for 1-5 RMB or less (we're talking 15-75 cents), I wasn't too worried.

"I think it's fine if he makes a profit off of me."

"You sure?" Wes joked as we looked at his dingy clothes and grease-covered hands as he greased the chain. "Obviously he's living a life of extravagance."

Finally, he re-tightened the troublesome nut that wreaked havok on my last ride. It seemed he didn't have any truly new nuts to replace it with.

"Duo xiao qian?" I asked.

"Si shi kuai." Wow, about $6 for an inspection, a tube, a tire and their installation. "Probably his biggest sale in a long time," Wes said. I handed him 50 kuai and he dug into his pocket to make change.


"I don't think I could even buy a tube for $6 in the States," I told Wes as we left. Even after two and a half years in China, I'm constantly amazed at how much less things cost here. I probably could have negotiated the price lower, but he earned the money.

As we waited, we saw a foreigner, who looked like he couldn't be much older than our students, walking with a girl toward one of the dorms -- the same foreigner we saw earlier in the day at KFC. Mind you, this is the first Westerner I've ever seen in Weinan (met a family of Koreans, but they blend in pretty well), so to see him twice in the same day was a bit strange. "Wonder what he's doing here?" My encounters with most foreigners I've met in China who don't work for our company have been strange. Most seem to be social outcasts of some sort, who either thrive or wither at the sudden attention they get in China. I always find myself wondering what they are doing here.

After the repairs were done, we rode off to find a nut and tools I could bring with me on Saturday's ride. No troubles on the way, so I guess we've gotten that nut tight enough to last awhile, but I don't want to get stuck again, so I need the right tools.

When we pulled up to the tool shop, Wes guided me to a woman he'd done business with before. "She's a sister," Wes said, pointing to the thick Book sitting on the table behind her.

She smiled and greeted us warmly, then proceeded to find the right tool for us.

We also bought several nuts and lock washers and some concrete nails so we can hang some pictures on our walls (it's impossible to drive regular nails into these concrete walls).

When we asked how much we owed her, her response caused a brief argument. I couldn't understand all the Chinese, but the gist of it was something like this.

"Nothing," she said.

"Oh no, we have to pay something."

"No, you are my brothers. I want to give them to you."

"Can't we just pay something for them?"

"No, I insist. They are my gift to you."

"Well, is there something we can do for you?"

"Just talk to the Father about me. That is enough."

"Ok, we will do that. Thank you so much."

"Thank you," she said.

As we left and I put the money back into my pocket, Wes said, "Maybe money would be an insult to her. We should make sure to bring her a pie or something next time."

It was a great reminder of how gracious the Chinese are here, especially those who know hope.

Why do Bike Rides Always Entail Repairs?

By Kevin

Last weekend we went on another long bike ride with students. If you remember reading about our long bike ride last semester, there were a lot of similarities.

We waited our friend June at the front gate at 1:30 p.m. Fifteen minutes later she arrived. "I can't find a bike," she declared. She'd also brought along one other friend with no bike.

"Maybe we can take a bus and meet you there," she said.

"Where are we riding to?" we asked.

"There is a dam outside the city," she said.

"How far away is it?"

"About an hour."

"Is it uphill?"

"A little bit."

After some negotiation, we decided we'd ride our bikes halfway there, with the two smallest girls being toted on the racks on the back of the bikes Wes and another guy rode. Then they'd ride a bus up the hill leading to the reservoir.

So we left. After huffing and puffing for awhile, we wound up walking the bikes up part of the hill, making a spectacle for several other Chinese bikers who began to walk their bikes up the 15 percent grade. On the hilltop, there was a large Buddhist Temple right before we reached the hazy lake.

Unfortunately the sun didn't clear away the haze until we were riding back home.

Several of us sat on the top of the dam while Ruth, Christina and several students hiked down the steep incline and wandered around fishing pools at the base. I gazed into the haze and tried to make out the details of the surrounding landscape. The temple, which was maybe a mile away was almost engulfed in haze, as were the terraced hillsides and the "lake" created by the dam. Couples sat on the steep incline, picnicking. Families flew kites together. Motorcycles whizzed by, leaving trails of dust for us to cough on.

We learned that one of the students, a senior, spent the last semester teaching in Tibet.

Then we began riding further up the road into the reservoir-side villages.

That's when things began to go downhill.

And I don't mean the incline of the mountain. First my chain came loose. But that wasn't too bad. With a little cajoling and some greasy fingers, a student and I managed to get it back in place within a few minutes.

Not much longer, my entire right pedal clanked to the ground. If this is beginning to sound familiar, that's because it was. These same things happened on our ride to the river in the fall. I picked up the metal part and began to search for the nut, which had come loose and fell to the ground.

We backtracked a bit, then saw it in the middle of the road.

It was about this time that I realized I should have brought some tools.

While we struggled to hammer on the pedal with a brick we found by the roadside, Christina had spotted a cute toddler playing next to her grandmother, who sat on her
front porch, garden tool in hand. "Maybe we can ask them if they have tools," I suggested. The grandmother wore a traditional silk shirt. The wrinkles in her face told of a long life. The child was swaddled in the thick clothing Chinese children always seem to be covered with. On her feet, she wore fancy traditional, likely handmade shoes.

Our caravan approached the man and explained our predicament. Soon, while the girls oogled the child, the woman's husband, wearing a simple blue Mao suit, walked into his home and returned with a screwdriver. Not exactly what I had in mind. We needed a hammer and a ratchet, or at least some sort of pliers if we were going to get this bike working right. Nonetheless, the student jammed the flathead screwdriver into the area next to the bolt and attempted to tighten it. The man suggested we continue on to the bicycle repairman, further up the road. We smiled and thanked him and went on our way.

When we got to the repair shop, the repairman wasn't there. Just two young boys sitting in front of a television watching a Chinese drama program. The student asked if he could borrow some tools, then began digging through the cardboard box. He found a hammer, which helped us push the pedal on further. Screwdrivers, wrenches. Finally, he found a bent, mashed socket. Unfortunately it was too small. Then another. Too big. How could they not have one that fit this nut? I decided I'd just get the nut as tight as I could with my fingers, then tighten it again when it loosened.

"Is it better?" a student asked.

"Not really. I think I'm going to need to go back," I explained.

Without complaint, we set back down the hill.

Less than five minutes later, I felt the pedal began to wobble again, then clank to the ground.

I searched for the fallen nut, found a brick, hammered it back on, then tightened it with my fingers. "This is going to be a long ride home," I realized.

"Is it better?" another student asked.

I explained that I can't get the nut tight enough without tools, but they didn't really understand. I just hoped that since it was mostly downhill, I wouldn't have to stop every five minutes to reattach the pedal.

In the distance, we saw a funeral procession making its way down the road. A group of men and women wearing white mourning clothes that look a bit like labcoats walked as a group down the road. Boys, perhaps the oldest sons or grandsons, carried colorful wreaths at the front of the procession, followed by perhaps 10 other mourners.

As I rode past them, I hoped that my pedal would make it far enough down the road that I wouldn't completely disrupt their mourning. Then again, that had probably already happened, when they saw no less than four foreigners riding bikes through their quaint village.

After one more stop, we made it to the long, steep section of the hill. I figured that coasting would be easy here.

About halfway down, I realized that my tires were whining strangely. But I didn't dare stop.

At the bottom, I realized the problem - my tire had somehow gone completely flat during the incline. Maybe the increased pressure from the high speeds?

Even more, the chain on Ruth's bike had also come loose. So we reattached it.

Since the sun was getting closer to the horizon, I decided I'd just ride on it. "Who cares if it ruins the tire," I thought. Realizing we were almost back in town, I said, "Surely there's a repair shop ahead."

So I began pedaling. Within minutes, the pedal fell to the ground yet again. Then I spotted a shop with a tire hanging on the side. We asked if we could use their pump and filled the tire. Across the street, a group of three young men sat on top of a rooftop playing rock music on acoustic guitars.

Less than a minute after we resumed our ride, it was flat again.

"I guess next time I'll have to get it patched or buy a new tube," I explained. Wes wondered if I could just hail a cab and have the cabbie bring me back with the bike in the trunk.

Soon we spotted a motorcycle repairman fixing a flat on a motorcycle.

He agreed to fix my flat and reattach my pedal with proper tools. With weathered hands, he pried my tire loose and began dipping it in water, searching for the hole. Spotting the steady stream of leaking air, he scuffed up an old piece of rubber and rubber cemented it over the hole. It reminded me of when I learned how to fix a flat from my dad all those years ago. After a good 15 minutes, he'd fixed the hole in the tube and reattached the pedal. But he explained that, somehow the tube inside the tire was too big. That's why it went flat. "Should we get a smaller tube?" I wondered aloud to the guys who were translating. "You can get that fixed at the school." They replied. "What about between now and then, I wondered to myself, hoping that the temporary fix would get the job done, realizing that the Chinese ethic of "if it can still be used, you shouldn't throw it away" was probably at play. So I played along. We handed the man five kuai and hit the road again.

Less than five minutes later, the pedal fell off. Again.

I was getting ticked off by this point.

We found yet another repairman. This time I convinced the student that we needed to replace the nut because the threads intended to lock it shut were worn. It clearly wasn't staying in place. But he didn't have nuts, just tools. "Can we borrow the tools," the student asked. He figured we could save 1 RMB and do the tightening job ourselves this time.

It lasted for three blocks. Again, it came loose.

Again we asked if they had the nut. "No. But you can use the tools."

I put my weight into the pedal and tightened. "We can have the repairman at school fix it," the student assured me. I just hoped we wouldn't have to stop again (we were maybe a mile away by this point).

Thankfully we made it back just before sunset.

The students laughed at the experience. Wes suggested I leave "Tank" (my bike) somewhere where a thief might steal it. "All the problems they'd get with it would be their punishment," he suggested. I seriously considered his plan. Unfortunately, the person stealing it likely wouldn't keep it. They'd sell it.

"I think before I ride again, I'm going to make sure I have all the tools I need to fix it myself," I told him. "Gotta bring a tool kit along on these rides from now on."

Again, I guess this is what you get with a secondhand bike in China.

Heavy metal mourning

By Kevin

As we walked to dinner last night, we were surprised to see a small tent set up outside the adjacent apartment buildings, with a pair of white-clad people mulling around outside. For a moment I thought they were nurses. Perhaps they were having a blood drive? I wondered.

"It's a funeral," a student explained.

"I've never seen a Chinese funeral before," I said, as we continued to dinner, hiding my curiosity. Somehow during my first two years in Tonghua, I managed to never see a funeral, just the numerous graves on the side of the hill outside campus. I imagine that maybe it was simply too cold. So they were held indoors. On the way back, we made sure to make a detour closer to the tent, so we could get a glimpse inside.

Inside there appeared to be an altar at one end, where a photograph of the dead man was displayed. Next to the photo, there were joss sticks of burning incense and what looked like a pile of fruit. Offerings for the departed. Alongside the tent, which looks a bit like a 15-by-15-foot, 3-sided enclosure they might use for a booth at a fair in America, were a trio of multi-colored Pinwheel-like Chinese wreaths. Inside, a pair of mourners sat on the ground, wearing baggy white clothes and turban-like hats, crying. I couldn't tell if they were relatives or professional mourners. In China there is a tradition of hiring professional mourners for funerals.

I asked about the white clothing and discovered that mourners typically wear white because the body turns pale after death.

"What will happen?" I asked.

"There will be a singer. They will sing Shaanxi Opera all night," a student explained. "Starting at midnight."

"What's it like? Is it like Beijing Opera?" Wes asked.

"It's loud like heavy metal music."

I waited expectedly last night with my earplugs ready to muffle the sound, but was surprised that they didn't start singing.

Today, however, when I came back from office hour, loud grating music was blaring and a woman alternated between singing and wailing into a microphone (yes, this is all amplified for all to hear). I saw her playing a keyboard, and other musicians played a Chinese horn and the violin-like 2-stringed Er-hu. I gathered that perhaps this is the actual funeral. Maybe yesterday was just the first day of mourning. By this time, than a dozen mourners were gathered in the outside tent, even though the temperature had dropped into the 40s. About half of them wore white clothing. Some were inside, sitting. Several men were outside, burning paper money over a fire in a bucket, lighting loud popping fireworks. Other things seemed to burn in the flame-filled bucket, which was filled nearly to the top. Probably things like paper houses, paper cars, paper TVs and other things they think the departed might need to have a comfortable afterlife. These things show their respect for their elders and keep the relative happy so he won't have to pester them on earth.

Other customs I've heard about include keeping a light shining for the dead person "to light the way" and bowl of half-cooked rice near the body. The word for "half-cooked rice" apparently is pronounced the same as "live," echoing the family's wish for life. But I couldn't tell if they were doing these things or not. In any case, it seemed, from an outsider's perspective, to have little in common with American funerals. I'm gonna have to find out more.

Happy DōngZhì

By Kevin

"Do you want to come and eat jiaozi with us?" Wes asked, relatively certain that we'd say yes.

After all, today is Dec. 21 -- the first official day of winter, Winter Solstice Festival, or Mid-Winter Festival. "冬至 DōngZhì"

Even in our third year in China, we didn't realize this was a big holiday. Probably got obscured by Christmas in the past.

"It means, winter is coming," explained Lily, our Chinese tutor. She's right. It's been downright cold lately.

Lily and Cherry, Wes' Chinese tutor, came to his apartment at 2 p.m. They went shopping for materials to make dumplings from scratch for five. Around 4:30 p.m., they started making dumplings. It wasn't until after 7:30 p.m. that all of them were cooked and on the table. Cherry and Lily had insisted that we sit down and start eating while they were still in the kitchen -- after all, when you are cooking for guests, traditionally, the cook stays in the kitchen in China. But we were very American about it, so we waited and some of the dumplings got cold.

Lily explained that today most Chinese people would be eating dumplings.

Indeed, by the time we got home at 9 p.m., a roomful of our neighbors was still slaving away in their kitchen (which we can see into from our kitchen) making jiaozi. In fact, by 10:45 p.m. as I post this, they are still going strong.

"We eat dumplings because they are the same shape as ears," she explained. "If we don't eat dumplings today, our ears will freeze this winter." she explained. It seems they do so many things because the sounds of words are the same. This was the first time I could recall hearing that they eat a particular food because it looks like a body part they don't want to get frostbitten.

We laughed and sat down to eat and chat.

We exchanged the different names we have for grandparents, which made me miss Oma and Opa and the rest of my family. Ruth shared about Memaw and Pebaw. The girls shared about their WaiPo (maternal grandmother), LaoYe (maternal grandfather), NaiNai (paternal grandmother) and YeYe (paternal grandfather). The Chinese have separate words for paternal and maternal grandparents, but they explained that they also have pet names they use for their grandparents in their villages.

Eventually, we learned that Lily is an only child because in the time she was born, it was illegal for teachers to have more than one child. "If she had another child, she would loose her job."

Lily, like many in this generation filled with only children, wished that she had a sibling.

Then we learned that Cherry has an older brother who she never calls by his given name. "In our China, you never call anyone in your family who is older than you by their name," Lily explained.

"I remember one time I called him by his name and my mother punished me," Cherry exclaimed. "Now I only use it when I quarrel with him."

Cherry announced that she used to dislike having an older brother, but that the other day, he transferred 700 RMB into her bank account. "Now I like having an elder brother," she said, with a wide grin.

Cherry explained that her parents were going to have a third child, but that one of the leaders in their village noticed her mother's belly getting big. "He took her and drove her to the hospital and she had to have an operation," Cherry said, describing how close her younger brother came to being born. "It's so terrible."

"Those days in China, many things like this happened," explained Lily. "It was horrible."

I shared about my student in Tonghua, who only lived because his mother walked to a nearby village and hid until his birth (I wrote about this on my old blog, which you can visit here).

They explained how the fines for having more than one child were large when they were born, but now they're not as bad. "The fine hasn't changed, but people have more money now," Wes chimed in.

In fact, they have a classmate with seven siblings.

"Now, you can have more children," said Lily. "As long as you can afford them all."

But in spite of the economic growth in China, she said it's not easy for many families with more than one child. For example, she said, college is very expensive. Yearly tuition for students at this college is 4,500 RMB (about $650) -- still a big chunk of change in China.

We explained that families in America face similar difficulties, as college costs climb higher and higher.

"But we always think that America is so rich," Cherry said, surprised.

"But relatively, costs of most things are higher..." I began...

Bike breakdown, bike repair, repeat

So, maybe we should have known from the start that it was going to be a rough ride.

When I went to adjust Ruth's bike seat before we set off to meet students on our ride to the Wei River, the bolt wouldn't tighten. After a few minutes of attempting to tighten and re-tighten it, I struggled to get it loose. The blot finally fell on the floor, threads were completely stripped. The nut seemed to be the wrong size. “This isn't going to go back on,” I said. I guess this is what you get when you buy a used bike in China.

So I hurried back into the apartment and scrounged through a jar of old nuts and bolts until I found something that would make due. It was a little smallish, but with a washer, it did the trick.

A bit late, we met Wes, Christina and eight students at the front gate on campus. We were off. I was chatting with a senior from Guizhou named Edward. As he shared about his minority, THUNK, my foot hit the ground. The entire left pedal, rod and all clanked along the ground as I slammed on my brakes. Blood dripped into my sock from a three-inch gash that sliced my calf (it really wasn't too bad, just bled a lot at first).

I attempted to hammer the pedal back onto my bike, but it didn't seem like it was going to stay on very long. Besides, the pedal itself was falling apart as well. I guess this is what you get with a used bike in China.

So Edward, Wes, Tim (another student) and I hurried back to a bicycle repairman, who nonchalantly attached a new pedal, tightened the rod, filled the air in my tires and sold me a bolt for Ruth's seat for 4 RMB (about 60 cents). After a quick stop by the pharmacy (thankfully, it seems like there's one every other block in this city), we set off again. After about 10 minutes of riding, we caught up with the girls, who had ridden ahead.

I learned that Edward was an avid cyclist. In fact, two years ago, he went on a 2-week bike trip to Henan province, covering more than 1,500 km and that he and some buddies from the campus bike club have been thinking about riding from here to Tibet. Insane.

Just as we set off after our reunion, CRACK, my pedal fell off again. Mind you, the rod stayed in place. The plastic pedal, however, proved that sometimes you get what you pay for. I decided to continue riding without the pedal, since I seemed to be able to do so just fine.

We rode through a toll booth on the road, admiring freshly shucked corn laid out to dry, filling half the lane on the low-traffic road, then turned into a village because the road ahead was being repaired.

Just as we started to climb a slight incline, CA-CHUNG. Ruth's chain broke. Unfortunately, we were far from the city and the bicycle repairmen who set up shop every few blocks. We put the chain into a small bag and started walking toward the village, where we asked around and found out that there was indeed a repairman in the village not far ahead.

We approached a man at the roadside with a little truck, hoping that he might be able to bring us with the bike to the repairman, who was apparently 5-10 minutes away. Instead, he said he could explain how to fix it, though. He inspected the chain, and said that a piece was missing, though.

So Edward and I hurried back to the place Ruth's chain broke, a little bit worried that finding the tiny missing part might be like finding a needle in a haystack. But within about a minute, he pointed and declared, “here it is. I found it.”

Edward then set about fixing the chain, with the help of the man we met on the road. Thankfully, I'd brought a crescent wrench and vice grip in case Ruth's seat didn't hold together. Edward, hands covered in bike grease, used the vice to fasten the chain back together.

Unfortunately, it didn't last.

“I'm trying not to pedal too hard,” Ruth said with a grimmace.

“Well, if you make it up this hill, we might be good to go,” I replied. Within seconds, CLANG, her chain fell off again. Only this time, it broke into a few pieces.

After a brief discussion, Edward and Tim decided that they'd bring the bike to the repairman while we waited.

As we waited, Wes struck up a conversation with a family that was out in their yard shucking corn. He asked if he could join them. “Why not?” I thought to myself. I join them as well. Soon, Ruth and Christina joined in, along with a couple students. The others looked at us skeptically, seeming to wonder why we would do something like this. But eventually, they too joined us. Wes explained the parables about the son gathering people like gathering crops. By the time Edward and Tim returned with the fixed bike, all of us and all of the students who were waiting were helping these farmers to shuck corn, which they said was used by both people and animals (they don't have two separate varieties of corn in China like in America – just one).

It was a great “Real China” moment.

Overhead in the village, workers clanged and hammered away, building the raised platform for the high-speed railroad that is being built from Xi'an to Zhengzhou onto Beijing. Supposedly it will go about 300 km per hour and cut the trip to Beijing from about 12 hours to 5 hours.

As we rode to the river, we followed a dirt path between cornfields that ran underneath sections of seemingly completed railway track. Unfortunately, the soil at times was a little unforgiving. It was thin loess soil (I believe we live on China's famed Loess Plateau) that poofed up as we rode through it, almost like silty volcanic ash.

Needless to say, it was tough to keep riding through it, but it was thinner than beach sand, so as long as we were moving fast enough, we seemed to be able to keep our balance and avoid most of the plumes of silt that rose into the air whenever a mini-truck loaded with freshly harvested corn or a tractor passed us by.

After about 15 minutes, we reached the river. It was a bit disappointing after all the obstacles that had to be overcome before we made it. “It's not an adventure if nothing goes wrong along the way,” I told a couple of students. “It is unforgettable,” one replied.

"Anyone ready for a swim," I joked, after pointing to the floating pieces of styrofoam, which floated down the river in a constant stream like tiny iceburgs. Apparently we were downriver from some sort of factory.

A couple girls laughed nervously, wondering if I was serious. "Ok, I might come out looking brown, maybe I won't swim."

Unfortunately, by the time we'd made it home, my pedal-less bike rod had worn a hole in my shoe.

By the time we made it back to our apartments, we'd been gone for more than four hours. We were grimy and drained. But, in spite of the obstacles, it was worthwhile. Another good bonding experience.

It should have been simple, but then a hospital got involved

By Ruth (sorry - this is really long)

I was looking forward to getting into a normal schedule, but even though it's the first full week of classes, the "normalcy" part hasn't quite kicked in. To begin with, I missed my first three classes the week and spent half of Monday and Tuesday at the hospital. Don't worry - I'm okay. In the end, I was able to get some antibiotics to clear up an infection and everything seems to be returning to normal. It just took five tests and way too much familiarity with the local hospital to get there…

Day One

I was feeling bad on Sunday, so we asked a student helper (June) to go with us to see a doctor. Unfortunately, there are no doctors in the hospital on Sunday, so we had to wait for Monday morning. Monday morning is a very busy time at the hospital, and this day was extra busy because of all the parents bringing in their children to get tested for melamine. Hundreds of parents and children were stretched in a long line outside the hospital door (I'd estimate at least 300). The doctor we needed to see was on the same hallway as were all these parents were trying to go. The hall was so crowded we couldn't get through and had to find another door. Two nurses stood on chairs above the crowd yelling information through loudspeakers, but they were having little success establishing any sort of order.

We pushed our way into the small doctor's office, a 12x12 ft room that held 19 people. All of them crowded around the doctor's desk as one of the patients shared their medical problems. I thought about all the stringent privacy acts in American medical care. That's not so much a concern here. Kevin, June and I pushed our way back out into the hallway to wait our turn. We could breathe a little easier out there. When we were called back into the room, only about 8 people remained. I sat down on a small wooden stool as June explained my symptoms to the doctor. It probably should have been a little embarrassing to have all those people learning personal information about me, but for some reason it wasn't. Several people were sitting waiting on the examining table, and the doctor made them leave so he could examine me. That was nice of him. He said I should do the ever popular "pee in a cup" test, so we headed downstairs.

First stop, the pay station. Second stop, the table where a nurse handed out tiny, flimsy plastic cups slightly larger than a tablespoon. Third, down the hall to the bathroom, a squatty-potty which had not been cleaned in quite a while. There was no little metal door to put the cup through, like in America. Instead, you carry your little cup back across the hospital to the nurses station. A little awkward, except that I wasn't the only one wandering down the hallway pee-cup in hand. We had to wait 40 minutes for the nurses to do the test. Rather than standing around by the nurses window where little kids were doing their pee tests right there on the floor, June suggested that we walk to a nearby park. It was a relief to get outside of the hospital into the fresher air. By the time we got to the park it was time to turn around and head back to the hospital. We went back to the doctor to show the results and he said, “Nothing looks wrong so we will have to do other tests.” Actually, he must have said some other things since he talked for several minutes, but that was the part of the communication that came through translation. The rest of the time he may have been talking about how odd the foreigners looked or what he planned to eat for dinner or sharing some vital piece of information about my health. Who knows. He wrote a prescription for some kind of tea that will “clear out your system,” so to speak. I took it home, drank two glasses of the bitter tea, and waited for the system clearing to begin.

Day Two

With my system adequately cleared and myself feeling worse than before, we headed off for the hospital once again. I had spent the last day worrying a bit because the doctor said he wanted to check my appendix. While I didn’t appear to be having appendicitis-like symptoms, I was afraid it would end up being something bad. The last thing I wanted was for some Chinese doctor to start cutting me open. Our last experience of that kind is not really one we’d like to repeat.

Let me describe for you our progression around the hospital (which again was crowded with a slightly smaller crowd -- around 200 -- of slightly better organized parents waiting to have their children tested). Up to the second floor doctor’s office, down to the first floor payment window, over to the nurses window, back to the nurses window, up to the second floor testing room, across to the other side of the hospital, back down to the payment window, across the street to buy TP (I’ll explain in a minute), back up to the testing room, down to the nurses window, back up to another testing room, down to the payment room, back up to the first testing room, back over to the second testing room, back to the doctor’s room, down to the pharmacy, over to the payment window, back to the pharmacy and finally – out the door. For some reason, Chinese hospitals always seem to require this back and forth zigzagging puzzle.

So when we went to the first testing room where they did some kind of ct-scan but different thing, they told us to go buy a roll of TP and then come back. This made me nervous and confused. What the heck was about to happen? This is the part where we walked across the street, and when we came back, we waited for a while in the dim hallway. They often don’t turn on hallway lights in public buildings to save on energy costs. A doctor walked by with his face masked pulled down to his chin so he could enjoy a cigarette. There was something incongruous about that picture.

They finally called me into the testing room, along with June, my trusty interpreter. They unrolled some of the toilet paper to put down on the examining table and then had me lay down. So I guess they just didn’t want the trouble of keeping the table sanitary? Might as well just have everyone bring their own covering. Right. I won’t describe the whole process to you. Let’s just say it was…invasive. Extremely awkward both in essence and due to the fact that my poor student was standing by. But at the same time, it was hilarious. Though I was not enjoying myself at all at the time, I knew already that it would make a great story. Too bad I can’t tell you all the gory details. It’s much funnier that way.

Anyway, moving on, we went back out and waited for a while, then went to have this other test done. This was an ultrasound to check my kidneys. Eight or ten people were shoved up against the exam room door trying to push their way to the front. We pushed our way right in with them and got the test done. We took all the various results back to the doctor and he said a bunch of stuff out of which we gathered, “It is appendicitis, but not serious.” What? What the heck does that mean. He didn’t want to cut me up though, which is good, he just gave us a prescription for some antibiotic. Pretty much what I had been seeking in the first place, the day before. We got the medicine and gladly left.

When I got back I talked to my doctor sister who laughed at the “mild appendicitis” diagnosis saying, “There is no such thing.” We concluded that none of my symptoms seem like appendicitis or colitis (which was the other option they gave) or anything imminently threatening. So all those tests and hours later, I was pretty much back at the same spot where I started – except with antibiotics. I took the antibiotics. And now I am almost completely better. That wasn’t too hard. At least, it shouldn’t have been.

Guitar troubadours and Moonlight serenades (a belated Moon Festival post)

By Kevin

To celebrate Mid-Autumn Festival we opted to spend the evening outdoors, dining on “ethnic foods street.”

Ok, maybe the whole street isn't really a big variety of ethnic foods. It's mostly chuars – meat on a stick. So it's mostly Uyiger or Hui food. Good Muslim food.

As we ate our meat on a stick, no less than four guitar playing troubadours set out upon the crowd, toting amplifiers.

One guy carried his amp on his back, as he strummed his Fender Strat and sang into the evening breeze.

A girl, who was pretty good actually, handed diners a song list. After they picked a song, she went to work, strumming away on her Ibanez guitar for a few kuai.

Another guy, who was particularly tone deaf, repeatedly strummed one chord on his amplified acoustic guitar as he sang. Yet people politely listened.

It reminded me of the various street performers on Venice Beach or on the 3rd Street Promenade, but they were completely mobile.

“I wonder what songs they sing,” I asked, wondering if they knew any U2...perhaps “It's a beautiful day,” I thought.

“Maybe they sing moon songs.”

One of the traditions this day is to gaze at the big, round full moon, and eat round moon cakes with friends and family.

“Are there many moon songs?” Christina asked.

In unison, Wes, Ruth and I broke into three different moon songs...

“There's a bad moon rising,” Wes belted, evoking Credence Clearwater Revival.

“Moon River,” Ruth crooned, evoking Audrey Hepburn in “Breakfast at Tiffany's.” “...my Huckleberry friend.”

I opted for the Waterboy's cover of Victoria Williams from the “Sweet Relief” compilation: “Why look at that moon, a-way up high, seeing everything, that goes by, why look at that moon...”

Eventually, we headed back home, grabbing ice cream bars for the trip. On the way, we were coaxed to inspect a new spa with a sign declaring, “Physical Therapy.”

We found out that they'd do a 90-minute foot massage for 48 RMB, but if three of us got it, they'd give us the fourth free. However, they said prices range from 48 RMB for feet to 180 RMB for a full treatment.

They lured us in to inspect the posh surroundings, which were the nicest of any massage parlor I've seen yet in China.

But my bruised back just wasn't up for it today.

Two days ago, Ruth and I decided to check out the little massage clinic we'd walked by last week. She got a 15 RMB half-hour massage by a halfway blind guy. I was transferred to another guy for an hour of abuse.

Massages in China aren't about relaxation, I've learned. They're about healing.

So while we anticipated full-body massages, when they asked what hurts, we said “hou bei” - our backs....and they went to work on them.

By the time I left, my masseuse had grinded his elbow into almost every part of my back, done some chiropractic jujitsu moves to work out some kinks and left me feeling bruised and beaten. On the way home, I felt good, but by that evening, I could feel the bruises rising. They haven't made it to the surface, though, so maybe it'll be OK. Lots of soreness.

The “Physical Therapy” place however, seemed more focused on pampering and actually making you feel BETTER after you leave, so maybe we'll have to try it once our last massage heals. We'll see...

Minibus adventures (part II of our Hua Shan trip)

By Kevin

As Wes and Ruth boarded our minibus back from Hua Shan to Weinan, I hurried over to a little store to buy us some water, figuring a shop in town would sell it for significantly less than the 5 RMB they charged on the mountain. 1.5 RMB bottles in hand, I hurried back to the bus, discovering that Wes had needed to use his “angry voice” to insist that the bus wait one minute for me to return before the driver left. That would have stunk, being left behind. I could have found my way back, but I was tired and it didn't sound very appealing.

We were surprised that the driver would want to leave with empty seats, since the bus only had seats for maybe 16. At 12 RMB apiece, the 10 passengers would only bring in 120 RMB (like $17). Surely they'd have a hard time breaking even on gas on the 2-hour drive.

Disappointingly, about 10 minutes down the road, in the next town, the driver pulled to the side of the road. At first, I thought he was picking up more passengers, but he wasn't. Instead he went into a store and sat down, poured some water and proceeded to spend the next 20 minutes eating a bowl of noodles while our stomachs growled, anticipating our first trip to Weinan's famed McDonald's (the only stand-alone McDonald's I've ever seen in China, let alone the only one with a drive-through). So this is why he was in a hurry to leave the bus stop...it was dinnertime.

I thought back to our journey to Hua Shan in the morning. Just before we got to the mountain, a policeman standing in the center of the road stopped our bus and made the driver pull to the side of the road. Angrily muttering something under his voice, he did.

The driver got out and hurried over to the police car parked at the side of the road and began bargaining with the police officer as the ticket-taker on the bus pulled a bag out of a locked compartment in front of us and brought it to him. She said something to the half-dozen passengers who had boarded mid-trip: the ones without seats, who were standing in the aisles. A few muttered things under their voices, but they exited the bus without a fuss. They knew the risk they were taking when they boarded the full bus: it's illegal for long-distance buses to fill the aisles with extra passengers. The trick is that 9 times out of 10, the law isn't enforced. The fines aren't stiff enough to stop the practice, so usually it is worthwhile for the driver to take on extra passengers. Clearly this sort of thing had happened before and the driver was prepared.

Wes overheard a passenger explaining to us what was happening.

“There were too many people on the bus,” he lamented, explaining that the driver was bribing the police officer with “several packages of cigarettes” so he wouldn't have to pay a fine.

“China isn't like America. In America you have laws, don't you?” the passenger said, going into a diatribe about the state of law and order in China.

He said he didn't mind buses taking on extra passengers. He was only frustrated that enforcement is inconsistent. Some officers enforce the prescribed fines, while others can be paid off with cigarettes.

By the time the evening driver returned to the bus and revved it up, we the sun had nearly set. We were ready to be back. Midway through the two-hour journey, the 18-year-old ticket-taker realized that Wes spoke Chinese. So she struck up a conversation with him.

In the middle, he asked us about what minimum wage is in America. Apparently, she was curious if most people in America worked on contracts or some other basis. He explained that he was excited to talk with her because usually blue collar workers in China don't speak very good Putonghua—standard Chinese--just the local dialect, so it's hard to talk with them.

He learned that the girl's family owned the bus, so she doesn't get paid at all, but her family earns anywhere from 4,000 RMB to 10,000 RMB per month in profit by operating it – a really good chunk of change for a family in small town China. He also discovered that the girl actually had a foreign teacher in high school. Apparently, there have been a handful of schools in the rural areas who employed foreign teachers.

When we got back, our legs ached. Even though we've made a point of using the stairs rather than the elevator most of the time to get to our third-floor apartment, our stiff legs told us we'd had enough exercise for the day. So we pushed the third floor button and staggered back to our apartment, exhausted. “I'm glad we went,” I told Wes. “At least I think I am.”

“Yeah, give me a couple days,” he admitted with a grimace, figuring that he'd appreciate our trip more after our legs healed a bit.

Singing and Dancing

By Kevin

“Man, the ... party is fierce,” Wes said with a grin as we left the karaoke bar.

We rode home, astonished at what we just took part in.

“That was just bizarre,” he repeated, as we got out of the taxi returning home. “You had 40 and 50 year old professionals, most of whom are members of the party. That was somethin' else.”

"It was fun," Christina said. "Thanks for coming with me."

Just after noon, the foreign affairs official (FAO) told us that there would be a banquet tonight.

When we got there, the dean of the English department told us, in English, that the banquet was being held in honor of teacher's day and Mid-Autumn festival, which are both coming up in the next couple weeks.

We enjoyed an array of delicious dishes and met several teachers and deans in the department, most of whom seemed genuinely excited to meet us. We learned that the dean at one point in time spent a year in Florida as part of a teacher exchange. We also discovered that one of the teachers in the department is about to go to Cuba to learn Spanish. The school hopes to begin offering Spanish classes. “But that plan might be a bit ambitious,” she confided to us after saying that “Espanol” is the only Spanish word she knew. We tripled her vocabulary, adding “hola” and “adios.”

After the banquet, we were invited for "singing and dancing" at a nearby karaoke bar.

Initially, we turned down the offer because we wanted to go downtown for ice cream and to explore the square, which Christina said is fun at night. But Christina felt a tug on her heart. “Do you think we should go?” she asked. “They've never invited us to do anything like this before. Maybe we should go. Show our solidarity...We don't have to stay long.”

By the time we got halfway across the street, we were hedging on the ice cream. By the time we made it across the street, guilt had set in. So we turned back.

“We changed our minds,” we told a couple teachers.

When we entered, the other teachers greeted us warmly and hurriedly escorted us to a table. One teacher was already singing a famous Chinese pop song. When she sat down, Wes decided to dive in, to the delight of the 20 teachers and deans who came to the afterparty. Wes sang a popular Chinese song, and several teachers gleefully sang along with him. Later, the dean asked Christina to a slow dance in the middle of the dance floor, twirling her around a couple times before the song was over.

The FAO then brought a long list of karaoke songs for Ruth and I to sing. All the pages but one were in Chinese. But the one page of English songs wasn't much help. The best prospects for Ruth and I to sing in the list of 20-plus-year-old hits seemed to be “Yesterday Once More,” “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” Not exactly high on our list. They said we could chose something else if we wanted and they would search for it. We settled on the Titanic hit, “My Heart Will Go On,” figuring that our foreignness would outweigh my partial tonedeafness (I can hear the right notes, just can't always produce them well unless I'm singing in a group). Again, teachers sang with us and applauded loudly at the finish.

Since we'd done our duty, we made an exit plan: one or two more songs. But the dean of the department had other plans, pleading for us to stay for one more song.

As a dancing baby came onto the screen, he raised his arms to the roof to a driving dance beat and dragged us into the middle of the room. We found out why he didn't want us to leave just yet: this was a "singing AND dancing party."

Thankfully, we weren't the only ones. A dozen teachers, most in their 30s, 40s and 50s, grabbed hands and made a throbbing circle, swinging arms back and forth stepping forward and back with the beat. Before long they pulled Wes into the center, prompting him to strut his stuff, to the delight of everyone. Within the next several sweaty minutes, each of us had been pulled into the middle to spin around and shake our hips like crazy people. They did the same with the Chinese teachers. It was odd, but kinda fun.

Like Christina said, it was a good chance to bond a little both as a team and with the other teachers at the school. Maybe this will be an opening to get to know them a bit better.

Video apartment tour

We thought that some of you might enjoy a video walk-through of our apartment...

Here it is...