The last day was spent doing some touring in the area of
Guiyang with two college students who were some of our interpreters during the
last three days. They are international
relations majors and will be studying in England next year. It was fun to learn a bit about their
lives. They are both female and single
children of parents who both work.
Our first stop was a park along a small river.
After walking for about an hour, we had lunch at a local
restaurant with “country food”. It was a
nice change from the more formal meals.
We then went to a center for the study of Confucianism. It was built with government money, and will be a place to teach children the
skills promoted by Confucius, writing, manners, music.
Entrance to the center with our two students
At the end we saw a video that gave a brief history and then
ended by saying how China wanted to be a world leader in promoting the
principles of Confucianism. These
include respect for nature and fellow humans.
Of course this is somewhat contradicted by their current suppression of
minority groups. It has also been very
frustrating how blocked the Internet is.
One cannot Google anything. I was out of reading material and wanted to
get a book from Amazon. Could not do
that. Have not had access to my New York
Times the entire trip.
