The Avett Brothers Tiny Desk Concert for NPR Music

A little break from my China posts, this is from a video podcast i subscribe to, it is just amazing. the first song is my favorite.

Chengdu to Beijing to LAX NEW CHINA pt 2

Alright, so when i last left you I was about to head over to Chengdu and that is where I will begin.

Monday morning Marcus and I got up, started to get ready and then we me Alex and headed to the airport. Now this is the new fricken HUGE Beijing airport terminal #3. It is probably one of the largest man made structures there are around right now. Besides being BIG it also has a Burger King, which Marcus had to stop at before we got on the plane. I understand this because living in China you have, relatively, not as many options/varieties of food. For about 30 mins Marcus was in heaven and then we were off.
The plane ride over wasn't all that great, but then again not many flights in China are. We landed in Chengdu and then went to the hotel where Alex's father works. The 4 of us went out to eat at a local restaurant and then went back to the hotel. Marcus and Alex wanted to show him pictures of his new grandkids. I decided to take a little walk and explore the area around me. I was out for about 2 hours and I found the normal.....small shops selling odds and ends, restaurants, street food and well, red lights (i.e. brothels) (these are VERY common in China and are a very sad sight) By the time i came back Alex's dad was gone and we all hit the hay for tomorrow.
The next morning we all got up and meet Jackie, a leader in the church and former friend from JingZhou. He pointed us the way to the hostel where we would be staying for the next week. It was the Dreams Travels Youth Hostel! YAY! (ok so this is no 5 star hotel, but really it was cheap and did the job and that is what i really cared about.)

When we first got there most of the families had already arrived. I went to a room just to put down my stuff and there met some of the kids. I wasn't really, "surprised" by what I saw, rather wondering how in the world i was going to communicate with them. In China there is the, "standard" language, what we call Mandarin, and then there are the thousands of local dialects. There is the almost a different language for every city, so for me know like, 20 words in Mandarin, I knew that talking to these kids was going to be......interesting to say the least.

Ok, now I have mentioned a bit about where these kids have come from but I haven’t yet told their specific stories or how they got there, so let’s rewind time…..(insert Wayne’s World doh doh doh doh, doh doh doh doh, doh doh doh doh)

Almost a year ago an earthquake hit near Chengdu, China. (Check Here, Here and Here). Well the church that I was with working with wanted to help the people that were affected by the earthquake and started sending people from the church over to the places hit hard. While they were there they started to meet families in the hospitals. Through these connections they met the kids that we worked with in Chengdu. So here they are….

From Chengdu Kids

From Chengdu Kids

Lou Ying

From Chengdu Kids

Ma Cong

From Chengdu Kids

Ping Ping

From Chengdu Kids

Shang Ting - She was one of the last people to be pulled out alive. She was buried for 5 days, and basically heard her classmates expire around her. She is in a wheel chair because she has two prosthesis.

From Chengdu Kids

From Chengdu Kids

Si Yu (aka Cutie) - She was saved when her teacher grabbed her before the classroom was about the be filled by a landslide. They made it out the door and the teacher used her body as cover as the landslide hit them. The teacher died, but Si Yu survived. She received a deep gash in her leg from heel of the shoe her teacher was wearing that came off and dug into her.

From Chengdu Kids

From Chengdu Kids

Tong Zhong Cheng

From Chengdu Kids

Wen Jing

From Chengdu Kids

Yin Fun Qun

From Chengdu Kids

Zhao Chen - He was buried for a day and then was pulled out. But because there were so many kids/people that needed to be moved, that he had to lay on the ground for a day. From there he went to a field hospital, where he had to under go an amputation from below the knee without anesthesia. Because of the amount of people going to the hospital and that many of the regular hospitals in the area had collapsed many places had run out of anesthesia, so many people had to do without it.

From Chengdu Kids

Zhu Jie

So there are the kids and some of their stories.

The week had a schedule, kinda. For the most part it was this

Morning – (7am-ish) get up for personal devo, then breakfast of steamed dumplings and rice porridge.
After Morning – Singing and lesson
Near Noon – Small groups and English Class
Noon (ish) – Lunch (usually at a restaurant in the area)
Afternoon – outing (think Panda Amsterdam)
After Afternoon – Free time (i.e. Allan updates Twitter)
Evening – Dinner (again restaurant)
Night – Activity/Video

Now that was a loose idea of what we did. It wasn’t always like this, but this was generally what happened.

The part that most affected me was the “English Class”. Basically Marcus and I would teach the kids a few songs and work on their pronunciation. It was fun, but it was a bit frustrating for me as I just couldn’t talk to the kids. There are some things that are universal, such as passing out stickers or small prizes for pronouncing, Tuesday, correctly, but overall I had some limitations. (Note, I have to thank all of the teachers and staff that helped provide supplies for the English class)

Alright, that is all I can get done right now, I will give a finishing post a little later.

Allan

LA to Toronto to Beijing to Chungdu NEW CHINA Part 1

Alright so i have tried to start this blog about 4 times now, and its not that I don't want to write it is just i have this thing about the introduction to a story. I have always had a hard time start the BEGINNING of a story when i am writing. But I am preparing some tea in my new fricken awesome tea mug and I am feeling the writing bug biting. So here goes....

I have a friend, Marcus, who is living and working in China with a house church. His mom, due to work, flies very often and has acquired a bit of flyer miles, so much so that she said, "Here is a ticket, go hang out with my son", and who am I to go against the wishes of a mother, right? So the itinerary was this,
June 18th
10:30 pm LAX to TORONTO
2:00 pm TORONTO to BEIJING

Ok i know this is not the greatest of flight schedules, but hey its a free ticket and well, i have a friend in Toronto so I thought it would be kinda cool.

The 17th was the last day of school and the 18th was a teacher clean up day. I bsically worked from 8am to 2pm, packed and bought supplies for the kids i would be helping and then got to LAX around 6:30. After a little (but fricken EXPENSIVE) bite to eat I got on the plane. It was Air Canada and I was pretty happy going over. I arrived in Toronto and then realized that, "Hey i don't have my cell phone, meaning i can't call my friend in Canada! Nor anyone else I know because i didn't memorize their numbers!" (That is what a cell phone is for!) So after some searching I find a computer and got the numbers i need. I meet up with my friend, Amy, who was a missionary in China when i was there. We had some coffee and had a killed a few hours just catching up with each others lives. I didn't get a chance to get out of the airport as it was too expensive to take the quick bus to Toronto and well, i didn't have time to take the regular bus. So I said a goodbye to Amy and then got on the plane to Beijing, again, Air Canada.
Now at this point and time i was wondering how we were going to get to Beijing. I mean, would i back track across America to Beijing, or would i be taking the long route over Europe and Asia? Well neither. Thanks to whole world being round thing, we went over the arctic circle! It was amazing. Anytime i would open my window I would look over pure white snow and stunning blue sky.
*Side note, now from LAX to Beijing it was around 30+ hours of time in Airports and planes. So here is a little bit of what I listened to to keep me entertained. Please Enjoy.


I arrived in Beijing around 7pm. I met Marcus and Alex (Marcus' girlfriend) and we caught a taxi to his place. The air was hot and well, when we rolled down the windows it stung my eyes. Beijing is not known for its amazing air quality. That first night we went out to eat, and then I hit a wall of jet lag and hit the hay.

The next morning we went to church and I met the people who would be going to Chengdu and a friend from when i was in JingZhou. The rest of the day I basically spent with Marcus and Alex getting things ready to leave for Chengdu and then had dinner with Marcus and Julia Rodriguez. Marcus and Julia are missionaries in China working with the sister church that Marcus and Alex are a part of. They are well loved friends and our time was great. We ended the night at McDonalds playing Settlers of Catan. It was a good time.

Now i have yet to fully explain what I was going to do in Chengdu.


View Larger Map

I was told before I left that the church that Marcus has been working with 'adopted' about 9 families affected by the earthquake last year. These families all have children that have either lost a limb(s) or were badly injured from being buried in rubble. The church was going to put on a week long camp for these kids and their families at hostel in the city of Chengdu. It literally came about only 2 weeks before i left so it was kinda a surprise, but it I was excited. Marcus and Alex were going to go a day early so that Marcus could meet Alex's dad, who lives in Chengdu, for the 1st time. I went with them to make it easier in getting to Chengdu.


Ok that is a bit for now, I will write more tomorrow night about what we did in Chengdu and then getting back to Beijing and LAX.

Allan

China Slide Show Preview, have fun!

Hello Everyone,

Ok, I know...I know.....It has been way to long and I won't make any excuse other than I have just been too lazy to get to this. But as I start the summer I wanted to tell you of my recent China adventure. So I will start with a slide show and then will write more as i can. I should have the complete story up by the end of the week, but for now i hope this slide show wets your appetite.




Allan