I'm making up for this post being extra-late by including a lot of pictures (they finally cooperated!). I'll start off with a few from the day I already described in my last two posts.

When we walked into this first-grade classroom, another student on the trip said, "你们好!" (hello), and then the kids, after a collective moment of hesitation, replied in unison "老师好!" (hello teacher!). It was very cute, and I also think it's interesting that they do this every day with their actual teachers. I'm pretty sure school is at least a little stricter here than in the U.S.
These are the four fifth-graders I talked with for a while. I asked them about their favorite classes (all of them said English was their favorite), ideal qualities in a teacher, how often they get to see their parents during the school year (not very often), and what typical classes are like. They were all extremely friendly and happy to talk to me, though the boy was a little shy. After I finished asking them questions, they asked me questions, too, and I ended up giving them English names based on the meanings of their Chinese names (one was "Aurora" because I thought it sounded better than "Dawn").

A typical classroom. The students each have their own assigned desk, which can be adjusted for their height be raising the seat up and down (this is presumably done at the beginning of the year, although it's possible they would adjust along the way for a fast-growing child). On a part of the wall not visible in this picture is a bulletin board with all the pictures of that classes students divided into three groups: the "polite kids", the "smart kids", and the "kind kids". I found this absolutely fascinating, and would like to have learned more about the reasoning behind it, but unfortunately most of the teachers had left since it was the last day of school.

Xi Yang Yang is a popular kids' TV show here that stars the character depicted on this classroom's curtains. A better translation would probably be "Happy Sheep", but "Pleasant Goat" is really much more amusing.

This is a girls' dormitory at the elementary school. You can tell from the pillow density on the right how crowded it is. It's also pretty amazing that they have so little storage space; as far as I could tell, the under-the-bed space was the most they had.

Gratuitous kitten picture. This adorable kitten was prowling around one of the houses we visited in the ancient town that afternoon. Unfortunately you can't see how big and blue its eyes were.

This is an example of the houses we visited, complete with vegetable garden, piles of wood and stuff, and tarp door.

Freshly-made tofu drying (and apparently some clothes as well)!

Part of the view from the temple in the old town.

Now I'm going to continue with things you haven't read yet. That evening, we had dinner in the town, which was quite tasty, and afterward walked around the little square where people collect at night. Again, we got many stares, and this time we even attracted a small group of children who attached themselves to us and followed us everywhere (I have no idea where their parents were). With our new little friends in tow, we went to watch a traditional molten-iron-flinging show. It was absolutely beautiful, reminiscent of the very bright golden kind of fireworks, but even more dazzling.

This was one of the few girls in our group of followers, and since I was the only girl HBA student, she naturally chose me to follow. I held her up so she could see the show better.
The next day we got up bright and early again and headed to a farmers' market a few blocks from our hotel. It was interesting, because in addition to the usual farmers' market produce, there were also a lot of random things for sale (plastic shoes, laundry detergent, scrubbing brush, etc). The produce itself was also of course not exactly what I'm used to seeing -- though they had plenty of corn, peaches, and other familiar stuff, they also had exotic fruits and some interesting-looking nuts and spices (lots of star anise!).
After the market, we drove out to the house of one of our 叔叔们 (literally "uncle" -- the word used for a male host younger than your father) which was very much in farm territory. We met the rest of the household, as well as other friends and family members who had come to see us, and then we all practiced getting water from the well. Our host seemed to think I would have trouble with it because I was a girl, but he was willing to admit he was wrong after I drew a bucket with no problems at all.

After eating the welcome fruit and chatting a bit, we went out to the fields with our new posse. These fields happened to be Christmas tree fields, so our work was just weeding around the trees with the hoe. I was pretty amazed at how old a lot of the workers were (a few we talked to were in their seventies), and I am even more so now that I've heard from a teacher here that the government "requires" women to retire at 50 or 55 and men to retire at 60.

The next part of the day was very pleasant. We went to lunch with the whole family, and afterward walked quite a long time to get to the local spillway. Along the way, I chatted to the high school girls who were with us, mostly about school in America and school in China. They were all super friendly and really patient with me about my Chinese (especially since I'm sure they can speak really good English). Basically a minute after we reached the spillway, the weather took a dramatic turn for the worse, and we had to take shelter in a tiny shed with a lot of other people. It's possible this wedding photographer got a picture with a strike of lightning in the background. That would be cool.

That evening, our hosts treated us all to dinner at our hotel's restaurant. I think they ordered just about every food on the menu, and they kept making toasts, each of which required that we down a small glass of beer. It was very fun, and I learned that Hebei makes lots of delicious deep-fried things, such as somewhat sticky cornmeal or millet fritters filled with bean paste.
The next morning, we visited a place that had very pretty ancient buildings. It was some sort of museum, because in each building we could look at lots of ancient artifacts and read about various aspects of Hebei history.

After visiting the museum, we walked along the streets of Yuxian to get to a paper-cutting artisans' studio. The streets were very busy and had lots to look at.

The paper-cutting technique used in these stores is very different from that of the class I've been taking at HBA -- we use scissors and they use knives.

One of the more startling things I saw on the street was a man slaughtering chickens.

Pleasant Goat returns again, this time with Big Big Wolf, on some sort of strange balloon-hammer toy for sale on the street.

That afternoon we drove to the very small farming village where we would be spending the night. We dropped our stuff off in our hosts' house and spent time getting to know the family, which was astoundingly huge (I'm not sure how they were all related to each other). There were plenty of kids, all of whom were very interested in us, but talking to them was quite a challenge, because they spoke the dialect of the area and couldn't really speak "standard" Mandarin. Nevertheless, we persisted through a series of guesses, and followed them as they led us around their town (which you can see in this picture).


After our tour, about ten of us piled into this little mule-drawn carriage and made our very slow way out to see the fields. We saw a lot of corn, some beans, and trees that produced a nut very similar to almonds.
That night we ate a home-cooked meal and slept at the family's house (I shared a bed with my two female teachers), though I went to bed kind of late because I wanted to avoid the huge clouds of mosquito repellent someone had sprayed in our room. I was amused by this blanket that says "honey time".
The next morning, we ate a delicious breakfast (again completely home-made), and then left for Beijing! I read a lot on the bus and enjoyed the beautiful mountains we passed on our way. Since then, it's been more school as usual, though of course I've also done other fun things. I think I'll end this post here, though, because I'm meeting my "Chinese family" at 8:30 tomorrow morning to go hiking, and I'd like to get a little sleep.