Another fun weekend in Chengdu

  Chengdu, Sichuan, China
Sunday, September 21, 2008

Friday night is a horrid time to teach but that is when the class is so what can I do. I went with Trista who was starting a private tutoring job at that time also and she didn't know where she was going. So I told her to meet me at 6:20. 6:27 I get a call saying that she is just leaving, then gets lost and we end up 10 minutes late for work. I was not happy about that.

After work we had some noodle soup thing and went to the french bar. I don't know why we keep ending up there. It is not fun. And I had my book bag. Anyway, a lot of the USAC kids met up there and then were gone all of a sudden. Vanessa and I were like wait where did everyone go and decided to just leave the people who were still there. She wanted to walk home for exercise so I accompanied her until she took a turn that I knew I would get lost at if I went that way, so I got in a cab and headed to bed to wake up for the Ancient Town the next day.

Lantern Bridge

The morning of the ancient town we woke up and waited for the bus. It was a nice bus and was populated with Chinese students from my school wanting to practice their English. One girl, May, came over and sat next to me and we talked all the way to the town. She was studying tourism and law in her free time. She was really nice and interesting. The town itself was pretty cool. It was very touristy and there were tourists everywhere (mostly Chinese). We walked around the town and I ended up talking to a girl names Shirley for most of the time. She was really nice!

I bought a hat made of flowers that I watched be made in front of me. My two girl roommates, Caitlin and Genna, bought some also.

Mafia house girls: Genna, Me, and Caitlin

The lunch we had there was awesome! I really enjoyed it, except me still not being a pro with chopsticks and eating with 6 Chinese students. But they didn't make fun of me. They were really cool.

After lunch we went to a Buddhist temple (the dragon temple) in the town. I was glad the Shirley was with me because she explained a lot of the significance to me since her parents are Buddhist (she is a Christian which reminded me I needed to get to church). There were also some people doing some Sichuan style opera near the temple. I took some video but I having trouble hosting the video on this site. So we'll see if I get to show that later.

I also took some video of this cool guy playing a traditional Chinese instrument near the river and the pandas that I don't think anyone could see...

Dragon

Anyway, we went home and I rested up before we went to dinner at a cheap (but good) western restaurant. I had a chicken Caesar wrap that you couldn't pick up which kinda sucked but it was still really good and cheap comparably. I came home and decided to watch Casablanca instead of going out because I had a headache that I think was an allergic reaction to something (or it could be the intense pollution we have been having lately).

This morning I woke up to two of my roommates banging on the door. They had forgotten their key. It wasn't that early, like 8:45 and I had gone to bed rather early (11:30.. I had fallen asleep trying to watch Casablanca). So I decided to stay awake. After a while I realized that it was Sunday and that I was awake early enough to go to Church. So I opened up my address book and found the name of the Catholic Church in Chengdu. After about a 15 minute google search I found that the mass times were at 7:30 and 10 am as well as 4:00 pm on Sunday. So after a quick shower and gathering of my things I headed for a cab.

Catholic Church

It was farther than I thought it was from my apartment and I made it about 5 minutes before 10. On the outside there was a huge Mary statue and I remembered that the church had been called "Virgin Mary Sinless". I walked in and it was a rather huge church with small uncomfortable pews. It was way crowded and reminded me a lot of Church back home. I look around for a seat and got waved down by a nice looking older lady so i sat down. The thing was it was behind a very large pillar so I couldn't see the priest.

The mass started and the priest walked in from the side. It started off with a song and the normal thing but then all of a sudden we were singing again and the priest was walking around throwing out the holy water. Everyone in the church was singing. Everyone. And they don't provide the song books, you bring them yourself and those that didn't have them had the songs memorized.

The altar

Anyway the blessing was intense. People were kneeling in the aisle waiting for the holy water. I saw one lady wiping up the "wasted" holy water that landed on the pews with her hands. After that happened a lot of people left, well not a lot but a good number. It was still too crowded for everyone to have a seat.

It was really interesting to watch the people, which I did since I couldn't see the priest. People came in and moved around freely throughout the mass. But whenever a sung prayer happened (for instance what I could recognize as the Gloria and the Our Father) there was so much passion among the people. It was really intense. Barring the first part of the mass, I could follow things relatively well. The traditions were really different but the essential ritual was the same.

the only song i knew and could sing was the alleluia. it was set to the tune of "Seek Ye First" a little modified. So that was pretty exciting, getting to join in on the praise.

During the homily I could pick out some phrases, "wait for us" "one man" "one person teaches us" lots of "how" and a couple of "whys". It probably would have made more sense if I knew the words for "Jesus" and "God" and you know other important catholic phrases. About halfway through the homily someone else came and joined our pew who I figured out was a new convert because the older lady was teaching her the sign of the cross. i tried to learn as well but i couldn't. I want to go to a bookstore and pick up a little mass follower thing in Chinese.

The center

The sign of peace was pretty awesome. You would hold your hand in a second grader first communion sort of way and the bow a little bit toward the other person. They said something too but I am not sure what. I just said "peace be with you". So then communion comes and to me it looked as if their was no order but I guess there was and I didn't get it. But I went up to the front and got my very thin, almost rice patty like piece of Eucharist. It was also interesting though that half the church did not get communion, or would go up for a blessing but not communion. I think this really symbolizes the new push toward Christianity in this country.

After communion the mass ended. There was a little thing I didn't recognize after the mass but I didn't stay. I took some [pictures of the outside and then when most people had left I took some pictures of the inside. On my way out a women said "Hello" to me and started talking to me. She told me something about the song book, asked me where I cam from, and then that she recognized my "pretty face" from Tai Chi and I was like wow. I felt really bad that I couldn't really communicate that I understood back to her. I told her in my broken Chinese that I understand but I don't know how to speak well in Chinese. I think I cut her short when I said goodbye and felt bad but at that point I had no idea how to go on and I wanted to explore where I was.

On the statue

I walked up the road to a bus stop and luckily it had a map (one thing I forgot to throw in my bag that morning). I spent a good few minutes deciding what to do. I was close to a huge market that I been meaning to go get a purse from and one of the buses would take me right there. So I went purse shopping.

Once I got to the Lotus Marketplace I was way overwhelmed. It was HUGE and I was only on the outskirts. I went into the actual marketplace part and got lost in the children's clothes section for like 20 minutes. Everywhere I walked was more children's clothes. I finally took a turn and found myself in purse alley purely by luck. SO i shopped around found one I wanted. The person selling to me knew I couldn't speak well and so I feel like she took advantage of that, but I got her to go down 10 kuai so it wasn't too bad. I mean I paid 40 kuai which comes out to roughly like 6 dollars so I cant really complain.

A sign from child clothes land

By this point my feet were starting to hurt and I was a little miffed, so I found a cold Pepsi and tried to make my way back to the street where all the buses were. I was a little worried that I had gotten too turned around, but then I started to recognize things and found the road I was looking for. I got on the 16 bus and had a seat which I was grateful for. My feet were really hurting at this point. Oh I don't think I mentioned that I dressed up for church and was wearing my wedge heels. Yeah brilliant I know.

I hadn't eaten yet so I got off right around where I would have to switch buses and ate a BLT -T (one of my most used sentences. I don't want tomato). I got on 77 and went back to the dorm, stopping only at the AVON store to pick up some nail polish remover and some nail polish because I was really dying for it.

It was a pretty productive day in my life. I was excited for all the new experiences and challenges. The next time I go to Lotus market though I am wearing comfortable shoes and taking someone else with me.

I also just finished watching Casablanca while writing this and I am a little disappointed. It was a great movie but not the romance I thought it would be. Anyway I need to go and write a paragraph about happiness for homework. I hope I can load some pictures and video later.

Love you all!

OK, I got some video up at this site:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v295/Bambbles/china%202008/
If this doesn't work then someone leave a comment and I will fix it later.