For those of you who are history impaired, Confucius was a Chinese Philosopher.  He was born about 100 years before Christ.  He travelled around the various countries that were China at the time, preaching his philosophy – Which was mostly that people should follow the ancient Rites,  Things like: Worshipping your ancestors, Obeying your parents, Praying to the local shrines and such.  He was one of those people who was always spouting proverbs to impress and confuse everybody.  He was also very, very proud.  There was one story I read that stuck with me.  Kong Zi (his real name) was discussing something with the local duke and the duke was distracted by a flock of geese passing bye.  Kong Zi was so insulted that he left the dukes domain and never returned. (So much for “the greatest among you must be the servant, huh?)  I’m afraid I have lost a lot of respect for KongZi as I got to know him better.  He had some ideas that I just hate – a wife should not remarry if her husband dies, because that will dishonor him in the afterlife.  That doesn’t sound so bad except that if her children can’t support her she was expeted to just quietly just starve rather than “dishonor” her former husband.  It makes me mad…

But the Temple itself is amazing.  It is 4.4 km square and it has 460 rooms.  When you first enter there is a fancy gatehouse, the sign says that “This gate was erected by Emperor Whathisname when he came to worship.”  then 100 yards further in is another gate that says, “This gate was erected by Emperor Whathisname when he came to worship.”  There are three or four of these gates – its kind of funny.  There are also about 100 or so great big monuments that look like a giant tombstone on the back of a turtle.  They are basically markers some important person left to show how pious he was. 

The courtyards these gates made were really neat.  They had 200-300 ancient trees growing in them.  The plaque said that they were Scholartrees and they were nationaally protected treasures.  The courtyard was green and cool and it would have been a wonderful place to walk and meditate (if there weren’t thousands of people there) 

Thw temple itself is not a worship site like I expected, I was expecting something like a Catherdral but what was there was a big building and in it was a big statue of Kong Zi and some other figures.  The building was closes to traffic but we could take pictures.  The problem was the crowds.  There were always 500 people tryin gto get close enough to see inside and take pictures.  I’m tall enough that I could look over most the the crowd but Carrie had to fight her way into the crow – think moshpit – to get pictures.  Its a good thing that our camera has an adustable screen so she could hold it high and still see what she was shooting. 

There was a cart where you could burn incense (that you could purchase there) and you could write a prayer on a card and leave it on the racks hanging nearby (you could also buy those – it reminded me of the moneychangers in the temple in the Bible.  The most interesting thing was a platform that said it was the very same spot that Kon Zi had stood to lecture his students on.  That was 2100 years ago remember.  Oh yeah!  The “Holy Kitchens” were cool too.  They were where the sacrifices were prepared.  We weren’t able to get in to see them – that area was closed to tourists, but I could imaging Robin saying “Holy Kitchens, Batman, its time for a sacrifice!” 

After that we went to the Kong family mansion.  Kong Zi was from a rich family and after his death his family ruled the city and country around the temple.  It was a big walled area with many rooms, as much for administration as family.  The most interesting thing was the family tree.  There was a “father begat Son” family tree that listed the Kong family for 71 generations after Kpng Zi.  71! thats crazy.  I know 4? maybe only 3. 

After that we went to the Kong family Cemetary and there we saw the tomb of Kong Zi.  This was where we say the people worshipping, at his grave, bowing and such.  There wasa hut nearby where one of Kong Zi’s disciples lived for the next 3 years after the funeral out of respect for his master.  I can’t imagine that.  But the cemetary was cool.  Hundreds of tombstones with the trees growing up around them. 

By then it was about 2 in the after noon so we caught a bus back to Jinan and found a hotel and went to bed. 

That ends Day 3 and Day 4 is to come.

We went first to a park. Its based on a lake and it has an island in the middle.  The park was beautiful but it was most interesting because this lake and island had been one of the centers of art and culture in Jinan and east China for hundreds of years.  There was a pavilion with 20 or so displays about famous artists and philosophers who had centered their work and lives near this lake.  The most interesting thing to me was that in ancient China so many of the great artisits and philosophers were also administrators of the country.  (I found out why on day three – I’ll tell you then) 

There was a temple there, I forget the name pf the person, but he was some special philosopher and in later years he was worshipped and prayed to.  They did this a lot here and its still in the cultural fabric.  There were still quite a few people who were lighting incense and bowing before the statue.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures of the actual temple interior but we have some pics of the outside and in the back there was a shrine to the parents of the main… (I don’t even know what you call the guy, Demi-god?)  The most interesting thing thing about the whole place was along side the main idol were a series on statues of the Deni-god’s) companions, and one demon.  Yep – right alongside the heroes was a demon eating people.  I’m not so sure why they were being eaten but they were in some sort of trouble, I tell you.  The demon was just a big, black (sorrry all of you black folk) person. 

By the way, we have a lot of pictures - Carrie just told me we have 841 of the whole trip.  I’m going to try to put them on here but I have failed before – I hope to succeed so you can see for yourself as I decribe.

From the lake we went to 5 Dragons Park.    It seemed like a cool name and it was, but it also had nothing to do with dragons.  It was an area where there was an artesian spring and the water came up in 26 different small springs rather than a river.  They had made each one of the springs into a different fish pond and it was really nice to wander in the shade and cool beside the springs – it was really hot in Jinan that day.  The coolest thing was a arved mural of a huge battle scene, it was at least 50 feet long and it was all carvings of people figting – I spent about a 1/2 hour just on that mural.

Then it was lunchtime and we went for lunch.  Hey!  I want to tell you all just how amazing my hottie is.  She can talk in Chinese wellenought atht she can ask for directions, she can tell a taxi to take us to the bus depot and that she wants a room in the hotel and can you call a taxi for us at 6am, These sorts of things, its not easy but she finds it fun – usually, when she gets tired its not so much fun anymore.  Anyway – her study has really paid off.

After lunch we decided that we would head to our next destination earlier, so we weren’t trying to find  hotel late at night when we were tired.  So we hopped a bus to Qufu.

2.5 hours later we arrived at Qufu (its pronounced kind of like Chu-foo) Right off the bus we fond ourselves liking Qufu.  It was slower paced and there weren’t any predatory taxi drivers harassing us the instant we get off the bus.  (In China I think its the Taxi driver and not the Vulture that is the most aressive scavenger.)   But its a smaller town and it was quieter and it just seemed a bit less modern and more relaxed.  There were even more bikes than in Jinan and we saw a rickshaw – a 3 wheeled bike taxi for the first time in China.  There were really very few taxi’s but a whole lot of rickshaws. 

We got to Qufu about 3.30 in the afternoon so we still had some time to kill and we had to get some stuff so we went shopping and tried to find a place where we could download the pictures from the camera to a memory stick so we had more room for tomorrow.  It took us quite a while but we persevered and then called it a night because we wanted to get a good early start on tomorrows sight-seeing.

And that ends Day 2 – More to come.

But, hey, we’ve got something new happening now. 

Last year we didn’t get to travel in China at all, our finances just were never there.  But this year, God has been so good to us that off of one months pay we have been able to get out and see some of the rest of this country.

We decided that we wanted to go to see the province just south of us, called Shandong.  Its across the Yellow sea and we had to take a ferry.  If you hold up a map of china and you see think of Dalian as a drop of…something dripping off the north of China, then Shandong is the tongue stretched out to catch that drip.

Wow, I must be really tired, cause that’s really silly, Anyhow…

We took the ferry from Dalian to Yantai.  Yantai probably isn’t on your map because its mostly just the port for a bigger city called Weihei.  The ferry was really disappointing.  We were expecting to watch the ship slide out of port and see the other ships and feel the wind in our hair but it didn’t work that way.  It turns out that Chinese ferries have no decks for the passengers to walk on.  Not one.  And nothing to do either.  the passengers as expected to mostly just stay where they are put and wait for the trip to be over.  We spent a couple of extra bucks and bought a room with bunks, mostly because I was tired and it was early in the morning and I was planning to catch a couple of hours of sleep after the thrill of being at sea wore off.  It was a good thing too because that thrill wore off before we left port when we realized that we couldn’t have all the fun we expected.  I went right to sleep and that was the only good part about it.  While I was asleep Carrie did some exploring and found us a place we could buy some drinks and some instant noodles.  (2 instant noodles, 2 bags of chips and 2 drink cost us what we would pay for a whole meal on land)  So, needless to say we were glad to get off the boat. 

Our overall plan was to make a circle, we would take the ferry to Yantai and then travel overland to the places we most wanted to visit and then end in Tainjin and take a different ferry back.  We deliberately decided not to plan things to much and just take things as they happened.  As it happened, the bus that brought us into the city from the ferry stopped at a bus station and there was a bus to Jinan.  Jinan is the capital of Shandong province and one of the places we wanted to stop.  It was our first goal.  “Well, hey, why wait.?”  We jumped right off the ferry bus onto the Greyhound style bus and were off again in 10 minutes.  

The countryside near Da Hei She where we live now is a fishing village and small farms on the sides of the small mountains.  The countryside of Shandong is much more rolling and the farms are much bigger and you can definitely tell that the people have been farming the land for probably 3000-4000 years, not kidding at all, Shandong is one of the oldest areas of China.  Every square foot of land is planted with something.  In Saskatchewan, if the irrigation pivot sprayer misses the corner of the field it is just left, wasted space, because we have the space to waste.  In Shandong it would be planted with some kind of fruit tree or something else. Even the small streams and dugouts are brick lined so they can plant right up to the bricks,- every single inch is covered.  They don’t have farmyards like we do back home either.  They have little villages of 15-20 houses and they travel out from these to work the farm, and the fields are literally 10-15 feet from the door of the houses, just enough room for a small tractor or truck to drive between.  We also saw wagons pulled by oxen, or more usually cows, because, after all, “She can still make the milk while walking slowly along the field pulling a cart.”  Finally we got to Jinan after a 5 hour bus ride with only 1 10 minute break the whole trip.  And there is no toilet on these busses.  It makes bladder control an essential skill to ride the busses here.  Anyway, we were exhausted after a day of 13 hours traveling and so we just found ourselves a hotel room ASAP and fell into bed.

Stay tuned for Day 2 and 3 of “The Great Shandong Adventure” – coming soon. (Its almost midnight and I have to be up at 6 for day 4 of said adventure – more busses – bleh)        

Its hard work, they are less of a forgiving audience than College students.  If they don’t understand something college students will ask or try to think of what an answer could be.  My junior highers just sit there and wait for me to give them something they can understand.  I have talked about the Chinese mentality that a student is a pot waiting for the teacher to pour knowledge into.  And these 14-15 year-olds are shining examples of that.  I do have a few exceptions.  Some of the students are very good and most of those are very highly motivated.  But I only have 1 or 2 in each class and I have to find ways to spur them on and keep them from being bored as I help the weaker students along.  I think I’m going to try to get the good students to help me teach but I’m also going to have to build extra things for them to do into my lesson prep as well.

Its hot and humid here right now.  I’m sweating almost all of the time, I go home and peel off my shirt and sit in front of a fan to try and cool down enough so I can start the next class without being drenched.  But it should be getting better as the year goes along – only a month or 2 more of this and then I’ll be cold in the classroom!

Carrie is loving the Chinese support she is getting.  (The school admin has been great too but thats not what I’m talking about.)  She is encouraged to attend all of the Chinese as a Second Language (CSL) classes she can, when she’s not in her own classes.  This means she can get about 10 classes a week if she wants to and you know Carrie, she wants to.  (I think she slowed down enough to take a breath on Thursday but I was in the other room at the time so I’m not sure – I rushed in to see what that Whooshing noise was but by the time I got there she was back at either Chinese or Class prep – This means that Carrie is having a ball, she’s loving it)

Anyway, got to go to supper – Food, now that’s a whole nother entry.  I’ll try to remember to talk about that as soon as I can.

Love you all!

Sorry for the delay in contacting y’all but we have to get things set up here and our net access isn’t what we hope it will be.  soon..  very soon…

Anyway, this year was a completely different experience coming to China.  We were on a plane with 70 other new teachers from 4 different campuses of the same company, so we had lots of people to talk to.  We weren’t even out of the airport and we got to reassure one of the teachers mother and grandmother of some things in China – “no, there is running water and the apartments are livable…etc”

 We always seem to be just a bit of the odd couple – no sniggering anyone! 

We were the only two new teachers from our campus.  So when we got to Dalian we discovered that they hadn’t planned for someone to pick us up and take us to our school.  It was really funny, because we knew exactly where to go and it would have been very simple to just grab a taxi and go – the airport is even on the way out to our new place from the rest of the city. 

It was actually kind of funny to see how concerned they were about our welfare – the Supterintendant of the whole company – the #1 Canadian and #2 overall in charge – sent his personal assistant to personally escort us to the Headquarters.  That took about an hour.   From there they phoned around and figured out what to do with us and then someone drove in 40-45 minutes just to pick us up and drive us 40-45 minutes back out to the campus.  Call it 2 hours.  In all from the airport to our homes was about 3 hours.  (It would have been only about 30 minutes total from the airport with a taxi.) 

Our apartment is OK.  Its actually kind of quirky.  Carrie likes it. (And thats the most important part to me) 

We haven’t started work yet but we have had time to well and truly set up our house and to get over jet-lag.  That was nice but I am ready to work.  I want to get started – chomping at the bit a bit. (Sorry bad joke.) 

Anyway, blessings on y’all and talk to you later.

We are back in Gimli and a whole bunch of stuff has been happining. 

We will be going back on Aug 19th.  and things will be getting back to normal…I hope. 

We have been graced with a computer and we should have a private internet access this year and I hope that the blogs should be coming much more regularly.

Bless ya’ll this sumemr

8 years, $30,000.00, 2 countries, 1 wife and 29,3856,352 missing hairs later

I finally finished my Masters Degree last night.  Its Done and I’m singing, I’m dancing.

I’m so thankful to so many people who helped me.  Carrie, Moms and Dads, Donna and Dave, Gerry, Aaron.  You all were lifesavers.  And God, always God and more God

By The Way – once you have recieved a Master of Divinity Degree you are entitled to the title Divine Master.  So I expect to hear those”master”s coming.  And make it snappy.   

Well, its official, Carrie and I are not returning to the university we have been at.  We have just had it with the administration of the school.  The students are cool, I’ll miss them.  Those of you who know me from my time at IBC know that I always hated graduation day because it meant I was losing some of the studnets I loved.  I’m going to feel a bit of that even here.  The Academic Administration isn’t too bad but it is the Foreign Affairs people that are driving us crazy.  The last straw was just recently, we went in to pick up our monthly wages and the lady said, “The finiancial department was working on something important so they didn’t go to the bank today to get your wages.  You can come back on Monday for them.”  I guess that proves that little, unimportant items like…oh…say…paying your teachers is not a big enough deal to make the financial department get of their butts and get our money. 

But thats just the last in a long line of issues.  But now we have to think about next year.  We seem to have 2 options:

1.  We can go to a private boarding school for Jr.High students – grades 7-8-9.  It is part of the Maple Leaf Schools that Marilee is working for.  Basically it means that we get Canadian wages and a Chinese cost of living.  We can start to save some money and actually get our finances stabilized. 

The school is in a little town just outside of Dalian, the school’s bus takes teachers into Dalian 3 times a week for shopping and fun etc.  The place is gorgeous, hills, just high enough to be a good hike.  The school overlooks the ocean and there is a nice walking or sitting beach just 10 minutes walk from the school.  There is even a small buddhist temple (More like a shrine I suppose) on one of the hills that is just begging to be explored. 

2.  The other option is IBC.  Again.   The Board of Directors is planniing on totally restructuring IBC from the ground up.  There is a new President and they are planning on bringing the school to a more “Missional” model.  Now I’m not sure what a ”missional” model will actually look like but I do know that they ae posting a job that is exactly like what I was doing before.  (They have even added most of the Extra-curricular things I did into the job description.)      

I am serously conflicted abotu this.  I mean, I loved my time at IBC, really loved it, It broke my heart when I was laid off last year.  Yet, I know I can’t just “Go back” and carry on from where we were, the school is not the same and I am not the same as I was. 

The school is planning to offer a bit more money than they were before, so that wold help but going back to Moose Jaw would be a financial hassel for quite a while as we tried to get ourselves settled back in. 

More importantly, I’m not sure I really want to go back.  There is a part of me that is still angry at IBC for what they did to us faculty.  I know that the school was in financial difficulty and I know things had to be done but at the same time no one can deny that the Board decided to solve the financial problems at the expense of the faculty.  I kind of feel like a sacrificial lamb…”Lets sacrifice this one and hope things will get better.” 

Wow, that sounds bitter doesn’t it?  I guess I’m not quite as OK with it as I thought I was. 

But for all of that, the call of ministry is a siren call.  When it gets into your blood it is an addiction.  I must admit that for all of the downsides I have just written, I am really tempted to re-apply for that position at IBC. 

If we don’t move back to Moose Jaw I think we may well sell our house there.  Our manager is moving on to something else after the summer and it would also allow us to get ourselves properly set up here in China.  We have spent the whole year here living solely on God’s grace through tutoring because we have to send about 110% of our combined income to Canada every month to pay students loans.  (I’ve complained about this before so I’ll stop, God has been providing and we are doing quite well)  If we sold the house it would solve a whole lot of problems, problems here, problems back in Canada.  (I do understand that we would be losing our biggest single asset but at the same time, we can’t go to missions because of student loans and I can’t imagine Jesus allowing loans to hold him back if he had a house to sell to get rid of most of them.)

So, hey, this is getting long and I have dumped a whole lot on all of you.   We pray for all of you, as often as we think of you.  Please pray for us, I think we have to make a decision by the end of this month.

I miss all of you, I can’t wait for summer.

Lovin at you  

 I have been really busy though.  I teach 24 hours a week at the university and another 2.5 tutoring.  Then there’s prep on that of course.  So I haven’t had much time.  (I know thats not a good excuse but there it is.)

Carrie is gettign a lot better in Chinese.  She can have a conversation with someone if they are patient and willing to work a bit to understand her. 

But there have been some really odd coincidences….

It is now three times that old women have given her fruit on the bus.  (I know, that sounds a bit creepy but it works here in China.)

I have only seen one, I’ll tell you about it.  We were on the bus and only 4-5 stops from where we were headed.  An old couple got on the bus and Carrie and I gpt up so they could have a seat.  They protested, (They always do) but we told them we were near our stop and they relented.  Then Carrie and the lady began to try to chat.  (Old men in China are usually too dignified to struggle with things like that)  Carrie told her that we were from Canada and that I was her husband – it must have been pretty obvious but it is about the limit of her Chinese, ( I can’t even do that, I just act all protective and scowl at all the guys looking at her and they get the message just fine…There are some languages older than Chinese or English - and they understand exactly what I’m saying)  Anyway, When we were about to get off the old lady opens her bag and hauls out a couple of strawberries (Great big ones) and gives them to Carrie.  We had to get off the bus or get carried off to the next stop so all we could do was say thanks and scoot.

There have been two other times much like that for Carrie.  I think she should practice it and we wouldn’t have to buy as much fruit.

 We went out with Ryan and Marilee last Sunday and we were in the park and we saw a competitive kite flying team.  They had four big kites and were chasing each other with the kites.  They were swooping and climbing, diving and turning.  We thought they were 4 kites and one kite holder but it was 4 guys.   I was wondering about tangling the lines and I realized that they were deliberately tangling their lines but in was that they could untwist them with the kites motions.  They would have a series of maneuvers and the lines would get more and more twisted.  Then they would fly the kites in exactly the reverse and the lines would untwist again.  It was so cool!  The wind was pretty strong and they were big kites and when they got twisted all of the force of all four kites would pull on one guy and it was enough that he would be lifted off the ground a couple of inches he would bounce (Holding on for dear life) and then the pattern would reverse and he would stay firm on the ground and soon the guy on the other end was lifting and straining to hold on.

They were just practicing but I would have loved to see them in competition.

Well, thats about all for this letter, Keep on praying for us and we love you all.  

So, when the holidays started at the end of Decenber I decided that I would be lazy and grow a beard for the holidays.  I really just didn’t want to shave. 

So, after 2 months its pretty good by now.  And Carrie likes it.  I rarely look in the mirror so I don’t have to see it much so I have kept it. (I always try to keep Carrie happy…)

Now, Chinese men rarly have beards of any sort.  It is only the artists and then the old ones that have a beard.  I don’t know why but most chinese men don’t grow a full beard like me.  So beards are pretty rare here and I have had a lot of comments on mine.  I have had students ask if they can touch it and every single class this term has asked about it. 

I have also found that it is bit intimidating for Chinese men.  They seem to hold back a bit or I get the “stand up in his face and prove I’m not intimidated” look.  its kind of fun. 

 The wierdest thing is that I have had several 3 or 4 students who tell me “You look like Karl Marx.”  It is hilarious, but I guess its the beard, baldness and glasses that does it.  And of course the Chinese study the lives of prominent Communists.  So I guess I have now been compared to a Communist saint or something like that.  It has to go down in my books as a very first for me!

Anyway, talk to you all later.  Ryan and Marilee are taking us out for supper tonight.  I haven’t been out for an evening in a long time.