qinghai travels

We spent more than a week traveling through the rural countryside of Qinghai province, bouncing from school to school as we evaluated teachers and offered encouragement in their English lessons.

It was a great opportunity to see our TIP graduates in their natural environment and take stock of their accomplishments and challenges. Over the course of eight days we visited more than a dozen schools and close to 50 teachers in Huang Zhong County, just outside the capital city of Xining.

We have visited Haung Zhong several times as part of a 2-year plan to help the district’s primary and middle school teachers improve English instruction. Working with a team of five local trainers, we helped evaluate the teachers on using English in the classroom and getting their students to actually speak the language through fun and effective activities.

We were humbled and amazed at the great job most of the teachers are doing under challenging conditions. The students were enthusiastic and excited to participate in interesting activities and talk to each other. Most classes had about 50 students, most of whom had never been face to face with a foreigner before. Schools had outdoor restrooms with no running water and little heat inside except for small coal-burning stoves, which were usually in the offices. Students used watering cans to wet the floors and play areas to keep the dust down.

We talked to several teachers that we first met in 2008, our first year serving in China. Betty is still an enthusiastic English speaker, which reminded us that when she attended training in Beijing she would not stop asking, “what is this?” Hunt drove some distance to find us at another school and we had a wonderful time reminiscing about our class together in Changping. He said, “TIP is a very deep meaning for me and important experience to my life. I remember it very well.”

During the week, many of the local people visited their family tombs to worship their ancestors by burning money and leaving gifts in order to win favor with the dead. Coupled with the approach of Easter Week, it was a good opportunity to share our beliefs.

Every morning we set out about 8 a.m. from our Xining hotel following breakfast in the buffet hall, where we joined Chinese businessmen and tourists for porridge, cold vegetables, hard boiled eggs and fried rice.  We ate to the strains of easy listening versions of Christmas melodies, including a daily saxophone rendition of “Greensleeves.” Despite the “no smoking” signs, people lit up everywhere, from restaurants to school offices. 

We spent more than an hour each morning in a van with little suspension traveling to the day’s schools. We endured heavy traffic in the city and marginal roads of potholes, washouts, farm animals and tractors outside of town. We often wore our respirator masks as we passed the time practicing Chinese characters and gazing out the window at the brown hills and the gray air. Some days, the air quality in and around Xining, at an elevation of about 7,500 feet, was worse than Beijing, according the air quality website.

Fortunately there were afternoons of blue skies and high, wispy clouds. Temperatures ranged from about 32 F in the morning to mid-60s by afternoon. Midweek it snowed in Beijing.

Driving home each afternoon we enjoyed watching the scenery of the developing countryside and small cities. We saw farmers preparing their fields, crows nesting in the treetops, colorful Chinese gates beside smoking factories and the domes and minarets of several small mosques. 

We spent the evenings doing paper work and enjoying the mild weather while wandering the streets of Xining. It was a real blessing to be based in the city, where we could find coffee, ice cream and “real” grocery stores. It was an exciting and rewarding trip.