Passing of a friend

My best friend from back home had died from a carbon monoxide accident at her house.

This is the poem that she wrote for me awhile ago (no grammar corrections made):

Looking Accross the Playground

to Linda, my best friend

Looking accross the playground
She stood all alone
She knew a little English
And I needed a friend
Seven years later
She's still here
We've been together
Through thick and thin
Little did I know
Looking accross the playground
I was looking at my best friend

Janna

She just had her birthday on November 4th and turned 21.


This makes me realize many things which I will cover in my more personal blog.

Sichuan

So this is the beautiful bamboo forest in Sichuan province, where I was this Summer in June. You'll recall that was right after the big earthquake in this province and for awhile we were all worried that I wouldn't be able to go or that something will happen to me when I am there. Thankfully, nothing happened and it was an interesting experience.

Me in Sichuan

Amazing Yunnan

So at 19:30 our time in Yunnan yongsheng, we saw the solar eclipse. It was pretty amazing as the past couple of days have been the greatest days we've had. In addition to our solar eclipse, we also saw an amazingly beautiful rainbow that was almost two rainbows. The only other time I've seen a double rainbow was the day of my senior year high school homecoming football game back in SoDak where everyone was also extremely amazed. In addition to the beautiful scenery here, the people I volunteer with are also pretty amazing, all of us are from very prestigious colleges, whether it be in the States of in China.

Dan Dong - North Korea

Dan Dong is the city that I am currently in and tomorrow I am heading across the Yalu river to North Korea and then heading back to my home city. I've actually arrived in Dan Dong by train and pretty proud that I've gotten my way around the city.


I took a ride on the river in anticipation for the next day where I would cross over to the other side.



Walking around the pier, it seems people here are pretty relaxed.



The older folks just relaxing and enjoying life with an occasional dance festival.



The younger folks getting their wedding portraits taken along the river.



The north koreans were actually quite curious about this picture when they searched through my digital camera.

So I've actually managed to cross over into Korea, the following photo is from North Korea looking into China:



Yes me in my pink outfit get up with the Hello Kitty sanrio franchise from Japan. The East Asian triangle right here.

So this the picture I took in front of one of the museums in North Korea:



The following is one I took near Dan Dong's train station:



I think the difference between these two can pretty much sum up the difference between the two countries. The fact that there's a construction site right next to the statue of Mao Zedong really tells you that it's the currently rapid economic development that really makes China stand out from North Korea. Throughout the trip my fellow travelers commented on how similar it was to China in the 60s and 70s, that it was like a trip back in time for them. Since I wasn't born at that time I really don't know what China was like then.

Shenyang visit

I got these really yummy snacks from the mute who were selling them.  They smelled really good, I believe it is made of sticky rice.

I actually do wonder what people with disability do in China, a lot of them are beggars on the street but these are two sisters who I really admired for working so hard.



This was earlier in the day when I was at the city's central plaza. A lot of people are flying kites, dancing (street and traditional and ballroom), and also skate boarding. I really love these city plazas and wish we had something like that in the United States.



So we were walking around the square and I was fascinated by these men who were writing traditional chinese calligraphy with these huge brushes with water on the ground and the old man above gave me a brush to try it. I had to admit that I couldn't really write and that I was just visiting my family from America. He told me to not forget that culture and traditions of my native land of China. It was one of the most fascinating things happening that night.

Shenyang memories

So I visited my old childhood home of Shenyang.



This was the old apartment that I lived in for 10 years of my life, it's the 5th floor. I think this building is only one of a few in this area that has not been torn down to make way for new commercial and residential building. Perhaps it was waiting for me to get back.



My childhood friend, Ye Chen, who lived one floor above me. We used to go to school together and walked to our school together.



So yes, this was my elementary school that I attended until fourth grader at which point I came to the United States. I believe the school was not open at this time so we had to beg the door attendant to let us in.

Family visit

So this is one of the train stations in Shenyang, my home city in China. Apparently there are multiple train stations in the major cities as I realize this in Beijing by getting on to the wrong station to get to Shenyang.

The train holds many of my favorite memories as that was the way my family used to travel in China for our summer vacations to Da Lian.



This is my only living grandparent, my maternal grandfather who's an octogenarian. So he was telling me about WWII and about how the Japanese had already invented cell phones during that time. Although I do wonder about the acts of unit 731 at that time. The area of Shenyang is in the Manchuria region that was first to be occupied by thte Japanese during that time.



Another picture of my grandfather with little tiger, who represents my mother because she was born in the year of the tiger and very firece.

Tieling adventures

So Tieling was my father's childhood home. My father went to high school at the place where China's first premier diplomat Zhou Enlai also studied.



This is the land where Zhao Benshan was born also. A very rural region of the area.

I arrived here by bus from Shenyang, it was only around an hour ride.

My dad's brother arrived to pick me up:



They are such a nice family, my fifth uncle arrived in Beijing to pick me up actually at the end of may.

The main reason I went to Tieling was actually to visit the grave of my paternal grandparents:



It was a very interesting story trying to find this grave site, apparently even though it was only 2 years ago that I participated in the grave moving ceremony, we had a hard time remembering where exactly it was located as it was at a site that was around half an hour out of the town and a mass grave site where many people were buried there. It took us around half an hour to find the site itself and I was praying really hard that somehow I would be able to find it and thankfully God answered my prayers and I did find it.

Afterward we went for more mount climbing.



en route to the mountain



I believe it translates into the dragon head mountain.



My uncle and cousin at one of the pagodas along the way. Apparently a lot of people take walks after dinner time along this mountain.



See? I told you many people come on this trail. It somewhat makes me want to move back to China although I'm not exactly sure what america is quite missing. Maybe I dislike the exercise bikes that goes nowhere in the gym or that I'm missing the food in China.

Earthquake pen pals in Sichuan

So for our last week we did the earth quake correspondence class for the seventh graders and the library jeopardy for the eighth graders.



My apologies for the poor quality of the picture as it was taken in a dark room with the projector. We were very surprised that they did have a projector in this school though.



Then of course the projector quit working on us so we resorted back into the traditional classroom mode and had the kids writing letters with markers in English to kids who were affected by the Sichuan earthquake.



This was one of the finished products being held up.



This is a sample of the format of the letter. Our aim was to try to teach some English and let the kids be artistic and creative at the same time.



Another example, this one was written on the back. These student's chinese are quite good, which means, better than I can do.

Classrooms in China

From teaching in a normal school in China for three weeks I hope to sum up what I have learned here. The school that I taught at is neither a city school nor a rural school. It is actually in between the two due to its location. Each class typically have around 50 to 60 students and each grade is composed of 5 to 6 of these classes. The school has three grades, 7th, 8th and 9th. Their day starts with morning individual study at 8:10 and ends at 4:20 p.m. Usually the school day hs 7 periods of 45 minutes each with a morning exercise time at 9:20-9:55 a.m. and lunch period from 12:30 to 1:45 p.m. From what I gather, the subjects tends to be: Math, Literatue, English, History, various sciences, Geography, P.E. and every couple of weeks, art and music.

When we arrived at the school the 9th graders had already finished their exams so we mostly taught 7th and 8th graders. Perhaps due to puberty, there were two totally different attitudes between the two grades towards learning. It seems that while the 7th graders are still open minded towards learning, the 8th graders really dislike it. There seem to be a general trend in China currently with the attitude of the 8th graders: dislike of learning. In a discussion with one of my uncles, he seem to think that while the Chinese students tend to learn more in the school system at a younger age, it seem to be cramming too much information too soon into the children, thus causing them to really dislike school in general.

Life in China

Surprisingly enough, except for facebook and the English version of Wikipedia, I have not run into many banned websites here in China. If one really did not pay attention, the communistic policies are not noticeable at all in the life of the average people here in China. They live normal everday lives here. (more about my observations of this later)

In the blink of an eye, it seems like summer is almost over and my stay in China is half finished. As to what I have been doing, well, here's the low down. The month of June I taught in a middle school in Sichuan China as I was not needed in the earthquake zone. (Not many people who are not with the army or professionals/organizations like the red cross are allowed into the earthquake zone.) We didn't experience any after shocks and taught mostly English although we did teach earthquake knowledge and sent letters to the students who were affected by the earthquake.

Except for a visit to the hospital and a forced evacuation due to a potential landslide, my stay in Sichuan was very peaceful. More about the day to day life and our earthquake pen pal writing activity in another post. I actually learned a lot from these kids even though the conditions were not as bad as I imagined they would be.

After our stay in Sichuan, we were sent back to Beijing for a closing forum and I celebrated my 21st birthday in Beijing with two of my very dear friends. Although my parents promised to throw me a party in August when I get back.

From there in Beijing, I went on to ride the train to Shenyang by myself. It was quite an exciting adventure as I did train stations mixed up and had first hand experience with the Beijing public transportation system and various con-artists who try to make money off of naive gals like myself. A price list of what I got conned is quite interesting. Also coming in another post.

In Shenyang I visited my only living grandfather as this was the focus of my trip this year (as opposed to the olympics and the earthquake). I also visited the graves of my other grandparents in Tieling. (More post about that as that was also an adventure in itself).

Anyhow, as I still have half of my trip to go, I will go to Sichuan again but this time a bit more closer to the earthquake zone (Chengdu) to see if they'd let me in this time. (If not, it would only make me all the more determined to be a nurse as I would certainly get in if I already was one). My uncle has a pharmaceutical program starting up in Chengdu so I want to talk to him about the health policy currently in China (I got to talk to my aunt, who is a doctor in China and will report more on that later).

Overall, it is quite exciting to be in another country, especially one where I could speak the language. This makes me all the more determined to learn Spanish and visit the Latin America countries.

Note to self: need to brush up on English grammar and vocab when I get back to the states, can't remember if periods goes inside or outside parenthesis. Good thing I was only teaching oral English as some of the students' English are better than mine.

List of upcoming posts:

Earthquake pen pals in Sichuan

-what we did and photos

Con-artists in China

-various schemes I got caught in

Hospitals in China

-my two visits to the hospitals in two different areas

Beijing's transportation system

-taxi, subway, bus, train and plane

Post-quake Sichuan

-my visit to Sichuan post the earthquake

Tieling adventures

-visited my father's old high school where Zhou En Lai also studied at and also the grave of my grandparents (those that adopted my father)