From Grits to Chopsticks

A few weeks ago, we were able to watch (live on the internet) our youngest son (Timothy) graduate with his Civil Engineering degee from Georgia Tech.  Although the broadcast froze while they were calling his name, we were able to capture the screen shot below:A week later, Tim’s wife (Caitlyn) graduated with her Nursing degree from Mercer University:

Congratulations to Tim and Caitlyn!  We’re so proud of you both!

While Caitlyn was graduating, we were flying from China to the west coast for another special event: Stephen (our oldest son) and Jessica’s wedding!  For the occasion, they rented the Timber Moose Lodge in Utah:This was not your ordinary cabin – it came with many amenities including an indoor pool:

Jessica’s dad volunteered to be the cook and did a great job:Since Stephen and Jessica enjoy adventure, the five-day gathering included many non-traditional wedding activities, such as rock climbing:ATV riding:

Hiking: and an evening of laser tag (inside the lodge):

Gratefully, the weather was good for the outdoor wedding that Friday, and the bride and groom enjoyed a “first look” at one another:and then vowed to always love each other:

Of course, we were all dressed up for the occasion:Even the grandsons (and their daddy):Before leaving China, Susan asked some of our students to help her shop for very tall shoes:She jokingly wore them to try to close the height gap for the mother-groom dance:We are so happy to welcome Jessica to our family!  May was a milestone month: all of our kids are now graduated and married.  We are so thankful for God’s blessing on our family!

We typically hold an English Corner in our apartment each week, giving our students the opportunity to practice their English.  Susan usually teaches an English lesson, and we often play games with English words:eat green foods on St. Patrick’s day:and dye eggs at Easter:When students come to our home for the first time, we have them put a sticker on our China map to show their hometown:Hundreds of stickers are on the map.  While most of them are on our province, it is interesting to see how many students have come from all over the country:Sometimes, we go outside for English Corner, like this recent hike up the nearby mountain:Along the way, someone found a very nervous turtle:Of course, we stopped to eat some western food (granola bars):Thanks for joining our English Corner!

The air quality in our city has been rather poor lately:

According to the local website, the higher-than-normal pollution is due to the combination of very dry air and increased construction activity .

Not only are there many large apartment complexes rising up all over town, it is interesting to see the recent flurry of construction activity in the village across the street.  Click the photo below and look in the circles to see a few projects:Many people are rapidly adding new levels their old buildings:

Everywhere you look, there are piles of brick and busy workers: At first glance, it seems strange that so many of these buildings are being expanded, especially since they will soon be destroyed to make way for new, larger apartments: As I mentioned in an earlier post, when a building is slated for destruction, it is painted with the following Chinese character:There is an obvious correlation between the location of expansion projects and buildings ready for destruction: While it doesn’t represent a very effective use of labor and materials, this may be the closest thing to real estate arbitrage in China.  Anticipating imminent condemnation of their buildings, the owners expand them, knowing that they will receive a much higher level of compensation for the larger building.If you build it … they will pay you to tear it down.  Or at least, that’s what many people are hoping.

In our densely populated city, the government planners have set aside quite a few places for public parks.  While westerners would normally seek out an isolated spot in a park for a private picnic, Chinese people usually gather for group activities.

In the Emerald Chicken Park, the “birdwatching” group gathers.  Of course, in China they bring their own birds:

Other folks move through their slow and smooth tai chi exercises (click Tai Chi to watch):

Some people also do a dance-like exercise where they balance a tennis ball on a small racket:

People without a racket can join any of a number of other dancing groups:

Some men play Chinese checkers while others gather around and watch quietly:

Of course, there are always musicians with over-amplified singers (click to listen to Woman Singer):

If you’re looking for “extreme singing,” you’ll find Chinese opera at a few nearby parks (click here to listen to OperaMusic):

This guy had a special vest to haul around his harmonica collection (click here to listen to the HarmonicaMan): Finally, here was a happy group playing traditional music and dancing (click to hear Traditional Music):In China, there’s nothing like getting away to a park for a little peace and quiet!

While hiking in the nearby mountains, we stopped to smell (and photograph) the wild flowers:

It is amazing to see the beautiful array of small flowers growing on the mountainside, reminding me of the verse from Matthew 6: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Although the notion of stopping to smell the flowers has a pleasant, romantic air about it, literal translations don’t always come out just right.  With that in mind, it seems appropriate to end this blog with an advertisement at the entrance to our apartment complex:

We’re very blessed to live on the edge of town, allowing us to hike straight out of our apartment and into the nearby mountains.  On Sunday after church, I clicked on “My Tracks” as we headed out the door:

The five mile hike is the easy part – it’s the 1000+ foot ascent that can take your breath away.  A number of things have changed since we took this hike last fall, including a new approach trail through an old quarry that reminds us of Georgia red clay:Of course, the nearby skyline always changes as new apartment buildings go up each month:At the risk of sounding like a broken record, it is hard to appreciate the size of these projects unless you see them in person.  We live in the complex on the far right, and many of the buildings are 34 stories tall:As we crested the first mountain ridge, we also saw something else – a new Buddhist statue overlooking the valley:Like everything in China, it is quite large:On this hike, we encountered more animals than usual, including a burro and some cows:

We also weren’t too sure what to do when a flock of goats came running down the road in our direction.  Fortunately, another nearby goat herder jumped into action to protect the food of his own goats from the intruders (click Goats for video).This weekend was the Qing Ming Holiday, the time when families gather to clean and decorate the tombs of their departed relatives. Many tombs are scattered throughout these mountains:Offerings of food (and sometimes liquor) are left at the tombs:

Traditionally, families burn fake money for the departed.  Many tombs have a small fireplace for this purpose:But this has become a fire hazard due to the recent drought, so the money is either scattered at the tomb or left in packages:In order to access the tombs, some convenient rock stairs have been built against the cliffs, making the hike a bit easier for us:But still, some of the best parts of the trail are the least traveled ones.

As we walk around our apartment complex and down the local streets, we always see lots of cute children.  Here are some typical, uniformed schoolkids on their lunch break:The college girls usually walk arm-in-arm – so do the little girls:Every morning, the kids at the school across the street gather on their new athletic field for group exercises:Some children are privileged enough to visit the balloon man:While some get a front-row seat on their mother’s recycling cycle:Usually, where there is a construction project, there are children playing in the debris:It is quite normal to see toddlers in split pants (also notice the stroller – they are growing in popularity):Many Chinese babies are adorably fat.  This one looks like his head is getting too large for his hair:Speaking of little children, this guy (dressed in the usual smock) walked by us today at the park and wandered off into a restaurant section.  Susan watched with concern until the grandma finally came and found him:At the same park, there is an inflatable version of Disneyland, allowing the kids to play nearby a major elevated highway:There is also a fun place for kids to go “fishing” with their parents:As I said, there are a lot of cute kids here in China. But the ones we enjoy seeing the most can be found on the Skype screen inside of our apartment (yes, I am a typical grandparent)!

Just south of our city is Dianchi Lake, the 8th largest body of water in China.  While taking our Sunday afternoon walk, we noticed that a strong South wind was pushing some large waves onto the paved sidewalks:

Even though the weather was a bit threatening, other local people were still enjoying a day at the park, including this girl wearing traditional Miao minority clothing:Due to high levels of pollution, only the hardiest forms of life can survive here.  As usual, the fishermen were out in full force attempting to snag some toxic carp for dinner:The other hardy life form that can survive in the lake is the prolific water hyacinth.  On this particular day, we watched workers collect and process them.  The south wind was pushing the floating plants into the neck of a channel:Pairs of workboats pull a seine net, moving a raft of hyacinths under the bridge of the channel:Once they pass under the bridge, they continue to push the mass of plants toward a couple of processing barges (click here for video: Pushing Hyacinths) I expected that the barges would dewater the plants and load them into trucks, but was surprised to see them conveyed off the back end and drop back into the water.  Perhaps they were being de-mudded? (click here for video: Cleaned Hyacinths)At that point, another pair of boats wrapped a large, purse seine around the plants, which was eventually pulled to the shore by some other workers: I would like to tell you why they did all of this, but I don’t know.  Any ideas…?

I have 106 students in my business classes this semester, a much larger group than last year.  Here’s a picture of one of my International Marketing classes:

85 of the students signed up to eat lunch this semester (in groups of 3 or 4), giving me a rather full schedule: Usually, the food can get a person “fired up” for the afternoon classes:Susan also began teaching English Corners at our apartment.  Here is the first group of students:We met former students for meals this week, too, including these guys who graduated three years ago:Welcome to our world – we are very privileged to spend so much time with these very special young people!

Every Thursday, farmers and vendors gather in a nearby residential community to sell their products.  It is a crazy place with thousands of people and hundreds of distorted bullhorns.  The sounds, smells, and variety (of products and people) are impossible to capture in photos.  But here are some from last week: