Monday night we went out to eat hot pot with some of the teachers—Shaanxi Province style. In other words, spicy, hot and delicious. They even gave us aprons to wear. Shawn and Guo Laoshi getting hungry:
Chen Laoshi and both Guo Laoshis with Fei:
And Zong Laoshi looking mysteriously brooding:
We ordered a ton of food, but ate nearly all of it even though we felt somewhat miserable afterwards:
The coolest thing about this restaurant, though, was that they made the noodles right in front of you and, yes, they did make a show of it:
After spending close to 3 hours cooking and eating chili-pepper laden fare, we walked to the Wild Goose Pagoda:
Every night, they have a fountain show there and, even on a Monday night, the crowd was pretty dense. It was fun and relaxing to watch, and would have been more so without so many people:
The next morning, our bus driver took us to a tiny rural village called Taiyigong, which lies about 45 minutes outside of Xi’an. He let us off near the town gate and Liu Laoshi walked us through town towards our final destination.
So where were we headed? A Project Hope elementary school (http://www.projecthope.org/). The Project Hope Organization, besides doing all kinds of other good work, provides teachers, supplies and funding to schools in impoverished areas. Our mission there was to find out more about village life in Western China, charitable work, and children’s school life in the country.
The principal gave us a tour around the tiny school, which took all of 3 minutes. The only decorations were pictures of either great scientists or famous communist thinkers.
We passed the first-grade classroom:
And, of course, the Chinese flag flying from the pole on the playground:
We came to visit the 4th grade class, although the 4th-graders we encountered were all 7 or 8 years old.
Liu Laoshi and the children right before they sang us the Welcoming Song:
We went to play with them on the playground, but I had somehow injured my ankle the day before so I wasn’t able to play. I took pictures instead and talked a little with some of the children. They had strong Shaanxi accents, but were still pretty understandable. However, we all have accents too, and none of them had ever encountered anyone from outside their province before. So, in short, they were thoroughly weirded out, but more curious than anything.
My favorite picture of the day: Fei jump-roping with a little girl.
Much too soon, it was already time to go. We gave every child a new notebook and writing pen as gifts, and Chris and Shawn (who had thought things out more than everyone else did) gave the kids lots of Hi-Chew candy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hi-chew). All of us felt sad to leave, but the children had to get back to their lessons. We walked back through the village to get to the bus.
For dinner, we went to a restaurant in another nearby village, where we ate outside. The candle below was to keep the bugs away, but the nicest thing about summer in Western China is that there are no bugs!
Western Chinese farm-style food (too much, too early):
Although the Project Hope school visit was much too short, it seemed to have a great effect on everyone. We felt moved by talking one-on-one with the children and hearing about their lives. The girls who I talked to were obsessed (like almost all kids in this part of the world) with “Pleasant Goat” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleasant_Goat_and_Big_Big_Wolf). You don’t see any Hannah Montana around here. All little girls and boys want Pleasant Goat on their clothes…either that or Hello Kitty. The girls also read us some stories from their school book, which was all fine and good. They were so cute! Everything went well until one of them said (translated to English, of course), “Big Sister, it’s your turn now. Read us a story!” Oh boy. I got about 3 sentences into the “Ugly Duckling” before the bossier girl said “You’re too slow! I’ll help you.” She then proceeded to read the whole rest of the story more than twice as fast as me. It turns out that, once they realized that their Chinese was better than ours, they weren’t scared of us. In fact, they seemed to see us more like smaller children they needed to help out. Effectively, the two girls I talked to enjoyed playing “teacher” while I played “student.” The barrier finally came down.
Their school experience is just so different from how I and everyone else I know grew up. The schools in the USA are really something, and it amazes me how efficient these Chinese country schools are. Every morning, the children come to school around 7:30am to have their breakfast, which consists of one carton of soy milk and one boiled egg per child. They split into their classes, which are usually between 20 and 30 children (they broke into smaller groups when we came to visit), and have their lessons. Their recess is only about 10 minutes in the morning, and the same in the afternoon. They all bring their lunches from home, which consist mostly of wheat-products since that’s the staple food in Western China. Therefore, they eat a lot of Chinese buns, breads, and noodles. They end class around 5:00pm, and the children walk home, often as far as an hour away. Each child has only one textbook, which contains all their math, science, history, and reading. They often have to make do without adequate school supplies, including pencils and paper. In my heart, I already wanted to help these children and others like them, but what touched me most was that the children wanted to give me a present, which was a traditional Chinese-style toy somewhat related to a hacky-sack. They said “Big Sister, you couldn’t play with us today because you hurt your foot, but maybe you can practice and come back to play with us another time!”
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