China Mojo Trip - Part 2

With growling stomachs, we raided 戶部巷, a famous local street for breakfast. Some of the stuff we ate include: soup-dumplings, glutinous rice with tofu and mushrooms, hot dried noodles, soy bean milk.

We left the street with our stomachs filled, but that wasn't enough. I had an insatiable hunger for street food.

Our next spot was Gui Yuan Temple in HanYang. The temple's name literally means 'to return to the origin'. It is named after the following Buddhist hymn/verse:

歸元性不二，方便有多門

The temple was founded in 1658AD by 2 monks. The site is famous for its hall of 500 gold Luohans, or Buddhist Statues. We each picked a statue ourselves, which corresponded to a certain number. After selecting the statue, we each purchased a golden card with a Buddhist verse imprinted that corresponded to our choice of statue.

This was our first, close glimpse of the Yangtze River on this trip. The bridge in the picture is the Wuhan Yangtze Bridge (武漢長江大橋). Apparently, water levels reached 2/3 the way up the bridge before the 3 Gorges Dams were built. Perhaps it is a justified project then.

Right next to the bank is a monument dedicated to Da Yu (Yu the Great), the legendary founder of the Xia Dynasty. He is known for taming the Yangtze River through irrigation and channeling, according to the legends. This monument, right next to the Yangtze River, is a testament to how important people regarded his achievement as.

Right next to the monument, is 晴川閣, a tower with a few hundred years of history. The tower is a memorial for those who have struggled in the fight against the Yangtze River floods. Right across this monument is another very famous tower in China, 黃鶴樓, or Yellow Crane Tower.After the monuments, we arrived at the Hubei State Museum. The museum is famed for its exhibition of the tomb of the Marquis Yi of Zeng (曾候乙). The tomb is dated back to ~433BC. One of the greatest findings inside the tomb was a set of 64 bronze bells, and various other musical instruments. The museum had a short concert arrangement, where replicas of the instruments were used. The last song they played was, oddly, Auld Lang Syne.

Following the museum visit, we finally met up with our host families. Dan and I were welcomed by Sara and Brian. Our dinner was at 口味堂, a local restaurant. Pretty upscale in my opinion, and the food was delicious. Scrumptious! Dan had a little trouble eating it though, as it was extremely spicy.

The rest of the night was spent at the World City we visited before. The mall is apparently a hotspot for the young (go figure). It was dazzling to say the least.

We spent the next few hours in a video arcade. We spent a lot of time racing each other, and playing some other games. It was almost surreal - Fun? Video games? In China?

In the morning, our host family served us some real awesome dumplings. Scrumptious, once again! These dumplings were undeniably the best I had on the trip.

Huazhong University No. 1 Middle School is a wonderful school. It is also very odd, but we're talking about China here.

If, as Steve Wilmarth says, China is really going to roll out more schools like Huazhong University No. 1 Middle School, we have much to 'fear'. My fellow countrymen will provide intense competition.

This was probably the most intimidating part of the whole trip. Standing in front of 6000 students, lined up perfectly in formation, while they go through their routine flag-raising ceremony, singing the national anthem. I sang along with them, but man it was awkward standing in front of them.

Inside one of the classrooms, we watched a Chinese painting demonstration by one of the art teachers. The emphasis in this class is 逸 - loosely translated into 'leisurely' or 'loose'.

Steve Wilmarth, who was leading the tour in the Middle School, mentioned that the International program was funded by the Ministry of Education. Next year, they are expanding the program to 8 other schools. His opinion is that the government recognizes the need for education reform. They do want to introduce elements like critical thinking. The caveat of this condition is that you can't simply turn critical thinking 'off'.