Ni hao! Warm wishes to all family and friends reading my blog! I realize that Thanksgiving was yesterday (both here in the future and there in the past), but I got caught up grading my student's final examinations (part one!) and didn't update... Shame on me. But, lucky you, I've got pictures this time. Wahoo!

Ni hao!

Time for an update from the sporadically-posting Erica. Yesterday (Friday) my students invited me for a picnic/barbecue. They informed me that they were going to be cooking traditional Chinese meals. Now, I've never been one to pass up free food (who in their right mind does?), so I decided to go along with them. I want to know how to cook Chinese food so I can wow the lot of you when I get home from China. My freshmen were the ones who invited me. In China, students with the same majors spend an awful lot of time with one another. They have all the same classes. To promote their sense of unity, they also have scheduled activities. This was one of those activities. Most college students in my classes have no idea how to cook, for their parents did it for them at home, and there are plenty of fast-food joints around for them to eat at (far less expensive than in the U.S.). Coin, Jeff's co-teacher and the advisor to the freshmen, organized a jaunt out to a small farm near the main campus of Xiangtan University.

I accepted their invitation, and hopped on the bus when it arrived Friday morning. Jeff had classes, so he had resigned himself to the fact that he wouldn't be able to go. The students were divided up into four different groups. Each student was responsible for making at least one dish. I went around as they were preparing their meals, offering help and saying a few things in English to amuse them. It was all very traditional--which means they were cooking much like people cook when camping. They lit fires using bamboo as fuel, and cooked everything in large cast-iron woks. Woks are pretty much awesome. Vegetables were peeled by hand. They did have knives and cutting boards, but it still wasn't entirely sanitary. The water they cooked with came by sluice.

Though most had no cooking experience, their dishes were absolutely amazing! I watched, in awe, as they cut up vegetables. I'm too much of a scaredy-cat to cut the way they do. They seemed to instinctively know how much seasoning and salt to put in their food (though some were a bit on the salty side), and did a fantastic job with their rice, too. One group was a bit zealous in their love of fire, though. This is a picture of them holding their burned rice.

It took them two hours to prepare all their dishes. During that time, whenever they would finish something, they would give me some with chopsticks to try. It was good. But I don't recommend eating some things when they're fresh from the wok--very hot. By the time they were finishing most of their meals, Jeff was done teaching, so he came by taxi. My students then worked very hard to wow us with their dishes. And they did a good job. We went from group to group tasting their dishes. I was absolutely stuffed by the end, though they kept trying to feed me more. When you are in China, you will never go hungry if the Chinese have anything to say about it.

I loved seeing my students outside of the classroom. I only get to teach my freshmen on Mondays, so I don't see them as often as I do my sophomores. They're a fun bunch of students. They love to laugh and are very friendly toward one another (whereas my sophomores sometimes are having fights within the group). I rather inconspicuously took a video of them as they went about their preparations. Sadly, I wasn't able to record their reactions to discovering their burned rice...but still, it'll give you a glimpse into my life here in China.

Ni hao! This is Erica, finally updating my blog. I know, I know...I seem to have a terribly interesting life to the people what read this particular space on the web. After all, I'm in China! There aren't many people who can say that. Actually, there are about 1.3 billion who can...but I'm the only Erica from Magna what's in China at the moment. At least, I'm fairly sure I am...-glances around suspiciously- Anyway, for those of you in the United States, I bet you think my life here in China is full of exciting Kung Fu action and tons of rice. It's not. Generally. Sometimes it's quite exciting and full of rice, but the past few weeks it's been a bit dull save for some frustrations planning an excursion to Beijing and showing a movie for Halloween. But as both events are past, I don't see the point in dwelling on them. Things in China are different than things in the US. That about sums up the frustration.

Before I start on a rant about frustrations, I'd better move on to my trip. On Halloween, David, Mark, Rebecca, Jeff, and I boarded a train headed to Beijingxizhou (the west Beijing train station). We bought our tickets a bit too late...so we ended up in what are called hard seats for the 16 hour trip by train. It's not as bad as it sounds--the hard seats have cushions. Just not as much padding as the soft seats. And there's more people in a hard seat cabin than there are in the soft seat ones. Or the sleeper cabins. That's what we really wanted to get. We left Xiangtan at 6:50 after hopping on the train all crazy-like. The train waited here in Xiangtan for a total of about two minutes--so people in China get on and get off trains ASAP. Kinda daunting when you've never traveled by train, but now I can't make that claim anymore. Anyway, it was a very looong 16 hours. The five of us were split up. I was next to Jeff, so we listened to music, but it wasn't entirely comfortable. And while there is no smoking or spitting in the cabin, there are smoking areas right next to the cabins. Bleh. I think I might be addicted to nicotine by the time I get back. The bathrooms were...well, lovely. Squatter toilets. Smelly. But they got the job done. Sleeping was difficult 'cause I was nervous and excited about the Beijing trip.

Anyway, we arrived in Beijing at about 11:30 the next morning, on November 1. And we promptly were lost. The directions the hostel gave on what bus to take to get to the hostel were less than helpful...the bus they listed doesn't exist anymore. So we were confused, wondering if we should get a taxi or something. A Chinese woman saw the confused looks on our faces and called the hostel for us, but she started arranging for them to pick us up and...well, fortunately, there was a man who spoke English who showed up. He was born in Taiwan and raised in Canada. And he was a real Christian. He found out what bus we needed to take and escorted us there, going so far as to tell the bus attendant to tell us when to get off in order to get to the right stop. I didn't catch his name, but I'm extremely grateful he was such a good Samaritan. I love how kind people seem to be around here. We took the bus and got to the hostel without any problems. Then we checked in and got to relax for a moment before heading off.

Using the Lonely Planet as a guide, we walked to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City. They're both very interesting. I wished I could remember more of my Chinese history when we entered the Forbidden City. Anyway, we milled around both places for a while, not paying for an entrance ticket to go in and see the Imperial Palace (which, in retrospect, would've been cool), but definitely enjoying the sights. The pictures above this paragraph are of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. After exploring, we opted to go back to the hotel--we walked back, stopping at a few malls on the way. At the mall at Oriental Plaza, we had some Italian ice cream. It was yummy! I got raspberry, and it tasted like freshly-picked raspberries. Though, we didn't stay there for long. We were all tired from the train ride. And smelly. The showers at the hostel were pretty nice. It was windy our first night in Beijing, hence my crazy hair in front of the imperial palace at the Forbidden Kingdom.

We awoke early the next morning (my alarm went off at 6!) to head off to the Great Wall. We arranged a really neat tour through the hostel. It was 390 RMB per person...which is roughly $57 per person. We had transportation to the wall from the hostel...which made it worth every penny. We also had a personal tour guide who spoke English named Lisa. She was quite knowledgable, and since we left early in the morning, the crowds were pretty thin. We paid for a cable car up to the wall, which was good--the part we chose to visit had a lot of stairs. A lot. Some of them were about the height of one of my toes...but others were the height of my knee. Climbing it was fun! The section of the wall we visited was built in the 1500s, I believe. The first sections of the Great Wall were constructed in 261 B.C. or something like that. The Great Wall is not continuous--and it didn't always work. The Chinese were conquered by the Mongols and Manchus, different ethnic groups, at various times in their history. Still, it's quite impressive! Lisa took us to part of the wall that wasn't preserved by the government. It's slowly decaying...but here's a picture of it. Jeff has better ones. I was feeling too acrophobic to stand up on top of the ruined tower pictured here. I'm generally not afraid of heights...but my knees were like jello after climbing all of those stairs. If the military were to use those babies to train, we would really have something to be worried about, believe you me. Fortunately, it's all just for tourists anymore. Though, I suppose the wall would still be effective in keeping people out as long as they don't have planes...

Anyway, the view from the top was amazing! I think my favorite picture is the one I took from one of the towers at the edge of the restored wall. You can literally see the wall stretching on for miles and miles... A lot of work went into them. And you can tell. I would have had a hard time being a soldier, though. They had to live on the wall and everything, and had to always be ready to light the fire to warn the rest of China. One side of the wall goes up higher than it does to the other--the higher side was where the Mongols approached China. Going down the Great Wall was awesome! Our cable car ticket also gave us a ticket for a toboggan! It was so fun! Jeff says I went too slow, though...he almost ran into me. But it was still awesome. After reaching the bottom, we had a traditional Chinese meal. The food in Beijing is a lot less spicy than in Xiangtan. Which was very happy. I like milder foods, generally. Below the Great Wall, there are tons of vendors selling stuff to tourists. They're rather pushy. Which is okay--they can make pretty decent wages from tourism to help feed their families.

After another 2 hour car ride, we found ourselves in Beijing once more. We started walking to find the Temple of Heaven. It wasn't too hard to find--though, I think I've reached my quota of walking for the month already. The emperor used to come to the Temple of Heaven and pray for good harvests. It's quite beautiful. The archetecture is stunning. The museum about it isn't entirely helpful, though. Some of the signs are in English and Chinese, but mostly it talks about the history only in Chinese. Ah well. The pictures were worth it. After the Temple of Heaven, we went to the pearl market, which is just across the street. This is haggling-central, man! Practically anything you want is in the building. You haggle with the attendants to get a good price, and bang...you've got yourself a pretty hair clip. Or bam! You've got yourself a cashmere sweater. I would tell you what Jeff and I bought, but that's top secret, 'cause some of you readers are going to get what was purchased. Actually, most of you will...unless I have readers I don't actually know. Which might be a possibility. I am quite charismatic...in prose.

We went and had Papa John's for dinner! Yay for pizza! It was very yummy--Papa John's was a deluxe restaurant like Pizza Hut. Expensive, too...but yummy. Jeff and I stopped by Dairy Queen for a Blizzard (they actually tip it upside-down before they give it to you). It was pretty good--not as good as American DQ, though. And then we watched a movie 'til I fell asleep. Our final morning there, Monday, we went back to the pearl market and then went to have duck. It was pretty good. I think I still prefer chicken, though. Sadly, we had to find the bus and get back to the station before we could do anything else, like visit with the branch president and his wife. Then it was another 16 hour train ride back to Xiangtan. We swapped seats so we could face each other and played card games and talked. Since I was so exhausted from the walking, I actually got quite a bit of sleep on the train.

Hope you enjoyed hearing of my travels! I probably won't visit anywhere else until after I've finished teaching, though. Apparently we're not supposed to move our classes around all willy-nilly... Oh well.