Sunday, December 16, 2012

Sheng Dan Kaui Le and Happy New Year Too!!!!

  I hope this week's blog can give you a little respite from some of the tragic and bad news at home this week.  You are all in our prayers.  As I have said before, we are insulated from the news so we hear about or read things, have a discussion or prayer about them and let it go.  At home it isn't necessarily the case.  You will be bombarded by news stories and talk about it with colleagues or friends until the pain goes away.  So give yourself a break.
Merry Christmas from The O's in China
  Ni Hao!!!  That means hello in Chinese.  This week was your typical week in China.  Teaching class, our first Christmas Party of the season and visiting Martyr's Park.  I hope you are all enjoying the Christmas Season and the weather and atmosphere that goes along with it.  My goal this week is to give you the first week of what the Christmas Season is like in China.  So, I guess you could consider this a two part series on Christmas in China.
  One thing I did want to share with you about China, is that not everything is rosy and bright.  I have shared many things that are great about China, but the one thing that is a recurring problem to me is the trash.  It is amazing to see all of the great things that China does with buildings and local improvements, like river trails and bike paths but yet they don't put any energy into trying to get their population to change when it comes to throwing trash on the ground.  I know that I am only a visitor for a few months, but I have begun to feel like this is our home away from home.  So, I have learned enough Chinese to be able to discuss with a Chinese National how important it is for them not to litter.  The conversation goes something like this when they through the trash on the ground in front of me.  Mei you!!!  Mei you!!!! Mei you!!!!, which means No!!!No!!!!No!!!! in Chinese.  They are so blatant about it, that it is ridiculous, but I seem to be getting the point across because more than one person has picked their trash up after I said it.  Like they say, it only takes a raindrop to make a splash then the rings go on and on.  I know in a country of 1.8 billion people, I probably can't make a difference, but at least maybe they will quit throwing trash in my neighborhood.

TEACHING:  Well this week was a rather uneventful week.  After the poetry reading and Language Festival it was nice to just get back to the normal.  We didn't have any special activities and it was very nice.  Cecelia did have to teach in front of parents with unruly children and Chinese teachers that keep telling her that things are too hard for them.  She was a trooper and made it through.  The Chinese teachers are supposed to be there to help, but she says that sometimes it is just better if they go away.  She also had a good week in her new classroom.  She is excited because she actually has a touch screen television and an Elmo projector to use.  Hey Wasuma, she actually has technology that works for teaching.  Oh by the way, she also just got 10 brand new computers in her classroom as well.  That is pretty much it for this week at school.

Crazy Bike Rider in China
ADVENTURES:  This week the weather was awesome.  It is a little difficult to get in the Christmas Spirit when it is 78 degrees and we are scooter and bicycle riding in shorts and short sleeved shirts.  After last week's ride in the Dafushan Forest Park with the girls, Cecelia and I were motivated to buy good bicycles for riding to and from school.  Dafushan also has some really great Mountain Bike trails for us to ride.  We will also ride them out and around on adventures near our home.  The scooters are great, but they are limited by battery life.  Currently we have about a 10 mile radius, but on the bikes we go out to about 25 miles.

Not so Crazy bike Rider
  With that being said, we hope to share some cool bike riding stories with you soon.  The bikes were an early Christmas present to each of us.  Santa will come and see the girls on Christmas morning.  So far they have been good, and we got a video from him saying that they had made the cut this year.  Other than the bikes, we decided as a family that going to Thailand was our Christmas present to each other, so we are not going to be buying gifts this year.  Unfortunately Cecelia and I will have to sell our bikes before we come back home.  The cost of shipping and the tax was three times as much as us buying both bike together.  The cost of sending something home is a topic for another time as well as how hard it is to send money home.
Our living room full of Holiday Revelers!!
  Anyway, I digress.  I was telling you that it is difficult to get in the Christmas Spirit because of the weather, but it is also because of the atmosphere.  Certainly there are Christmas decorations and Christmas Music, but it is more a commercial aspect of the season than anything else that makes it difficult.  Christmas is celebrated here, not because it is the birth of Christ, but because it is the next retail season for the rest of the world.  Practically every Christmas decoration or light that is made nowadays is from China.  So, for China it is a season for celebration because the rest of the world is ordering product to send home.  Now please don't get the impression that I am blaming China.  On the contrary, I love that in Guangzhou they make an attempt to celebrate the season, despite it being a Christian Holiday.  I truly believe that they respect this particular holiday because it is important to a large group of people throughout the world.  I am also appreciative of the fact that they allow some religious freedom here.  There are Christian pockets of people all around Guangdong Province, as well as the numerous Buddhist, Tao and Hindu temples.
Our friends David and Michael.
  So, by telling you how difficult it is to get into the Christmas Holiday, we decided to give it a jump start by helping to host a progressive Christmas Party with two other friends.
Where's my Harley?

  We started by buying and decorating our Christmas tree.  It isn't fake by any means, but for some reason it doesn't have that same pine tree smell that we are used to experiencing each year.  Paul and I are hoping to bring home the technology to make pine needles light up like this tree does.  We are working on trying to figure out how to make them grow the glowing needles.  We will contact some of you shortly to see if you want to invest.  We then decorated our scooters with lights that are battery powered and some awesome red and greed garland.  Finally we topped it off with lights and a wreath on our entry gate.






Canadian Santa and Gangsta Santa with elf and Reindeer!!
  After decorating the house, we were ready for the party revelers to arrive.  The progressive party started at our house with drinks and appetizers.  The party lasted about an hour and a half at our place, then progressed down the street to the house of our friends Jenny and Luke.  It was really cool to see about 35 or 40 people walking down the street dressed in Christmas hats and Santa outfits.  We sang Jingle Bells as we meandered to the next stop.
  Jenny and Luke are from Wisconsin and have three children here with them.  Their children are about the same age as Claire and Taylor.  As you can imagine they have become fast friends.
  At their home we had soup, chili and salad.  The merriment continued for about an hour there and then finally moved to Marileze and Adam's house.  Marileze is from South Africa and Adam is from Canada.
  From Luke and Jenny's home the large group had to travel about two miles through our neighborhood.  Some of the guests took the bus, others drove in cars but the rest of us had an awesome squadron of scooters traveling in formation.  Of course the formation was headed up by Paul, Cecelia and I with our lighted and decorated scooters.
 I can't forget to mention that we also had a couple of glasses of wine with us.  Paul had the wine bottle for refills when necessary.  The night was beautiful for riding and we made quite an impression on our Chinese neighbors as we rode by wishing them Sheng Dan Kaui Le!!!!  Sheng Dan Kau Le means Merry Christmas in Chinese.
  Marileze and Adam finished the party off with a main course of stuffing, mashed potatoes and roasted duck.  All in all it was a great way to jump start the Christmas Spirit in all of us and kick start a great weekend.
Duninggang Cemetary
  This weekend Cecelia wanted to go shopping in Guangzhou, so Paul and I took the girls on a scooter adventure.  Near our home we had seen what we thought were some amazing temples, but come to find out they were cemeteries.  Cemeteries in China are not like ours in the United States.  All citizens that are Chinese are cremated when they die.  The remains are then placed in the most amazing cemeteries that Paul and I have ever seen.  Not only are the buildings and grounds impressive, but they are well taken care of and music is playing constantly.  They are extremely peaceful places.  Paul and I could have sat at the first cemetery for at least an hour meditating and listening to the music that was being played, but we had the girls with us.
Lezhugang Cemetary
  We ended the day by going on a bike ride along the river near our home.  It was amazing to see the golden sunset as we rode home from our excursion.  The temperature was balmy and warm.  It caressed us with a peaceful warmth that added to the serenity of the pink and purple sky along with the soft sound of the river flowing by.  It was a perfect end to a day in which we spent time thinking about our loved ones past and present.
  Sunday presented us with an excursion to Guangzhou to find a chapel that we were told about.  The directions were a little sketchy but as you know by now we are always up for a bit of adventure.  We found the small chapel of St. Francis of Assisi in a very European part of Guangzhou.  We are looking forward to spending Christmas service with them.
Martyrs Park Main Walkway
  Apparently this part of town was owned and run by some European business men before the Communist Revolution.  After the Revolution the Chinese took over.  The ironic thing about the chapel is that it is just down the street from the museum that housed the 3rd Congress of the Communist Party just before the Revolution.  We stopped by the museum on our way back from finding the chapel.  It was very interesting and gave us some information for our next stop.
  Finally, we stopped by a park called Martyr's Park.  We try to go to at least one interesting landmark while we are in Guangzhou and this was it for this week.  Martyr's Park is a huge park that is dedicated to the people that died and sacrificed for the Communist Revolution in 1927.  The park is amazing.  It has a couple of tombs in which the people that died are buried, the largest being the Martyr's Tomb.  It is a huge mound, surrounded by a low wall with lion statues guarding it.  It also has a pair of iron doors that can be opened to take care of the grounds.  It also has a massive statue at the main walkway symbolizing the movement.  The park has many peaceful places to sit.  They have even made a kids area and lakes in which you can rent paddle boats.  We rented a boat for a little while and floated around one of the lakes.  It was very nice, and it gave the girls an opportunity to burn off some energy.
The Martyrs Tomb
  I have never been a big fan of Communism, but the idea of a Utopian society has been pursued by many different groups of people.  You have to remember this was an uprising by a group of people that felt like they were being oppressed, but rather than becoming Democratic, they became Communist through a big influence from Russia.  Remember, Russia had their revolution because they felt like they were being oppressed by royalty as well.  Isn't this why are country was started as well?  We just didn't have someone nearby to influence our founding fathers.



A few of the local beauties!!!

  Anyway, enough of the history lesson for this week.  I would like to end this week's blog with a poem that I didn't get to do last week.  It is a well known Robert Frost poem that many of you will recognize.  I kind of think of it as the theme of my life.

The Road Not Taken,
by Robert Frost


Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

























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