China in brief

Intro

For the past two months, I have been traveling I China for my Ph.D research with a group of undergraduates on study abroad. We spent part of the time doing science stuff and part of the time touring around to learn about the culture. Altogether, I spent the last eight weeks visiting ten different cities in China and Taiwan by plane, train, and bus. While I kept a daily log of my travels, I figure I will give a brief summary here with a few pics. I have more pics posted on Facebook.

Shanghai
We first spent a few days in Shanghai, a city I had visited previously many years ago. However, we visited several places and museums that I had not been to before. Shanghai is a very modern city and has a long history of Western influence. The rest of the group spent a day at the World Expo, I chose to explore more of the city by myself.

Nanjing
We basically used Nanjing as our base for the rest of the trip. We stayed at Nanjing University, where we have several good contacts and collaborators. We spent time here between trips to other places and visited many of the sites around the area as well.

Beijing
We visited Beijing to see some of the major attractions of China (the Great Wall, Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City, etc.) and to also visit with one of our collaborators in research. Since I had spent a lot of time in this city already there wasn’t much new to me that I hadn’t already seen. We did eat some wonderful Beijing duck. I spent part of a day away from the group with a Chinese grad student friend of mine. Beijing has always been a city I have enjoyed and I never grow tired of visiting it.

Xishuangbanna
The province of Yunan is in the southernmost part of China and borders southeast Asia, Xishuangbanna is a county right on the border. We stayed here for a week in a tropical botanical garden. We learned about tropical rain forests, did a few field experiments, and enjoyed the tropics. This part of China is home to several minority ethnic groups that exist in the region. A grad student at the botanical garden is Dai and she graciously took us to her village and we went for a hike in their sacred forest. Afterwards, her mother treated us to a tremendous lunch of their native dishes.

Kunming
We spent a couple of days sightseeing in this city on the way back from Xishuangbanna. It is the capital of Yunnan Province and attracts a large number of tourists each year. We visited one of the mountains outside of the city that had several Buddhist/Daoist shrines carved into the side of the mountain. Probably the most impressive thing we visited was the Stone Forest, which extended for hundreds of acres outside of the city.

Taipei
I had made some contacts of my own for my research that I wanted to follow-up on so while the rest of the group stayed in Nanjing for a time, I headed out to Taipei. I was hosted by a professor at National Taiwan Normal University, who is really into invasive species and is quite knowledgeable about them in Taiwan. We collected some mosquitofish throughout the northern part of Taiwan and spent some time in his lab with his grad students.

Guangzhou
After Taiwan, I headed to Guangzhou where I was hosted by a professor at Jinan University. I spent a couple of days collecting mosquitofish around the city with one of his grad students. It was a delightful city and the food was excellent, one of the few palces in the world where you will be offered chicken feet for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Jiuzhaigou
They say that many Chinese couples come to Jiuzhaigou because it is said to be one of the most beautiful places in China. I would have to agree. This lush, green valley is full of crystal clear mineral water lakes connected by various streams, shoals, and waterfalls. The scenery was amazing and I thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere.

Lhasa
One of the most anticipated parts of the trip was our trip to Tibet. We spent several days visiting sites in the city of Lhasa and traveling around to see nearby lakes and other shrines/monasteries. One of the issues we ran into here was altitude sickness. Due to the elevation we took precautions and only one of our group really had any difficulty during the trip.

Chengdu
We spent several days in Chengdu seeing the panda breeding facility, Tibetan macaques, the zoo, more Buddhist temples, and other attractions. Since this part of the trip was right near the end everyone was tired and anxious for some relaxation time.

Wuhu
One of the professors at our university working with us has some contacts in a smaller city not far from Nanjing. Upon returning from Chengdu my advisor and I took a quick trip down there to meet with some other faculty and grad students. We made some presentations about our research and made arrangements for others from our group to come down and help out with a survey they were doing the following week.

Conclusion
After all those cities, hotels, flights, trains, etc. I was ready to come home. My wife and kids had stayed with her parents in Utah during the duration of my absence. They had enjoyed being with family the whole time and had spent time with both sets of grandparents. It was great to see them after so long and I look forward to spending the rest of the summer with them.

Leaving on a jet plane...

The semester ended for me with the usual frenzy of projects, exams, papers, and tasks to get done in a small amount of time allotted. But it is over. I also had my first committee meeting and basically have two more courses to take for my program. In a few days, I hop on a plane to China and will begin pursuing my research interests there for my dissertation over the course of the next two months. My wife and kids will be in hanging out with family in Utah for the duration of my absence.

Somewhere in early April, the weather warmed up considerable and we enjoyed a marvelous weather for the month with a fair amount of rain. Along with the change in weather came the pollen. For several days the sky and air was filled with pollen from all the trees around the area. Cars parked outside would have a thin layer of pollen covering them within a short period of time. Fortunately, my hayfever medication worked fine in the new area.

Posts on or blog may be scarce for the next few months as the Great Firewall of China tends to block all blog sites. But I hope to post pics and info upon my return.

Spring has arrived!

Spring has been coming to Athens for several weeks now. The trees are all blooming, the sun is shining, shirt sleeves are comfortable, sunglasses are needed, and I need my daily hay fever meds. We experienced one more snow storm early in March, but it was nothing like the other one we got. (Yes, it snowed twice here in Athens this winter.)

I had spring break early in March and my wife’s parents came out for a visit. We picked them up on Monday and had a wonderful week full of good food (provided mostly by my wife) and activities. We visited a lot of the old homes here in Athens and showed them the UGA campus. We took them down to Madison which is one of the places that General Sherman didn’t burn so there are still a lot of homes from pre-Civil War. We toured the Mayfield Dairy and got some ice cream for a treat afterward. My wife’s parents also watched the kids for us a couple of nights so the two of us could go out, which we enjoyed since we don’t get out together very often without the kids.

School has been consuming me as usual, but it is all good since I will be mostly done with my coursework after this semester. We have big plans for the summer which include going back to Utah to spend time with our families, I head to China for a couple of months to do research there, and then my family is having a family reunion in Nauvoo, Illinois.

We are working on potty training the two youngest, so wish us luck. My son is now three and he understands the mechanics of it all, just needs to get the psychology of it down (if you don’t know what I am talking about then you probably haven’t done any potty training). My youngest daughter shows interest in it and may get trained before her older brother. She is also into clothes a lot and my wife tells me she loves to change clothes all day long, and she is not quite two. My son is a sponge and soaks up everything his older sister comes home with from school. He knows his alphabet, his numbers, and loves to play on the computer. My oldest daughter is loving kindergarten, she has improved dramatically and I had an excellent parent-teacher conference. The teacher said she could not recommend my daughter for testing into the gifted program, I told her I was okay with that. (Are you kidding me? A gifted program at kindergarten? Lets let the kids develop a bit more and have some fun before we turn the screws on being gifted!)

Anyway, we look forward to the coming events and hope things are well with our family and friends. Enjoy the pics below!

The kids on one of the MANY bulldogs in town.

A home in Madison.

A home in Madison.

A home in Madison.

Grandma getting some quality time with the grandkids.

We helped run the Pinewood Derby, I had the challenging job of calling each race.

The boys had lots of creative designs.

The boys all had lots of fun.

A nice action shot of this classic event.

Winter in Athens

Everything is going great out here in Georgia! Jared's program is going well and our family has been pretty healthy, despite the usual colds and sniffles.

For Jared’s PhD, he is part of a major grant funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The PIRE grant (Partnerships in International Research and Education) focuses on the development of international collaboration for researchers (graduate students and faculty) and international educational opportunities for undergraduate students. This specific grant deals with the genetics of invasive species between the U.S. and China. Thus, Jared is uniquely suited for the grant with his background in China and fluency in Mandarin.

As part of the grant a group of undergraduates is selected and they spend a semester taking intensive Chinese and learning basic laboratory protocols for genetic assays. Then the whole group goes to China for two months to work in laboratories and visit field sites related to invasive species. Jared has been actively involved in helping the students this semester learn Chinese and helping out in their laboratory class.

This semester’s cohort is a group of seven girls, some from UGA and some from other universities. This has caused us to reflect on the unequal sex ratio Jared is faced with each day. In the lab, there are mostly females. In the PIRE group, there are mostly females. And even in one of Jared’s classes, there are six female grad students, a female instructor, and Jared. Thus, each Jared is surrounded by females. Even when he returns home he is outnumbered by females. Without Nathan and his advisor, Jared would effectively be outnumbered by females!

Jared's advisor is really nice and they get along quite well. He regularly gives Jared a ride home since he passes by our street on his way home. He also likes to talk, sometimes he talks to Jared so much Jared feels like he better go home to get some work done! Jared's advisor doesn't speak much Chinese but his wife is a professor of Chinese literature and she handles the language instruction for the undergraduates. They also have a 3-year old daughter who spent a morning with our kids not long ago.

We went to a social function with Jared's department last month during their recruitment weekend. It is totally different going to activities out here compared to BYU. At the social function there were about 40 people there and only 4 kids among them, 3 of them being ours! There were lots of students and some professors and the house had a lot of breakable stuff but thankfully our kids were well-behaved. We have made a good impression as we have gotten lots of compliments from others about our children.

At church, Jared was called as the Sunday School President. This is the first time he has had that calling so he's enjoyed learning about it. He has some good counselors who are very helpful. Heather really enjoys working with the Cub Scouts, Jared watches the kids while Heather goes to the church for the weekly activity, she sometimes tries to go early and practice the piano. She has good boys and it's a privilege to work with them. For instance, one of the boys told her that he saw his father smoking and was sad; so he had a talk with his dad about quitting and he hasn't seen his dad smoke since then. Most are in the Spanish branch so she doesn’t know their families and some live half an hour drive away in three different counties. As such, they come sporadically and Heather is trying to figure out how to get them to come more. The scouting program is really fantastic and Heather enjoys being involved in it. She is preparing a talk for the Blue and Gold Banquet about what is scouting and how the boys will benefit from it. She is even considering giving part of the talk in Spanish.

It should be mentioned there's another family at church with the last name Lee. They've been in the ward for a long time, however. The other Brother Lee is one of Jared’s counselors in the Sunday School presidency and the other Sister Lee is the Relief Society pianist but can't make it in to the room very early, so Heather was asked to play prelude until she arrives each week. Two Lee families in the ward has caused some confusion: one time somebody showed up at our house for a meeting that was supposed to be at their house, the missionaries almost went to their house for dinner when it was at our home, we signed up to clean the church building and somebody was supposed to bring us the key but we never got it and we found out weeks later that that person had called the other Lees who had no idea what she was talking about. We think it's all funny.

Amber's learning a lot in school, they really are pushing the kids. She has learned about the phases of the moon, addition, punctuation, money, and writing a narrative. She still isn't completely comfortable at school. She struggles a little with understanding what is expected of her, with paying attention instead of daydreaming, and with expressing her concerns, and even with all she's learned she is still a little behind the rest of the class. But we are confident as she keeps going, she will be fine. This summer we will work with her more so she can start off first grade at the right level. We ask her how her day was and hear about who threw up or if she got any candy or cupcakes for someone's birthday.

Nathan still navigates the computer really well, turning it on and exploring some of his favorite websites; of course, then he has to be just like Dad and turn off the whole computer including switching off the power supply which cuts out the wireless network. Nathan loves helping with everything! He helps wash dishes, he helps put ingredients in the bread maker, helps make beds, put laundry away, and anything else. He has also become pretty independent. When he needs to wash his hands, he pushes a chair over from the table and climbs up and reaches way up to turn the water on. He'd rather do things himself even if it takes a lot of effort. We appreciate it!

Kyra is another late talker like Amber and Nathan were. But just like they were at this age, she understands a lot. She can get what she wants by very expressive pointing and approving or disapproving grunts. She likes to do funny things like put her jacket on her legs. She has 3 pairs of shoes and is particular about which pair she wants to wear each day.

Heather took the kids to visit Amber’s classroom recently and to help decorate a cake for an activity. In addition to the teacher, her class has a full-time aide and a student teacher right now. Amber’s class has a lot of boys, 16 boys and 6 girls! Most of the kids are African American. She counted 4 Caucasian kids, 3 Asians, 1 Hispanic, and the rest African American. Here are the names of her classmates: Kalijah (girl), Dougliesha (g), Nicholas, Tony, Kendrick, Yashi (g), Cordell, Dylan, DeQavion, Dewey, Victor, Santavious, Ashton, Sosie (g), Y’Trevious, O’Terrion, Logan, Kyrell, Phian (g), Jordan, Jah’viante, and Amber (g). Amber corrects our pronunciation of several of these names. So like Jared, Amber deals with an unequal sex ratio at school and at church (her Primary class has 5 boys and 2 girls).

There are plenty of adventures living out here in Georgia. We don’t get lost as much and refer to the map less. We enjoy the old houses and buildings around here. We want to find out more about the history of this city to better understand the area. Not far from our house, on the side of the road there are some old stone steps almost covered by trees and plants, Heather thinks there was once a house that they led to but it is long gone.

The weather is full of surprises too. After lots of rain storms since we arrived and some cold snaps, it snowed here in Georgia (February 12^th)! It was funny for us to see the different reactions to snow here in Georgia. They predicted it would start snowing around 3 pm and it was pretty accurate. Friday morning the Atlanta news listed several school districts that would be closed. Amber went to school but they sent the kids home two hours early because of the weather. So the kids got home at 12:30, long before the snow. The ward activity for was canceled, the ward temple trip the following day was cancelled, and UGA announced the closing of the whole university, all before the snow really started. Jared stayed at school till 5 as usual but all the classes and meetings were cancelled for the rest of the day. All for a nice little inch or two of snow! It all turned out good since the temperature dropped quickly and the roads got covered in ice. But the next morning the sun was out again and the roads were dry and clear by mid-afternoon.

Enjoying the first, and only, day of snow this winter in Georgia!

The kids loved tromping around in the snow as is came down.

You can catch a glimpse of the thicket of trees around our house.

Nathan enjoyed eating this "baby chick" shaped pancake.

Kyra is learning to clean up her own messes, she spilled the water and voluntarily went and got a rag to start cleaning it up.

Christmas and New Year!

We received two early presents a couple weeks before Christmas. A furniture store in town had a big sale on couches and since we did not have one yet, we went and found a nice one at a great price! The very next day, we received a visit from Heather’s parents who were returning home from their mission in Brazil. It was great to see them and spend time with them for the brief time they were here.

Jared finished up the semester and spent most of the break at home with the family. He enjoyed watching some college bowl games, playing with the kids more, and working on some of his hobbies. Amber also finished up her semester and we all enjoyed the holiday break together as a family!

For Christmas Eve, we spent the morning acting out scenes from Joseph Smith's life, a favorite activity for the kids. They act out Joseph Smith visiting different churches, reading James 1:5, and going to the Sacred Grove to pray, and Angel Moroni visiting him while he was sleeping, getting the plates on the Hill Cumorah, and translating them with Oliver Cowdery. We take turns being Joseph Smith and Angel Moroni (who gets to wrap up in a white sheet). We hide a Book of Mormon under a pillow and use a chopstick to pry it up, pretending it was the gold plates under a heavy rock on the Hill Cumorah.

Also on Christmas Eve we were anticipating the visit of our Secret Santa. For the last week before Christmas, we received packages on our doorstep with small character of a Nativity. Here is the order we received them in: a donkey, a cow, a shepherd and sheep, three wise men, an angel, Joseph, Mary, and a baby Jesus in a manger. The last day was Christmas Eve and we were really looking forward to finding out who was delivering these gifts. We had some guesses. We had been polite anonymous gift receivers--we didn't peek out the window or wait by the door, we gave them a little time before we opened the door each time the door bell rang. The kids were excited each night when the next part of the nativity was dropped off. On Christmas Eve, a family from our church showed up with the little baby Jesus to add to our Nativity. We feel honored that they did this nice thing for us. We wanted to get a Nativity set for the past few years and now we have one with a fun story to tell of how we got it!

After their visit, we had our Bethlehem dinner. This is our Christmas Eve tradition. We try to make a meal similar to what Mary and Joseph might have eaten in their day (yes, I did a google search on the topic). Our dinner had pita bread, cheese, olives, grape juice, apples. Probably the juice and olives are the most authentic aspect. We ate by candlelight on the floor. The kids loved it. The dinner really focused our thoughts on the Savior. The kids asked thoughtful questions like "Did Jesus like to play with toys?" and "Did Jesus have blankets when he was little?" We talked about what His childhood might have been like. It was a special time.

After dinner and cleanup, we talked about Santa for the first time that day. We set out cookies and milk for Santa to fill. We chose to have the kids put out some shoes instead of stockings this year, just for variety. Amber wrote a “Thank you” note to Santa. The kids weren't sure what would happen but they went along with it. It took a little while for the kids to settle down, but it could have been worse. Amber's last question before falling asleep was, "Do you think Santa knows some things that 5-year-olds like?" We assured her that he did.

The next morning, the cookies and milk were gone and the shoes were full of treats! Kyra was content to just hold one shiny candy in her hand all morning. We ate breakfast: cinnamon raisin bread from our new bread maker (a Christmas present we started using a couple weeks early) with a nice glaze drizzle!

Then we started opening gifts. The kids got books, a bowling set, a stick horse, sticker books, and a kids book of Chinese! They also got lots of treats. Nathan got a new picture of Jesus (that's what he wanted for Christmas, Amber asked for a new book). I also gave Amber a picture of her behind the outline of a temple (I received this in YW from Sister Kump, so I put a picture of Amber in it and gave it to her).

Jared's brother gave us a crepe maker. During our Thanksgiving visit, we learned that all of Jared's brothers had received a crepe maker for Christmas one year except Jared. It is claimed that was the Christmas he was living in China or on his mission, but it was certain that they were gifted before we met. When Jared discovered this he made a big deal about how he was discriminated against because he wasn't married yet. So, Jared's brother and sister-in-law in Iowa gave us a crepe maker. The day after Christmas we made crepes for breakfast!

We also had a nice video chat Heather’s younger sister and her family living in Switzerland. They have three beautiful girls around the same age as our kids. They sang some songs and showed each other the gifts they had received. We also spoke on the phone with lots of other family throughout the day and were happy to hear from everyone!

We had some friends watch the kids for us and on December 30^th we took a trip to the temple in South Carolina and had an enjoyable time there. For New Year’s we put the kids to bed at the normal time then watch a movie together and rang in the new year with shrimp cocktail and sparkling cider.

We hope everyone had an enjoyable Christmas and New Year and wish you the best in 2010!

Our Christmas Eve dinner in "Bethlehem."

Nathan checking out his shoes full of stuff from Santa.

Amber's shoes

Kyra's shoes

Christmas morning!

What's inside? The excitement grows.

Nathan has caught on pretty quickly to opening presents.

I opened this wonderful gift!

Kyra was overwhelmed with the largest gift under the tree!

We had to get the candy going quickly too!

Santa left play dough for the kids and that is serious stuff!

Jared, the ever dutiful husband, was always there slaving away through the holidays giving Heather a much deserved break from household chores.

Thanksgiving in Missouri!

We had an exciting November, especially Thanksgiving, keeping us quite busy. Kyra went to nursery for her first time. She did great except for when Nathan threw a toy at her. We had talked to Nathan several times about Kyra coming to nursery and how he could help her enjoy it. Oh well! The kids all have excellent church teachers and we really appreciate that.

Nathan has become a whiz on the computer. He can turn it on, type the password, wait patiently for it to start up, go online, and go to his favorite websites, all on his own. He also has learned to push the chair to the sink, turn on the water and wash his hands all by himself!

Amber is caught up in kindergarten and is learning to read. Her most recent progress report showed her meeting the standards in all subjects. Today she read, "And it came to pass" in the scriptures all by herself.

We have shopped at Piggly Wiggly, a local grocery store, a couple of times. Going through the store, Nathan says "Piggly Wiggly!" every time he sees a picture of the pig. There are a few different items in stores here in the south such as self-rising flour. We don't remember seeing that in Utah. We also see deep-frying oil in big boxes, the classic southern rocking chairs to go on the big long porch, and a lot of football fan items to cheer for your team. Everyone here in Athens cheers for UGA.

We drove to Missouri for Thanksgiving. We left 5:14am Monday morning. It's about a 13 hour drive so we only stopped for a few minutes about 4 times and made it there late. Driving through Arkansas particularly stood out to Heather: run down trailers, run down homes, no lawns, clutter--junk and trinkets-- in the yards, a lot of poverty, a lot of churches, gun stores, flea markets, antique stores. She'd heard about Arkansas but it was a little more than she expected.

We stayed with Jared's older brother Peter, his wife Caryn, and their 5 kids ages 10, 8, 5, 2, 2. They recently moved in with Caryn's parents on the farm where Caryn grew up, in the middle of nowhere down 2 miles of dirt road. It's a big house where Caryn grew up with her 7 older brothers and 1 sister (the oldest). On their farm they have goats (they drink goat milk every day, it tastes about the same as cow milk and it didn't make us sick), chickens (their chickens lay eggs in different places every day so we had to hunt around for the eggs), a horse, and two ponies. They had a cart for us all to take pony rides. Heather even drove the pony cart (with her niece sitting next to her to help). She milked a goat (just a little) and Nathan fed the chickens. They also have a garden and what looks like over a year supply of canned food. Caryn said that if she needed to she could feed her family completely from what they have on the farm without ever going to the store. We had a good crash course in self-sufficiency while we were there!

One of Jared's other older brothers came down from Iowa with his wife and kids ages 7, 6, 3, 1. The girl cousins had their little club where they played dress up and taunted the boys. The boys had a little club too where they played and jumped on their blowup bed and banged on the girls' bedroom door. It was fun for Amber to be included with the girls although it was a bit much for her. They are 10, 8, and 7 and Amber doesn't really have any experience hanging out with older kids so it was overwhelming for her. The first day there, the girls went out tree climbing and Amber's foot got stuck in a tree so the girls had to take her foot out of her shoe to get her down. We discovered a few hours later that Amber had a sprained ankle. She just didn't know how to express the problem. So she spent the next 48 hours crawling or being carried. I think she sort of enjoyed it. All of our kids were hanging out with kids bigger than them. Nathan couldn't handle sleeping with the boys who were much bigger and roughhousing on the air mattress so he slept on the couch where it was safer. Nathan had a lot of fun playing "waterfall." He had his BYU blanket (a gift from Heather's younger sister Ashley when he was a baby) and he slid down the stairs with the blanket, over and over. Some of the other kids joined in as well. We also went fishing at the pond on their property of almost 50 acres. We rode the pony cart, saw the animals, and played tether ball.

We had DELICIOUS food every meal! We had crepes, pizza, German pancakes, johnnycake with fresh fruit in it, a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, Hawaiian haystacks, and lasagna. In the evenings after we sent the kids to bed, we played games with the other adults which was a lot of fun!

Jared's brothers are into guns a lot, so that was another activity, shooting at targets and clay pigeons. Heather actually went out and shot guns too. She shot a .22 handgun, a .22 rifle, a 20-gauge shot gun, and a Russian 9mm handgun from the 40s. She shot the target 8 out of 8 times with the rifle but wasn't very good with any of the others. She admitted to enjoying the experience but is not about to purchase a gun anytime soon.

It was so fun spending time with Jared's family, getting to know them all better, and for my kids to grow up knowing their cousins. We wished we could have stayed longer but the rest of us were ready to head home after five full days of nonstop fun! We drove back home all day Sunday, arriving late. The day after we got back from our trip we put up our Christmas tree and decorations!

Jared finishes his exams for the semester this week and then is off to California for a conference for a few days. Heather is excited her parents are returning home from their mission and have a long layover in Atlanta so they will drive up here and spend the night at our place. Looking forward to the rest of the Holidays!