Mark in China: My birthday and Da Tian village visit

So yesterday, April 1st, was my 22nd birthday - and what a place to celebrate it in! We taught our normal Wednesday classes that day and each class gave me a gift of some sort - all in all I ended up getting a nice ping pong paddle set, a ceramic Buddah in a cool gift box (I thought it was a chocolate Buddah at first, so I'm glad it will last!), and some handmade cards and some candy. Between classes I went down the street to a fireworks shop and bought a couple of items - a fountain and a thingy that shoots the exploding colorful flares into the air. We ended up walking down next to the river bank at night to shoot them off. It's not illegal here apparently, as we here fireworks go off all the time - something I might have to take advantage of while I can.

I ended up getting a couple pieces of mail Tuesday - one from my Mom which I think she sent before I left, and a birthday card from my brother Nathan and his family (good timing!).

Searching at the some the DVD shops around town, I found computer games and software and I ended up buying Half Life 2 and Age of Empires 3 for a couple bucks, and then I found Photoshop 9 for less than a dollar, which is literally a steal. But hey, we've all broken the speed limit...

Today Rebecca and I spent all day in and around Da Tian village. We got up really early and walked to the bus station at 6:15 to catch the 7:00 am bus to Da Tian. It was a really small bus, and at one point there must have been about 30 people on the bus made for 20 or so - so Rebecca and I got up from our seats at one point to offer them to some elderly women who thanked us for giving up our seats.

We taught 3 classes total at the Da Jian primary school at the village - the second class was very rambunctious so it was a bit hectic, especially with kids hitting each other. However, it balanced out with the last class we had, which was very well behaved and attentive, so we taught a few basic things and played a couple rounds of hangman. How much a difference a few years of age can make.

Usually Rebecca and I go alone every other week to visit Da Tian, but this week we were also set to visit a nearby middle school, so we both ended up going. After leaving Da Jian school we met with the headmaster of the Middle school and had a royal buffet of a lunch at a nice restaurant with a couple of young English teachers from the middle school. Afterwards they got us each a hotel room for a couple hours of rest and then we headed to the Middle school - there we just went outside to talk to a massive swarm of middle school kids asking us questions. After a while I got to play some ping pong with some students and teachers.

After that was over, we left with the headmaster of the middle school in his car back to Shuizhai. After a couple of random stops we stopped to eat dinner at a restaurant. We sat and drank tea with some other older fellows and communicated with what we knew of Mandarin Chinese and the little English they knew - surprisingly successful I guess. Tonight was my first experience of the Chinese hard drinking culture - as someone brought along a bottle of fairly strong stuff - 52%-alcohol-by-volume type strong stuff. We all had little chalice shot glasses that must have been 1/3 or 1/4 of a shot, but still it seemed like the men offered a toast every few minutes, and they'd refill the chalice after every toast. I'm not a big fan of hard alcohol - well, it's not a big fan of me - so I dreaded each shot fearing it would want back out, but luckily I didn't get sick and got a nice decent buzz from it along with a delicious meal. Also, I'm grateful the headmaster didn't drive us the rest of the way in, and that we had a sober driver take us back to school.

Also, I gave gifts to the headmasters at both of the schools. For both I included a small bottle of wine, a can of Budweiser, and a can of Pabst Blue Ribbon - all of which I picked up in Shuizhai. I figured they'd appreciate the wine and American beer.

Here are some pictures from the day

This photo does no justice to this amazing mountain