Her Everest
Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn.Finally, I am updating this thing. We had an unexpected
holiday last weekend because our students all had to take a major country-wide examination. This meant that we were not teaching on Thursday or Friday. Those days also happened to be exceptionally warm and we (Tomas and Rachel, the Swedish volunteers from the Amity Foundation) decided to hike up a couple of mountains around Cheng Xian. The first one (I can't remember the name of it) was a short bike ride outside of town and then a hike halfway up the mountain to a Buddhist temple there. It was an easy half-hour hike and on the way up we came across a bunch of my students going up to see the same thing. We all went together and were greeted by the people who live and keep the temple.
They were very kind and I could actually speak to them with the help of my translators. They seemed to like me quite and we had a good talk. I got out my camera to take a few photos and one of the monks told me not to photograph the altar. I told him that I wouldn't and took pictures of many other things around it. After talking to them for a while, one of the monks nudged me and whispered something to me...he motioned me outside and told me to photograph the altar. It was a bit awkward because I didn't want to make anyone mad, but this guy was being very kind, so I quickly snapped a couple of pictures and scurried away before anyone saw me. We walked back down and bought dinner for our students at a local restaurant. It was so nice that we ate outside and had a good time chatting. It was a pretty good day.
Two days later we took on a much more daunting mountain: Ji Feng Shan, (roughly translates to Chicken Mountain, apparently it looks like a chicken) the largest mountain 'round these parts.
On this trek we had one of the college faculty go with us. He is a Chinese Department teacher named Mr. Ren who has a very good grasp of English and a decent knowledge of American history. We hit it off pretty well. Imagine that! Again, Shell and I went with Tomas, Rachel, and a few English Department students as well. I wasn't so sure Michelle would like the trip. Looking at the mountain, it was rather large and it didn't seem to be something that I thought she would like. I asked her a few times this week if she was sure she wanted to tackle it. She told me, annoyed, that she was going up that mountain.
Turns out that it is about 6,000 feet from base to top and it is some rough climbing in places. Armed with water and some dried fruit we set off early in the morning.
The weather was very nice and we made good ground. All along the way we walked between terraced fields and the small homes of local farmers. It was beautiful country and nice to see how rural China lives.All along the way, we would stop for breaks. These were short and always ended with an overly-enthusiastic "Let's goooooooo!" from Mr. Ren. When we neared the top, we came across more temples, mainly Taoist. The people there were very kind and offered us tea and a place to rest while we ate our food. I happened to meet one of the temple keepers up here too. A very kind-faced, 80 year-old man who liked my camera. I took a picture of him and then showed it to him on the viewer. He was tickled to see it. We took a picture together and then Tomas, Mr. Ren, Smile (a student), and I went to the peak of the mountain. It was like looking at the land from a low-flying aircraft. I could see Cheng Xian, and several other cities for miles around.
Our trip down was much easier, but a little slippery. There is a burgeoning Green movement here in China to combat some of the pollution problems that are cropping up. On the way down, as a way of showing my support for it, I filled a bag full of trash that people left along the trail. Hopefully, the next time the students come up Ji Feng Shan, they will bring along bags of their own and do the same. Every little bit helps, right?
All throughout our journey, Michelle never complained once, even though I was pretty sure she was about dead after the whole ordeal. The fact that she was able to do this was, in a way, much more brave than an experienced climber hiking up a larger mountain; and while I know she didn't do it to impress me or prove anything, that is exactly what she managed to do on this little excursion. She's a pretty tough person.
Pics
Photo 1: The first, easier, mountain that we hiked up. The temple that we visited is about halfway up the mountain on the left side of the photo.
Photo 2: The view from the temple of the first mountain. You can see the road we traveled down to get to the base of the mountain.
Photo 3: One of my students getting her fortune(?) read at the temple. She shook a large container of those small sticks that they are holding and then pulled out three of them. There is writing on them that corresponds to a fortune in the book. I am not sure how the whole thing works exactly, but she did say that she will have good luck.
Photo 4: Dinner time with the students after we came back down. Yum! We ordered 10 different dishes and it cost 88 kuai, or 11 dollars. 11 bucks to feed 10 people! Can't beat that deal!
Photo 5: Ji Feng Shan from the bottom, the tallest peak on the right side is where we ended up.
Photo 6: A farmer plowing his field with an ox at the base of the mountain. No tractors here!
Photo 7: The peak that we are about to climb. It looks like a tower with a temple at the top. Tomas said it looks like something you would see in a movie. I think he may be right.
Photo 8: The 80 year-old man that liked my camera and me. He said he has been living there for 30 or 40 years.
Photo 9: One of the Taoists altars on Ji Feng Shan. There are many of these, each with a different figure in the building. You can see the incense that is burned during prayer.
Photo 10: The view from the very top of the mountain. You can see the farmland for miles around. Quite a view and quite a dropoff!
6 Comments:
Way to overcome being "old" Mr. Ross, if you're not doing that at 80 I'll be disappointed.
I also wrote you a story:
Young Kennedy wiped offhandedly at a rogue tear working its way down his cheek. “Where did Wee Havey Oswold go?” he said in his wee, but masculine voice. Now the tears began to flow, ever since his secret father had been shot, the nice man had taken him under his wing. They went to the zoo and the circus, he even showed little Kennedy how to rattle off three shots from a bolt action rifle in under 5 seconds. Little Kennedy felt his heart beating faster and faster, as the crowd of people began to swirl together while he began sobbing. His cries caught the attention of two teenage hooligans and their gang. Walking over to investigate the vulnerable child, they were stopped short by a police officer, who immediately began searching each adolescent for signs of the reefer madness. Two of them managed to sneak around the officer though, and they began approaching the crying boy, their greedy eyes staring crazily at the young boys hard-earned prize. Further down the crowded street, there stood an abandoned book depository. A sniper sight sparkled in the sunlight as five loud, echoing shots streaked across the landscape. The five hooligans fell to the ground, followed shortly after by the contents of their reefer poisoned heads. The police officer stared around in wonder, searching for the cause of the commotion. Failing to find any evidence, he shrugged his shoulders and walked off. Little Kennedy stepped over the beheaded, bloody corpses as he ran towards his rifle-toting guardian angel.
Hope you got a kick out of that, why shouldn't Kennedy have had a secret second family? And the picture we used as a prompt featured a small lad whos face looked just like JFK.
Happy post-election day. The Democrats have the house... which means Hillary Clinton will probably be our next president. Whoo boy! In 8 years we'll be threatened by South Korea, too!
The view looks awesome from the mountain. I always thought the mountains in Idaho were close, but you can't really look off of one and see your house... unless you've got an $800,000 mansion in the Boise Foothills. =P
I found a guy who's going to school in Shanghai to learn Mandarin and CSL (Chinese Sign Language). It's pretty cool. He's a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults) but he's hearing. So he's learning Mandarin and coupling it with CSL so he can be an interpreter and make tons of money. =P
I would just like to say that I may not have complained outloud, but there was a whole lot of complaining going on in my head!! haha!!
Hi Mr. Ross! I love all those pictures. But my favorite is the one with the old man. He is sooooo cool. So do you miss your favorite student in the world? Well, at least in the US? hahaha. Hope you're having a great day! Well... night... well...I don't know what it is in China right now, but whatever it is, I hope you're having a great one!
Greg: Let's see you have Rasputin and Oswald now. You are on your way to collecting the whole set. Who should be next? Attila, Sirhan Sirhan? How about Ghengis? Good writing though...ya weird kid.
Ashlie: I've seen a few people signing here. Sounds like he has a good plan. I don't think Hillary will be the next president though. She is a bit too controversial to get elected.
Christina: Hi there. Glad you like the pics. They were hard earned that week! Generally speaking, if it is day there it is night here and vice versa. Talk to you later!
The praise is much appreciated Mr. Ross. I'm afraid, however, that a Creative Writing class consisting predominately of Freshman (many of which seemed to have developed a sick attraction to my macabre writing) has only encouraged the darker, more twisted side of my writings. Anything for attention, right?
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