Beijing weekend

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.

Tucson, Arizona

I was on the computer this morning and I see Ava Zhong's QQ Icon dancing around.  That means she is on line only she is on the ICC science field trip to the Southwest.  I sent her a message she told me what she was doing. I knew that she was in Tucson, Arizona because I have been on the field trip myself.  The world has gotten smaller.

Good Friends in Xian

One thing I will miss when I return to the USA is seeing the friendship that so many of the young girls have for one another.  It is not usual to see two, three, and sometimes four young girls walking arm in arm or hand in hand around the campus.   Zhang Yao and Zhang Pei are very close as you can see by this picture.  Zhang Pei will do a study abroad in Korea and will leave Xian in October.  I have enjoyed the company of these two students and will miss being around them and being able to just observe their friendship.  It has been very special to me and I am fortunate to have had that opportunity. 

One thing about these two students if you see one you are going to see the other. They are that close.  It was a nice day at Cui Hua Shan park a few weeks ago and like I said it is not so much a hike as it is climbing steps.

These pictures are from Zhang Yao's camera and the ones her friends shared with her.  I had Tim Murphy check it the thumb drive on his computer and he found the two viruses.  He removed them and it was OK for me to copy.  You have to be very careful here in China because everything is infected.  They need more Mac's over here but I guess if they had them then someone would write a virus for them too.  Tomorrow I will take the train to Beijing and visit the student that lived with us a few years ago.  This train trip will be in the sleeper car.  I am taking the soft sleeper to Beijing and will probably return on the hard sleeper.  I will not be writing much until later next week.  I should have real stuff to show you, like maybe the Great Wall.

GuZheng fingers

This is how you play the Guzheng. You wrap your fingers with these picks and stroke the instrument.  It does make a very nice sound.  I enjoy the Chinese music a lot.  I will be going to Beijing on Thursday to spend time with James Zhang, the Chinese exchange student that lived with us for a school year, while attending Central High School.  It will be good to see him again, meet his family, and see things like the Great Wall.  When I return from Beijing I will have two weeks left in Xian and then we all return to the USA.  So much to do in a short time.  The students are a little loud tonight and we have other people on our floor.  I was concerned they would keep them up but some of the reason for the noise is the excitement of the new people helping them party.  Lao Wai, you can never trust them. 

Games they play in China

Between the meals I ate while learning how to make jiao zi at Zhang Yao's home, we took a walk around the neighborhood.  It was a pleasant sunny day and many people were out playing games.  When you live on the campus it is easy to forgot that Xian has older people that live here, also.  Here are some pictures of what they do. I did notice one man about my age doing some stretching.  He had his leg up on a rail that was at least five feet high and was bending over and touching his head to his shin area.  He was doing all this while he smoked his cigarette.  That is not something you see in the USA.

 Just a few pictures of how people spend a Sunday afternoon in Xian, China.

Making Jiao Zi

I went with Zhang Yao and Zhang Pei to Zhang Yao's parents home on Sunday to learn how to make Jiao Zi.  This is the walk way inside the apartment community they live in. Once we got there, around 10:30 it was important that I eat something and drink some beer. After all it is almost 11 am and, hey, who isn't hungry.

As soon as we got there it was time to eat.  Zhang Yao's mother had made two kinds of stir fry, some broad beans, summer sausage, strawberries, and a wonderful cucumber salad.  Everything was Hao Chi, or as we say very good, but the cucumber salad was fantastic.  It had some spice to it but not to much, and was full of flavor.  I am going to get the recipe because Zhang Yao is going to write everything down for me in English.  Because it is 11 am in Xian that means it is time to drink some beer.  The beer did probably help me relax a little.  I was probably as nervous as they were.  Three warm beers will help calm a person down, especially when they are the big bottles.  After some food and drink it is time to learn how to make Jiao Zi, or Chinese dumplings. 

 This is what the Jiao Zi look like after you make them.  You can also see the little round wrappers and the little balls of dough that need to be rolled out flat.  It takes some time to develop the technique you need to do this properly.

Zhang Yao's mama had the dough made and rolled out a section for the jiao zi wrappers.  She was fast and could make them so perfect and round.  I think she has done this for a while.  You make a few of the wrappers and then you stuff them with the filling; we used pork and vegetables.

You just put some of the filling on the wrapper and then fold it over and seal it up so that it will stay together when you boil it.

You just pinch them up nice and tight and set it down and make another one, and another, and another.

When you have enough made you can place them in boiling water and after you have added some cool water to the pot four different times the dumplings are ready to eat.

That is the best part about making the Jiao Zi, is the eating. After a dip in some garlic and vinegar sauce it becomes very difficult to stop eating these things.  I was able to eat a few because it had been at least an hour since I had any food.

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Working in the kitchen with Zhang Yao was a lot of fun. Actually she took the pictures and I was trying to learn how to make dumplings.  Getting to know the students here at Xian has been the best part of the job.  I am so luck to be here and I have appreciated every minute of it.  Even the week when Dr. Murphy was in the hospital was still good, stressful but interesting because we both have a better understanding about what international travel is really like.  Zhang Yao told me her parents were nervous and worried about what to feed me for three days.  After all it isn't every day an American welding instructor comes to your home.  Something tells me not too many Lao Wai, or foreign people have been in that little part of Xian.   After learning how to make Jiao Zi it was time for a walk.  I have been in China long enough to know that I needed to bring something to Zhang Yao's parents house, for a gift.  I was at the Metro on Saturday and decided to get some fruit.  I found some blueberries, some dates, grapes, and some cherries.  I just put them in the cart along with my bread and cheese and went to the check out.  The cherries were just under two pounds and were 195 yuan or 30 US dollars.  Tai gui, but it is a gift.  I hope they are good, oh I hope they are good.  After a walk it was time to eat again.  This time I got to see how she makes the vegetable pancakes.  They are good and very similar to the ones that we make.  The main difference is using sliced cucumber in them.  We don't cook much with cucumbers in the USA.  I have eaten several hot dishes here that have cucumber in them and I like it.

  After mixing the potatoes and cucumber with flour, water, and an egg she dropped the batter in the skillet and cooked it.  I would probably use milk but everything was good.  I don't think people realize just how much potatoes and corn they eat here in China. It is also strange that you can buy tomatoes here that have to be shipped in from some other part of China but they still taste like fresh garden tomatoes.  The stove top is a two burner propane assembly, very much like at Su Ling's home in Malaysia.  The cupboard had a very large open bag of flour in it.  Large like in fifty pounds and since it was just in an open bag I would assume there is no problem with bugs.  After the batter was made she added the spices and some green onion tops.  I do like these big knives that everyone seems to use over here. 

Cut the green onion tops and add them to the batter and you are ready to cook up a pancake. 

One thing about visiting some one in China, you are not going to leave hungry.  I was a very good day for me and I took the Jiao Zi that I made to Dr. Murphy and he also had some pancakes.  Tim and I relaxed a bit and drank the sparkling wine that I had.  It was pretty good to.  Nice way to end a very interesting day. Some times you really don't have to speak the same language to be able to communicate.

GuZheng concert

Zhang Yao is playing the GuZheng and Zhang Pei is holding the sheet music for her.  Zhang Yao and Zhang Pei are in my Monday afternoon class.  I will go to Zhang Yao's home on Sunday to learn how to make Jiao Zi from her mother and then we will discuss other food that I should be trying to prepare when I get back to the USA.

This what the sheet music looks like for the GuZheng. It is a little different from what I am use to seeing.

I have really enjoyed my time here and it will soon be over.  One nice thing about the Internet, even one as slow and unreliable as this one, is you can keep in touch with people half way around the world.  I do plan to keep in touch.  After all Zhang Yao will be taking a class in American Culture next fall and I should be a good source of information for her. Unless she needs to know about American Popular Culture and then I am a little old for that.  I do have some video of the music and well see if I can QQ it to Peoria.