Guizhou continued

We've uncovered a trend of Chinese factories not sure of the order of the letters in MICKEY.

More Langde Miao

We had a great time interacting with the villagers.
We shopped for jewelry.
I was the last shopper remaining and got swarmed; ultimately had to be rescued by the tour guide. However, we did manage to score a good deal on the huge jewelry pictured above!
This is how the Chinese bring home their chickens (live)! Presumably, this girl's mother does not have the same anxiety I have about bird flu.

Langde Miao village performance

After 12 cups of wine first thing in the morning during the welcome ceremony (the last out of bull's horns) we were feeling pretty relaxed for the performance that followed.




You can see some video of Miao dancing at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjc0nMmEbD8. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it inserted into this post.

Eric and Lauren's trip to Guizhou end of October

Eric and I took a trip to Guizhou, a province in the southwest of China. Guizhou contains many mountains and has some very beautiful landscapes. Guizhou is also home to a large number of minority groups. Many of these continue with an ancient way of life. We learned mostly about the Miao and Dong ethnic minorities and were able to sample their food, watch their singing and dancing in traditional costumes, and buy their textiles and silver.

We flew into Guiyang and stayed in Kaili.

On the first day we visited the Langde Miao village. Above and below (blogger won't seem to let me type above the first uploaded photo) are some pictures from the welcoming ceremony which is further described below:
Welcoming Ceremony: You find it amidst hills and bound by waters. On arriving at the entrance you could behold some beautifully dressed girls blocking your path. It's a welcome party and guests are allowed in after drinking their twelve courses of way-blocking wines -- a most ceremonious etiquette. Here, people are wearing colorful festival dress. Women wear gorgeous and complex silver jewelry, and some young ladies adorn silver horned coronal on their heads; men robe themselves in blue-black, with chuddar of the same color covered their heads. Each man carries a Lusheng (a bamboo-made music instrument) and stands in line to play the Lusheng pipe music.

Now you know why we had our hepatitis vaccines.

Henry turns 11!

Henry turned 11 on October 13th while his mom was in Beijing. We celebrated the following weekend with a simple party at the house. His celebration included his two best friends in Shanghai (Austin and Ola), video games, Papa John's Pizza, a homemade chocolate cake made by his Dad, and a sleepover.


It's incredibly hard to believe that we are parents of an 11-year-old!

Disney ELL Grand Opening October 15th 2008

Other October news was the official opening of the first Disney School. It was very exciting to have Eric's vision come to fruition!

World Congress of Psychotherapy in Beijing

In mid-October I attended the World Congress of Psychotherapy in Beijing. It was a huge international conference sponsored by a UN Non-governmental organization. In addition to many Chinese psychotherapists it was attended by therapists from all over the world. I stayed in a Chinese hotel adjacent to the Bird's Nest (pictured above from the window of my room). I was able to go running through the Olympic village every morning.

The conference opened in traditional Chinese fashion with a lion dance and acrobats.

I was able to see and visit with one of my favorite graduate school professors, Nancy McWilliams pictured next to me below along with another Rutgers student of hers who is on the faculty of Peking University, Ping Yao.

It was very exciting to see in person two of my CBT idols, David Clark and David Barlow.