Getting ready for sports day

Tomorrow is the open ceremony for our school's sports day (or sports days because it lasts for three) and all the Tai Chi students are going to be doing a form together.  On Friday, I ventured out with my teacher and an intern to go see a tailor and buy material.  I picked it up today just in time for our final practice before the big day tomorrow.  I think it sort of makes me look like a big tomato, my roommate says it looks like I'm wearing pajamas... you can judge for yourself.

Well, at least I didn't have to get a yellow one!

Me with one of the top students.  He wanted to spar with me
the other day, I was better than he anticipated.  ;)

I just got moved from the safety of the middle of the pack to
the front row and told that all eyes would be on me so I better
do a good job... no pressure.

The sports director (who moved me up to the front row) and
my teacher.

hanging out in the country side

I was invited by one of my good friends to visit her family and see her hometown.  We left Friday afternoon and traveled about two hours west to the city nearby her village.  In the city, she took me to see the #1 Senior Middle (High) School and the cultural park.  The school was really impressive and apparently it is well known across the country.  We overheard some of the students discussing where I am from and their consensus is that I am French.  Ha!  After that, we headed over to the cultural park and though it had the appearance of being old was built in the late 90s.  I was a little disappointed to find this out, but it was still pretty cool to walk around and see some of the sights.

Dragon flag and dragon corbels beneath the
roof eave.

Large square with yin-yang symbol.

After exploring the city a little, her dad picked us up and drove us out to her family's house.  They lived not to far outside the city on a street lined with rectangular family compounds (for lack of a better word).  Their home consisted of two buildings, on one side of the courtyard was the kitchen and storage area and on the other side was the living area.  It had two rooms, altogether about 10' wide by 20-25' long, that consist of the bedroom, dining room, and family room all sort of blended together.  Her parents only speak a local dialect so with my limited language skills, I really had trouble understanding any of the conversation, but I did enjoy watching her mom's facial expressions, especially when she was teasing about something.

That night was my first night to sleep on a kong, a very hard bed made of brick so that it can be heated from underneath.  I also got to enjoy using their out house, emphasis on out.  It had two walls and a roof with boards over a hole in the ground.  We got up the next morning and ate a quick breakfast then headed out to her husband's village.  Her father drove us further out from the city and dropped us off by a dam and then we started our hike into the boonies.

View of the reservoir from the road.  It was a bad sign when
my friend told me that the water level was higher than normal.

The dirt road.

Looking down over a family compound.

Where we were supposed to cross the valley.  One hour.

Terraced fields with plastic to keep in the moisture.

The path that lead down to the valley.
Hour and a half.

The friendly man who helped us cross the valley.  He yelled
across from the other side and then when we got down, he
was there too.  He then started telling us which way to go and
pulling up clods of weeds and dirt, throwing them across the
streams to keep from getting wet. 

He then offered to drive us up the other side of the valley to
the main road and then again offered to drive us further down
the road.  I gave my friend a questioning look and she assured
me he would be very careful.  I later found out this is her
father-in-law.  Two hours.

More of the valley we had to walk along after getting dropped
off because her father-in-law had to get back to the fields.  We
then had to climb back up out of the valley again and finally
arrived at their house after about three hours.

Mama happy to see her son!

Hanging out on the kong.

Chicks enjoying their freedom.

Looking out the courtyard door.

The buildings and courtyard of her in-laws' place was similar to her parent's.  Her in-laws room was on the left side and her and her husband's is on the right side, the major difference was that the out house was even more out.  This one had three walls and no roof.  I felt like a little kid having to ask permission to use the bathroom because to get to it you had to pass the family guard dog and my friend had to chase it into it's house, then wait for me to finish so I could have safe passage back.

To get back to civilization, the last taxi from the mountain left at 6:45 am.  It was a small van with seats for 7 people.  On this particular trip, we managed to fit 11 people and their stuff for the very bumpy half hour ride down the mountain.  We then waited on the side of the road for at least another half hour to hour to flag down a bus heading back to our city.

I had a lot of fun hiking around the countryside and seeing all the amazing views and hanging out and talking with my friend.

up on the plateau

Carpet Factory

Temple

Fire Jumping Day

Three weeks and a day after the start of the new year Spring Festival comes to an end.  And what an end it is!  Everyone takes down their red decorations, the red couplets and red lanterns, and throws them into a fire.  I think most people (especially those in this country) have at least somewhat of an "inner pyro" and who doesn't enjoy a reason to make a fire.  It doesn't just stop there, as the name of the holiday suggests, not only do you light stuff on fire, but then you have to jump over it!  To mix it up add even more excitement, occasionally someone will throw some firecrackers in the fire, attempting to time initial explosion when someone is jumping over.  Everyone "jumps" the fire, from babies (who are just swung over by a parent) to the elderly.  I think the purpose of all of this is to burn off the past, start fresh, and scare away evil spirits.

My apartment complex gathering around the fire outside
of our front gate

Red couplets on our door

Red couplets in the fire, they add dried brush to make it bigger

A small fire

The one legged hop/swing leg over

Jumping over a small fire

Jumping through a larger fire

Did I jump a fire?  Yes, yes I did.  I even jumped through the one in the video above because I wasn't about to be shown up by my 10 year old neighbor.  Somehow, I don't think this would go over so well in America.

Hidden Potential

This afternoon I was with a couple of the other staff in one of the supermarkets.  They were looking for a new shower curtain for one of our apartments and I was perusing the aisles, that's when I saw it!  To probably almost everyone else, it's just a rolling pin, but I saw much more potential in it than just rolling out dough to make noodles.  It just so happens that it can almost double as an escrima stick or kali!  (That's the weapon  I chose to study in karate... it's a Filipino weapon and the word "escrima" is Spanish for "fencing")  It's slightly tapered at each end, but that's only about the last inch or so on either side, not typically where you grip it.  I'm pumped to start practicing with it.  :)

It reminds me of a movie I recently watched.  It is the new Jackie Chan (or Chen Long over here) movie titled "Shaolin."  In the movie Jackie's character is the cook at the Shaolin temple, as a child he was never able to focus enough to study kungfu and subsequently became the cook.  In the kitchen you see him kneading huge mounds of dough and tossing vegetables in a giant wok.  Half way through the movie he has a conversation with one of the kungfu masters and the master says that kungfu lives in everything we do and he was able to focus enough to become a cook.  As is typical in most Jackie Chan movies, the temple comes under attack and he is the last line of defense so he uses his cooking techniques to defeat the invading forces.  (Sorry if I ruined the movie for you, but come on... it's fairly obvious what's going to happen.)  The rolling pin/escrima seems to go along with the spirit of the movie. 

brand names

On a stroll through the supermarket today, I noticed some new items on the shelves.  The products themselves didn't interest me as much as their names.  Around here they like to put English on their products, it's cooler I guess.  With that said, sometimes it is just a jumble of English letters, although that is more typical on clothes, but often it is just poorly translated.  I often wonder what the it says in the original language, but my abilities are no where near good enough to being able to do that yet.  Back to the supermarket, near the chips aisle, there was "Lonely God."  I'm guessing this was some sort of salty snack similar to chips or crackers... some of it seaweed flavored.  In a center display, there were several varieties of "chocolate" bars, I use quotations because the majority of their chocolate is... well... I'll just say lacking.  Yes, sad, but true.  Anyways, in the display there were "Holy Times" chocolate bars.  I doubt that the taste will be anywhere close to what might be called "holy" if you can even describe taste in that term, but my roommate and I decided to buy one and give it a try.  It at least seems more appetizing than seaweed chips.  Even if the chocolate doesn't turn out so great it's at least worth a good laugh. 

and we're back...

I know it's been a while, a lot has been going since break started.  The winter English camp is done, we are back from traveling, settled in our new apartment, and finally have internet working (on one computer).  Over the next little bit I will work on getting this back up to date.  Check back soon!  :)

PS - I am going to post the new entries according to when they happened so start back at the beginning of January and work your way up.  You can "Blog Archive" in the right hand column (currently to the right of this post) to view my earlier posts.