Today started out rainy, but the birds are chirping, so there is hope it will not rain all day. We were supposed to go biking with some students, but the rain may hamper that. This week has been one full of activities as usual. On Monday, Patty and I taught a class together looking at traditions. It is interesting to see the generational switch in attitudes in China. Students are moving away from traditions and culture towards science (facts). I guess education has done its job;( This is a difficult roadblock for many students as it is in the States. They do not believe in things they do not see, but instead believe in themselves as the power to change and shape their destiny. There has been some interesting conversations though. I have been running all this week, so that has brought some interesting conversations from students. I have been running with a few of my students and then last night, I ran with a PE student from Xinjiang (60 hours away). It is good to see what their opinions are on a variety of subjects as they seem to open up more outside of class. We even had a conversation on sex before marriage and relationships. It often turns out that I end up running about 12-20 laps a night as more people come wanting to run. It makes for mighty sore legs in the morning.

This week had a few events. On every other Wednesday, different English department classes will host an English corner to give classes a chance to practice their English and play games together. We attended this and it was rather subpar, but a good chance to hang out with students and laugh and have fun together. Sometimes, they just play games that two people play while everyone else watches and there is little English learned and practiced. On Tuesday, Patty and I attended the 1st Annual Anshun Teachers College Cooking Competition. The students who practiced at our house were competing, so we went with a large group of students. I did not know what to expect and it was a rowdy affair. Each team had tons of fans who chanted slogans in Chinese and made cheers to outdo the others while the teams cooked. I had the camera along so I took some pictures (they love having these to share and publicize for next year). Patty even got to be an unofficial judge. She got to taste all of the different dishes. It was actually really fun!! The English department team even won first place of ten teams. We will have to invite those students over more often. On Thursday, one of the English department classes decided to have a dance party, so they invited us to come. It turned out that almost a hundred students came to dance in this little classroom. They did not have any fast music so they mainly played slow couples dance music, so people learned how to slow dance. We got a chance to help teach some students to slow dance which was interesting. Next time they are planning on getting a big open place to have it and invite everyone.

Next Thursday is a holiday here: we call it the May holiday, but many students and people will leave to travel even though it is only a one day holiday. We have a four day weekend, so we are planning on taking some students to Guiyang to try KFC. They have never tried American food, so this is an opportunity they do not want to miss. Yesterday, we went to get tickets almost a week in advance for the train, but we found that there were no seats left. On holidays thousands of people will travel, so we will be traveling the 1.5 hours standing up in whatever room we can find on the packed train. That should be a new experience, but we are looking forward to it. After that short trip, a couple of our students want us to go to their hometown in Zunyi--3 more hours away. That should be fun. Maybe we will go to one of the caves there and it sounds like we will go to the famous meeting hall, where the Communist Party 'started' in 1935. It is one of those famous sites that foreigners must see once I guess, but is not quite as exciting for us as the Chinese.

It appears that we might still make it out biking, but we will see. We hope that you and your families are doing well and we hope to hear from you. We enjoy getting email, letters, packages, or just short notes. Many blessings!!

Our classes have been really interesting lately. In our oral classes, we have been having lots of great discussions on relevant life subjects. It is very fun to see the students' perspectives on a wide variety of subjects and to see their vocabulary grow at the same time. They have seemed to love this style of teaching. This week we looked at how the ingredients to make a perfect parent and also to bring up a perfect teenager (unachievable, but a standard to work towards). Their conversations and list was spot on. The week before, we looked at what things they needed to be happy and the question of money and things bringing happiness and love. We are looking at traditions and traditional values also--it is sad to see that some of the moral corruptness of America is very evident here, but there are a few students who fervently hold to a high moral standard and it is fun to hear them discuss with the others. These discussion have brought up a lot of good topics and chances to share.

This weekend brought our teammates from Guiyang--all 10 of them. it was great to be able to share together and to spend time together singing and feeling like a mutual family. It is sad to hear that two of them will leave after this semester and two more will leave after the following semester. We have greatly enjoyed having all of them here and they have grown to be our family. We go on little trips together and can share during the week. We wish them many blessings wherever they may go.

On Sunday, we had our Open House but found that many of the English department students were outdoors on the track. We decided to go and join them and found out they were preparing for the Sports Day competition. One of the students, who is not even our student, came and gave us a gift. He is from Dali and is from the Baizu minority and he gave Patty and I one of the Baizu minority clothing. It is amazing!! We will have to go out around the countryside and take some pictures to post so that you can see them on Flickr. After the running, we went and watched a movie, The Climb. It is one of the movies by Billy Graham and it was excellent. The students really enjoyed the story, but it did not have Chinese subtitles so it was more difficult for them to understand. They did very well though and we explained some also. We have been having many students come often and that has been good to grow in relationship. One of the students, also brought a friend who is family. She does not speak much English, and is an Art student, but that was good to give her some gifts to help her learn more. The Open Houses have definitely been a blessing and blessed.

It has been a week full of rather warm temperatures, so we have been busy with outdoor life and also hanging out with students. Many of the students are very active with playing sports or love being outdoors like us. This last week was the ping pong tournament, so I played lots of ping pong and Patty also came along and has been starting to play more. The tournament was three days of competitions, each department playing, doubles, and the singles tournament. I played in the singles tournament with over 150 other guys. I won my first two matches (I did not have to break a sweat doing it, because for some reason none of them showed up). That meant that I got to play for the championship in my bracket against someone quite good. Because I was the token American in the tournament and our friends were there from Guiyang, many people came to watch and take pictures of us. It was a fun match, but lots of pressure as everyone was cheering so loud, but I finally lost in 4 games (it was quite close). I have enjoyed being active and competing. The next tournament ahead is the Sports Day, which is a Track and Field competition on May 14th. I do not want people to think that all we do is sports though. But I did get my first official award, I got a certificate for being the second place winner in the Basketball Competition--it has a stunning case. But it says I am a student and they could not write my name, so they left it blank, but it makes me feel more accepted, except that I can only read part of it. Sports have been a great way of getting to meet many students from multiple departments, but there is still the language gap. They can only speak a little English and I know a little Chinese. I have been tutoring a student of mine in pronunciation and a PE major in vocabulary, so that has been a great learning opportunity. They will teach me a little Chinese also. Well, I should start some supper. Patty has been busy enjoying the outdoors reading and spending time with students, and just lately they got new pianos so she has been over there playing and singing. Every now and then she will get a guest who sits and watches over her shoulder. The funny thing is that Patty often will not notice for a long time. We wish you a wonderful week and many blessings!!

I never thought I would ever write that it is too warm in April, but this last week and some have had temperatures bordering on 90’F and lots of sun. This is quite unusual for Anshun we hear, but it meant lots of time outdoors followed by time recouping. I guess we are not yet accustomed to this weather as it saps our energy quickly. We did get in some activities though in lew of the heat. On Friday, some students invited us out for a bike ride and picnic. This is a big event, as they bought food at three different places and brought it to cut and cook at our house. We weren’t quite sure what it was or if we would like it as each of the ingredients were of our least favorite foods: it included a vegetable that is used as medicine everywhere else but here (very bitter), xiangcai (cilantro), kelp or seaweed, green onions, and pickled baicai (cabbage). We put it together and wrapped them in dumpling wraps to make spring rolls. The crazy thing is that with lajiao (hot peppers) it tastes pretty good.

So we rented our bikes (3 kuai per hour) and headed out towards some place we did not know. The bike riding was uneventful, except for the fact that the bikes are really, really short. It was quite a new feeling to being crammed into something that feels like it is for a 10 year old. Maybe, we will need to buy a bike if we are planning on going more often. We made it safely to an amusement park type place mainly for kids. We found a place to eat and spread out our load of food (enough for 10 people—we had seven). We ate our fill and had enough energy to walk around the park area where there were abundant flowers and pear trees (they are quite beautiful).

On Saturday, Patty was planning on going to her student’s hometown and I had lots of correcting. About 5 minutes after she left, she called and now I was going too. They wanted another guy to accompany our friend Neil (there were 5 girls). We ended up traveling to Yunfeng, it is one of the old forts (over 400 years old) that were created by the military from the north when they were afraid of the minorities of the south during the time of Columbus. We call these areas Tunpu’s today and the people still live very similarly today. They dress in the same Ming Dynasty clothing and most are still farmers in the same villages. It turns out Susan’s family is a descendent of the original military who stayed in the area.

It was a 40 minute bus ride from Anshun, but some of the roads were pretty non-existent and bumpy, but well worth it. The village was really interesting to see. That day, they were just starting to plant rice. People where out in their high boots and sitting on chairs planting the small rice plants one at a time, while the young boys were flooding the fields. The men were plowing other fields with their water buffalo, so it was full of activity. The children (mainly young girls) were left with nothing to do, so we provided the excitement. They followed us everywhere. The student’s family provided tons of food when we arrived, enough for a small army. After eating, they wanted Patty to try on the Tunpu clothing to take some pictures. This was super exciting for the women and children. You will have to check out the pictures on Flickr. Many people came to see the blond girl in the Tunpu clothing.

After all that excitement, we headed out for a walk to the top of a mountain a mile away. At the top is a temple, after climbing the 969 steps. The view was well worth every step. You could see for miles with mountains and fields surrounding us. The fields are still full of the yellow youcai plants (about a month more and they will extract the canola oil). We ended the day walking through village after village in the area, before getting on a bus exhausted and ready for bed.

On Sunday, we rested a little and at night we had our Open House. Students were excited to see some pictures from home and our travels, and then we taught them to play Cribbage. We thought maybe it would be too difficult, but they caught on quickly, so maybe we will have a few more Cribbage games. Today, the senior students returned from their teaching practice with great excitement and little desire to be students again. It was a tough class, but they will only be here for a month more before graduating.

There are two more competitions the next couple of weeks. Maybe my competitive side will come out. The first is a ping pong competition for the area, so maybe hundreds of people will take part. The second is a cooking competition—I do not think I will take part, but I did volunteer to be a judge. One of my students will come and practice at our house tomorrow night, so that will be fun. We wish you many blessings in all you are doing. Another interesting note, Patty’s picture made it onto one of the huge boards of pictures as you enter the college. It is a small 10 X 14 picture of her signing a poster for World AIDS Day. It is fun being married to someone famous. Anyway, we send you some of the warm weather and lots of love.

I never thought I would ever write that it is too warm in April, but this last week and some have had temperatures bordering on 90’F and lots of sun. This is quite unusual for Anshun we hear, but it meant lots of time outdoors followed by time recouping. I guess we are not yet accustomed to this weather as it saps our energy quickly. We did get in some activities though in lew of the heat. On Friday, some students invited us out for a bike ride and picnic. This is a big event, as they bought food at three different places and brought it to cut and cook at our house. We weren’t quite sure what it was or if we would like it as each of the ingredients were of our least favorite foods: it included a vegetable that is used as medicine everywhere else but here (very bitter), xiangcai (cilantro), kelp or seaweed, green onions, and pickled baicai (cabbage). We put it together and wrapped them in dumpling wraps to make spring rolls. The crazy thing is that with lajiao (hot peppers) it tastes pretty good.

So we rented our bikes (3 kuai per hour) and headed out towards some place we did not know. The bike riding was uneventful, except for the fact that the bikes are really, really short. It was quite a new feeling to being crammed into something that feels like it is for a 10 year old. Maybe, we will need to buy a bike if we are planning on going more often. We made it safely to an amusement park type place mainly for kids. We found a place to eat and spread out our load of food (enough for 10 people—we had seven). We ate our fill and had enough energy to walk around the park area where there were abundant flowers and pear trees (they are quite beautiful).

On Saturday, Patty was planning on going to her student’s hometown and I had lots of correcting. About 5 minutes after she left, she called and now I was going too. They wanted another guy to accompany our friend Neil (there were 5 girls). We ended up traveling to Yunfeng, it is one of the old forts (over 400 years old) that were created by the military from the north when they were afraid of the minorities of the south during the time of Columbus. We call these areas Tunpu’s today and the people still live very similarly today. They dress in the same Ming Dynasty clothing and most are still farmers in the same villages. It turns out Susan’s family is a descendent of the original military who stayed in the area.

It was a 40 minute bus ride from Anshun, but some of the roads were pretty non-existent and bumpy, but well worth it. The village was really interesting to see. That day, they were just starting to plant rice. People where out in their high boots and sitting on chairs planting the small rice plants one at a time, while the young boys were flooding the fields. The men were plowing other fields with their water buffalo, so it was full of activity. The children (mainly young girls) were left with nothing to do, so we provided the excitement. They followed us everywhere. The student’s family provided tons of food when we arrived, enough for a small army. After eating, they wanted Patty to try on the Tunpu clothing to take some pictures. This was super exciting for the women and children. You will have to check out the pictures on Flickr. Many people came to see the blond girl in the Tunpu clothing.

After all that excitement, we headed out for a walk to the top of a mountain a mile away. At the top is a temple, after climbing the 969 steps. The view was well worth every step. You could see for miles with mountains and fields surrounding us. The fields are still full of the yellow youcai plants (about a month more and they will extract the canola oil). We ended the day walking through village after village in the area, before getting on a bus exhausted and ready for bed.

On Sunday, we rested a little and at night we had our Open House. Students were excited to see some pictures from home and our travels, and then we taught them to play Cribbage. We thought maybe it would be too difficult, but they caught on quickly, so maybe we will have a few more Cribbage games. Today, the senior students returned from their teaching practice with great excitement and little desire to be students again. It was a tough class, but they will only be here for a month more before graduating.

There are two more competitions the next couple of weeks. Maybe my competitive side will come out. The first is a ping pong competition for the area, so maybe hundreds of people will take part. The second is a cooking competition—I do not think I will take part, but I did volunteer to be a judge. One of my students will come and practice at our house tomorrow night, so that will be fun. We wish you many blessings in all you are doing. Another interesting note, Patty’s picture made it onto one of the huge boards of pictures as you enter the college. It is a small 10 X 14 picture of her signing a poster for World AIDS Day. It is fun being married to someone famous. Anyway, we send you some of the warm weather and lots of love.

I never thought I would ever write that it is too warm in April, but this last week and some have had temperatures bordering on 90’F and lots of sun. This is quite unusual for Anshun we hear, but it meant lots of time outdoors followed by time recouping. I guess we are not yet accustomed to this weather as it saps our energy quickly. We did get in some activities though in lew of the heat. On Friday, some students invited us out for a bike ride and picnic. This is a big event, as they bought food at three different places and brought it to cut and cook at our house. We weren’t quite sure what it was or if we would like it as each of the ingredients were of our least favorite foods: it included a vegetable that is used as medicine everywhere else but here (very bitter), xiangcai (cilantro), kelp or seaweed, green onions, and pickled baicai (cabbage). We put it together and wrapped them in dumpling wraps to make spring rolls. The crazy thing is that with lajiao (hot peppers) it tastes pretty good.

So we rented our bikes (3 kuai per hour) and headed out towards some place we did not know. The bike riding was uneventful, except for the fact that the bikes are really, really short. It was quite a new feeling to being crammed into something that feels like it is for a 10 year old. Maybe, we will need to buy a bike if we are planning on going more often. We made it safely to an amusement park type place mainly for kids. We found a place to eat and spread out our load of food (enough for 10 people—we had seven). We ate our fill and had enough energy to walk around the park area where there were abundant flowers and pear trees (they are quite beautiful).

On Saturday, Patty was planning on going to her student’s hometown and I had lots of correcting. About 5 minutes after she left, she called and now I was going too. They wanted another guy to accompany our friend Neil (there were 5 girls). We ended up traveling to Yunfeng, it is one of the old forts (over 400 years old) that were created by the military from the north when they were afraid of the minorities of the south during the time of Columbus. We call these areas Tunpu’s today and the people still live very similarly today. They dress in the same Ming Dynasty clothing and most are still farmers in the same villages. It turns out Susan’s family is a descendent of the original military who stayed in the area.

It was a 40 minute bus ride from Anshun, but some of the roads were pretty non-existent and bumpy, but well worth it. The village was really interesting to see. That day, they were just starting to plant rice. People where out in their high boots and sitting on chairs planting the small rice plants one at a time, while the young boys were flooding the fields. The men were plowing other fields with their water buffalo, so it was full of activity. The children (mainly young girls) were left with nothing to do, so we provided the excitement. They followed us everywhere. The student’s family provided tons of food when we arrived, enough for a small army. After eating, they wanted Patty to try on the Tunpu clothing to take some pictures. This was super exciting for the women and children. You will have to check out the pictures on Flickr. Many people came to see the blond girl in the Tunpu clothing.

After all that excitement, we headed out for a walk to the top of a mountain a mile away. At the top is a temple, after climbing the 969 steps. The view was well worth every step. You could see for miles with mountains and fields surrounding us. The fields are still full of the yellow youcai plants (about a month more and they will extract the canola oil). We ended the day walking through village after village in the area, before getting on a bus exhausted and ready for bed.

On Sunday, we rested a little and at night we had our Open House. Students were excited to see some pictures from home and our travels, and then we taught them to play Cribbage. We thought maybe it would be too difficult, but they caught on quickly, so maybe we will have a few more Cribbage games. Today, the senior students returned from their teaching practice with great excitement and little desire to be students again. It was a tough class, but they will only be here for a month more before graduating.

There are two more competitions the next couple of weeks. Maybe my competitive side will come out. The first is a ping pong competition for the area, so maybe hundreds of people will take part. The second is a cooking competition—I do not think I will take part, but I did volunteer to be a judge. One of my students will come and practice at our house tomorrow night, so that will be fun. We wish you many blessings in all you are doing. Another interesting note, Patty’s picture made it onto one of the huge boards of pictures as you enter the college. It is a small 10 X 14 picture of her signing a poster for World AIDS Day. It is fun being married to someone famous. Anyway, we send you some of the warm weather and lots of love.

At the end of last weeks blog, I talked about having a basketball tournament this week. So, it ended up being a 3-on-3 tourney and our team had three other PE majors and Dustin and I (the two foreign male teachers). We played against mainly PE majors single elimination. The first game on Monday went well--it was very nerve racking to have gasps and cheers every time I touched the ball though. We won rather easily. On Tuesday, we played against a freshmen team and neither of us did very well. It ended up going into triple overtime before we won!! This meant that we had to play another game twenty minutes later. I was totally exhausted. Our third game was the final four (only 16 teams in the tourney), but we were playing against very tall and physical students I have played with many times. We started out down by 5 baskets, but battled back to be up by 4 baskets and finally winning by two. I could not believe it!! Patty was super excited, but this meant that we had to play against the schools basketball team. But we made it to the championship!! The championship game was packed--there were hundreds of students crammed around the court, but we had to wait for almost two hours before the game began--other games and dance competitions etc. came first. If you see our team picture on flickr, you will see that our team was quite short, but we were playing against students that we around 6-4 and very aggressive. They are not used to losing, but as the game went on we stuck right with them. We were even in the lead at times. When it came down to the end, we had a shot to win, but we ended up tied with 2 of our 5 players fouling out.

Overtime was super intense, but the game ended when I finally fouled out and we only had 2 players remaining. We were excited to get second, but maybe a little surprised to get so close to winning and the trip to Guiyang for the provincial championship. For our prize, we got 1 G memory sticks in huge bags (it made it look like there was something super nice inside). The winners got cell phones (it was put on by the telephone and cell phone company). We went out to eat with the PE students and Patty got to see how competitive guys are--they decided they wanted to see who could eat the most, so between the three of us we ate somewhere around 30 cups of rice (the two girls ate lots too), plus the vegetables and meat.

Onto more serious things. Classes are going well. We are having more and more chances to share more in-depth and thoughtful discussions in and out of class. I have been tutoring a student in pronunciation with lots of good talks. Open houses continue to go well. Tonight the weather is very nice so we are planning on using the football field for some ultimate frisbee and other sports--that did not go so well last weekend. This week also brought the arrival of our boss on her yearly trips to negotiate for next year. Maybe we will get a raise?!? It was really fun to have her here. We went out for a special meal with the administration to a minority restaurant. We got to try lots of different minority dishes. I think I ate too much or something that did not cooperate with my stomach, because I was out of service for almost 2 days afterwards. That was a pity as the temps got nice and warm.

On Saturday, Patty and I got a chance to do some hiking in a new place. About 40 minutes from our house on bus 11, you can get to an area called Ning Guo. It has much taller mountains and small villages and a place that resembles the stone forest from Kunming, only smaller. We decided to make the most of the day and to walk around the countryside through fields and by the mountains. We saw lots of beautiful butterflies and the fields were full of bees pollinating the youcai hua (canola oil flowers). We heard some of the most distinct bird calls of our lives, but were unable to spot the birds. Much of the time we were alone in the middle of gulfs of yellowness with mountains all around. It was amazing!! We did finally make it to the little stone forest and that was fun. WE took some pictures together and also met some students from Guiyang. It is always interesting who you will meet being a foreigner. Along the road, an old man stopped me to take his picture and because he wanted to say how excited he was that I was in his hometown.

This weekend was the Tomb Sweeping Festival, when families will return to their relatives tombs to decorate and celebrate their lives. It is quite different from Memorial Day and quite interesting. Here are a few things that happen. The whole family will often bring food, drink and plan to spend a decent amount of time at the tomb. They will also bring fake paper money (it is like kindling paper), fireworks by the hundreds or even thousands (they come in huge rolls and cost 30 RMB for several hundred), a paper flower that they place at the top of the tomb, and other things like cigarettes, alcohol, kites, and candles. They will burn and or break the cigarettes and paper money to provide prosperity to the loved one, and kids will often fly kites around as parents eat and drink and reminisce. When they are ready to leave, they will start setting off the massive amount of fireworks. That is about all we have heard this weekend is fireworks in every direction. They will plant some flowers, sweep the area, a little bit like we do for our graves on Memorial Day.

There are some pictures of our adventures on FlickR: http://www.flickr.com/photos/24255478@N06/ along with some of our past adventures in China and some from at home. Many blessings in your coming week and for all of the NCAA fans, Go Memphis, even though I have already lost to Patty in our pool.