Winter Swimming

This Saturday morning I got up bright and early and rode my bike to campus to meet my "winter swimming team" to travel to Chongzhou to "test the water" for a swimming meet we would have there later this winter. That was really all I was told so, as usual, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I rode down with Wu Laoshi, who is from Taiwan and an Ancient Chinese History teacher at Chuan Da, a younger girl called Xiao Li who was the photographer for the trip, Chen Laoshi and the owner of the car who's name I can't remember. In the picture to the left the guy who's car we rode in is on the far left, then me, then Chen Laoshi, then Wu Laoshi, then another guy who is very nice, but who's name I can't remember. Xiao Li, the girl, was supposed to serve as my "interpreter", but we spoke Chinese the whole time so I don't know if she helped at all in that regard. A few times I asked her or Wu Laoshi, who I could understand better because he was from Taiwan, to help me understand something because I can't understand Sichuan Hua (the dialect they speak here) that well. Chen Laoshi is my favorite, I call him my swimming grandpa. He reminds me a little bit of my grandpa Heilman and is always worrying about me. He also calls me Xiao Wei, which I love. In China it is common for the older generation to call anyone under the age of 30 xiao (meaning little) their surname. It would be like calling me "little Widder". Because I was a little sick this week, I still had a lingering cough and he was constantly telling me to rest ("Xiu xi ba") or telling me not to swim too much in the cold water.
So anyways, it only took one hour to arrive in Chongzhou. We passed the time asking me about what I study and how much it costs, how my study is going in Chengdu, and if I am used to Chinese life, all very popular topics of conversation. First we stopped at our hotel, which was called Flying Dragon Hotel (fei long da jiu ba). The hotel was located across the street from the Wen Jin River and was very nice. Along side the river there were tons of wicker chairs set up where you could sit and drink tea. Then we drove along the river down to the dam. On the other side of the dam was a huge reservoir with blue and yellow concrete bleachers on either side. They told me that this is where they held the World Championship F1 motorboat race this past October. Apparently this is the home of F1 motorboat racing in China. They had pictures, like the one on the left, on all the walls around the city. Swimming Grandpa also gave me two magazines about it. I also learned that this is where we would be swimming, across the river from one side of the bleachers to the other, which is 260 meters.
After checking out the swimming locale, we went sight seeing to a lake called White Tea Lake, which was very beautiful in the lingering morning fog. Then we returned to the hotel for lunch. More and more people kept arriving. They were all coming for the winter swimming meeting that would take place tomorrow. Finally, after about two hours or sitting around talking and wasting time, Wu Laoshi, Xiao Li, and two of my other swimming friends left to go to another sight-seeing spot, a museum "cluster" not too far away. When we first arrived we asked a rickshaw bicycle driver where we should go and he said the best way, because it is so big, was to go on his bicycle and he would take us to the best places. This is what my friends wanted to do and by that time 3 or 4 other rickshaws had shown up, so we all got in and off we went. Xiao Li and I rode together, but everyone else had their own. We went all around the estate of LiuXin, who was a famous writer (I think) back before theCultural Revolution (1920's and 30's). While we were off walking around down one of the side streets, we ran into someone who worked at the museum and he took us on a personal tour of LiuXin's house, I was never really clear on why. The house was beautiful though. It had beautiful courtyard and gardens and all this wonderful antique furniture. Then our museum guy took us to the new part of the museum "cluster" where there are a bunch or actual museums. We didn't have much time and didn't want to spend too much money, so we just decided to buy a ticket to go into one. They had all these wonderful sculptures around the beautifully manicured grounds. One of the coolest sculptures was 150 six foot tall bronze sculptures they built of the 150 most important Chinese and Japanese army officials that had died during the Japanese War. They also had a really neat sculpture of Mao and Deng on the Great Wall. The museum we went in was the Guomingdong Museum and was all about the war with Japan and was really cool. It was all done in black and white with old photo graphs that turned into 3-D sculptures and maps. It also had a ton of old artifacts like metals and old plates and tea sets with war slogans on them. I thought we were also going to go swimming that afternoon, but they told me we didn't have time and we just back to the hotel and ate dinner. After dinner was the quintessential Chinese post-banquet "jiu wenhua" or toasting ceremony. Everyone gets a little tiny shot glass and every table gets a bottle or two of bai jiu and everyone goes around toasting each other. There is alot of face in this ceremony and it is very important to make sure you toast all the right people. Since my swimming grandpa knew I was sick, I thankfully did not have to partake. Xiao Li and I watched for a little while then we went back to our room and I read for a little while before falling asleep. The next day we had meetings all morning about the meet that would take place here on January 1st. I didn't understand alot of what was said, but it didn't seem to matter. I did learn that my swimming grandpa is the main guy for winter swimming in Sichuan because at the meeting he sat in the center of the podium. I also had to sit in the center of the front row so I could be introduced because I was a guest of honor. After the meetings and lunch we finally were going to go swimming. We went back down to the river and stood around for a while. During that time about a hundred different people, most of whom I had never met and some of whom I had never seen before, took turns taking pictures with me. My swimming friends thought is was hilarious and said I was like a panda. I told them it was kind of embarrassing and they said they just want to take my picture because they think I am a beautiful girl. However, they think all Western girls are beautiful, so don't be fooled. After that whole affair people started getting in the water to swim. A news team came to film and they announced different teams as they got in the water to swim. I also got to get on a boat with my swimming grandpa and watch from the boat. When we got back on the dock I put my swimsuit on and swam a little bit. My swimming grandpa said that I could only swim half way and back because I was sick, so I did. When I got out everyone was very excited that I was a good swimmer and the news guy even interviewed me. After swimming we got back in the car and drove the hour car ride back to Chengdu. It was a really fun and tiring weekend. I was really proud of myself for speaking Chinese the whole weekend, but it makes your head really tired because you have to think so hard all the time. You can never just check out because someone might start talking to you and then it takes too long for your brain to get back into Chinese mode. I was really happy to get home and actually relax a little. But, tomorrow is the start of another crazy week and Thanksgiving!