I Have a Dream for the Next Generation

I’m tutoring Matt’s colleague’s thirteen year old daughter on Saturdays, practicing oral English. She’s entering an English speech competition and just sent me her speech to review.

As Thanksgiving this week has me in a very American mindset, I found myself thinking, gosh, this sounds so much like Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech. This is the dream of the next generation of global citizens – in America and in China.

I Hope for a Childhood Which My Father Had

Ladies and Gentlemen:
Last summer, my father brought me to the countryside where he was born and grew up. It was such an unforgettable memory to me. My father pointed out to me so many places where he had a lot of fun in his childhood, the creeks in which he caught fish and crabs, the pond in which he swam, the green grass land where he chased butterflies, the trees under which he enjoyed the beautiful singing of cicadas, the potato field where he dug out potatoes, baked the potatoes with the simple oven he made together with his childhood friends, the small hill where he watched the wonderful moments of the sunrise and sunset, the vast open field where he appreciated the beautiful moon at night! The place where he picked icicles from the gutter of houses! What a happy time! What great fun!

Looking at my city life, I live in a forest of cement, a place with no creeks to catch fish and crabs, a place where I have to swim in the swimming pool in sterilized water, a place where green grass lawn is forbidden to step on, not to mention chasing butterflies on it, a place where there is no singing of cicadas, a place where I have to endure the noise of cars and the machineries on the construction site, a place where sunrise, sunset and moon are blocked by skyscrapers or hidden in fog. What a different childhood I have!

I hope that one day I can have a childhood which my father had! I hope I can live in the countryside one day enjoying all the wonderful moments my father had! I hope that all the beautiful memories of my father will come into my real life one day.

However, when my father heard of my hope, he asked me to take a close look at the creek, the pond, the land, and said to me sadly: those days are gone! Not only you, a city girl cannot have the happy childhood I had, a countryside child in the local place cannot have it, either! Because there are no clean creeks for fish and crabs to live in, there is no clean pond to swim in, all land or field are farmed or developed, and there are no icicles because of the warm winter and global green house effect! What a shame! And what a pity!

I hope that one day those happy times will come back again for you and me, and for our next generation! We must do something! Yes, we can do something! I hope that with your efforts and my efforts together we can recover those happy times! I hope that one day we can recover the happy childhood my father had and pass it to the generation behind me! Make it happen! Yes, we can!

A Funny Thing Happened at The Gym

No, this isn’t another naked story – though I have plenty of those if you want one.

And I’m not going to document Chinese women’s choice of work out attire. (This month’s highlight – a purple lace miniskirt, with knee high socks and matching heels, perfect for riding the stationary bike.)

Today, in the morning hours of the gym when there are only a few members around, I huff and puff on the stationary bike, hoping to bring my stamina up for the May Triathlon. The volume of my I-pod is pumped high; the music in the gym is a little annoying and redundant. In the background, I hear an alarm. At first, I don’t think much of it – China is a noisy place to live, and through the music it sound like the alarm could be outside. No one on the elliptical machines seems to be bothered. I look to my left – large metal doors are sealing off the corridor, Indiana Jones-style. I rip off my headphones – they’re locking us in?

I dismount the bike, though I’m only at 11 km, 1 km away from my goal. The hallway behind me is already sealed shut with a metal door. I start walking quickly toward the door that is slowly, mechanically sliding down. The Chinese man on the other side of the door waves at me to stop. Stop! If there’s a fire, I’m to stay in here? I have a meeting at 12:30! What’s my excuse – I was locked in the gym?

I wait by the imposing metal door. One Chinese staff, probably a trainer, comes by and says, “Don’t worry.” I sit on the rowing machine. There’s no way I’m going to take a shower here. What set off the alarm? Is this just a regular drill? Why isn’t anyone concerned? When is the door going to open back up?

What is the alarm for? To protect all the heavy exercise equipment from looters? To keep people in, or to keep people out? What if this security system is inadvertently activated during a fire?

As soon as the door started to lift, I bee line for the locker room and grab my bag. I notice I left my cup at the bike. Dare I go back? And be trapped for how much longer? It’s a really nice cup. As I turn the corner to exit to the reception area, I see another metal door has the back area cordoned off. I’m still trapped. I power-walk back to the bike machine to rescue my cup. Eventually, the door to the reception area opens up. But the door from the reception area to the exit is still sealed.

Thankfully, one of the reception ladies points me toward a secret exit. I hit the elevator button, then think, have I forgotten my elementary school safety rules? Taking an elevator in China while there’s a fire alarm? I take the stairs, hoping that the bottom door will be unlocked – they like to lock doors. I hope also that the exit will be to the pavilion outside, and not to the parking garage below.

Luckily, it’s unlocked, and I exit safely in my stinky gym clothes. To add insult to injury, as I take a shower back in the relative safety of my home, the water slows to a trickle, leaving me with only one leg shaved.

Oh, China. What a crazy country we live in.

Nanjing Halloween Part Deux

With the help of some other resident teachers, we hosted the now second annual Nanjing Halloween Party.

To really appreciate these photos, however, you need to understand that Halloween is a uniquely American holiday. Very few costumes can be found; what is available is for children. So everyone at our party had to use their creative juices.

Prize for most creative, hand crafted: Washington, as a tube of Crest Tooth Paste.

From Halloween 2009

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/1teBwdTntES8qvDhKYK8tA?authkey=Gv1sRgCP2hhP6YqrYI&feat=directlink

The prize for the most authentic goes to Julia, as a Chinese Police Officer, using her father’s uniform, and complete with accessories: a badge, walkie-talkie, and a suction dart gun.

From Halloween 2009

The best mustache was a tie between Julia and Matt, our spacecowboy.

From Halloween 2009

Here’s Lucy showing how it’s done American style, with James showing some British Harry Potter pride:

From Halloween 2009

We also had Dracula and a pair of twins:

From Halloween 2009

Sometime during the night our space cowboy became a green-tongued vampire cowboy:

From Halloween 2009

Some very last minute costumes:

From Halloween 2009

It would not be a Chinese Party without games! This is called: shoot and pop the balloon.

From Halloween 2009

Tina takes a turn:

From Halloween 2009

Ellen, our resident belly dance instructor, showed us how witches like to party up:

From Halloween 2009

Jason broke out the cricket gear early for his costume:

From Halloween 2009

Scottish Matt as the Grim Reaper warning Harry of Voldemort’s plans:

From Halloween 2009

Hope you all had a very Happy Halloween!

From Halloween 2009

Triathletes in the Hiz-ouse

Matt: The race started on top of Purple Mountain, often referred to as the lungs of Nanjing. It’s a very pretty mountain with a lake near the top. A cold lake on an October morning, I may add. The race started promptly at 7AM, so with transport, and other logistics we were up at 5 that morning. The funniest part of my part of the race was the swimming. As I tried to get out of the water to tag Laura I simply fell backward; I didn’t have my land legs back. On my second attempt I fell to the left still not able to balance. After falling for the third time I half crawled half floated to a very eager Laura so she could run down the mountain and hop on her bicycle.

Laura: Oh, am I sore this morning. I prefer to think it’s due to the race yesterday morning, rather than the celebration afterwards.

From Nanjingman Triathalon

Six of us entered the annual, unofficial Nanjingman Triathalon this year to make two relay teams:

	Team 310	Team 319
Swimmer	Matt	Craig “Lynchie” Lynch
Cyclist	Laura	Jason Crawford
Runner	John Michael	James “Oggie” Ogram

John Michael’s the only legitimate athlete of any of us – his 9.6 kilometer run (that’s about 6 miles for us Americans) clocked in at about 50 minutes, though Oggie wasn’t too far behind, only five minutes longer. Matt swam 800 meters in 24 minutes ten seconds – that’s about a half mile swim!

From Nanjingman Triathalon

From Nanjingman Triathalon

They didn’t even bother to clock my time on the bike – I missed a turn and found myself lost in Purple Mountain. By the time I made my way back to the last place I saw volunteers directing triathalon traffic, they had already packed up and gone home. I cruised in about an hour after everyone else – but I still got a breakfast and T-shirt.

From Nanjingman Triathalon

There’s always next year – Lucy, my friend and coworker, and I are going to start a women’s team for the May triathlon, if we’re still around. With only two other all women’s teams entering this fall, we’re at least guaranteed third place, no matter how lost we get!

A Desert Dropped in the Grasslands

Baotou

From Inner Mongolia Datong

On the ride from Datong to Baotou, leaving at 1:40 in the morning, we each had a hard sleeper ticket, but each in a different car. Exhausted, I climbed up into my top bunk (which has very little room above and is a little clausterphobic, not to mention high off the ground). I slept on-and-off, partly because I was worried about waking up at the correct stop, and partly because the smoke from the passengers below irritated my throat. Near Hohhot, the lights turned on and I could sleep no more. I climbed down from my bunk and asked the passengers which station it was in Chinese. When they said Hohhot, I climbed back up into the bunk and tried to sleep. Eventually, however, the sun rose and I could stand the close quarters no more, so I sat on the vacated bottom bunk and looked out the window at the huge blue sky and passing mountains.

From Inner Mongolia Datong

As we neared another station, I asked a middle aged man what station it was in Chinese. He asked me where I was going. I said Baotou. He replied that it was not Baotou station. I thanked him, and sat back on the lower bunk. A few minutes later, he came over and struck up a conversation in Chinese. He spoke incredibly clearly, but I have a very limited vocabulary, so it was quite a challenge, and there were plenty of pauses.

“Where are you from?” he asked.
“America,” I said.
“Are you travelling?”
“Yes, I’m travelling with my husband and my friend. We are teachers in Nanjing.”
“English teachers?”
“My friend is an English teacher, and I’m a math teacher.” (This is the summary. It took me a long time to remember how to say math, and even then I check to make sure he understood by saying, “one plus one is two.”)

We went through my repertoire of polite conversation. (Do you have children? Yes. How old? Eleven. How long have you been married? Thirty Seven years! What is your honourable last name? Tai.) Mr. Tai said he was “Baotou ren,” a person from Baotou. (This usually means their hometown, not just where they are currently living.) He also said he had a black friend from California who had lived in Baotou for two years. He asked me if I had friends in Baotou, and where we were going. I didn’t know how to say “Resonant Sand Gorge,” in Chinese, and Matt had the Lonely Planet, so I couldn’t read the pinyin or show him the characters. After a long time of saying, I don’t know how to say it in Chinese, I said “yi ge di fan mei you shui,” a place with no water. This is how I learned the word for desert “san mu.”

He told me that there were three desserts in Baotou. I couldn’t remember the name of the one we were going to see. He named them, and I pounced on “Kubuqi,” dessert. He made fun of me – “You said you didn’t know!” and he made fun of my Chinese as well. He asked if my husband spoke Chinese, and I said I spoke better than he did. He rolled his eyes, and I could here him thinking, “Oh, no!”

Mr. Tai asked me how long we were staying in Baotou. Just the day, I said, our plane leaves at 11 in the morning the next day. That’s not long enough, he said, we would be too busy! Mr. Tai asked me how I was going to get to the desert. I said I didn’t know – bus? No, there were no buses. Taxi? Taxi was too expensive, he said, and there weren’t any taxies leaving the desert. He offered to take me. I couldn’t believe the generous offer!
He repeated it a few times to make sure I understood. “Gende?” I said, “Really?” and “Xie-Xie,” “Thank you.” He shook his head like it was nothing. We’d go to his house to pick up his son first, he said, then he’d take us to the desert, and then to the bus station to go back to Hohhot.

And that’s just what we did! We got to be on a family vacation to the dessert! Mr. Tai picked up his son, an eleven year old named “Tai Zhi,” (sounded a lot like Tiger!) and a thirteen year old girl – maybe a cousin – whose name was “Woman Tiger,” which Lucy says means bossy lady. After waving to his wife in the window and delivering fish to friends and family for the holiday, we set out for the Kubuqi desert.

From Inner Mongolia Datong

The most amazing part of the desert gorge is that it is in the middle of dry grass mountains. When we came up to it, it appeared from behind the mountain, incredible in size. Soft, bone colored sand, just like pictures of the Sahara desert, in dunes and one huge mound, directly across from a Grand Canyon-like cliff, which was directly under ordinary grassy land. It expanded for as far as the eye could see.

Mr. Tai was generous not only with his friendship and time, but with his money. He paid for our tickets, bought Matt and I both cowboy hats, and Matt had to give the boy three hundred kuai to pay for the next tickets. We rode camels along the dunes in a line, to a collection of sand-sculpture Buddhas.

From Inner Mongolia Datong

Then, we took a huge green sand rover vehicle, racing through the desert, up and down the dunes. After a lunch in the shade, we slid down the steep sand slide, as if sledding in the snow. It was a little like being in Disneyland, but with a beautiful, far-reaching desert as the background.

From Inner Mongolia Datong