Wow! No one does breakfast like Tom n Toms in Seoul! This is so good! Honey and butter toast, with a HUGE pile of whipped cream!
![IMG_0056[1]](https://deceptivelyblonde.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/img_00561.jpg?w=490&h=653)
It’s a little late to be saying this, but Merry Christmas from the beautiful province of Henan, China!
This is my very first Christmas to be traveling abroad, indeed my first to be away from family and friends. Even in college, I always came back home with my mom to stay at my Aunt and Uncle’s home in Illinois. We always went overboard on the shopping so the room was covered in packages, and we had wonderful traditions. Lighting the hope candle, visiting midnight services, baking cookies, and getting up early to visit family nearby. Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays, and I was a little concerned about how it would turn out this year. Continue reading
Students at the Wushu Festival in the Henan Shaolin Temple. The students work tirelessly to become this good.
In China, the shortest day of the year is a pretty big holiday full of yummy food, friends hanging out together, and lots of memories.
It is especially important this year to my seniors. College in China is arranged a little bit differently than in America, or at least the program here at SIAS is. The seniors won’t really be returning next semester; they will spend their final time at college working on a major thesis and getting practical experience in the big wide world. While many of them have decided to stay in the area, life is changing for them right now. No more classes all together, no more busy dorms and exciting group activities await them. Mostly its a time for timid dreams and future worries; a time when they are reminded of just how precious this 3.5 year period, and these wonderful friends, have actually been.
For the past seven semesters, each set of students have lived together (dorms are divided by major and year), studied together (as freshman, they are divided by major and exam-score, so that each group of students has every class with the same students for the rest of the school career), played together (KTV, KTV, KTV!!!), and grown together. They encourage and prod and love each other to death for this brief, but much beloved time. Then, as it does for all college students, it ends as quickly as it began. Suddenly, they find themselves drifting in different directions, with this one headed to Shanghai, that one to Australia, and these two King’s College in England. They are realizing just how scary that future is and trying to cling to as much of their time together as they can.
Thus, Winter Solstice, the last holiday before the semester ends in China, is an especially important one for my students this year. According to tradition, people must get together and eat dumplings on the Winter Solstice; otherwise their ears will freeze in the coming winter and they will both fall off. Supposedly, eating ear-shaped dumplings will help you keep your ears warm in the future. It’s a time for friends, fun, and storing up great memories for the present. A time to love and remember that you are loved.
So, in honor of my much beloved, parting students; they would like me to wish you the same spirit of the season. We would like to wish you all a very happy Winter Solstice. May today’s dumplings be your best dumplings! May all of your friends be present! and May all of your Memories be Cherished.
Review of the Wushu Festival! (I waited way to long to post this 😦 ) The festival (held Oct. 18) was absolutely amazing, so many students of martial arts you almost didn’t know where to look. The Shaolin Temple has been home to martial art enthusiasts for many years now, with hundreds of kung fu schools popping up at the foot of the mountain’s temple. Thousands of students come to train at the school, primarily local farming students who use this as perhaps their only opportunity to gain an education and some good food. For many, the training in reading and writing alone (one of the main tenants of martial arts is the ability to learn from the writings of the masters) is a great benefit of the program. The self-discipline and values it instills into them is another. To be honest, I can’t imagine very many American kids being able to go through the rigorous training these kids go through. That said, they seemed generally healthy, excited, and ready to go on Festival Day!
The Festival itself is really hard to get into. . . the cost is outrageous and you have to work your way onto one of the tour buses. Since they try to encourage a diverse group of travelers (India, Iran, USA, Russia, France, Germany, Kazakhstan. . . dozens of countries made a showing), it’s not always easy to grab a spot on the bus. Everyone (not just our group, literally EVERONE), piles onto buses that are required to meet at a certain point on the highway and form a caravan. This caravan drives the last 45 minutes or so together until they reach the foot of the mountain.
There, the schools have lined up thousands of students in row after row of various events (saber fighting, boxing, drumming, kicking) that you along the road. It’s considered the “welcoming party” and you watch as your bus passes by. This goes on for another 45 minutes – 1 hour as you drive up the mountain to reach Shaolin Temple. There, you enter the temple’s fighting grounds, watching a few major performances and then wandering around the school as you please. Thousands upon Thousands of students line the roads and practice in the larger areas to demonstrate their skills and abilities.
Kids that look like babies doing the splits in a tree, while the older boys throw each other about and contort into unbelievable poses for 30 minutes at a time. Must admit, I let there feeling part inspired in the power of humankind and part ashamed of myself for my own lack of will power. Those boys and girls were working all day long, moving from one torturous stance to another, completely ignoring the gaping onlookers wandering through. Definitely impressive!
At the end of the day, everyone returns to a large natural amphitheater set where you can see up and down the mountain valley. Once it is dark, the students begin their large musical dance, an hour of breathtaking scenes accompanied by heart-stirring melodies. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of beauty. I’ll be adding videos as soon as I can upload them. All in all the event was a massive success. . . I am absolutely returning next year, I can’t even imagine missing it!
Good news for the sports car drivers! My guess is that it won’t take long for this case to lead to a finding that Cops can’t stop drivers based on the make of their car either. So that Red Mustang won’t be quite as likely to get you pulled over 🙂 **DB
“Probable cause” has long been one of those terms that made the jump from legal jargon to household term, especially with regards to drivers who get pulled over. The struggle over what that allows on American roads — and what it doesn’t — took a new turn last week with a Florida ruling that threw out a conviction stemming from a police officer who found something wrong with the color of a car.
In 2010, a deputy in Florida’s Escambia County saw one Kendrick Van Teamer drive by in a bright green Chevrolet. The deputy ran his plates, and found the registration matched a blue Chevrolet. There were no warrants out for Teamer, no reports of stolen vehicles and no pending crimes that involved either a blue or green Chevy. Teamer also wasn’t violating any traffic laws.
But the deputy pulled Teamer over anyway, simply because of the mismatch of the car’s color. Teamer said the car had been recently painted, which was true. It also contained small amounts of cocaine, marijuana and $1,100 in cash. Teamer was charged with drug trafficking and possession, convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.
Teamer appealed, and last week as noted by The Newspaper, the Florida Supreme Court ordered him freed on a 5-2 decision, upholding a lower appeals court ruling that the deputy was wrong to stop Teamer simply becuase the color of his car didn’t match its registration. The court noted that in numerous U.S. Supreme Court rulings, justices have found police can’t pull someone over for everday behavior that’s not linked to a crime, saying Teamer’s stop was not different from those triggered by the race of the driver: . . . .
“She was free in her wildness. She was a wanderess, a drop of free water. She belonged to no man and to no city” ~ Roman Payne
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