Small Wild Goose Pagoda

Right behind our campus is the Small Wild Goose Pagoda. It was built in 707 A.D. in the Tang Dynasty. There is a Big Wild Goose Pagoda, so the “small” is only relative. It’s still pretty big—142 feet (43.38 meters) tall, in fact. That’s 13 stories of sequentially smaller levels, to make it looked curved, kind of like an upside down beehive. Supposedly, an earthquake split the pagoda in two. Fortunately it was built in some special way (something about a semi-circle under the ground) and it didn’t collapse, just cracked. Then, another earthquake magically brought the two sides back together again…so the story goes.



We found a secret garden filled with Buddhist statues and beautiful roses.



A probably ancient table where Rock, Paper, Scissors was definitely invented.



Gotta have a jumping picture…



We rang a giant iron bell that weighs 10 tons. Supposedly, the sound is supposed to travel to your distant loved ones and let them know you are thinking of them. Did you hear it, Mom?



And, we rode a horse. I’ve never ridden a horse, which according to many, is a great travesty. So if a stone horse counts…check that off the list!

Dancing in Xi’an

I’ve never taken classes Spring or Summer term in Provo, but in China, 7 credits is intense. We start every day with improvisation, and the Chinese dance faculty takes the class with us. It’s kind of a strange class—moving from your feelings, being abstract, doing things you’ve never done before. It is really interesting to see the Chinese teachers move. They have such a different sense of time, space, and energy than we Westerners do. For the most part, they got the hang of it really well and some of the improvisations were really nice.

Then we have a lecture class, taught by our own professor, and soon each of us will be giving reports on different aspects of Chinese culture.

After lunch we have composition, which the Chinese come to as well. They don’t participate as much, but they watch and observe. In all our classes, there are a slew of Chinese students just sitting along the edges watching. It’s a nice gesture of them to come and watch, but I feel like they must have better things to do! This group of cheerleaders saw us walking past their room and hollered for us to come watch them perform.

The next class is the wild card. Mostly we’ve been doing various forms of martial arts, taught to us by local teachers. We did Long Fist, Tai-Chi, Five Animals, and Mixed Martial Arts. One of our favorites was Five Animals. Originally, this form was a Taoist practice to cultivate and purify the body. For example, the fingers relate with the kidneys, so using the fingers brings health to your kidneys. The Five Animal practice uses beliefs like this to bring health to the body. Nowadays, this form is mostly for keeping aging bodies from becoming immobile and decrepit. There are sets of movements associated with each of the 5 animals: tiger, bear, monkey, deer, and bird. One of our favorites was the deer, because of the hand gesture.



We also learned a Chinese folk dance, called the Ansai Drum dance. The school gave us our own drums (and awesome gold Aladin pants) as gifts. The dance originated from farmers working in the fields, celebrating life, and worshiping the Yellow River. We tried to capture that spirit, but the Chinese did it so much better. I realize how much culture America lacks being in China.

Markets in Xi’an

Since Xi’an is (relatively) small and safe, we had a couple chances to just walk around and see what we could find. The best treasures were alley markets filled with vendors, shops, and people.


The kids running around always made us smile, especially the ones that would respond to our attempts at interaction.



We kept our eyes open for ridiculous t-shirts that didn’t make any sense in English.



And most of us always would end up buying some of the delicious looking fruit.

A Little Bit about Xi’an

First of all, pronunciation: she-on. Easy enough.



Xi’an is one of the oldest cities in China and was the capital city in China under many of the most important dynasties in Chinese history. In 1370 A.D. during the Ming dynasty, the construction of a great wall around the city began. Almost 7.5 miles around and 40 feet high, the wall still stands today. Our tour guide, Phoenix, told us that when they began building the wall, they used sticky rice and kiwi skins. They also had to include ant poison so the insects wouldn’t eat away the delicious concoction and ruin the wall. Now it’s been fortified and beautified…not to mention that the city has exploded outside the bounds of that wall.

Now, some 8 million people live in the almost 4,000 square mile city of Xi’an, in the Shaanxi Province.

Our home here is the Xi’an Physical Education University. The University has 7 departments, a Graduate school, and is known for its Physical Education, Sports Training, and Chinese Traditional Sports programs. The campus is small and compact, so we got the hang of it pretty fast, and we grew to love the people we worked with pretty fast, too!

Walking around getting to know the campus, we couldn’t help but take some fabulous model shots…


And one thing about Chinese culture: they have beautiful gardens everywhere, complete with fountains, meandering pathways, peaceful benches, and beautiful flowers and trees. Great places to sit and ponder...



…and take jumping pictures!

The Traveling Continues…

After our stop at the Pleasure Palace, we got on a train and prepared for a 10-hour ride overnight to Xi’an. We were all mostly excited, except for Meg who had a bad experience with a train in Egypt. Our cabins were tiny, but we each had a bed, a fluffy comforter, a not so fluffy pillow, and little paper slippers to wear. With a little melatonin, I was out like shout and slept great on the rock hard board of a bed.


In the morning, when I woke up, I was excited to see the countryside of China. The hazy air got in the way of most of my picture attempts from the train window, but there were beautiful, green mountains following the train tracks. We passed several little villages, workers along the tracks, and decorative gravesites as well before we got to the train station in Xi’an.

The Pleasure Palace

When we arrived in Beijing, we had the whole day to kill until we hopped on a train and headed to our first city. It was arranged for us to go to this place in Beijing where we could relax, shower, and eat. Our tour guide, Phoenix, spoke really good English, but we weren’t quite sure if she was calling it the “Summer Center” or the “Sauna Center”. So we just named it the “Pleasure Palace”. I’ll try my best to describe the unreal strangeness of this experience…probably enhanced by the hazy, drugged feeling from our long plane trip.

First of all, we walked into this really nice building with guards outside the doors to be greeted by men and women dressed in professional attire. All the windows were tinted so you couldn’t see inside. That’s the first sign of a shady building. The men and women separated, and the employees took our shoes and traded us for these pink slippers. They had to go back a few times to find a pair that fit my feet. Size nine is uncommonly large in China.

This whole experience was made stranger because no one spoke English, and we speak no Chinese (except our teacher, Jiamin). Generally, we felt like we were being herded around like cattle, or, for a more graphic description, like we were in a concentration camp. Our clothes were taken from us, we were put in matching outfits, and shuttled into showers. Granted, our matching outfits were basically pink pajamas, and it was really nice to shower after all that traveling.

Just imagine a gaggle of 18 apprehensive American girls being directed into elevators and rooms. Eventually we found some food, but it was really weird food. We couldn’t tell what anything was just by looking at it. They only gave us hot water to drink, and there were a bunch of other Chinese people in funny pajamas eating as well. It wasn’t the best first impression of Chinese food. Steamed bread that looked like the Kool-Aid Man and cuts of meat that we had no idea what parts of what animals we were eating.

Eventually we found this dark room with a huge projector screen playing movies and oversized, recline-able sofa seats for each person. Some men were getting foot massages from scantily clad women in the front of the theater, so we stuck in the back and chatted a little while watching some crazy Chinese movie that looked like a mixture between X-men and Star Wars. By this time, we had 5 hours to kill at this place and we were getting desperate. They turned on Avatar next, but it was in German with English subtitles, and probably 70% of them didn’t make any sense, grammatically or logically. So I went to sleep and happened to wake up right when dinner was being served.

And so ended one of the strangest experiences of my life.

Time Travel Is Possible!

16 hours of flying in the air and now I am 14 hours in the future (for anyone in Utah). Los Angeles, to Seoul, to Beijing. Really, I think this picture about sums up my 2 day experience.

I don’t know what more there is to say.