Saturday Afternoon & Evening - Overwhelming the senses

Internet access has been rather spotty while I'm here, so uploading pictures is difficult.  I'll have some as soon as possible, but for now, my words must do.

Lunch was an experience in senses that I don't know how to explain.  We eat family style at these restaurants, and they just keep bringing dishes of food, putting them in the middle, and you take what you want.  All kinds of meats, vegetables, sauces, noodles, and other things that don't easily categorize are presented in front of us.  The experience of eating together only adds to the joy, as people try things and laugh at one another for the faces we make.  Heather Courtney (from Kentucky) and I shared stories about how our families would never be able to eat some of the things we tried.

One new thing for me was a rice noodle, something that looks like long strips of clear jello and tastes like pickled gummi worms.  Our team was eating together and took turns sharing our impressions of what the food reminded us.  I wish the cameras had been rolling the whole time, but for now, they only took some video of me trying the pickled gummi worms.  Check it out if I ever get it posted.

We went back to the school to hear C.Y. Kim talk about the ministry of CRAM.  I wish I had video taped the whole thing, because it was excellent.  Unfortunately, suffering from jet lag, I had a hard time staying awake through it.  The lights were off, the heat was on, and Rory said my head was bobbing like I was at a rock concert.

We took the bus back to the hotel and had some free time to walk around the market in our neighborhood.  I picked up a few souvenirs and was just overwhelmed by all the choices of things to buy.  Imagine walking into a building the size of walmart, with vendors at every corner of every aisle, all trying to sell you something in a language you don't understand.  I don't know what it is about me, but there must have been 5 Chinese women who tried to sell me an electric razor.  Then there were the belts and the wallets.  Pretty much every time I passed one of these booths, the ladies working them would look at me and point at their electric razors.  Is that a hint?

We went to a grocery store and saw some interesting things there.  I bought a diet coke to have for later, because I have had a hard time finding diet soda at the restaurants.  We have a fridge in our room, so I'm saving it for later.

We came back to the room after roaming around and I tried to stay awake, but jet lag was hitting me pretty hard.  By supper time, I didn't know if I could stay awake much longer.  The goal is to stay up until 9:00 and then sleep.  I sort of made it, but cheated a bit.

We went back to the Ox Tail Soup restaurant, but had a much larger and tastier selection of food.  There's a picture I will post later that shows it all laid out on the round table.  By this time, I was tired of trying to serve myself with chopsticks, so I picked up the tip from Patricia Kim to use my soup spoon to serve food onto the plate.  Then I asked one of the hostesses for a fork.  I know that's cheating, but I can't help it.  I figured I would enjoy the food more if I didn't have to work so hard for it.  And I was right!

These things weren't nearly as exotic as before, although they were all enjoyable and there was quite a variety.  By the time supper was over, I was still falling in and out of consciousness.  Mike decided that the professors all needed to share an experience, so we were taken by Ben and Sara Wellsand to an undisclosed location (which I will tell the other faculty members about in a separate posting).  Suffice it to say that we had a faculty bonding experience unlike anything I would have ever been able to accomplish at a faculty retreat.

When we got back to the room about 9:00 pm, my roommate was already out cold.  With only one key, I was unable to get into the room without the help of the maid.

So I fought with the Internet a little bit longer and finally ran out of patience and went to bed.  Eight solid hours of sleep later, I'm up and ready to go!

What's the takeaway of this day.  Coming to China is a total sensory experience.  It's overwhelming to try to deal with the shopping, the eating, the smell, the sights and sounds.  I wonder if the workers here ever get used to it?

Friday night - Settling into the hotel

Sorry this is a bit out of order, but I thought you might like to know a bit about where we are staying.  It's called Traders Hotel, which seems to be a chain name in China, but I can't find the particular one we are staying at anywhere online.  Maybe I can Google Earth it later to show you where it's at.

It is owned by a man who is a good friend of CRAM, has a market in Hunchun and appreciates the fact that Americans come over to help with the work there.  The rooms are fairly small, with two single beds and an amazing amount of furniture.  There's more furniture in the 250 square foot room than you can imagine.  That makes it fairly crowded to put your suitcases somewhere, but we managed.  The A/C wouldn't work and the lady at the desk couldn't understand what I was asking, so we just opened the window to get some fresh air.  The outside noise wasn't too bad and the cool air (about 45 degrees last night) actually felt pretty refreshing.

Matt McRoberts and I tried to get the Internet set up, but it was spotty at best.  I brought a router so that we could have wireless, but I couldn't make mine work.  Saturday morning, he found someone else's  wireless signal, but I couldn't get it on my computer.  I could plug in to the ethernet, though, and make Skype and Google work.  That was enough to get me through the first few hours.  I called Sandy on Skype as soon as I figured out how to make it work and talked to her while she was still at preschool.  After sleeping 4 hours on a very small, hard bed, I was up early and called to talk to the kids, where it was Friday night there.  We video chatted over Skype, which worked very nicely.  I think the kids were glad to see me and it was nice to see their familiar faces as well.

Well, I think that catches me up on writing.  I'll get the pictures organized and posted later so you can see some of the things I've been talking about.

Saturday morning - Realizing where we are

We were supposed to leave the hotel by 6:45 am to attend the Saturday morning "meeting," at which the faculty and leaders of the school meet for a time of encouragement and singing.  We were prepared to sing and and one of our members was to speak.

My roommate Matt and I slept pretty well, but once we woke up at 5:30, we were wired and ready for the day.  It was interesting to watch the city come to life outside of our window.  Taxis kept tapping their horns as they drove up and saw people who might want a ride.  I was hungry when I went to bed the night before, so I was ready for a snack.  Down the street we found a small convenience store where I picked up an apple.

Saturday Morning Meeting - The bus took us to the Hope Foreign Language School compound where we went to the meeting with the staff of the school.  We were running a bit late, so they were waiting for us.  While we waited, C.Y. Kim led the group in a few songs acapella.  The most memorable was when we sang a song four times, each in a different language.  By the time he asked for it to be sang in Russian, only one lady sang.  But there was joy and unity in the room.

I played the keyboard for the students who had prepared several songs to share.  It was a Yamaha keyboard, very similar to one I used to own and two that I have now.  Good thing I was somewhat familiar with it, because I only had about a minute to set it up and go.  Rory joined in when the guitar got there, and we played together while the kids sang.

My team leader, Matthew Prendergrast, spoke to the audience.  One of the pictures shows the room, with a quite high ceiling but very cold.  It appeared that the room had neither central air nor heat.  There were several (10?) large kerosene heaters dispersed through the room, and I sat down next to one.  Introducing myself to a man sitting there, I told him my name was David.  He then said, "My name is David, too."  He teaches Russian at the school.  When I told him afterwards that I was the vice-president at the College, he got a look of excitement in his eyes and bowed down to me!  I could get used to that.  Maybe I'll ask the students and faculty to start doing that.  Maybe not.

(By the way, after we meet with the Three Cell Church next week, I will be writing about all of our group meetings while in China.  But I would like a little time to process and compare the different experiences before starting to write, so I'll save those reflections for later.)

After the meeting, we all went out for breakfast, including the school faculty who had been at the meeting.  They met us at the restaurant.  The students sat at tables on the first floor, but the CCCB faculty was invited to eat in a special room upstairs, which we shared with a few of the staff.  We removed our shoes and sat on the floor around a circular table.  Eating with us was Jim and Andra Howe.  They have been with the school for about a year now.  They have four children whom they home school.  Jim was excited because we brought a table saw that he could use to accomplish several building projects around CRAM. 

On the menu for breakfast was soup, rice, and lots of different flavorings to add.  The soup had some green onions in it and tasted really nice.  I missed along the way the kind of soup, because later someone said it was Ox Tail Soup.  And by that, they really meant soup made with the meat from the tail of an ox.  I liked it before I heard that was what it was called, and I still liked it afterward, as well.

We paid for everyone to eat, a total cost of about $200 American to feed about 80 people at the restaurant (and I thought it was a really nice place, with great service, and well decorated.)

We loaded the bus and headed out for Three Points, the place where you can see where China ends and North Korea and Russia meet.  On the way, I sat next to Matt, who has recently started teaching English at the school.  He has only been in China now for 4 weeks.  He was glad to see our group and wondered if we could send people every year to come and work at the school. 

The bus trip was about 45 minutes, and I got to sleep for about half of it.  When we arrived at Three Points, we saw that it is actually a military installation, where soldiers watch carefully for people attempting to come into China from North Korea.  There was a recent article in the National Geographic (February, I believe), where the process is explained in stunning clarity with pictures and first hand testimonies.

Looking out in the distance, I was amazed at how hazy it is here, even though we're far from an industrial city.  I'm not sure how much this contributes, but this is a holiday in Korea and China where people are burning things in honor of their ancestors.  I know in Taiwan, it added to the smell and haze of the city, and I have to believe that happens here.  Last night, we saw people doing that on the street corners, burning paper "money" so that their ancestors can buy things in the afterlife.  Sometimes they burn paper cell phones as well.  I guess if you died before cell phones were invented, that's the only way you can get one in the afterlife.

Speaking of cell phones, they are everywhere here.  The 12 year old Korean girl riding the bus with us had her own.  Advertisements for them are all over the place.  With hardly any telephone lines running out here in the country, it's about the only practical way their people can be connected with one another.  I bought a prepaid sim card with about 120 minutes of time in it and the cost was only 60 Yuan (about $10).  Too bad it turned out my phone is locked that I brought to use.  Maybe I can get it to someone else to find useful.

Pictures will be posted later and maybe some video.  The takeaway from the first 6 hours of daylight is that now we know where we are.  We're in a nice hotel in a part of town where people work hard to make a living and serve  others.  We're working with a school filled with dedicated people who are honored to have us come and visit with them.  We are eating stuff we aren't used to but enjoying it because we know they are providing us with their best.  And we are parked right in the midst of communism, all around us.  The razor wire, observation towers, military installations, and rifles are a clear reminder that this is a seriously tense part of the world.  Maybe it was driven home when we walked back to the bus and heard explosions across the river in North Korea.  Were they bombs being tested?  Were they explosives for building projects?  Were they just a reminder to tell the Chinese people, "Don't forget we're here too.  It's only a few hundred feet across a shallow river."

More to come.

Day 2 - The Bus Trip

We unloaded the plane in Yanji at what looked like an abandoned airport.  One baggage return, one restroom, three people on security, and tons of people crowded around to get their bags.  There was a bit of a smell in the air and it looked like the airport hadn't been cleaned or sanitized for awhile.  But it also might have had a lot of people through it that day.  Hard to say.

I scrambled to find the receipt for my bags, because apparently they wanted to make sure you didn't walk off with someone else's bags.  I've never had to show a receipt for my bags at an American airport.  Good thing I kept mine.

We took the bags outside and loaded them onto a large box truck and then boarded a charter bus.  Nate Clement is working here in China now, and he welcomed us, passed out water, and told us what we could expect on the hour and a half drive.  We basically are driving along the river that is the border between North Karea and China.  We are driving about 40 miles an hour on a winding two lane road. It is amazingly dark outside right now.  There are a few houses with internal lights but hardly any outside lights.  The highway reminds me a lot of old Highway 66 around my home town of Phillipsburg.  Lots of potholes, lots of curves, no shoulder, and not much traffic. 

It's hard to see much in the dark, but the houses are shaped in unique layouts compared to what you would see where I live.  The billboards are something like twice as large as the ones in America and about one third the distance from the road.  They are literally right in your faith.  Some of the buildings are abandoned, some of them have a single light bulb on outside or inside. 

We stopped at a toll booth with about 10 gates.  Only two were open, which tells you there's not much traffic at 11:30 pm in rural China.  Once we went through the toll both, the road has gotten a little better.    Now there are guardrails and a few less potholes.  I put the link to the route in my blog a few days ago, but here it is again:  http://tinyurl.com/c9go8h

On the way back 7 days from now, we will be driving in the daylight, so I'll try to have some pictures and/or video of the countryside.

But we finished up the drive, made it to the hotel, and now we are in.  Gotta get up early tomorrow for church, so I won't be on long tonight.

More tomorrow.

--
Dr. David B. Fincher
VP of Academics
Central Christian College of the Bible
Moberly, MO  65270
660-263-3900, ext. 137
dfincher@cccb.edu

Pictures from Day 1

You can find pictures from the first 24 hours of our trip to China here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/drfincher/ChinaTripDay1?feat=directlink

This gets us in Beijing, sitting at the airport waiting for the next flight.  We have 3 more hours to wait, 2 more hours to fly, and 2 more hours to drive before we get to where we're going.

And now, I've got to get something to eat.  Maybe I'll come back later with pictures of funny restaurant names here.

David

Flight notes

Well, I just got to sleep when they came to distribute some kind of
form we had to fill out. So much for trying to sleep the whole way
there. But we're supposed to get lunch pretty soon.

The path of the flight takes us up the Western shore of Lake Michigan,
over Wisconsin and through Canada. We make a swing up to far north,
then come back down.

1:16 pm CDT - Currently 179 miles out, flying at 31,000 feet. Only
6,000 miles to go, at 586 mph. The in-flight map and statistics are
pretty cool. Flying over Green Bay now.

I think I'm going to watch Valkyrie and hope to fall asleep. Lots of
choices of movies on continuous loop, including Marley and Me. I've
been wanting to see Valkyrie anyway. The plan is to land at 2:30 pm
local time (which will be 1:30 am in Missouri).

3:12 pm Central Daylight Time - Just finished watching Valkyrie.
Amazing movie. We're cruising over Churchill, near the Hudson Bay in
Canada. It's -70 fahrenheit outside. No wonder my feet are cold.
Looks like we have approximately 10 hours left to go. Lights are off
in the cabin, but there's a lot of moving around. Some people are
asleep. We're 5294 miles away, having been in the air 2:19 thus far,
traveled 1290 miles so far.

Lunch was pretty good . . . chicken, rice and vegetables, salad,
dinner roll, and triple chocolate brownie. Not a huge quantity, but
enough for now.

5:24 pm CDT - Just woke up from a 2 hour nap, but I'm still quite
tired. The map says that were flying over Queen Elizabeth Islands,
about to leave Canada and flying north of Alaska.

5:57 pm CDT - Enough trying to sleep. Mike says it's morning in
China, so we might as well try to stay awake now. We'll see how that
works. We're over the wide open water, north of Fairbanks.

Being disconnected from the Internet for 5 hours is a new experience.
At least I usually have my phone to connect with. Instead, I'm just
thinking about what work I can get done with no Internet
connectivity. It isn't quite as much as you would think!

7:59 pm CDT - Well, I have been on the flight 7 hours now. I just
finished watching the most depressing movie I have ever seen. I won't
even tell you the name of it, because I don't want to give it the
benefit of any promotion. But it made me thankful for my wife, my
kids, my life, and my faith. I can't imagine how difficult life would
be without Him.

We just crossed the international date line and have been flying over
the Arctic Ocean, headed to Siberia now. I'm not sure how cold it
still is outside, but considering we are north of Siberia, I'm not
sure how it could be very warm. (The outside temperature just popped
up on the screen: -59 degrees fahrenheit.)

It's cool how there is a screen in the seat that gives all kind of
information concerning the flight, a map, the distance, etc.

So about the international date line, how strange is that? All of a
sudden, it's Friday, just like that. We left the College 17 hours
ago, and yet we are something like 30 hours ahead in time of where we
are. It's sort of like trying to explain an episode of LOST: The
more you try, the more confusing it sounds.

I decided to get up and stretch my legs to avoid blood clots. I'll
have some pictures to post later.

8:55 pm CDT - In the middle of watching Yes Man with Jim Carrey.
Looks interesting so far.

10:26 pm CDT - Flying over the Aldan Plateau in Russia. We should be
into China soon. Just got done with Yes Man. Has a few objectionable
parts, but an overall good message. We've flown 5277 miles already,
with about 3 hours left to go.

11:29 pm CDT - Out of power on the laptop. That's all until we get to
Beijing in a couple of hours. We are getting ready to enter China soon.

3:40 am CDT - Finally got settled in at the Business Center with AC
power and Internet access. We're here safe and sound. Pictures and
video to come later.

Boarding

> Here's a shot from the back row. I started there by Regina Green but
> moved up so that a married couple could sit together. Very nice
> plane. We'll see how the food tastes. I'm hoping not to get stuck
> with a Chinese meal. Chinese airplane food isn't quite as good as
> you might think. Takeoff is in 13 minutes.
>
>
> David B. Fincher
> Central Christian College of the Bible
> www.cccb.edu

Leaving the country soon

We're about to board the plane in Chicago. I think everyone is ready.

I may not be communicating again for several hours. Hopefully I will
sleep most of that time.

Thanks for your kind words and thoughts. They mean a lot.

DF

Taking off

Got bumped ahead to an earlier flight with three others from CCCB.
Flight 8010 now. First rule of missions: be flexible.

Bags are packed

The lobby is hopping and bags are everywhere. Exciting!

Heading out

Well, people are gathering and the vans are being loaded. The drive
to St. Louis awaits.

I didn't go to bed tonight. I just came out to the school at 10:30 to
do some work that needed to be done. I'm hoping to be good and tired
by the time we take off from Chicago, so I can sleep during most of
that flight. We'll see how that plan works out for me.

Right before I got up from the computer, I got a strange twisting in
my neck / upper back. Hope that works itself out on the drive. It
won't be fun to put up with that for the next 37 hours.

Not sure how the eating will go from here to there, so Sandy and I
went to Golden Corral so I would have a good last supper. The kids
had a hard time letting me go, but they are getting used to the idea.
Alex sent a stuffed animal for me to take pictures of in different
places (This is the stuffed animal they gave him when his tonsils were
taken out, TJ the Tiger). So here's the first picture at 2:00 am,
getting ready to go.