I spent a long weekend in Beijing to visit the Chinese student, James Zhang, that lived with us three years ago. While I was there I got to see a lot of the tourist spots in Beijing. I finished my Thursday afternoon class, had a quick bite to eat, and got a taxi to the train station. I took the over night sleeper car to Beijing ans arrived around 10:30 am. When I got to Beijing I was little concerned about how I was going to find James' parents or how they were going to find me. The train station is huge. As the train rolled to a stop, I gathered my back pack and made my way out of the railroad car only to be met by a smiling face that said, "Eric". That was James' mother and they had tickets that allowed them to meet me at the train platform. As soon as I saw her I knew that this weekend would be a very good one. They put me in their car and we were off to get James at his school. Before we left to visit the Great Wall we had a very good lunch. The usual stuff, fish, soup, vegetable dishes, a gelatin fish mold, tofu, a very good bamboo dish, cows stomach, and the best donkey meat I will probably ever eat in my life. The food was excellent. We were ready to visit the Great Wall. As you are driving out to the Great wall you can see it from the window of the car. It is up on the top of the hills and runs as far as the eye can see. It is unreal to look at.
As you are climbing on this and walking up the grades and it is steep you look over at the other hill and marvel at how they built something this long on this type of landscape. It is like looking at the Grand Canyon. You look at the Grand Canyon and then you think that miles and miles in each direction is also the Grand Canyon. You look at it and then you realize just how special it all is. We were here most of the afternoon and then went it to town to check out the Olympic Sites before we went to dinner.
The Olympics in 2008 was a big event for China and people still visit the site and take pride in the fact that Beijing was the host. It is still a interesting site to visit. After this we had a very good meal at at restaurant that as had Chinese entertainment, Pekin Opera, magic, music, tumbling, etc. It was an enjoyable evening even after a long day and the ride on the over night train. Tomorrow the Summer Palace and the Forbidden City.
I will have to find pictures of the Saturday things I did because here I am on Sunday morning at the Temple of Heaven. We had dicussed this in class on Thursday and here I am at the place on Sunday. This a very nice tourist site and public park. You can pay and go in or you can just enjoy the outside area as a public space. They were both worth seeing. The main reason I went to Beijing was to see James and to meet his family. I could not really be in China and not go see him. He lived with us for a year and I did want to see him and see how he was doing. I left Peoria as high school kid, and now has grown some. He does seem to be bigger and the three years has been good to him. He is in one of the best schools in China and is studying Electric Power. He may transfer and study in England later but as yet he is not sure what he will do. Having been here for four months I have come to realize just how difficult it must have been for him to come to the USA. Everything is different. Our food is different, the way we live is different, our school system is different, the way we act is different just about everything we do is different. We talked about that and I told him that I really did not understand just how different things were and I hoped he realized that we tryed to do our best. He did enjoy his time with us and he still misses the Sunday morning breakfast that we all ate. JoAnne's mother was with us on Sundays. He got to play sports even though the team was not very good. He said that living with us helped him to grow up. His parents appreciated what we did for him and how we treated him when he was with us. It was very nice to get to meet them, even though my Chinese was better than their English.
China has a great history and many wonderful places to visit and to see but what I like best about China is the people that live here. This young man lived in our home for almost a year so of course I like him and wanted to see him again. I have met a lot of people in the last three months that I like and would love to see again sometime. People here are very friendly and open. I have been lucky because as a teacher to over 100 chinese students I have been able to meet many students and many faculty. I hope to continue to stay in contact with them using QQ, a form of Chinese facebook. I have two weeks left in China and as much as I look forward to returning to my wife I know that I will miss this place and the people that I have met.
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