May 2008

Our guide book for the adventure

It is definite, we have tickets in hand and Sunee, I and John will be flying to Guiyang in Guizhou Province. We will be spending three weeks in Guizhou and possibly a road trip to Guilin. We have to be back on campus by the 20th of June.

I have contacted one of our students in Guizhou, Grace Sprite, and she knows we are coming. Excitement builds as Thursday approaches.

The next post will be of our tentative travel plans over the next three weeks.

Just got a call from Zoe informing us that the university will be closed down for a month. Obviously this is to let the situation across Sichuan calm down and let the government get a handle on the earthquake disaster. We will be told Friday when we will have to report back to school but it looks like at least a month.

I am in the process of planning our trip to Guizhou and possibly the Guilin area again. May even make that trip to Kunming with John and Tom. Time will tell. Got a lot to do before we start on any trip.

WARNINGS!

We saw them today
Walking on the street
Students with their bedrolls
Looking for a place to stay

Another warning, a repeat

Of a warning from yesterday
We live on the second floor
The apartment on the right

Figure we can make it to safety
If things begin to shake

Called Ms. Zoe to ask
If everything was alright

No classes tomorrow
Won’t make that mistake
Our students aren’t a happy lot

With warnings left and right

Better to be tired at night

Than in an earthquake caught

We got a knock on our door at 12:45 this morning just after Sunee got a call from her friend in Emei City. Seems the government gave out a warning of another earthquake. All the students were herded out of their dorms and taken to the athletic field where they spent the night.

The earthquake was supposed to occur at 3 pm. I could have sworn that there was no way to predict earthquakes so I double checked on the internet and came up with the answer - still no way.

Sunee got prepared and we figured we could run to safety from our second floor apartment. As for me, I went back to bed. I had eaten something bad on Sunday and did not feel well, still weak from the bad milk. Got more knocks wanting us to come down and run to safety with our pillows and blankets in hand. We decided to pass on that action. John, next door, also passed. In fact, he passed so hard, no one could roust him out of bed!

This morning I was tired and knew there would be no classes. John knocked on the door at around 7:30 so I got ready and went with him, told him no classes. Sure enough - no classes. We visited with our most be "comrade" and she explained what happened to us. No school. We had walked down to my classroom where one of my students showed up and was doing self study. Visited with her about what happened. She and her friend did not heed the call, were not afraid and decided to stay in their room. Nope, the teachers came and got her and her friend and they slept in tents at the athletic field.

Catherine is a serious student but, today, very lonely indeed

John and I then walked over to the field where I took some pictures of the now empty or close to empty field. We then walked down the hill bought some ice cream and other breakfast and back to the apartment.

The sleeping arrangements for our students last night

No class. Well, that only means I will have to double up on some of the material in my culture class!

So far, we are not seeming to get back to normal. Maybe next week.

We left at around 9 a.m. Saturday morning to go to Jia Jiang to see the Thousand Buddhas Carvings and then to a bamboo paper factory. This will be the story about the bamboo paper factory.

Bamboo paper is only made in Jia Jiang according to all the sources I have found on the internet. It is not very commercially feasible since it is so labor intensive. The plan was to go to the Thousand Buddhas place and visit the paper making museum. There we would ask were we could visit a bamboo paper factory. Unfortunately, the museum was closed and my fellow teacher, Tom was treated very rudely for trying to go see it even when the door was open.

Fortunately, prior to visiting the museum we had lunch with a Chinese family from Jia Jiang who gave us the address and telephone number of a friend who happened to have such a bamboo paper factory. We took the bus back to town and caught a taxi with the help of a sophomore student at a Chengdu university. Nice people these Chinese. If you doubt this, ask Tom. He was still fuming about how he had been treated by the guard at the museum when we decided to go take some more pictures of carvings at the river level. Among the carvings was a group of Chinese playing Mahjong. They made us feel very wanted and offered us gum and other refreshments, making it obvious that they were glad to see us. Amazing how everywhere there are jerks and how the jerks are easily canceled out by the "real" people.

Wonderful people playing mahjong canceling out the rude guard

So we end up in a small town about half an hour out of Jia Jiang. A store front operation selling bamboo paper. Great. Sunee decides what paper she wants and as she does this, we are told the story of bamboo paper. Factory? Sure, they say, follow us to the back where the paper is being made now. Excitement!! Ooops, the process is a closely guarded secret so no cameras. Disappointed, yes, but we understood.

Inspecting the paper in the sales office

Telling the story of bamboo paper

Tom feels the difference

Let's buy five of these bundles in different sizes

Yes, we saw the process, all by hand. A very time consuming process where the paper is actually being dipped onto a screen in a soupy mix that felt like baby oil or latex. The screen is then brought out and the paper peel off to be dried on a heated brick platform and then separated. I think the mixing formula is the real secret - to get the oil/latex mixture just right to stick to the screen in just the right thickness.

After we bought five stacks, cords, bundles or whatever of the paper, the owner told us about colored bamboo paper at his other factory and asked if we were interested. Never say no at such an opportunity! We visited this other factory which was about fifteen minutes away. As it turned out, they did not have any colored paper ready to sell. Instead we were given a bundle of cheaper paper for Sunee to use. Yep, given as a gift. Things simply cannot get any better than this, especially for someone who is studying Chinese watercolor as Sunee is.

On the way to the other factory

Just a little further

Bamboo waiting to be processed

The first step in processing the bamboo

The bamboo paper factory

Watermarking devices for the colored bamboo paper - ancient designs

By the way, the properties of the bamboo paper are as good as advertised. It has about 75% less bleeding as the normal rice paper and is solid enough not to let the colors seep all the way through. Great bargain on the paper and a great education on how a process continues that is more than a thousand years old. Also, most of the ancient Chinese watercolor masterpieces were done on just such paper so it lasts for thousands of years as well. Now for Sunee to become a master painter!

I just got word from the administration that we will resume our classes today. I have two classes in the morning, the first at 0800 and the second at 0950. No one seems to be happy with this decision as we are all tired and miserable from the earthquake, expectations of earthquakes and the ever decreasing aftershocks.

My plan: take my video camera to class and record the reactions of the students to the events of the week.

Get ready for more video to be posted here soon on student thoughts and reactions

We decided to all go get a late breakfast. Since it was after 10 am, many restaurants were not open. We walked down the street from Southwest Jiaotong Univeristy - Emei Branch to the main street, about a fifteen minute walk.

The restaurant we chose had no dumplings so we all settled for noodles. Here is our conversation as we share our experience about the earthquake the day before.

While attending a watercolor class in downtown Emei City (three hours south of Chengdu), my wife and I experienced the Sichuan Earthquake. We were in a six-floor, small office building when the earthquake hit at 2:29 PM.

The building shook violently for around 4 minutes before we exited it.

As we were exiting the building, I took a picture of a large crack on the fourth-floor wall.

Once on the street, the area began to fill up with people, most of whom were in shock and dazed.

Not only the people, but also a small sparrow which seemed totally disoriented. A Chinese pedestrian picked the small bird up and set it on his finger like a pet canary. I even petted it before taking the following pictures:

We then began to look for a taxi to get back to the Emei campus of Southwest Jiaotong University to see if our apartment had been damage. The crowds on the streets were getting larger and larger each passing minute.

The Chinese kept telling us to keep away from the buildings and there was an atmosphere of fear and tension as we walked toward the bus stop.

We finally caught a bus (no taxis available) for the fifteen or twenty minute ride back to the campus. Once on campus we found students roaming the streets and looking for a place to sleep outside as directed by the administration. Things were chaotic but our apartment was still intact.

The Earthquake of 12 May 2008 will long be remembered!

A few years back, my wife and I took a city tour of Chengdu, China. One of the places we stopped was a commercial tea house where we were offered tea to purchase. I put together this video from the experience: