Well, there's some good news and some bad news. The good news is over the past few days I've had a lot of time to get a lot of things that needed to be done completed. The bad news is, of course, as I am wont to do, I didn't accomplish any of those things that I had to do (well really how much do I HAVE to do while I'm here? Answer: Not much).

This sore throat hasn't been too bad as far as pain goes. I don't know if it is they mystical Chinese herbal medicines that I'm taking or it just isn't that bad, but most of the time I feel fine. I do however feel the moral duty to keep from infecting my classmates, they paid money to be here and I would hate to be the cause of ruining some of their fun. So for these few days I've put myself on quarantine.

This means there has been a serious lack of exciting events in my life these past few days, and a serious spike in getting back in touch with people in America. It's also seen a major spike in rekindling old love affairs with pointless websites I once perused while in America.

Ironically enough there was one thing which I was going to post on today's blog that had some smidget of significance and wasn't mindless babble. Unfortunately during this long and rather boring introduction I have forgotten what it was I was going to say in the first place. Regardless, it wasn't that interesting. Seriously.

Well, seeing as there really is nothing interesting one can say when they have spent their entire day lying on their bed, I'll leave you with what I have written thus far.

I can't believe it has been a week since the last time I updated my blog.

There hasn't been a lot of new events that have transpired here. There have been some new developments, but perhaps it would be best not to post those on such a public forum as this?

This week I found a way through the Great Firewall of China so that I could watch Conference. Originally we were supposed to watch the sessions as a branch at our local meeting place, but the DVDs we received didn't work, so it seemed like we wouldn't be able to watch Conference until after we got back to America. After extensive looking I found a way to get to the Church website through a proxy server. It took hours to download just the audio of the proceedings, but I　felt it was important enough to be worth it.

While this week I have taken a lot of time out of class to do my homework and to go above and beyond the requirements in order to get the most out of my time here in China, I have also begun to wonder if the reason that I am here isn't most beneficial for it's capacity in intellectual progression, but for progression of my character.

I apologize if this reads a little, funny, but I've been spending the last few hours translating ancient Chinese to English for homework for one of my classes. Before that I spent a few hours writing an essay for my writing class.

Now I'm lying here in my hard bed with a hint of a sore throat and a touch of a cough, wondering what there is that I can write which would be of worth to read in America. Perhaps it would be best to just leave what I have written and sleep for the time being. I will be posting more often from hence.

The weekend was so short. Actually I didn't get a weekend this week, and I'm a bit tired.

I got to go to church today, which was nice, because I don't always get to go here. When we're traveling there isn't anywhere to attend, and next week is the week we are observing as General Conference, so by the time the first of November rolls around I will have been in Nanjing for 2 months, and only have attended church 3 times. It makes each time when I do get to go to church that much better.

After church we had class with our BYU professor. He took us on a short tour of a few sites in Nanjing. All in all we were supposed to tour three sites, but because the bus driver was 35 minutes late picking us up, the trip was poorly planned, and everyone was already tired from having 7 hours of make-up classes on Saturday, we cut the field trip short at 4 hours. Eeek. Sundays are much better when you can take a Sunday nap.

After I got home I sorted through a few more of my pictures from before, and then I got to my homework. We were supposed to hand write a 300 character essay for tomorrow mornings class. Most students don't get past about 100 characters, I'm guessing because they're just being lazy, but today I decided to go above and beyond, because lets face it, what else do I have to do while I'm here besides learn Chinese? So I wrote an 800 character essay to turn in tomorrow. I figure the more I write the more mistakes I'll make and the more I'll learn.

Before I sign off for the night and get some sleep, there are two stories from today.

One was while we were out touring with the class. Some lady approached me and asked in English if I could take her picture for her. I said yes in Chinese and she was shocked, just like everyone else and their dog that I spoke Chinese. She gets to talking with me and offers to be my language study partner, a quite popular way to make friends here. They help you with Chinese, you help them with English - a symbiotic friendship. Only I could tell she wasn't really interested in learning English from me if you know what I mean. I pulled a classmate over (female) fast and said I didn't need a language partner, but this girl was looking for one. Then I got out of there. Too many experiences like that lead me to think that it isn't possible for me to make friends with any females here, but I'm fine with that.

Second story. I received a marraige... proposition... today. Well, I guess I can't really tell this story online, you never know who's reading, right? Spiked your interest haven't I? Ask me on MSN or Gmail chat and I'll explain more.

Bonus pic of the day:

It has been a few days since my last post. It isn't my fault. I swear.

The Chinese government has cracked down on its internet censorship recently, and I haven't been able to access Blogger. Now it's all better.

Not only can I access this website again, I can upload pictures (finally)! Now my blog won't be so boring.

I don't think that I can really make up for the days when I wasn't able to post, so here's the Reader's Digest.

I am still going to school, and nothing really fun is happening right now.

I go to the underground fake markets every now and then to add to my fake brand name collection, still haven't found any of the brands that Courtney wants though.

We don't get a weekend this weekend. We had class on Friday and today, and tomorrow after church we have class again. It's a blast.

On the plus side I have noticed that my Chinese has made marked improvements since arriving just over a month ago. I'm hoping that I will continue to improve at a faster rate until I return home, and I'm bringing a lot of movies and books to continue my improvement at home.

I'm gradually sorting through my pictures from the trip and finding those that I want to keep and those I want to delete. I still have around 2000 that I haven't sorted through, and I find I keep around 25% of the pictures I've taken. After I sort through them all I have to fix the coloring and white balance on Photoshop, so I still have a lot of work to do.

So I guess that's about it- I'm keeping really busy, I'm getting used to life here, and my English is getting worse. Life should slow down a bit now too, the first month was full of traveling and vacations, from here on out there isn't much of that. Now is a time to buckle down, study hard, and get things done. At least I know I won't be like other students who came here with me who now are skipping class so that they can stay home and play World of Warcraft.

Here's a bonus:

Unfortunately there was no post last night. Yesterday was a good day, but nothing of particular note.

In the morning we went shopping, I got some Iceberg brand jeans for $10 USD at the underground mall here, and then we went to Yangshuo. We walked around for a little while, nothing really of note. After getting back to Guilin and having dinner with the family we went to their grandmother and grandfathers house and I showed my roommates how to play Majhong. We played for a few hours with the aunts and uncles and went home. Nothing too special.

Today however... today I felt like MacGyver.

We took an early bus up to Yangshuo and rented bikes. The lady we rented our bikes from didn't seem too honest, so I played it safe. When she asked for a deposit I refused, so she asked for our passports as collateral. I refused, and offered a drivers license instead. She said that would be OK, so I gave her my BYU ID. She said it didn't look like a drivers license. I told here that not many people live in my state. I was right not to trust this lady though. After riding about a mile the pedal to my bike fell off. Awesome. I'm out in the middle of some rice fields and bamboo fields and now I only have one pedal. At first I walked along a rice field until I found some string, and did a pretty good job about tying the pedal back on, unfortunately after around half a mile the pedal fell off again. This time I decided to use what my parents taught me as a child (through Macgyver)- the world is full of solutions to your problems if you think creatively.

So I took some bamboo shoots and put them through the hole in the pedal and over the crank which it was supposed to screw onto. I then just took a rock and hammered it on there. The bamboo shoots held the pedal on pretty well for most of the day after that, although we had to stop to replace the bamboo shoots with some poker cards we found on the ground. It wasn't a problem.

While randomly riding through the countryside and rice fields we came to a mountain we decided to hike up, and found a cave inside. Unfortunately there was a sign outside saying it was closed to any visitors because it was too dangerous. Fortunately I value my life enough to obey signs like that.

After riding on we made our way to a small fishing village on the shores of the Lijiang river called Mu Shan Cun, or Tree Mountain village. We went to the shoreline and saw a few other white people in the water and getting ripped off in fares for riding small bamboo rafts on the river. While taking pictures, I noticed that just up the river there was a rope bridge. I wanted to go. So my roommate and I started walking up the river bank. After getting a few hundred feet up the river we found a small, half buried bamboo boat that was falling apart. What did we do? We pulled it up out of the ground, but lacking a bamboo shaft to navigate the craft with, I hiked up into the bamboo forest and knocked down a large bamboo plant, then using sharpened rocks we shaved the branches off.

Then I took the boat out onto the river. The locals all thought that it was hilarious. My boat was falling apart so it was hard to stand on without falling over. Plus, how often have they ever seen a white person floating up a river on a bamboo boat?

Within half an hour a crowd from the village had gathered to watch me try to maneuver my small boat over the other side of the river and back. Tour boats stopped nearby so that the passengers could take pictures of me. A few boats even came from downstream back to my spot and when they pulled up close I heard the crew say, "They weren't lying, there really is a white person on a bamboo boat here!"

By the time I made it back to shore I was exhausted.

We rode our bikes back to Yangshuo and I took my bike back to the rental place. They looked at it and asked what I had done. I explained that the pedal had fallen off because it was missing a screw. She said, "There were lots of bike shops, you could have had it repaired at any of them." Yeah right. The scam that they pull here is renting out bikes with loose screws etc that will break after you are a certain distance from the shop. Once broken down the repairmen charge ridiculous prices to fix the bike, then they contact the rental owner who takes part of your deposit on grounds that you mishandled their bike. In reality as soon as you leave they loosen the screw again and rent it to someone else.

The lady told me that she would keep my ID if I didn't pay for the bike to be fixed. I told her all she had to do was put a screw in it and it would be fine, that I knew the scam she was trying to pull, and I didn't care if she kept my ID because it was a school ID anyways and was of no value to her and little value to me. Once she realized I was onto her she gave me back my ID and we left.

After getting back to Guilin we went out to eat at a Tuccano's-type Brazilian Grill. It wasn't bad. The best part was the selection of meats. Besides the normal that you're used to in America, there were also the average Chinese meats - chicken heart, cow stomach, pig intestine, etc. Then there were the specialty meats. Tonight the special was meats from the horse family so we sampled horse, donkey, mule, and camel. Yep.

Got home and packed. I've got to leave Guilin tomorrow, back to Nanjing. It's been a fun bout, but I'm excited to go back to my own home to have a more settled schedule. My main goal when I get back though is to look for a shop that sells guitars. I found a guitar shop here in Guilin, they were selling a really really really nice Yamaha guitar for 600 RMB, only about $85 USD. Of course I'd have to play it first, but that's a steal! I think that when I get to Nanjing though I'll just find a guitar shop and go in a play when I'd like. No need to buy the cow when you can get the milk for free, right?

I'm trying not to fall asleep while I'm writing this, so if it is different or more odd than other posts, bear with me.

This morning after waking up and getting ready, the whole extended family drove out to see one of the great wonders of the ancient world that no one has ever heard of. It is a canal system that was built by Qin Shi Huang Di, the same emperor whose tomb and palace look alike I visited in Xi'an. The same emperor who had the Terra Cotta Warriors buried to protect him in the after life in 200 BC.

While he was working to conquer all of China he needed a way to transport his troops from place to place, but going over rivers and through mountains took too long. Instead he built giant canal systems in the north to transport his troops on. When he started conquering people to the south the rivers didn't all connect. To solve the problem he had a canal built between the Yangtze River and the Lijiang River so that he could travel all the way to the furthest places in the south of China. Hence the saying around here is: In the north there is the Great Wall, in the south there is the Lijiang Diversion, meaning that this canal system is every bit as great as the Great Wall, especially since it has been in use ever since Qin Shi Huang Di finished building it in 200 BC.

After walking around, taking pictures, and having fun, we went out to lunch at a hotpot restaurant. We ate for over an hour before we drove back home.

Tonight was a special treat. We went to a Chinese Medicine Hospital and had our feet and legs washed with tea and other... stuff... and then got full body massages. It is because of that that I am trying to stay awake as I type this. It really felt good, but it made me really tired. I think I'll be feeling great in the morning, and it's off for another day of playing.

Another day which left me too exhausted to post anything last night before crashing. There was a lot though, I know that this is going to be a very long post.

The first thing that happened in the morning was something that promised to be a great experience. My roommates future in laws had told their two brothers that I liked photography. They also like photography and arranged for me to go with them to a car show with a press pass, or photographer pass or something so that we could take pictures of the cars. They were especially clear and told me repeatedly that we were going to take pictures of the car models.

Unfortunately I woke up with a stomach ache from all the hot peppers I ate last night, and I was exhausted, because we didn't get home until around 2 AM and had to get up by 7:30 AM. We went to the car show, unfortunately because it was the last day there were only a few models, so after taking pictures there we walked to a local park/zoo and walked around for a while. It didn't take long before my roommate and I were tired and wanted to go home. We spent the afternoon inside sleeping and watching a movie.

Tonight was a special night though, the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, held in the exact middle of the lunar year, on the day when the moon is biggest and brightest. The Chinese have many traditions surrounding this holiday.

The traditional story is: A long time ago, there were ten suns that circled the Earth. The Earth was too hot, and so the Emperor commissioned the best archer, a banished immortal named Houyi, to shoot down nine of the suns. When he was successful the Emperor rewarded him with a pill that would allow him to return to the heavens and live with the gods. Houyi hid the pill in his home and began to prepare himself to take the pill. One day while cleaning, his wife Chang'e discovered the pill and took it. When Houyi returned home she ran from him and flew into the heavens. Houyi chased her, but was never willing to shoot her with his arrow to force her to stop. He returned to Earth, and she stopped at the moon. There she made a palace for herself. Eventually Houyi made a palace for himself on the sun, and once a year, when the moon is closest to the Earth Houyi visits his wife on the moon, that is why on that day it is so full and so bright.

The Chinese say that on this day when the moon is full (in Chinese you say that it is 'full, round, and complete') families get together full, round, and complete. They always eat. So we went out to dinner with the entire extended family, and it was delicious.

Another thing that families do is exchange moon cakes. These round cakes are mean to symbolize the fullness and completeness of the relationship between people and the roundness of the moon. Of course we had some moon cakes.

Then the family wanted me to go out and take pictures of the moon, so I went with the two uncles around the city and took pictures of the moon.

The best part of the night had to be the sky lanterns though. These sky lanterns are like little paper hot air balloons. They are very light and in the middle there is a little block that you light on fire, then they fly up into the sky. When you release the lantern you make a wish, if the lantern flies into the sky the wish will come true, if the lantern falls from the sky than your wish will not come true.

We got lanterns and all released them. It was a fun night.

10-2-09

Literally every day in this country has been a new crazy adventure. I was thinking today about how many stories I'm going to have to tell when I get back, and just how many once in a lifetime experiences I have every day.

When we got up in the morning we stopped by the local eatery and got some of the specialty breakfast noodles that they eat here. They definitely lived up to the hype that my roommate has created for them over the past month or so.

After breakfast we were driven out to the dock to take a boat down the Lijiang river. Actually here it is just called the Li Jiang, because Jiang means 'large river' in Chinese. I don't know why they had to translate it the way they did.

We were lucky my roommates in laws live here, they were able to get us tickets on the Chinese person boat, which only cost 210 RMB ($30 USD) instead of the 660 RMB (almost $100 USD) that every other white person has to pay to take the exact same boat. As we sat at the dock wondering why we were the last boat to leave for our real life jungle cruise on walked some military people. They told everyone to sit still while they inspected the boat. I wasn't particularly worried- getting out of sticky situations is a specialty of mine. Fortunately they didn't want anything to do with us. After checking the boat for... I don't really know what they were looking for... On stepped the news crews and the mayor of the city.

He gave a simple speech welcoming everyone to the city and telling everyone he hoped that they had a good time on the boat, you know, the usual PR stuff. After his speech was over he started shaking hands with little kids and kissing babies, politics are all the same. Then, our eyes met. In an instant he rushed over to where we were sitting. My roommate who went on the cruise with me today is half Chinese, so I was the only white person on the boat. He came over and said hello and pulled me out of my seat to get pictures shaking hands with me. Everyone who was sitting around me started shouting out to him, "He speaks Chinese! Talk to him in Chinese!" So then we had a nice 5 minute chat. The news crews were eating it up- a white person who speaks good enough Chinese to carry on a conversation with the mayor! My roommates future in laws said they would keep an eye out for me on the nightly news.

The boat ride down the river was amazing. There is no other word to describe it. The entire 26 kilometers that we rode took over 5 hours. The entire time both banks were lined with rice farms and small fishing villages. The farmers were using water buffalo to plow their rice paddies, and the fishermen were pushing themselves around on small bamboo boats. It was like being in a movie.

The food however was not so amazing. When they brought out lunch my roommate and I stayed out on the observation deck so I could take pictures, but during a lull in scenery we went back in to rest. They brought out our lunch. Fresh bamboo shoots and river snails. A fisherman had pulled his small boat up by the side of ours and sold them to the crew so that we could have a fresh lunch. Yum yum.

After the boat ride we were in Yangshuo, a small city that really is nothing more than a tourist town. After being there for only about an hour my roommate called and told us we should try to get a bus home so we could eat with the family. We came on down, and were treated to a very nice and very delicious Sichuan restaurant. Sichuan food is known for being spicy, and I know that Asian food can get spicy, but the food we ate last night wasn't spicy at all. It was quite delicious.

After dinner the family took us all to a KTV (Karaoke bar) and rented a private room. We spent the better part of four hours trading off singing random songs. The English selection wasn't great, so when I wasn't singing Celine Dion on ABBA I sang some Chinese songs. It was a crazy and fun night.

Tomorrow promises to be another adventure, but I won't spoil the surprise now by telling you what is going on.

10-1-2009

I believe that traveling from place to place has provided proof of
the technological differences between America and China. It seems as
though every time I travel somewhere new I am left without internet
access for at least a few days. At least it’s better than the
situation a few of the students in our group find themselves in.
Because they are too lazy to figure out how to set up the internet in
their apartments, they still don’t have internet access at home. I
don’t know how people used to live without the internet.

I’ll start with the train ride. Of course I hate traveling, it
always stresses me out, and so we left an hour and a half early for
the train station. It was a good thing that we did, because we sat on
the streets for over 30 minutes trying to find a taxi. It was the
first day off of work for the national holiday, and so everyone was
hailing taxis trying to get to the train station or the airport to get
out of town. We made it to the train station just in time, and got on
without having any problems.

There isn’t much to do on trains, so after getting on I took a nap.
When I got down off my bed (I was the top of 3 bunks in the ‘room’) I
started reading the book that I bought at the bookstore, Mao Zedong’s
autobiography. A Chinese person started staring at me. I don’t think
that he believed that I could be reading a book in Chinese. So the
next time I got to a word that I didn’t understand, instead of writing
it down to look up in my dictionary later, I asked him what it meant.
The guy didn’t even tell me what it meant, he just asked, “Can you
understand that?” I told him I could and he started talking to me.

Within half an hour literally 1/3 of the train car was pushing their
way to be within earshot, probably 30 people were sitting on beds,
standing in the aisles, or standing in the hallway listening to me and
asking questions, mainly about American politics. It was quite
interesting. A doctor wanted to know what it took to be a doctor in
America, why doctors made so much money. When I explained how many
years it takes to get a degree in medicine he understood, and told me
that in China you only have to get your undergraduate degree in
medicine to practice medicine.

For the next three hours I was answering questions and learning quite
a bit about China at the same time. Why doesn’t America have
socialized health care? What is authentically ‘American’ food? What
type of attitudes to most Americans have towards Chinese people? When
people in America think of China what do they think of? What is the
educational system in America like? Etc.

I went to bed tired, but had learned a lot of vocabulary that I didn’t
know before.

I woke up in the morning, got down off my bed, and ate some breakfast.
Then I climbed back on my bed and slept. I woke up around noon,
climbed down and ate lunch, then climbed back up and slept. I woke up
for the last time around 4 PM, and stayed awake until we arrived at
the train station at around 5:30.

Guilin is an extremely beautiful place. It reminds me a lot of
Taidong in Taiwan. It is in one of the furthest southern provinces in
China, and borders Vietnam. As we were riding in for miles and miles
there is terraced rice farm land. As I looked out the windows I could
see farmers driving their water buffalo to work their farms. There
were duck farms and herds of cattle. It is amazing here.

Of course that isn’t all. As soon as we got off the train we were
greeted by my roommates’ future in-laws. They are giving us a place
to stay for the next week, and are so extremely nice. When we got in
and thanked them for everything that they were doing they said, “It’s
no problem, having you come and stay in our home is like having
children come home from college for the holiday.”

The first thing they insisted on was taking us out to a steak dinner.
“You’ve been on a train for the past 27 hours, you didn’t eat well.
We insist you come with us.” After dinner they took us for a walk
around a park with a lake. In the middle of the lake are two famous
pagodas, the Bronze Pagoda and the Silver Pagoda. After walking
around the park for a little while we went home, and they made a very
good bamboo leaf and flower tea and we watched the National Day Parade
on TV.

I am very excited for tomorrow. We are taking a boat and floating
down the Li River. It is the most beautiful place in all of China,
and some say in all of Asia. I’m sure that this trip is going to be a
great experience.

No post last night. In fact I don't really remember when the last post was. It wasn't a very exciting last few days. Just more school and homework crammed into the past few days and preparing for another vacation. This must be what Jessica's life feels like.

I've got to write this fast, I've still got to pack for the next 8 days, and I have to leave at 2:30 for the train station. I won't get to Guilin until tomorrow night around 5 PM, so I'm looking at another 24+ hour train.

But I'm really excited to go to Guilin, and the nearby city Yangshuo. It has been ranked as the number one (or number two sometimes) photography destination in Asia. I'll have to keep you updated on everything that I'm up to, and I'll try to post some pictures soon, it's been hard to find time to get everything all squared away, and deciding which of the 1200+ pictures I took on my last trip is quite the daunting task.

Hopefully everything goes smoothly though during the next 29ish hours. I love to travel to new places, but I hate actually traveling to get there. When I travel to and from destinations I've never been to before I feel like Jeff, always worrying about what could go wrong.

But I really do need to leave. I'll update again when I get to Guilin.

Today seemed to fly by.

I feel like I accomplished less today than I have in days past, when in fact I'm sure that I've actually gotten much more done than usual.

I woke up at 7:30 and was out the door by 7:45 for class. I'm glad that tomorrow I get to sleep in. I don't have class until 10:00 AM tomorrow.

Classes seemed to go faster than normal today. It seems like I learned less though. I don't particularly remember what we talked about today, but I have notes, so I'll learn the material one way or another.

After classes I headed home, grabbing lunch on the way. I spent the afternoon emailing people that I have been meaning to and needing to email, but haven't had time to email because I've been out traveling.

When that was all over I headed over to the local DVD store to pick up some movies that I found on the internet which are supposed to be good. I've found a gold vein in Chinese cinema, a rare few directors that actually make good movies in Chinese. Watching movies has always been a good way for me to learn.

I headed over to Dr. Honey's for FHE. It went just like any regular FHE. I held his kids while his wife taught the lesson, he prepared the dessert, and all the students didn't pay any attention. Just like Provo.

To end the night I got some real life practice using my Chinese (not like I don't get enough of that living here or anything). I spent most of the night updating my English resume and translating it over into both Mainland Simplified Chinese and Taiwan Traditional Chinese. I was surprised at how much faster the process went now that I understand a lot more about the language. Of course I'm going to take them to my teacher tomorrow for correction, at which point I'm sure she'll stare blankly at me and tell me she has no idea what it is I'm trying to say, but for now I feel very accomplished.

Now, not to disappoint anyone, I've got the link to the video from the TV game show I was on last night:
http://www.showdv.com.cn/play_j.asp?vid=60953
http://www.showdv.com.cn/play_j.asp?vid=60954
http://www.showdv.com.cn/play_j.asp?vid=60955
http://www.showdv.com.cn/play_j.asp?vid=60956
Look for me in the third row (from the bottom) about 1/4 of the way over from the right. I'm the last one with blue pom-poms. I'm also one of maybe 3 white guys in the crowd, so while I haven't watched the whole thing, if there are closeups one might be of me, I don't know.

As a special bonus I offer this link:
http://net.lib.byu.edu/tutorial/art/

Enjoy!

Unfortunately I don't have time for a long post. Tomorrows post will contain a special surprise though (a link to a video!).

Today was a normal Sunday. Church in the morning. I got a calling as a FHE coordinator. That means I have to figure out how to hold FHE in a ward where the young adults like anywhere within a 3 hour radius (by train), and no one really has the money to travel. I'm sure it will all work out for the best in the end though.

During the afternoon I watched a very good movie - Finding Shangri-la. I would definitely recommend it if you can find one with English subtitles anywhere.

The best part of my day though had to be tonight. My roommate got a random call from a friend, "How would you guys like to be on TV?" Well you only live once right, so of course we accepted.

He had made his way onto a game show here that was being broadcast on the national TV channel here. He needed to have friends to help him with the various challenges to win money.

We went, they explained all the games to us and planted us in the audience. I'm going to post a video tomorrow of the show so that you all can see my 15 minutes of fame here in China.

Unfortunately my friend never made it out to compete, so my roommate and I never got called down to do any of the games, but we were still sitting in the middle of a small stage audience and I'm sure that we made it on the show multiple times.

That's just about it for the day. Apparently I'm becoming some sort of super star here in Asia.

I've returned.

And Nanjing feels like home.

Yesterday I wasn't able to post anything because I was on a train, but allow me to fill you in.

The first thing we did in the morning was go the the Terra Cotta Warrior site. It felt a lot more like traditional American historical sites- fairly interesting, not particularly exciting, but something that you have to go and see in person at least to say you've done it. After, another 'just to say you've been there experience' was going to the tomb of the first emperor of a unified China, Qin Shi Huang Di.

It seems like not much happened on Friday, I guess that is probably true. We went to lunch (at a restaurant inside of a pyramid with the sphinx in front of it), and went to the train station.

Got on the train, and about 24 hours later got off, at home, in Nanjing.

After resting up a bit my roommate and I rode our bikes down to the Confucian Temple, aka: the street where all the street vendors sell fake goods. I bought some Dulce and Gabbana jeans. American price: $420 USD. Chinese price: $11 USD. I win.

That's just about it for the day. Time for me to clock in for the night.

Today I got chewed up and spit back out by this city. It was one of those days.

We were informed by our teacher that all tours had been cancelled for the day because there were people in our group who wanted to shop, and didn’t want to see the sites. Unfortunately the money that I already paid to go on the tours that were cancelled today won’t be refunded, and in order to go to the sites myself I had to pay again. Awesome.

My roommate and I decided to go to the most famous place in all of Xi’an, the Hua Qing Springs. They were constructed during an early dynasty (I don’t remember which one) and were used as a bathing place for princes. In the Tang Dynasty the emperor gave the springs to his most beautiful and favorite concubine named Yang Guifei. They were a respected and often visited site from that time until the present era. The other famous incident which occurred at the Hua Qing Springs was in 1936. At the time there were many warlord factions fighting against each other, and a few of the warlords wanted the help of Chiang Kai Shek (the future ‘President’ of Taiwan). They decided the best way to get him to sign a treaty was to kidnap him, and isolate him at the Hua Qing Springs until he signed a treaty. He never signed the treaty, and they let him go a few months later.

Unfortunately my roommate and I didn’t know how far away the springs were, and I ended up having to pay a 100 RMB taxi fare to get there. I wasn’t happy. And we had to pay the 35 RMB door fee as well. I was already spending more than I wanted to for the day. After getting there and taking pictures for a while we left. As we were on the bus I was looking through my pictures and wondering why they all looked funny. Then I realized that I had never reset the settings from the night before, and all of my pictures were over exposed and ruined. Great.

We get into the city, and wander around for a long time, lost. My feet were hurting. Luckily, as a good offset to the bad morning, we found where we were going – the Muslim Quarter of the city.

Xi’an is far enough west in China that there is a very large Muslim population, and we walked through the Muslim Quarter eating beef and mutton kebobs, looking through the shops, and visited the Grand Mosque. After looking around for a little while I got two new pairs of shoes, they cost me 30 RMB ($4 USD) total. That’s both pair. Then I got a cool scroll from a calligrapher. Normally I wouldn’t buy something like that, but he did the calligraphy first in Arabic, and then next to it in Chinese. It is definitely a unique product you couldn’t get anywhere else in the world.

After walking around the Muslim quarter for a while we decided it was time to go home and rest before we headed out again for the night. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the people here HATE tourists. We tried to get a taxi, but they wouldn’t stop for us. We went to taxis that people were getting out of and asked for them to take us to the hotel, but they refused and told the next people to get in. When we finally did get a taxi back home he took the long way and did a full circle around the city before he took us to the hotel.

We got home and decided that taking a bus was probably the best way to travel. We found a place that we wanted to go, a shopping/food district that all the students apparently hang out at after dark (so says the mysterious ex-pat internet guide). We found the bus route, got on the bus, and headed out. We got to the shopping/food district only to find that it was closed – that it closed every night at 4PM.

With nothing else to do for the night we decided we would just walk the 11.7 km back to the hotel.

Now, I’m not trying to sound negative, but every different city gives a different impression on you. Nanjing is a pretty awesome city. The people are nice, the city is big, and there are lots of cool things to do around town. Shanghai is incredible. There are so many things to do, and so many people. Sure the people might be busier, but you can still meet some nice people – if they have time to talk to you. Dunhuang was a fun city. The people there reminded me of the people in smaller towns from my mission. They would still point and stare at the ‘foreigners’, which is always fun. The people seemed about average; I don’t think I could accurately say whether they were nicer or meaner than other people. It was a good city to visit, but I don’t think that there would be enough to do there to keep me occupied. Xi’an on the other hand, I don’t like this city. The people here seem to have something against everyone that isn’t like them (the reason that there is a Muslim Quarter in the city is because it used to be against the law for a Muslim to live anywhere but the Muslim Quarter). All of the people I have run into here are the Chinese people that people in Taiwan told me about in their horror stories of what it is like on the ‘atheist Mainland’, they just want to take your money any way they can, and they don’t feel bad taking it from you in any sort of unethical way.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be getting to go see the Terra Cotta Warriors, after which we will be getting back on a train to go back to Nanjing. I’m a little sad that we can’t go somewhere else to see more things and get to know more places, but I am actually really happy to go home. A week is a long time to be away from home. It seems like more than anything this trip has made Nanjing feel like my home. I feel like a visitor, a stranger in these places, but I feel at home when I’m in Nanjing.

It was a crazy and busy day. I’m left not knowing what to think. We didn’t get to go to see the Terra Cotta warriors today, but I guess that will be done on Friday. Today was a little different.

We got up in the morning, and got everything ready to be out the door by 8:30 so that we could eat and be ready to leave the hotel at 9 AM. I love travelling in groups. We didn’t leave the hotel until 10:30, and our trip to some famous hot springs was cancelled because there wasn’t time.

After we got out the door we headed to the Wild Goose Pagoda. It is a 7 floor pagoda that was built in honor and memory of a Buddhist monk named Xuan Zang, who travelled across the deserts of China to India and brought back Buddhist scriptures which he then translated into Chinese. He is recognized as one of the most important figures in Chinese history because of the impact that Buddhism has had in China since he returned. In his honor in 652 AD they constructed the Wild Goose Pagoda. It was pretty cool, and I had a good time walking around and looking at all the sights nearby.

For lunch we went to Panda Express, or at least the Chinese version of Panda Express. It was SOOOOO authentic, they had sweet and sour pork and General Tso’s chicken – I’ve never seen those anywhere else in China. (read: this place was as authentically Chinese as the French toast you get in the hotel breakfast buffet) I’m sure we paid a lot for lunch, so I made the most of it by eating as much expensive duck meat as I could (it was self serve all you can eat).

After lunch we headed out to the reconstruction of the original palace of Qinshi Huangdi, or the first emperor of the Qin dynasty (221 BC). He’s the emperor who first unified China (the one that the movie Hero is based off of), unified the languages and the writing system of China, built a canal system to enable him to travel (read: send troops) to any part of the country, and reinstate the Confucian Scholar system for selecting government offices. His palace was recreated on a quarter-scale by a British film company when they wanted to make a movie about him. It is now a tourist site.

A random side note about the drive over to the site. As we were driving we drove literally within 30 feet of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear power plants are very common here in China, on the train ride over we saw a new nuclear power plant every 30 minutes or so. I just never realized that some people literally lived within 15 feet of the cooling stacks of a nuclear power plant. I found it a little odd, but the reconstructed palace was definitely even more different than that.

This had to be one of the most unique experiences of the trip. This place was creepy. You could tell at one point it was a bustling tourist trap complete with all sorts of junky stores and tour guides and beggars and what not, but now the place is all but abandoned. We had to wake up the guard at the front to get tickets to get in. The ticket booth was boarded over; we just handed our money to him and walked in. Besides two or three people walking around sweeping up leaves, we were the only people. The store fronts were all locked, and the paint on everything was flaking. It was like going to abandoned carnival grounds. I thought it was tons of fun, and took the opportunity to take a lot of pictures. I felt like the palace in general shows the general neglect the Chinese have for their own history, and the disconnection from and abandonment of traditional Chinese culture by the current generation.

After being there for a while we headed to the center of Xi’an, inside the old city walls, which are still completely intact, despite having been built in 1378 AD. We went on top of the wall, rented bikes, and rode around the entire city on our bikes. In total it was about 10 km around the entire downtown area of Xi’an, but riding bikes was a lot of fun. I’m glad that I know when I get back to Nanjing I have a bike waiting for me.

We headed from the city walls to dinner. We ate at a… I don’t know how to say this in English… Dumpling Palace? Anyways, they served delicious dumplings full of random things that I didn’t know that they even put in dumplings. After the all you could eat dumpling dinner we watched a show (this restaurant was the equivalent of a Chinese ‘Medieval Times’). The show was a display of… semi-traditional dances. I say semi-traditional because this place was obviously a place that all the Westerners eat. The women did traditional dances from the Tang Dynasty Era, the men did modern ballet while dressed in random ‘Chinese’ clothes. The focus was on the Tang Dynasty Era dances because the Tang (618 AD – 907 AD) and the Southern Song Dynasties (960 AD – 1279 AD) were considered the height of Chinese culture. The dances that the women did were awesome (see ‘The House of Flying Daggers’ dance scene to get a taste of what it was like), whereas the dances the men did were kind of ridiculous.

I wanted to take pictures of the whole thing because it was awesome. Unfortunately we were sitting floor level behind a table of Japanese tourists, so their cameras and cell phones were held over their heads the entire show, so I stood up and looked for a good place to get some pictures. I ended up in the back corner on the second floor, and set up my tripod. When someone asked me to take my seat I took a lesson from mom, and told them that I was my tour groups official photographer and my job was to take pictures of everything, I even got out my Hollywood Video card out of my wallet and showed it to her saying it was my photographer ID badge. She let me stand there and take pictures. After going through enough different settings, I found some that worked and got a lot of really good pictures. I win.

650+ pictures later (just today, I know…) I’m sitting here in my room trying to figure out what I want to do tomorrow. We have nothing scheduled at all, so we get to just go out and do whatever we want. I’ve been recommended to spend most of the day in the Muslim quarter of the city, so I’m sure I’ll have lots of new experiences to share tomorrow.

Unfortunately during my last few days of adventure in the Gobi Desert I haven’t been able to access the internet. So as a consolation prize I’ve posted two posts tonight, one covering the train ride (there isn’t much to cover, it’s a train) and my day yesterday, the other covering today.

Today was… well I guess I’m a bit spoiled being from Utah. We started out the day by eating the crappy breakfast buffet at the hotel (yes Dad, all hotel breakfasts in Taiwan and China are horrible, if you want to eat well hit the streets). We then drove 3 ½ hours over unpaved roads through the end of the Gobi Desert and into the Taklimakan Desert, we rode out just over the border into the Xinjiang Province and right up to the border of China and Mongolia.

There we saw the ruins of the longest stretch of the Great Wall of China which was built during the Han Dynasty in206 BC. It was a more intact version of the Wall that we had seen driving into Dunhuang, and included THE checkpoint for getting into China at the time. It was probably the coolest thing that we got to see all day.

After that we drove another hour and a half further over bumpier unpaved roads out to the middle of the desert. We made it to the desert region where they filmed the movie ‘Hero’, which was dotted with rock formations left over from years of wind erosion. It looked like a grey/white version of Goblin Valley. The most interesting fact about this desert, I thought at least was in the history of the desert itself.

The Chinese describe the Taklimakan Desert as a place where ‘chickens don’t lay eggs, and cows don’t defecate’ (at least that is the nice way of translating the phrase). It is the closest you will ever get to being on Mars here on Earth. It almost never rains, and that means almost never. They can’t dig wells because they can’t dig deep enough to get to the water using any modern machinery. Because it is so dry there have never been any animal bones found anywhere but the outskirts, and there is no bacteria that lives in the desert. It is the world’s most arid region. Also, as far as they can tell it has been a desert since the Earth began, as they have never found any fossils of any living thing ever, nor have they ever found any traces of water being there at any time in the history of the Earth. No wonder they call it the desert which ‘people enter into and never return from’. Before modern travel, during the Silk Road Era, it would take 3-4 years to cross the desert and come back. Also, the sand dune mountain that we rode camels on yesterday is bigger than the entire nation of Singapore. Really.

Marco Polo wrote about the Taklimakan Desert when he went to China. Back then they called it the ‘Ghost City’ for a few reasons. Apparently because of the large amounts of iron ore in the earth around the area there is a lot of magnetic distortion which causes many people to feel dizzy when they enter into it. Also when Marco Polo and his group arrived their magnetic compasses didn’t work. Dehydration was a common problem, so naturally people would ‘hear voices’ and wander off to their death. Finally at night as the winds pick up they howl as they go through the rock formations in a way that reminded people of ghosts.

Today people go there to see the ‘rock formations’. We boarded a small tour bus and took off to different places in the desert. At random times the tour guide would stop and say, “Look. It’s the Chinese Sphinx (or a lion’s head or something random like that).” Only thing is it didn’t look like that at all. That is why living in Utah has spoiled me as far as looking at natural rock phenomena. The only really interesting thing that we saw out in the middle of nowhere was the houses that the tour guides lived in. They really weren’t houses, more like holes in the ground that were reinforced with bricks and had thatched roofs covered in sand. The tour guide told us that all of them lived in these hole-type houses because it allowed them to get out of the heat, because of course none of them had electricity. He said the only downside to living in one of these houses (only one, cause I could think of a lot) was that after sandstorms they would be buried and have to dig themselves out of their homes, sometimes through six or seven feet of sand.

After looking at everything we headed back 2 ½ hours home. Dr. Honey’s kids have decided they always have to be with me, so I find myself doing everything with/for them. In fact at dinner tonight one of the waitresses told me how cute my kids were and asked which girl was my wife. Yeah, I’m still not married, don’t worry.

After dinner we headed to the airport, got on the plane, and now I’m sitting in another 4 star hotel in Xi’an. It’s already midnight, which means I’m going to be tired tomorrow, but we’re taking a few long drives out to see the Terra Cotta Warriors and some other things out in who knows where. I should be able to get some sleep in on bus rides if I can get Dr. Honey’s kids to fall asleep too.

9 -21 -09
I’m so tired, but there is so much to write about. I need to get this down.
Yesterday and today were very, very long days.

We were on the train the entire day yesterday, nothing to do but sit around. I had originally wanted to go around the cars and talk to people (Chinese people), but they locked us all into our own car I’m guessing to prevent theft etc. The people that were in our car weren’t willing to talk because the stupid students that came along with us had kept them up half the night before by being noisy, and were generally acting like retarded Americans abroad. It’s funny that one of the things that I was looking forward to about this trip was getting away from ‘Provo’, but much to my dismay, I haven’t gotten away from ‘Provo’, rather they have brought a part of Provo here to China to follow me around always.

My entire day yesterday was spent playing with Dr. Honey’s kids. For some reason I’m the only one (besides the parents) who has any patience for putting up with a 5 year old and a 3 year old. I thought it was fun, but it definitely left me tired. I got a lot of sleep on the train- at least during the day.

Come night I was once again trying to sleep with everyone (ages 20-40) in the train acting like 6 year olds at Chuck-E-Cheese’s, and after they finally settled down I was still awoken many times. Apparently a woman who was getting off at a stop at 4 AM ‘lost’ her shoes. They called security down to our car and searched for over an hour, walking up and down the aisles and shining their flashlights all over (and on my face) and looking under beds. My suitcase was under my bed so every time someone pulled it out I had to sit up and make sure that they put it back before they decided that the 22 year old white man on the train didn’t steal the 55 year old woman’s high heels. After over an hour of searching they found her shoes, under her own bed. Quite frustrating.

We got up and were in a small city, I forget the name, but that isn’t important. The tour guide told us (or more, those who understood what he was saying, maybe three of us in all) that 75% of that town worked at the small train station. The other 25% were either children or worked at one of the few shops around town. We took a bus for two hours on a dirt road through the Gobi Desert and over the Black Mountains before we made it to Dunhuang at around noon. At least we got to see parts of the longest stretch of the Great Wall of China that was made during the Han Dynasty (206 BC) that stretched from North Korea to modern day Kyrgyzstan.

Let us not forget that I’m traveling the best way possible, in a large group. So of course every stop which should be five minutes is an hour because ‘someone forgot something’, or ‘someone has to go to the bathroom’, etc. So we stopped for five minutes at the hotel to drop off our bags, 2 hours later we left to eat lunch.
As we are walking into the restaurant that we have booked I stepped on a manhole. Big mistake, because remember, I’m in China. The sidewalk around the manhole literally collapsed and I found myself standing waist deep in, well, waste.

So here I am, standing in a sewer in a small city in the middle of the desert in China. I know that my hotel doesn’t have a washing machine, so I know that I’m now going to have to take my shoes and jeans with me in an airplane while still covered in sewage. The tour guide suggests I ‘go to the bathroom to clean up’. All I had to do was get out of the sewer I was standing in for him to realize that a couple of wipes in the bathroom wasn’t going to be enough. So I walk back to the hotel, shower, change, and head back to the restaurant. I show up and the people whose table I’m supposed to sit at tell me that they saved me some food, which meant that they left what they didn’t want to eat on the table until I got back so I could have something. I filled up on fish eyes, chicken feet, and celery. Yum.

Fortunately from here on out the day was great.

We went from there to the Mogoto Caves. These caves were carved out of the sandstone by Buhddist pilgrims anywhere from about 400 AD till 1200 AD. Inside the walls were covered in fresco paintings that still remained from the time. We saw the 3rd, 4th, and 5th largest Buhdda statues in the world – 9 stories tall, 8 stories and I think 6 stories tall. While there we were unable to take pictures though (they say that the flash of one camera in the caves reduces the life of a fresco painting by one year), so I walked around with Dr. Honey’s kids while he translated what the tour guide had to say so that there would be more than three of us that could enjoy the trip. The three year old fell asleep in my arms and I carried him around for the entire 2 hours, the 5 year old insisted I stay with him the whole time, so I alternated between holding his hand and carrying him on my shoulders. My back should be sore tomorrow.

After seeing some of the caverns (we saw probably just over a dozen, I think that there are more than 500) we headed over to the Crescent Lake, an oasis that exists between some of the sand dune mountains right outside of the city.

When we got there I heard the best news yet. For 30 RMB ($4 USD) we could ride a camel over to the Crescent Lake and back. Of course I jumped on that opportunity. We rode the camels over (maybe 5 minutes) and then the camel guides tried to get us to pay more to go further. Of course I had done my homework, I knew that the Crescent Lake was just around the bend and it wasn’t worth the extra 50 RMB ($7 USD) to go to the top of the giant sand dune to the side of us, and I knew that they would then charge even more for the camel to take you somewhere further and further until it was time to go back. So my roommate and I got off, everyone else went further. We walked around the bend to the Crescent Lake and took pictures, everyone else got back an hour later complaining that they had spent hundreds RMB and were wondering where I had gone that I had gotten such good pictures.

We headed back to the city for dinner, and after dinner we went to a Chinese acrobatics show. The ticket cost me 160 RMB ($23 USD) but I felt like it was worth it. At very least I didn’t spend the night sitting around the hotel room watching TV that I couldn’t fully understand. And the things that the Chinese acrobats can do are amazing. It was definitely an exciting experience.

So here I am – over 500 pictures later (150 on the train, over 350 in and around Dunhuang today) and I’m ready for the second day of the trip. I need to get to bed so that I can make the most of that.

Today was a good day, quite uplifting. Of course the day is only half over, but that doesn't mean that it will get any worse from here.

This morning after waking up we decided to go out and see some things, being that we're going to be on a train for the next 36 hours. We rode our bikes out to the lake, Xuanwu Hu, and rode around the entire thing.

After that relaxing activity, we rode our bikes out to the Confucian Temple in southern Nanjing, Fuzi Miao, and walked around the shopping district for a while.

Finally we rode home and bought the necessary food and drinks to hold us over on the train for the next day and a half.

Now I'm packing for the big trip. It won't be a few hours until I'm on a train headed for the 'desert which people enter into and do not return from'.

Perhaps it isn't a good idea to write my blog so late at night. I am constantly reading over old posts and finding small mistakes that need correcting. Yesterdays post probably didn't make as much sense as I would have liked it to.

Today there was no class, so it was a day of adventures. It was overcast most of the day, so it was cooler, but not cold. I wore a sweater and was a little warm all day. Rumor has it that it is supposed to be hot tomorrow.

After getting up in the morning I Photoshopped pictures from Shanghai (they still aren't posted yet, but they will be tomorrow) until it was time for lunch. After lunch my roommate and I decided we needed to do something we hadn't done before, so we climbed up onto the roof of our building. It was quite adventurous and I got quite a few good pictures taken of random things that we found up there. After climbing down we decided we needed to go and find some more things to make our life more comfortable.

One of those things was a laundry service. I like to wear my shirts a little small and so they stretch out over the day as I wear them. Every time I wash and dry them however, they shrink back to their original size. The slight snugness of my t-shirts when they are fresh out of the wash has become quite comfortable over the past few years. Unfortunately when you hang your clothes out to dry they don't shrink back to their normal size, so I've missed that snugness over the past few weeks that I've been here in China. The other problem with hanging clothes out to dry is the amount of time it takes, especially when it is rainy and cool. So we wanted to find somewhere that would wash and dry our clothes so that we didn't have to deal with all of the hassle of doing it ourselves (lazy I know, but this is China, where you can pay people to all sorts of things for extremely low prices).

Unfortunately we weren't successful, the only places that would come up on Bing were dry cleaners, and the only places that we could find by walking around or asking people were also dry cleaners. And they were charging almost $1 USD per t-shirt! So when I get back from this trip in a week or so I'll have to look again.

After walking around so much all afternoon (as we walked we also found other random things, like the school pool, which costs 10 RMB per visit - I guess it could be worth it) we also decided we needed a better way to get around. So I bought a bicycle. It cost $20 USD and I really think it is pretty fun. Tomorrow we're going to take our bikes (my roommate didn't get his yet because I bought the last one for the day, but they'll have more tomorrow) to places that we haven't been able to go in the city yet because there aren't buses that can get us their conveniently.

As for tonight, there isn't that much going on. Tomorrow should be a pretty busy day, I'm going to try to make a posting tomorrow before I have to go get on the train at 9:30 PM. We're heading out to the Taklamakan Desert, which in some language, though which language I'm not sure, means 'the desert that people enter and do not come out of'. I'm sure I'll be fine, but it promises to be a new adventure.

It isn't every day that something interesting happens here in China. Since moving in and getting settled most days are about the same, nothing that isn't normal for me now.

Yesterday and today were not exceptions. It rained all day yesterday and all day today. Yesterday I held out on buying an umbrella. I'm not exactly sure why but I figured that getting a little wet was better than spending the $6 USD for an umbrella. Today it was raining quite a bit harder The streets were flooded to mid-calf level so walking to school was especially fun. I caved and bought an umbrella, and I quite like it. I'll probably keep it and take it with me back to America.

Class was the same as it is everyday: long, but I learned a lot. The constant Chinese immersion is started to become exhausting. I remember on my mission, when I would really immerse myself in the language I would get really tired (mentally exhausted) because I was focusing so hard on what was being said and I was trying to remember so much. I'm having the same thing happen now as before. At times in class I've caught myself zoning out. Not zoning out and not paying attention, more of just staring at a random spot and concentrating so hard on what I'm hearing and tearing apart the grammar structures, characters, analyzing the feeling of the words that are being said, etc. that I don't move.

One thing that I learned today, quite interesting if you are interested at all in the linguistics of Chinese at all. Pre-Modern China (as the Chinese call it 'Old China' - Pre-1912) there were of course many dialects of Chinese spoken, as there are today, but interestingly enough none of the dialects of Chinese was written the way it was spoken. Of course they could use Chinese characters to write the words that would make up what you say, but things were only written in a written Chinese language. In written Chinese, there were different grammar rules, and they used a different vocabulary completely. The differences were great enough that if someone were reading out loud something written in Chinese, an uneducated person would not be able to understand what was being said. On May 4th, 1919 a demonstration began which would later become known as the May 4th movement. As part of that movement, the Chinese fought for changing the writing in China away from the Classical Written Chinese language to a Vernacular Chinese that people spoke. They were for the most part successful. There still is an understood vernacular language that people speak on the streets and a written language. Thus, while learning Chinese it is important to distinguish words and grammar patterns as written or vernacular so they can be used in the proper context. However, the written and vernacular between Taiwan and China are completely different. For the most part they use words in Taiwan Vernacular Chinese that are only used in Written Mainland Chinese. It makes learning Chinese in classes here that much more different. Not only do I have to relearn all of the characters I can read (because they use simplified characters here in China, while they used traditional characters in Taiwan), but now I have to reestablish words as vernacular or written.

After class (which was later today, I had class until 5 PM today) there wasn't much to do. We went back to the bistro that I mentioned in my last post and had a gourmet pizza. It was definitely worth the $2 USD that I paid for it. Now I'm getting ready for our trip to Dunhuang which leaves on Saturday night. We have some free time and I want to make sure that I use it in the best way that I can.

It was a rainy day today. The first time it's rained since I've been here in China. But it was also cooling down. When I first arrived I would die at night if I wasn't running the air conditioner. I haven't run the air conditioner in my room at night in over a week, most nights I just open my sliding doors to my balcony (I have a nice room and apartment) and that is enough. Today I wore a sweater to class, though I didn't really need it. I'm sure it won't be long before I'm wearing a coat.

Class was the same as it always is. At least I'm learning a lot.

After class I went out trying to find a new place to eat. What I found exceeded my expectations. I found a restaurant which would be a Chinese version of Panda Express. You choose how many sides you want to your rice and pay accordingly. I got 3 vegetables and a meat, with rice. It was more than I wanted to eat for lunch. I was full (I know, a lot of food). And it only cost 6 RMB ($.85 USD) I'll be eating there more often.

After lunch I headed home, did my homework, read an article in the National Geographic Traveler that I picked up in Shanghai (in Chinese of course) about Mongolian horse competitions. I was pretty tired and took an hour or so nap.

When I woke up my roommates wanted to go to dinner, but I wasn't particularly hungry (still full from lunch I guess). I went out with them anyways and didn't get anything. On the way back home I bought a comforter so that when it does get cold I can still sleep fine, it only cost 40 RMB ($6 USD). You got to love China.

Today was my roommates birthday, so on the way home I decided we were going to stop by someplace and get some cheesecake for him. As we were walking by a small bistro we stopped to look at the menu and the owner came out. He was trying to get us to go inside but it looked a little pricey. I told him that it was my roommates birthday and he said that he would let us eat for free tonight. We went in and got cheesecake and the owner came and started talking to us. This is where the night started to get interesting.

The owner used to be a chef at the Shangri-la Hotel in Nanjing, which is a 5 star hotel. Then he was a chef at the Hyatt and the Marriott. My roommate happened to have studied culinary arts in Marseilles, France for a summer, and got accepted into the CIA (The Culinary Institute of America, very prestigious). As they talked about the cheesecake the owner told us that he'd only been open for a little while, and he wanted to know what he could change about things to attract more customers. We then talked about everything about the small bistro, the look (he had painted everything in very nice blues and whites, but needs to put some pictures on the wall so it doesn't look so empty), the music, the smell, the taste of the food, how he presents it, etc. He brought us out foods to try so that we could give him feedback on how well he was cooking it. The best was the fish and chips. Very good fish, exceptional tartar sauce, the fries were a little soggy (and by little, I mean little - this restaurant really was a high high quality restaurant). He also brought out lasagna and pizza (all of which was 5 star quality), showed us the full menu and asked for advice. He saw my camera and asked about it, and I told him that if he would like I could take pictures for him to put on his walls or in his menu. In the end he gave us his personal number and email, and said that any time we wanted to go back and eat or just hang out we could. Whenever we helped him with things the food would be free. It seems like I'm making a lot of friends here. Most of them are eager to do anything because my Chinese is good enough that I can actually communicate with them, so for the first time they can actually understand the American or Western point of view.

I find it very interesting that I came here to China in an attempt to better understand the way that Chinese people think. I set up my whole interview project around the idea that I would like to better understand the people here and the culture here. As I have been here and I have stopped to talk and get to know people, they are ecstatic because they see getting to know and talk to me as an opportunity for them to understand people that they have never understood before- the Westerners who are living in China.

Unfortunately, not many exciting things happen during the weekdays here.

Today was also a recovery day from Shanghai this weekend.

I slept in, and much like I used to do in Provo, I woke up around 15 minutes before class started, brushed my teeth, threw on some clothes and headed out the door. I still made it in time for class, but it was close.

Class was normal, and for lunch we went out and got dumplings. The original plan was to go get some food at a place that some of the other study abroad students recommended. When we got there with them it actually turned out to be less of a restaurant and more of a shack, and less of a shack and more of a stand on the side of the road, and less of a stand on the side of the road and more of a card table with random food spread out for you to choose from. I passed. Instead of paying 4 RMB for lunch like they did, I paid 8 and got 18 dumplings, which was more than enough for a filling lunch. One thing I didn't get though was food poisoning, like one of the other study abroad students has now, or any other number of stomach problems, like pretty much everyone in the group but me is suffering from right now. I think it's worth the extra $.50 USD per meal.

After lunch I was really tired, and just wanted to go home and take a nap, but fate had other plans for me. I ended up going downtown to help some people get flashcards - which interestingly enough don't exist in China. Everywhere we went looking for flash cards didn't have any. When we asked they told us to make our own out of paper. I also ended up buying Mao ZeDong's autobiography. That should be very interesting. And it should help my Chinese improve a lot, as it is in Chinese. Another thing I found very interesting is that there were plenty of copies of Chairman Mao's autobiography in bookstores, but I never found a biography of him. The workers all told me that they didn't have any biographies on him, and that I should just read his autobiography.

After going out for the afternoon though, it was time to come home. I spent the night touching up the pictures I took while at Zhong Shan Ling and Ming Xiao Ling last Friday. I didn't finish them all, but I uploaded about 30 of them onto my Photobucket site: http://s816.photobucket.com/albums/zz82/carlhollan/ I'll be finishing those up probably tomorrow, and then moving on to working on the pictures I took while in Shanghai last weekend. I'm hoping to finish everything just in time for our trip to Dunhuang and Xi'an. I'm going to have a lot of pictures to sort through after that, so if you want to see any of the things I'm writing about, make sure to check out my Photobucket account.

I'm sitting here tonight, reflecting on what happened today, and realizing that it is one of those days where I didn't really do anything, but I'm left very tired by the end of it.

This morning I got up early. I didn't really have a choice. The cold tile floor wasn't very comfortable. And I didn't get a very good nights sleep because my roommate insisted on having the air conditioner on, even though I was sleeping without a blanket of any sort. I woke many, many, many times last night for various reasons. When I got too cold I went into the bathroom, there were two hand towels and two bath towels (all miniaturized for Chinese convenience and my inconvenience). I put the two hand towels down on my backpack to try to soften it up because it was hurting my head (as it doubled as my pillow). I draped one towel over my arms and the other over my midsection in a vain attempt to keep warm. When that failed I got up and turned the air conditioner down, which worked fine. I still didn't get much sleep.

After showering, shaving, and getting dressed we headed over to the conference center for the priesthood session of District Conference. This district is a little special, and explaining the district might help people who are curious understand about the Church in China. There are two districts in the PRC (Mainland China) which are not in SAR's (Special Administrative Regions- Hong Kong and Taiwan). One is the Beijing District and the other is the Shanghai District. The Shanghai District covers Shanghai and all the surrounding cities within a few hundred miles, the Nanjing Branch being the furthest established branch in the district. The Beijing Branch covers northern China, but also has a special Skype Branch that holds meetings over Skype for all members who cannot make it to other meetings while living in China. The members of the church who attend these districts are all foreign nationals. You must either have a foreign passport or be married to someone who holds a foreign passport to attend any church meetings. If any Chinese citizens shows up to a meeting that we are holding as a Church (which is any meeting where any sort of religious ritual is carried out, including prayer) we are required to immediately disband and cannot hold another meeting that week. Chinese citizens can attend church in their Chinese branches, but they cannot have any influence given them by anyone who is not a citizen of China, and they cannot meet any leaders, or be taught by any leaders that are not Chinese citizens. They are under the stewardship of a member of the Seventy, who is from Taiwan (part of China), so he can teach them. In summation, everyone who would be attending District Conference had to be a foreign national (ex-pat) or married to an ex-pat.

Regardless to say there weren't very many priesthood holders who came to Priesthood Session. I was a little taken aback by the fact that Elder Oaks walked into the room just like any other person. There was no throng of people or sudden whisperings. Everyone was standing around talking, and he just walked in and sat down on the stage. After a minute he came down and talked to everyone who was there (maybe 35 brethren) for a minute or two. Elder Perkins came in and did the same. Of course he recognized me and we had a nice little chat.

The Priesthood Session was good, and 15 minutes after it closed the General Session started. There were a few hundred people who arrived for the General Session, probably around 400 people in all. I was surprised at the turnout. They had translators for Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Japanese. I saw Vietnamese, Indians, Filipinos, along with all the Americans, Canadians, French, and British ex-pats. Quite an array of people.

Fifteen minutes after the General Session closed, the Young Single Adult session opened. It was quite a busy day for everyone.

After the conference was over we went back to the People's Square and walked around, and sat in the park and rested until it was time to catch our train at 6 PM.

One great thing about living in China is I don't have to care what I look like. Today I realized that I had forgotten my church belt, and so after the church meetings let out and I was going to be walking around more I put on my old blue baseball belt with my giant batman logo belt buckle. I also realized my dress shoes were going to give me blisters if I walked around in them, so I changed them to my red Puma's. I must've been a sight to see. Here's a white guy, walking around in a light lavender pinstripe dress shirt, a bright blue belt with a giant batman belt buckle, dress slacks that aren't quite long enough, white socks and bright red running shoes. When I was bored during the afternoon I would 'angry dance' my way through the crowds when crossing the street etc. It was a nice way to keep from getting exhausted from walking around in the hot sun all afternoon. But I'm sure all the Chinese people were wondering who I was.

After getting back home tonight, I started looking through and sorting out the good pictures I took over the weekend from the bad ones. I ended up taking over 300 pictures in the past two days. I only kept about 80 of those pictures though, which all things considered is very good, considering most of them were double shots taken at different exposures etc. and usually I only keep about 10% of the pictures that I take. I'm sure it will be a few days at least until those pictures start getting posted to my photo page though. Hang in there.

For now I need to get to bed. I've got class in the morning, and I haven't had a good night's sleep all weekend.

Today was an entirely different day in Shanghai.

We woke up around the normal time that we wake up here, maybe 7:00 AM, and got ready. We were out the door before 8:00 AM, and walked to the nearest subway stop. We took the subway to the middle of Shanghai, a place called The People's Square. And from there we started walking.

The first place that we walked was the Jing An Temple (the Temple of Tranquility and Peace). It was built during the Three Kingdoms Era in 247 A.D. but it was much like any other temple I ever went to in Taiwan, except you had to pay to get in. We got there just as a group of Japanese tourists got there, and I had a lot of people take pictures of me, and a few ask if I would get in pictures with them. I'm a huge star in Japan.

After going to the temple we walked back to The People's Square and walked from there to the 'Bund'. This is where a Chinese history lesson might be helpful in understanding the layout of Shanghai. c. 1820-1830 Great Britain was facing a major economic crisis, as was most of Europe. The problem was they all wanted goods from China, namely: silk, spices, and in Great Britain's case tea. The reason that this was a problem is the Chinese had no need for any goods that the Westerners had to offer, so they required that these Western nations pay for their products in silver. European nations were quickly running out of money and were looking for anything that they could sell to China to offset the trade deficit. Britain found their solution in opium, which they grew in India and exported to China via Canton (Guangzhou, right by Hong Kong). When the Chinese tried to stop the British from importing opium into China, the British decided to uphold their right to smuggle these drugs with force. The result was the Opium War (1839-1842). The Opium War ended with the Chinese losing and signing the Treaty of Nanjing. This treaty not only gave the British (and consequentially all other Western powers) the right to continue to import whatever they wanted into China, it also required the Chinese to open ports besides Canton to Western trade. One of those ports was Shanghai, and so the British and French both built semi-cities within Shanghai for their citizens to live in when they came to trade in Shanghai.

The 'Bund' (if you forgot, I mentioned it at the start of the last paragraph) is the British concession. The buildings were all built by the British, and have western architecture and decor. It was pretty cool, especially since Pudong (the famous futuristic part of Shanghai that you always see pictures of) is right across the Huangpu river.

After walking along the Bund, we made our way over to the Yuyuan Gardens and Old City Bazaar. The gardens were originally built in 1559 AD, but the city surrounding it had been around long before that. Of course today everything has been refurbished, and there is a McDonald's inside the Yuyuan Gardens. The side streets all around the old city area alternate between streets where vendors sell knick knacks for tourists and streets where the poor people of Shanghai live. It made it interesting wandering around that area for a while.

After lunch and a little rest inside a restaurant we made our way over to the French concession, where the French built post Treaty of Nanjing (technically post Treaty of Whampoa, which was the French version of the Treaty of Nanjing/Bogue). It had a much different feel to it than the Bund did. The streets were wide, they were lined with trees, traffic was sparse, and the entire area was dotted with coffee shops, cafes, and art stores. When you got off the main streets the alley ways were narrow and winding, but still clean, and still full of coffee shops and art stores.

By the end of our day of touring I had taken another 160 pictures. That makes over 300 in the past two days alone.

From there we made our way back to the People's Square one last time, where I would meet up with my other roommate. While waiting for my other roommate to arrive I was sitting at the exit of the subway station when a security guard came out for a cigarette break. He saw me sitting there and nodded, so I went over and started talking to him. I ended up having a 30 minute conversation with him, and finding out all sorts of cool things about him. That will be my next post on my other blog. While talking with the security guard another person stopped and waited by the side. When the guard left to go back on duty, this man started talking to me. He said that he was walking by and heard me speaking Chinese and was amazed, he'd never heard a white person who spoke Chinese with such fluency he said, and he was curious and wanted to meet me. The two of us ended up talking for another half an hour and I found out that he lives only about 5 minutes from our apartment in Nanjing, that he was here in Shanghai today visiting as well. He gave me his number and said that he'd be more than happy to show me the sights in Nanjing or just spend some time hanging out if I'd like.

When my roommate made it there we headed out and he showed me a shopping mall nearby (I know that Courtney is going to love to hear this), it is 6 floors, and the entire shopping mall just sells rip off brand name clothes, watches, phones, or anything else that you could think of.

To end the long day we headed to the Adult Session of District Conference. Elder Oaks is here, as well as my old Mission President, Elder Perkins (now of the Asia Area Presidency and 1st Quorum of the Seventy). Now I need to get to bed, I've got a lot of meetings to go to tomorrow, and I still will be spending the night sleeping on the tile floor.

Well, I didn't post anything last night.

It wasn't on purpose, I didn't really do anything particularly noteworthy yesterday. There was nothing to really write about. Today is a different day. I knew that I would have a lot to say about things today. And I do.

Yesterday we had our Chinese culture class, and after class I approached the teacher and told him that I was looking to improve my Chinese and also be able to understand more about the history of Nanjing. I asked if there were any books that he would recommend that I read. He told me that he would think about it and get back to me.

This morning after waking up we headed up to campus for our first class field trip. When I got there my teacher was waiting for me. He pulled me aside and said that he had talked to a few of his colleagues and asked what they had thought. They were all very impressed by my initiative and wanted to help, but they didn't know what level of book I would be able to read. The teacher told me that they had brainstormed a few books that might be helpful, and that on Monday after class I could go with him to the campus publishing house and choose any books that I wanted about Chinese history and buy them for wholesale. He also gave me another book with pictures from the famous sites in Nanjing and told me that if I ever needed anything while I was here at Nanjing University I could always find him in his office, which is rare for professors in China to say to students.

For our class field trip we went to Zhong Shan Ling, the burial place of the Father of Modern China, Sun Yat Sen. When we arrived the teachers were trying to find someone to take a picture of the entire class and I volunteered that we use my camera and set it up with a timer on a tripod. After seeing my camera and looking at a few of the pictures that I had taken earlier that morning our professor named me as the class photographer, and assigned me to take pictures wherever we go and upload them onto a website that all the students can easily access.

I took over 150 pictures while we were at Zhong Shan Ling and the nearby Ming Xiao Ling (the burial place of the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty c. 1368 AD). I had a good time, but was pretty tired by the time that we made it back to campus.

I spent the afternoon resting and getting packed and ready to head to Shanghai at night.

We took the subway to the train station, and the speed train to Shanghai. It seemed like such a long train ride because I hadn't eaten since noon (we didn't get on the train till 5:30), and we didn't get off the train until 9:00 PM.

Once we got to Shanghai our roommate, who had friends that live here in Shanghai took us by his old apartment so we could drop our stuff off before we headed out for dinner. His friends were all pretty nice. One was from America, California I think, the others were from Sweden, Denmark, France, England, and Colombia. When we went out to dinner the other person with us spoke up, saying he didn't like the idea of staying on those guys couches because they were talking about going to clubs that night. I don't know what about any of that made him uncomfortable, but he said, "If I have to choose between getting a hotel room for a couple hundred RMB a night or sleeping in an apartment full of Euros, I'd want to find somewhere else to go."

All the sudden this weekend that I was going to spend in Shanghai with my friends turns for the worse. My roommate who used to live in Shanghai still has a place to stay, and decides to go out partying with everyone else. My other roommate and I find ourselves on the streets of a city we've never been to before at 11:00 PM with 35 RMB ($5 USD) between the two of us, no where to go, and no passports.

We figure the best option (of the few options we have remaining) is to make our way down to the conference building that we will be having church in on Sunday and try to find a hotel around there. The only problem is that it is against Chinese law to rent a hotel room to a foreigner without them showing you their passport, and our passports were in Nanjing. So, not only did we have to find a hotel that was still renting out rooms at 11 PM, but we had to find one that was less than 35 RMB a night, and that wouldn't require us to show our passports.

Through a lot of luck, faking we didn't speak Chinese, and pretending we didn't know the local laws we got a hotel room for the night. The only problem is there is only one bed, so I'm sleeping on the tile floor with no blankets and using my backpack as a pillow for the next two nights. Also our hotel is filled with mosquitos.

Shanghai seems like a really nice city, and I'm sure that I would love it under different circumstances, but this adventure is a little much for me.

This city is so big (with about 20 million residents) and there is so much to do. There is no way that I can possibly do everything that I want to do while I'm here, no matter how much I do every day.

Today started out with class, like every other day. The first class was great, I learned a lot. The second class was boring. I was trying to keep from falling asleep the entire time. But I guess that is the way that life goes.

I figured it would be a good day to focus on taking pictures. I really wanted to interview a man who usually sits outside of our apartment building and plays the erhu (a traditional Chinese instrument) and begs for money, but I couldn't seem to find him today, no matter how hard I looked. So that fell through. Instead I spent the afternoon going with a classmate to the Western Union so that he could get a money transfer and I could be there to translate if needed.

I sat and took pictures of everything that I saw out the window and listened to music. It was a very relaxing day.

After we went to the coffee shop to see our friends and so that my classmate and I could get our homework done for the day. After finishing my homework I started to Photoshop my pictures so I could upload them to my Photobucket. I don't know if I'll get to that tonight, it takes a bit of time and it's almost midnight here already and I'm exhausted.

After sitting at the coffee shop for a little while we went out and got dinner and then came back to the apartment to do some more studying.

We walked downtown to a really good crepe shop and got hot fudge sundae crepes. It was a delicious reminder of America. To cap off the night we went to some of the other study abroad students housing to say hi. They live in a little different environment than us. To get to their house you have to walk about 5 minutes down a dark and winding alley into a run down subcomplex. Their downstairs neighbors collect garbage for a living. Our classmates have a two room apartment between the three of them. And two of the guys have to share a bed. I almost felt guilty. But then I didn't instead.

We walked home, and I'm feeling pretty tired. Tomorrow is going to be a long day of class. I think I have class from 8AM-12PM and from 2PM-5PM, plus I have to go find a place to buy train tickets to ShangHai for District Conference this weekend, and I have to find a travel agent to buy train tickets for me to GuiLin. That should be exhausting.

I'm sorry about the short blurb today, I would normally have a lot more to say about life here, like how while we were walking we found out that we live only half a block from the only Mexican restaurant in Nanjing, or how we're hearing cool details about trips we're going to be taking soon, but tonight I just need to get to bed and get some sleep.

I've been in China for one week now. And it's starting to feel a lot like home. I'm starting to get acquainted with the area, the people, my life. It's not so much of a new experience anymore. This is just my life now.

This morning I got to sleep in. I didn't have class until 10 AM. It was quite nice. After classes a few of us went back to the Muslim noodle shop that we went to a few days ago, and then we went to register with the police department. One problem that we seem to constantly run into is businesses close from noon till 2 or 3 PM for an afternoon nap. During those hours it seems like we have nothing at all to do. The library is even closed (I tried to go study there during those hours today). Today those of us who went to lunch walked north of campus and found another shopping district (that makes 3 large ones within a mile of where I live), and found a park nearby. We sat and rested and I took pictures.

There were two exciting things that happened at the park today. The first came as I was looking around for things to photograph, and I looked at a nearby building. There, tied (literally tied) to the end of a rope (like a 3 inch thick one) and hanging from a building (at least 60 stories) was a man washing the windows. I was so excited! I took a few pictures of what looks to be one of the most dangerous jobs I have seen in China thus far （and there are some ridiculously dangerous jobs here).

The second thing that happened at the park was a little funny. You see here, to save money (and because it just isn't a big deal I guess) parents don't buy diapers for their children. Instead they buy pants which are split the entire way down the middle from the front to the back. When a child has to go to the bathroom its easy, the parents take them to a patch of grass, dirt, etc. The child squats down and takes care of business. When there is no grass, dirt, etc.? No problem, the parents hold a piece of paper or magazine underneath their child to catch all the deposits (much like people do with their dogs) and throw it away in the trash can. So as we were sitting in this park we had noticed a large amount of children going to the bathroom. Despite all of this, we had a police officer come over to one of the students and ask him not to lie down on the bench 'because it wasn't becoming'. China. Crazy place.

After registering with the police I came home. Oh, here is a chance to tell another story that hasn't yet been put on my blog.

Many, many days ago. Before the beginning of time and before I had internet access in my apartment, we would go to a small coffee shop across the street, order a 5 RMB drink and use the wireless internet to communicate with people. One fateful night as I was sitting there writing a post for this very blog, I realized that I was singing along to music. But I wasn't playing the music, it was coming from the coffee shop speakers. It was then I realized that they were playing 'Gotta Have You' by The Weepies. Well I got really excited (because how many of you had heard of The Weepies before reading that last sentence? [Thank you Alyssa]), and went to ask them how the heck they had The Weepies playing in their coffee shop. They told me that they had a certain worker who was really into music and had chosen the music for the coffee shop with a few friends. I decided these people had to be cool and that I had to have them as friends.

This afternoon I made a mix CD for them of other music which is also amazing from America. After making the CD I took it over to the coffee shop and gave it to the employee at the front. They were all excited to hear the CD, and I told them that I would probably be stopping by the coffee shop more to talk about music and ask them if I ever had any questions about where to find things, even if I already had internet upstairs. So I made some new friends today.

At night we went exploring up north of campus on streets we hadn't been up before. Nothing too interesting to report on. Came home and studied. Tomorrow will be a full day of classes. Time to get to sleep to get ready for those.

Today was the first day of classes. It looks like I have a good semester ahead of me. I'm sure that there will be lots of learning to do. Not only will my Chinese improve, but I'm sure that I'll improve as well.

To begin, last night was hot. Very hot. I've been sleeping without an air conditioner on at night to save on the power bill (which isn't expensive, but every penny counts) and it gets to about 28 degrees (Celsius, that's 82.4 Fahrenheit) here at night, which with the high humidity is still pretty hot (on a side note Nanjing is known as one of the 4 'Oven Cities' which is really hot and really humid. I don't know what the other 3 are). Last night I woke up around 3 or 4 AM just drenched in sweat. I got up, got a drink (boiled water, cause we can't drink it from the tap) and turned on the air conditioner. After the air conditioner had cooled down my room enough I got back to sleep. Still I was a little tired today.

Knowing that none of my audience has ever made it to China, let me explain the education system here. They still hit kids in classes (not college classes, but through the end of high school). Teachers demand respect from the students. Things which are considered normal in classrooms in America are unheard of here. There is no talking to your neighbor, no texting your friends during class, and no sleeping. These people have doctorates which is still very rare here considering that during the Cultural Revolution ('67 to '76) there were no more college graduates, and that colleges were shut down from then until '79. If someone is late, or isn't paying attention they'd just as soon show the student the door as allow them to disrespect them, unless you're American and you're paying much more in tuition than normal students.

Back to my day - Class started at 8 AM. I arrived early so that I could sit in the front row and show my teacher that I had come to learn (I figure if tuition is twice as much as BYU, I might as well learn twice as much while I'm here). Unfortunately that meant that the other people from BYU decided to sit right by me. So when one of them whipped out flashcards to practice his reading ability 15 minutes into class, the teacher saw. And when another spent most of the class texting someone the teacher saw. And when one of them up their head down half and hour into class and fell asleep, the teacher saw. Everyone saw when one of them stood up and walked out of class when there was still an hour left (classes are two hours). It was embarrassing. I was embarrassed to be from the same group as them. I hope that the teachers learn that not all Americans are that so uncultured (or impolite).

After class was over (I only have class from 8 to 12, today was a conversation class and a reading class) I went with a few people to go back to the Muslim noodle restaurant. Unfortunately it is right behind a Jr. High, and just as we were getting there they were getting out for class. So the restaurant was too full (not hard to do when there is only room for four people to sit inside) and we had to go somewhere else. That wasn't a problem though, lunch was still good, and it still only cost me 6 RMB (not quite $1 USD).

From 2 till 4 we had a culture class which was taught by our BYU professor, Dr. Honey. I learned a lot of cool things about DunHuang in preparation for our trip out there in two weeks. I'll make sure that I post some of the most interesting things about the area when I'm out there and I see it in person.

One thing I learned about China today in our conversation class was something that our teacher brought up. Before coming to China I had heard people say that 1 out of 6 people on the earth right now is a Chinese rice farmer. I always figured that they were just ignorant about Chinese people (which I'm sure they still are) and assumed that since there are 6 billion people on the planet, and there are roughly 1.3 billion Chinese people, that 1.3/6 people were Chinese rice farmers, because the only job in China is farming rice. The actual statistics though are surprising. There are roughly 1.3 billion people in China right now. Of those, 900 million are farmers. Only 400 million live in the cities. So it is almost 1/6 people in the world that is a Chinese farmer.

Now though, because there are so many people out in the countryside trying to farm, and there is so little money to be made farming, millions of farmers are moving to the cities to find work. But because they have no education they can only beg, or work service jobs for very little pay. When I went out after Dr. Honey's class and got my haircut I thought I might test the truth to my conversation teacher's statement that 'everyone who has a job serving you is a farmer with no education'. I asked the person cutting my hair (in a small shop, I mean, it only cost $1 USD) where he was from. Hubei, a place in southern China by Sichuan. I asked him why he had moved to Nanjing. Because there was no work where he was from, he had moved here to make money. I asked him what he did before. Farmer. And how did he get into the haircutting business? He thought it would be an easy trade to pick up. How much education did he have? He had finished part of Jr. High.

After the haircut I walked around and took pictures for a while. It seems like the golden half hour or so around here is about 5:30 to 6:00PM, about a half hour before the sun goes down. I get some really good pictures without harsh light, and the sunset usually brings out the natural colors in things, but it isn't too dark yet.

I went to Dr. Honey's house for FHE tonight. It's the same everywhere you go. I bought a tripod for my camera on the way home. I have some pictures I want to take that I'm going to need a tripod for. It was a good investment, and cheap too. Only cost me 98 RMB ($14.35 USD).

Then I came home. Did some studying, and I'm about to go to bed.

Now, I got a lot of questions about people burning money - so I'll explain it all here.

In Chinese culture (or religion, whatever you want to call it) they believe that when a person dies their body goes into the ground or is burned or eaten by eagles or whichever way they decide to take care of the body (eaten by eagles actually is a real burial method here in China). Your spirit stays here, you just can't see it. The world that the spirit goes to is just like this one in many ways. One thing that is the same is you still need to eat and live etc. In order to ensure that their ancestors have a happy afterlife, filial (respectful) sons are expected to sacrifice food and money to deceased ancestors on certain days of the lunar year. Food is sacrificed by being baibai'ed over (kind of like a prayer, setting apart for sacrifice, and worship all at the same time) and set out so that the deceased relative can eat the 'spirit of the food'. After the 'spirit of the food' is gone it is believed that it has no nutritional content and is 'empty' and is eaten by the family (interestingly some churches like the Catholic Church do not allow members to eat previously sacrificed food. Our Church says it's fine). To sacrifice money you buy 'spirit money' and burn it. If a family is filial and faithful in sacrificing sufficient money and food to the ancestors, the ancestors watch over, protect, bless, etc. the family. These spirits are believed to be good.

The problem comes when people don't sacrifice sufficient for their ancestors needs, or when a family disregards tradition and doesn't sacrifice anything for their ancestors. These ancestors spirits then wander the earth as 'hungry ghosts' and cause misfortune to the descendants of their own family and anyone else that they encounter. During most months of the year the good spirits are able to counteract the effects of these 'hungry ghosts' and protect their families (provided that they sacrifice sufficiently). During one month on the lunar calendar however, the 'hungry ghosts' come out stronger than other months. Thus, to avoid misfortune coming on one's home, one must sacrifice more to appease the 'hungry ghosts'. During this month Chinese people also believe it is bad luck to get married, move into a new house, etc.

The night that I went out and was taking pictures happened to be an important night during 'Ghost Month' when there were many people out in the streets burning their offerings so that the 'hungry ghosts' would pass over their homes and not harm them (perhaps some interesting correlation with the Jewish Passover). I was surprised at how many people were making offerings, it being China and all.