Curiosities

Traveling around 'rural' China, we've noticed we are some of the only Americans around.  In fact, everywhere we go people stare at us!  Not in a malicious way of course, but people seem to see us as a curiosity.  AJ with his beard is a big hit. Megan's blond hair grabs attention.  But Emily blends in like a sore thumb.  We may be a curious sight indeed, but we have also seen and experienced our own curiosities.  Signs and English translations are amusing, of course, and will receive their own post (spoiler: look for 'asses glue' at a supermarket near you!).  But we thought we would share with you some of our favorite pictures of oddities and anachronisms thus far.  And as Sun, our student volunteer so astutely told us, "What seems strange to you is everyday to us."

AJ treated like a celebrity!

The water faucets in most homes, apartments, and hotels in China do not supply potable water.  Instead, many people carry these jugs around and fill them with drinking water at the market.  We even have a jug of our own now!  It has a cartoon goat on it.

Rather than a door, the entryway to many public areas like restaurants, stores, and restrooms is covered by big sheets of plastic.  This door is at the Li family home in a rural Yuntaishan Park village.

Bikes are one of the most common modes of transportation in China.  We wonder if people ever forget where they've parked!

Another common way to travel is by scooter.  Talk about reducing your family's carbon footprint- it looks like this man could have put one more very small child in his basket!

These random large, fenced-in marigolds in the middle of the road are part of Henan Polytechnic's campus beautification project.

Why are the fire hydrants wrapped with thick rope?  Why not?

From now on, Emily and Megan refuse to eat un-tattooed apples!    

What looks like an alien baby in Megan's hands is a delicious dragon fruit!

As you can see by the abundant corn, it is harvesting season here.  What's odd about that?    

Well, the corn is piled up in the MIDDLE of the six-lane highway, reducing traffic to one lane in either direction for miles!

We have settled in to our new home and things that surprised us at first now seem normal.  But this coming week is a holiday week here in China.  What new and exciting things will we see during the holiday rush?  And can we really top miles and mountains of corn?

Yuntaishan Day 2

Zhuyu Peak...to the top!

As her shirt says, Emily plows
ahead up the very steep stairs.

Following a day with behind-the-scenes waterfall tours and scorpion tasting, we didn't think we could have a better day at Yuntaishan. Were we ever wrong!  Kam and Sherry led us to some absolutely inspiring, breathtaking places. In our private tour bus, we drove to the base of Zhuyu Peak.  Kam gave us two choices to make it to the top: the long way or the short way.  These park rangers did what they know best and chose the long way.  Apparently, only old people take the long way, but we enjoyed our walk nonetheless.  There were some great views!  After taking the long way, we arrived at some stairs.  Some very steep stairs.  So we climbed.  We climbed some more.  Oh, and we continued to climb until the stairs became steeper so we could climb some more. Finally! After stumbling our way upward, we reached Zhuyu Peak!  

This statue told us, "You're not
even close to the top!"

Ahh...the temple at last.

Awaiting us at the top was a Daoist Temple.  Stunning!  To over-simplify Daoism, Dao practitioners believe in things like naturalness, compassion, and simplicity.  There was nothing simple about the walk up, though!  And all around us, people placed prayer cards, on which each person wrote a wish.  

Prayer cards hang from
every available surface.

Because the temple is so high, we wondered if the wishes and prayers made it to their destinations faster.  Our experience at a sacred temple was already special, but then a small, friendly-faced man wearing the navy blue clothes of a Dao monk approached us.  Monk is not quite the right word for this man, but it is the best we can find.  He was the supervisor of this temple and invited us to tea!  Tea, of course, is very much a ritual across China, so for us to be invited to tea with a Dao monk (on the very tippy-top of a mountain peak, no less!) was quite an honor.  We were inspired and honored beyond words!

Such a profound experience!

The old stone village.

We could have stayed at that temple for hours! But our intrepid tour guides had more activities on our day's itinerary.  We walked back down more very steep stairs to our bus, and went on our way to another speechless experience.  Primarily known for its scenery, Yuntaishan also has a number of old, small villages within its boundaries.  Kam showed us his favorite.  

Megan, Emily, and Kam enjoy
lunch at the Li home.

Tucked way back into the mountains, we spent the afternoon at the home of the Li family. Because the Li's home and the surrounding buildings are an active village, few visitors are allowed the privilege of visiting. Again, another honor! Making the visit even better was a lunch invitation from Mr. and Mrs. Li. 

The Li family also operates an inn.

The Lis have a picture of...Pete and Jacob!

Will this picture make it on the wall?

We had a tiring weekend, but the inspiration and good feelings we experienced energized us!  We wonder where our amazing journey will take us next.

Scorpion Special!

We are crossing things off our "crazy foods eaten" list left and right! But as crazy as sea cucumber, donkey, and fried scorpions sound, they do not top our list.  And the "Crazy Food Award" goes to...LIVING scorpions!  On our first night at Yuntaishan, we jokingly mentioned to Kam that we wanted to try scorpions.  The wait staff instantly (instantly, people!) produced the fried arthropods.  Kam then asked if we wanted to eat live scorpions.  Evidently, the proper way to eat a live scorpion (thus out-doing our bosses Jacob, Pete, and Libby!) is to soak them in alcohol and get them drunk. Why not?  We will not forget this night anytime soon! 

It was still crawling!

Down the hatch!

Strangely crunchy.

AJ says with a shrug, "A living scorpion?  NBD."

Does AJ look pleased?

This was tour guide Sherry's first scorpion snack too!

Sherry was a little nervous.

That expression says it all!

Kam can't wait for his scorpion!

Did he really like it?

Yuntaishan World Geology Park, Day 1

AJ, Emily, and Megan standing in front of a National Park Service arrowhead in the Yuntaishan visitor center.

Emily, AJ, and Megan at the
entrance to Yuntaishan.

After spending so much time in crowded cities, these park rangers were happy to visit nature!  Grand Canyon National Park is lucky enough to have a sister park in China- Yuntaishan World Geology Park.  The two areas share many similarities- rocks, water, visitors.  And very importantly, the two parks have a family-like relationship.  That may seem strange to many in the United States, but it makes sense when you start to know the Chinese and how important family is.  And once again, we were treated as family.  Kam, Mrs. Qin, and a guide named Sherry met us at Yuntaishan's entrance for an up close and personal tour of the park.  We had a wonderful whirlwind weekend.  Our experience was unforgettable but is best told in pictures.  And we have so many pictures!  

The park has video cameras everywhere!  And the buses all have GPS.  The control center is very sophisticated and a bit like science fiction.

Our charming host and good friend, Kam.  According to Sherry, Kam is "popular at Yuntaishan because he is so handsome and very kind."  We hope to make him famous at Grand Canyon, too!

The path in Honshu Valley is crowded, but don't worry.  If you fall in...

...this man paddling around in a dinghy will save you!

Sherry, our tour guide, points out something very interesting to Emily.

Like Grand Canyon, Yuntaishan is famous for its red rocks.  Here is one of the park's most popular scenic areas- Honshu (Red Rock) Valley.

Megan, Emily, and AJ at the base of Bei Long (White Dragon) Waterfall.  No tourists can visit the base of the falls, but we know people.

Yuntai Waterfall is a beautiful area that is normally closed to tourists.  We had an up close and personal visit!

A sea of people makes Mather Point at Grand Canyon seem deserted.

A fine way to end the day: deep-fried...scorpions!

AJ can't wait to dig in!

Megan is ready to seek revenge against a scorpion that stung her backside a few years ago.

Crunchy and nutty.  The scorpions.  Not Emily.

Yes, those really were scorpions we just ate.  

What is next on the menu?  More sea cucumber or donkey? Tune in tomorrow to see our craziest culinary experience yet!

First Week of School

The nerves we initially felt with starting a foreign language in a foreign land are starting to leave.  After only a few days, we started to connect with our teachers and our student volunteers.  Our weekday schedule has us starting class at 8:30 and finishing between 11:30 and noon.  Sometime after lunch, one or more volunteers meet us to work with us on our Chinese and to take us to places on campus and in JC.

Emily, Mrs. Liang, Megan, and
teacher's assistant Sun in class.

Our lessons this week were quite basic.  We learned words for family and food.  (These concepts are so important worldwide and seem especially so here in China, that it made sense to start with family and food.)  Every one of our teachers and volunteers gets so excited when they're talking about food and they really want us to try some of their favorites.  Noodles (miàntiáo, 面条) and dumplings (jiǎozi, 饺子) are very popular in Henan Province and JC.  Unfortunately, AJ and Megan both suffer from gluten intolerance.  It's unheard of here in China, so our teachers, volunteers, and even Kam have a hard time understanding why someone would not eat a steamed bun (bāozi,包子).  So Emily put the burden on herself to eat AJ's and Megan's shares of the steamed buns.  And noodles.  And dumplings.  And other fried doughy goodness.

In addition to learning new words and sentence structure (which is simple when compared to the structure of English sentences), we also learned a Chinese song.  One of our teachers, Mrs. Liang, played a song for us called "Tian Mi Mi."  Hearing AJ sing "My Sweet Honey" was delightfully funny!  It was fun to learn a new song!  But this was also a very effective teaching tool that made us concentrate more on word tones.  Mrs. Liang wants us to know the song by heart next Friday.

AJ and Zephyria look at the globe.

iPhone showing Megan a book
about China's geography.

Our volunteers have been wonderful!  We already know we will miss them when we leave.  This week, we experienced so many new things with Zephyria, Sun, iPhone, and Kelly.  Zephyria, Kelly, and iPhone took us to the school library, which has a huge globe.  We all stood around the globe talking about our hometowns and important places in China and in America.  We pointed out Grand Canyon and the Colorado River.  They pointed out the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers.  Our countries are worlds apart, but standing at the globe, we felt so close to these kids!

JC street vendors grilling up
some tofu kebabs.

Later in the week, Kelly and iPhone escorted us to downtown JC, which they call the city center.  We rode a city bus (16 cents!) to a bookstore, where we spent 30 minutes looking for pinyin/English dictionaries.  AJ's diligent search found us exactly what we wanted!  We then went downtown, which is a big shopping mall and alleys full of vendors selling delicious food. 

Volunteer Sun and AJ surrounded
by post-it notes in the apartment.

 On Thursday, Sun came to our apartment with sticky notes.  She labeled just about everything in the apartment with its name in pinyin.  Who needs wall art when you can have post-its!  Even our toilet/shower is labeled.  It was so helpful to hear and see words for everyday items, like teapot, bed, washing machine, etc.  Sun also prepared a video for us.  We watched a traditional Chinese wedding.  So beautiful!  So ornate!  But it was also quite touching to know that Sun really put a lot of thought into helping us.  Her culture is so important to her that she wanted to share it with us.

Our first week of school was thought-provoking, fun, and occasionally frustrating.  We are learning the language.  Slowly, to be sure, but our teachers are wonderful.  And we are learning the culture.  And as much fun as this part of our journey has been, we are ready to see nature!  Tomorrow, we will have stories and photos from our first visit to Grand Canyon's sister park, Yuntaishan.