Xi'an and the Terra Cotta Warriors

Hello again....it has been a while since I have last written and I have a lot to say and share. To begin, this last week-end I left the SIAS campus to go with Susan and Kim(she is Director of the Academy program) to Xi'an which is where the terra cotta soldiers were discovered.  The trip started early on Saturday morning at the train station to board the high-speed train for a two hour journey to Xi'an.  The train was launched this past February and travels at a speed of approximately 170mph.  What fun it was to whiz by the countryside at a record speed and feel like you were sitting in the comfort of your living room.  It was so smooth and comfortable and I loved it!! We were met at the station by our tour guide Peter who watched over our stay at Xi'an. Peter is from this city and is so filled with pride about its history.  He is self taught in the English language and a very wise soul even though he is probably only in his early 30's.  He shared the city history and his Chinese culture in a beautiful and deeply moving way.  The pride he feels about Chinese history is inspiring and I have seen this feeling of strong nationality throughout my visit in China.  He spoke about America and how it has wings like a bird that moves quickly and fast. China, on the other hand, he visualizes as a strong tree with deep roots implanted firmly into the ground.  These roots he explained grounded the people to its history and its people. We found the terra cotta soldiers to be facinating and very much set up for tourists. There is a lot of building around the soldiers to support the high number of tourists that visit this site each day.  After our visit to the soldiers, which took around three hours to see along with a museum which is at the site, we went off to dinner.  By this time we were pretty tired and feeling rather filled with giggles and the need to sleep.  Anyway we were taken to a dumpling restaurant that served these dough shaped critters with everything but the kitchen sink!  One of the dumplings we were told had pickles inside and we passed on those.  Their was a dance performance as well as we were getting more silly by the minute.  After not liking dinner all that much I turned to the girls and said "what I wouldn't do for a piece of chocolate" and Kim responded by taking a package of M&M's out of her purse.  We laughed so hard at the situation and how here we were in China chowing down on a good old American product. Boy was it good!!!! Forget the dumplings!  The show was good but boy were we tired.

The next day Sunday, it rained and all we wanted to do was stay out of the rain and be warm and dry.  The rain let up on the afternoon in time to go to the Muslim market and spend all of our money.  There were a multitude of booths selling food.  The smells and colors all made for a wonderful afternoon.  We shopped till we dropped and only left because we ran out of the money we had brought with us. I love market places and delight in the people and the bargaining that goes on to make a sale happen.  I actually have gotten so much better at walking away from a purchase as though I couldn't care less.  Whatever the price you get quoted you have to think at least dividing the price in half or a third.  Out of money and back to the train for another ride on the speed train.

Our third week has begun and we continue to watch the girls grow each day.  We have learned most of their names and are starting to know them well as they continue to share themselves with us.  Our leadership classes continue and this week we are going over more sexual information including safe sex and intimacy issues.  They seem to be getting more comfortable with the information and hopefully will understand the importance of setting up safe boundaries. Today, Wednesday, I did a lecture to about 700 students on the topic of HIV-AIDS.  I was concerned about how delicate this might be for the students as discussion of this is kept quite closeted in their culture.  Ahead I went and it went really well.  I was surprised when I got questions on topics relating to HIV that were pretty personal in nature.  After that lecture it was off to speak to the nursing students about being a nurse.  These girls were very anxious to know about nursing in America and had many questions mostly of which were personal in nature.  The message and concern that gets repeated relates to managing stress and the number of responsibilities that they have to manage being in school.  Because of the numbers of population in China, competition is great for both finding a graduate school to be accepted in to or finding a job.  The evening class was on Fear and Susan did a great job of getting the students to process how fear could be better managed in their lives.  It has been a long day but I couldn't let another day go by without speaking with you.  So I will say good-night and write again tomorrow for there still is a lot to say.