Across a Long Bridge

It is hard to find time to write, so I’m catching up. Earlier this fall, during the Chinese National Holiday, we had a week off from school. During the break, my host father took me to his hometown, Zhejiang province 浙.  My host brother, George, couldn’t go because he had to go to extra school. Like most Chinese high school students, he studies A LOT. My host mother stayed back in Shanghai, too.  

George, my host brother.

 

Driving out of Shanghai was interesting and a real experience.  I didn’t realize how big the city was until we had been driving through skyscrapers for at least 45 minutes. We drove past my Chapel Hill friend Mathias’s old apartment building in Shanghai, dozens of tower cranes, and endless buildings.  While we were driving it was really hazy. I’m not sure if it was fog or smog.  Crossing the border from 上海 to 浙江, we crossed the longest bridge I think I’ve ever been on. I thought the bridge I rode my bike across this summer in Astoria, Oregon, was long, but this one put the Astoria bridge to shame.  It took us at least 15 minutes to cross the bridge my host father told me that there is actually a longer one a little farther north.

We stopped at a rest stop for lunch and got 种子, a sticky pyramid of rice wrapped in a leaf.   When we reached my host father’s hometown we went to his house and were greeted by several mangy dogs (I should’ve gotten my rabies shot), two little kids and an old woman with a back bent by years in the field. That night we went to my host father’s teacher’s son’s house to eat dinner. We went to the teacher’s house and watched a Chinese-Japanese soccer match. Later the teacher’s son came over with his wife and I learned how to say,  行尸走肉 (The Walking Dead), as in the popular American television show.

That night we stayed at an OK hotel. There were cigarette burns on the carpet, but other that it was fine. We watched the Voice of China which is a not-so-famous American TV show but has turned into a very-famous Chinese one.

The next morning we picked up my host father’s nephews and visited the house of a famous Chinese calligrapher. It was very big house with pagodas on top of every hill and ridge surrounding the house.  We hiked up to one of the pagodas and could see everything all around. It was a nice change to the skyscrapers and tower cranes in Shanghai.

Our sightseeing tour continued a few more miles up the road to see a Buddhist temple, one of several we saw over the week-long break. The second temple we went to was a popular tourist site; it was enormous and we didn’t even see a third of the things in and around the temple. The main attraction was a giant Buddha inside of a man-made cave in a mountain. Giant Chinese and Sanskrit words were written on the cliffs surrounding the temple.

After we visited the temples, we met up with my host dad’s colleague for dinner.  I thought we were headed to a restaurant, but instead we met up with another guy at his apartment and picked up food to cook for dinner. We bought fish, pork, little apples that you could eat in just two bites, grapefruit and peanuts. It was my job to carry the fish after it had had been scaled and all of its organs ripped out. I thought it was dead but apparently it wasn’t because it was still squirming around in the bag. Despite the squirming fish, the dinner was very good.

After dinner we drove back to my host father’s hometown to spend the night at a family friend’s house. They put me in what seemed to be a newly renovated part of the house.  In fact, it was still being renovated and that’s what woke me up the next morning. New curtains were being installed, and that’s when I woke up. Despite it being the nicest room in the house, it felt somewhat eerie because of how big and bleak the room was. It had all white walls with nothing but a bed and it was fairly large, which made for a strange environment. In the morning they served fresh wontons in a steaming soup. The wontons were extremely hard to eat with chopsticks.

We spent most of the day at my host father’s teacher’s glass store. We went to another Buddhist temple where we saw some monks in prayer. I was getting pretty tired, but we also went to an opera museum, and to another friend of my host father’s house to chat. The family was moving to Shanghai and asked us to take some things back with us. The day ended with a visit to a duck farm to buy some duck’s for my host father’s parents. We relaxed that night and I helped my host father’s nephews build little wooden models of chariots and horses. After a long day, I was glad to fall into bed.

On our last day in Zhejiang province, we walked around some neighboring villages and took one last hike with the nephews to a Buddhist temple.

 

A hike with my host father's nephew.

 

We ended our excursion by going to my host father’s friend’s house in a neighboring village and walked around. We said goodbye his family and took one last hike with his nephews to a Buddhist temple. Before we left we gave the family members a few more presents and they gave us some too. Before leaving the province we went back to the duck store to buy a couple live ducks and several dozen fresh duck eggs. We put the live ducks in the trunk and sped off to Shanghai. The drive back seemed longer than the drive to Zhejiang even though traffic seemed better and there was no fog.

Duck farm.

 

For lunch we stopped at the same rest stop and got the same thing. For the longest time I heard a strange sound coming from the car and I couldn’t figure out what it was until my host father told me, it was the duck’s quacking. When we got back to the apartment, George was still at his extra school. Man he works hard! For me, the rest of the break was spent studying and working on homework. It was really nice to get away and see a different side of China.

 Tired students.