This Last Week

Well, I had another amazing week. At the writing of this email I have less than seventy two hours left in China. I overheard some BYU faculty talking about the benefits of this program and whether or not it is worth all of the expense and trouble that the school puts into it. They came to the conclusion that it is definitely worth it, but that the benefits shouldn't/can't be quantified. I totally agree. I think that this program has given me a very mind expanding experience. Some of the most important things that I have learned weren't what the teachers had planned for. Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible for me.

Monday I got a seventy five cent haircut outdoors on a sidewalk. I really enjoyed it, except for how none of his tools were electric or clean. He used thinning scissors the whole time when cutting on top. He had me lean forward and stick my head over a bucket while he shampooed my hair. I walked away pretty proud of myself, but was humbled again when I looked in a mirror. I now have a very Chinese haircut with lots of long individual hairs sticking out.

Tuesday we had class as normal from 8:20 - 11:40 in the morning, ate lunch, and then we attended another Chinese class until 2:00 in the afternoon. Next, we all got onto a bus and drove to the Nanjing Massacre Memorial. It was a very modern museum that was built in honor of the 300,000 Nanjing city civilians that the Japanese killed during a six week period starting in December 1937. It reminded me of the Holocaust museum...and was pretty disturbing. It is hard to comprehend all of the human suffering that has occurred on our planet.

Wednesday after our Chinese culture class, we got on a bus and headed to Celanese, a chemical plant about an hour outside of Nanjing. We were able to talk with four expatriates (people who have taken up residence in a foreign country) and take a tour of their chemical plant. They gave very interesting presentations and answered our questions. They were able to tell us a little about some of the legal battles that they have fought over Intellectual Property (patents, etc..) They mentioned that one of their strategies is to sue people in countries where the laws are better enforced (such as Korea). Another thing we learned, is that many Chinese will tell you what you want to hear, so if you give them a deadline and ask if they can do it, they will always say yes. The problem is that a day before the deadline, they will tell you that they won't be able to reach it after all. Lastly, I learned is that the Middle East is starving for engineers and is willing to train them. Who knows, down the road I might spend a year in Dubai or Bahrain...

Thursday I was really tired from everything that we have been doing. After class I went home and took a seven hour nap, this made it hard to sleep later that night (but I was able to read quite a bit). I went to bed around 3:15 am and woke up to catch our train to Hangzhou two hours later. Four of us made our way over to the Nanjing Train Station, and rode a train six hours to our destination. On the trip over the topic ended up on business. The four of us started brainstorming all sorts of entrepreneurial ideas. We decided that we all need experience at this point in our lives, so we are wanting to try a few ideas, if we turn a profit great, if not, at least we don't have to worry about feeding families.

It was raining all day long in Hangzhou, but we had a good time anyway. We spent a long time hanging out at the beautiful West Lake, and then remembered that BYU's ballroom dance tour team was doing a show in Hangzhou (pronounced hung-joe) that night. We grabbed a taxi and ran to the theater that they were at. We arrived a couple minutes after it had started, so we got some pretty good deals on tickets from the scalpers outside. The performance was awesome, especially because we were watching it so far away from Provo.

The next morning we slept in and read in the morning, we rented some bikes and rode around for a few minutes before we had to catch our train back. The bike ride was very exhilarating and reminded me of my mission. We rode a D Train (fast) to the Shanghai South Railway Station, rode the metro across Shanghai, and then took another fast train back to Nanjing. Once we were back we went and ate some delicious won-ton soup at our favorite hole in the wall - mmmm mmmm good.

Today we had more amazing church meetings with the Nanjing International Branch. An Indian teenager in our branch received his mission call to the India New Delhi Mission. Also for Sunday School, the teacher gave a great lesson. He told us that if we ever doubt our possibility to be forgiven, go back and read about Zeezrom in Alma 11-15. Of all the amazing things in China, church has probably been my favorite thing.

After Church we had a big potluck and some of us walked around a real nice lake in Nanjing.

Tomorrow morning I'll start cramming to get all of my projects done.