VPN and Visiting parents

So I haven't updated for a little while, okay for a long while. But I finally upgraded my computer from Tiger to Snow Leopard so I can finally use my company's VPN. So now I have no excuse to not update. :)

I am currently visiting my parents in Southern China in a city called Nanning. They have undergone a two-week long teaching extravaganza to prepare some students who are planning to go to Maine to study in 3 years. I re-arranged some of my classes so I could get a week off to spend with them.

The time together has been mostly preparing for classes the next day but has also been such a blessing to be able to see my parents so close to the holiday season. I head back to Siping this weekend with a crazy schedule ahead to finish out the year.

The semester has been difficult and I won't be sad to say goodbye but the blessings have been many and the Father never ceases to amaze me how He provides.

Crazy for Siping

After two years teaching on the rooftop of the world and using google's blog I find myself back where I started. Siping, Jilin in what was formally Manchuria. As I reacquaint myself to the city, I am reminded what the city is famous for:

1. da rou bing: meat stuffed in a sort of biscuit. I believe either Mao or Zhou En Lai came through town years ago and said, "it wasn't bad." I need to check on that next time I eat at the restaurant.

2. and a mental institution. To call some one a "Sipingren," (person from Siping) is to call some one crazy. However rumor is the original mental institution was moved to Changchun. So perhaps the reason is gone, but the phrase remains.

So call me crazy but I am back where my China experience started and I am looking forward to discovering the always developing city with fresh eyes and renewed energy to explore the Chinese language and culture of the northeast. Year 7 here we go...

In other news... I am trying to update my xanga page because it is no longer blocked in China... unlike blogspot which is harder to update.

Cornerstone Books

Well my parent's bookstore is still going strong.

Here is the latest from the local newspaper:

http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20104140361

and here is their website:

http://www.cornerstoneb.com

One Week Down...

A good week and a half of teaching. Certainly do love being back in the classroom. Nothing big to report but we are learning sports vocabulary in one class and directions in the other. As for my two co-teaching classes both teachers like their coffee with milk and only a little sugar. Not too sweet. Here's a couple pics of my "kids."

Teaching, Back in action.

I am back in Lhasa and teaching is well underway. No new students but a new class. I have three classes where I am co-teaching the subject of intensive reading. This is where I basically come along side the local teacher and add my "expert" cultural experience to the text. Today I was teaching for the first time my new co-teaching class. The local teacher and I came across the word "figure." And the English definition was referring the figure of one's body... well then the lead teacher started to talk about the first king of Tibet. I was a bit confused, so i asked whether or not he had a nice figure. Then she realized what I asked she just started cracking up. She was trying to explain an "important figure in history," not the hot body of the first king of Tibet... My mistake.

As some of you know I live at quite a high altitude. This serves to be problematic for many who come up here. My first time here it was difficult to sleep and I often felt like I was suffocating if I laid flat. However, this transition has been my best yet. Almost no headache and only a little shortness of breath. I am not about to run a marathon, but I think I will able to start playing basketball again soon. I hope this March finds you all doing well. Be thinking of this area, it is always a little sensitive around this time.

Ben's Village

So we got on the bus and had one of the bumpiest rides I have ever been on! I must've hit my head on the ceiling of the bus 3 or 4 times, and that was while trying not to! 6 or so hours later we finally did make it. We were cold and miserable walking around the "downtown." But soon a tan Jeep Cherokee can cruising up and the driver was yelling my name. It was Ben! You can drive? Cool. So we loaded up and set out to his home. Being exhasted Ben fed us and showed us his house and then... we crashed. I took a 2 hour nap. But after that I felt great and was excited for the next three days. Which started early the next morning with a ritual the family does every Tibetan New Year with their semi-truck followed by a Groom from the nearby village coming to visit all of the bride's family before the actual wedding day.

The next few days included watching Ben's family's everyday life, eating lots of Yak dumplings and drinking walnut milk tea, visiting the local stupas, temples and monestaries and climbing a mountain. (with help from the family's Jeep of course :))

I am now in Chengdu waiting for my flight back to Lhasa and feel blessed to have been able to see what rural life for the Kham Tibetan looks like.

Chengdu

Well 24 hours away from loading up to head back to the rooftop. Yesterday Bethany and I rode a bus for 13 hours to get back to the big city of Chengdu famous for it's panda breeding center. My trip is ending with a good reminder of where I have been and what I am going back to. For the past week I have had the privilege of spending time with a friend in his hometown. His town, village would probably be more accurate, is perhaps what my city looked like a couple decades ago. His family was very hospitable and they all were constantly feeding and making sure I was comfortable. I was just blessed to be able to be there at all. The drive was long both ways, but the scenery was breathtaking. Trees, mountains, bamboo, i fell asleep and woke up in a postcard. However the coldness was not from a postcard.

On the way there we stopped in a city named Kanding. The only open restaurant was a fast food chicken place called Dicos, but that friend chicken never tasted so good. The hostel we stayed at had traditional Tibetan bed and was freezing, however they had electric blankets! So that made sleep very possible. The next morning at 6:30 we walked to the bus station to try and get a ticket. The ticket counter told us to wait and wait. And finally (about 2 mins before the bus was going to leave) they let me buy a ticket. I am not sure why I had to wait, or what the reason was, but when we both got on the bus we discovered we had the last two seats. And later we found out that the bus just started that morning. If we had come a day earlier we wouldn't hve been able to buy a ticket! Wow.

more to come...

February really? already?

So I haven't posted in forever. Usually this time of year I am not consistently by a computer. This is due to the holiday. Unlike the US and Canada winter is the long vacation while summer is the shorter one.

Tomorrow other then being Valentines day, will be Chinese New Year. It will also be Tibetan New Years. Quite a busy day if I say so myself. Tonight I find myself in a Bangkok hostel on my way back to China in a couple days. China town is about a 5 minute walk and I expecting little sleep tonight due to the fireworks and celebration.

Either way I wanted to write and say all is well and I am excited for a new semester on the rooftop. But for now I will try and take in all I can in Chinatown in Bangkok.

Hope all is well.