Serendipity in the Springtime

Spring has arrived! The warm, balmy weather continues in Chengdu. There are flowers blooming everywhere and all the plants are turning green again. Even the swimming pool is hovering around 14C, a good deal warmer than the 5C we had all winter. These are some beautiful flowers that are growing on the tree right outside my window.
Last night was also quiz night again. Matthew, Laura, Andrea (recently returned from the States), and I were joined by Barbara Grub who is a PhD student from UW who is doing her PhD work on animal husbandry in Yangjuan, and Eddie who is a recent graduate of UW and participated in this program several years ago and is now back in China to work for a few years. In the middle of the second round, serendipity strikes again. I got a call from Andrew, a guy from Northern Ireland who was on our train to Tibet and then we randomly ran into again at the hotel we were staying at in Shigatse. He was stuck in Chengdu for the next 6 days because he couldn't get a train back to Nanning where he is an English teacher until then. I, of course, invited him to join us and, as fate apparently wanted it, he helped us get first place. All I could think was "of course" because it was just too much of a coincidence to question it. He is now staying with Matthew for the next few days. On the 2nd of March, I will be leaving with Barbara, Andrea and Fagun (a woman from Yangjuan) to return to Yangjuan for about a week to finish my research there. Other than that, I am just regrouping from travel with the family and getting ready (and excited) for the upcoming semester that will begin on the 12th. Sleep tight everyone and I will check in again later.

Home again, home again

I am back from my long absence. I just took my family to the airport this afternoon. It was a wonderful, crazy trip and the best part was really seeing my family, they are great (start cheesy music now). And as sad as I was to see them go (sadder than I thought I would be actually, I almost started crying at the airport) it is nice to be back in the groove. Which means all my lucky fans will have something to do when they are procrastinating on the computer (by the way there will be a prize when I return for most devoted blog-reader). However, tomorrow I am off again on another swimming adventure with my swimming grandpa for two days. I decided I owe him after he tried to organize a trip for me and my parents that we had to (ungracefully) back out of, but I have also decided this is my last trip. After this I am going to be "too busy" because I don't really want to go anymore. But it is really hard to say no here, especially for me. I am just going to practice being straight-forward about it or I am going to wind up doing even more things I don't really want to do.
The thing I can't believe is that I only have 4 months left! Well, 4 and a half, but it seems so short and I know it is just going to fly by. I'll see you all in no time! Love you all.

Traveling in Tibet

These past few weeks with my family have been very busy and very fun. We just returned from a week long trip in Tibet. We left on the train on the 16^th in the evening and after a beautiful, but long train ride arrived safely in Tibet. None of us had altitude sickness really, although I did faint once on the train for a second. The thing you notice most about Tibet is the vastness and remoteness. It’s like Montana but bigger and more mountainous. Our tour guide Kashi picked us up at the train station and took us to our hotel. Originally, I had had reservations about booking a tour guide because I usually don’t like tours, I like exploring by myself, but I was really happy to have done it here. We would have never been able to see so many cool places if it hadn’t been prearranged and our tour guide was really nice. We got to sleep in until about 9am every day because the sun doesn’t rise in Tibet until 9 or so and nothing is open before then. The first day we went to the Potala, which was built by the 5^th Dalai Lama. Because it was Tibetan New Year and Chinese New Year on the same day (Feb 18^th) all the temples we went to were very crowded with Tibetan pilgrims coming to pray for good things in the new year. The Potala was very big and empty and had an amazing amount of rooms. It also had the tombs of many of the Dalai Lamas who have died. The tombs were very big and gold. Then we went to the Summer Palace, which is where the Dalai Lama lived in the summer. It had a beautiful garden outside and the rooms seemed much more homey and lived in. They had a radio that was a present from the Pakistanis. We also went to the second biggest town in Tibet, after Lhasa, called Shigatse. There we toured another monastery that is the largest functioning monastery in Tibet and has 800 monks who live there. Mom and I also walked the kora around this monastery, which is a path all around the outside of the monastery that pilgrims walk in a clockwise fashion. It had prayer wheels and prayer flags all the way around and a magnificent view of the monastery, town, and surrounding mountains. Shigatse was more of a trading town than an actual city and seemed much smaller than Lhasa, which itself seems much smaller than most Chinese cities. When we were at the hotel in Shigatse we also ran into an Irish guy who is teaching in China who we met on the train. It was quite a coincidence. He had found a group of 3 other Western people and 2 Koreans who were all traveling to Mount Everest. However, none of them spoke Chinese so I helped them book rooms at the hotel. When we got back to Lhasa we went to see the Johkang, which is the oldest monastery in Tibet and, I think, also the coolest. It has a ton of statues of different kinds of Buddhas inside representing the 4 different Buddhist sects that are in Tibet. You can also walk around on the roof where you have a beautiful view of the square in front of the monastery where the pilgrims gather and Potala with the mountains in the background. It was an amazing trip and like nowhere I have ever been before. The thing I thought was most amazing, besides the incredible scenery, was the degree to which the Buddhist faith was integrated into the Tibetan culture; it was like they were one and the same. I am amazed by the strength of the Tibetan people, both physically and spiritually. On the way back the plane ride was bumpy, but also beautiful. You could see the entire Himalayan Mountain range outside the plane window; Dad thinks you could even see Everest in the distance.

Exploring around Chengdu

We've spent the last 2 days exploring Cheng du and the area around the city, with Sarah as our guide/translator/all-around-good-sport. Chengdu is in the southwest part of China. We went to a tea house and played Mahjong, which drew a large crowd to help us learn how to play the game. We went to a temple where there were many many statutes of Buddha and we ate lunch at the teahouse there -- which was really good -- we even managed to eat mashed potatoes with chopsticks. Outside the temple, there were many shops (there are many shops everywhere in Chengdu) but also women working on what they hope to be the world's largest piece of embroidery. One of the days we took the bus (another experience) to see Dujiangyan, an irrigation project over 2,000 years old and Qingcheng Shan, a Daoist monastery and beautiful park. At the monastery, there is a lake where people take a boat across. There was fog that hid the tops of the mountain but it was a very tranquil-feeling place.

The Family Arrives in Beijing

Sarah has let me borrow her blog to write about the family arriving in Beijing. The adventure for us began at the airport when the driver from our hotel met us with a large sign "James Widder" but we could not leave until we found Sarah and we could not tell him this very well -- not being able to speak a word of Chinese. Fortunately, Sarah arrived through the crowd and we got to go together to our hotel, which was in the western part of the city. The hotel was wonderful -- it was a traditional hutong which is several stone buildings all centered around a courtyard. While in Beijing, we hiked the Great Wall - a section that was not so well traveled and very beautiful. We also went to Tiananmen Square, where there was this sculpture next to a mausoleum for Mao. The square was filled with people, many of whom we think are in the city for the New Year holiday. We took a tour of the Forbidden City with a young Chinese woman named April who was very nice and had just graduated from a local university and was trying to earn money to travel. When Sarah told her that her name was "Sarah," April said, "oh, like Prison Break" -- we unfortunately have never seen "Prison Break" but it is a very popular TV show in China. The lions are from the Forbidden City. We met a friend for dinner who has moved to Beijing and his wife is from here -- they picked out many (it seemed like a dozen to me) things for us to try and we tried everything. It has been a great introduction to China. I think my favorite thing was the drum tower -- it is very old and they had 24 or so drums that they would sound to tell the time. They had a demonstration of just 3 of them and the sound was wonderful. There was a great view from the tower of the part of the city where we were staying and the many people, cars, bikes, and pedicabs that are part of city life. It is so much to take in at once and the best part is seeing Sarah.

Jiuzhaigou

The research adventure continues... ...
I arrived in Chengdu off the train bright and early with just enough time to take a cab home to grab my Jiuzhaigou tickets and then meet Huangjie at the bus station. Huangjie had graciously agreed to help me buy my bus ticket to Jiuzhaigou. I took the bus all day and arrived in Jiuzhaigou around 7 or 8pm, where I met Andrew. After dinner with Andrew another woman named Dawn who is from Australia and there working on an Environmental Education program in the schools, we went back to Andrew's house to sleep. He just moved into a new house that he rents from a Tibetan woman who lives buy herself because her husband died and her two sons are away working and at school. The house is beautiful. It has a nice little courtyard in the front and very intricate painting and woodworking, typical of Tibetan buildings.
The next day Andrew took me into Zhongcha valley, a valley next to the park, where I would be doing my tests. This valley is a Tibetan village (about the size and urbanization level of Yangjuan) that is protected because it is near the park, but not actually in the park itself. They have had a little contact with foreigners, but nothing like in Yangjuan, so it was a very interesting experience and I was really happy to have Andrew there to make introductions. We first dropped my stuff off at a little "lodge" the Party Secretary Biajie runs. Then we walked down to the house of a family that Andrew knows. We sat around and chatted for awhile and I did my indoor test that afternoon while they made lunch before Andrew had to leave. All the kids watched and helped me and it was actually pretty fun. Then Andrew went back to Jiuzhaigou to finish a report and I went out to play with the kids. Just like Yangjuan, everyone was so nice to me and so welcoming. After dinner (they made me have two bowls of noodles before I would leave, also just like Yangjuan) and several cups of Yak Butter tea, a Tibetan specialty made from Yak butter melted in tea with Barley flour, crushed seeds, and a little sugar and salt. After that, I walked back to Biajie's house to sleep. The next day I woke up and went for a hike up the valley because I wanted to explore a little bit. I followed a path of footprints past several stands of trees that they had cut out of site of the road because they are not technically allowed to gather firewood in this area. I wanted to see where the path led, but after an hour and a half I had to turn around to go meet Andrew at noon and the footprints kept going. The hike was beautiful though, and I was really glad I went. After I met Andrew back at Biajie's house he had to leave again to take Dawn to the bus station and I did my outdoor test at Biajie's house and his daughters helped me. Then I went back down to the other family's house because I had promised them I would come back that afternoon. The little girls were out playing, but the older daughter (my age) was there with the mother. The older daughter is studying English in school, so we sat and practiced English for awhile. Then I gave them some presents that Andrew had brought up and said that I really should be going. They wanted me to stay for dinner, but I really did have to be going, but they would not let me leave without eating, so I told them I would go get my things from Biajie's house and come back and eat dinner with them on the way out. Everyone I said goodbye to seemed so genuinely sad to see me going and I was only there for two days. I really want to go back and hang out with them soon. But I did have to leave then because Andrew had left me his bicycle to ride back down the road to Jizhaigou and it was starting to look like it was going to snow. So I hopped on the bicycle, to discover that the breaks were a little unreliable and it was getting dark soon. I had no choice but to navigate the bumpy dirt mountain road on the "shoddy-braked" bike, praying for my life the whole way down. Finally I reached the paved main park road again and I thought I was on the home stretch, with time to spare. Little did I know it was still a half an hour bike ride from the mouth of the valley to the hotel where I would be staying. By the time I met Andrew at the hotel, it was dark and starting to rain.
The next morning I went into the park. Even though it was winter so there wouldn't be alot of visitors today, I wanted to get to the park nice and early so I could see everything because I only had one day. I took the bus from the park entrance up to the very top of the valley. It had snowed the night before at the higher altitudes and the high point where we stopped was absolutely breath-taking. The rest of the park was beautiful as well, quite possibly the most beautiful park I have ever been to. You are supposed to take buses from "scenic lookout point" to "scenic lookout point", but there is also a boardwalk you can walk on. However, some of the boardwalk was closed due to fire danger, but I decided to walk anyways. When the boardwalk was closed, I just walked on the road all the way back to the entrance (maybe 30km). It was a long day, but it was worth it. Here are a few pictures of the park, there are many more and they do not even begin to do it justice.
The next day I got up early and went to the airport and flew back to Chengdu. After a hectic day and a half in Chengdu getting things ready I was off again to meet the family in Beijing. But that is the next chapter... ....

Yangjuan II

I have just returned from two weeks of research adventures and am off to meet the family in Beijing this evening. I can't wait!! But that means I don't have much time to write and I have ALOT to say, so I'm just going to start and get as much down as I can and then finish it when I have a chance. It all started last Saturday afternoon when Matt, Deborah, and I got on the train. It was a little intimidating to be traveling to Yangjuan alone because last time Steve was with us and the trip requires 3 different transfers. But we made it to Xichang, which is about 8 hours South of Chengdu by train, that night just fine and stayed in a hotel near the bus station that had been recommended to us by Deborah's roommate's sister who goes to school in Xichang. The next morning we got up bright and early to head to the bus station and catch the bus to Yanyuan. However, when we arrived we were told that it had snowed in the mountains so there were no buses going to Yanyuan that day. After you are in China for awhile, you get used to plans changing all the time, so we took it in stride and decided what we were going to do that day. Xichang is a smallish city that is known as "the city where spring stays" and has been doing alot of remodeling to try to make itself a tourist destination. It was alot different even then when we came before in September. We called a friend we met on the train who was a graduate student at ChuanDa and was going home to Xichang for the break to see if he had any suggestions. He invited us to eat lunch with his friends in the shopping district of Xichang and then suggested we go check out Lu Mountain and Qiong Lake Park. So we took the bus down to the park, which was newly constructed and not open yet, but beautiful. It was right down on the lake and had really nice walkways and docks out onto the water. There were one part where we could walk down to the water because there was a hotel there. There was also a ton of these little wooden boats that you could take rides in. When they didn't have passengers, they grill shaokao in the boats and sell it to people walking past.
Then we wandered across the street to Lu Mountain. On the mountain there was several monasteries and a museum for the Yi Minority (which is the minority group in Yangjuan). The museum was really interesting and had some beautiful traditional art work and wood-working. On the mountain we stopped at the largest monastery and had our fortunes told, which is a traditional thing to do for the new year. You do it by kneeling to the Buddha and making a wish, then taking this vase full of about 50 sticks and shaking it until just one falls out. If you shake out more than one you have to do it over. Then you take the stick that fell out over to a Monk and each stick has a number on it, which corresponds to your fortune. The Monk then reads the fortune to you and you pay afterwards depending on how much you think your fortune was worth (i.e. more for a better fortune). My fortune was the best of us three. It basically said that I was going to have a really good, lucky year because I had built up a lot of karma in past lives and that something really big was going to happen, but hadn't happened yet. I gave 3 kuai. After that we walked almost all the way back to the hotel and had dinner along the way. After a day of exploring Xichang, I decided that it is my favorite city in China that I have been to so far. It is seems very clean and empty compared to other cities.
The next morning we got up pretty early again and went to the bus station to check for tickets. Today buses were going to Yanyuan, but all the tickets were sold out because they had given them to people whose tickets had been cancelled yesterday. However, they said that sometimes a few tickets would open up and they were thinking about sending another bus because so many people wanted to go so we decided to wait. At about 12:30, finally a few tickets opened up and we were able to get out on a 1:30 bus. We arrived in Yanyuan after a pretty uneventful bus ride over the mountains and found a hotel that some people at the bus station who were also going to Yanyuan had suggested. As opposed to Xichang, Yanyuan seemed much smaller and dirtier than I remembered. After dropping out stuff at the hotel we walked down to a restaurant to get dinner. We decided to eat at a place that had "Foreign Friends Welcome" written on the sign, which I thought was funny considering how many foreigners come to Yanyuan, but I guess it worked on us so that's worth something.
The next morning we got up at 8am and found the bus to Baiwu easily enough, but it wasn't leaving until 9:30 so we got some baozi for breakfast at a nearby restaurant. It took about two hours on bumpy dirt roads to get to Baiwu and when we finally got there I thought I was going to explode I had to pee so bad. We found motorcycles to drive us the 5km to Yangjuan. Yangjuan seems quiet because school was out, but it was very nice to be back.
I did my first sampling the next morning while ZheZhe was making breakfast in her house. There were some problems, of course, but it went well enough. I have also decided that this is my first time doing research and I am by myself in China, so just the fact that I go and do my best, weather or not I get good results, is enough. After breakfast we went to tend sheep with Apu (Grandfather, who is like the leader of the village). It was very relaxing, just walking a little and then sitting for a while to let the sheep wander over. He has 30 sheep, 20 white and 10 black. I love the simplicity of life here. I know part of that is only because I don't have to live it everyday, but I am grateful to be able to come here and experience it. It is very grounding and inspiring. I had also forgotten how nice people are here. It honestly makes me feel bad, like I'm constantly walking on egg shells. They are always giving us food and there is no way to say no. They keep apologizing for the simplicity of the food, which is delicious, and they don't eat until we are finished. So we never knew if we should just eat a little so we left alot for them, but then they might think we don't like it. I wish that everything didn't have to be so polite, but we asked them about it and they feel uncomfortable not treating us "like guests", so what can you do? I guess just be grateful. There favorite winter food to give is roasted potatoes. Anytime you enter someones house they will make you eat at least one potato. I have never eaten so many potatoes in my life. That afternoon the weather started to change and the sky clouded up like it was going to rain so Apu walked Deborah and I back to the school (which he didn't have to do) leaving Amu (Apu's wife who was tending sheep with us bringing up the rear) to bring the sheep home alone. We came back to see that another pair of sheep had been born. When we arrived there was already one mother and two twin calves that were about a month old living in the school courtyard. They let the baby and mom sheep live there until the baby sheep are old enough to go outside and graze with the rest of the heard. The new pair were three days old and so cute. That night I found ZheZhe in the school kitchen making dinner by herself and offered to help. She usually refuses, but she actually let me help this time. I think it is because she is sick, but I was still really happy to be able to feel like I was contributing and not being such a burden. After dinner I felt a little sick too, so I went to bed early. In the morning I awoke to SNOW! And to discover that the power was out. This means that I cannot do any more tests until the power comes back on. So instead, we had a snowball fight with the kids and then Matthew and I went to explore the cave we went to last time and some new ones we saw over by the river up against some cliffs. The caves were amazing. We found Tibetan and Han writing and pictures at the bottom of all three caves written with charcoal. The first one we climbed in was about 75 meters deep. The other two were smaller and more well-explored. There were calcium carbonate crystals all over the walls because they were limestone cliffs and they sparkled like the milky way in the light of the headlamp.
We had to leave the next morning in order to make our train tickets back, so I only got to do one test, but that's OK. I'll just go back again when I get a chance. A taxi (meaning little van) picked us up at the school and drove us all the way to Yanyuan. After a long, slow, bumpy 2 and a half hours we arrived there only to discover that the snow was again blocking the pass through the mountains and no buses were leaving Yanyuan that day. So we went back to the same hotel and prayed for sun. We wandered around Yanyuan a bit, not much to see. We ate lunch in a little noodle restaurant that used coal for fuel. The smell of sulfur was overpowering, it burned your nose and throat and gave you a headache.
The next morning Deborah and I got up a 7 to go try to buy tickets. We got to the bus station at 7:30 and it was so dark outside it still seemed like night time with only the light of the almost-full moon. The streets were empty except a few people gathered around the bus station. Luckily, buses were going today and we bought bus tickets out that morning at 9:30am because we didn't want to be on the first bus. On the way back to the hotel we bought baozi and youtiao (literally "oil stick") for breakfast. Youtiao is like a churro with no cinnamon and sugar. They first were made during the Japanese Occupation as the Chinese people's way of protesting the occupation because they were not allowed to say anything bad about it. The dough is supposed to represent Japanese soldiers that they then fry in hot oil and eat.
We got back to the bus station at about 9:15 and there were about a million buses there because all the buses yesterday had been cancelled. After leaving the parking lot a little late, we proceeded to sit on the street in a line of other buses for another 1/2 or so, I'm still not really sure why. Finally, we were off. But after about 2 hours we reached the highest part of the pass where we had to stop to put on chains, which took a while, but that was OK because we got to walk around and I made a little snowman. His name is Claude.
When we got into Xichang that afternoon we called Zao Laoshi, a woman who works at the foreign friends office in the Communist Headquarters who had bought our train tickets in advance for us. When we got to her office and picked up the tickets, I realized they were for 10:30pm instead of 8:00pm as I had originally expected. That means I would not get back to Chengdu until 8:40am and would miss my 8:00 bus to Jiuzhaigou that Huangjie had already arranged for me. I asked her if I could change to the earlier 7:55 train I had originally thought we were on. She made some calls and low and behold I was able to get a ticket for the earlier train, thankfully. Then Deborah, Matt, and I went out to get our favorite dinner of daoshaomian (knife cut noodles). Our favorite daoshaomian restaurant that Steve had taken us to the first time we came to Yanyuan had closed because of all the renovating that had been going on in the city. It's true all the changes have made the city very nice, but I guess all change comes at a price. Then we played cards in the park with people periodically gathering around us to see what the three laowai were doing until I had to take a taxi to the train station. Unfortunately, we could just change my ticket, so I had to ride home alone. When I got to the train station it was CRAZY!! It was packed with people. I went to the bathroom and it took me like 20 minutes because people kept butting ahead of me in line and I am still too nice to not wait my turn. Same thing with getting through the gates at the platform, I was just swept along with the wave of people rushing and elbowing there way through. This is one part of China a probably will not miss. Well, that's all I have time for now. Stay tuned for Adventures in Jiuzhaigou and Zhongchagou. I'm off to Beijing!

P.S. OK, so I wrote this before I left for Beijing and then I didn't have time to post it, but I am trying desperately to get caught up. You'll see another one soon, I promise.