Here's Something Unexpected: Rural China!

So this last weekend I took a trip to Lizhuang, a rural town in Sichuan province. It was right along the Yangtze River. I was surprised by many things in this trip:

1) How much it reminded me of my hometown, Snohomish! Now I don't think I'm homesick quite yet :] but if I was, this would have made me miss everything about home. This little town has a river that runs right along it and has just a few main streets. (For those if you from Snohomish who are reading this, it seemed that I could almost map out where 1st and 2nd street, as well as where all the lettered avenues would be in Lizhuang) Craziness. Here's some pictures. Tell me if you know what I mean. Of course the houses were more primordial than the many antique stores I'm used to seeing, but just the layout and geography of the town was very similar to that in Snohomish.


2) I think I always knew this all along but it's still good to be reminded that, no matter where you go in the world, children are the same everywhere! I don't think that many foreigners come to this town, so we were all instantly celebrities. I keep saying this and I'll say it again...I still don't understand why I'm so interesting! But many of the children (ages 6-10) had a great time showing my sister and I around town and testing our Chinese language speaking ability! It was a lot of fun! We also taught them how to play "Red Light, Green Light" or "Hong Deng, Lu Deng." There are some universal things that all children possess. Like sticks, puddles, and rocks being the greatest play-things any boy could find. And girls all being obsessed with their roller skates and being able to hang upside down on monkey bars (I know that was totally me when I was in elementary school!!!).


3) Curfews?? So a few classmates and I went to play some pool with some of the local high school-aged kids. They were very excited to hang out with us and tell u about what kind of English songs they liked to listen to. I, likewise, was interested to learn more about them. It just so happened to be one of the boy's 16th birthday. They invited us to go to a karaoke hall (pretty much one of the only things to do in this town on a Saturday night) with them to celebrate. All the karaoke rooms were full, so I suggested that we go back to my hotel and maybe find a place in the lobby or dining hall to celebrate and eat the cake that they had with them. By this time it was around 9:15 pm. On the way back, we were met by a police officer who told us that it was all time to go home. I think this because the kids we were with were minors, but we were all disappointed to have to go home "early." As a side note, they gave us their birthday as a "friendship cake" which I reluctantly took. I mean, it wasn't my birthday and I didn't want to take this cake from them which was probably a greater expenditure for them than it would be for any of us. But they insisted and I couldn't refuse a friendship cake, after all. To complicate matters, I had a tough time convincing my other classmates that the cake was not 'poison' and that the children did not get it from some shady place. To top it off, unfortunately, many of them had some intestinal troubles the following day for which my cake was blamed. I still think that the strange rural dishes containing pork, stuffed eggplant, and other mystery food was the culprit. (I got a little sick myself, but I did not end up partaking of any of the said 'poison' cake due to the high velocity by which my classmates ended up inhaling that which they were so afraid of eating...and using chopsticks nonetheless :] ) But anyways, that whole experience was interesting and a bit unexpected. But what I meant to say before going on that cake tangent was that I thought it was strange that they considered anytime past 9 pm "late." Just a different culture I guess. It makes me wonder what goes on after 9:00 that made officials in Lizhuang implement that type of curfew. Then again...maybe I don't want to know...The cute small town feel may be a bit deceiving.

4) The most random thing ever! So we're riding on our bus on the way to Lizhuang when we stop at a dinosaur museum! This was a BIG thing. The town (whose name my memory fails me at the moment) was centered around this museum. It was dinosaur EVERYTHING!!! But we had fun walking around and posing like dinosaurs the whole time. I thought it would be lame, but turned out being very fun and quite cool. Here's some pictures :p




5) And last, but not least, was our hotel. It was formerly a Buddhist temple so the layout was quite interesting. I stayed on the 4th floor, but I had to climb a mountain of stairs to get to my room. Our bathrooms were the best (or worst??) part. If you just look at the pictures, you'll see what I mean... :)


All in all it was a great experience and I feel like I learned a lot about Chinese rural culture. I would like to go back some day. Here are just some more pictures of farm life! Enjoy!





Bible Verse of the Day:
Galatians 5:16 "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature."

Chinese Word of the Day:

Cheng ji 成绩 "Achievement; Accomplishment"

Ka la OK!

That means "Karaoke" to all you non-chinese speaking folk! China has some different customs than we do in America. Instead of going out to a movie on a Friday night, many Chinese people go to KTV or Karaoke hall. You get your own private room with a screen and a menu bar to chose any karaoke song you could possibly think of! You can also be served drinks and snacks. Since I LOVE to sing, I think this is my favorite thing about China yet (or at least one of my favorite things)! I think we should have these in the U.S.! It's pretty cheap too! Just over 3 U.S. dollars for like 4 hours!


Another thing that Chinese people don't do is celebrate Halloween. And rightly so, it is a bit confusing. Trying to explain what Halloween is, where it came from, why people dress up, and what the heck is "trick-or-treat!" ?? I had a bit of a hard time myself. They know enough about the commercial aspect of it, so we saw many pumpkins, spider webs, and random spooky things around, however, no one really knew why. For our Halloween, my classmates and I had a little party in our dorms. We had bobbing for apples, cake, and played that toilet paper mummy game. Halloween in China was an interesting experience!

So I'm not gonna lie, honestly this week I was a little bummed out. A lot of my classmates planned a weekend trip to Xi'an to see the Terracotta Warriors. Somehow I missed the memo that you had to find bus tickets/book a hotel on your own so now it's too late. It would've been cool to go, but oh well. Hopefully they comeback with some pretty sweet pictures. This weekend is pretty busy for me and I don't know if I actually have any extra money to have gone anyways...It just kinda sucked hearing everyone talk about it and get all excited for the trip when I am sitting right next to them and can't go. But whatever, I am in China, it's not like I'm not going to have anymore opportunities to see some sweet things, and I feel very privileged to have already done what I did, and seen what I saw!

I don't really want to bring this up, but I feel like I have to...the election. So, I wasn't an avid Obama supporter. Not because of his race or that some think he's a terrorist or whatever dumb things people say. Only because McCain's beliefs are more in line with my own, and that he has a good number of years under his belt which gives him more insight into certain issues. And no matter how many times people tell me, "separation of church and state, Sarah" I still ask this question: "but don't your religious beliefs help form your moral beliefs, and don't you use you moral beliefs to make decisions for our country?" I sure hope people use their moral judgment to pass laws! People can say whatever they want, but in my opinion, there is no way that you can completely separate church and state. You can take down monuments of the 10 commandments, and outlaw prayer in schools, and even take two little words out of the Pledge of Allegiance, but that won't change people's basis of moral judgment. But anyways, (getting off that tangent) I have no choice but to support the new leader of my country. I will support Obama and I hope that he guides our country through the necessary reformations that we need. He talked about change. I hope that the change that comes is good and that, for once, this politician actually walks the talk. That's all I have to say.

Bible Verse of the Day:
Matthew 6:34 "Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Chinese Word of the Day:

Ren wei 认为 "to think, consider"