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Like Your Life, Water is Limited.

Nothing was supposed to be free. After having breakfast with David and Luke, I was ready to do some work. While brushing my teeth, I heard knocks on the door. Cristina and Luke were there and said that Cliff asked us to join some student to climb a mountain just outside the campus. They student said it took about twenty minutes to get to the top but both David and I thought it would take about 2 hours. He and Eric waged a bet. For me, no matter what, my working morning was down the drain. It actually did take only 20 minutes to climb it. On the top, the scenery was just breathtaking. On one side, it was the Yellow Sea and on the other it was the high rising apartments and construction sites. The students were jumping up and down and having a lot of fun. We took yet another group picture.

On the top there was a torn down house and half of it had no roof. It had been a see watching house but now was turned into a Buddhist temple. The area that was still covered by roof was now used for praying.

Things (people) that go up must come down. It was time for us to go down. We had a choice between an easier road down and a hard way that passed through a graveyard. I thought it was a good idea for the Americans to see the graves which would be unique.
Surely they asked questions like why they were buried on this side of mountain, were graves always on mountains, and whether the dead were still buried or were cremated.

Party was over, and class started in the afternoon. Constructions were going on during our first class. The first difference I noticed was that when speaking, American students could be heard but not Chinese ones. Most of talking during Q&A and discussion was done by the American students as well. Vivian was one of few active Chinese students engaged in asking and answering questions.

During the class break, Michael and Rose, the representatives of the group of students, who we paid for admission tickets to the Aquarium, intercepted me and insisted to give the money back. It was really hard to persuade them and sometimes I had to resort to some martial art move to avoid being handed the money. I told them the same thing as I told Michael over and over again. Finally, they gave in. That really made me happy.

Yvonne brought a basketball to the classroom and that generated interests in playing basketball games after dinner. We met at the court at 6:30 and some of them were there already. While the players were practicing, I was talking to the students who were there to watch the game. I remembered during the self introduction some of the girls mentioned that they liked dancing and swimming. I tried to track them down so they could tell me where to go. I offered to teach them tango if they could find a room and people. I also asked them where I could go swimming and was told that I had to go to another nearby university, which I don’t mind. I told them to let me know if they were going.

At first, three teams formed 2 Yellow with all Chinese and 1 White with all American (David, Eric, Pat the old guy and Tyler). The Yellow team was really good and they beat the White easily. The games went on while spectators started to gather to cheer both playing teams on. I was on the side line talking to the cheerleaders including Rose and Belinda. Again some serious discussions were generated. They also agreed to help me to pass on my blog to their classmates since the blog website I used was not accessible in China. At around 8:30 they finally called it night. While walking back to the dorm, I was informed by some students there would be a disco dancing event tomorrow evening. I was interested and asked them to meet at one place and go together.

Pat and I decided to get foot massage. After walking the whole day yesterday and climbing the mountain in the morning, my feet deserved some pampering. We took a cab and headed to a placed recommended by Cliff. The driver obviously did not know where he was going. He took us to a different place. Strongly convinced of that Cliff’s recommendation couldn’t be wrong, I insisted the driver to find the place. Only after phoning in and asking another taxi driver did he managed to drop us in the right place. We walked in and ushered upstairs. Two lovely young small ladies brought in two buckets of hot herb water and motioned us to put our feet in and left the room. A moment later, they came back and started the massages. It was hard to image how strong their hands were given their small physical status. The lady commented that Pat was the 2nd American guy she worked on today and both their skins, though nice, were twice as thick as Chinese’s. The lady who worked on Pat told him that he had problems with his sleeping and digesting system while mine said I had shoulder problem. They were both right on. How could they tell, I wondered?

The title “Like Your Life, Water is Limited “was a slogan I saw in one of the restrooms in DUFE intended to remind us not to waste water.

posted by Unknown @ 9:26 AM