Yangshuo and Wuming

Before coming to China, we saw pictures of Yangshuo, a mystical town on the Li River that is surrounded by fantastical limestone pinnacles that rise sharply from the ground hundreds or thousands of meters high like horns or rounded cathedral spires. So from one mystical place to another, we flew from Tibet to Guilin and then took a 4-hour boat trip on the Li River to Yangshuo. It was unforgettable. But since it's so difficult to convey the magical beauty of these dream-like peaks in words, we'll let our photos show you...

We arrived in Yanshuo to find a small city set in the midst of the limestone pinnacles. Walking through town, we would often see isolated spires rising up hundreds of meters right next to homes, hotels, stores, and restaurants. It's a little jarring at first, almost like a city block that decided to rise up like a volcano but leave all the adjacent city blocks at sea level. It's the most striking landscapes I've ever seen.

This is Mr. Wei and some of the staff at the Yangshuo Culture House, the guesthouse where we stayed in Yangshuo. It got high marks in the Lonely Planet travel guide, but there was one clincher in the description - Mr Wei teaches Tai Chi to his guests. Sure enough, we were doing Tai Chi several mornings on the sidewalk outside before breakfast. Mr. Wei has run his guesthouse for over 20 years. He gave us great advice for our days in Yangshuo (exploring a cave with an underground river for about 3 hours, riding bikes through the limestone peaks for half a day, ...) and, best of all, he served the best food we had eaten in all of China. We were never late for 6:30 dinners as we ate from over 10 mouth-watering dishes every night. Why can't the rest of China's food be so good???


Before we left Yangshuo, we bargained with local shopkeepers for great deals on North Face clothing for our families. We were never quite sure if we were getting authentic goods or just very good copies, but the prices were too good to pass up. The bargaining process is an interesting drama with 3 acts. In Act 1, with a nomination for best actress, the shopkeeper must pretend to be offended at the low offers and complain "No money for me". In Act 2, with nominations for best actors, we have to pretend that the prices are much too high and that we can buy them much lower at other stores. Ultimately, we must walk out as the shopkeeper continues to offer lower prices. In Act 3, we come back and bargain for another hour or so until we get North Face Gore-tex ski jackets for 100 yuan (about $15) rather than her original 450 yuan offer. All the actors complain that they gave away too much but everyone smiles at the end and believes they got a good deal.

Realizing that we were only 400 miles from the southern border of China, we decided to skip the trip to Hong Kong and go to Vietnam instead. But we needed a visa. And to get a visa, we had to go to Nanning - the closest Vietnamese consulate - about a 3 hour bus ride. No guarantees, we had to apply and wait for an answer. But while we were waiting for the wheels of Chinese bureaucracy to turn, we met Peggy Milliken.

Peggy and her husband Stuart are linguists working in Guangxi, China doing language development work. Since 1993 they have been living in Wuming, Guangxi learning and researching the Zhuang language. Zhuang is the largest minority language in China, and Guangxi is the center of Zhuang culture. Together with the government, they compiled a Zhuang-Chinese-English dictionary. Peggy and Stuart first moved to China in 1988 after completing their PhDs, when their daughter Kathryn was three years old. Their daughter Robin was born during their first year in China, while they were living in Tianjin. They later moved to Guangzhou and Nanning before arriving in Wuming for the dictionary project.

Peggy told us about an opportunity to teach English to middle school students in Wuming (about 40 minutes away) where her friend Rose is the principal of an English language school. Since all our previous service opportunities in China had fallen through, we decided to delay our trip to Vietnam and go to Wuming with Peggy.

On arriving in Wuming, Peggy first took us to a holiday feast at a family's home in a small farming village. We were the guests of honor at something like a Chinese Thanksgiving meal. The food was declicious (pork, shrimp, corn, chicken, mushroom soup, sticky rice, and so much more). The chicken foot sticking out of one bowl was the highlight for me. We were treated like royalty and we later learned that Chinese consider it a great honor to host many guests, especially foreigners. After the meal, we hiked to the top of a nearby limestone pinnacle to see the stunning view of the surrounding countryside.

A few hours later, we were greeted by deafening cheers and mobbed by about 60 middle schoolers, many of whom had never seen an American. After that welcome, how could we not stay? For the next two nights, each of us taught an English class to about 20 students each. We tried to make it very interactive, with lots of action, games, and class participation.

This is Rose, the principal of the school we taught at. Rose started as a teacher in the Chinese public schools but quickly became known as an excellent English teacher. Soon parents were begging her to create night classes for their children, believing that English would help them succeed. When her classes surpassed 300 students, she started her own English language school and now her staff teaches about 3000 children across multiple sites. Rose is one of the most encouraging and inspiring people we've met. She gave each of us specific praise about our different teaching styles after seeing us on the first night. And she hosted us for 3 delicious meals so we could experience the food of her native Zhuang people. Rose went out of her way to make us feel welcome and encouraged. Any teacher would be fortunate to work for her. She's looking for English-speaking volunteers to help put on a English language camp in China in July. If you're interested, contact her at rose605@tom.com.

We felt like celebrities at the end of classes when the students mobbed us begging for our autographs. And though he may be an unknown musician in the U.S., David is a rock star in Wuming, China - at least to a few dozen 12 year-olds!


After 3 days in Wuming, we got up at 5 am to take a 1-hour bus to Nanning so that we could catch a 10-hour bus to Hanoi, Vietnam. We don't have any plan or contacts, but we're excited to see what God has in store for us.

- Steve

Tibet

With priceless soft sleeper tickets in hand, we set off on a whopping 36-hour train ride to traverse the permafrost of Tibetan mountains. We were excited to experience the highest train in the world, peaking at 5,072 meters (16,640 feet)! Mountains shot up all around us, laced in glistening snow.

While the land seemed uninhabitable, every once in a while we'd see tents, yaks, and prayer flags that I'm sure were asking for summer to come quickly. With this scenery, 36 hours wasn't too bad (not to mention the welcome change from our hard sleeper days). Imagine, four berths to ourselves, a dining car, the ability to turn off the blaring morning chinese opera music, and we could even close our door!!!! Oh man, it was glorious! Extremely grateful, we were excited to start our 7 days in Tibet.

Chinese men have an addiction to smoking (60-70% of all men in China smoke). Yet with the combination of no smoking signs, the intercom announcements declaring in both English and Chinese "Please don't smoke because smoking is really, really bad for you," you'd think that they'd get the drift. But sadly, they don't. Let's just say that David likes to call me (Joe) "the enforcer" now. I like to think that I just helped fellow passengers obey the rules and add a few more years to their lives.

When we arrived at the Lhasa airport, we met our fantasticly flexible tour guide Smu (yes, that's her real name... lucky she lives in Tibet) and our horn-happy driver Mr. Fun. Our first major stop was the Potala Palace, home to 14 Dalai Lamas . With over 1,000 rooms, 10,000 shrines and about 200,000 statues, the Potala Palace is one of the most ornate and largest attractions for Buddhists and tourists alike. One of the most impressive sights was the 5th Dalai Lama's tomb which is made of 3,720 kilograms (8,200 pounds) of gold and studded with semi-precious jewels...and this was just one of the 13 tombs! I think we found a solution to the economic crisis back at home!

Next on the list was the most important monestary in the Buddhist faith, Jokhang Monestary. Outside were devoted pilgrims who make their pilgramage to prostrate themselves on the ground 10,000 times in order to humble themselves and honor their gods in hopes of gaining blessings and a better next life. A traditional dance show and David buying a Tibetan jacket (which quite literally was the talk of the town) were next on the list before our trip out to the countryside to visit the First Tibetan King's home which now functuions as a monastery. Built in 2nd Century BC, the King's Palace sits atop Jormo Zhaxi Ceri Mountain on the east bank of the Yarlung River. While there we met some monks who were in the process of hanging their traditional tibetan flags. Each color has a different meaning: Blue-sky/space, White-air/wind, Red-fire, Green-water, Yellow- earth. Just like all the other visitors, the monks like to take pictures too, so we joined in. On the drive to the hotel we stopped by a local village house and and met a local family. After meeting most of their family, sharing our family photo ablums, and laughing at the difficulties posed by translating through three languages in order to communicate, we moved on.

On our way to Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet, we stopped by Yamzho Yumco one of the three holy lakes. Standing at 5,030 meters (16,503 ft) above sea level, stunning views were definitely worthy of a few peace signs (since it seems that every Chinese person flashes one in their photos). As we drove along the countryside, we passed over forty miles of harvest-time barley stacks awaiting their turn for villagers to manually separate the grain from the chaff in the wind. Biblical lesson anyone??? Anyone??

Finally arriving in Shigaste we toured the local and largest active monestary. Once holding about 7000 monks, there are now just over 1000. There we saw the largest indoor "Future Buddha" in the world. It is over 26 meters high and weighs 276 kg decorated with solid gold and numerous precious stones. While memorable, it was our interaction with the young Buddhist monks that stands out. Just before seeing about 40 adoloscent monks chant and say their scriptures, we got to see them play around like typical teenagers. And if that wasn't memorable enough, it was our short yet powerful conversation with Se Song (Cecil, he's in the middle) that will forever stay in my mind. Despite being in the heart of Buddhist culture, there's still something that makes you think when you hear a monk respond to the question: "How long do you plan on staying here?"... "One lifetime."

After returning to Lhasa we were excited to have the opportunity to visit a local orphanage. With one of the largest age ranges of kids we'd seen (infants to 17 years old) it was great to learn more about what they were doing and have an impact on the kids for the day. And I'd just like to point out that our family pictures have come in handy lately and certainly have made communicating much more fun. And shoot! Who wouldn't be captivated by our incredibly awesome families!! Well, our 7 days went quickly and now its off to Yangshuo.

~Joe