A Summer of Great Experiences

I have left China and made it home. The jet lag is ridiculous. My summer in Guizhou was beyond amazing. It was my summer vacation, but going to GFC was more than just a vacation. The summer was an eye opening experience. Meeting loads of friends from all over the world, making friends with some amazing students, learning about culture through friends, and learning about culture through making mistakes. It was all wonderful. There was not a time that I was truly bored. Some days may have been less eventful, but there was always someone to talk to and hang out with. Not only was I able to lean about Chinese culture at GFC, but because of our incredible multicultural intern and volunteer program I learned about cultures from all over the world. My travels in China this summer was not a couple weeks of taking buses with a tour group to hotels and museums. My summer, thanks to GFC, was 10 weeks and 4 days of meeting and creating special bonds with people, being submerged in culture, and working my way through situations with a huge language barrier in between. To be honest, being in a tour group and going places with them is very fun, but the real fun is when your on your own in a country you've never been to, where people speak a language u barely know, in situations you never thought of being in. That was my summer thanks to GFC and all the amazing friends I have met there.

 Air China sweeps me away from Guiyang to Shanghai with the sun behind me.

 Keunhee posts up a sticky for me on my last night in GFC.

 This was the last class I taught at GFC. I will surely miss these Hotel Management students. Photo Credit: Random student walking past the class room at the right time.

 On my last night my friends and I went out to have my last bowl of Huishui hot pot. Photo Credit: Chaley Ayers

 Emma, Me , and Gabi and Huanguoshu waterfall. Emma, Gabi, and I became very good friends this summer.

1 Week Countdown

As of today, my one week countdown to my departure has begun. Exactly one week from this moment I will be attempting to get cozy in a bed somewhere in a Shanghai hotel. The picture above is my Chinese name written in ancient characters. Unfortunately this is not the original name my grandmother gave me, but this is one that my friends here at GFC gave me. I could not write the characters of my entire name, but only my family name. Because of this, Peiling, one of my friends from Malaysia, and a couple other friends came up with this new name for me. My new Chinese name is Ye Tian La, which means "Daily Happiness""Everyday Happy" or "The Most Happy". Whichever one seems the best. All of us had one made during a trip to Qinyang village. I have come to realize that there is a truly special connection between all of us summer interns. We all have our own friends in our respective homes and colleges, but making friends here at GFC is a little different. When we all go to college, we mix with thousands in hopes to find a handful or so of people that we connect well with. This summer at GFC, there were around 20 of us who came to one little campus. We all come from very different walks of life, and from all corners of the planet, but we all bond extremely well. I feel that it takes a certain type of mentality to willingly come to the backwoods of China and teach, and I feel that it is this mentality that allows us to bond so well. Whatever the reason is for making such great friends this summer, the fact is that we all became so close. We've all known each other for about 2 months and we all know each other so well. Our chemistry is perfection, we work with each other but more importantly we have learned from each other. Maybe only I just have learned so much from them. I am glad to say that I have been able to spend time with this special group. Of course it must all come to an end and we all have to go back to our colleges. Some leave in 4 days, some in a week, and some a month from now. Many of us agree that the scattered departure times takes a real toll on our happiness. It is the time for constant sadness where people who we have amazing connections with are constantly leaving. Hopefully we can meet up again in different places around the world.

Fun in Guiyang

 A couple days ago I went to Guiyang with David. Originally the plan was that I would follow him to the passport office and then we would just hang around Guiyang for the rest of the day. The night before we went to Guiyang, David and I decided to invite many of our friends. Our group ended up being 8 people. When we got to Guiyang we decided it would be best of David went ahead to the passport office to meet Callum then we would all meet up later on. At the first bus stop we found a student who was going to the train station to get home. Since David only knew how to get to the passport office from the train station, he would hop a ride with the student to the train station. The student flagged down a random biker who would charge for the trip. The bike would be cheaper and faster than public transport. David left GFC today. He and I became good friends. As great of an experience this college offers us, it is also one of the saddest places. People are always coming and going. We all make friends then we all leave, and in reality we will most likely never see each other again. That is the one thing I hate about coming here.

 After David went off on the bike, the rest of the group and I went to go get some lunch. We took a public bus to the only Carrefour in the city. Carrefour is kind of like a Wal-mart, it has a lot of international goods. This is just a picture of Jen on the bus.

 After Carrefour, we all went to Guiyang Mountain Monkey Park. David and Callum told us it would be a nice place to burn some time and it would be a good place to meet up. The park was very awesome. This is the lake that you see upon entrance to the park. The entrance fee was about 5 yuan.

 As you enter the park, you can see cable cars heading to the highest point of the park. Everyone decided that it would awesome to take the cars up and then we would walk down. After I hopped into the car, everyone took a picture of the first person going up.

 Another pair, Jen and Bowie, loading up in the next car.

 This was the amazing view from the lower cable station.

 About halfway up I turned around and I saw this view. It is absolutely amazing.

 I snapped this picture right before I got up to the summit. This shot gives off such a Jurassic Park feel.

 The sexy shitless man at the top opens the door for us.

 At the top of the mountain this is the view of Guiyang. Guiyang is one of the most expensive cities to live in in China. Real-estate here is ridiculous, so I have been told.

 The picture above shows more of the industrialized side while this one shows more of the poorer side.

 As much as I hated getting a picture taken of myself, I knew I had to for two reasons: 1) it was an absolutely awesome place and 2) my mom would kill me if I didn't. Photo credit: Emma Lenz

 Two words: MONKEY BUTT!

 This monkey stole that bag of pop corn from the lady beside it. She tried to take it back but the monkey  grabbed it back from her.

 These two monkeys stole those bottels from people too. Crazy creatures these monkeys.

Huishui Streets

A couple days ago I found myself being overly lazy, so I decided to head into Huishui and take a couple pictures.

 I got into Huishui at the time the local schools let out for lunch. I saw these two friends come out of a little corner shop. What was really interesting was the conversation they were having. One boy has his arm around the other, and they seem to be engaged in a really deep, intense conversation.

 I went to see the corner shop the little boys came out of. It was a store that sold a type of dumpling soup. I figured I would try it out. The dumplings are made on order. This is the shopkeeper. She makes the dumplings infront of your table so you can see. It is nice that the dumplings are fresh, but the speed in which she makes them is just incredible. I timed her to see how many she could do in 10 seconds, it came out to be just about 15.

 This little girl and her father came in near the end of my meal. I tried to get a picture of the girl picking her nose, but instead I got the aftermath of the picked nose. She had already put her finger in her mouth.

Right before I left I saw these two little ones come through. Despite China's "One Baby" law, I think these two might be siblings. I actually see a lot of families with more than one child around here. Even though they could be siblings, I like to imagine this as a really crappy date.

Hot Pot Night

A couple weeks ago, I went out for hot pot with Erin, Keun Hee and Lincoln. Lincoln is a student to all 3 of us. This dinner was to celebrate Lincoln doing very well on his exams and to say farewell to Erin.

 The type of hot pot we got was divided into 2 sections. Spicy and non-spicy. How it works is that the soup base boils infront of you at the table, then you order raw food and then cook it in the soup yourself. I cannot read Chinese so Lincoln and Erin took care of the food. There is a bowl and a plate on the right side of the picture. The food on the plate is a type of sausage, not sure what kind of sausage though. The item in the bowl took me off guard. It is duck intestines. I thought it would be absolutely horrid, but it was really good. Let it sit for about 8 seconds in the boiling soup base, and it makes for a huge flavor explosion in your mouth.

 Here we have some beef, lamb, black mushrooms, fish, soup filled beef balls, chicken feet (my favorite), pork, and more. We ordered so much food that the waitress had to bring a little cart to put beside the table to hold everything.

 This picture was taken about halfway through the meal. Happy faces mean happy stomachs haha. Everyone except me stopped eating soon after. Since I have gotten to China my appetite has become so large, I eat non-stop. The head chef here calls me "Two Portion Josh".

This is the aftermath of the dinner. Absolutely 99.99% destroyed. Best meal I have had since I have been to China.

Bush Wackin'

The other day Callum, Gabi, and I took a hike up a hill. I am not sure if you guys have noticed, but there is a large hill that over looks the football field and track in some of my pictures. Well, we climbed it. The main reason for the climb was to get a good vantage point of the campus to get some pictures. I saw this flower right at the base of the hill. There was a flower that had bloomed there, but I accidentally knocked it off. Oops!

 Before we started our ascent, we walked around the base looking to see if there was a trail up. The only thing we could find was an overgrown logging trail turned into a water way. This trail took is up to a ridge about 200ft below where we wanted to be, but we went up. The logging trail was beyond the point of where it could be called steep. 80% of the climb on the logging trail was done on all fours. Since it was also had rained a couple days before, the trail was really slippery. We slipped a lot. The reason we are not on all fours in this picture is because it was one of the only parts of the trail i could stand comfortably enough to take a picture.

 At the top of the first ridge the trail stopped. So we took a couple photos. You can see here how dense and deep the brush was. That didn't stop us though, we kept on going.

This picture was taken at the top of the lower peak. It was the first view of the campus from above. This gave us hope that there would be an even better view at the highest point.

 After resting for a couple minutes, we were moving again. This picture was taken very near to the top of the peak, but the brush was too dense for us the push through. We couldn't find a clearing either, so no picture was taken. It was very disappointing, especially since we had pushed our way through so much crap. At around this point we were walking on so many fallen branches and trees we were pretty much suspended from the ground.

 

 On the way down, we became lost trying to find the trail we had previously made. We eventually found the logging trail again so we went down. We decided that the fastest and most fun was down would be on our asses. It was awesome. Callum went first, I followed closely which turned into me crashing into him.

 Gabi was behind me and she came down faster than both me and Callum. She crashed into both of us.

At the bottom of the mountain we were absolutely covered in crap. Callum cut his hand sliding while trying to push a thorn branch of of his way. That same thorn branch hit me in the chest. Gabi was untouched. We decided that since our first ascent was disappointing, we will go one more time. This time with something to cut our way to the top.

Exam Week

English teachers were asked to administer their exams starting this week. Today I began with the interview section of the exam. After writing our exam, we give them to the English department which prints them and places them in sealed packets. For me to administer the exam to the class, I have to show the sealed envelope infront if the class then break the seal infront of them. We will see how well they do in the next 3 days of English examinations.

My Students

Today, my HTC General English class got our class T-shirts. In typical modern Asian tradition, every event like this has to be photographed. This HTC English class is one of the more advanced in the college and is by far the best out of all of my classes. Today we sat in a camp fire circle and just had a conversation. I love this class.

Technical Difficulties

Hey everyone, so lately I have been having some trouble with my cameras. Well just the memory card to be exact. So I am working on trying to fix/get new ones. Until then I unfortunately do not have any pictures to share. Lately I have been learning how to play Mahjong. It is a Chinese "card" game, the cards are more like tiles. Anyways I just got back from playing for 5 hours with some interns from Hong Kong University. The Mahjong tables they have here are ELECTRIC. All the shuffling and stacking is done for you in seconds. I also have a class in the morning that I haven't really prepared for, oops. Oh, I am not sure if I have mentioned it, but I am not teaching 2 classes. I moved up from being a TA. Well, have a good week everyone. I will be getting pictures up as soon as possible

Xijiang pt.2 Activities

This is the second set of pictures I have from my weekend in Xijiang. 

 On the bust to the train station in Guiyang, I caught this baby looking at me. It stared at me for the longest while. It was enough time for me to stare back and then open my bag to get the camera then take the picture.

 This is the train station in Guiyang. It was incredibly busy. There is not much else to say about this place except it smelled pretty bad.

 This is the waiting room for only 2 gates in the train station. It was absolutely packed. In China, people don't line up for anything. Half of these people in the picture were on the same train as I was going to Kaili. Imagine half of this crowd trying to fit through that exit you can see in the distance. It was incredibly chaotic. There was actually a fight between on older woman and a guy that looked like he was in his late 20's. I found the chaos of boarding the train fairly entertaining.

 Erin right after we had left the train station.

 Shirley and Don having some uncle-niece time on the four our train ride. Shirley is a senior Phillips Exeter and Don is the oldest volunteer here at GFC. By oldest I mean longest serving, just wanted to clear that up. Don, Shirley, and I were popping jokes the entire train ride. The expressions of the other people on the train were priceless. Chinese looking people speaking English? What is this nonsense?

 The guy that us turned away and hidden in the camera is the boyfriend for another GFC staff member that cannot be seen. They were not part of our group, but they were also going to Kaili. That man sleeping is just a random guy who fell asleep on te boyfriend. I found the situation comical.

 That night in Xijiang we were the guests of honor at the restaurant. We had fish hotpot, chicken congee, some moutai (incredibly strong), and many more dishes. At GFC student's father spoke to the owner of the restaurant and that is how we got the private room for our dinner.

 This was one of the things that was brought to the table. I am not sure what the thing on the chopsticks is. It looks like zongzi, sticky rice, but it wasn't. It was wrapped in bamboo leaf like zongzi, but this was more like a steamed pastry. It was nice because a lot of the food is spicy so the sugar killed the spice a little.

 The owner called the performers in to play for us for part of our dinner. The group was one player and two young ladies who sang and fed us. Yes, I said fed. This guy is the player of course, but I am not sure of the name of the instrument.

 This is Don being fed by the ladies. They do not just feed you, but they also sing while they feed you. Another part of the ceremony is after you take a couple of bites of your food then they start to play with you. So they place the food on the chopsticks close to you and when you are about to take a bite they move wave the chopsticks around. It is a little game they play. You must be quick to catch the food on the sticks.

 After you catch the food on the sticks then they give you some alcohol. The ladies massage your ears for a second then hold your nose while the pour wine into your mouth. They POUR the wine down, you don't sip. At least that is what they did to me.

 This is the little hostel we stayed at. Perched 1200 ft above the rest of the village, it was a fun adventure climbing there without any actual roads but only paths.

 This is what I had for breakfast. It was a bowl of rice noodles with pig's feet and a duck egg. On top is some cilantro and scallions.

Erin and I found this place that had a certain type of treat. Infront for the little stall was the place that they made it. Erin gave it a try. All you do is take the wooden hammer and smash the rice based snack in the tub.

 I also gave it a try. The hammer was well over 25 lbs. so it was hard to control. The thing was really gooey.

 This is the treat after it is made. It is filled with red beans and the outside has a peanut taste. Super chewy.

I passed a store that sold hand made scarves. This store has their machine in the front to show the customers how everything is made. All the scarves are 100% cotton, incredibly soft.

Before we left Xijiang, we saw a performance by the Miao people. These women were doing an umbrella dance to music that was played with a leaf.

While we wait for our ride to the train station, Shirley shows her uncle what she bought in the village.

It took 30 mins to get to the train station from Xijiang. The mountain roads were extremely winding.

Shirley and Don enjoying more uncle-niece time on the train ride back to Guiyang.

When we got to Guiyang, we had to take a bus to meet the GFC that would pick us up. The buses in Guiyang are always very packed. This is before the bus started to fill up.