Hans, From your words, I think you know/understand chinese deeper than before. It is a greatful to your experience inChina, and I think you know the Chinese deeper than before. Miss you. Gabriel!
Enjoying your blog... Hans, what beautiful photos, and what interesting things you always write about! This is just a note to let you know that Paul and I enjoy your blogs, and that we're learning much from reading
them. Thanks for sharing your fascinating experiences in China!
Are you coming back to the U.Sl anytime soon?
Big hugs!
Coky
GReat to hear from you again Herr Schneider it is very awesome to hear about your wonderful experience in China, i've been very optismtic with going to china, but i will go there one day. thank you again for keeping in touch with your blog entries.
Thanks for this beautifully written piece about Lushan and all the photos. I just want to let you know, dear Hans, that I've been enjoying reading your past journals all the time, despite there hasn't been any new entry for quite a while. June
lantern festival 2009 Many thanks for sharing. You are true witness of modern China. Here in EU we complain when we have to wait for 15mn to buy a ticket!!! But we are not free any more to sell whatever we like wherever we like...
Hello from gables class of 94 Herr Schneider, Someone mentioned your name on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and we have all been wondering; what's going on with our favorite teacher from Gables? It is so wonderful to see you are very doing well.
wheat can be threshed much easier than rice. You wouldn't find any rice straw stalks lying on road by Sept to Nov, when rice is harvested. When no shreshing-machine was available, peasants had to smash their crops hard against rows of log-benches. That used to be one of the seasonal activities(compulsory) for the school children, to help and "learn through labour".
Keep studying in the evenings (I mean at scool) is a very old tradition. Not only that: after leaving their school in the late evening, students of higher grades must also keep doing at night often up to 1am and must get up before 6am! On the long term, this system is indeed affecting the average bodysize of the generation. Many young students don't get enough sleep on a daily basis. Hard.
The looking of today's Chinese and Japanese youngsters may be similar, but, the difference can be told by the faster speed of the movements and reactions of the Chinese. May be, the Chinese young people are facing greater pressures and more challenges of life.
I agree that train is the most comfortble mean for travel. The 7-days journey took me from Beijing to the Hauptbahnhof of Berlin didn't feel hard at all. All passengers enjoyed the great sceneries, despite many of them had to live on a daily diet of instant noodles.
The lantern festival starts from the 13th and ends on the 18th January of the lunar calendar. Shapes of rabbit, lotus flower or phonix are most common. Embracing the cold and dragging their lanterns lit with candles in the streets at night is a great joy for the children. The unforgetable pictures were those made in our own hands when we were so poor to buy a single one! They were so beautiful and unique. The sticky rice balls was a yearly once-only treat, only we could patiently wait on the queue for the rice to be pounded in a stone mortar.
Life has changed so much for better now, thanks for Lord!
Moving Pics Look at these angels who live in a worid without any sounds! They are so cute! I long for making a simple conversation with them, coz i acquired Chinese finger language.
Hi Hans, in every enty, you post a lot of Great photos and show your Great Kindness. Yes, the world would be much better if everyone in the world shows his/her love or kindness to the others.
It was a great experience in Taizhou in China, right? I am glad to share your pictures and special experiences. Would you stay in Taizhou to enjoy the Spring Festival?
wow Hey Schneider
I hadnt written in a while but everytime i see your blog and your pictures it makes me feel so happy I met you. You really are making a wonderful thing of your time over there...seems like a lot more worth than being in a high school classroom in miami. I think it's wonderful how you still keep this blog updated with so many pictures and stories for it.
I wish you all the best this 2009 and you look great by the way
Hugs and kisses
Maria Mustelier
(your student from....a couple of years ago)
According to memory, there were students' exchange programmes kept going on since the 50s until the early 60s. Photos of beautiful blond Udssr students were even displayed in the windows at the Taizhou Middleschool. How about that? But, people were later told that government of the Udssr had become either terribly corrupted or betrayal against communism: difficult to comprehent!
An amazing display of ice sculpture show! What takes my breath away is the creators' passion of devotion and the long-lasting solid frieze of that unique environment. What a wonderful dazzling world!
It is true, that much of the wall has been used to build a new Beijing by Chairman Mao, and that included a whole underground city for the safety of the citizens of Beijing, and for the leaders, against the expected attack by Stalin.
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Against Leonid Brezhnev not Stalin(Otherwize do you think the Stalin Park could be named after Stalin?). Actually Mao and Stalin had a good relationship. The relationship between Mao and Nikita Khrushchev was not good, but also not that bad.
Happy Holidays! Heh Hans, great blog as usual. Trust that you will thaw out adequately during your annual trip back to Florida! Starting post grad studies next week and have my name down for casual teaching at the major Language Institutes here, and have a place to stay rent free until my place becomes available, so everything going well. Also hunting for good places for my Mum to relocate to on the Gold Coast, so no rest even for the not-so-wicked! Miss you all. Hope Stef gets things sorted for herself. Suexx
Bricks diverted for both, above- and below ground construction! It is true, that much of the wall has been used to build a new Beijing by Chairman Mao, and that included a whole underground city for the safety of the citizens of Beijing, and for the leaders, against the expected attack by Stalin. Small battles were already taking place between Russia and China on the northern borders, as the two countries drifted apart from earlier co-operation. And so, believing an attack by the Russians on Beijing would take place, and having little time to lose, Chairman Mao constructed, with millions of the bricks diverted from the ancient city wall, a whole underground city that stretches for miles, that has not yet been fully explored. Visitors are able to take underground tours to visit some of this enormous complex and amazing facilities. Along with thousands of others, I have been one of these visitors.
Of course it is a long story for the Manchus! It is not possible to entertain all of the detailed history of thousands of years, and so I appreciate the links. It would take books, as there have been written, to entertain all of these much earlier details. But in fact, the general idea as I have presented them are what has been written in my blog. For further reading, history books will offer year by year accounts of the Manchus. Thank you for the observations and links.
After 38 years as a Foreign Language Teacher and Foreign Language Dept. Chair at Coral Gables Sr. H.S., and A.J. Professor of German at the University of Miami, I have left Florida in June of 2006, where my home is in Miami Beach, Florida, USA. I have just signed another year's teaching-contract (my 8th year now) with Taizhou University in the city of Taizhou, located about 3hrs north of Shanghai, in Jiangsu Province, CHINA.
I thought it would be informative for others and rewarding for me personally, to log the progress of my efforts from beginning to end, as a Travel and Photo Jo... full info
AnnaAdventuring
Anna Louise
A very informative and interesting blog. Thank you for sharing. Lovely photos too - those blossom trees are stunning. :)