Day 419 Well THAT was interesting.

School field trips are SOOOO different here at BNDS.  We ride in chartered coaches. Check!  We are not assigned a group of kids to chaperon all day. Check!  The administration gives us cash to pay for lunch, souvenirs, or whatever else our heart desires. Check and Check!  You read that right; we get paid additional money for attending the 'required' field trip.  There are so many, many reasons I love my job here in China.

Our trip this past Friday was to a car museum in the morning, then to Beijing Forestry Park in the afternoon.  The Lord saw fit to bless us with a beautiful blue sky, clean air, autumn day- perfect for spending the day out of the regular classroom. I was the happiest girl in China.

So, while an auto museum may not exactly be 'my thing', it turned out to be a pretty interesting day...

This 1925 Citroen 5HP was made in France.  It was bought by
a couple who then drove it 16,000km across nine countries to
recreate the Beijing-Paris Car Rally of 1907.  After the
centennial of the rally, Peugeot-Citroen bought back the
car and donated it to Beijing for display in their museum.

How about the Bugatti?

Or this Lincoln Town Car?

DongFeng was the first state owned Chinese auto manufacturer
which began in 1969 under Chairman Mao Zedong as part of
his "Third Front" strategy.  Given that the Party had its hand
all over it, it was naturally painted red and had a golden
Chinese dragon for a hood ornament. It's the Chinese way.

My favorite car of the day was a silver 1985 Grand Jeep Cherokee; one of the first American cars to roll off the assembly line in China for the Chinese markets.  I remember what a stink this caused for the UAW, "We're losing our jobs to the Chinese."  "The automakers have gotten greedy by producing car parts in China." Well, China now represents the largest Jeep market outside of the United States. Interestingly, the first completely locally produced and assembled Jeep Cherokee rolled off the assembly line at the Changsha plant here in China just this past Monday, October 19th.  While the US produced about 798,000 Jeeps two years ago, Fiat-Chrysler (who partnered with Guangzhou Automobile Group in China) is planning to build 1.9 million Jeeps by 2018 in ten plants throughout China, India, Italy, Brazil and the United States- proving it really has become a global economy.  It seems to me that it really doesn't play to take up your ball and go home- nobody wins.

But I'm no economist; I just teach psychology.

And I probably just stepped into a pile of poo right there :/

The second half of the day was equally interesting.  I say that because we went to a beautiful park in western Beijing.  You know I love the outdoors; I am a country girl at heart.  Any time I can stretch my legs, put my face to the sun, and enjoy nature, well, that makes me the happiest girl in China. What made it 'interesting' is that, like much of China, it is a bit of an illusion.  Parks are built here. Lakes are made. Trees and flowers are planted. Waterfalls are not real.  Even the rocks themselves are usually not real.

At least not in the parks.

Which is why I love going on hikes with the Beijing Hikers Club.  It gets me away from the tourist traps and the 'restored' sections of the Wall, and out in the far reaches where it's wild and woolly, and the only other people I see are the few that happen to be hiking with me.  More on that topic in tomorrow's blog, as I hiked another new (to me) section of the Wall on Saturday.

My friends and I looked for a sunny spot to have our picnic
lunch then we set out exploring the park.  It was a gorgeous day.

We kept seeing arrows pointing to "Water Gurgling from Rocky Cliff".  You also know
this girlie loves to stick her head in a waterfall, so I was bound and determined to find them.
As we arrived to the first of many "waterfalls", we were greeted by this explanation.
Now, Westerners remark all the time about things here being "fake", to which the
Chinese often reply, "Oh, no, it's very beautiful!  I give you good price!"
Surprisingly, they didn't save face over the "waterfalls."
They admitted on a park sign that the waterfalls were, indeed, fake.

 

Yep, they were fake. And odiferous.
I refuse to put my head in a fake waterfall. smh.

What was this? A hot springs? It looked interesting.

Until the 'steam' cleared. Then started up again a few minutes
later.  Yep.  Even the 'steam' was FAKE.

Well this was a pretty water wheel.  Except it wasn't powered
by free flowing water. The 'fake' waterfall was too far away.
So the little school kids would randomly spin it as they walked by.

Speaking of which, the park had busloads of elementary
kids spending the afternoon there.  If I said "Hello" once,
I said it at least a hundred times.  As soon as a little
Chinese kid spotted a laowai, the whole lot of them
would file by waving and saying, "Hello!" "Hello!"
"Hello!" "Hello!" "Hello!" "Hello!" If I waved
and said back to them, "Hello!  How are you?"
They got all wild eyed and would start giggling.
I get it kids; I get stuck after "Ni hao", too!
At least a dozen of the more brave Chinese
littles asked if they could take a photo with
me, like this little cutie patootie above :)

Ok, at least the flower was real.

And Jade, my Scottish lass is real; the boulders, however, are fake.

The pond?  Fake, too.

You could even see the buckets holding the lily pads in the water.
Everything you see in the photo was built or planted- except
for the Westerlies mountains in the distance.  Those or real.
Or maybe they're nothing more than a giant landfill from Beijing?

 

So, we traversed across fake ponds on fake rocks.

And we climbed on fake rocks to fake that we were
planning to jump to our death into a fake pond.

And we admired the fake "Water Gurgling
From Rocky Cliff"

As we meandered through the beautiful fake
park, we came upon a fake pagoda.

As for Douglas the Fall Fairy? He's totally real.

One of the few real things of the day was Enrique, the
praying mantis that Carlos found walking along a fake tree branch.

  

Isn't he cute?

As we exited the park, a number of street vendors were
selling their wares. Chestnuts and walnuts are being harvested
now, and several teachers bought sacks of them.  I found a
guy making homemade sweet potato chips and they were REAL,
as well as realllllyyyy good.  I bought two bags, with the real
money that was given to me on the bus that morning :)
However, the soup above was a little too real for my liking- pig's
stomachs, brains, intestines, lungs, and other unidentifiable
parts mixed in with steamed dough for good measure.
Um, no thank you. Much too REAL for me.

After a long day of kids, and hiking, and being
in the great outdoors, I was pooped when I got
home.  I promptly fell in bed for a late afternoon
nap.  It's the Chinese way.  I was startled awake
to hear scratching on my bedroom window.
What on earth?! You see, I live on the ninth floor.
I threw back the bedroom curtain to come
face to face with a grinning Chinese man
waving excitedly and shouting, "Hello!"

Well, hello to you, too, sir!

Could the day get any more weird?!?!

Thank God I was fully dressed, lol.

 

G'nite, y'all