I had a busy weekend last week. Turns out Lisa and I have been finding lots to do whether it's teaching, other college activities or just hanging out with friends. The weekend began on Friday night with me giving a lecture on Canadian culture for Western appreciation night at College. It was actually quite a lot of fun. I talked about some of the general facts of the country, you know 10 provinces 3 territories, how big it is but how few people there are etc. They seemed to enjoy the fact that our entire population is about equal to the size of one of their average districts! I also talked a bit about hockey, such an odd sport to those who never see snow! Then one of the American teachers at the school talked about American holidays once I was done. All in all I thought it as neat evening it was cool to see a night devoted to appreciating foreign cultures. After that I stayed up late to finish preparing a lecture on American culture for my English cultures class the next morning. Turns out I still procrastinate even on the other side of the world.
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| Lisa and I at the party. |
I taught my 2 and a half hour class on Saturday morning and immediately after, left for Chengdu with our host family. Lisa and I didn't really know what to expect all we knew was that we had been invited to join our host father Zhang Jian and his 6 year old daughter Nancy to go and meet some friends from a class he attends there. So we made the 2 and a half hour trek to Chengdu. We hung out at one of his friend's home, had tea and visited for a bit before going out to eat hotpot.
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| Hop...hop....hop, hop, hop |
Hotpot is a very popular meal in the Sichuan province. You all sit down at a table and they fire up a burner in the middle under a pot of a very spicy oily mixture. Then the bring out various raw meats, animal organs, vegetables, whole fish/eels etc. and you cook your food in the bubbling hot and spicy pot of oil in the middle of the table. I think the flavor of the hot pot is quite good but I'm not the biggest fan of all the things we put in it. Over all I quite enjoy the meal though it did a number on my guts the first time I ate it! After that we went to what turned out to be a Childrens party! Everyone dressed up and Lisa and I put on funny glasses with blinking noses. I'm not sure what the occasion was, or if there even was one but we had a great time playing games with the kids and watching them have fun together.
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| Lunch with the family. |
We made the trip back home and I stayed up talking with Zhang Jian as he drove. It was a pleasant ride. We slept in the next morning before going out for lunch with the family and hanging out with Nancy at a park in the afternoon here in Nanchong. In the evening we bussed back to the college where we were judges of what we thought was an English competition. It turned out to be an English/talent competition including English speeches yes, but also short skits, music and other performances we couldn't understand because they were in Chinese. It made judging a little difficult but we did our best anyways. After that it was back home to stay up late preparing a lesson for Monday morning!
Mark
This weekend Mark and Nate S. and I went out to Duan's family's farm to help his parents pick sweet potatoes. It's always amazes me how many people there are everywhere in China, even in the country. The farms are just small plots of land, one next to another all throughout the countryside. So different than massive Manitoba farms! Everything is done by hand. Duan's parents have a beautiful plot of land in a little valley. They have several gardens on different layers cut out of the hillside as well as some rice fields in the lowest part of their land. They keep most of their produce for themselves and their animals for the year. We spent the afternoon, digging, pulling and hauling baskets of sweet potatoes (or "Hong Shu" in Chinese!). It was neat to think that people have probably been farming that land in the same way for thousands of years! For supper, among many other colourful and tasty dishes, we had some of the sweet potatoes we picked. They were an unusual variety which were very bright purple. They even dyed the rice purple. They were such a deep shade of indigo that it was hard to believe it was naturally occurring. It was a fun and delicious day.
