"I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, I mean . . . Taiyuan, China"

Well, the blog heading wouldn't allow for the ‘strike outs’ so I'm reposting the title here:

"I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew Taiyuan, China" 
(My China story – part 2 ~ see part 1 in previous post, dated Feb 24^th ~ yeah over a month ago. Sheesh)

 ~ One of my all-time favorite books by Dr. Seuss is “I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew.” It’s a wonderful story about a young protagonist who sets out to reach Solla Sollew. He thinks getting there will solve all of his problems (now, I never thought that going to China would solve anything for me, but I did venture out with great optimism, as does our hero in this charming book). Yet, at every turn, something goes wrong and it seems he will never get to his journey’s end. Finally, the story concludes with an empowering life lesson as our hero learns he can and must plow right through his troubles and keep on going. In the end, he experiences much personal growth. By the time I got to Taiyuan, China – I felt a great deal like the main character in Dr. Seuss’s book. And I came home with many new life lessons – I highly recommend it (Both the book and going to teach in China). 

And I also want to say before I share this part of the journey – that I left China very much in love with the people and the country and everyone involved with “Impact Exchanges” and “Newshape International Education.” But getting there was, well ~ you’ll find out. I don’t blame anyone for the craziness; it was just a series of unfortunate miscommunications, wrong directions and bad luck …

What an adventure! At this point I suppose I should tell you who was part of this remarkable experience with me (for their personal privacy, I’ll only use first names). There was myself, Shelly (a delightful fellow writer, substitute teacher, wife and mother, in her 30s), Amber (single, college grad, in her 20s, adorable, professional – also works part-time for “Impact Exchanges”~ she went to China for a couple of months last summer so she knew the ropes and was in charge of our little group of teachers), Trent & Nat (a darling married couple – no kids yet – Trent is a successful businessman and leader in the automated security field and Nat – short for Natalie, but since the director of “Impact Exchanges” is named Natalie, we shortened Trent’s wife’s name to Nat. She is a Dental Hygienist; both are in their 20s). All four of these teachers were from Utah. And, unexpectedly, Natalie (the founder of “Impact Exchanges” and also from AZ), came to be with us for the first week. I was really glad she came as she has been to China numerous times, is a personal friend and I have known her for many years.

Getting from the US to China was pretty crazy. The Utah teachers flew into Phoenix Thursday night. Shelly stayed with us – the rest with Natalie. We left my house for the Phoenix airport at 4:30am on Friday morning Jan 22 (flight left at 6am) and we didn't get to our Beijing hotel (really a hostel) until 8:30pm Saturday, the following night!! We flew to Dallas, had a layover that really was only enough time to change planes and then we flew to Beijing. (Experienced a major time change, too – China is 15 hours ahead of AZ). The flight from Dallas to Beijing was over 7,000 miles and nearly 14 hours long. I tried to stretch my legs every hour or so but the aisles were so narrow. I watched three movies on the way over. There was lots of turbulence the last 20 min. I don't mind turbulence; it kind of feels like an amusement park ride to me, but two of our group threw up quite a bit. We landed at 2:05pm Beijing time on Saturday afternoon. (We were to travel by train the next day to Taiyuan).

Once we got through immigration (which didn't take that long), and meandered through the airport with trams, stairs, and escalators galore, we were finally met at the baggage claim by one of Chen’s employees, Vivian, age 22; cute, fun, darling and very anxious that she get us where we needed to be. She continually tried to gather us much like a mother hen, saying “Hurry, hurry, hurry.” I soon came to love Vivian – but in all honesty, she may not have been the best choice to meet us as she had only been to Beijing twice in her life and did not know her way around. And although she spoke English, I’m not sure she always understood us. She would just nod and say, “Yeah, yeah.” But at least she was a native Chinese speaker – that helped when it came to talking to taxi drivers and such. Nevertheless, there was some miscommunication going on (something sweet little Vivian apologized to us about profusely as we were about to leave to go home. Bless her heart – she felt so badly about how long it took us to get to the hostel and then the next day – well, we missed our train… yeah, but not her fault).

Anyway, it took us over SIX hours in the freezing cold from the time we landed (mostly walking … sometimes running to catch the subway, and an insane SHORT taxi ride that dropped us off a considerable distance from our hostel/hotel) to get to our destination!! (Beijing Hyde Courtyard Hotel)

DESPITE the fact that the hotel website says they are about 16 km from the airport – that’s like 10 miles. Yikes!! My first impression of Beijing is that they have stairs EVERYWHERE!!!!! Oh my heck. I think I must have climbed no fewer than ten very long staircases, (airport, subway stations, and just around town) some having several landings. And we were dragging all of our luggage with us. I could never have made all those stairs with my luggage by myself. Thankfully, Amber managed to grab at least one of mine along with her backpack and duffle bag already over her shoulder and plow right up those stairs like a mountain goat. She's 26 and very beautiful as well as lean and STRONG. (There were a few escalators but I still struggled with my luggage. Thankfully, Amber and the other teachers always helped me out).

So, sadly, while we were going through one of the subway turnstiles, Natalie’s phone was stolen – with her wallet that had her credit card and driver’s license as well. AND, the phone number and address of the hostel we were to stay at was IN HER PHONE. So, there was a lot of guessing about where we were going. I don’t even know what all went on because it was so freezing in Beijing, literally. It was –7°F (the "feels like" button on the weather app said “feels like –22°F”) while we were traipsing all over Beijing so we could barely talk to each other or even look up, keeping our heads down against the wind. We got lost on the way to our hostel, dragging all of our luggage behind us. It also made it pretty impossible to stop to take any pictures, and it was getting very dark. The website said it was about an hour drive by car (which seems long to me to travel 10 miles – must be the way the roads are set up) or under two hours by subway with some walking and yet it took us SIX hours. It's just a long crazy story.

When we finally got to our hostel (a very ornate, cool, old building) we were exhausted and crashed around 9 pm (no dinner). It was so brutally cold that we couldn't really enjoy seeing anything and we were rushing the whole time. As it turned out Shelly and I got the only room that the heater didn't work. And of course, it was UPSTAIRS! Ugh.

    
        It was so brutally cold that we couldn't really enjoy seeing anything and we were rushing the whole time. As it turned out Shelly and I got the only room that the heater didn't work. And of course, it was UPSTAIRS! Ugh.

I had on my underwater w/ thermals over them, knit pants, FOUR pairs of socks, a high-neck tank, 2 long-sleeved shirts, a hoodie, gloves and Jim's stocking cap on to sleep in. Shelly was bundled up too. It was a rough first night in Beijing. We found out in the morning all the other heaters worked great. Really?                                  

The hostel was charming – a 400 year old building here's a pic of the heater in the lobby  – yeah – that tower thing with heat coming out of just the upper vent.   

Here's a pic of the open area inside – a couple of cats were cuddled up on the couch. The towels on the floor were because it was wet. Not sure why. Rain? Leaking? I don’t know.

And here's a pic that Trent took of the eating area – so bright and colorful!! I didn’t even see this part until the next morning – Amber and Shelly went out to find some breakfast for us and brought it back and we ate in this fun room …

Think that’s long enough for now – I’ll post about what we did in Beijing the following day and the train ride to Taiyuan next time. So, you can kind of see why I said we had trouble in getting to Taiyuan. Cheers!!

And if you want a link to that cute Dr. Seuss book ~ here ya' go:
I Had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew 

How did I end up in China?

So, if you know me personally, you might know that I recently went to China to teach English for two weeks at an “American Experience English Winter Camp” held during their winter break from school. I have been promising to share some of my experiences here on my blog. It will need to be in several installments ~ this is the first:

I have a friend here in Arizona, Natalie, who has been working with foreign exchange students for quite a few years. She has been the regional director of a non-profit student exchange organization and her family has hosted numerous exchange students in their home. In fact, when I was teaching at American Leadership Academy in Gilbert, Arizona (and one of Natalie’s sons, William, was my student), Jim and I hosted the Chinese teacher of a group of students who came for a brief visit to the United States. It was so much fun having her in our home.

In the spring of 2011, Natalie discovered a Chinese high school was looking for teachers for their summer camp and looked into how she and others could teach in China. She and another son, Daniel, founded "Impact Exchanges" and took a team of teachers to China in 2013, and in 2015 they taught over 600 students in eight cities.

I would see her post about it from time to time, saying there were openings for teachers (I retired a few years ago), but it was never at a time when I could go . . . until she posted about the “Winter Camp” for 2016. It was to be a 2 week “American Experience” English Camp for Chinese students who were on their winter break. With travel time and all I would be gone for about 2 and a half weeks from Jan. 22^nd to Feb. 8^th. It really intrigued me. I wondered how it would even be possible to accomplish much of anything in only two weeks, but I really wanted to go and find out. I was also excited about the upcoming Chinese New Year – Feb. 8^th – (the day we were leaving), but we would at least be there for their New Year’s Eve.

Pretty soon it was all I could think about. I mentioned to Jim and I don’t think he really believed I was serious at first. My passport had expired so I hurried and applied for a new one and put a rush on it. I prayed about it and soon I knew I needed to go. As a volunteer teacher, you do pay to go, but the cost was reasonable for what we got in exchange: airfare coming and going, hotel and all meals, transportation, and admission to any sightseeing we might do. We had enough in our account for me to go and I soon found myself filling out the application, sending in my resume, and figuring out what I needed to do and buy in order to be ready. 

I tried to find a friend to go with me but none of my teacher friends around here could make it. I did reach out to my FB friends, and Shelly, a fellow writer, and a substitute teacher in Utah, felt like this would be her opportunity to go, too. We had only met briefly at a writers conference or two in years past and were more of just social media online friends – noticing each other’s activities now and then, but still, she was a kindred spirit and I was excited for her to come and to get to know her better. They made us roommates and we had a BLAST together. We got along great, despite my being about 30 years older than she is. Not to mention that made me basically forty years older than the other three teachers who came, also all from Utah. I figured if I didn’t go this year, I might not ever get the chance to go.

Funny thing, though, the first suggested location was in southern China and the weather wasn’t that much colder than what we were experiencing in Mesa, AZ so I figured no problem. I totally skimmed right past the actual location (which had been changed) when I filled in the application – NORTHERN China – where it was FREEZING (literally) in the winter. That really took me by surprise. I realized my oversight only two days before we were supposed to leave. YIKES!!! I ran around trying to secure warm enough clothing, etc. and get everything ready in time.

Natalie has found “Chinese partners” to work with who are educators, etc. who want to be able to provide this type of experience for Chinese students. We were to work with a young man named Yufei Chen, whom we simply called, Chen. He was a very savvy and successful businessman who is also passionate about education. Besides running his own company, he works with a “training center” called, “Newshape International Education” 

in Taiyuan, Shanxi Province, China, where students can come after school and during summer and winter breaks for additional learning by way of private tutoring and other classes. It was in this facility that we would teach our lessons to the Chinese students. These were students whose very dedicated and devoted parents could afford to pay for their child to come to this “English Camp.” Surprisingly, Chen, who was born and raised in Taiyuan, said it was a moderately small city . . . of only 4 million people. Yeah, it didn’t seem small to me. 

We were also responsible for lesson plans for 2 key subjects that we would teach to the entire group (about 30-35 students for the winter camp) in the morning and then have activities to support it for the classes we divided into afterwards, each of us having a smaller group, based on age and/or English proficiency. But I knew very little of how any of this would work until we actually arrived and began to teach. We were each asked to suggest two subjects we might have some expertise in to teach and submit it to see if our choices got approved. I chose leadership skills for one of my subjects. ALA, where I taught was a Stephen Covey Lighthouse School and his seven habits of highly effective people were incorporated into our daily lesson plans. However, we used the program for students and I taught the “Seven Habits of Happy Kids.” The other subject I suggested was poetry. I run an annual “poetry challenge” on my blog each April, National Poetry Month, and thought I would have some ideas that we could use for that subject. Both of my subjects were approved. Each of the other four teachers did the same thing so there was a subject each day of the two weeks. (More on that later).

I had no idea how this “American Experience English Camp” would be accomplished when the teachers didn’t speak any Chinese. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into and I really had no idea what to expect. I honestly didn’t think it was possible to make any kind of “impact” in two weeks.    

I was wrong.

“My Son Never Saw the Ocean”

Greetings - I decided I would share another one of my essays from the writing class I am taking. My instructor has already graded it (got 100%). Sweet. It's rather personal since it was a personal narrative essay assignment. I share it in hopes it will touch hearts and help others.

“My Son Never Saw the Ocean”

by Stephanie Abney

 

My delightful, active and previously healthy ten-year-old son, BJ, lay silently on the doctor’s examination table. He was pale, clammy, feverish, nauseated, and his lips were devoid of color. “I’m sending you to a Pediatric Hematologist Oncologist. Do you know what kind of doctor that is?” our family physician asked. I knew. He didn’t have to say more.

          At the hospital BJ received life-saving blood transfusions while he endured one test after another, including a spinal tap and bone marrow aspiration. The following day the doctor spoke the words that forever changed the lives of everyone in my family, “I’m very sorry to tell you this, but your son has Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.”
         Faith, hope, and love became our lifelines. Every moment became a memory. We were the recipients of dozens of acts of service. As news of BJ’s illness spread, so did the number of people who would be there for our family. Not only did they touch our lives, but BJ and his courage touched the hearts and lives of everyone who he came in contact with him.

 

          BJ and I soon became “regulars” at the Cancer Clinic and Phoenix Children’s Hospital. On the way to the clinic we made up silly songs. Once inside, they would call him back, hook up the plastic bag filled with chemotherapy drugs to his port-a-cath, a direct line to his bloodstream surgically implanted into his chest. Six hours later, we made the 45 minute drive home, usually in silence, followed by a great deal of vomiting and misery for BJ.

It wasn’t long before BJ came to me holding out a clump of his gorgeous tow-head blond hair, “Look, Mom.” Soon, he was completely bald. “Well, at least it will grow back,” he said optimistically. BJ was known for looking on the bright side. It made things easier.

          The next Sunday BJ was well enough to go to church, which was rare. Smiling in their seats were several men in the ward and some boys in BJ’s class who had shaved their heads, years before the look became popular. BJ smiled and said, “Swell,” one of his favorite words.

Back at the hospital, “So, what’s going on in here?” a nurse asked as she poked her head into BJ’s room after hearing little chirping noises. BJ was full of fun, even under dire circumstances and seemed to be a magnet, drawing friends and hospital personnel into his room. BJ had a quick smile and a kind word for everyone he met. He made time to talk to the elderly and to little kids. BJ was a favorite uncle among his nieces and nephews.

Whenever the doctor asked BJ how he was doing, BJ would always reply, “I’m swell.” More than once I overheard the doctor leaving instructions at the nurses’ desk telling them to monitor him carefully because he never really complained and they would have to be watchful.

          When times were good, BJ went to school, making lasting friendships. His art work won “Best of Show.” He was loved by his fellow students and his teachers. New students told me that BJ was the first to welcome them. He held doors open for the girls. One boy said, “BJ brought the art of being a gentleman back to campus.”

Sometimes BJ was in an aggressive phase of chemo which made him violently ill. He’d be too weak to get out of bed. Other times, his chemo was part of an oral dose maintenance phase when could do more things. The summer BJ was 14, he felt well enough to fulfill the requirements needed to earn his BSA Eagle Scout award. He made improvements to a local bird sanctuary for his Eagle project.

After battling cancer for five years, BJ rallied. We dared to think this was behind us until he complained of pain in his eyes, hip and knee. The doctor couldn’t find anything. BJ’s blood tests were in a fairly normal range. We were sent to an ophthalmologist who tried to address the pain in his eyes. BJ even received injections directly into his eyes. The infection remained.

Our ophthalmologist made arrangements for BJ at the UCLA Eye Center in California so a specialist could look at the infection in BJ’s eyes. The thought of seeing his widowed grandpa in California where I grew up and getting his first glimpse of the ocean made him excited for our trip. (We always seemed to visit at Christmas and never went to the beach). BJ got the wind knocked out of his sails when the specialist found leukemia cells in BJ’s eyes.

“This sucks,” he said as we walked to the car. It was one of the rare times he expressed how discouraged he was. It was April of 2000. I couldn’t convince him to go to the beach after that. We returned home to Arizona without BJ even dipping his big toe in the ocean.

The doctor who had treated him with great care for five years gave BJ less than a 5% chance of survival even with an aggressive chemotherapy protocol. Our courageous son was done fighting. He refused treatment, with our support.

Six months later, our precious son, Brian James, tiptoed on the edge of this life before quietly slipping into heaven, two months after his sixteenth birthday. BJ lived six months longer than the doctor predicted. I think it was BJ’s gift to us. All the seats in the Stake Center were filled, to the back of the cultural hall and even up on the stage, when we held BJ’s funeral. He had touched many lives in his short lifetime.

I treasure every memory of my son. I will always miss him, until we meet again. In the meantime, I see a handsome blond, blue-eyed young man doing a work for his Heavenly Father that only he can do. The Lord needed a faithful young man who is as tough as woodpecker lips. And He found one in BJ.

BJ left a legacy of faith, hope, and love. I will always be grateful that God trusted me enough to be BJ’s mom, even if it was only for one short season. I know I will see him again. How am I doing? Surprisingly, “I’m swell."

© 2015 Stephanie Abney

* And if anyone is interested in more of BJ's story - here is a 5 minute "Digital Story" I made of him a couple of years after he passed away ~ "Standing in the Doorway"