Poetoake to the Nanyue King

  Well this weeks blog should be back to the normal rambling format that encompasses a normal week of teaching and an adventure or two.  It will be refreshing for you to know that I am not going to rant or get contemplative.  So here we go for this week in China!!!!

TEACHING:  This week was the Language Festival at our school.  It is very much like the sports festival, but instead of it being a physical competition it is a mental competition.  Those of you jock heads out there won't be able to wrap your head around this one and contrary to what some of you may believe I got it the first time around.  I even got involved, but this week was Claire's time to shine.
  Claire was asked to be the host of the student performances.  She rehearsed a few times during the week and wrote her note cards.  So on Friday she stood in front of the middle and high school students and staff.  She was gracious, poised and beautiful.  Cecelia and I were extremely proud of her.  It is both frightening and amazing to watch your kids grow up in front of your eyes.  You can be in contact with them each day teaching them how to be people, but when they stand up in front of you in a way that is out of the ordinary and look the way Claire did, you get smacked up side the head how mature and grown up they have become.  She was wearing a dress and heals borrowed from her mom. (Yes, Sara she even wore heals and heaven forbid make up.  She practiced more on learning how to walk in heals than she did on her note cards.)  I came to the realization that I don't need a bigger shotgun when I get home, I need something that is more like the automatic weapon variety.  Any of you know a guy???  The great thing about Claire is that one minute she can look like a game show host, but then turn around and tell her mom that she forgot something important at home.  Her new nickname here in China is AirBear.  That should give you some idea about how the adolescent years have kicked in for her.  We love her dearly and I try to make it a point to see her at school each day.  If I haven't mentioned it before, I love being at school with my kids.
  I just explained to you how gracious and awesome my kid was, so I have to temper that with my part in the Language festival.  I mentioned to one of the directors that they should do a poetry slam, or do karaoke with poetry.  The one thing about this school is that if give an idea, they expect you to be the leader of that idea.  I reminded them that I was a math teacher and that I didn't know much about poetry.  The only thing I know is a couple of my favorites by Robert Frost, Keats and Mike Myers.  So, with that in mind I decided that I would go with the Mike Myers approach from I Married An Axe Murderer.  I rewrote his poem with Cecelia as the focus.  I can promise you that my performance wasn't nearly as gracious and poised as Claires.  As a matter of fact if it wasn't for the musical talents of my friend Neal it would have been a flop.
  Neal is the music teacher at our school and an amazing saxophone player.  His name is Neal Postma and if you have not heard about him, you will in the near future.  He is awesome and can do things with a saxophone that I have never seen before.  He will be doing some concerts in the United States during our break in January.  He has also recently been signed to a contract with sax company over here to tour in China playing for them.  Anyway, I did my little gig at the Native teachers speech contest.  Neal, myself and our other friend Jason were the entertainment between contestants.  You can see a sample of my work at the end of this paragraph during the movie.  Pay close attention to the crowd reactions and the pictures of Cecelia in the background.  By the way, Cecelia was one of the judges for the speech contest and had no idea that I was doing this poem for her.

ADVENTURES:  This week we went on a couple of scooter adventures.  The weather cleared up and was beautiful toward the end of the week.  After 15 days of rain we were antsy to get out and do some adventuring.  Paul and I took the girls on a trail I found that wound it's way along a river to a town that we wanted to visit.  We both were ecstatic to be out on the open trail with warm weather and the wind in our hair.  I think after this adventure in China, we may have to buy Harley's when we get home.
  Not only did we discover this awesome trail, but also discovered an amazing park for riding bikes.  The park is so large and has so many trails that Cecelia, the girls and I got lost.  We finally made it out, but I bet we covered around ten miles before we figured how to get back and meet Paul.

Museum of The Nanyue King

The Prince and a Princess

  One of the other cool things that we have been trying to do is to learn some of the local history.  When you live in a place that has had a civilization 100 times as long as ours it is a good idea to learn from them.  So with that being said we visited the tomb of the Nanyue King recently.  Paul is our local historian and researcher so he is going to fill you in about the King.

The actual Tomb of The Nanyue King from the top

Tay in the Tomb

  As Rusty stated it is with great pleasure and privilege that we are getting to experience a country with over 5,000 years of history.  The site we actually went to is the Museum of the Mausoleum of the Nanyue King.  It was opened in 1988 after the tomb of the Nanyue King was discovered by accident in 1983.  The Nanyue is in reference to the rulers of the Han Dynasty which ruled China from 206 B.C. - 220 A.D.
  What made this find so important was that the tomb of the 2nd Nanyue King (Emperor Wudi) was intact.  The tomb had not been raided and therefore over 10,000 artifacts were found.  Along with the King were 4 concubines and 11 other sacrificial victims buried in the tomb. As the custom of the times, the King's staff was sacrificed to serve him in the afterlife. Good time for an Obama joke but I will refrain.

The Museum Grounds

    The King was buried in a manner in which he wore a burial suit made from jade. The burial rituals of the time included many pieces of metallic disk and coins along with bags of pearls.  One bag of pearls was placed inside the deceased Kings mouth. Along with precious metals there were spices and incense.  All these materials and objects were to ensure that the King would be provided for in his 2nd life.
     One reason I love to learn about the history is because the names of the people or events are fresh out of a movie.  Researching the Nanyue King led me to find out about The 5 pecks of Rice Rebellion.  This rebellion started out as a peaceful Toa movement that derived its name from the amount of rice one would need to donate before joining.  Of course I had no idea of the mass or volume of a "Peck".  Peck should be small but come to find out a peck is about 4 bushels. Who cares how much Peter could pick if he picked a peck of pickles.  It means a peck is a lot of weight for a standard of grain measurements since a bushel is approximately 52 lbs.
     After learning about the Peck my research then lead me to the Yellow Turban Revolt.  At first I had pictures of Bruce Lee, Jet Li and David Carradine all fighting with Yellow hats on their heads.  But come to find out the name of the Rebellion was derived from the color of the scarfs worn on the peasants heads.  This was another Tao rebellion in which wealthy land owners were taking advantage of the peasant workers.  From some insurgency from the north the rebellion was effective in obtaining some self-governing rites for the peasants as well as removal of much of the corruption for officials in the Capital.  Hmmm....."No Paul, NO!  This is not the same as our elected officials, congress or Obama".

Entrance to the Museum of The Nanyue King

     I must say I am humbled to be here and China is not what I expected nor what I was told it would be.  It is far from being the scary-communist country with 1.4 billion people.  It is a country in my opinion trapped between its rich heritage, culture, value and the global economy we all share.  Wo xi huan Zhong Gou he Zhongouren xi huan Meigourens!!!  (I like China and Chinese people like Americans).