(Us and a Buddhist Monk in Tiantai–loosely translated as Sky Mountain Altar)

A friend who visited China last year told me that what she loved about China were the people–their willingness to communicate with you across the language barrier, their openness and friendliness, their hard-work. This, too, is what I have loved so far about China. We’ve had an exceptional opportunity to learn from Chinese students about their country while we’re speaking English with them, but we’ve also had an exceptional opportunity to connect with different Chinese people as we’ve traveled from Nanjing to Tiantai and Nimbo and around Shanghai.

On June 1st, Children’s Day in China, we hiked around two Chinese natural scenic areas in Tiantai. For most of the weekend, we were the only Western faces we saw, and this, occasionally, literally stopped traffic. When we fed coy in a pond in a scenic area, Maura told us that people were walking by saying, “Who are these people?” and getting “Oh, they’re the Americans” from various people passing us along the path. Sometimes children are afraid to speak with us because we look so different; sometimes they call out a loud “hello” and when we respond with Ni Hao, they are surprised. Mary Ann goes up to them and asks them how old they are in English. Sometimes the children can answer, and sometimes the only words they appear to know are “Hello” and “How are you?” although English is taught in every school from kindergarten on. The photo above is of a grandmother and grandchild. Weiping and I spoke with the grandparents who were bringing the grandchild to the scenic area for Children’s day, and I asked if I could take their picture. The little four year old girl was quite animated when she saw her picture on my camera, but otherwise was as somber as the photo.

Chinese mother and daughter.

The great thing about this past weekend was we had several translators–Popo, Weiping, Ling Ling, and Maura all helped us bridge the language barrier. When Maura asked this mom if I could take her picture, she said sure, no problem, and then spent the next ten minutes trying to get her son in the picture (he had other plans) and trying to get her daughter to smile. It was great to be a Chinese natural areas and see Chinese people taking advantage of their own scenic wonders as a family. I finally got this photo of the little girl in her yellow sweater, and her mother said it looked “very natural.”

Because we were outside of the city for the first time, we also got to see some rural people at work. Since I grew up on a farm, I was fascinated by how the Chinese grow crops. Every bit of usable land is used, and the Inner Mongolian restaurant we went to in Tiantai had the best bok choy I’ve ever tasted because it was picked that day from their own garden. On Sunday morning, got up early and watched this farmer plow his rice patty with what I think is a water buffalo. It was amazing to watch. He was barefoot, and road on top of the plow, like he was surfing, until he came to the end of the row when he lifted the plow up and dumped the weeds, etc. on the ground. This particular field was immediately outside of our hotel parking lot, and you can see the walls separating the hotel from the field in the background. His friend came along and began sowing the rice. What struck me about this was that the rice sower put on long rubber boots. In the miles of ground we covered over the weekend, I saw one very small tractor, and the rest of the work was done by hand with simple tools. Even though the farm I grew up on was very small by American standards, we had at least 3 tractors of different sizes at any given time.

Plowing the field.

Clearing the plow. (I believe the plow was wooden.)

To get the pictures of the plowing in action, I climbed down from the pagoda where I was writing, and walked along the edge of the rice patty field on a raised wall that keeps the water in. While I meandered around the edge, I was really aware that if I fell into the well-fertilized rice paddy, no one was going to want to sit next to me on the bus ride back to Nanjing. Miraculously, I didn’t fall in. On the way back to the hotel, I ran across this older woman praying at an altar in the woods. She waved at me (at first I thought she was telling me to go away, but then she answered my “Ni Hao” and went to praying). She kowtowed at an altar within a few feet of the rice patties. This picture, for me, conveys part of the beauty and wonder of the Chinese people. Tomorrow I will try and write more about the exceptional Chinese students we have grown to know over our past few weeks in China, and our special visit to Kevin’s house to meet his family.

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