It’s been about a month
since our last flash of China News. Lots has happened
since Christmas. Two things that happened since is/are New Year. If you suspect
me of bad grammar, you could be right. We have celebrated both the solar and
the lunar new years within 3 weeks of each other. For the solar new year we
traveled to Chongqing, one of China’s four autonomous
cities that are so large they have their governments separate from the
provincial governments nearby. The lunar new year was spent at “home” in our
apartment at Hailiang School in Meichi, Zhejiang. The day after lunar new year
began, we went with a Chinese friend to visit her relatives up in a mountain
village, and oh! such beauty we saw descending the mountain in falling snow! (I
was falling right along with the snow, down a steep, lengthy, winding stone
path, because my tennis shoes had no tread on the slippery soles.) Before the
Chinese new year we traveled 5 hours by bus to Wenling, near the coast in
southeastern Zhejiang. We’ll recount some highlights of each. But first, Happy
New Year and 新年快乐(Xin Nian Kuai
Le).
Chongqing is built on a
mountain, and is nestled at an intersection of two important rivers, the
Yangtze and Jialing. We spent six days there, all foggy, never saw the sun
once. (I remember a winter as a kid, in Winslow, Arizona, where we went six
weeks without seeing the sun once.) We were the guests there of Li Yulin and
family; I tutored Yulin in Boston 8 months ago.
- We stayed in a luxurious, 5-star hotel called Glenview. Great breakfasts and swimming pool/health spa
- One of the special memories was seeing candy makers in a replica of an old Chinese city. Two men used big wooden mallets to pound flat the candy dough on a tree stump, then the candy was baked and cut in pieces. Yummmmmm, soooo tasty!
- We traveled by car outside the city to DaZu county where we saw ancient Buddhist stone carvings, perhaps, 1000 years old. They were very extensive and told a comprehensive story of the plan of happiness (and sorrow, some pitiful persons suffered in hell) of this way. The details were intricate, artful, and awe-inspiring. Our guide explained why Chinese offer their guests more food and more courses than any living humans can possibly finish, even though the surplus gets thrown away. It was very interesting.
- Clare was our tour guide two days. She suffered through teaching me (Richard) a lot of Chinese, hearing me practice Chinese and asking too many questions.
- We went to the Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing.
- We rode on a river cruise ship to see the scenery in both rivers around the rim of the city at night. We shivered on the upper deck, and the view was spectacular, with so much colorful lights and shapes I almost thought we must be in Las Vegas, Nevada. The view was amazing despite the fog.
- Eating and shopping in the old city replica, walking many streets with open air shops. We couldn’t resist buying a bunch of Chinese clothes for our grandkids. We also crossed over a hill that was topped with shops, shops, and more shops, mainly laden with objects for the lunar new year. We bought more things for grandkids in that shopping “mall”, including "hu die" (Chinese for butterfly), a favorite of granddaughters Camry, Aly, and Malia.
- Hot pot dinner with the Li family was delicious and fun. We enjoyed getting to know Yulin’s mother and her friend with little girl, Emily, who enjoys dual citizenship, having been born in Florida.
- The return train ride from Shanghai to Zhuji was a 3-hour trip without a seat. We bought tickets without seat assignments, and the car was jam packed due to Chinese new year traffic. One funny lady, a train employee, stood in the aisle next to us with a comical, loud half-hour sales pitch for toothbrushes. She talked really loud, and I told her in Chinese “bu xuyao”, meaning I don’t need any, and she gave me a big smile. Finally some people bought her brushes so she would go away. Kate got to sit the whole trip due to the kindness of a Chinese man.
I’ll save the report about
our visit to Wenling prior to the lunar new year, because this article is too
long for you to bear. However, bear with one more incident. A week ago I had
gone to a Starbucks Coffee in Hangzhou to see if I could get a new iPod, that
was given me by my daughter for a gift, to work. It had gotten dark while I was
in there. I stepped out, put on my gloves, and adjusted my coat and scarf,
intending to walk to a store a couple blocks away to buy some cheese. I took my
first step in that direction, carrying my laptop computer in its carrying case,
expecting to step onto more sidewalk, and stepped smack into a knee-deep pond
of chilly water (air temperature was below 40 deg. F). Due to the surprise and
the angle, I lost my balance and fell over sideways in the pond, getting
everything wet except my head, bumping my knee painfully on the concrete at the
bottom. In spite of pain, I bounced out of the water, shook like a dog, and decided
to hurry to the house where we were staying, and to heck with the cheese. I
wanted to be sure my computer wasn’t soaked and damaged. I slogged (a sloshy
jog) the very long block home, and told Kate I fell into a pond. She didn’t
believe me until she saw all the puddles I made on the floor. I stripped out of
all the wet clothes, and took out the computer and turned it on—it worked fine,
having stayed mostly dry inside the case. I wasn’t going to shower at this cold
house because it’s too cold to get naked in the bathroom; however, given that I
was already naked and dripping wet with cold water, I took the shower after
all, and enjoyed the comfort of the hot water. Getting dressed in dry clothes
after that was all pleasure. The great thing was that I laughed with hilarity
even as I stepped out of the pond, finding it to be a very humorous experience.
We are enjoying a month off
school, and have a little over a week left before school gets going again. Our
administrators asked us to help recruit more foreign English teachers for the
school for the next school year. We have all but decided to re-up and extend
our contract a year, for that’s how well we like it here. We are announcing
that we might be able to influence the school to hire you, or someone you know
who is both qualified and interested in teaching in China.
For any who are interested to know the further details, reply to this email
with “Curious about Teaching in China” in the subject
line. We will send you an information sheet with an application, either for you
to consider or to forward to people you know.
Thanks for reading, and see
you in China someday.
Kate and Richard Armstrong
P.S. I still haven’t figured out how to get my iPod to
work. I have a lot to learn, besides the Chinese language,
