My school is building an art building. Every class got to paint a section of the wall surrounding the construction. The building in the back of the picture is our gymnasium.
We all got our passports back about a week ago - thank goodness. We had to give them up to get our work Visas. The funny thing is, someone in the Visa department screwed up our order and instead of having our Visas valid through the end of June they end on June 2nd. So...we're going to have to give up our passports again and get new ones sometime during the year.
I know I keep saying it, but Xili is truly amazing. Today I took a different path to the main hub of the town. As I expected I found a lot of new restaurants, street food, and even a small department store. Then I got into the section of town that I've already explored and know decently well. I was looking to buy some clothes and wandered around aimlessly through the different rows of street vendors. As I strolled around I saw a path that seemed to open up on the other side, followed it and all of sudden came upon this. A large staging area with a section of platformed seats behind. All around on the first floor vendors had been set up in the hollows of the sidings. On the above floors there were small living areas with the usual clothes and odds and ends hanging along the balconies. I doubt I can find this place again, but I was just awed at how much China can seem to hide from you unless you know the right way to go.
My kitchen...
So far I've cooked noodles (success), toast (semi-success, some burning), and french toast (least success - half was burned the other half possibly raw but still yummy)
We went back to the Yantian beach. A typhoon had come in a few days before so the water was cluttered with debris. We didn't swim much because every time you got attacked by tiny pieces of wood or floating garbage. Instead we explored and found this wooden walkway that curved all around the mountain.
We went to the Shenzhen Museum today. There were three exhibits - Modern Shenzhen, Ancient Shenzhen, and Folk Shenzhen. Folk Shenzhen talked about the original people that inhabited this area. Through the three sections, my favorite part was learning about the Dan people. These were the fisherman that lived out on the sea around Shenzhen. Many, many years ago, no one, not Hong Kong or Shenzhen, wanted to claim them or let them become citizens so the people mainly spent their lives out on the water. They were a superstitious bunch - they couldn't use words such as 'turn over' or 'upside down' and when they ate fish you couldn't flip the fish over, you had to eat it as it was served to you. The Dan people did have a couple on land ceremonies - one was flying their fish lanterns, pictured above.
One of the doctors of the school and her Senior 2 daughter took us out with their family for Mid Autumn Festival. We went to a very fancy restaurant and had a nice lunch. Then the family asked if Fuat and I would like to join them when they went to the golfing range. We accepted and found ourselves golfing for the afternoon. When we got there Fuat and I were surprised to find that there was a heard of goats just chillin out of the green! I was worried about hitting them (not that I could shoot that far) but the family assured me that the goats would move.
The next couple days is celebrating Mid Autumn Festival. It is one of China's biggest holidays. You are supposed to eat a good meal with your family, drink lots of tea and eat moon cakes while looking at the moon. It is to celebrate the harvest. Fuat and I each got two boxes of moon cakes, one from the school and one from one of the Senior 2 students. Moon cakes are alright...a lot of them have a ball of egg yoke in the center which is really salty and not very tasty. The rest of it is a sweet paste that is thick but good. There is a range of different flavors - green tea, bean paste, even a chocolate one that you leave in the refrigerator!
Our school hosted a banquet for all the teachers who were not married and under 30 years old (I felt bad for those that were over 30 and still not married - they had a quiet evening at home by themselves, sad day). Towards the end of the banquet, everyone participated in a Chinese tradition. The host creates a list of riddles and reads them out loud. Whichever table gets the answer first wins a prize. After this goes on for a little while then tables can challenge other tables to see who can solve the riddle first. Whichever tables loses has to drink. Brian, my contact teacher, was trying his best change the riddles to English so that Fuat and I could participate, but a lot was lost in translation. He would say things like "There were seven angels and they flew down to earth. One angel married a human man. They had two children." and then look at us expectantly. When Fuat and I showed that we had no idea what he was talking about he'd say "the answer is that six angels didn't get married". Yea...I still don't get it. But they all had fun and it was in a beautiful restaurant.
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