Home for Two Weeks (8-2)

I’ve had two weeks at home here in Wenjiang. It’s very quiet. Since it’s the summer break, offices are closed, students are gone, and shops and restaurants on campus are closed. It took a while to get used to the quiet. I miss having Katy and Megan around, but I’ve gotten used to the quiet and to being on my own again.

The only other people here are a few hundred teachers (I was told that number.) who are here for various trainings. I haven’t seen that many of them. Some are staying in the building I live in, and I encounter them occasionally. Some commute from Chengdu every day. They’re in class all morning and all afternoon every day.

I had agreed to do two lectures for what turned out to be elementary school teachers. (I thought they were going to be middle school teachers.) As the time approached, I started to regret that I’d said I’d do this, but it turned out well. I was able to use the lectures I prepared for Luzhou and used a presentation I had prepared for the teachers’ classes last semester. I prepared one new lecture by combining material from other Peace Corps Volunteers; so it wasn’t too much work, and I prepared it thinking I can use it for a students’ lecture next term, as it’s on cultural differences between the East and the West.

The lectures were last Saturday and Sunday. I had them on my calendar for Sunday and Monday (This was confirmed when I checked the original e-mail.); so I was surprised when Kiki called me Friday morning to make an appointment to meet in the afternoon to discuss my lectures. I had e-mailed her on Wednesday but had no response, and she did not acknowledge that she was responding to my request for information. It was good that I had them prepared already.

The lectures went well. The teachers seemed to be paying good attention and to be engaged in what I was presenting. Half are from Chengdu and half are from rural schools. They were specially selected for this training. They have three weeks of intense classes now. Then they’ll do an internship at a school that is not their school. (Student interns from the university will teach their classes during this time.) They’ll have weekend classes a few times during their internship. They’ll have to do a research project, too. All are fairly young—a few early 40’s but mostly younger.

When I returned, the construction related to the electric line was still going on. Fortunately, it wasn’t as loud as before. The drilling was finished, and they were doing the finishing touches. They installed circuit breakers in both rooms. The heat/air units are connected to them, as is the outlet for the hot plate. The electricity has not bleeped off since they activated the new system. It used to bleep off at least once every evening and sometimes during the night. After they finished, a man came in to paint over the dirt on the walls where cement dust had made spots. It could have been wiped off with a damp cloth, which I had done to spots I could reach. The man didn’t clean the wall; he just painted over the dust. He didn’t clean the dust that was piled on the pipes, either. I did that later. Standards are different. It took a week to finish the projects. Now almost everything is finished, and the hall is clean again. No more tracking in dust. There are still some missing ceiling tiles in the hall, but that’s quiet work.

Other improvements, not related to electricity, are a covered toilet tissue holder (so it now hangs on the wall and I don’t have to remove it when I shower because it won’t get wet), hooks in the bathroom, and a shelf under the shower to hold shampoo and soap. These were also put in the other bathroom, which is my laundry room. There are also new floor-length drapes in the kitchen and room where the sink is. There were—and still are—curtains above the counters in both rooms. The only reason I could think of for the new drapes is that they are more opaque and the curtains do not cover the side windows. The way they hang is a bit of a nuisance, but I’ve tied them so they don’t take so much space and hang in my way.

On the down side, I came home to find mold, which thrived in the humidity and closed apartment. There was mold on the inside walls of the wardrobe and the bottoms of the shelves. I’ll leave the doors open when I leave again. There was mold on my bamboo pillow. There was mold on my opened, but wrapped, chocolate bar. I’ve put unopened bars in zip lock bags, which seem to resist the mold. And the opened bar is in the fridge. There was mold on some snack crackers that were in a light plastic bag. I have a new glass container for such items. In addition, I bought a large, plastic storage box to keep some things, like the bamboo pillow, in. I can’t leave the aircon on while I’m gone; so that’s not a solution. But I can make sure everything is dried out and the apartment is very cool before I leave. With everything closed, it will stay cool for a few days.

The first week back I didn’t do much. I didn’t even leave my apartment for two days. It was so hot—97^o according to Yahoo with matching humidity—that it was hard to think about leaving the air conditioned apartment. Katy had left me some pasta, pasta sauce, and a can of garbanzo beans. So I didn’t need to go out to buy food immediately. Later in the week I ventured out to the market and to Carrefour.

Then it rained Saturday night, and the temperatures dropped at least ten degrees, which was much more bearable. After a few days, the temperatures rose again.

Monday I went to the Jinsha Site Museum, which I’d been wanting to visit, in Chengdu. It’s exactly what the name indicates: a museum built on the site of an archaeological site of the ancient Shu people who lived there from 1200 BC to 650 BC. The site was just discovered in 2001. The museum is really nice. The first building is over the archaeological dig of what is believed to have been a ritual site. It has about 17 different levels. 

It features elephant tusks, of which there were many layers, 

and long boar teeth.

The other building houses relics from the site and from a few other sites in the province. Shortly after I entered the building, a girl came up to me and tried to say something. I thought she was from the Information desk that I had just passed, but it turned out that she wanted me to walk with her. I never did figure out what her motivation was. She hardly spoke English; so she didn’t want to practice English as most people who latch on want to do, and since she didn’t speak English, she couldn’t help me. Maybe she thought I would speak Chinese. Maybe she just wanted to hang out with a foreigner. So we walked through a few of the galleries together quietly. It was awkward at first, but she was nice and we got along well enough. Then I went to the 4-D movie. I’d never heard of 4-D and was curious to see what it was, and it didn’t cost much. It was a 3-D movie with extras: water dripped when it rained, the seat thumped several times, and I was “stabbed” in the back during a fight.

More gold artifacts were found at this site than at other sites in the province. Two special ones are a gold mask 

and the sun and immortal bird ornament, which is the museum’s symbol. 

I also enjoyed the jade tools and weapons: axes, knives, spear heads. Not plain stone—jade. They are lovely, as well as practical.

In addition to the site and relics, the museum has a large, lovely garden area. There are many flowers and bamboo trees. When walking under the trees, the temperature was noticeably cooler. There are many benches for people to relax on. As the afternoon progressed, more people were walking in the gardens. I would have relaxed there, too, but I needed to head back to the metro and the bus home.

My personal adventure of the week was booking a train ticket to Chongqing on Tuesday. To get to the booking office, I texted Sunny and asked her to write a message in Chinese asking a taxi driver to please take me to the train ticket booking office. That worked great; the taxi driver knew right where to take me. When I got to the window, I told the woman where I wanted to go and showed her the written destination. I’d also written the train number and time I had gotten on the Internet. She talked back more than I could understand. I called Yang and Diao Min, neither of whom answered. So I left with no ticket. After a minute, Diao Min called me. I explained the problem and she agreed to talk to the woman. So I went back to the office and directly to the window (since I’d already waited in line) and handed the phone to the woman. The problem was that the time and number of the train are different from the information I got on the Internet. The other people had seen me there and some seemed to enjoy the phone being passed around while we took care of my ticket. All worked out well and I left with a ticket.

The ticket office is near the foot massage place we had gone to. So I walked there for a foot massage. I’d noticed on Monday that the bus goes past that area and planned to return for a foot massage; so this worked out well. The woman, of course, recognized me and asked about my being only one person, since four of us had gone before. As it was before, the foot massage was really good. I’ll return.

Wednesday the electricity on the campus was turned off for some kind of maintenance. Yang had notified me about this. Sunny had said that they would take the teachers somewhere that day, since they couldn’t have classes. I joined them for a trip to the Sichuan Museum, which I hadn’t yet been to and which was on my list of places to visit. So this was a good opportunity, especially since there was a private bus to take us.

Catherine sat with me on the bus. She is a new teacher and will teach first grade in her home town. She studied turf grass at university and worked at golf courses for a couple years, but now she wants to be a teacher. While she was a student, she studied at Michigan State University and did an internship at a golf course in southern Florida. So her English is very good.

Ryan met us at the museum when we arrived. After a group photo on the steps, we went in. The museum is free. We rented audio units that have several languages available. Catherine and I walked around the ceramics gallery, and then Ryan joined us. I realized that he was assigned to take care of me. We joined a tour guide, and after a while I wandered off on my own, since I couldn’t understand the guide and was ready to move on. After a while, Sunny showed up. I realized that she was my original companion but had arrived late. Then Ryan joined us, too. I was to be taken care of all the time. I like them both; so it was OK. 

The museum has a good collection of ceramics, bronzes, and jade and stone carvings. I have always liked ancient Chinese ceramic and stone people. don’t think anyone did them better; they are amazing. The museum also has cultural displays about the minority groups in Sichuan. (Photo: bronze bells)

(Gold bowl)

(Stone figure)

(Ivory figures)

After touring the museum, we went to lunch nearby. Kiki met us for lunch, and the four of us me ate together. We had a number of small dishes. We talked a little about the numerous exams students must take and the focus on exams and their importance. It is the exams that determine a student’s future: a good middle school, a good high school, a good university—or any university. When we discussed how difficult they are and how they are above the level of most students, it was suggested that perhaps that is intentional as a way to sort out the good students. Exam scores also determine what students can major in.

After lunch, Kiki and Sunny left, and most of the teachers went shopping. Ryan was my companion for the afternoon. He took me to the arts area I had been to with Katy and Megan, and we walked around looking at the booths. Then we went to Huan Huaxii Park, which is next to the museum and is also free. It is the largest—or one of the largest—park in Chengdu. We walked around for over two hours. There is a lake where there were a number of egrets. The park features poets, with statues of poets and a poet street.

In one of the squares we saw men flying kites—the bird-shaped ones I had seen in Lanzhou. But this time I saw the men flying them. They were about 100 yards away from the kites. 

To launch the kite, one man stands and holds it while the other walks about 100 yards away unwinding the cord as he goes. Then the man pushes the kite up and the other flies it. It was fun and fascinating to watch them. It’s really quite a skill to keep the kite floating on the air currents. We also saw about ten men sitting around with their kites. These kites weren’t as complex as the one I saw in Luzhou; they didn’t have fluttering wing tips. But they were still amazing to watch.

The campus swimming pool is open in the afternoon and evening. I’ve gone a few times to swim for exercise. The shallower end is quite crowded when it’s hot out, but the deeper end has only a few people—males, so it’s possible to swim across the pool without interference. Although it’s sometimes an effort to leave the air conditioned apartment to walk to the pool, I do feel good afterwards. After living in Thailand where bodies are always covered when changing clothes, it has taken a while to get used to women here undressing and standing half naked.

I went to the back gate street market one night. While I was walking around, it popped into my head that I belong here. It was a clear message that I am comfortable here. I purchased what I thought were funny-shaped, green apples. When I tried one, I realized that it is not an apple; it’s like a cross between an apple and a pear. I had no idea what it was, but later the word “quince” came to mind. When I looked it up, I realized that I have eaten my first quince. The information says that they are not ripe when green, but the taste was slightly tart and refreshing.

A new addition in my building—temporary, I think—is a small shop selling snacks and personal care items. It’s in the maintenance man’s room. I think he must be off for the break, as I haven’t seen him around and they are using his room. The shop is handy for the visiting teachers, since the campus shops are closed.