Aunt Kay again...sorry for the delay in the posting, however sometimes work is a priority and today it took me out of town. Not sure why the font I have chosen isn't sticking, but I don't think any of you really care about that. :) You'll love today's pictures and journal entry. Enjoy.
Today was our
last full day in Tovin’s province of Nanchang. Its winter time over here much like back home, but the
weather today was warm by Minnesota winter standards, 72 degrees, but a cool 72
degrees. However, that didn’t stop
Jay and I from wearing shorts once again today. The locals thought that we were nuts and more than a few
weren’t afraid to come right up to us and scold us. Most of them were wearing down coats, like it was cold.
What we were
able to see while we were here of Tovin’s province was beautiful. There is so much pride in his culture,
I hope that someday will we’ll be able to convey this to him.
Today’s
pictures are some of the sites we’ve seen while walking to and from our
hotel. Being that they are images
of where Tovin’s from, it will be nice to have these so that we never forget
what it was like, and so that he’ll at least have something to remember from
his birthplace.
Much like the
other large cities we’ve been in during our two trips to China the traffic in Nanchang
is crazy, it’s bound to be with over 4 million people calling this city
home. Most of the people get
around on some sort of scooter, quite a few others by foot or the bus
system. From what we understand
owning a car is a luxury, and there a many, many cars, but not as many as there
are scooters. Our guide gets
around by driving her scooter, which she has said is a little scary at
times. We have a driving service
escort us around once she meets us at the hotel, so we don’t have to worry
about driving and or riding a scooter.
Now that we’re a little more used to the way things work as far as
traffic is concerned we don’t need to keep our eyes closed as much as we used
to. We had a few close calls today
being within inches of other cars or busses but only one that caused our driver
to swerve real fast where you could see him even flinch a bit.
I forgot to
mention something from Tovin’s Gotcha Day, kinda funny…once we had met and
greeted the directors from Tovin’s orphanage, the male director said something
in Chinese to both Jen and I like we understood what he was saying and then he
offered me a cigarette. Apparently
he offered one to Jen before he offered one to me, and she waved her hand in a “no”
gesture while saying no. I wish
that I had observed her say no, however, in what I thought would be a rude sign
of disrespect if I said no, I took the cigarette as a sign of my
gratefulness. I didn’t know, and
didn’t want to disrespect him, but thought that this was a custom from his
orphanage or whatever. As he
leaned into to light the cigarette, he should have been able to tell that I
wasn’t a smoker because I held the cigarette out like a stick over a campfire
while he tried to light it.
Meanwhile, Jen was saying, “Jason, what are you doing?” and Addison was
saying, “Daddy, don’t smoke that, ohhhhhh, Daddy, Daddy, don’t.” She turned around and ran toward Aunt
Shelia with her hands over her mouth and a weird look on her face. I coughed as I took a puff, and by that
time our guide had witnessed what was going on. She looked horrified, seeing that I obviously wasn’t a
smoker, then asked me if I was, and I said no. She grabbed the cigarette from me and asked the director
what he was thinking. He just
shrugged his shoulders, sat back in his chair, took a long drag from his
cigarette, smiled and gave me a wink!
To my 7th
and 8th grade Health students, learn from my experience; don’t give
into peer pressure even if you think it would offend someone or their
culture. Besides that, I almost
threw up and the after taste was horrible and would have lasted a lot longer if
Jay hadn’t given me a cough drop.
Good thing Jay had a sore throat that day, and came to my rescue!
Speaking of
those 7th and 8th grades of mine that are reading
this. I’m looking forward to
getting back to the states, and I would say that I miss all of you, but then
you would know that Jen was writing this post and not me! I hope that you know that I’m just
kidding.
I hope that
you are behaving for Mr. Timm – you’d better be. Mr. Timm has been keeping me informed via email, and I’ll be
home soon enough to take care of business if things get out of line. I don’t think they are and I don’t
expect that they will! Thank you
Mr. Timm, and Ms. Giesler for being there in my absence; thank you for taking
time from class to follow our trip through this blog.
Hopefully all
you kids are learning something from following our trip; about the wondrous
journey that adoption is, about different cultures, and if nothing less the
consequences of giving into peer/perceived cultural pressures. I hope you remember, and that if you’ve
learned anything from your Health class this year, that everything you do in
life is a choice. You only live
once, so make good ones!
We’ll be
traveling tomorrow to the city of Guangzhou for that last part of our journey
before we come home. There
probably won’t be a post coming until March 2nd. So…
Until later,
Jason, Jen,
Addison, and Tovin
No comments:
Post a Comment