Pre-Departure and Day 1
October 19-20, 2019

Parents, students, and teachers (as well as two family dogs) woke up early on a warm San Francisco Saturday morning to make their way to SFO. Before departing everyone made one final check for two irreplaceable items: passports and travel journals. Happily, everyone arrived on time and with everything needed for the adventure to begin. It was a smooth departure for this group of now seasoned travelers.

*The group waits for our bus outside of the airport.*

We made our way through customs and to our gate. The group was giddy with excitement, and commenting on how much easier this journey felt than last year’s. “This time, I knew exactly what to pack,” commented one student. “I guess I just feel more confident being away from home,” said another. “Mike says when we graduate, we should feel as confident traveling as James Bond,” said a third as she rolled her eyes with a smile. Indeed, everyone knew exactly what to expect, from going through security to filling out travel documents upon arrival.

On the plane, there were movies, snacks, and some cat naps. We touched down right on time, and to a beautiful Beijing afternoon. Liu Laoshi was probably the happiest in the group – Beijing is her hometown, and she was immediately excited for some local snacks.

Experiencing sculpture in 798.

The goals of this truncated day of arrival were simple: get a small taste of Beijing and stay awake as long as possible. To accomplish the first, we went to the 798 art district. 798 began two decades ago when a group of renegade artists took over an abandoned state-owned factory (factory 798) and used it as a communal studio. Soon, more artists gathered and over the years it became the unofficial art district of Beijing. Artists from Ai Weiwei to Yue Minjun have, over the years, made art in the district. Today, it is regulated and commercialized, but still a fascinating place full of galleries, graffiti art, and little coffee shops. We wandered for a few hours, chatting, looking at art, and nibbling on snacks.

*A well-earned first full meal in China.*

By 7pm, everyone was feeling the jet lag. We hopped back on our bus and headed to the hotel. We had a lovely dinner, full of yawns and laughs. After that it was off to bed.

Tomorrow, we wake up at 6am to head off to our partner school, 日日新. PKS students will be on stage to tell the stories they have been working on. They will then attend classes and experience a day in the life of a Chinese middle school. After that. . . it’s off to 大理 where the final stage of the first middle school project will begin.

Day 2
October 21, 2019

*PKS and Rin Rin Xin students act out a scene from one of the family stories.*

Our first full day in China was packed from start to finish. We woke up at 6am to board the bus and head to our partner school in Beijing, 日日新 (Ri Ri Xin). In many ways, Ri Ri Xin is remarkably similar to PKS – it has a progressive philosophy, approximately 400 students from preschool-8th grade, is a bit over 10 years old, and was started by a small group of families that dreamed of something that simply didn’t exist before they rolled up their sleeves and got to work. The school is located about an hour north of urban Beijing on a beautiful orchard next to a lake. Our students joined the Ri Ri Xin G6 for the day.

Our first activity of the day was to play a series of ice-breakers. PKS students then told their family stories (the same ones they practiced at Sextant back home) to groups of Ri Ri Xin students. The Ri Ri Xin students were a gracious audience and were then asked to join in the fun: PKS students partnered with Ri Ri Xin students to write and rehearse scenes from their stories. One Ri Ri Xin student took on the role of Izzy’s cat; another became a student’s mother’s doctor; a third seemed to be a student’s brother, but he was laughing so hard that we couldn’t quite tell. PKS students were outgoing, full of joy, and very inclusive throughout these activities – we couldn’t have been more proud of them.

After these morning activities we had lunch and then went to afternoon classes. Our students attended a chemistry class, a Chinese class, and a history class. “This school has great teachers!” one student said afterwards. “They sure ask a lot of questions,” was the response from one of the Ri Ri Xin teachers.

After these academic classes, our students joined electives. Some went to a running elective, others to a basketball elective, and others to one of two art electives (calligraphy or painting).

The long day ended with one of our daily rituals: a closing circle. At these circles, we often offer appreciations for the day, discuss a particularly thorny cultural issue that arose during our interactions, or set communal stretch goals for the next day. At this particular closing circle, the spirit of this class was on display: student after student offered thanks to the chefs at Ri Ri Xin for cooking for us; to other students for helping them feel comfortable in moments of stress; to teachers for helping support them and arrange the day’s activities; to parents for the hard work that makes trips like this possible.

We ended the closing circle with a few minutes of silence where we each set a private stretch goal for the next day. Tomorrow, we will awaken at 4am to catch our flight to Dali. It is there that our true adventure begins.

Day 3
October 22, 2019

We’ve arrived in Dali! Or, to be more precise, we have arrived in Xizhou, a village about an hour north of the center of Dali. Xizhou is slow, friendly, and feels a bit stuck in time. Or, as one student put it, “It felt so nice to arrive in such a calm place after the smells and energy of Beijing. Right as we came out of the airport, I felt a cool breeze, the air was fresh, and there was a little drizzle of rain. It all felt so peaceful and welcoming.”

Getting to Xizhou was a bit grueling – a 6am flight, then a bumpy bus ride. But the group was largely unfazed by the discomfort. We sang songs, played games, and discussed current events. This is a group that is very self-aware; when someone is having a down moment (from fatigue, from motion sickness, from a meal that doesn’t suit their taste), they ask for help from the group and know our little community will do all it can to support them.

Our home for the next 8 days is Yangzhuoran, a beautiful courtyard home that is entirely our own. It is down a winding alley, hidden away from anyone who doesn’t know exactly how to find it. After settling into our rooms, we spent an hour in quiet reflection. Some students journaled; some called home; others sat in the sunshine and read. And after lunch, we headed into the village for a scavenger hunt.

The purpose of the scavenger hunt was to give each student a sense of their surroundings and the confidence to be independent in the village. Students needed to ask around about local temples, the crops growing in the fields, the festivals of the Bai people (a small ethnic group with its own religious traditions, dialect, and traditions that make up the majority of Xizhou’s residents), and they had to keep their eyes open for tiny details of village life. We gave students two hours to complete the scavenger hunt, and each group succeeded (thus earning boba tea for the entire group).

*Students working together on the afternoon scavenger hunt.*

At our closing circle, we started with a long period of silent meditation. We watched the sun set over the village. We then asked for roses and thorns. The thorns were predictable – waking up at 3:30am, turbulence on the plane, jet lag, and bug bites. The roses were surprising and wonderful. Students thanked each other for small moments of kindness and support (“I was really scared when the plane was landing, but everyone had my back. It helped a lot and I really want to thank you all for your kindness”; “I’ve been feeling homesick, but I’ve gotten hugs and you guys have been really understanding. I really appreciate the way the group helps when one of us is in need”). A few students also commented on the rule this year that no personal electronic devices were allowed on the trip. “I am so glad we made this rule. I feel like we are more connected to each other, and more connected to the trip. I honestly don’t miss my iPad at all.” Finally, as always, the students surprised us with their willingness to stretch and challenge themselves. “Let’s really work hard tomorrow not to generate any wasted food. I think today we used too much ketchup.”

Closing circle ended around 7:30. All that was left was time to shower, do a bit of journaling, and crawl into bed. The group has earned a night of deep, sound sleep.

Day 4
October 23, 2019

*Brian speaks to our students in the courtyard.*

It feels like we’ve been in China for a long time... but somehow this is just our first full day in Dali. We awoke to a beautiful sunrise pouring into Yagzhuoran. Everyone gathered, a bit blurry eyed, in the dining room for a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bread, fruit, and a delicious local noodle dish prepared fresh by the ayis who take care of the property. We learned that the compound was built with sunrise in mind – the only side of the courtyard without rooms is the east side, which allows the other three sides to be bathed in morning light.

We also learned how this property fell out of the hands of the Yang family. After the Communist victory in 1949, there was a decade of “land reform.” The Yang family was quite wealthy and had to give up their compound to the military. For years, this beautiful home was an army barracks. Eventually, it fell into disrepair until the Lindens adopted it and restored it. Once a year, the two remaining Yang children (who live in France and Germany) return to stay in Yangzhuoran to remember and honor their family history.

We learned this story, and many others, from Brian Linden, one of the owners and founders of the Linden Center (Yanzhuoran is one of their sites). Brian told us a bit about his life story, and how he felt that PKS and the Linden Center shared the same mission: bringing peace to the world by helping build bridges between China and the US. “You guys, at your age, are way ahead of me. You’re already global citizens, bilingual, bicultural, super empathetic, and full of confidence and a sense of adventure. When I was your age, I had never left the city of Chicago!” Brian implored our students to follow their passions and be bold in their dreams, and he asked them to help Americans understand the complexity of China. “You’ll go off to high school and be surrounded by people who may not even be able to locate China on a map, let alone listen to the voices of its people. You have a big responsibility to be patient with them, and to teach them that China isn’t just Beijing. It’s also Xizhou.”

We also met Da Mai, an expert in local religions. We gathered in the Yangzhuoran classroom after breakfast so he could teach us a bit about the complexity of Xizhou and Bai religious practice. We learned a bit about Taoism, Buddhism, and the local worship of Ben Zhu.

Da Mai then gave the students a task – each would have to find a local temple and, through inquiry and examination, answer seven questions about the building and the ways local people worshipped within them. Before heading out to the temples, students peppered Da Mai with questions. “Are local people Buddhists AND Taoists? How does that work?” “What are the ways we can be respectful when inside the temples?” “Do the local people here know about Christianity and Judaism and other foreign religions?” All of the questions led teachers to believe that next term's “Religion 101” elective might be quite popular!

After the lecture in the classroom, we headed into the village. At the first temple, Da Mai showed us how to conduct respectful anthropology. He then sent us off in small groups to temples around the village. Two groups went off on bicycles, the others on foot, to conduct a couple of hours of research.

The biggest challenge of the day came after lunch. Da Mai asked two of the study groups to take us back to their temples and teach us what they had learned. This required making distinctions between esoteric Buddhist deities, explaining architectural features of the temples, and summarizing notes taken from interviewing the temple caretakers. When your children get home, see how much of this they retained: ask them if they remember the 4 Noble Truths of Buddhism, how reincarnations of important Lamas are found, or the core principles of Confucianism. And you can also ask them if they chose to pray to the god of exams or to the fertility god. And yes, a few made their way towards the fertility god.

At closing circle, we discussed all we had learned about how to be a respectful person in Xizhou and how some of our “normal” behavior just doesn’t fit in here. How can we, as a group, move quietly and inconspicuously through town? What terms should we use to show respect to our hosts? What is an 11-year-old to do when she is giddy with happiness, but in a situation where she must be still? There are challenges we will confront over the next week. Today, we got off to a good start.

Day 5
October 24, 2019

*The morning crew on their way to shop for fruits and snacks.*

Today, our project work began!

For the next week, students will spend about half of each day paired with a local Xizhou resident. They will get to know their partner – their life, their work, their dreams, their family story – and the way their life is shaped by this place. Students are nervous and excited for this work as it requires them to apply all they have learned in the classroom in a real life setting. They need to use their Chinese skills, their interviewing skills, their writing skills, and their close-observation skills. And in the end, they will hone their public speaking skills in our closing activity, a story-slam at the Linden Center.

Before the project work began, a small group of students went out for an early morning walk. The village is quiet before 7am, so they walked silently in the alleys to the morning market where they picked up fruit and local snacks for the group.

After breakfast, students gathered in the classroom for a review of the interviewing, observation, and story-telling skills they learned back in San Francisco. How does a journalist make a subject comfortable for an interview? What questions should be pre-written, and when should an interview digress into an interesting side story? How can an interviewer be both pushy (to get what they need) and also sensitive and polite? What special sensitivities might exists here in Xizhou that could come up in an interview? After reflecting on these questions, students spent time preparing to meet their partners. Then, it was off to drop students off for the morning!

The partners range from a local traditional cheese maker, to a shop owner, to a cook, to a musician (he plays a traditional Bai instrument, the “Dragon Head, Three String”). Some partners also speak accented Mandarin. Indeed, this is a crucial real-world encounter for our students who must become capable of understanding accented Mandarin if they hope to become confident and capable Chinese travelers.

On the way to meet partners, there were two moments that made the chaperones sigh with happiness. First, we overheard one student tell another, “Man, we are really living the life!” The second moment came when one student told another, “I’m really nervous about this.” Her partner said, “We will do it together – and we are ready!” These comments revealed two of the strengths of this wonderful group: they are thankful for what they have, and supportive of each other when they see friends in need.

After an intense morning, students returned to Yangzhuoran for lunch and xiuxi. Some students rested; others played mahjong; others went out for a bike ride to Erhai.

Our afternoon activity required a short bus ride to a local artists compound. He is one of the local masters of 甲马 (Jia Ma), an ancient Bai art that consists of carving and printing. Traditionally, the final piece of art would be of a Benzhu, a local god. But today, prints can be made of just about anything. Students learned from the master teacher, then dove right in to the art. After a couple of hours of work, all had produced some strong final products.

*The group showing off our final Jiama art.*

We ended the day with an hour of quiet work in the classroom and the library. Students prepared short speeches summarizing what they learned from their local partners during their initial meeting. Each student stood in the courtyard and delivered their speech. We recorded the work so that we could workshop it with each of them in 1:1 feedback sessions. The students are starting to feel the heavy challenge they face, preparing for next week’s conclusion of their first middle school project.

In the PKS middle school, we often talk about creating the right kind of stress in students. Stress can be good. It can be a sign we are in our stretch zone. It can help us grow. We want our students to feel both stretched and supported. We want them to be constantly growing and, in the moments before a summative experience, we want them to feel nervous. But we want this stress to come from a student’s desire to finish work that matters to them. Stress from a test that has no information that is personally meaningful; stress from feeling like you cannot possibly succeed; stress from not understanding the point of an exercise. . . these forms of stress are all too common in school, and we want to avoid them. Instead, we want the stress we saw today. An authentic stress that leads students to want to dig in, work harder, and grow.

These next few days will be busy and challenging, so we will end tonight with popcorn and a movie. We will all bring our blankets up to the TV room and watch Spirited Away. It is a well earned break after a long day.

Day 6
October 25, 2019

As we approach the one week mark in China – the halfway point of our trip – we are over our homesickness, we have recovered from jet lag, and we have settled in to life in the village. With a strong foundation established, today was a day of hard work. Each student had a slightly different schedule based on the requests and needs of their local partners – one group began the day by getting breakfast with a local cheesemaker (and a member of the Hui Muslim minority group who wakes up each day with morning prayers); another group, paired with a local musician, had to wait until the afternoon for their meeting because the musician was running errands all morning. Other students met their partners when their shops opened, or when they were heading to buy goods at the market for the day.

Along with shadowing their partners and taking detailed notes and observations, students began drafting their final stories. In mini-lessons scattered throughout the day, we went up to the classroom to talk about writing scintillating “hooks” for our stories; we discussed diction and body language; we honed interview techniques. The pressure of the project has most of the students working with intense focus.

*Inside the Yan family compound, reading the history of the Tea Horse Road.*

As a break from the day of interviewing, writing, editing, and brainstorming, students visited the Yan family compound near the center of the village. The compound was built in the early 20th century by Xizhou’s richest family. They earned their wealth in the tea and silk trade and represented the last of a certain kind of Xizhou family. For hundreds of years, this village (and Dali in general) stood at the nexus point of the major branches of the Tea-Horse Road (the southern version of the northern Silk Road). Goods from eastern China would pause here before heading west to India, south to Vietnam, Thailand, and Cambodia, and north to Mongolia, Tibet, and Russia. Thus, from the 1300s until 1949, a few key families developed sizable fortunes as the middle-men in global trade.

After the visit to the Yan family compound, it was time for dinner and another hour of writer’s workshop. Students had some energy to burn, so we took them on a long evening walk in the village.

We ended the day with the ritual of our closing circle. Students offered appreciations and reflections on their time in China. “We live lives of abundance, lives with almost too much stuff,” one student told the group. “When we’re here, and see a simpler life, it makes me really appreciate what I have, but also wonder how I can learn to work as hard as the people we are meeting here.” “I was really inspired by what Brian told us,” another student reflected. “He works so hard, but said it doesn’t feel like work because he loves it. He doesn’t care about material things. I want to find a passion like that.” “He’s kind of a Buddhist without being a Buddhist,” yet another student agreed. “I’m just amazed at how even when you think you know the full story about someone, there’s always more to learn. It’s like when we learned our family stories to start this project back in San Francisco. We think we know our whole family history, but the more we ask, the more we realize we don’t know.”

Day 7
October 26, 2019

Our day began with the usual routine – a small group heading into the village to buy baozi with the rest journaling, skyping home, or sitting and playing 斗地主 (Kill the Landlord) and mahjiang. After a quick mini-lesson in the classroom and a round of goal-setting, students went off to meet their local partners. Two students had a particularly interesting morning – their partner asked them to watch her three-year-old for a bit in the back of the store while she completed some wholesale negotiating in the front. Meanwhile, other students were having a home made breakfast with their partner. A few others also had an interesting experience – they were brought to a pottery factory and got to try their best at approximating local pottery. They will bring their masterpieces home to sit proudly on their kitchen tables. We are so proud of the students – they are deeply engaged with their projects, leaving early to meet their partners, and asking for extra challenges. This is PKS at its best –students who jump at the chance to bring the skills they learn in the classroom out into the world, fearlessly combining academic, cultural, and social emotional expertise.

*Decades-old propaganda behind Yangzhuoran.*

Now that we are in a routine, students are starting to notice some of the subtleties of the village. They are asking questions about details most visitors would overlook. A group of students noticed a faded red message on the wall behind Yangzhuoran. “What does it mean? I know it says something about defeating someone, but I can’t make out the rest.” The group had discovered a 70 year old propaganda message from the Korean war. “Defeat the American imperialists; then defeat Chiang Kai Shek.”

After lunch, we headed off for an afternoon of farming and cooking. Dali is known throughout China as a gathering place for something like the Chinese equivalent of hippies (some people even call it “Dalifornia”). People move here from the larger cities to be closer to nature, to live a healthy life, and to slow down. Thus, it is easy to find fully organic farms producing delicious, fresh produce. It was at one such farm that our students picked the vegetables they would use to make salad, hot pot and. . . pizza. We spent time in the fields learning how to pick cabbage, radishes, carrots, and a variety of local vegetables that defy translation. Our students happily dug their hands into the dirt and worked in teams in the fields. They listened carefully to the farmers who were our guides for the activity.

*The crew shows off some of their farming skills.*

*A student show’s the farmer’s daughter how to roll pizza dough.*

After filling our baskets with veggies, we went into the farmhouse to cook. Some students prepared pizza dough while others cut vegetables for salads. Everyone had worked up a huge appetite. We enjoyed a long, leisurely dinner full of stories and laughter.

We returned to Yangzhuoran smelly and tired. We had just enough energy for our closing circle. Dorothy led the circle and asked everyone to reflect on one moment during the trip when each of us felt fully present in the moment. The conversation popcorned around: for some students, their zen moments have come on our bike rides along Er Hai. For others, these moments have been while journaling in the courtyard. For many, the moments surprised them. But all agreed that we have successfully made mindfulness a frequent practice in Xizhou.

Now it’s off to bed after a long day. We miss you all, and can’t believe we are more than halfway through our trip!

Day 8
October 27, 2019

*A student working on the first draft of her story.*

This morning, we gathered for breakfast, journals in hand. A light rain was falling outside as we ate our eggs, noodles, fruit, and baozi. Teachers sipped coffee; students sipped warm water with honey. The group was quiet and contemplative as we thought about the task at hand: drafting our stories.

“You have from 9 to noon for independent work,” Liu Laoshi told the group. “What strategies must you use to succeed with a long chunk of independent time?” Students knew they needed to set concrete goals with clear timeframes. Each was required to tell Liu Laoshi their first goal before being released from breakfast.

“By 8:45, I will have three different ideas written for the hook for my story. I’ll go check in with Dorothy at 8:45.”

“By 9, I want to have 10 fresh questions drafted for my partner, all focused on her dance career. I’ll check in with Shen Laoshi to make sure they are clear, then we will go find my partner for a follow-up interview.”

“I have the first paragraph of my story written. I want to polish the Chinese. I’ll work for 20 minutes, then find you for a feedback session.”

At the end of each short work period, students checked in with individual teachers to review their work and set a new goal. Each student determined the nature of their work, when they would take breaks, and which teacher they would use for each feedback session. 90% of the students used 90% of the time efficiently and with crystal clear purpose.

Students at work. . . drafting, getting feedback, and re-drafting.

And old friend of Mike’s, Tianhan, happened to be visiting us for the morning. She teaches at the Whittle School in Shenzhen, a massive, very fancy private school. “I can’t believe your students can work this well independently,” she remarked. “Our students – even our high school students – would be running all over the place, or playing games, or just staring at a blank piece of paper. They need to be told what to do. How can your students do this kind of self-directed work?” Mike explained that for PKS, it starts in preschool. “We trust our students. We believe in them. We listen to them. And we coach them in the concrete, discrete skills you need to accomplish complex, open-ended tasks.” We know it isn’t always neat, and we know there are bumps and failures along the way. But there is no way to learn to be an independent learner without being given frequent, consistent (messy!) opportunities to practice.

Here in Xizhou, we truly reap the benefits of this long-term commitment to growing confident, self-motivated scholars. Tianhan watched as students came to teachers, showed them work, got feedback, and went back off to quiet corners to continue drafting. She saw hours of focus. She saw how PKS teachers require students to name each goal with measurable specificity. “I’m going to work on my story,” is not an acceptable goal. Instead, we push a student to say, “I’m going to edit these three sentences for clarity, and add richer adjectives and verbs to each.”

After three hours of writing work, we had lunch and prepared for our afternoon activity: 扎染, or tie dye. We took a short bus ride to the bai section of town and learned the ancient Bai method of ding tie dye, starting with the plants boiled to create the dye (indigo leaves for blue; coffee beans for brown; etc), then the various wrapping, tying, and sewing techniques that create unique patterns. Our teacher, Xiao Xia, also taught us some of the history and details of Bai culture. We learned that the headdress women wear has a white rim to remind everyone of the snow on Cangshan mountain. And we learned that if the white sash attached to the side of the headdress is dangling down, the woman is not married.

Students then got to work making individual pieces of art. First we made our designs. Next, we submerged our textiles in a vat of dark blue dye – the most traditional Bai color. Finally, we washed and beat the water out of the cloth.

We are now back at Yangzhuoran getting ready to watch a movie together in our TV room. We will snuggle up, eat popcorn, and take it easy. We need a relaxing evening and a good night’s sleep to prepare for tomorrow – we will take a day-long hike up Cangshan mountain.

Day 9
10/28/2019

One of the best feelings we have as teachers is seeing our students succeed at tasks that, at first, they feel are impossible. These tasks are sometimes academic, sometimes social-emotional. . . and sometimes physical. Today, the students completed a physical challenge that some believed they could never conquer: we summited Cangshan!

This journey took a total of about 35,000 steps and took us to a height of 8,000 feet. There were sore legs, sore feet and, towards the end of the hike, some grumbling bellies. But this group was epically up to the task. At the foot of the mountain, a few students begged us to let them take the cable car to the top. We told them we believed in them, could take it slow, and wanted to complete this challenge together as a community. The worried students took deep breaths and started the walk. Step by step we moved higher and higher. We sang songs. We played games. We took breaks to chat with local hikers and take in the views. Before we knew it (five hours later), our entire group was at the top of the mountain, looking down at Dali and Lake Erhai.

*Celebrating making it back to the bottom of the mountain.*

During “roses and thorns” in our evening closing circle, students had the happy glow that comes from a day of exertion. Students were giggly and proud. They had all showered and filled their bellies with Lanzhou lamian (hand-pulled noodles originally from the city of Lanzhou, cooked by the Hui Muslim minority group. . . and the favorite meal of most PKS travelers).

One student gave a group rose: “All of you get my rose today because as I got to the top of the mountain, I heard you cheering for me. I didn’t think I could do it, but it made me really happy to have so much support.” Another student had an interesting thorn: “My thorn is that I think the next time I’ll do something this hard and this fun will be in Taiwan during our 7th grade trip, and that’s more than a year away!”

Being in middle school is hard. Students yearn for new challenges and autonomy. It is developmentally necessary for them to push boundaries and search for edges. Students at this age need adults to believe in them, encourage them, trust them, and give them freedom. . . while also setting clear, high expectations. Climbing a mountain is far from the most complex or fraught challenge our kids will face in middle school. But our success today is a good example of showing students how much they can achieve if they persevere.

Next time these kids see a mountain, they will think, “I can climb that.”

Day 10
October 29, 2019

Today’s blog was partially written by three students.

This morning started out a little later than usual – students had extra time to sleep in and recover from yesterday’s hike up Cangshan. After a delicious breakfast of unexpected pancakes with syrup, plus the usual scrambled eggs, mi xian, toast, and fruit, students continued writing and practicing their stories for the big presentation tomorrow.

*One of the ads for the story-telling presentation.*

Advertisements are up around the village, and people in town are sharing the news of the story-telling performance on social media.

After an hour of practice, a local chef stopped by Yangzhuoran to explain the morning activity – small groups of students would be given a recipe and enough RMB to buy the necessary ingredients, then sent off to the morning market to buy the needed supplies. The chef would then meet all the students in his kitchen so they could prepare a banquet lunch for the teachers, our local guides, and Brian and Jeanee Linden – this would be the students’ way of showing thanks. One group would be taught to make 宫保鸡的, another 鱼香茄子, a third 土豆泥, and more.

A Chinese farmer’s market is not like the one’s back in the Bay Area. There is far more variety, from vegetables to spices, to half a dozen different kinds of eggs (chicken, duck, quail, etc). There is a live animal section so that people can choose an animal to be slaughtered. There are entire sections of rice and noodles. And there is a bustle and jostling that takes some getting used to.

Students at the morning market buying ingredients for lunch.

After purchasing ingredients, students went into the kitchen and got to work. It took about 90 minutes to prepare the ingredients, cook them, and get them served on the terrace of the Linden Center. We then dove in to an amazing feast.

After lunch, students worked for a bit on their stories and went around the village to invite their partners to tomorrow’s event. We then boarded a bus and headed into the old section of Dali, 大理古城. This was a much anticipated shopping experience – the one moment on the trip when students search for souvenirs and gifts to bring home.

We got back to Yangzhuoran late and had a closing circle in which we shared memories of the trip thus far. Tomorrow is our last full day in Dali. We will be working hard all day to rehearse for the story-telling event. Curtains go up at 4:30! We are nervous, but know all of our hard work will pay off.

Time to get some sleep!

Day 11
October 30, 2019

*First speaker kicking off our storytelling event.*

A quick journal entry since tonight we are celebrating the completion of the storytelling project!

Students worked tirelessly – nervously – today to prepare for our event. They edited; they rehearsed; they gave each other feedback. Some students worked with intense focus for hours on end. Others combined rehearsals with walks in the village, jumping jacks, and other ways to relax.

In the end, the students nailed their stories. We had a crowd of about 40 people crammed into the Linden Center cafe. Public speaking is always nerve-wracking. Doing it in a second language is even harder. We were so proud of our group and the huge applause they got after they finished!

Tomorrow morning, we get up early, pack, and head to the airport for the flight back to Beijing. We will all be sad to leave Xizhou and Dali behind.

We’ve learned that the light coming through the clouds here is called 佛光 - “Buddha light.” Check out the Buddha light behind the student on the evening bike ride we took after our event – a final cruise around town to say goodbye.

Day 12
October 31, 2019

See you all soon! We’re on our way home!

2019 Dali Trip Journal

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