June 26, 2006

Today several people climbed 1000s of steps up to the local pagoda for a club meeting at sunrise. There isn't a local club here in Wenshan. I was told the pagoda thing was pretty cool. (I didn't go!)

We met for lunch and then went to the Hmong market here in town. It happens on Sundays, the Hmong from the surrounding villages come into Wenshan to sell their wares and services. Our whole group walked the market doing a lot of P.R. There were merchants selling all sorts of things including traditional Hmong costumes (pics to follow!), herbs, spices, medicial stuff, shoe repair, vegetables, fruit, toys, birds, clothing, etc. After the market we had some free time. Scott, Todd, and I explored some streets we hadn't gone on before. We heard a sound that reminded us of an ice cream truck. We turned and saw the local garbage truck moving down the street while the shop owners met it at the curb with their refuse.

On our walk we saw a Buddhist temple. There was a group of men playing Mahjong outside. It is like a card game but it is played with large plastic tiles. The pictures and words are carved into the tiles. When drawing a tile, the men wouldn't look at the picture, they would just run their fingers over the tile and "read" it with their hands. Impressive, given the complexity of the Chinese characters.

We met with some students from the local college for dinner. They have been sponsored by Overseas Tribal Services with scholarships. It costs about 2000 quai ($240) a year to go to college. OTS gave each of the 10 students a 500 quai scholarship. There were four of the 10 students with us at dinner. Two were English majors and two were fine arts/music majors. They were supposed to go bowling with us, but they had a meeting later and couldn't go. Several of us, including Josh, Shane, Allison, Art, and me went bowling at an alley in an upstairs floor of a hotel. Rob, Todd, Kim, Jimmy, Kaitlin, Kathleen, and Lauren were also there. Art bowled a high score of 145!!

We got some cold drinks on the way home and slept well!!!