Military training is over and freshmen classes are finally starting a few weeks behind the rest of the school. Students pick up all the books that they will need for their first semester.
Walking to the auditorium for a meeting.
Looking out from one of the classroom buildings.
Students buying fruit after their military training.
The latest fashion trend in China is buying plastic leaves, flowers, mushrooms or peppers and clipping them to the top of your head. This affordable accessory is now sold in stands all across the country. However, the trend is most popular in tourist areas where you can see people of all ages and genders wearing little plastic hair plants.
Durians were on sale at the Walmart in Zigong. There are oven mitts nearby for customers to use when they pick them up.
Thousands of students on my campus have been doing military training these past few days. They are separated into groups by the class that they’re in and there are square formations of students all over the school. I’ve wandered around a few times to see what they’re up to. They are almost always in their squares marching back and forth, practicing 90 degree turns or chanting 1, 2, 3, 4 over and over. I also saw one group standing in a line and singing songs and there is a group in this photo that is practicing fighting stances. Each group is led by someone who is part of some kind of military organization in Zigong who came out for the training.
At many universities in China the new freshmen do military training before they begin their classes. At my school the training lasts for ten days. It starts at 6 a.m. and ends sometime at night around 7 or 8. I asked a teacher friend if he had to do the training when he was at his university and he said no because it was only implemented after the Tiannanmen Square Massacre. I’ve been told that the training isn’t so much about the military as it is about instilling in students a sense of discipline, order and obedience.
The new school year is beginning and the street outside campus is packed with students and their families.
Drinking tea.
I just learned the Chinese character for the Communist Party and now I’m realizing that there are propaganda signs everywhere. The red signs around my campus and little town that I used to think were just red signs are actually all government propaganda. On Sept. 3rd of this year, China made a new holiday that marked the 70th anniversary of success in the “war of resistance against Japanese aggression” aka WWII. In every town and city so many new posters and banners were put up to commemorate the event. I can still barely read anything even when I translate every character on my phone, but the poster on the top left in this picture says something about how flourishing cities embrace you and the Party’s army is one family. The poster on the middle right says “strengthen national defense, educate and inspire the nation with vigor.” And the poster on the top right says something like “the army loves the people, the people embrace the army, the army and the people unite as one whole family.”
There were baby pandas at the Panda Research Base in Chengdu! It was so funny watching them. There was a huge group of people huddled around the window into the room where they all were. The pandas just lay there on a blanket, sometimes moving a little and waited for the vet (?) to come pick them up and weigh them.
People cross the street going towards Tianfu Square, the city center in Chengdu.
Monks on their way to pray at the Wenshu Monastery in Chengdu. My parents and I traveled around China really fast! We were in Beijing for a few days, then went to Xi’an, now Chengdu and finally to Zigong and Dengguan.
The Terracotta Army in Xi’an. It was very cool to see this in real life.
I see these wreaths for sale pretty often and I’ve been told that they are used for funerals. I’ve also seen them hung up on fences near people’s homes. But I really don’t know anything else about this tradition and I don’t know why this one would be red when red is the color of happiness.
My parents came to visit me!!!! We had the best time ever together!!! Here they are on exercise equipment in a small town near the Great Wall.
Men fishing in the river surrounding Beijing’s Forbidden City. I was in Beijing a week before China’s Victory Day parade and many roads and sites were closed to the public. The Forbidden City was actually forbidden to go see.
A group of boys transfixed by a game on one of their phones at a tea house.
A packed convenience store in Zigong.
The road from my school down to Dengguan.
Birds in cages and men on a bench at a park in Chengdu.
Typical Chengdu street seen from an overpass.
A lot of times when you get off a long distance bus there will be a big group of men right outside the door shouting at you to buy a ticket from them or take their taxi or motorbike somewhere. I have never actually seen a passenger take them up on their offer, but I guess it does happen.
On the train back from Dali we passed another train filled with soldiers and various military supplies. I’m not sure if it’s officially illegal to take pictures of the government and military related people and buildings in China but you will definitely get yelled at if you try to. Sometimes this is difficult because it seems like there are government buildings are all over the place and it is hard to tell what everything is. This is a picture of the woman sitting across from me.
Nestling season ECO farm of dreamland!
We walked along Erhai lake trying to find a path that we heard about that would take us in a circle around it. We ended up finding these smaller little harbors filled with seaweed and rusty boats. People were living in a lot of the other boats nearby.
A lot of restaurants have live animals in containers or cages in the dining area. I guess to show that they’re fresh or because they just don’t have any room to put them in the kitchen. Here’s a frog that sat next to me during lunch.
Sharlene by Erhai lake.
Dali’s Three Pagodas were right next to our school. Wikipedia says that the pagodas were “initially built for auspicious reasons.” So many things in China are described using the word auspicious!
A lot of the city was really built up and touristy, but there were some pretty spots on the outskirts.
Dali has some interesting vegetables! The middle row is all mushrooms which Yunnan is famous for. We made a mistake our first night in Dali when we went out to dinner and asked the restaurant what their specialities were. Our plate of fancy wild mushrooms ended up costing us six times as much as all of the other dishes. They were good, but not exceptional and tasted just like any other mushrooms. I felt better about it though when we went hiking later and actually saw villagers coming back from mushroom foraging in the mountains.
On the way to Dali in Yunnan province for a two week Chinese camp.
A few teachers took us out for hot pot.
Another view of our lovely city. A few under construction buildings, a half built skyscraper and a carved out dirt mountain.
While we are in Suining, the school that we’re teaching at provides our meals for us. This is the school cafeteria where we eat lunch and dinner. We have started calling it “the barn”, but it also looks a lot like an airplane hangar.
The classroom courtyard during one of our class breaks.
The city has very few pedestrians, but there are so many little three wheeled taxis everywhere.
We’ve been teaching English classes to local elementary, middle and high school teachers. Some work at schools in the city and some are out in the countryside. There is a big difference between both their English and enthusiasm levels. Some of the countryside teachers have been teaching English for 20 or so years and it’s still incredibly difficult to have a basic conversation with them. This is crazy if you think about it.
It took us awhile to find the downtown area.
Lee made little friends everywhere we went! They liked him so much.
School buses outside of a classroom building.
We are teaching classes on the campus of a boarding middle school. School ended in June for all the students, but some are still here doing summer classes. In the morning, the students march out onto this field to do military exercises. They walk out in lines and stand in block formations. Their teacher says something like, “One, two, left” and all the students obediently turn to the left at the same time. They also run around in straight lines together.
Welcome to Suining! Another giant, sprawling city filled with under construction skyscrapers and very few people. Two other Peace Corps volunteers and I will be teaching teachers in a Suining suburb for the next two weeks.
Here’s a picture of a duck in a bag that was on my bus. The duck rode underneath the bus in the luggage area next to my backpack. He is happy now, but probably will not be smiling later this evening. On the previous bus I took, my backpack rode next to a crate filled with puppies.
After my classes ended, I went to Australia for a few weeks! It was wonderful.
The countryside looks beautiful in pictures. In real life though there’s a lot of background noise that definitely changes the atmosphere: people yelling, dogs barking and cars honking.
My town’s market consists of three women selling random assortments of vegetables. They are all very friendly. Their assortments vary slightly depending on the season and how early in the morning you show up. Recently they have been selling bitter melon, winter melon, cucumbers, peppers, ginger, eggplant, tomatoes, pumpkin, bamboo shoots and edible leaves.
I went out to dinner with two students and they asked the restaurant owner where they could wash their hands. The sink had three fish swimming around in it that were later eaten for dinner.
A student showed me a secret path leading out from the back of the school campus to the farms. This is looking up at the wall surrounding the school track.
