Friendship Forest

Last week I attended a tree-planting event with my school. Myself, along with two other co-workers and our boss, met at 7 a.m. to drive to an outer district of Tianjin, to a place called 'Friendship Forest.' The government organizes this event annually as a way to show cooperation between foreign teachers and their employers as we all work together to create a 'greener' city. I think its going to take more than just an annual event for sufficient greenness to happen! Either way, I was glad to go along and represent my school and I had good company to go with. We saw all of the main schools in Tianjin there...my old university was there and most of the other private English centers like my current school.

When we got to the Friendship Forest (out in the absolute middle-of-nowhere, by the way) there was a small ceremony with some big wig from the Tianjin government there to give a speech. We were instructed on how to hold our shovels, how to plant trees and even how to go to the temporary bathroom - in pairs. Then, we found our row of trees and got started! Lucky International English, my school, had 20 trees to plant. Or rather, we had 20 holes to fill in with dirt since the holes were already dug (thank goodness!) Some of the big universities had 30-50 trees. With our small group of 4 people we took our time and were the last ones to leave, right as the rain and wind were starting to come! Afterward, our boss, Karen, took us out for lunch then we headed back to teach a class before we finished for the day. It was a good day and we even made the local evening news! Check out some of the pictures below! (Pictured with me is Karen, our Chinese boss, and my co-workers, Joel and Lorne).

Red China Blues by Jan Wong

As I have done in the past, I want to tell you about a book that I just finished reading. It's called "Red China Blues," written by Jan Wong and is jam-packed with information about recent history in China, from a foreign-journalist perspective. I found the most interesting part to be the first-hand description of the Tiananmen Square massacre and the events that led up to and followed that historical night. This book is quite different from some of the others that I've recommended because its so recent and because the author's experiences are truly unique. Also, if any of you read "Wild Swans" or some of the other books about the Cultural Revolution, this one makes for a nice "sequel" to those events. Here are what some other readers from Amazon.com had to say...

"Her descriptions of life in China during the latter part of the cultural revolution, the gradual reopening of the country following Mao's death, and the crackdown at Tiananmen are first rate, emotionally powerful, and give you a sense of what it would have felt like to "be there" during those momentous events in recent Chinese history."

"The most memorable part of the book for me was the gripping and horrifying blow-by-blow description of the Massacre at Tiananmen Square. The style is subtly different, more emotionally charged than any other section of the book; her normally light humor takes a darker turn and the words seem to rush into one another. From her vantage point on a hotel balcony facing the Square, she could see, hear, and feel everything. Not only does she make the reader feel that they are there, she also puts us into her mind, we feel her panic, her revulsion, and her sickness when the last of her illusions about China come crashing down about her."