thepflegerlife: October 2008

Hey Everyone!

It's been an interesting week and a half since the last post. The last post was right after my birthday. Lacy did such a great job of orchestrating a surprise dinner for me with friends. Since then there has been a lot that has happened. So here goes...

Last week was China's official national holiday. It's called October Holiday, I'm sure there is a Chinese name for it, but I don't know what the translation is. The students have the whole week off and are able to return home or travel for the week. It's a little different here though. In America it would be similar to having the same amount of time off for Thanksgiving. Instead the classes that normally would be held on Monday and Tuesday are switched to the Saturday and Sunday prior. This enables the students and teachers to have a full 7 days off to travel. The reason is because travel is so much more difficult and time consuming and it's not as efficient to just have 3 days vacation if the student isn't able to go home. I.E. a student might have to travel by bus or train that may take 20-30 hours. If the student only had 3-4 days then almost 3 of those days would be spent on the bus or train.

During the first half of the week we went with a few friends to a city not far from school. We met up with a Chinese girl who spends time at SIAS but isn't a student. She went to school abroad and studied business and now owns a shoe factory and is beginning another partnership in the inport-export business. We were able to spend 2 days with her and her colleague establishing a relationship. While I was there I was able to discuss a possibility with a man who will come and speak to my classes about life after college. He will help them in their job search and has 11 job openings in his company that he would like to fill with qualified students from my class. In return he wants me to help him with his English. So hopefully it was the beginning of a great friendship!

After we returned to school the following day we traveled with a lot of the new teachers and some returning teachers to a city called Xi'an (pronounced She-ann). It is the home of the famous Terracotta Soldiers. What an amazing place... It is an underground tomb for one of the 1st emporors of China, the same emporor that had the Great Wall built... Over 6,000 clay soldiers are estimated to be found once all the land is finally excavated. These warriors all stand close to 6ft tall. The reason it was erected in the beginning is because the Emporor wanted to have an army in the "after-life" in order to continue his reign after death. Then once he died it was destroyed by the next emporor in line because of the oppression he caused while buidling the Great Wall and this tomb.

We were in Xi'an for 3 days and then traveled back home to SIAS...where we would be pleasantly surprised by two friends, Andre' Dobson and Bill Simmons. We were able to spend two days with them showing them around the univeristy we teach at and city we live in. We were so excited to have familiar faces here with us in our home. A crazy thought becomes reality!! While they were here we took them to our favorite restaurants (which is relative), introduced them to students we spend time with, had them sit-in on our classes, and just shared time with them. Personally it was very emotional to have people we know and love here with us. They were able to see and understand first-hand what we describe and talk about. It's so nice to have that connection and not feel like you have to explain every single detail just to get a simple point across about the culture...