Revisiting the Shaolin Temple

Well, I promised a movie a few months ago, and I finally got my hands on it. Not to mention a computer of my own (thanks a ton Garry!) and internet that isn't extremely slow. So here it is! Hope you enjoy it half as much as I did!

Figuring Things Out

It's been a while since I posted on here. I know I should do better, but if it's not that there isn't anything worth mentioning it's that there is too much going on that I don't know where to start. So I guess first of all, Taiwan was amazing, just as I expected it to be. It was great to get in touch with old friends and see people I haven't seen for 2-4 years. It was awesome. I remembered why it was that I love those people so much. Here's a shout out to all of my Taiwan friends, you guys ROCK!

Well, I'm home now, back in good ole' Missouri. It has been awesome to be home for Christmas with family. Man, I must be having problems with jet lag or something because this whole week I just haven't had any energy. It's just getting frustrating and rather annoying. Perhaps it will get better once I actually get myself a schedule that I actually stick to. We'll see. Well, speaking of getting back to school, I finally figured out what the heck I want to do with the rest of my life. I have decided that I want to be a High School Chinese teacher. Ya, I know High School teachers don't exactly make the big bucks, and teaching high school probably doesn't mean that I'll be sent to China to work, but I'm still really excited about it. I have always enjoyed teaching, and I (obviously) love Chinese. So I think that this is probably the best suited job for me. One of my favorite things from this past semester was helping my 同学 with any Chinese questions that they had. And I don't think I can count how many times I have been told that I should be a Chinese teacher this past semester. So I'm getting really excited about it. The only thing is, I have no idea what I'm going to do about my classes for next semester. When I registered for my classes for next semester, I was planning on doing an International Relations major, and now that that has changed, I don't know if any of the classes I have registered for are going to be needed. So one of the first things on the list of things to do when I get back to BYU is to go talk to a counselor about what the heck I should do for next semester and the rest of my College career. Anyway, I think I'm going to work on uploading pictures to somewhere on the internet so I can show people. I'll post a link on here when I eventually get them up on the internet.

Taiwan

Holy cow! I'm in TAIWAN! Crazy, I know. So many great things going on. So many awesome people. So many amazing places. I remembered why it was that I fell so in love with Penghu, I've gotten in touch with people I had forgotten about and hung out with old friends that I still keep in contact with. I really don't have much time, but basically, life is good and I'm still alive. Stories and pictures either when I get back home on Sunday, or the next day on Monday. Love ya!

Do You Speak Chinese?

So tonight for FHE, we are building forts in our living room and making french toast and waffles. (pictures will come later) So earlier we were getting all of the bread and eggs. For 20 people, that's not a small amount of either. So I had it all in a bag walking back home and some random Chinese guy said hello. He noted that I had a bag full of eggs and bread so I told him that we were having a party tonight. He asked if I was going to school here, I said yes and that I go to Nanjing University. Then he asked me "Oh, so you speak Chinese?" ........ I just thought it was really funny that after 3 min this guy didn't even realize that I was speaking Chinese with him. Anyway, funny story, thought I would share.

End of Classes and Stuff

Holy cow. That's all I have to say... Holy cow. This semester just flew by! I had my last class of the semester yesterday. Pretty crazy. I must say though, I am WAY excited that classes are over. But not quite so excited that I have to leave China. But also very excited about seeing my family and having Christmas. Also, I'm way pumped about going to Taiwan to see my friends. It's going to be great! So yesterday, after we got out of classes, one of the other class' teachers went with a group of us to sing Karaoke. It was tons of fun! And it was all of $5/hour for a room. Split that 7 ways, and you have a cheap recipe for fun! Then we went to get dinner at this place I hadn't ever eaten at... All I can say is that I wish I had discovered this place beforehand. Oh well.

On a random note. The other day in my speaking class, our teacher told us a story that...well, I'll just see how you react... Well, her daughter is in the US studying in College. Instead of calling on the phone, they use skype on the internet to communicate. She said that usually the sound isn't the best. You can't expect too much being over the internet across the world. But she said that the other day it was exceptionally clear. She then attributed the "change" to our good ole' friend, President Elect Obama. It's a good thing his whole campaign is all about "change". I don't really feel like I know quite enough about politics to make much of a statement on Obama, but I know a lot more than most foreigners do. Yet, the media has put him up on such a high pedestal that he can do no wrong. EVERYONE loves him. People here just assume that I love him as much as they do. They can't imagine that anyone wouldn't like him. Grr... It just frustrates me that anything that is slightly good that happens in America from now until Obama is out of office is automatically going to be attributed to him because he's a superhero. Do I think he'll do good things, ya, sure I do. Do I think that he can do no wrong, absolutely not. Another thing I just love is that if you don't like Obama, it's because you are racist. That makes sense. Grrr..... Anyway. Enough about that.

On a more positive note, I got my suit! Horray for cheap stuff in China! Now I just need to find a tie that goes really well with it... Um... Finals are on Monday and Tuesday, not worried about them really at all... Not much else is going on, just having a nice relaxing weekend here in Nanjing... Oh man, it's my last weekend here. Sad day. But next weekend I'll be in Penghu! Yahoo!!

Cheap Stuff and Buddha's Fingers

Before I came to China, I had heard that I could get myself a new suit for pretty cheap while I'm here. I hadn't done anything about it until recently because I wanted to see what other people paid for their suits. So last week, mom put $100 USD in my bank account for me to get myself a suit. So I called up one of my friends that I meet here and asked him where I could go to get a suit. So Tuesday afternoon he took me with a few of his friends to the cloth market. Luckily, one of his friends has bought fabric there before so she knew which little shop to go to to get a good price. Long story short, I bought fabric and all the material I need to make a suit and having a tailor sew it all up all nice and fitted to me for all of 400 RMB, or about $60 USD. I love China. I have to go back on Monday to have it fitted and make alterations if needed.

So, because I had a little more money that I was expecting to have, I figured I could use a new pair of shoes. My other ones still work, but they have a mesh top... Not very convenient when it rains or for the snow when I get back to Provo. So I went to 夫子廟 (the Confucian Temple here in Nanjing, they have tons of cheap shops there). I got myself a pair of shoes for 60 RMB, or just under $10 USD. Pretty sweet. Then as I was walking around, I found some more Christmas present stuff that I wasn't originally planning on buying, but did because it was so cheap. Once again, I love China.

We went on our last "city" tour today. It wasn't really in the city, but it was close enough. We went to this place called 棲霞山 (Qixia Mountain) where there is this really cool Buddhist Temple. The place was way pretty. But one of the things that this temple is famous for is the sarira-pagoda... Ya, that's what I thought too when I first heard about it. Basically, when Buddha died (the man himself who became the Buddha) they cremated him and took his bones to al sorts of paces, one of them being here, in Nanjing at the Qixia Monastery. They put two of his finger bones in a stone or metal box and build this really cool pagoda overtop of it. Interesting, I know, but it was a really pretty place nonetheless. Especially with the changing colors of the leaves on the trees (yes, here in Nanjing the leaves are just NOW starting to change and it's already after Thanksgiving). Here are some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

Really pretty maple leafs.
This cool path that I decided to go explore because it was really cool looking.
This is the finger pagoda.
The cool bell in the bell tower. Ya, I rang that.

I have more pictures, but some are on other peoples cameras and others are just on a different memory card. I'll post more later.

English Corner, Chinese Christians and 澎湖

Well, Thursday I went with Brooke and Trent to this English Corner thing that some other college here in Nanjing had. It was an interesting experience. It was us 3 Americans and about 30-50 college age Chinese kids (mostly girls). It wasn't exactly the most organized thing that I have ever attended, but it was quite entertaining. But then, Brook had to let it out that I dance... Yes, I love dancing, but I enjoy social dance, not the "having sex on the dance floor with our clothes on" dancing. That is NOT my kind of dance. But that's what most people think of when they think about dancing. I was able to avoid too much awkwardness, but I still had a few choice moments. Other than that, I had to get my picture taken with about three billion people and all of them got my phone number (I have subsequently received many random texts and a few phone calls that I was not able to answer, all from, at least I assume from, these people I meet that night). Another thing that I was surprised by was how many people volunteered that they were Christians.

As I am doing a project on religions here in China, I found this a great opportunity to get some information about Christianity in China. I ended up going to church with Trent and Marc on Saturday with one of the girls we meet that night. She is a Seventh Day Adventist, therefore, church was on Saturday. One of the things that really took me off guard was how many people where there at church. There were about 100+ people in the congregation and before we went into the chapel, there was a whole other congregation. It was pretty cool. Then after the service was over we stayed and talked to some of the people who took us. I really enjoyed talking to them, but not as much as I enjoyed the phone calls that I made later that day...

So I finally called up a few people from my mission that I haven't talked to for a long time and haven't even seen for over 3 years. I love Sister Wu. She's great. As soon as she answered and I said one sentence, she recognized me! It was AWESOME! I loved it! It made me remember one of the many reasons that I'm in love with Penghu. I then called up Yueman, another one of my favorite people from Penghu, and talked to her for 5-10 min. It was great. She said that she is going to be off of work for the few days that I'm going to be there in Penghu and so I get to hang out with her for 2-3 days. I am so excited. It's going to be a blast! It just got me SO excited to go see all of my old friends from my mission. I can't wait!

80's Skating

Well, for FHE we were planning on going ice skating. We were originally going to have a big group of everyone going, but people started bailing out left and right. So we started calling our Chinese friends. We ended up just having 5 people including one of Brooke's friends. After we finally got down to the road that the rink is on and searched for half an hour without being able to find it, we called them up. Apparently their machine ( I can only assume that they mean their Zamboni) was broken. Greg was feeling kind of sick, so he just went back home, leaving just us 4 that you see in the picture. (from left to right: Matt, me, Brooke, Vanessa) Brook's friend said that she knew where a skating place was. Funny thing. In Chinese, ice skating and just normal skating are the same word... Ok, I just lied. I just looked it up and apparently they are different, but just barely. And what I thought was ice skating apparently means just roller skating. So she took us to a skating rink. It was really small, if you can't tell from the pictures. But it was really funny. Everyone, with few exceptions, were on roller skates, instead of roller blades. The awesome selection of music was also very 80's esk. What made it even better was the decorations on the walls and the lighting. It was great fun. So, just in case anyone was wondering, the 80's are still alive and well in China.

Shanghai

Well, there are no pictures to let you see as of yet. I did manage to get one picture with my camera before the batteries died, again. I think I'm going to just have to get myself some new rechargeable batteries some time soon. We'll see about that though. It was a really fun weekend, despite not having any pictures that I took. I, somehow, managed to spend about $100 over 3 days, which is quite a bit for me here in China. But I think that I'm pretty much done with all of my Christmas shopping, so that makes it a little bit better. And I got myself a wind breaker with matching pants and like 5 t-shirts, plus a few other random things. And then I also ate pretty good. So it's not too hard to see how $100 US just disappeared in one weekend.

Besides shopping, we still did quite a few things. This trip was different from all of our others because we didn't have any set schedule. We got there, got all set up in our hostel, then we were turned loose and we didn't have anything that we had to be together for until the train ride home to Nanjing. But anyway, Friday night, about half of the group took a 1 1/2 hour boat ride down the Huangpu River which runs right through Shanghai. It was a beautiful night! Nice weather, clear sky and a full moon. It was really cool. Here are a few pictures that I pulled off of the internet...



I'll try to get some photos of my own (aka pictures that I stole from people that I actually know as opposed to off the internet) soonish. I don't know if there is really a whole lot for me to say right now. It was a great weekend, but I can't think of any great stories from it. Well, I think I'm going to go get ready for bed and prepare my lesson for tomorrow (I'm teaching Elders Quarm tomorrow, yeppie).

As Requested... Some Pictures

Well, here are some pictures...





Now here's the story:
We were on the train from Luoyang to Xi'an. I happened to be wearing the Shaolin Temple shirt that I bought while I was in Luoyang. Seeing my shirt, this dude who walks around the train selling stuff saw it and he came up like he was going to attack me. So I asked if he knew Kungfu. Of course, as you can see, he told me that he does know Kungfu and he proceeded to "teach" me some moves. It was pretty funny. We were just hanging out in the isle on the train doing all of this Kungfu. It made my day. But not quite as much as the day that I was actually in the Shaolin Temple show. That was an amazing day.

Getting Ready

Wow, time is going by WAY too fast! Granted, there are a few things that I am excited for when the semester ends and I go home. Going to Taiwan is probably the first on that list. But anyway, the past week has been spent working on, among other things, getting ready for life to happen again. My flight from LAX to Kansas City had a slight problem and I just barely got it all figured out. It's not the ideal situation, but it's better than missing my flight home to Missouri just before Christmas. I'll get into California around noon Saturday December 20th, but then my flight doesn't leave for Kansas City until Sunday the 21st just before noon. So I have a 22 hour lay over in LA, thus bring the total travel time to get home up to 44 hours. That'll be fun... Besides worrying about my flight home, I have also been working on my plans for when I'm in Taiwan. I went and got everything all worked out so I can call some of my friends in 澎湖 (my paradise island), now I'm just waiting for one of my friends to get back to me with some phone numbers. As soon as I do, I'll get that all squared away.

Other than traveling (which I still don't really know exactly how the heck I'm going to get myself back to Provo) I registered for next semester's classes today. I like my schedule, it's not too bad. I am going to have a busy semester though. But it will be worth it. The only complaint that I have right now, are that all of the Chinese classes that I need are either not offered this semester or are already full. So I'm going to try to add 344 (a Chinese film class) with an add/drop card when I actually get to school. If I still can't, then I'll just have to think of some other way of speaking Chinese regularly next semester. I'm also trying to figure out job stuff. It's great fun, I'll tell you what. If I can't find anything better, I may end up being a custodian way stinking early in the morning. We'll see. At least I have my housing taken care of already though.

Sorry there aren't any great fun stories to tell about being here in China. I guess everything just seems so normal to me that I don't really know what would be interesting to other people. I have noticed though that I am very much Chinese in a lot of the things I do and how I think. I think that the first time I realized that was when I was talking about the Dao De Jing with a girlfriend and she told me how Daoist I am. Man was she right! Anyway, there isn't anything specific that comes to mind, it's just a few small things that I realize here and there about myself and realize how Chinese I am (even though I am obviously not actually Asian). I'm not sure if it's because I'm so Chinese that the Lord has lead me in the direction of China or if it's because He has lead me here and the time that I've spent here that has made me so Chinese. The world may never know.

Test Results and Such

Well, I know that there were some people wondering about how effective my study habits actually are. And I must say, I'm not too disappointed in the results from my midterms. In my writing class, I have a 91%, speaking class is a 95% and my reading class is a 97%. So the worst grades I could possibly get this semester is an A- for 3 credits and an A for 10 credits... I'm not going to complain! It was kind of frustrating that I had to wait so long to figure it out though. Oh well, I think I will survive. Now I just have to figure out my schedule for next semester... And I need to decide if I want to take just 15 credits or 18 credits. Of course, there is a possibility that some of the classes are only offered at certain times that conflict with each other. Well, now I'm just rambling. New topic.

I randomly took off to Shanghai this past weekend with one of my class mates. It was a really fun weekend. But it was nice and tiring. We walked all over Shanghai. We went to the Bund, which was smaller than I expected, but still pretty cool. We also went up into the Pearl Tower. If only there hadn't been so many low lying clouds, it would have been way better. But it was still a lot of fun. One of the best parts was that in the pearl that is 50m tall there is a whole little theme park thingy. It was very entertaining. One of my favorite parts was a roller coaster. :-) I haven't ridden on a roller coaster since before my mission, and it was so fun! It wasn't exactly the most intense of roller coasters, but it was still great fun. Then in the basement of the tower, there is a way cool museum about the history of Shanghai. Also, it was really interesting to see the ex-pat life here in China. It kind of felt like I was back in America when we got to their house. I had chili, fresh baked rolls, and even pancakes for breakfast. It was quite the experience. We are going back to Shanghai in a couple of weeks with the whole BYU program, which will be a lot of fun again. Especially since the train tickets and all of that will be paid for. Hurray for saving money! And new topic.

We have been reading this book called Life and Death in Shanghai for our culture class. It is really interesting. It was written by a lady (who is still alive) that lived through the Cultural Revolution. It was written very well, and her English is all but native. It's a really great book that gives a lot of insight to the Cultural Revolution, which, I believe, is not very well understood in America. I would highly recommend reading it to anyone who is interested. New topic.

We apparently only have about 5 weeks of China left. HOLY SMOKES! This semester has FLOWN by! I still do have a little bit of time left. And then I still get to go to Taiwan for a week and a half. Speaking of witch, I need to get a hold of BYU travel and figure out my flight situation. Long story, ok, not really, I just don`t want to tell it at the moment. But I`m getting very excited to see my friends there. It`s going to be great. New topic.

And my new topic is that I`m done. I really don`t have anything else to say. So hope you all enjoyed. Later.

Pictures!

These pictures are kind of in a backwards order, but not like it really matters. I'll attempt to put some more pictures up on facebook at some point. Oh, and there is a video of me in the Shaolin Temple that I need to get on here soon too.

This is the Summer Palace in Beijing. It was kind of cold that day, but this was still one of my favorite places we went while in Beijing.

The Birds Nest. It was pretty stinking cool. And I took a nap on the field in there. :-)

The Great Wall... Need I say more?

This is the Forbidden City. The only people allowed in here were the Imperial Family and their servants until 1950, one year after the PRC was officially organized.

The Terracotta Warriors in Xi'an. They were built in order to guard the tomb of the first Emperor of China, Qinshihuang.

I belong in the 少林 Temple

Well, as many of you know, I just got back from a stinking awesome vacation. The whole study abroad group took a 10 day tour of 洛阳，西安，and 北京。It was way cool. There is really a ton of stuff that we did, so it's really hard to figure out exactly what I want to say about it. I would put everything on here, but that would be a stinking huge post, so I won't. But I will give you a run down of some of the highlights. Unfortunately, my batteries for my camera were being stupid for a large part of the trip, so my own photos are somewhat limited. But I will steal some from my friends at some point and get some posted on here eventually. Let's see, Luoyang was the first place we stopped at. That's where Buddhism first came to China. Therefore, most of the things we saw had to do with Buddhism. Included with those sites is the Shaolin Temple. Yes, that is correct, the birthplace of Wushu Martial Arts. It was one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was quite the site to see so many young people practicing martial arts. They were pretty intense. I kind of wish I could study there for a year or two. We did get to see a performance of the crazy things these Kung Fu Masters do. Then, about half way through the performance, they asked for 3 volunteers. So I, of course, had to volunteer. Being one of the only people waving my hand in the air wishing to be picked, not to mention one of the only white guys in the crowd, they decided to fulfill one of my greatest dreams and pick me to go up on stage with the Shaolin Monks. They had each of us mimic our "Master" and the style that they did. I ended up going last. My 师傅 did Preying Mantis Style. I will get a video of it on here, hopefully, within a week or so. Needless to say, I did pretty darn good. I have always wanted to do either Gymnastics or Martial Arts, and have never really had an opportunity to do either. So this was a dream come true. The crowed would have loved any white guy up there on the stage (you are automatically a celebrity when you go to China just because you are white). But the fact that I actually looked like I half way knew what I was doing, much less showed the other two guys up, just made the crowd go wild! It was great. My teacher told me that everyone gets their 10 min of fame and I probably just used about 7 of mine. And I am OK with that. I couldn't have thought of a better way to use them. :-)

Well, Xi'an was a really awesome city. There was a lot that we did there too, but once again, this post is already going to be nice and long, so I won't go into great detail about that. But Beijing was yet another awesome place to visit in China. Let's see, there was the Forbidden City, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall, the Water Cube, the Bird's Nest and the list goes on and on. It is hard to choose my favorite part of Beijing. But the Great Wall was definitely up there on the list. The area that we went to was not a very busy area of the wall, and it was kind of a cloudy day and it rained towards the very end of our stay there. But because of this, there was virtually no one on the area of the wall that we were on for a majority of the time. It was AWESOME! There really isn't any way for me to accurately describe the Great Wall except for awe-inspiring. We did so much stuff that it is kind of hard to figure out what to talk about. So I think that I will tell more stories later, perhaps. But we got back home Sunday morning at like 9:00. And then we started back up with classes today. But luckily, tomorrow, I only have 2 hours of class. So I shall enjoy that immensely. I hope that you are all very jealous of me, and soon I will upload some pictures so that I can be sure that you are all jealous of me. :-) More updates later!

"Preparing" for Midterms

I don't like tests. But what I like less than tests are studying for them. So how do I manage, you might ask? I am after all a college student. Isn't taking tests a big part of college life? 没错! Testing is, in fact, a big part of college life. Little quizzes, or weekly tests aren't a big deal. So long as I pay attention to class and take notes, I usually remember the information needed to pass a small test. But what about Midterms, or Finals? Those are considerably more work and to be quite honest, a lot more stressful than a little quiz. 这倒也是. My first semester at BYU I found a very useful way of dealing with the stress that accompanies such big tests: I get a good, preferably thick, book, sit down and read it. No, not a text book, just a good novel or something of the like. I would enjoy going out with friends, but they are all busy stressing out over a test. Besides, I don't normally have the time to just sit down with a good book. So what was the book of choice for this round of stress? The Other Side of Heaven. If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it. It is absolutely amazing! It's especially fun for me because it reminds me of my mission in some ways. Mostly just his feelings towards the people of Tonga remind me of how I feel about the Chinese people. He gives some of the wonderful insights that he had on his mission, and some after his mission as well. I have been learning so much since I have been here in China. Not just about China or the Chinese language, but about myself and what I have in store for the rest of my life. It has been such a great experience. Sorry, no specifics at this point. If you are curious, I would be more than willing to share some of the insights that I have had and feelings I have had while being here with you one on one, but I didn't really feel like it would be very fitting to post a lot of those things on here.

On a slightly different note, I'm taking off later today with the rest of the Study Abroad group for a 10 day tour of 3 of the Capitals (ancient and current) of China. We will first be headed to Luoyang, where Buddhism was born in China. It is also the location of the Shaolin Temple and the Longmen Grottoes. Then we will be heading to Xi'an, which was where Qinshihuang first unified China. He is also the one who, when he was buried, instructed terracotta replicas of his army and their horses and chariots to be buried with him. So we will get to see the Terracotta Warriors, among other things while we are there. Then we will be heading to Beijing. The Great Wall, The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Olympic Venues... The list goes on and on. I'm so excited. It will be so much fun! I'll be sure to post plenty of pictures and let you all know how it goes!

450 Jiaozi

Well, here's a little story from when I was on vacation in Yangshuo...

Well, the whole group had just gotten back from one of our day excursions and we were all hungry. So we decided to go get some shui jiao's, or jiaozi's, how ever you prefer to call them. I'm not a huge fan because there was one transfer on my mission where I ate shui jiao nearly every day for the whole transfer. Needles to say, wo chi ni le (I can't handle eating them too often any more because I ate too many of them, man Chinese is so much more convienent than English). But that's where everyone was going, so I had to go with them. We went to Dumpling Dynasty (jiao zi is a Dumpling in English). They said that one serving is 10 jiaozi. There was about 14 or so of us, so we decided to get 50 jiao zi total. Well, not long later, they brought up a plate full of jiao zi. We all stared eating them... Then came another plate... It was looking like a whole lot, and by the time they brought up the 3rd plate, we realized that we had obvously had a misscommunication. There was WAY more than 50 dumplings. So as they brought the 4th plate in, we told them to stop and realized what had happened... Who ever was over on the other side of the table ordering had ordered 50 servings, not just 50 dumplings! So that meant that they were going to bring out 500 dumplings! We had them stop there where they were and realized that we had about 450 jiaozi sitting on the table in front of us. So everyone ate as much as we could. Then when we were all full, we started forcing ourselves to eat more. I'm not going to lie, there were are few of them that got thrown out the window... but it eventually turned into a game of us vs. jiaozi. The other guys were set on finishng all 450 of them. I was perfectly fine with wasting them all. We did end up finishing every single one off (excluding the few that flew away and one or two that may or may not have ended up in a tea pot). But in order to get them all gone, it was like a drinking game where everyone took a turn shoving one more nasty, cool, slightly rubbery jiaozi into their mouth and trying to get it down before the rest of them that we had eaten came up. It was quite the experience, to say the least. And to top it all off, when we split the bill, it came out to about 40 RMB a person (just under $6 USD). Normally, I am able to keep all of the money I spend in a day under 30 RMB, and most meals I only spend between 5 and 10 RMB. So I spent 4x more than I normally do on one meal for something that I didn't really want to eat in the first place. But, hey, I'm in China!

Guilin and Yangshuo

Well, I got back late last night from celebrating China's National Holiday.  We got out of school for a whole week.  So what did we do?  We took off to one of the most beautiful places in the world:  Guilin and Yangshuo.  I was only able to go thanks to two of the most awesome people in the world, Vivian and Stephanie.  Thank you both for helping me get there!  We left Saturday afternoon from Nanjing on a 20 hour train ride down to Guilin.  It was actually a pretty fun ride.  There was a group of 10 of us that all traveled together and did most of everything together the whole week.  So when I got to Guilin, I was totally impressed with how beautiful it was...  Then the next day, we went to Yangshuo.  Unfortunately, it was dark when we got there.  When we woke up the next morning, however, I was totally blown away with the beauty of the place.  We went up on to the top of the roof of our hostel just to take in the beauty of it all (that being the first picture).  The first full day in Yangshuo, we rented bikes, biked through the most gorgeous country side ever to the Yulong He (He is pronounced somewhat like huh and means river).  There we swam for a while waiting for our bamboo raft which we floated on for an hour or so.  We got back on our bikes and went to Moon Hill, hiked up there and then took a minivan to a mud cave.  We were so wiped out by the time we got back home that day!  But it was totally worth it!  My batteries died one the first day there, so I'm going to have to steal pictures from others before I can post them on here for you all to see.  We just haven't had a chance to swap pictures yet.  The next morning, we all got up early for a river cruise on the Li Jiang (jiang also means river).  The scenery, of course, was breathtaking.  Shoot, there is so much that we did that it's all getting muddled up in my head.  We went night fishing, or more of watched these way cool birds swim in front of a bamboo raft who would dive down and catch fish for their master.  It was pretty darn cool.  Of course, there was some bartering, I bought myself a bamboo scroll with the Dao De Jing on it for about $7 USD....  Awesome...  We rented scooters and took off to some more amazing places.  We went to this little village.  Basically we just had the time of our lives hanging out with friends in one of the most beautiful places in the world.  I don't really have much time left, so ask me more questions when I get back home about everything I did, and I'll be sure to give you all the great details.  Aren't you jealous!?

Baby Chaps

At long last, I have captured the phenomenon known by some as "Baby Chaps" on camera. This one is for you Marisa. Well, in China, they apparently don't enjoy changing dippers very much, either that or they are just too expensive. Well, for whatever the reason, they have found an alternative to putting dippers on their children. This is a perfect example of what I have dubbed "Baby Chaps", for reasons that aught to be rather obvious. Now, granted, it isn't every baby that dons "Baby Chaps", but you sure see it often enough. Especially when your house is just down the street from the Children's Hospital. My first experience with these "Baby Chaps" was on the subway. There was some cute baby boy sitting on his mom's lap. Upon second glance, I noticed that he was flashing the whole train, via a proper use of his baby chaps. Some of these chaps are just a pair of baby pants that have the seam ripped out from the back all the way to the front. Others are a little more intense, such as the ones you see here. So there you have it, the famous "Baby Chaps". Marisa, I hope you enjoy. :-)

Huang Shan

They say that there are 5 beautiful mountains in China that after you see them, you have no need of ever seeing another mountain.  They also say that after you see Huang Shan, you no

 longer need to see the other 4 beautiful mountains.  In English, we say, "A picture's worth a thousand words."  But there is no way for a picture to actually capture the experience of being up on top of Huang Shan and seeing the beauty for yourself.  But since not everyone gets that kind of a chance, I'll just post some of my pictures that I took.  We also went to this place called HongCun, which is about a 7oo year old city.  It was pretty cool too.

Chinese Girls, America Boys

Well, last night was Zhong Qiu Jie, or Mid-Autum Festival. The way you celebrate Zhong Qiu Jie is you eat yuebing, or moon cakes and go out and look at the moon, which is full and very beautiful. So that's what we did. The hotel that we go to curch in (yes, we have church in the basement of a hotel, it's a really nice one too) got everyone some yuebing. It's always kind of a surprise what kind of a yuebing you are going to get. Some are ok, some are outright gross (I had one that the insided looked kind of like green playdough, and it kind of tasted the same way too...) but as far as I know, there aren't any yuebing that are just really good. But it's part of the traditon, so you eat them anyway. Well, there is this really old Buddhist temple a littl futher south of where we live, still in Nanjing city called Fuzi Miao. So we figured, it's a pretty cool place, big tourist attraction, there has to be something going on there. So we piled into 4 or 5 taxies and took off down there after we had our quick weekly Sunday devotional. Well, there were TONS of peopl! I had forgotten my camera because it was piled under all of my laundry (that's a story for another time), otherwise I would have taken some pictures of how many people there were. But we didn't really do much but look arround and walk arround. It was still really intertaining though. But I think that most of the people there found us as interesting, or more interesting even than the things we went there to see. You see, as a white person in China (especically one who speaks Chinese) you are a celebrety. You always look like Brad Pitt, or Tom Cruse, or who ever the popular actor/actress (for the ladies) is who is within 20 years or so of your age. Well, the guys were all rather enjoying all the attention that they were getting. It was really funny to see groups of people looking at us and taking pictures of us, attempting to not let us see. They failed misserably at hidding it, but it was great. Then one of the guys would ask if they wanted to take a picture with them and before you knew what was going on, you had a whole crowd of Chinese college students (some times High School students) arround you, flashing the peace sign, taking a picture. Some of the girls were thinking that the guys were letting it go to their heads a bit too much. I just thought it was funny. I tended to stick to the kids a little bit more than the people our age. Little Asian babies are just so stinking cute! Them and their baby-chaps....also a story for another time, after I get a picture. hehehe... Anyway, so today, we were walking down the road and these two 12 and 13 year old girls came up to Greg and started talking with him. It was all fine and dandy until they tried to give him this little plush olympic doll and asking if they could make friends with him. Hahaha! It was so funny! Anyway, I'm about out of time now.

Just a few more things before Igo... We have a blog for all of us students her in Nanjing to post stories and pictures. You should check it out. There is a link on the side of the page. And to see some of my pix, click here. It's on facebook. Enjoy! More updates later!

I'm in CHINA!

Well, I've been here in China for just over a week. And I LOVE IT! It was quite the experience getting here though. Nothing major happened though. Just long layovers. But after talking to some of the others who are here with me, I have nothing to complain about! I have taken a few pictures, but not very many. And besides, I'm not at my own home right now, I'm at a friends house using her computer and internet. It's probably going to be next Tuesday, at the earlest, that we actually get internet at our place. Well, I'm not sure how fast word travels, but the apartment that I've goten here is with 6 other guys. It's quite intertaining. It's rather big actually. 3 rooms, but only 1 bathroom. But for just about $430 a person for 4 months total rent, you can't complain too loud, right!? Classes are going to be kind of intense, being in the advanced class and only having class Monday-Thursday, but I am for sure going to learn a whole lot! I really hope that my Chinese improves a lot over the next 4 months. It has been an exprience getting used to simplified Chinese. I got myself this really cool electronic dictionary. It's pretty much a little palm computer who's main function is a dictionary/translator. It was about $130 USD, but when I can eat, and be full none the less, for $4-5 a day, I felt like I can afford it. Anyway. I don't have a whole lot of time, so I'll have to save some stories for next time I get a chance to post something. I'll try to get some pictures next time too. I'm just having a blast. I'll update you all later!

Last Day of Work

Well, it finally feels like I'm going to leave! Today was my last day of work at Murfins. I really have enjoyed working there this summer. It wasn't ever too hard of work, and the people were lots of fun. Towards the end of the day, they called me to the back room. When I got there, they had a nice big chocolate cake that said "Good Luck Keith" on it. And they had a card that they had had everyone sign. It was really nice. It sure made me feel good. Everyone was saying that they are going to miss me. Then a little while later, the girls that I work with the most gave me a card from them as well. They wrote down their addresses and gave me a few dollars for me to send them a postcard from China. I do have a lot of good friends there, but I can't WAIT to actually get to China! And I'll be back in 4 months and I'll say hi to them then. But I'm down to the last few days before I leave. The ONLY thing I'm not looking forward to is the 40 hours of travel (including layovers) that I have to endure, ALONE, before I can actually get there. Oh well, it will be well worth it in the end! *just keep telling yourself that...

Sorry to Dissapoint

Well, I promise that when I get to Nanjing that I will post more often than just once a month. I know that so many of you attempting to stalk me and have been highly disappointed with how hard I have been making it by not posting anything on my blog regularly for you. :-) Well, one of the biggest reasons/excuses that I have for not posting anything lately is because I have had Vincent (曾威榮) here visiting me for the past 2 weeks 多. It has been really fun. Unfortunately, I haven't really had a whole lot going on to keep him busy or entertained. And I have been working about 40 hours/week while he's here too. Oh well, we did get to go up to Independence and Liberty to see the Church historical sites there. It was really cool. We got to watch the Joseph Smith movie, it was pretty much amazing. Other than that I haven't really been up to much. Just counting down the days until I leave... 14 is the magic number for today. Unfortunately I just found out that my flight from Kansas City to Los Angeles was changed to an earlier time. So instead of having a 1 hour lay-over in LAX, I have a 12 hour lay-over! Lucky me! I think I might just shoot myself... I intend on keeping my phone active until I actually leave so I will probably call many of you faithful stalkers of mine while sitting in LA and implore you to entertain me. :-) No, seriously though, I will probably end up spending quite a bit of time on the phone while I'm sitting in the airport.

Well, perhaps I will find something else to post about before the end of the month. There is a dance this Friday. I'm planning on going up to St. Louis with some friends on Saturday to go to the temple since I won't have an opportunity to go again until December when I go to the temple in Taibei. The there is a baptism on Saturday afternoon, which will be fun too. Anyway, I think I'm going to go hang out with some of my cool friends, because, well, they are cool. Do I need any better reason? I think not. Thank you. Good bye.

So I'm lame... What of it?

Yes yes, I realize it has been a few weeks since I got back from EFY and haven't so much as posted a picture on here. And I have been helping the Sister Missionaries with a WAY awesome investigator from China, and I haven't updated anything about him on here. So I'm lame, what are you going to do about it?!

OK, at least I'm trying. Sadly, I'm better at blogging now than writing in my journal. This is a highly depressing thing for me considering there was one year in High School that I didn't miss a single day of writing in my journal for over 360 days! Ya, I'm kind of proud of that, but I have digressed quite a bit since then in the journal department.

Enough of my random rants. EFY was basically amazing. WAY better as a counselor than as a participant. I had tons of fun, and learned a lot. I heard things in classes that I needed to hear to help me change things I needed to change. It helped give me a boost to do better with reading my scriptures and having meaningful prayers every day. Awesome speakers. Great dances. Amazing kids. Here is a picture of them. :-)
So there is this Chinese investigator that the Sister Missionaries have been teaching for a few weeks, by the name of Wei. He was a referral from some Elders in their District, I believe. Well, they had been trying to find a time where I could help them with a lesson (my mind kept wanting to say 陪 their 課... Old habits die hard, huh?). We finally did find a time to meet with him and his room mate, Kidd. Kidd did most of the talking, which was fine, but I really wanted to get to know Wei and figure out why, exactly, it was that the Sisters thought he was just so amazing. Well, later, we did get to talk to him alone. He is AWESOME! We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and the importance of Faith, Repentance, Baptism, the Holy Ghost and Enduring to the End. (those were more brief that the rest of the Plan of Salvation) But we invited him to be baptized on August 23rd, and he accepted! Of course, we had to explain that after you are baptized and have the Gift of the Holy Ghost, it is much easier to learn the Gospel, and it comes faster. Also we told him that we would help him prepare for his goal. It was such a great experience to be there and set a baptismal goal! In just under two weeks, I will have been home from my mission for 2 years... That's just crazy. It was just so much fun for me to be a little nostalgic of my Missionary times, and also look forward to what the Lord has in store for me in the future...

This past week has just been crazy, what with work, FHE, Chinese investigators, English Class, a rodeo, a dance and preparing for both of them, and then getting FHE ready for this week, I have been slightly busy. Which, I guess, is better than being bored to tears. So the rodeo and dance. Ya, the were pretty much amazing. Krystal Guison does clowning every once in a while. The two Willard Wards had a combined Pioneer Day celebration out by Grandpa Adam's house. So her dad, who is either the Activities Committee Chairman, or just on the committee (which one, I'm not sure), asked her to be a Rodeo Clown. She figured it would be much more fun to have someone to play off of and what not, so she asked me if I wanted to be a clown. I figured, "Well, so long as she can make me look like a clown, I think I do a pretty good job of acting like a clown!" So I agreed. And, MAN it was a blast! The best part is after spending all of our energy being clowns, we got to go to a dance and spend all of that energy again! YAY! The dance was fun, but not nearly as fun as the ones at EFY, or the ones that we had here just after I got home from my mission. But all in all, it was a pretty much amazing evening. This is what I looked like as a clown, and another picture of Krystal and I together...

Pretty much, it was awesome. Sunday was GREAT though! I got to take a 2 hour nap right after having a wonderful Sunday lunch at the Guison's house. And they know how to eat good! Mmmm... Well, Vincent gets here tomorrow night, so we will see if I'm have time to post anything for the next 2 weeks or so, but I will try. And if not, in 2 weeks, I'm sure that there will be another huge post like this one covering everything in as little detail as I can possibly handle!

Bigger and Better

Well, first of all, sorry I haven't posted anything about EFY yet... I will... Eventually... Check out my facebook for some pix. And if you don't have facebook, you can click here. I will get to it I promise. But first, tonight for FHE we played Bigger and Better. It's a really fun game. If you have never played it, the rules are rather simple: Every group starts off with one small object, usually a coin or something like that. You proceed to go to anyone's house you can find and ask them if they have something either bigger or better in some way than the thing you have. If they do, and are willing, you trade with them. After a while, you all go back and see which group has the coolest thing. (Groups are optional. The game is plenty of fun just going with your friends and not competing at all.) I intended on having a lesson about how out of small things are great things brought to pass. I left home early enough to prepare the lesson at church while I waited for others to come for the activity. Well, something small hit my tire. Actually, it wasn't that small. It was a really stinking long screw driver head for a drill. I think I may have drug the drill along with me for a while too. But anyway, I changed my tire, pulled the screw driver thingy out and now have it as a souvenir.
On to the game... Well, every group started out with a Korean coin. At the first house we talked to someone at, we traded the coin for $.50. Not much, but worth more than the original coin was. The next house, we got a can of pork and beans or something like that. It was beans 就對了. Then we got a bag of chips. For the chips we got a 5 lbs thing of ground beef that expired 2 weeks ago. We proceeded to trade that for a large stuffed bear holding a heart. It was a rather soft bear too... Anyway... We weren't sure what else we could get, and we bombed out on the next few houses. But the last house we went to, we traded the bear for a fake tree. It was pretty much hilarious. We should play that game again some time. It was tons of fun.

Ninja Monkeys

So I was wearing my Ninja Monkey shirt the other day while I was doing my laundry. Then I pulled my Ninja Monkey shirt out of the laundry basket... Ya, that's what I thought too. So now Joseph has a Ninja Monkey shirt too. We are just that cool.

Fun Times

So apparently there is this Chinese investigator that the sisters have who lives right by the church. He was supposed to come to church on Sunday, but he didn't show up. So we walked over to his house, knocked on the door and asked his room mate if he knew where he was. He was studying or something like that, so we asked if we could leave a note for him. His room mate didn't quite understand what we were saying, so I say, "我們可以留一個字條給他嗎?" ("Can we leave a note for him?) He just looked at me, kind of stunned, not sure why he could all of a sudden understand what these white people were saying. Hehehe, it was great. It's probably one of my favorite things in the world to see the look on a Chinese persons face when they realize that I speak Chinese. It makes me smile. :-)

I'm ok!

Well, I went to the doctor again today. I got out of work for it too. :-) But for all of you out there who were concerned for me, I am fine. My bone isn't broken or fractured, just bruised. The doctor said that I don't need to wear a brace anymore unless I feel like it. My knee will be tender for the next few weeks, but I can handle that. It was odd using my knee again after not using it for a week. But after walking around on it all day, I think I'm used to it again. I kind of missed it. But there are no major problems! Thank heavens!

The Bonfire of DEATH!

Well, my 2nd cousin and best friend, Phillip is in town this week. Most of the time he's out in Georgia being a bum going to school or some other lame excuse like that. But he's back for the week! And just recently, another great friend of ours, Jessica, quit her job at Sam's Club. You add these two together and you get no just any bonfire, but a Ceremonial Burning of the Smock/Bonfire. Yes, all rather cool. Well, if that wasn't enough, we throw my cousin Josh and I into that mix and you go from a rather special bonfire to The Bonfire of DEATH DUN DUN DUN!!! Well, there is this old fence post about as tall as I am, or perhaps a little taller. So of course, people tell me that I should jump onto it from the trampoline. Thinking that that isn't the best of ideas (for this fence post doth wiggle), I decide I will just climb up it from the ground. So I am standing there for a few minutes and out of nowhere I see Josh running at me. Fearing for my life, I yell, "JACOB!!" (note: Jacob is Josh's little brother who is now on a mission) Well, he didn't know that the post had the wobbling tendency. He thought it would be a great to run and kick the post and have me jump off over top of him. At least, I assume that is what he was thinking. I did not hear the thoughts in his head, so I cannot tell you for sure. Because I didn't hear the thought in his head, I didn't jump. Instead, I fell. My feet, who were firmly planted on the one foot round post, moved with the post. My body, who preferred to stay right where it was at, did not move with the post. As I assume most of you know, when your feet move out from underneath you and your body does not move, you often fall. This is exactly what happened to me. My foot, apparently, really liked the top of that post, so it got caught on it and tried to hold me up there. Fortunately for me, the will of gravity was stronger than the will of my foot. All my foot succeeded in doing was flipping me upside down, acting as an axis for my body to turn on and knock my knee into the post. My foot came un-caught, and the ground proceeded to break my fall. I laid there for a few minutes before I wanted to move again. As I got up to go lay on the trampoline, my knee popped (this is a rather regular occurrence and thus did not bother me. Also, it was my other knee that did not hit the fence post). Everyone freaked out and I just laughed at them. From what I heard, it looked as if I did a rather un-graceful cartwheel off of the fence post and landed on my back/butt. I wish I could have seen it. I'm sure that I would have laughed at myself. Which, I have found, is the best thing you can do in situations where you make a fool of yourself. That and blogging about them. :)

A Change of Opinion

When the 2nd movie in the Chronicles of Narnia, Prince Caspian, came out, I went to go see it with some friends. I thought it was an awesome movie! There were good fight scenes (without a ton of gore), a great plot, and characters that I already liked from the first movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, plus a few others that I came to like as well. I hadn't actually had the pleasure of reading the books at this time, so I decided that I need to read the actual books. As we all know, the books are always better than the movie. So after looking for The Chronicles of Narnia at family's house, the library, and on the internet, I found a place where I could get the whole seres for only $7, including shipping! It was going to get to me faster than waiting for it at the library, and I could keep it! What a deal! They came in the mail just over a week ago and I got started tearing the book apart as soon as I could. If I didn't have to work, I would have finished the whole seres 2 or 3 days ago. Well, last night, I finished Prince Caspian, and I must tell you, I have changed my mind about my opinion of the movie. It was a good movie, as far as movies go, but they took so many liberties with the movie that the director should be ashamed of himself! Why mess with a masterpiece!? They mixed things up, added a love story between two characters that 1. weren't even the same age and 2. didn't have more than a few pages of the story where they were actually even in the same room! They had characters do things which were very much out of their character, and omitted things characters should have done because of things they had previously learned, but did not do in the movie. And then they go and create this whole battle that couldn't possibly, and wouldn't possibly (had the opportunity arose) have happened!

Don't get me wrong, I rather enjoyed the move, and still like it as a movie. But if you ask me, it isn't telling the same story that the books tell. Now, if they had said that it was a movie roughly based off of the books, that would be just fine. Or if they said it was a story similar to the one in the book, I would have no qualms. I just don't think that the story was told very well. C.S. Lewis did well enough on his own, thank you very much.

West Coast Swing

My talk on Sunday went well. I talked about honoring the priesthood. It was nice to get it over though. I got The Chronicles of Narnia in the mail on Saturday, and have already finished reading the 2nd book, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They are such great books! As always, the book is much better than the movie. FHE went pretty good, not as many people showed up as I would have liked to see there, and of those that did show up, there were still a lot who didn't participate. Hopefully, by the end of the summer, more people will come regularly and actually participate in the activities and lessons. Tuesday... Well Tuesday was a great day. After English class with the Sisters, Kami and I prepared for dance class. We got out the teaching DVD that she has and decided which steps we were going to teach. After a little while, we went out to her car to pick the music that we were going to use. She turned up the music in her car and we danced in the parking lot! It was so much fun! It's been almost 2 months since I have actually danced with someone else who dances a lot. It was a blast! I remember now why I love dancing so much. It's so great when you know what you are doing and can just have fun without having to worry so much just to remember how to do the steps that you have learned. And West Coast is such a fun dance too! It's very smooth and relaxed. It isn't the easiest dance to learn though. Of all the dances that I have learned, it was one of the hardest to just get the basic down. But once the basic actually clicks and you know what's going on, it gets much easier to do the other steps.

I must say though, it is one thing to learn a dance and learn it well. It is a whole other ball game to actually teach it to other people. I have to remind myself how hard it was for me to get it when I first learned it as well so I don't get frustrated when it doesn't go smoothly for others. The guys last night were actually doing really good though. There were a few of them who caught on really fast. It's quite impressive actually. I am so excited to keep dancing and teaching dance this summer. Now that I have this summer taken care of, I'll just have to figure something out while I'm in China so I don't forget it while I'm there.

English Class

The Sister Missionaries at the University Ward here in Springfield that I attend have an English class that they teach twice a week. There are only 3 students, but they are all 3 from China. So when the Sisters told me about it I decided that I really wanted to go. Well, I went today, and it was so much fun! Come to find out, two of them graduated from Nanjing University! That's where I'm going to be going this Fall for Study Abroad! Crazy small world, huh? We talked about American holidays, and spent most of the time talking about Christmas. As one of the Sisters was drawing a picture of the Nativity on the board, they asked me to explain a little bit about who Christ is in Chinese for the 3 students. It was so great! It was weired though, I haven't done that in nearly 2 years! Not really in English or Chinese, come to think about it. Even when I have helped the Missionaries since I've been home, every at least knows who Christ is. It was a really cool experience. The best part is that English class is every Tuesday and Thursday, and those are my days off of work! Hurray! I'm way excited about it, it's going to be tons of fun!

大家好

Well, I wanted to start a blog before I take off to China so I have a convenient way of keeping everyone up to date on what's happening and a place to post all the pictures that I'm inevitably going to take. :-) So I figured, if I plan on starting a blog, why not just start now? Not that there is really a ton going on right now, but I might as well get into the habit of posting on my blog regularly, right?

Well, on Sunday, I was called to be the Ward Activities Chairman. Basically what that entails is planning FHE every week and making sure it all goes ok. And luckily, absolutely NOTHING is planned for next Monday! Yeppie! And I need to find a few more people for the Activities Committee. OH, and I get to give a talk on church this Sunday. It's all good. My boss is out of town this week, so I'm working his schedule... 6:00-3:00 every day. Well, I do get Thursday off, but basically, I have a rather full week this week. But at least I'm not sitting at home doing nothing! Well, I need to get into town to cash my first pay check (I work at Murfin's Market, the local grocery store) before the bank closes. I hope you all enjoy the wonderful ramblings which I'm going to post on here. And please, PLEASE, leave your comments. That, in my opinion, is the best part about blogs. 改天在寫!