Mueller Memories

2009-05-04T08:38:00.002-05:00

Our school has transformed greatly since just two weeks ago. It is amazing how much work can get done when you hire hundreds of workers and must finish things very quickly. They have painted all of the buildings on campus, inside and out, our new gate is finished (it is super huge and seems to be missing something that makes it exciting), they carved the school name into huge limestone blocks, and everything is cleaned up. It is all in anticipation of today. Today was Day One of the Grand School Inspection. Important leaders from the government come and check on the school and whether to promote it. We have grown to be a little used to such huge festivities that seem way over the top in China, but this is something to yet another level. It seemed like everything special that could be done was done for this event, to make our school look grand...as though it is a "new" school. It makes us laugh to think about it.

As always we seemed to be right in the middle of it. We wanted to take Noah out to walk this afternoon and let her loose to run when we saw the line-up of important people at our new gate. There were women in the traditional Chinese gowns lined up for 50 m followed by other women in Guizhou minority gowns behind them and other leaders waiting everywhere around. We decided this would not be the time to go running in front. The English department had a special event for them...a staged and nervous outdoor English Corner. We arrived a little early and waited for almost 1.5 hours for the leaders to come and they stayed for a grand total of 10 seconds. The students in charge were very bummed!! They put tons of work into it to only get a hello in passing from the leaders, but that was the same throughout the campus, the PE department and others had special events which were seen quickly and passed by.

The school inspection leaves lots of questions with me: why do they need to just fix up the school to be nice every 5 years, what will the school be like next week, will it return to how it was before or will students and leaders work to keep up the niceness, and always why why why something so grand and expensive for just one day. The new gate was reported to cost 400, 000 RMB more then $50,000, but I am happy to see that they fixed up the auditorium and can now have more performances and events and the special buildings are really nice.

This weekend was a holiday in China...May Day or Chinese Labor Day. We celebrated the day with students doing no work--they love to hear those words, "No Homework." We went instead for a barbeque--it was our first time planning and preparing everything. We had 15 people in all and also Noah on a rainy day, but luckily we planned ahead and booked a place indoors to have the event. As always, we questioned the amount of food: we bought potatoes, egg plant, zucchini, steamed bread, meat, hotdogs, and various kinds of fish ball type things. The food is made on a grill with charcoal under and we put all of the things on sticks and grease them with oil and soy sauce and cook them adding spices and things and can eat all day. We ended up with almost a refrigerator full of leftovers.

For Saturday and Sunday, our plan was to go to nearby, 2 hours, Ziyun a poor part of our area. We bought some books last year and some clothes and money for some poor students of our friends for this year. We did not get to go to the school to deliver them as we had the barbeque but we heard many stories, like of a child who was crying in class because of not having money to eat for two days and others overwhelmed by receiving new shoes, shirts, etc.

On Saturday, we went to Getu He (a famous river in the area). The river is green in color and has tall mountains around it. It is amazingly beautiful. All of it formed from large flooding that shaped the tall mountains of limestone. Along the way, I was able to see water buffalo fighting. Describing the park is difficult to do, but we did get to see many different kinds of karst topography and enjoy the nice weather. After seeing the area, we went to the last remaining tribe to live in a cave. The car ride could have been a good indication, very rough with students hitting their heads, but we arrived at the place with a long path that led into the mountains. We walked and walked to the top of the mountain only to see the cave far in the distance, maybe another 3 km (1 + miles away). The path to it was not filled with mud and poo and was quite the interesting terrain, but after feeling like our legs would die we arrived at the top. The cave was relatively open so quite a bit of light came into the homes made of bamboo...there were houses made of brick outside provided by the government that the people did not like and did not use. We walked around looking at the houses and visiting with the friendly people. It was hard to discount their feelings of hospitality, as they seemed to be cut off from the rest of the world except for the tourists that survive the crazy trek. They had an old school inside and several houses. We visited with one family who showed us their home and food--field corn that is crushed into a meal and cooked over a fire...no rice, some goats, but this was their main meal. I was tempted to try it but it was not finished at the time.

We returned rather tired, so as the women went off to their house to sleep at around 10 pm, the guys were invited to a party, first by a group of the Miao women celebrating a festival in their colorful clothes, but finally at another persons house. We drank tea and talked about many things before they asked me if I wanted to go out to eat snacks. Sure, I like snacks!! What I found out is that snacks can also mean a meal late at night. We sat down at a popular late night hang-out and they ordered ribs and spine with some meat on it and we at them with our plastic gloves and they wanted me to try hot beer with them--with some Chinese medicine in it. I dislike beer in America and this was nasty by all means. They ordered several gallons of the stuff and I forced down one glass. Then they ordered more food and drinks. We had toasted fish at 1 am and they wanted to play drinking games. They played as me and another girl who also hated drinking were the judges and drink pourers. We played a little but did not receive the prizes. At around 2 am the third kind of food was finished and our case of beer was gone--I was ready for bed. They wanted to go out to a KTV to do some karaoke and I found out just how old I am. I had to say that I was too tired to go. I guess this is a regular weekend activity in a small town. We were up early though to eat food and head back to Anshun around noon. A good time.

2009-04-22T23:21:00.002-05:00

Visiting students can always be an interesting experience...one that almost always takes you out of your comfort zone and your control. This was certainly going to be a trip like that, as we were going to a 5 year students home (their English is not exceptional) and we were taking our dog along and going to the middle of the countryside to a place called qiyanqiao (seven eye bridge village). Even I was a bit nervous as to what would happen. We ended up taking a number of different buses, but Noah was in heaven as she could sit in the back seat on my lap with her head out the window and check out all of the new things. We walked through the muddy village and up the hill and found our student's home. It was quite nice with a big metal gate and lots of rooms and they were quite welcoming of the dog, even though a bit afraid.

We spent the afternoon climbing the mountains and being talked about by all of the villagers. Halfway up the mountain was a temple to the god of the ancestors. It gave a great view and something to talk about. We took along tons of food, as is customary of all trips with Chinese, and returned home with very little of it. The dog loved it and was able to run around and see lots of new friends. Our student was super afraid that our dog would get into a fight with other dogs so she had her umbrella out to fight off the dogs and scare them away...it was so funny, as we were not worried and Noah did not even notice most of the other dogs. Visiting students' homes is definitely a blessing when it comes to food--they always prepare something special and lots of it. We had Tunpu food--the same food from the Ming Dynasty, but the expectation is that you eat tons of food to show that you like it. We ended up being the only people at the table at the end--finishing up the delicious food.

The next day, we went to Xianrenba, a beautiful river (my first time) near Tianlong, one of the original Tunpu villages from the 1300's. It was really fun to be in the countryside with my students and then a bunch of my student's tutoring students. We got to see some of the old women planting rice, people fishing, and a bamboo forest without pandas. Sadly, there are very few if any pandas in the wild left in China, mostly just in zoos. We ate lunch at one of the tutoring student's homes, just showed up with some food and her whole family watched the crazy Americans and their dog. It was really interesting to get to stay at a Tunpu village house and have delicious food from students.

On Sunday, we had our outdoor Open House. We played some frisbee, taught a few of them how to catch a softball with gloves and I gave Patty a cut on her lip from a frisbee. She was on the phone and the frisbee smacked her right in the mouth. After a bit, we ended up indoors eating chocolate and talking. Many great opportunities and great friends.

Monday was the basketball tournament finale and the cheerleading competition. I came to cheer for my students in the cheerleading competition, they had invested 100 RMB ($14) in their uniform. But when the leaders saw me there, they dragged me over to the "official/leader" table to have front row seats. I was an unofficial judge now. Cheerleading is quite different in China. They do not do cheers but more like a dance group without stunts or the excitement. They do not smile very much but are exceptional at doing syncronized routines. The "skilled" dancers do lots of gyrating like hip hop dancers which the guys like, but it was interesting. The basketball game was a blow out-the same team I played for last year versus the team that beat us last year, this time a 29-12 beating.

On Wednesday, we had a special day in class...a wedding. Every year for oral class, we have an American wedding where students do all of the parts of the wedding. There is a photographer (we give our camera to them with some training), parents of the bride and groom, brides maids and groomsmen, flower girls, bride, groom, readers, speeches, and traditional wedding dancing. They get the whole wedding experience plus more...

The bride was chosen by volunteering, sorta. I asked for a volunteer and one girl was not listening and raised her hand--thank you for volunteering, Jane. Then the guy was voted on by the other guys, lucky Jack. They made the wedding dress out of TP, very wide stuff which they always seem to make look exceptional and some flowers from the mountains. It was quite a do-up. I taught the guys how to tie ties and each of them wore one of the ties I had and the groom in my suit coat. They really loved the wedding and got tons of pictures. The reader wanted to keep the book, so she can do more reading.

The dance and reception had non-other-then the chicken dance and the hocky-pocky and throwing the bouquet and a small flower to the winner girl and guy. Their homework was to compare an American and Chinese wedding. So far, we have not made any real lovers from this experiment but maybe in the future.

Today, we went to the vet and found out Noah is indeed pregnant which makes leaving something more complicated, but I guess she will have them in May sometime and then we will see who wants to stay and take care of them or maybe we can give them to the vet to sell when we leave, if they are weaned yet. PAtty is a little nervous about this and kicking herself for letting Noah loose once and what happened. Nothing we can do about it, but I am wondering what the puppies will look like from Noah and the strange looking black dog with a white beard. Should be interesting, maybe we can get extra money selling them as American dogs...haha. Hope you have a wonderful rest of the week...love you all!!

2009-04-16T06:08:00.002-05:00

Easter is full of traditions, but this year had all kinds of new things. Maybe they will become traditions, we will see. We went to Guiyang to get together with our fellow teacher friends and our boss. It was exciting to see them all again. We were a part of the family egg coloring and hiding and later we went out and played baseball (bangqiu). There were quite a few Chinese watching, but their school is actually starting to have baseball as a sport, only the 6th school in China. That was quite fun with a little football throwing too, kinda like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Then we went back for some homemade pizza, six different kinds and then three kinds of pie. That is my kind of tradition. That was just the beginning as it was only Saturday.

Easter Sunday, or as I rather like FuHuoJie Come back from death day or Resurrection Day was quite a busy one for our group. Patty and many of the others were playing music for the gathering of foreigners at a local hotel called the Miracle. I was giving the message. As always, I was very nervous, but everything went very well. Afterwards, we went out to Pizza Fun, a pizza and western food buffet, over 100 of us chowing on pizza and sharing about how things are going. I could get used to a tradition like that--great fellowship, friends, and food. The only thing that was missing was family...we definitely have to say that we miss our family during the holidays, but we love you all very much and look forward to coming home soon. Not really sure what is going on for next year totally yet though, lots of conflicting ideas. One day at a time though and only 2.5 more months I think.

Monday was also busy as I taught my British Literature class then had my first Geology Lecture--next term they made a class called Special English for Science majors. I wonder what special english is though?? I made a powerpoint with tons of pictures and was talking about plate tectonics, plate movements that cause the mountains, volcanoes and earthquakes that shape and shake our lives. It still went very well as I shared lots of stories and enjoyed it...150 students. Following class, I played in the 3-on-3 basketball tournament for the teacher team but sadly lost to the champions from last year--the team that beat us last year too. Looking forward to the weekend and relaxing a bit though, hope you are all doing well.

2009-04-03T18:51:00.002-05:00

In the business of the week, I did not get a chance to share about the "Golden Birthday Weekend" for Patty. She was not expecting much, so as always we went over the top. On Friday, we told the students we would cook fish for them, so we tried to make our own version of toasted fish with potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, and many other vegetables cooked together with our mammoth fish. We went to the market to get the fish and asked for one that was about 6 pounds because we had 8 people and Noah, and they brought out a monsterous fish. It turned out to be only 5 pounds but was much bigger then would fit in our toaster oven...what to do now??

They killed it, scaled it and we took it back home, cut up endless amounts of vegetables and decided to steam the fish and vegetables before cooking them together in the juices. Yet again the fish was too big...so we had to get out the huge knife, which the last time we used it almost broke the table we have in the kitchen--it is huge and heavy. We were able to slice the fish in half, sorta and put each part in with some seasoning (nothing too spicy because many of these students do not like lajiao). It turned out being so much food and so much fish that students left with buckets of leftovers and all were satisfied. Notch up another success and new thing we can sorta make. Next time to make it with lajiao (hot peppers). We have been incredibly blessed by this group and their heart for learning and their growth in understanding and love. Keep them in your thoughts if you could.

On Saturday was the big day, Friday was super hot that shorts were needed, but Saturday was supposed to be cold and rainy, so we were a little bummed but expected the weatherman to be wrong and it to be a blessed day. It did not rain all day but a little cold. We did not let that get to us as we gathered, a group counting 17 people to go to Luo Xian Cun. It was Patty's wish to go pick strawberries and have a special meal there. It is a fun hike of about 3 km to get there which was the first time for a couple of the students. We enjoyed the people and time together and once we got there, we found our eating place and haggled a price (the students did this as they are masterful). 238 RMB ($34) for the whole morning and afternoon, including mah jong, fishing, karaoke, and of course the homemade meal of countryside foods. We could do so many things and everyone had a chance to have fun together. It was so much fun...we had brought along some food to snack on and we relaxed and enjoyed the company...the food was amazing, so many dishes and so good. We had lots of left over fei rou (literally fat meat or bacon) that we took home and gave to Noah. She enjoyed her day with lots of running around and chasing animals. We picked strawberries for several hours at several places until everyone had at least a pound of strawberries to enjoy on our walk back.

We then started our walk home...the students are always weary of taking this route because you need to climb a tall mountain to get there, but it is not so bad and an amazing view. We walked through a bamboo grove and up the mountain to see the fields below and had a warm walk back seeing the villages around and people out working. I love the countryside as it reminds me of home a bit and my family. The day was not over when we arrived home after almost 7 hours of being out. I made a special meal for Patty from some taco shells we got from a friend and taco seasoning...the first real tacos in such a long time--without the real cheese though but amazing!! At night, students came over with a huge cake--they are the most intricate things, it had a whipped cream Patty, Dan and Noah on it and tasted very good. It was big enough for the 20+ people who came. And of course there were presents, which can be quite the interesting thing in China as they are known for getting the oddest, strangest things. The time started out great as some close friends got her a beautiful wind chime that now is over our bed and many picture frames for our many pictures taken, but then they came as they always do. The first was a mug with eyeballs on it that moved when you drank out of it, and another was a hand paperweight that you put your cell phone on and it lights up when you get calls (Patty calls it the Hand of God). but nothing can beat our gift for letting a student stay at our house over the winter holiday...she got us this guy with a Jamaican hat on, a goatee, holding a marijuana cigarette with a marijuana leaf on it shirt and wearing a camo skirt. It dances to the music of Row, row, row your boat. We bring it out when we need a laugh (we agree with her first statement, "When I first saw it I thought it was ugly.") but she still bought it thinking it was the perfect gift to say thank you. It was also meant to be a replacement for a plate broken from someone at home...that is a "typical" chinese style birthday. By the way, Patty ended up with 8 boyfriends with the crazy Chinese candles. Many blessings to you all...we have a holiday this weekend, QingMingJie Tomb Sweeping Day. Will share more about that next time. Love you all!!

2009-03-22T10:09:00.002-05:00

This is an update from several weeks. Life since school has started has been very busy for the both of us, but in very different ways. Patty has far fewer classes four per week, but has taken over continually being outdoors walking, spending time in the mountains and has been taking tons of walks with our dog, Noah. She continues growing and eating incredible amounts. I have many more classes than I know what to do with, taking up most of my time planning, teaching, and correcting. I feel as though I have gotten lazy in other ways though as I have not been able to go out walking, playing basketball and ping pong, or running much lately. But with this there have been plenty of other activities to keep us busy. The dog is in constant need of walks, so we seem to spend countless trips down the stairs, around the campus and out into the countryside with her. It has been even more exciting now that she is in her puppy making stage.

Last weekend was our anniversary and as tradition goes in our family, I got sick the night before and that day also. Patty had to teach my class as I could not get out of bed, but I would not miss doing something special for our 5th anniversary. So many blessings during this time!! I wanted to take her to a fancy restaurant here in Anshun, yeah I found one, but asked her if she would rather have toasted fish, so we used our anniversary to have a chance to get together with some friends and celebrate together. We got Patty 11 roses which is the Chinese number for forever "1 + 1" together forever. Other friends got us matching keychains, matching mugs, candy etc. The next day was Noah's big day--her surgery in Guiyang.

The morning started early at 7 traveling to the bus station to catch a bus...we went to another station that allows dogs and met the vet there. He had a bag with little puppies (it turned out to be 4 of them). The trip went fairly well, almost two hours of an antsy dog head out the window, then wanting to smell all the people on-board. Finally upon arriving we took a taxi ish thing to a market where they sell huge dogs like German Shepherds, Mastiffs, etc. and we met the people who would do the surgery. They gave Noah her shot when Patty was away and Noah was laying still a minute later. They put her on a table, tied her legs down with rope and Patty was ready to get out of there-but they asked us to stay just another minute to check and soon found out that they could not do the surgery because Noah was having her period. She was totally out at this point, so we expected that we would have to carry our dead looking dog back home, but they soon gave her another injection and she was almost instantly awake and wanted to run around. it was a bit funny as she staggered around falling frequently before they gave her yet another injection and she was ready to go. So we traveled back to Anshun, getting pretty much nothing done and finally got to eat at 2 pm after 7 hours and 140 yuan ($20). We are hoping to not have to do that kind of travel again, but we will see. She seems to be able to stand it better now, she will finally fall asleep next to us after 30 minutes or so. Students are getting more and more used to her, but it is still quite the struggle to convince people that she is safe and will not bite them causing the dreaded trips to the doctor for numerous injections.

It is late now, I will try to put some more of this past week up tomorrow or soon...been trying to sneak in a little NCAA basketball scores and games as I can. Not quite the same though across the ocean. Many blessings and lots of love from the Muellers!!

2009-03-09T10:01:00.003-05:00

Since returning back to our apartment in China, we have had lots of Noah time. When we returned to AS, we rushed over to our student's house to pick up Noah (our dog). We received a picture halfway through our 6 week vacation, so we knew she was no longer a puppy, but when we got there we barely recognized her. She was huge!! From a dog that we could easily carry in one arm, to a mammoth pouch that could nearly pull us home. It has brought a big change to our lives. She needs lots of outdoor time, but is very protective over us (maybe afraid we will leave her again), so we have "gotten our exercise" to say the least. Many trips up and down the 92 stairs and numerous walks around our campus, the track and the lake near our school, and also up and over the mountain beside our home has brought a new appreciation to having a pet. This is certainly more time and effort then Tippy was in MN, but also a lot of ma fan (trouble/annoyance).

It is not because we do not love to walk around and spend time with Noah, but because of the extreme fear of dogs and people's reaction to Noah. Even when she was a little puppy (3lbs.), some people would cower in fear of being bit, but now that she has grown to be able to above their waist when jumping up (only friends though as she is well behaved), so many people will divert their paths or scream in fear even if Noah is 10 feet away. To us this is quite an irrational fear, but for so many Chinese this is a fear born of instinct and necessity. As most dogs (probably nearly all in our area) are not vaccinated, if they are bitten they must go to the doctor for a series of shots or injections. You would think Chinese people are quite acquainted with injections and IV's as they receive one every time they go to the doctor, no matter the what the problem is or its severity. But no, they still run and hide when they see Noah coming...the curious dog that wants to say hello to and sniff everyone (a very bad combination). But our favorite people are the ones who will call her over and then when she is about 5 feet away will start to scream. All of this has led us to put Noah on her leash almost all of the time.

Today, we took Noah to her doctor to get her operation, so that we would not have more mafan to worry about ie puppies. This means that we need to take her on the bus, not an easy task at all. We have to pick her up and carry her on conspicuously as many bus drivers are afraid of having a dog on-board and try to find a seat away from people. Inevitably, we end up near someone who is deathly afraid and try to assure them it is okay. As the bus fills up and people are packed on, Noah gets more excited, so we have gotten her to stick her head out the window, the only place she is happy and people are not so terrified. After the 30 minute ordeal, we are at the animal street, where they sell all kinds of animals and plants too. Our friend is with to interpret, since we have no idea how to ask about the operation.

After 15 minutes of talking, we find out that it cannot be done in Anshun and we will have to travel by several buses to GY to have the operation this weekend. Or we can just keep her inside for the rest of her life to make sure she cannot become pregnant (the doctor's advice). It should be quite the adventure, and she will probably come back to AS in a cone collar--something else scary for the students and people to see. We still do not know what to expect from a Vet clinic in China...it could be interesting. We have heard from friends that they do the operation and you take them home right away, even before they have woken up...so I am looking forward to carrying a limp 35 lb. dog on the bus...let's see if people are still afraid?!? It will certainly get some stares!!

We hope you are blessed in your daily encounters and activities and that each moment is a blessing...we send our love.

2009-03-06T07:08:00.002-06:00

The worst imaginable thing that could happen during traveling is that a bag with your valuables is stolen or missing. We lost a bag when returning back to America from China the first time. It seemed rather suspicious, as we arrived in Chicago after our first flight was canceled but found that our bags made the flight. There was no way we were going to let something like that happen again, but that was until we traveled for over a day straight. We made our trip from Kuta (Danpassar) Indonesia to Kuala Lumpur, catch our connecting flight, arriving around midnight and started doing the routine arrival cards when we saw a group of Chinese women totally lost. They were waiting in line and then started walking around the area looking like they needed help. Maybe we could help...we started trying to translate the arrival cards into chinese because they are completely in English. This was going to take forever spelling out everything until they gave us their National ID cards and we got a line of workers waiting for us to write out their cards...many of the questions we had to just answer 'Other' because they did not know the meaning and our Chinese was not up to date...little practice in Indonesia and only some with a 4 year old in malaysia. They all made it through customs, as did we 45 minutes later than we thought.

Our next flight wasn't until 5:50 am, so we had a long wait and found that we were not the only ones. There were people everywhere sleeping on every chair and open space. We piled our bags up and found an open place and tried to sleep--Patty succeeded better than I. By the time, we made it onto the plane, we were certainly very tired and ready to sleep. We did get some sleep on the plane but were not ready for the day we would have ahead of us when we arrived in Guangzhou.

We arrived early in the morning, caught the bus to the train station and it seemed like things were going to work out just fine. We remembered the craziness of the train station from the stories during last winter's ice storm and were happy there were far fewer then 600,000 people there, but it certainly was very crowded. We got in the back of a line stretching out of the building and trudged our way to the front of the line. It was only 9 am so we had a long time to get our ticket to Wenzhou. One hour went by and most of another and we found ourselves at the front of the line. The lady behind the counter stood up, pulled her curtain closed and left. We had to wait for her to go to break and come back later. I decided to get in another line, not knowing how long Patty would have to wait, and almost made it to the front of my long line before Patty got her chance before the ticket lady. The news was grim...no train tickets to Wenzhou today and only one very late tomorrow night. We said no, even though the wait was over 2 hours. We'll try buses.

We went outside and asked a police officer where the bus station was and a bunch of people came together to work out our problem--finally coming up with the conclusion that there are no buses to Wenzhou today and one tomorrow, but very expensive. Maybe a plane would be better. We headed back to the ticket place, luckily all three are in one convenient place!! There are a couple tickets to Wenzhou that night, but there price was insanely expensive...but if we waited for tomorrow night the price is less than half. The only problem is that means we would only have 3 days with our students followed by a 2 day train ride back to college. What should we do...we called our friends in Wenzhou and then decided upon returning early to college and getting some time to relax (tickets were cheaper too).

The flight was at 10:40 pm though so we had a whole day in Guangzhou. We went to a park, walked around for a long period of time but were just tired and looking forward to getting back home. We decided to go back to the airport and wait there for our flight. We arrived around 6 and took a seat and talked about all of the events of our travels...Patty was still going over and feeling bad about leaving our coats in Ubud, indonesia, besides losing her watch...there is something about her and losing things while traveling (many umbrellas, watches, and hair thingies since). We were ready to sleep, so decided to get our ticket and rest at the gate and that's when it happened. Patty put down her bag to get her travel bag with our tickets, passports, extra money and other valuables in it out and started removing things slowly, followed by her ripping everything out and calling out in disbelief...they're not here!! I was totally lost, because I did not know what she was looking for, and kept her calm as we checked all of our other bags. It then sunk in, our tickets, passport, money, everything was gone...we might be stuck here in Guangzhou forever. I tried to stay calm in the face of Patty's hysteria...maybe we can check with the buses. Maybe someone has found it there and turned it in.

We went back to the bus stop just in time for the next bus to come (every 15 minutes) and Patty rushed onto the bus to the amazement of the women working there. What was she doing?? We tried to explain and the women were like, ahh...you want to get on the bus, buy a ticket over there. No, no, we left our bag on the bus...yes, yes buy a ticket take the bus. All in Chinese. It did not seem like we were getting anywhere, so I decided to go try the lost and found while Patty stayed at the buses. We had a few hours, so this was okay...as long as we find it. At the lost and found, the women listened to my broken Chinese...the bag that we had with money, tickets, and passports we have no more, left on the bus and handed me a phone. The connection was horrible and I could barely hear anything as I tried to explain the story again. So frustrating!!

On Patty's end, she has continued trying to rush onto every arriving bus to search, and finally has given up and has started crying hysterically. The women are trying to console her, "don't cry lady, buy ticket over there." After several more minutes of this, they decide that they need someone who knows more English. A woman comes and explains slowly in English..."it is okay, you can get on the bus after you buy a ticket." Patty frustrated explains the story, my bag was lost on the bus with my ticket, passports and money. This springs her (the bus lady) into hyper-help form and she takes off in her high-heels with Patty chasing behind.

During this time, I am still on the phone ready to hang up on the lady and checking the time on my cell phone and see a clock...the times are not even close. All of the extra time we thought we had, really isn't there. This is getting desperate. I have long since sent messages to friends to keep us in their thoughts and I really want to hang up and do something else, but what... At this time, the lady on the phone says wait and I hear the phone passing hands, I am not going to explain this again, but then I hear Patty's voice. She is crying and trying to talk..."they cannot find the bag, I don't know where I am." As she says these words, she starts screaming. I finally catch a few of the intelligible words, they found it. I cannot believe it, but we do not have time to celebrate. I try to explain where we should meet and the time difference and to hurry, but am sure Patty heard nothing through her screaming and she hangs up. I go to the meeting point and wait, looking at the clock the whole time. We are going to miss the flight and the tickets are not refundable...ahhh!!! So I start walking around the airport looking for Patty, which turns into running and calling her name...I assume most people had no idea what I was saying. Through the crowds of people I finally see Patty's familiar blonde hair and thus starts the next step. Catching our flight.

We ran in circles trying to find the correct check in place for our flight...the sign says they will stop taking luggage 45 minutes before the flight and we are pretty much at that point and there is a small line. We find our way to the front and hand our ticket half expecting her to say sorry but she says how many bags and we put our bags on and get our tickets. Her instruction was to hurry. So much for our planning ahead, and no time to think about the miracle of finding our bag. We rush with our backpack and a couple plastic bags of things to the inspection point. Patty again gets frisked and I wait for her with my bags and we leave towards the gates knowing that we have at least 10 minutes to get there. As we arrived at the Guiyang gate, we let out a sigh and Patty gave me a huge hug, releasing her pent up stress.

Even though it is nearly time for our flight, there is no plane there, but this does not bother us, we are there. I am hungry though and look around for the bag with our food in it. It is nowhere to be found and I look at Patty. Knowing she is already feeling bad, I try to break the mood by saying, I know you did not want to bring my rocks home, but where is our other bag? She is distraught, and beside herself, she is so good at being in charge of those things but this was not her day. I had to run back to the inspection area and get it before our plane arrives...all successfully and we board our plane an hour late. We have called our friends and are looking forward to relaxing at their house upon arrival.

The flight is totally uneventful and we land in Guiyang a little before 1am to find that there are no taxis. We ask several people and they say, meiyou (none). How are we going to get to our friends house, the airport is very far away. We see a bus ready to leave and take off running with our last levels of energy and get there as they are preparing to leave. "We want to go to the college." The inevitable answer is, we do not go there, we go to Qianling Park (nowhere close). We insist over and over again, we need to go to the college and finally they say okay whatever but more expensive. Money has long since been issue in this day of fiascoes. We would pay whatever. It turns out to only be an extra 5 RMB per person (70 cents). It has never felt better to see people we know and to be able to speak in English and to lay down and sleep. What a crazy day...the Fiasco in GuangZhou has ended.

2009-03-01T08:03:00.002-06:00

After our six week Chinese New Year/winter holiday break, school is starting tomorrow. That means I needed to get the last minute copying done and walk the dog at the same time. This is usually an enjoyable activity. The former students who own the copy shop are so accommodating and we seem to have an understanding not made from words, as we both struggle with the technical parts of each others language. I went ahead to get the copies done, while my wife tried to harness in our dog, Noah, who had just ran in front of the bus when she saw the pile of garbage in the street and the man with his carts picking through it for valuables. Noah was not going to be outdone and wanted a chance to be in the search. So I left them to their struggle, to explain my stack of papers and the number of copies I needed of each. I needed two copies of each (24 copies in all), and to my amazement they had bought a new copy machine so they got to work immediately without the turning on and waiting period, often with the shaking of the machine and a few bad copies. In amazing speed the copies were shooting out, almost like being back in America and in the teachers lounge for last minute copies...but then we all heard a series of loud noises and shouts and ran outside to see what was happening.

I immediately thought the worst, someone was throwing things Noah or beating Noah, because many people are afraid of dogs. Most dogs in China are wild and thus carry all kinds of diseases, so if bitten you need to get a long series of shots, so many people will whistle at our dog and then run away in fright when she comes near them. So when I saw the person wielding a mop and running towards something to hit it in the shop, I was mortified. I went out further and saw the student (college student at that), breaking the mop over the head of another student and use the remaining piece to beat him. This freaked me out even more. Other students jumped in and started to kick this kid who didn't quite know what to do. The original student then found a brick and started to beat the student who was now curled up in the fetal position.

I could not sit by and not intervene. In America, I would have been there after seeing the first part of this along with a line of other people, but things are a bit different in China. The Chinese people are not violent people by any means, but the reaction to fighting is very different. When there are traffic accidents, you will often see those involved getting into a scuffle right there in the middle of traffic. One such incident comes to mind, a man driving his motorbike through town when a man walks aimlessly in front of him causing the man on the motorbike to swerve and topple his bike on top of himself. My wife nudged me and said go help him get his bike off the street, but within seconds the man was up limping and dragging his injured leg to catch up to the man who offended him and started beating him. Many others saw this and formed a circle around the pair in the middle of the street with buses and cars going around. The police eventually came, now to two bloody men and money changed hands and the ordeal was over.

I was afraid another tragic story like the one several months before was going to happen, where a guard was stoned to death by bricks. I would not let that happen even if the Chinese expectation seems to be that you stay out of others affairs. So with a crowd of shopkeepers and other students watching I ran over, the foreign teacher, trying to stop this madness of a fight. As a student started beating him again with the brick, I started yelling, "bu yao" (literally don't want) grabbed the student, picked him up and turned him around. To this his girlfriend or friend, came running over and asking me not to hurt him. When he was removed, another student jumped in and started kicking the guy and I once again had to remove him. All eyes and mouths were wide open in amazement...what is the foreigner doing?? After a few more seconds of my shouting in Chinese and English--I really did not know what to yell...the students started to disperse and shopkeepers hurried back to their stores. The show was over.

I went back paid for my copies, told the guys in the copy shop that I would see them later and left for home, confused. I have never been in a fight before, so this was a whole new feeling. I hope I am tagging the culture wrong on this one, but from all of my experiences it seems to be true...to stay out of others' affairs is of great importance even if it means harm is coming to them and you can help. In all other ways, the Chinese are incredibly helpful. And I cannot say I have ever felt in danger, even after this experience.

2009-02-28T18:16:00.002-06:00

Okay the rest of the story from the day of 3 km. So we left the Ijen Crater in the morning and started our journey towards the coast of Java, where we would take the ferry across to Bali. We really had a good time with our new friend who we named Ben. As we neared our stop, we asked for some advice on where to visit and stay tonight in Bali. Patty really wanted to see the beaches and we would travel to Ubud the next day to visit some of the rural areas and culture. Most people who travel to Bali go to Kuta, but we were hoping to save that for the last days as it is near the airport, so he said a beautiful and less busy beach and area that we should visit is in Pekutatan. It sounded good to us and would be a great place to rest away from the crowds and tourists. So we went off towards the ferry with our map, some advice and a general idea of what we were going to do for the next couple of days. We were excited even though it was raining, because Bali has a reputation as a beautiful and romantic place. Finally, I was going to get it right and meet Patty's romantic expectations.

The ferry ride was around an hour long and quite peaceful, except for the numerous times people came to sell things or provide services for us. That is the one thing about Indonesia that can be a little overwhelming. There are always people hounding you to sell things (and it was only going to get worse in Bali). We docked with our two backpacks on, our windbreaker coats around our waist just in case it really started to rain as we had forgotten our umbrellas in China and our rolling suitcase trailing behind. Now to get a bus to Pekutatan. It should not be hard as all roads in Bali seemed to either loop around the top or bottom of the island (we wanted the bottom loop). it should not take long as my friend said Bali is only 25km long which was another misconception.

The bus station was not far away, so as we walked a number of people came to help us find the "right" bus. Oh Pekutatan, take this bus, so we lugged our bags up and onto the small bus and waited to leave. When they came around to sell tickets, ours cost 50,000 for the two of us which seemed quite high for such a short travel, especially when people going to the end of the line paid less, but maybe they were going to take us into the city or drop us off somewhere special. but it was only $5. It was at least cheaper than the people who tried to sell us tickets aboard the ferry and they did not even know where Pekutatan was either.

So the journey began and it continued to rain as we picked up additional passengers until everyone was stacked in snuggly with packages and bags piled in the aisle. The rain got stronger and stronger as we went on, which wasn't much of a worry since we were being dropped off in a town. We would find a hotel by the ocean and wait out the rain to enjoy the beach at night, maybe even catch the sunset. All of those thoughts seem to be erased when they stopped the bus and pointed at us--Pekutatan. From the fogged up windows I could not see many houses and it was now pouring. I stepped off the bus into a river racing down the road with my big camping backpack on my back and holding our carryon suitcase above the flowinng water.

Something was wrong, this could not be the town we wanted to visit, because this was not a town at all but just two houses. We saw an overhang with an older couple huddled under it and thought this was a worthwhile option for the time being. Maybe the rain would stop soon and we could find where we were really supposed to be--so much for the extra money we paid them. After a few minutes of disbelief and questioning of our initial plan, we asked the couple--Pekutatan?? pointing at the area we were huddled in. After lots of blank stares and them looking at our now drenched paper with the name on it, they pointed over a hill and signaled with their hands that we needed to go over two hills and we would be there. As the rain did not seem to be slowing or stopping anytime soon, we decided to put the liner on the camping backpack and head out into the pouring rain. We put on our windbreakers as that was our only defense against the rain and headed towards the hills and Pekutatan. I reassured Patty that it would not be too far, only two hills and we could get a nice hotel, if there were any there.

So we crossed the river forming along the roads edges and headed up the first hill and found as we expected another hill in the distance, this was not going to be all that long of a walk after all. We mounted the second hill, now totally soaked, with anticipation and found yet another hill in the distance. Maybe I got his symbols wrong and he meant three hills or it could be many, many hills before we get to Pekutatan. This was unnerving--hopefully we were going in the right direction. As we made it up the third hill, we had a chance to find out as people came up wondering what we were doing and where we were going. I said Pekutatan expecting them to say it is very near or just over the hill, but they looked at me in disbelief as though they did not know Pekutatan. Were we in the right place, did the bus driver just let us off in a random place and say good luck. What a raw deal and horrible way to treat the foreigners!! We were used to all kinds of traveling problems in China, but we were not in China anymore. We did not know where we were and my Bahasa was quite limited to small talk and the numbers for bartering.

So as we saw a sign that pointed to a spa and resort, we decided to go towards it, even if the sign said that it was 3 km away. We walked 3 km this morning straight up a mountain so this could not be so bad and we were already soaked anyway. Couldn't get anymore wet, so off we went towards Puri Dejuma Resort. We were soon joined in our journey by a group of three women traveling home from working in the fields. Between them, they had an umbrella, a banana leaf, and a hat to keep them from getting wet. The banana leaf seemed to be doing the best job, so as we traveled along, I found a huge leaf and tied it atop the rolling suitcase to protect it to which the women got a big laugh. We asked them about Pekutatan and they pointed that this is Pekutatan. What?? All I saw was a road that seemed to go on forever and a few houses strewn around it. I sure hope this is not right, because nothing here resembles a hotel but the homemade houses of the farmers.

As we came to the houses, it was as though we were the main attraction in a parade, as all of the kids and people stopped what they were doing to say hello. Many of them were out taking showers in the rain so it was a big awkward and Patty stopped to rest next to a cow who looked at her with the same question that was on everyone's mind--what are you doing out in the rain?? The cow looked so perplexed by us as it hid under its palm tree. It brought a laugh from our rather somber walk. After if felt like we had traveled our 3 km, we had our next encounter, a man and his family who came out to see us as we were traveling by. He was a teacher and his English was pretty good, so he gave us all kinds of advice and wanted to take us by motorbike to a hotel. At last, we asked about a hotel and he said it was 3 more kilometers away. Seeing that there was no way we could all fit on the motorbike with all of our bags and Patty did not want to go alone, we decided to continue walking. But 3 more km, ahh!!

We rounded a corner and for the first time we could see the ocean. I was sure that if we could see the ocean, we could find a hotel. So I ran down the dirt road towards the ocean as Patty waited...nothing but a quaint farmhouse and more children excited to see foregners and use their one word of English, hello. So continued on and came to a break a break in the road, two ways to go. So I went and asked a woman, pointing in the direction I thought was right, Pekutatan?? She shook her head and I felt good about being able to find the right way, until we traveled down this road for another eternity. Then I remembered one of the cultural practices common in Asia, if people do not know the answer or do not understand they will always say yes to save face for you. Were we actually going the wrong direction again?? This was turning out to be a mess-we needed to get a hotel and we were now quite tired. I was trying to tell jokes to keep a good atmosphere, but we were ready to be done walking.

Then we saw it, the sign for Puri Dejuma Resort and I joked with Patty that it said 3 more km, but it was only one more km ahead. We were almost there so it seemed and made it to the next sign for 700 m more and we could finally see the resort. It was like a dream, a romantic oasis with palm trees and beautiful bungalows beside the ocean. Patty became afraid that they either would not have any rooms or it would be so expensive that we would go elsewhere, but in truth they could have charged anything and I would have said okay. The people met us as though we were the only people there and asked how we were...we felt like drowned rats. They wondered if we came by motorbike, nope, walked. How far was their last question, 1 km?? Nope, at least five. They were so confused why and how we made it there and we told a little of the story and they said we will make a special deal for you. I looked at the prices and they were in Euros 104 for a deluxe room and 114 for the best ocean front room. Only later would I understand the conversions, that is about 1.5 million rupiahs, but they said they would give us the best room for 650,000 rupiahs less than half. Patty was beaming when I said yes. This would be the honeymoon she always imagined. It appears that I accidentally made this romance thing happen after-all.

Our room was amazing with everything that a woman thinks of in a fairy tale plus more, the four-post bed, bath with flower petals, a porch where we drank tea together overlooking the ocean, and an outdoor garden shower. What an amazing place. We set out all of our clothes which were drenched, even with the leaf as a protection. Our moods were instantly elevated and we were at peace. They had umbrellas and we walked along the beach, had supper overlooking the ocean but it was too cloudy to see the sunset. We went to bed early thinking about taking a tour tomorrow to see the butterfly garden, orchid garden, the rural areas a tree top walk and some other places and ending up in Ubud. This was going to work out afterall and we had a great walk in the rain, right?? Patty said never again, next time we will plan it all out to make sure something like this does not happen. But she liked the outcome of the unplanned romantic day. Maybe not planning can be a better way to travel because you get unexpected blessings and adventures.

2009-02-27T20:08:00.000-06:00

Here are some pictures of the Ijen Crater in East Java Indonesia. The workers make two treks, two miles up each time, then carry their load of sulfur down the steep path each day. Each worker carries about 70-90 kg per trip. They are paid 600 rupiah (6 cents) for each kg and about $8 per day after two trips. Many of them are also farmers so this is only their morning work. Walking through the noctuous gases of sulfuric acid twice up and twice down.

2009-02-25T08:39:00.005-06:00

So after the bust of Valentines Day, I had another chance the next day going to one of the most romantic places (the honey moon capital of Bali). I would title this day the day of 3 kilometers. We had a second chance at the sunrise thing, this time at a place that many people recommended, Ijen Crater, a volcano with an acid lake that people carry baskets of sulfur from. So we got up early again and took a much shorter drive through the rainforest to the crater. It was a beautiful day and we arrived about the time the sunrise was coming, so nice. We started the hike up after seeing the sign that read 3km. That is not too bad, 1.8 miles in the early morning on a path. We started our leisurely stroll with the vibrant colors around us and the mystic mountains in a thin veil of fog and there seemed like nothing that could deter this day.

Birds were chirping and we talked and walked uphill for quite some time and I was sure we were almost there--Patty was ready to say this is good enough let's go back. I reassured her, we were almost there. Along the way, we encountered many men carrying their containers of sulfur down the path (90 kg or so). Each asked the same questions, photo? buy some sulfur? cigarattes, where you from? etc. Did we get up this early to walk to my death was her next comment. I reassured, I am sure it is just over that hill. We made it to the top and yet more hills straight upwards. Finally we made it to an exposed area where you could see straight down the mountain and the only thing that saved her from giving up was that we could see a lodge with workers from the mine. This definitely must be it, so we strode with purpose towards it only to be shown another path that led up another mountain. Was this going to be worth it, if it was only another crater that smelled like sulfur? We had made it so far already so we continued onwards with reluctance and that reluctance turned to dismay as we almost got there.

The first wave of sulfur gases steamed out of the crater and almost knocked us off the mountain. We had not brought a scarf or anything to cover our faces, though we had tried. We bartered with a woman in the market for a 10 cent piece of fabric that she wanted $5 for--I almost died but her friends had a great laugh as we bartered back and forth in Bahasa Indonesian. I always make it a point to learn the numbers in each language just for shopping purposes. So we were only with our shirts hiked up over our mouths and noses trying to endure this horrid smell that instantly gave you a headache and seemed to burn your nose, eyes and exposed skin. But these men do this everyday, so not to be outdone I decided to do it. I was going to go out into the fog and go down to the bottom of the crater. Patty stayed back to watch out for me and worry.

There was reason to worry, as the path across was very narrow and went straight down into the acid lake on one side and off the top of the mountain on the other. Most of this journey across was done in white out conditions (not snow as I am accustomed) but with gagging sulfuric acid fog. Luckily I could follow the men with baskets who knew the path well and made it across to the entrance to the pit of sulfur. From there the walk down was on rocks that seemed to be half-hazardously placed and made me feel like I was going to slip all the way down. Along the way, the fog cleared at times and I was able to see the most spectacular sights of the crater walls, the blueish acid lake and all of the people working virtually right next to the lake of acid. I was going to make it.

As I walked through the fog again, I heard someone call out in abnormally good English, where are you from? I looked around and saw another foreigner and said America and we started talking about travels, which changed to geology and the mud volcanoes in Surabaya and we talked for quite some time until I remembered Patty atop likely worrying about my death in the crater lake. So I continued downwards until there was a ledge and took some pictures, but by now I was sure it had been over an hour and this was supposed to romantic time together, so I headed back. Maybe she had passed out from the noctous gasses, so I rushed up the paths and ran across the narrow pathway and there she was taking and being part of numerous pictures with strangers. One of the tasks of being a foreigner in Asia, many people want you to be in their pictures. At about that time, we found the sign for elevation 3200m (2 miles high). We had walked the entire path uphill.

Surely the path downhill would be much easier and faster. The weather got warmer and the sulfur fog got stronger as we walked down, but we could walk easily downhill. About halfway down, a woman with her infant child tied on her waist grabbed ahold of Patty's hand as we walked past. This started another of the interesting conversations with a little language knowledge on both of our parts. Good thing Esther and Judy had taught me a little Bahasa, so we talked with a little of her language and her little English. She was from Java and her name was Sri from an Indian family though Muslim as a majority of those in Java are. It was a fun, slow walk down but full of blessings unexpected. Her daughter was the cutest thing, so we got a picture together and we gave her our information so maybe she will contact us again. Always fun to meet people along the journey. Maybe today would indeed be better than the Valentines Day fiasco...but it was still only 9 am. Bali was next and that certainly could not disappoint. I will finish the day of 3 kilometers in the next blog--it is a long day, and definitely unexpected.

2009-02-21T04:08:00.002-06:00

Valentines Day is supposed to be a day that is full of romance. So this year while we were traveling to Indonesia, I thought i would do something romantic. Usually, Valentines Day means a supper and something made to show our year (no flowers because she doesn't like the unoriginality). This year, we were traveling to Indonesia, so I thought that I would make this something unforgettable. We were leaving Blitar and got a hotel in Malang the night before, so we were very close to Mt. Bromo known for its breath-taking, spectacular sunrises. The only catch is that we must get up at 1 am to make the drive. Our excitement and expectation the night before was unbelievable, so much so that we did not want to go to bed.

So with only a couple hours of sleep, we got up, packed and got into our cab ready to see the spectacular sunrise over Mount Bromo. In the darkness, the only buzz was from street workers and farmers setting up and getting ready for work, but the roads were empty but curvy. I was nearby sick by the time we arrived and it had started to rain. When we got out of the car, there were people everywhere trying to rent us raincoats and heavy coats (I am glad I didn't wear shorts, even though this was Indonesia). We waited with hundreds of other foreigners looking at the foggy and rainy sky, hoping to see a break in the sky and the miraculous sunrise. I had the camera ready and waiting and time was going so slowly in the tiredness of the early morning. I waited and took pictures of trees and my wife and waited; the sky grew brighter and the clouds started to separate, and what did we see but more clouds and fog. It was a bust!! We woke up early and got to see the miraculous Mt. Bromo fog blanketing the valley and covering the mountain. Maybe the rest of the day would go better...

So we traveled onto the second part of Valentines Day trip. We traveled by van to the foot of Mt. Bromo to travel up to the crater on horseback. I knew how much my wife loves horseback riding, so there was no way this could fail. When we made it down to the bottom of the valley, the fog started to open up and we could see the mountains around. This day was going to pan out okay after all. We arrived and we found our horses and headed out on the black sands of the volcano following a stream of other riders to the center of the foggy area. The horses are usually led by their masters, but mine was quite tired so let me go running off--it kept feeling like the saddle was going to come flying off over the bumps while my we climbed the hill. Patty came up slowly led by her horse leading elderly man of the mountain as he appeared. I thought she would be discouraged but she was excited as we dismounted and headed towards the stairs to the top. That's when it happened...

The fog started to come towards us and the realization hit me...this is an active volcano and the steam comes with one of the most powerful scents known to man (well, it compares well to durian)...sulfur. After the cloud engulfed us, Patty was nearly falling down the path we just traveled up and feeling like she was ready to throw up. I was bound and determined to see the crater, so I "encouraged" her to come up the stairs. Halfway up, phase number two of the sulfur fog that burns your nose hairs off sent Patty into another coughing storm. As I encouraged more, I took another step and she did not. I continued and she did not. She did not want to go any more. I was not going to stop now, so I continued up to the mouth of the sulfur spewing abyss. It was horrid to stand the smell, but it all became worthwhile when everything cleared up and you could see the whole crater. An amazing sight, but Patty missed it. I walked down to meet her doubled over on the stairs waiting. Part two of the romantic day had been pretty much a failure. She kept thinking her tiny horse was going to die, so the horseback ride was not quite as exciting. We got back into the van and headed out for yet another part of romance central.

The next part was the drive through the rest of the park, where we got a chance to visit with some of the farmers in the villages, stop at a market to buy some rambuton and another fruit called salay, which looked and felt like snake skin and tasted very sweet. We then continued traveling through the rainforest, which did what it does best rain. Our destination was a stay at a coffee plantation near the rainforest. What we did not know was that it would take endless hours through roads that should not be called roads trying to miss all of the other traffic around the corners. We finally arrived totally tired and ready to sleep, but wanted to enjoy the last attempt at a romantic day.

When we finally arrived it was just before getting dark, so we thought we would go explore the village area. The children instantly ran towards us yelling for pens. We brought out one thinking they wanted us to write something but they took it and asked for more. Not quite like the children who crowd around us looking for pictures or to call us laowai and laugh. We walked towards the bamboo buildings following several people with towels and buckets. Only when we got down the hill did we find out the reason...all of them were taking baths in the steam as men walked out naked. So we diverted our path towards the goats. That path ended up being filled with smoke, so our walk ended prematurely as there was no comfort in walking any other direction, especially towards the naked people again. We headed back to our room, ate food and went to bed. Not quite the Valentines day of romance I expected, but maybe the next day and our trip to Bali would be better. It is supposed to be the honeymoon place.

2009-02-18T22:23:00.002-06:00

Okay finally we will write about our experience visiting our Compassion child in Indonesia. What a great experience and something we never thought we would get a chance to do!! So we made our successful 8 hour bus ride to Blitar (told it would be 3), found our room, and met the staff workers who would take us to the village the next day. Great guys (Deni and Yohannes).

The next morning we went out to look around and find some food--getting some Indonesian food that we never ate because it turned out breakfast was supplied with our room. The travel to Wlingi was very interesting and we arrived at the project to meet all of those working and serving there. Their hearts and passion for the children is amazing and we were blessed to see and hear about their work. Then we got to meet Siska, boy has she grown since the last picture we have received. We will post pictures when we get back. Then we traveled to her house to meet her whole family. They live in a simple rural house with brick and plaster walls and the only pictures on the wall were enlarged pictures we sent years ago (it has been 5 years of supporting and corresponding. Her father and mother are workers and she has a brother. They raise chickens to sell at the market and were super friendly. We had a chance to try rambutons (a kind of fruit). Very good!! We later got a bouquet of them.

We shared some pictures of friends and our life in America and China and prayed and talked to them before returning for lunch and then the weekly gathering of children from the project. They worshiped in Bahasa which was amazing and we shared a little because we were told we are the only people to visit this project in all the years. Such amazing children and such an experience that we will not forget, but it was oh so short. We also started out towards going to visit another project nearby but our vehicle broke down. So many feelings and thoughts that are hard to put into words. We are now preparing to head back to China to visit some students and then back to the college for school starting. Many blessings!!

2009-02-17T20:56:00.002-06:00

Traveling, traveling, traveling. One would think you could do it forever, but the more we do of it, the more we miss being home and back to a simple life with one or two places to go. But boy have there been the adventures and blessings. Even though it has been a week since our time in Malaysia, I should recap some of what happened...it would take too many pages to do everything (sorry I am long winded). The easiest way to sum it up is by the un-expected blessings.

1. Getting ahold of people and getting things set-up. We went in with no plans just a list of people we wanted to meet and telephone numbers (some wrong we found out). We were able to meet everyone on our list plus so many more. At one time, we had a fiasco because we were expected to wait at the train station until 8pm from noon for a friend to come after work (but we ended up un-expectedly running into some friends from near our city in China (what's the chance of that!!).

2.Chinese New Year with Sherry's family. What an amazing group of people!! We especially enjoyed meeting her Uncle Michael and hearing about the opportunities of sharing faith with the Orang Asli (native people) and hearing about the history of God's work in Malaysia. Lots of good food and fellowship too!!

3. Staying with our friends/family Kok Kiang and Soo Hui. We are so blessed by them. We miss them already and had a chance to see how Clarence (3 years old) has grown and encourage them in the ongoing battle of raising a child and relationships. They also were a great encouragement to us. It was fun to share and hear about their lives and to keep up with them.

4. Visiting Desa Alma Jireh Orphanage again. It was such a great experience to go back and see the kids from 3 years ago. We were surprised to see how many remembered us and how many we remembered. To hear how many have been baptised and professed faith in Jesus is amazing. We were blessed to see their new center and how lives are changing and they are growing. Our hearts are very much still with the kids and their challenges and passions.

5. Visiting the Yap family. It has been six years since I first met and stayed with the Yap family. Oh, how they have changed and grown. Their three kids, Philip, Esther and Judy are growing and looking more and more like their parents. They have become so mature. We enjoyed going biking with them (except when Patty tried to ride on the same bike as me (she screamed the whole way). We played lots of Mah Jong and Esther taught me some Bahasa Malay. It came in handy in Indonesia some. Oh, how God has blessed and brought transformations through Frankie's outreach to the homeless and lonely.

6.Going to a church service. It has been ages since we have been able to go to church, becuase there are no churches as understood in America. We went with the Yap family and to be able to worship and meet so many old friends and new ones was great. We even met your twin Amy Moreland, but with four children.

7. Meeting the pastor and his family (Esther, Eunice, Michael, etc.). To see how God is working in and through them is amazing. It is illegal in Malaysia for Muslims to become Christians and they told of a story of a woman who asked to know more even though it meant losing her children, husband, home and going to prison. We loved their family so much.

8. Going to Rawang again. The first time I visited, I spent most of my time at the church in Rawang and it was great to be able to go back and see how the Father is working there and to share with them and be encouraged in our work. We also got together with some youth friends and Karen and her soon to be husband.

9. Seeing Cap and her family. They were our saviors the first day when we were stuck in the train station and we were guided to safety at their house. She is a great friend that I pray will be blessed in amazing ways.

10. Having a WSU reunion of sorts with WAihon, back in Malaysia for the time being and Cap, Sharon Lau, Kok kiang and soo hui, and us. It was good to hear how people are doing and growing and to remenisce about old times.

Boy do we have the story for you from Indonesia. We have been enjoying it but there have been oh so many unexpected things...blessings too of course. We pray that your life will be blessed through expected and unexpected events and that you will hold firmly to the solid rock and hope found in Jesus.

2009-02-12T08:02:00.002-06:00

We have arrived in Indonesia. What an adventure to say the least!! We got up early to take the train and a bus to the airport in KL (kuala lumpur), and found that it was once again super crowded. We had our three bags and had to push our way on and were crammed in, but only for three stops this time. The rest of the travel was good, and we made it to our AirAsia flight, very cheap to Indonesia. We did not know what to expect and did not have anyone to meet us and little knowledge of the country.

We arrived and found that the time was one hour different, and that we had to exchange money--we became millionaires because of the exchange rate. We found the bus to the bus station and got on board to sit around for a long time, and were crammed into the bus with many others (we would learn more about cramming later). The trip was very short for 30,000 Rupiahs. At the train station we got our first real Indonesian experience. There were people everywhere trying to sell almost everything and get us to take their taxi. We went to a counter to sell tickets and the man said 400 and I thought 400,000 with the currency difference and he kept saying no.

We finally found our bus and heaped our bags next to us and waited to leave. The bus filled up full and there were dozens of people trying to sell all kinds of things, from drinks to food stuffs and we were off. Along the road, people got on at different times (some playing guitar or singing songs or selling things). Along the road there were people selling things from car to car and doing whatever to make money. It was a surreal experience!! The trip was a long one and very warm. The bus had no air conditioning and people crammed in everywhere. It felt like we would pass out at times but the entertainment was really fun. It took us about 8 hours to make the trip that we heard was only three hours. We did meet a man from Blitar, our intended place who lived in the US and he helped us find the right place to get off. The bus man dropped us off with our bags beside the road and we got into the rickshaw bike and gave them directions and we were off to the hotel. We did not really know where we were going but thankfully arrived there in 25 minutes.

We met our friend at the hotel but did not recognize them as they were carrying durian (the king of the fruits). We were excited to be able to meet our compassion child in the morning. It has now ended and has been a great experience and one that we will not forget anytime soon. What a blessing and what a great group of people. We will talk more about that later!!

2009-02-04T23:39:00.002-06:00

Hello again!! It has been a long, but very inspiring and blessed time since our last blog. We have been in Malaysia visiting friends, but last week was Chinese New Year, so we packed enough clothes for 5 days of traveling to Melaka and Penang and have not returned yet to our friends (going on 11 days now). We will try to sum up some of the great experiences and blessings from our time of traveling. If you are wondering, we have indeed washed our clothes during this time or we would be super smelly (the weather is super hot).

So we got up early on Monday to make our travel to Melaka with our friend Sherry Tan to find out that it would be several hours before we would leave. Her family is amazing--some of the friendliest people. We rode in one of the two cars through the holiday traffic and arrived at a house full of people (her relatives on her mothers side). Usually, we feel like the outsiders as everyone speaks Chinese or another language, but we were happy to find everyone speaks very fluent English and that they love to travel (more than we do). We learned a lot about her whole family, through pictures stories, talking and lots of laughs.

Some things we learned about Chinese New Year: they have a reunion dinner where the family gets together the night before the new year, with lots of symbolic foods (long noodles for prosperity), a salad that everyone stirs together and sends blessings (yee sang), prawns, and so many others.People put out dozens of kinds of snacks for their family and friends to visit them throughout the 15 day holiday. The price of all things goes up, but you get to try all kinds of specialty foods. We enjoyed all kinds of special things in Melaka. It is the key to the history of Malaysia. It dates back to the Portuguese in the 1600's, then the Dutch who took over later and the British. So there are all kinds of famous churches, one devoted to St. Francis Xavier who was the initial M to Malaysia and also to some parts of Japan. Also a variety of houses and food, the long houses from the Dutch (taxes based upon the length of the front, so small front and long building, british schools and Portuguese settlements of fishermen.

We learned a lot about the Chinese culture from our special guide, Sherry's uncle: Uncle Michael who is a historian in the church and city. His family moved to East Malaysia several hundred years ago from China to escape persecution and most of the Chinese inter-married with locals to make Nyonya (mixed culture). They have retained most of their culture but lost the language mostly. I think I could write pages about my love for the variety of foods here in Malaysia...I love it. The weather has stuck to tradition, no rain for Chinese New Year, so that was nice. We were able to enjoy days of traveling and will write later about our time in Penang, a historical and beautiful island in the NW of Malaysia.

We have a few more days here in Malaysia before heading to Indonesia and then to visit students in China before returning for schools start on the 2nd of March. What a great long break, but we miss our students and Patty our puppy.

2009-01-24T21:40:00.002-06:00

Gong Xi Fa Cai!! Happy Chinese New Year. We have been able to enjoy some of the festivities getting close to the big day tomorrow. Yesterday, we traveled to the new capitals of malaysia in Putra Jaya and learned a lot about the fruit and forests there, lots of huge and different kinds of fruits. We also went to the wetlands and were greeted with a huge rainstorm, after Patty laughed at how weak the rain was coming down. Natures response was quick and adequate!! We also saw the new national mosque and capital buildings which look very much like mosques to show the direction of the government.

About the Chinese New Year, we went to the buddhist temple to see the display of lanterns and zodiac animals, there were thousands of lanterns everywhere and everything decked out in red (lucky color). There were tons of people there and lots of photo opts, and then we prepare now to go for the reunion meal with our friends family. They laid out lots of snacks and thus will go the next few days, eating and talking eating and eating. We are excited to see friends and their families and to eat all kinds of special foods. There is also a total eclipse tomorrow which is a very bad sign in Chinese culture because the sun is the life force and it means 1000X bad luck especially on the first day of the new year. But the year of the ox is for resilence and determination, something we may all need more of with the economy and the way things are going. It will be a new experience to see the new year from in Asia, but not China, maybe in the future.

We wish you many blessings and great joy in all you do.

2009-01-23T08:09:00.002-06:00

Being in Malaysia has been a great blessing and has brought back many memories from our previous trips here. We have been able to get together with a few of our friends, see some places and enjoy the nice warm weather with the 1-2 hours of drenching rain almost daily around 4 pm. Here are a few of our highlights thusfar.

When we arrived, we had to walk from the plane to the terminal, but saw a number of people put on their artic coats, and got a laugh from seeing their reactions as they stepped off into the heat (32'C or more each day). We arrived in Malaysia early but were expected to meet our friends at the KL (Kuala Lumpur) Sentral station. We had collected many numbers of friends from different parts of the country and were feeling confident. We thought that we would send them a call to tell them we made it and to be prepared, but had problems with all of the phones. So we got our ticket from the airport by bus to the Sentral station. It took about 30-45 minutes to get there and we got to see some of the changes in Malaysia and experience some things over again.

We arrived at Sentral station and thus began our phone ordeal. We found out that we had only the home phone number for our friends who planned to pick us up but both were at work at the number was incorrect...we tried all combinations of the numbers to no avail and tried all of our other friends, except those very far from KL. Nothing was working, but we had a home number for a friend and finally got her sister. After a number of other calls back and forth, we ended up taking a train and getting to sit down to hot water and biscuits...no food from 8 am, until about 6pm. How difficult it is to live without a cell phone and to be dependent on foreign pay phones again...ahh!!

Since then we have stayed with our friends Kok Kiang and his wife Soo Hui and their 4 year old son Clarence. It has been a little different having a young and often naughty chld around, but a great learning time for us. We have taken a few trips out to enjoy the National Museum, lots of different kinds of food, the night market and today the Jungle, KL tower (4th largest in the world) and the World Famous Petronais Towers (we even had Burger King there). One thing we love about Malaysia is the variety of foods, we had our favorite breakfast food, Roti Chanai, a bread with lots of spicy Indian dipping sauces, and lots of Malay and Chinese favorites also including Thai too.

Our big plans for next week are for the Chinese new Year...it is my new year, since my Chinese name is Da Niu (big cow)...the year of the ox. We are planning on traveling with our friends Sherry and Anthony to their hometowns in Penang and Malacca. We will get to visit both of their families and get to enjoy lots of food and lots of new places. We will keep you updated. Many blessings and stay warm...we will try to send some of our heat your way.

2009-01-18T19:33:00.002-06:00

It is so much fun to be able to come to Hong Kong again and to see fellow teachers and friends after a year. There were even a great number of new friends to meet, some from MN too. We were greatly blessed by the speakers and worship--lots of healing, physical and spiritual. Many people got sick from our group, but it was a great time of togetherness.

We also got a chance to visit with a good college friend, Queenie and her sister Green. They are such a great delight and I think we convinced them to come and visit us in Anshun during their spring break. We went to a fancy Korean restaurant and for the first time I enjoyed Kimchi and lots of the other favorites. We then went boot shopping for Patty, but found her feet are still too big for Hong Kong. Lots of fun to talk and see new places though.

Patty got a little sick on Sunday and is healing today, as we go and visit her parents friends, Jackson and Patty. Then we fly out of HK to Malaysia tomorrow for visiting lots of people in different areas. We are greatly blessed to see our friends and to encourage and be encouraged by them. We wish you all many blessings in all you do and all those you encounter throughout your week. In basketball, GO MN!! January has been good to most MN teams--keep it up!!

2009-01-10T23:45:00.002-06:00

It has been 11 days of 2009 ...I hope it has been filled with many great moments. We have been mostly just waiting for our last finals which we finished on Friday. They are now finished and graded, and now students are gone for home. The campus is getting empty and quiet, and we are ready to leave for Hong Kong on Wednesday. We had a good New Years with our traditional toasted fish with friends. On New Years eve we got a treat of snow, and students out with their umbrellas and huge mountains of snow for their "snowball fights." It is quite rare to get snow in Anshun, but the most fun was to see multiple students who have never seen snow before (From Guangdong, Hainan and other warm places).

The cold weather has been long though, so we are very excited for our winter holiday break. We will leave on January 14th for Hong Kong for our conference and then the 20th to visit friends in Malaysia. It has been two years since we have seen most of our college friends, so we are excited to see them. From there we are heading to visit our Compassion child of five years in Indonesia. I have been planning a special trip to some famous places for Patty. We will get to see Siska and her family and then travel to Bromo National Park to see the volcanoes, mountains and hopefully get up early to hike up and see the sunrise. Then we will go to Bali to see the famous beaches. After that, we will finish our travels by going to visit our students in Zhejiang. We are super excited and then will take the 30 hour train back to Anshun and start classes again on the 2nd of March.

Can you keep in mind our next term of classes? We will have fewer classes, but more challenging ones and Patty is hoping to look into the foster care system here in China, but we are contemplating what that would mean for us. We are also looking at our future plans, but still planning on coming home to Minnesota this summer. We are hoping to get home for the 4th of July and a friends wedding and hopefully our class reunions (I cannot believe it has been 10 years already). We wish you all blessings!!

2008-12-24T20:22:00.003-06:00

Sheng dan jie kuai la!! Merry Christmas from China!! Christmas is a different time here in China. We can almost go the whole season without hearing much Christmas music, we did not have snow again this year, there are no fights over whether or not you can say or use the words Merry Christmas, as more businesses are donning signs with Merry Christmas, but little in the way of the Christmas cheer and frantic shopping. We did do our most to add a little of the season and reason for Christmas to our students and those around us though. It is still one of my favorite times, because it usually comes at the end of the first semester of school, the students are excited to get out of classes and to head home (from the Chinese students for their annual Chinese New Year pilgrimage--everyone goes home for the holidays).

So we taught our students (and many others) some of the famous Christmas carols. Almost everyone knows Jingle Bells here, either in English or in Chinese (you can check out Ding, Ding Dong on youtube if you want to hear it). We also had Christmas parties for each of our classes, quite a task as there are almost 250 between Patty and I. We made cookies, handed out candy canes, showed Christmas movies (sometimes our wedding video!!), and made ornaments for our once bare, but now overfilled tree. Christmas is not a big holiday here in China, but I believe that is starting to change. This year we saw hundreds of people out selling the Chinese favorite Christmas gift, apples at our gate. You could buy them in all kinds of fancy wrapping, and now our house is full of them (from students). We are planning on making some apple crisp after the parties are finished and we can relax.

This year they also had a Christmas program put on by the English department. Some of our students asked us to do something special with them, so we wrote a play where two of them became our children on christmas morning. We struggled through the differences of culture (language, different customs, and traditions) to try to share with them what Christmas was, giving them Christmas stockings, candy canes, etc. which they did not understand and they gave us apples and money, which we did not understand. In the end, we found one similarity in being able to sing Jingle Bells together (them in Chinese, us in English). It was quite fun and very funny!! There were all kinds of other singers, dancers, and lots of apples.

One thing new we did this year was to write out Christmas cards to some of the vendors and people we visit often who are kind. A student wrote out the Chinese translation and I have been trying to write it out in both Chinese and English. It is the first time many of the farmers and vegetable people have heard of Christmas, and we also gave one to our favorite noodle restaurant people who are Muslim. We are not quite sure of any of their reactions as they merely say thank you...not used to receiving a gift at work. I guess time will tell as we continue to build relationships with them. Keep them in mind this Christmas season.

Last weekend, we went to Guiyang for the foreigner Christmas party...it was amazing and fun to see so many friends. We had tacos (It has been so long since we have had real tacos) for a good-bye party of Susie...we will miss her tons. Then we had lots of goodies at the service. It was so much fun to sing Christmas songs with so many others. The message was on Christmas being the bring of peace to a world that is anything but peaceful (full of chaos and evil). then we went out for pizza and other "western" food. I think I got too much "western" food as I was sick the next two days. But always good to see friends and to talk about some of our plans and ideas for the coming year with more experienced people. We are thinking of having a child through the foster care system (a big decision for us). Please keep that in your thoughts!! We got lots of advice and stories of good and bad things that come from that, lots to think about.

Today, Christmas day, is a very busy one. We have lunch with some of the girls Patty meets with to discuss a book and then they will meet while I go out to the countryside to provide Christmas presents (pictures and candy canes) to the children we visit there. Then we will go out to eat at a local restaurant with some friends and deliver a christmas gift for the family there, before our last and probably biggest Christmas party with our 06 4 year class. We will have a White Elephant Gift Exchange, make ornaments and hopefully go out Christmas caroling with them.

We wish each of you many blessings and peace this year in your lives. May the Reason for our celebration be the Reason for the Joy that you show to others each day.

2008-12-14T07:14:00.002-06:00

This past week has been a very busy one...it seems I have been using that phrase a lot more than I would like to, but I guess the Christmas season can be expressed that way in America as well. It is busy for some very different reasons; we do not need to go out shopping for Christmas gifts, we did that in November and sent them to America already, but we are preparing for finals for our students and Christmas parties for each of our classes. That means we will have seven Christmas parties by the time it gets to be Christmas day...it is one of our highlights from the year. We get to make lots and lots of Christmas cookies, not sugar cookies, but instead chocolate chip cookies because we have plenty of them from Patty's parents. The students love them, but sometimes I have to convince them that the chocolate will make them smaller, so they are not afraid of gaining weight from just one.

We found out that with our new school president comes new rules and that we have to give our "official" finals on week 19 (the first week of January). This changes many of our plans...we wanted to go and visit our teammates up in Xining (NW China) and then travel with them to Hong Kong, but now we will have to go later to Hong Kong and maybe stop at some tourist places along the way. WE are excited to be able to see our friend, Queenie, in Hong Kong again and all of our teammates from throughout China. It will also be nice to have super warm weather, as it has been getting cold here (but I should not complain because i heard that there are wind chill warnings in my hometown today). I feel mostly for the students who live in the dorms without heat and electricity and often water.

This weekend, our friend and former students of our school, Paul, came to visit. He is also family and has a job teaching in the west of us. He told of the crazy experience with his job...their school hired 33 new teachers and now they decided that the teachers should also teach music...so the school gave him a trombone and a book and some lessons and expect that he learns it in a few months. It is quite common for English teachers or any teacher to be expected to teach something besides their major subject, such as PE or art, or sometimes math, but this is a new one for me. He is very stressed out, because he does not know if his musical ability will count into him getting hired back next year.

I also went to go and visit my friend Gavin, who opened an English school. I taught the students Jingle Bells and We wish you a Merry Christmas...sorta. Their English level is still growing and some were only 5-6 and the oldest maybe 11. Most of them are from the countryside, but it is always fun to see them and their excitement. They also got a candy cane and heard about the story of Christmas. We have been taking pictures of the students in the countryside near our college and that has been a very interesting relationship. We will often stop by to say hello and to give them pictures of themselves...something very uncommon for them. We do not know what direction to take from here, because most of them will not speak Mandarin well, but the local dialect and their parents and grandparents seem to like it to. We have also been taking pictures with some of the vendors we often frequent and will try to make Christmas cards for them to thank them for their kindness and share some about Christmas.

This next week, we will give some of our finals and start to prepare for our winter holiday. We will go to Guiyang on the weekend for the large foreigner Christmas gathering. We are excited to see many friends there and also to go out for pizza afterwards (you cannot imagine the luxury it is--there are no foreign food restaurants in our city). We get rice and vegetables, or noodles and vegetables or now hotpot (the amazing winter food), and of course lots of other dishes. I have loved getting to know how to cook more and more Chinese food and for some of our students who will visit. What a blessing and how we have been blessed. We hope your week is filled with many blessings and great joy.

2008-11-30T05:48:00.003-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving a few days late. We are now back home from our four day weekend in Guiyang. Maybe a few pounds heavier (of things inherited that is). Some of our friends are leaving for America in the coming weeks, so we have inherited some things left behind. It is sad to see some of our family here leave and go home to family, friends and the unknowns. We are still trying to figure out what our plans will be for next year (following our two planned years of teaching here). We really are not sure about continuing to teach here, teaching elsewhere or returning home to America. There are so many things we miss there, but we are not sure of His will for our lives at this moment.

This weekend, there were many adventures besides those made with a plate full of food. We did have about 35 people for Thanksgiving, with tons of children and families and amazing food. We did not have turkey though, which was a sad change, but there were so many other delicious favorites and new foods. We ate and played games (I learned how to play the famous Bean Game), had a long worship music time, lots of talking and eating, and then the resting period.

The next day, Patty went with some women to a local hot springs for a day of pampering (in the cold--60's). They had massages, Patty even had a foot massage and enjoyed time in the hot springs and relaxing. While they were relaxing, I went with our teammate to the Botanical Gardens hiking. In an ever difficult challenge to find new places to hike, we endeavored to climb to the top of one of the mountains in the park. Initially, there was a small path, one person had gone before us, but that soon disappeared and we were on our own. I would name this mountain, "thorn-bush peak" because of the innumerable thorn bushes that we had to climb through, around, and over, but it was a great adventure. Eventually, we made it to the clearing on top and the view was spectacular. There were mountains all around and a lake nearby and you could also see a little of the city. But now we had to go down the mountain. Jason was enjoying himself greatly, as this reminded him of college in Santa Barbara, so we headed out into the unknown. We ended up shimmying down trees, sliding down overhangs, and getting caught by the thorns again and again. After about an hour of traveling, we found another small path and followed it through streams, over trees, down to the lake. This was definitely an adventure that you cannot find in the travel books, but it was a blast--we were trail blazers. But we soon found out that not far behind us, there were others following our path to make a path through the mountain for other hikers. Maybe we will be true trail blazers!!

We got back to the beginning of the park after about 4.5 hours of hiking and exploring and super hungry as it was now 3 pm, so we called a friend, Keenan and we went out for hotpot and played some football (we taught him how to throw and catch an American football). He loved it and caught on quickly. After playing that for a few hours, we went and had some hot drinks and played card games until the women returned from their relaxing spa getaway.

The next day was a long one, as Patty and I got up early to go shopping, using only the tour book of Guiyang. It was a fun adventure and we found all of the places quickly and got what we needed and were back to have a birthday lunch for our friend, Kara. Her friend, Kevin, cooked 12 different dishes of Chinese food, so we ate and ate again. AT 3 pm, I was invited to go and help teach some PE teachers and students how to play baseball at Shida College. I never thought about playing real baseball in China. As it turns out, there are only 5 teams in all of China and this school wants to make the sixth. It all started from a foreign teacher seeing a baseball bat in a man's bag and wanting to play baseball with him and now every week a group of foreigners will go and teach different baseball skills to these teachers and students. They have about a dozen gloves and balls and one baseball bat, but the only glitch is that the equipment appear to be from the 20's or 30's. The gloves are really difficult to learn how to catch with and take lots of concentration (mine broke after about 20 minutes of playing catch). The balls are made of balled up rags covered by baseball material--it is just funny that they had all of this equipment sitting around and that it turned out to work. We taught them how to catch, throw the ball, snag grounders, how to hit and pitch the ball. We got to play a little baseball in between the football games, so it was a fun time. It was a special opportunity and fun to do again.

A great weekend of fun and fellowship and adventures in China. You never know what will happen--we even had a barbeque one night with lots of yummy shishkabobs. Hope your Thanksgiving was filled with many blessings and that your Christmas season is filled with reasons to be thankful.

2008-11-26T08:16:00.004-06:00

Monday and Tuesday were equally full with activities, as they came to some of our classes on Monday and Tuesday. Of course the classes got changed up a little to allow time for the students to get to know them and take pictures with them and ask questions. We talked a lot about childhood and family and what those words mean and stories from America. The students really enjoyed their guest teachers and that it meant they got less homework. On Monday night, we invited many, many students to our house for a sampling of Guizhou, Chinese food made by ME. I was super excited to get a chance to cook for so many people, and to get to show Patty's parents some of the famous foods from our area. Usually I will just cook for Patty and Noah, but this time I had about 25 people. This means that I needed to make lots of different dishes. Joe and I took a walk in the countryside before supper and we got back late, so I needed to chop like a crazy man (piles of food everywhere in about 30 minutes). Then I started to cook, with lots of Chinese students also wanting to help--it was a team effort in the end, but I tried to keep the recipes mine. We ended up with 8 different dishes, including a soup. The cooking took about 2 hours and when I finished there was only 1.5 dishes left. I think that is a success then!! It was amazing to see how the students took to Joe and Sandra, as though they were their parents for the week--maybe because many of them miss their families very much and they loved to have motherly and fatherly people there who loved them. So they were celebrities with countless photo opportunities and new friends.

Tuesday brought more classes and more cooking, but this time for a much smaller group. We tried to invite students from each class to take part in different activities each day so that Joe and Sandra could get to know a large number of different students who are close to us. It was so fun to cook and to have lots of friends and family nearby. On Tuesday night, we went with a group of people from Anshun out for the famous Toasted Fish. It is an amazing eating experience!! You choose your fish out of a big tank and then they kill it and fry it over coals and heap a charcoal cooking contraption full of vegetables and lajiao (hot spicy peppers) and you eat until your heart is content. We ended up with 2 fish and in the end we finished off all of it. Sandra took a great picture of it before we chowed down. I will try to post that later. Thus Tuesday and Monday disappeared.

Tianxingchao waterfall and mountains.

2008-11-26T08:16:00.001-06:00

Tianxingchao waterfall and mountains.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Guizhou is an amazingly beautiful place, with many mountains, waterfalls, caves, and lots of simple living. It is sad to know that it is the poorest of the provinces in China though, despite the natural beauty. This waterfall always leaves me breathless. The sheer power of the water and the mountains in the background and just leaving a special cave. This day was filled with lots of natural wonders, but after leaving, there was little time to rest. We got back to the college around 5 and went out for Lanzhou mian (our favorite noodles in China). We have gotten to know the staff their well as we bring them business 1-3 times a week (days off from cooking). At 6:00, we had students over for our weekly open house, with Patty's parents as the honored guests. Around 25-30 people came to meet them and loved talking and the heated apartment (their dorms are not heated and it is getting cold here--30's at night). Keep them in your thoughts!! This was the very active first day of coming to Anshun, sorry that the story goes in reverse order...will work on that with the coming days, and hope you enjoy having pictures too.

Noah and his new friend.

2008-11-26T08:09:00.001-06:00

There's another dog in the water.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

At the second stop, they had a walkway where there are 365 stones, each with a day of the year on them and we took pictures on our birthdays. Joe and Neil have the same birthday, as well as our friend Lydia (there is something special about that day). Noah is standing on one of those steps and Patty is standing on her birthday. The walkway leads to a cave and our favorite part of the whole park, TianXingQiao, an amazing waterfall, or many connected together.

A family picture at the falls.

2008-11-26T08:03:00.001-06:00

A family picture at the falls.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

The first site we went to at the park was the "Monkey King" falls. There are peacocks as you enter the park and you walk out to the waterfall behind us (I think there are over 1000 in the park). This is a picture of Patty, her parents, and Noah. If you have not heard of the Monkey King, you probably have not lived in China (a joke) because it is played a thousand times a day and has hundreds of variations and is an incredibly famous story. It was fun to be able to get a family picture and to see them.

A family picture at the falls.

2008-11-26T08:02:00.001-06:00

A family picture at the falls.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

HuangGuoshu Waterfall in Anshun.

2008-11-26T07:53:00.001-06:00

Rainbows 2,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

On their first day in Anshun, we took them to the most famous attraction, HuangGuoShu waterfall. It is actually a large park with many famous sites, and the Grand Waterfall is only one of them. We had wonderful weather as you can see. We were also able to see many rainbows there too. It was indeed lots of walking though over five hours with our puppy Noah and our good friend and student Neil. This is definitely a must see place and we are blessed that it is right in our back yard. The entrance ticket is 180 RMB for adult ($25+), but definitely worth it with all the places you visit.

HuangGuoshu Waterfall in Anshun.

2008-11-26T07:51:00.001-06:00

Rainbows 2,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Yao minority.

2008-11-24T07:31:00.001-06:00

Taking a rest from the rain.,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

The Yao minority are found in a variety of provinces in the south of China, from Guizhou to Yunnan and Guangxi. They are made up of many unrelated groups and are primarily farmers in higher elevation areas. They have an extensive amount of literature and folk tales including many folk songs to express their inner thoughts. They are primarily ancestor worshipers and Daoists and believe that each person has many souls--when one leaves they get sick and when they all leave the person dies, leaving them open to reincarnation. These women in the picture were incredibly friendly and may your thoughts be on this vast minority group in southern China.

Dai minority girls

2008-11-24T07:17:00.001-06:00

Dai minority girls,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

The Dai minority is primarily found in the southern part of the Yunnan province. Their name means the "free people" and may have originated in Thailand. They often live in the valley areas of the mountainous south with their animals and are often farmers growing rice or other profit plants in the lower areas. They tend to be religiously Buddhist, but keep them in your minds as they are open.

2008-11-24T06:51:00.003-06:00

We have been anticipating Patty's parents coming to China and Anshun for months and months and it finally took place last weekend. We had many plans but knew everything was depending on the weather and other circumstances and the weather forecast was calling for a week of rain. We went to Guiyang on Friday knowing that their plane was going to get in late that night and planning on meeting them early the next morning at the airport. We received a call around 11 pm or so and we set up a time to call the next day. They made it safely to Guiyang from their visit to friends in Hong Kong.

The next morning, we changed plans and told them we would meet them at the college and that they would get a cab from the airport to meet us there. It turned out that the cab was much faster than the buses (get that one). They arrived early and ended up calling us on some students' cell phone and we met them at the track at Shida. Our plans for the day were to take them to Qianling Park in Guiyang, where there are monkeys and also a beautiful place to walk. The weather turned out nice and we had Noah along--it was very nice to see someone from home. We went to Guiyang by bus with our teammate, Jason and once they entered the park a crowd of people including an older man surrounded them and wanted to show them pictures of China and speak English. Welcome to China!! They were instant celebrities. We walked around for awhile, noah scared the monkeys and we saw a number of different baby monkeys riding on their parent's backs. It was good to be able to talk and hear from them in person. Afterwards, we got their bags and headed to the bus station to travel to Anshun--it would be a new world for them, but our home.

We arrived in Anshun and were met by a friend, Ike, who helped us with the hotel. His grandfather plays mahjong with the manager, so we got a better deal. We then took them to our college to see our apartment and to eat some basic Chinese food. It would be quite the adventure of food and a long week of cooking (I loved it) for me. We had many adventures ahead, but this was day one in Guizhou China, a real taste of rural living, living on the outskirts of a small city (300,000). I will continue this story throughout the week, running down their entire stay and the adventures we saw together.

2008-11-17T07:50:00.002-06:00

As usual, I have fallen far behind in my blog entries. I have not finished one story, but have many, many more to add. I will try to finish my trip to Yunnan and catch up on the exciting things happening in our college these last two weeks. I will give you a free glimpe...some new foreigners for the week and outdoor activities and of course His activities.

Okay finally day three. The plan for the last day in Luchun was to wake up at 6 am, go to the bus station and get a ticket to Gejiu, a city 4 hours away and then get another bus to Kunming and make the 7:45 train to Anshun and end up in Anshun on Monday afternoon and able to go to class on Tuesday. As I have learned, many travel plans in China are futile to have--there are so often changes that you cannot control, so I was prepared, but nervous for what those changes could be. As always I was very surprised!!

In the morning, I was actually not too tired, after just a few hours of sleep. I was sad to leave after a short stay, but I already had way too many things to carry: my huge hiking backpack (20 pounds or so) and two bags of Christmas present for family and friends and then my friend started collecting fruit to send with me (I remembered last trips 20+ pounds of fruit and food). I ended up giving much of it to the homeless people sleeping on the streets in Kunming. I had to plead to leave with only a couple pounds of food and we were off on the tiny scooter for the balancing act of a 20 minute trip to the train station. Luckily, most people were asleep and I was able to balance well, because we made it there without any accidents, but every time I adjusted the motorbike would swerve. We found that there was an extra bus added at 7 am, so a great blessing. I was able to go and eat breakfast and chat with my friends for a little bit before leaving. It started to rain once again and Roy negotiated seats for me so I could see the famous Yuanyang rice terraces along the route and I was ready. Because it was very early Faye was able to come and say goodbye also, she had a meeting on the history of the Hani minority at 8. She said her mother was going to come and bring me some of their family tea which I tried to decline (I had too much to carry as it was). But of course she insisted and said her mother would bring a small bag of tea (Ziplock size or smaller). I knew better and was not surprised when she returned with a huge sack with over 2 kg of tea (4.4 pounds). That is more tea than I could drink in a year and another huge bag to carry...ahh!! Then Roy came and told me to expect to have to stop near Yuanyang for a day or two because there are often bad mudslides there (he has had to stop and wait for the road for up to 3 days). So my leaving left me with many strange thoughts.

The bus ride was going along smoothly until we got near the Yuanyang area and the bus came to a screeching stop and I saw miles of cars backed up and people out walking around and talking and I was certain we were going to be stopping here for a long, long time. I, like everyone else, got out and wanted to check it out (how bad was the mudslide??). It turned out to have been a false alarm as their was a bad mudslide, but they now have heavy equipment and can fix it in hours and they were just waiting for one side to go at a time. We got past that area and had a chance to see some amazing rice terraces!! I was so excited to see the famous spot in Yuanyang old town where the famous pictures are taken--the driver said he would stop so I could take some pictures. I was sleeping a little but the girl behind me woke me up and opened my window wide open so I could get some pictures, until we got to the old town and it got instantly foggy and you could see nothing. At the spot, I could faintly see a sad man waiting with his huge camera for the fog to break and the driver continued on. On the way to Gejiu, there were many different kinds of fruit (banana trees, orange trees, sugar cane, and maybe some others). It was beautiful!!
We even stopped at the top of a mountain to buy some oranges (they were some of the best I have ever eaten.

It seemed like the trip was going along well without any worries. I made it into Gejiu almost on time (the roads were a little muddy still), but someone came and bought a ticket for me to Kunming and helped me find the bus. It was going well. I even left some of the tea with the bus driver for being a kind person. Gejiu is a very Muslim town in the south of China which was a little surprising. It is very modern and was the capital of the area for a long time. I am sad to have only had 10 minutes in the city. But I got on the mini-bus and we were off on the fast highway straight to Kunming. What could get in our way of getting there in time now??

The bus driver was on a serious mission...he was speeding past everyone and past many small and scenic villages. I enjoyed the new view (I have never traveled this way before). All of a sudden, we came to another screeching halt. Cars were stopped in each direction for quite a distance. I thought maybe there was a serious car accident and that was sorta true. What it turned out to be was a vehicle hit a herd of sheep killing 10-15 of them, except for the little kid. The farmers and villages were really upset and stopped the traffic yelling at the men and the police trying to get payment or something. I cannot imagine losing your entire livelihood and income like that in one accident. It seemed to take ages to figure this out but once again we were on the road again, until the vehicle started to smell bad and sound bad and we stopped to wait for another bus. I still thought, no problem we are close to Kunming, but it turned out that Kunming is much bigger than I thought and roads were closed and we detoured around the city for over 1.5 hours and so when we arrived, I rushed to the ticket counter at the train station and when I asked to get a ticket to Anshun the lady asked me Jintian?? (today). Yes!! She kept saying meiyou, I thought no seat, no problem, I will get a sleeper (meiyou--do not have), I will stand then (meiyou). Finally someone explained, meiyou train...Sadly, I said Mingtain (tomorrow) and got a ticket for 7:20 am.

That meant I had to stay the night in Kunming. I was prepared to get a hotel, but not sure where to find one that is close enough to the train station. I tried a place that had rooms advertised for 60RMB ($9) and they said no foreigners. Again I tried one for 80RMB ($14), no foreigners. 100RMB (the usual price we have to pay) and again no foreigners. There are often many places that foreigners cannot stay because the government deems them too dangerous or they are houses where prostitution is rampant and they do not want that to be seen. So I was out of easy options and a lady came and said she has a place that has cheap rooms for foreigners, I was immediately suspicious of course and said I did not want it. She was persistent and I said it was worth a try being very tired. She took me to another place that could not have foreigners before taking me to a Super 8. Super 8's are very cheap hotels in America but expensive in China though not fancy by any regards. In the end, I ended up getting a deal for 180 RMB ($25) and I finally went to eat supper at 10pm. I went to bed, set my alarm for 6:30 am. I got up expecting to take a shower get some breakfast and walk to the train station, but when I looked again at the clock and my ticket, it was already 6:45 and you usually get to the train station 30 minutes early, so I dressed quickly, packed everything and needed to check out, walk 4 blocks, go through baggage checks up many stairs and get on the train in less than 30 minutes. I rushed and rushed with my 4 bags of things down the street, through the train station and when I got to the gate for my train I saw no one waiting...oh my goodness--I must be very late. So I ran all the way to the train and at the train I again saw no one waiting getting on the train, but everyone already aboard and waiting to leave.

Then I looked at my ticket, car 17 and the car next to me, eight and saw that I needed to travel to the end of the train to get on. I was running down the train with everyone staring at the crazy foreigner with way too much luggage (Chinese are good at only bringing the essentials). I got there out of breath but relieved, found my seat and put away my bags. Surely the train will leave in seconds. It didn't, so I went outside to escape the smoke and to check the time. When I looked at the time, it was only 7am and I still needed to wait 20 minutes for the train to leave. I felt like an idiot, but the rest of the train ride went well and I got to Anshun at a reasonable time and was happy to be back home.

One very exciting piece of news that I will write more about is Patty's parents coming to Anshun. They arrived on Friday night, around midnight after having a Chinese travel experience of many delays, a knife found in their bag (Joe the terriorist), but funny it made it through Minneapolis, Chicago, Hong Kong and wasn't until China that it was found. We have been enjoying showing them around and our students have enjoyed meeting them. Many stories to come soon!! Many blessings to you and your families!!

2008-11-06T08:37:00.002-06:00

Day Two: I woke up early even though being very tired because there were many planned events, such as a parade of minority people at 7 am (no candy, only rain). We ended up missing it because it was very short because of the excessive amount of rain. It was streaming down the streets. But Roy made sure I got pictures with all of the different minorities--so I have numerous pictures with the Yi, Yao, Dai and Hani women and guys. They were often very friendly for the most part!! My friend Roy wanted me to meet the president of HongHe University in case we want to teach there someday. He was a very interesting person with great English. They were having a meeting of scholars from throughout the world to research Hani/Akha culture and history and he was the translator. I wished I could have gone but it was for many days and I could not get enough time off of school. Because it was raining, I went to Faye's mother's house to help them make sticky rice. It is a very interesting process. They will take the special rice and put it in a carved out log and take wooden bats and beat it for quite a while and then roll it in spices and eat it. Yummy!!

I think if I would have stayed long enough, I would have eaten my weight in the stuff. I got many chances to practice my Chinese, which is not very good by any account. Many of the visitors wanted to talk to me, so I tried to answer questions and understand their putonghua. It was very interesting!! They were often very kind and willing to deal with my lack of Chinese. I took some pictures with Faye's family--her dad smoking the water bong and her mother cooking food. The whole family was over cooking food for the festival. They had 9 tables to prepare food for, all kinds of different Hani food and some other family specialties.

Because of the rain, the events I wanted to see were cancelled. This did not mean I knew that in advance, so I made the mile walk down to the park to see it getting soaked along the way. When I got there, there were only the old men shooting the ancient flintlock guns and then sacrificing to the gods. The games I came to see were not meant to be. They were supposed to have cock fighting, wrestling, archery, traditional swinging, and lots of other sports. It was too bad. So I returned to help the family set up for the long table dinner. They have small wicker tables lined up for over one mile with over 3,500 tables filled with food and drinks that anyone can eat at. We had to carry the tables, chairs, food, and covering for the rain down to the area for their tables. It was fun to see everyone working together to get everything setup and also how people solved the problems like how to make a canopy over the tables and how to keep everyone dry.

My friends wanted me to take pictures of the whole long table from the beginning to the end, but that did not happen as it started to pour. There was a river of water coming down the street, so everyone mainly stayed under the makeshift tents. I went out and tried some food at a number of different tents including all of Faye's family tables. Most of the foods were things I had tried before, except for bees in eggs (not bad), dog meat, small smoked birds and sausage. The food was yummy!! After the food and drinking, they had a Hani dance. Some middle schoolers came and wanted to sing a Hani song for me and were super excited. Other people wanted me to get video taped dancing a Hani song. But after eating at the tables, the hosts all went home and had an actual meal, so I think I ate many pounds of food. We danced the rather simple Hani songs until around 10:30 pm and got some gifts for Patty and I (Hani clothing) before going to bed.

I was to leave in the morning. I thought day three would be a rather boring day, but it turned out to be more of a crazy day then the rest. I guess that is part of traveling in China.

2008-11-06T02:06:00.002-06:00

This past weekend, I took a break from Anshun and took a trip to the south of Yunnan to visit our friends Roy and Faye for the Hani New Year. This was something I have wanted to do for a long time and so I shuffled my classes (no Friday class and I gave my Monday class a project to do) so I could go for a few days. The only bad part of this is that it takes forever to travel to LuChun from Anshun. The first leg of the trip is a 11 hour train ride--I got on at 8pm and arrived there at 7 am. The train ride was surprisingly good as I was able to sleep some and relax and when I arrived I went to the bus station to get a bus ticket, expecting to have to go to numerous cities to arrive in Luchun, but was again surprised to find they had added a new bus and I could leave at 7 pm. That meant I had all day to walk around with my big hiking bag. I thought I would adventure out to some new places and see if I could get lost. This time I was incredibly successful--I got myself out to the outskirts of Kunming and could not find my way back...I even ended up in the countryside and following the 3rd loop around the city. People I asked only got me further away, so it was about 10 hours and many, many miles of walking later and I made it back to about where I started. Then I had to find the market to buy our Christmas presents. Eventually I did find it and could relax...I found some of my friends from travels there and met with a number of unexpected people and got the presents we wanted for family and friends.

I was so tired when I walked back to the bus station (I could barely walk by now), that I was ready for the second part of the trip, the 11 hour sleeper bus ride through the mountains to LuChun in southernmost Yunnan. When I got there it started to pour and I could not find the correct bus, and asked the manager for help. He showed me the bus and followed me to "help" me. It turned out he followed me because this meant he could ask me for money/ a bribe. He said I had to pay a gas tax, but it was more of a foreigner tax. I was willing to give him some money just to be able to sit down and start the second part. His English was not good enough to try to fight with him and I did not have enough energy. We left around 8 after lots of delays and I slept on and off and arrived early around 6 am. I stood out in the rain as everyone stared at the foreigner in the village for 30 minutes waiting for my friend to come on his scooter. By this time I had quite a few bags and had to balance them to ride on the small scooter (funny experience).

It rained on and off throughout the day, but I was blessed that almost all of the time we were walking it was clear or even sunny. I got to get together with Roy and Faye and her son Li Chun Hui to go hiking and to meet with some important people who came for the holiday. The terraces were amazing in the mountains as the rice has been harvested and some of the tea fields are a brilliant green color. It turned out that it was Li Chun Hui's birthday, so I got invited to his birthday party before the big celebration. In the morning, I got to go shopping in the market right before the festival. This was a crazy affair as everyone was stocking up for the huge dinner they will have the next day. They had every kind of animal and everyone had on their minority clothing. The sad part was seeing them kill the dogs (quite inhumane), as my friend sent my down the hill to take some pictures. We got chicken, fish, duck, beef, and pork along with numerous kinds of vegetables for lunch. They always go all out for guests. The birthday party was very short as lunch took ages of eating. They had a cake and lots of fruit and they do not play games, so I decided to make a game. I brought some American coins and had the students put their names in a hat and draw out 3 winners of quarters and the rest got pennies. They were overjoyed to get American money!!

At night, I was given a guest pass to sit in the front row of the welcoming celebration with dancing and singing. It turned out that I was allowed to be one of the photographers in the way front, so it was really fun. I took numerous pictures of the different dancers and the acting. This was the best show I have seen in China--usually the music is too loud and the sound people are awful, but this was different. They had dancers from all of the minorities in the area, Yao, Yi, Dai, and Hani. They even had a group that carries tables in their mouths as they dance. The show ended at 11 pm and that was day one in Luchun.

There was so much more to come in day two...but I should leave that for later. I will also show some pictures of the different minorities and a brief summary of them. Many blessings to you!!

noah our little puppy

2008-10-22T08:39:00.001-05:00

IMG_4164,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Another picture and another update on Noah, our new puppy. It is has not been all joy to have a new puppy. We do not understand the people that only want them as puppies, a well trained dog will do for us. We have been enduring the week of potty training, up every 2 hours walking him down the five flights of stairs, around the campus, and then back up the steps. He has become quite talented at taking the stairs, even though he has many faceplants into the concrete steps and gets distracted about every other second by noises, people, scents or whatever else. We are enjoying him though and enjoying how the students love to meet him and his friendliness towards others. We has even learned how to slide on his own, he took the fast route down the stairs, by the slippery handrail sliding down into the bushes (seriously funny to watch).

Our new dog, Noah.

2008-10-20T07:19:00.001-05:00

Noah walking...,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Yes, this is correct Patty and I got a new dog. Patty was feeling very sad missing Tippy on Friday when I shared with her about a village in the countryside that had all kinds of little puppies. The next day when we were out walking with friends, we visited the village and while looking at one group of puppies another woman told us about her puppies. So we went and checked them out and Patty found this big guy and could not live without him, so we asked how much. The woman said 10 Yuan ($1.50) but her mother upped it to 30 Yuan ($4.25). Since then we have taken him in for shots, bought all kinds of toys, bowls, and food, so the price is up to about $27. He has learned lots in his two days here, from how to climb up and down the stairs, to go walking in the countryside (very narrow paths and lots of rocks to climb), what a snake looks like, and how to follow anyone who is nearby. He is quite the cutie and the students seem to like him a ton. We will post more as we grow up together.

2008-10-15T09:19:00.002-05:00

This week has been a continuation of the business, but also great in the way it has been blessed with many opportunities. My classes continue to give opportunities to share about many important things. I am teaching a British Literature class, that has also included literature from throughout the world, but has been looking at many important topics in life such as choices, dreams, love, and fear. The students seem to be loving it and I am really enjoying getting their views on a wide range of topics. They are starting to excel at finding meaning in the literature and expressing their views and beliefs. Our Sunday Open House brought many new students as the freshmen have started coming. One of them even shared with us that she is family. We did a fall activity dealing with leaves and talked about how they will celebrate this time of year in their hometowns. Many of them are very far from their homes. We even got a chance to make cookies with our Chinese tutors, which was fun for all of us. We made 60 cookies and have almost eaten all of them. Patty had a women's get together--all guys kicked out including me. It was a great success and may become something of a regular event. The girls loved getting together and being able to talk and share their emotions and such. I went out with some students to the city center to go shopping and hanging out.

This week, the weather has been very nice, but I have been a little too busy to enjoy much of it. I did get out to go walking in the countryside on Tuesday though. It ended up being a two hour hike, but walking through the countryside and villages is one of my favorite activities. I love the farmers here. I have also been looking for "real" pumpkins so Patty can do a painting or carving event in the coming weeks for Open House. I went through the village where i saw them last year and there were tons of them there, but very expensive. Maybe I will go back with Patty and others and see if we can get a few (they sell them per pound). The leaves are slowly turning colors here, but there are not many trees that are not pine trees.

In other events, we were able to judge the Oral English Competition twice now. It was a great opportunity to support and encourage students in their English learning. There were all levels of contestants, from those who memorized something to those who tried to just stand up there and speak and then those who got so nervous they could not speak. I also think I would have gotten a bit nervous also. It is a great opportunity for them to get a chance to show their talents and show that English learning is important at our school.

In two weeks, I am planning on traveling to visit our friends in the Southern Yunnan province for their Hani New Year. I am very excited to see our friends after one year, but a little crazy too. It will be two days of traveling to get there and two days back with two days of spending time in LuChun. I am not looking forward to the 12 hour bus ride through the mountains to get there or the 12 hour train ride to kunming, but it will give a chance to go shopping for Christmas presents in Kunming. Patty does not want anything to do with the travels, so i guess I will go solo on this one. I will be more prepared then the last time--bring the passport and food for the travels.

On Friday, we have also been invited to go on a picnic with the students--they call it a bar-b-que, as we will go into town and buy nearly $100 worth of food and then go to a scenic place to cook it and eat together. It is always a great time to spend together with the whole class or 43, so it could be interesting. We hope we have good weather, as it has been sunny and warm the last few days (our first days of sunshine this month).

There was one development to keep in mind this week, our friend, Neil chose to not participate in the finals of the Oral Competition because a friend thought he cheated in choosing the numbers. He wanted to show that their friendship was more important so he chose to not come. Patty went to talk to him later and he said it was because of a movie we showed and things he was reading in a book from us. Patty shared more with him about the sacrifice of our friend and he said that he wanted to know him. May the father reveal more and more to him.

As for farming here, most of the rice fields have now been harvested and now the farmers are getting out with their water buffalo to plow the fields. It is a fun time to see the farmers all active again. We wish you all many blessings during this week!!

2008-10-09T09:58:00.004-05:00

It has been nearly two weeks since the last post. I guess that happens when we get a one week break from school and when there are many things distracting us...lots of work and being sick. The last couple weeks, I have been working my way through being sick; it is a new feeling to be sick and not looking forward to being active and outgoing. The second bout of sickness came along with many other foreigners from our fellowship. The weekly potluck came back to make many of the adults ill, must have been something the kids and Patty did not like (there were no tomatoes, so we are not quite sure). We know it was not the brownies either. This came as we were starting our week off for National Day. Each year, China gets a one week holiday of crazy traveling and many things closing down to celebrate the anniversary of Modern China. I am not sure if it is 5000 years or almost 60. We chose the week to go to Kaili and the surrounding area for a week, just Patty and I. That meant our Chinese had to help us survive through city, village and lots of traveling.

The first leg of the trip was getting out of Guiyang to get to Kaili. We found ourselves at the bus station with thousands of others waiting in long lines only to find out that we needed to go to another bus station. Our Chinese got us there and we pushed our way through the Chinese lines--everyone pushing and shoving to get onto a bus that had more than enough room. We arrived in Kaili safely and enjoyed time strolling through many of the sections of town and villages and Dage Park. We found a room on the 14th floor of the hotel, so we could see the whole city at night--it is much more modern than Anshun. The next morning we left for our first adventure to Xijiang! Xijiang is a big tourist village showcasing the Miao minority culture. Since it was a holiday there were tons of people there, but it was also rice harvesting time so it was fun to see the villagers in action working the fields and harvesting the rice. One person will cut it, others will beat the rice into a large wooden container, and then they will sort it and carry it to their house in two 50 kg bags on a yoke. Whole families will work together, from grandparents to the very young children, it is fun to see.

Xijiang is a village of 1000 houses made from wood and all in the local Miao minority style. There were lots of places to buy things of course and I tried to get a pair of grass shoes, exactly what they sound like, shoes made from weaving grass, but found my feet were too big. We did get a handweaved picture for our bedroom though. We left the village for the nightmare of a night in Leishan. We found that there was only one hotel in the city that would take foreigners so we were forced to pay too much for a poor room, no towels, no nightstand, and little other accomodations. It turned out that this was the time I was the sickest. I had a horrible fever and bad diarrhea so I was up many times...one of these, Patty found me panting in the corner and caught me before I passed out. It turned out to be a crazy night for the both of us...I have never experienced anything like it before. The next day was the holiday so instead of going home, I decided to continue onward and we went to a waterfall in the countryside, a 30 minute ride by taxi (good chance to practice Chinese) and 3 hours of walking later we made it to the waterfall...definitely worthwhile. My vacation attitude won out and we continued onward to another city...3 hours by bus through the awful mountains. It was the worst ride on a bus I have ever had...enough said. Beautiful country, but not ability to enjoy most of it. We arrived to find that this city was also smaller than on the map, but we found a place to stay after many many tries. The room was better but equally overpriced. The next day was one of the better though as we visited SanBao, a Dong minority village nearby...they are wonderfully blessed in musical ability and love to sing and play a number of interesting instruments. We loved it!!

The last part of our trip was to visit Lande Village on our way home. Another Maio village, but less touristy. We actually stayed with a Maio family in their house, got to watch lots of dances and musical performances...check out Patty's video on her Facebook. We got to meet many friendly people there and it was a good ending to our crazy travels. My body started to feel a little better then too!! We arrived home a few days later to get a chance to relax before another hectic week started for me.

School has been quite overwhelming with 8 classes now and lots of work to do for each...I have British literature class, which has turned out to be my favorite, because of the fun literature and topics I am able to share, but lots of work along with multiple reading and culture classes and oral English.

We found out today that at night we were to be judges for an Oral English communications competition. We did not know what we were getting into, but soon found out that we were two of the four judges to listen to 120 students introduce themselves and give their reaction to one of 14 crazy sayings. The introductions often turned into looks into their beliefs on any number of subjects from the environment to visiting their hometown or how to be a better person, etc. The questions the students were to respond to ended up being cliche quotes that were very difficult to formulate a good reaction to so students often answered them with their own favorite cliches. We learned a few new ones, too, but had a chance to see some amazing oral abilities as well. We are very proud of the students!! It was an opportunity that was very meaningful for many of them and showed us a little about their drive to achieve and learn English, even among non-English majors.

We hope that you can keep our students in your thoughts as they are pushed with extreme pressure to pass tests, achieve amazing things by so many people and their worth is tied up so much by tests and other people's views. We hope that they can see their eternal value and where true success and value comes from. Many blessings to you this week!!

2008-09-23T06:48:00.002-05:00

I think we have gotten into the warmest part of the year here, which just happens to be when the farmers are starting to harvest their rice, the freshman students are doing their military training and I am sick. All of these things have been a big part of our last week. The military training has been a little more interesting this year. This year they gave the students guns to practice with and they have the heavy, dark military fatigues. Many of the other students are a bit jealous of not being able to practice with guns, but glad not to have to march endlessly on such warm days. They have been singing some pretty fun songs, but it tends to start around 6:30 am and finish when it is dark.

Over the weekend, I went out walking with a friend and was able to go and help some farmers harvest rice. This was always something I wanted to try to do. So the farmers allowed us to finish harvesting the rest of the field while they inspected and wondered why. My students wondered the same thing when I told them. There has not been much rain so the rice fields are bone dry and the rice is a crispy, florescent yellow color. I did enjoy the experience, but am yet to drive the water buffalo through the muddy fields to plow (we will wait for spring).

On Sunday, I got sick though, maybe from being out in the sun too long or just a bug, but it is holding on and making me feel very weak and very irritable. I have been despising having to stay indoors and not being able to enjoy the warm weather as much.

Classes are keeping us more than busy, I have 6 classes now and will get 2 more after our October Holiday break. Patty is hoping to get more classes, but still more than busy. Some of the classes have been challenging to make them relevant and useful to the students using the textbook and other resources. We have a holiday coming on October 1st, the Chinese National Day celebrating the 59th anniversary of China's history. We are given a seven day holiday, Monday and Tuesday of that week though we are asked to make up on the weekend though, so we will have class on Saturday and maybe make a trip to Kaili with some students or alone during the break. This vacation we will actually spend time together unlike last year's long excursion to the Yunnan one day on the train, one night on the bus, a few days with my friends in LuChun and then the same protocol backwards. It was beautiful area and great to see them but the bumpiest ride I have ever taken. At times, I could have walked faster than the bus through the mountains (we averaged 12 miles per hour for 12 hours) and I had to hold on for dear life so that I didn't fall out of the bus or off my bed. Patty went camping with some friends, unwilling to make the perilous journey. Hopefully this year's journey will be less crazy.

We continue to have students over for our weekend open houses and it has been very good. We also started our Chinese lessons this last week. We each have a different tutor on Monday and Thursday. IT should be interesting as they are very excited about teaching us, but have never taught Chinese before. I guess then they can practice for their own Putonghua test (Chinese language exam). Most students do not speak Putonghua with each other but their local dialects and some standard Chinese with others.

We saw that the Vikings pulled off their first win and the Packers their first loss, maybe this will cause a trend?!? We miss seeing those things at home, and hope you are enjoying the fall. Many blessings!!

2008-09-16T18:51:00.002-05:00

AHH--it has been almost a month since I have written something. Time escapes me. School has started and is three weeks in. It is a new adventure this semester. I have many new classes--British Literature (I will use some American Literature too), Reading, Culture, and Oral English. Currently I have about 8 classes a week and about 200+ students. All of the students are new also--that is something to get used to as well. The freshman have arrived on campus and are currently doing their military training.

Military training is our favorite time of year. The students get up at 6:30 am and run around campus as loud as they can and then get into their groups in their military outfits (They look professional) and practice marching while screaming (yi, er, san...1, 2,3). The crazy thing is that they do this for 1-2 weeks. It has been great to be back at school though and have the students also back. Many of them had 'boring' summers as they stayed at their homes in isolated villages without anyone to practice English with and helped family with farming work etc.

There have been a number of important happenings since school has begun. Firstly, our school is improving everything because this is our year of review. The government will come and check our school and our score affects the amount of funding we get, so they have put in new lights every 3 feet everywhere so you can play basketball all night. They put in new professional ping pong tables and a fence to go around it to "keep" the ball in (it is proving to be more of a pain, because if the ball gets out you now have to walk all the way around the fence to get it). They are repaving all of the roads and putting new windows and exteriors to make the old buildings look newish. Our building has not changed though, I believe it is on the docket to be demolished (maybe depending upon passing the inspection and funding). We have had two holidays (Teachers Day and the Mid-Autumn festival). Teachers Day is not much of a holiday, but students do nice things for the teachers and sometimes you will receive gifts. Sunday was Mid-Autumn festival and we had students over for our open house. It is a traditional time for families to get together but many students are very far from their homes, so we tried to do something special. We ate the traditional mooncakes (they are like biscuits filled with any variety of things from fruits (yummy) to beans, meat, nuts etc. which can be more of an adventure. We tried to watch the moon, as is customary through our telescope but every time I got focused on it, the clouds would come and the moon would disappear...shy.

We had the next day off of school...so we went with some students to the famous HuangGuoShu waterfall. It was everyones first time to go there even though most were from this area. As whenever you try to have a large group, there are complications. We had our number of complications. The school provided a free bus, so we were there early waiting for the rest of our group who took their time and we missed the buses. I was a little upset, but found out that this was part of the plan anyway, because we had to meet more students in town to go out to the waterfall. So we took a variety of buses and made our way out to the waterfall. It turned out that other people wanted to join us but were at the entrance to the park, 5-10 km away and would meet us soon. We waited and waited (over an hour) and they finally came but said more were still coming. By that time we had spent 4 hours and had not even gotten into the first part of the park...there are three famous places to see there and we had to catch a bus by 7:30 pm and it was now noon. We decided to break into two groups and see the park separately. The rest of the day went rather smoothly, we saw close to 100 waterfalls, a couple caves, lots of cool stones and scenery and took lots of pictures. The Chinese love taking pictures, not of the scenery as I do, but of themselves at every place. They also enjoy doing strange, unique things in the pictures (the girls at least). Us guys mainly just stood or did something funny, but the girls had a wide range of poses mimicking the Titanic or other pop culture icons. Maybe the guys could have done our Usain Bolt interpretations from the Olympics. The HuangGuoShu waterfall is the largest in Asia (I believe) and is simply an amazing thing to see. I was really impressed, even after hearing the ravings from others who had seen it before. Maybe this is a good reason to visit us in Anshun--it is a simply beautiful area with lots of caves and waterfalls as well as lots of culture. We have posted a number of our pictures from the waterfall and from our summer holiday on our flickr account. www.flickr.com/photos/24255478@N06/

We wish everyone great blessings!!

2008-08-19T21:25:00.002-05:00

We are finally home!! Well, we are back in our apartment at least after our wild adventure of 46 days. I do not think you can call it a vacation after being that long--it was more like a trek or an insanely long trip. This morning we get to do our own work which is great. I went out to the market and got to visit with the farmers again--they seemed excited to see that we were back (more customers). It will be fun to cook again!! Now comes preparing for classes, sorting through our over 3000 pictures and deleting some and posting some, reconnecting with friends and most importantly relaxing.

During our visits we got to see lots of farming, farmers, and villages and now I understand why China is among the leading producers of rice and corn. It is very different though in our area. The corn fields are super small but there are lots of them. Here is my take on it: in america a square mile has 640 acres farmed by 3-5 farmers, but in China that same area would be spread out among 2-10 thousand farmers and not on flat ground but planted on the mountainsides. The flat area is kept for planting rice. There are larger fields to the north, but it is insane how small the corn fields are but how much work goes into it. We got our chance to harvest corn in a village by Zunyi. We wore our baskets, climbed up the hill, and harvested corn in the muddy slopes. We got nearly 500 ears of corn (maybe more) and then we had to prepare them for drying. We hung them from the roof of the building by their husks, while many families will dry the individual kernels in front of their house on mats or almost anywhere there is flat ground. It is crazy to see almost every house, road, street lined with corn drying with just enough room for people and vehicles to get by. The corn we harvested was not so good with lots of worms, bugs, and mold, but the quality tends to be pretty good generally. The rice fields are getting close to getting ready so maybe I will have a chance to help harvest rice also.

Patty had a "big" blunder with her Chinese while traveling home on the train. We were very tired and a guy came up trying to sell things and asked ZhongGuo (China) hao bu hao?? What do you think of China, good or bad?? Patty said Zhongguo bu hao, meaning China is bad. The guy was super surprised as was I and he asked again and Patty repeated herself again louder and the whole train car kinda turned and he asked where we were from and she said America and then he was like then America is bad also. The thing is that Patty had not comprehended what she just said, so I told her and she was very upset. What she wanted to say was that her Chinese was not very good, not that China was not good. Or maybe her Olympic competitiveness is showing through--just kidding. We have been enjoying watching it though!! Hope you are blessed incredibly.

2008-08-10T19:56:00.002-05:00

It has been a long season of traveling for us, from Anshun to Xian to Inner Mongolia, Mongolia, Beijing, Yunnan and now we are taking a train from Kunming to Anshun, but only for a short (5 minute) stop before heading onward to our last student visit of the summer in Zunyi (north of Anshun). We are very tired from the travels and not being able to live normally but having instead to be based on others plans and different rules and schedules. We have learned a lot about traveling in China though and will write a few of them here.

1) An oldie but important, always be prepared to pay for the bathroom at almost any place. The more you pay does not ensure a better bathroom. Most of them are squatties and smell quite foul. Toilet paper is extra or bring your own.

2) When traveling it is important who you know, or in our case who you know that knows others. Relationships are very important in Chinese culture, known as Guanxi. Almost everywhere we traveled from Xian to the Yunnan, we met people who were related through friends or others ensuring us with many unasked for blessings. Sometimes it was a bit overwhelming though. Some families made us food everyday and gave us snacks from their bakery, or paid for everything and everywhere we went, or knew the best way to get around. Some shopkeepers even gave us free things because they knew our friend. Patty even got to dress up in one of their minority costumes and take pictures. Our friends father seemed to know everyone and even knew the owner of a tourist site from making many of the stones for the place so we got in free through the special door.

3) Some places charge 'special' fees for foreigners to get into parks and other areas. In Lijiang, we found that the parks and even special shopping areas charged a 80 RMB per person fee only for foreigners to get in, they called it to protect and upkeep the areas. It was very frustrating, but then again we had relationships and they knew how to get around the fees.

4) When you plan many things it is bound to rain. The week or so we spent in Yunnan it seemed to rain almost everytime we left to do something so it was important to bring an umbrella.

5) When visiting students or friends it is important to not eat for a week. They will feed you more food than is humanly possible to eat and say the dreaded words, "help yourself, don't be shy." This means to keep eating until it is gone or you explode. The food tends to be amazing but it is far too much for any one person to eat. We did get to eat some new firsts such as caterpillar and silk worm and almost every part of a pig from its stomach to its esophogus, liver and kidneys. Yummy though with hot sauce (it is the miracle food for getting all food down).

Here are some of the highlights of our time in the Yunnan. We went to visit our student and friend Bobby in his village of Heqing near Lijiang. Most of the villagers are from the Bai Minority and are farmers or fishermen. We did some fishing and caught some small 3-5 pound fish (their words not mine). We visited Lijiang for many days and saw many different things from the dancing at night, visiting his cousin and family, the Dongba culture of the Naxi minority, parks, and temples. We went to Shangrila (ZhongDian) for a couple of days and met a friend of his families who own a bakery. They provided us with almost everything--we ate way too much baked goods for a lifetime in two days. We saw many different areas around the city on rainy days and its Tibetan culture was very interesting. We went to Tiger Leaping Gorge on our way back--a super huge Gorge that the Yangtze River cuts through. The story is that Tigers would jump across the Gorge using stones in the middle. There are two tall mountain chains on each side and Bobby and I made the 1 hour long hike down the mountain to the water to get some pictures and see the furious water.

With the coming of the Olympic games we have been trying to stay close to a TV as we both love them. The opening ceremony was quite the spectacle if any of you saw it--4 hours of excitement and Chinese culture (very fascinating to see with a Chinese family). We hope that you all are doing well and chearing for America of course.

2008-08-02T06:50:00.003-05:00

Thirty hours...that is the amount of time it took for us to make it from Northern China to Southern China. It was a trip of trains, planes, and buses. We took a train from Hohhot to Beijing which was a major change from our other train experiences: the train was very clean, everyone was very orderly, and they were decked out in Olympic insignia. The 11 hours went very quickly, but without much sleep. We arrived in Beijing early in the morning and with some help and some practice on our Chinese we found the right buses and directions to get to the airport. It seems like our Father blesses our travels with putting people in our paths to help. The city is doing the final things to prepare for the big day--8-8-08 and the Olympics. There is security everywhere and it is super clean and beautiful. The plane ride was very nice and fun to see over China. We arrived in Kunming after 3 hours and were able to meet many people in our travels to the bus station. We had lots of help and practice and we got on a bus to Heqing our student's hometown. The bus driver told us we would arrive by 10 pm, so we wrote to our friend and a little while later our phone went dead. You can guess what happened. We traveled and traveled stopping along the way to eat and do other things, but it became ten and we were still very far away and could not write to our friend. It turned out that we arrived in little Heqing at a little past midnight and our friend was gone. We got a hotel room and called him and now we are enjoying spending time with him. We saw a few of the villages nearby and tomorrow are traveling to Lijiang a famous city nearby. Most of the people in his area are from the Bai minority so their dress is quite beautiful. If you can keep them and our friend in your thoughts during our week of travels with him we would be thankful. We wish you many blessings in all of your work, travels, and life moments. May the creator have his will over all you do.

2008-07-31T02:33:00.002-05:00

Tonight we say goodbye to Inner Mongolia, it will be sad but we are looking forward to seeing our students. We have had many great memories on this first leg of our trip from the camel ride where my camel broke loose and stole our friend's water bottle and decided to eat it, the flood we had the last two days here in Hohhot (it was almost a foot deep in many places with many cars stalled, lots of long train rides (I think over 140 hours now plus our 11 to Beijing tonight too). We have learned a lot of culture and history too (very educational time).

Tonight we will take the train to Beijing for a super short stop...we are not as excited about the Olympic mania and will enjoy seeing the Olympics on TV. We will then travel to the Yunnan province to see a student and do some traveling there. There are many famous places that we are looking forward to seeing such as DAli, Lijiang, Shangrila (zhongdian), etc. We are very excited to not be staying in a hotel for a few days...last night our room had no windows so we were not sure of the time or anything. We will also be traveling alone which will be fun to not have to worry about four people, but also we lack the language, but will do fine I think. We will give you another update soon. Hope you are all doing well.

2008-07-27T00:52:00.002-05:00

Ohh...beautiful Mongolia. We have spent about a week in Mongolia and will be leaving tomorrow on the long train ride back through the desert and grasslands to Hohhot China. There have been many things we have learned since being here about the history, culture, and how God is working here. I am trying to read a book on Genghis Khan and how he changed world history (very interesting and a workwhile read) and that has been very eye opening to the culture. Mongolian culture is still very centered around herding, horses, and their past. It is very expensive in the capital city to do most things, even more expensive then America at times, and with the high inflation it seems even worse. Patty and I bought a frozen pizza for 7500 turgets ($6.50) and it was good but expensive. There are many foreign restaurants and many foreign workers since opening up in 1990 after the Soviets left. The Soviets did bring many good things to the country though such as a better education system, the cyrillic letters that Mongolians can read, and many technological advances. Mongolians in the countryside are very friendly, we just stopped in to see a family yesterday and they provided us the traditional foods, milk tea, curdled milk candies, and other milk products (all very gross). The main food is mutton (lamb meat) that is also an acquired taste. Many people still live in gers (pronounced gair like hair), even in the capital. Only 12% live in apartments or houses. We went to two National Parks (Terelj and Hustai). They were truly beautiful places with lots of mountains and grasslands. We got to ride horses, see the folk dances and songs (Patty is now addicted to their music especially the throat singers and horse fiddles), seen wild horses (they are hard to find but we tracked some down and chased them around the mountains). Our greatest joys have been in seeing how God is moving among the people though. We have met many family members and friends and been able to hear their stories and attend their church today. What a blessing. There is a lot of history of Christianity and Mongolia. Marco Polo was asked to bring priests to Kublai Khan and he promised the country would become Christian but there were only a couple takers so the country became Buddist. Ghengis worshipped the Eternal Sky and Shamanism which still remains here as he is revered very highly. We have been very fortunate to be able to stay at our friend Beth's apartment while she is gone in France and to be able to have a wonderful guide, Gany during our travels. Yesterday, we went with a driver on the crazy bumpy roads of the countryside out exploring Hustai National Park which is co-funded by the Minnesota Zoo (yippee). There are few true roads so we took a Land Cruiser and followed paths and made a few of our own, over rocks and rivers. It is such a beautiful place with green everywhere!! We hope your summer has been nice and green but without all of the mowing that comes from it...maybe you need to get a few hundred sheep or goats so cows to mow your lawns!?! Love you all tons!!

2008-07-22T02:04:00.002-05:00

We have arrived in Ulaanbaator Mongolia after over 30 hours on the train. A lot of that time was spent at the border while they changed the wheels on the train and left us to wander around the city. We were able to meet lots of people, some of them family listening to songs and also the police who asked us to decifer some artwork on the walls. We had a peaceful trip and the views were simply awe-inspiring with the beautiful desert and the grasslands that went on forever with lots of gers and animals grazing and mountains everywhere.

In Mongolia, we were able to get together with our friend Beth who is working here as a nurse and that was fun. We have seen lots of different historical sites, went on a walking tour today of temples, monasteries and other old buildings. Tonight we will go to the Mongolian Circus which we are very excited about and tomorrow possibly going to the grasslands to stay in a ger and do some horseback riding. We will have a Mongolian friend guide us around the days after that and are excited to go out to the countryside and visit real Mongolian families and see many sites. We are enjoying the country, but it is quite warm with lots of sunlight (18 hours a day or more).

One big different in Mongolia is that there are no "real" taxis so normal looking cars will pick you up and you have to try to communicate even though most people do not understand much English and no Chinese. We even went to the Black Market yesterday with mainly Chinese imported things, our train was loaded with fruit and other things. We bought some Mongolian clothing--we will try to get some pictures of them in different places and get some online in the next month. We hope your lives are blessed in every conceivable way!!

2008-07-18T19:45:00.002-05:00

We are on the border of Mongolia. Our train is getting its wheels changed, which is a crazy thought that they change all of the wheels on the train to safeguard against any attacks from either China or Russia. We have about 8 hours to explore, so we went out to a Dinosaur dig site and we were able to pick up some fossils and other cool rocks. It was very fun but as you can expect I came back with too much stuff. We are excited to be able to get to Mongolia as we can visit a friend from college who is working there. There are a few really nice museums that we are looking forward to as well as exploring the culture. We were able to meet with some family members while traveling and that was interesting to hear their stories. We are doing well though the traveling has made us a bit more tired. The trip from Huhehaote to Ulan Bator is about 36 hours, but we luckily were able to get a soft sleeper car with a door so we are able to shut off from the bustle of traveling. The area is super flat with lots of tumbleweed and geckos, but few trees and a decent amount of sand. The sunrise was pretty amazing this morning. We are blessed to be able to see so many of the father's works in nature. We hope you are doing well and we look forward to sharing more later.

2008-07-16T03:30:00.002-05:00

We have gotten a chance to see multiple deserts in the last couple of days. That has been a new experience but something that leaves you in awe as you go from trees to shrubs to huge desert sands. We did get to ride our camels, which was quite the experience. We named our camels, from camcam, baibai (white/white), sprout (Patty's), and mine which we named Rebel. Mongolian camels are different from other camels as they have two humps instead of one. The camels were tied together with Patty and I in the back. My camel did not like to stay in line and got itself untied so that it could go up two places to steal the water bottle out of our friends backpack. He chewed on it until he got all of the water out and then spit out the bottle. The desert is an exciting place to be as you can take dune buggies around (we did not), go sliding down the mountains of sand (quite the experience), climb up huge dunes (sometimes harder than others).

We made our way to Wuhai another city nearby, Patty saw it online and it looked interesting so we got train tickets and went there. Everyone kept saying why are you going to Wuhai and we found out that yes it is interesting but its tourism industry is not quite as good as the internet said. They have really neat stone carvings of the ancient letters and symbols from 5000 years ago that very few people know where they are and they are illegal to photograph (we got some after the lady left--she said it was okay as long as she did not see and we did not develop the pictures nearby), we tried to go visit a temple but found out it was impossible because of dangerous roads and went out to the desert to see it mostly deserted. Maybe in a couple of years Wuhai will be much better, but they do have the best night life in their square. We have been enjoying Chinese squares with activities at night like Musical Fountains that spray water to music with lights and lots of fun, but this place had all kinds of games for the kids, teenagers and even adults. My favorites were the kids catching goldfish in a huge pool with little nets (1-4 year olds), huge balls where they the kids try to run in while, and lots of the impossible to win carnival games. Tonight we will take a night train to Huhehaote (Hohhot) and then we will travel to Mongolia for the next couple weeks. Hope your summer is going well...we are getting lots of sun here.

2008-07-12T02:54:00.002-05:00

Time is going quickly and the miles and people we have met stack up. We are continuing to travel through Inner Mongolia. It is slowly becoming more and more desert-like, but we have been surprised to see how upscale the cities have been. We have gotten a chance to visit a number of places the last couple of days. We went out to visit the Geghis Khan (Changis) maseleum yesterday. It was amazing to see all of the artifacts that have been collected and protected for the past 600 years by the same group of people. He is highly revered by both Mongolians and Chinese, but it is a disputed issue as the Mongolians say most Chinese have Mongolian blood because of his invasions. His bones were scattered around the desert by his followers so there is no actual grave for him, but there is a pile of rocks to woship his horse at and a palace to hold his artifacts. IT is amazing to see how his actions affected this area in bringing together the many tribes and how he affected world history as a military invader. During the night, we stayed at a Mongolian yurt (ger), which is a must for any trip to Mongolia (just like visiting the Great Wall and China). It was rather comfortable with a fan and other modern conveniences. We even had some little cats and a puppy to keep us company. The old man said he was going to kill them over and over again, making Patty sad. Today, we traveled by bus in all kinds of places to get back to where we actually wanted to be.

We have gotten a chance to visit many people and try different foods. The mongolian food is rather interesting with lots of homemade dairy and I was very surprised to see Holstein cows up here and we did not get to ride the horses yesterday because it was too expensive and they would guide the horse for you. But tomorrow we are planning on going camel riding through the deserts at the Singing Sands and climbing and sliding down the sand dunes. It will be fascinating to actually see the desert all around us. Well, we are hoping to get many more chances to say hello and share a little bit more and some pictures when we return. Love and peace!!

2008-07-08T22:08:00.002-05:00

Classes are over, grades turned in, we celebrated the 4th of July and now we are on the road traveling. It is sad to leave our students for the summer, but we are excited to see more parts of China. We have made it past the large travel portion of our trip--51 hours of trains and many hours of buses also. We traveled from Anshun to spend time with friends for the 4th--no fireworks as it is not celebrated much here in China. We then traveled 27 hours to Xian in sleeper car--very nice and we met lots of nice people. When we arrived a friend of a friend met us and put us up at a hotel as it was 11:30pm. We did not know that the next two days would be planned by him. unfortunately, we did not get to go to the famous terracotta soldiers, but did get to see some other famous historical sites before having to go t Baoji to meet our train--there were no seats on any other train. We did not get tickets for seats there either but were able to find some seats, but no sleeper car for over 24 hours in a hard seat with lots of people stuffed in. We met some nice people but were not always able to communicate. The area up is very beautiful with lots of interesting houses, lots of mountains, and varying farming practices. We are now in Hohhot in Inner Mongolia and will spend a week or so in this area before traveling up to Mongolia. One interesting thing that happens at the border of China and Mongolia is that they stop and change the wheels on the train because they are afraid that China will invade. We will go to Beijing on the 1st of August and then to Yunnan. We are thankful for your thoughts and we hope you are doing well. We will hope to update more in the coming days. Love you all tons and hope to hear from you.

2008-06-29T03:43:00.003-05:00

This year is soon coming to an end. There are countless things that we have learned during this time, numerous close friendships we have made, and a number of trials and strange happenings. It will feel very different not being around Anshun for the summer, but we are looking forward to having a summer of travel, though dreading it also. There is always a great amount of unknown and uncertainty behind it, but we are strengthened knowing who we put our trust in. For our families, here is a run-down of what we know about our summer plans. We are finishing up with classes and leaving Anshun on the 4th of July for Guiyang and then later to Xian (30 hours or so by train). We will stay there for about two days to see the terracotta soldiers and some of the historical sites there as Xian was the ancient capital of China. The temperature for those days are forecast to be 100 degrees or more (ahh!!). From Xian, we will take a train to arrive in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia on about July 8th. We will travel to numerous different places in that area like the grasslands, ride horses, enjoy the Nadaam (Man Games), etc. and then travel to a variety of places in Inner Mongolia before heading to Ulan Bator the capital of Mongolia. We will travel to Beijing on August 1st to fly to Kunming in the Yunnan province. On the third of August, we will arrive in Dali and visit Dali, Lijiang, Shangrila, the Tiger Leaping Gorge, etc. with a student Bobby. Then we are planning on going to Zunyi in the Guizhou province to visit some students. We are not quite sure when we will arrive back in Anshun or when we will be able to get online to contact everyone, but we are hoping to be able to visit some internet cafes along the way. We are very excited, but also a little nervous. We will be traveling almost entirely with other people so that is good and we know who will also be with us.

Here is a little run-down of things learned, observed, and strange happenings from the year. Our Top Ten, only in Anshun classics:

10) Animals everywhere. Since arriving we have had many interesting encounters with animals from the roaches (only the first days) to the 3 inch millipede, and finally the huge spider in the shower today. They sell snakes at the market, but we saw our first one in the wild yesterday as some boys were taking home a 5 foot snake by the jaw. Needless to say, we have had countless interesting experiences with waterbuffalo. They are everywhere from right outside our door to falling in streams, plowing fields and taking for kids or rides through the countryside. Patty has had a harder time seeing dogs, she misses her Tip Tip, especially as we see them being sold to be eaten or the little babies in small cages sold as pets. Animals are a fun part of our life and always worthy of a strange occurrence.

9) Food. We have had many chances to eat all kinds of strange foods since coming, especially when we visit student's hometowns or go to special occasions. Here is a partial list: chicken and duck feet, snake skin, bamboo, frog soup (yes real, dried frogs), liver, kidneys in la jiao (hot sauce), hot pot (yummy), lots of very spicy food that we love, and some wonderful times when we can have favorites from home like pizza and chocolate.

8) Chinglish-It says it all. One of the team favorites is this quote from writing class. I love the Chinese New Year because we will go and buy lots of crack. (meaning Chinese firecrackers). The signs are often great and fun to see their translations. Beijing put on a huge campaign to fix the Chinglish before the Olympics (it would be interesting to read their new signs as the old ones were very funny or funning).

7). Chinese special events. Nobody overdoes a special event like the Chinese. I cannot imagine what the Olympics will be like after seeing the events put on for much smaller events. They are into all of the fads of entertainment events, the clapper sticks, the clapping hands, whistles, the glow sticks, confetti, fireworks, and huge light shows. The only problem is that they try to overdue each of them at every event. The music is always too loud that you have to cover your ears, because loud singers are good singers (I guess!!) and if that is not enough the other things will surely deafen you. The idea of a special event is to impress everyone, so lots of money is spent even if it is a meal between teachers or for graduation. The more the better.

6) Weddings. I was able to go to my first wedding last week. It was quite the affair. There is no real ceremony besides bowing three times to their elders and ancestors, drinking some tea, and a few other small things. The food, drinking and smoking are the major parts of the occasion. I was offered hundreds of cigarettes by almost every male there, and had to constantly say, "bu hui" I cannot smoke instead of I do not want to. We ate twice in two hours, each meal had 30 different dishes, tons of rice and lots of strange toasts trying to get each of the guys to drink. It always takes a while to get them to understand that I do not drink, as that is counterculture, but after a while they stopped drinking alcohol and started drinking the juice I was having. A normal gift for a wedding is 100 RMB or more depending upon your relationship to the couple and they will often gamble and just sit and eat sunflower seeds all day waiting for the meal and play jokes on the couple at night when they are exhausted and want to go to bed.

5) Visiting Chinese families. After meeting a new friend, I have had endless occasions of meeting new Chinese families. I have now gotten very used to it, but it can be particularly strange. He will always take me around supper time, after we have already gone out and eaten way too much (that is a normal sign of friendship to provide more food that the people can possibly eat). I always grew up trying to finish all of the food and even though there are impossible amounts at these meals I will always try to help finish everything. Because we come at meal time, I will again have to eat again. It is rude to decline, so I will grab my bowl and get it filled with rice and they will continue to fill it with dishes. They will most often just talk about me, even if I can understand, because they are too shy to talk to me. The favorite phrase is "Don't be shy, help yourself" as they fill your bowl with more food.

4) The Chinese spirit of perseverance. Chinese people are maybe the most resilient people I have ever met. Even through the hardest of struggles, they will keep a positive attitude and will stay focused on their dreams. We have heard numerous horrific stories of disasters and hardships from our students and it is amazing to see how they face those problems. Chinese people truly do not give up. When we watch sports, we often see that also. They will be behind by many points and often come back to win. I think they will surprise many people at the Olympics. The bad part of this is that this spirit is an expectation, not something that is celebrated. If you do not live up to high expectations you may looked down upon.

3) Shopping. We have had few opportunities to go shopping for clothes as we are too big for most of the clothes in Anshun. We did go and buy winter coats though and that was quite the adventure. I found a coat I liked and it was only 40 RMB ($6) so I tried it on. It almost fit but the sleeves were too short. When I asked them if they had any bigger sizes they thought I was joking--there are no bigger sizes. Knowing this I got it anyway, it was a 7 XL!! Patty had similar problems and finally found one that fit her, a 3 XL. That does some things to your ego. Things are changing as it comes to size as foreign fast food restaurants are taking large cities by storm. Obesity is starting to be seen in the usually small Chinese people, but mainly among the wealthy who find it a measure of status to eat at these places.

2) Traveling. One huge difference has been not having a car while in China. This means that most of our traveling is done by foot or bus and sometimes train and airplane. Each of these methods of travel are drastically different. Walking for fun is not something people do in China, so I am an odd person out exploring the villages and climbing hills for enjoyment. In the villages, people will walk 1-3 hours to go shopping instead of paying 3 RMB to take the bus (they do not have the money). Buses have become fun as we have gotten over being gawked at and laughed about. Quite often the bus is completely packed so there are people sitting, standing cramped together and the occasional person carrying an animal for supper, their farm equipment or huge bags of rice. It is always something new and then there is always someone smoking too. My favorite bus ride was visiting my friends in LuChun. I took an 12 hour bus ride that traveled 144 miles. If you do the math, we went 12 miles per hour. It was a bus with sleeper beds and luckily it had rails to hold onto as the road was super bumpy and I was often bouncing off the ceiling and hoping not to fall out of my bed through the mountains. I didn't get sick though. The train can be fun I have heard. Patty despises it though as it tends to be cramped and sometimes you do not have a seat so you have to stand the whole time. People smoke, take their shirts off, throw food all over the place, etc. This is the cheapest form of transportation so often the poorest and most people take this. You can get sleeper cars as we will take to Xian and I guess those are better.

1) The poverty. Everywhere around us there is severe poverty. Most of our students come from very poor farming families, though you would not know it and almost everyone we meet has faced hardships and difficult times because of lack of money, but it rarely shows in their attitude and behavior towards others. The villagers and farmers who are often the poorest are often the friendliest people. Streetsweepers and trash collectors are always smiling and wishing you a good day. Their comfort is found in being able to work hard and know that they are helping others and hoping that their hardwork will benefit their children and later benefit them. It is a child's obligation to provide for their family members after they get a job. Some of the houses of friends I have visited are super small with 3-5 people living in them, but they will offer to take me out to a nice restaurant because we are friends.

We ask that you keep the people of China in your thoughts and prayers. The more you have learned and experienced, the more they have been deeply impressed upon our hearts. We hope each of you have a wonderful summer and are blessed abundantly.

2008-06-15T18:56:00.003-05:00

This weekend was a busy and tiring trip to a student's hometown with our teammate, Kris and another friend Paul. We went to Ziyun, about two hours south of Anshun to deliver some books, clothes and other things to a school there. The heavy rain in the area has affected this area quite substantially, as we found out. We stayed with Leo and his family in their rather large house. They have a pool table and mah jong table that people come and play at any hour. The first part of our trip was to go shopping for the books. We went to a bookstore and gathered one of every copy of the required reading materials for middle school students. The middle school reading list is full of English favorites like Tom Sawyer, Pride and Prejudice, David Copperfield, The Scarlet Letter, etc. (all in Chinese of course). In all I think we purchased somewhere around 240 or more books. The store packaged them up for us nicely and even helped drive them to the bus station for us. This is the way we have been using our tithing money here-to help areas that are in need. Elderly care places, earthquake relief, individual needs, and poor areas. The bus ride was a rather crazy one as the bus stopped constantly picking up more people throughout the countryside, most of them carrying farm equipment and large packages that they had to cram on-board as well. Patty got a little overwhelmed as they all seemed to pile near her.

When we arrived, we got to meet Leo's family. His mother and father, sister and his brothers' children who stay with them as the parents work elsewhere. They made us a huge supper, as is the custom, and we got to know the children some. The next day, we went to the primary school in the town to visit where Leo is currently teaching. There are 1700 students in the school and I think by the end of the 2-3 hours there I had met all of them. It was like we were celebrities in the kind of way you do not want to be. Students were cramming together to be able to shake your hand or later to be able to get your autograph. I definitely would not want to be famous after this experience. I was so tired after the ordeal. I tried to play basketball with some kids, but the children wanting to shake my hands did not move so they kept getting pelted in the head with the ball. We taught one class and took lots of pictures with the students and staff. I even got to play ping pong with quite a few of the staff members and some of the students, that was the only time I could relax. Patty even got a little overwhelmed by the number of students, but this totally tired me out.

After that, we got into a van and traveled the one hour to the middle school in Ho Chuang Cun (Village) to deliver the books. It was a pretty bumpy and curvy ride, so we were even more tired when we arrived. The school administration and some teachers took us out to eat to show their thanks when we arrived. The meal was way over the top--they even ordered some special mushrooms that are 80 RMB per pound. This set the tone for the rest of the day. On the way back, they asked us if we would like to teach classes, meaning you are going to be teaching classes when you get back. Each of us got a class to teach for 45 minutes to help encourage the students in English. The students ended up having great English ability but being shy of course. We had a little time to relax, I played basketball with the students and Patty took pictures with her adoring students who followed her everywhere. Then we got into another van and went out to see some of the devastation and effects of the flooding in the area. We stopped at a tent village in a field for farmers who lost their houses in the floods. The farmers were working together to build apartment type houses to live in. On the way back into town, they stopped to help carry rice up to a elderly care center in town. I decided to go help since there were hundreds of bags to carry. It turned out that they were 50 kg (110 lb.) bags and we had to go up a big hill. There were old men and women and all kinds of people from town who came to help. It was interesting being part of the group. By the fourth bag, I had figured out the best way to carry a heavy bag for a long distance, but the first three trips almost killed me. I was so tired!! This is what it is like to be with a humanitarian group I guess. We ate another large meal, ate watermelon by the river, and visited with many different people before piling back into the van to ride home. Everyone was exhausted!!

The next day, we went out hiking with some family friends and took family pictures. Some of my observations about people from the countryside in China is that they love to talk and they talk super loud (it is almost like yelling in America). They are always welcoming of guests, even if they have little or nothing to share (they will give you their best). Though they may be poor, they will spend lots of money on drinking and smoking (men) and gambling and also on religious festivals (mainly towards appeasing their ancestors). These are some of the reasons for poverty in Southern China. The education does not seem to be quite as good and less emphasis is put on it, but that is changing as the government is pushing rural education and parents want their children to have better lives. Rural villages are like big families where everyone will help each other. The food in a village is probably the best of any place in the country. I would eat at a farmers house any day over a restaurant. Grandparents often take care of children and women often do the farm work while men go off to other areas to find work or work in construction.

I wish a happy fathers day to all of the fathers out there. Many blessings on this week--we have two more and then finals and we will leave for Mongolia on July 4th after a group get together.

Binding the rice.

2008-06-10T21:41:00.001-05:00

Binding the rice. ,
originally uploaded by dan_mueller20.

Now, it is rice transplanting time in Anshun. People have used huge fire hoses to fill their fields with water and planted rice very closely together and now it is about this tall and time to transplant it into smaller fields and farther apart. They will first pull it out, bind it, and then carry it in baskets to the new fields and plant it in small clumps. Often the women are pulling the rice up while the men are plowing and dragging the other fields to get them prepared. It is a busy time with all of the farmers in the fields or helping each other.

The old gate.

2008-06-10T10:27:00.001-05:00

The old gate.
Originally uploaded by Dan and Patty Mueller

This old gate to a Catholic seminary and church at the Botanical Gardens is a good symbol of Christianity in China. As you can see the wooden gate is locked but the doorway is open. The church gate looked old and weathered by years of being abandoned and hidden away, but yet it is strong and stands as an example of the long history of China's Christian history. The plant in the foreground shows the future as it is growing strongly and starting to bloom ready for the coming harvest. This place is hidden from most, but if people knew about it, they would be drawn to it. It is the same with the message.

Patty and I

2008-06-10T10:22:00.001-05:00

Patty and I
Originally uploaded by Dan and Patty Mueller

Later, we went to walk by the river. We stopped for the best ice cream bars in China (Magnum Bars) 4 RMB or 70 cents at wal-mart. A boy tried to beg money from me by grabbing onto my feet and wrapping himself around me until I pried him off. This picture is of one of the many expensive tea houses along the river. It is a very nice and peaceful walk.

The Sheraton Hotel Italian Restaurant

2008-06-10T10:20:00.001-05:00

The Sheraton Hotel Italian Restaurant
Originally uploaded by Dan and Patty Mueller

This weekend we went to Guiyang to spend some last time with our teammates. It was a wonderful time, but very tiring. We ended up getting to eat at this expensive Italian Restaurant with them. They served us appetizers in little cups with tiny spoons, water in wine glasses, and the food was wonderful. The view was the most amazing thing, as our building was the tallest in Guiyang, we could see for miles. All of the high buildings and all surrounded by mountains.

2008-06-03T19:06:00.002-05:00

There has been lots of excitement as this last week had less rain and lots of sun. We finally had our sports day, three days of running and track and field excitement. It was indeed a great opportunity to cheer for students and talk to them. I was able to run in the teachers' 8X100 relay. We got second by inches--I tried to run down my volleyball friend Tom, but it ended up he was too far ahead when he received the baton. It was fun to run though!! There are some amazing athletes here. Some of the English department students want to start a running club to increase their skill before next year's event--that would be fun.

This week we had weddings in our oral classes. It was a great joy for the students. We went all out--the students bridesmaids, groomsmen, parents, a flower girl, photographers, a minister, and readers. They made the wedding gown out of Toilet Paper, like at the bridal parties. They made flowers from newspaper. The men wore ties that I brought from home, so they learned how to tie a tie. It was an all-out affair. They really got into it and we printed off scripts to follow along with the wedding. We will have to post some pictures.

During the weekend, we got invited to teach at an English school with some of Patty's students. When we arrived, we found out what we had gotten ourselves into. It was a huge publicity stunt. Sunday was children's day in China, a day to celebrate the children and for them to receive gifts and have fun. They wonder why we do not have children's day in America and we often say because everyday is Children's Day. It is good for some of these children to get a break from the pressures of performing in school and other areas by their parents and to get to play. So when we arrived, we saw that they had made this huge sign welcoming the American teachers (very expensive). They had also invited another teacher who just got back from America (this was a great blessing). She is from Anshun and is attending college in Wisconsin (River Cross). It was great to hear about events from home and that she is family. The school has about 100 primary age children, and most of our time was surrounded by teaching short lessons that they could video tape and going on little tours of the town so that people could see us with the leaders of the school. The leader of the little village even came to thank us for increasing the student's interest in English and to take lots of pictures. It was a big set-up event, but we enjoyed getting a chance to spend some time with the kids. They are quite clever!!

This weekend, we have another official holiday so there is no school on Monday. We are going to Guiyang and possibly Kaili with our teammates. This may be our last get together before some of them leave back to America. We will have a picnic and BBQ on Monday too. That should be really fun, but I guess they are still trying to get the BBQing skills down without some of the equipment we have in America. The sun has been shining all week, so I should be outside. I hope your week is filled with incredible blessings. Now is the time for transplanting the rice to individual fields so many farmers are out plowing with the water buffalo or doing it by hand if they do not own one. The women are out replanting the rice--it is something very interesting to watch.

2008-05-28T19:41:00.002-05:00

Since our last blog entry, Anshun has made the news in China as we have gotten torrential rains and strong thunderstorms two of the last days. It has been quite crazy as it keeps us up at night and often shakes the apartment. The rain usually disappears around our campus quite quickly as we are on a hill, but it has caused terrible flooding near the train station in Anshun city. One of Patty's students could not make it to school because the bus could not get to her area and when she did get to school she had some interesting pictures of water to her waist and of her baby brother floating in a bowl outside their house with much of their damaged goods. Here is the news article from online if you would like to check it out. It has been quite a crazy year as disasters have been all around us--to the north (Sichuan), south (Myanmar), west (Tibet) and now here. Keep the people in your thoughts as more rain is forecast for the next week or so. Here is the link:
http://news.chinaassistor.com/2008/0528/Floods_Hail_Leave_18_Dead,_12_Missing_in_Guizhou_8991.html

We hope you are all doing well, as we have also heard of the tornadoes there and other crazy weather. May your days be blessed and your nights filled with joy and relaxation.

2008-05-26T21:39:00.002-05:00

Welcome to the rainy season!! We have gotten the rude welcome to the season of rain here. It will last for the next couple months and usually brings a ton of rain. We have been waiting for two weeks to have the sports day because of it (track and field competitions), and last night we had an amazing display of natures power-8 hours of thunderstorms culminating at 1:30 am with some of the noisiest thunder and stronger lightning I have ever experienced. It was shaking our apartment and causing rain to come in even though everything was closed. Let's just say, we did not sleep much.

This last week, the country of China experienced three days of mourning for those affected by the earthquake in SiChuan and WenChuan. All entertainment stopped and all things were focused on the earthquake. All TV channels showed 24 hours of earthquake coverage. All sporting events were cancelled including the torch relay, and there were many stops for moments of silence. From my understanding, this is unprecedented in China and it was something quite profound to be able to experience. On Thursday, we went to a prayer vigil with countless students at our school. Hundreds of students lit candles and placed them in the shape of a heart surrounding the date 5-12. It has been very much like experiencing the aftermath of 9-11. People have great pride in their country and are coming together to help others. Students are giving money to help with the rebuilding, even though many have little to spare. It has provided a time of openness in the press also as many newspapers were allowed to print anything. From what I hear and see, that is changing back again and many of the same images and articles are found in all newspapers again. People are looking for hope during this time and also cooperating together without thoughts of rank, minority groups, and privilege. There are many worries of worse things to come in the area as heavy rains continue there and many dams are under risk and further mudslides are expected. There have been many major aftershocks--some of which have caused widespread fear on our campus as well. At 1 am many students went outside because of messages from family and friends elsewhere warning of a large aftershock. It was mayhem!!

This last weekend, Patty and I actually ended up going different directions. She went to Guiyang for a much needed women's retreat at a hot springs and I stayed at the college. It proved to be a very busy weekend for the both of us. Patty had a wonderful time getting together with the women to talk and share and also to enjoy some pampering. It was a warm time, but they had lots of fun. During my weekend, there were many senior class parties, so I ended up spending a whole afternoon and night at one of my classes parties. They will play games, sing karaoke, and talk for hours and then have a large meal at night. It was a very sad time as they have known each other for 3 years and now worry about being able to see each other once they leave. We took lots of pictures and had a wonderful meal. The only part I do not like is the excessive amount of drinking that takes place. Maybe it was good I was there, because then others could feel more free to say no to most of the drinking. By the end of the night, there were many students and some teachers (it is the goal of the night to get them drunk) who were very drunk. Smoking and drinking are accepted practices here and almost expected practices especially among the men. They find it strange that I do neither, but are very respectful and will sometimes compliment it as being a better practice, but they still continue in their ways. I guess I will never truly understand.

The next day, I got up early to go out hiking with some students. They wanted to take me to a new place, XingWei. It is about 20 minutes walk from out campus and it is the home to the 2007 International Stone Exhibition. I was pumped to be able to finally go there. I did not know it was so close. The place has also turned into a "upper crust" shopping area. They sell Hummers and fancy, overpriced symbols of excess there. I could have spent all day looking at the rocks, fossils and remnants from caves. It is sad that they will cut off stalagtites and mites from the caves. They had some amazing things for sale there and also some museums that I did not go into because it was too expensive for the students. I will have to go there with Patty as this is a reminder of our first date--her helping me study for my rock test in the science lab. That afternoon, I volunteered to walk a student to a party and on the way home this rather large, muscular guy stopped me on the road. I did not know what to think, but he asked me to teach him English. He worked at the Kingstar Beer Factory near our college and I did not know what to think but gave him my number thinking that maybe he would not call. But later that day, he did call and invited me out to eat at McDonald's. I had nothing to do, so I decided to go, but did not know where there was a McDonald's in our town. He brought his brother along who spoke no English and we set off on a bus and later by foot towards the unknown McDonalds. We later ended up at Dicos (definitely not McDonalds and usually a place we do not eat), but he insisted on getting me something to eat. The thing is that he did not get anything for himself and his brother though, so I felt strange eating the chicken while they watched and we talked some. They did try the fries though, and he got me a chilled coffee drink--ugghh!!

The story only gets more bizarre from here. So we left the restaurant after his brother was told to put out his cigarrette--something most Chinese are not used to-not being able to smoke in a restaurant. We were going to go back to his house but instead he decided that I should meet his cousin who works as a hairdresser. Another 15 minute walk and we arrived at one of the fancier hairdressing places in town and he thought I should get my hair cut. The thing is I just cut my hair a couple weeks ago and it is still short, but he insisted (you can rarely say no). So they took me back and someone who spoke some English washed my hair and massaged my head (I hated it) for 15-20 minutes and then I was escorted to the chair. His cousin is the manager and all of his assistants gathered around to watch him cut my hair. He used a variety of scissors and worked like crazy cutting off any stray hair for about 30 minutes. It looked really good, but it took ages and then they had wash my hair again, dry it and then I was done. All of that for free. What had I gotten myself into!! So we took a taxi back to his cousins apartment and found that most of his family was there--they mainly work at the beer factory also but are from a nearby village. Fifteen of them and their children all gawking at me and talking about me. I was willing to do anything to get out of there, but they were friendly. Gavin, that is his name, thought that it would be interesting to go tour the beer factory, so that was a good alternative. We went to go see his sister who was working there filling boxes with bottles of beer. They have seriously millions of bottles of beer being made daily and packaged and shipped out. I hear the shifts are 13-14 hours long and when we arrived his sister decided to quit on the spot. This was her first day and she could not handle the standing and work. So we decided to make some Chinese food to have a real meal--it was about 8:30 pm. He left to get his motorbike leaving me with his sister to do the shopping. She knew no English, so I tried talking to her in whatever Chinese came to mind, which went very well until she started asking questions. I was trying so hard, but could not understand her as she talked so fast. I often just had to say--Wo ting bu dong, I do not understand. We did successfully get the food though and headed back to make it before being called and invited to eat at his families apartment. So we went there and now the whole family including uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, etc. were there, but most of them ate only rice leaving the better food for us. I felt so bad, but it was a feast. This is countryside hospitality in our area--they will bring out their best for guests. To make a long story a little shorter--my night ended around 11:30 when he dropped me off on his motorbike after many other stops. He is definitely a very nice person, but I am unsure of the situation. Is is something good to use my extra time with or something that I should not be undertaking??

This week we had American weddings in our classes with everything. They made wedding gowns from TP, I brought ties for the men to put on and a suit coat for the groom. Someone was a photographer, bridesmaids, groomsmen, flower girl, readers, parents of the couple, invitations, and they made flowers from newspaper. It was quite the production all put together in 1 hour and then they had the ceremony and the reception with such traditional songs as the hokey pokey and the chicken dance. We ended class with the throwing of the bouquet and candy (no garter). They really enjoyed it. We will have to post some pictures online for you to see. We have started putting some pictures of us on Patty's flickr account, so check them out. We hope your memorial day weekend was filled with blessings of family and friends and free time and that your week is abundantly blessed as well.

2008-05-19T21:58:00.002-05:00

Sorry about the late posting following the earthquake and all of the events. It has been a little crazy here and we have been very busy. The earthquake took place 300 miles to our north, but I was still able to feel it in our 5th floor apartment. I did not know what it was exactly as we often feel shaking from dynamite blasts at the nearby mines, but this was different. It started shaking the couch I was sitting on and continued, making my head hurt. I went to the window to check if the building was shaking, but it wasn't so I returned and it was still shaking (maybe a minute or so it all), then stopped and I thought nothing of it until my mom called later that day wondering if we were okay from the earthquake. What earthquake I thought immediately and then it all made sense and we checked online. Patty was outside and saw the water in the pool swirling and making huge waves on a calm day, but there was no impact in Anshun besides the general sense of uneasiness, fear and unknown. Many students did not sleep the next couple nights as they were afraid of aftershocks, and last night (a week after the earthquake), we awoke to thousands of students outside our window at 2am, again afraid of a powerful aftershock. It has really shaken many of their views of life and death, but also caused many of the same changes as we saw in America following the September 11th attack. There is a great level of nationalism and strength found in the country today. The government is doing a great job of supporting the people with aid and help for rescuing and students have watched endless hours of the news coverage. In class on Monday, we allowed the students to watch the raising of the flag in Tianamen Square--it was an amazing thing to watch their eyes and see the emotion that went into the event. We were able to see it in person during our visit to Beijing and it is something that I can find few comparisons to--there is great pride in their nation exemplified now and possibly strengthened by the coming Olympics. Our hearts and minds are not far from the victims of that area--luckily we have not heard of any students who have lost family or friends in the earthquake though a couple were still waiting for word from the epicenter.

Most of our weekly events have paled in comparison to the overwhelmingness of the earthquake. The seniors have all but graduated from my classes so there have been some get togethers and we went out hiking to Luo Xian Cun for the third time in three weekends with some students (they have never been there). It is a long walk so it is fun to talk and the village is like a different world surrounded by mountains and cut off from the rest of the world for hundreds of years. This weekend, we also went to Guiyang to get together with our teammates and it was fun to hear firsthand how other foreigners are doing at the fellowship and to hear stories and to just get to spend time together. On Sunday, Patty threw a surprise party for my birthday with lots of students coming. A few of them got me gifts, even though I tried to tell them no in advance. It was not a surprise as some students kept asking me about it all week, and it is hard to keep a surprise when our lives are almost the same. We had a huge cake and I got silly gifts like a singing angel, and a dog on the moon that dances and plays a song. I love them though!! This week we will have our sports meeting on Thursday through Saturday because of the days of mourning, so that should be a fun way to spend time with students. Patty and Kris will be going to Guiyang for a women's retreat and spa getaway. It is much needed and will be a great blessing and relaxation.

We hope your lives have been blessed this last week and will continue to be blessed in the coming days!!

2008-05-11T08:18:00.003-05:00

Happy Mother's Day to both of our mothers. It feels very different being far away, but still knowing and feeling your love and care an ocean away. We love you tons today and always!! It was a beautiful day for mother's day here, though it is not the official mother's day in China. We had a rare day of blue skies--it is often sunny but with cloudy skies so we saw blue today and it was so nice. All around people are out in the fields working hard here as I am sure is also true in MN and elsewhere. We had a good week, even though it is a little sad week. It is the last week of classes for the senior students, so after next week I will only have three classes again. I will have to find more things to do--I am looking for jobs to do (maybe some farming, studying Chinese, helping students with English, or Patty said I can take over cleaning the house--she later took that request back). She actually loves to clean and I love to cook, so it makes for a good match.

We have lots of cleaning tonight though, as we had our Open House and we watched the movie "Facing the Giants." We love this movie and definitely recommend that everyone watch it at least once. The students also loved it and got into it. Some even asked to learn more about the book and kept repeating many of their favorite lines. We also made Chocolate Cookies and also some M&M cookies also. We did not put all of them out so we could save more for later. They were so yummy!! Thanks for the packages from our family--we love to have little reminders of things from home.

This week we were invited to go on a picnic with one of our classes--the whole classes decided to come, so we had almost 30 people. We took a bus for 40 minutes and then hiked for 30 minutes to a cave dug by a village that was isolated behind the mountains for thousands of years. They did not know about modern technology and still used stone tools until they made it through the mountain in 1986. It is insane to think about that!! It turned out that the village we ended up at was the same village that Patty and I stumbled across last weekend when we were out wandering near NingGu. Its name is Luo Xian Cun. At the village we went out picking strawberries with the students--it was the first time for many of them including Patty. They had a great time and some came back with pounds of strawberries!! We walked around the area, enjoying the nature and the friendly people and the bamboo forest. We spent a whole day talking, playing cards and mah jong, and hiking around. It was great to learn about true friendship and team work from the students. They are a great class and really keep together. That is one huge thing about the students here in China--they will stay with their classmates for 4 years so they build great friendships and support each other like a family.

On Saturday, we both went hiking and then a student called to give us a present. He came over later with some friends to give us a whole bag full of presents--it was overwhelming. Patty and I got these silly, colorful matching hats, but we also got some fun things like a traditional Chinese shirt, a windchime, and the stacking Russian dolls. After that, he invited us to eat at his restaurant where he works. It turned out that the restaurant is super fancy and serves very high class food. It is called the Monte Carlo. It was super overwhelming, but this is sometimes how things go in China. We have heard all kinds of stories of students giving gifts to their teachers, sometimes they are quite odd gifts too. Some of their "favorites" have been strange shirts and statues of anatomy. But at the restaurant, Patty even got the chance to play music for the dinner guests on the piano. Everyone stopped eating to watch her and the piano player kept looking at her as though we was saying when will you be done, but it was a good experience and she did well--everyone applauded at the end.

We tend to get very different treatment in all places. Today, we were on the bus and it is normal to give up your seat to elderly people or parents with young children, so today I gave my seat to an older lady who was blind in one eye. It made my day!! She was so gracious and kept turning around to thank me and her whole family said thank you in their own ways (with Chinese or thumbs up etc). When she got off she stopped to wave and say good-bye. As our shopping trip went on we determined that it must be Recognize the Americans Day. In the grocery store, they always play English music when we come in, like they have a spy somewhere that informs them that we are there. Sometimes it is horrible rap music with terrible lyrics, but today someone followed us everywhere because they were excited to see Patty (a beautiful foreign woman). At the check-out a guy kept trying to practice his English phrases, all four of them, Good morning, thank you, hello, and good bye. While walking around we had an unusual amount of people stopping to say hello and asking questions and that only got worse as we stopped to each noodles. The shop workers were high school students with a basic English vocabulary. There was one very interesting spectacle in town though. We saw a line of nurses who were graduating from college parading through town from the college. They had a big banner and walked around the middle of town, must have been several hundred of them in their white uniforms with the old nursing hats and tennis shoes often listening to music. Mom would have loved the sight.

Well, we wish everyone a wonderful Mother's Day and many blessings on your upcoming week. We send many hellos.

2008-05-02T08:04:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone enjoyed their holiday!! Thursday of this week was International Labor Day, so we had the day off of school. It is an interesting holiday as the people who work the most: the servers, street sweepers, bus drivers, garbage collectors, etc. do not have the day off but everyone else does. It is usually a week off, but this year we only get one day, Thursday. This means that any students have to make up their Friday classes on Sunday (it cannot be a holiday without makeup classes). So over the holiday, we had planned a trip to Guiyang (the big city nearest us), with some of the freshman students to eat American Food, KFC. We have been planning this trip for over a week, and it grew to 9 people, which we found out is not a good number. With more people seems to come more problems. We were taking the train on the holiday which is already strike one for bad things. The train on the holiday is always overly crowded so we did get tickets, but we did not get tickets that had seats. This meant we would probably be standing crammed in among others for 1.5 hours. This was the anticipation, and there were some good and some frustrating and struggling times. We learned some good lessons though and a lot more about the students we were with.

Here is how the trip went. We planned on meeting at the school gate about an hour before the train left to ensure enough time (even though we usually go 1.5 hours early to make sure). As was expected, one student was late, so we waited a little and then took off without her. The bus ride to the train station is about 30 minutes, so we arrived at the train station with about 20 minutes to spare. The student who we missed was still on her way and two others were off doing some shopping before we left. We waited and waited and called them, but they did not come. We finally decided to just get on the train, but went indoors to find out the train had already left. This led to a little frustration on my part, and lots of uncertainty. What should we do, when can we get on a train, can we exchange our tickets for money or should we just take the bus (it is 5X as expensive). We finally found out that there was a train that was leaving in 15 minutes, but could not exchange the tickets and they did not have tickets for the train, so we had to get boarding passes and get tickets on the train. By the time we got all of these things done we had to beg them to keep the gate open so we could get to the train--thankfully many people were helpful and we made it onto a train for Guiyang. It was definitely very crowded and we stood for quite some time in the aisles as people tried to wade through us trying to find seats also. As it turned out, there was a couple from a nearby college (Liupanshui) who were English majors and as the kids tried talking to me started a conversation. It ended up that they gave me part of their seat so we could talk. It was very interesting and the time went very quickly. The family that was near us kept giving me fruit though-so I ended up eating 2 bananas and an orange. Patty also ended up getting part of a seat, so it turned out well. We ended up seeing other students on the train also, so that was fun.

When we arrived in Guiyang, we had no idea where to go to find KFC and the directions were not good, so we wandered around a little before getting a bus to drop us off there. The KFC restaurant was super small inside but with tons of people. They even had a cop to help make sure no fights started between people trying to get tables. There were constantly people walking around trying to find tables or pushing their kids around in the high chairs begging people to leave and give them their table. It looked impossible to find enough room for 9 people. But anyway, I went up and ordered food (they had a meal special 12 pieces of chicken, some corn, bread sticks, oreos and one liter jugs of pop for 64 RMB so we got 3 of them. Now we needed to find a table. Luckily we found one and we squished into the one and had KFC. Ahh...it was amazing!! It has been ages since having KFC chicken, but I have to say Asian KFC is much better than in the US. You can get it with spice and it just tasted soo good. It was definitely a feast and we enjoyed it greatly and before long it was all gone with a huge pile of bones and wrappers. We even got real ice cream.

After the feast, we decided to go to QianLing Park, because none of us have been there and they are supposed to have wild monkeys. When we arrived a large crowd of people were leaving, but the place was packed like going to the State Fair. It was definitely a fun time with the students though. We had so much fun--like riding on the Peacock, taking pictures by the water and the 2 mile underground walkway. It ended up being a super long uphill walk to the zoo and wild monkeys, but we did finally make it. The zoo was awful to say the least--there were only a couple animals in super small concrete cages. But we did get to see camels and Patty almost went for a ride (it was only 3 RMB, 50 cents). On way back down, we saw our fill of monkeys. There were dozens of them out, some even brave enough to come and take food out of people's hands. Many of them were fighting as it is getting close to mating time. They are definitely amusing creatures to watch in the "wild."

The girls in the group really wanted to go shopping after this at the famed never ending shopping stalls, so we tagged along to trudge through endless lines of stores for anything you could imagine. It ended up that Patty was the only person that bought anything (sandals--size 43--she was happy that she could find some that fit). By the time we finished this, most of the people wanted to go home which was a huge ordeal. We did not know if we could find a way back to Anshun. We tried the bus station across the road but found out their last bus left 10 minutes ago. We had 40 minutes before the last train left, so we decided to give it a try. We were so tired by this time, that most of us passed out on the bus and we arrived at the train station 15 minutes before it left. We were running around trying to get tickets, running up the stairs to the platform, and we made it just in time. Boy did it feel good to be able to sit down again after almost 12 hours of racing around. We made it back to Anshun safely and had to bargain with the taxi drivers forever to get a reasonable rate back to the college (the buses had already stopped). We slept so soundly we did not even know last night had a rain storm.

We decided in the morning since it was still a day off that we would go to NingGu again to see new places because it is so beautiful. The youcai flowers have all disappeared but now many farmers are planting rice, so we headed out on a path towards a village and decided to try new places along the way. As Patty will attest, I am a frustrating person to go exploring with. We always end up on the path rarely taken or climbing through muddy fields and up steep, rocky hills. This time we ended up in a grove of cherry tomatoes with the only way out being climbing down many muddy fields. By the time we found a "real" path we were full of mud but still smiling. We ended up near a river and some tall mountains and decided we would keep walking and see what we could find. This time it turned out to be spectacular. We ended up on the other side of a mountain in an old village that they have turned into a camp for tourists. It was super beautiful with many little caves and rivers,and a huge grove of bamboo (no pandas though). We walked around the area and then settled down by a small waterfall to eat some food we brought. We tried to find a shortcut back but ended up going in a long circle of nearby villages. We did end up going to a cave on the way back. It looks like they just got it opened, as the railings were new. For 5 RMB a person we went into the unknown led by a man with a lighter and a few lights on the walls. It was something for your eyes to get used to, as a lighter does not give off much light. The cave seemed quite big, but they only had a few rooms accessible for people. A few stalagmites and tites, but it was not super exciting. They would say it was a "mamahuhu" (so-so) tour. We arrived back at the bus stop sore but doing okay. Our little walk turned out to be almost 8 hours out up mountains and through fields. Patty is now in bed early sleeping it off.

We hope you are blessed in all of your labors, whatever they may be. It is good to know that we do not labor alone and that we labor not for a prize that will wither or disappear but for something eternal. It is also great to see what 'Awe'some things he has created for us and how he works.

2008-04-25T20:08:00.002-05:00

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!!

2008-04-20T23:25:00.002-05:00

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!!

2008-04-14T08:58:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-04-14T08:58:00.001-05:00

2008-04-14T08:58:00.000-05:00

2008-04-06T03:25:00.002-05:00

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.

2008-03-30T06:16:00.003-05:00

This weekend was a busy and exciting weekend. It was Patty's birthday!! This was extra exciting because Patty cannot remember the last time she has had a big birthday celebration. I had been hoping all week to have wonderful weather on Friday for her birthday and the weather ended up being super warm. It got into the 70's with lots of sun, so we were able to do everything that I planned. We got up and headed out to town around 9ish, and arrived at our destination around 9:30. Patty had been hoping to go boating on Hong Shan Hu (HongShan Lake) for a long time, but when we arrived the boating company was not opened yet, so we had a chance to take a fun stroll around the lake. It is a very beautiful lake with lots of flowers, farmers in the background, men fishing, and lots of scenic bridges. Patty got lots of birthday pictures with the blooming trees and the bees--there were tons of bees pollinating the flowers, but they work so fast that we could not get a good picture of them. It was fun to get out alone and walk and talk. By the time we made it around the lake, the boating company was open and we got a chance to use our Chinese to ask if we could go boating hua chuan (literally floating a boat). He gave us all kinds of instructions in Chinese (very few of which we understood), took our money and pushed us off the bank of the lake. Luckily, the instructions we did understand were to control the direction the boat went. Push the knob up for forward and down for backwards. We were the only boat on the lake, so we could do whatever we wanted. We stopped and talked a lot with the cool lake breeze and took pictures while floating around. It was a good time.

Afterwards, we went into town to get Patty's birthday present. She has been wanting to decorate the house with flowers for a long time, since we cannot grow a garden, so we went into the flower market and looked at countless kinds of beautiful flowers. We ended up getting five bags full of flowers and pots and the accessories. The flowers and plants are beautiful. We are watching as they bloom. My ability to know the names is very limited--that would be something fun to learn, the names of trees, flowers, birds, etc in China or even in America. I love getting pictures of all of these things, especially in Spring, but I do not know their names. After this we found a bakery and beyond Patty's wishes I got her a cake. She thought it was far too extravagent, but it was definitely a fun experience. We picked out a cake design and they made the cake in front of us. It was quite amazing to see the skill and all of the tools to make it look easy. The family that ran the shop enjoyed it, and the designer decided to take artistic license and made a totally different cake. When they found out we were Americans, he went all out designing the cake. It took about a half hour to decorate it!! Then when he was done and put it in the box, was tying it, he again decided to put more on it and opened it back up and added more things. You will have to check out the cake pictures. Patty definitely felt special (it had Happy Birthday written in Hanzi--Chinese on it also). So we gathered all of our things up and went to get on a bus--this turned out to be quite an adventure. The bus was packed full and we had five bags of plant stuff and a big cake and my backpack. The people were kind in trying to find us seats, and it turned out well, everything survived the half hour ordeal.

A few hours later, our friends from Guiyang came. Along with the cake came a crown, like the ones from Burger King, so Patty had to wear her crown the rest of the night. She was a princess!! We went out to a fancier restaurant to eat and we invited a bunch of students over along with our friends for cake and a little party. The little party turned out to be quite a crowded affair in our small apartment. There were people sitting on stools and the couches and also in other rooms and along with a birthday comes presents. Almost everyone that came brought something, cherry tomatoes, oranges, bananas, a stuffed dolphin name Haichuan (dolphin in Chinese), more flowers, candles, etc. It was maybe a little overwhelming, but a good way to celebrate.

On Saturday, we got up early and Patty and I made breakfast for our guests. Patty made granola and muffins and we prepared food for our hiking trip later that day. We went on a hiking trip to this old bridge as Kris described it, because the Guiyang team wanted to see lots of youcai (the yellow canola flowers). We got off the bus in the middle of a super small village and started walking through the fields towards a bridge, but we later found out that it was only a waterway suspended above the river. Along the way, we got lots of pictures of the flowers and the group and even though it was only a waterway, we still had to walk across it. That was quite the adrenaline rush to be standing on a skinny piece of concrete many feet above the ground. I am sure my mom would not have approved. We did a lot of hiking around the area and I found a few caves that I explored a little and we climbed some rocks and had lunch. It was definitely a tiring trip in the hot sun. It was so fun to get together with our friends!!

This would seem like enough, but about the time we got back I had to go play basketball with some guys--I will be playing in the 3-on-3 tournament next week. We had to practice and plan strategy which lasted for 3 hours. By the end of the day, I was so tired I pretty much collapsed. Most of Sunday was recovering as the weather was a bit chilly. We are going over the Truth Project with our teammate Kris for Sundays. It has brought up a lot of good things to learn and apply in teaching. We hope your weekends were filled with great blessings. We will continue to put more pictures on Flickr from this weekend and we pray that we can keep in touch!!

2008-03-27T08:26:00.002-05:00

Tomorrow is the big day. It is Patty's birthday, she will be 27. She has not been a big fan of birthdays since I have known her...I am not too sure why, but hopefully tomorrow she will enjoy the special day. We are planning on going out for a boat ride on Hong Shan Hu (Lake). The weather has been very beautiful here lately, so we have been out for many walks and today we made it out to play some frisbee (fei pan). This sport is something people here are very interested in, so it often brings great interest. Many of our students came out to play; they skipped out of their PE classes to play. It is a physical activity, I guess. This is a normal occurrence, many students will skip PE class, because they only have to test out of each physical activity.

This week was a good one. There were lots of fun little events. We received a package of goodies from my mother (some candy, peanut butter (we cannot get it here, but two hours away), birthday and anniversary cards, and other fun foods that remind us of home. It is always a happy event to receive things from home. We are hoping to send more things in the mail throughout the semester. We also had English Corner, which was centered around Festivals, so we had a chance to share on Easter and Christmas and hear students share on them as well. We are planning a American sports Open House for this week, so I am excited to teach them Ultimate Frisbee, we have some baseballs and softballs and gloves, a football, and a hope that the weather will cooperate on Sunday night. Spring is a beautiful time around Anshun. Some of our friends from Guiyang will come this weekend to check out the yellow canola blooming in the fields and the beautiful scenery. We are very excited. I will update how the weekend and the big birthday celebration goes. We wish you warm weather in your areas and that your days and nights are blessed in great ways.

2008-03-23T19:28:00.003-05:00

After last weeks excitement with our trip to Kunming for our anniversary, this week seemed a little less exciting. We did do alittle traveling though. We went to Guiyang for Easter to be able to spend it with the big team of English teachers there. That was probably the highlight of the week. Before leaving, we got our first experience sending mail through the post office. It wasn't too bad actually. We will have to start sending home some letters in the near future. Sending packages are quite expensive though, but we needed to send something as all of our family Christmas presents were lost. We had to think small and light though.

We have had our first two Open Houses and that has been a richly rewarding experience. About 13-14 students have been at each and it has been a really fun time to share and to spend with students. They are very interested to hear about our Chinese learning and I think it makes them feel better that we are struggling with their language while they struggle with English. Our Chinese lessons are going much better this semester. We feel like we are learning a lot and now we have to get our and practice more or just try to talk Chinese in our house. In class this week, we did many Easter activities which the students really got into. They did not know much about the Easter story before, so they were very interested in hearing about it.

In Guiyang, we had a chance to do all of the traditional Easter things. Easter in Chinese is Fu Huo Jie (Resurrection Day, or Come Back to Life Festival). We helped the kids (the Millers and Caves) color Easter eggs and then we hid them and watched as they scurried around with excitement looking for them. That was so fun to see!! We got to eat and watch some movies and then on Sunday we went to the large service for all foreigners in the area (about 75). It is always fun to see new people and to share with people we rarely see. Such a great blessing.

The trees and flowers are all in bloom here, so it does feel very much like spring. I hope you will soon experience the new life of spring and that you will experience that feeling of the greatness of the new life we have because of Easter everyday. We send our love and greetings. An update on March Madness from China, Patty is doing much better again this year. She picked all of the higher seeds and I chose many upsets and it is not going so well for me. I guess this is how it works sometimes. All of the greatest planning and still the simplicity wins out!! Also we have some new pictures online at FlickR--they are under our email addresses. Dan and Patty

2008-03-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

It has been a couple of weeks since the last post, but we have made it through our first weeks of classes. It is different being back and spring has many new things to experience and see. The weather is much warmer than in Minnesota, so fields and trees are beginning to bloom. One of my students took me with a group of bachelors to Long Gong (The Dragon Palace) for the canola oil festival. The fields were completely yellow with beautiful flowers and it was very interesting to see the longest underground river cave and some fascinating cave features. One of the highlights was taking a zip-line down a mountain. It was quite the view and quite the experience, but I am not so sure Patty would say the same if she came. Since it was a festival, the place was packed primarily with minorities and villagers and some tourists. Yet another opportunity to stick out, but also a fun time to share with others. I made a man’s day by giving him a quarter from America—he was willing to give me a lot of Chinese money for it. That was after he asked why Americans have so many guns if they are only going to shoot people. Needless to say, there are many pictures of this time (we will see when we can get them up as the internet is very slow lately).

As some people may know, Thursday was our 4th wedding anniversary. We have a little bit more free time, so to celebrate we made a trip to Kunming, a city in the Yunnan province about 11 hours away by train. Kunming is nicknamed the “Spring City” because of its constant warm weather and it definitely lived up to that being in the 70’s and 80’s. Two of our friends also came, Kris and Brianna. Some of our highlights were going to Shilin (The Stone Forest) and The Minority Village on Dianchi Lake. When I envisioned the Stone Forest, I was thinking along the lines of The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs, but boy was it an amazing, breathtaking display of the majesty of creation. It was miles of limestone pillars and hills formed by the area being underwater. There were many of these creations that resembled animals or people and the weather was gorgeous. It was fun looking at the pictures and trying to find more things in the rocks. Patty now understands a little more my “unhealthy” fascination with rocks, even though that was actually the first “date” we had in the rock lab at Winona State, her quizzing me on rocks.

The next day we went to the Minority Village, which is a park with recreations of 26 of the minority groups found in the Yunnan province. I was super excited to see this park, as I have a love for the minorities of China. The experience was both good and bad I would have to say though. Each minority had representations of their traditional houses and some people dressed up and usually an activity or something that represents their culture. Some of the houses, temples, and other buildings were breath-taking and the dances and activities were fun, but it was a lot of walking and some of the workers were very lax (I thought it was like workers at Valleyfair). Some of the favorite things were seeing the water splashing festival, seeing some of the dances, and the Miao who actually had a church in their village and shared the gospel at the gate. We left after about 5 hours of walking in the park, not knowing that we would actually be walking another 4 hours before we stopped. We ended up walking almost the whole town looking for a reasonable hotel before actually getting to our supper destination, and later had a fiasco trying to get a taxi to get us to where our friends were staying. It was really nice to eat at a fancy Italian restaurant though (Pizza da Rocca). I had a pizza while Patty had a huge calazone. The next day we did some shopping to replace presents lost during our trip home and then we headed home on another tiring train ride (it is quite the experience). You have babies crying at high decibals, children running up and down the aisle screaming, and the super comfortable seating options. Let’s just say 12 hours (it was longer this time) did not come soon enough. It was good to be back in Anshun again. On that night, we had 13 students over for our first Open House and we played Uno and talked. And in the end we look back at the time and say, “it was very good.” Many blessings!!

2008-02-29T06:17:00.002-06:00

After our safe arrival in Anshun, we rested for one night and headed out to visit one of our friend's hometowns in the mountains of rural China. It was an experience that really did a lot to help us understand some of where our students are from. It was a totally new experience for us.

We got up early 7am to take a bus from Anshun to Guiyang as we needed to catch a bus at 10am. The four of us, Kris, Robert, Patty, and I with our backbacks and some snacks. The bus backed up sounding not so reassuring and we went about 20 feet before the bus stopped and the driver disappeared. Then there was a second bus, we got on that, sat down and prepared to leave and minutes later were back on our bus and waiting for the driver. Now we were about 20 minutes behind schedule, but no worries as our driver worked hard to get back on schedule. We weaved through traffic and stalled vehicles to arrive at the bus station with just enough time to get tickets and get on our bus. The second bus experienced a number of problems--it overheated a couple of times and broke a hose so we had multiple stops to fix things. This allowed us opportunities to rest from the winding road through the mountains. About ten hours later, we arrived in Shijuan County, still 40 minutes from our destination. We needed to get a taxi and were told it would cost about 500 yuan ($70), but our friend got one for far cheaper and we wound through the mountain on rough roads to arrive dog tired beside the road with his father and a pair of flashlights. Now, we were going to walk up to the house--this faint light in the distance. It was a good thing we could see very little, because we later found out the paths we walked were about a foot wide, full of mud and dropped off to fields of rice ten feet below.

It was one rough trip to get there, but I have to say it was way worth it. I would not have traded the experiences we had for anything. This gave me a feeling of what I think life must have been like around 100 years ago in America. Here are some things we learned about living in rural China and the farmers of China:

The main transportation is your body. In the village, there were two families who owned cars and some others had motorbikes, but most people walked. We even heard of students who walked home for the Chinese New year from Guiyang (over 300 km or 180 miles). Most of the time when you are walking you are carrying something, such as a huge basket on your back with vegetables to sell at market, for these villagers one hour walk away. There is a new road through the mountains which makes life easier, but it also means far more accidents with motorbikes, buses, and lots of huge trucks. Vehicles travel at amazing speeds on such curvy roads!!

A normal house has one coal stove to provide heat. So that means a good deal of your time inside is spent on benches talking around a stove. Cooking is done in huge stoves heated by wood. Food is a big part of life in this culture, so most people are wonderful cooks.

I learned a great deal about hospitality during this time. Everyone in the village was free to visit at almost any time. People stopped by in the morning and they just made more food and piled closer together around the stove to eat. They would talk for hours and one night we went to visit a neighbor. They brought us all kinds of things to eat--it is normal to have peanuts and sunflower seeds for visitors or to eat in-between meals. There really is no need for phones, as to talk to someone you just yell out your window--even if they are a long ways away.

There is no need for an alarm clock, as the roosters will wake you up promptly at 5 or 6 am. I got up one of those mornings to go to the bathroom and walked around the hills and you could hear dogs and roosters echoing through the mountains from all of the villages--quite the morning experience.

Houses have a large stone tank you could call it that you go to the bathroom in. Over the top of it there are two planks to balance upon and I mean balance as one of them was warped at liked to move. This is the fertilizer for the fields. There are no showers so we walked about 20 minutes to a place where they have hot water to shower.

Most families had multiple fields terraced up and down the mountains and few of the families owned waterbuffalo, so most of the work was done by hand. They grew wheat, corn, rice, canola oil, and so other vegetables. Each family also had a forest of trees to get fuel from, but a majority of the trees were broken because of the storms this winter.

We learned a lot about the extent of the storms in China. On the way back we ran into one of my other students who lived nearby and everyone in her village lost all of their crops because of the ice and they had no electricity and water. So her Chinese New Year was as she said, "Awful, but good to see family once a year." We did lots of walking and climbing of the mountains and we talked a lot with Robert's family (well we actually just listened as he interpreted).

The farmers I believe are some of nicest, kindest people, but unfortunately many of them will leave their homes and that life to move to the cities because there they can get better jobs and a brighter future. Life is very traditional there--grandparents are taken care of by family, children have great respect for their elders, and everyone works together as a community. We have some pictures coming soon to our Snapfish account. If you would like to be added email either Patty or myself.

We are starting classes on Monday and it is exciting to see the students coming back to campus excited to see friends and to get started.

2008-02-23T00:23:00.002-06:00

We are home!! We made it home to Anshun last night and are recouping from our travels before we leave tomorrow to visit a student's hometown 9 hours away (more traveling). We had a wonderful conference in Hong Kong--there were so many highlights and very few setbacks, but I will share some of them.

I was super excited to be able to get together with my friend Queenie from college in Hong Kong. She met us at the airport and rented a van so we could get all of our luggage to the conference center. We had many great adventures into Hong Kong with her. I tried Dim Sum for the first time (it was really good)!! We went up Victoria's Peak to see Hong Kong from the mountaintop during the day. It is such a beautiful city, but very big. She adviced us to get an Octopus Card to help with paying for buses, trains, and almost everything else and I would advice everyone who travels to HK to get one. It sure beats counting your coins at every stop to get perfect change for the odd bus and train prices ex. $4.20. The team from America that taught at the conference were amazing--the material was very useful to specific things happening in our lives and towards our work here in China.

We also went to Lamma Island hiking and to the Taipo Nature Center hiking also. Hong Kong is a beautiful area that is very jungle-like outside of the city center. We got lots of pictures of people and places. The most amazing time was getting to see and hear from some of the other teachers throughout China. Many of them have many years of experience that we could glean. It is a great way to prepare ourselves for the upcoming semester and our future work.

All of our bags and all of their contents made it to China safely, except for my shaving cream and a few other articles that I forgot in my backpack. Those things were taken out promptly in Minneapolis as being too big to carry-on. They searched Patty's bag to check out her shampoo choices.

One big change was seeing so many places devoted to worshiping God in Hong Kong. There were numerous churches and places with the words "Shangdi shi ai" God is love. When we arrived in Anshun, we heard more about the ice storms that affected our area. Our college representatives picked us up in Guiyang and they said it was almost a catastrophe, but that the government worked well to help the common people. There was a lot of ice and pipes were broken on our campus so they had to walk a ways to carry water to the apartments, but many people were able to go home for Chinese New Years as it got warmer just in time. Some of the food prices went up but we have not gone shopping yet to check them. We will try to post some pictures and more information when we return and school starts on March 3rd. Many blessings to you!!

2008-02-16T19:56:00.002-06:00

We made it to Hong Kong last night. Yipee!! It was a long 15 hour plane ride added on a 2 hour delay also, so we were very tired when we arrived. A big blessing was that my friend from college, Queenie, met us at the airport and rented a van for us and some friends to come to our conference center in. Today, we are getting together with her to eat Dim Sum and also to see some of Hong Kong. We are excited to have arrived safely and to be able to meet some of the other teachers throughout China. WE feel that this time will be filled with many great blessings. We had a wonderful time in the States visiting family and friends, but it does indeed feel very nice to be back in China. It was different coming back to where our home was but not feeling like we were quite at home. We will definitely miss everyone from home though. It is already sinking in that it will be a year and a half before we return. WE will try to update our information a couple of times during the conference. WE send lots of love.

2008-02-11T23:33:00.001-06:00

I cannot believe how quickly time passes. Our five weeks in the States are almost to an end. There are so many things that we planned on doing, many that we did not achieve, but also many great surprises and blessings along the way. We did not get to see everyone we planned on seeing, although we knew that was a certainty. We did get to see many friends and family members though and that was invaluable. We spent some time down on the farm, up in the Cities and up in North Dakota (for the Super Bowl with Patty's sister).

Going into our time at home, we had a few expectations, I was excited to see snow and Patty was frankly not excited to see cold and snow. We thought we would be leaving far warmer weather and calm weather in China, but it turned out that our weather here was better for the most part. In our area of China, in the Guizhou province, they experienced snow and ice for the majority of the days we were gone. We heard reports of large areas without electricity, water, and heat and astronomical food prices. There were even reports of 43 cm (about 1.5 feet) of ice on the roads, so much of the travel was stalled. We cannot believe what this was like and we do not really know what we will return to, although we will have a few weeks before we return to Anshun. Some of our highlights were seeing our niece, Madison, and nephew, Isaac, our dog, Tippy, and family and friends, but also getting to experience some of the foods and conveniences we have in America. Even though we did indeed enjoy all of these conveniences, it was hard to distance our thoughts from returning to China and our students there. We did really miss it and it feels very much like our home now (even though we did not know if that would ever happen). We did lots of shopping while we were back, and now we have to find room to get it all back to China. We bought a variety of books, a new camera (we are excited to have a DSLR and a couple of lenses to take some fun pictures), and some clothes. We did not get our lost bag back from airport-land, which was a terrible loss, but we did get to share many of our pictures with others.

We will be leaving for China on February 15th, right after Valentine's Day and arriving in Hong Kong for a conference. I am hoping to get together with a college friend living there also, Queenie. We will then travel back to Anshun on the 22nd and have a week or so to prepare for the next semester. We thank everyone for the blessings during our time back and apologies to all of those we did not get a chance to get together with. We will try to resume more frequent posts upon our return and add more pictures to our Snapfish account.

2008-01-24T09:46:00.000-06:00

We have been back in America for about two weeks today, so I should give a little update on what is happening. We have had quite a few opportunities to visit friends and family, which has been great!! We returned on Friday the 11th, a day late because of an airplane cancellation in Chicago. We are still missing one of our bags, which is a big bummer. When we landed, we were able to see snow for the first time in a long time--it is definitely much colder here in Minnesota than back in Anshun, but we have heard that they have had weeks of freezing rain and all the buses are shut down. One of Patty's highlights was seeing Tippy, our puppy again and that he remembered us and was super happy to see us again. Patty went into BPHS, her old high school where she taught to share with some of the classes, and we went to a girls basketball game there with pizza at the Pizza Cellar. Everything seemed very similar, but it was a lot different. We were now a little like the outsiders, but we had a lot to share and we could catch up with them. Another of our highlights was getting to go to church at our fellowship. It was a great feeling of being home to be able to worship and talk to our family there. We miss having a fellowship of believers to worship with when we are in China.

WE have had a chance to visit some friends and families while down in BP as well as get together with Dad and Grandma on their birthdays. Much of the family came to celebrate grandma's birthday, so we could see many people at one time. Now, we are up in the Cities spending some time with Patty's family. We went to a Timberwolves game last night against the Suns and it was so much fun. The Timberwolves played really well and won by 10 :) We are planning a get together with some college friends for Saturday and Friday we are going to orchestra hall to see a performance. While we have been up here, we also got a new camera, so we have tried that out in the cold outdoors. We are planning on coming down to BP for the majority of next week and then we are going up to North Dakota to visit Chris, Betsy, and Madison and watch the Super Bowl with them. We will then spend the majority of our time in Blooming Prairie. I hope we can get a chance to get together with as many people as possible. Hope your days are being blessed!!

2008-01-12T21:30:00.000-06:00

We are now back in the States which is a great feeling. We are getting used to the new time, but we are glad to see family and our fellowship tomorrow. We just returned from Beijing and have lots of stories and pictures from our time there. I will try to get some of those things in here. During our return from China, we had a few interesting moments. Our flight from Chicago to Minneapolis was cancelled which allowed us the opportunity to meet lots of people and share our stories, but we also had a bag that we have not been reunited with yet. This has been the hardest as this contained all of our presents and penpal letters from my students and lots of pictures and other things to share. It is good to remember that these things are really not important, it is all about the who that we know and not the what that we have (but yes it is really hard).

Here are a few of the highlights from our trip to Beijing. We arrived at a time when our friends were very busy, so we were basically on our own to get around the city. We were blessed though to have a place to stay in. We went to a wide variety of places like the Summer Palace (YiheYuan), the Old Summer Palace (YuanmingYuan), the Lama Temple that was a gift from the Dalai Lama and took 3 years to be transported there, the Temple of Heaven (Tiantan) where the gave sacrifices to heaven, Tianamen Square, the Forbidden City, the Great Wall (this was the only requirement for Patty), Hutongs (which as the old narrow housing areas of Old Beijing with courtyards old architecture). I will have to add more details once we get caught up with our sleep though. It was a great time to enjoy the history and splendor of Beijing, but we definitely could not live there. We look forward to visiting friends and family during our time home, hopefully we will also get a chance to get together with you also. Many blessings and great joy.

2007-12-28T01:02:00.000-06:00

Christmas has come and gone. It was a busy but great season for us. It was a time when we certainly missed family and friends at home, but we were very busy. Christmas is not celebrated the same or a similar importance put on it here in China. There were many signs in stores for Christmas, but all with Santa Claus and Christmas trees. We did have a lot of students over for Christmas parties though--about 120 in all. We went to Guiyang, the capital of the province for Christmas. It was a really fun time, as about 100 foreigners got together for a celebration at a hotel. We enjoyed getting a chance to meet other foreigners in the area. Many came from Europe and America. Patty played the flute for the music. We had a couple of other get togethers with other teachers from our organization and we enjoyed staying with a family the Millers who have four children. It was fun to see their excitement. We bought some presents for the children before coming to guiyang.

On Christmas morning the kids woke up at 4 am, which was way too early for me. We did not go to the annual church service held on Christmas eve, but watched one on DVD from last year in Missouri. I guess town was really crazy with lots of people who go to the service which is usually just performances. The weather has been very cloudy with a good deal of rain, but we have been staying relatively warm and healthy.

Since returning to college, we have had quite a few opportunities that have come from the parties so that has been great. The students are relived now that the CET tests are done and they get Monday and Tuesday off for New Years. We are not sure if we want to have a New Years get together or not. We are continuing to be busy with finals and getting prepared to travel to Beijing. We had a couple students come over and teach us how to make Chinese dumplings which was really fun. We first went shopping with them and saw where they kill the dogs, it was really hard to stand because over the weekend was the dog meat festival. The dumplings are relatively easy to make with only the skins, meat, green onions and cabbage that has been steamed and drained of water. We made about 100 of them and finished them off between the 6 of us. Maybe we will learn some more Chinese cooking before we come home.

We did not get any snow though over the holidays, as the computer said we could, but I guess Minnesota and the Midwest got all of it. We hope you were all blessed over the holidays and that you are healthy and excited for what the Boss has in store for the New Year.

2007-12-16T18:10:00.000-06:00

This week did not many exciting events. It was a cold and foggy week for the most part. It has been in the 40's with some mornings in the 30's, but without the sun it has not been too fun to be outdoors. We are preparing for finals here, so we have gotten to learn all kinds of new things.

This weekend, we had two more Christmas parties for our 06 three year students. It was really fun. We had to make another batch of cookies on Friday to prepare for the parties--another 80 or so cookies six at a time in our toaster oven. They are not quite like the ones at home, but they are chocolate chip cookies. On Saturday, we went out shopping to get some things for the parties. For some reason, every time we go to the market, I have missed the dogs that they are selling there. I mean dead dogs with their skin taken off that they sell for food. Now they are abundant and everywhere, laying there with their tongues hanging out and skinned. But at the grocery store, we were finally able to see a little sign of Christmas as it is at home. The store was totally outfitted for Christmas, they had small and large Christmas trees all over, each worker had a Santa hat on and they were playing all of the Christmas caroling favorites in English and Chinese. This gave us a chance to sing and shop at the same time. I don't know if they change the music when we come, but whenever we get there they start playing songs in English. They are usually rap songs with lyrics that I hope they cannot understand. Once we got home, we made supper and found that our gas was all out, but luckily we had just finished making everything. On Saturday, we had 17 students who came. Our Christmas tree is now virtually full of ornaments and our stash of cookies are again waning. We watched our wedding movie again, which has become a great way of teaching about American culture, but also sharing about church and some of our beliefs. They leave wanting to get married themselves. We have gotten a few Christmas cards from students and a few gifts, which are really fun. They often give us chocolate, but it is just not the same as American chocolate. On Sunday, another 16 students came and it was very similar. We shared some of the songs that we had written together on the piano that we were given. It was really fun to be able to share those things with them. We again watched the wedding video and it is fun to see so many friends and family members on film and to see the exciting events over again. But we have watched it about four times this month!!

Well, this week, we are performing with the other American teachers in a Christmas program for the English department. It should be fun to share some Christmas songs and get a chance to celebrate with the whole department. We have some of our finals this week, but most classes are preparing for their CET tests on English proficiency. They are very nervous, because it is rather important that they pass. It will help get better jobs. We will be off to Guiyang for a large Christmas party this weekend and stay until Christmas day there. In the forecast, they have snow possibly coming on Christmas eve, so that could be very fun to see. They do not get much snow here ever, so the students are excited. Well, we hope your Christmas seasons are being blessed by the real reason we have Christmas. The gift of Jesus who came to allow us a relationship with the Boss. Enjoy!!

2007-12-09T18:13:00.000-06:00

Last weekend, we learned a good lesson about trying to have parties for students who live off campus--our five year students who still live at home. We baked lots of cookies, prepared everything and no one came. It was sad, but we learned that we had to plan the parties earlier for them because they cannot get a bus back home late at night. We did have a couple of students come on Sunday and they ended up watching our wedding film and looking at our pictures, which was really fun to share with them.

The weather here has been a little mix of very cold and reasonable days, depending solely on whether or not the sun comes out. We did buy winter coats yesterday, something I thought I would hold out to buy, but mine was very cheap, only 39 RMB or about $5. When I got it home, I found that it was a 7XL, boy does that make we feel like I am huge. Patty also found one, so she is excited to be much warmer. We did a little shopping yesterday and actually found some Christmas decorations at the supermarket, so we got some to decorate a bit.

Classes and the preparation for finals has been keeping us quite busy. Students are very nervous for their final exams. They also have their CET-4 and 6 tests coming up next weekend, so they are studying for those as well. They show their English level and help them get a job teaching, but connections also help as well.

Some of interesting happenings from the week, include lots of activity of course. Even though it is colder, I have tried to stay active to keep myself warm. Patty chooses instead to curl up next to the heaters with a book and blankets. This weekend, they had a ping pong tournament and I was asked to play which was very fun. That day I went down early to play some basketball and I ended up coming home early, because I slipped and slid across the concrete giving myself a large gash in my right hand. It is healing quite well, but it made ping pong playing more interesting.

We have also been preparing for our trip to Beijing in January. We have been trying to find places to visit and things to do. It will be fun to see where the Olympics are going to be help as well as the Great Wall and other famous sites. This is possibly the only time we will have this opportunity, so it is a good time to go, even though it will be a bit cold.

We have been learning a lot during our individual studies each day. I have been really enjoying studying Luke in-depth. It has taken many weeks and I am still inching through it, but there are so many great pieces of knowledge that the Boss is showing to us. Patty is continuring to look at the Beatitudes and what that can teach about right living. She is loving it!!

This weekend, we had two more parties for our 4 year students. This time our house was full of students. I think we had about 23 students in total. Because they were watching the Nativity for class, we ended up watching our wedding video again (both times). It is fun to see so many faces of friends and family and to celebrate the event again. The students also had lots of questions or comparisons to Chinese weddings. Some of the interesting differences were that Chinese weddings use red for almost everything that we use white for, they have red dresses for the bride because it is a sign of good luck, red candles to celebrate the ancestors (they use white candles at funerals), a red carpet for the bride to walk down, and everyone must give the bride and groom money based upon how well they are related (a way of proving how good a friend you are). Things are changing though as most wedding shops also have white wedding gowns, so sometimes they may change into two or three wedding gowns in one night. It was most interesting!! For the most part, they liked the cookies we made. We tried to make them with less sugar. Our tree is slowly becoming more decorated with students ornaments and a couple we bought from the store.

One other interesting tid-bit is that one of my former co-workers from Albert Lea, sent an article from the newspaper there about our penpal exchange between China and ALHS. That was exciting to see. We are hoping to be able to send some gifts this next time to share about Chinese culture and maybe even some Chinese candy. We hope this finds you doing well, staying healthy from the cold winter weather and that you are having a blessed Christmas season. We send our love!!

2007-12-01T04:23:00.000-06:00

After the exciting weekend of Thanksgiving, returning to school and Anshun was a little different. We were excited to be back, but things were different. We did not have SanSan anymore, so we were not forced to get up early to take him on walks and take him on late night walks around the track and campus. We have been trying to keep up walking at night, as it is fun to be able to talk and share about the day and reflect before going to bed. This week, we have wanted to eat more American food though, so we have made spaghetti and we bought some olive oil and nice bread, so that was fun. I also made some vegetable stew, which turned out really well. It is kinda fun to try new things, but each meal is a big production with many plates to wash in the end. We received a package from home with some gloves and hats and a nice surprise of chocolate. That was really fun to have--most of the food here is salty or spicy, so a little sweets are always nice.

We have been working on getting things together for having Christmas parties for all of our classes. We decided that this being our first year, we should try to have each class over individually for a small Christmas party. We will show "The Nativity" and share the story. We put up a Christmas tree, but we did not bring any ornaments, so we are having students write what they are thankful for on paper ornaments we traced and cut out: angels, snowmen, stars, and Christmas trees. We also stayed up late last night to make some cookies. We made 88 chocolate chip cookies (from some of our chocolate) and about 50 sugar cookies. We are not good bakers so hopefully the student will like them. It was quite the production, because we only have a small toaster oven, so we could make about six at a time. We are excited to have students over, but it will mean some very busy weekends. We are having our two five year student classes over this weekend. In the end, we will have eight parties and somewhere around 300 students over if everyone comes (we are not expecting everyone to come, but we will see).

The weather has been really nice, each day being quite a bit nicer than the computer said it would be. The sun has been out, so that usually means that it will be warm. I had my final two basketball matches this week. We played the math and science departments and then the middle school in town. Each of the matches were rather large victories but a little violent in nature. The teachers are fiercely competitive, but we won both games, 85-15, and 73-37. Also, I was invited to play in a volleyball match between the teachers and the school's volleyball team. We tied two games a piece, and it was fun to play with the same teachers again. We have started having two a week Chinese lessons and that has been really good. We are hoping to practice more and feeling more confident. It is still a little bit of a stuggle, but we are definitely learning more. The days are just not long enough for all of the activities, classes, and having study time, but we are learning to make the most of our time. We hear there is a big storm coming at home--we hope everyone is safe and warm. I will update everything again when our parties are over on Sunday night. Many blessings and love!!

2007-11-25T07:31:00.000-06:00

Hello again!! It has been a long time since our last post. A lot has happened since last weekend. Since it was Thanksgiving, we were given Thursday and Friday off of classes, which was a nice break. We travelled to Guiyang to have Thanksgiving with our teammates teaching there. This weekend, we also gave SanSan back to his owner who stopped into Guiyang to pick him up on her travels back to the States. He will make it to America before any of us, though he has a rather difficult trip to go, 10 hours on a train and multiple plane rides.

Before I tell about the weekend, I should share some about the week. For much of the week, I have been sick. We are not sure if it is from accidentally drinking some of the water while cooking or from a reaction to the medication I took here. It is just a nasty dose of diarrhea and feeling weak and achy. I took SanSan out on him last walk and we climbed the last remaining mountain in the countryside outside our campus. It was the tallest one and looked to be the most difficult. I let him loose and he tore off up the cliff up the windy, narrow paths (maybe Patty was best to have missed this one). Along the way we saw a couple of caves, but I was not willing to explore them alone or without lights and such. It was an amazing view and gave me a chance to see the military headquarters by the airport. We found also that it is a favorite make-out spot. On the way home, I let SanSan walk without his leash as a treat and he took full advantage of it. He took off like a bullet towards the airport, not knowing that I was going the opposite direction. He ran for an extra mile or so before turning around, but then the fun started. He found a big dog that he decided to follow barking the whole way. This time he did not listen to me and ended up following this dog for miles, until I finally caught up and found San San inside of a family's house in a small village in the countryside. I carried him most of the way home after that. It will be different not having him around, but maybe less headaches as well.

Our trip to Guiyang started with the bus ride. It is usually about a 1.5 hour trip and costs about 30 yuan (about $4 per person). This trip took almost two hours in a baking bus because the bus driver kept falling asleep and the only way that he could stay awake was to put on the gas then put on the brake and continued this for the trip. We weaved our way there without incident, but mainly because we were the biggest thing on the road.

There were 21 people at the Thanksgiving feast--teachers and students at various colleges in Guiyang and our little team from Anshun. We had turkey, salads, fruit, cranberries, mashed potatoes, corn, stuffing, gravy, and oh was it good after having vegetables and rice for most meals. What a blessing!! We even had a chance to get out and play some football before eating. We watched football on TV as well, although it was a three week old game between the Colts and Patriots!! For desert, we had three pumpkin pies and two apple pies, yummy!! The weekend continued with lots of other events, such as a big pizza get together with our team at the famed Pizza Fun. I will have to post some of the translated things from there, hilarious!! We tried to go bowling but could not and ended up relaxing and watching, Facing the Giants.

The next day we did a little shopping: this was quite the shopping experience. We went to a place with endless shopping stalls. It was like the outdoors Mall of America. They had most everything, although it took lots of looking and time to find what you wanted. We did not have all of that patience and only made it through a small part. We did find a couple of Christmas stores and got some Christmas cards, although they were expensive by Chinese standards. Patty got some sweaters to stay warm and we enjoyed the experience. Later in the day, we went to the Bird and Flower market, another great experience in shopping. Outside the place, they had hundreds of dogs and cats for sale, from mutts to many well known breeds. Patty could not spend too much time here, and indoors was full of stores selling antiques, books, artwork, and anything else you can think of. We found a few Christmas presents here and wall-hangings for our walls. I also found many different and amazing fossils and minerals, including the famed Guizhou dragon, but could not afford the prices many over 1000 yuan ($125). I am hoping to get some time to go fossil hunting later, because Anshun has very little but there are many places in the province. At night, we went hiking above one of the campuses and had spaghetti for supper (I did not know that I missed American food that much).

On Sunday, we went to fellowship with a number of other fellow workers from the area. It is always amazing to hear from them and to visit about the way the boss is working in their lives and work. Times are not always easy, but the blessings are many. The kids enjoyed SanSan as they had him pull them around on their rollerblades and ran with him constantly. The adults may not have enjoyed him as much as we had to put him in a closet for group time and he whined and scratched forever. Following that, we returned SanSan to his mother at Wal-mart. This is the second Wal-mart in Guiyang, both of which are huge. We treated ourselves and bought some French Bread and Olive Oil to have a nice Italian meal some night. We arrived home safely in Anshun, which was a nice end to our weekend. Along the way, we saw a Water Buffalo that had been hit by a semi and long lines (cars and trucks often wait in line for hours) at the gas stations. The prices have been going up and availability is sometimes a question so truckers will sometimes wait all day and clog the highways with their lines. We hope your Thanksgivings were filled with blessings. We have now officially bought our tickets for home and our small trip to Beijing along the way. We are very excited to get a chance to see everyone again!! Feel free to email us: dan_mueller20@yahoo.com If you would like to receive some of our pictures and have not gotten the snapfish invitation, also give us an email. Many blessings!!

2007-11-12T07:50:00.000-06:00

Lately, I have been trying to wake up early to go running. It helps to boost my energy before the day begins and it has been something very good. Many of the students are out early practicing their speaking in every little place especially around the track. Today, both Patty and I were not feeling totally well. Patty has some "bad" side-effects from food (we do not know what this time), and I have had some "glow in the dark" mucus that has not gone away. I think I may get some medicine tomorrow. The weather continues to be good, so we have enjoyed that. Today, ended up being a very busy day.

I had listening class this morning and we finished up watching the movie, "Remember the Titans" and the students really got into the movie, they were laughing hysterically at time and some were crying at times. This is a good practice, but also a break from listening to listening tapes and doing the workbook. They enjoy it too. Maybe we will watch "Facing the Giants" another time, because they really enjoyed the football movie. After class, I went to town because Patty was not feeling well. It always ends up being a big ordeal, where you return on the bus with your backpack full of about 10 lbs. of rice and other goods, and your hands full of fresh vegetables and fruits from the market. Today, I had almost more than I could carry. I also had to get a new pipe to try to fix our sink that started leaking yesterday--but Patty fixed it already and made it stop leaking for now. What a woman!! Grocery shopping usually takes about two hours with the bus ride to the market, walking to the two grocery stores, walking through the market and the return trip home.

Today was also the first day of the teacher basketball tournaments. I guess there will be four or five weeks of playing every Monday afternoon. I was really excited to play, but we had a very hard game against the PE (Phy. Ed) department. A couple of them are very good basketball players, so I did not think we had much of a chance. It was a very physical game, because as the dean of our department said, if we lose it is ok, but if they lose it is like losing face. After the first quarter we were down 26-6, but at halftime we were only down by one. The lead went back and forth after that, as many students came to watch. It was a great chance to be able to meet one of the other foreign teachers, Dustin from Seattle. My jaw still hurts from getting hit there by another player, as this was some of the examples of the physical play. In the end, I missed a three-pointer at the end that would have tied the game. The dean of our department and the school president were very excited that we did so well. They took us out for a meal after the game which was fun to get together with the English department teachers again since we have been working together, but do not always have a chance to talk. Next week, we play the administration team and our friend Tom. We will keep you updated. We hope all is going well at home and that your lives are blessed in new and unique ways every day. Dan and Patty

2007-11-11T05:36:00.001-06:00

This week has had amazing weather, meaning that we have spent a great deal of time outdoors. The crazy part is that it is November! We took many, many walks out into the countryside and visited a number of different places, many of the times with our students. We will talk about a couple of these different times in this week's blog post.

One of the most fun things I brought along to China has been my telescope. It has been fun to view the moon, Jupiter, and also this week to check out Comet Holmes. The school has put up huge spot-lights everywhere making it very difficult to do any star gazing, along with the usual cloudy skies, but this week has been great weather for this. I took the telescope out and many students wanted to see the stars as it was the first time they had seen a telescope. Comet Holmes was very different from other comets, it did not have the tell-tale tail, but it was an amazing sight to see.

During the week, we took a few memorable hikes, such as Friday where Patty and I climbed three hills in the countryside. Each hill was connected but we had to explore to find ways up and down those hills. It made for lots of fun and some great sites of the countryside and Anshun city. We have also been letting SanSan run loose in the countryside, which he loves, but now he is no longer scared of the water buffalo. Instead, he likes to chase them and herd them. He ended up chasing this farmer's water buffalo about a football field barking the whole way.

On Saturday, I got up early to go running and play basketball before the big basketball game on TV. They were broadcasting the Houston Rockets vs. Milwaukee Bucks, Yao Ming vs. Yi Jianlian. This was the Super Bowl of events for China. It was a good game, but the students who said they would come did not end up coming. Afterwards, I ended up playing basketball with some students for what turned out to be three hours. It was very tiring, but a great time to spend time with them and enjoy their favorite activity.

On Sunday, we went hiking with a group of eight students. We went to the Airport, which had no one there (they have one flight a week). The walk was quite interesting because multiple times the path disappeared and we walked on the rocks dividing the fields. On the return home, we walked around the area, so our walk ended up lasting 3 hours. It gave us a lot of time to spend with many of the students, even though many of them were not our students. We also had supper with them later at night. These are the kinds of times that are great for building good relationships. It was a great blessing, as the weather has been lately. We hope that each of your lives are being blessed in unique ways.

2007-11-05T08:17:00.001-06:00

This last weekend was unexpectedly warm, the internet had forecast rainy weather, but we ended up with very little rain and lots of sun. This meant that we spent lots of time outdoors. On Friday, we went outside to play some badminton and ended up playing with a variety of students and getting a chance to talk to a bunch of them. Sports has been a good way to meet a variety of different people, many of whom are interested in learning English but may not have much of a language level and our Chinese has sadly still be insufficient to hold long conversations. We have been watching episodes of Law and Order, Full House and other American TV shows when we have had free time or while we eat and that has been fun.

On Saturday, we went walking with the dog and ran into our friend Tom, from volleyball. He walked with us and we had a chance to talk about many things. He is very active so this could be an opportunity to have someone to run with (he runs 6 laps in the morning at 6:30 and 10 laps later in the afternoon). Maybe too much for me though. He invited me to go play basketball later (although he did not show up). This has been something hard to understand in China, it is common to make an appointment and not show up--at least it has happened to us a few times now. But I did go and play ping pong with some students, they are now not quite as shy to call and invite me to play sports. It is fun to try new things, but now finally my skill level is getting closer to a normal Chinese level. Later, I went to play basketball too. Maybe I will learn to not try to do everything, but I would definitely rather be outside then indoors especially when it is nice out.

Sunday was super beautiful, with temperatures almost into the 70's. Patty decided she could not stay indoors any longer, so she put on many layers and we headed out for a walk in the countryside. I showed her some of the places I had been taking the dog walking, such as the Brick Factory, the Rock Quarry, and we watched many farmers plowing fields or working in the sun. We were heading home for lunch when we met one of our friends, Leo and his girlfriend, who were going for a hike. They wanted us to come climb the mountain with them. It was nice out and we thought they meant the one close by so we said, "Sure." What we soon found out is that we were going to walk almost to the airport, a very long ways away, and climb the highest mountain the area. It was a beautiful area with small fields with high stone walls and we ended up walking on those walls to get to the mountain. Well, Leo and I and SanSan walked on the walls while Patty and Joy (she asked for a English name) walked through the fields. We took lots of pictures of us on top of the mountain (including Patty near the edge of a large rock). It gave us a breath-taking view far into the countryside. While we were walking another friend called and wanted to go hiking, so I again said, "Sure, I am sure we will be back by 2pm." We arrived home at exactly 2 and I headed out for another hike, this time to a park to go play cards and enjoy the weather. It was another long walk, but it was worth it. It was a park with a memorial to the soldiers who fought and died in the Revolution including a very famous person, Wang Zhan Yuan, a leader in the Early Revolution. We ended up walking around and then playing cards for a while. I returned home just before 5, such as long day. We had our fellowship later that night, because our leader was gone visiting students. It was a long tiring but incredibly blessed weekend. We sent out some pictures from this time. I hope you all enjoy.

2007-11-01T06:58:00.000-05:00

This has been a long time since our last post. There has been only small little exciting events here and there, but mainly the everyday teaching and retreating to the warmth of our house. The weather has gotten a little cold and since we are in the south of China, that means no heaters in buildings, except our apartment. We are blessed to have small heaters that make it comfortable. This weekend was a very exciting one on campus--there were all kinds of balloons, arches, marching bands, and lots of cars. Three events were going on at the same time: the Guizhou championship table tennis and basketball tournaments and a conference on economics in the province. There were lots of people on campus and it was fun to be able to see some of the festivities and check out some of the matches. On Saturday morning, I went and helped a student teach her class again, only this time I did not have to trek across muddy streets to the countryside, but she had it on campus. When I arrived, I found out why. She had about 20 students, instead of the six from before. She was offering free tutorinig to the students from the countryside, because she is kind and also wants practice. I have been teaching them English songs, so we learned Take Me Out to the Ball Game. It was really fun and a good experience, but the students are very shy (they are middle schoolers).

After that, I made it to some of the table tennis tournament, I have been practicing, but I am certainly not good. The matches were open to all ages and champions from across the province, so this meant from 12 years old all the way up to those in their 40's. I was most impressed with the 12 year old, who kept winning easily. As a foreigner, one of the players and also a coach from one of the sports schools, had me talk to her daughter on the phone because her daughter is going to Chicago in August. It is always interesting to see people's reactions and hear them talk about you as though you are a spectacle. At night, we had some of our students over to watch a movie. We watched the Prince of Egypt and it was really fun. We were expecting a few students for supper but no one showed up, so we had some leftovers from my attempt at making homemade spaghetti sauce (it is getting better).

This has been going very quickly as we have had incredibly cold weather that does not make us want to do much. We have been bundling up and staying indoors more than I would like to do, but tonight we went with our same friend Hope to teach at a middle school in the countryside. It was a 40 minute busride outside of Anshun into the mountainous area, but it was well worth it. We went to a middle school there and taught a 45 minute class to 82 students. I cannot imagine having 82 students, when in America 30 or more is more than enough. I cannot imagine trying to teach a foreign language to 82 students in a small classroom with lights that did not work, but this is much of what happens outside of the cities. It was a real eye-opener to how blessed our classrooms and schools are in America. This was not the first of these experiences, but it still just amazes me. The students were so shy, but so intent on doing what we were teaching. It made Patty miss teaching middle schoolers in America.

Farmers are busy in the fields here as we expect they are at home. It is a most interesting difference. Farmers have harvested their corn and are drying it (either by shelling it and drying it on the roads, or by tying the ears together and drying them hanging in their doorways). They are now plowing and dragging their fields. This is very fun to watch. Each of the fields is about the same size as a small backyard, and the plowing is done with a waterbuffalo and a small wooden plow with a metal blade. To drag the field, they have a piece of wood shaped like the number 8 with large spikes beaten into it that they pull through the field. Most of the people working with the waterbuffalo are either old men or young boys, but most farmers have been women. They do a lot of the hoeing of the crops and upkeep. I have been adventuring out to see how people work--there are some brick factories and rock quarries nearby. Many of the workers are women with children on their backs or chasing after them. It is such a big difference!! Today, I even saw a woman carrying about half of her cornfield, stalks and all down the road on her back--it looked like she was about to pass out from the weight. There is definitely no lack of hard work, determination, and pride in the workers here, even the street sweepers seem to take great pride in their job--making sure every last leaf and piece of paper is off the ground (though tomorrow the job will be exactly the same). We ask for your thoughts as we try to interact more and understand more of the culture.

2007-10-21T22:11:00.000-05:00

This weekend was a very busy one. We finished up the volleyball tournament and we had some fellow teachers and our boss through the organization come to visit us. It was really fun to have everyone together in one place to talk and share and enjoy fellowship. The Boss is doing many great things in the area and through teaching in China. It was also fun to hear about the teachers in colleges throughout China from Beijing, Chongqing, Xining, Guiyang and Anshun. There was even a family with kids, so that brought much more life to our home. The weather was very nice this weekend, so travelling around and playing volleyball was very nice.

We played two games this weekend, the semifinal game which we won. We were playing against the host school, the No. 1 Middle School, so there were tons of kids gathered around the court chanting "Let's Go" Jia, or cheering whenever their team did well, "Hao Qiu" meaning good ball. It was a very fun match. Afterward many students came to congratulate me and even one student came to tell Patty a secret, "Your husband is a very good pai qiu (volleyball) player." For the championship game, we played against the hardest team. The games were all very close, but we ended up winning all three. It was very exciting!! Afterwards, they had a closing ceremony with awards. They made Kristine and I get the awards for the men and women's teams. We receive a large plaque, a huge bundle of flowers, and a red envelope with our winnings. We took lots of pictures, so we will be sending some out through snapfish again. If you are not getting the pictures, send us an email and we will put you on the list. I think I will miss being a part of this team. There were quite the mixture of characters: from our stern and impressive coach (also our neighbor), to Tom (our English name for him) who I often practiced with who tried so hard but everyone always told him how bad he was, to the joker on the team (#16), Chairman Ho who was always there to give a high five, and many other great personalities. They were already asking for next year--will you be here 4 years or more??

Afterwards, we spent our winnings on a huge banquet. Supposedly, we spent almost everything 2000 kuai about $300. We had tons of dishes and hot pot (it was so spicy most of the teachers could not eat it). They played cards and mah jong for a long time also. We left when they started playing drinking games, but it was a great day. It was fun to compete again!!

Today, I went to class like usual, but when I got to class there were no students there. I was very confused, but heard that this week the 06 three year students do not have classses but have to do manual labor picking up stones in front of where one of the new buildings. I decided that I would go help and it was a really fun experience. The soil is heavy clay and there were stones everywhere. They had two shovels, but did not know how to use them, and three hoe like tools with much larger blades that they mainly used to dig the stones out of the ground. We dug many large stones out of the ground and transported them to the pile. I even got a chance to try to teach them how to use a shovel (not used for farming in this area). They taught we how to use the hoe, as many of them come from farm families. We are hoping to have many of the students from this class come to our house this weekend to watch Les Miserables. It should be fun to have time to talk to them outside of class. I have been visiting with many of them as I walk the dog late at night. Their electricity is out in the dorms forcing them to study or go elsewhere from 7:30-9:00 pm. Keep them in your thoughts this week as this is a big opportunity to build friendships. Hope all of you are well and we always enjoy hearing from each and everyone of you.

2007-10-16T09:37:00.001-05:00

It has been a wet, cloudy and rainy last week which has made it not so much fun. When it gets cloudy, it gets cold so we have turned on our heaters, but it still gets only to about 62'F. The students do not have heaters in their dorms so I do not know how they stand it. The classrooms are also a little chilly, especially since we did not bring much in the way of winter clothes. This week is the big week for our volleyball competitions--we have been practicing for a long time and now we are competing against other teachers at schools in the area. They had an official opening ceremony yesterday and today we had our first match. The school provides us with our own jerseys and really short shorts--this is not fun in the cold weather but once we start it is ok. We won our first match today and we have matches everyday through Sunday. it is really fun to finally compete with some of the same people we have been practicing with.

Today was a fun day as we have had a few students stop by who want to learn more English--they are computer science majors at the college. i also had the chance to eat in the cafeteria at the school which is quite the experience. You grab the typical metal tray and pay for some rice and they give you a huge scoop of rice and then you go to a long line of huge tubs of various dishes and choose the one you want and pay for it. The thing is all of these dishes have almost as much oil as meat and vegetables. It tasted ok and was rather inexpensive (it translated to about $1 per person, although that is more expensive than some restaurants). The students thought I was brave!! This weekend we will have some other American teachers coming to visit from our team that is also teaching in nearby Guiyang. It will be fun to see them, but it will be a busy weekend as we have the volleyball tournament also.

We are learning more and more Chinese and some of our students are writing to students in the US, so that is an exciting experience for them. We continue to miss all of you at home as it gets closer to the holidays and we hope that all of your lives are blessed immensely. Hope to hear from you soon about how things are going in your lives!!

2007-10-07T09:12:00.000-05:00

This past week we were off for the National Day holiday, celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st of 1949. We did not truly get the week off, as we had to make up our classes for Thursday and Friday before we left, which meant Saturday and Sunday school. Those days were more laid back where we learned some American songs, played bingo, and learned some about American culture. For this break, Patty and I actually ended up going two different places. I was very excited to visit some of our friends from our first visit to the Yunnan province and Patty stayed around campus and went camping with some American and Chinese friends, but we met together for the end of the time in Kunming. Here is a short look at some of the lasting memories and things we learned from this time.

My trip to visit our friends, Faye and Roy, was a very long one. It started with a 10 hour train ride from Anshun to Kunming and ended with a 11 hour bus ride through the mountains to LuChun. I really did not know what to expect with all of the travel, but it was most interesting. Because I was travelling during the National Day holiday, I was not able to get a ticket that ensured me a seat on the train, so I got onto a packed train and ended up standing for about an hour. Fortunately, I was able to run into a student from Chengdu (Fish), who spoke English and him and I were able to find seats through the kindness of many people. The train ride was actually really fun, as there were a bunch of students all sitting together in an area with one of the train employees and we were able to talk--some knew limited English and I practiced some Chinese. It was definitely an experience though to have 5 people sitting on a seat meant for three and having people sitting almost everywhere. I was even able to meet a band touring China from France (everyone thought we must be friends because we were all foreigners). I made it safely to Kunming around 5 in the morning and spent most of the day touring around (lots of walking): I ate pizza at Pizza Hut, went shopping at the famous Bird and Flower Market, saw lots of sites, and met up with Roy's daughter and we went to Green Lake Park and experienced some of the holiday festivities. It was really something fun and relaxing and I left for my trip to the mountains.

The trip to the mountains was rather uneventful. The bus had beds instead of seats, so I was able to try to sleep some as we spiralled up and down mountains. I calculated out the average speed of the trip and we went a whopping 24 mph through washed out roads, around huge semis, and I felt fortunate to have felt ok through all of this, although I almost fell out of bed a few times. It was dark so I missed most of the sights, but I was definitely glad when the bus stopped in LuChun.

LuChun was nothing like what I expected it to be. It was a city that was relatively modern and I stayed the first day with Faye's family and their apartment was really nice. LuChun is a city of about 200,000 people living about a mile up a mountain. The area is surrounded by terraced fields and most of the people are from the Hani minority group and farmers. It was amazing to see all of the minority clothing. Faye is the first Hani English teacher, and she teaches a couple of hours away from her town, so she lives in that village for the week and spends the weekends at home. Roy teaches at the No. 2 middle school in LuChun and his wife runs a shop outside the school gate where she bakes bread rolls (Mantou) and baozi (meat filled or vegetable filled rolls) and sells other things. She works from 3am to 11:30 pm so she actually lives in the shop. How different their families are--I would struggle to only see Patty for weekends and to live in separate places.

Here are some of the highlights or things I learned from my trip.
1) As a guest, you are not allowed to do anything for yourself. I struggled with trying to explain that I wanted to help with things like carrying bags from the market or helping cook, but it took a good 2 days to get across the idea.
2) If you are not putting food into your bowl every 15 seconds they will. They kept telling me to help myself at meals (which usually consisted of 8-15 dishes that you put over rice), but then they would heap food into my bowl. It did not matter if I said I was full (Wo bao le) or I don't want it (Wo bu yao), they insisted that they knew best.
3) I was truly amazed at the terraced fields and their farming. Faye took me to her parents house and their family fields. They do everything by hand and raise all kinds of crops from corn to lettuce, soybeans, rice, etc. The amount of land was so small though--though they owned 5 fields they amounted to maybe 2 acres, but took 5 people to care for them seven days a week. I had a great respect for them and their hard work. They owned about 25 pigs between the family members, 3 cows (waterbuffalo), some chickens, and all of these live in pens in your house.
4) Never touch anything you don't know what it is. When we were walking around the Hani village, I went over to examine and check out this rock I thought was for pounding meal, so I tried to pull it out of it place, but was quickly reprimanded. To my surprise that rock was one of their dieties(gods) in a place where only men are allowed to go during their New Year's holiday.
5) We climbed a mountain that overlooked the town and that was amazing to see all of the mountains around and to look at all of the terraced fields around. it is a very beautiful area. On the way down we raced down, Faye, her son, and I and got lost but eventually ran into some people gathering things for a funeral ceremony.
6) The roads in the mountains are horrible after the rainy season. We ended up staying in town the whole time, because the roads were so awful and only a couple of the relatives had vehicles (they did not trust them enough to go too far though).
7) I also learned that American culture has travelled almost everywhere. This city high in the mountains had pretty much all of the same luxuries of America, though not everyone enjoyed them. They had fancy hotels and restaurants, electric buses, underground malls, amazing parks, and lots of American clothing and goods.
8) Frog soup actually has frogs in it. Yes, I ate frogs along with whole chickens, ducks, geese, all with their heads and feet and such on them. The food was very good though and I love trying new things. It was a great experience and it was great to be able to visit my friends after five years. I was even able to run into a few of our other teachers, but also hard because most of the people understood no English and some no Mandarin, so I could not communicate well with most people.

Patty went camping during the break with some of the American teachers in the area and a couple of the students. She said it was a great experience in working together and very different from American camping. They had super small tents, so many people squished into these tents. They brought a ton of food with them, so they ate a lot, but were not able to eat everything.

Patty and I did get together at the end of our trip though in Kunming to do some shopping and to go to the zoo. My trip back was a little harder as many of the people were on a bus for the first time and there were many people puking and it was really rough. I slept some though and Patty slept little on the train, so we met at 6 am and walked for most of the day. We enjoyed lots of sights, bought some gifts and things at the Market, ate pizza, enjoyed the zoo, and then we went to look for a place to stay the night. We found out that we had commited the cardinal sin of travelling outside the states, we did not bring our passports, so we were unable to get a hotel room and we were to leave at 8 am the next morning. We decided then to try to exchange our tickets and try to take a train home that night to Anshun. Through lots of effort, we got that to work out and we made the tiring trip home. We slept a little in the crowded and loud conditions. We sat next to an older lady who talked the whole 10 hours in a super loud voice (yes, even in her sleep she talked). We were very glad to be home and to be able to sleep on something flat. it was a great break, but now tomorrow we will be heading back to work. We are excited as the freshman will start school tomorrow, so that will be a little bit of a change.

2007-09-22T05:37:00.000-05:00

Today, we were able to go to a neighboring town, Pingba, for their festival, celebrating the history of one of their areas called a Tunpu. This is an area that was built during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644) as an army fort. This area has remained the same since the 15th century, as the people continue to wear their Ming Dynasty clothing, hair, and culture. We went with two of our students, Season and Whist, and their boyfriends. Pingba is a relatively small town but it was filled full of many different visitors for this event. We arrived early and got special tickets and were given the royal treatment, we were allowed to talk down the red carpet where we watched many different performances, like dancers, drummers, singers and lots of other things. It was rather warm so we left that early and went out to eat. We went to a special Duck "kaoya" hotpot restaurant, where our table has a large burner on it where they put a pan of water and spices and a large duck and other things that you order into the boiling water and you eat it with rice. We ended up adding some fungus things, tofu, seaweek, and green vegetables and as a special treat they bought duck feet to eat. We are glad they chose this instead of the duck heart or tongue, but it tasted ok.

After eating way too much, we headed back to the excitement and looked for some souvenirs. We looked at many different handicrafts from different minority groups and other crafts (batiks, dolls, bags, etc.) along with specialty teas, wines, and mooncakes. We ended up getting a handmade doll from the Miao minority group (the Hmong). One of the weird parts of this event was that we were one of the attractions as many tourists wanted to take pictures of us and followed us around excitedly.

Next, we went to the actual Tunpu village. By this time, it was less crowded. We walked around and looked at many different people selling all kinds of crafts--it is amazing to see their talents. They had wood carving, batiks (made by wax resistent watercoloring of the material), pictures made from bamboo, and lots of traditional costumes. The houses were pretty amazing--they were made of stones (slate and limestone mainly), but without mortar to hold them together. We were able to see how they make flour, dry corn, make tea, and watch a traditional opera (where they wear masks and put on a play). We were very tired by the time we made it through looking at many of the areas. It was fascinating and there were lots of fun things to look at. I saw some shoes that were 200 years old and looked a lot like football cleets for girls!! It does not appear that life has changed much from the 1400's as much is done by hand. It was definitely a special event to see and we were excited to see it. We will be posting some pictures and maybe even some video later to show some of these events. We hope all is going well with each of you--school is going well. The freshman are doing their military training so we are kept awake all day by marching and the ever present "yi-er-san-si," one, two, three, four. Many blessings!!

2007-09-16T07:49:00.000-05:00

The end of this week was a very busy time. The week of teaching saw more successes than the previous week. Students are getting over being so shy and we are building some relationships where we can learn from them and they can practice their English.

On Friday, we went hiking up one of the hills/mountains behind school, which was really fun. We were able to see for a long distance--see all of the farmland and hills in the distance. When we came down, we walked around campus to see some of the freshman registering and we had a chance to talk to many of our top students. I have set up some people to get together and play football (soccer), badminton and ping pong and some students who want to teach us how to cook. We ended up getting invited to an official dinner that night which was really fun. We have been eating a lot of food (which I love).

Saturday morning, we got up early to go to Guiyang (the biggest city in the area). It was a two hour bus ride, which cost about $4 per person on a nice bus. It was fun to see all of the mountains along the way and small towns. The city is very busy and we were able to eat pizza (the first thing we did) at Pizza Fun. They had some strange pizzas like a Japanese sushi pizza, tuna pizza, spicy chicken pizza, supreme, pepperoni, and my favorite peppered beef with strange squid pieces. It also had lots of other american favorites, so we loved it. We also made a visit to one of the two Wal-Marts in town--the one with Mao blessing it. It was crazy busy with tons of people running around aimlessly with carts full of things that you cannot get anywhere else. We got some American food and other things (ping-pong paddles).

In town, we were able to meet some of our other teachers from the same organization. It was fun to talk and hear how school is going for them. We enjoyed it greatly!! Their campuses are very nice, but it made us appreciate the quiet and organization of Anshun and the college. Our college provides textbooks and lots of help, which is not provided at many of the other colleges. I cannot imagine teaching without having a textbook. We tried to get some cheese, but we could only find a big 11 pound chunk of cheese for $40--that was quite a bit so we ended up not getting any.

On Sunday, we were able to fellowship with a large amount of other foreigners teaching and working in the area. It was great to be able to hear how they were doing and how the Father is working in their lives. There were many children and they came from a variety of places such as England, Netherlands, and various places in the US. It is always nice to get together with people who share some of the same values and to share stories and hear about sports from around the world. I now can find soccer matches on TV from England, but still no NFL. I did watch a charity game between Chinese All-Star players and some NBA stars. That was fun!! We are adjusting and learning more, and it is becoming more like home. We are still trying to figure out plans for our week off for National Day Sept. 1-7. Maybe camping or visiting friends in Yunnan. We hope your lives are blessed. We will try to get some pictures out again soon.

2007-09-11T00:12:00.000-05:00

We have completed our first week of classes, and have gotten a chance to meet almost all of our students. Our freshman students come to campus this weekend, but they have a couple of weeks of miltary training before their classes start. We have a week-long break at the beginning of October for National Day, so we are trying to figure out what we are going to do. We are thinking of possibly travelling to visit our friends in the Yunnan province, where we taught before. We found out from them that it is a 8 hour bus ride to Kunming and then a 24 hour bus ride into the mountains to get to their village. Patty is not sure it will be worth it, but I am excited for the adventure. Too bad we do not have a break in November for their Hani New Year--they have rows and rows of food that everyone can eat and lots of great entertainment. One of the other teachers is going camping during the break and that also sounds like great fun and a chance to spend more time with some students.

Monday was Teacher's Day in China, so we were invited out to a fancy hotel for a meal. When we arrived, most of the teachers were playing mah jong and we went bowling upstairs, which was a fun time. The lanes were a little shorter and it was the first time for some of the teachers--making it more memorable. The president of the University came along with all of the Foreign Language Department (English and one Japanese class). There was so much food and many toasts. Some of the more interesting dishes were snake skin (I actually liked it--though a bit rubbery) and a whole fish skin and all. We had our first Chinese lesson later that night, which was something fun to start. It was some review for me from college, but Patty learned a lot. Now, our goal is to remember and use it. We used some of it this morning during our trip shopping at the market. We bought lots of food and understood everything.

The weekend was very rainy here, so we stayed indoors and played cards for hours. We learned a new Chinese Card game, which is similar to an American game, but lots of fun to play. Patty and I also got out the cribbage board and played a few games. It should be getting to the end of the rainy season here soon (hopefully). We are excited to see the sports scores, but sad that we cannot actually watch the games. Go Vikings defense.

This weekend we are going to Guiyang, the capital city of the Guizhou province. We are getting together with other teachers there and they have a Wal-mart and Pizza Hut, so we are excited to have pizza again. We have enjoyed cooking and trying new foods, but it will be a comfort to have some of our home favorites. We hope that you are all well and enjoying starts of school or your days of work. We miss you and send our love!!

2007-09-03T04:06:00.000-05:00

First day of school at Anshun Teacher's College. We each had one class today. The morning bell went off this morning at 6:30 getting everyone up. It goes off for thirty minutes and is quite loud. We went to get our visa made into a foreign expert residence card at the police station, which was an interesting experience (they thought we were brother and sister). We returned in time for our 10:00 class. Patty was teaching Oral English (28 students) and I had a English Listening class (37 students). It was really fun to be in front of students again, though there are a few differences between teaching in China and the States. In China, we have a monitor (student in our class) who takes care of the teacher by getting the door unlocked, preparing the classroom, taking attendance, making sure everything is right, and also keeping contact between students and the teacher (concerns or complaints). My students came from all throughout China, with some coming as far as 60 hours by train. Students in China also stay in the same classroom for all four years of college with the same classmates and the teachers are the ones who switch classrooms.

It was really fun getting to meet so many new students from different places. We look forward to getting to know them better. Just like in the states, most of the English education majors are female--I had 6 males out of 37. This will be a more difficult job of remembering names as many of them have less common English names. The freshman have not moved to campus yet. They will near the end of the month, so I have only four more classes this week and Patty has three. We have been doing some planning and are excited to start learning Chinese from our tutor Claire. We have been meeting lots of new people and trying lots of new things and trying to retain as much as we can for when we go to do things in town. We hope that all is going well for you--we definitely miss many of the things of home, but are adjusting to everything but the language pretty quickly.

2007-08-31T03:47:00.000-05:00

We are getting near to our start date of school--September 3rd. That is a very exciting thing and also a little scary. We are not totally sure what it will be like, but we are getting some small tastes of life in Anshun. That is what we will share. Today, we went to get our books for teaching--it is a little weird not having a book three days before class starts, but somewhat normal here. It was not an event, but more of a process. We were introduced to many people first and questioned about our classes and told to come back later and our class monitors (students from each class that are in charge of helping us and the other students) will help us. We returned to an excited room of monitors checking to see which classes we had and figuring everything out. Now, we are waiting as they decided it would be better if they brought the books to us as the book room is total chaos. It is a bit of a roll reversal having the students help the teacher and know more than us.

We have been trying to be more adventuresome and have gotten out trying to do more things on our own. Our language is still very low--we will start tutoring in Chinese once the school year starts. We have really enjoyed being able to go to the market and buy fresh vegetables. We are slowly getting better at understanding some of their Chinese. This has meant that we have tried making all kinds of new foods--all of them not from a recipe. Tonight, we are trying to have one of our favorite dishes, spaghetti, but with our try at homemade spaghetti sauce. We have eaten out at a couple of restaurants with students and our team leader, Kris. The food is wonderful. We have eaten at a hotpot restaurant where you add all kinds of food to a boiling pot and eat until everyone is totally stuffed. Instead of having beef, they eat waterbuffalo which is a little tougher meat, but still tasty. Patty has enjoyed seeing the waterbuffalo graze freely on campus and walking around town. Most people on campus are very active so I have taken many chances to go play basketball, run on the track and walk around by the lake with Patty. It is a very beautiful area with lots of hills and farmland everywhere there are no buildings. Many things are different and we are still adjusting, but there is still the One constant.

2007-08-29T03:40:00.000-05:00

Sorry this has been so long since writing. We are now in Anshun, but we have been waiting to get our modem working on our computer. It has been very difficult not knowing much of the language. Luckily, we have a team member who is very fluent. We are slowly getting used to being in a new place with new ways of doing pretty much everything. We are learning such basic things like buying food at the market, taking the bus to certain places, how appliances and other things work, and what we will be teaching. It has been very overwhelming and frustrating at times, but it is a learning process. We are excited to be here and looking forward to starting school, though we are yet to receive at textbook. We have taken various trips into town and explored some of the beautiful area. We are looking forward to learning more of the language and getting in touch with our friends teaching somewhat nearby in the Yunnan province. We are looking forward to getting a newsletter out in the coming couple of days with some pictures of our apartment and the area. Hope all is well at home.

2007-08-22T13:38:00.001-05:00

Many people have had reasons to blame President Bush for certain things, such as the war in Iraq, the economy or other problems. Patty and I are great supporters of our president, but you can add us to this list. We missed our flight to China, because President Bush was leaving the Minneapolis St. Paul airport at the same time as us. We were on the plane on-time and ready to take off, but we were left waiting two hours for Air Force One to leave and airport transportation to get back to normal. The flight went well, but we ended up in Los Angeles at about the same time our flight was boarding. Let's just say our long fast walk at almost midnight did not get us on the plane in time. So we went to our airline company and they set us up with a flight for tomorrow night at the same time after we got a delay of flight confirmation from Northwest. This is where it gets a little weird. We got the delay confirmation and the airlines gave us a reduced accomodations at a local hotel, so we went to email people about being late. When we got our room and started emailing, we found out that the airline company had actually booked us on a flight for two hours later and that we were set to fly in a half hour. We were more than that time away from the airport, so we decided to stay and try to sleep and figure things out in the morning.

Luckily, we did get things worked out in the morning, even though, we did not sleep much. We have been catching up on sleep and will be leaving LAX at 11:50 tonight and will arrive in China on Friday morning. Maybe we will go to the beach when Patty gets up. It has been a crazy situation, but it has allowed us the opportunity to meet some really great people and to share about our trip. We are looking forward to finally arriving in China. It has been a hard lesson in patience, dependence on others, and teamwork. We cannot even imagine what is ahead.

2007-08-02T21:10:00.000-05:00

These past two weekends have provided a couple of trips to spend time with family on trips. Two weeks ago, we went to Fargo and the Brainerd area. We went up to see our niece's baptism up in Fargo. We were asked to be one of the godparents, which was a great blessing. Madison Sandra Alberty, Betsy and Chris's first child was really fun to see and spend time with. We spent the rest of the weekend and a few days of the next week at Patty's grandparent's cabin near Brainerd. It was fun to relax after getting the house sold. We spent some time on the lake swimming, canoeing, and paddleboating, but the weather was quite warm. Because of this weather, we spent a day up at the North Shore enjoying Duluth, Two Harbors, Split Rock Lighthouse, and Gooseberry Falls. It was wonderful to see all of the lighthouses and of course Patty was in her element.

Since that time, we have been living at my mother's house out on the farm. Tip likes being able to go run around and chase cats (we're working on that). He is a natural watchdog, so he has a watchtower up on our bed and warns everyone when anyone comes. It is very different not being in our own house though.

This last weekend, we went camping with my sisters, Racheal and Sara, and their husbands Matt and Bill. We went over by Lanesboro and had a great time!! We went biking, made food over the campfire, spent lots of time talking and went tubing. Tubing held lots of laughs for everyone and mom came to watch Isaac, which was very nice. It was great to get together just the six of us before we leave. We are now down to less than 3 weeks before we leave for China (ahh!!).