Katie the “Pseudo Aunt”

My longtime across the street neighbors have 2 girls Josie and Lee. Zac and girls grew up together, playing, riding bikes, and later partying together. One the advantages of being a teacher and living in a small community like Saint Simons Island, (or disadvantage depending on whether you are the parent or child) is that it was pretty easy to keep an eye on their coming and goings. Katie the "Nosy Neighbor" wasn’t always Josie & Lee’s favorite person. Well some how both girls have survived their wild teenage years and have become very personable and entertaining young women. And maybe they have forgiven my nosy ways, because Lee and Mike have given me “aunt” status with their new baby Dylan – Pictured above. Getting any ideas Zac?…….

Beijing Olympics

I have been faithfully watching the Today Show on my TV every morning and I kept wondering why there were not thousands of people jamming the outside crowds. I figured maybe the Beijing authorities were limiting who attended the crowd, but after receiving this link from one of my Chinese friends………..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR20080812032...

I loved the part where they taught the Chinese workers how to cheer. Remember China is trying very very hard to put forth a great impression – but it still reminds me a little of the Dean Barone days which some of us more mature Glynn Middle teachers will remember.

China is neat enough with out all the forced advertising. Come and visit – China Spree has a great 12 day one that actually visits Hangzhou and it is cheaper than most round trip air flights http://www.chinaspree.com/ For my Georgia friends – there is a direct flight from Atlanta to Shanghai. I got a round trip ticket for Zac (he is coming Oct 10th!!!!!) for less than 900 dollars

Lock Up Your Wishes

Most of the thousands of padlocks hung on the guard rails have inscriptions carved into them. They generally have a family surname and good fortune wishes displayed on them. I am not sure why one location will have thousands and another similar location will have none. Some are hung near temples and some are hung on mountain walkways.

Zhangjiejia

When you walked on their sidewalks they were full of fossils. The shell fossils were very long and had an unusual shape. But unique only in my mind, because when I wanted to purchase one. I realized the Chinese thought that since they were so common place they didn’t think about selling them. But I did find one at the hotel – expensive but I was happy. Not many Americans have heard of this place – their biggest tourist dollar comes from Chinese tourist and a large number of Korean tour groups. So if you are a Grand Canyon Fan this is a must-see. And make sure you have plenty of charged batteries for your camera.

Zhangjiejia

Imagine the Grand Canyon with lots of trees and with lots of small streams and you have Zhangjiejia. The strange shapes are limestone hills just like Guilin but Guilin is much softer. The peaks in Guilin are rounded and gentle looking where the ones in Zhangjiejia are sort of “in your face”. Also Guilin is much gentler on the body. Not much climbing just sitting around in a boat and/or a raft, whereas the Zhangjiejia Park has lots of stairs, hills and walking. (My trusty pedometer counted 28,000 steps one day and 18,000 the next – and unfortunately it doesn’t give you any extra credit for the steps being climbing steps and not walking steps)

Good Ole Country Boy

Mao is still larger than life. He united the country and made many good decisions and a few really bad ones. But he is still revered by most Chinese. We joined thousands of tourists and visited Mao’s hometown and his farm house where he was raised. The souvenir shop was my favorite spot where they had turned everything imaginable into a sellable Mao memento. There were Mao playing cards, lighters, cups, mugs, plates, pendants, pens, key chains, bronze busts, and many more.

Primary Sources

Primary Sources are original documentary evidence from a given historical period and Cynthia's father was a great primary source! He actually participated in a famous time in China’s history: The Cultural Revolution and the Red Guard. He is a couple of years younger than me and was one of the youths that left high school (they call it middle school) to join the Red Guard. He showed me his armband, buttons and shared stories of his trip to Beijing to hear Chairman Mao. There were two sections of the Red Guard: a more militant one and a more conservative one. Cynthia’s father belonged to the later group. I felt very privileged to hear his stories of his Red Guard adventures. Thank you so much!

Decorating Challange - Cynthia's New Flat

When you buy a new flat you can’t move right in. Cynthia’s new flat is just a shell. No drywall, floors or ceilings. She will have to make decisions on all of it. Sounds very daunting to me. I have a hard enough time just picking paint for one room.

My Changsha Hosts

Our next trip was to Changsha in Hunan Province . Very Hot! But it was great spending time with Cynthia’s parents asnd seeing Cynthia’s new flat.

Cynthia’s father is Dean of the English Department at a university in Changsha. He and his wife graciously let me stay in their home and fed me great spicy meals. I have no statistics but by my observation, most Chinese families living in a city, will live in flats. Sort of like our version of a condo. They own the flat/apartment but not the land. Cynthia’s parents flat was on the 4th floor (really 5th) had 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, living rm, dining rm, and kitchen. Their building complex was built by their university, so it houses mostly university workers. It had a play area and a guard and gate around the whole complex. I think it is common for companies to build apartment complexes for their workers to buy. It appears that most of the residents living in city apartment complexes contain very job/class homogeneous grouping. Again I have no hard facts -just observations. I haven’t seen any suburbs or neighborhoods yet. There are single family homes in the country but they are usually 4 or 5 stories tall with 3 to 4 generations living in them.

Caesars Palace Casino in Las Vegas??

Nope! This is a 5 star hotel in Quanzhou for less than $70 a night. CNN International and softer beds than normal. Quanzhou is a fairly old harbor city. Couple of good temples and pretty good shopping. Restaurants were hard to find (but they did have the ever present McDonald’s & KFC) Good place to pamper ourselves after our Tulou adventure. One of the days we rode a bus to a walled in stone city. There are many quarries around the area so their main building material is stone. It was on the coast so nice cool breezes when you got out of the walled-in area.

Funky Construction

This 1330 built tulou was originally made like this. Supposedly the builders were not given enough tasty food so they made the 5 story supports slanted like this on purpose (some as much as 15 degrees off). It is still standing but it looks really strange. Another unique feature is that each kitchen has its own well with drinkable water. In most Tulous the well was a community one located in the center of the circle.

Our Closet in the Tulou

Our Bedroom in the Tulou

Our Tulou Hotel

Staying in a Tulou -what an once-in-a-lifetime experience. 2 nights plus 3 tulou-cooked meals for 2 people only cost a total of 30 dollars. The room had 2 beds, bedding, a small TV and a light. Everything else ‘you bring your own’ (towels, washcloths, toothbrush etc.) We shared a small “squatty potty” public bathroom with the rest of the floor but there were very few guests there those 2 nights. We had fresh vegetables and a freshly slaughtered chicken for dinner, rice porridge for breakfast and another similar meal the next night.

Above - is our morning view

Tulou Living

Most Tulou have 3 to 5 stories. Bottom level kitchen, 2nd level for storage and 3rd and above for living. Our bedroom was on the 4th floor – no elevator. Since so many of the young are leaving for the big cities most of the tulous have a lot of vacant rooms. Generally it is the responsibility of the eldest son to take care of the tutou. In the ones we toured we saw mostly grandparents and the pre-school aged children living there. (Remember the grandparents take care of the young while the parents work in the city). When tulou clan living was common there could be as many as 300-600 people living in one. One of the larger tulous had 288 rooms. I asked if the children have their own rooms and was told that when the child was old enough (4 or 5) the boy child would move into the bedroom with his grandfather.

The one pictured above is one of the larger ones with 4 additional inner rings and 4 stories. We had a great tour guide who was head of the clan that told us about his tulou and its history.

Tianluokeng Tulou Cluster

We drove up to a lookout (free that day due to the UNESCO opening ceremonies) and took lots of pictures. The square one was built first they are easier to build but take more material and provide less light thru the roof. As the builders got more skilled more round and oval ones were made.

This link below has the best information. The Wikipedia can give you a much better history of each cluster than I can. I was too busy taking pictures to pay attention to all the history stuff I quickly read on the signs and heard.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fujian_Tulou

We got to see the first 5 listed on the Wiki page. We saw the Chuxi tulou cluster, Tianluokeng tulou cluster, Gaobei tulou cluster, YuChang lou. And many other ones I don’t know the name of.

Fujian Tulous

On July 8 2008, 19 new cultural sites were added to UNESCO World Heritage List with the Fujian Tulous being one of them and we were there! Also we were really lucky to see these sites before they become too commercialized. The whole county was lined with balloons, flags, banners, and lanterns. Even though it was not a convenient trip getting there and back it was the best part of our Fujian Province trip.

We rode a crowded bus about 3 hours when the bus driver let just Cynthia and I off on a barren section of road where we waited in the rain for the boss of the hotel/tulou to pick us up on motorcycles. Yes! Motorcycles! No helmet, narrow mountain roads with lots of evidence of landslides and with me juggling my backpack, purse and an extra bag. Obviously we made it safely to the tulou, but we immediately asked the boss to hire a car and driver for the next 2 days.

There are thousands of these tulous still occupied by family 'clans'. They have survived earthquakes and bandits. Some were built as early as 1400 some as late as early 1900’s. Interesting side fact is that during the cold war the Pentagon, when looking at satellite photos of the area, thought the round tulous were missile silos.

Can you see the heavy rain in the picture .... the long uncomfortable bus ride, the motorcycle ride, and the rain - it was still worth it!

Fujian Province

Fujian Province is south of Zhejiang province and slightly resembles Georgia in that it and a few other southern provinces seemed to be a dumping ground for prisoners and dissidents. It is very mountainous even along the coast. Xiamen is a small coastal island in the south of Fujian Province. Xiamen seems to be noted for their egrets and seafood. (I don’t eat seafood in China because I have been spoiled by American seafood. Here there are too many bones, heads, shells and other body parts to deal with).

In Xiamen we took a ferry across the harbor to a smaller island called Gulang Yu that had colonial type houses and plants that could have come from Sea Island. We did the typical Chinese activity of climbing to the top of the hill to taking pictures. After ferrying back we shopped and found my favorite Singapore brand of meat called Bee Cheng Hiang. I bought enough to get us through the next couple of days in the country.

Cynthia and Katie Slept Here

This part of our trip was the highlight. We slept in a 400 yr old earth packed roundhouse called a Tuluo. More information and pictures later - I just wanted to give you a idea of the stories and photos to come. Don't worry I have already narrowed down the 300+ photos I took to a semi-reasonable number.

Packing Light?

And remember they had already sent home 4 suitcases with their family that had visited in late April. Who will come and visit me so I can send home some stuff.........

Kris's Last Text

You really learn to text a lot over here. Generally people of our generation are not addicted to texting as some of the younger generation are. But here you live by the text. They are free (or just about free when comparing to talking on the cell) and it eliminates any problems with vocal communication between the Chinese speaker and the Native English speaker. Another plus is that you can do it on the bus - where hearing is near to impossible. Jim 'encouraged' Kris to handle all their cell phone duty so now Kris is a master of the quick text.

Side Note: - I had to finally turn off their phone (they left it here for one of the next foreign teachers) because their devoted students kept wanting to get in one more farewell wish hours and days after they had left.

Hard to Say Good-bye

Haven't heard from Kris & Jim yet - But I assume that they all got back safely and with all their luggage. Jim is going to join the Georgia teaching profession and do his student teaching this fall in HS Biology. After seeing how he taught his Chinese/English Classes, the school that finally gets him will be very lucky. I really miss them and it was very hard for me and many students to say good-bye to them. They touched the hearts and souls of many of us.