This week-end has been a lot of firsts for me here in Hengyang. I had a teacher friend visit from Changsha, and it gave me an excuse to visit places in the city I had never been to before. Some of the places we visited were a beautiful park, a Korean restaurant, and an island. We had an enjoyable time.

The island we visited was quite interesting. At one time, there was a famous Chinese caligrapher who had a school on this island. There is also a buddhist temple there. Other than that, there are mostly just farmers and local people who run the temple. While we were there, we saw two women monk. It was a little sad for me to see that people truly believe that by burning incense at the temple, they can have their wish come true.

Some of the recent pictures I took were also from my trip to Wuhan last week-end. Wuhan is a large, modern city. We met other foreign, women teachers there for a women's retreat. It was pretty great to eat pizza, Dairy Queen, and Starbucks. Toward the end though, I was happy to return to our slower-paced city.

Check out the new album on my blog: http://picasaweb.google.com/chinatripchinatripchinatrip

Motorbike Taxi

One of the more popular and cost efficient ways to travel in our city is by motorbike taxi. That's right, you heard correctly. Although these motorbikes are outlawed in some other cities, they are popular in our small city. It is quite exhilirating to ride on one of these for multiple reasons.

In case you don't recognize me, I am the one in the middle..the safest spot. My team-mate is on the back, and our friendly taxi driver is at the handle-bars. Each Thursday, me and my team-mate take this motor taxi to visit a welfare center outside our city. (We are only able to get to the center by using motortaxis as no taxis can handle the little roads that lead to the center.) At this center, we help play with the kids or toddlers. Usually I feel like they help me more than I could possibly help them.

A Powerful Visit

On Thursday of this past week, I had a chance to visit a welfare center in Hengyang for abandoned and disabled children. I was a little weary about the visit. I had this idea in my head that I didn’t like children, and they didn’t like me. Well that all changed after my visit to the welfare center where I was warmly welcomed. This center has at least 100 children in its care. I heard about the center through our foreign friends who volunteer there. I have so much respect for these friends (most are from Australia.) They have so much love for the kids that they work with every day.

Since it was my first time to visit, I got a tour of the facilities. It greatly amazed me how many babies there were at the center. I was expecting maybe one or two baby rooms with 3 babies in each room. But there were 4 baby rooms with at least 9 babies in each room. Can you imagine? And each baby was precious; I can’t explain it any other way. I got to play with a little toddler who had a cleft lip. When he first saw me, he pouted and cried, but after entertaining him for awhile, he was no longer scared, and I think he even smiled at me J.

In the girls section of the welfare center, one of the older girls ran to meet us and grabbed my hand to pull me to play with them. Another girl insisted I sit down in her chair. One girl immediately began playing with my hair and putting it into a pony-tail on the top of my head. Another one plopped down on my lap—she was about the same size as me.

Then we visited the last baby room, and it happened to be feeding time. Each of the workers was feeding a baby, so we also got to help feed the ones that hadn’t eaten yet. I got to serve some rice and vegetable to a mild mannered little girl. She was a good match for me. . . so subdued. . . such big eyes. . . she also seemed to be concerned about keeping herself clean. When some rice fell on her clothes, she pointed it out to me and seemed to request with her eyes that I clean it up. This happened a couple of times. (I am not so good at feeding little ones yet.)

I will continue to make weekly visits to the welfare-center during my free day to “help-out” with the children. Although in actuality, the children are helping me out in deeper ways than I know how to express here. If you want to learn more, you can check out the welfare center: http://english.chinaconcern.org/about

musical surprise

This week-end is a festival in my hometown called Schmeckfest. . a German-tasting festival. Most of the people who have moved away from our community will come back every year for one of these 2 week-ends to eat a delicious meal of sour-kraut, cheese buttons, kuchen, home-made noodle soup, and cabbage (to name a few) and watch a musical performed by talented individuals in our community. I miss being able to attend this event, and my reality here, as of late, has been more difficult.

To be honest, I feel a little lonely for companionship. These past few week-ends have been filled with lesson planning and a lot of me time. Which is okay if I were somebody else, but I am getting a little tired of myself (is that okay to write in a blog?)

But, just now, I had a little gift. . from above I am sure. I was trying to shut one of the drawers in my apartment, and noticed that something had fallen behind it, making it impossible to close. So, I took out the drawer to see what was amuck. Guess what was preventing this drawer from shutting? That’s right. . a DVD of Fiddler on the Roof. . one of my favorite musicals ever. What a fun thing to have in the back-ground to keep me company. Traditiiioooonnnn. . . tradition!

Maybe I should explain why I feel a little lonely. Most of my time here in China has not felt this way. It’s a recent feeling, within the past month, and it stems from a combination of things. First, my language tutor and close friend has moved to Guangzhou for a job. We would usually hang out at least 2 times a week. In addition, the sophomore students whom I hung out with more last semester are frantically studying for the TEM-4…a standardized test that very literally determines their future. The Chinese teachers that I am friends with are helping their senior students write their thesis papers. And finally, the other single teacher on our team has a boyfriend and this takes up a lot more of her time. So, I feel quite relaxed, and for those of you who know how I like my personal time, well I am sure getting a good share of it right now.

Do we eat duck?

I was having supper with one of my students and she was explaining that her parents were farmers and were very poor. I asked her how they saved money to send her and her 3 siblings to college (which is a topic for another time). She said that they bought cheap things and that they didn’t usually buy food. . . they just grew their own food such as vegetables. Then, her family would sell these vegetables at the market. She also said they raised ducks and chickens to help make money. “All farmers will raise these animals to make money.” She asked me if ducks and chickens were common in America. I personally don’t often eat duck or see it available to buy. But, I couldn’t really give her an answer about why we don’t eat so much duck. Do our palates prefer chicken? Or is duck a regional taste? Maybe in some places in America duck is more common, but not in our little corner of South Dakota. What do the rest of you think?

Try Again

This time, I think you will be able to click on this link and see some photos of my life here.
http://picasaweb.google.com/chinatripchinatripchinatrip

new photos

I tried to download some new pictures. Send me a comment if you can see them:)
http://picasaweb.google.com/chinatripchinatripchinatrip.blogspot.com