Who is your superhero? I recently posed this question to my first year English students. Their responses revealed so much, but their comic strips revealed even more.

My appreciation for comic strips and graphic novels grew after teaching high school art for a few years and recently reading Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.  The medium has the power to engage the mind of both reader and artist in a meaningful way.  I would often encourage my avid cartoonist students to explore the connection between story and image in the form of comic strips.  Much of their work would then appear in the high school newspaper and sometimes even our town paper in Pagosa Springs. Even though I don’t, some people see the world in storyboard frames.

Fast forward to Spring 2011, I was in my second semester teaching English to college freshman here at Guizhou University.  I began to realize that my students live in a culture where it is not appropriate to talk about societal problems. The result is the suppression of a lot of emotion and thinking about such things, so I decided to get my students to create superheroes.  We discussed popular superheroes in pop culture, the powers each held, and why they were created.   Next, I had them brainstorm five major problems or concerns around them and then choose one to fight.  Then they had to create a superhero to “save the world.”  They had to formulate a name, power, age, appearance, gender, major flaw, and arch enemy.  Once they had the skeleton, they write their superhero’s creation story.  Who, what, when, where, how? After the introduction of Aristotelian plot structure, we discussed the division of their stories into comic strips.  At this point, many of the students were ready to finally jump into drawing it out.

Last year, their comics had to have at least 5 panels, but this year I gave each student an 8 panel template for a bit more structure. The students were energized by the project. The results were everything from futuristic fantasy to art therapy to environmental psa’s.  The only requirement was that their superhero fight a real problem that was a personal concern.  The potential for this project is huge as it allows people to see the world in a new way while giving them a platform for their voice to be heard.  There is a long history of cartoons and comics being used throughout the world to try to make sense out of a sometimes chaotic existence.  A picture is worth how many words?

Student Portfolio: (Click on the images to see them at full resolution.)

Ice Melt by Nina

Two young boys must save the polar ice cap from melting and the world from eventual doom.

Percy  by Erica

Percy takes on the plastic loving villain, Glory.  In the end, love triumphs to rid the world of the reckless use and non-recycling of plastic.

King Egg by Emma

An average egg becomes the powerful King Egg.  Watch out evil persons, the egg will get you.

Magic Bird  by Renee

This particular student was terrified to speak in class.  When she presented this comic to the class, it was a brand new day for her.  She created the superhero, Magic Bird, for herself, and it seemed to give her more agency. Of course, she still struggles with shyness, but now she’s created a new way to access her own voice.  After this project, she was much more active in class and much more willing to work collaboratively with other students.

Xiaoxiao’s Happy Journey by Hillary

The smiling cloud saves a village from deforestation.  “Smile is power!”

The amateur sociologist in me is thrilled after reading my students’ work.  Students reveal their unique paradigms which have been shaped by experiences and realities completely different from my own. I get a little too confident in my own limited knowledge, and I think it is really refreshing to be jolted back to the reality that I still have so much to learn. This project also reaffirms my belief in the power of art to help people access parts of their culture and experiences that often go unnoticed.

Been meaning to post this on the blog for some time. This video was created as part of the ongoing Peace Corps Postcards Project produced to celebrate 50 years of the U.S. Peace Corps’ work throughout the world.

The Tempest is back in rehearsal and headed to perform the last week of May at this year’s final round of the Chinese Universities Shakespeare Festival in Hong Kong.

Life inside a music box ain’t easy. – Regina Spektor

As we were walking across campus this beautiful Spring evening, we began listing off all the things we will miss about our life in China.  We are entering the final ten weeks of our service in the Peace Corps, so we thought we’d try to do some Top Five lists of things we will truly miss.

[A Buyei Farmer at the GuiDa market]

Eating

1. Suan Tang Dou Mi Huo Guo

Spicy/Sour tomato based soup with pinto beans eaten in crowded, often dirty, restaurants with a group all crowded around a single gas burner.  Especially good for the Guizhou winter.

2. Chao Cai

Affectionately called, “dishes,” these are the family style entrees that have been perfected by our local master chef.  His restaurant is in our apartment complex, we’re hoping to have a cooking class with him before we leave. Of these, our favorites include: yu xiang qiezi (spicy eggplant), qing jiao chao doufu (green chile tofu), ma pu doufu (spicy tofu), suan jiang dou (pickled green beans), gan bian ma la tudou pian (the best potato chips, ever), doufu gan (smoky, bacony dry tofu), and ban dou (sliced green beans and magic sauce); we could go on and on, but we won’t.

3. Fresh Vegetable Markets

Here, we have daily farmer’s markets.  Farms surround the university and the Buyei farmer’s bring their produce in every day to sell in the established market space in the morning then along the village street in the afternoon.  Any green vegetable you can imagine is available, and many more that I have never seen before.

[An assortment of greens at the GuiDa market]

4. Sub-tropical Fruit

Pineapples, mangoes, strawberries, small cherries, yang mei (bayberry), bananas, oranges, tangerines, papaya, cherry tomatoes, all in seasonal rotation so you never get bored.  Most of these are grown within 100 miles of Guiyang, so we get them in their prime.

5. Homesteading in our Apartment

We love the challenge of making the hard to get American food out of raw, whole ingredients. In our refrigerator we have: hummus, salmon cheese spread, marmalade, mayonnaise, and yoghurt all made from whole ingredients; we even made the cheese.  I can’t forget the whole toasted wheat bread on the table, a perfect medium for all those spreads. We toasted and ground the wheat right here in our little kitchen.

[Shi Li He Tan wetlands park]

Living

1. On Campus Living

We love being a part of the campus community.  We see our students all the time outside of class, we even hear the campus announcements in our apartment.  Taps is played to put us to sleep at night and wake us up in the morning.

2. Walking

We are not allowed to drive during our service, so we have grown used to walking everywhere.  This is a pedestrian culture, no one thinks twice about walking a mile to the restaurant for dinner.  It is amazing what you are able to see when you walk everywhere, all the time.

3. Running

Our campus is located across the street from Shi Li He Tan, a beautiful wetlands park, which serves as a perfect running circuit for us.  We alternate running in “real space” with going to Konster, the Huaxi fitness center, for weight training.  We started this last year to get ready for last summer’s Tibetan hikes, and we liked it so much we just kept going.

[Huaxi Holiday traffic...notice the bus going into the city unabated!]

4. Public Transportation

There are buses that will take you anywhere you want to go in town for $.25 – $.50. Yeah, they’re crowded and often rather warm and not too clean, but you get where you need to go.  There are also trains that will take you from town to town all across the country; the sleepers are even air-conditioned.

5. The Music Box

If you look closely among the trees on campus, you will see random stumps and mushrooms, these are actually speakers for the campus radio station.  During daytime hours they play Kenny G, Enya, and other placidly soothing tunes, while in the evening they play Chinese and World Pop music along with announcements. If we’re lucky during Friday’s English hour, we hear the Beatles.  Add to this the gentleman flute player and neighborhood erhu players, and the effect is that we feel like we’re in a music box all the time.

[Confucius says...Springtime at GuiDa is the best!]

Teaching

1. A Distinct Lack of Irony

This is a cultural difference that often leads to moments of heart-felt student responses and sometimes awkwardness (on our parts at least).  We find it refreshing that students are not afraid to speak honestly about their emotions.  A funny side effect is that conversations can sometimes sound like Hallmark greeting cards…we just have to remind ourselves, they really mean it!

2. Students

We love our students and their dedication and passion.  We are going to miss the respect given teachers in a Chinese classroom.

3. Unfiltered Compliments

I know you are thinking, what does this have to do with teaching, but trust us, it relates.  Students will cheer when I wear my hair up or wear sunglasses.  “Ahh, you are so fashion!”  Students also cheer Charlie when he wears a scarf.  I will miss the lavish compliments poured out on us on a daily basis.  It really does make ya feel good!

[Diligent King working in class spring '11.]

4. Schedule, Schedule, Schedule

We may teach more than our Chinese and American colleagues here at the university, but we’re glad to do it.  Our class schedule is great; we’re going to miss the flexibility to go for a jog at 10am.

5. Xiu Xi

This is the Chinese sanctioned nap time; everything shuts down between 12-230pm.  We have grown accustomed to our post lunch nap, it is great!  I would like to take this habit back to the US with us, but I’m not sure it’s portable.

[B&C posing in front of the field of Canola.]

*PCV Peng You Men

It doesn’t neatly fit in a category, so it’s extra.  This is the community of Peace Corps volunteers spread throughout our city, province, and country.  We laugh together, cry together, play together, and celebrate together.  They are all truly amazing people with so much to offer.

  [2011 Xingyi PCV Hiking Trip...love it!]

It was a typical early spring day in Guizhou with thick fog clinging to the hills and mud everywhere.  Neither of these things deterred young families from escaping the city to prepare seedlings, take a long walk, adopt a tree in the peach orchard, and do some kung fu!

As we were walking from the culture center to the orchard. These boys all of a sudden start hiding behind Charlie pulling on his jacket obviously scared of something.  It was then that we saw the farmer coming down the road leading two impressive water buffalo.

He was cooing to these beasts and noticeably amused by the fearful boys.  The mountainous landscape mixed with very real poverty results in the continued use of water buffalo to work the fields.  The water buffalo is hugely important to rural life.  Many of the Guizhou minority people incorporate the shape of the buffalo horns into jewelry designs and some make combs and cups from the horns.

Down the road past the small village, we found a peach orchard.  In the summer, many people flock to this area to pick peaches, but on this day we were content to just pick a tree to adopt.  The families each chose a tree to take care of, monitoring its progress through the spring and summer.  Many of them also found wild onions growing in the orchard, so there was an informal competition to see who could harvest the most.  In the end, it was too close to call.

Crops in the fields are constantly rotated leaving very few fallow.  This flooded field will soon be plowed under for canola then rice.  The Chinese New Year blessings ring the door still vibrant and new.

Back at the cultural center, members of Martial Arts World from Guiyang demonstrated Kung Fu gong qi (“chi gong” in the West) a practice similar in intensity to yoga.  The adults were challenged to do it for five minutes.  That proved to be a very long five minutes. The master, for comparison, spends about one hour at a time.

Then one of the Kung Fu masters demonstrated a more intense practice, one that he does for at least thirty minutes at a time.  Charlie tried for a few minutes and conceded that this man is truly someone to be respected and quite possibly feared, in the best way possible.  These guys were truly sweethearts explaining to us the power of their art form.  I loved seeing the grandmother, purse and all, outlast everyone at the gong qi.

Hide and go seek never grows old.  After learning their Kung Fu form, the kids played a final round of games before loading up for the ride into Guiyang.  Yu Zhang Shu Yuan is less than 50 km north of the city, but Sunday afternoon traffic adds an additional hour to the trip.  We packed in to a minivan surrounded by four Kung Fu masters. We snoozed back to Guiyang feeling more than a little protected by our companions.

The Guizhou countryside is a beautiful place, but don’t mess with the water buffalo.  Just look at that guy!

“My father was taken away by [the] Red Guard [on] December 5, 1966,” my grandfather told me with a deep voice.

“I was 20 years old in 1966, and I had two brothers. That day, my mom was preparing a delicious meal for us. My father, brothers, and I worked hard in the field. Everything seemed [to be] going normally, but it was just an illusion.

“My mom was waiting for us when we came back home. Some people crashed into my house as soon as we sat down. It was too late to understand what happened when my father was taken away. My mom was so frightened that she fainted. My brother and I were mature enough to understand what [had] happened: the Cultural Revolution [had come to our house], and those people who took my father away were the Red Guard, the main power propelling the Cultural Revolution.

“Actually my father was a member of the KMT, [the Kuomintang], which is a party of China. Before the Cultural Revolution came, my father was regarded as a counter-revolutionary because he was a member of the KMT. So, the Red Guard criticized my father, even lashed him. Then, they confiscated my family’s fortune, our cereal [stores], and some [other] valuable things.  My father was sent to a reeducation-through-labor camp for three months [before being] released.

“Everyone looked down upon us. I felt so angry with my father at the beginning because I couldn’t receive any education, but in that kind of situation, I must understand him. We began to face the difficulties in unity. There was no more food for us to survive. Then, my father asked us to carry hoes and sickles to find something we could eat. We [dug up] tree roots and [cut] potherbs. I always felt [as if I was] starving because we lacked [enough] food. Then, my family decided to [quietly clear] the land. Because of our special identity, we [were not allowed] to actually have any field [of our own].”

My grandfather stopped telling [his story], so I’ll stop too. I know it is necessary for us to recall the past and [to] learn to cherish our lives [as they are now].

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Like last year, I asked students to call the oldest person in their families and to ask that person to tell them a story that they had never heard before. They then translated and told the story in English. While we’re away traveling, I thought I’d let my students tell their stories. To preserve their privacy, I have not credited the authors, but I have gotten their permission to let you listen in. The stories vary—sometimes simple, sometimes Earth shattering, sometimes otherworldly. I have not edited their stories unless I needed to help the flow. My edits are in brackets. [ ]

A new story will appear on the blog each Wednesday between January 18th and February 22nd. Read the 2012 series from the beginning here, or read last year’s stories here.

[On] a cold winter morning, there was a little boy playing on the snowy ground. Suddenly, his sight was caught by a little snowball, which could move. He used his fingers to touch it, and he felt [that it was] soft and a little warm. “Wang!” the snowball made a clear noise. This was a frozen dog.

The boy took it back home, gave it some warm water and food, and kept it warm. He gave a cute name, “Snowball”, to the dog, and they always played day-by-day. They became good friends from then on.

One year later, Snowball, [who] was a girl, was grown up and became a beautiful, brave dog. At that time, there were many wild animals [which] lived in the forest, and they often came to [the] village [and] attacked the fowl [and] even children in [the] middle [of the] night. Brave Snowball had beaten them frequently.

One year in summer, it was constantly rainy for three days. The flood was coming and it also brought [an] abundance of fish. It was popular for youth to use nets to hunt fish [on] rainy days. So, the little boy threw himself into the crowd for hunting fish. Actually, he was too young to do [so]. He had nothing to do but to stand and watch. He jumped and screamed. What a pity. He was careless and slipped into the river.

“Help! Help!” [he cried] while the flood shouted, and nobody heard [him]. The dread welled up from his heart. Gradually, he lost his consciousness.

Suddenly, a white [streak] of lightening flashed in front of everyone’s eyes and jumped into the flood.  The flood was overwhelming and swallowed everything. The boy felt [that he] was caught by someone. A strong but hurried breath behind his head. However, he was too tired to open his eyes to see. It [was] just like [he had] dreamed a long dream, and in his dream, he played with Snowball on a snowy day. The wind [blew] strongly and made everything blurry. After the wind died down, everything was gone, including Snowball.

After the boy [awoke], his friends told him that [it] was Snowball [who had] saved him from the flood. Snowball caught the boy’s clothes and pushed him to the bank, but she was too tired to control her [own] body. She was [taken back] into the flood. She [was] like a white snowball melting away in the [floodwaters]. Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes. He still remembers the first day when Snowball came [into] his life.

The little boy is my grandfather, now 80 years old. He tells me that he will never forget Snowball.

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Like last year, I asked students to call the oldest person in their families and to ask that person to tell them a story that they had never heard before. They then translated and told the story in English. While we’re away traveling, I thought I’d let my students tell their stories. To preserve their privacy, I have not credited the authors, but I have gotten their permission to let you listen in. The stories vary—sometimes simple, sometimes Earth shattering, sometimes otherworldly. I have not edited their stories unless I needed to help the flow. My edits are in brackets. [ ]

A new story will appear on the blog each Wednesday between January 18th and February 22nd. Read the 2012 series from the beginning here, or read last year’s stories here.

It was a raw morning in winter when I heard [this story] in the old house in my hometown. I sat beside the fire with my aunt. The raw weather chilled my interest [in] outdoor activities. The north wind [was] whistling in the drizzling rain. The doors and windows [rattled]. Everybody was out. Only [my] aunt and I were at home, so we [were] telling stories to kill the time.

In a soft voice, [my] aunt told this story [to me] slowly:

“It was also a chilly winter morning. I was a child [of about] your years. At that time, our big family all lived in a big old house in the countryside beside the mountains. It was a typical one just like other old houses in the [area]. It was [an] adobe house surrounded by adobe walls. The rooms, whose doors all faced the big yard in the middle, were built in a circle. Because the family was poor, we kids had to do manual labor in the fields all year round. Even [when we got] back from work, we had to do a lot of housework. What was worse, we were poorly fed and out at the heels. Life was tough [in] those days.”

With these words, [my] aunt couldn’t help sighing and staring at the warm fire. She was deep in thought. I [could see] the great satisfaction [in] her eyes. After a while [and] with a smile, she went on:

“[One] morning, I did the farm work as usual. It was bitterly cold as before and rained later [that day]. The icy rain and wind made me ill. I felt sick after the heavy work. As everyone was busy working, I struggled along the road to [my] home alone. When I was finally back at home, I was too exhausted to find my way to my room. So I pushed one of the rooms’ doors open and crawled onto the bed. Feeling extremely sick, I [soon fell] asleep, cold and hungry. An indefinite period of time later, I heard [the] light sound of [a] door opening. A girl around my age in [a] red dress came in with the sweetest smile I had ever seen on her lovely face.  There was an [innocent] air about her. Gently, she stretched out her hands to me. It seemed that she wanted to play with me. As she came closer, I found a long narrow, bleeding cut on her forehead. The blood was flowing out. ‘Your forehead’s bleeding!’ I cried in terror and tried to help her.

“Suddenly, her eyes were filled with sorrow. Staring at her sorrowful eyes, I froze up. Everything became so blurred [and] veiled in mist. Gradually, she was farther and farther away from me and then disappeared at the end of the mist. I reached out my hands and tried to seize her hand. All of a sudden, I felt [as if I were] falling down from high [up]. Bump! I fell on the ground and woke up with a start. I found [that I] was lying on the ground. What had happened seems like a dream. I must have lost my balance and fell on the ground. Almost at the same time my mom, your grandmother, rushed into the room when she heard the sound and helped me onto my feet.

‘What are you doing here, dear?’ asked [my mom] in surprise.

‘Just [sleeping]. Why? I [was] sick and too tired to get to my room when I [came] back. So…’

‘So you [went to] sleep in this haunted room?’ cried [my mother] in terror.

‘What?’ I [couldn’t] be more astonished at that moment, for the room I slept in was a haunted room. Decades [before], one of my grandmom’s cousins [had died] in the room after an accident. The little girl was injured on her forehead. Afterwards, the room was haunted. Nobody has gone [into] the room for many years. What’s strange is that the girl whose forehead was wounded did wear a red dress on the day the deadly accident took place.”

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Like last year, I asked students to call the oldest person in their families and to ask that person to tell them a story that they had never heard before. They then translated and told the story in English. While we’re away traveling, I thought I’d let my students tell their stories. To preserve their privacy, I have not credited the authors, but I have gotten their permission to let you listen in. The stories vary—sometimes simple, sometimes Earth shattering, sometimes otherworldly. I have not edited their stories unless I needed to help the flow. My edits are in brackets. [ ]

A new story will appear on the blog each Wednesday between January 18th and February 22nd. Read the 2012 series from the beginning here, or read last year’s stories here.

There was a small old house, which just included one bed, one table, one iron pot, and two chairs. My grandma and grandpa had a daughter, when they were [both] 20 [years old]. After one year, they had another baby, unluckily for them [it was another] daughter. They wanted a son, by virtue of the value of [male children]. After that, the whole family placed great hopes on the third baby. However, another unfortunate girl was born. The whole family was crazy. My grandpa’s mother shouted at my grandma. [She] even wanted to drive my grandma away. At that time, in the countryside, [every] family wanted a son because they believed sons were better than daughters. He [would] have adequate strength to do farm work, yet she [would not have such strength].

My grandma was pregnant when her third daughter was three years old. The whole family still wanted a son, and they decided to send the youngest daughter to another family because the poor family could support only three children at most. It was a torment [for] my grandma; nevertheless, she must give a son to the family. [On] that day, she exchanged her daughter [for] one kilogram of white sugar to another family. After several months, a son was born, which made the family very excited, except for my grandma.

One day, my grandma was on her way home [when] suddenly she saw a girl [of] about 18 years hurting and bleeding seriously. She called [the] policemen and sent her to hospital. [The] doctor told her that the girl needed [a] large amount of blood, but the hospital lacked [it]. To the doctor’s surprise, my grandma had the same blood type [as] the girl, so they gave the girl a transfusion.  After that [my grandma] went outside. She could not believe her eyes when she saw the girl’s parents. It was the couple that she [had] sent her daughter to [so many years before].

The couple told her the girl was [in pain] everyday because she wanted to live with her own mother. My grandma cried out and hugged her daughter for a long time. After that, the whole family lived a happy life.

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Like last year, I asked students to call the oldest person in their families and to ask that person to tell them a story that they had never heard before. They then translated and told the story in English. While we’re away traveling, I thought I’d let my students tell their stories. To preserve their privacy, I have not credited the authors, but I have gotten their permission to let you listen in. The stories vary—sometimes simple, sometimes Earth shattering, sometimes otherworldly. I have not edited their stories unless I needed to help the flow. My edits are in brackets. [ ]

A new story will appear on the blog each Wednesday between January 18th and February 22nd. Read the 2012 series from the beginning here, or read last year’s stories here.

When I was born in a small town, I lived with my [grandparents] for my parents were busy with their own work and business. Therefore, I had no other choice but to stay with my older parents. Of course, I was too little to have the right to choose. With the passage of time, I grew to the age [that I could] go to a primary school, and the relationship between my grandpa and grandma confused me. [They spoke few words], and they seldom had [anything to talk about]. Sometimes I really doubted whether there was a love between [them]. Everyday, they were very busy trying to earn money to support the big family. They didn’t act in any [of the] romantic ways [that I saw] on television or read [about] in books. In their opinion, “I Love You” was too luxurious for them to say. Buying a gift [for] each other or [for] one’s birthday was even more out of the question.

My grandpa had a bad temper, especially when he was tired from [his] hard work. It was easy for him to lose [his] temper. However, my grandma accepted everything without any complaints. She only shared her tears with darkness and never showed any sadness in front of me.

One day, my grandma was sewing. I silently sat down beside her and looked at her. Finally, I worked up my courage to ask her the questions [that had been] haunting me for a long time.

“Grandma, I have a question to ask you,” I said with an uncertain tone.

“What?” she replied with a smile and stopped doing her work.

“Is there a love between you and grandpa?” I asked with a very low voice. I dared not to [look] into my grandma’s eyes.

My grandma thought [for] a while after hearing it and raised her head to look at me. She did not answer the question immediately. Then she bowed her head and continued to sew.

I was so worried because I thought I had hurt her [feelings], and I was scared [that] my grandma wouldn’t forgive me this time. [I was embarrassed] and did not know what [I] should do next. At last, my grandma said to me the following words, [words] I will remember for a lifetime.

“Look,” she said thoughtfully, “This is a thread. Sometimes it appears, but most of [the] time it [is] hidden in the cloth. If life is a cloth, love should be a thread. It can hardly be seen in many places, but it is here, surrounding us. Love is inside. You can’t touch it, but you can always feel it.”

I listened carefully [but I could not] understand it until my grandpa was sick in the hospital. My grandma had to take care of my grandpa day and night. No matter how tired [she was], she insisted in going out for a walk with my grandpa every morning and [evening]. She thought it was the best way to [help him] recover from this sickness. When my grandpa got well, my grandma looked pale but she was full of happiness for my grandpa’s recovery.

Several years later, my grandpa told me at my grandma’s funeral, “I liked walking with your grandma. I like this comfortable life. That [was] the most beautiful time in my life.” On hearing those words, I eventually got the meaning of the words my grandma [had told me].

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Like last year, I asked students to call the oldest person in their families and to ask that person to tell them a story that they had never heard before. They then translated and told the story in English. While we’re away traveling, I thought I’d let my students tell their stories. To preserve their privacy, I have not credited the authors, but I have gotten their permission to let you listen in. The stories vary—sometimes simple, sometimes Earth shattering, sometimes otherworldly. I have not edited their stories unless I needed to help the flow. My edits are in brackets. [ ]

A new story will appear on the blog each Wednesday between January 18th and February 22nd. Read the 2012 series from the beginning here, or read last year’s stories here.

There’s a Buddhist temple at the top of a mountain called Tiantong Temple. In this temple, there [are] more than 100 monks. A boy named Yuan was sent to this temple when he was 5 [years old]. When he was 8 years old, he started to learn to chant sutras [and to] pay respect for Buddha with the other monks.

The monks in this temple lived together just like brothers in a family. They had their own jobs. Some should clean the whole temple and some should carry water. Yuan’s duty was to help [the] older monks to prepare the meals. He enjoyed doing it and was good at it. He could make the best porridge in the temple. The [temple’s] wok was very big and deep because of the great population of [the] temple. The stove was too high for Yuan to use, but he never stopped his work and finally found fun in cooking.

One day, Yuan prepared the porridge as usual and [the] other older monks waited for the meal in the hall. A few hours later, Yuan [still hadn’t] come out. One of the monks went to the kitchen to find out what [had] happened. However, he found there was no one [there]. A wok of hot savory porridge [sat bubbling] on the stove. He thought Yuan [must have] gone out to play with [the] other children and forgotten the food. The older monk did not think much about it and tasted the porridge with a spoon. He found the flavor of the porridge was [the best he had ever tasted]. He was surprised by it and called [the] other monks [in] to have a taste. A few minutes later, there were all crazy about [the] amazing taste and scrambled to eat the porridge.

However, when they ate half of the porridge, a monk found a skull and some bones at the bottom of the wok. In fact, Yuan [had] not gone out. He climbed up the stove in order to cook the meal better, and he fell into the wok.  The wok was so deep that Yuan drowned and did not have a chance to call for help. He was cooked with the porridge and was eaten by his dear brothers.

When the monks heard [the] news, a lot of them killed themselves. Local people carved this sad story on a stone and put it beside the wok [to] remember the story. Years later, this temple is still famous for the story in my hometown.

______________________________________

Like last year, I asked students to call the oldest person in their families and to ask that person to tell them a story that they had never heard before. They then translated and told the story in English. While we’re away traveling, I thought I’d let my students tell their stories. To preserve their privacy, I have not credited the authors, but I have gotten their permission to let you listen in. The stories vary—sometimes simple, sometimes Earth shattering, sometimes otherworldly. I have not edited their stories unless I needed to help the flow. My edits are in brackets. [ ]

A new story will appear on the blog each Wednesday between January 18th and February 22nd. Read the 2012 series from the beginning here, or read last year’s stories here.