My take on Taierzhuang

We had to leave our apartment early on Saturday morning, December 13, 2014. We were leaving at 6:30 am, so I had to be up at 5:30 in order to get ready to go. You know shower, put on my make-up, pack, things like that. Those who know me know that I am not a morning person, so this was very difficult. Even though I was very excited to go on my first trip on a high speed train and our first trip outside of Qingdao, I did not want to get up that early in the morning. I did manage to pull myself out of bed and was on the shuttle bus by 6:30 am.

The bus drove us to the Qingdao train station. This is me in the train station. The person to the left of me with the long black hair and the red scarf is our Waiban, Joyce. She takes care of us. She helped us get our work visas, our bank accounts and anything else we need to do. She is the best. She organized this trip for all of the foreign teachers. She is the best!

This is our gate and platform. We had to go down some stairs, under the train tracks and back up to get to our platform.

This is me on the train. Gary put this one also up, but this I wanted to put in on too. Gary was so nice to let me sit by the window on the way there even though he was even more excited to be on the train. I loved the train because you could get up and wander around. Gary and I went up to the next train car to visit our Chinese friends and their kids. There were 6 people from the Foreign Affairs office who went with us. Each of them brought their child or spouse with them. It was fun to get to know their families. Gary and I spent most of our time with them. We love to spend our time with our Chinese  or Korean friends more than we spend with our American acquaintances. We feel closer to them. Even in our branch, we spend most of our time with our Korean friends.

The train goes really fast. It was surprising how you don't feel the speed. The train did not wiggle as much as I thought it would. The ride was so smooth. When we were standing in the train station to come back to Qingdao, a couple of high speed trains came through the station at almost top speed. You could then feel how fast the trains actually go, but when you are actually on it, you don't feel the speed. I was able to read and play games, play with friends and actually look at the scenery. You would think at this speed you would not be able to see much of the scenery, but you can see surprisingly a lot. It was a fun trip. It took about 4 hours.

This was the train station in Zouzhong. We arrived here and took a bus to Taierzhuang. On the way to Taierzhuang, we stopped at a hotel and had a very nice lunch.We had to drive for about 1.5 hours to get to Taierzhuang. I kind of look disgusted, but the sun was very bright. Even with my sunglasses, the glare hurts my eyes. 

Our first stop was to the Taierzhuang War Museum. This is me in front of the museum. I had read up on the Battle of Taierzhuang before we went just to make sure I would enjoy my time there. The Chinese were able to win a battle against greater odds. The Japanese had more men and a lot more equipment, but the Chinese were able to defeat them with the help of the residents of Taierzhuang. It is a very interesting part of Chinese history. If you like history, I would read about it. Lizzie may have learned about it in one of her Chinese history classes at UNLV. 

This is actually one of the walls from the city that they found and preserved in the museum. All the bullet holes were very interesting.

This is our hotel in the heart of the Ancient City of Taierzhuang. This is a 5 star hotel. The average room cost is 1700 yuan or almost $300. The school got us a room with a king-sized bed and a big tub under the window in the room. Gary and I were both able to take a bath which we have not been able to do since we arrived in China. It was nice, but not as nice as I thought it would be. I was thinking it was going to be just so wonderful, but I guess I am just so used to only taking a shower that a soak in the bath does not mean that much to me anymore. The room was beautiful.

The only problem was that there was no heater in the room. Most places in China do not have central heating, so you have to use the air conditioning unit as a heater (which it does). However, it does not get very warm. It only got up to about 58 degrees in the room, so the night was cold. The morning was really cold. We could see our breath.

The whole city was amazing. The old buildings were beautiful and elegant. The carvings were amazing. However, I think I liked the bridges the most. There were so many because canals run through the entire Ancient City. Below are pictures of many of the bridges we saw or crossed over. There were probably many we did not get to see.

This was early Sunday morning and I was very cold.

On the steps of this bridge there were beautiful carvings. Again amazing.

The city has a wall that went around it during the time of the war. They have rebuilt some of it and we were able to go walk along it. It is an amazing wall. We only walked along part of it. I wanted to walk along the rest of it, but we were afraid we would not be able to see the rest of the city.

We all met for lunch before we took a nap or relaxed and got on the bus to head back to the train station. Gary and I sat with our friends and their kids. They were being silly with Gary and eating some sugar art they bought. I talked about sugar art in an earlier post about the food festival. 

The kids were always happy to see us.

So this is my friend, Shirley and another friend (I can't remember her name). Well they were making Chinese pancakes using the red and green hot peppers. It was just a joke at first, but then they ended up eating it. We were joking with them that it would be so hot. They both laughed. They did fine while they were eating them, but after their mouths got very hot. They convinced me to do it, too. I gave into peer pressure and did it too. It actually was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was hot, but not as hot as many of the things I have eaten before. It was such a fun lunch!

After lunch we took the 1.5 hour bus drive to the train station, boarded a train back to Qingdao. We left at 5 pm and got in around 9 pm. It still took us a bit to get back to our apartment, so it was almost 10 when we arrived back at our apartment. It was such a fun trip for me. I enjoyed myself immensely. I can't wait for our trip to Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Hong Kong at the end of January. 

Reflections:

My last post was merely a quick report of our trip. I have not taken the opportunity to offer some of my reflections on China, its people and what I have learned. I think this is important to share. I feel that that I have really misunderstood this country.

I was watching a man close up his small street stand tonight. He carefully laid a tarp over all of his goods. He strapped down the tarp so he would not blow away in the wind. There was no lock or any other mechanism to prevent loss from theft. These people are not wealthy and could not sustain a loss from theft; yet, in full confidence that his goods would be safe and secure during the night, all he does is protect the goods from the weather.  We would never think of doing such in the United States, but it is done here because the Chinese disposition is inclined to be honest.

This causes me to ponder some words from an ancient record that the people had “no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually.” Mosiah 5:2 I find that this is true of most of the Chinese people I have encountered. Their values are based on the ideas of Confucius and his followers. Confucius was a great philosopher and was different that those in the west in that his words deal with the day to day relationships we have with one another and the necessity to serve the community to ones best regardless of station. (He was the probably the one of the first to promulgate the idea that it takes a village to raise a child.)

I am working a man by the name of Xia Fei (pronounced shah fay), a business owner of a very large business (http://www.bostd.com/ factory is pictures below). I find him to be a very humble man and anxious to learn what he can of English, culture, and business practices. Thirty percent of his business is in the United States. He is very concerned with the quality of the product of his American-based competitor.  He knows he can gain market share on his competitor, but does not understand why a company would lessen the quality to achieve more profit when there is risk. Xia Fei showed me some pictures of the 2008 earthquake in Sechsuan province. The work he company did on an embankment on the Yalong river in Sichuan province survived the quake while previous by others was heavily damaged and the integrity of the river embankments there jeopardized. I have grown to have a very high regard for him and his approach to business.

The Chinese role of grandparents in the raising of children has been fascinating. I have found a significantly high majority of my students were raised by their grandparents. The necessity for both parents to work has created a situation where grandparents have a greater relationship with children than parents. I am not talking just providing the day-care. In many cases, these children reside with the grandparents and the parents may reside in different cities. Sometimes the mother may reside in one city, the father in another and the child with grandparents in still another.  (You may want to also read the following article: http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/09/in-china-its-the-grandparents-who-lean-in/280097/)

The retirement age (60 for men and 55 for women) coupled with the late marrying age of young people make this possible. In addition, housing costs and availability means that young people will often reside with parents. This is a cultural norm that is quite foreign to the culture found in America. Raising the children often provides something for grandparents to when retiring at such a young age. This affords a connection to the past for these young children, but I also know that many social scientist have raised concerns about this. Nevertheless, it is the present state of the family here and I have seen the value even though there are arguments against it.

Suzette and I travelled to the city of Tai Erzhuang. This is a beautiful, yet small city in the southern part of Shan Dong province. The city is about 250 miles from Qingdao.  

Tai Erzhuang is known best by the Battle of Tai'erzhuang battle that involved a Japanese plan to conquer Xuzhou, a major city in the East. However, the Japanese failed. Why? The did not consider the skill of the Chinese generals Li Zongren and Bai Chongxi or the thousands of inconspicuous "farmers" in the area, who were affiliated with Li Zongren and cut communication lines and supplies, diverted streams, and ruined rail lines.

In addition, I was surprised to learn a "dare to die corps" was effectively used against Japanese units. Chinese troops strapped explosives like grenade packs or dynamite to their bodies and threw themselves under Japanese tanks to blow them up.

The Chinese achieved a major victory, the first of the Nationalist alliance in the war. The battle broke the myth of Japanese military invincibility and improved Chinese morale.

Sadly, the conflict left a once beautiful and ancient city in ruin. A few years, a major effort to has be launched to restore the city. I believe they have accomplished what they set out to do. The following pictures demonstrate this.

 On the train... 

 Although this show only 305, we actually hit 310 (192.6 mph) on the train. It was so smooth that you didn't feel the speed.

This is the War Memorial for the Battle of Tai Erzhuang/ 

Here are a few colleagues and exchange students from Korea.

There are some re;ieliefs up the middle of the stairs

Both the above and below pictures ate of the hotel we stayed at.

Suzette in the lobby of the hotel.

Tai Erzhuang is a city of canals. It is really interesting because the city is not along the coast, it is a lot like Venice

I hoped to get a nice night shoy of the many canals.

This is a restored Buddhist tTemple. There are several in the old city///

Standing in front of a merchant's building

The practice of foot binding was prevalent  up until the the emperor and monarchy ended in the early part of the 1900s/ Note the length of the shoe.; a mere 3 inches. I did not take a picture, but there were x-rays in this exhibition showing yhe result of binding the feet/ It as a 

Yes, it is a Catholic Church. There were many missionaries from many denominations proselyting in China over the past couple hundred years.

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We are not sure if this was a monastery, but it was next to the Catholic Church and the architecture is European.

Not sure what the ceremony was for, but it was interesting.

This is a statue of the Great Man. His name is Dr. Sun Yat Sen, simply know as the "Great Man." He is the father of Chinese thought and was the first President  and founding father of the Republic of China; their George Washington.

Venice has their gondola's. This city has their version as well.

This statue is supposed to give you long life. I thought it looked more like my brother, Mike.

These are staff members with the Foreign Affairs Office. They are all eating hot peppers. I cold not believe Suzette joined them. I was a coward.

The sign is in ancient Chinese. It is the name of the city.

This is our train.

It was a great trip. Thank you, Qingdao University.