Night Market

China is a place where people love food. Food is such a part of the culture that a  common greeting all throughout China is 你吃了没有 Ni chile meiyou (have you eaten yet?). One must keep in mind that this country has spawned the world famous Sichuan (Si Chuan) cuisine as well as dim sum and Peking Duck (Beijing Kao Ya) just to name a few.

One might be tempted to think that since Xinjiang is in many ways ethnically and culturally distant from the East, that they might not have the same love of food that other parts of China have. To my pleasant surprise Xinjiang people, like all Chinese people, love to eat and have their own delicious carte du jour to choose from.

If you have the chance to visit Urumqi, the provincial capital, I would suggest dropping by the night market to sample some of the local Uyghur dishes and to have a few of their world famous kabobs. If you like beer, I would suggest the local Sinkiang Black (I believe it to be China’s best) to wash down your tasty meal. Furthermore, they have some amazing melons, grapes and dried foods that you can try for dessert.

Aside from the delicious food, the night market is a great place for a sensory experience. First and foremost is the taste of the food, so good. Come prepared to try something new. It is a great venue from which you can people watch, for one can see people from all over the world. The smell of the roasting mutton or the barbequed fish fills the air and your nostrils in a pleasant and mouth watering way. For your auditory experience, all you have to do is sit in a crowded table and you can overhear, Uyghur, Uzbek, Chinese, Russian and English being spoken.

Below are some photos that k snapped in the night market. Have a look and tell us what you think

 

kandm

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National Week Trip

This week was national week. This means that China celebrated her 61^st year of New China, and that K and I had a week off from teaching. We had toyed with the idea of staying home and relaxing for the holiday, but gave in to our wanderlust in the eleventh hour. We knew that this might be our last adventure in the 西北, or the Northwest, so we decided to go further north and west.

We packed up your things and decided to hop a train heading to our neighboring province, Xinjiang. This province is unique in China for so many reasons. Not only is it the largest province, spanning 1.6 million square kilometers it is home to China’s Uyghur and other Central Asia minorities. It looks and feels very different from the other places that we have traveled.

During our trip, we traveled to two cities, Urumqi (the provincial capital) and the smaller Turpan. Both destinations were so interesting and picturesque in their own respects. Over the next few days, we will post some photos and information about our trip. We hope that you enjoy and comment on them.

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Here are some photos from around Turpan

Tuyroq Mosque

Ancient City Outside Turpan

Oasis

Flaming Mountains

Hiking the Flaming Mountains

Afgan Style Mirinet

Meet the Peaceful Reading Resource Center Volunteers

In the spirit of the Peace Corps and volunteerism, we have recruited students and teachers to work in our new resource center. The idea is that the Peaceful Reading Resource Center should be a space run by Chinese students and the foreign teachers should assist them. We have three managers and thirteen student volunteers that keep the center running five afternoons a week (although we are adding Sundays soon).

It was wonderful to see that so many people were interested in helping out. I was surprised and delighted to witness that all of the volunteers take their job seriously and have a vested interest in the running of the center. When K and I leave, we will do so knowing that the PRRC will be in very capable hands.

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Students reading over their volunteer contracts.

The Gang

The Peaceful Reading Resource Center is Open

Last weekend did not feel like much of a rest. The up side is that we have been very productive. We finally received the keys to our new library space, and within two hours, we assembled a large volunteer workforce to transform a former listening lab into an English resource center. We had ten students and five foreign teachers dusting, mopping, hauling desks and books from one floor to another. It felt good to make some headway on our largest secondary project this year.

For those of you who keep up with our blog, you know that we have been laboring to expand and improve our library for about 8 months now. We were able to add over two hundred new books, magazines and reference materials the center. These materials were procured through a grant from the Regional English Language Office in Beijing, donations from Ed and Fran Adams family, Audrey Reyes, Drew Heatherington and Alison Dunn. We are also expecting a package any day from the Darien Book Aid any day now. The college was also good enough to give us a very large space and all the furnishings we needed. We would also like to thank the many people who gave their moral support.

This week the new spaced opened and the first hesitant students came in. They liked that we have some new seating arrangements. In this larger space, we have different two “living room” style areas and a big table with chairs around it. We also have six large bookshelves. They are very unsure about the new digs, but are starting to realize that we want them to stay and chat, rather than grab a book and leave.

Overall, we are very happy with the result. Sometime before National Day we plan to have an official school opening. Thanks again to all of you who helped. We will post pictures soon.

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张掖大佛寺

We realized the other day that our time in Zhangye is limited. We will be finishing our Peace Corps service in January, which leaves us only 3 1/2 more months in our beloved little town.  This made us think that it was about time to visit Zhangye’s most famous attraction, the Big Sleeping Buddha Temple.  This temple has the largest sleeping Buddha in the world measuring 34.5 meters long.  As luck should have it our Chinese teacher’s husband invited us to go for free last weekend! The temple was beautiful and extremely peaceful.  Not only is there the big Buddha, but a preserved Ming style theater, museum and an impressive stupa where at the bottom for a mere 1000 RMB you can buy a Buddha figure to be placed under the stupa and have your hometown engraved in the base! You can’t take pictures of the Buddha so below is a photo I took of a poster.  Although we only have a short time left in our little corner of China, if anyone would like to come visit we’d love to show you our 大佛寺!

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