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China time and date:
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It’s April! No Fooling!
Good day everybody!. It’s April Fool’s Day (relax, this is a no-no pranks web site -- maybe, maybe not)! Basically, this time of year is celebrated as the start of spring, the new year, or spring fever. We can celebrate the start of our our second week on this journey. And what a journey it has been so far! Yeah! let’s hear it for this great group of people! Come on, stand up and give this Journey East group a big round of applause! I can’t hear you! Alright, that’s more like it! Yeah!
Okay, settle down. That was a little over the top. The gang is enjoying another day around the Chongqing area. They will stay here until Friday, when they leave for Jinan and then on to Qufu (great place!).
We have more photos from the schools the group visited yesterday, a report from Sarah Clark, and an overview of events from Tom.
So, without further ado, let’s hear from Sarah:
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Sarah Clark, Chongqing, China 3/31/08
We departed from the Holiday Inn at 8:20 this morning and traveled by bus to Dadukou District. The village that we visited there had approximately 2,000 inhabitants and 100 hectares of land. The village leader, also the Party Secretary, met us and took us on a long walking tour of the village. Before today I had only seen pictures and watched movies about Chinese villages. As I walked through the home of a 65 year old woman who had lived in the countryside all of her life, the simplicity of the peasants’ lives became very real. The trip to Dadukou was a very humbling experience.
Our next stop was to a rural elementary school. All 29 of us walked up the steps to the playground. The children stared, wide-eyed, at the strange Americans. At first they were very scared and ran away when we approached them. All that changed as gifts were produced from our backpacks! The children flocked around us, holding out their hands. We stayed at the school for about 20 minutes and then got back on the bus and headed into Chongqing for lunch.
Despite the fish head, today’s lunch was one of the best meals we’ve had so far. There was a giant sea turtle (not to eat) in a large tank of water on the way out of the restaurant, which we all found pretty cool.
 We boarded the bus once again after lunch and set off for a visit to #4 Middle School, which is a middle grades business school. Before today we had only visited Dadukou Elementary School and the Children’s Palace in Chongqing. When Tom said that the students would be “excited to see us,” I had no idea how “excited” they would actually be. At the entrance to the school there was a large banner that said “Welcome Vermont High School Delegation.” When we got off the bus there were hundreds of students there to greet us. We went to the auditorium and both Tom and Ms. Wang, the school principal,  gave short speeches. We then performed several of our songs and dances for the school and they, in turn, performed a play for us. At the conclusion of the performances we all got together on stage and sang “Edelweiss” from The Sound of Music. Things got out of control as tons of students swarmed onto the stage to take pictures with us. The “fans” were cleared out after a while and we were then taken to different classes such as paper cutting and dance. The English teacher who was our guide then  took us outside where we joined in games of basketball, ping pong and soccer. Once again hundreds of kids flocked over to see us, taking our pictures. Most of the kids spoke English surprisingly well. I would be lying if I said that we were treated like anything less than rock stars. Going to the school was overwhelming; an amazing experience
We stopped at a restaurant about 20 minutes from the hotel and the food, as usual, was delicious. We leave for Leshan tomorrow.
I’ll be sad to leave Chongqing behind.
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We’ve got rock stars on our hands, folks! Adoring fans rushing the stage! Look out!
What’s so cool is that our kids are so anxious to see and meet the Chinese people and the Chinese are anxious to meet our kids. The great desire for the cultural exchange is demonstrated time and again on these journeys. They simply can’t get enough time with each other. Sarah finishes her report with a sentiment each student has with each place they visit, “I’ll be sad to leave . . .” They’ll be saying this several times along the journey.
So, enough with the talk, you say? You want pictures? Well, alrighty then, let’s get to the pictures! here are some more photos (refer to Sarah’s report) and then we’ll get Tom’s explanation of the day’s events.
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Another Day in the Life
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Very cool! Look at all those smiles! These kids really seem to come alive when they are with the Chinese students. These exchanges have always been a highlight of the journey. Learning the differences and similarities firsthand. Making friends. Very cool.
Speaking of of cool, it might actually be warmer here in southern Vermont today than it is in Chongqing -- 50s there, 60s here.
Let’s read what Tom has to say about the group’s recent visits to the villages, homes, farms, and schools:
We have always stopped in a village to give the kids a sense of rural life in China but the experience yesterday was quite different. The village leader, who is the Party Secretary, took us on an extended walk on stone paths throughout the village. The stone paths, which wound their way up and down hills and around corners were surrounded for the most part by large plantings of spring onions, leeks, cabbage, lettuce and other plants. There were also numerous orange trees throughout the entire village, which is set onto a hillside overlooking the Yangtze. We visited homes, walked through and talked with village inhabitants (through an interpreter, of course) A number of the village photos that I sent [see yesterday] show some of the old and not so old women that we spent time with. People age pretty quickly in the countryside. One  photo shows four generations of women in one family; the Chinese ideal as all four generations live together. The great grandmother in the photo is 77. Her daughter, the grandmother of the baby in the photo is 53. The mother is 22 and the baby is probably a few months old.
Lots of dogs in the village, which the delegation of villagers leading us made sure to keep away from the American guests, thankfully. I couldn't help but thing of Jim Croce's "meaner than a junkyard dog," as we walked through this village. The village itself was neat, beautifully laid out and felt very comfortable.
The photos from the rural school and from the middle school speak for themselves. Amazing experience. The contrast between the village school and the middle school is stark. Different worlds twenty miles apart. [Tom]
Meaner than a junkyard dog! Good one, Tom! Hahaha.
Now, the group is off to see the Dazu County Stone Carvings, and then to Leshan, about 180 miles west of Chongqing. Here’s Tom:
We head off to Dazu and the stone carvings this morning and then have a long ride to Leshan and the 279 foot Buddha, which took 80 years to complete, carved into the side of the mountain overlooking two rivers. Looking forward to all of it. [Tom]
Okay, everybody. Another great day of photos and reports. With the group in transit and possibly staying in an area lacking Internet access tonight, we may not be receiving any more photos today. As always, if we get more stuff, we’ll get it up and available for you as quickly as we can.
We are 1/4 the way through the journey already. For some of you, the journey seems like it started only yesterday, for others, it probably feels like they have been gone a month!
A couple more exciting days in Chongqing (I can’t wait to see and hear about the giant Buddha and the Panda feeding center. Man, there is no end to the cool stuff these guys are doing!) and then it is off to an amazing week in Qufu (home of Confucius) and then from there they hit their second “home away from home” in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia!
We’ve barely gotten out of the door, folks!
Stay tuned . . .
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