Abac Musings

Christmas Day

2005-12-25T14:08:00.000+07:00

Since I started using the blog as a means of teaching American culture, I have not had time to blog here. Soooo, Merry Christmas today and Happy New Year in a week.

We are having a big Christmas get together at our house this evening. Sunee has been working most of the day getting it prepared. We have just about everything one can imagine to eat. We started cooking at around 1pm and I just called down because we have no gas. Sunee just ordered the gas so it is on the way.

I will take some pictures to add so you can see Christmas in Thailand

Hof-Art and Fortune Arcade

2005-09-28T19:06:00.000+07:00

Left the house today at around 0900 to take Sunee to the Hof-Art Gallery for an interview with a propective teacher. We arrived at around 1000. She talked with the instructor for about a half hour and decided to sign up for his classes.

I left and took the subway to Fortune Arcade. I needed to buy a black ink cartridge for my HP cp1700 printer. I just bought a yellow one and now I need a black one. The HP service center where I buy my cartridges let me spin and win free stuff (woopee). Last time I got a radio which did not work. I brought it back and found out that the earphones were no good. This time I won a personal fan. Hey, do not complain. These things are free!

Had to wait until 1300 to pick up the cartridge so I went shopping for movies. Found some.

On the way back via the subway, Sunee called and wondered where I was. At that point in time, I was walking up the steps of the Rachadapisek station about 100 meters from the Hof-Art building.

She will return to take some oil painting on Friday, so it looks like she has got herself an art teacher.

Returned home by way of The Mall, Bangkapi.

A Weekend in Hua Hin

2005-09-26T21:01:00.000+07:00

Travelled to Hua Hin and stayed at the Majestic Creek Country Club and Resort. My wife and I took along Ajarn JD so we could have a break before the proctoring started. Waited most of the afternoon on Saturday to get going so we arrived near 9 PM. Long trip as we dropped my niece off at Thammasart U over by the airport. We were all exhausted so we all went right to bed.

Next morning we had a great breakfast and my brother-in-law took us to look at a lot of available land in the area. We stopped at around four or five sites with land for sale. It appeared that most of it was fairly undeveloped but some did have access to electricity. The land was all around 20 rai or so (10 acres). We even went to an area and got our 4WD jeep-like SUV stuck. It was a rainy day most of the day. We got back at around 4 and decided to call it a day. We had a good dinner at the club house and went to our rooms and crashed.

The weekend was not so relaxing as we travelled a lot by vehicle which was tiresome. Hey, at least we got out of Bangkok for a couple of nights. Oh, my nephew also came in from Maryland. He will be doing the monk thing over the next three months. We plan to go to his monk ceremony and I will capture the whole thing and make a DVD movie.

Today Ajarn JD and I got up and walked around the golf course for about an hour and a half, visiting mostly about school and students. It was a nice brisk walk and the scenery was beautiful.

We caught a bus back to Bangkok at 1100. It took 3 1/2 hours for the return trip. The bus ended at the southern terminal in the Pinklao area. We caught a taxi back to the house and I took it easy for about two house. Reviewed the movie Last of the Mohicans for my American Culture class next semester.

Smart Drugs Presentations

2005-09-21T20:01:00.000+07:00

Ms. M wanted a picture together so I obliged. Also my last class of the week and semester requested a class picture so here it is.

The BusinessWeek article on Smart Drugs is the topic for this day's presentations.

Wat Jiang Lam Luk Ka

2005-09-20T23:09:00.000+07:00

Left the house at 0900 to go to our wat school. We spent the morning preparing Sunee's portfolio as she has an appointment at a local gallery to talk about art lessons.

We arrived at our wat and found it had been completely flooded over the weekend. The water had gone but thinks were really muddy. Had to find a way to get into the wat without picking up a lot of mud.

Started class at around 0930. Sunee handed out the papers and went over the vocab and the meanings of the sentences. She then got the students to practice the questions. I helped her a little with the female students who were on the right side of the class. The two hour class went by very quickly.

We had lunch with the other teachers at the school and then got a taxi to the art gallery. Had a bit of a problem finding the gallery. Got some information and the gentleman who greeted us said he would find a really good teacher to teach Sunee. She will have to bring her portfolio again when she meets her new teacher.

We then took the subway (new experience) to Fortune Town where I bought some yellow ink for my HP CP1700 printer. I also picked up six DVD movies for my Aspects class next semester. We had another lunch (I had a bunch of pizza) and we then headed home, arriving at around 4 pm. Overall a very good day.

China verses India Presentations

2005-09-16T21:44:00.000+07:00

This week the students in my reading classes presented the article from BusinessWeek entitled "China verses India"

The Last Orientation for Students 442-XXXX (01/2005)se

2005-09-11T21:47:00.000+07:00

Left the house at around 0800 and traveled to ABAC Huamark. We are supposed to catch a van or some other transortation there to the Swissotel. The Last Orientation for all students with ID beginning with 442. This means I should have a lot of my students in attendants.

We met Ajarn JD at around 0830 at the teachers lounge. He had been on campus since 0810. Now where to catch that van? We checked around with little or no luck. Finally we met a student who told us where to go. We walked over to the van and ended up waiting until around 0945 before we left.

We arrived to the Swissotel just in time for the President of the University to arrive and we followed him in. As soon as he arrived, things began. The President gave a speech (which I thought was way too negative) followed by a couple of more admin people to include the Dean, Faculty of Arts. Her presentation was straight forward and inspirational. Appropriate for the gathering.

We then had lunch and enjoyed around two hours of student entertainment from each of the departments in the Faculty of Arts. Enjoy the pictures. These are "grabbed" from the video which I took during the gathering. The quality is just ok but at least you can get an idea of what a Last Orientation is all about at ABAC.

Reading Class Presents

2005-09-09T19:26:00.000+07:00

Reading Class Presentations

2005-09-07T19:41:00.000+07:00

The Security Biz. All groups provided a presentation on all aspects of the security business. Great job.

Another Tuesday at our Wat School

2005-09-06T20:09:00.000+07:00

Today we left the house at around 0830 and caught a taxi. It took us about 20 minutes to get to the school. The teachers all greeted us and we handed out our gifts. We then went directly to the 4th grade class room where the students were preparing the room to study. For the next 2 hours we read and talked and had the students (18 total) practice what they had studied last time. I did not do much with the computers yet. Ran out of time to get the 6400 ready.

Advising the Advisees

2005-09-03T19:16:00.000+07:00

Got up this morning early so I could go to ABAC Huamark campus. I was to advise students along with 40 or so other Business English teachers. Advising now is a simple process. The students come, fill out their schedule and take it to one of us instructors. We check things out to insure the student has all fulfilled all requirements, does not have any test conflicts and then sign the schedule to OK it. Simple, right?

I arrived to Huamark at aroung 0645. Since it was raining the traffic was a bit backed up so I had the taxi driver turn on Soi 44 and come down to the ABAC road, making a U-turn about a kilometer to the right. No one was around so I went to the 7-11 and bought The Nation Newspaper. Saw an article about The Nation signing an agreement to teach journalism at Hua Chiaow University. This is a Chinese University just up the road from us. Wonder why The Nation did not sign with ABAC. Wierd. Hua Chiaow just does not seem to be a credible school from what I have seen and heard.

No body around so I walked around in the rain to make sure I was at the right place. Finally saw our secretary and followed her to the Hall of Fame. A few teachers were already in side. It was around 0745 when I arrived to the Hall. By 0815 or so we had our locations and were ready for our students.

When the students came in, they showed their ID cards to the secretary and her staff then picked up their forms. They would then go outside to find the courses they want. These were posted along the outside of the Hall. The students would be given a number corresponding to one of us teachers.

Two teachers sat at a table with the appropriate schedules to use to insure accuracy. Once it started it was just a matter of waiting for the students to arrive.

If we did not have any students, we just sat around and visited, read the newspaper or starred at those who had students to advise.

It was important that we checked for requirements and conflicts or else the student would not be allowed to register next week. Sooooo, we checked and checked and made sure all was ok.

Most of the time, I tried to get a feel for how the students were doing in their classes. What I saw was mostly between 2.0 and 2.5 GPAs. Most of these 2.0 students were just lazy.

Ajarn J looks to make sure the student did not make a mistake on how she filled out the form. This was one of my students so I told Ajarn J to make sure he took care of her. Of course, he did. This was Ms. P. I have been teasing her for sometime about her name as it has a different tone to it than how I pronounce it. She also loaned me an umbrella yesterday to insure I did not get wet for my 0900 class. Ajarn J better take care of her!

Ajarn JD goes over the schedule with an advisee. We both ended up with about the same number of students to advise.

Yours truly doing a bit of the advising thing. Had to get the ABAC catalog out on this one to insure she had taken all of her prerequisites. No problem so I signed it and she was on her way.

Reading Class Presentations

2005-09-02T21:33:00.000+07:00

The Movie Making (First Shooting)

2005-09-01T21:33:00.000+07:00

The Reading Class

2005-08-30T21:38:00.000+07:00

A Visit to our Wat Chang Lam Luk Ka School

2005-08-30T19:25:00.000+07:00

Ms. A came by at around 0830 to pick us up. We had prepared the computer table to take to the school. I had found an old SCSI CD-ROM (from a 6100) and gotten it ready to go. I also found an old 8X Philips CD-ROM to also take to the school. When we arrived Mr. G was already there. He had been having severe back problems so he did not make the ride with Ms. A to pick us up. I hope he gets better as he must get on a plane and return to Oklahoma for the reunion. That is a long time to be on an airplane with a bad back.

My wife immediately went to her 4th grade room to teach them English. She had been preparing all week long. We had copied around 40 sheets of simple English for her to use. She was excited about teaching the kids English.

She wanted to get the kids to start speaking and not be so shy. The kids were very happy to see her.

Mr. G and I putzed around with the computers trying to get them to work correctly. We had very little luck. The 9500 with the G3 in it did not want to talk to the monitor. It appeared that the monitor was shot. Then we worked with the Mac IIci and had problems. Nothing seemed to work. The adapter for the monitors which I had taken today was probably bad. This was really frustrating. Finally, I decided to not worry so much about the little Mac IIs and bring my almost cherry 6400 over and my son's 7100 for the school to use. These are prime machines and should make a good core. The two Mac IIci's and the 9500 will be for the kids just to type on and get comfortable with computers. I will regroup and return next week with the two computers (if my son can get the 7100 over here).

The Blog Arrives to EN3231

2005-08-29T19:31:00.000+07:00

After the last presentation for the interviews, we discussed the upcoming movie scripting, shooting, preps, etc. I thought it might be a good idea if the scripters had blogs to exchange information. Ms. A, the director, thought all students should have blogs so I went through the process of creating blogs. Everyone jumped at the chance and now we have at least 30 new bloggers and maybe more.

I had some of the members of the class give me their blog names so I could put them here on this blog. I only got eight verified blogs. I think maybe the others forgot to push the publish button or somethng. I will finish the list next time.

On Thursday we will do our preliminary shooting for our movie. Ms. A seems to have everything under control. We shall see.

My World Civ classes went ok. Lectured on Romanticism and provided a bunch of paintings and some music. Thursday will be the American Revolution.

Ajarn JD came up with a great idea on the Advanced Readings class. Maybe we should have the students build case studies from the BusinessWeek magazine. Will explore this idea some more this week. The BusinessWeek lady will be here on Thursday as well.

Football season starts on Saturday at 1100 a.m. US time or 1100 p.m. our time. I can hardly wait for the Oklahoma Sooners to kick some helmets again this year.

Lecture on Western Imperialism in Asia

2005-08-28T21:38:00.000+07:00

Part of our duties as instructors at ABAC is to attend special lectures for our particular field or course of study. Today we had a lecturer from the MA in Tourism (actually he is the DEAN). He covered one of the chapters in our text about Western imperialism and Asia. His major concentration was Western imperialism in China and Southeast Asia.
I must admit that this special lecture was much better than the one before the midterm. That one was about Buddhism and was very confusing. It went into a depth of detail which was over my head. Now, I wonder just how far it was over the heads of my students?
I had lunch with the lecturer, Dr. J, and we found that we had many things in common. He has travelled extensively in China and elsewhere. He also has his own travel agency.

I asked him during lunch where he had been that was the most exotic. He immediately named three places with the last two being Shangra-La and Lijiang. We then discussed Lijiang and the Jade Snow Mountain and he concluded that Lijiang was the most exotic place. I agreed with him and related the story of how I had to go to the toilet but feared the dreaded Chinese squat ones. I usually head back to the hotel to do my thing but this time it was an emergency. Finally, I paid my money and went in for the "ordeal." To my surprise, the toilets were grade AAA western, modern and super clean. Wait, I thought, this is crazy. Then I realized that Lijiang and been rebuilt from the ground up in 1995 or so. It had suffered a huge earthquake in 1994. With help from the Beijing gov, the Naxi (local none Chinese majority) had rebuilt the entire city on ancient Lijiang plans using the original material. Lijiang is actually a "Disneyland" with the whole thing built for tourists. Forgot it even though I had read it. Yep, Lijiang is the most exotic place I had been until we arrived in Kashgar. In Lijiang the Naxi are a matrilinear society so the women are the bosses and the men follow them. It is truly a wonderful, exciting place.

The Dean (our lecturer) gave me a copy of his small book Tales from the Mountains. It is a book about nice stories from the mountains of Burma, Thailand and China. The story about China occurs in Lijiang. These are inspriational stories that deal with people overcoming difficulty. Nicely done. He also handed out his books as a reward for those who could answer his questions at the end.

The lecture covered mostly the Western conflict with China in the 19th Century. Dr. J pretty much followed the text with the Opium Wars, Taiping Rebellion, Moslem Rebellions and then the Boxer Rebellian. He also touched on what happened with Mao. I did ask him about the book (Mao) I was reading and he had not read it yet.

I picked up the attendance cards from my students and noticed that many of them had not shown up. We will have the same lecture next Saturday as well, so I will have to insure my students know this.

During the second lecture (same as the first) I took a break and walked around the area of the conference center and took some pictures. One has to see Assumption University to appreciate the beauty of it. A lot of money and a lot of design work went in to create this campus and it is definitely not Thai. Kind of a cross between Stanford, Georgetown, Notre Dame and the Vatican with heavy emphasis on the Vatican. An amazing piece of work.

The CL building or Center of Learning Tower can be seen for miles around. It has around 25 or 26 stories and the view from its top is magnificant.

In back of the CL building is a stylish Thai style buidling overlooking a serene and beautifully landscaped pond. The rocks and island in the middle make it seem as though one is far away in a make believe location. The swans also add to that feeling.

The pond next to the conference center has a bunch of horses running across the top of it. When the fountains are turned on, the effect is surprising and pleasant. I have heard that the former President who designed the campus and basically brought it to life had a great admiration for horses. Not too long ago we even had an aquestrian event with jumping horses and such. A bit out of place in Thailand as the heat and humidity would be extremely hard on the horses.

Overall, the special lecture was enjoyable. The lecturer was pleasant and the students seemed to be fairly well behaved. Ajarn B says we may not have too many more of these as they are expensive and not sure if the students get much out of them. I volunteered to give a lecture on the Silk Road but not sure if he took it seriously.

Reading in Business English Let Loose in the Computer Lab

2005-08-27T12:55:00.000+07:00

I took all my Reading in Business English classes to the computer lab in the new IT building. The plan was to show them how quickly they can gather background information on any topic. Ajarn JD was going to meet me with his two classes at 1030 and then at 1400.

The first class did not work. We started to go to the IT Buidling but the electricity went out. We went back to our old room and I got the AV people to hook us up to the internet. We putzed around on the internet during the period and I had the students work on their preseantation assignments.

The rest of the classes went without a hitch. I sat down with several students and showed them how to make PDFs for info they then can email to themselves. The three classes were quite good and Ajarn JD was with us until after 1400. It looks as if my students are all ready for their presentations next week.

Ajarn JD talked about the possibility of developing an advanced reading course. We will have to sit down and get our thoughts on this possibility. It sounded good.

On Thursday, Dr. P the dean of the faculty gave me three DVDs of the show 24. It was terrific and hard not to watch. I watched everyone of the episodes unti lI ran out of DVDs. Will have to try to get the whole set.

The Industrial Revolution and other Problems

2005-08-26T12:40:00.000+07:00

Today we did the Industrial Revolution in my World Civilization class. I was able to finish the chapter and hopefully got some points across. Both my 1230 class and my 1400 class were very attentive and I tried to ask enough questions to keep people involved. This was not the real story for today's blog.

That night I received an email from one of my Chinese students, Ms. X. She was not able to drop by on Thursday for our practice session. She usually comes to my office twice a week to practice her English and to ask questions about World Civ. She did not make it so she wrote me an email explaining why.

Dear ajarn,

i am sorry about today that i did't go to ur office. today i had diarrhea and a stomach ache.
these days , i am having bad luck . my wallet was stolen by some body in class. 5555~~~GONE - my money ,ID card , and so many things .
i think i only can get a 5 on ielts . i got lost in the listening and the readings were about science and technology. so hard. the writing question was not difficult but i wrote it as if i was writing for an english 1 class . :(
i was so stupid during the speaking test . i don't know what i was talking about . I had no logic and no grammar. i was so nervous .5555~~~~~~ i will go to hell.

by the way , do u need something from china , please tell me , ok . it's my pleasure

yours respectfully

My immediate response was for her to please not go to hell as I have heard it is a very bad place. I also encouraged her by telling her that the bad luck is always followed by the good luck.

She is a very good student, second year, and has not developed any confidence in herself. She will be more than ok in a few more months. One cannot help but like and respect these "mainland" Chinese students.

Testing the Teachers

2005-08-24T22:06:00.000+07:00

I was notified on Thursday that I would be involved with several other teachers to go to Pratum Thani and test some of the local English teachers. Dr. P had set it up and asked for me and Ajarn N. We had worked with her before with the 13 Brothers Fiasco. The two day event would begin on Tuesday and last two days.

I arrived to the Huamark campus early (I hate traffic jams) at around 0615. Bought a newspaper and read a bit. I also took a couple of pictures of how it looked this early on campus.

Our van came by to pick us up at around 0800. There were seven of us with another meeting us at the school. The trip took about 40 minutes as we were going against the traffic.

The school was a middle school and was considered one of the top in the district. Gathered together were around 40 or so English teachers from around the district. Basically each school in the area sent one teacher to represent the school. The goal was to define the criteria of being an English teacher as it related to what the Thai government had laid out. English and English teaching has been a hot topic for the last month, since the Thai students had tested out at the bottom of Southeast Asia. Well, actually next to the bottom as they had out performed Cambodian students but just barely.

The English teachers I talked with and tested and interviewed were enthusiastic and motivated. Their English however was preintermediate. I did give them credit for not being shy in using their English. These are very dedicated teachers and this impressed me greatly.

During the two days, we got to know the teachers fairly well, gave them several different tests and then evaluated their performance.

Thailand has a huge problem with English teaching - basically no serious English teaching is happening. The English teachers simply do not have the skills to meet the demand. The whole ed system in Thailand, in fact, is a disaster. It should be scrapped and build from the bottom up. Traditional methods of teaching English just will not get the job done in today's world.

The two days were interesting but hardly worth the effort as Dr. P felt that we accomplished very little as the system will not change.

Dr. P gave me three DVDs to check out. She had been talking about them for some time and I was anxious to see them. These were of a series from the US called 24. I spent the next three days watching them. Big problem as now I must wait to see the whole set and it is killing me as the series was fantastic!

Well, anyway we finished the testing and the meeting and the evaluation. We met some pretty neat teachers and the surrounding area was good for a change. The school itself was well endowed and it seemed to be doing its job. Ajarn JD took over my classes while I was gone so I would not have to make them up later. My students are just preparing to give their presentations, so this was not an inconvenience for me. What the heck, the Chair Person, Dr. C and the Dean, Dr. P were both involved and I would do anything for these wonderful people!

English for Tourism

2005-08-21T21:42:00.000+07:00

Last week Ajarn A asked me to sponsor his English for Tourism trip to a couple of sites in Bangkok. My wife and I went along to help Ajarn A out and, of course, take some pictures.

We left the house around 6:30 and arrived to ABAC at a few minutes before 7 AM. We were supposed to leave at 7:30 Thai Time. Of course, this meant more like 8 AM.

We met Ajarn A and Dr. H on the campus. They had been invited as guests. We visited with them until Ajarn A showed up. After a few minutes of confusion, we got on Bus * and waited for the last students to get onboard.

Our first destination was the Hindu temple on Siloam Road. We had not been there in over 20 years and we had heard that it had expanded. The trip took around 40 minutes. Two of the buses went to the Suan Pakkad Palace while our bus and bus number 9 started at the temple.

My movie camera seemed to be messing up. Believe it has dirty heads. Oh, well, I have to do the best I can with it.

We were at the Hindu temple about 30 minutes. As the other two buses arrived, we left for the Suan Pakkad Palace. I had never heard of it. It used to be a cabbage farm so the Thais call it Suan Pakkad or Cabbage Patch. It is a very lovely setting with Thai style houses located around a pond with beautiful landscaping.

Of particular interest was the house inside another house. The small inner house was an ancient prayer house where monks would sit to meditate and study. This small one room building was placed inside an ancient prayer hall. These are the last remaining examples of this type of buildings in Thailand. Beautiful wood with lacquered black and gold painting.

I was also interested in the small museum about Ban Chiang. Ban Chiang is a neolithic village being escavated in Udon Thani province not far from Udon Thani town. A very old village that may force the historians and archaeologist to rewrite Asian history.

We had lunch at the Taro Taro restaurant which was very pleasant. A buffet was served but us teachers were given a special room and our food was served. Pretty good combination of typical Thai dishes.

The final stop was at the Vimemek Teak Palace. It is the largest teak wood building in the world. It was build by Rama V (Chulalongkorn) and he actually lived it in for 5 years. The antiques and other memoralia were fascinating and unique. We also watched a traditional Thai dancing with fabulous Thai style houses in the background. Too commercial for my taste, I saw where they would be very interesting to tourist who had never experienced Thai dancing.

The day was hot and I was happy to see the day come to an end. The bus took us all back to Assumption University in Bangkapi. From there we got a taxi back to our house.It is tough being an instructor at ABAC. (YEH RIGHT). This trip was fun and the students were great. What more can I say!

The teak house was as nice as I had heard and the Cabbage Patch Palace was worth the trip. They fed us good and I took some interesting pictures, eventhough my video camera seems to be messing up. We will have to put it in for repairs pronto.

And so ends another day as an ABAC instructor.

Back to School (Our Wat School)

2005-08-16T19:06:00.000+07:00

Today my friend G came by with a pickup and we hauled three of my computers to the wat school. He got lost trying to find our house and assured him that there are at least 100,000 people lost in Bangkok at any given moment.

We took two Mac II ci's and my Mac 9500 with a G3 300mhz processor. The two little Macs can be used for the little kids to pound around on and learn about computers. Next week we will deliver one more computer (my Performa 6400) and a couple of monitors. I left the 40 or so CDs with G for next time.

While G and I were setting up the computers my wife went to the 4th grade room as before and taught the kids to speak a little English and to count to ten in both English and Chinese. Their regular teacher had to go to a teachers' seminar today. Sunee had a lot of fun.

We return next Tuesday and I will take some pictures of the Macs and the students.

Presentations and the Reformation

2005-08-15T19:40:00.000+07:00

Today my Conversation and Discussion Class gave presentations on the interview they did before the midterm. Great presentation. This class is really special with some great students. They were to interview both students and teachers about ABAC: the good, the bad and the ugly. We had three presentations and all were really top notch. The last presentation finished with a really nifty VCD film they had put together. Mr. J did a marvelous job on the film clip.

I had decided that this class would do a movie for their major project and I had already given the task of coming up with a script to one of the best students in the class, Ms. A. She had worked on the script and so we decided to have the class divide up and help her finish the script on Thursday. Mr. J will obviously be heavily involved with the technical aspects of the movie. We do not have much time so we have to "rock and roll" to get it done.

I passed out the results of the midterm. No big surprises as everyone did really good. This is an exceptional class, with most of the students very good at English and creative thinking. The upcoming work on the movie should be interesting for me and challenging for the class.

And now for World Civilization. Reformation was the topic. Where does one start? I had only one Christian in both classes. This meant that I had to cover some basic Christian theology before the students are ready for Reformation history. This seemed to work pretty good. I went around and got some of the students involved in my explanations and, at least, I had a good time.

We made it through the entire Reformation chapter without a hitch. I checked and rechecked to see if the students were following my lecture. Luther and Calvin. Luther and Calvin. Luther and Calvin. I also did the Henry VIII, this is better than any Thai soap opera, story. Overall, I would say that both classes seemed to follow the Reformation as best as can be expected. I used a lot of energy in "preaching the Luther style" and demonstrating how Henry VIII took good care of his wives. I was exhausted by the end of the second class.

On Thursday we do the Enlightenment which will take just as much energy to keep it interesting.

Mothers Day Party

2005-08-12T17:25:00.000+07:00

Friday was Mother's Day (Queen's Birthday) so we took my mother-in-law to the Landmark Hotel and had an eight or so course Chinese meal. It was very expensive but, what the heck, my mother-in-law is 96!

This is the group that attended the party.

At around eight in the evening the hotel had a drawing for some prizes. Our two tables won two of the prizes. No big deal. One was some beauty stuff and the other was for a perm or something at their local beauty shop.

We left the hotel around nine. On the way out we stopped to visit with the lovely lady playing the harp. She is from Shanghai and was surprised that my wife and I could speak Chinese. Of course, I told her that this whole family was Chinese with my mother-in-law coming from China when she was around twelve or so. Another pleasant evening out in Bangkok.

A Local Wat School

2005-08-09T16:53:00.000+07:00

We went to a local wat school today with an old high school classmate who has retired about fifteen minutes from where we live. Wat schools are public schools for the super poor. They are run by the local Buddhist wats and usually take in students from families who cannot send their kids to a regular public school.

We had a great time teaching them a little English and just visiting and joking with the kids. About half the school went on a field trip, so we only saw the 4th grade. My friend teaches as a volunteer at the school once a week.

We plan to take them about five Mac computers to use next week. We will set the computers up and provide hundreds of appropriate software for the kids to use. I have been collecting software since 1985, so this is what I was collecting it for. We are looking forward to visiting the school again.

The kids put on a Thai Classical musical show for us just before we left. It was superb!

A Graduation Party

2005-08-06T17:10:00.000+07:00

Our niece will be graduating from Thammasart University this month so we went to a big graduation party with the family. The party was at a big Japanese buffet restaurant at the Emerald Hotel. We had been there before.

All one can eat of Japanese, Chinese and other food. Lots of seafood and the like. I, unfortunately, was hit with back spasms from sitting in the Japanese-style seats. Could not get up or get down. I was also unable to take advantage of the food which was a good thing.

The evening was very pleasant and I took several pictures of members of my Thai family.

Our niece is thinking about going to the United States to start a Masters degree. I think she wants to be a writer but I am not sure. Her English is excellent so she will not have any trouble overseas.

Final Proctorings

2005-08-02T16:50:00.000+07:00

Yesterday, Monday 1 August, was my final day of proctoring. I had a 0900 and a 1500.

Not much going on in between. I turned my extra hours sheet into Ms. N and we visited about her thesis. She is diligently working on the corrections I gave her. I will be able to look at it next week.

I did see our Chair this morning. We discussed the Businessweek collage the students did a couple of weeks ago. Told her I had already narrowed them down to the five finalist and asked her to go look at them. We will get together next week to choose the top three.

BusinessWeek did a contest for our Reading in Business English students and it was a real success. When the students finally got into putting together their concept of "Globalization," we did not have enough space for all the students to work. Even my "thugs (I call them that because they kind of act like thugs some times)" had a great time putting together a collage of pictures from the magazine.

The morning proctoring went slowly. Again, I do not remember what the exam was. I did get to listen to my bluegrass a little bit before the batteries died.

The afternoon proctoring was in one of the big rooms SM509. We had five proctors and so it is rather enjoyable. Three of the proctors were from Business English and one I knew from her teaching Western Civilization. Here is what I learned concerning testing and such at AU:

Students are often paid to steal exams from the exam rooms. The payment comes from the tutoring places located outside AU. There seems to be big baht to be made in tutoring students for their tests. This is why we proctors are given a single row to worry about. I was clueless. The students have to return their entire tests to the appropriate proctor.

Also, the two biggest money makers for the tutoring schools are Western Civ and World Civ. Woa! They sometimes pay students to take really good notes so they can transform these into Thai and charge around 800 or 1000 baht per student to get tudored in Thai. These tutoring schools are not very nice in that they encourage students to sneak out the tests, get a teachers powerpoint lecture or other such things.

Now I know why I feel like I am talking to a class full of "n shows." About half the class never pays attention. They attend for the credit (80% attendance is mandatory at AU) and then pay the baht to get tutored.

The test results of the World Civ test pretty well proves this information to be true. We have a new book, new teachers and the students did miserably on the test.

Now how to overcome the language barrier, the tutoring barrier and the lazy barrier and have my students get interested in World Civ. Maybe I should just go back to my Reading classes and be happy. Nope, I will solve these problems one way or the other.

The day ended without an incident and very rainy. I will be off until Thursday, 4 August.

2005-07-30T17:28:00.000+07:00

Happy Anniversary are in order for my wife and me. We used the BusinessWeek gift certificates (Baht 500 each) to try a Middle East restaurant called Akbar. Ajarn JD and his wife and we arrived at the restaurant at the same time. Great food and great company. There was also a young Thai lady who joined us at the request of Ajarn JD. I had already heard about her, a bigwig in the Coca Cola company. We had a great 30th. Ajarn JD also gave me the new Mao book by Chang which I had been lusting over since he got his.

More Proctoring(s)

2005-07-30T09:52:00.000+07:00

Yesterday I proctored three exams. Went to Hua Mak campus as usual at around 0615 to catch the coach bus to Bangna at around 0700. Ajarn J showed up and we made the trip together. He usually will catch a van near his apartment downtown so this was a bit of a surprise. We share an office and we also are working together on the World Civilization course.

First proctoring was at 0900. Nothing significant other than the pregnant janitorial lady came in with a coke for me at around 1000. She used to be rather none chalant toward me when I said hi. Since she became pregnant five or six months ago, she has been very friendly and outgoing. She does not speak English at all. I usually joke with her about her soon to be born baby. I jokingly assured her she was going to have a girl which she greatly appreciated.

Can not even remember what it was I proctored.

Next exam was at 1200. Again, nothing significant during the proctoring period.

Last exam was at 1500. I remember this one because it was very unusual. It was Business Law II and the majority of the students were from China (either mainland or Taiwan). Seems to me this was a Thai-style business law class. It did not seem to be international law, so it was curious why so many Chinese were taking the test.

Had a great time finding out where all the Chinese were from (I asked them in Chinese to see the expression on their face that a falang could speak Chinese). Had a couple from Shanghai, two from Anhwei Province, at least three from Beiing and three from Taiwan. Oh, yes and there was a young lady from Kunming. She said Yunnan but I could not hear her and she had to repeat Yunnan twice. Not sure I understood until she wrote it down. I must have really caught her attention when I showed some serious excitement about her being from Kunming. My wife and I hold Kunming in high regard, having visited there three times already.

The Taiwanese students are a strange lot. Since I lived in Taiwan for two years after my intensive Chinese course at Monterey, I have a certain amount of prejudice for them. I like them is what I mean. Taiwan is the most successful democracy in all of Asia and it is economically a real tiger. Anyway, these students all deny they are Chinese. Say what?

Yep, they say "we are not Chinese, we are Taiwanese." My comment is always (in Chinese) - you speak Chinese, you look Chinese, why do you say you are not Chinese. They usually end up admitting their Chineseness.

Just for fun, I gave the time left in Chinese and then repeated it in Thai. Everyone laughed.

At the beginning of class, a student came in, went back out and then did a "pray to Buddha" thing with his book. He was rather comical and obviously a good guy. I noticed him stareing at me throughout the class and had a feeling I knew why he was stareing. I have had the same stare when I visit China. No, it was not the "oh my goodness, a foreigner is in the area and I have never seen one before" stare,

Nope, this was a "gee, I really want to talk to this foreigner but I am not sure how to do it" stare.

After the exam he remained behind with another guy (more later on him) and we visited. I had him pegged. He had spent three and a half years in Lubbock, Texas and was anxious to find out where I was from and if I knew anything about Lubbock. He had a strange Singaporean accent to his English which was not unpleasant. Kind of a clipped British accent with yearnings of Australian or some such highlights to it. He was a real riot. Totally a Gen Xer with a flair for comedy. He laughed when I told him he was really from Singapore.

"No, ajarn. I'm really from Bangkok but I have both a Thai and a Chinese surname," he insisted as he wrote his Chinese surname on the board in Chinese. Sure enough, there it was on the board - "Chen." I then wrote my Chinese surname on the board in Chinese for him "Siao Shan." This is a joke, of course, as the characters in Chinese mean "small mountain."

What a charming and wacked out kid, I told myself as he left.

The other student who stayed late to talk was wearing a baseball cap. He had asked permission to cram a bit outside before the test. I had told him that he had until ten after to cram or whatever. This was at around five minutes before the three start time.

It only takes about five seconds to tell what students have studied aboard. Not so much their English (five seconds of English is not even enough time to understand for native English speakers let alone an ESL student). The five seconds is enough to react to a student and how he or she reacts to the ajarn. These reactions come more from the gut than the head. I had this kid "cramming outside" as a Californian for sure. Hat, attitude and speech all yelled out LA kid!

I have been teaching at ABAC for three years and I am good, very good at analysing my gut reaction to kids and their English backgrounds. I have been fooled, but not very often. Reaction analysing, for me, is great fun when I first meet an ABAC student.

The "cramming before class" kid was the typical "Thai studied in LA" student. He was Mr. Cool. He obviously has bought into the LA lifestyle and he loves it.

My comments are not negative about these LA Thai rockers. No, in fact, these students are pure American in their outlook on life. Most will have a 3 GPA or higher and will scare the heck out of their Thai ajarns by asking questions, American style, in class. The Thai ajarns hate them. The Falang teachers love these brash young Thais. No, I love'em and look forward to having them in my classes.

This "crammer" (as I will call him) was one of these typical LA Thai students. He, however, had grown up in LA with over thirteen years in Anaheim. He hated it in Thailand and was probably intimidating all his Thai teachers with his questions and comments.

We visited for about ten minutes during which time I told him he was an American. He tried to tell me that he was a Thai citizen but I would have none of it. I then explained that "American" was more a state of mine than a location. He walked like an American, he talked like an American and he certainly thought like an American. Yep, he said - I am definitely an American. I ended up giving him my name card.

He is bigtime, as far as I was concerned - the real future of Thailand.

If it had not been for the last two kids in my last exam, the day would have been written off as boring. As it was, I met two more ABACers who established again why I teach here. i am loving it.

Proctored

2005-07-28T21:11:00.000+07:00

Finish the first day of mid-term proctoring for 01/2005. I went in very early (6 am to the Hua Mak campus) to avoid any traffic. Spent the morning finishing stray assignments and then proofed Ms. N's Chapter 4 MA Thesis. She will have a lot of work to do for her thesis to be ready.

Some definitions are in order concerning Assumption University.

proctor - the act of overseeing mid-term and final exams. As part of our duty, we must insure our students do not accidently get answers from elsewhere. We do this about six or seven times each exam period.

Ajarn - Thai word for professor

Hua Mak Campus - the original campus of Assumption Business and Accounting College (ABAC) now Assumption University

Bangna Campus - the new campus of Assumption University located about an hour by big coach bus from the Hua Mak campus. It is too amazing to describe. A cross between Stanford University, Notre Dame and the Vatican. There is no place like it on the planet.

I proctored my own Conversation and Discussion class plus 5 at 1500 this afternoon. The plus 5 is the extra 5 students I had with my class of 40. Yep, I have a conversation class with 40 students in it.

This course is not my favorite (I do not plan to teach it next term) but this class of 40 is by far the best group of students I have ever had at Assumption University. About half the class I have seen in my Reading in Business English courses and the other half are super engaged. This class will probably be the focus of this blog until the end of the semester.

Focus

Had a great time joking with three of my students while waiting for the C & D test to begin. Cute does not really do benefit to the three Thai students. Ms. O, Ms. C and Ms. S are all previous students with charming personalities and "cute as dolls" looks. Ms. O especially enjoys calling me "the pumpkin man" a name she got from her younger sister who I had allowed to visit the class for a couple of weeks.

I have decided that I must do something very special and very taxing for these 40 students to benefit from the class. Not sure what it will be but they are just too good to not be challenged. Whatever it is, I plan to video tape it for future reference.

Saw Ajarn R. after our test and asked how her test had gone. It was from her that I found I should have let my students watch the Friends clip twice. I only allowed them to watch it one time. It will not be easy but then what are mid-term tests for anyway. We will see how the group does on the test.

Tomorrow I have three proctorings, an obviously long day.

Proctoring

2005-07-27T20:30:00.000+07:00

Tomorrow we begin our midterm proctoring duties. Proctoring exams, exams and more exams. I am scheduled to proctor my Discussion class at 3 pm tomorrow. I did the Friends film clips for the midterm in vcd and will check it in the morning. Should be fine.

Friday I proctor all day with three exams. Hopefully one will be in the big room with five or six other proctors. That makes for a less boring time.

My final proctoring fun is on Monday, 1 August, when I get to do two exams.

I am looking forward to this "wonderful" duty after a week's worth of computer time and assignment grading. I am set for the beginning of the next half of the semester.

Silk Road Adventure: Day 21 Tianshui to Xian

2005-04-24T18:25:00.000+07:00

Our trip from Tianshui to Xian was pretty much an easy one. We had stopped at the book store the previous day to get some more Chinese painting books. We left early (around 0700) and headed out.
We stopped at the Famen temple to see the famous Buddha relics found there. It was very commercialized but interesting.
Of particular interest to me were the Tang Dynasy-style buildings built to support the growing tourist trade.

The Famen Temple is located about 80 miles or so from Xi'an. It has always been a famous temple among Buddhists in China. It was built to house the bones of the fingers of Sakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism in China.The Famen Temple complex was constructed in the Eastern Han Dynasty because of the "the Real Spirit Pagoda", a stupa which housed a finger bone of Sakyamuni.

The Famen Temple was originally called the Asoka Stupa. During the years of Zhenguan in the Tang Dynasty it was reconstructed into a wooden four-storey structure. The wooden stupa was destroyed in 1569 by an earthquake.. In 1579, Buddhists in Fufeng County collected alms and donations to rebuild the stupa into the current beautiful brick octagon of 13 storeys, 47 meters in height. It took 30 years to complete the whole project. Because of the massive weight of the stupa and relatively small underground palace, the stupa began to tilt toward the southwest over the next 55 years. In 1976, another earthquake in Sichuan , caused the stupa to tilt even more. In 1981, the western side of this tilted stupa fell off due to constant exposure to the rainy season. Most of the stupa collapsed shortly thereafter. Only part of the body remained on an incomplete platform of broken bricks.

In 1985, the Shaanxi Provincial Government rebuilt the stupa imitating the brick one from the Ming Dynasty. While clearing the stupa foundation, the underground palace was discovered. For more than 1,000 years, the palace had housed the remains of the finger bones of Sakyamuni and other valuable relics that enshrined these precious bones.
According to tablet inscriptions in this underground palace, the finger bones had always been kept inside the Famen Stupa.
The underground palace at Famen Temple is 21.2 meters long, and covers an area of 31.84 square meters. It is the largest underground palace discovered so far in China. The four finger bones discovered there are unusual to say the least. The first one was kept in an eight-layered chest in the back room. The finer bone, 40.3 millimeters long and hollow on both sides, hung vertically on a silver column on a gold stupa base. The second , which is like the first, was kept in a double-eaved marble coffin in the center room of the palace. The third one was kept in a five-layered marble chest, which was retained in a secret niche in the back room. This finger bone is tube-like, 37millimeters long and is white and yellow in color. The fourth one was kept in a color-painted King Asoka stupa in the front room. Its color and shape are very much like those of the first and second finger bones. According to authorities, the third finger bone is the only real one. The other three were "shadow bones" or imitations which the Tang emperor had made in order to protect the real one.

The Buddhist relics discovered at the Famen Temple are the only real finger bones that have been discovered and maintained in the world. There are many other relics that were unearthed with the underground palace. We saw them and they are stunning! We were not allowed to take pictures but I noticed that several Chinese tourists were taking pictures with their cell phones and no one seemed to care.

Besides the fingers, they also found 121 gold and silver articles,17 glass articles,16 pieces of olive green porcelain, more than 700 pieces of silk fabrics,104 Buddhist figurines, hundreds of volumes of Buddhist scripture and many stone carvings and steles. It was a major find and adds to the popularity of Famen Si as a tourist destination.

Silk Road Adventure: Day 20 Wuwei to Tianshui

2005-04-23T18:24:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 19 Jaruguan to Wuwei

2005-04-22T21:18:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 18 Hami to Jaruguan

2005-04-21T18:17:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 17 Turpan to Hami

2005-04-20T18:16:00.000+07:00

Silk road Adventure: Day 16 Kucha to Turpan

2005-04-19T18:16:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 15 Kashgar to Kucha

2005-04-18T18:15:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 14 Kashgar

2005-04-17T18:14:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 13 Kashgar

2005-04-16T18:14:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 12 Khotan to Kashgar

2005-04-15T18:13:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 11 Korla to Khotan

2005-04-14T18:12:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 10 Urumqi to Korla

2005-04-13T18:06:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 9 Urumqi

2005-04-12T18:06:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 8 Hami to Urumqi

2005-04-11T18:05:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 7 Dunhuang to Hami

2005-04-10T18:05:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 6 Dunhuang

2005-04-09T18:04:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Day 5 Jaruguan to Dunhuang

2005-04-08T18:03:00.000+07:00

We arrived to Jaruguan rather late and decided to skip it and visit it on the way back. We made a quick trip out to the fort, did some shopping and returned to our hotel. We got up really early and found that it had snowed the night before. Wow, a snowstorm in the middle of the Gobi Desert.

We left Jaruguan really early, so we did not eat breakfast. We stopped at around 9 A.M. at a tiny little desert town for breakfast. Nothing fancy but a bit expensive as this appeared to be the only "game in town."

The 380 KM between Jaruguan and Dunhuang is totally different than what we saw in the Hexi Corredor. The landscape is breathtaking with the foreground of desert and a background of multi-colored mountains.

As we got closer to our destination of Dunhuang, the desert appeared to become flatter and the moutains seemed more distant.

The mutli-colored horizon and changing nature of the desert around us was hard to describe. This was different than anything we had seen previous.

About halfway to Dunhuang we came across this strange pagoda out in the middle of nowhere. I was able to get three or four photos of it as we flew by. Even in this picture, it looks like a cardboard cutout but it was a real pagoda.

Again we stopped at one of the tiny desert town for lunch. The snow had stopped and the roads were drying out. The place was not impressive and the food was not cheap.

Just as we turned off the main highway to head south to Dunhuang we got a glimpse of our first camel. He (or she) was drinking at a small pond and did not seem to care if we took pictures. Scroungy looking thing, isn't it?

As we got closer to Dunhuang we began to see human inhabitants. This is the typical dried mud brick house found throughout the area. This particular photo was taken about 15 miles or so outside Dunhuang. I really liked the snow-capped moutains in the background.

Upon arriving in Dunhuang, we immediately found a hotel and headed to the famous sand dunes called Mingshan. This was a tourist attraction with giant "Lawrence of Arabia" sand dunes surrounding an ancient temple and oasis spring pond. It cost us 80 yuan each to get in but the guide books said we definitely should go see this area so we paid our money. We could have ridden camels into the dunes but instead opted for golf carts.

The place was a bit disappointing. The temple complex was very pleasant but things were just too commercial. It did not seem real. Oh, the dunes were real and the ancient temple was real, but the overall effect was just too commercial. We could have ridden camels, slid down the dunes and do a dozen other things but, we are not kids anymore.

Instead of participating in the local activities we walked around and took a lot of pictures. It was very cold and their was a fair breeze so it was not that comfortable. I would have given this a pass, especially if I had known what was ahead of us after Korla.

Just a pleasant (but expensive) place to relax and walk around.

Silk Road Adventure: Day 4 Wuwei to Jaruguan

2005-04-07T17:56:00.000+07:00

We left Wuwei in the early morning hours and headed out on a super highway (costs money, of course) across Gansu Province. This area is called the Hexi Corredor and was just about the only way to get to the western lands of Chinese Turkistan. The sites are monotonous and the towns are few and far apart. We stopped now and then to take on fuel and to take breaks. .

I had planned to stop in Zangye, about halfway between Wuwei and our final destination of the day, Jaruguan. It is 235 KM from Wuwei. AS we approached Zangye, we began to see the remnants of the Great Wall. Small and distant and first but as we approached the Zangye area, we got closer and closer to it. The color of the Great Wall matched its environment, reddish brown.

The wall was pretty beat up but one could still see the evidence that at one time it was very substantial. We stopped often for me to take pictures as we got closer and closer to it. We began to feel we were indeed approaching China's frontier. It was a wild and desolate land with very little evidence of human inhabitants except the highway and its supporting elements. I was feeling excitement. Here was the edge of old China and we were going to drive right through the Great Wall! We eventually did shoot through a hug hole in the Great Wall but it happened so fast that I was not able to record it in my digital camera. Because we had to come back this way, I made a mental note to stop on the way back.

China has very little regulations controlling the big trucks that move along her highways. We often saw trucks that were overloaded and overweight. This particular truck flipped when the road under construction did not allow it to make a sharp turn to the left. Other trucks were carefully making the turn and finding the same inertial problem. We slipped by this mess and I was able to get a photo of the truck.

Upon reaching Zhangye, we Immediately saw The Wooden Pagoda Temple in the downtown area. It was built in around 557-588 A.D. during the early Northern Zhou Dynasty. The pagoda had been renovated several times during the dynasties of Sui (581-618A.D.), the Tang (618-907 A.D.), the Ming (1368-1644 A.D.) and the Qing (1644-1911 A.D.). The Wooden Pagoda looked to be in great shape. It is regarded as one of Zhangye City's "Five Elements" Pagodas. (Metal, wood, water, fire and earth are the "five elements" in ancient Chinese philosophy and fortune-telling.).

The pagoda is a nine-storey building with a height of around 108 feet. It has a unique octagon shaped structure in each tier with eight dragonhead woodcarvings in each angle, a bead in the mouth, and a wind-bell below the neck. The main body is made of wood with eaves formed into pavilion style structure. Within the pagoda, each floor has doors, cloisters, engraved windows and lintels, which were embedded with brick carved steles. It is extremely unique from other pagodas because neither a nail nor a rivet can be found in the entire structure. The pagoda is beautiful and magnificent.

The main attraction at Zhangye is the temple which houses the largest Buddha image in all of China. Since I was the only one interested in this site, I was the only one to pay money to see it. My wife figured she has seen enough big buddhas to last a lifetime. The money, in my opinion, was well spent. I must have taken a hundred photos of the temple compound eventhough I was not allowed to take pictures of the actual reclining giant Buddha.

The entrance to the temple was impressive, maybe because it did not feel as if it was a commerical venture. The buildings inside were not well kept and the actual building holding the giant Buddha was magnificent! My understanding is that this is the last of the really great Buddhist temples still standing which were originally built of hand carved wood.

This Giant Buddha Temple is the largest architectural relic in Gansu Province and was built during the Western Xia (1038-1227) period. This large reclining Buddha appeared to be fairly well preserved in the main wooden temple.

Legend has it that a chancellor named Wei Mie of the Western Xia period ordered workers to dig into the ground to 1 to 1.3 meters deep to carve a reclining Buddha to be covered with glazed color tiles. The Giant Buddha Temple was built in 1098 to house the Buddha. In its 900 years the temple was restored many times during the Ming and Qing dynasties.

The existing complex consists of the Giant Buddha Hall, the Buddhist Classics Hall, and a Clay Pagoda. The two-storied Giant Buddha Hall is 33 meters high, 49 meters wide and 24 meters long, with a total area of 1770 square meters. The gold-plated and painted Giant Buddha lies in the Nirvana situation in the middle of the hall. The whole Buddha is 34.5 meters long and 7.5 meters wide between its two shoulders, with feet of 4 meters and ears of 2 meters. The Buddha's calm expression moves visitors. Behind the Buddha are 10 disciples, and in two side halls stand 18 Saintly Warriors. The walls of the hall are covered with colorful murals, which depict episodes from the Mountain-sea Sutra (an ancient Chinese encyclopedia) and from Journey to the West (a celebrated novel written in the Ming Dynasty).

The Clay Pagoda, one of the Five Elements Pagodas in Zhangye, has 13 stories, on the first and the second stories of which are four miniature pagodas, a feature rarely seen in other pagodas.

In the Buddhist Classics Hall, there are more than 6000 tomes of lectures, some of which, written in gold and silver, are the rarest and most precious.

It is said that the Bieji Queen (a famous queen of the Yuan Dynasty) once lived in the Giant Buddha Temple, giving birth to Kublai Khan there. The Italian traveler Marco Polo, impressed by the magnificent architecture of the Giant Buddha Temple and by the prosperity of Zhangye city, lived here for more than a year.

We finally got back on the road in late afternoon (around 3PM) and stopped at our destination of Jaruguan 251 KM away. The scenery was exactly as it had been prior to Zhangye except the Great Wall was on the left and gradually disappearing on the horizon.

Silk Road Adventure: Day 3 Lanzhou to Wuwei

2005-04-06T17:56:00.000+07:00

From the start I thought we should spend a full day in Lanzhou. It is the biggest city headed west. From what little I had read, I thought we could find things to do and things to see. The Bingling Grottoes, for example are a bunch of Buddhist caves that are situated on a cliff face, some 80km from Lanzhou. Bingling (Tibetian) means Ten Thousand Buddha. Besides the temple, the journey itself is supposed to be impressive, especially near the caves. Unfortunately, April is a no go on the river since there is not enough water to float a boat and there is no access by road.

The Yellow River flows across Lanzhou The city has a 2,000-year history and is capital of Gansu Province. With a population of around three million people, it is one of the largest cities in the northeast, and also the most unpleasant because of the pollution that thickens the air and covers even the mountains on both sides of the river. Lanzhou was a significant fortress (for around 1,400 years) of the Hexi Corridor, the eastern and the most crucial stretch of the Silk Road. It enjoyed a long period of great prosperity until the Silk Road went away. The attractions in the city are not worth the visit. The city is modern and continues to expand upward and outward along the Yellow River. It, for me, was a city without a soul. A city build to be functional and that is about all.

We visited a the White Pagoda Hill Park which was full of families relaxing and walking around. There was little of interest to see except a Tibetian temple in which I was not allowed to take photos. I did find a music group with an old man playing the Er Hu. It was pretty good. The other big attraction, Five Springs Mountain Park was completely closed for renovations.

The park was laid out on the side of a mountain and most of the buildings were being renovated and cleaned up. It was very commercial with all kinds of temple trinkets and other Buddhist things for sale.

This is a closeup of the above entrance door. The lion looks like a grape and was newly painted.

One thing to note, Lanzhou women are supposed to be some of China's most beautiful. We saw a fair number of very sophisticated ladies in downtown Lanzhou and there did appear to be a different look about them. I doubt though that they could seriously compete with the beauty found in Bangkok.

This (above) is an interesting door to one of the smaller buildings inside the temple compound.

We left Lanzhou and headed for Wuwei at around noon, having cancelled our second night in Lanzhou. The lady at our hotel could speak English quite well and she did not hesitate to practice with my wife and I. Her dream was to visit the United States.

We arrived in Wuwei, 273 Km from Lanzhou at around 4 in the afternoon, found a hotel and decided to make a quick trip to a local old Buddhist temple. According to my (not so trusty) Guide to the Silk Road, this place was within walking distance of the night market. The night market was just getting started, no problem in finding it so we asked directions to the Haizang Temple complex. "Within walking distance" means anything on the planet is within walking distance given enough time. It took us over a half hour to get to the temple. We had to travel though some very low rent slum areas of mud brick houses and the complex was in desperate need of repair. It was supposed to be very old and it looked it. The guide book said about 2.5 KM but trust me, it was closer to 10 or 12 kilometers and the road was unimproved (and I am being generous).

The complex is northwest of the city and has a landscaped Chinese garden and pond area in front of it. We parked the car inside this garden area. We spent about forty minutes walking around the area and taking pictures. No one is sure how old this place is except that it is "really old." Most scholars say it was build between the Song and Yuan dynasties but there are no official records of it. It was restored in 1965 and appears to need another restoration job. Hey, I liked it as it felt natural and was definitely not commercialized as in most of the old Chinese temples across China.

Silk Road Adventure: Day 2 Tianshui to Lanzhou

2005-04-05T17:55:00.000+07:00

We arrived to Meijishan at around 8 am. Not many people this early. The temperature was cool and there appeared to be light fog over the moutains. We paid our entrance fee, parked the car and walked up to the base of the mountain. It was, indeed, a strange looking "hill" mostly round with red colored outcroppings of rock (appeared to be sandstone). We walked to the entrance but they wanted over 50 yuan to get in. As I had already read about the images, we decided not to pay to go inside the grottos and just buy a book or a DVD of them. If you have seen one Buddha image, chances are pretty good you have seen the majority of them.

The huge Buddha carvings on the outside were truly nice. These things are really big and look to be very old. I took several different pictures from different angles. This one shows the size and gives a good idea of the general overal positioning of the two giants.

We left Tianshui on schedule after shopping for some souveniers from Meijishan. My wife bought some huge toaist worry beads which I planned to take to my office at Abac. We turned down an opportunity to by a VCD of Meijishan at 30 Yuan. A bit too much, especially when we felt we could find it a lot cheaper elsewhere. The trip to Lanzhou of 347 KM was made up entirely of more loess. More loess. More loess. I will never want to see anymore brown loess as long as I live or until our next trip to Xian in March 2006.

Silk Road Adventure: Day 1 Xian to Tianshui

2005-04-04T17:52:00.000+07:00

We scheduled our car and two drivers for the 4th of April. The drivers and car arrived to our hotel at around 7 am. The lady who sat us up with the car dropped by and we finished the paperwork to make sure everything was legal. The hotel offered breakfast (Chinese style) for 5 yuan so we all took advantage before setting out on our Silk Road Adventure.

As soon as we left Xian and its surrounding suburbs, we began to see the famous loess plateau. I had heard and read of this plateau since my high school days, so I was especially interested in what exactly it was. Boy, was I not impressed. It looked like just plain old Oklahoma dusty brown dirt to me. We stopped several times along the way for me to take a closer look and it was during this close inspection that I saw that we have nothing like this stuff in Oklahoma. Mixed among the dusty brown dirt particles are all kinds of junk. Small roots and unidentified, none dirt particles which gave it a weird textures. We were told that loess is packed so tight in this area, that people cut caves into the mountains and hills and lived inside these caves. The caves were not that common near Xian but up north in the Yanan area (where the Mao's Long March ended) the locals still use these caves to live in. For more information on this loess plateau, go here (http://www.mindground.net/loess.html).

Tianshui is about a five hour drive from Xian. From what I was able to find out, it is a fairly new town and thriving. The reason anyone goes to Tianshui is to see the famous Buddha images in a strange shaped mountain about fifteen miles outside the city - Meijishan. The road to Tianshui was really bad, construction all over the place. When traveling by car, one must pay a lot of money at toll gates. The trip to Tianshui cost us well over $20 on a road that was little more than a dirt path after we left the freeway. Miserable road and, after five hours of seeing loess, miserable sites. We were all happy to arrive in Tianshui in late afternoon. We had stopped several times for me to check out the loess, make pit stops and eat. The 368Km took us most of the day and we decided to find a hotel at around 3 pm, get cleaned up and go shopping a little. We would go see Meijishan early the next morning and then head out to Lanzhou at around noon.

Hey, it was my birthday! We (two drivers, my wife and I) found a little restaurant about three blocks from our hotel and had a birthday party (of sorts). We located a cake shop next to the hotel and had them make a cake or rather decorate a cake which appeared to be at least two days old. Hey, it is for a party not really to eat? We had a decent dinner and then celebrated by me cutting the cake. How many of you have had a birthday party in downtown Tianshui?

On the way out, we saw a crippled man trying to get onto a chair and so we directed the waitress to give the rest of the cake to this poor unfortunate soul. The waitress laughed and informed us that he was the owner of the restaurant. Oh, well. The cake was terrible anyway.

On the way to the hotel we did make a quick stop to check out a book store which appeared to be selling some really great Chinese painting books very cheap. We spent about an hour browsing through the books on Chinese paintings and others. My wife ended up buying a beautiful set of four full color books at around 200 yuan for the set (about 1000 baht). Nice books!

Silk Road Adventure: Messing Around in Xian

2005-04-03T18:02:00.000+07:00

Silk Road Adventure: Arrival to Xian

2005-04-02T22:00:00.000+07:00

We arrived at the airport in Xianyang about 40 KM from Xian. It was late afternoon and we got a taxi right away. The plane was virtually empty.

The taxi driver once more talked us into going to another hotel other than the Wuyi we had planned on. Oh, well, I guess they have to get their cut. The hotel was ok and it was in the middle of the town only two or three blocks from the Wuyi. We messed around for a while, got something eat but had no luck finding our noodle people from last time. That whole section of the town had been torn down and all the shops gone. Maybe we can find them later.

The first night we walked across the street and got a Chinese message. An hour's worth and cheap. We had gotten one when we were in Guilin and they are a bit better than the Thai style. It was a pleasant way to start our trip.

We planned to check out modes of travel and decide on the best way to go on the silk road. Our tourist lady, Ms. Time was off running a tour and would not be back for a week or so. We could not wait so we planned to do it alone.

We did talk to her company and they quoted some pretty expensive prices. Again, we would do this on our own with my wife's well practiced Chinese. No way could I pull this off with my Chinese.

Abac Musings

Christmas Day

Hof-Art and Fortune Arcade

A Weekend in Hua Hin

Smart Drugs Presentations

Wat Jiang Lam Luk Ka

China verses India Presentations

More China verses India Presentations

The Last Orientation for Students 442-XXXX (01/2005)se

Reading Class Presents

Reading Class Presentations

Another Tuesday at our Wat School

Advising the Advisees

Reading Class Presentations

The Movie Making (First Shooting)

The Reading Class

A Visit to our Wat Chang Lam Luk Ka School

The Blog Arrives to EN3231

Lecture on Western Imperialism in Asia

Reading in Business English Let Loose in the Computer Lab

The Industrial Revolution and other Problems

Testing the Teachers

English for Tourism

Back to School (Our Wat School)

Presentations and the Reformation

Mothers Day Party

A Local Wat School

A Graduation Party

Final Proctorings

More Proctoring(s)

Proctored

Proctoring

Silk Road Adventure: Day 21 Tianshui to Xian

Silk Road Adventure: Day 20 Wuwei to Tianshui

Silk Road Adventure: Day 19 Jaruguan to Wuwei

Silk Road Adventure: Day 18 Hami to Jaruguan

Silk Road Adventure: Day 17 Turpan to Hami

Silk road Adventure: Day 16 Kucha to Turpan

Silk Road Adventure: Day 15 Kashgar to Kucha

Silk Road Adventure: Day 14 Kashgar

Silk Road Adventure: Day 13 Kashgar

Silk Road Adventure: Day 12 Khotan to Kashgar

Silk Road Adventure: Day 11 Korla to Khotan

Silk Road Adventure: Day 10 Urumqi to Korla

Silk Road Adventure: Day 9 Urumqi

Silk Road Adventure: Day 8 Hami to Urumqi

Silk Road Adventure: Day 7 Dunhuang to Hami

Silk Road Adventure: Day 6 Dunhuang

Silk Road Adventure: Day 5 Jaruguan to Dunhuang

Silk Road Adventure: Day 4 Wuwei to Jaruguan

Silk Road Adventure: Day 3 Lanzhou to Wuwei

Silk Road Adventure: Day 2 Tianshui to Lanzhou

Silk Road Adventure: Day 1 Xian to Tianshui

Silk Road Adventure: Messing Around in Xian

Silk Road Adventure: Arrival to Xian