What’s Wright in the World

I am doing better. As of right now my foot doesn’t hurt too bad. We have toilet paper so you don’t need to send that.

My new area is way cool, the members rock and my comp Elder Stapleton is awesome.

My Spanish is getting better, and we have like 9 investigators with baptismal dates in the next 2 weeks. Thats pretty cool.

Love,
Elder Wright

Click here for the photo album mentioned in the latest Journey to Xi’an entry.

Journey to Xian
October 31, 2005

“Please, May I have a hew-ga?”

Last Friday and Saturday, Janet and I traveled, with four other teachers from BYU and our Chinese friend, professor Sun Cai Ping, two hours east of Xi’an to the city of Dali. Dali is a city of 250,000 people, and is off the tourist map. Cai Ping was born in this city and lived there until leaving for university training in Xi’an.

For many years she has arranged a semi-annual program for BYU teachers at Xi’an to spend one day teaching the students at the high school she had attended as a girl. This year was our turn.

We were warmly received by the staff and administration of the school. Promptly at 8:00am, Saturday morning, each of us were escorted to a classroom, each filled with 85 students of sophomores, juniors or seniors at the school. We learned that 85 is the average size of the classes. For the next 45 minutes we attempted to communicate with the students, with varying degrees of success. We had been told that most of the children had never seen a European face before.

We repeated the experience three times. By the third time, I learned that a combination of slow, elementary words, and extreme body language to assist in explaining words, was the most successful technique. The most fun was teaching the kids Tongue Twisters. They laughed with me as they tried to master “Six sharp shears sheathed in
leather.” After about ten minutes, they were doing very well.

After the third class, and as we were preparing to leave the campus, we were mobbed by the students, all of whom wanted our autographs on their diaries, textbooks or scraps of paper. It was during this spell that a shy little girl, who could not have been more than 4’10″ tall, she looked to be no more than twelve or thirteen, shyly asked me: “Please, may I have a hew-ga?” I turned to her and said in my very poor Chinese, something like “I’m very sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.” She looked disappointed. Then another student standing nearby helped out, saying: “she would like a HUG-a.” As I wrapped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze, the happiness on her face, and the cheers of her friends, made me choke up a little. It was, by far, the highlight of my experience in Dali. Janet had a very similar experience, and the same feelings.

After a wonderful meal of chicken, beef, mutton, fish, sautéed mushrooms, freshly-made, spiced potato chips, cabbage in garlic, cucumbers dipped in crystallized sugar (a really interesting and pleasant combination) , and a delicious spun rice pastry filled with almonds and sweet flavors, we traveled over some of the worst roads I have ever been on, to the banks of the Yellow River basin. The river is at its low ebb now. We are told in the spring when it receives mountain run off, its mile plus wide plain will be filled and overflowing. Along the way we observed cotton fields being gleaned before the stalks are cut and turned into the soil. Men, women and children were going from plant to plant, getting the last pods of late blooming cotton from the stalks.

Traveling along the highways around Dali, we saw miles of bands of a yellow substance, perhaps four to five feet wide, lining the surface of the edges of the highway. The substance was corn kernels, shucked from the cob, and spread on the pavement to dry, before being loaded into sacks and sold to farmers as forage for cattle and other livestock.

We stopped at a 150 year old warehouse, built by the last empress of China. It was on a hilltop overlooking a wide valley along the Yellow River plain. It was built in traditional Chinese style, with thick brick walls surrounding a central square of perhaps 4-5 acres, a guard tower and weapons emplacements along the 40 foot wide walkway along the top of the wall. The warehouse was at the edge of a cliff. Access to it was through another wide walled area enclosing the housing for the workers at the warehouse. Here we saw piles and piles of corn, and also rice and (I believe) barley, being dried in a similar manner. If you go to Yahoo Photos, you will see a photo of a little child playing in the middle of the spread-out corn. I was somewhat awed by the ornateness of the warehouse, and its associated buildings. A couple of photos are attached.

It has turned quite cool in Xi’an. Local rules prevent heat being turned on in our apartment until November 15. We dress warmly.

Next Saturday, Xi’an celebrates its cityhood with an annual marathon run (or walk) around the top of the 5 kilometers of its city wall. It is the best preserved city wall in all of China. Janet and I will participate. I expect Janet’s time of completion to be less than mine by a significant margin. I have purchased an antique cane, in the (perhaps naïve) hope it will engender pity for the overlarge white guy, or, at best, admiration that one so advanced in years would undertake this trial. Photos will be taken.

Last week, I taught my classes about Halloween, and the idiom: “He almost jumped out of his skin.” After explaining it meant “he was scared,” I demonstrated by telling them it was what happened when someone yelled: “BOO!” They then understood.

Happy Halloween.

Love,
Dad