~Team Pritchport in Shiyan, Hubei, China~: November 2012

Well this is Brinson, again. And I'll tell you about the crazy creations of the Chinese. First of all they are very creative. I'm not saying Americans aren't, just that Americans haven't created a few of the things I will name. First of all they created a big, clear, plastic ball that you climb into. They zip it up and push you out into a small pond. And you can run with all your might but you won't go anywhere. Most likely you'll fall on your face but since the ball is plastic it wouldn't do anything to disfigure your face. Also there is a pond that is about 1 foot deep with fish in it- some reaching 2 feet in length. You have to catch the fish. Any fish you catch you get to keep. It looks pretty easy and to my regret I silently mocked some men trying to do it. Then when it was my turn everyone got to mock me. I tried and tried and finally after 28 minutes caught a small goldfish. The catch is that you have to use your hands. And after you catch one you get 2 more fish for free. Sadly two of our fish died and so we let the rest free in the little stream running through our campus. One other thing. Aiden caught a miniature goldfish too so really we had 6 fish and "Thy two cheerless offspring of Eric and Wendy mourned over the loss of their two scaly, slick children" ( that is part of a famous poem called "Mourning" by: Brinson Davenport; j/k).

Another creation is little cars you can drive in all around the big square at the center of the city. I can barely fit inside it. This might not sound very exciting but it did sound pretty cool until we saw a baby driving a small, miniature metal tank! Then we really wanted to do it. We strolled over and payed for a small car, to rent. I hopped into the drivers seat and started to go. The man who owned it wouldn't let me drive and I just sat in the drivers seat while the guy drove it. After about five minutes the motor shut off and I tried to get off, but the man put a key back in and pushed me back into the car. After this motor incident happened a few more times many people put in effort to stop the little army car, with helpless little me in it.

MORE COMING!

BRINSON

It's funny how something can sound really good and then one detail changes and it takes on a whole new meaning! This is how our two families felt when we got the news on Friday that our school needed two of us to leave on Sunday for the 600 year Celebration of The Wudang Mountains and the 4th World Taijiquan Health Congress - what we would be doing there was not made clear. We had heard stories of how they would ask/tell the American teachers to go to these things and then once you got there you ended up having to do all sorts of things from picture advertisements, to speaking to singing?! Ok, possibly a little awkward, but we also thought that it would be an incredible opportunity for one of our families to go to this Historic Heritage Site for free and get to know a famous spot in China - the ultimate home school field trip! But which family would go? Since we both thought it sounded pretty neat, we decided to flip a coin and just be happy for whoever won. Tails...the Davenports were on their way to a 5 day, all expense paid vacation! So we called and told our school what we had decided. Upon hearing this they informed us that we would be busy working from early morning to late at night with government officials and mayors and stuff - the kids could not come with us. They said that was a very American way of thinking. I found that funny seeing how we are Americans! So this changed everything. We would be gone for 5 days. We home school our kiddos. Both parents couldn't just up and leave like that putting all the responsibility on the other family to watch all 4 kiddos, do their home school AND teach in the University. The only thing we could see doing was to send one adult from each family. We asked our school if Deryk and Eric could go but they insisted that it be one male and one female. It had to be "balanced". So now, what seemed so appealing just an hour earlier took on a whole new meaning. Back to the coin - this time we prayed first! So Eric and I packed our bags and headed out to do...well we hadn't been told what we would be doing so we just packed our bags and went with the flow! A driver came to pick us up along with 4 other professors from Yunyang Teacher's College. Fanny, Vera, Henry & James (their English names) teach English here but they are Chinese Nationals. We quickly found out that they were invited/sent to the conference to translate all the speeches into English as there were going to be 30 different countries represented there. We also found out that one of the reasons we had been sent was to do the proofreading after they translated because Chinese to English translation can be quite interesting without proofreading! When we got to the hotel we were pleasantly surprised - it was a beautiful 4 star hotel and we got our own rooms. We had been under the impression that all the female professors would stay in one room and the male professors in another, but instead we had private rooms! So the translating began as did the proofreading.....until 2 in the morning! Although we were sleepy, we had a lot of good laughs as we translated. The Chinese have such good vocabularies but their choice of words are not always the ones you find common in our speech. Eric and I made a deal that if either of us were asked to give a speech we would fit in the word "heady" at some point just for good measure (one of the words that they like to use)! The next day we did absolutely nothing except eat the wonderful meals provided by our hotel. We woke up early and put on the dressy clothes we were instructed to wear - just to be told to go back to our rooms and rest! It was kind of funny and confusing all at the same time. We still kept being told "I don't know", every time we asked what we would be doing! It became our groups joke! However, you don't have to tell me twice to go to my room and have some quiet time...a rare luxury...so I went and got to do a lot of reading and praying and resting - it was wonderful!

Well, it was a good thing we rested, because the next few days they obviously figured out what they wanted to do with us and kept us quite busy! Eric and Fanny announced the scores inside the competition while Vera and I sat outside and were announcers at the awards ceremonies. We had a blast! We laughed a lot and we had some really good conversations. Working and eating side by side with Fanny, Vera, Henry and James for those five days allowed us to achieve a closeness with them that would have taken a year to gain otherwise. It was such a gift! I can't wait to see where those friendships will lead in the future. We have definite plans for some "reunions"! And then, to top it all off, those in charge obliged our "American way of thinking" and allowed our families to join us on our last day there! They hired a driver to take us up to Wudang Mountain for the day. We were able to take a tram to the very top, tour many of the ancient sites, enjoy walking around on the gorgeous mountain and do a little souvenir shopping. They even fed us and drove us all the way back home! It was quite a treat that we were not expecting and we made some wonderful memories we will never forget! So although at first we didn't know if being "asked" (told) to go on this trip was a good thing or not, it turned out to be blessing upon blessing in so many ways~