Two Weeks of Yunnan

My bathroom in the dorm room at Yunnan Minzu Daxue (云南民族大学). Basically, showers involve drenching the entire room.

The lake on which Green Lake Park is situated.

Chinglish

Miao (Hmong) Village

Our direction, Lu Yuan, with a Miao woman and child; the old woman sang for us (the Miao are famous for their singing).

(left to right) Xiao Jo, Kalyn, Catherine, DT, Lauren, Richard, and Lexie at the Western Hills (it's good luck to drop the coin in the mouth of the statue - I think maybe a dragon - at the bottom of the pot).

View of Kunming and skyline from Western Hills

Lauren, Kalyn, and I climbed up one side, David, and Rebecca the other (they're the little red dot you might not be able to make out).

View of Western Hills from the lift

We climbed up and took the lift down

View from Western Hills lift

Mid-Autumn Festival

Yesterday was the Mid-Autumn Festival, AKA Moon Cake Festival. We had classes off because it was a holiday, except for a lecture that morning on economic and social changes in China. The lecture was okay, but not nearly as interesting as some of the other speakers we’ve had, like the oral historian, Huang Cheng, who spoke about his years as an interpreter for the Communist Party and how he spent twenty years imprisoned for being ‘counter revolutionary’.

So yesterday I went to Black Dragon Pool (黑龙潭) with some of the other SIT students and some Chinese students from Yunnan Nationalities University, who have some very interesting English names like July and Snoopy. July was a lot of fun to talk to and tested my Chinese a little bit, every now and then. She’s a sophomore from Sichuan province and she’s majoring in English. We walked around the park, which was fairly large and not very crowded, by Chinese standards. People were actually fishing in the pools with what looked like possibly rented fishing poles (they were all the same), putting the fish they caught in little buckets, and then bringing the fish to a grill by the park’s entrance. I saw people eating the fish, which looked smothered in spices (as things often are here).

When I got back to the University, I went out to an Indian restaurant on Foreigner’s street with Lexie, Ai Li (my roommate; her real name is Ellie, but there are two girls called Ellie here so I call her by her Chinese name), David (whose Chinese name is something like Jang Wei, which sounds kind of like John Wayne with a Chinese accent), Rebecca, and Lauren.

Afterwards, we went to Green Lake Park, where there were celebrations going on for the festival. The whole thing was kind of childishly euphoric, although, as we were not children, we were kind of barred from a few of the games and rides (like these giant clear bubble-things that float in the water; kids crawl in them and then run around like a hamster on a wheel). We all bought heart-shaped balloons and Lexie got a pair of green devil horns, as well as a paper lantern with a candle inside. I saw a very serious, middle-aged Chinese man wearing a headband like the devil horns, except that they had sheep on either side, flashing red and white.

We all sat down by the lake (joined by Kalyn and Lucas), and began singing various American songs, many Beatles songs being among them. There was actually a lot of singing (and dancing) going on everywhere. After a couple hours, we decided we had to get going, seeing as classes were at eight o’clock the next morning. Regular students at Yunnan Minzi actually get today and tomorrow off, but then they have classes on Saturday and Sunday.

In addition to classes and lectures, I’ve spent the last few days trying to figure out where to go for my Yunnan Exploration Project. About a week from today, I get a week off from classes to go somewhere–anywhere–in Yunnan (or even further, if I wanted). I’ve been debating going to either Tiger Leaping Gorge (near Lijiang) or Tengchong and/or Ruili, both of which are in the west, close to the Burmese border. As of a few hours ago, it looks like I might be going to Tengchong and Ruili.

Getting into the Rhythm of Things...

I actually wrote this post on Saturday but the internet would not work…

Today is the first day since I’ve gotten to China that I have the whole day free. No class. No excursions. No lectures. Just free time. And maybe some homework.

Classes started two days ago, on Thursday. My regular weekday schedule is pretty much as follows: starting at 8:00 AM, I have two hours of Chinese with Charles, one hour of Taiji with this really funny old man who does not speak English, about another two hours of Chinese with Huang laoshi (黄老是, literally ‘teacher Huang’). Then we have lunch at the dinning hall, for which we all have meal cards and little metal pots/bowls. At the entrance of the dinning hall, we wait in line for someone to scoop rice into whatever dish we have, for which we have to press our cards on a sensor for it to deduct a couple kuai (which is the equivalent of about 50 cents). Then we go around the dinning hall, where they have different dishes set out at different ‘stations’. Once a dish is picked, the cost of the dish is deducted from our meal cards. Of course, the restaurants here are so cheap that we go out a lot and can get a good meal for the equivalent of a dollar or two.

After lunch, I usually have a bit of time to do some homework or go online. Then, there’s usually a lecture or movie that I have to go to at 14:30, which can last for a couple hours. Then free time, which is usually spent walking around Kunming or doing homework/trying to narrow down my ISP ideas. Speaking of ISP ideas, I’m thinking I want to do something with mythology and folktales (which is totally different from what my original ISP proposal was). I’ve read a few ISPs on the topic, but they all simply recount the stories, whereas I’d like to do something like what I did for Anthro Theory last semester, when I read stuff by Levi-Strauss and used his methodology to analyze certain myths. And I think I’d also like to investigate how material circumstances might affect different versions of a myth…or something like that. I need to read more about the different ethnic groups around here to decide where I’d like to go for this or if it’s really what I want to do.

This schedule is actually not absolute because excursions sometimes alter it. For instance, yesterday, the language classes were shortened and we didn’t have Taiji because we went to a Mosque. There were so many people there for the end of Ramadan (Eid ul Fitr) that we simply waited outside for a while, as people took photos of us and we took photos of them taking photos of us. Then we went inside and sat on mats as a man whose name I unfortunately can’t remember talked about Islam and prayer. The day before he had also been present when a Hui man (Hui being the only minority in China that is based solely on religion) had talked about China and Islam amongst the Hui and Uighurs. We also had a lecture on Chinese modern history and then a movie about the Mao years, which was very interesting.

I had some photos...but the when the fifteen minute mark passed on uploading the first photo, I decided I could just try again later, hopefully with a stronger connection.

Impressions

Most of this blog post is from a short piece of writing I had to do for SIT about my impressions of China so far, except this version has photos.

I arrived in Kunming on Friday feeling a little bit self-conscious about the fact that everyone around me looked Asian and spoke Chinese. I felt very much engulfed in a sea of people and yet entirely disconnected from them. I walked through the baggage area, trying to follow the crowd and hoping I would be able to tell which baggage belt I should go to.

Feeling out of my depth, however, is something I have found a giddy excitement in. Many things are unfamiliar to me in China, but this is exactly what has attracted me to this particular place at this particular time. More importantly, the feeling of being disconnected from the people here has been fading quickly with every day, as I meet people here on an individual basis and get to know about their lives (moreover, remembering some of the Chinese I had forgotten over the summer has also helped).

For instance, there are the little old ladies from Liuyi village, who are living examples of the practice of foot binding that I had read so much about at Wheaton College, and yet stand apart from those historical texts because they are not solely women whose feet are bound, but women who work, dance, and find companionship among one another.

(women with bound feet in Liuyi)

(women with bound feet dancing)

There are also the people from Tonghai, like the musician we ate with, whom I could not communicate with directly, but found amusing. And Albert, who invited us to see and talk to the children at his English school, then took us out that night to friend’s party where we (kind of) learned Chinese dances and then in turn tried to teach American dances like “Twist and Shout,” and “Cotton Eye Joe”. Finally, Albert took us to a bar with a Chinese alternative rock band that covered “You Are My Sunshine,” which is now definitely my favorite version of that song.

(street in Tonghai)

(old men playing chinese chess on Xiu Shan)

(little kids at Albert's school playing chinese chess)

Even simply attempting to converse with strangers in shops–to buy a cell phone (albeit with the help of one of the other students, Lexi), get a meal, or find an outlet adapter–has helped me feel less like an outsider and made me more aware of my own capabilities. I came to China with the confidence I could figure out my way, but without a complete realization of the extent of my abilities, which I now feel a little more aware of. However, I am also recognizing more and more how I have only just begun to test myself, particularly in consideration of the Independent Study Project (ISP), which I have the impression will be just as rewarding as it is difficult.

In conjunction with the unfamiliarity of China, there is the comforting familiarity of being in a group of American students, the absence of whom during the ISP will probably be somewhat testing. Yet, despite their familiar mannerisms and distinct American accents, our group is also interesting and diverse. We have music lovers, a linguistics enthusiast, anthropologists, sociologists, basketball players, a water polo player, Texans, East Coasters, advanced mandarin speakers, somewhat less advanced speakers, and people who understand next to nothing. I may have only known the other students for less than a week, but I know our group is filled with very capable, interesting, and creative people.

(in order, from left: Kalyn, Richard, David, Ellie, Jake, Lucas)

As a whole, China is a peculiar mix of the familiar and the unfamiliar. In the past week, I’ve been to both a Wal-Mart and a Carrefour, both of which are basically reminders of home yet are entirely different. After all, China is very much connected to the world I just left (I only have to look at the “Made in China” stickers and tags back home to understand that) and yet still completely different in immediately obvious ways (like language, food, and architecture) and other ways that will perhaps take a little bit longer to notice.

(on temple Xiu Shan)

(LOL. In a Buddhist Temple.)