Day 7: Guiyang: The Minorities University

After such a long day of touring around Guizhou province, we were ready for an easier day. Dr. Liu knew we would be tired as well, and arranged for us to visit students at Guizhou Minorities University, where another one of his brothers is a professor of fine arts. We first met the dean of the art college, who gave us a signed copy of a book of his artwork before meeting the students in a question and answer session. The Chinese students asked the questions, while we answered and Dr. Liu translated back and forth for us. Most of the students asked their questions in Chinese, although a few asked us in English. After an hour , we split up into small groups with no more than 2 Americans with a larger group of Chinese for lunch. I ended up with Jared and a whole group of students who spoke very little English. Fortunately, one of them went and got a friend who spoke excellent English to translate for us. We went to a small restaurant serving traditional Miao food for lunch. At lunch, the students continued to ask questions about our life as students in the US, while we now had a chance to ask them questions about their lives. In China, for instance, there is no such thing as a non-traditional age college student and students are not allowed to be married. Their college education is also very specialized and with few electives. All of the students in the art program choose a medium to study, and that is pretty much all that they study. Most of them plan on becoming art teachers once they graduate. Like American students, they worry about finding a job when they graduate, although the government pays for their education, so they do not graduate in debt like we do. Despite the name (the Minorities University), very few students belong to an ethnic minority. The students were extremely nice and very accommodating with our less than stellar table manners. They also insisted on paying for lunch., which was a variation on the Chinese hot pot. After lunch, we took a quick tour of the campus before heading over to their studio classrooms to look at their art. Although I don't know much about art, I was impressed by what I saw:

A couple of favorites

Some of the students were extremely dedicated and had rented a garage near campus, where they could work whenever they wanted.

From the rented garage In the studio with some of the students

Invading the professor's office

We left the university mid-afternoon and headed back to the hotel. We had the rest of the afternoon off, and many of us opted to get an acupressure massage. The massage has to be some of the best $10 I've ever spent in my life: an hour and a half full body massage, done by a woman trained in acupressure and traditional Chinese medicine. An acupressure massage is actually very different from the rub-downs we think of as massage in the West. The acupressure version involves more vigorous machinations and can be quite painful at times, especially if one has an injury. However, by the end of the massage, every knot in my back was gone and I felt like I was taller and able to walk straighter.

After the massage. Dr. Liu turned us loose to fend for ourselves for dinner. Several of us walked down the street from our hotel to eat at sidewalk cafe, where we were treated to a great stir-fry. Each table had a gas-heated upside-down wok in the center for stir-frying your own dinner. The gas lines snaking to all of the tables was a little scary, but the deliciousness of the meal made us forget about that. The street corner was also busy enough for good people-watching and being watched.