Jade Monkey Rides "The Great American Teacher Bus"

After the first week, Wuhan University realized that the teachers were getting way too tired walking back and forth four times a day in the blistering heat and humidity. So these days we have a bus to drive us in the morning, and to and from lunch. We walk back at the end of the day, which is fine. The funny thing is that the bus driver lays on the horn 20 times in the short 3-4 minute drive to get people out of his way. One of the teachers counted 36 honks one morning! So it's pretty obvious from far off that "The Great American Teacher Bus" is coming!

Some comments about my students: Their favorite movies seem to include Forrest Gump, Gone With The Wind, Titanic, and Lord of the Rings. They've all heard of Singin' In The Rain, too! The Chinese hate the movie "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and especially despise Zhang Zi Yi, the young woman from that movie. Her acting is deemed over the top and not realistic! Most of the students don't like the fact that Americans only see kung fu movies and don't see other Chinese cinema. I've had a few recommendations from students on Chinese movies to see. There have been a few students extremely interested in film, which is fun to experience as a film teacher.

In the morning, I ask them to make me a list of stereotypes they have about Americans from Hollywood movies. Every day I get the same set of answers (among others): rich, violent, optimistic, heroic, romantic, easy-going, humorous, independent, naughty kids.

Today I did something new. I abandoned the "model speech" that the teacher's supposed to do, in favor of a more Communicative methodology. I had the students discuss the four values of Americans that are in my speech transcript (Individualism, Success, Sense of History as a Tapestry, and Place of the Family), and in each case they came up with every point that was in my speech! I gave them the transcript afterwards and praised them for being such good critical thinkers. I was very pleased. Even though we're supposed to be "modeling" the speeches for them, I'm abandoning that idea because it's just not good teaching. It basically ends up being a lecture and they are SO bored. From now on they'll be doing small gruop activities that will produce their own ideas on the topics, and I'll fill in where necessary. These kids are SO smart, they certainly don't need to be lectured. I give them ample Q&A sessions and they have excellent questions to ask. Their own speech-making activities in class provide plenty of opportunity for them to learn and practice public speaking.

Well it's time for dinner. I've joined an ad hoc Tae Kwon Do club comprising four Chinese students, me, and the teacher (Frank, the teacher). I am definitely out of shape, judging from my sore legs after the first class Sunday night! Wish me luck. I'm headed there after dinner.

Until next time, the Jade Monkey must browse and graze now.

Sent Tue, 27 Jul 2004 11:11:44 +0100 (BST)

Jade Monkey Wards Off Sun

Weekend 3 in Wuhan:

Friday night I went to Pizza Hut!! A couple teachers and one of the students went and enjoyed some western food. Bethany and I split a Hawaiian pizza (which I never have at home 'cause Don doesn't care for it. Funny, I have to come to China to have Hawaiian pizza!). From there we went to an American coffee shop where a lot of language learners hang out. A friendly Chinese woman came up to me while I was hanging out there and started a conversation. We (the teachers) were just getting ready to leave, so we (the Chinese woman and I) traded email addresses and she gave me her cel #. I think she's a bit of a "regular" there since a lot of Chinese English learners seem to hang out along with the foreign teachers. Anyway, her English name is Azalea.

The English names people choose here are often quite strange. Some are like Rain, Sun, Spring, July. Others are truly bizarre, like Lost. Thankfully one of the teachers re-named "Lost." I had one girl who named herself Harry Potter!! Others are names that I think they just pick because they sound cool or pretty. In my homeroom I have a "Fairy" and and "Elven" (both are girls). Elven asked me what her name meant.

Yesterday we started the day off around 1:00 going to a Buddhist temple. It was a curiosity for most of the other teachers, but for me it really meant something, being Buddhist. Still, it was weird, because I felt like the temple was more a tourist attraction than a holy place. THere were monks there, it was an active temple, but the energy was very different from Korean temples. People were vary chatty and loud despite the signs with symbols for "shhh!"

Anyway, we were only there an hour, and it wasn't enough time for me. I spent about 15 mins. sitting in the shade with a monk. Just sitting there soaking up the place. I didn't even see all of the actual parts of the temple. I did see one of the "main attractions" though: The Hall of 500 Arhats.

Arhats are sort of akin to saints. In this hall there are 500 gilded statues of these guys and every one of them looks different. In fact some of them were pretty freaky looking. One had these huge white eyebrowns that came down to his knees and he was holding them, one in each hand. Another guy was fighting a dragon and it looked like he was laughing about it. the weirdest one was holding open a hole in his chest, from which was emerging a tiny Buddha.

There's a cool tradition our tour lady told us about, in which you count off Arhats, one for each year of your age, to find your lucky Arhat. I found mine, thankfully he was pretty normal looking. He had a short beard and looked pretty intellectual, actually. Some of them were almost skeletal looking, but this guy looked well fed.

I bought some incense from a vendor outside the temple. Paid 2 yuan (.25 maybe) but I don't know if it's good or not. I gotta try one stick and if it's good I'll donate the bunch to KTC (the Buddhist meditation center I attend in Columbus).

The other problem with going to the temple, other than not having enough time, was the intense heat. Wuhan is known as one of the "3 furnaces" of China, and it's a reputation well deserved. I was pretty beat after just that one hour, and I have been using of the pastel-colored umbrellas for sun and rain to ward off the sun.

But we weren't finished with our day! Next stop was the riverfront area of the Yangze river, which flows through Wuhan. One of the widest rivers of the world, apparently. The waterfront was nice but was totally flooded from all the rain in other parts of China.

My first impression was shock, recognizing a premonition. I had dreamed months ago about a sloping concrete wall that went into the water, and it was in China. That's exactly what it looked like with the water over the banks. Anyway, I officially stuck my big toe into the Yangze River! That's all any of us were comfortable submerging.

I walked a little way down the riverfront, seeking shade. I managed to find a place to sit and was busy mopping my forhead with a tissue when a begger came up to me and held out his hand. I tried to wave him off and use a combination of English and very rudimentary Mandarin, but he just stood there like a statue with his hand held out. This went on for about 5 minutes. I noticed he had a plastic bag with bottles and cans. Often beggers will follow you if you have a bottle of water or juice, to get the bottle when you're done (for recycling money, apparently). I had some water so I sort chugged it and offered the bottle. He nodded "NO" and pushed his handback in my face! So I had to get up and walk away and hope he didn't follow me. (he didn't)

Of course, it was annoying, and in truth I had no pocket change to give him. I would have, but all I had was a 100 yuan bill (about $12.50 - a lot of money here). I said a prayer for him, but that wasn't what he was looking for I think. He kept motioning to his mouth, like "food". I realize that in the States I'm not rich. I'm a grad student with lots of loans and a tiny apartment. But here I was, a foreigner sitting there with a diamond ring on my finger, and a piece of $80 jade around my neck. Compared to most Chinese, I AM rich. It's good to get some perspective.

Beggars here are very VERY insistant and will really bug you, follow you. They assume that you're a tourist with tons of money. Even though we were brought here and our tickets paid for, as I just said, compared to them we do have a ton of money.

Anyway, after that I headed back to where the bus was parked, totally overheated. Thankfully there was a little store with cold drinks and ice cream and some tables with shade. A bunch of our group was already there, and I was at least able to cool down with a popsicle ( a sort of frozen jelly type thing that didn't melt in the heat) and some water.

From there, mercifully, we went on to dinner. We went to a restaurant where we could at least order our own food. When we were in Beijing on the tour bus, they made arrangements with the restaurants we ate in, and every time it was the SAME food. So yesterday we had some variety and some spicy stuff. The Chinese think Americans don't like spice, so they always try to caution us against spicy food. But actually even the spicy stuff isn't as spicy as Korean food, anyway.

One of the dishes was a local variety of fresh water fish, in a scallion sauce that I swear had curry in it. Totally delicious. There were also these tofu dumplings that could easily have passed as meatballs if they'd been in tomato sauce. They had the right texture and everything. The sauce they were in was quite good, though. We ordered asparagus but it never showed up on the table and we found out that in fact they didn't have it. So we never had a substitute vegetable. It was mostly a protein and carbs dinner.

AFter dinner we returned to the hotel, and I was SO exhausted that I just stayed in my room when everyone went back out in the evening. I fell asleep watching Chinese TV around 10:00.

Speaking of Chinese TV - here's a grand case of "6 degrees of separation" only in this case it's only two degrees (or is it one?). One of the teachers (the Chinese American I mentioned earlier) went to theatre school in Beijing. One of his classmates was none other than Zhang Zi Yi, the young girl from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon! Apparently, some of his former classmates are in Chinese TV dramas these days, too.

Today I woke up pretty early, had breakfast and a bunch of us had coffee in one of the teacher's rooms. We decided to go shopping and then have lunch. We went to the Carrefour, which is a French chain of stores in Asia (there are some in Korea as well). Today it wasn't as busy as the last time I went. Plus I knew where I was going and didn't feel so bewildered. From there we went to a Japanese cafe for lunch - the coffee was excellent, if expensive.

And now here I am in the staff room, thinking I will probably go out later in the evening when it cools down. We worked out a deal with the hotel here so that we are on our own for meals on the weekends. It's better so that we have the chance to go off campus.

Apparently some folks found another Korean restaurant that is close to campus, and they have soju there, so I'm hoping to hit that place next weekend for korean food and drink!

Heading into week 3 of teaching, I have a better idea of what I'm doing as far as organizing the time, but I'm still not happy with my listening activiity. It's too tough for them and I never seem to have enough time to debrief it as much as they need. I will rethink that later tonight, I guess.

Missing you all, as usual. Feel free to leave comments. Although I cannot check my blog page directly, Don is posting these entries and he's copying and pasting the comments, so I am getting them, even if I can't respond to them all.

Until next time!

Sent Sun, 25 Jul 2004 09:47:49 +0100 (BST)

Jade Monkey Tap Dances

I mean this both figuratively and literally, by the way.

A few nights ago our program leader on the American side, Minru Li, brought his family in for a few nights. His 70 year old cousin is, among other things, a tap dancer and accordian player! He demonstrated his tap dancing in the lobby of our hotel, and invited us to join him. I was wearing sandals, not exactly good for tapping, but I was lucky to keep up with the 70 year old guy! One of the other teachers made sure to get a shot of me up there.

Figuratively, I've had to tapdance around the queries of my students about religion and individualism. I've become fairly good at the political "non answer". Actaually it isn't a non-answer so much as a carefully worded answer. Each class has a class monitor, who is a Communist Party Member. I'm not sure what kind of notes he or she might be taking, and in general we've been asked to keep things away from sensitive topics, which is fine by me.

We're heading into week two, and I'm still trying to tweak my lesson plan so that all the material is covered and the students have enough opportunity to speak. I don't know how many of you know the crazy schedule this program has adopted (to the disgruntlement of the American teachers). There are 20 teachers and over 400 students. The students rotate through the teachers, so that each teacher only sees one group of students ONCE in the entire program. We do have a sort of "homeroom" which we will see each Friday, but otherwise its "assembly line English." Not only that, but most of what we're teaching is actually public speaking so that the kids can win these all-important speech contests. Sorta like teaching to the test. So, not the best pedagogy but we're all doing our best.

Tonight I finally satisfied my craving for Korean food. Four of us went out for dinner around 7:30 and we found an excellent Korean restaurant inside a 4-star hotel. The food wasn't too expensive, though. And it was goooooood! I had Kimchi Chigae, a sort of ultra-spicy soup with kimchi of course.

After a busy weekend, I need to be getting to bed in a few minutes, so I'll end this for now. Here's hoping all of you are enjoying summer!

Sent on Sun, 18 Jul 2004 14:51:28 +0100 (BST) -- though what BST is, I have no idea.

Jade Monkey Climbs Yellow Crane Tower

It sounds like a T'ai Chi move, but actually this is an apt way of describing my afternoon.

Today we had a chance to tour some of the historical and cultural sites of Wuhan. Our first stop was the site of the first revolutionary coup in 1911, when the imperial system in China was overrun by the republic. Sun Yat Sen is a hero here, since he was the man largely responsible for leading the movement that ended the Qing Dynasty. The site of this first revolutionary act was the Hubei province governor's mansion, and it was a bloodless coup (at least in that particular place). We got to see the flag of the Chinese Republic, which was very cool. The flag includes 9 stars which represent the 9 provinces of China.

After that we went to the Yellow Crane Tower, allegedly (according to the pamphlet) the "oldest tower in the world." In fact it is five stories tall and was built in 223 A.D. It offers a panoramic view of Wuhan, including the Yangzte River and the East Lake. Yes, I was the first one to climb the stairs to the very top!!

On the grounds of the tower are also a very beautiful-sounding bell (which tourists can pay 10 RMB - less than $1.50 - to ring with a large battering ram-thingie) and a gorgeous pond with sculptures, swans and of course a bust of Chairman Mao.

Which reminds me - last night I was hanging out with a couple of the teachers (Pat and Elana - her name is pronounced "Ee-lan-ah") and we were drinking tea and eating these snack crackers which tasted awfully familiar. I finally identified the flavor - they tasted just like original Captain Crunch cereal! So Pat dubbed them "Chairman Crunch" crackers.

Anyway, the Yellow Crane Tower was gorgeous inside and out. It IS in fact yellow - at least the roof tiles are. Our tour guide Duan, back in Beijing, had told us about the differences between northern Chinese and southern Chinese architecture - the roofs in Northern China are more sloping, while the roofs in Southern China have more of a curl to the end. The Yellow Crane Tower had very curly ends to the roof corners, and they were all shaped like animals like lions and fish.

I'm sure you've all seen the lion statues in front of Chinese restaurants and the like. Well here's a tip: one is female, one is male. You can tell them apart because the female has a little cub under her paw, and the male has a ball under his. At the moment I can't remember what the ball symbolizes, but the cub stands for fertility.

The Chinese have traditional animals that represent certain positive qualities: turtle is longevity, lion is power, etc. I'm not sure about the monkey. I'm guessing maybe... silliness?? Ha!

After the Yellow Crane Tower we ate lunch, and then went to a museum housing relics from an ancient tomb. What is most interesting is that one of the relics was this enormous set of tuned bells, which were on display. Even more impressive, a reproduction was used in a performance of traditional Chinese music, with the musicians in costume from that era (can't remember which, but it's older than the Manchu era). Other instruments were included, including a drum, various pipes and flutes, a zither and lute. The music was stirring, and one piece had a dancer performing a very graceful traditional style dance. The very last piece they performed, however, was an abridged version of "Ode to Joy." Incredible!

From the museum we went on the the East Lake, which is huge and surrounded by all manner of water entertainment. A few of us went on a boat ride to cool off and just relax. It was superb, though a little scary getting on those skinny boats!

Presently it's about 7:25 here. A few of us are going out on the town tonight, gonna try to find a Korean restaurant!! It's kinda funny - we have a couple Asian americans with us, and one of them is Korean ( a naturalized U.S. citizen), and the other was born and raised in Korea before coming to the U.S. with his Chinese parents. So I'm in good company!

The first week of teaching finished on a good note, though I was video taped yesterday. This isn't to keep an eye on the teachers, but to keep archived materials for their English teacher training program. Chinese teachers of English are also observing our classes as well. There's been a little tension regarding the style of teaching and the ridiculous schedule the university is insisting upon, but overall most of us are going with the flow and just doing our best. The students are mostly engaged and persistent, but it's overwhelming to have a new group of 23-24 kids each and every day! Thank fully we have a sort of "homeroom" group that we will see every Friday, so at least there will be some consistency.

Actually today I finally felt like I really am in China. The first wave of culture shock has worn off, and I'm feeling a little more comfortable with China on its own terms, rather than comparing to Korea all the time. It was a marvelous day, altogether. Thanks to everyone who is supporting this great adventure!

Anyway, I need to grab a cat nap before heading out with the gang. As always I think of you guys at home very often. Take care and be good.

peace.

Sent by Elena Sat, 17 Jul 2004 04:40:36 -0700 (PDT)

She also sent this little bit in her email... I thought I'd include it for fun:

P.S. Don - I found out yesterday that a science fiction nerd looks and sounds the same the world over. this guy came up to me after class and wanted to talk about sci fi movies. I could easily picture him hanging around the comic shop outside the Donkey, or even at teh Athens Book Center. Hee. Funny how certain things are universal.

Making Life Just a Bit Easier

I messed around with the comment setting. Now, no one has to start up a Blogger account just to leave some kind words (which they'd better be if you don't want me finding you :)). Feel free to leave your name, email, web address, etc.. SSNs, credit card #'s, or bank account information is optional.

First Teaching Day

She sent this: Tue, 13 Jul 2004 03:22:55 -0700 (PDT). She also didn't title this post, so I will.
-D.

Nihao! It's great to be back online, thanks to Don for helping me out with the blog situation.

So - we survived the first day of introductions to the students yesterday, and today, which was the first day of formal classes, was less than smooth, but we all
managed. Everyone brought handouts and things to be copied for the students, and we were told that they would be copied and ready for us this morning. Can you guess what happened? Yeah, exactly. We had to go into our morning sessions without any materials!! Some of us managed to print off stuff if it was on disk, but most of the stuff wasn't from an electronic source so there was nothing for it but to just go with "Plan B." Which is to say, winging it!

But all's well that ends well, and my first day of teaching is mostly a success here. The students are very interested in American culture. It's interesting - some of them are very defensive of Chinese values and ways, while others seem ready to make the leap into individualism and defining success for themselves, American-style. Some are very outspoken (extremely so, in fact) about the need for more
western ideas in Chinese society. But some are very happy with the way things are. This is such a fascinating culture to begin with, and now it's faced with globalization, and some of the young people want to be at the head of the pack.

Life in the hotel has been mostly good, with a few annoyances. The Chinese staff are very attentive - too attentive in fact. They come in every evening and close the drapes, turn on the lights, and turn on the bug repellent thingie. I've asked them to not turn it on for me. The smell is too strong for my sensitive nose, so I only turn it on when I have the window open. But they are very nice, the staff, and have
attended to most of our peculiar American needs, including food with less sauces and more steamed veggies! :D

Speaking of food, it's time for dinner. I'll keep posting as I can, so check back later for the next installment of The Adventures of the Jade Monkey!

Up and Running

This isn't Elena just now, but her pining fiance Don. I spoke to her on the phone just last night and we spent a few seconds talking about this whole blog thing. She decided that it would be easy and less of a headache for her to simply email me her intended posts for me to post here. Yes, I know she could configure things to email her posts, but she's got a free Yahoo! account that adds that tagline thing at the end, and by the time I explained to her in a sentence as long as this one that I could then go ahead and edit the tagline off of those posts, she decided, "Screw that. Just cut and paste." She's got stuff to do after all.

And now, the posts...

The Jade Monkey in Beijing

It is Saturday, 7/10 at 9:45 a.m. That means it's around 9:45 p.m. on Friday, EST. At the moment I'm in our staff room at the hotel, which includes desks and computers for our group's use. Very convenient, and free, too!

Okay, so you wanna know about Bejing? After many hours on various airplanes, we (the teachers in this program numbering 20, plus our fearless leader Minru Li) arrived in Beijing. We were greated by a tourbus and tourguide, Duan. Duan was our guide for the entire stay in Beijing, and he was absolutely wonderful. His English was perfect and he had a great sense of humor. So on Wednesday night, when we arrived, we went to dinner and then to our hotel. The dinner was typical northern Chinese cuisine - kinda greasy but with many dishes sort of familiar from our Chinese restaurants back home. Dinners are served around a large round table with a huge lazy susan thingie for all the food. Only one glass of beverage is served with the meal, after that you have to pay extra. And the glasses are quite small, same as they are in Korea.

I'll take a moment here to say that I can't help comparing things with Korea, at least for the first few days. I've found many similarities but also some differences. More on that later...

AFter dinner we went to our hotel - a very traditional Chinese home of a noble family that was renovated and turned into a hotel. Absolutely incredible! I wish I had a digital camera so I could load pictures here, but you guys will just have to wait for the pictures when I get home! We shared our rooms, 2 up, and my roomie was Bethany, a very cute young woman (the youngest in our group at 22 years old) who goes to Minnesota State. Our room was small but very quaint. Meals were served in a dining area which was attached to a lovely courtyard with tables set up. The mornings were cool and clear in Beijing, though the sun was extremely hot in the afternoons.

Our first full day in China, we went to the Great Wall. On the way we stopped at a jade factory and learned all about how to tell good jade from less quality jade, and real from fake. I decided to treat myself to one large purchase - I bought a beautiful jade pendant of my Chinese zodiac animal. Can you guess? Yes, the monkey!

After the jade factory, we continued into the mountains of Inner Mongolia to see the Great Wall. Words cannot express... it was incredible (that's a word I'll be using a lot, I predict! I better find some synonyms!). It's not just "going" to the Great Wall. You have to CLIMB the Wall because it's full of steps and inclines/declines. The stones are all very worn, as you might imagine. The view is breathtaking - it was obvious that we were at a higher altitude, climbing up the wall! I wondered how soldiers of ancient times managed to move up and down that thing with armor on and shoes that didn't have treads (especially in the rain).

It was very crowded (but that goes without saying - this is China, after all!). Lots of tourists there, of course, and around the bottom of where you climb up to the Wall there were tons of merchants hocking their wares...

Y'know that stereotype of Chinese peddlers coming up to you and waving postcards/trinkets/books and shouting "$2 dollar!" Well, it's true. It's impossible to go to any touristy area without getting accosted by these people. I learned a very important phrase very fast: "Bu yao!" No thanks!!

I had my first (and hopefully last) experience getting ripped off by one of the stands selling postcards and other tourist junk. I did barter with the woman, but I realized later that I was bartering in the wrong price range! Thankfully I was only cheated out of 2 bucks, and I learned my lesson well. Better to get cheated and learn with post cards than with something expensive!! I figured, well it's part of the experience. Have to get cheated once or it's not a real trip to China! :D

I'm trying to get a handle on the money here. The Chinese monetary unit is the Yuan, and roughly 8 Yuan equal 1 US$. So everytime I try to price something I have to divide by 8 to get a sense of how much I'm actually spending. I paid a little over $5 for 20 postcards!!

The key to success here is keeping a positive attitude. I have to say that even with 20 people, we are an amazingly optimistic group, and everyone looks out for everyone else. Surprisingly, no cliques have formed. It's wonderful to have such a family-like group to be with!

AFter the Great Wall we had lunch (same type of food as night before) and then in the afternoon we went to the Ming tombs. That was sort of anticlimactic, because it poured while we were walking through the grounds to the actual tombs, and by the time we actually went down (and down and down) the stairs to the underground tombs, there wasn't much to see considering how long it had taken us to get down there (and the effort, as well). Anyway, there were a couple Ming vases (I have a picture of me standing in front of one - the caption will be "This is me NOT breaking the Ming vase." and the thrones of the Emperor and his Empress, and the other Empress who was the mother of the next Emperor (a concubine who gave birth to the lucky son). THere were reproductions of the big red coffins, totally plain and without any ornamentation. And that was it!

From there we drove to dinner (Sechuan food, just a little different from what we'd already eaten), and then to the hotel. AFter a shower a little rest, a few of us went out to "Beer street" in Beijing, which consists of beer cafes with outdoor tables. Walking down the street all of the serving guys tried to get us to sit at their place. We had a couple beers at two different places and then headed home around midnight.

Yesterday started early again with a wake up call at 6:30. So far the time change hasn't been difficult for me, as I expected based on my time in Korea. I do expect to have a harder time coming home, as before. Anyway, after breakfast (and coffee!!) we were on our tour bus at 8:20 and Duan brought us to Tienanman Square (sorry for the spelling, I don't have any reference at hand) and the FOrbidden City. One word to use here - huge. The Square is enormous, surrounded by the Parliament building, Mao's mauseleum, and a museum of ancient and modern history. Naturally everyone got their picture taken standing in front of Mao's portrait that hangs over the gate to the Forbidden City. That was incredible - the feeling of walking under his portrait to enter teh City gates. Duan told us that Mao actually never entered the Forbidden City because he thought it would be bad luck - in keeping with the tradition of Dynasties that always lived in different areas of the City than Emperors before them, to avoid bad luck. He may have been an atheist, but he was still Chinese, with Chinese superstition!

The Forbidden City is unbelievabley huge - SO much walking. There are over 9000 buildings in the City, only a few are open to the public, and we only saw maybe 5 or 6 places within the City walls, including the bedroom residence of the last Emperor and the gardens. According to our guide, the move "The Last Emperor," which was shot in the Forbidden City, was the last production allowed inside, due to the fact that they destroyed a lot of stuff inside. He also said there were some things in that movie that weren't accurate - such as the fact that Pu Yi was not around during the Cultural Revolution. He died before all that happened, actually.

One of the buildings we did visit was the Emperor's throne room. The actual throne is a reproduction, but that didn't stop a throng of people from trying to get a glimpse and take pictures. Honestly, it was like a mosh pit at a concert. I kept wondering to myself, "These people are Communists, why do they care so much about a reproduction of the Emperor's throne?"

After a hot day of walking in the Forbidden City, we had lunch at a wonderful buffet that actually had salad, much to the delight of us all. Next to the lunch place was a pearl factory. Here we learned about how pearls are made, and how to tell the quality of pearls, and real from fake (Yes, you do rub them on your teeth! Smooth means fake, rough means real). Then of course they tried to sell us lots of jewelry, and many of us bought earings, rings, necklaces, etc. I may have possibly bought a lil' somethin' somethin' to wear on my wedding day. :) The prices were extremely low and I was able to barter quite well for what I got (I spent around US$19). That made up for the postcard debacle, and I felt vindicated!

The pearl and lunch place was quite near the Summer Palace, our next stop. Everyone agreed this was our favorite place, by far! The Summer Palace was originally the palace for the emperors before they decided to build the Forbidden City, and then it became the summer residence of the royal family. I'll take a moment here to explain some history. "Beijing" means northern capital, and "Nanjing" means southern capital. When China was first united under one Emperor the capital was at Nanjing, but after there were continuing wars with the Mongolians, they moved the capital to Beijing as a military center. Unfortunately, we won't be going to Nanjing on this trip. Maybe next time!

Back to the Summer Palace - the most exquisite thing is the giant human-made lake that is the center of the Palace grounds. Buildings all around the lake are connected by beautifully decorated open corridors, and bridges. We walked through some of the buildings, through one of the corridors, saw the famous marble boat, and took a ferry ride across the lake. It was breezy and beautiful after a hot day in the sun. We had one bad incident - one of our group somehow got separated and lost. Eventually Duan found her, a few hours later, at the police station nearby (I think - I haven't totally got that whole story yet). All's well that ends well, and by 8:00 we were all at the train station ready to catch our first class sleeper train to Wuhan.

The train ride was very cool - I'd never ridden on a train that wasn't city transportation. The births were 4-up and I had a top bunk. It was pleasant but cramped. We arrived in Wuhan at 7 a.m. and went right to the campus. Our hotel is on campus and is extremely well appointed. They are really treating us like gold, I must say! Later today they'll take us shopping (we have fridges in our rooms, as well as hot pots for boiling water, and thermoses). We have a formal dinner with the University President tongiht, and tomorrow we'll have a tour of campus and get to see our classrooms. Monday we have an orientation (though no one knows what exactly that means!) and classes begin on Tuesday.

I am tired but feeling well at this point. I've been here in this room about an hour, so it's time to get a shower and take a nap before going shopping.

Thank you all for your thoughts, prayers and kind emails to welcome me to China! I'll try to update this blog daily, or at least every other day, but in case I don't it's just cause I'm overwhelmed!!

Until next time,

JM (Jade Monkey)