Eric's Beijing Diary

Rode my bike down to the old street near Houhai park today and spent the afternoon in a little rooftop cafe. I met a guy from Germany who was originally from Vietnam, but actually originally from China. Actually, he was born in Vietnam, but his people come from China, and his wife is from Beijing. He told me that the new Haidian church was designed by a German architect. I told him I had heard that, and I asked him how he knew. He said that the architect was the same one who designed the Disanji Book Building, and that he had to design the church as part of the deal. That was news to me, but it is not surprising. When that part of Zhongguancun was developed, the city people didn't want an old run down church to contrast negatively with the surrounding buildings, so they decided to build a new church building. I am not sure who paid for what, but the result was a building that surely cost someone a significant amount of money. It seems to have come just in time, though, because with the permission granted by the Religious Affairs Bureau to start an English service, the demand for space has increased. That combined with the fact that the Chinese government severely restricts the establishment of new churches in any community, make for a situation where the building, although very nice, is not really a luxury.

Coming up in the elevator this afternoon, I asked the elevator lady where she went for the October holiday. She told me she didn't go anywhere. She had to work. Typical for a lot of working people. Holidays come and go, and they don't know the difference. Except, of course, for Chinese New Year.

Then she asked me where I went for the October holiday. I said, "Dazhongsi." She burst out laughing. I suppose she was expecting me to say, "Shanghai," or "Xi'an," or some other well known tourist destination. Dazhongsi is a little dump of a place two stops down on the light rail line, between here and the city center.

But there is something in Dazhongsi that is not ordinary and mundane. It is the old bell museum. Fascinating place. I read about it in Bill Porter's book. I have been here for six years and had never heard of the place, so Wednesday James and I took some time and went to see the place It is not widely visited, but it is really worth seeing.

The old bell museum at the Dazhong Temple (Da means "big," Zhong means "bell," and Si means "temple") houses a large assortment of ancient bells, the oldest of which go back to the Yuan Dynasty. But it is the Ming bells that are the most interesting, especially the large one.

There is also a special collection of church bells, including an original Gillete and Johnston church bell, and an old bell from Finland. If you're ever in Beijing, I encourage you to take a little side trip to Dazhongsi, blow 10 kuai, and get the inside view.

Couldn't get down to the Square today. The place is sealed off so that they can put on a performance for foreign dignitaries. If they get this worked up about the 60th anniversary, I shudder to think of what it's going to be like at the 75th.

Kai Kai invited me to have lunch with her and her friend. I took the subway to Liufang and met them. They asked me where I would like to eat. I suggested we head down to Dongzhimen, because there is a street there that is famous for its restaurants. Her friend had a Honda minivan, so we all got in and found a restaurant built according the pattern of a classic Siheyuan.

After we ate, they were going to take me back, but I noticed a subway station, so I told them to just drop me off. It happened to be one of the stops on Line 5. Not that it matters. Anytime you see a subway station in Beijing, you just head down under and it's pretty easy to figure out where you are. I was just ready to do that, but I decided to stop at a coffee bar and do some reading first. I started asking around for a coffee bar, and ended walking right by the old Confucian temple. I was interested in this, becuase Chinese people are fond of saying that Confucianism is not a religion, but a philosophy. But this temple was very religious. And it was built in the early 14th Century. Yuan Dynasty. That's going back a ways. When they built the temple, they planted a Cyprus tree. It's still there. Ever seen a 700 year old Cyprus tree? Pretty impressive.

After going through the temple, I walked around and finally found a little sidewalk cafe. I decided that this was a better way to spend the afternoon that standing in the crowds down at Tienanmen. I was ready to forget about National Day and get lost in a good book. But it was not to be. Right up on the wall was a flat screen playing the events of the day, and Hu Jintao was just getting ready to speak. I listened for awhile to him repeating the old line about how there is no hope for China except the pathway of Socialism. Rubbish, of course, and nobody believes it. Well, I guess somebody must, because there has to be some reason he feels compelled to put on a Mao Jacket and recite Marxist pablum. This is the dilemma of Modern China. It is no longer politically correct to take a Marxist position. But it is also not politically correct to publicly acknowledge that we no longer follow what Marx teaches. So whatever political system China employs, we must call it socialism. This is why the young people are so confused. They say, "Professor Eric, what's the difference between capitalism and socialism?" These are the brightest kids in China. They have taken all the required Marxism classes to get to where they are at a National Key University. But they don't know the difference between capitalism and socialism. And the reason is plain. They look around them, and think, "If this is socialism, what is capitalism." And I have to tell them, "This is not socialism. Your grandparents had socialism."

I was debating this issue at the English corner at Renmin University once, and one guy told me that the reason for the confusion is that this is a very complex issue. Not true. Socialism has the simplest definition in the dictionary: "Public ownership of the means of production." In today's China, most of the businesses that an average citizen encounters are not publicly owned. There are exceptions, of course. Raymond is a Beijinger, and he takes me to the traditional Beijing eateries. One time he took me to a little place in Old Beijing that was kinda little dark and dingy (although the food was good). It was about 7:30 or so, and Raymond told me that we had to hurry, because they were getting ready to close. I was surprised. So early? Then Raymond told me that this was a State owned cafeteria.

I have been in Beijing for almost six years, and in all that time, I have been in one state owned restaurant. Most of them are private businesses. I guess I should mention that I have eaten in campus cafeterias, so perhaps that would put a few more marks in the socialism column. But my point is that today's China is not really socialist. China actually has a very Republican economy. Low taxes, and lots of emphasis on business development and market economy. Anything but socialism. But the ancient tendency for leaders to "point to a deer and call it a horse" prevails. So we cannot say "capitalism." We must call it, "socialism with Chinese characteristics."

My colleague and I in front of the Great Hall of the People.
The State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs hosted a banquet this evening at the Great Hall of the People. I have been there once before when they did this five years ago. I guess they figure every five years is a historical milestone of some significance. The Great Hall of the People could be called the political center of China, at least as far as government meetings are concerned, because it is the home of the National People's Congress. Government leaders actually live at Zhongnanhai, so that might be the real nerve center, depending on how you view Chinese government, and where power really resides.

At any rate, it is a very interesting place, because you just know, sitting there, that it would not look anything like this if it were built today. The grandiose Stalinesque architecture is clearly from a bygone era. Spacious, though. The Vice-Premier gave a nice little speech, and then we all ate. The food is usually pretty good in that place. They try to give you combination of Chinese and western food.

This year is the 60th anniversary of the "founding of the Republic," and the government is going all out. I generally take the subway down to Tiananmen sometime during the day on National Day (October 1st), but this year I have heard they are going to seal the place off. Security concerns, I guess. So this might be the only National Day event that I can be part of. I guess I won't shed any tears over it. The subways are really super crowded on National Day, especially on Line 1.

I went back to the cell phone store today. I didn't say it when I walked in the door, of course, but this was the day. I was determined that I was going to buy that phone today. I stopped by the bank and got just enough money to pay the price I had offered.

I told the lady what her competitor had offered me. She told me that their phones were not genuine. I told her that I had examined the phone and it was exactly the same model. She told me that her competitors phones looked real, but they were actually fake. I said, "He told me yours were fake." That was the end of that game.

I took 1400 RMB out of my wallet and handed it to her. She was adamant. 1550. OK, I took out an extra 50. I told her that was my limit, and I prepared to leave. She said she needed more. I took out 10 kuai. She looked in my wallet and saw another one. What could I do? I gave it to her. Sold. One thousand four hundred seventy. Eason would probably say I paid more than I had too, and he is right. I could have bought the online version. But that is not without it's problems. For one thing, China is a cash-oriented society. Online shopping is not done with credit cards. You order, it is delivered by a courier, and you pay for it. But I am also concerned about how you might deal with any problems you might have. Not as convenient as walking into a store in my neighborhood.

So what is a fair price? Sometimes it can be hard to determine this. I don't like to be cheated, but I don't want to cheat anyone, either. In one sense, the price I paid should be more than fair, because it was close to 150 kuai more than the online price. But, of course, I don't have any idea what her commission was. After all her haggling about the price, I am convinced that the store still made a decent profit, if not a killing. But I am not sure about the sales lady. I just don't know.

This afternoon, I stopped by the cell phone store with some church friends. I usually don't like to do this, because if you involve local people who don't know the real price, sometimes the salesman can convince them that their price is a bargain (especially for a foreigner), and that really weakens your bargaining position. I prefer to operate alone. But today it turned out to be really helpful, because the sales lady did want to sell the phone, and she was happy to talk about it with my friends. She started giving out a bunch of information. I had told them before we went in there what I had seen it for online, so they were not about to be swayed. She finally told me to look around at other stores and see that her price was good. I thought that was actually a good idea. I went next door. The guy would not come down to my price, but he was determined to be a little lower than her price, which is exactly what I wanted.

Eason sent me a link to some information about the phone I am interested in. It's available online for 1329 RMB. I went back to the cell phone store, and told the lady I had found one for less than 1400. She told me those phones don't have warranties because they're fake. But she did bring her price down to 1550. I told her I would be back. I called Eason later, and he told me those phones all have 1 year warranties, and they are genuine. I sure don't want to get cheated, but I can't go on with this too long. I do need a phone.

Stopped at a little cell phone store in Wudaokou right around the corner from the Bridge Cafe. I found a little Nokia that I really like, because it has a very good touch pad on it. You can use a stylus to write text messages in Chinese. I have always used my cell phone to help me study Chinese, because in China, all cell phones have special keys designated for each of the five basic strokes. You can use these keys to eliminate thousands of characters by putting in the correct sequence of strokes. First stroke eliminates a bunch of characters. First two stroke eliminates even more, and so on. If you can get through the first four or five strokes, you're usually down to a few characters. Not that many characters have exactly the same first five strokes.

But this phone lets you write the character with a stylus. The on board computer then guesses what you are trying to write, and gives you several characters to choose from. The lady said 2190 RMB, and I told her that was too much. She told me she would give it to me really cheap. 1900. I think she could tell I was unimpressed by her "bargain." I smiled politely, and told her I would be back. I wanted to walk away, but not completely away, because I really do want that phone.

When I got home late Tuesday evening and tried to turn on my cell phone, it kept saying, "Insert SIM." Couldn't figure out what that might be. It finally dawned on me that I had put my cell phone in my large backpack before going to the airport. My cell phone doesn't work in the States, of course, but I thought perhaps I could use the watch and calendar portions of it to sorta keep on track. But it burned up so much juice looking for a connection, that it just wasn't worth it.

The Portland airport has these huge X-ray machines for checked baggage that I have never seen before. When you check your luggage, instead of putting it on the belt behind the counter, they tell you to carry it across the hall to these gigantic machines, and they take it from there.

At first I thought those machines had fried my SIM card, because the phone didn't seem to recognize it. But I was sitting in the coffee bar talking with Peter about this problem. He took my SIM card and put it into his phone. Worked perfectly. That tells me that it's the phone that is the problem.

Back in Beijing. Left Portland yesterday morning. It never gets easier to say goodbye. Heather and Melissa took me to the airport. Heather was desperately trying to find a nice place to have a farewell breakfast, but everything seemed to be packed out, so we ended up just going to the airport. It turned out well, though, because we had a little time to chat as we were eating pizza. Grandma guessed right. Heather ordered veggie pizza. Not bad. And we brought Juliana into the party by calling her on the phone.I was a little nervous about going through security in time, because I couldn't remember the exact exit procedure from the last time I left the States, and I didn't know how long it would take--didn't want to miss my plane. I needn't have troubled myself. There is no exit procedure. You don't have to show your passport to any official in order to leave the country. Airline officials will ask for it, and if you fly Northwest, they will check to make sure you have a visa for China. They had a problem a few years back with a couple nurses who tried to get into China without visas, so they're really picky about it now. But no immigration official stamped my passport. I hadn't remembered that, but when I look at my old passport, I can see that there is no exit stamp from any of the times I have left the US.

It's good to go, but also so good to come back. Still, coming back from a visit with my daughters leaves me with a lot of mixed feelings. I can't say that I really miss America. But I do miss my daughters. It would be good if they could be here, but my daughters are American. Very American. I guess I shouldn't be surprised by that. We did not live an international life.

And I haven't lived much of an international life the past six years. I have spent most of my time in China. I have left the country once a year, but not to go very far. My last trip to the US was in February of 2005. I guess I need to be getting back there a little more often. It is getting easier to do the international thing. Still a bit of a problem with China, because China--USA flights are so severely restricted to protect business for Chinese airlines. If the airways were opened for competition, rates would be significantly lower. That will come, eventually. It's all moving in the right direction, albeit ever so slowly.

Just got back from Arizona. Melissa and I flew down there for Mom's birthday. It was a quick trip, and I was at first somewhat unsure how it was going to go, but the discount airline actually turned out to be more convenient than flying out of Portland.I suppose you wouldn't feel that way if you actually lived in Portland, but Melissa lives in Monmouth, so the drive to the airport in Eugene is actually shorter than going to the Portland airport, with a lot less traffic.

During the party we all talked with Little M who is in Japan with the JET program. It's becoming a small world.

Sunday morning we went to the Japanese church in Tempe, and I was telling a young lady there about our flight, because we had to leave right before church. She was excited at first when I told her what our tickets cost, but she changed her feeling about it when I told her that we were flying on a small regional airline. She said, "Oh, I don't like small planes."

I guess the term "small" is relative. They aren't small in the sense that a general aviation light plane would be. The MD 80 has been flying since the early eighties, so that makes them close to 30 years old, but they aren't really that much smaller than a 737. And quite comfortable, actually. But no frills. No meal, no snacks--you have to buy everything separately. That being said, the ticket price is a huge discount ($60 one way), so I think it's worth it. But, again, I say that in part because the Eugene airport is so easy to get to from Melissa's place.

Went to church with Melissa in McMinnville this morning. They happened to be having a special "Worship in the Park" at Wortman Park. The guest preacher had worked with Child Evangelism Fellowship at one time, and it showed. He presented a very simple gospel message, followed by a short invitation. It was uniquely suited, I thought, for a family-oriented picnic Sunday. After church, we had a picnic. They had an old ice cream maker. That thing had been obviously been around for quite awhile. it reminded me of what we used up in Nojiri to make ice cream, except that it was quite a bit bigger. A few of the men were taking turns cranking the mixer. I decided I might as well help them, since Melissa was busy talking with the other church ladies. Hard to beat ice cream from a hand-cranked mixer.

This evening, Melissa hosted a gathering for some my friends from college. It was her idea, and it turned out to be a good one, because with all I had to do, I probably would have settled for a few phone conversations. It was nice. Interesting how we have all changed, yet there is a certain something about each person that remains the same. This is especially true, of course, for those who are of the household of faith. It's been over 30 years, now, since I graduated from college.

The Oregon coast is the Oregon coast. Too cold for swimming, but for hiking, it's as good as it gets. During the years that I lived in Oregon, I did go swimming in the ocean two or three times.But I was never able to do it without getting an ear infection or a cold. The water is icy. But the Oregon coast is rustic. Lots of interesting rock formations. Weather is predictably unpredictable, so there is never a guarantee of a sunny day. But the coast is mystic and beautiful nonetheless.

When I was a child, we lived about five minutes from the sands of the Japan Sea coast. That was a superb swimming beach. I have never experienced anything like it. Not sure why the waters of the Oregon coast are so cold, because the latitude is pretty close. But, as I said, the Oregon coast is beautiful. There were many times during my youth, that I stood on some rocky prominence at the Oregon coast, and looked out across the ocean toward my home. The words of the prophet always came to mind, "Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn." I looked and looked, but I could never quite see it. As a matter of fact, I left my home when I was thirteen, and did not return for 32 years.

Left the lake behind us this afternoon. Hard to beat the serenity of the Cascades. There isn't anything like this in the Beijing area. But there sure is in western China. The difference, of course, is that China just has so very many people. But if you get up to the Tibetan Plateau, and you can find a place that isn't listed in every tourist book, you can really find some pretty peaceful areas. Another thing about China is that tourists generally go for the well known sites. So when they come through the little village where I often go in the summer, they go to the sky burial, or the monasteries. I don't. I get up early and hike up the canyon. In the evening, I hike up the ravine. There is no one up there, except the eagles overhead, and a few sheep grazing on the hillside. Once I met some local people picking berries, but that is about it.

Solitude. I guess it's not easy to find anywhere. The campground where we have been staying for the past few days could not really be called solitude, because we were surrounded by a lot of other folks. But you could get it here if you wanted to get up at the crack of dawn and hike around the lake, or something. But any way you look at it, the struggle for solitude is a challenge for anyone trying to live a modern life. So difficult is it to find sometimes, that many people have managed to learn how to live without it. They have come to think of it as a luxury, and some, I think, are even afraid of it. I don't know how many times I have been climbing the mountain out at Fragrant Hills, and someone will come walking along with a boom box strapped to his body filling the quiet air with relentless noise. Drives me nuts.

And it's not just Chinese young people, either. Here in Beijing, it is not unusual to meet foreign teachers who never go anywhere. They haven't taken time to learn the language, so they feel uncomfortable traveling. Their only experience of getting away from the daily grind is an evening of drinking or hanging out an an electrically charged atmosphere of loud talking and ear-splitting music. They never really get away. Beijing is an interesting city. But it is a city. Everybody needs to get out of the city once in awhile. It's not enough just to have free time. You need to find a place of repose "far from the madding crowd," as Hardy expressed it.

More than a couple, it seems. Actually, this kind of craft is not very easy to use in open water. It's billed as a four-man raft, but that is only because it has four oars. It's really a one man or two man raft. This kind of raft doesn't capsize very easily, so it is pretty safe (as long as it doesn't lose air), but because of that, it is not that easy to manoover on a lake. Better on a river or stream.

I'm not talking about long river trips. For that purpose, I would rather have a canoe. When I was a boy scout, I took a 50 mile trip down the Crow Wing River in Minnesota. Canoes are great for that kind of trip, because you can carry a lot of gear. Our boy scout troup had three canoes as I remember. We carried tents, food, a camp stove, sleeping bags--everything. Four days. We were moving downstream, so there wasn't a lot of work in it. There are things you see from the river that you would never see otherwise. It was a real Huck Finn experience--paddling lightly downstream; stopping to spend a lazy afternoon jumping into the river from an old railroad trestle; lying in our sleeping bags at night, feeling our sunburns, and beating eaten alive by mosquitoes--scouting at it's best. For that kind of a trip, you definitely want a canoe. And on lake on a calm day, a canoe is good, because you can explore a lake much more efficiently with a canoe. Canoes glide across the water and are easy to steer. And capsizing isn't that much of an issue, as long as you don't stand up and it isn't windy. But for shooting rapids down an Oregon river, like we did on the Metolius years ago, you can't beat a raft.

As I mentioned previously, I had never been to this lake before this trip. I guess maybe it's because it is a private area. We are not staying at a State campground. But this lake is really pretty nice. The rainy season in Oregon runs from November to June, so the end of the summer and beginning of Autumn, you get the benefit of the natural beauty produced by the rain, without the rain.

Left Beijing 9 o'clock Wednesday morning, and got into Portland just before 9 on Wednesday morning. I don't usually sleep very well on planes, but I really did my best to get some sleep, because jet lag always bothers me more when I am flying east. Going against the sun, I guess. Arriving before you left, you know.

Yesterday morning I got up to go get some coffee and do some reading, because Melissa had to work pretty late the night before. I walked out to the main street and decided to walk across to the old city park. I was a bit frustrated when I was trying to cross, because there was a car parked right in the middle of the street, and I wasn't sure if I should go ahead and cross. I waited for awhile and then looked in the other direction, and saw another car doing exacly the same thing! It suddenly dawned on me that they were waiting for me. That would definitely not happen in China. Two cars and both are stopping for the only pedestrian on the street. Never. In China, if they saw me trying to cross, they would have speeded up in order to intimidate me into backing off.

Mark looking at Mt. St. Helens, with Mt. Hood in the background.
After Melissa got up we drove up to Lost Lake north of Sandy, where I taught many years ago right after I graduated from college. Jason had gone up in the morning to stake out a campsite. Problem was, that campground is pretty big--lots of sites, and cell phones don't work there. Mark was also supposed to be meeting us. When we got up to the campground, it was starting to get dark, so we were in a hurry to find Jason, but it was really like looking for a needle in a haystack. You know how those things are--not sure what to do, and feeling really frustrated. The first thing I usually do is to start trying to figure out what to do. But there was no figuring. We needed God's help. I don't know why it always takes me so long to come to that point--I guess it's the weakness of my faith. If we really believed God would help us, wouldn't we ask Him first thing? Anyway, I prayed and asked God to guide us.

As soon as I finished praying, I saw a white car, and told Melissa to stop so I could ask the guy for information. The guy happened to be Mark. He told me that they had come earlier that day. They were not able to find Jason, so they had spent the afternoon hiking, and they were just about ready to give up and go into Hood River and find a motel. As we were standing there talking, Jason drove up in his pickup. He had decided to go out looking for us a few minutes earlier. We all went back to the camp and had something to eat.

This morning, we hiked up the trail to view the mountains. The campground is right near Lost Lake. I lived in Oregon for eleven years, and I had never heard of the place. Really pretty. The trail brings you up an extra 1500 feet or so to an incredible view of the North Oregon moutains. It's really quite impressive, and very quiet.

Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China right now. It's because of the riots in Urumqi. At least, that's what provoked it. But that is certainly not the only reason they are staying blocked. CCTV ran a feature on Kaixin, the Chinese version of Facebook. It's quite clear that they want to keep Facebook locked out long enough to give the home brand a chance. My blog is blocked, too, but I have manged to get in with a proxy. Blogspot has been blocked before. In fact, it was blocked for the first three years I was in China. But in the past, they always left the update site open. Now they have both of them blocked. I have found a proxy for each one, but they are clunky. I think I can get caught up when I get to the States, because I always write my blog first in Notepad. Sometimes in a real notepad (remember those?), but always in Notepad on my computer. Open Notepad, press f5, and start writing. I do that for a couple reasons. One is that when I first began to use Blogspot, Blogger (the update site) was unpredictable. Growing faster than they could keep up with it, I guess. And there was a time difference once I moved to Beijing, which meant that I could not publish posts directly. But I also do it because it gives me a very portable and complete backup for everything I have written. I can search my own notes using the Windows search utility much faster than I can do an online search. Facebook, though is going to be a problem. I can see it with a proxy, but I cannot publish. I am not much of a social networking kind of person, but I was hoping to use Facebook as a host for jpegs and videos.

Holly's coworker kindly helped me to get to the airport shuttle this afternoon. We were a bit early for the shuttle, so we went to a coffee bar near the bus station. I have really not had very good luck this summer with train tickets. But Eason has the connections to get pretty good flights for me. I gave him a call, and he found a low cost flight, then forwarded the e-ticket to my cell phone.

It was good to go, but also good to come home. But this time, I won't be home long, because I have to fly to Portland on the 19th.

Click picture for larger image.
Last night, Jessica and her sister and I walked to the meat market near their home in the village. I wanted to buy some mutton so that they could cook a dinner with meat. Folks in the villages in China do not eat meat very often, because it is just too much of a luxury. But boy do they know how to cook it when it shows up!

Jessica's sister had to stay out of school because her family could not afford to send her. But she is now going to be going to college in Hezuo. She will also go to a teacher's college. Jessica's salary as a school teacher in Linxia County would not be considered high at all by city standards, but it is a big boost to a farm family in the village, so it is understandable that her sister would want to follow the same path. When someone from the countryside wants to get a higher education, there are always two factors to consider. One is the given student's score on the National Entrance Exam. The other is the cost, which must be borne by the family. Several years ago, I visited a
village in Shanxi Province which was the home of a teacher I had met in Beijing. When she took the National Entrance Exam, her test scores were quite high, but her family did not have much money, so they decided to send her to a teacher's college, because that would be less expensive. Even at that, her father had to sell his horse in order to pay her tuition. So the a high score on the National Entrance Exam is no guarantee of a good education. But there is another factor that enters in. Kids who are educated in poor village schools often have a real disadvantage when they take the National Entrance Exam. They just don't have the background to perform up the the level of students who have gone to better funded urban schools. Years ago, when I was teaching in a rural School in North Dakota, I felt that students in the country schools actually got a better education than their urban counterparts, because class sizes were smaller, and state funding made up for the difference in local tax valuation. Not so in China. So even kids who are quite bright will not tend to do as well as they themselves would have if they had been given the opportunity to attend a good grammar school.

This afternoon, I took the local bus into Linxia to board the express bus for Lanzhou. The last time I visited Jessica in 2007, we just stood out on the road and flagged down the first bus we could find that was going to Lanzhou. I don't want to do that again. The bus that stopped was one of those private buses that stop at every little hamlet until they get enough passengers to make a profit. The three hour trip from Linxia to Lanzhou took five hours. I guess you could call it an experience, because we took the back roads through village China rather than the highway, but it was quite exasperating, and I didn't want to get to Lanzhou quite so late.

When I got to Lanzhou, I was instantly approached by a black (market) taxi driver who wanted to take me to the train station for 20 yuan. As a matter of fact, I did want to go to the train station, so I could get a local bus to my lodging, but I didn't want to take a black taxi. I started to head out toward the street, but the driver of the bus I had been on saw me and pointed me to the train station shuttle. It was a minivan with people beginning to pack into it. Three kuai per person. The black taxi driver immediately brought his price down, but it was too late. Actually, it's always too late where I am concerned. I don't take black taxis unless there is no other option.

Since 2006, I have always stayed at least a night or two at the Guest house at Northwest Normal University. I had called Holly from Langmusi and asked her to book a room for me. When I got the the Guest house this afternoon, Holly was not on duty, but her friend was working, and she had been told to expect me. The place has been remodeled a bit since I was here last, and Holly had lined me up with a very pleasant room.

Took the bus from Langmusi to Xiahe yesterday. Took me a little while, but I finally found a cheap room near the Labrang Monastery. Labrang Si is the largest Tibetan monastery outside of Lhasa. It is the main reason people come to this town. I have been through the place before, so I really didn't want to do the tour. I started nosing around in a residential area where tourists weren't really supposed to be, and met a monk who invited me to his quarters. His "flat mate" was an old, old monk who spent the entire time we were there fingering Buddhist prayer beads. I don't think the poor old man does anything else all day.

I was struck both by the friendliness and loneliness of the monk who invited me to visit with him. The Labrang Monastery is the largest monastery outside of Lhasa. There are lots and lots of monks there. And it isn't as if they don't do things together. In fact, in contrast to the mountain hermits, it appears that they do everything together. But in fact, the don't seem to have real companions. This guy had a roommate, but his roommate was a very, very old man who spent literally every waking moment mumbling and fingering his prayer beads, working his way into Heaven.

This morning, I got to the bus stop just as the bus was heading out of the bus station toward Linxia. I took the bus as far as the village of Shuangcheng, and got off. Jessica came to meet me with some of her school children. This is the third summer that I have worked with Jessica and her kids.

Jessica is a local school teacher who conducts a private school during the summer vacation, teaching English and math to local children. The first summer I worked with her, she had many more students than she does now, but she also had other teachers working with her. This summer, she didn't have any other teachers working with her, so she raised the tuition a bit, so that she would have fewer students.

Life in a village in western China is quite different from life in the big city. This village is near Linxia, so the Hui Muslim influence is quite noticeable. Also, since this village is not a tourist stop, the life is much more typical of village life in China than it would be in Langmusi, where there are a number of businesses (such as the horse trekking) that rely on tourists for their income.

I spent a good bit of time teaching the children a song. The are learning English, and their progress is quite impressive, but it is largely rote, because they recite their lessons together, repeating after the teacher. I spent a lot of time having them recite one by one, in order to enforce independent learning. It really is a unique opportunity that these children have, because, if they follow through with this, they have the potential to become very proficient in English. Most of these kids are pretty young. All of them are certainly below the age of native language acquisition.