Well, back to earth with a bump after the hustle and bustle of China . I walked my son to school this morning and the roads just felt so quiet and empty! No Chinese breakfast! Tofu, vegetables and soya milk suited me so well. No wake-up call or repacking of the suitcase yet again. No horns blaring, no batallions of bicycles, no curious stares… the contrast between my village and where we’ve all been for the last 12 days feels so enormous. How do we begin to tell the stories and to explain the thoughts and dilemmas that we had to our family and friends who weren’t there to experience it?
I keep coming back to what a privilige it is to have our relationship with Shandong Youth Federation. A professional organisation with the well-being and education of young people at their heart, even though they might do things quite differently to us at times. Our partnership means that we get to see places and meet people that the common or garden tourist would never get to do. The Chinese generosity, hospitality and humour means that our experience has been rich, funny and thought-provoking. Iven’s farewell speech on the coach to the airport encouraged us all to reflect on everything that we have done on this visit: action-packed days that have encompassed culture, religion, politics and geography. And the door is left open for us to return…
China never ceased to provoke and surprise us which I guess is where some of the best learning comes from. Just when we thought we were getting the hang of it, something else would pop-up to get us thinking again. Things that come to mind: all the wedding couples getting their photos taken in Quindao – white wedding meringue dresses – why? ; climbing for 45 mins up the steps to ‘heaven’ on Mount Tai Shan only to be greeted by a sign that said ‘climbing starts here’; the performance and ritual of bargainning with stallholders and street sellers; the obsession with fake goods and the market that drives this; the students who were so proud to show off their universities and English skills; the fantastic professor Zheng Shouyi, in the Ocean Institute whose passion for her work shone through….
So, next job is to capture this richness and move the agenda on. Can’t wait to get together with the group again to reflect on the experience having been back for a few weeks. Keep blogging in the meantime team – let’s see what’s going on for you.
Last time i blogged i talked about my home stay experience, we moved on the next day we went to the shandong university, we toured and had a look at how the chinese differed from our university system, they all were very positive and happy to see us.
We started by having a talk from one of the tutors at the university then got shown around by the english students, the university was very similar to our own except for the fact that they work alot harder than most english people, because it is a great honour for the chinese to get into uni. We visited there dining room which we were told was the largest in asia, it was 5 floors tall and very large and busy. We finished the university tour and then just stayed at our hotel for the night.
Shandong University 2
The next day we visited mount taishan which is a very tall mountain near a town called qufu, most of us climbed the mountain which was incredible steep and harsh to climb, around 3500 steps, we got some amazing pictures and had some amazing experiences. That night we went to the town of qufu and visited the local market and walked around the streets and saw alot of poverty in the back alleys.
In the morning we visited confucius’ birth place, which was a very large temple with many gates and important looking buildings. After the temple visit we visited qufu university which was smaller and poorer but still all the people were very happy to see us and very welcoming, we saw some interesting pictures all round campus of the students who all have to do 2 weeks of military service, it is quite shocking to think that everyone in china can be conscripted for military service it means that they can have an army of over 800 million people if they need it, seeing these pictures in the university really brought that home.
Qufu University
That night we drove back to jinan and visited a very impressive water fountain show, and went into a huge underground shopping center that was a chinese wall mart. Overall its all going great and i dont really want to leave, i probably wont blog before we come back so i will say we are going to tour quingdao and then go on to maybe another university for the next day, after that we spend two days in beijing then we will come home.
well so much has happened over the last few days, we have been to sooooo many places. We have visited quite a few universities, well it was the same university but different campuses. We went to Shandong University. We met a lot of students there studying English and learning all about our culture. This gave us a chance to ask the students questions about the university and about the culture of china in general, from the view of them as students. It was quite interesting actually to here about the sort of things they do in their free time. In fact compared to young people in Britain they do not seem to do the same activities and have the same social life. The chinese students did not tend to do much in their free time which involved going out of university. They mostly were involved in clubs or sports being held around the university. This seems very different from Britain, when we have free time from college or university we tend to do alot more activities and have maybe more freedom. We go to the cinema, have parties, go to thorpe park and places like that. Chinese people do not seem to have that option as much as we do.
Shandong University
Another thing we did was go to Tai Shan Mountain. From the bottom of the mountain to the top was 7000 steps to climb it. We were given the option to climb the mountain with 3200 steps from the top or get the cable cart up to the top. hmmm i choose to climb the mountain by the stairs. This was one of the hardest things i have ever done, the steps were really quite steep, and i must admit it was a lot harder than i first thought. However i am so glad that i managed to actually climb it, it was such an achievement to get to the top, and the views whilst climbing up was absolutely amazing. We then however had to get the cable cart down, i think i would rather have climbed the stairs down, i am petrified of heights and the thought of going down in the cable cart scared the life out of me, but i did it!!!! i made it down, yay
the group i feel is getting on really well i feel we are a family now, and i am going to miss them all when we go home in four days. We have really bonded as a group, however we are all getting quite tired now and could do with our own beds and a good night sleep. I am missing my lovely friends so much and seeing my family. Also i really have a really really really really bad craving for Swede, so a nice roast dinner with swede would go down really well when i get home xxxxxxxxxxxx
Wow. What an amazing place. I have travelled fairly extensively in south east asia but not to China but I have to say this is definately one of my favourite places. Our welcome was fantastic and the enthusiasm of our guide Ivan and the hospitality of our host from Shandong Miss Che has been wonderful. We have been very well looked after staying in some excellent four star hotels and dining in some very good quality restaurants.
My favourite bits of the trip so far have be the Great Wall and our visit to Shanqing World activity centre which was followed by our formal welcome banquet which included the signing of the formal agreement between West Sussex and Shandong Youth Federation and a speech by Jane and the president. It felt like we were there to sign a treaty on behalf of the whole UK with Jane as our head of state but despite some nerves she carried it off very well. We have had so many highlights on this trip it’s difficult to pick just a few to mention here, but the beauty of the view from the top of Tai Shan Mountain has to be one of them. I took the cable car with Maralyn and 3 of the young people whilst Jane and the other 9 young people walked the 3.3km of very steep steps. All credit to James here who ran up in just 44 minutes which is just outstanding!
We are now heading to Quindao for a couple of days before returning to Beijing. I have to say all of the young people on this trip have been awesome. Despite unfamiliar food, language and culture they have represented West Sussex exceedingly well and are a credit to us and their families back home. Your comments from back home have been very encouraging for them and it is great to see that so many people are accessing the blog. Thank you and keep commenting!
After the joy of a six-thirty start this morning followed by my daily plate of rice and banana we left the hotel for one night to go to the Mount Taishan about an hour and a half’s drive away. We arrived about nine-thirty and those with the stamina and guts decided to walk the 3000 steps to the top. I decided on the harder and slightly more challenging option of taking the cable-car allowing time to take in the extraordinary views. The top of the mountain is a site of religious significance and the gateway at the top is known as the Gateway to Heaven.There were a number of shrines around the top and each had a number of people gathered round them including the Buddhist Goddess of Fertility identified by the group of tiny little golden Buddhas surrounding it.
This evening has been the most interesting part of today. After dinner we went for a walk around the town we are spending the night in. We haven’t been able to go out in the evenings much in the cities, simply because the are very busy, but here because the roads are no busier than walking around Worthing we looked in the shops and attempted to haggle local stall-holders seeing how cheap we could buy their products for. It was the first time we experienced the ‘real’ China. It feels like that when we have been in Beijing we were simply seeing the wallpaper that was covering the damp patch. Now we have travelled further into the more rural areas we are beginning to see the paper peeling and the nasty brown stain that lurks beneath. Not that what we have seen is a stain, just not what we think is the image the state here likes to portray China as being. The state acting as the shifty looking homeowner, eager for a quick sale and hoping nobody asks too many questions.
sorry i have not been blogging alot, been really busy .
so what do you need to know .. well life in china is different to the UK, not only are the people much friendler but there way of life is a lot slower then back home.
whilst i have been in jinan i have had an amazing host stay.. my host Mr White was a student at the shangdong university were he is studing to be a teacher. as he is living in student halls, we ended up spending the night with lara’s host family who cooked us dinner, they were very interested in the english culture, and were very excited when i showed them pictures of my family. the next daywe met up with his friends, who were also hosting members of the group and spent the morning atjinan zoo were i had the chance to ride a camel and see my first panda. also traveled to jinan springs before going off to have lunch. if i am honest i am getting SICK of chinese food and really want to tuck into a BIG MACor a ROAST DINNER.
on monday we spent the day at Shanqing world, were we took part in team building activites,the best part of the day was the water fight at the end of the day
we also had a welcome banquet where we were presented with more presents from are hosts. yesterday we travelled to the shangdong normaluniversity and meet up with students who gave us a guided tour of the campus, after exploring the uni we went of for lunch before going to visit the shangdong medical university, this was justas interesting as the first university we visited. in the evening my host mr White and james’s host asked if they could take us out to explore the city centre at night, the mixture of culture was amazing, young people hang out with old people, chav’s hanging out with emo’s there seemed to be no divisions between the groups and the town centre at night looked amazing!!!more attractive then any city centre in the UK ( see photos on blog ) the night time is when the city seems to come alive, and unlike young people in the UK people here dont need to drink to have a good time.
as for today well were do i start .. well my new job is as wake up call guy, this morning i was up at 6:30. we left are hotel about 8ish and drove to mt tai- shan. the mountain stands at 1500 meters, myself and a few other decided to climb the mt tai-shan we ended up climbing over 3.3 killometers up steps to the top of the mt ( see photos on blog ) i thought i was going to die !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! jane had to drag me up as after 1hour of walking my legs had gone to jelly !!!! it was one of those laugh or cry moments as we struggled up the last flight off stairs to the top known as heaven. after a tour of the top of the mt and a nice lunch we traveled down by cable car before getting back on the coach and driving to qufu the home of confucius … where we had dinner …. tomorrow we are visiting the temple of confuius as well as another university. right well there is a que of people waiting to write there blogs so im off ski now … hope your all ok back home and not missing meto much !!!!! ( dad i know you are really ) keep checking are blog for more info love josh xx
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