K: Choo! Choo!

Number 1718 leaving Yinchuan for Hohhot at 6:43pm on Thursday, March 29th. I marveled at the prices of the train tickets I had just purchased. Y300 for three train tickets?.. that's unbelievably cheap. Ah yes, the naive foreigner, isn't she cute? It's absolutely true... you get what you pay for.

This past weekend A, L (a friend who teaches in a town a few hours south of us) and I, boarded the overnight train to Hohhot, the capital of Inner Mongolia (which is actually a province in China, not Mongolia). We were bound for our organization's second annual Northwest Region Women's Retreat.

Apparently, the train's number has something to do with what kind of train it is. We now know that four digits without a letter indicates a cheap, slow, loud, and dirty training experience. When L asked the fuyuan (the woman in the uniform) for clean sheets, she responded, "Meiyou (don't have)," and showed us how to turn them over. Why didn't we think of that? As the train had inched its way north from Chengdu, the passengers who rode before us had obviously already employed this little trick. We made due and settled in for the night. The upside to this train was that the passengers, who were mostly peasants, left us pretty much to ourselves. I don't mean to imply that we weren't interesting to stare at because to be unnoticed in this part of China would almost be insulting. I mean to say that we didn't have to host any English practice sessions nor did we really even have to pretend to speak Chinese and answer the few basic questions that we know how to answer. These are things we have come to expect when traveling on trains and no, you can't pretend you don't notice the person trying to get your attention. That only encourages them to crawl into bed with you.

The actual retreat was great. We spent our mornings studying from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians looking at issues like suffering and brokenness. Isn't it interesting that a right attitude and soft heart will welcome these things because in them we know Him? The highlight of the retreat for me was time that we spent listening to a China expert who has 23 years of experience serving in China and has educated herself on the history, culture, society, politics, you name it... she probably knows it. She gave a couple of fascinating lectures -- one on some of the books that have contributed to her China knowledge (see the recommended reading list on the sidebar for a couple that I have actually read), and one on the three Chinese world views and some potential future implications of each... really fascinating. In addition to being a wealth of China knowledge, she is a great photographer and a good storyteller... you can see for yourself by linking to her blog, Outside In, from the sidebar list, Other Ddots.

Lest we sound like the worst retreaters ever, I should add that we also had some fun. We ate some good Mongolian food, went bowling, and shopped at what is best described as a Western Food Wholesale Warehouse. They generally supply some of the stores and restaurants in Hohhot, but they will open up the different rooms and let Westerners shop straight from the shelves. Most exciting find? Hawaiian Punch for N.

A and I planned to leave Hohhot on the 10:30 am train for Yinchuan on Sunday because we had to be back for morning classes on Monday. We missed it because McDonald's (which we can't get in Yinchuan and promised to bring back for N) doesn't start serving lunch until 10... go ahead and judge our priorities if you must. We weren't actually late, but the ticket taker was not inclined to let us and the handful of other late comers run for it. We could tell from the commotion that she was being very un-Chinese. Order? Are you serious? To make a long long story a little bit shorter, we ended up on the 3:00 train and got back into Yinchuan at 5 past midnight. All in all, we had a great weekend, but it begs not to be forgotten too soon as we picked up colds which started as really sore throats and moved to the choo! choo! that has us sounding eerily like the trains on which we retreated and returned.

Coming this week is a team from Hillside (our fellowship in CO) to visit and help us with our Easter events. Stay tuned early next week for that update...