The Yellow River at Lanzhou

Lanzhou is the ONLY Chinese provincial capital on the Yellow River (the big Muddy)

On our last day, before getting on the train back to Beijing, the students had a scavenger hunt around town to find local landmarks.  This was one of them, the statue of the "Mother of the Pearl River"

A second one was the Zhongshan Bridge.

It was designed by Germans....

...built by Americans...

...and was the first bridge built across the Yellow River (1907).

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Lanzhou Shi Wai Guo Yue Gao Ji Zhong Xue

The picture above is on the uniform of the school we visited in the city of Lanzhou.  It's a school that students apply to if they have a particular desire to study foreign languages.

A pair or trio of our students was met by the representatives of a number of 10th and 11th grade classes.

Our students attended classes with the Chinese students.

Peeking into classrooms, I saw a large percentage of students hiding their cell phones behind those stacks of books playing games.  It made me smile to know that those students are the same as all around the world.

The students stay in one room the entire school career and the teachers come to them.  Each class has up to 50 students.

Lunch!!

Every student has to go through exercises.  You would think that the Chinese students would take these seriously and do them to the nth degree.  Nope.  Kids are the same everywhere and most of the students just go through the motions.  It's fun to watch.

PE Class!!!

On the right, a Chinese Literature Teacher and on the left a kid who is learning German and when he found out I learned German in high school started talking to me in German.

During our day at the school, I was given a chance to wander around and I ended up spending some time talking to some 11th grade teachers about the Chinese education system.  The Chinese teachers were fascinated by the lack of the "Gao Kao" or the Chinese college entrance exam.  I tried to explain to them that our SAT was simply one of many factors in college admission.  But that in China the results of that one exam determine college placement or college acceptance.  Turns out that there simply aren't enough places in Chinese universities to meet the demand of college bound students.  The teachers were amazed that any students who wants to go to college (and can pay) in the US can go. 

The other interesting question I was asked by a Physics teacher was how come if the US has a lower level of academic rigor in their classrooms and thereby students enter into college with less "knowledge" how can he US produce such an amazing amount of cutting edge technology and innovation?  I really couldn't answer that question but I did think about it and tell him that the US does have a long standing system of valuing research at the graduate level because we have so much funding for research. 

There were so many other questions that I wanted to ask, such as whether or not teacher pay is a deterrent for the best and brightest Chinese to entering the profession as I believe it is in the United States.  I also wanted to ask about how they deal with the fact that they don't track their students by ability.  So many questions, so little time.

Lunch at a Traditional Tibetan Home

During our entire stay in Gansu, we were accompanied by locals, which turned out to be a family that has a relationship with the school.  Apparently, every year the school travels here, we work with the same family.  On our last day in Xiahe, the family invited us (as in the entire school) to their home for lunch.  Here are the couple that hosted us.

The home of the extended family of the couple pictured above.

An extended family of six live here.  Here we are in the courtyard.  The glass enclosed area are the main living quarters.

To the left, the kitchen.

Looking towards the front door, the door on the right is the master bedroom for our host couple and the doors on the left go to storage.

Inside the main living area, is a small prayer room.

Our students had the opportunity to make their own "baozhi."

 

Our student attempts....

...but here's the REAL master.  Grandma (our male host's mother) was in the kitchen pumping them out.

Our female host's sister, who is holding her second daughter.

After lunch, the afternoon was spent learning how to draw in the Buddhist style.

A great afternoon that gave me and our students a real taste of modern Tibetan life.  Thanks to our hosts and I'll see them next year when we go back!

Ren'ai Monastery in the Ganjia Grasslands

One afternoon, our school took a trip and hour north of Xiahe to visit another smaller monastery (Ren'ai) on the grasslands near Ganjia.  This meta-photo happened often for our African-American students!

The Ren'ai Monastery houses 70 monks out in the middle of these grasslands.  The monks told us that it is MUCH more beautiful in the summer when it isn't so brown.  I was pretty impressed with what I saw.

Some younger monks saw us out in the grasslands in front of the monastery and checked us out.

We engaged them in a match of Tug-of-War.

And then frisbee.  This hour watching these boy/monks have such a blast with something as simple as a frisbee was a trip highlight.

I sat down and chatted with these monks for a while using my Chinese and one of the teenage monks who spoke some Chinese.  The rest read Tibetan. Most of these boys are from the local area and chose to join the monastery. Just like it seems natural for us to go to college, the monastery is the same for them.

This was FASCINATING during a walk around the area.  These government slogans.  This one says, "If you have less than 1 kid, the government will pay your 3000-5000 RMB"

"Today's education, bring tomorrow's technology and the next days economic virtue"

"A stable population raises the character of the population"

"Fewer children, more happiness"

"In the countryside, if you have a first girl and then a second girl, the government will insure medical insurance"

"The number of people in home provides harmony and the government provides monetary support"

We had to shuttle from a place where the buses couldn't cross through in vans, but the vans were also blocked by a hay harvest.  Therefore, we had to walk down the road a way.

I was put to work.