From Grits to Chopsticks

Last weekend, we were excited to have Timothy fly down from Chengdu and join us here in Kunming.  Our youngest son has been living in China for almost ten months now, and we think that the experience has helped him grow a bit (especially his hair):

After he arrived on Friday, we let him take a little rest before meeting friends for lunch at a local restaurant.  He then joined us for our second English Corner of the week, helping the students on their apartment-scale Easter egg hunt:

After English Corner, we went to dinner with a few of my students, giving him a chance to practice his Chinese.  He’s worked pretty hard since he’s been in China and received some positive comments from the guys:

On Saturday, we rode up to the “Stone Forest,” a UNESCO world heratige site and one of the most interesting attractions in Yunnan province:

When our oldest son Stephen visited in December, we came here on a rainy day.  Fortunately, this day was beautiful, and the only water we saw was in a lake around the base of some of the rock formations:

While much of the Stone Forest is kind of like above-ground caving (tall rocks, twisty passages, and tight squeezes), it also has some beautiful open places:

On Sunday, we were able to enjoy time together at our city’s international fellowship.  While it is very cool to visit some of our local attractions, nothing beats a time together of true worship in the presence of our awesome Creator.

After lunch with friends, we traveled to Daguan Park on the south end of town.  Among other things, this park has quite a few pieces of modern art.  Here’s one that we figured was some sort of tribute to thumb wrestling:

We were also able to take a ride on the big Ferris Wheel.  It is 286 feet to the top and takes about 15 minutes to make the full circuit, providing a great view of the city:

Timothy took this panaroma shot of our city at the top.  If you look really hard through the haze, you can see our apartment in the upper left corner.  As with all of our photos, you can click it to get a larger view:

Of course, one of the highlights was just getting to sit around the apartment and talk about what’s going on in our lives.  We are really blessed to have one of our kids on this side of the planet!

Our extended winter finally came to an end last week, just in time for the Qing Ming Jie holiday.  While the name denotes a time for people to go outside and enjoy the greenery of spring, it is most commonly known as “Tomb Sweeping Day,” a time for visiting ancestral graves and showing respect for dead relatives.

We took the opportunity to catch the bus and ride up the mountain to a nearby park.  Unfortunately, several thousand other people were also riding up to visit family tombs on the mountainside:

We probably could’ve walked up the mountain faster than the bus ride.  You’re never alone in China, but on this day, the park was busier than usual:

Even though the park was quite crowded, we were able to find a quiet spot for a game of “Scrabble” (our first in China):

The availability of such a solitary spot is due to a significant cultural difference.  While Americans are glad to find a bit of privacy, Chinese people are more comfortable doing everything in a group.  They would probably feel too lonely to sit so far away from the crowd.

After Susan won the “Scrabble” game by 2 points (ouch), we walked up to the Flying Tigers Memorial.  This monument was erected in 1996 by the Chinese as a tribute to the Americans who flew “over the hump” and helped to defend China against the Japanese invasion:

We had a pleasant afternoon – at least until we stopped to use the restroom on our way out of the park.  One of the positives about Chinese toilets is that you don’t need to wipe the seat:

Unfortunately, after using  facility similar to this one (but a bit less sanitary), the camera slipped out of the jacket pocket and landed right in the squat pot.  It was disgusting, but we wiped it off, wrapped it up, and gave it a thorough scrubbing when we got back home.  It still works (mostly).

On Tuesday (the actual Qingming day), we invited a group of students to go hiking with us.  It’s always interesting to spend time talking with our students, and we even had a visitor from Kazakhstan this time:

On the mountain top, we stopped at the Miao Gao temple for lunch – a bargain at $11 for our group of 18 people:

When we first moved here we were pretty surprised at how dirty everything was.  Although there are large numbers of sweepers and cleaners, we wondered if they actually removed the dirt or just moved it around.  But then we came to appreciate the massive dust clouds that rise from the constant destruction of nearby apartment blocks:

Some of the dust originates in the nearby mountains.  While hiking with some students today, we crossed a dusty road used by construction trucks hauling material into town from a nearby quarry:

The prevailing west winds carry the dust clouds right through our neighborhood, coating everything on our porch and leaking into the apartment.  Even with the windows closed during the winter, a week’s worth of indoor accumulation keeps Susan sweeping:

Things are bound to get more interesting as we begin to open our windows with the arrival of warm weather.  The laundry hanging on our porch will also gather a bit of the dust, but not as much as these clothes hanging in the midst of a destruction site:

Yesterday I looked over our blog to review what we had posted in the past year so that we won’t repeat ourselves.  I counted the number of posts and there were 70!  I wondered if there would be anything new to share, but then Mark came in with a picture of what he had seen on his way home from school:

Since the photo was taken with a cell phone, it’s not the best quality, but if you look closely you’ll notice the man is high in the tree sawing off a limb, and he is barefoot.  After his surgical procedure, the tree was put on an IV to try to nurse it back to health:

We’re constantly amazed at the risks people take here…that along with other differences makes me think we may never run out of blog material!

In most places, not much changes in two months.  But this is China, and it’s pretty amazing what can happen in such a short period of time.  We normally walk past this thriving village behind our apartment:

Here’s what that village looks like now:

Even though the children here don’t have very much, they always seem to enjoy playing in front of their apartment buildings:

Those apartments and kids are now gone (but the demolition crew was careful to spare the bamboo):

The shops on this village street used to be quite busy:

The shops are now empty and will probably be gone next week: 

This  business had a “Grand Opening” just a few months ago.  I even thought that we might stop in and look at their athletic shoes in the Spring:

It doesn’t look like we’ll be shopping here now:

We also discovered another change when we called to have our empty water bottle replaced (we use about 5 gallons of drinking quality water each week).  The phone went unanswered for two days, so I went down to check it out:

Fortunately, I had a student find the new location and get the service restarted.

We also had a new neighbor move into our apartment complex.  We haven’t actually seen him, but we hear him about a thousand times a day.  You can click here to listen to the New Neighbor.  Someone needs to tell this guy not to start announcing the sunrise until after 5:30AM…

On a typical international flight, the 416 passengers on a Boeing 747-400 will use 5.5 tons of food service items.  But this was not your typical flight:

After a morning trip from Philadelphia to Minneapolis, we boarded the big plane heading for Shanghai.  Neither of us are good sleepers on airplanes, so we read and nodded our way across the Pacific ocean en-route to the stopover point in Japan.  A little over 12 hours had passed when we began our final approach into Tokyo’s Narita airport.  But at the last minute the plane turned around and headed east into a holding pattern.  A few minutes later, the pilot made a surprising announcement: there had been a very bad earthquake and Narita airport was just evacuated.

Along with a number of other commercial airliners, we eventually landed at a military airbase in Yokohama.  After three hours of waiting, the decision was made to fly over to Tokyo’s Haneda airport for the night.  It was a quick trip over to Tokyo, and we were soon on the ground and looking forward to getting off the plane.  But, as it turned out, Delta airlines does not have a contract for ground transportation at Haneda, leaving us stranded on the tarmac to spend another night on the plane:

Much to the delight of our fellow 400+ passengers, extra provisions arrived at 3:30AM.  People were generally patient throughout the night, and after the sun rose, the exhausted flight crew took off again, making the short hop over to Narita airport which was now open for stranded travelers.  This was a record for us: 31 hours on the same plane!

Of course, our flight to Shanghai was delayed significantly too, finally landing in Pudong airport at about 3:00AM.  We then had the opportunity to go through immigration, bag claim, customs, and this lengthy taxi line:

A lot of time had passed since we pulled away from our daughter’s house early Thursday morning.  We finally made it to our Shanghai hotel at 5:00AM on Sunday morning, anxious to take a shower, shave, and get a few hours sleep:

We caught the tail end of the breakfast buffet and hurried back to the airport, only to see those fateful words on the monitor:

There is good news about a trip that takes 77 hours: it sets a benchmark against which future trips can be compared.  But we’re not complaining, especially in view of the tragic situations for so many people that we left behind in Japan.

At 2:00AM, 24-Feb-2011, our first grandchild took his first breath of air and opened his eyes to examine his new world:

He’s such a beautiful child (but we’re not biased, are we?).  7lbs, 11oz, and 20″ long:

We were so blessed to have everything fall into place the previous few days.  Our house was rented, our furniture was moved, and we were already on the road from Georgia.  We made it to the hospital on his birthday, just before visiting hours ended:

We’re especially excited that he came more than a week early, allowing us to spend extra time with him (and his parents) before returning to China.  Thanks to all of you who prayed.

(Note: I wrote this a few months ago and am finally getting around to posting it).

Life can be pretty overwhelming when you have 175 students, allowing you to be busy 24/7.  To avoid overload, we’re working hard to block out Sunday afternoon for a time of rest and refreshment, often heading for the mountains or a local park to explore together.  On a recent Sunday we found ourselves at the local zoo:

The zoo is located on a grassy knoll in the center of town, allowing easy access via bus by most city residents.  Not only does the zoo have quite an assortment of animals, it also has carnival rides for the visitors.  We took this overview shot from the ferris wheel:

One of the novelties of this zoo (and others in China, we assume), is the degree of interaction between animals and visitors.  Namely, the visitors are constantly throwing things into the animal pens to stimulate a response.  Although it probably isn’t healthy, these animals will certainly not die from boredem.  Here, you can see some monkeys drinking the last few drops of an unknown beverage and scraping the residual from a can:

Susan looks on as guests throw whatever they can find into the mouth of a hungy hippo:

The animals get quite used to being fed by the patrons, often coming up and expecting you to stuff a dandelion through the wire:

There are also a few animal performances on the schedule here, including a bicycling bear (which seems reasonable, since almost everyone in Asia rides a bike):

Of course, no trip in China is complete without a construction project and an associated chinglish warning sign:

One of our original blog posts stated five differences we encountered upon arrival in our new country.  Here are five more:

Food is normally washed and prepared outside the restaurant on the front sidewalk:

Extremely large loads are carried on bicycles and tricycles.

Umbrellas are very often used to keep the sun off.

Brooms are handmade by sweepers who try hard to keep the dirt and dust off our streets.

Dental procedures are performed at the front door/window of the clinic and hospital beds are in plain view of people passing by.  While our “individualist” culture appreciates privacy, we presume that the local “collectivist” culture is attracted to busy and open medical providers:

Some differences are good and some are bad.  Most are just different!  One time a friend asked me what I miss back in the States.  I told her I’d reply some day in a blog.  So here goes:  Without question, we miss family and friends the most!  Other than that, my list seems trivial.  But in case you’re interested, here are few other thoughts:

Central heat and air conditioning, a dryer (especially on rainy days), a dishwasher, a real oven that I don’t have to constantly watch, drinkable water from the faucet, not having to sanitize fruits and vegetables, a garbage disposal, toilet paper readily available in public places (and the ability to flush it), closets to store things, easily being able to send and receive paper mail, shelves of cereals at Wal-Mart, Arnold 12-Grain bread, Cool Whip, sour cream, Breyer’s Ice Cream, margarine or butter with lines on the wrapper for measuring, a full size refrigerator and freezer, a clothes washer big enough to wash an entire set of sheets, clothes that don’t smell like smoke after hanging them out, not having to put on slippers when entering the house or different slippers for going on the porch, carpets, not having to sweep up dust almost every day, shopping without salespeople watching my every move, faster internet, having and driving a car, being able to shop on my own, being able to read directions on instruction manuals, etc., understanding people…  That’s a start!….

 [By the way, sometime in the future, I hope to write what I miss about China!]