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.