Notes from the Far East

My last days in China were busy with giving away most of my things, tutoring a friend in German to prepare her for spending 2007 in Germany, shipping four boxes of goodies home, and savoring the food and friends and bustling streets that I'll miss. The morning of my departure from Zigong, several friends came to see me off. The foreign affairs office provided a driver to take me to Chengdu, where the Peace Corps doctors gave me a final exam.

I flew from Chengdu to Ko Samui, Thailand, via Bangkok. Here I stayed at a health spa and experienced a 7-day colonic cleanse. I've never gone without food for 7 days, and it was an experience I'll never forget, except for maybe a few light-headed low-sugar moments! The people fasting that same week became a fasting support group of sorts, meeting at the dinner table for our soup broth - hmm with or without herbs? - it's almost like food.

After I finished my fast, fellow PCVs Maria and Rick came to stay at the spa and to eat lots of their yummy, super-healthy food. Together we enjoyed the wonderful food at the spa and did some island touring, including a day of birding (Rick brought a Birds of Southeast Asia book) and hiking to a famous waterfall. Fellow faster Kerrie and I went snorkeling at Ang Thong, the island where The Beach was filmed. My island tour continued with yoga instructor Mike, who took me on the temple circuit.

After two and a half weeks, I flew to Seattle, where I spent a week at my friend Amy's house, touring the city, hiking, kayaking, etc.


1. Good-bye Zigong!


2. Sunrise view from my bungalow.


3. Downed a detox drink of psyllium husk 5x per day.


4. Only veggie broth and coconut water for 7 days.


5. Took acidophilus and fiber capsules 5x per day.


6. Malaysian friends at the detox bar.


7. Enema setup


8. Fetching our last morning coffee.


9. Friendly dogs joined us most mornings at the yoga sala for meditation, and sometimes yoga


10. Broke our fast with mango softie and a fruit plate - yum.


11. Happy to be eating food again!


12. Swimming at Na Muang Waterfall #2.


13. Went snorkeling at nearby Ang Thong Island, where The Beach was filmed.


14. An unheard of site (Wat Sumret warehouse) - a left side-reclining Buddha.


15. Yoga sage Mike pontificates about the wheel added behind Big Buddha.


16. Big Buddha


17. Cousin Alison and I, Snow Lake, Seattle.


18. Picnic at Snow Lake.

This semester the university asked me to teach English classes for the foreign language Department, rather than continue to teach environmental protection to Environmental Engineering Department students. This involved me moving to an apartment on a campus closer to the Foreign Language Department office, and closer to the other foreign teachers, allowing more opportunity for collaboration.

Highlights from the semester are listed here and shown below in photos.
- An American Football Superbowl (I served as photographer)
- Meeting with some Foreign Language department teachers about establishing a teaching methods exchange network
- Each of my students gave a 7-minute English lesson to their classmates
- Student teams planned and guided me on tours of Zigong

Here are results from the end-of-semester evaluation of "How will I use the knowledge and skills I got from this class?"

In my future job (as a teacher, tour guide, etc.) 53

To speak freely with a foreigner, help a foreigner 43

Work on a team 39

Guide a tour in English 37

Plan an active lesson 33

Make a plan before taking action 28

Deliver an active lesson effectively, in English 21

Plan a tour 19

Plan an interesting, active, flexible course - incorporate assessment, small group work, and projects that require planning 17

Speak English with classmates and teacher more confidently 16

To research about, apply for a job, perform well in interview 10

To perform well in future classes and graduate school, study with others 9

Make a travel brochure 5

Make a travel itinerary 1

Always learn from others 1

Improve development of China by giving tours 1

Understanding English newspaper articles 1

Get on well with others 1

Volunteer at the Beijing 2008 Olympics 1

Write a report 1

Be a good citizen


1. Superbowl -- the winning team


2. Superbowl -- all participants, including sitemate Daniel


3. Teaching Methods Exchange -- Talking Turkey


4. Teaching Methods Exchange -- Happy happy first(?) meeting!


5. Lesson Plan Structure


6. Student teacher helps student with an activity


7. Brochure - Old Street


8. Brochure - Miao Guan Temple


9. Local Traditional Hand Crafted Arts Store


10. Rollerskating (!) at the Sports Stadium Grounds


11. I learned to cha-cha at the "Palace for Youth"


12. Temple Tour


13. Salt mining well on Old Street


14. Local antique shop - is it real or a fake?

This semester, I was involved with several activities that addressed women's issues related to development. The United Nations website has a lot of good information, if you're interested in browsing http://www.un.org/womenwatch/.

The students in this semester's Women and Leadership Workshop helped guide two discussions, one about sexual assault and domestic violence, and the other about balancing career and family. At the sexual assault meeting, my sitemate, Daniel, and I gave a self-defense demonstration. At the career and family meeting, a leader from the Foreign Language Department, who is also a mother, joined our discussion.

At the beginning of June, volunteers from around China gathered at two meetings to talk about the women, gender, and diversity issues and activities at their site. Several Chinese friends joined the discussion. We generated a list of actions that the group wants to take to help new volunteers adjust to life here, and to help volunteers guide activities at their site. Our first action was to have dinner together after a long day of talking. We ate at a restaurant along a river in Chongqing that overlooks one of the city's five downtowns. The population of the greater metropolitan area is 33 million.


1. Sexual Assault/ Domestic Violence: Open Conversation and Awareness are Critical


2. Sexual Assault - Group Reads and Discusses News


3. Self-Defense Demo - Twist and Escape


4. Career and Family Discussion - Read and Discuss Article


5. Career and Family - Mother and department leader Pearl shares her experience


6. Career and Family - Students share information from their research


7. Women/Gender/Diversity volunteer gathering – meeting


8. Women/Gender/Diversity volunteer gathering - dinner

One of my English teacher friends is from a Zigong prefecture city called Rongxian. Rongxian was the first city in Sichuan to declare it's liberation, as the Kuo Ming Tao was driven out and the Republic of China was born.

Fan Min invited me and two other teacher friends, Guo Yung Ping and Wang Xue Mei, to spend the weekend with her family and enjoy Rongxian. We ate dou hua (tofu specialty in peanut milk), saw the 2nd largest Buddha in Sichuan, took a boat out into a large reservoir (notice me rowing while the boatman kicks back with a smoke - lol).


1. Me rowing around the reservoir while our boatman takes a smoke-break


2. Buddha at entrance to the big guy (Buddha up stairway in back)


3. Buddha face (needs a little cover-up for those acid-rain blemishes!)


4. Buddha from top of first staircase


5. Friends and I share a meal of dou hua (literally tofu flower) in peanut milk - so yummy!


6. One of my student friends is an Yi minority; the other day she brought over her traditional festival clothes to show me (after the trip to Rongxian)


7. Walk with eyes close, arm extended from 10 meters away; if you touch the characters, you'll be lucky

Hainan Dao, or Hainan Island, is a large tropical island off the southern coast of China. I spent most mornings on the beach, reading and swimming on a beach frequented by Russian tourists. Hainan is the "Hawaii of Russia," they say. Mid-day I escaped the hot sun in my hostel's movie room, and spent evenings walking and eating seafood or (one night) making jaozi with other hostelers.

These photos show a day-trip I took with some Brits who teach up in Xian Province. We hiked up to a summit in the Jianfengling Nature Preserve. I flew back to Chongqing, where I had a chance to hear fellow PCV Jens perform live at a bar before catching a bus home to Zigong.


1. Jianfengling Summit


2. Scorched and Smiling


3. One of two houses we saw at the nature preserve


4. Cheers - we made it!


5. Sweet sounds

Yang Ning (aka Emily) is my Peace Corps' cordinator here in China. In January, she went to Goshen, Indiana USA to take a four month course at Goshen College along with four other college administrators from various Chinese Universities.

Over Easter weekend, Emily and Juana (one of the other Chinese women) took a train to the Chicago loop where my Mom and stepfather Larry picked them up. They visited the Chicago Art Institute there before driving to my Mom's home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

They toured Milwaukee and shopped for computers. They also ate at the Alpine Village Restaurant which had been owned many years by my Grandmother Millie, Grandfather, and his brothers.

My family were impressed by their Chinese guests and enjoyed the visit. Their guest's English was excellent.


1. Larry and Mom pick up Emily and friend Juana in downtown Chicago and visit the Art Institute


2. Dinner at the Alpine Village Restaurant with Uncle David, Larry, Mom and my Grandmother Millie


3. My Mom and Grandmother Millie enjoyed music provided by my Cousin Ferd


4. Emily relaxing in my Mom's home


5. Juana's new laptop. Yes, it was made in China


6. Last picture before returning to Goshen, Indiana - a great visit!

A six-day trip to Guizhou Province, just to the east, was a great chance to see some other volunteers, and to sample some minority culture. Kaili, two hours east of capital city Guiyang, is home to the most dense population of Miao people in China, and therefore the world.

It was a wonderful coincidence that the weekend I could travel was the same weekend Kaili celebrated it's biggest festival of the year, Sisters' Festival. We began by helping a very generous Miao family celebrate the recent (the Wednesday before that weekend) tomb-sweeping festival with fire-crackers, card-playing, and feasting and drinking home-brew alcohol at mountain-top graves. The Sisters' Festival offered dancing, shopping, and riverside bustle.


1. Guiyang's Qianling Park - Walk with your eyes closed toward the wall. If you touch the Buddha�s belly, you'll have good luck!


2. Park 2


3. Singing ladies at the park


4. Our Taijiang guesthouse hostess


5. John, Kathryn, and I at a quick lunch stop in front of a wood stove


6. Miao woman dons pesticide tank


7. Erosion control on mountain side


8. Climb up to graves for tomb-sweeping celebration


9. Mountain air and cell phones and card playing


10. Tomb offerings (after clearing brush from tombs)


11. A feast for us all at the gravesite


12. Dinner feast


13. Two Brits and our host - a toast!


14. Miao traditional dancing


15. Miao woman shopping for traditional clothes


16. Early morning fishing


17. Miao peasant


18. During the Sisters' Festival, young women wrap multi-colored rice in a scarf and give it to a man (I think one they admire)


19. More Miao women shopping


20. Miao kids dressed for the festivities


21. Miao teens


22. Back in Kaili - traditional Miao noodle dish fired in individual casserole pots

At home in the U.S. I don't think I even knew that International Women's Day is celebrated on March 8th. At my university here in Zigong, Sichuan, China, all of the teachers had the afternoon off and the school held a competition between the women of each department at games like jumping rope and hoola-hoop. In China, many organizations, public and private, give women the day off from work.

Well, Peace Corps volunteers are encouraged to give a campus-wide lecture on Women's Day. My half-hour PowerPoint lecture was followed by a discussion between attendees and a panel of local foreigners. The panel consisted of me, Daniel, a social worker and teacher from Tennessee who is also a PCV, Linda, a chiropractor from Michigan who is pioneering chiropractic in China, and Anne, a retired (Berkeley) professor of theology who teaches at our university. Right after my lecture, each panelist introduced a question or statement to fuel the discussion.

Students asked great questions, and even offered some affirmations about recent, positive changes in China. Their questions spanned the gamut from women balancing work and family to relationships between men and women to women's job opportunities and discrimination to choosing a last name for your child (father's or mother's?).

Many questions, from both male and female students were directed at Daniel, and it was pretty clear at the beginning of the discussion that many were wondering what he was doing there. The question Daniel posed before the discussion, "What is the role of men in empowering women?", drew a lot of laughs from the crowd, and I smiled to myself. The ensuing discussion showed that a lot of young Chinese are trying to sort out the answer to this question. Our answers about the need for talented women to be active in our societies, and how that does not threaten men like Daniel, but only enhances the quality of his life, resounded in the corners of the hall.


1. Rebecca introduces Anne's books


2. Daniel asks "What is the role of men in women's empowerment?"


3. Lots of student questions


4. Lots of guys asked questions


5. Panelists photo op