Ideas For Teaching at 5:09 AM

At the beginning of this semester I had the idea to ask my classes what they wanted to learn. I don't give grades, and I don't really have curriculum, so I can teach pretty much whatever I want. So I passed around a paper and asked my students for ideas in the hopes that it might get a better response teaching lessons that they requested then ones they didn't. Here are some of the ideas they requested. Keep in mind these are transcribed directly from where they were written. Enjoy.

1. I want to learn about American Girls.
2. Your's secret girlfriend.
3. I like movie, movie.
4. Let us study English in play sports like basketball and others.
5. We need something more about English Songs Starcraft and Warcraft.
6. Computer games.
7. Who you lovest in our class?
8. How to make head bigger. (I don't understand this one. This might be how to get smart or something)
9. If American Girls beautiful?
10. I want to know some skills, for example, How do you make girlfriends?
11. I want to watch English films.
12. I miss you. (???)
13. Eat food, and sleep, and play computer games.
14. I want to know my boyfriend what he think? (ha ha)
15. I want to know about my girlfriend, what time can I marry him? (they get he and she mixed up a lot)
16. I want to sleeping.
17. I need much snacks in every class.
18. I need to study China Konfu.
19. I want all the comic, <<Naruto>> is the best! (She actually wrote those symbols)
20. Surfer the internet.
21. eat glass
22. play gun
23. teach songs
24. miss a girl...
25. Something about lady gaga
26. How to play human in warcraft II
27. Black people in America. (They don't see any foreigners here. They can probably count the amount of white or black people they've seen in person on both hands)
28. Everything (This one is kind of difficult)
29. Can you show us some photos and bring your guitar?
30. Lady Gaga
31. I want to know whether America has race discrimination
32. songs (x10 on one piece of paper)

I do love my students. I didn't use all these ideas, but it's amazing how well some of the ideas I did use worked.

Bragging rights- at 6:23 AM

Hey everyone, I just wanted to say that I went to Taiwan today and it was ridiculously awesome. I was a little scared, just because I've never been to Taiwan and Taiwan-Chinese relations aren't fantastic right now, but it was amazing. Everything totally worked out well even with my terrible Chinese and I got another stamp in my passport, which may seem like it's not a good reason, but it led to a great adventure. I'll write more later.

Normal at 1:35 AM

For some time I've wanted to write this blog post.

When I was on my mission for the lds church in Australia, I came across a lot of things I had never seen before. Ridiculously large spiders, really large or colorful birds, wallabies, Koalas. It was the same with people. I met people from all over the world that I had never had any contact with before. It was really an enlightening experience in a lot of different ways. I remember specifically walking with my missionary companion one day and I saw an ibis bird for the first time. It looked a lot like the bird in the attached picture except it didn't have any color on the back of his head and the body was whiter than this one. Also the beak curved more sharply. Anyways, I saw this bird and it just blew me away.

I thought to myself, 'Wow, that bird is totally crazy looking."

I watched for a few minutes and was disappointed to see him doing the same things any other bird would do. I then said to my missionary companion, "Elder -- look at that bird. It's totally crazy and it has no idea that it's totally crazy. It's just walking around like it's a normal bird!"

At which point he said, "I've always wanted to grab one of those birds by the beak and shake it around." (Which he never actually did, so don't think he was a bad person...)

It was boring and fascinating all at the same time. After that point on my mission I looked at all the crazy animals in a different way. Ya, they were crazy, but for Australia, they were totally normal.

Fast Forward six years.

Sam is no longer in Australia (I'm Sam), he's finished his masters degree and moved to the Hunan Province in China. He walks down the street and people shout "HELLO" to him in broken English. Wherever he goes out he can hear people talking about him in Chinese and lots of people shamelessly stare at him. When he travels outside of his town people ask him if they can take pictures with him, and I mean, like several pictures within a single day for days in a row anytime he's on vacation. In random cities he visits people ask him to help judge competitions, and people try to get him to hold their children.

After about 4 months of living in China it dawned on me. I was the ibis. Those same words that had sounded in my head at seeing such an exotic bird now echoed in the minds of all the Chinese people I came in contact with. I could almost hear it. 'Look at that foreigner. He's walking around just like a normal person. It's like he doesn't even know he's totally crazy different!!!!'

All I have to do is say 'Ni Hao' to people and some of them bust up laughing. I'm not sure whether this realization was a blessing or a curse. I love China. I have to say this first. This place has become dear to me. I plan on coming back and I hope to become much more proficient in the language. A lot of people have done really nice things for me here and there are days where I feel like I have a family in this country... But, I'm am going to be SOOO HAPPY to go back to America and not have people shamelessly staring at me or talking about me where ever I go. Sometimes it's like being famous for something you did that was REALLY really bad.

So, this brings us to Lessons Learned. (I always like stories with morals)
1. Be nice to the ibis. He really is just a normal bird, or at least he thinks so. There's no good reason to give him a hard time about it.

2. Any attention is not necessarily good attention. There are some people who dream about being famous. I think they're crazy. I've signed enough books and been in enough pictures at this point to know. I would rather spend 15 minutes with someone who cares about me and understands me than 10 or even 1000 days with people flashing their cameras and staring at me slack jawed. Those 15 minutes would do more for me than any other type of attention would. I think the distinction between types of attention is a problem with a lot of people in America, especially younger women and teenage girls. Some of them want attention so bad that they're willing to settle for the wrong kind of attention. I personally think it's better not to do this.

3. Be nice to people who may bet the Ibis. This isn't a huge problem in America. If we see someone who is different, we usually wait till afterward to talk about it, or we at least pretend like we're not talking about it. However, the last thing we want to do is alienate people. Life is hard enough as it is without feeling like an outcast.

4.  This story hits at the core of a problem I've seen everywhere. It's really easy to make assumptions about people based on how we were raised or our culture. One time I was on a sleeper train and I was sitting on the top bunk with my feet out. I heard someone say something in Chinese and by the time I knew something was wrong, some one was walking by and giving me the bird. It turns out that showing Chinese people the bottom of your feet is really disrespectful. I had no idea, but the guy thought I was intentionally trying to offend him. It wasn't until I chased him down afterwards that he realized I didn't know squat about his culture and he explained it to me. At that point he was no longer offended because he knew it wasn't intentional at all. It's just so easy to judge people based off of our own standards that don't account for cultural differences.
Even within American culture we do this, but it's more like, "Well in my family we communicate like this, and this is the right way." One of the things I've been working on is not reacting instantly when someone does something offensive, because I often find out, especially in China, that they didn't mean anything by it at all. And for their culture, it's no big deal. I'm not saying it's ok to treat people poorly, I am saying that we have a much greater ability to give someone the benefit of the doubt than we realize. I also think it's ok to ask why people do or did things. Not accusatory, but for the sake of understanding. If they did it to be rude, you'll know pretty quickly, but if there is a cultural reason behind it, I think there is a lot to be learned, and understanding will come. Ultimately I think we need to make sure we communicate our expectations clearly and that we need to focus more on what people mean and intend then what they actually do. It's been said often that 'Anyone who takes offense when none is intended is a fool.' To which I've qualified a lot in my life.

5. This point is totally unrelated. I just wanted to rejoice in the fact that I can switch from 1st to 3rd to 1st person in a single blog entry and violate all other sorts of literary rules at will since it's my blog.

Li Mei Hua at 11:22 PM

So, when I first came to China, my diet was pretty pathetic. I was too new to this place to know what to buy. For the first few days it was instant noodles and crackers. the crackers stuck, cause I didn't know what else to do for munchies. Other than that we ate outside. Within a few weeks we found a place that makes hand pulled noodles and fried dumplings. We had this amazing food place literally 20 steps from the bottom of our stairs, but about 2 weeks into the semester they moved and someone else came in who made yuck food. So I was a little discouraged, until I found Li Mei Hua.

Li Mei Hua makes the best fried rice I have ever heard of. First off, we have to realize, that I can't read Chinese and I did not know what to eat in this country when I first got here. So any type of food I found that was safe, tasted good, and was easy to find again, was an instant success. Right outside the back gate of our school is this alley that has all these ghetto food places. It's actually really cool, partially because they're super poor and they're really nice. Anyways, I tried to eat at a lot of these places and it was good, but it was so different that I felt like lunch every day was a gamble. Until I found Li Mei Hua. When most people make fried rice in Hunan they do two things. Usually it's spicy, which is REALLY good and usually they put in these pickled beans, which I think taste like unhappiness. So one day, (there's about 6 or 7 food places) I went to this random place in the alley with this random lady and I asked for fried rice. She cooked it and gave it to me, and I partook.

Spicy - Check
No ugly pickled beans - Check
Good price - Check (4 yuan, which translates to about 60 cents)
Vegetables - Check (This is important cause we didn't have a working kitchen and you can't eat veggies raw here or you get parasites so they have to be cooked in your food)

Delicious - Double Check

It was love. Not with Li Mei Hua, she's married and I can't understand her Chinese anyways, well I can now, but I couldn't then. It was the fried rice! I think almost every day for the next 2-3 months I had fried rice for lunch (Don't worry mom, fried rice here is way healthier than in America). Every time she saw me she would start laughing and shout out "Ji dan chou fan" (Fried Rice), because she knew that's what I was going to order. Anyways, it's weird how you can be friends with people even though you can't speak the same language. I actually think she was usually pretty happy to see me despite the huge communication barriers. After a month or two, once I figured out how to ask questions in Chinese, she would teach me the names of all the foods she cooked with. Which was super cool, because, most of the words I know for food came from her. Anyways, the first couple months of this semester I didn't go out there as much cause I started eating fruit in the mornings and oatmeal for lunch. Plus lunchtime was a good time to study, so if I ate alone i usually got more done. Anyways, I went out there last week for the first time in a little while and I think it totally made her day. It made mine too. It's weird how we're friends due to all the times I ate there. Especially because my Chinese wasn't good enough that I could understand her and have conversations until recently. (Which by the way, having a conversation in Chinese doesn't mean I'm good at it. Just want to point that out.)

Anyways, she's my hero. I'm not really attracted to Chinese girls in general, but I always thought if she was about 30 years younger, not married, and a member, those things with her food would be enough for me to consider a marriage proposal.

So I've attached some pictures of her here and where she cooks and lives. It's basically a two room place. One room opens to the street where people can sit and she cooks. and the other is her bedroom which also has a table for eating. And that's it. That's her house. For a woman with no money, she seems really happy. Basically, I think she's the bomb and she's one of the things I'll miss the most about China.

The first picture is her bedroom pretty small. The second and third pictures are her cooking in her front room for students at lunch. The last picture is the view of the Alley just outside her place.

It kind of makes me grateful for how much stuff we have in America. Like places to live that aren't totally open to the elements. Air conditioning and heat. A clean work place. A computer. A car. The list goes on....

Things I miss about America at 9:05 AM

These are in no particular order. So don't be offended family, you would be at the top of the list.

1. People who come to my door and knock less than thirty times
2. Eating Raw Vegetables
3. Eating Raw Fruit
4. Being able to see the sun more than once every 2-3 weeks due to pollution or rain
5. People who don't stare at me
6. Being able to walk up to someone and know they'll understand me (English)
7. My family
8. Girls I'm attracted to that speak English
9. Driving
10. Having a dog that I know no one will eat
11. Food products that are filled with things that match the description on the container
12. Peanut Butter
13. Steak
14. Food in the grocery store that expired less then 3-6 months ago
15. My sister's wedding (I'm still really sorry about that Ami...)
16. Smash Brothers
17. Going to church in a Church Building
18. Having a priesthood leader that lived less than 1500 miles away
19. Signs on the street that I can read
20. Public trash cans people actually use
21. Bath tubs (oh how I miss a good bath)
22. De-oderant
23. Guaranteed seats when I travel (although 2-12 hour standing tickets are an adventure...)
24. Set Prices
25. Living in or next to the same time zone as most of my friends and family
26. Juice that's actually 100%
27. Meeting someone and not having every person ask me
  A. What country am I from?
  B. How much do I make?
  C. Do I have a Chinese girl friend?
  D. Why not?
28. Kitchens that work (China has kitchens that work, mine just doesn't happen to be one of them)
29. Toilets outside of my house
30. Toilets that I can put the toilet paper in (disgusting I know, but Chinese toilets clog if you put the toilet paper inside)
31. Hospitals that don't scare me (I'm sure there are some of these out of Hunan, but I picked a poorer province to live in)
32. Swimming
33. Home teachers that live less than 2 hours away
34. Knowing I won't get in trouble with the government if I talk about the gospel
35. Watching movies without Chinese subtitles
36. Not having to say Ting Bu Dong every 5 minutes (Chinese for "I don't understand," my chinese is way better and this is still one of my most common phrases)
37. Not sounding like an idiot to native English speakers due to speaking at half or a quarter speed too often and not being able to switch out
38. People who don't try to take my picture while I'm not looking
39. My old room mates
40. Watching General Conference live
41. Cities where people don't burn their trash every day
42. Not being expected to always have my own toilet paper when I use the bathroom any where other then my house
43. People who don't talk about me less than 4 feet away under the assumption i don't know what they're saying
44. People who don't talk about me less than 4 feet away
45. People who don't say I'm fat
46. Dryers
47. English I can understand (on T-shirts, notebooks, etc)
48. Waffles and Chocolate pancakes
49. Group video games
50. Ferris Wheels that let you go more than one time before they charge you again

Now, I want you to know a list of things I'll miss in China is coming out soon. Just cause I miss a lot of things about America doesn't mean I haven't been extremely happy here. More to come!!!!

(If you vote on your favorite ones I'll try to do a blog post on it, it may not be long, but it'll come)

Hong Kong 2: New Teachers at 9:11 AM

Around January, my good friend Jacob Harlan asked me a favor. He's the guy that runs China Horizons. China Horizons is the program that got me here. Anyways, Jacob asked me to help him help the new teachers sight see in Hong Kong and make their way to their respective schools. So we hung out in Hong Kong for a few days. We went to the temple a lot which was awesome, because that's the first time I had gone to the temple since I had come to China. (LDS Temple, not bhuddist, although I saw a lot of those, and they were really cool)

We also saw a lot of other cool stuff. We went to this place called Ngong Ping village on Lantau Island (other side of the island from the Campbells)  where they have this huge bhudda statue and a cool bhuddist temple. Overall, really awesome place. I went twice. Once before the teachers came and once with the new teachers. The first time was awesome, becuase I had all the time in the world. That day I hiked to the peak of the island by myself in this killer awesome fog and I think I can understand why historically amazing religious things happen on the tops of mountains. It was an amazing experience. About half a mile from the top there was a white out. It was like I was hiking through a really windy cloud. My hair was wet even though it was warm outside. (I think that's what happens when you walk through clouds.) The second time the whole place was under fog (all my pictures are from the second time), and it was just as much as an adventure even though I had already seen it. On top of the awesome Bhuddist temple and the Cool Giant Bhudda Statue (Yes, that's a proper noun, maybe not accurate, but deal with it), they had this really awesome place called The Path of Wisdom. It's a figure eight path you walk, probably only about 80 meters total and as you walk the path they have these giant trees cut in half along the path with writing on them. The writing is the Heart Sutra, which apparently is used by Taoists, Bhuddists, and Confucianists alike. I may not believe what it says, but it's still pretty cool. And it was fun to walk along the path and not read it (I can't read Chinese yet....). I did read it after on a plaque for Americans who can't read Chinese.

Other than that I went to church in a real church building for the first time in a few months. Man is that something I've taken for granted in my life. I'll write a post about how we meet for church in China soon too...

The new teachers were not what I thought they would be. I don't even know what I expected, it's just hard to imagine up a new personality. When I finally met them it was fun to watch all the new social dynamics come together and especially fun to watch people bond because they had no one else. I love all the new teachers. They're fun, they adventurous (they came to China, that would be enough for me to know they were adventurous), and they know how to have a good time.

We also went ice skating, but somehow I didn't document that. Sorry. It was also awesome.

After Hong Kong we went to Shenzhen for a couple days to train the new teachers. We really didn't do anything, we just sat through good trainings on how to teach, but I do have some pictures of us on the town at night playing pool. Sorry you only get to see one.

And Erica, thanks for the note. I will keep writing!

Hong Kong 1 more pics at 7:41 AM

Enjoy!

Hong Kong Part 1: The Campbells at 7:39 AM

You guys, as many of you know I'm WAY BEHIND in my blog. This entry is about February, and it's uhhh, May. Yep, It's May. So this is my time to recommit. I'm going to try to bust out a lot of entries in the next month. We'll see how it goes. I'm hoping that if I don't people will start emailing me about being lazy. Also, I love your comments. I can't really respond because of the filtering system here, but I will in a couple months when I return to the states.

So! After Xia'men the time came for my final destination in my wondrous winter holiday backpacking extravaganza: Hong Kong. This is another one of those places that shows up in the movies sometimes and I just can't even comprehend how different it must be. Well, it was was pretty different, but ridiculously awesome. When I got to Hong Kong I headed for Lantau island where my good friend Sarah Campbell lives. I arrived at her apartment at 9pm and had one of those late night conversations with her and her husband that just make you glad you're alive. Little did I know I would have those multiple times a day for the next week. It's amazing how you run into people you know you were supposed to be friends with. Well the week was pretty fun. Sarah and her husband Eric can't have kids, so they adopted. As of now they have two awesome kids who speak fluent Cantonese and English. They were kind enough to let me sleep on their floor for a week before I helped the new teachers in my program find their way around Hong Kong. Sara showed me around for a week and helped me see some of the sights. She took me to the beach with her kids and overall it was awesome.

My students had told me that Hong Kong was too crowded. I expected to go there and find a huge city with out space. Which was sort of true. I found a big city, with a lot people, but I also found some of the coolest abandoned trails and beaches. It wasn't what I expected at all. It was clean, beautiful, huge, but it still had everything that I would want in a place to live. I probably won't live there, but I have tossed around the idea....

The pictures are of Sarah, her husband Eric, and their kids Cooper and Anderson. Totally awesome family.

Xia'men at 8:35 PM

So, as my time in Chawaii came to an end I started to wonder what the heck I should do next. I had no where to go and everyone I wanted to travel with during the break had dropped out. Matt and Kristal Carter had been awesome, but they were going to go to Beijing after Hainan (Chawaii) and I sure as heck didn't want to go to frozen over Beijing. So I opened my lonely planet the night before my train left Sanya and found Xia'men. I thought to myself, 'Self, that looks nice. You should go to Xia'men' So I told Matt and Kristal who told me Xia'men was a random place to go, but it just seemed like a good idea. It wasn't too far from Hong Kong, which is where I was ending my winter holiday and I knew I had enough Chinese down by this point to get there and to Hong Kong on my own. It still seemed a little daunting, but I figured things would work out.

The next night we went to the train station destined for Guangzhou where I knew I would split paths with the Carters. When we got there we met two foreigners. One was a Chinese guy with an Australian accent, and the other was this nice little white girl with a French accent. We struck up a conversation. They were really nice. The Chinese guy was born in china and raised here until he was about 12, then he moved to Australia. Then he moved to Canada and met this nice girl from Quebec and they were traveling together. Really cool people, turns out he was teaching her English/Chinese and she was teaching him French. When he first asked her out she couldn't speak English and he couldn't speak French. Kind of cool. Anyways, turns out, you guessed it, they're going from Sanya to Xia'men. They totally helped me get a sleeper bus, which I took the night we got to Guangzhou, and then when we arrived in Xia'men his Aunt dropped me off at my hostel. Talk about awesome. I spent a week in Xia'men visiting with some members of my branch and seeing the sights.


A few days into my time in Xia'men I decided that I should buy my ticket to Hong Kong, I was hoping for another sleeper bus, but all I could find was a day bus. It left at 8:30 in the morning and I had to be at the small office where I got my bus ticket at 7:40am for the bus to pick me up. This isn't easy since I'm kind of a night owl. I only get up early when I have to, but it's not a serious issue. The night before I set my phone to go off at 6:30am so I could take a shower and take my time. I'm still not sure what happened, but I do know that my alarm either didn't go off, or I slept through it. Having gone to sleep at 1:30pm the night before this could be potentially scary, but luckily I woke up at 7. I realized that my alarm hadn't gone off and that by all accounts I still should be asleep with how tired i was the night before. Pretty awesome. I caught my bus, and all was well.


Things I learned on my trip to Xia'men.

1. Traveling alone is bitter sweet. I've never had SO MUCH FREEDOM! It was awesome. I went where I wanted, when I wanted, with who I wanted. It's really satisfying for me to follow where the wind blows. I loved it, but it came at a price. I understand more and more what the Lord means when he says men and women aren't meant to be alone. I think that's something a lot of people with significant other's take for granted. As for me I'm sure a lot of the things I saw would have been significantly better had I had someone to share it with. So it goes. I'm still happy and I'm sure the Lord will remedy that in his tme.


2. The Lord is TOTALLY still looking out for me. I see it all the time, in big and little things, but I see it most clearly here in China because I'm so clearly on my own. It's funny, because the Lord's been there the whole time even though I haven't always recognized it.


3. I can speak good enough chinese to do things on my own. Who'd a thought. Don't get me wrong, my chinese is still bad, but it's improved a lot considering I knew zip when I got here.


Pictures / Things I found in Xia'men


1. A really cool Bhuddist temple. It's called the Nanputou temple. It's huge, there are supposed to be monks everywhere, but it's hard to see them because they're living quarters aren't open to the public, and for good reason, I would go crazy if my apartment was open to the public. Oh wait, It is. I'm so glad I live in a school. (Slight Sarcasm)

2. Some new friends. This is Yelena and her brother _____ from Switzerland. Ya, I couldn't even pronounce his name, let alone remember it, but they were both really nice. They hung out with me for a day or two. The second picture is Morein from Holland. He came with me to see Avatar in 3D. You don't even notice the Chinese subtitles after a few minutes. I'm surprised at how nice strangers are here. Most Chinese people and Foreign travelers I run into are really nice people.





















3. The Road less traveled by. You know that famous poem where someone decides to take the road less traveled by? I took it, and it was awesome.
















4. Nemo. He was here the whole time. Poor guy is trapped in a really low budget public aquarium, but he seems like he's gotten used to it.

Little More Wuzhishan at 9:17 AM

The first two are Wuzhishan. The third is Matt and Kristal Carter at a house in Shuiman where we stopped for a drink. They tried to give us tea, but we settled for boiled water.
ps Matt and Kristal are basically some of the best traveling companions around. They take great pictures, they never complain, and they're always willing to take the road less traveled by.

Fwd: Chawaii Round 2 - Wuzhishan at 7:22 AM

I know I haven't written for a while, and that I've written other entries since I left of with my winter holiday, but I'm still going to finish writing blog entries for all the places I went that haven't been written yet.

So after a few days in Sanya, we headed up into the mountains a few hours away to Wuzhishan (pronounced Woojurshean). This was really nice. Sanya was awesome, but it was REALLY touristy. It's that way for a reason, good fruit, beautiful beaches, but sometimes it's nice to go back to normal China. So we took off into the mountains to this small town of Wuzhishan. There were some Chinese tourists, but we were the only white people we saw once we left Sanya. Wuzhishan was also where I got the cheapest bed of the trip. Our three bed room was 120 yuan which is about 17$ US. We stayed there for a two nights and it was awesome.

Wuzhishan means five finger mountain. The city is up in the central highlands of Hainan and the mountain is within an hour of the city. Just like the name, the mountain has five points are meant to represent the five most powerful gods in local lore. My students also tell me that this is where Sun Wukong lives. Sun Wukong is the from monkey king in Chinese mythology, I didn't see him...but, it was still a really cool area. It felt like a pretty normal chinese city except there were a lot of excellent parks and hikes close by.

Upon arriving we decided to take a bus ride to the local city of Shuiman (pronounced shwaymahn). This is the way to get to the five fingered mountain hike and this bus ride is supposed to be one of the most beautiful bus rides in all of China, and it totally was. There were a lot of waterfalls just on the side of the road and miles of lush green rice paddies. There weren't that many people there, but the one's we met were really nice and tried to feed us. Once we got to Shuiman we hiked out to the national park where the five finger mountain was, but after getting to the entrance and being told by the gaurds that the base of the hike was still a ways away and that there were no taxis for a long while, we started to hike back (we'd only been hiking for an hour). Luckily on the way back, some random chinese family picked us up and took us all the way back to out hotel. Chinese hospitality is legendary sometimes.

The pictures are as follows

1. Picture of me and Matt talking to some Chinese tourists.

2-3. Pictures around Wuzhishan

4. This was on the road we hiked in Shuiman. It's a native who runs their own honey business. The yellow stuff on the ground is a sweet pollen type substance that you eat. It was pretty good.

Les Miserables at 10:58 AM

Ok, I'm trying to find a way to convey how I feel right now without typing in all caps because I'm so excited. I just finished Les Miserables and it's easily (Setting aside the standard works) the best book I've ever read. Granted it's huge, but it had to be that way. To convey the ideas that he did about the world and about virtue, I just don't think anyone could have done it in a smaller book. Even the Bible and the Book of Mormon aren't really appreciated until time, reflection, and experience have been paid by the reader. I'm going to jump around a fair bit, but bear with me.

This is a spoiler, so if you hate knowing endings you can stop now. Victor Hugo creates this character who is literally beaten down over and over again through life and yet buds and blossoms into one of the clearest pictures of virtue I have ever seen. I saw the musical as a kid and again about a year and a half ago, but it's not the same. It's still great, but the power of the main character isn't explored as deeply due to time constraints. The Character of Jean Valjean wasn't just a great guy. He was consistently stretched through out the story. Given choices between doing what was right or doing what was selfish. Not only did these choices present themselves to him consistently, but they increased in difficulty with time. The fact that the story is fiction is no subtraction from it's power. I feel the same way about Job. I don't know if he was a real guy or not, I think he was. However, he reminds me that I awe at people who were dealt horribly their hand at life and still stood for what was right and true, people who underwent any pain necessary to stand at the end of the day validated by their conscience, free of rebuke from God, and deserving of every respect from man. Obviously the foremost of these being our Saviour. The other thing that basically thrills my soul is that I see this man as an archetype for our lives. He starts out as a common thief, despised by man and rejected from society. Basically a common sinner. Sound familiar? (You and me). Then at a pivotal moment, the Lord stepped in and showed him a better way, challenged him to live it and helped him see life more clearly for what it really is. This process that Jean Valjean goes through of consistent challenges interspersed with moments of happiness is a key characteristic of life. Being single I can't help but notice that single people have this idea that the end of trouble comes at finding that 'special person.' I think I remember feeling this same way (the end of trouble) about graduating high school and coming home from my mission. A sort of "everything is easy from this point on". Needless to say that idea is totally wrong. I don't think there is a point in life where suddenly it's smooth sailing till the end. Here are some examples that things don't get easier. I stayed with some friends in Hong kong who were devastated when they learned they couldn't have kids. I've stayed with other friends who both came from abusive homes and literally took 20 years to get to a healthy point in their marriage. I've seen people in retirement homes who no longer have purpose and are simply trying to not let their spirits whither away with their bodies. I've watched a grown man who I respected all my life cry before my father because he didn't have enough money to buy food for his family. I learn two big things from these experiences that stand out to me now and that I see clearly in this book.

1.No matter how far we've come in life, we are usually presented challenges that push us out of our comfort zone and challenge us to be more than we were before. Intense challenges. It seems to always be the case. It's not that we're doomed to always be going through greater sorrow, so much as that we are constantly presented with greater struggles that can uncover more of what we can become. I think this is the pathway to ultimate happiness. Jeffrey R. Holland once said that our experiencing greater sorrow creates a greater ability to experience and understand joy. It's part of life. It's the path that leads to us attaining the farthest reaches of our potential. These challenges aren't a curse, even though they usually feel that way, but they're the hacksaw cutting at our chains that hold us down to a lower plane. The fact that these trials often approach us even as we approach the dusk of our lives leads me to the next point.

2.This life is not the end. If these trials kept coming through our entire lives and we only met a cold dark grave at it's end, then our existence would be something to mourn about. But I can feel it. I know there is more after this life. I know that great joy is waiting for those who fight through hard trials. I don't understand why those trials are so severe sometimes, but I do know that all things will be mended and all wrongs will be set right at some point in the future. In this life there are days where the only reward is standing clean before your conscience. This is an amazing thing, but sadly not always paired with happiness in this life. The happy ending is not fully present until later. We catch glimpses of it, and we experience parts of it, but the full reward comes after this life. I'm sure there is a supreme happiness that awaits those who have spent their time loving others. I wish I could explain that joy, but I don't even fully understand it, and even if I did I don't think the power to explain it would be given to me.

I see these things in this story. It's kind of amazing. Victor Hugo walks us through the entire lifetime of Jean Valjean who faces problem, after problem, with happiness almost always followed by more struggles and more danger. These things plague Jean and follow him all the way to his death. It sounds tragic, but his death was painted as something beautiful. We often shrink a little at the idea of death, but I think that's mostly because we haven't died before. I think for people who have tried to live their lives in line with their conscience, it's an amazing and happy thing.
Anyways, Really good book. I think this counts as one of the 'best books' we're counseled to study from in Doctrine and Covenants 88.

Chawaii Round 1 - Sanya at 6:30 AM

What is Chawaii you may ask? It's Hainan! The beautiful Southern Island province of China! I've so often told people it's like a Chinese version of Hawaii that we just started calling it Chawaii after a while. This is were I went after Guangzhou.

We hopped on an overnight sleeper train that took us straight there. What I didn't realize is that the train didn't take us all the way there. I had looked on google maps and saw that the train route went over the water so I assumed that they had built a bridge for the train. Wrong. During the night, I wake up to these huge "KACHUNK KACHUNK" noises.
It's like someone is unhooking the train cars. It's 2 or 3 in the morning, so all I can think is 'Keep it down man! I'm trying to sleep! Insensitive punks...'
The next morning I didn't really think about it, but when we got off the train, my friend Matt said,
"Did you hear them unhooking the train cars last night?"
"What? No way. Why would they do that?"
"I'm pretty sure they put the train cars on a ferry and hooked them back together on the other side."
"But that's crazy!"
"I'm pretty sure. I looked out the window and there were train cars NEXT to us. Like inches away."
"Whoa!..."

So I went on to google maps later and switched it to satellite images. Ya, there's no bridge. And I never got off the train until I was in Sanya. Talk about awesome. I was in a train ON A FERRY! (this was confirmed on the train ride back)
Now that I've exercised my bragging rights....

Sanya is a city in Hainan on the south east coast. It's a big tourist spot for Russians. Talk about weird. Everything was written in Chinese and Russian instead of Chinese and English. All I could think was, 'Where's Mark Caldwell when you need him...'

So, the pictures. Here's the Lowdown.
1st pic
Sanya is beautiful. Nice beaches. Good weather. It was awesome to walk around in Shorts after freezing my buns off at home in Lingling. The Fauna was AWESOME and beaches even more so. This picture is a building right outside the Hostel that was run down and hasn't been used for a while (That happens a lot in China) and had some really amazing plants and vines growing up it.

2nd pic
These ladies were EVERYWHERE. Just hoping you'll buy some fruit from them. Obviously they make enough money to subsist or they wouldn't be there. The wierd thing is that sometimes they would assume we were Russian tourists and try to use the small Russian they knew to get us to buy stuff. Ya, that's gonna work. Most of them were pretty well humored and really nice, but ya, lots of people selling things on the side of the street. It's pretty common everywhere in China except for the big cities.

3rd pic
So I have these jeans I love that tore on the knee a while ago, but It's hard to find good jeans here so I keep wearing them. Plus I hate shopping, and I don't have loads of money and these still work, even if they're a little run down. It's funny because I think most Chinese people think I am or am trying to be fashionable for wearing them. Almost like I bought them with the tears in them or added them there myself, but they're legitimately old. My favorite line from one of my students in Lingling goes like this.
"Oh! Mr. Sam! Your pants are very cool! They are so fashion!"
I don't know what I'll do when I go back to America and being white isn't enough to make me 'cool'. (I'm not being racist, that's actually how China works. Weird I know...)
Also, I've shaved my Goatee since then, but i like the look.

Pics 4 and 5.
Love the beach.

Guangzhou Bhuddist Temple at 5:18 AM

Guangzhou Ancestry Hall at 5:11 AM

Guangzhou at 5:03 AM

As some of you know, I was recently released into the wild. My first semester of teaching ended around the 22nd of January and I've been on rampaging around Southern China ever since. Although this is definitely one of the more rugged vacations I've ever taken. I took a shower for the first time in about 3 days tonight and it was legitimately just because I haven't been able to. (Scoff if you want, but let it be known I love showers. At a scout camp I obtained the nick name "Mr. Clean." Not because of my ridiculously muscular body, but because I often took two or three showers a day. It just feels nice. Anyways...)

So, I got to Guangzhou on the 23rd of January with my friends, Matt and Kristal Carter, and spent about three days there. The pictures above will let you know that this place is awesome. Sorry mom, couldn't find a zoo, but don't worry, I'm pretty most Chinese zoo's are similar to what you remember. We did have church in our hostile, (online) and we basically wandered the city for a few days. Guangzhou kind of reminds me of Seattle. It was overcast, green, slightly humid, and beautiful. It was the kind of city you're happy to just wander around in for a few days. Which we did.

The first few pictures are of a huge city park we played in. It had a lake, with boats. We rented one and much joy followed. It had a lot of gardens, which were splendid. It had a tower with cannnons (cannons are cooler than towers, hence the picture of the cannon and not the tower), and it had places to exercise. In one of these we found this man, probably in his 60's, doing gymnastics, I wonder if he realizes he's not a teenager. At this point I want to talk about old people in China for a minute. They are amazing. They're happy, strong, spry and alert. I could be wrong, but from what I can guess, the grandparents stay in good shape because they usually have a strong hand in the raising of grandchildren. In America our kids see their grand parents occasionally, in China, I think some kids see their parents occasionally. I think this sense of purpose helps Chinese people stay stronger longer. That and some other things, which maybe I'll write a blog about later...

(The pictures described after this will be in one or two more posts)
Anyways, we also went to some awesome ancestral Hall that was just cool to walk around in. You'll notice two things. One there is a guy in a black leather vest in one or two pictures. His name is Simon, he just kind of tagged along with us for a day or two. He's from Switzerland and he's a really nice guy, and that's not just cause he gave us some Swiss chocolate. Two in one of the pictures we're in a nice garden and there is a really run down apartment in the background. This is kind of normal in China.

Lastly we randomly found a huge bhuddist temple and spent a minute talking to the Monks. That's Matt and Simon in the picture talking to them.

The verdict is Guangzhou rocks. I'll make another post just of a few more pictures of stuff we found.

Beards, Birthdays, and Consolations at 5:20 AM

So, about 2 or 3 weeks ago, I wrote some sad sappy email about how I'm basically devoid of human contact and happiness for the month of January. This has turned out to be totally false. And I'll tell you why.

1. I grew a Beard and it was awesome.
I have never grown out a beard. Before my mission, I didn't have enough facial hair power points. I tried to grow one, but failed dismally. During my mission, I had to be clean cut and clean shaven, so even if I could have grown a beard, It wouldn't have mattered. It was the same at BYU. Then I came to China. Where not only was it ok, but the other teachers encouraged me to have a beard. So I tried it out. I basically didn't shave for the month of December and I loved it. I really don't know if it looked presentable, but it was really fun. It was mostly blond and red and it was surprisingly comfortable.

Don't worry Mom/girls in general. I doubt I'll ever let my beard just grow like this ever again. Since I took these pictures I've trimmed it up quite a bit, and I'll shave all of it off completely when I go to the temple in Hong Kong in a few weeks, but it made me really happy to try it out for a short time. Plus Luke Liu says it makes me look more manly and my students said I looked very "fashion". I love China.

2. I had a Birthday.
I've never needed big birthdays. All I need is to see a few friends and have some time to think and I'm happy. Which is what I had. The random picture of the guy with the card is Matt Carter. I spent the day before my birthday with him, his wife, and the Rygg family in Dong'an (a local city) and it was really fun. We didn't even do a whole lot, but they're good friends and it was a great day to spend a birthday.

3. I got some love in the mail.
My family sent me hot chocolate (and other things), which a couple weeks ago was exactly what I needed. During December and January, it was really cold in my Lingling (my city). Not just cold, I mean really cold.
Here are some ways you can know I'm not being a sissy-
   A. I got used to not being able to feel my feet.
   B. I couldn't sleep in my bed, cause the heater in my bedroom didn't work to well. (slept on the couch in the front room, I don't trust the floor in China)
   C. China doesn't have insulation. So if it's cold outside, it's cold inside. So instead of going from a warm apartment to a warm car, to a warm classroom like I did in college. Here I go from a cold apartment, to a cold class room. I honestly don't know how my students handle it.

This sounds like a horrible winter, and it was. But for me it was fine, because I had hot chocolate. =) Thanks mom.

4. I learned a lot of Chinese
I got a lot of studying done the last few weeks. Not nearly as much as I'd like to, but I'm still improving so I'm happy.

Now, I'm 26. I finished my last month of classes before the winter holidays, and it was great. Onward with Vacation. Hoorah.

Kiss Loneliness Goodbye at 10:44 PM

Well, to be honest, I haven't kissed anything goodbye lately, or anything at all, but that's not the point! The point is, I wrote some long whiney email about how January was going to stink because the other foreign teachers left and because I'd be alone at my school. That was true for about 1 week. Which really wasn't that bad because my students visited me a lot and I learned loads of Chinese. After that week. The Rygg family moved in with me! Talk about killing loneliness. The Rygg's had some troubles with their school and all parties thought it best to change the year long contract into a one semester contract, which meant the Rygg's were heading back to America. The problem with this was they had 2 weeks down time from when the contract was changed, to when their plane flight left China. Answer? Move in with Sam! So I had Jon and Deborah Rygg, and their two children. This = 1 week of pure happiness. (With lots of children crying mixed in.)

After some stressful times at their last school, it was nice for them to just come chill for a week. And it was nice to me because I always came home to a house with people at the end of my day of teaching. Overall great arrangement. The Rygg's headed to Hong Kong on Sunday night, which is perfect, because today I started teaching my last week of classes. Now I'm just cleaning up and getting ready to go on my winter vacation. Rough life I know.

Anyways, I added some pictures of John and Deborah and their kids Alice (Blonde) and Lilian (Baby). We joked that Alice (2yrold) was just a continuation of my dating life in America because sometimes she would run to me and hug me she was so happy to see me, but more often she would tell me to go away.  Like literally, those are some of the few words she can pronounce correctly. Lilian(6 mo.) is probably the best baby in the world, she only cries when things are wrong, and she always wanted to hang out with me. John and Deborah have turned into really good friends. I think it's amazing. No matter how good your friends are, it seems like the Lord always has one or two more in store just around the corner.

Last Thing, I got a new Camera, and I've been playing with the settings. Hence the pictures with only one color in them. I'm pretty happy with the camera to say the least. The one with just Deborah Lilian, I call, "Mother Contemplating Remaining Nap Time"

So basically, I take the Lonely blogpost back, and will replace it with one another blog post tomorrow about how much I loved and still love this month in China.