[Heavenly, by lance webel]

This is the view of 哈巴雪山 (ha ba xue shan) that we saw Monday morning as we set out from the Tea Horse Guesthouse in Tiger Leaping Gorge.

[Round the bend, by lance webel]

I’ve spent the last 3 days at Tiger Leaping Gorge, quite possibly the most beautiful place that I’ve ever been in my life. In short, I’m awed and rejuvinated.

The trek was difficult at times but was absolutely amazing … we followed a long and winding trail along the side of a mountain, thousands of meters above 揚子江 (the Yangtze River, the longest in China and third longest in the world) and parallel to 哈巴雪山 (a famous snow mountain here in Yunnan).

Photos will follow when I finally get a solid Internet connection (or when I finally stay still for a few days). For now, though, I’m off to Lugu Hu, a big lake on the border of Yunnan and Sichuan provinces, for the next three days!

[High and dry,
by Lance Webel]

There are no clothes dryers in China … as a result, drying clohtes in the damp winter air is nearly impossible.

So I rigged up this intricate clothes-drying system involving a fan, improvised clothesline, two chairs, ironing board, and a rotating space heater.

It worked great for about a month, until the clothesline snapped. Then I decided to try something new … I emptied out a closet and put my space heater in there with the wet clothes (like a mini sauna).

Sure, it might be a terrible fire hazard, but it works like a charm!

From November 16th to 18th 2006, I visited a wonderful little town in the south of China called Yangshuo with Rick, Heidi, Vanni, and Marisa (slideshow, photo set).

We rented bikes and rode through the countryside, floated bamboo boats down the river, and explored a famous cave, saw a fantastic light show on the river, took in some cormorant fishing, got a taste of some minority culture, and had some fun with Yangshuo’s great shopping. If I had time, I would totally go back … and I’d do some rock climbing and go to see the terraced rice fields too. If you come to China, skip Guilin … Yangshuo is a must-see!

Here’s an interesting article on the birth of the iPod. It seems that it was truly a collaborative effort that leveraged some of Apple’s unique technologies to solve existing problems in the digital music world. The stars aligned, money fell from the sky, and good design happened.

“[Apple VP of Industrial Design Jonathan] Ive told the Times that the key to the iPod wasn’t sudden flashes of genius, but the design process. His design group collaborated closely with manufacturers and engineers, constantly tweaking and refining the design. ”It’s not serial,” he told the Times. ”It’s not one person passing something on to the next.”

Tomorrow is my last day of teaching until March 5th. Yep, that’s right … I have five weeks of vacation (for the Chinese New Year, or “Spring Festival”) right around the corner!

To take advantage of this wonderful time, I’ll be heading southwest to the lovely and talented Yunnan Province. It’s well-known as a beautiful place with a deep and rich conglomeration of cultures … and most people who have been there claim that they could’ve stayed indefinitely. I’m guessing that the same might happen to me. I’ll be traveling with various friends (Daisy, Rick, Natalie, Amy, Heidi) and will probably make some new ones along the way too!

After my classes tomorrow, I’ll hop on a bus for Changsha. Then after flying to Kunming tomorrow afternoon, I’ll be taking an overnight bus to Lijiang, where I’ll stay for a couple of days. From there, I’ll visit Shangri-La (sometimes called “Zhongdian”), Tiger Leaping Gorge (a 2-4 day hike to the deepest gorge in the world), and/or Lugu Hu (a beautiful lake on the border of Sichuan Province). Then I’ll head south to Dali and Dali Old Town for a couple of days, go back to Kunming, and finally trek south to Bannan.

That’s the tentative plan for the first 2-3 weeks. After that it’s all uncertain … I’ll probably hang out in Yunnan for another week or so then either head south into Thailand/Vietnam/Laos/Cambodia or head east to Hong Kong/Shenzhen/Macao/Guangzhou. Who knows? I just have to be back in Changsha on March 2nd for our WorldTeach midservice weekend.

One thing is certain … I’m ready to bust this joint!

[Colorful cormorant,
by lance webel]

Now that my Internet connection is finally recovering from last month’s earthquake, I hope to be uploading a boatload of photos in the next few days before I take off for five weeks on the road.

First up is a series of photos of cormorant fishing birds from Yangshuo. These birds are specially trained to dive under the water, catch fish in their mouth, then spit them onto a fisherman’s boat (slideshow, photo set).

It was fascinating to see the fisherman practice this fading art form … and the birds, as you can see, were absolutely beautiful!

Hillary Clinton? Barack Obama? John Edwards? Bill Richardson? Al Gore? John Kerry? John McCain? Rudolph Giuliani? Sam Brownback? Mitt Romney?

Strangely, I’m actually starting to get a bit excited about the 2008 Presidential Election …

<sarcasm>I just finished the best class ever:</sarcasm>

1. It started raining on the way to class and my socks got wet (and I hate wet socks).
2. The teacher before me was fifteen minutes late, running five minutes into my class time.
3. Fireworks were going off approximately 35 of the 45 minutes in the street below. And if you haven’t been to China, you have no idea how loud and constant these several-dozen-meters-long strings of explosives are as they continually erupt with no breath or break. On top of that, four of the windows in this classroom were broken, so there was no way to muffle or dampen the sound. I had to either sit there and wait or literally scream at the top of my lungs.
4. During the ten minutes when fireworks were not going off, loud (and I mean loud) karaoke music was being played in the street on speakers taller than me. It was terrible … and typically Chinese.
5. I don’t want to be mean … but out of twenty classes, this one is by far my “slowest”. They often can’t answer the simplest questions, even with the answers right in front of them. On top of that, they like to talk in Chinese a lot (which is strictly against my rules). So I spend a majority of their class time either waiting patiently for them to shut up (I refuse to get angry with them like their other teachers do) or explaining things in the simplest language ever. During this particular session, I only got about one third of the way through the lesson.
6. To top things off, at the end of class the same teacher (Mr. Latey McLatester) came back … and started huffing and puffing on a cigarette right in my face in the front of the class as I was cleaning up (and as he was grunting some gruff instructions to the students next to him). It was all I could do to refrain from yanking it out of his mouth and chewing him out right there in front of the kids (who I had taught weeks earlier about the danger and stupidity of smoking).

It’s times like those that really make me hate this place. And then I have to stop, collect myself, and be thankful that it doesn’t usually all hit at once.

[Wait … let me try that again.]

It’s times like this that make me really thankful for the graciousness of Chinese people. Not only can they put up with seemingly intolerable situations and people, but I am certain that I am just as annoying to them as they often are to me. And yet they keep pouring generosity on this big, arrogant, monolingual, hairy, funny-looking, capitalistic, overly-competitive, naive, and intolerant foreigner!

Look out, James Bond. Canada (or someone living there) has a spy game of its own … and it’s tracking people from the United States.

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, at least three of their contractors with classified security clearance were found with Canadian coins planted somewhere on their body. Inside these coins were tiny transmitters that could be used to track people … kinda like the U.S. silver dollar on the right (which was used by the C.I.A. to hide film and messages).

They also released information about miniature pen recorders and a foreign chick who seduced an American to get his passwords. Man, I love spy stuff.

I just received the following email from my mother:

Lance,

I thought for sure that you would mention the fact that your parents are coming there to see you (maybe under “family”) in your blog. Wassup?

LOVE,
MOM

Yes, it’s true … my parents have already bought their plane tickets to Beijing … they’re coming to tour around the country a little and see my life in Loudi in the beginning of May (just after they return from a trip to visit my sister in Germany).

I love how adventurous they’re being this year … and I love how excited they are about it. Did my mom really just say, “Wassup?”

Between the endlessly cloudy sky and the dreary rain, the weather here is usually resoundingly depressing. But as I stepped outside this evening I was greeted with a welcome sight … slush!

That’s right … I was totally pumped about the fact that there was slush on the ground … not only because it’s different, but also because I knew that its cousin, snow, was probably close. And sure enough, as I walked further away from my apartment, I discovered big flakes gently falling from the sky! It was snowing!

I don’t care if it’s three weeks late, or if it’s making the roads even more dangerous, or if the polluted air makes it terribly unsafe to eat … it’s actually snowing in Loudi!

During one of my first train rides this year, I met a nice girl from Changsha named “Amander”. We had a pretty enjoyable conversation and ended up trading mobile phone numbers at the end of the trip. Ever since, Amander has been regularly sending me text messages. They’re usually out-of-the-blue, quirkily-formatted, and totally random … and they seem to be getting funnier by the day.

Text Messages from Amander

• How to pronounce the word “psychic”
• In two days later, i will have the final exam
• Did you have the same experience in the nightmare?
• I do not get up. because of my stomach hurting
• What are you doing,now? i didn’t watch tv for a long time
• I feel sad. i just quarreled with my sister
• Can you tell me your expirence of falling in love with a girl? how old are you?
• Can you help me?
• My head was injured
• I read japanese in the bed
• I had excel the number of message that i had ordered.

Even these statues in Xi’an seem to have insight into the truth … how much more can you and I discern the reality of right and wrong?