Is The Translation Lacking or Is It Me?....

I know I was never very good at figuring out symbolism in my high school and college literature assignments so this is really way beyond me. I challenge all the members of my book club to see if you can figure out some of it. Most Chinese stories and legends have a lot of symbolism and really tragic endings. I haven’t heard any ancient Chinese legends where the boy and girl live happily ever after in the here and now. Some of them do get together in the afterlife but I don’t think that counts.

I am thinking this one is not one of their tragic love stories it might be about the cliff directly in front of me as I am taking this picture. Is it telling me to think about jumping?

You can click directly on the picture to make it a little bigger.

Daming Mountain - Sunday

Sunday morning was a little drizzly and foggy but the trek was still doable. After a wild (similar to Mr. Toad’s) bus ride with lots of hairpin turns we got to the starting point. We started climbing about 9:30 and got to the top by 12. I told you it was a lot of steps. Along the way we got to bounce across 2 exciting shaky cable bridges, eat some hot and spicy bamboo shoots, play in the snow and of course, take lots of pictures of the beautiful scenery even though the fog made our photos look a little washed out.

I had taken a class trip with this group when they were freshman in the spring of 06. They are now juniors and it is really nice to see how they have matured and grown not only in their English speaking abilities but in their personalities.

After they told me we had only gone 1/3 of the way I wimp’ed out and let the guide carry my backpack, but to my credit I didn’t go running for the cable cars – I kept climbing. (I know what Zac & Nicole are thinking– but remember I am way older than these college kids and there don’t seem to be many mountains for me to practice on in coastal Georgia – and I did make it up to ALMOST the top of Daming Mountain.)

Daming Mountain - Saturday

Daming Mountain is about a 3 hour bus ride (if the driver doesn’t take the wrong exit- but more on that later) south-west of Hangzhou city but still within Hangzhou boundary.

Side Note: I haven’t quite figured out how they can figure the population of a city when the boundaries of it are the size of one of our counties, and within those boundaries are many little towns/cities (with populations bigger than 200,000).

Anyway, back on subject… Daming Mountain which is pronounced like DOMing Mountain but should be pronounced like Damning because I sure d^&* well felt my age and there sure were a lot of d^%$ steps up to the peak. To relieve your suspense I made it 7/8 of the way – that last little hill to get to the top was not worth my huffing and puffing so I gave the kids a break and me a much bigger break and sat for about 15 minutes while they finished the rest and took the obligatory photos at the top.

We got to the mountainous area about 4 pm Saturday afternoon and checked into our little hotel. We walked around the area ate the local food for dinner and I taught 5 of the girls how to play Yahtzee. I wish I had thought to bring a Twister game with me. Somebody remind me to pick up one when I am home in August for vacation. This age group would be perfect for it. Plus they have all seen it played on the Friends TV series, which is very popular over here.

More on Daming Mountain in the next blog – but here are the photos of the trip I took

Shiny Box

This shiny machine is a common feature on every floor in all our classroom buildings. It is a hot water dispenser. All day long it boils a big tank of water so instead of hanging around the water cooler – you can hang around the water heater. It makes the water safe to drink, refills tea containers, which you can drink or just warm up your hands with. All the dorms have lots of big (gallon size thermos) available for the kids to take the drinkable water to their rooms. I am sure there is one of these shiny machines in this hotel but I haven’t found it yet. And yes, it is used as much in the summer time too. You actually get used to drinking hot drinks all year long.

Pictures and Pig Face

Here is the link to the Shanghai pictures as well as some thrown in from the West Lake Afternoon I spent with my ZUFE co-workers, Kris and Jim from Dalton Georgia.
http://picasaweb.google.com/katiea48/ShanghaiAndHangzhouWestLake

And the picture above was taken in Shanghai in one of the food shops. Look carefully and you will see 2 eyes --- look more carefully and you will see the folded down ears. It is a smushed pigs face. HONEST. (and I thought duck tongue was weird)

Pattie's Pearls and Katie's Candy

Sunday morning, I was finally going to get to see everybody –I decided I was in the mood for pancakes at McDonalds (Zac makes the best blueberry pancakes in the world – but when in China,,,,) but unfortunately when I said the number of the meal that had the pancakes I heard the dreaded Chinese phrase “Mei you” (sounds like “may yo”) which means “Don’t Have”……. No pancakes…..pooh .. baozi for breakfast – it was good but it wasn’t pancakes.

At 10 we met the group that was going with me to the pearl store – I had emailed Lisa @ Lisa Pearls and warned her I was bringing 5-8 eager patrons but about 12 showed up with guide (more on the quide story after the group gets back to Georgia). Creta and Pattie were both sort of leaning to one side because of the large bags they were carrying. Pattie literally had a full gym bag. Turned out both were filled with candy, cold medicine, deodorant, patches for my pants and more candy. I am really surprised that I haven’t gone into sugar shock – but I am using my pitiful will power and trying to pace myself. I am positive I will have enough for a daily dose of 3 peppermint patties miniatures and few Twizzlers for the rest of my stay here. (plus I have gotten 3 Easter Bunny boxes from Martha, Gail & BJ).

Since they had opted to give up their free tour day in Shanghai I only got to visit with the Georgia group for about 2 hours before their they had to hop on their bus for lunch and a museum visit. But it was a great 2 hours and I am so glad I came to Shanghai to see them. By the way the Georgia group purchased lots of baubles at Lisa’s Pearls with Pattie (who was shopping for friends too) making the biggest dent in her credit card.

It was a beautiful sunny day so we walked around and then at 3:00 we got our bags from the concierge and we began the multiple transfers that would get us back to our campus, which seemed even longer with our bags laden with Georgia goodies. I arrived back at my ZUFE room by 8:00 with sore shoulders and back (I see a massage in my near future) and ate a few of my “treats”. Who is coming next?

Cynthia's Friend

Since the Georgia travel group, that I was planning on meeting, was off touring on Saturday we each took a nice long hot shower in our shiny tub with great water pressure and really big towels to dry off with. (The shower alone was worth their nightly hotel rate) Then we had rice noodles for breakfast and caught the metro to a station on the outskirts of the Pudong district. There we met an old college roommate of Cynthia’s. Sunny & Bob (their English names) picked us up in their new Buick and drove us to their flat.

Side Note: Driving and owning a car is starting to become more popular with the middle class families, especially if you live outside the big (Atlanta sized or larger) cities. Cars, licenses, tags and gas are much more expensive here than in the US.

The flat was a modern 3 bedroom, 2 bath downstairs apartment about the size of my home 100 sq meters (about 1100 sq ft). One bedroom was for the husband’s parents who are the main caregivers of their new baby boy. As is normal in China, both parents work with all childcare being done by the grandparents. Bob and his mother did most of the cooking for our lunch of duck soup (yes, with all parts of the duck), chicken wings (hard to eat with chopsticks), scrambled egg and tomato, qing cai (dk green leafy vegetable – I don’t know the English name because it’s nothing I recognize, but I like it) and of course rice. They were so nice to me even though they had never laid eyes on me before. It still amazes me how hospitable the Chinese are.

When we got back to Shanghai we walked to the Magnificant Hotel where the Georgia group was staying, unfortunately the receptionist said they wouldn’t be back from their tour till after 9. So we had bowl of noodles for dinner and a McDonalds ice cream for dessert. The best of both worlds.