Week 5

Traveling with Friends

The last seven students returned from their National Holiday trips Monday, energized by their time with Chinese hosts in various locales across Sichuan Province.

Sasha and Ruth traveled with their friend Tang Ting to Four Girls' Mountain, and stopped in the mountains with other members of their tour for some romping in the snow. Some of their Chinese friends had never before experienced snow.

Matt, Ryan, Landon, Ben, and Kent spent last weekend in Khanding with their friend Crystal, who is in Rachel and Nick's English class. Crystal snapped a shot of the five at the top of a peak outside of Khanding. Also...Kent and Ryan take a sunlit joy leap outside a Buddhist monastery near Khanding.

Earlier in the National Holiday week, Kent was "married" in (what we hope was) a mock Tibetan ceremony. After the wedding, an ecstatic Kent posed with his new "bride" (on his right) and her delighted family. Sophie, Martha, and Ben also participated in the event along with their friend Yang Zheng, who hosted them in Yaan. Later, over a steaming hot pot meal at a Yaan restaurant, Kent's eating practices delighted his hosts, including Yang Ping, father of Yang Zheng. That group of friends also visited the open-air zoo at the Bi Feng Xia Gorge. On of tne of the monkeys took a liking to Ben's face. But then, who wouldn't?

Against a majestic natural backdrop on his holiday travels, Ben paused for a photo with some local Tibetans who made him feel right at home.

At Sichuan Normal University

Daron paused with his Mama and his brother Peter, members of his "cooking family," during an evening at English Corner. Daron spends many hours each week with his family.

English Corner conversations continue to be wide-ranging, on topics from our appreciation of Chinese culture to religion and philosophy. Here Landon speaks with those who came to practice their oral English with a native speaker last Tuesday.

At the invitation of our Chinese friend who chose the English name "Transcendence", more than half of the group and the Graber Millers attended a Thursday evening celebration sponsored by the Foreign Language Department. Transcendence co-emceeded the song-and-dance event designed to welcome back the new first-year students, who spent the past month doing military training. At the urging of Chinese friends, Steve and Landon spontaneously performed an early 1990s rap for the crowd of about 1,000 students and faculty. Jessica and Liz also danced along with another group, and by the end of the evening most of the SSTers present had spent time on stage.

Trip to the country

On Saturday Ruth, Landon, Ryan, Matt, Sasha, and Kent (and Keith, Niles, and Niles' friend Wang Shu) were able to travel to the countryside near Chengdu with three different sets of students. Here Matt surveys the farmland outside the home of host Liao Jian near Anren in Dayi County, about an hour and a half west of Chengdu. In the background are Liao Jian (on the right) and her friend Le Ping. Each weekend a handful of students will have an opportunity for a visit to the countryside ancestral homes of some Sichuan Normal students.

Matt and Le Ping listen as Liao Jian's grandmother, Liao Chen Shi, tells stories of when her husband worked for a man who became known as "The Bad Landlord" after Mao's revolution in 1949. The Bad Landlord Museum, now renamed the Chinese Folk Museum, is still open in Anren.
Following the meal, Matt presented Liao Chen Shi with a doily made by Mennonite women back in the U.S., while Ryan looks on. In her 80 years of life, Liao Chen Shi had never before met a foreigner. Looking over her shoulder is Liao Jian, her nephew, and friend Le Ping.

 

 

Students are happy to be back in the groove here at Sichuan Normal University. We returned to our daily Mandarin classes and afternoon lectures and to our evening teaching schedules. Tutoring also is in full swing, with individual students or small groups taking private lessons in Taijiquan, Chinese poetry, Chinese music theory, cooking, art, and voice. Most students find their schedules quite full with meals, conversations, basketball, teaching, reading, and building relationships.