The Other Side of the Great Wall

So my second Saturday in Beijing a girl from the ward called me and asked if I wanted to accept a temporary job teaching English in a little town North East of Beijing called Ping Quan. I did! I met the person I would be working with at a train station in northern Beijing and we jumped on a bus and headed Northeast. I work with a Chinese man named Cui Guo Hua who is a bit of an idealist. He is getting his second degree from Beijing University in philosophy. Now you know what type of person gets a degree in Philosophy in the states, so multiply that by 100 and youbegin to understand the type of people who study that in China. Let’s just say, the Chinese don’t love philosophy or independent thinking at all really.
As we left Beijing I saw the Great Wall. It is magnificent, just like I always imagined it. It was snaking its way along the peaks of the HUGE mountains. As we passed onto the other side I got the “we’re not in Kansas anymore” sensation.
The other side of the Great Wall…
We were on the bus for almost six hours before reaching Cheng De and then we climbed in a taxi that took us the last hour and a half leg of our trip. When we got to Ping Quan the whole city was in a cloud as thick as Bakersfield smog but black and it smelled like smoke. Here in the countryside people heat their homes by burning coal, so everything smells like smoke.
I am living with an eleven-year old student and her parents. All of the children have their Chinese names and an English name that one of their English teachers gave them. The girl I live with is named Mimi. Most of the children have English names already but I have named four of the new ones, Susan, Steven, Nathan and Jacob.
My host family serves me breakfast every morning and that in itself is an adventure. My first morning my breakfast had eyes and legs, I said to myself, “this is part of the adventure” and ate it anyways. It was some sort of seafood soup. This morning we went to a restaurant for what they told me was lamb soup. I recognized the strips of lamb stomach in my soup from eating cow stomach in Chile. I also found pieces of lamb brain, lamb intestine and lamb cartilage mixed in. Now THAT is adventure! They are wonderful and kind people and even though we have a totally silent relationship, I am so grateful for how well they care for me.
Ping Quan is the greatest town! I honestly love it here and would stay for a long time if I were able to get to church on Sunday more easily. But who wouldn’t love a town where they treat you like such a special person. Everyone stares at me and they tell me I am beautiful. We have had several dinners (we always eat lunch and dinner at different Chinese restaurants) give to us for free. A few times the owner has sat with us at our table. The owner at one restaurant asked to take a picture with his family and I, which he says that he is going to paste on the wall. This morning as I was walking to work I saw a man on a motorcycle with a huge dead pig draped across the back cruising down the street.
I teach five one-hour classes per day to students ranging in age from 7 to 13. In, what Cui Guo Hua calls, a “center” for supplementary education. I teach them English and he teaches them ideas from outside of regular Chinese thinking such as economic theory and philosophy. He has rented two rooms over a store and the children come for two hours every day. They love to learn songs and play games so I am eager to hear any ideas that you might have.
At this point I plan on staying in Ping Quan until after Chinese New Year and then heading back to Beijing to accept an English teaching position.