I am posting the letter that Mary and I have already probably sent to you, but just in case we forgot or our email didn't go through we are posting the letter here so that everyone can know what we have been, are, and will be doing.
Mary and I have been very busy over the last few months or so, probably the last three for sure. In April our laptop crashed, probably having something to do with Chinese computer viruses, trojans, and the like, not one but many. Apparently, unlike all the viruses that competed with each other or were at war with each other in Mr. Burns body that canceled each other out from the Simpsons, Chinese viruses collaborate with each other to create a multiplicative effect leading to epic system crashes, if only the Chinese could work this well together they could overthrow the entire world, no problem, hands down. Now because of this I traveled to Shanghai's Best Buy and visited the Geek Squad to have the computer fixed, but as every electronic item ever created or fixed in China goes, when I got it back two weeks later, and after another trip to Shanghai, there was a problem, this time the power button got stuck and eventually the computer would not power up. And, as it goes in China, when one problem occurs, like a domino effect, a cascading system of problems occured leading to complete system failure, which we like to call "the mahjong effect". When the second laptop problem was going on, low and behold, our desktop computer crashed on us in a very similar way to the original laptop crash, so now we had no computers and I had already paid 1000RMB to get my laptop fixed. Now this was a big problem for both of us as we had classes that required creating PPTs weekly and we had to do research as well. When we got this problem all fixed in the end we lost lesson plans, tests, resumes, and a host of other important writing as well. We had to reinstall windows, important software, and use our upstairs neighbor and friend John's PC upstairs along with a backup drive to transfer everything back. The laptop has been reinstated to its previous position, but not until a few days ago and not after more than almost three months of chaos and insanity.
During this time my parents came and Mary and I entertained, traveled, and provided tour guide services for them from April 28th until May 12th. We put them up at our place and had them stay in the extra bedroom, taking them all around Shaoxing for one week, including such legendary and scenic spots as Shan Lu Feng, black-awning boat rides down the canals from the City Center, shopping in Lu Xun's birthplace tourist street, pedicab rides through Shaoxing's version of the hutongs which started with a fight over the Meiguo fat cats, the drivers kicked, punched, pushed, shoved, and yelled and argued in Shaoxing Wa - it sounded like a deaf donkey braying as it repeatedly got it's balls thwacked. We also took them to Shaoxing Univeristy's Yuan Pei Campus, where we teach and there they met Rita and three of my Oral English students who proceeded to forget how to speak English because they were so nervous and whose jaws quivered and shook so much that they were like wind-up Nutcracker Dolls. And of course, we took them to Feng Da Blue and Casablancas, our favorite bars, the Hunan, Old Mama's, Hotel Hotpot, and Ali Baba's restaurants, the former for my birthday and the latter for my mothers on May 2nd and May 3rd respectively. Also, on my birthday Mary and my mother took a trip to Zhuji, the pearl capitol of the world while my dad and I went golfing at Keyan and discussed the Tiananmen Square incident with the Secretary to the President of the golf club, Mr. Malcom while sipping a few beers. At first I was flabbergasted that my father would bring up such a taboo topic, but now, after much thought and internal debate, I laugh about our conversation and only wish that I would have discussed even more uncomfortable or inappropriate topics while I had my chance, topics such as: If there are no Volkswagens here, where do you rock n' roll? If you don't sweat, how you keep cool? If you don't have ear wax, why do you have q-tips? And, if it only takes four Americans to take over Canada, how many do you think it would take to get China, one or two, or would you just give it to us without having us send one over?
From there we traveled to Hangzhou for a ride around West Lake which was spectacular, and cool enough, when the parent's got back to MN, the Twin Cities newspaper, the Star Tribune, had an article about traveling to Hangzhou, neat! We also went to Xi'an to see the Terra-Cotta Warriors androde bikes around the old city wall. Finally the parent's ended their vacation in Beijing. This city is something we could handle, very Western and still Chinese which was just what we needed, a break from being translators and just became tourists! We all were disappointed though when we went to Tiananmen Square to see the embalmed body of the cat himself, Mr. Mao, but we were impressed with the lowering of the Chinese National Flag at dusk, comparable the parent's said to the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace in London. While there we got a chance to walk though, on tour, the Forbidden City and the Summer Palace but the coolest trip we all took was the trip to Jingshanling to trek on the Great Wall. Walking the Great Wall was, by far, the greatest part of our whole vacation. We hiked about 11 KM of the Great Wall to Simetai over ruins and up steep inclines and stairs in the middle of the blazing afternoon sun in the Summer heat. The scenic vistas are truly spectacular with green fields below and sparse forest up to the wall, like a dragon perched on top of the mountains and stretching in both directions as far as the eye could see. My parents did such a wonderful job of hiking with us especially since they were in their early 50's, but I also have to give a shout out to Liqhun (Spring) and her farmer/village friends for helping my parents through some of the more dangerous sections of the Wall, to my dad for keepin on keepin on even though he is afraid of heights and at one point he even said, "I was so dizzy and my knees were shaking I thought they would give out." And to my mom who kept on trucking even when her migraines were killing her. My parents flew back from Beijing and ended their vacation. We flew back for Tricky Dick Wang's wedding where we met our Chinese friend, Ashley, and then spent the next couple of weeks trying to catch up from missing a week's worth of classes to travel China and enjoy the time with my parents.
Mary and I are now in the middle of finals and beginning to prepare to head home. From the sounds of it, we will be flying back on July 14th from Shanghai to LAX to visit my brother Aaron, his fiance Jayme, and her brother and his girlfriend who are also good friends of ours. From there Mary will fly, possibly with Jayme to Minneapolis while Aaron and I will road trip it in order to "complete the loop" as he called it and which began when Mary, Jayme, Aaron and I road tripped it about the same time in the summer of 2004 to drop Aaron off in Irvine CA for graduate studies in Mathematics at UCI. We are really looking forward to reunions with friends and family, especially our new nephew Jackson Thomas Welters, born on June 15th and our godson Ray Baby! We hope to see everyone soon.
Take Care,
Andy and Mary
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