On Friday Sean and I went to Shanghai to pick Emily up - it was so much fun to see her and we are so excited to be able to travel with her!


After late train back to our city we spent the next day just hanging out, walking around campus and then had dinner at Steve's with the other teachers. Her chopstick and squatter toilet skills have improved 100% - once you travel to China you can do anything and go anywhere. She tried duck for the first time and liked the asparagus and pork and curry chicken and potatoes.


The coolest thing about having Emily here is that I have a girl friend to talk to. We have stayed up until 4:30 in the morning talking and catching up. It is awesome - I wish she could stay longer and I'll be really sad to see her go.


Today we slept in and are slowly getting ready to go. Tonight we get on an overnight train to go to Beijing. Before we go to the train station we are going to have dinner with Qin Chen and Zhao Min down town in Changzhou. It feels so good to be done with teaching and to be on vacation - I'm looking forward to traveling to new places this summer.

A couple of weeks ago Matt Redman, the marketing manager for the CIEE Teach Abroad Programs, emailed me and asked if it would be all right if he came and videotaped Sean and I going about our normal life teaching and living in Changzhou. We said it wasn't a problem at all and gave him the emails of the other teachers here who are also from CIEE so they could talk to them too.


Matt and Morgan (film guy) arrived on Thursday morning and after checking in they started taping right away. Matt's goal is to create a short video to promote the teach abroad program in China to other Americans looking to do something different. Currently, the most popular teach abroad program is Spain and Matt wants to show how attractive and adventurous of a choice China is. Morgan filmed us walking all over campus, my apartment, me teaching, Sean teaching, eating lunch at the cafeteria . . . pretty much everything that we do on a day to day on a day to day basis.


One afternoon they interviewed us about why we came to China, our thoughts about living and teaching here and why we decided to come back for another year. I don't think our interview was that exciting but I think it will be fun to see what the final video is and if any of our clips were even used. They also interviewed Peter and came to the world cup pizza party at Ken's place later that night.


I've had a really positive experience with both CIEE study abroad and CIEE teach abroad and would recommend checking them out if you want some guidance in studying or working abroad.

Our second day in Mui Ne we decided to take a sunrise jeep tour of the nearby red and white sand dunes. Our guide picked us up when it was still dark out at around 5am and then we drove for about twenty minutes to get to the white dunes.


It was cool to see the sun rise but what was more fun to watch were the people sliding down the dunes on large sheets of plastic that small children were renting for cheap. The dunes themselves were huge and stretched for miles. Their enormity and beauty were kind of hard to capture on film.


After visiting the white dunes we rode to the red dunes for a very similar experience just with darker colored sand. I made sure to get my dad some samples from each place as he is an avid collector of sand. Our guide warned us to be careful as the sand could get really hot and burn your feet.


Walking around in sand dunes just wasn't the same when there wasn't Lake Michigan around to swim in . . . I'm excited to come home soon and enjoy the beach!

This last week has been crazy busy and filled with grading final exams, watching soccer, goodbye lunches, collecting last paychecks, receiving strange and funny going-away gifts, dinners and parties and much picture taking. Last night some of the teachers from our university as well as from Web went to a rather new bar in town called "Thank Goodness It's Summer" (ie a copied version of TGIF in the U.S.). We had American style burgers and fries and watched soccer - they showed the England game downstairs and the USA game upstairs. It was strange to be in an Applebees style restaurant in Changzhou with odd pieces of flair and decorations around to set the mood. I even found a pair of wooden shoes from Holland! Crazy!


Graduation happens this week on campus which means that students can rent a cap and gown and take pictures in various poses and places around campus. Some of my students from my optional English course came over today to take pictures with me and Sean has had several (kind of stalker-esque behavior if you ask me) female admirers call him to take pictures with them around campus. Picture-taking is a big deal in China as is posing for the pictures. My students taught me a few of the poses but there are also many websites and blogs devoted to them like this one called, appropriately, Asian Poses. It is cool to make the peace sign, form a heart, make a claw, form horns, frame your face, act like a cat.... the list goes on and on. The culture of photography is entirely different here and I am constantly learning new poses or what makes for a quality picture in China. The end of a school year, graduation and going-away parties makes for solid excuses to pose like crazy and snap picture after picture.

After the chaos that is Ho Chi Minh City we were more than ready for the zen of the tiny beach town called Mui Ne. Mui Ne was only three hours north of HCMC so we hopped on a morning bus and were checked into a cheap hostel and on the beach by 2pm.


Besides relaxing, sunbathing and eating seafood, the most popular thing to do in Mui Ne is go kitesurfing or windsurfing. Since it looked a little technically difficult and crazy intense, we opted to watch the surfers get thrown around by the wind and waves from the beach instead. For the amateurs that wanted to give it a try there were several "kite schools" in business on the beach who would happily give you lessons and let you use their equipment.


The daredevils put on quite a show and there were many people taking pictures and videos of some of the better performances which included twists, jumps, flips and tricks.


After a fish dinner, we checked out a small coffee shop that had advertised live music for that night and stayed to listen until the evening swarm of mosquitoes drove us back to the hostel for bed.

Awhile back Sean bought a tiny grill, some charcoal and some hotdog-ish and hamburger-ish looking things at Walmart. Grilling in China isn't exactly popular but since it was summer and the school was on Dragon Boat Vacation we decided to try a small barbecue.


The preparations were a little tricky because you can't exactly find hotdog and hamburger buns and only a few of the common condiments are available. The bread we did manage to find was sweet bread which made mouthfuls of hamburger and hotdog very . . . interesting. Sean was excited to sit on his tiny Chinese stool while manning the very tiny Chinese grill. Our Chinese guests were definitely intrigued by the whole process and Steve even brought some fish and tofu to grill. If nothing else, the mosquitoes enjoyed the evening by ravenously feasting on everyone.



After a tasty dinner of hotdogs, hamburgers, watermelon, chips and beer we headed inside to play card games and eat ice cream. Grilling out made me miss home and though the tastes weren't exactly up to par with American bbq, it was nice to be outside with friends sitting around a grill. I'm excited to be going home in about a month to be able to taste turkey burgers, lemon pepper catfish, grilled vegetables, shish-kebabs and bread that's not sweet.

We spent our last day in Ho Chi Minh City touring more of the war sites and touristy places including the Reunification Palace and the Cu Chi Tunnels.


We spent the morning on a group tour of the Cu Chi tunnels a little ways outside of town. The tunnels are a popular tourist destination because you can actually see where and how the Viet Cong lived during the war. The tour includes a tour of the subterranean web of hospitals, kitchens and armouries that at one time stretched from Saigon to the Cambodian border. In the region that we visited alone there were more than 200 km of tunnels.


During the tour we saw a short film explaining life in the tunnels and then were able to try moving through one. It was hot, tiny, claustrophobic and dark and I was definitely ready to get out of it even after crawling for only 50m. During the war, the Viet Cong lived underground in these tunnels and practiced guerrilla warfare against the enemy. They were able to move around and attack unseen and pop up in new places and disappear unexpectedly by using and living in the tunnels like rabbits or prairie dogs. To give you an idea of travel time, our guide said that on average it took about 4-5 hours to travel 5km in a tunnel because of how difficult it was to see and move. Our tour guide also showed us several gruesome jungle-style booby traps used against the enemy.


After making it back to the city and having lunch, we explored the Reunification Palace which was built in 1966 to serve as South Vietnam's presidential palace. It is known for being the famous place where the communist tank crashed the gate in April 1975 when the city of Saigon surrendered. We were able to tour many rooms and almost every floor of the building including the basement and roof.


A little tired of learning about the war and how cruel and destructive the American enemy was, Sean and I were ready for a change. We booked bus tickets to leave the next morning for a city on the coast and further north. The beach is always a good remedy for intense history lessons in large doses.

It's Tuesday today and we are in the middle of the Chinese Dragon Boat Festival. This means that there are no classes Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Sean and I opted not to travel and instead have been staying busy on campus. On Monday we went downtown to buy some gifts for friends, family and weddings since we are going home soon. Today I have been busy trip planning and cooking and tomorrow I will probably head to the library to finish up some grading, exam writing and lesson planning.


Awhile back I had asked our Chinese friend Steve and his family to come over for dinner since they have had all of us teachers over multiple times. We promised them American food and they wanted to come over to watch us make it (Spring, Steve's wife, specifically requested the stuffed mushrooms that Sean made at Thanksgiving). Sean came over to help cook and I did most of the baking. With Spring and Steve's help we made stuffed mushrooms, cornbread, tuna noodle casserole and truffle brownies. While their middle school child, Michael, played on the computer, the rest of us had a good time cooking and chatting. Spring had brought some plants (mugwort and calamus I think) which she attached to the outside of my door specifically for Dragon Boat Festival that she said would ward away evil spirits.


Dinner was great; attitudes towards the cornbread were iffy but the mushrooms and the casserole were devoured immediately. After dinner Sean, Steve, Michael and I played games. We taught them how to play Uno, Scrabble Slam and Five Crowns and had a blast. Michael is very competitive and Steve gets overly excited during games (especially learning new ones) so it was pretty entertaining. However, the biggest entertainment of the evening for me was Spring who is an absolute riot. Spring can't speak much English but that doesn't stop her from trying to communicate with us in Chinese nonstop. Mostly she wanted to talk to me about 'qi' ("life force" - pronounced 'chee') and bodily aches and pains.


After dinner she said she had a backache and when I offered her aspirin she was horrified and adamantly commanded me to stop taking pills myself. The rest of the evening she offered me practical tips on how to stay healthy and have better 'qi' in more natural and traditional ways. These tips involved drinking lots of tea with very hot water, staying away from the air conditioners and fans (Spring refused to let us play cards with the air or the fan on), getting massages (she can recommend a few good masseuses who can definitely improve my 'qi') and inreasing circulation while decreasing tension by smacking/slapping different parts of my body with my hands and any other object readily available. She didn't want to play any games so while the rest of us were playing cards, Spring was walking around while repeatedly hitting herself (as an act of self-massage), chatting on the computer or giving me different massages. Steve and Michael didn't even bat an eye or give her a second look - this was Spring being completely herself and I was fascinated.


Spring isn't the only Chinese person to do this kind of self-massage by hitting or slapping. You can see many older Chinese people doing similar movements in the park in the morning or while working out - it's completely normal and good for your 'qi.' Overall the night was a success and everyone went home happy and full - and hopefully with better 'qi' and less evil spirits as well! Happy Dragon Boat Festival everyone!

Lonely Planet calls Ho Chi Minh City a city "on constant fast-forward with the volume cranked all the way up" and I couldn't agree more. If the the chaotic and crazy traffic of the ever-present and loud zooming motorbikes and taxis doesn't overwhelm you even a little bit than the clusters of people on street corners and sidewalks eating pho (common noodle dish) or drinking bia hoi (fresh beer) might. Crossing the street here was even more terrifying than in China and we usually tried to walk next to or directly behind a local who knew what they were doing. Incredibly, it is true that if you attempt to ignore the busy street and walk slowly and deliberately across, the traffic avoids you and literally parts like the Red Sea (usually). Even with lots of practice in China, crossing crazy streets this way (and it is really the only way) I still find myself starting to sweat a little bit and mumbling prayers. I read that during each year there are over 10,000 deaths due to mopeds and over 20,000 injuries.

Our first day we spent walking around the city and doing some of the more touristy things. We tried pho, which is a very tasty and traditional beef noodle dish, and we went on a cyclo ride that toured some of the major streets in the city. While walking around we saw many Vietnamese people were wearing the large, cone-shaped straw hats because of the heat.


The main activity during the day was visiting the War Remnants Museum which chronicled the events of the Vietnam War (or American War as it was named in Vietnam). It was really strange viewing a museum which portrayed my home country as the enemy. After a couple of hours of graphic pictures and horrific descriptions of Napalm and Agent Orange I was ready to get out of there. Lonely Planet says that it documents "the atrocities of war . . . is heartbreaking . . . and is not for the faint of heart." Yep. I would say that is pretty accurate. Even after spending just two days in southern Vietnam I have learned loads more history than I ever learned in the classroom - and it is the kind of history that sticks with you.


That night it was the eve of the lunar new year or Tet (a very big deal) and coincidentally it was also Valentine's Day. Sean and I celebrated by grabbing a table early on a rooftop bar so we could see the fireworks at midnight. Our first taste of Vietnamese spring rolls with some Saigon beer to wash them down really hit the spot. Cheers to the new year of the tiger!

Today Sean and I signed a contract to teach another year at Jiangsu Teachers University of Technology. There is still so much to see and learn about in China that only spending one year just isn't enough. This year went by so fast and I am excited to be able to come back for another one. The hardest thing will be being away from family and friends again. I am ready to go home for the summer and we fly in to Grand Rapids July 14. I am so excited to see my parents, eat American food, go to the beach, hang out with friends and go to some weddings and family reunions.

Since I have gotten to know the other teachers pretty well I thought I would take a moment to let you know what they will be doing next year.

Jordan will be teaching another year at our university as well and we feel pretty lucky that he is sticking around.

Ken will be participating in the Peace Corps and as far I know his current placement is teaching English in the Pacific Islands.

Peter will be attending graduate school in theology in Chicago (maybe he can come up for some beach time in Holland sometime soon!)

Daniel will be teaching English in China but has decided to try a different location. His new placement is in the west of China which is completely different in many ways from the more urban and developed eastern coast of where we are now. His placement is in Xinjiang province and he explains a little more about it on his blog. Hopefully we can come visit!