Graduates

Here are my two classes of students heading to Missouri State University Jan 2015. They will be missed a great deal. The program is a one year, not two year, MBA. They are all nervous, excited, anxious, and nervous all over again. The group shot with me sitting on the front row is the group who have their BA degrees and have been working for 3-10 years. Their companies and the government are sponsoring them. All but two are married and will be leaving their families here in China for the year. The younger class graduated this last summer with their BA degrees. They are self funded and are looking forward to being involved with the 'college life' in America. I hope to be able to see them when we are home for the summer.

Random Days

A couple of weeks ago there was a knock at the door. A maintenance man and a hotel employee came in, tried to tell us in Chinese what they needed to do, then proceeded to go into our spare bedroom/office. He climbed out the window, not sure how with the bars across the window. A few minutes later the gal came out of the room with this gigantic icicle they pulled out from a drain pipe - I guess!  Then there was another knock at the door, another employee came in with a bucket of hot water and dumped it out the window all over the maintenance man - not sure why she did it that way. Whatever the reason was, mission was accomplished and they left.

 

 

 

 

So, we were walking home from the  market the other day when I spotted this very unusual fire hydrant - Not sure if it is for really short dogs, or to prevent from some random person from opening it up, or if someone will need a job to replace the tiles after the fire department breaks through the sidewalk to get to it - but there you go

 

 

 

 

By the way - here is our Thanksgiving dinner - Yummy!!  (no, it isn't a turkey burger but a real beef burger with real bacon!!)   :)

 

 

 

Christmas in China

December life in China is a little different than that in the States. We are finding a few Christmas trees up. Not many have lights on them. There are some decorations - kind of like dollar store quality, but if you look you can find some things that are worth the few dollars they cost.   We found our little tree at Walmart and had fun decorating it.  The hotel put up some trees and this winter scene. I convinced Jack to have our pictures taken in the lobby. The employees thought it was great and enjoyed watching us!

 Confucius says....This is a beautiful carved statue in the hotel lobby 

 

  There are even twinkle lights!

 The hotel has trees on every floor! They love to load them down with everything from stuffed animals to bulbs and presents. All the trees pretty much look like this one :)

 Our very first China tree - all 2 feet of it!

  Jack gets the honor of placing our Cloisonné bulb  :)

 

 

 Although we are not in a country where Christianity and Christmas is part of everyday life, we are seeing random acts of kindness to others. The gift giving part of Christmas is alive and well here. We have received a few very thoughtful gifts from students and other teachers. We are also in the spirit of gift giving to others!  

 

 

Beijing and Beyond!

We had a weekend tour to Beijing. What a great experience!  It started with a 2 hour ride on China's high-speed train cruising about 302 KM/hr - could hardly tell we were moving at all. Then a 45 minute wait in the taxi queue for a 15 minute ride to the hotel!  Gotta love China...wait - we do!

Full packed days adventures awaited us as we climbed the Great Wall, walked around Tiananmen Square, rode in bike pulled rickshaws, ate an awesome lunch at a home diner, walked around Temple of Heaven park and the Spring Palace, attend church in a business building on floor 4 - just like walking into a church :)  Side stops at a jade factory and Cloisonné factory - both very beautiful to see and the artists are amazing.

Tiananmen Square

Chairman Mao's mausoleum

Jack and Charlene - beautiful fall flowers at the Square. You can see the Forbidden City entrance in the back ground

Best tour guide ever!  Thanks Marvin Wu!

Beautiful art work on the outside of the Forbidden City. This was re-done a few years ago for the Olympics. They are working on restoring some of the other buildings to their vibrant colors.

 Inside the Forbidden City. Looks like a scene from Mulan - the buildings that is

 These two trees grew together forming somewhat of a heart. It is found in the Empress' garden. It represented the love the Emperor and she had for each other. Of course, everyone wanted a picture here. We were no exception!

A large flower bouquet in Tiananmen Square 

 A giant brass statue of a female lion guarding the gate. The detail work was so intricate and beautiful. The male was on the opposite side of the gate.

Rumor has it if Chinese parents take a picture with an American they will be prosperous. This little one was so cute! Her mom was busy taking pictures of me and her daughter while I was trying to get the daughter

 

 Too many cute little children!

These next few pictures are from the Summer Palace. The Empress lived her during the summer months. Notice the Phoenix bird on the left and the Dragon on the right. The bird = woman and the dragon = man representing unity in marriage.


This is a pic of the BYU teachers who were on the tour with us. Marvin, our guide, is in yellow. This gate is a gateway to the large lake behind us. Also in the Summer Palace


This is the covered walkway around the Summer Palace. The art work and detail are beautiful! On the sides at the top were painting of the Chinese fairy tales. Very cool!


A yes, the marble ship at the Summer Palace. Well, okay, not all marble. The bottom part of the ship is marble (stationary in the water, of course) the top parts are mostly wood painted to look like marble. The Empress would hold dinner parties here during the summer. There is a large mirror on the second floor in the middle. That was to satisfy her vanity.

 An artist at the jade factory carving a family ball. It is one piece of jade with three parts. The two inside balls are also carved from the same piece of round jade. It represents 3 generations of family and families forever.

 

 

 Anyone have about $37,000 dollars laying around? Shipping is free!

 

 Our little section we climbed of the Great Wall. Yup about 400 steps - all of varying height, width, and depth. Ha! What an adventure it was. I couldn't believe that I was really there and really walked on it. This section was built by prisoners. I am not sure how they got all that rock and stone up the very steep mountain sides. I am sure they were literally worked to the bone doing so. So much history!

 

 These are locks locked around the chain. These happen to be love locks and not secret locks.

 

 Here we are! We made it to the soldiers watch tower. Whew! Great place to rest. Ah, notice the sign - no climbing - not sure how else to get up there, but oh, well.... Yup this would be the angle in which we climbed - nearly straight up!

 

 Anyone know how to speak 'cellphone'? Well don't speak during a thunderstorm!  We love their signage. It makes for great examples when we talk about translation  :)

 

 

 Not sure what this says, but we were so glad to make it down safe and sound we had to take a picture with it. Coming down was more scary than going up. I had to take my glasses off because the bifocal was making it worse!             

 A zoomed in pic from the top where we stopped.

 

 

 

 A stop at the Cloisonné factory. Wow, everything done by hand, then fired, then painted again, then repeat about 7 times!

 

 We arrive in Beijing the day after APEC. The city still had the lights on for show. We also enjoyed beautiful blue, no cloud in the sky days, thanks to APEC!  or so we are told....   :)

 

 This hotel and office buildings was built to represent a dragon ship. Can you see it?  The tallest part is the head of the dragon and his body lays out behind.

 

 

SILK ROAD TOUR

Oct 1st - 7th we joined other BYU CTP teachers for a week long tour of the Silk Road. What an amazing time we had.

We went to Urumqi (oo-room-chee), capital of the Ughur (we-gur) minority group - a wonderful museum trip and lots of shopping at the Qiao Market - largest in the world!

 

 then to Turpan to see the Jiaohe Ancient City, and an incredible underground water system - to Dunhuang to see more Ughur villages, and the Pachikli Grottos, and the Gaochang ancient town -

 

to Liuyan by soft sleeper train overnight then off to ride camels in the Gobi Deseret, see South Sand Mountain and Cresent Moon Lake and a visit to Mogao Grottos (amazing Buddah display in rooms carved out from the sand mountains).

 

We then flew to Xi'an in time for a famous dumpling dinner and Tang Dynasty Singing show - just amazing! The next day we went to the Terra Cotta Soldiers - Tomb of the first emperor. The next morning we walked along Xi'an city wall then off to the airport to return to Jinan.

 We saw the very old, like 1800 years before Christ, to the very modern in buildings and transportation.

 

IT WAS AN AMAZING TRIP.  (see the China tab for our teaching experience)

 

At the Market - Lesson learned - don't touch, don't ask, don't bargain if you aren't going to buy. They will keep going and after you walk away they will send the smallest person they can find to chase you down saying, 'it's okay, it's okay, we take your price!'

 There were many beautiful handcrafted items for sale. There were many food venders. Our favorite were the grapes made from local vineyards.



 Jiaohe Ancient City

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiaohe_Ruins

Turpan - modern city just 10km from the ruins

 There are 55 minority groups in China, most of them are in the Western part of the country. We went to a great museum that represented the major ones very well. So interesting to see the crafts they could make without the modern technology we enjoy today. And the history dates back so far! There are so many similarities we notice.

Here are some pictures from the advanced well system - Karze. And here is Jack doing what he does best - reading signs! This one happens to have English on it - so he really is reading it!  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turpan_water_system

 The well is in the desert is underground to keep the water from evaporating and from being buried by the sand. It brings the water from the snow melt in the mountain to the city. It is still used today.

Above you see the engineering system above ground, it drops to below ground for the surveyor below to keep things in a straight line.
 The little holes you see in the picture below are the vents to the well system

These are from our trip to Gaochang Ancient City http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaochang 

I jumped off the cart to capture the picture of everyone, when to my surprise the driver took off - yup, I had to do an Indiana Jones and jump on a moving cart!  We are just in awe of the craftsman ship of the ruins. To think they built and constructed living, working, and farming space from almost nothing - and survived!

This is a basement room - the only air conditioned room :)

This sweet man was putting on a show for us. He let us sit with him and try to sing along... hahaha better just give him two thumbs up!

Muslim men starting to gather for prayer

Pachikli Grottos

 Yummy Chinese food!

 Happy grandfather and granddaughter

 Sleeper train bunk neighbors

 Look out Gobi Desert - Here we come! There are several hundred camel owners who contract with the park to be tour guides. The day we were there was a light day. They only had about 1200 camels out. A busy day will bring up to 1500 camels!

 One camel train consisted of 4 or 5 camels. We enjoyed a 45 minute ride - and about an hour of saddle sore walk after.

 Individuals would rent the orange covers for their shoes and pants. It was a life saver for them as they would walk up and down the sand dunes.

 Hello to my camel!

 Hello to Ride'em cowboy Jack!

 The dunes go on forever!

 You can see Crescent Moon lake from here - it was a little chilly in the desert today :)

More vast desert

Night market in Dunhuang. We had a great time looking, shopping, and eating at the market.

This gentleman is carving some Chinese characters on a piece of wood, creating a personalized stamp for each of us

 Beautiful faces and always so willing to let us take pictures!

 A couple of girls we started talking English to. They are both 10 years old.
Their English tutor, in the photo below, had brought them to town. They were hoping to find some English speakers to talk to - and they did!

 More sweet faces - the young and the old together all the time so the parents can work.

 We had our first Chinese hamburgers here. So yummy. They are chopped pork with green chilies on a bread they call a pancake.

Arrive in Xi'an and head straight for the famous dumpling dinner. I had eaten something at breakfast which didn't settle very well. So, I snapped a picture and then had to sit in a different place for the show because the smell was killing me. According to Jack they were awesome dumplings and such a variety.

 The Tang Dynasty Singing and Dancing show was amazing!

This man playing the horn held the last note for about 90 seconds. I was trying to breath for both of us!

The grand highlight of the tour was the visit to the Tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor to unify all of China. We know it as the 8th wonder of the world - the Tomb of the Terra Cotta Warriors. First a stop at the official Pottery Store where small to life size figures are created from pottery.

Inside the tomb area. They have uncovered about 2000 figures with about 6000 more buried. The Emperor was 13 years old when he began this project. There are more locations he had commissioned to be burial grounds for him. That way he could choose where to be buried and no one would know for sure. Modern ultrasound technology has been used to locate where the figures are. This is the largest building. A smaller one houses what they believe would represent the leaders camp. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terracotta_Army

 A moment out for movie star shots

 We met a person who helps to assemble the broken pieces together. He tells us it takes a team of four people one year to put together one statue. This would be the job that never ends...

 This is the farmer who originally found a terra cotta helmet when digging a well on his farm. He now has a cushy job of signing books for the tourists!

 

These are only a few pictures we have taken of a very amazing trip! 

Stay tuned....next trip is Beijing, the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, etc...