Lao Long Tou

A couple of Saturdays ago (on September 16th, to be exact) I visited Lao Long Tou (which means "Old Dragon's Head"). Lao Long Tou is the starting point of the great wall--the point where the great wall hits the sea. It's called "Old Dragon's Head" because the great wall is sometimes called a dragon since it snakes across the landscape like a dragon, and this is the starting point--hence, it's the Dragon's Head. It was built during the Ming Dynasty in the 16th century.

I went to Lao Long Tou with Chad & Krystal--a married couple from Oklahoma who are also teaching at QFLPC with ELT Edge. We brought with us a couple of my students (Rose & Anna) to help translate for us and get us there and back. Anyhow, on to some pictures with captions:

This was outside the sea god's temple. The sea god is
supposed to keep the fishermen safe. I couldn't resist
posing in front of this :).

This is Rose (one of my students) and I.

From here you can see the great wall stretching out into the horizon...


This is Chad & Krystal posing in front of this cool maze thing
that was next to the great wall. It was pretty difficult to
get to the center.


This is the Old Dragon's Head--the
great wall extends out over the ocean a bit.


The bus on the way to and from Lao Long Tou was
extremely crowded, as it tends to be...

I'm not sure what to say about these, so they don't have captions...

My Chinese Acting Debut

Last Sunday, I made my Chinese acting debut. I never imagined I'd come to China and have a speaking part in a movie, but that's exactly what happened. There's a lot I don't know about the movie (such as the name of the movie...even if I did know, I doubt I'd remember it or be able to pronounce it!), but here are some things I do know:

• It's a made-for-TV movie that is going to show on TV in the spring.
• The story is a love story. The main male character (the guy in the purple shirt below) hits his head and gets amnesia, but still has a picture of his lover (the girl in the red dress below) and doesn't remember who she is.
• Apparently amnesia doesn't affect language faculties, because the main character can still speak English and translate for some foreigners.
• That's where I came in. Nina (another foreign teacher here at QFPLC) and I are foreigners who have lost our way. We ask an old guy on the beach if he speaks English in the hope that he can give us directions, but he doesn't speak English. Instead he hollers at the main character, who comes over and translates for us as we ask directions, and we continue on our merry way. The entire scene takes about 2 minutes, but we did about 15 takes from a variety of different camera angles.

How did I wind up doing this? That's a good question. I guess foreigners are in short supply. The movie company contacted the school, knowing that since the school is a foreign language college, they would have some foreign teachers. The International Cooperation office (which is the office of the school that deals with us foreign teachers) asked me to do it. I was reluctant at first, but I was short on money since the school hadn't yet paid us and the movie company was paying 200 RMB, so I said yes. And in the end it was pretty fun and interesting. And at the very least, it makes a good story :). Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment.

New Blog Home

Before coming to China, I knew I wanted to start a blog for keeping family & friends updated about my life in China. Several websites mentioned that blogger is blocked in China but Xanga is not. So I started a xanga blog.

It turns out that they're wrong. Blogger is not blocked in China. I much prefer Blogger to Xanga, and since Blogger isn't blocked in China and my blogging is just getting started...I've decided to switch. So this is my new blog home :). Blogger's got some nice features--for example, you know longer have to register to leave a comment!--so I thought it worth the switch.

I also got the internet installed at my apartment today, so now it'll be much easier to post stuff. There's a bunch of stuff I've wanted to blog about but haven't been able to since I didn't have an internet connection. So there should be several posts in the next several days.