The RCEF Blog 博客

On August 6, we embarked on an overnight train from Xi’an. Almost taking over an entire train car, we played cards, navigated many rounds of Mafia (a new Guan Ai teacher favorite game started during SVP), and sang and listened to the beautiful erhu (二胡）tunes played by Mr. Liu, the Guan Ai music teacher.

Arriving in Nanjing in the morning, we spent a half day’s layover visiting the Nanjing Massacre memorial museum. Though all the teachers knew about the Massacre (their home district of Yongji, Shanxi was the site of many anti-Japanese battles), they now had a chance to see photographs, documentation, and victim testimonies of Japanese army atrocities. The carefully designed exhibits and atmosphere of the museum, which was built on actual mass burial plots, were a powerful contrast to the usual textbook fare.

Later that afternoon, we escaped the humidity of Nanjing and took a train to Anhui where the training would take place. The location was close to Huang Shan so we couldn’t miss the opportunity to climb one of the most beautiful and famous mountains in China. Climbing up and down hundreds of stone steps was an unforgettable experience—especially because our legs were extremely sore for days afterwards. Apparently, you wouldn’t know it though from Steve’s triumphant dance after making it first down the mountain. Notice the gold medal he got himself for doing it on 8/8/08! I got one too…for Mr. Su, a Guan AI principal who beat me to the finish line at the ripe age of sixty something.

The next day Steve, sniper-like, shot some pictures of various people trying to painfully navigate their way down steps. Ever heard of waddling? Let’s just say those ones are too precious to put on the blog.

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