Up on the Heights

by Ruth

Yesterday our team was looking over a passage in the Psalms that says,

“He makes my feet like the feet of a deer, so I can go up on the heights.”

As we asked for insights into what we were reading, this was the sentence that stuck out to me. He makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Rarely are we placed in the “perfect environment.” I guess really there isn’t even such a thing. So since we are living in an imperfect world, we have to undergo the necessary changes that allow us to function and even thrive in our environment.

Mountain goats are one of the few animals that can live in the heights because they are made for them. Sometimes we are transplanted out of our natural situation and put into a very different environment (say, moving to a weird, very different country on the other side of the world – just as a hypothetical example). And then perhaps we feel like big, clumsy donkeys trying to climb around on perilous cliffs.

Anyway, that’s how I feel sometimes. I think, “Am I really meant for this? This doesn’t seem like it’s me.” For one, I’m not a naturally adventurous person. I’ve always liked the idea of travel but find that the actual process seems more unpleasant each time I try it. And this life involves a lot of travel. I haven’t traveled in about two months and it already seems like eternity. I realized we spent a fourth of the year living out of suitcases, and that realization doesn’t excite me.

I am also such an introvert. When my students took personality tests last month, they all guessed that I was outgoing and talkative because that’s the role I often need to take on. We spend a lot of time around students – in the classroom, in office times, having them over to our apartment, doing activities together. I enjoy it most of the time, but sometimes (say when I’m spending hours with 20 people I don’t know), I get really tired of it. I find all the social stuff draining, yet it’s part of what we’re here for. Wouldn’t it be better if I loved to be around people all the time and just couldn’t get enough of it?

I stink at languages. Not just because I’m lazy and a bad student, though that’s certainly part of it. Languages don’t excite me; they make me want to crawl into a corner and hide. One huge obstacle between me and the possibility of staying in China long term is this prison camp called “Language School.” Dun-dun-dun! I’m glad I chose a country with one of the most difficult languages in the world.

Oh and let’s see. I like to have order and control. I like to know what is going on. I value aesthetics. I don't like lots of attention. I thrive under stability and routine. Which makes me wonder sometimes, “What in the world am I doing here?”

This is why the sentence caught my attention. It doesn’t say, “Good thing we’re deer so we can easily go up on the heights.” It’s says he makes our feet to be what they need to be. He doesn’t just leave us a donkey and give us a mountain climbing manual. He changes us to fit the situation. He makes us into who we need to be.

I like the way one version put it even better: “He makes my feet like the feet of a deer and set me secure on the heights.” Hey look at that! I love security! The mountain goats go up on the mountain because they can be safe from their predators. Even though they are standing on a dangerous ledge, they are secure.

I still don’t like the idea of living in a place where I don’t belong. But it is encouraging to know that hypothetically, if it were ever to happen that I was transplanted into a weird and different country, maybe I could be made into what I needed to be.

Apartment People

by Ruth
Thanks to the economic slump, many of my friends (the non-China variety, anyway) seem to be buying houses this year. I would be lying if I said I didn’t get really jealous about that sometimes. I love houses. I went through this phase in middle school of wanting to be an architect. I borrowed the whole collection of house plan books from our local library and poured through them. I stocked up on graph paper and designed a bunch of my own houses. When I realized that architecture required a whole lot of math, that plan died really quickly, but I still like houses.

I know that I have it pretty good here. Our apartment is really nice and big. But an apartment is just not as cool as a house. I was reading part of Beverly Cleary's autobiography recently, and she said her mother told her not to trust people who lived in apartments. Something about those kind of people not being stable enough. Sure, it was the 1930’s, but I thought that was pretty funny. And possibly true. We don't even stay in one place long enough to successfully grow house plants.

Our apartment is only a few years old but it already has some interesting quirks. For example, last night a bird tried to push through the paper cup blocking the hole in the wall. It freaked me out a little at first because it reminded me of a certain bat episode when I was younger. Then I thought about how it was a little strange to have a paper cup forming part of my wall.

Over the past few months, the outer walls have become covered with dark spots where some kind of nails from the wall joints show through or maybe rusted through the plaster. They have gradually become darker until the walls now look like they have a pox. We asked the school if we could paint the walls but they said no. They do own the apartment, so I guess that is reasonable. I really miss being able to paint, though. Sometimes I just browse through sherwinwilliams.com enjoying all the different paint colors. Since we can’t paint, I was hoping to hang something up to cover part one of the diseased walls.

But today we discovered that while the inside walls of the apartment are indestructible concrete that destroys anything less than extra strength nails, the outer walls are flimsy plaster which crumble under the pressure of a nail. Instead of covering up part of the wall, we just ended up with a couple of caved in spots in the plaster.

With the coming of warm weather, we have had a lot more interactions with the kitchen drain, as well. It feels like interactions, anyway, with the drain speaking through a variety of different smells. There is the classic bad drain smell that wafts up whenever someone in one of the eight stories above us flushes the toilet. Then there is the rotten egg smell. The old garbage smell. The garden dirt smell. And the most original so far – the browning hamburger smell. That one was actually kind of nice. It made it seem like I was cooking. I don’t mind garden dirt either; it smells like wet dirt after a warm rain. I just don't think it fits very well in the kitchen.

There are many things I am thankful for, though. I still think our laundry porch is pretty cool, with the clothes racks that can be raised and lowered. The heated floors make a big difference in winter. And hot water in the kitchen sink makes washing dishes nicer. And the paper cup thing is a little funny. So long as the bird doesn't succeed in pushing it's way through. I should put something more durable in there, like a plastic water bottle.

And maybe some day I'll be one of those house people. I'll settle down and commit to a real houseplant. I'll settle down and live in one place for forever and ever or at least three years. That sounds nice.

Cheese

by Ruth

Last weekend we decided it was time for a cheese run. On our first semester trip to Metro (the supermarket in Xian which has import foods) we were shocked and dismayed to discover they no longer had the large 6 kilo cheddar cheese blocks we had bought in the fall. The small, overpriced bits we bought before were almost gone. The future of our meals depended on finding more cheese.

We say that Xian is an hour away, but of course it’s not that simple. Actually, there is a 10 minute walk to the bus station, 15-20 minutes waiting around for a Xian bus (they leave whenever they are full), and 1 hour on the bus. Once we get into Xian, we pick up a city bus that takes us from the north-east corner of town to the far south where Metro is. We usually stop in the middle of the city for some Pizza Hut or Subway, such a nice treat, and sometimes stop again before Metro to stock up on some dvds. With no stops, it’s about an hour bus ride. With stops, well, it’s usually mid-afternoon when we arrive at Metro. Metro has two whole rows of imported goods. We stock up on the essentials like cereal, brownie mix, spaghetti noodles, and salsa. But when we headed over to the cheese section, there was still no cheddar. Just miniscule packets of Monterrey Jack, enough to last half a week. Fortunately, we had a plan B.

We had a business card for some kind of food wholesale place Christina knew about. Wes called and found out they had the cheddar we were looking for. The only problem was, we didn’t really know where it was. Christina had been there once and had a very vague memory of what it was like. We loaded up our purchases into backpacks and shopping bags and set out to find a taxi.

Metro is a horrible place for getting taxis. There are plenty of them – they just won’t stop for you. We spent 10 minutes flagging down and being rejected by dozens of taxis before crossing the road to spend another 10 minutes flagging down and being rejected by taxis from the other direction. Finally, we found someone who was actually serious about this taxi-driving business and agreed to take us.

The business card had an address but addresses aren’t always marked very well. Once we were on the right road, we all looked for any building numbers we could find. We finally found the right number, but it looked like a school gate, not a warehouse. The taxi driver kept on going for another block and a half before we finally convinced him we wanted to stop. We piled out and hiked back down the road, stopping several times to ask an old lady who couldn’t help us at all but was still very friendly.

When we got back to the right address, Wes peered inside the gate to ask the guard if we were in the right place. Strangely enough, we were. We walked along a small road lined with trees and aging apartment buildings. After turning several corners, the street noise receded. The air was quiet and filled with dandelion-type wisps that floated in and out of shadows. A cat sat on top of a brick wall in the sun, watching as we passed by. Colorful blankets were airing clothes lines. We looped our way around several buildings, past one or two people and five or six cats. This sure didn’t seem like the area for a wholesale warehouse, but the man we asked told us to keep going around one more corner. We turned the corner and reached a dead end.

On the right, an old red door, probably ten or twelve feet high, was cracked open. Christina peered inside to an empty, shaded courtyard. When Wes called out, a woman appeared at the doorway asking if we were the ones who had called. She led us inside, where we piled all our bags onto old, umbrella-covered restaurant style tables. I didn’t mind leaving it there – clearly there was no one around to steal it.

The owners of this out of the way place led us through several small store rooms filled with boxes of imported goods. We looked through boxes of pasta, large containers of spices, and huge cans of jalapeños. I was excited to find cream of mushroom soup – and I don’t even like mushrooms. But I am realizing this year how many recipes use cream soups and have been missing them. We went into a freezer room and found tortillas. Finally, we went into the fridge room. As promised, they had a number of large blocks of cheddar cheese, and for not a bad price – $4-5 per kilo.

We already had backpacks and bags full of items, but we pulled out new bags and added our purchases. It was quite a useful little back-alley shopping place. It will come in handy the next time we need cheese. If we can ever find it again.

It gets worse

Still grading exams. I didn't expect this, but they managed to get worse. On one of the first quizzes I gave them, it seemed that the average class grade went up as the week went along, so I made multiple versions of exams to discourage sharing of info with friends from other classes. This time I just made A and B versions of two exams: 1A and 1B for Tuesday and Wednesday classes (only difference is the questions are in a different order or multiple choice answers are mixed up, so if they decide to peek at their neighbor's exam, it won't help) and a 2A and 2B version for the two Thursday classes.

I expected that the Tuesday group might have slightly higher scores. I was wrong.

Here's the rundown
o As
1 B
1 C
6 Ds
34 Fs (80% of the class)

8 solid Fs (50-59%)
14 Gs (40-49%)
10 Hs (30-39%)
2 Is (20-29%)

Maybe the next exam should be open book?

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.

Long sleeves, warm weather

By Kevin

Although I wore short sleeves for much of the last week, my students were continually shocked. In fact, most Chinese people are shocked. It isn't May 1 yet (the widely-recognized day for shedding of coats). Even though most students complained of being hot in class, they flatly refused when I suggested they remove their coats. A few did roll up their sleeves, but none removed the outer layer. They also cried out "no, no" when I flipped the switch to the classroom ceiling fans. "Dust," they explained.

But on Friday, I saw something rare: a guy rode his bike wearing a sleeveless shirt (think 1980s). The strange thing was - it was a little bit cool that day (maybe 60s) -- cool enough that I was wearing a sweatshirt. In fact, as far as I can remember, it was the only time I've EVER seen anyone in China wearing short sleeves when I wore long.

Then, today, the temperature was in the 70s. I spotted a young man walking down the street in short sleeves. I've seen rolled up sweatshirts and a few long johns underneath shorts. I'm starting to wonder: what would their mothers think if they knew they were flaunting the rules? It also makes me wonder where these enduring traditions come from. Who decided that you had to wait until a certain date before donning short sleeves?

Third time IS the charm

By Ruth

So yesterday we went on a bike ride with students and...nothing broke! Amazing.

Not nearly as exciting to write about, I must say, but I thought I should share it anyway for the sake of being fair.
This time we rode out to the west of Weinan through a bunch of old villages. Signs of spring are all around in the warmer air, the budding trees, and the green fields. It was really pretty and by the end of the ride the sun even came out.
Seven students came with us, and they all seemed to have a good time. Several of them said to let us know if we go again. Some of them don't get out much and spend entirely too much time studying and/or wasting time on campus. The freshmen don't have many classes so many of them are suffering from chronic boredom. Going places with the foreigners, however, is seldom boring. We are always doing strange and unexpected things like riding down bumpy dirt paths just to see where they go.
The bike ride was shorter this time, with no breakdowns, but it was still over two hours of almost solid riding, so we were pretty tired when we came back.
Tonight I'm thinking of going over to visit the dorms. I always love knocking on the door and freaking them out, because of course they are not expecting me. Good times, good times.

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.

Things I still don't understand

This afternoon I was sitting on the couch doing some Wheaton reading when a persistent knock came on the door. A Chinese knock, and probably not a student. When students knock, they are usually so quiet you hardly even hear it. When strangers knock, it is loud and persistent and they don’t stop until you answer the door.

I opened the door two high school aged girls that I had never seen before. One of the girls, seeming only slightly fazed by the foreign face, immediately launched into Chinese. I didn’t understand a word of what she was saying, and I had no context clues to help out, since I had no idea why they were here. They stood in the doorway for about five minutes while she said a whole bunch of stuff and then asked if I understood, to which I would always say, “Ting bu dong.” No, no, I still have no idea what you are talking about.

They tried to start using gestures, but those weren’t so helpful either. The quieter girl waved her arm around in a circular motion and the talkative girl tapped on the door. She tried to think of any English words she had learned. Finally she came across “cooka!” Which she repeated over and over again. That I understood, but I still had no idea what she was talking about. After a while, she pulled out a spray bottle of what looked like cleaning solution from her backpack.

I was standing right in the doorway, but somehow she managed to squeeze her way in anyway, continuing to say a lot of stuff in Chinese. She sprayed the cleaner on the light switch and started wiping it away with her hand saying, “Good! Good!” Then she darted into the room to grab some tissues from the table, and used them to show all the dirt that she had cleaned away.

Now I was starting to get the idea that they must be trying to sell this stuff. But I was still completely confused and now they had come inside and shut the door. It’s not that I felt intimidated by high school girls, I just find it very strange when people I’ve never seen before force their way into my house.

The girl reached over and opened the door to the bathroom. It was clearly not what she was looking for. But she gestured around in there and said a bunch more stuff. Then the girls took off their shoes and started to walk back through the house until they got to the kitchen. There the girl sprayed stuff on the stove hood and used the same tissues to wipe away more dirt. I started to cough from the very pungent odor while the girl continuing going on about how her spray was really good. At least, that was my guess.

Finally I told her I didn’t want the cleaning spray. She seemed undeterred. She picked up the other cleaning spray and tried to explain how hers was much better than this one. I had a recipe book on the counter which the girl picked up and started flipping through. She read out several words in English, just for the heck of it I guess, “Apple cake,” and then looked up at me expectantly. She continued to talk on while the quiet girl looked at the pictures on my fridge. After a few more times of saying I didn’t want the cleaning spray, I guess she got the idea.

I tried my best to usher them out of the house. I was impressed by their bravery. Most people get really nervous when trying to talk to foreigners or when we can’t understand what they are saying. It didn’t seem to matter to these girls much at all. I was impressed but a little annoyed too. And about as confused as when they came. I still don’t understand a lot of things that happen in my life.

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.