Motorcycle Monk

Today we went to the most famous Buddhist temple called Jade Buddha Temple. It isn’t a very old temple, but it houses a national treasure, a gigantor jade carved Buddha. It was very busy in the temple because tomorrow is a festival to remember your ancestors so many people were in the temple praying and burning incense for them.

This group of monks were in the middle of a funeral ceremony, we only walked by, didn’t watch because it is “bad luck” and it was probably bad luck for me to take the photo too, but it was a risk I was willing to take.

Monks have to get around town too. Va-room!

Next we went to the Children’s Palace, a place for students to take creative classes, kind of like the JWR Center. There are 50 of these Children’s Palaces for children who can’t afford to have private lessons. The arts school is donation based and many of the teachers work as volunteers allowing it to cost very little (equivalent to $20-30 US).
The kids took classes like dance and art:

English:

Calligraphy (artistic form of writing Chinese characters):

Traditional Chinese musical instruments (also standard instruments like piano, drums, and violin):

Next we were off to the silk carpet company. They gave us a nice demonstration and told us about the varying qualities of carpet. Most women don’t weave the carpets in a factory, but in their own homes because then they can work anytime they want to and then get paid for their finished product; it is more cost effective this way instead of having a factory. I’m holding up a $4000 mini-rug, yeah, you read that right $4000 US. It is museum tapestry quality and it took five years to produce that small rug! That rug was definitely not “made for walkin’” (on). Ha ha.

We went to a silk factory too. It was cool; they showed us the process from cocoon to silk quilt.

Lots of cocoons

Pulling the silk threads (one cocoon unwinds into 100 meters of super fine silk thread which can be used in all kinds of very nice silk products.

Double cocoons can only be used for the filling in things like quilts and jackets, etc. They soak it, take out the pupa and stretch the cocoon several times as you can see the process below…they let us have a shot at stretching the silk to quilt size and we certainly weren’t naturals. FYI, that stuff is tough!

We finished our afternoon with a visit to the Shanghai Art Museum. It was pretty cool. Most exhibits didn’t allow photography, but furniture was fair game. I include these pieces because as we were walking through, my grandma said she had chairs like this one growing up in China and she had a bed like this one but “not that nice decoration.” All the brothers and sister shared a bed like that and there was no mattress, in the summertime they slept on straw and in the winter time they put down a little quilt for more warmth. My grandma has lived a very interesting life. I’ll have to share more at a later date.

Communication Breakdown

I almost forgot the funniest experience of yesterday. We stopped at the South China Sea Pearl Museum on the way home. Like the jade carving factory, they walk you through the history and process of getting from raw material to finished product, and then they show you a few pieces of their fine merchandise. This was not just a pull a few string-o-pearls out from under the glass, oh no, only in China would you have a complete runway show of Chinese girls dressed up and sporting the company’s finest pearls. I wish I had video taped or even taken a photo, but I didn’t want to be rude. I was fighting laughter pretty much the whole runway show.

After dinner we went to get a massage and it may or may not have been the best foot massage ever!!! The three exclamation marks indicate that yes, this was the best foot massage ever! I have happy feet now.

After the massage we went to a local little restaurant to have a night time snack. It is common for Chinese to eat a light dinner and then have a snack at night. Sorry guys, this wasn’t a place where they had cages in the window (although it did offer interesting menu choices); we drove by a place earlier in the day but I couldn’t get my camera out in time. This restaurant had street side dining and it is customary to throw bones of the food on the ground. There is a saying about the food that the Chinese people eat. Chinese people eat anything with legs except people and anything with wings except airplanes. I will leave it to you to guess what was ordered by the pictures. Feel free to post guesses.

This morning we went to the Reed Flute Cave, the most famous cave in the mountains surrounding Guilin. Apparently, most of the mountains have really cool caves. Most of the people in the city fled to the mountains to hide in the caves during the Japanese occupation of China during WWII. This cave is full of stalagmites and stalagtites which have been beautifully illuminated with various colored lights. B, I’m dedicating these photos to you; science rocks! Woot woot!

We took a two hour flight to Shanghai. It is a “baby city, only become trade harbor city in 16th century,” according to our local tour guide, Mr. Wong. Before that it was a small fishing village founded in 1291. The oldest buildings in the city are in the Bund and only date back to 100ish years and they happen to be of a British and French influence from the colonial concessions established for trade after the Opium Wars (1840s and 1860s). Across the river is the famous landmark of the futuristic TV tower that marks the Shanghai skyline. The buildings on this side of the river are only 10 years old.

We ate dinner at a Japanese restaurant; aka the location of our communication breakdown. Ordering food is usually done by us pointing to pictures in the menu. We ordered an Udon noodle hot pot. We thought they would bring out all the food at once to be cooked at the table. What we didn’t realize is that we ordered it in courses. This sashimi cut fish was served to us and we thought it was supposed to go in the hot pot so we waited and waited, all the other food came for the rest of our party. Half our party left the restaurant after they finished eating before we realized that they were waiting for us to finish our sashimi fish so they could bring out the next course of our dinner. Two and a half hours later, we left the restaurant. It was kind of funny.

Rice Farming

Ok, last night’s tour was very nice. We started by viewing the Sun Pagoda and Moon Pagoda at night…or as our tour guide, Helen, says “pagoder” (hee hee). Afterwards we saw the largest manmade waterfall in the world, it is over the side of the a hotel and they play music while the water is running for 13 minutes, nightly…it was slightly reminiscent of the Bellagio.

We also took a boat ride to watch the night fishing with Cormorant, a trained fishing bird. The fisherman gives out different calls that all sound the same to me but apparently the slight tonal variations mean go fish and come back to the (bamboo) raft. They are more successful fishing at night than in the daytime. Here are photos of both times of day:

Today we took a cruise of the Li River, famous for its beautiful mountain scenery. We got some great photos of the view. Helen is explaining to my dad about the natural scenery along the river.

Helen told us about a famous three snake wine that is very popular in this Guilin area. They have a saying in Guilin about the wine. People from Spain like to drink the snake wine. People from France like to taste the snake wine. People from England like to smell the snake wine. And people from America like to take picture of snake wine. I took a photo. ;) Eek! That below picture is me holding the jar of wine, complete with three snakes. Oh, and check out that back-of-the-boat kitchen, nice! You don't need to worry about smelling like deep fried food in that kitchen; there is plent of ventilation. :)

We got off the cruise at Yangshuo and walked through the market area to our very nice stretch golf cart (and you thought the only stretch vehicle was a limo), which we rode through the countryside. On this golf cart journey, we viewed what farming the rice paddy looked like for a natural village.

Before we got to the village, we stopped at the primary (elementary) school in the county. Students, I know you grumble about having to be at school, but you are so lucky. It broke my heart to see the school in the country. I’m not going to lie, I had to fight back the tears a few times being in this place and realizing how blessed I am and how easy it is to take it all for granted, how easy it is to complain about not getting the technology equipment I want in my classroom. These kids walk several miles to get to the school and start at 7:00 in the morning. Just look at their classroom. It is completely different from what you have…notice there aren’t any computers, no digital projectors, no electricity. Take one look at this and you will know how fortunate and blessed you are to have such great resources.

These kids were so precious, they don’t often get candy; as soon as they realized my dad, St. Nick, was giving out candy, he was swarmed. They also got a big kick out of Eli’s painted arm; they wanted to pinch it to see if it was real.

We stopped in a natural village called Luoxiang; it was 1,000 years old and home to 130 families totaling 700ish people. In its 1,000 years of existence, not much has changed, they still use a water-buffalo to plow the fields and still farm with the same methods used by their ancestors. Eighty-nine year old Mr. Zhang gave us a tour of his village. He was a very nice, old man who told us about his village. He walked us around the village center and told us about how they live their lives. First of all, you should know that the people are spread out in houses among the farmland, but some of them live in the center of the village. Each family has a well and water pump outside their house, but no plumbing (this is new village improvements within the last 10 years).

At the end of our tour, Mr. Zhang invited us into his home to have pamelo (a type of grapefruit).

On a more serious note, students, my biggest hope for you is to realize that you are truly fortunate people. You have so much to be thankful for because I don’t think anyone has experienced need like those in this village. They are happy people, even without the finer things in life and I think it should be a reminder to us all that life is good; be happy for what you have. I have certainly been changed by what I experienced.