china blog too! June 18, 2008

NiHao friends and family! I am finally at a hotel where there is a computer I can use on-site. We arrived in Lijuang ( the 'g' is silent) this noon, ate lunch and immediately drove to the local school for elementary and middle school students. There was a devastating earthquake of 7.0 in 1996 here when 300 were killed and much of the city of 1 million was severly damaged or destroyed. So someone from Hong Kong donated money to rebuild the school. They have 3700 students and only 217 teachers. That means each teacher has 60 students per class period. YIKES! This is our second school visit and these children are truly precious!!! We are not naive enough to think that they are always as well behaved as they were when we visited however, the pressure is very extreme here to study very hard to be allowed to enter a university and they must excell in all areas not just some. This school is located in a province that has many of the 56 minority groups who live in China in residence. There are 21 minority groups represented here with the main ones being Naxi, Bai, and Dongba. The Naxi are darker people from the sun at this altitude. When they marry here, the man quits work and the wife works...wierd! Also, for those of you who are "fluffy" that is very desirable here, the men like their women buxom. I am currently at 7,000 feet above sea level, in the clouds and loving it. The hotel we are staying in is 4 star and so very lovely. We have only stayed in local hotels which is so neat, the ambiance is amazing! The rooms are surrounded by an environment that is so very asian...trees, flowers, water, fish, meditating areas, etc. The food is too good for my good. Here in Lijuang they serve a lot of veggies fresh out of the gardens which are everywhere. they make use of all available space for planting crops even up the mountains in a 'terraceing' arrangement which serves a purpose of helping to prevent erosion.
We came here from Dali where we stayed for 2 days and our hotel again was just a part of the landscape so we could just walk out and enter the streets filled with food and product vendors in small street side shops. These shops go on and on and.....Food is prepared right in front of you and there are so many choices. We visited a village where we walked around a communal family home housing 5 families. It's really hard to descibe how they live separately but use common spaces. The last three cities we have visited are surrounded by a city wall which of course dates back to ancient times. It's a facinating history here. It's pretty amazing when you walk into a tomb for a queen and learn that she died thousands of years ago. It's quite a chilling and thrilling experience!! The people throughout our journey cannot have been more gracious, kind, helpful despite our language barrier, friendly, and excited to meet us. The people at the schools, shops, restaurants. hotels, everywhere.... I am so impressed by their high level of motivation and drive to succeed. WE all realize the political status here and the government is very much a part of everyone's daily life. If you are a small business owner here, you pay about 40% tax to the government. WE have had the pleasure of meeting and visiting casually with a number of locals who have shared their thought on life here in China. After our school visit in Xian, one of the teachers and I exchanged e-mails and have already written and responded to each other twice, very cool! Maybe I'll just forward her e-mail to y'all so you can share that with me also. The other night in Dali (close your eyes young people) we found a little tiny bar where we spent four hours visiting with the young lady who was college educated and we had a blast sharing and drinking a variety of small flavored shots of vodka. That's all the detail I will share....it was an invigorating experience and we all felt fine the next morning when we had to be alert and on the road early. Why?? Because we left by 10pm and ate and slept...healing environment!! We have visited so many museums that I will list and describe later because we are getting ready to go for supper. The computer usage only costs 10 yuan/hour which a little over a dollar an hour so, I think I can come back.. Also, I don't want to bore you too much. I will tell you that it rained mostly for the two days we were in Dali but we just kept treking along with our umbrellas and thank goodness I bought that expensive North Face jacket!! It was a little cool in Dali, altitude is high. Then, yesterday. we took a 30 minute gondola ride to the top of the mountain where there are both Daoist and Buddhist temples immacuately cared for by a group of elders. It was absolutely gorgeous, inspiring and WET. I was soaked from the rain that continued all the way up and down....soaked tomy underwear but, who cares?? Earlier in the morning we took a boat ride across the Erhai lake (which is 1/3 the size of Shanghai...huge) to a little village where we went to 2 temples. One housed the local protector and the other was buddhist. I decided to sit a bit and meditate and while doing so the people there handed me some container with some wooden sticks with Chinese on them to shake for awhile and then, I picked one which had a number on it and a corresponding message/fortune that was very special. I have had a number of "spiritul experiences along my way here in China. With thousands of years of history, it would be difficulkt tonot be awed along the way!! Again, an inspiring experiience to see how simply these people live and are happy and content. Okay...that's enough rambling for now. I send my love to each of you and wish you everything grrrrreat! Lotsa love from me to y'all!! Liz