Xi'an Village

My attempt to make friends. We drew pictures in the dirt, at least something I'm good at :)

On this study abroad program, we are accompanied by two professors. Dr. Zhang is a mechanical engineer and Dr. Lee is head of the Mandarin program at UNL, he is in charge of the business students on this trip. Dr. Lee loves to throw us into culturally immersing situations, that embarrasses us, yet requires a new way of thinking. Class was cancelled yesterday morning because of the earthquake warning for the city of Xi'an, so he wanted to keep us outside and away from the city. His idea was to drive to a random village outside of the city and step inside, and well that's exactly what we did. There are small farming villages, approx. 2,000 people, outside of Xi'an. Here, they are given land to only be used for sustenance farming. The government has stopped taxing them and taking produce, but that means there is no subsidization for the crops. The man we talked to did not seem to mind that system.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So, we walk into this dirt street village, all thirty of us mei guo ren (Americans) feeling very uncomfortable and quite uncertain. Dr. Lee starts talking to the small group that has gathered and very quickly two homes are opened for us to step into. I entered a two-story concrete house with a small courtyard, home to three generations of a family. The rooms were small, but the furnishings quite nice and the man's proudest possessions were two TVs sitting side by side in the living room (although he says they're outdated and wants a flat screen TV). He lives with his wife, son, daughter-in-law, and seven-year-old grandson. His son and daughter-in-law work in the city and he and his wife work the fields. They don't do much but tend the fields because they sub-contract the harvesting to people with machinery.

I asked him what he thought about the earthquake. His reply was a shrug and that it was his third experience and that he'll be sleeping inside.