My Special Adventure

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The other night Hua and I were eating our favorite street food when a gentleman approached our table. He asked Hua if I would come by an art studio so he and his friend could draw me. Taken aback I first said that I was busy and couldn’t. Then he came back and asked for another day, mildly impressed with his tenacity and intrigued with the offer I said yes. I told him and his friend to meet me at the University gates, 9am on Saturday morning.
Saturday I get up early (all of a sudden 9am seemed like a very poor decision) and walked down to the gates, sure enough there were my new art friends, Wang Lee (I think) and Zu Yong Qiang. We walked about 10 blocks down the way, they made attempts to speak English, however their English is about as good as my Chinese (maybe a little better). We get to the art studio and walk in to find about 15 ‘kids’ eagerly waiting for my arrival. Completely taken aback, I smile nervously and take my seat in center stage. They crowd around on the floor around me first, then some grab stools and take a place behind those seated, and finally a back row assembles easels and stand in place. Between the chatter I can hear their charcoal and pencils quickly scribbling away. One student will make a comment and then they all start giggling uncontrollably, having no idea what they are saying I laughed as well. So there I sat, for about an hour and a half, smiling out of confusion, curiosity, and nervousness. There were 15 students to start and then a few came in after we began. They just went and grabbed easels, grabbed a spot in back, jumped in on the chatter, and scribbling. The two men who I had approached me at dinner were drawing as well, in addition to one of the teacher’s friends who stopped by (I guess to see the white girl).
Finally after an hour and a half everyone had put down their drawing tools and told me I could take a break. They began showing me their drawings and I gasped at how amazing they were. These students’ (when I asked they said they were all 19, but it must be in crazy Chinese years because they all looked 13 at best) sketches were unbelievable. The teachers’ drawings were even more striking, I’ve always been amazed at people’s ability to draw since I lack the skills necessary to trace.
From there I got a tour of the studio, from there I learned that Zu Yong Qiang owned the studio. The students actually live there in two bedrooms (one for boys, one for girls); I got to see lots of their sketches and paintings, all fantastic. Then the students began to demonstrate various talents, some could sing, they urged Wang Lee to show me his magic tricks (only a few worked-but they were impressive), Zu Yong could do some kung fu and broke some wood. I practiced English with some of the girls, watched some students touch up their sketches, and then we went outside and played some street badminton. With my ape-like reach I was able to dominate the better players some of the time, but they got some lucky drops in. Then, without realizing it, I became their special lunch guest. Mildly horrified I tired to prepare myself. I know meat is a staple dish at meals here and it’s customary for the guest to eat the best food at the meal. I sat down and sure enough, there were a few meat dishes staring me in the face, however I had told them how fond I was of tofu, so they made some tofu dishes, and of course the vegetables were abundant-as they are in just about every dish. Then it happened, Zu Yong said, ‘Here, try this,’ and before I could muster a protest a piece of meat (surrounding a bone) was plopped in my bowl. Not wanting to be rude, especially since this was such an impressive spread, I picked it up with my chopsticks and tried to get my teeth to tear off a piece. Either it is my EXTREME lack of practice with meat or this was a fatty piece of meat, but I could not tear it with my teeth, it kept slipping from my chopsticks and smearing meat juice all over my face. With everyone laughing at my good will gesture, I was able to slip the piece back into my bowl where it stayed buried under noodles for the rest of the meal. But what did get into my mouth was some sort of pepper from the meat and as I sat there I could feel half my mouth and tongue going numb! It was an uncomfortable feeling, first not knowing what I had just consumed, secondly I was still trying to eat and kept chewing my tongue, but lastly Tom’s joke about these men poisoning me kept ringing in my head and all I could think of was, “Dammit, Tom was right, they poisoned me.”
Eventually I made it through the lunch (and the feeling returned to my mouth shortly thereafter) and then we headed up to the rooftop gardens for pictures with all the art students. I was happy to oblige because these kids were genuinely excited to meet the white girl and hang out with her for the day. Of course my adventure was not over at that point. The older guys took me to the Baoguang Monastery which is a Zen Buddhist Monastery founded in 741, it’s old. Saw lots of Buddha statues, but the most thrilling part was entering the Abbott’s private quarters. This area is normally closed off to visitors, however one of Zu Yong’s friends asked if we could enter (I think he has ties there, his great great grandfather was a monk there). We enter into a quiet garden and wait for another monk to come and unlock a room for us. We removed our shoes and enter a room with a large gold shrine on one end. Zu Yong explains to me that encased in the shrine is a bone from Buddha’s finger. There are only two in the world and this was one of them, sure enough, I could see a small white think in a glass vial surround by gold and precious stones. We walked around a while longer, checked out the fountains, relics, and paintings. Afterwards we jumped on a bus which took us right back to my campus. We enjoyed some Hot Pot, they gave me a gift to solidify our friendship, and I called it a night! Should have pictures of the whole event soon!

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Photos

The soup guy
That is the man who owns the soup cart that Hua and I descend upon...

My creation!!
Here you can see some potato, butternut squash, tofu, zuchinni, califlower, and the round things with holes are lotus root-little crunch but good.

Student dorms
This is one of probably 20 dorm buildings. No heat, no aircon, no showers (and obviously no clothes dryers). About 8 students share a room.

Friday Night
I guess the Chinese flag takes the weekend off...(its being lowered here, I'm told it goes back up Monday morning).