October 31st

What a day! Hilda, Lily, and I left with our driver for a 45 minute ride to one of the area churches. We met the female pastor who showed us the church and then, after prolonged conversation about the congregation, we left for our first home visit.

The visit took place in a beauty salon. The owner and her mother and several friends from the church gathered on little benches for conversation. The mother earns about 25 cents American per hour sewing the material to umbrella frames. In another part of the house, three women were cutting the excess threads off of pairs of white pants. It was an enjoyable visit ending up with reyarp.

 

Then we headed off to another home where a homebound woman resided. She had hurt her knee and found it hard to get around. Her artist son was in the upstairs working with two aspiring artists. Enjoyed tea with them and admired the art.

Visited an open market - those are the most interesting of all places. Fresh fruit and veggies, fresh meat of all sorts, live animals for sale, fish, turtles, eels, and anything you can name. This time I saw dog for sale, and at that stand I was asked if I wanted to eat dog at a nearby restaurant. But, having seen the dogs for sale, I couldn’t eat dog…..at least today.

Curry for lunch back in Jiang Men. Then Lily and I took a bus to the Museum of Overseas Chinese. Stories of how Chinese from this five county area emigrated to other countries (107 different countries). The museum had awesome dioramas and lots of wonderful explanation in English. Bottom line:  I came to realize that the Chinese people have a much greater stake in our world than just Asian China. From the Flying Tigers to supporters of presidents, to educators, they have done much!!

Back to the Center to meet Brogan who had invited Faith, a new GEO who is a service coordinator, along with Lily to have sushi. A nice evening meal.

Now, it’s getting everything back in bags in order to travel to Shenzhen tomorrow at 12:30 pm.