Bai Ta Shan and Guo Xue Guan Videos!

(Before I start this post, I just want to apologize...I've been the perfect combination of busy and lazy these past couple of weeks, so I haven't done anything. My bad. I'll try to catch up on my posts and updates.)

October 1st was the Chinese National Day - the day China celebrates its being a country. As I'm writing this post right now, I'm surprised that there really hasn't been much celebration.....this is supposed to be a really important holiday, right? How come there's no fireworks, no celebration, and all that? In America, we go nuts during that holiday. I don't want to speculate about China's population's feelings towards their government, but it might have something to do with it.

As you (might) know, a couple of weeks ago, I went to Lanzhou's Bai Ta Shan (White Tower Pagoda) for an afternoon. Here is the video for that afternoon. I'll also add it to my post, which you can read here.



A couple of days ago, I went to another place in Lanzhou called 九州台山 (Jiu Zhou Tai Mountain), which is located in the northern part of the city. On the mountain, there's a Confucian-style temple called the 国学馆 (Guo Xue Guan). Here's the video for that one:

Well, this was a very interesting place - distinctly Chinese, which is what I like. There are lots of different places on the top of this mountain, but the place I was headed to was the "Guo Xue Guan," a Confucian-style temple dedicated to thinkers and writers of Chinese history.

It's in a classic place for a temple - on top of a mountain!

Like I've said in the videos, I like going to mountains for a number of reasons. My hometown doesn't have any mountains, so it's still a new experience to live in a place full of them.

I also love getting above the noise and craziness of the city and see just how big the city is. I'm not Chinese, so I think this is a big city....they keep insisting this city of 4 million people is a small town. Crazy Chinese people.

Going to temples is a serious thing for me - it's a place to pay respect to those who have gone before me and to learn about what they did during their lifetime and how they contributed to this place that I'm living in.

These places are always very interesting for me - it just highlights the differences between America and China. America just doesn't have this kind of history and culture. It's not America's fault or anything - it just hasn't been around for long enough.

I don't really get into the offering of incense and ritual worship and stuff like that, but I definitely understand the respect that's behind it. The temple centers around Confucius, who you see right here. In front of him, you can see where they light the incense and make donations to the temple.

While I understand the respect being paid to Confucius, I have to say, I am always pretty confused about the offering of incense to him. He always said that he was just a teacher and just a man. When did he become somebody to be worshiped?  I get confused about that with Buddha too.....but anyway, the place is still very interesting!

(This is the Dao de Jing by Lao Zi written out in its entirety. The whole other side of the stone is filled up as well.)

As you can see, getting to this place is no easy task. The stairs are really steep, and this is a real mountain....not just a hill.

Me and my friends Nick and Xia Fei took a cab to the top of the mountain to see everything on top of the mountains, but we climbed down on our way back home.

It's insanity - all we did was climb down, and we still all had shaking and sore legs by the time we got the street at the bottom. Man, it was crazy.

But again, the location adds to the mystique and mystery of the place - mountaintops are classic places to put temples in China. It seems like almost every mountain here in China has a temple dedicated to someone.

All in all, it was a good day with some friends - I got to learn about some traditional Chinese culture and history, see the city, and hang out with some people I hadn't seen in a long time.

---------------------------------------

A few days after that, I went with some other friends to climb a couple of mountains. I have lots of pictures and a few videos from that day, so I'm gonna be posting that when I can. This week is a bit crazy because it's the first week back from vacation, so I can't promise anything, but I will really try to do another post in the next 7 days.

Until next time,

Austin Guidry

Night Markets and Foreign Banquets

Well, this week has been really good - I'm learning how to get into the rhythm of teaching and figuring out what I need to do to keep up my stamina, and having some fun with my classes. It's been fun and challenging!

Well, Fall is here, and Winter is just around the corner, and every morning I wake up and think, "GOD, it's freaking cold this morning..." But hey, Lanzhou gets cold. The central heating doesn't get turned on until November 1st, so I've got about a month before the heat comes on.

One thing that signals the onset of winter is the sweet potato vendors. As you can see, there's an empty oil barrel filled with wood/coals, and the sweet potatoes are baked whole right on top of the barrel.

From what I've heard, this was originally a Beijing/Northeastern tradition, but it seems that over the years, it's made its way out to Lanzhou and other places in China.

I don't eat sweet potatoes, but it's just one of those things that I see and think, "Well, I guess it's officially Fall now."

So, I've been up to a lot this past week - one of the things that I enjoyed the most was my trip to the Zhengning Night Market. It's one of Lanzhou's more famous and popular night markets, and deservedly so. There are a lot of great snacks to be had there.

One of the best things you can have there are the kebabs - lamb kebabs, chicken kebabs, octopus kebabs.....all kinds of great stuff.

They'll have the raw meat on sticks there, and they season it and cook it whenever you order it. It's pretty awesome, and really fresh! You can see the guy here seasoning it with a water bottle poked full of holes filled with the seasoning.

One of my favorite things is the octopus kebabs, and it's great, but the ones I had weren't cooked quiiite long enough, and I was thinking....."And yet again, I'm rolling the dice with my food here." Haha that's part of the deal in China. But I was fine.

It's a chaotic place - crowded, a little hot, dirty, and such delicious food. Oh, man.....it's so awesome, and so uniquely China.

I went there with a Chinese friend who hadn't been to Lanzhou in a while, so I got to sort of play the guide and she got to be the tourist.

We had a lot of fun sitting and chatting about China, America, life, culture, and a lot of great stuff. I was thinking,

"You know, this is life. This is a good time. Just watching the people go by, talking about culture, eating some delicious food, and not really doing anything."

I dunno, I enjoy those little moments of being idle and relaxing in this crazy, chaotic city. It's refreshing.

One thing that I enjoyed a couple of days ago was the Gansu Provincial National Day Reception for Foreign Experts. It was a little gathering for about 100-ish foreign teachers, delegates, and workers in Gansu Province.

I didn't know that it was a really special dinner, but apparently it was. Not a lot of people were invited to this dinner, so I was pretty lucky to go. Lanzhou Jiaotong University is a pretty well-regarded university in the province, so all the teachers were invited to go.

Only about 8 of us went, but it was pretty fun. As you can see, it was a pretty nice spread - a lot of great food, some wine (I don't like win), and some great conversation.

(Also, check out the menu. My favorite one is "Fried Bun stuffed with Vegetarian Stuff"....awesome, huh?)

We got to meet a lot of other foreigners, a few of them who had read my blog. I met a girl from Europe who had emailed me about coming to Lanzhou, and another American teacher who read my blog before coming to Lanzhou.

It was pretty cool to meet them, and it really made me feel like this whole blog thing is finally worth doing. I've gotten emails, met people who've read it, and I keep getting hits. It's nice to know that it's not just numbers - real people are actually reading it.

I always love meeting other foreigners in China, because we're all here for the same reasons - we love China, and we all are here to do something we can't really do back home.

It's also fun to share those funny stories about talking to kids, embarrassing moments, our crazy-normal lives. There's no such thing as a foreigner with a 'boring' life in China, and once you get a bunch of foreigners together, it's readily apparent. Once the China bug bites someone, it's not a bug that people that can easily get rid of.

Until next time,

Austin

P.S. - If you guys want to see more pictures of Lanzhou, I've got them up in a couple of albums on Facebook: Here and here and here. I've got way more, but it would be a lot of trouble to put up everything on here. Anyway, yeah......see you guys later!

The Teaching Begins

Well, I guess I'm a teacher now!

As I write this, I've just finished teaching my classes for this week at Lanzhou Jiaotong University. It's been interesting, encouraging, discouraging, awesome, extraordinarily dull, and amazingly crazy all at the same time.

There are a lot of emotions for me because I'm a first-time teacher. Dull from teaching the same lesson 8 times a week, awesome because of the students, discouraging from the limitations of the book/curriculum, interesting because of the questions I've been asked, and a lot more.

I've got big classes - all around 60-70 students each, so it's going to be hard to get all of them interested and engaged. I can already tell which classes are going to be the most outgoing, which students will be the most interested, and which students don't understand anything I say. I hope to work more with them soon.

I'm teaching non-English major freshmen students. A pretty shy group, all in all. I've taught the first week - I teach 4 hours a day, 4 days a week. One hour of required "office hours" a week, and that's about all. Since I don't teach English majors, I don't have to deal with English Corner! (at least at the moment)

It's been really fun to be at the front of the class and talking about where I am from. It's so easy in one respect - this is my language and I'm talking about my home and my culture, but on the other hand, these are freshmen, non-English major students. I have to talk slower and make sure most of them understand what I'm talking about.


It's also really fun to share funny stories about being a foreigner in China - it feels good to have the whole class laugh and whisper and stuff at my comments. That way, I know they're paying attention. If I say something funny, and there's crickets.....then there's a problem and I need to explain myself haha

I have had no discipline problems whatsoever - it's always quiet, maybe too quiet. The students are smart, but they're shy. That's going to be the biggest challenge: getting them to come out of their shells. That's the big thing about Gansu students...they're just too shy.

Chinese students in general are too shy. They have low self-esteem, and they think they are not smart enough to contribute to the class. But if I ask them questions, they can answer them almost every time. If I can just convince them that they're worth something and that they're smart, maybe we can really open up and have some fun. I've really tried to emphasize this, and I've seen a couple of encouraging smiles and a twinkle in some students' eyes, and that's great. Maybe it won't always be there, but I'm happy right now.

We've talked about movies, music, sports, the Diaoyu Islands, Apple, traveling, and a lot more. It looks like this will be a good year.

I'm sorry that I haven't been posting much in the past week or two - I've been adjusting, preparing for my classes, losing my USB Drive (which gets videos from my laptop to the desktop computer with faster internet. Long story for not using the laptop), and my new addictions to "Inside the Actor's Studio" and "Drew Carey's Improv-A-Ganza."

Lanzhou Jiaotong University 兰州交通大学

So, today I will be writing about the university I'll be teaching at. It's called Lanzhou Jiaotong University, and I actually have a video talking about it!

This last trip I took to China in June, I was able to visit there a couple of times, so I've got some pictures and some video of it, so here it is!

Lanzhou Jiaotong ("Gee-Ow Tong") University is a former railway institute/college, as evidenced by the train heads located right here. They don't work, but they are sort of the symbol of the school. It is mostly known for its engineering and transportation majors/concentrations, but has a rapidly expanding foreign language department.

English, Japanese, Russian, French, Spanish, and more - I'm not exactly sure how many languages are there. At least the 4.

They actually have whole block of buildings dedicated to foreign teachers housing right here.

See that writing? That says:

"FOREIGN TEACHER'S HOUSING."

How segregated is that?! Haha

Yes, China usually puts all their foreign teachers together on campus. That's pretty much the way the universities do things. China hasn't quite gotten to the point where having foreigners in their countries is no big deal. It's still a big deal. Foreigners are often segregated and watched pretty regularly, but that's because there's not many of us and they're not quite sure how to deal with us yet. Give them some time - things will get better.

The school is located on the north side of the Yellow River in a district called Anning - unfortunately, it's not as close to the "downtown" area of Lanzhou...whatever that means in China. Everywhere is downtown. It's about 40-45 minutes from the areas that used to take me 10-15 minutes to get to. That's unfortunate, but I'm sure Anning will eventually become home.

Anyway, about the school - it's got a pretty good reputation in Lanzhou at least....people seem to be really impressed that I'll be working there, so I assume it's a strong school that has fine students.

I actually shared a cab with a guy who was a train driver/conductor or whatever you want to call it who actually graduated from Jiao Da (what people call it for short). Pretty cool!

As far as the campus itself goes, it's actually much bigger and the facilities themselves are much nicer than at Lanzhou University of Technology. Not that Lanzhou University of Technology is a crap school...it's just got character. LUT is an older school and doesn't have the funding that Jiao Da has. Plus it looks like Jiao Da has finished renovating recently. Things look newer, cleaner, and generally kept up better.

I'm pretty excited about my future with Lanzhou Jiaotong University - good times are ahead!

----------------------

I hope you liked this post! I'm going to be putting up another post about the process of becoming an English teacher in China. The idea really took hold when I read another "become a teacher in China" blog post, so maybe if I write my own post, someone will read it and be inspired. One can only hope, right?

Until next time!

About Huan, China (Videos and More)

Today, these videos come from Huan County, Gansu Province. This is the hometown of my best friend, Benjamin Xi.

It is a really great little town nestled in the mountains of southeastern Gansu.

As you can see on this map, it's in that weird little fin that borders Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in the southeast of Gansu.

Huan is one of my favorite places because it's one of the places that is pretty much untouched by Western influence, or at least as untouched as it can be. There are no McDonald's, no KFCs, no Pizza Huts, Starbucks, foreign investors, foreign teachers, foreign firms or anything like that. It's a completely Chinese city, and that's cool. Lanzhou is pretty much a Chinese-only city, but the number of foreigners in the city has definitely increased in the past few years. I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing - I'm just saying it's a trend. I'm not one to really make that kind of call.

I visited Huan last year as well, and it's still pretty much exactly as I remembered it.  It's still a great place that's way out of the way of most foreigners.

Huan is a very old city, with parts of it dating to the Song Dynasty (960-1279 A.D.) and before, including this wall.

Amazing, yeah?

 It's crazy, nothing this old stands in America and as someone who studied and has a degree in History, it's beyond amazing to be able to see and touch something that's been around for so long. 

I'm not knocking America for being too young or anything - it just hasn't had the chance to stick around for that long yet.

Seriously though, how cool is that?!

One of the things Huan is famous for is its embroidery, particularly its handmade insoles. It may not be famous abroad, but in China, Gansu is the home of artful embroidery. This photo on the left is an example of it, although not a great one. Unfortunately I am away from the pair I was given by Ben's mom -- it's much more beautiful than this one. This one's only so-so.

The amazing thing about these is that they're totally made by hand. The firm inside is basically extremely hardened dough (that will never cook again), and the outside white cover is handsewn.

Then the fun begins.

It's all done by needle and thread. One needlestick and colored thread at a time. Ben told me that the pair I was given took about 300 hours of solid work. Wow. 300 hours - imagine putting that kind of time and energy into something that you'll walk on and ruin.

I didn't wear mine. They're too beautiful.

I can't wait to go back again - the people of Huan are hard-working, friendly, very hospitable people. The only complaint I have is that their dialect is hard to understand, but maybe that's because I'm just a white boy who can't speak enough Chinese to understand......

---------------

That's about all I have to say about Huan County at the moment - maybe when my friend Benjamin comes to the States, he can write something about his hometown for you guys! Until next time! My comment section is always open for you!

The Cave Homes of Gansu Videos!

Hey, guys!

I finally finished putting together my second video about visiting rural Gansu (赵台，in the country) and staying in a cave home with my friend's relatives. It was a rare opportunity, and I'm really happy that I got to experience it. Hopefully, I'll be able to go back soon!

For those of you who don't know, I visited an area in rural Gansu Province with two of my friends to visit some of their relatives. They live in some of the most beautiful (and remote) countryside I have ever seen. I was blown away by the difference in our lives, and I think about it every day. Please watch these videos. There are embeds from both YouTube and Youku.






This was my original video about going there - I'm sure some of you have already seen it, but I thought I'd put it up again anyway so you guys could watch them in order. As always, it's on Youku and YouTube! Thanks for watching! I'll have more to say on the second video! Scroll down!

 


The second of the two videos is the one that deals with the underlying reality and what I was (and am still) thinking about in regards to the experience. I hope it'll give you something to think about! Please watch them and enjoy them - it's not a huge investment of your time.

Feel free to comment or to subscribe to my blog - it's totally free and no sign-up and I would love to hear from you!

The Cave Homes of Gansu

One of the things that I was looking forward to the most on my trip to Gansu in June was the prospect of going to a remote mountain village and staying in a cave.

Yeah, a freaking cave. People do actually live in caves in China - it's not just those stereotypes in the Middle East.

That's it there on the left - it's not just a giant hole in the side of a cliff. They've made it into a home, believe it or not.

They cut out a door-sized hole and a window-sized hole into the side of the mountain, and just burrow out a decent-sized hole, round it out and make it work, and then - BAM - time to move in!

For some reason, I didn't take a picture of the inside - but I do have a video clip of it included in the video below, if you are so inclined to watch it.

The cave itself was pretty nice - it was cool although the weather outside was nice. There was a big bed, wallpaper, a dresser, a TV, and all the other "fixings" for a home. It wasn't this big scary unlivable place - it was rather nice.

Where is this place, you might ask?

It is called 赵台 (Zhao Tai). It's in the  countryside.

I just know that we drove from Huan County (环县) for about 5 hours to get there.

5 hours of the craziest, bumpiest, and scariest roads through some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen.

This is the stuff that I had only read about in books and seen in National Geographic.

Terraced mountains literally surround the caves that me, Elena, and Ben are staying in.

The signs of the harvest are everywhere.

The few people that have chainsaws or weed-eaters are letting them loose in the fields, but the rest of the people have their scythes and are at work under the bright glare of the noon sun.

Wheat and apricots are what's being harvested now - the potatoes, corn, and other foods still need some time.

Life here is fundamentally different from life as I know it.

There are no shops nearby, no paved roads, no sound of car horns, no street vendors, no........well, anything.

It's just quiet, clean mountain air and the sound of the goats, donkeys, and other animals that Ben's family raises. Life revolves around the land, and there is little money to be had, and little to spend it on.

It's so different from the money-driven, ambition-fueled society that I have spent my entire life in.

Life here is hard, but I feel like although these people are poor in material ways, they are rich in family and rich in life.

They were so caring and hospitable to me, and it was easy to see that they cared deeply for one another.

I just wish I had been able to better enjoy the moment. I was pretty sick at the time, and I couldn't do a lot of stuff. But I did what I could, and I cherished the time that I spent in this place.

How often do you get to lose yourself in the mountains, be moved by spectacular scenery, stay the night in a cave home, witness (and participate a little bit in) the harvest, be surrounded by new people who nonetheless care about you, and also become buddies with a donkey?

I don't know about you, but that's not something that happens very often to me.

As I said in one of my videos, I'm very grateful to know Ben. He's let me see a side of China that I wouldn't have otherwise been able to see, at least not easily.

I want to take this chance to thank him for that, even though he will probably never read this post, if any posts that I put up on here.


Thanks, Ben.

-------------------------------------

Feel free to comment or to subscribe to my blog - it's totally free and no sign-up and I would love to hear from you!

The Lost Roman Legion

This is old news to some, but I think it's pretty interesting.


Pretty much every time you see the words "The Lost......." before something historical or legendary, it always ends up being really interesting. The Lost Roman Legion, the Lost Colony of Roanoke, the Lost Diadem of Ravenclaw, the list goes on.


"The Lost Roman Legion," as legend has dubbed them, were those few Romans left standing after their defeat (or massacre) at Carrhae under Marcus Crassus (Carrhae is in present day Turkey).

After their defeat, it is said the Parthians captured about 10,000 troops and sent them to Marginia (Afghanistan/Turkmenistan today) to guard the eastern end of the empire. The Chinese eventually captured this area and it is thought to be the first contact between the Romans and Chinese. Somehow, some of these Romans were captured and made to fight for the Xiongnu (also known as Huns, but this is controversial among some).

They fought with the Xiongnu (Huns) against the Chinese, were captured by the Chinese, and are thought to have been moved to Liqian Village, in what is now China's Gansu province.


"They supposedly fought as mercenaries in a war between the Huns and the Chinese in 36BC – Chinese chroniclers refer to the capture of a "fish-scale formation" of troops, a possible reference to the "tortoise" phalanx formation perfected by legionnaries."


There is some evidence to this claim. This link - The Telegraph - shows a Chinese man from the village with green eyes. That's not something you seen in ordinary Chinese people. Tests show that some villagers have as much as 56% Caucasian in origin....that's not something that can be faked. 

The village is in a remote part of Gansu province, and until recently, was not frequented by foreigners. Skeptics would have proved long ago through provincial records or something of the like that foreigners came into the area in more recent times. Many in the village believe themselves to be descendants of the Romans.


It's not totally implausible. There are still descendants of blue-eyed and fair-skinned Alexander the Great's army in India, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. I even heard something (just heard) that there is a village somewhere in rural Pakistan that still speaks an ancient dialect of Greek. Cool! I can't think of any other military campaign besides Alexander's and this story's which reached so far. Maybe there's something to it, who knows?


I don't know exactly what's going on here, but it's definitely something I'm interested in looking into further. Here's some of the stuff I looked at for this blog post - feel free to continue to search!

Arch News
Xinhua
Liqian Village Wiki
UNRV

My Favorite Pictures: Part 2

Today is Part 2 of my favorite pictures from my time in China. Just like last time, you can click to enlarge them, and feel free to comment and subscribe!

This is Mr.....we'll call him "Wang". - he is the father of one of my best friends. He comes from a really small and remote village in Gansu Province. He used to work in the fields and also did some construction work on the side. When my friend was in middle school, his dad heard about an opening at the county-level school (the county is 环县) for a village student. He wanted to take a bus to the county, but it had rained earlier that day, so the dirt roads have become unnavigable. Mr. Wang walked all day and all night to that school, and the next morning he met with the school officials and my friend got  the spot! He worked his way up to the number one student in the class all the way up until he graduated high school. He went to Lanzhou University of Technology and is now the number 1 English student at the University AND has spent 1 year studying in America at my university, ETBU. All that is possible because of this man. Although he is still poor and living in a 1-room house that measures about 15' x 10' with his wife, he has moved up into Huan county (环县) and is now an engineer. Imagine that.

These are some of my best friends. L -> R is Ethan, Janson, Freddy, William, Danny, Jim Green, (i forgot this guy's name), and Zhu. This particular occasion, we wanted to find a classroom to hang out in, but they all had students in them. We found one with about 10 or 15 students in it and we pretended that I was a foreign teacher that was going to have class now, so we kicked them out and just chilled! Sometimes being the foreigner is great.....

These two pictures came from the Terracotta Warriors exhibit in Xi'an. The Terracotta Warriors are a true treasure of China and of world history. They have survived since 210-209 BC. They are more than 2000 years old. It's unimagineable. Unbelievable. 

This is an interesting one - a nearly full-sized chariot and charioteer from the Terracotta Warriors exhibit! This is actually made of bronze, I believe.

This is fruit beer! I had it when I was in Xi'an. I don't know how in the world they make beer from fruit, but it's really really really good. It doesn't really taste like beer - it's pretty much just a soda. Kids drink it. I think the alcohol content of 果啤 is pretty much non-existent. When you drink it, you can taste one or two distinctive fruits - for me, the best one I can remember had a great mix of pineapple/apple flavor to it. It's really great stuff. I had it all the time. America needs this. 

This is me in front of Maiji Mountain, a really famous mountain just outside of Tianshi, in Gansu Province. It has 7,200 Buddhist sculptures that date from the 4th century all the way up until the 19th century Qing dynasty. It has 1,000 square meters of murals and the sculptures are scattered throughout 194 caves on the cliff face. 

When you are standing on the mountain looking out, it becomes obvious why the people who did the carving did it here. The landscape is second to none. It truly is majestic and is one of the most beautiful and truly awe-inspiring places I have ever been. 

This photo was taken in Tianshui itself. It's just a kid playing in some water, but the amazing part about the picture is just the innocence and happiness that was happening within that moment. The kid was having so much fun playing in the water, and the father was having just as much fun watching the kid play in the water - even the guy way over in the background of the picture is watching them. In the picture, it looks a little creepy, but it was not. He was smiling and watching them play in an innocent way.

It's truly reflective of the lifestyle in Tianshui - it is probably the happiest city I visited in China. Everyone was out and about and just enjoying themselves. People were doing Tai Chi everywhere, people were singing songs, playing instruments, reading - it was kind of like a dream, really. It was a great place, and to me, this picture just embodies the life there. I hope to go back one day.

This is me having dinner with Mr. Xi and his family - to me, it was an honor. After I heard his story, I could barely look him in the eye, but he was honestly one of the happiest men I ever met. He had the biggest laugh lines and Crow's Feet that I have ever seen. Although he was a poor man, he offered me so many gifts and treated me as royalty - he had never been around a foreigner before and I was his honored guest. But, for me, the honor was being accepted as a part of his family. His son and I are brothers, and I believe his father treated me as a son. 

These two pictures mean a lot to me. The first one features my friend Ethan's arm as we skipped rocks down on the Yellow River. Imagine that - skipping rocks on the Mother River. Our group of five had nothing to do, so we went out to Lanzhou's Xi Zhan aka West Station, and had hotpot. After that, we walked around and went down to the river. It was just a time for us to be kids for a bit - we were 10 years old again and skipping stones on the river.

A beautiful twilight after a beautiful day in Lanzhou.