Zai China

While we were hanging out in Xiaogan, Tian took us on a tour of her old elementary school, which is located about five minutes walk from her parents home.  Despite having visited Xiaogan several times, I personally had never been inside.  So it was a new experience for both Mike and me.

Tian's fifth grade classroom.

Tian's 5th Grade Teacher: Wang Laoshi.

Most of the students there had most likely never met a foreigner, so they were very excited to meet us.  We first stopped in Tian’s fifth grade class room, and the students introduced themselves to us and asked Mike some questions to try out their English.  After the bell rang, the entire school descended into the courtyard and mobbed us.  One student asked us for our autograph, and soon the entire school was pushing pencils and paper toward us.  It got a little crazy, so we excused ourselves and waved goodbye at the gate.

The school has three three-level buildings like this one surrounding the courtyard.

The first few kids got autographs.

Then it got to be OOC.

Sorry, no more today. Thank you! Gotta go.

Zai Jian!

The students’ excitement to meet us made us consider how in the US, students and most adults don’t react with such excitement when they meet or see a foreigner.  Perhaps it is due to the exposure many of us already have to different cultures in the US, or perhaps it is because subconsciously we don’t feel as much of an incentive to reach out and expend energy.  What do you think?

After we dried out from the adventure on Huang Shan, Mike and I decided to take a bus back to Wuhan and then a train back to Xiaogan.  The bus left at about 9 a.m., and with one transfer, took until about 6 p.m. to reach the station in Wuhan.

The bus trip was more adventurous than we expected.  We took back roads that bounced passengers up and down like popcorn in a kettle. At one small town, the bus stopped and took on a woman with a baby. To our surprise when the bus rounded the curve a car was blocking the road, forcing us to stop. A couple of people got on and started fighting with the woman with the baby, trying to get her off the bus. After a few minutes, more people came on the bus. The entire scene continued for another 20 minutes, until finally the police came and got everyone off the bus.  And of course, as always in China there was a bathroom story. But we’ll have to tell you that one in person.  Haha!

Once we arrived in Wuhan, we had to rush over to the train station and get a ticket.  At that late hour, there were only standing room tickets available, so we had to stand for the hour and a half train ride back to Xiaogan station.  We played cell phone games and talked to other passengers to pass the time.  We split a taxi with a newly made friend and celebrated being home with Tian and her family!  We could finally relax…or could we?

If you have seen the movie Avatar, you have a sense of the beauty of Huang Shan (“Yellow Mountain”).  The film’s “Hallelujah Mountains” were inspired by the legendary Chinese mountain range.  Mike and I set aside two days for a visit to the mountains and take in their breathtaking views.

Unfortunately, the weather didn’t cooperate.  We learned that June is the rainy season in Huangshan, which meant the breathtaking views were hidden behind clouds, and the weather was cold and damp.  Mike and I decided to brave the mountain anyway, just because that is what we came to do, and it was definitely a trial.

This is a nice-weather view from "Beginning To Believe" peak (picture not mine, obviously).

The view from the top with two Canadian travel companions we met that morning. Are we in the same place?

One of the rules on the mountain was not to pick the flowers. Mike laughed because these were a ways off the side.

The famous "Yellow Army" of rainy Huangshan.

Two new members of the Yellow Army.

In the morning, the weather was mostly just a light mist, and we thought there was a chance it might lift as the day went on.  But we were wrong.  The rain picked up as the day progressed, leaving us more and more wet and cold.  It also got very windy on some steep exposed parts of the mountain.

"100 Steps Ladder" was very steep and windy. It was quite a climb. The picture doesn't do it justice.

These signs were everywhere. After a few hours on top, we finally took their advice.

When we got to the cable car line, we were excited.  But we soon learned the weather was such that the cable car wasn’t running. That left hundreds of people waiting in line in hypothermia-like conditions with no where to go and no plan.  It was a miserable hour-long wait until they started the cable car again.  But people huddled together under umbrellas and tried to stay positive.  Two bus rides and a few hours later, we were relieved to get back to our hotel room and take hot showers.  Our clothes were wet for two days.

We definitely want to go back again to see views like these.

On a rainy day, Mike and I decided to take in the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum.  The weather was definitely fitting for the occasion and topic.

A street level view of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Museum.

During most of the 1930′s, the Japanese had occupied Manchuria. In 1937, they invaded southern China as well.  The major target was Nanjing, which was at that time the capital city.  When the Japanese took over the city, they slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people and committed terrible war crimes including systematic rape.  It was truly a dark time of human history.

A series of statues artistically presented the suffering of the victims.

The museum did a nice job overall of telling the story and creating a setting that presented the history in a respectful and solemn way.  The design used dark gray and black colors, with rough or course materials that created a stark landscape inside the park. At the entrance was a series of striking statues depicting the victims’ fear and suffering.

The only real criticism we had of the exhibits was the extreme and always pro-Chinese slant of the descriptions.  At all moments, the Chinese were “heroic” and the Japanese “barbarians” or “devils.” While these characterizations were not altogether false, the museum could have done a better job of keeping the language more formal, while allowing visitors to draw their own moral conclusions from the facts presented.

When we arrived in Nanjing, we had no idea where we were going to stay.  So we picked a random hostel out of the Lonely Planet and asked a taxi driver to take us there.  It ended up being a great location and an acceptable price.

The hostel overlooked the canal and was one block from the busy pedestrian street.

It was a ton of fun introducing Mike to the world of youth hostels. Our room was a dorm with 7 bunks and room for 5 other guests, which were always rotating night to night.  We got to meet a bunch of people from all walks of life, some very normal and others a bit off.  Some were foreigners, others were Chinese tourists or young people there for business.  Most people were talkative and interested in speaking with us.

Our dorm room.

The first floor of the hostel had a lobby where we often socialized after dinner.  Mike was a hit and did really well in these random social situations.  Some of the best stories from the trip in Nanjing came from the hostel itself.

A picture of the lobby on the first floor, which was the place to hang out at night.

A couple of the guests made pizza and offered some to Mike. Mike chatted with this young woman for about an hour. I think he gets it from his brothers.

The southern section of Nanjing, where we stayed, has a series of neat canals that all converge upon a crowded pedestrian street. Each night we took a walk through the brightly lit streets.  Once we splurged and took a boat tour of the canals.

The tour boat docks were at the center of the pedestrian district.

The boat tour was about an hour long, and it took us through a number of lighted scenes on the side of the river.  It felt a lot like the drive through the Minnesota Zoo or Lake Phalen during Christmas, but with a Chinese theme of course.  We started at dusk, and ended in full night.

On the canal.

Darkness is falling.

One of the light displays.

The only issues we had with the boat tour was that it was a covered boat with windows, which made it actually hot inside the boat.  Also the way the seats were arranged made it difficult to see well comfortably.

Nanjing was the capital city of China during part of the Ming Dynasty. The old imperial palace there was since razed, but the ruins are still part of a public park and accessible for free.  So we decided to take a walk there.

The Forbidden City in Beijing copies the 5-bridge design of the old Ming palace in Nanjing.

On top of the only remaining gate wall, the columns were long gone. But their bases made for interesting statue stands.

The park was surprisingly busy with locals. We played magic with a few of them while a saxophonist played behind us.

A large part of Nanjing’s ancient city walls also still survive, and parts have been repaired so tourist can walk on them.  These walls are famous for the role they played in trapping the citizens inside the city during the Japanese invasion of 1937.

On the city walls.

Each of the old bricks on the wall had to be stamped with the name of the builder. In case it broke, they needed to replace it

As is customary in China, Wang Jing accompanied us to the train station to catch our train to Nanjing.  But once we waved goodbye, we were completely on our own for the next week.  I was confident I could handle all of our normal communication needs, but if something strange happened (i.e. a medical emergency), it would have been a big challenge linguistically.

Wuhan's new Hankou train station looked really different from the last time I saw it a year ago.

Once we were on the train, I started officially working with Mike on Chinese.  I also started teaching Mike a few magic tricks.  During my time in China, I found that basic card tricks really were great ice breakers in multi-lingual, cross-cultural circumstances.  Often for fun at the end of a class, I would teach my students how to perform a magic trick in English, and they were always a hit.

Mike was a quick learner, and without hesitation he started using them as a way to interact with the other passengers.   He would perform the trick, they would try to figure it out, and then they would teach him or us another card game that they knew.  It made the seven hour train ride fly by.  Magic became a fun thing we did throughout the trip with our various travel companions.

Want to make a friend but don't speak the same language? A little magic does the trick.

Mike was a social hit throughout the trip.  Many people were impressed that such a young foreigner would be traveling independently in China, and they were even more impressed when he was social.  I was really proud of how he took advantage of the opportunity to meet and talk with all types of people.

After staying only one night in Xiaogan, we split into two groups for the next week.  Tian and her parents decided to travel together as a family to Guangzhou, where Tian needed to pick up her visa. Meanwhile Mike and I took the opportunity to break out on our own and have some adventures without the security of a native speaker.

Mike's first bus trip of many!

Mike and I first took a bus from Xiaogan to Wuhan, where the next day we would catch at train to Nanjing.  When we got to Wuhan we met up with Tian’s best friend Wang Jing, who offered us a place to stay for the night.  Wang Jing also speaks English, so we had some fun conversations as we walked the neighborhood, cooked dinner, and played cards.

On the city bus with Wang Jing. We made Mike ask another rider for the picture.

Wang Jing's condo building. There are over 20 of these buildings in her development alone.