I am so humbled that I had the chance to return to China a few weeks ago. I visited in October of last year which you can read about here. While there, I fell in love with it's people and culture; China is a fascinating place to be, so I was excited to return. Our same group plus one other gentleman, John, traveled together, and we had two reasons for this trip. First, we wanted to follow up with some of the individuals we met in October. Second, we wanted to see what it would be like for a family, couple or individual to move to a smaller city called Xichang. As in my last post on our trip, I am not going to put all the details or stories in this blog post. However, I would love to talk with you more about this trip, so you can hear some of the great things our God is up to.
We left early on Saturday morning and flew to Detroit. After a couple hours layover, we started the 14 hour flight to Shanghai. Wow, that's a long flight. After a short layover and a changed flight, we continued on to Chengdu. We arrived in Chengdu Sunday evening, checked into our hotel and got some much needed sleep. On Monday morning, we met with our partners in Chengdu to discuss the upcoming trip. We took the afternoon to do some sightseeing. We spent some time at Dufu's Cottage which was beautiful. Dufu was Chinese poet from this area, and he is very highly regarded. It was an interesting place to visit.
On Tuesday, we started our drive South. We took a break in the city of Ya'an to visit the Panda Conservatory. It's always fun to see these beautiful giant pandas!
Some of the steps we faced to see the pandas. We registered about 14,000 steps today. We certainly got our exercise in!
We arrived in Xichang, checked in to our hotel, walked around a bit and got some dinner. This is a city of about 700,000, and it's where many Chinese rockets and satellites are launched from. The beautiful Qionghai Lake is here, and we were looking forward to seeing it. On Wednesday, we split into two groups. Several individuals met with our friends that we met last October. I went with a few people to tour the city and see what it would be like for someone from Atlanta to move there. We visited one of the college campuses as someone would need to be a student to learn the language. Here is their main building where we saw lots of students coming and going.
The walls around campus were really cool as they were lined with famous individuals, and (I'm assuming) quotes from them.
We saw a couple of signs in English which surprised us, but it was neat to see. We didn't see much English in the city.
We visited the library. It was packed with students studying hard.
It was fun to walk all around the campus. Lots of students were on and near the athletic fields, and they were all polite to us. We walked up the mountain behind the buildings where many students had found a quiet spot to study, and we could see beautiful views from there. We even ran into a few other foreign students, so we talked with them for awhile. It was really interesting to see this campus and the students there. We also drove around the city to see about housing opportunities and see what it would be like to live there. We visited a little market selling lots of beautiful red stones. We discovered there is a Wal-Mart in the city, so we stopped in. Sure enough, anything you need is here. Absolutely a livable city.
In the afternoon, we spent time in a coffee house back together as one group. It was nice to see our friends again and hear about what was going on with them.
In the evening we walked to dinner which was nice. This statute was in the road showing the Chinese soldier at peace with a Yi soldier.
There is a large park where people gather in the evenings. I liked how they had one area set up for kids to ride bikes and skate. Chinese children are so precious!
On Thursday, we excited to see more of this city. We spent awhile at the Yi Slavery Museum which told the history and culture of the Yi people. It was fascinating to learn more about them.
The view from the front of the museum. It was beautiful!
That's right, there were monkeys by the gate as we were leaving.
We had lunch that afternoon with a few foreigners who are already living in the city. We wanted to learn about their experiences which have been fascinating. One of the couples recently adopted a precious, almost 6 year old little girl. She met us after lunch, and I fell in love with her! Such a sweetheart. She played with my phone, and I found this picture a little later.
After lunch, we continued with our sight-seeing. We went to an area where many minority Yi people live. They were selling many spices, herbs, medicine and beautiful handmade items; I bought purses for the girls. Here is a picture of the wall to the old city.
On Friday, we made the drive back to Chengdu and on Saturday morning we flew back to Shanghai. From the airport we rode the Maglev which goes 300 km/hr which is about 180 miles per hour! It was a short 7.5 minute ride, but it was neat to do.
We checked into our hotel and met our tour guide for the day, Ting Ting. She showed us all around the city. First we stopped for lunch, and then we started our tour. Unfortunately, it was overcast and a little drizzly but it was still a great city to visit. We spent a lot of time at Yuyuan Gardens which was beautiful. It used to be a private home, but has been converted to a historical site.
Notice the dragon on the wall of this garden. It was crowded here today, but I can see how this could be such a relaxing place to be as a residence.
After the gardens, we visited a silk factory which was really interesting. We learned about the life cycle of a silkworm, how the silk is harvested (see the machine below) and then stretched. We even had a chance to stretch it ourselves.
We spent a good bit of time here because it was fascinating. While here, Walter had the chance to share the gospel with an employee who was helping us by using the Chinese characters for blessings and righteous. It was really neat to hear this, and I'm so glad this opportunity came up. Walter wrote this explanation recently which explains it way better than I can:
(There are) two Chinese characters: 福, which means blessing and 義, which means righteous. 福 (fu) has several important parts, the left side indicates God's involvement, the right side means sky, people and land. So the Chinese concept of blessing is God's involvement our lives. 義 (yi) is two characters put together. The top part is a lamb and the bottom is me. So the Chinese concept of righteousness is a lamb over me: Jesus substitutional death for my sins. These characters are powerful because they communicate a powerful story in the heart language of the people.
After the silk museum, we took a cruise on the Huangpu River. Even though it was overcast, it gave us a great idea of how beautiful and culturally diverse this city is.
On the boat and seeing the sign that reads "I love Shanghai."
We also walked around the Bund area, did a little shopping and visited the French Concession area of the city. We enjoyed dinner and then headed back to our hotel for the evening. On Sunday, we started the 14 hour flight back to Detroit. Again, it was long, but it was smooth and an easy flight. We ended up with a much longer than anticipated layover in Detroit due to mechanical issues on the plane (believe me, I would much prefer to be on the ground than in the air knowing that), but we finally made it to Atlanta at about 1:30 on Monday morning. I was so happy to see Ryan as he picked me up and then the girls the next day!
This was another fantastic and amazing adventure in China. There are so many other details that I didn't write in here that I would love to share with you. Our God is mighty, and it's amazing to see what He is doing in the lovely country. I am so thankful to see what's going on first hand. I hope you will continue to pray with me for the people of this country.
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