It was a fun but cold day. This school is a modern as you can get and is growing quickly. David was hired because they wanted the preschoolers to be introduced to English. We, of course, were guests of honor.Then off to Guangzhou for the Spring Festival. We were staying with Dr. Wang's family. You may remember back in 1986 four Chinese came and visited us and Marple Newtown High School. Dr. Wang was one of them and although he died a couple of years ago I have been intouch first with him and then his family for over these 20 years. Sam Wang greeted us at the airport and we were off to his mother's. We spent the five days with them.
The Grandmother Guo and her son Wang Liang and his wife and their teenage daughter Aki. Sam and his family live about 15 minutes away. Sam was incharge of us since he drove and had the best English.
We visited a reconstructed village and sampled the food. We made dumplings with the family and were not even laughed at. We visited and ate with various parts of the family over the next days. Somehow they coordinated so that we sampled the vaious Cantonese style foods of Guangzhou. Besides eating our way through Guangzhou we visited Sam's home in a luxury apartment, rode a bicycle built for two through a park, saw the vaious fireworks displays from atop the city, and drove forever through the countryside. Spring Festival was different in Guangzhou. Since it is a huge city fireworks are controlled so there was no World War III like last year. The family was smaller and the extended family was actually located in Shanghai too far to visit. The meals were not punctuated with toasts as last year and drinking was not the sport of the day. It was great to renew our ties to these old friends.
We returned and spent three days in Chongqing. Grace, another English teacher, met us at the airport and got us a hotel with computer in center city. She and her boy friend hosted us for the three days. We spent a day with one of our students John who lives just outside the city. His family was more than gracious to us. The next day we met another student and toured the Three Gorges Museum. It is huge and tells the history of Chongqing and its culture. Grace and Chu HongZe tools us one night for pizza at Papa John's (their choice because they wanted to try) and another night to have Peking Duck.
We visited a reconstructed village and sampled the food. We made dumplings with the family and were not even laughed at. We visited and ate with various parts of the family over the next days. Somehow they coordinated so that we sampled the vaious Cantonese style foods of Guangzhou. Besides eating our way through Guangzhou we visited Sam's home in a luxury apartment, rode a bicycle built for two through a park, saw the vaious fireworks displays from atop the city, and drove forever through the countryside. Spring Festival was different in Guangzhou. Since it is a huge city fireworks are controlled so there was no World War III like last year. The family was smaller and the extended family was actually located in Shanghai too far to visit. The meals were not punctuated with toasts as last year and drinking was not the sport of the day. It was great to renew our ties to these old friends.We returned and spent three days in Chongqing. Grace, another English teacher, met us at the airport and got us a hotel with computer in center city. She and her boy friend hosted us for the three days. We spent a day with one of our students John who lives just outside the city. His family was more than gracious to us. The next day we met another student and toured the Three Gorges Museum. It is huge and tells the history of Chongqing and its culture. Grace and Chu HongZe tools us one night for pizza at Papa John's (their choice because they wanted to try) and another night to have Peking Duck. 
Her friend has little chance to speak English so he was anxious to spend whatever time he could with us. We think he may even come to visit us in Yongchuan.
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