So I need to pick a new cell phone carrier now, and I need your advice. I’ll probably want a basic plan … nothing more than $40/month … and I’ll definitely get the cheapest (or free-est) phone that is offered. It’s just too bad that you have to sign a two-year contract in this country (unlike China, where mobile phone users outnumber people in the U.S.).

After glancing at offerings from the major carriers, it appears that Sprint and AT&T have the best deals. For $39.99, Sprint currently offers 450 minutes, unlimited night and weekends starting at 7pm, and free calls to Sprint phones. For the same price, AT&T offers 450 minutes, 5000 night and weekend minutes starting at 9pm, free calls to AT&T phones, and automatic rollover of unused minutes.

So here’s where I need your help. Do you have good or bad experiences with either of these companies? Which is better … unlimited earlier nights and weekends or free rollover minutes? Is it worth jumping on AT&T now so I am ready in the future for a possible switch to an iPhone?

Help!

Well, I’m now home, safe and sound in Cincinnati. The trip wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Sure, it was long … but it seemed like a piece of cake compared to my countless experiences on Chinese trains this year. I guess that I’ve been toughened up!

I flew from Changsha to Beijing to Los Angeles to Charlotte to Lexington. And when I finally arrived at the Lexington Bluegrass Airport, I was delighted to find both Rob Lansdale and Kelli Faust waiting there to greet me! They helped me cart my things to the car … to Louie, my Mazda who I had missed so dearly. Then all four of us hopped on I-75N to Middletown.

Along the way, we stopped at Applebee’s for lunch (how glorious!), the bank and License Bureau in Middletown (to transfer Louie back into my hands), and Rob’s parents’ home. We then made a trip out to Pleasant Vineyard, where they were in the middle of their last week of camp … and let me tell you, it was awesome to see those people and that place. Then we had dinner at Great Steak and Potato Company before parting ways.

I then drove down to Cincinnati to the Outzs home … I’ll be renting a room from this family until I find a more permanent place to live. It was so fantastic to take a nice hot shower. And it looks like it’ll be a great place to crash and get my head on straight while I’m adjusting to American life.

In the next four days, I’ll be running all around Cincinnati, assembling my life. Tomorrow I’ll get a cell phone, arrange my financial life, update my address, and find some car insurance. But first, for the first time in four days, I’m going to bed. In a real bed.

Good night!

On this, my last day in China, I am full of conflicting feelings and thoughts … I’m exhuasted, excited, relieved, sad, saturated, hungry, confused, enlightened, encouraged, and humbled. I’ve been getting more and more sensitive to the little “annoyances” of this place and more and more comfortable with western food, friends, and thought processes.

In the meantime, I’ve been trying to be very careful to tie up loose ends on this side … which can be hard given the huge number of amazing people and situations I’ve encountered this year. Come tomorrow, I’ll be done … whether I’m done or not … and I feel good about it.

Then again, I’ve never really been good at conclusions.

The trip home, a thirty-six hour purgatory, should actually be a great time to just sit, reflect, rest, and reconnect. I’ll use some of the time to finish my grad school portfolio and work on some photos … but for most of it I’ll probably just stop.

Yeah. Stop.

I was just sitting here lamenting the fact that I don’t have enough time to tell you much about my horseback trip to Songpan last week. Then I checked my email and found that one of my traveling companions sent me an excellent narrative about her experience on the trip!

So, without further ado, here is the Songpan story, as told by the lovely and talented Kelly Foley!

From Xian, I called an old friend from college who some of you may know, Lance Webel. He has been teaching English in China this past year … and ironically was flying to Chengdu that weekend (where I was going) to meet two of his teaching friends (Mary Claire and Rick, who is from my hometown of Hudson, Ohio). They were planning to go on a 3-day horse trek in northern Sichuan, so I joined them (Gracias Sarah P. for connecting us together!).

We left on the morning of the 16th for Songpan, a ~10 hour bus ride north, which mostly included driving on some intense roads in the mountains. Although I had been sick and now was at serious altitude (~3000m), I was relieved to get out of the big Polluted Chinese Cities! Also, my excitement of being in the mountains and just feeling ‘free’ helped me forget any ailments!

On Tuesday morning, we joined ~26 others (including the guides) for a 3-day horse trek in the mountains. Participants included people from China, Taiwan, France, Canada, and us 4 from the US. Pictures snapping, leg muscles gripping, building a relationship with each of our hairy animals (i.e. the horses), we quickly left the town of Songpan and made our way up into the ‘hills.’ These hills had all been, for the most part, stripped of their trees with very few replacements planted to encourage re-foresting. The view was spectacular! And although I usually don’t like fabricated experiences, I did very much enjoy riding the horse with good company and great views.

Getting into camp ~4 hours later, the guides quickly unloaded the horses, put bells around their necks, and set up our tents on the grounds where the horses just relieved themselves (awesome-sarcasm). The camp sight was lovely, however, the sanitation situation was quite, hummm, what should I say, hummm, oh yes-disgusting (sorry, L, R, MC,…I had to say it). Many of the horses quickly hit the ground doing back rolls to relieve them of their itches from the heavy loads. Then, one of the guides left with the horses up some trail and we didn’t see them until much later.

Mary Clair, Lance, and I took off down-river for a hike and to stretch our legs from riding. We arrived back to camp just as the skies opened up and we dove into the tents to avoid the rain. The guides worked quickly to direct the water away from the tents. Just as dinner was ready (cabbage and noodles), the rain completely stopped! That evening was spent with the 4 of us playing cards in the 2-person tent while some of the guides and some of the French got drunk and sang loudly, which was more like yelling.

Waking up on Wednesday morning, my whole body felt like it had been run-over-by-a-truck, but moving slowly I worked my way up and out of the tent. We ate a breakfast of fried dough and boiled potatoes, then mounted the horses and road towards ‘Ice Mountain.’ Trotting en masse through the flat surfaces, all of were relieved to have a change of pace from following in-line on the trails. Climbing high on the trail, some of the people saw a monkey, at which the guides decided to throw stones. Reaching a leveled surface on the side of the mountian our group (horses et. al.) took a break. Rain started coming down so most of us took cover in an abandoned house while the guides made a fire. The rain was light and several of us started hiking up without the horses. This was my playground! The last time I remember frolicking on high mountain trails was in Nevada on a Geology field trip, it had been way too long! Nearing another flattened area well above tree line we took a break to wait for others hiking up.

Low-and-behold, ALL the horses came up over the horizon. The guides brought them up b/c another group of horse riders came up riding their horses. Initially with the rain, I don’t think the guides were planning on bring up the horses. We mounted the horses and road higher. The sedimentary rock layers were beautiful! Having horses climb a narrow and steep trail of fallen rock chunks (mostly shale), I was quite nervous, however, we made our way higher and higher and finally reached the mountain lake, which I am assuming was our plan. It was very difficult to know what was going on because the communication was nil, however, the guides were good and I could see that they cared.

We mounted the horses to take a look at the lake and rest, then the horses walked solo while we hurridly headed downhill following their lead. Part of the way down the trail we mounted the horses and rode back down the mountain, through the Tibetan village in the valley, and back up through another valley to our camp. Being a part of the horses ‘fight’ for lead horse was intense. Many of the horses nipped as Wa-Ma, my horse, tried to pass.

Back at camp we had dinner, played cards, and went to sleep. The next day we were driven out of our tents at 7am for breakfast so we could eat, pack, and head out. The weather for the trip out was magnificent! We took a different path out and along the way stopped at a Tibetan monastary for a look around. It was sad pulling into town, dismounting, and saying bye to the horses. I could have kept going for several weeks!

From Songpan, Lance, Mary Clair, and Rick headed back to Chengdu and I headed north to a National Heritage park (Jiuzhaigou). I headed back to Chengdu the day after (Saturday) and met up with Lance, Mary Clair, and Rick for one more evening and dinner at Peter’s Tex Mex (who knew, ‘Tex Mex’ in China!). Sunday, I went to the Panda Research Station with Grahm, one of Lance’s friends. Dinner was at the Shamrock Bar (again, who knew, ‘Irish’ food in China!). Of course you can find “Western Food” here, I’m just being cheeky.

So there you go. A brief summary of my past week. Hope all is well with all of you.

Spoken so much better than I could’ve. Thanks, Kelly.

Indeed, the trip was fantastic … maybe even more pristine and beautiful than my previous favorite, Tiger Leaping Gorge. Skippy (my horse) and I formed a solid relationship, cantering in some open fields and putting some of the other horses in their place. And it was nice to simply be out in the elements … even if I did spend three days in the pouring rain at 3500m with nothing but a pair of half-broken sandals.

T’was spectacular!

Well I have one week left in China. I’ll be boarding my eighteen hour train from Chengdu in less than an hour. Then, after spending a day tying up loose strings in Loudi, I’ll head back to Changsha (and maybe Yueyang again?) for the grand finale. I’m trying to be very careful with my time and energy, so forgive me if I don’t let y’all in on every detail. It’s seems like you’re all pretty busy too, so I don’t feel bad about it.

Just trust me … everything’s going really well.

Hey guys … I just wanted to let you know that I’m alive and well. I’m in Chengdu now, back from an awesome horseback trip in northern Sichuan province. But my food has just arrived at the cafe I’m at, so I’m gonna go eat. I’ll jump online again in the next couple of days and update y’all a little more, ok?

When I took this photo during my orientation last August, I instantly knew that I would eventually end up using it to illustrate the end of my journey here in China.

This year has been saturated with amazing experiences … but I’m looking forward to stepping out of this narrow path and into the light!

My cousin Erica has encouraged me to write more stories online. She’s right … my busyness and disinterest lately have turned this blog into a blahg. Hopefully this choice morsel will help.

A couple of days ago, I was going to the post office to mail two packages back to America (a four-hour ordeal that deserves its own story). I carried one of the packages to the front gate of my school, returning a couple of minutes later to retrieve the second package. When I entered my apartment through the door that I had left ajar, however, I heard someone moving in my bedroom.

Now in America, I would have been pretty cautious and “smart” in this situation. In China, however, I’ve become pretty bold … I’m generally bigger, stronger, and louder than everyone else, so I’m rarely afraid of confrontations. Plus, people simply don’t have guns. So I immediately walked toward my bedroom to take care of the problem.

As I entered my office, I saw a little girl, about 6 or 7 years old, pulling up her shorts and underwear. Ok … weird. I looked at her face to try to gauge what was happening, and I saw that she was a little surprised, but not scared at all … in fact, she was smiling pretty broadly, like she was proud of herself.

Then I looked down and saw the puddle.

Yeah … this random little girl was grinning because she had just had peed on the floor in the middle of my office! I was pretty helpless … I couldn’t ask her any questions or talk to her about it or anything. So I took her hand and said, “wo men zo” (let’s go), walking her outside towards the front gate of the school, where I was going to try to explain to the guards what had happened and find out where she belonged.

During our walk, I noticed that her demeanor was calm … she still wasn’t frightened at all, as most children would be when “caught” like that, especially by a foreigner. She just looked around and smiled. In a way, her behavior actually reminded me the children with autism who I worked with in college.

As I tried to empathize with her bizarre behavior, we rounded a corner and ran into a man who I could immediately tell was her father. He asked her where she had been (she didn’t answer) then thanked me profusely. And that was that. All I could do was walk home and continue my day, as if nothing had ever happened.

At least I hadn’t yet given away my mop. Or my bleach.

Well, after a few days of careful piece-by-piece assembly, I’ve successfully upgraded webeldotnet to WordPress 2.2.1. I don’t think I have the Spam Karma problem solved yet, but at least we’re online. Eventually you should start to see some small changes to the interface and features that are on here … but for now, I’ve got more important things to do.

Like what? Well, I’m packing up and moving out right now … because tomorrow will be my last day in Loudi, my hometown. Before I leave, I’m going to do a photo shoot around town, clean up my apartment, say goodbye to some friends, and hand over the keys to my school. It’s hard to believe, but this chapter in my life is almost over!

I’ll go to visit my cousins in Yueyang (northern Hunan province) on Saturday, then fly to Chengdu (Sichuan province) on Sunday night. From Chengdu, I will probably go on a horse trekking trip to Songpan (northern Sichuan) with a couple of friends (Rick and Mary Claire) for 4-5 days.

Then, on the 23rd, I’ll meet Grahm and Tennom (my Tibetan friend) to go visit Tennom’s family, some nomads who luckily are living in Qinghai right now (if they were in Tibet it would be highly illegal to visit). We’ll make an appearance at a huge horse race festival there (Hidalgo?) on the 25th too … it’s going to be quite the experience!

My five day trip home starts on July 28th … I’ll take a 36 hour bus to Chengdu then fly to Changsha, Beijing, Los Angeles, Charlotte, and Lexington. After that, it’s a 2 hour drive to Grayson and 4 more hours to good old Cincinnati!

The corruption of Hunan Province officials is once again in the international spotlight … this time because of their flouting of China’s official population control (”one child”) policy.

As many as 1,968 officials in central China’s Hunan Province have been found breaching the nation’s one-child policy between 2000 and 2005, the provincial family planning commission said Friday.

Also exposed by the commission are 21 national and local lawmakers, 24 political advisors, 112 entrepreneurs and six senior intellectuals.

In some of those cases, the heavy fines were actually enforced, but rich people decided to have kids anyway and just pay up. But in many of those cases, the people simply felt (correctly) that they were above the law, so they just ignored it and kept having babies … with no punishment at all.

Loudi City (where I live) was pointed out specifically by the commission spokesman … our vice mayor, Mr. Zhao, was convicted on charges of embezzlement and/or taking bribes but was not punished for having more than one child too.

To be fair, it’s not just the officials and rich people. A large number of my students told me that they have siblings … one even said he has nine brothers and seven sisters! I don’t think there’s a specific pattern or loophole … I simply think that this law is like many others in this land: optional.

Everyone seems to say that upgrading WordPress (the software behind this website) is easy and painless. It wasn’t for me. In fact, I completely screwed everything up in my attempt to get to WP2.2.

Luckily, I was able to restore everything to its previous glory from a saved backup. Whew. I’m going to try again tomorrow … hopefully I can get this all tidied up before leaving the Middle Country (that’s China)!

Weddings are sometimes a pain for me. All of the grandmas poke me and say, “You’re next!”

Now I know what to do. I’m going to start doing it to them at funerals.

It has come to my attention that something is wrong with this website. Recently, I often have had to reload a page several times to get it to display properly, and several people have emailed me saying that it doesn’t come up at all for them. Is it working ok for you?

I also got a message from Doteasy, my web host, saying that a script on my website is misbehaving. If you can make any sense of this, I’d appreciate your help … it appears that I may have to upgrade my version of WordPress, but I’m hesitant to do that (and honestly don’t have the time to do it properly right now). Help!

It’s been a great vacation so far … as you can imagine, the experiences and stories are many and my desire to type them up is small. I suppose that it’s still worth providing a Cliff’s Notes version, however.

After a beautiful trip through Jiuzhaigou and Huanglong, we went back to Chengdu for a day of rest. We revisited the pandas and spent some time researching Guangxi province before hopping on a train to Guilin.

We stayed one night in Guilin then took a bus north to Heping, a tiny town on the outskirts the Dragon’s Backbone Terraces. This place outside Longsheng (in northern Guangxi province) features some of the most amazing terraced farming in the world … but because we didn’t want to pay the exhorbitant 50RMB “entrance fee”, we arranged with some locals to smuggle us in to Pingan, a beautiful terraced village on a mountainside.

It was awesome … laid back, picturesque, and totally refreshing. All in all, we spent three days hiking through the mountains, talking to the villagers, swimming in mountain lakes, and staying in cabins overlooking the fields. It was an amazing look at the rarely-seen yet very common rural life of so many Chinese people!

After another stopover in Guilin, we headed south to Yangshuo, where we’ve spent a couple of days enjoying the beautiful surroundings and fun activities. Two days ago, we went “drifting” … basically whitewater rafting down a narrow controlled fast-moving river in a two person raft without oars. It was way more fun than I expected. Then yesterday we biked into the countryside, floated down a river in a bamboo raft, and swam in the warm river water. We found a local street restaurant that serves awesome food for a great price (including the fantastic local favorite, “beer fish”) and have been enjoying the wealth of interesting shops and beautiful people.

Tomorrow I’ll head back to Loudi to move out of my apartment, work on my grad school portfolio, visit the SWI (the Loudi Orphanage), and say goodbye to a few friends. I have a little more than three weeks left in China, so it’s time to hit the home stretch in top gear!