We’re home from China!!!

We had a great time in China. We’re not supposed to name the places we went or people we met, so it will be a little hard to describe, but we’ll try. Also, we posted a few pictures on our picasa website.
The school split up into 2 groups. Our group of 16 people flew to southern China and then took a 12 hour night train and then a 4 hour bus ride to a beautiful city of 100,000 people surrounded by limestone karst towers. We stayed in a dirty motel on the outskirts of town. The city is small enough that you can walk all over the city, and that is what we did.
We spent 10 days in this city, which is made up of mostly Zhuang people. The Zhuang people are a minority group in China. Their language has many common words with the Thai language. We took 3 Zhuang language lessons for 2 hours each day so that we could communicate some with the people. This was a great tool to use to meet people. Jonathan practiced it everywhere he went.
#1 High School
We went to one of the high schools a few times. The students range from 16-19 years old and study from 7am-11:30am, 2pm-5:00, 6:30pm-9:30pm every day. It was not hard for us to make friends there. The kids were very excited to meet people from America or Thailand. Jonathan went straight to the basketball courts, which ended up being surrounded by hundreds of students watching. The kids are pretty good at basketball, but Jonathan didn’t have much trouble showing off. It was a fun way to experience the local culture. Ashley met a few girls who spoke good English and went on a tour of the campus. The campus is very much like a small college campus, with dorms, a lake, a mountain, and a temple. It is very nice. Ashley got to meet a few teachers as well.
TV Station Tower
We got up early one morning and hiked up a mountain with a TV Station on top. The path was 1000 concrete steps. The view from on top was beautiful. You could see mountains everywhere. It reminded us of walking up Mt. Sanitas in Boulder.
The Plaza
There are 2 plazas in the city that the people come to at night from 8-10 and dance and hang out. The big plaza will have around 500 people all doing the same dances. The dances are line dances, couples dances, freestyle dances, a little of everything. The small plaza was a little more quiet, and we went there a few times and practiced our zhuang language on the old men. Once they figured out we were speaking there language (as opposed to mandarin, Cantonese, or English) they would get so excited and crowd around each of us. Jonathan learned how to make his limited language turn into a 1 hr conversation. For example, “have you eaten yet? How much did it cost? Good food? What did you eat? I ate this. I ate there. It was this much. How old are you? How old is your dad? How many years did you live in Jingxi?” They enjoyed talking to foreigners and would laugh everytime we mispronounced something.
The Lingxiao family
One night while practicing the language, a lady came up and spoke English to Jonathan. It was so surprising. She then invited us to her hotel next door for coffee and tea. We ended up talking to her and her family until 11:30 that night. The hotel was very nice. Her family is Zhuang, and has lived in the area for a long time. Her dad is an explorer/adventurer. He discovered a big cave nearby and made it into a tourist attraction. He also discovered a 600 ft waterfall and canyon that is now a major tourist attraction in China. The family just started the hotel last month, but it looks like they have very good business principles. We had a very good time talking about our families, business, and cultures.
We went back the next night to invite them to dinner, but they invited us to their grandfather’s 97th birthday party. It was in a banquet room in the hotel. There was maybe 10 tables of 8 people with food everywhere and a big cake at the front of the room. The grandfather was too tired to come, but we had a good time anyway. The food was good. We quickly found out that they like to drink beer, and tried to force us to by raising their glasses in honor of something every minute. We sipped our glasses a few times, and then quickly found a bottle of orange juice to refill it with.
After the party we went downstairs and had more tea with the family. They sang a few traditional songs for us. We got to talk to her about her spiritual beliefs and share ours with her.
Overview
There were many other experiences as well. We walked through the families beautiful cave. As a group we visited a nearby village then broke into pairs and small groups. We were invited to an old man’s home who proceeded to cook us a gourmet meal. We saw lots of dogs being sold at the market alive and ready to eat. Ashley got to make a few dumplings. We ate lots of different foods (some good, some bad). Jonathan got a haircut and a shave for 75 cents. Most of our meals cost 75 cents or less. Jonathan was excited to hear Ashley say that something she wanted to buy for $1.50 was too expensive.
We also got to meet a group of Christian workers who just recently started reaching out to the people in this area. It was very neat to hear about their process of church planting, struggles and successes.
Overall, it was a great experience. There was not as much culture shock as we expected. The worst thing about China was the very dirty bathrooms with no doors and stalls that go up to your waist. Actually, China seemed very friendly to travelers. The food, the people, the scenery, and the spiritual needs of this unreached people made us hope we can come back.