补偿

So I forgot some stuff in the 10 day "educational" trip blog. So here's what I forgot. When we were in Xian we went to the branch there and we met a lady in the branch who's from South Africa. Her name is Amanda de Lange. She's here doing work kinda like an orphanage but not. Ha. Anyway, she takes children that have been abandoned (which happens quite often in China) and takes care of them until they are adopted. Most of the children she takes in are born with medical problems or physical defects. (I'll explain why children are abandoned at the end of this blog). She invited our group to come over to her place and see and play with the children and how her operation runs. I didn't really take any pictures when I was there, but my friends did, so I'll try to get some and post them. It was a pretty awesome experience and the whole group decided that we should try to help, so we're gonna make some donations. This lady is a hard worker, they have I think around 15 children all under the age of three. She has people volunteer and others I think she pays to help her take care of the kids. They all stay at this lady's house (which is an apartment in a pretty nice community, pretty roomy). The kids suffered from many different birth defects, some easier to fix than others. Some of them are Cleff Lip (spelling?), heart defects, and skin conditions. Amanda works with only western trained doctors (many American doctors that come over specifically to help her cause) and the money she spends is all from donations. Its a pretty awesome little operation she runs, and they've already had quite a few children get adopted. She said most of them go to the States.

The other thing I missed happened while I was on the great wall. We got to the very top and climbed the tower and then I jumped on top of the little tower building on top of the tower. We were super hot from climbing so far and steep and it started raining, it felt awesome, it wasn't a hard rain, more like a mist. Pretty awesome. Anyway, thats not the point. The point is I met some German kids up there who's english was awesome. I found out he lives pretty close to where we lived in Heidelberg and he was over here on a couple week exchange program. His name is Moritz. We talked for a pretty long time up there. He's a way cool kid, we met some of the other kids in their group too. Then for the next couple days we ran into them in some of the most random places. It was pretty cool.


Ok, now for why there are so many abandoned babies in China. There are two main reasons, the first having to do with Ancient Chinese culture. The Chinese have always been biased towards boys when it comes to bearing children. If a wife did not bear a male in ancient china she was looked down upon, especially if she is the emporer's wife/concubine. This is due to the fact that sons are able to keep the family name going and bring honor to this name. Daughters cost the family money because when they get married they have something similiar to a dowry (a payment to the other family) and after the daughter is married, she is apart of her husbands family and will rarely see her own family after that. Sons then, can take care of parents when they're old whereas daughters must take care of their husbands parents. (I might add that in ancient culture all weddings were arranged)
The second reason is due to the Communist Party's policies concerning childbirth. The law, although somewhat more lax now, states that one family is only able to have one child. If they have a daughter there is a good chance they will be abandoned. I don't know the facts but if they are born (many are aborted even though its technically illegal) there is a good chance of either abandonment or that they will end up dead. If a child is born with a defect the parents in many cases do not have the money to fix it or would rather abandon the child and hope the next one doesn't have a problem. Many of the parents that do it are good people, they just are so broken that child has a problem they think they will have a better chance with either an orphanage or a group like Amanda's. Its a sad reality here. People like Amanda come here and give up everything to help these children. Its hard work, but she's says its worth it. She has my respect. She gives these kids a future, she gives them hope for a normal life, a life with a family that will love them regardless of any birth defects they might have. Its a noble calling.
I don't know if any of you have any interest in helping but if you do let me know. They not only have need of donations, but some American things like blankets and other things that are a little better quality. So if you have interest let me know and I can get you her e-mail or contact information. It was a pretty humbling experience. I realized I need to do more (even just a little) to at least help my community in some way, if not children on the other side of the world.

KTV in China

KTV...its pretty fun. You pay for a room for a certain amount of time and then you sing with your friends...theres usually a lot of dancing too. I'm glad its not the type where its a huge room...theres no way anyone would get me to sing in a place like that, unless they got a few drinks in me haha. The Chinese love it...especially after a few drinks. I have some better pics of it somewhere and I'll put em on when I find em. We tried it and found it to be pretty dang awesome. We even sang some Chinese songs. The first pic is of our group when we went. After a while one of the guys in our group ran into some ppl next door and next thing we knew it was a dance party in there. Ha, they're pretty funny when they're drunk. They loved having the foreigners come in there. That is the second pic, us with them.

This time we went with our Chinese friends. Gucci is the bigger kid singing in these pics. They got pretty into it, so did we. Good KTV songs are Its My Life by Bon Jovi-that sort of fast paced more upbeat songs. Sometimes the selection is good, sometimes it sucks, it all depends on where you go. The best part is, its really not too expensive for a few hours or even a whole night! People actually do it all night-I haven't...but I'm pretty sure my voice would be pretty gone.

Kevin (below with me and Marc) is a good friend of ours. We met him playing basketball and eventually met his girlfriend Mandy (she's sitting by him in the above left) and they're other friends. They've shown us a lot of fun things to do. KTV is by far one of the Chinese/Japanese (I hear it came from Japan originally) things to do.

Yangshuo Trip

Bamboo rafts...in the caves...and some scenery.



The first pic is the bamboo rafts...the second is Greg on the scooter, and the next couple are just cool.



So I'm real bad at keeping up this blog thing. It takes a while to load pics...and there are so many I want to put on here. Guess I'll have to be more picky. Anyway, there are two trips I made that I haven't even started so I'll start with the one 3 weeks ago. The Chinese have a holiday that lasts 7 days...so we definitely took advantage of that. We got train tickets to Guilin and planned to go to Yangshuo from there. 16 from our study abroad group planned to go there. 6 of us split of though to make getting reservations easier. Our group consisted of Marc, Dave, Julianna, Ryan, Greg and me. Guilin is a city in south-western China and its a huge tourist place. And not just for foreigners-its beautiful. Yangshuo is a smaller city about 20-30 mins outside of Guilin and seemed to me to be even more touristy. There was so much to do. I'll start with a quick rundown.

Saturday- we finished up with class and got on the train. Our seats were what you call hard sleepers. 6 beds to each little compartment. Not super comfortable, but a lot nicer than a plane when you're traveling for that long.
Sunday- 24 hours later we arrived in Guilin and got in a little van (usually a seven seater, but we fit a total of 9 adults and a baby in there).
Monday- we rented electric scooters and followed a tour guide around to some different sites. First we went to the mud caves. You walk around, ooh and aah at the cave formations and then you jump in the mud and play. Pretty fun actually. Then we went to the bamboo rafts. It was super relaxing and couldn't have been better weather for it. The river was amazing too. The water is so much warmer than in Montana its ridiculous. After lunch we took the long way home and went through some little towns and saw the beautiful countryside. Later that night Dave, Marc, Julianna and I went to the show put on by Zhang Yimo. He's an amazing director, he uses colors and imagery like a pro...
Heres some pics from the bridge and the ride over. The little kid on the bike is a champ.
Tuesday- Marc, Dave, Julianna and I rented bikes and rode out to Yulong Bridge (遇龙桥). The ride out there was awesome. We went through a bunch of little towns or villages or whatever and were riding through the fields to get there. We followed a little chinese lady who showed us the way because she had nothing better to do. Once we got there the bridge was cool and all (it was built in the 1400s) but the coolest thing was when we started jumping off. The chinese thought we were crazy but they loved it, they flocked to it and started taking pics, applauding and egging us on. It was way fun. We think the bridge is about 30-35 ft. The chinese dude in the pic is the guy that we convinced to jump after all three of us did it. It took him like 5 mins though because he was so nervous.

Wednesday- Dave, Marc and I went rock climbing in the morning. The guys who took us were way chill and about our age. It was way fun and by the end of it we were all dead tired. So we went back to the hostel and took a nap. Later that night we met up with everyone else (all 13 of em) and had a birthday dinner for Ben-the British dude in the group.
Thursday- we rented motorcycles and went riding. We rode back out to the bridge and jumped some more, then we rode out to a more remote area (I say remote but you have to remember that this is overpopulated China) and swam and chilled by the river. It was a nice relaxing day. That night we got on a bus and stayed the night in Guilin. The next day we messed around the city for a bit and then got on the train back to Shanghai and from Shanghai we came back to Nanjing. It was a pretty amazing trip.

This dude uses the birds that are in front of his boat to fish. We watched him do it one night. They catch a fish but can't swallow them because they're necks have been tied. When the guy sees that they've caught one, he grabs the end of the rope around they're neck with his pole and puts the bird on the boat, then he grabs the bird and goes to a little basket on the end of his boat and sqeezes the fish out of its throat. Pretty tight.

Yellow Mtn 黄山 (yellow mtn)

ok...so this is huang shan. sorry for a few of them...i went a little black and white crazy...some of them look sweet tho. this is probably one of the most beautiful places i've ever been to. it was way fun. we ran around and took a bunch of fun crazy pics. we hiked a total of about 15 km or about 10miles. straight up...i swear, i've never climbed so many stairs.
these are some of the most hard working guys in the world...this is their job. the guys like this one carry these all the way to the top. those boxes are not light mind you. its like this one guy we ran into said on the way up "china saved all their A game olympians for this"
these guys are carrying this huge box of stuff up to the top. the stuff these guys carry is the food and drink and other things that are sold at the stores on the top of the mtn. they were moving pretty slow and it was a tight sqeeze at some places.


this is a straight up cliff that we were on the edge of. it was probably a couple thousand feet down. it was way cool and kinda creepy to be on the edge...but what a great view. some of the other people in the group and my roomie have some sweet pics of the cliffs, i'll get em and post em later.


public comb?? (its on the end of the string) and the locks on the chain are supposed to represent love-you're supposed to put one on their with your love. cute eh?

this is pretty cool...i didnt dare do it tho. these guys get paid pretty good, and they better, cuz thats crazy. also...we thought it was funny they had a weight limit posted.

i really like this pic. its pretty sweet.




at this place i had jumped over the little rail deal and walked way out on the rocks. one of the guys who worked there yelled to me and told me to get down...i guess they've had like 8ppl die this year in the park. it was amazing tho.


some chinese architecture for ya


exhausted...and we still had a couple kms to go...
some of the group


ha...this is where it got fun. we got a second wind and started messin around. this was takin when they jumped from the handrail. i thought i did a pretty dang good job. the one on the left is Marc Waters my roomie and the one on the right is Christopher Barnes.
messin around again.




some shots from the cable car. on the left we got marc, chris and dave.

lookin back...and feeling grateful for not having to climb it again