In the morning, I went to the cultural garden near to Forstar hotel. It was so mild with beautiful autumn Sunshine, gleaming to my face. I had traditional Chinese breakfast there, spicy and steamed dim sum. It is slightly different with Guangdong, where have dim sum in the late afternoon. I can see the changes of myself comparing my first time in Chengdu, when I just graduated. At that time, I couldn’t sit down… everything made me exciting…… this time, I quietly sat in the breakfast restaurant, enjoying the coming and going of tourists, listening to the random music played by the restaurant owner… in particular, I like the ancient door….each house has a high stone threshold… which made each family/house more mysterious…. Granny had that kind of house in the countryside too, in spring,the swallows nested under the eaves . In summer holidays, I liked to sit on the stone threshold listening to my cousin bluffing stories about dogs, Buffalo’s and how brilliant of his Gongfu made him a leader amongst the villages boys.The sense of deja vu made me feel very homely. Of course, I also could remember how many times I had been bullied by him. Even though, due to the lonely childhood in the city, I still couldn’t wait getting back to see my cousins every holiday.
A friend’s driver picked me up sharply at noon then headed to the airport for collecting Eric and Ling from Beijing. Only when two of them arrived, I started to feel a bit “revolutionary” like a red army soldier, to the mountain villages to do volunteer teaching. I also thought of the TV episode where mentioned poor sichuan people went for revolutions. My floating mind was dragged back in the business mode. Then the long hours drive made everything back in calm mood. At the transition period of end summer and early autumn, daytime it was still quite hot. From witnessing the changes of the buildings and the new highway roads, I sensed the enormous changes. After four hours drive towards southern Chengdu, we started to see the collapsed houses and actually we had to drive along a river bank because the damaged road is in repair. It wasted us almost one hour for the single traffic flow system, without traffic light control. The dust and earth were flying….. I tried to cover my poor infected nose.
When it was getting dark, we entered the mountain area. We all stopped chatting, the air was quite thick and heavy in the car, as witnessing all the collapsed mountains, houses, and earth sliding made my heart aching. We see the real “tian beng ti lie” ( sky banged Earth cracked). I started to question: Ermei, sichuan a Buddhism holy place, where is the God? It shows clearly what people suffered are in the mountain area.
We passed on a bridge. The driver Mr. Yin told us that was built by liberation army within a couple of days. Then we were amazed with the spirits, hardworking and manpower in China. We all have to take off our hat for them.
In the residential areas, we could see some light from the tents and five star(national) and party flags are in so many places. The warm slogan tried to bring hopes to the people there. Also, we could see the supports from sibling provinces. I noticed some people didn’t want to stay in the tent. I understand we all cling to a home. They just set up a tent beside the collapsed house.
On approaching, we received a phone call from the school, where the leader arranged a four star hotel for us, which was quite costly to be honest. We refused as we highlighted from the very beginning, it is a voluntary project from our self, we didn’t want to waste money and didn’t want to accept anything against our ethos. It is agreed that the school leaders would take us to the students tent.
During dinner table, we have exchanged some ideas and information in terms of the programme for the following days. The deputy head master asked us to send in more English materials, who complained of the current teaching material. I was a bit surprised, as I asked my friend to show me the current English books when I was in Beijing, actually think they are quite good and balanced teaching materials. The impression he left to me seemed that more teacher training are needed. In fact, any book/teaching materials requires a good teacher to make it alive. The approach of straight to the point might be a bit culture shock to the deputy headmaster.
In the dark, we followed a motorbike and drive up to the basin field where the school tents are located. Our car parked in the temping playground. It was quite chill. I didn’t wash myself and to prevent from the damp and cold, I slept with my heavy coat that I bought in Beijing.
Posted on January 2nd, 2009 by wendywu
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