Journal Entry - March 17, 2007
We’ve had a little excitement. The end of February is when the students return from their New Year’s holiday, and the bicycle thieves are out in force. We were sitting at an outside table at a little noodle joint in an alley. Our bikes were parked with some others about fifteen feet from our table, and there were plenty of people around. I had just finished my noodles and leaned back to relax a bit. I noticed a young man unlocking the bicycle next to mine. Then I realized he was unlocking my bicycle. Then I realized he was trying to break the lock on my bicycle. Without a word I got up and calmly walked over to him. He looked up as I got close and then did a double take, as nearly all the locals do when they notice a foreigner. Then he did a big double take when he realized that it was my bicycle he was working on. He slowly stood up facing me. As he started to turn and walk away, I reached out to take him by the arm. He slapped my hand away and ran. No one else had noticed anything, and since I couldn’t communicate what was happening, I let him go. The lock was intact but ruined, so I had to take the bike to our local deaf mechanic to get the lock cut off.
On a more positive note, our friend She Hongxia came for a visit. She’s actually a student at the university, but it seems that most seniors don’t have any classes during the final semester. They’re generally expected to get jobs and finish up any final assignments. Hongxia has been at home and in Chengdu looking for jobs. The graduating English majors had one final exam to take. Since Hongxia no longer lives at the university she needed a place to stay, so we put her up in our living room. She was here for three days and was a congenial house guest. We had a pleasant time during the last days before the beginning of classes.
The Sunday before the beginning of classes, like every day in Ya’an, started out cloudy. Unlike every day, it cleared up by 9:00, so I decided to do something that I’ve been wanting to do for a long time. Just outside the city to the east is a large mountain called Zhougong Shan with a temple at the top. It’s a steep climb, a minor sort of accomplishment that most able bodied people that stay here for any length of time eventually get around to. It takes all day to get to the temple and back. We were sort of expecting a visit from our friend Fay and her son Xiaoping. I called her to let her know that I wouldn’t be at home, and she and Xiaoping ended coming with me. We were getting a late start as it was, and I was concerned that Xiaoping, who is five, would slow us down even more. I needn’t have worried. While Fay and I climbed one mountain, Xiaoping, with his running back and forth, climbed three, chattering nonstop the whole time.
We walked through the city and crossed a river on a little suspension bridge to the outskirts. From there we started through fields and past farmhouses, climbing a little now and then, but not steeply, greeted by old folks sitting in the sun. After a while, we started climbing more steeply, but still through farm fields, with terraces narrowed to about ten feet, with a four foot elevation difference. Even steep mountain sides are cultivated. Eventually we came into a pine forest, but the land was still terraced. Fay told me that about fifteen or twenty years ago, the central government had decreed that the peasants were to plant trees, and I noticed that all of the trees were about the same age.
At one point, a group of college students caught up with us, and we ended up climbing the rest of the way with them. The trail came out onto lookout places at several points. Since Zhougong is the highest mountain to the east of Ya’an, the views are panoramic. We could see the entire city and the valleys around it, with their terraced fields and forests. This is the time of year when the rape seed crop is in flower, and most of the fields are bright yellow. Unfortunately, the midmorning sun that had convinced me to start the climb was just a tease. By the time we were a fourth of the way up the mountain, it was again cloudy. The clouds were high, but the air was full of moisture and misty.
We eventually reached the temple complex at the top. There are a number of temple buildings facing all directions. The temple is at the very top of the mountain and the view is amazing. There are only a couple of monks that live at the temple full time. There are apparently some women who cook and clean for them, and I wasn’t sure whether they lived at the top or commuted. There were a few little cultivated fields, not enough to feed everyone, and none of it was rice. Added to that, the temple has a sort of restaurant for hikers. Someone must carry food up the mountain.
Fay, Xiaoping, the students, and I looked around the temple for a little while, taking pictures and looking over the vertical cliff at one side. Then we all sat down to a vegetarian lunch. After lunch it was time to start climbing down. This was the difficult part. Going up is exhausting, but going down is very hard on knees and ankles. I brought up the rear. We finally got back to town, tired and hungry, looking forward to dinner and bed.
It’s the start of a new semester, so we have been getting back into the swing of things. John and Chandra, the other Americans, have moved on to jobs in Shanghai, and we have a new teacher. She’s an American who goes by the name “Ake”. She’s a retired nurse who has been teaching English in China for a couple of years, and she has a Chinese husband, Tian Huiming. They have come here because Tian is from Ya’an.
Last semester, there were seven graduate reading classes with 80 students each. All of the teachers complained about the class sizes, so the English department cut the classes in half, giving us fourteen sections. That, plus the fact that we now have five teachers instead of six, means that our teaching loads have gone up. Last semester we all had four or five classes. This semester we have seven. The students are the same, but the reading classes have been switched around and we have lots of new faces.
Despite being busier, we still make time for other activities. I’ve started back up with my erhu lessons. Last weekend, Fay, Xiaoping, and another student, Wang Qin, all came and made jiaozi, the kind of dumplings that are called “wontons” or “steamed dumplings” in the U.S. We’ holding office hours and having lunch with students in the dining halls, just like we did in the fall. We also have lunch one a week with all of the foreign teachers.
In the spring the peach and pear trees blossom. There’s a small valley just outside town that is mostly orchards, and right now it’s full of flowers. The peasants who live there have set up a ticket booth just where the city houses and shops give way to fields and farmhouses. They charge three yuan to walk up the road into the orchards. There is a big billboard at the entrance to the road in the city, and colored pennants on ropes. Most of the farmers are selling drinks and food and have mahjong tables set up in their courtyards and gardens. It’s quite a tourist attraction, and people come from as far away as Chengdu. The other day, we went up into the orchards with Fay. Pierre and Dai Ou had been there the day before and they drew us a little map showing how we could avoid the worst crowds and commercialism. It was a warm, partly sunny day, perfect for a walk in the countryside.
Since our walk in the orchards, it has turned unseasonably cold. Today the high is expected to be 50 degrees, and of course it’s raining. But we’ve seen the spring. We know it’s coming. There’s hope!