Climbing Mt. Tai

                Mt. Tai rises nearly a mile above sea level in Shandong Province. Confucius came here to think, and emperors made the ascent to prepare for their reigns.  Taoist temples and ancient inscriptions flank the ancient stone steps. The climb is considered very difficult—far more so than the Great Wall—and several people cautioned me not to attempt it.

            The Chinese take special care with the elderly, and I’m afraid I now qualify. As we proceeded to climb, a 45 year old colleague appeared at elbow and began to divert my attention to the historical aspects of Mt. Tai.  The man kept encouraging me to rest and take pictures— clearly he thought I should focus on something other than arriving at the top. 

                  He carried my backpack-- a great help-- but when he continually grabbed me by the elbow, I found it annoying; however I didn't want to offend this erudite gentleman.  He kept telling me to slow down-- claiming we weren't far from the top and there'd be adequate time to meet up with the others before they descended. He was lying.  As we neared the peak, we ran into my young female students, who are very pretty. They’d already been to the top. Our party was descending. The girls distracted him briefly, and I made my getaway. 

                When my guide caught up with me, he tried to make me take pictures of Taoist shrines and historic inscriptions, but I grabbed my hiking pole and persevered.         

                The day was foggy, but the view from the top was magnificent. We took a cable car down.

Who takes a passport to the doctor’s office?

               Shelley and I had our checkups in Johnson City, but Zane, John, Gabriela and Brittany still needed theirs.  We drove by university van about forty minutes to a clinic in downtown Jinan.  Here, an officious white coated receptionist told my students they had to have passports.  Brittany and Gabriela had brought theirs; Zane and John had not.  Was the excursion wasted for them? Couldn’t they have their exams anyway if the school agreed to bring the documentation later?

             The receptionist said it was out of the question.  John dug in his portfolio and brought out Xeroxed copies.  These, we were told, were not acceptable.  Wang Ping persisted and asked to speak to the gatekeeper’s “Leader.”  Evidently, this person was far more reasonable.  The exams proceeded.

             My students were afforded a reasonable amount of privacy for their exams—a great improvement on the way these things were conducted in 2006.   Afterwards, we had ice cream.

Comfort food

             We were given a lesson in making jaozi. These are Chinese dumplings, resembling ravioli.  They are formed from circles of dough which are filled with vegetables or meat and then fried or boiled. Jaozi have a characteristic shape resembling a half moon. Their production is time consuming, but they are delicious.

Penmanship lesson (or shall I say brushmanship?)

             We were given a lesson in writing Chinese.  Rather than representing speech sounds with letters, the system represents concepts using stylized symbols.

For instance, ren, is represented like this:

人

         Think of a person walking.

         This is the way the Chinese write ‘da,’ their word for big.

大

         To form the word for sky, ‘tian,’  we draw an extra line above the man figure:

天

         Tiananmen as in Tiananmen Square means ‘Gate of Heaven.’

天安门

         Notice that the third character in this place name looks a bit like a gate.

         Today, the Chinese use pens and pencils as we do.  But the system was designed for ink and a brush.  In some ways, it’s easier to write Chinese with this ancient equipment.

Friendly Governmental Suggestion

             This traditional Beijing home consists of small buildings which open out to a courtyard. The same family has stayed in this complex for a few generations; however, the government “suggests” they allow tourists to view it.  I believe that under the new dispensation, they receive payment.  One of the men was cordial, but several members of the family seemed unhappy to have us gawking at their home.  Having experienced annual parsonage inspections, I understood.  This would be far worse.

           In a discussion with another professor, I referred to China’s new system as Capitalism, and I was corrected.  We call it “revised Socialism,” my colleague said with a grin.

Skull session

           Our students have started teaching, and we collaborate with our partners concerning lessons.  They’ve been asking us to do lectures, and we do prepare power points. But we’re also trying to include some  group activities. Obviously, you can’t learn a language without trying to speak it.

Community Mail

             Chinese students live six to a tiny dormitory room and have no post office box of their own.   

             When they purchase an item over the Internet, the package goes to a shop in the student center where they lie around on the floor awaiting pickup.  I don’t know if they pay for this service. The procedure does not appear secure, and would make me uncomfortable; however, I’m told the students must show their ID’s.   

Literal Translation

          This sign is posted on the wall of my room.  So what the heck does it mean?  ‘Pensile’ is an obscure English word meaning ‘the building of a hanging nest.’  Notice the picture in the upper left hand corner of the notice.  The sign is actually telling people not to hang laundry from the sprinkler system.  

            Likely, the sign maker plugged an appropriate Chinese phrase into a translation app on a cell phone or electronic translator, and the apparatus came up with this piece of nonsense.  Portable software has its place in travel and the initial phases of learning a language, but past that it slows people down and makes them sound silly.  Often, when intermediate learners ask me how to improve their English,  I tell them to throw these automatic dictionaries out of the window.

Post-retirement

              The Chinese retire earlier than we, generally by age 55 or 60 for men and sometimes as young as 50 or 55 for women. The government determines retirement dates, and people often don’t have the option of working afterwards.  A favorite pastime of senior citizens here is traditional Chinese dancing, which participants do very beautifully.  A retirement spent in this way would drive me out of my mind.

Lake or Sea?

                Our last day in Beijing, we visited Bei Hai Park, where the ancient emperors went to worship.  ‘Bei’ means ‘North,’ as in Beijing.  ‘Hai’ means sea.  The emperor who first built this place was from a desert region of Mongolia.  He thought the vast lake here was actually a sea.

 Moving on

              We have left Beijing. We took a bullet train to Jinan, capital of Shandong Province.  It was in Shandong that Confucius, the Chinese sage, lived and taught.

               Our work here is the heart of this project.  We will be teaching English to college students and also to children in the public schools.