Royalty for the Weekend

E-mail written letting the kids know about the parents travel plans for the weekend.

November 6, 2009

Dear Family

We do not know how this works, but we are going to a nearby city of Weifang this afternoon, maybe train, maybe by bus. Our friend Charles called Wednesday nite and invited us to go with a student from my Wednesday class to Weifang Friday and Saturday. It seems there is some kind of vegetable fair going on this weekend.

I did not recognize the student’s name, but if Charles was going, it seemed alright. Then Charles cancelled going, leaving us wondering.

Today, about 10:30 AM, I get a call from an older well travelled lady in my class, saying this was organized by the Foreign Student Office, and that a bus would pick us up at 2 PM.

I guess we are going. Pat gets finished at 12 and David Blake gets here about 1 PM. They claim the Hotel will be fine and that it is being paid by ?.

That's China.

Later that morning...more information...

November 6 & 7, 2009

The saga gets better. I am sitting at my computer Friday morning about 10:30 and I get a telephone call from a student in my Fushan Class (Monday/Wednesday) asking when we will be ready, as she is coming to pick us and Blakes up to go to Weifang in a University bus, with William. So we are on, but still very much unsure of the agenda. She arrives at 2 PM and off we go to Fushan campus and meet the bus. William is there, as well as another senior lady, who works in the Foreign Student Department, as well as my lady student. We head out for Weifang and go very fast on the freeway.

AS soon as we are out of Qingdao, the countryside became very much flat and farmland. The farm land continues the whole way, most small farms, some were corn fields, some are winter wheat and some are vegetables. As we get closer to Weifang, they are greenhouses appearing everywhere, literally hundreds of them. The government has planted many trees along the road, several rows back towards the fields, all in uniform rows and mostly without leaves. There are farmers everywhere, putting rolls of some kind of insulating material on the tops of the greenhouses, and doing other tasks.

We approach Weifang, but don’t realize that we are going another direction to Qingzhou a smaller, newer city about 40-50 miles away. We are met by a contingent of people, including my “student”, who it turns out is the senior financial manager in the region, and as we learn later, many of his staff are with him. We are lead to a very fancy small hotel at the foot of a small mountain with Buddhist and Taoist temples on top.

We are treated like royalty at the hotel, with several young ladies escorting us to our rooms and everywhere else we needed to go. They actually were stationed outside our rooms, in case we needed something. Shortly after our arrival, we were taken to a lavish private dining room, where we were soon met by the local group, including my student and several of his staff. My lady student and the other female passenger are all part of the university administration. They are both going to Europe/Russia by Monday on educational business.

The meal consisted of no less than 24 items including all kinds of delicacies, some which were hard to look at, let alone eat. We tried enough, to show we were polite. There were many toasts given to the group and to each other. It became apparent, that we should have brought gifts, but no one seemed to know in advance what was to happen. We were told that they had intended to invite us earlier during the National Holiday week, but we had travel plans.

The Vegetable Festival which we were told the reason for the trip has already past. The Flower Festival had also passed and the flowers were now frozen. Our rooms exceeded the 5 star rooms on the previous trip. We retired early and got up for breakfast at 7:30 Am, followed by the hike to the top of the mountain. Immediately after the hike we headed to a local museum and saw some ancient artifacts. Upon departing, our host gave each of us a beautiful wooden box with a copy of the exam we had seen inside the museum. This civil service exam was written in 1598 and had comments written on it by the Emperor, because it was so well written. The paper is about 12 feet long.

We then went to the site of the Flower Festival, a beautiful location on about 70 acres, The pavilions of all the Provinces and 14 countries were still up and the flowers (frozen) very much in place. The USA was there as well as many major countries, but no Canada. Maybe next year. It is a permanent venue, with annual shows.

Lastly we were taken for lunch at a very nice restaurant, in a private room, only 17 courses this time. We could taste most of them, without dire consequences. We were then given two boxes of Snow Pears, with about 100 pears in each. What are we going to do with that many. We were then given a further escort out of the city, but my student, and didn’t have to pay tolls or obey traffic rules. All in all, it was a magnificent 26 hours. Especially when you think, this student travels at least two hours one way to get to my classes (twice a week). I have another student that travels 3 hours by bus and taxi to get there.

That’s the report on that one. I guess that student will get a passing grade (for sure).