Trip to Xianyang Museum and Zhouzhi Scool

Hey all,

Saturday (March 1) my family and I went to the Xianyang Museum. The Xianyang Museum houses artifacts found in the tomb of Emperor Chang Ling who ruled during the Han dynasty. One of these artifacts is an army of 3 foot tall clay soldiers he was buried with. When you first walk into the Museum, you are in a large room with many different things that were found in the Emperor’s tomb. On the wall are plaques about the Emperor and the time period he lived in. When you go down-stairs, there is a room very similar to the one upstairs. Both rooms have displays of the little clay soldiers. After the museum, we went to the actual tomb where we walked on glass flours above the remains and saw these soldiers in different stages of restoration. It was really interesting to see the actual steps the archeologists took to get the soldiers to the state they are in today from the state they were in when they were found. After going to the museum, my mom, my sister and I all went to get massages. Then, we went to a vegetarian restaurant for dinner and from there back to the dorms.

Sunday was one of my favorite days so far. The Gao Xin School took me, my dad, the BHS students and 20 of their own students to their sister school in the country-side. The Zhouzhi School is about a 2-hour bus ride from the School. The neighborhood that we are living in is one of the most well-off in China; so, it was really interesting and moving to see what majority of the country really looked like. When we arrived at the school we were greeted by about 75 high school students who were smiling and clapping. We were divided into two groups and each group went into one of the two classrooms that were being used at the time. In the classroom I was in, there were many speeches given that I didn’t understand much of. Then, the boy from Gao Xin sitting next to me turned to me and said “ Okay now they would like you to give a little introduction.” So we all reluctantly got up and introduced ourselves and Joe spoke a little about BHS. I personally am still not used to being told that I’m going to have to do something like this minuets before I have to do it. However, it seems to be a very common way to run things here. After the speeches were done, we got to talk a little with the kids from the Zhouzhi School; but, there was a lot more picture taking then talking. Then we had formal picture taking and a few of the BHS students were interviewed by some cameramen for who knows what. After the trip had been documented to their standards, we had some free time. Jenna, my dad, and I played basketball with some of the Gao Xin students and some of the students from the Zhouzhi school.

After the break we had lunch, which consisted of really good cooked vegetables, soup, and bread. Then we were told that we were going to visit a student’s home in the mountains; so we all piled into the bus again. The trip was about a 30-minute bus ride and then an amazingly beautiful hour-long hike. The air in the mountains was much cleaner then that in the city and that in it’s self was really satisfying. But the view was even better. Looking up you could see more mountains above you and looking down there were little cottages spotting gorgeous grass covered hills. When we reached the students home, I realized for the fist time how different the living standards we were experiencing were from those that most Chinese people experience. This boy lived in a little dirt floor hut with 3 rooms, a kitchen, a bedroom, and another room I didn’t go into. There was also a cellar for keeping food cold, and a loft around the top of the house for storing wheat and corn, which the family grew. Going to this boy’s house really put into perspective how well off I really am, and in other ways what I am missing. It really got me thinking about what was important to me. Though this boy didn’t have fridge, or his own bed, he was living in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. After exploring the mountains a little, we all made the hike down and then piled back onto the bus to go back to Gao Xin School. On the bus ride home Jonathan (one of the BHS students) taught me a never loose way to solve a rubix cube. So now you can scramble it as much as you like and I can solve it! Well… probably.

More later,

Gavi