Looking for New Blog Ideas

So, I'm planning to create a new website to share stories, photos, and whatnot moving forward, and I don't think "Beijing and Beyond" is quite a suitable name  anymore, though I am certainly "beyond".  I'm looking for suggestions for names, features, and anything else.  So let me know!

A New Life

It’s amazing how quickly we can go through life, hardly realizing how much or how little things are changing around us.  Another autumn, a new home.  I had missed the seasons.  Kunming, with its eternal springtime weather, had left me craving the crisp wind and sharp colors of Fall.  The flight back to the States was easy.  I woke up early the next morning (a Saturday) and went for a 5-mile run—the passing energy and optimism of jetlag and a long-awaited change to the status quo.  The air was clearer, the water was colder, my bed was softer, my socks were fluffier.  It was good to be home.

I spent my first two weeks expanding my job search, preparing for interviews, and packing away my childhood.  I visited New York a couple times for interviews and to visit friends.  I went to the gym nearly every day.  I was doing my best to be proactive, not falling into the trap of idleness and laziness.  It worked.  Within 5 weeks of my return to the US, I got a job offer—with Google!  After careful consideration, I decided to take it, and told them I’d move to San Francisco within one week’s time.  Always on the move.

I grabbed a taxi from the San Francisco airport.  I’m so used to sitting in the front seat of taxis from being in China, it felt strange to sit in the back.  The driver was an Afghani man who’d been in the US for 25 years.  He told me how he had a street stall selling goods on the weekend, how he worked so hard to support his children.  I told him how I’d just returned from China, and he went off into a tangent about eating dogs, and how living in a neighborhood with a lot of Burmese, small dogs often went missing.  I retold a few stories, and then, changing the subject, explained to him that it was great to be on the West Coast, that I was really excited, but that I was also going to miss my family a lot—that I have a large family, and I’ve been away from them for so long, that I was really hoping to get to spend more time with them before moving away again.  He stopped.  He took a breath, and told me that out of all the Americans he’d ever driven, I was the first one to express how important family is; rather, that most Americans say how great it is to live in the Bay Area, and that they don’t mind only seeing their families a couple times a year.  He was clearly impressed, and I was somewhat moved as well.

There’s an odd feeling you get during life transitions, when you have moved from one place and not yet moved into another, of being homeless.  Once again, I found my life packed away in 4 pieces of luggage, accompanying me to a new part of the world.  I had a week before starting work, and had made it my goal to spend the interim getting to know San Francisco and finding a place to live.  In the meantime, I’d booked a hotel room, and getting into SF after midnight, went straight to bed.

I had never been to California before, and frankly didn’t know what to expect.  My concept of the San Francisco up to that point had come primarily from popular culture:  Full House, The Rock, Milk—not necessarily the best background material.  But, I have certainly learned how to explore a new place, how to quickly get a lay of the land, and make my way.  I set out on foot the next morning, casing almost every main quarter of the city in my first few days.  (I always like to explore a new place on foot—it helps me understand the layout much better than taking public transportation or group tours).  I looked at over 5 apartments in one night, and kept looking.  Fortunately, I’d reached out to my friends for help, and through a bit of actual social networking found an open room in a three-bedroom house in Haight-Ashbury with two other Googlers.  The place was spacious, with a nice bathroom and kitchen, a back yard/patio, and the location seemed good:  blocks from the historic hippie hangout of Haight Ashbury, walking distance to the Mission, the Panhandle (leading to Golden Gate Park) a block to the north, and Buena Vista Park (with its self-proclaimed spectacular views) a block to the north.  I made a decision, and moved in.

San Francisco is eccentric.  From classical pianists performing on the streets in Union Square to taqueries filled with the aroma of great Mexican food in the Mission, homeless hippies still so high on LSD in the Haight that they don’t realize 40 years have passed, and old black jazz musicians outside Yoshi’s on Fillmore complaining about local politics and Israeli settlements in the West Bank.  It’s an exceptionally interesting place to be.  And, you can be sure that I will write more on the subject.

Google, in kind, is also amazing.  It’s almost like being in college again—smart people, cafeterias (except with good free food), league sports, clubs, gyms, shuttles home to SF, and the list of perks goes on.  Google, which is in Mountain View, is a good 45 minutes to an hour and a half from my neighborhood in San Francisco.  Fortunately , the company provides frequent free shuttles.  I do have more to say, but it’s been a long, eventful day, and the shuttle that I’m on writing this right now is just about there.  So, I’ll stop here for now.

I’m hoping to shift this blog to a new blog—something less China-centric—and I’m looking for name suggestions.  So, leave a comment, and let me know what you think!

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A Train To Beijing

Saturday night in Kunming.  Great weather, beautiful sunset, four packed and stuffed bags, and I’m off to the train station.  A hard-sleeper to Beijing.  38 hours, 2 instant noodle bowls, and many unwanted conversations later, I stumble off the train, lugging almost 200 pounds of my life over the past 14 months into the heat and humidity of Beijing.
There’s a theory of time that says that all events ever, past and future occur at once, and time is just our brains’ way of coping.  If it’s true, I can feel it now more than ever.  It gives real meaning to the term “mixed feelings”.  An instant ago, it seems, I was on my way to China, nervous, eager, then alone, with friends, traveling, content, then getting ready to leave, in limbo.  And that’s where I am:  in between the past and the future, feeling every emotion I’ve had over the past 14 months, and anticipating every emotion I’ll have upon my return.

I’m not quite sure why I came to Beijing so early.  My flight’s not till Friday, and I don’t have much to do here before then, but I guess it seemed to make sense to put a significant buffer of time between the train ride and my flight home in case anything went wrong.  I’ve become so used to traveling that it’s become second nature, and almost feels too easy.  The 38 hours on the train flew by, and I managed my bags with only slight difficulty.  I had to stop myself to make sure I had everything, just  because it seemed like I had too little.  Some friends offered to let me stay with them, but I got in just after 11am and they all work, so I checked into a hostel instead.

It’s been an incredible year.  I’ve traveled a great amount , had sufficient time to relax, learned a lot about the Yi people, seen many animal sacrifices, improved my Chinese immensely, lost 60 pounds, and made some great friends.  I’m looking forward to getting back to the States, also.  I can’t wait to see all my family and friends, eat great food, have warm dry clothes, and start my new life.  I have several job interviews lined up, which I have to prep for more this week, and hopefully I’ll figure the next step out without too much of a gap in between.

Anyway, I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written, and I have a couple un-posted entries partly written from this past summer that I’ll try to upload soon.

Saturday night in Kunming. Great weather, beautiful sunset, four packed and stuffed bags, and I’m off to the train station. A hard-sleeper to Beijing. 38 hours, 2 instant noodle bowls, and many unwanted conversations later, I stumble off the train, lugging almost 200 pounds of my life over the past 14 months into the heat and humidity of Beijing.

There’s a theory of time that says that all events ever, past and future occur at once, and time is just our brains’ way of coping. If it’s true, I can feel it now more than ever. It gives real meaning to the term “mixed feelings”. An instant ago, it seems, I was on my way to China, nervous, eager, then alone, with friends, traveling, content, then getting ready to leave, in limbo. And that’s where I am: in between the past and the future, feeling every emotion I’ve had over the past 14 months, and anticipating every emotion I’ll have upon my return.

I’m not quite sure why I came to Beijing so early. My flight’s not till Friday, and I don’t have much to do here before then, but I guess it seemed to make sense to put a significant buffer of time between the train ride and my flight home in case anything went wrong. I’ve become so used to traveling that it’s become second nature, and almost feels too easy. The 38 hours on the train flew by, and I managed my bags with only slight difficulty. I had to stop myself to make sure I had everything, just because it seemed like I had too little. Some friends offered to let me stay with them, but I got in just after 11am and they all work, so I checked into a hostel instead.

It’s been an incredible year. I’ve traveled a great amount , had sufficient time to relax, learned a lot about the Yi people, seen many animal sacrifices, improved my Chinese immensely, lost 60 pounds, and made some great friends. I’m looking forward to getting back to the States, also. I can’t wait to see all my family and friends, eat great food, have warm dry clothes, and start my new life. I have several job interviews lined up, which I have to prep for more this week, and hopefully I’ll figure the next step out without too much of a gap in between.

Anyway, I know it’s been a long time since I’ve written, and I have a couple un-posted entries partly written from this past summer that I’ll try to upload soon.

A little girl kneed in the butt by her mother (grandmother?) for sitting on the ground.

Two little boys running across the street, one of them falling down in front of a motorbike, which stops just in time.

A 20-some year-old girl on the sidewalk, facing her boyfriend and squatting down, licking an ice cream cone at crotch level.

Four old ladies up an alley sitting on a bench with red pillows in front of an Everquest game billboard ad.

Raindrops splashing perfectly down onto the water of the fountain at Yunnan University.

Water Wheels, Peppers, and Humping Monkeys:Lijiang and Sichuan

Once again, I find myself a couple posts behind.  About one month ago, a friend of mine was down in the Kunming area, and the two of us coordinated a couple short trips to Lijiang and then to Sichuan.  Lijiang is one of those quaint historical towns with winding waterways, cobblestone bridges, and alleys full of photos waiting to be taken.  After receiving UNESCO World Heritage Site status in 1997, however, the town has been incredibly over touristed by Chinese and foreign tourists alike.  Its photos have been captured a thousand times over (mostly by Chinese visitors sporting expensive SLR cameras they don’t know how to use), its alleys have been filled by trinket stores each as identical as the next, and its quaint charm has receded back beyond its main streets and squares.  That’s not to say, however, that Lijiang is not worth visiting, or that its charm is gone.  An early morning stroll or just after sunset shows the Old Town of Lijiang at its best—without the busloads of Chinese tour day-trippers.

We bought last minute overnight train tickets to Lijiang, and headed out on a Friday night.  It was an easy ride, and we spent a large part of it playing Chinese chess, which my friend Shuo had just taught me how to play.  Arriving at just after 7am Saturday, we shared a cab to the Old Town with a Chinese couple, and made our way through the alleyways to the popular backpacker respite of Mama Naxi’s Hostel.  The Naxi people are one of China’s official ethnic groups (like the Yi).  Researched extensively by the famed botanist, Joseph Rock, of interest are their matriarchal family structures and their waning pictographic script (Dongba—sharing a name with their religion).

We settled into our hostel, and went exploring, taking countless photos, and admittedly visiting more than one apparently identical souvenir/clothes shop.  Beyond its main squares, Lijiang’s alleyways are still fairly magical, and certainly worth the visit. Later, we visited Black Dragon Pool park and climbed its hill, rented bikes visiting another touristy village—an offshoot of Lijiang’s Old Town—and biking out a bit into the countryside.  When it started raining, however, we turned around and rode back to town.  For the sake of brevity, I’ll leave my description of Lijiang at that.  We took another overnight train back to Kunming, and rested up before heading to Sichuan for another brief trip.

With limited time in Sichuan (I had a short research trip scheduled for my return to the Kunming area), my itinerary wasn’t overly extensive.  I wanted to spend a day exploring Chengdu, followed by a two-day hike up Emei Shan, another UNESCO World Heritage Site and the highest of China’s four sacred Buddhist mountains, and finally a stop at the monolithic Giant Buddha of Leshan.

We were greeted at the train station in Chengdu by a friend of Shuo’s uncle, who treated us to lunch and showed us a local temple.  I had planned to fly back to Kunming from Chengdu, and accidentally booked my flight for a day too early.  In an attempt to fix my ticket, we went on a wild goose chase through Chengdu, arriving at the address of a Sichuan Airlines office that no longer exists, and eventually being told I could take care of the problem at the airport.  It’s the rainy season in much of Southwest China, and the evening brought torrential downpours.  We held up in a hotpot restaurant to try our tongues at Sichuan’s legendarily spicy cuisine.  Sichuan or ‘Szechuan’ cuisine (for those who know it by this odd and often mispronounced spelling) is famed for its frequent use of chili peppers, garlic, and the strangely numbing Sichuan Peppercorn.  At Shuo’s urging, we ordered a Spicy Frog Hotpot (we’re talking whole frogs, not just the legs), and enacted what Kermit has no doubt had recurring nightmares about.

The next morning we woke up early to grab a bus out to Emei Shan.  With only a day and a half to hike the mountain, we took a bus up to the first tourist stop, and started climbing from there (rather than climbing straight out of town).  My hiking shoes broke early on, and I switched to my boots, tying my shoes to the side of my pack.  Interestingly, the Chinese tourists and locals were fascinated by the worn out pair dangling by my side.  “Wow, look how bad-ass that foreigner is.  He’s already worn out one pair of shoes hiking,” I heard one tour guide say.  Emeishan is known for its resident population of Tibetan Macaques—a large breed of monkeys, who don’t mind hassling intruders for food and bottles of water (which they easily uncap and gulp down).  In fact, a friend of mine had been bitten by one of the monkeys a month earlier, and had had to undergo a long series of prophylactic injections to avoid a disease they’re known to carry.  So, we armed ourselves with large bamboo staffs, which acted doubly as walking sticks, and made our way up the mountain.  We made a wrong turn early on, and ended up several kilometers out of our way at another entrance.  Backtracking, we made it through the so-called “Monkey Zone”, where I witnessed a macaque jumping on a man’s bald head, licking off his sweat and subsequently beginning to hump his ear.  The man was mostly oblivious to the monkeys intentions of aural sex, and the monkey was swiftly shooed away by a clearly bitter middle-aged woman of a ‘caretaker’.  There are two paths up Emei Shan, an easier route, which most people take on the way up, and a steeper, more difficult and more interesting route, which most people take on the way down.  We opted to climb up the more difficult path to get better views and save some time.  Early on, it’s not uncommon to witness spoiled, overweight men being carried around by cigarette-smoking locals in shoulder-born litter sedan chairs like the lazy emperors they wish they were.  After the Monkey Zone, however, the trail becomes steeper, and the crowds of fat Chinese men pay to be carried back to their tour buses.

It was a fairly steep ascent, and we stopped for lunch at a place called the Hard Wok Café, before continuing on.  An hour or so before reaching our intended destination—a monastery mid-way up the mountain, it began to pour.  We slowed down and reached the monastery as the light was beginning to fade.  We negotiated with the monks for a place to sleep (not an uncommon practice), and eventually decided to plug on for another hour up to the next monastery to save time for the next day.  The rain had slowed, but the light was failing.  We powered up the last steep approach and made it to the monastery just as darkness fell.  The monks prepared us a vegetarian dinner, and gave us a room and a place to bathe.  We went to sleep early, the sound of mosquitoes buzzing in the air.



The next day had more steep ascents, but we powered through, and made it to the summit by lunchtime.  Although it was very foggy, the huge golden statue at its top was still extremely impressive.  We stayed for a bit before hopping a bus back down to town.  From Emei, we caught a bus to Leshan, home of the world’s tallest statue of Buddha.  Built in the 8^th century, the giant Buddha of Leshan was the world’s tallest statue at that time, and was built to calm the waters at the confluence of the Dadu, Qingyi, and Minjiang rivers at his feet.  Interestingly, the large boulders dropped into the water from the mammoth cliff carving over a period of 90 years filled pits in the rivers’ floors and indeed had the desired effect of calming the waters—though it’s doubtful anyone knew the true reason at that time.

From Leshan, we headed back into Chengdu, and did some touring, before enjoying a spicy dinner of Rabbit Gan Guo (dry pot).  The next day, my friend headed north to continue his tour, and I (with limited) time, explored a little more before heading to the airport for my flight back to Kunming.  At the urging of the airline, I planned to arrive at the airport an extra hour early to resolve my ticket problem.  The hostel said it would take an hour to get to the airport.  I hopped in a cab about 4 hours before my flight.  It took 25 minutes to make it to the airport.  I quickly resolved my ticket problem, and sat around for 3 more hours till my flight was scheduled to leave.  Chengdu’s nightly downpours did not spare me, however, and the flight was delayed an extra two hours.  I waited some more.  Finally, the airline put us all on a people mover out to the tarmac and left us in the cold, rainy darkness beside the plane.  There had been some miscommunication, and the flight crew would not let anyone board the plane.  The people movers had left, and everyone was there, tired, cold, and wet, standing on the runway for another 20 minutes.  The women and children crowded under the plane’s wing to avoid the rain, and the rest of us went to yell at the airline personnel for such horrible treatment.  Finally, they let us board (with not one apology uttered), and we were on our way.  We landed in Kunming just after 4am.  I should mention, however, that there are NO TAXIS at the Kunming airport at 4am.  So, I strapped up my pack, and walked out into the streets.  It’s a good two to three hour walk to my house from the airport, and buses don’t run at that hour.  I was aggravated, tired, and even a bit amused by my plight.  Just outside the airport, however, a hei che (‘black car’ or illegal taxi), pulled out and offered to have me hop in with his three other customers for a somewhat exorbitant fee.  I began to argue with him and he asked if I was crazy (with no other options around).  Still, not in the mood to argue, he lowered his price and I made it home after dropping off his other customers by 6:30am.

The next few weeks were filled with long nights watching the World Cup, a couple research day trips around Kunming, and other work.  I've uploaded photos from these trips and from a more recent research/hiking trip through Yunnan, which I'll write about in the next few days!

Getting To Know the Nasu of Luquan County

About a month ago, I arranged a research trip to Luquan county, north of Kunming.  Earlier in my time here, I'd begun looking at the Eastern Yi dialect, Gepo, visiting Xundian county and following up with a fair amount of research and contacts.  This trip to Luquan, however, would be my first examination of Nasu, another Eastern Yi dialect, beginning the second phase of my research.  As an official trip, I had several bureaucratic hoops to jump through, and was asked to pay a rather large research affiliation fee, which I had thus far avoided paying.

The goal of this particular trip was to get an understanding of the current sociolinguistic situation in Luquan county.  Since basic word lists and phonemic/tonal illustrations had already been obtained, my aim was to get more of a qualitative view of how Nasu is "changing".  I intended to spend a week in the area, with the majority of my time spent in a fully Yi-speaking village.  My professor agreed to accompany me up to the area, introduce me to his contacts, and get me settled in.  Then, I would complete my research at my own pace, and come home when I was ready.

It was a bumpy two-hour bus ride north out of the city to Luquan.  On the way, I reviewed some basic Yi phrases and syntax with my professor, Zhang ChunDe.  He handed me some more research he'd done on Nasu, and I tried to review it when the bus wasn't clambering through construction zones.  I'd opted to make this a formal research trip primarily because Nasu is my professor's native language, and Luquan is his home county.  His perspective and connections, therefore, would prove to be invaluable.

The bus dropped us off in the middle of town and we switched to a taxi, which swung around at Zhang ChunDe's instruction and picked up one of his colleagues, a local Yi researcher and a former student of Zhang Laoshi's, before arriving at a restaurant for lunch.  It's interesting to see how well respected my professor is, at least 10 of his colleagues taking off to join us for lunch.  There was a bit of baijiu (alcohol), and I drank when I was asked to and proposed a toast or two when it was appropriate.  It's a difficult game, drinking with the locals, and I've made my fair share of mistakes and seen others flounder ignorantly in the face of the Chinese drinking culture, as different as it is from Western drinking practices.  Even more difficult is balancing Chinese and Yi drinking cultures, which differ enough to confuse any outsider, shot after shot, drunker and drunker.  This time, singing was absent and the men went around the table drinking shot after shot of the strong, clear alcohol, showing their empty glasses after each turn.  It was Chinese drinking culture.  Three shots, then five, ten—I lost count.

After lunch, Zhang ChunDe's colleague, who we'd picked up in the taxi earlier led us to a car, where one of his associates was waiting to drive us out into the countryside.  It is impolite in China to thank a very close friend or relative for anything (it's expected that you'd do the same if the opportunity arose).  These men had taken off from work to drive Zhang laoshi and myself around.  Another sign of respect to Zhang ChunDe.  I thanked them for their assistance.

It was almost an hour out to the first village.  I began asking questions to frame my research.  "What ethnic groups live in the area?" ("Yi, Han, Miao, and some Hui.")  "How is the educational system structured in relation to minority languages?" and so on.  They asked me what kind of food I liked.  If I preferred beef or pork.  I explained how since I'm Jewish, I'd grown up eating very little pork.  "Good," they said, "then tomorrow, we'll take you to a beef restaurant for lunch."

We arrived at the first village, and got out of the car.  We approached a home and asked the two grandmothers there if we could come in to talk.  It had been raining and the men were out in the fields farming.  There appeared to be two grandmothers, a grandfather, a mother, and two children:  a very young girl and a baby boy.  They led us into a sitting room, swarming with flies, and set out some stale sunflower seeds for us to eat.  I did my best to ignore the flies, landing on every part of me, and greeted the family in Yi.  Zhang ChunDe explained what I was doing there, and that I was interested in studying Yi and learning about their village.

There were 66 homes in the village, they told me, only 10 of which were Han.  The rest were Yi (Nasu).  All of the residents of the village were bilingual in Nasu and Mandarin, and could switch between the two when the situation necessitated it.  In fact, the mother was Han, but had adopted the Yi culture and language.  She went into the other room, and came out to show me the traditional Yi garb.  We talked for a while and then set out.

When we got back in the car, they told me there was some bad news.  It had been raining all week off and on, and it seemed as though it would continue.  Unfortunately, the mountain roads out to the village that I had hoped to stay in were not paved, and it wasn't safe to go by car.  Instead, my professor suggested that we stay in a hotel that night in the main town, do some more interviews there, and then head to Wuding-a county over to the West the following afternoon.   He asked me if I wanted to arrange for a language consultant to do some phonetic documentation, and I explained that I'd rather continue to do more qualitative interviews.

Back in town, we visited a Yi research office, and I examined some ancient Yi texts and other artifacts.  Later, I checked us into a hotel, and took a nap before heading out to dinner at a duck hotpot restaurant owned by a friend of theirs-a Yi woman, whom they told me sang beautifully.  His colleagues met us again for dinner, and they all played a drinking game involving playing cards.  Someone would specify how many spoonfuls of baijiu to put in a glass, and then they would lay down their cards.  The risk was that if you chose to add more spoonfuls and then lost, the cup would come to you to drink.  I watched for a while and didn't fully understand what was going on, but I got my fair share of alcohol after the food came out.  More toasting.  Someone said to me in 'English', "CHEESE!" before raising their glass.  (They meant to say 'cheers'.)  There was more singing than at lunch-the Yi drinking culture coming into play.  One of the local Yi officials, brought me around to other tables to toast his friends.  They all welcomed me to Luquan, and I thanked them all for their warm welcome, toasting them back.

After dinner, they drove us to an old apartment complex.  On the way, they explained that we were going to visit a Yi expert. "There is no one better at Yi studies than Zhang ChunDe," my driver began, "but when it comes to Yi writing, there is no one better than this man."  Zhang ChunDe proudly nodded his agreement.  The sun was going down, and lots of old men were out with their grandchildren.  Several men, upon seeing Zhang ChunDe, came over to greet him.  We made our way up to the second floor, and entered a small, dark, hard-floored apartment.  A little, old Yi man named Li ChengZhi greeted us at the door with a big smile.  He wore a gray Zhongshan jacket (Mao style), with the sleeves rolled up.  A box of Chinese medicine on the counter indicated for bones confirmed that his jacket had probably fit at some point.

My interview with Li ChengZhi was exceptionally interesting.  He was a lexicographer, in the true sense of the term, a profession which, with the onset of computers, I would wager no longer exists like this in Western society.  This man, however, at nearly 70 years-old, had been working on his dictionary for over 25 years.  The room was lit by a single bulb, hanging from the ceiling.  Li pulled out a drawer packed full of note cards, each one, he explained, listing a word, its translations, and cross-references.  He showed me his 600-page handwritten manuscript, corrected several times over.  He'd handwritten the Yi Characters, their IPA transliterations with linear tone indications, and their Chinese (HanZi) translations.

"With so many dialects of Yi, how do you account for differences in the vocabulary and writing systems?"  I asked him.

He chuckled to himself, as if only he could understand the difficulty of the task.  Then, he showed me how he'd categorized the word listings by dialect.

"What is your motivation to keep working on this dictionary?"

"I don't have an office anymore," he began.  "I work out of my home.  But, with such lacking facilities, it's my spirit that keeps me going."

"Why did you decide to make this dictionary?"

"Oh, I didn't choose to do it.  It just happened."  He went on to explain how after graduating from college in 1961, he'd gone into work as a translator, translating movies into local ethnic dialects.  "There were eight autonomous states in Yunnan," he continued, "and one team member for each state."  He repeated himself a while and stumbled over dates.  In the early 80s, he began studying Yi writing at the Yunnan Nationalities University (where I'm affiliated), and after graduating from that program he ended up working on the dictionary.

He went on to emphasize the problem of standardization.  "Why," he asked, "should Liangshan (in Sichuan Province) Yi be the template for a standard Yunnan Yi script when there are many more Yi people in Yunnan than in Sichuan?"  He explained that the way that provincial and county borders had been established by the Chinese government did not necessarily agree with separations of traditional Yi groups,  and that differences in provincial and county language policies had shaped the development of Yi societies in different areas.

Before leaving, he showed me a copy of his dictionary which had been published.  "This," he said, "is a previous edition."  His Yi handwriting had been scanned in and printed in the book.  He reemphasized how long he'd spent on it.  "And they spelled my name wrong!"

The current copy, he explained, was in its third review.  He was almost done.

"What will you do when you're done?" I asked.

"When I'm done?" he repeated longingly.  He sighed.  "When I'm done, I'll rest."

The next morning, they drove me back out into the countryside.  They stopped the car on the side of the road, and we got out and walked into the fields.  They told me how the winding road we'd been driving on was relatively new, and that the ancient road went right through these fields and over a very old bridge.  We walked for a ways, and I saw that they were building a new highway through the area.  Finally, we arrived at our destination:  an ancient Yi inscription on a cliff wall.  They told me it was at least five or six hundred years old.  I noticed that there were Chinese inscriptions as well, and they explained that they were from a later date and told a different story.  When evaluating the current and future state of a declining language, it's fascinating to see how long and rich of a history has led to its current position.

My professor asked if I wanted to stay in the area or go with him to visit his family in neighboring Wuding county.  I told him I would go with him, having already gotten a brief but very interesting view of the Nasu in Luquan county.  We stopped for lunch at a Hui restaurant for beef (as promised) before heading out.  More alcohol, more singing, and more rain.

Each county in Yunnan has one main town, a county seat.  Interestingly, the Wuding and Luquan county seats are only 7km apart.  They had once been a single town, and had been split by relatively modern political separations.  It fell in line with what Li ChengZhi had been talking about.  The Nasu from these two areas, geographically so close, had historically been very closely related if not the same group.  With political separation, however, it's possible to see how differences in language policy affecting the two counties differently could theoretically cause the Yi of each area to change independently.

Upon arriving in Wuding, Zhang ChunDe told me that we were going to visit his family and then his colleagues at the government offices.  We dropped off our stuff at his family's house, a nice three-story tenement in a residential area of town, and sat eating some fruit and sunflower seeds.  After a while, we set out to the government offices, where we again examined some old Yi documents.  They were very old, and I noticed that they don't store them very well.  I remembered when I'd reviewed ancient documents back at the University of Rochester, and had to enter a special room and only handle the books with special gloves on.  We sat for a while and drank tea.

Later, Zhang laoshi told me he planned to treat everyone to dinner, and that we could catch a bus back to Kunming after that.  A bunch of his colleagues from the government office joined us for dinner, including one of the secretaries and her young son.  I bring two types of gifts with me when I go on field research trips:  cigarettes and candy.  This time I'd brought some premium cigarettes from Yunnan for the men and some American blow-pops that I'd picked up in an expat store in Kunming for the kids.  I gave one of the lollipops to the woman's son (with her permission), and he came back a while later with his tongue turned black.

It was an interesting dinner.  They ordered a bottle of baijiu and a bunch of beer (with me in mind), and I polished off many shots of the former and bottles of the latter.  Everyone got extremely drunk, and it became clear that we weren't heading back to Kunming that night.  The dinner carried on and there were scores of toasts, Yi serenades, plenty of food, and so on.  At one point, they asked me to sing a song in English.  I told them I couldn't think of anything, to which they suggested I sing the first thing that came to mind.  About halfway through the first verse of the Beatles' Help!, I forgot the words and made up a few of my own before giving up and sitting back down.

The sun had long gone down, and everyone stumbled out of the place.  By the time Zhang laoshi and myself were outside, his colleagues had booked us two rooms in the hotel upstairs.  I went up and dropped my stuff off, and then we packed into a car to my professor's "nephew's" house.  He led us quietly through a gate, and picked some berries off a bush for us to try.  Without them being washed, I was a bit wary, and pocketed mine, pretending to put it in my mouth.

Upstairs, we entered his apartment to find his teenage daughter getting ready for bed, brushing her teeth over a bucket in their living room in front of the TV.  His wife, who had been sitting watching television, immediately went to work playing host, washing berries, peeling apples, setting out sunflower seeds and so on.  The man whose house it was pulled out a large, clear gasoline-style jug and poured out more baijiu.  I opted for tea instead, trying to prevent myself from getting too drunk.  We sat for a while making noise, and more men, his neighbors, joined in the fun.  I felt bad for the girl, who'd gone to bed, but for whom it was clearly a school night.  At one point, one of the Yi officials leaned over and asked me, "do you see this kind of home, compared to what you're used to in America, and think that it's lacking or poor?"  I explained that I don't look down on anything I encounter in China, and that it's not more "poor" than what I'm used to in America, but that it's just "different".

They drove us back to the hotel, and I tried to get some sleep.  A few hours later, at around 3am, I was woken up by a mosquito buzzing in my ears.  I got up to splash some water on my face and noticed that my arms were itchy.  In the light, I saw my hands and forearms had been all bit up-not by mosquitoes, but by bed bugs.  There's a clear difference in the marks.  Rather than getting back in bed, I stayed up till it was light, then went for a walk.  After breakfast, we picked up our stuff at my professor's family's house, and then boarded a bus back to Kunming.  All in all, it was a brief but rewarding trip, and certainly gave me some more motivation for my research.

[Photos from this trip are up, and I should have an article on my trips to Lijiang and Sichuan (and their accompanying photos) online soon as well!]

No News Is... Frustrating

When you travel or live abroad it's often difficult to stay abreast of current events both globally and locally.  Living in China, I've found that the media here is often censored to the point that even significant local events are more public to the global audience than they are on the ground here.  For example, I didn't hear about the riots in Kunming over the continually strained interactions between police forces and street vendors (read about it in The Economist) a couple months back until a friend in Boston asked me if I was okay.

While I use a paid VPN service to access the outside world without censorship, I still can't help but feel disconnected sometimes.  In college, I used to get up early on occasion and sit in a cafe, reading the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal.  There's just something about flipping through the news.  That's why, when I was in Cambodia earlier this year, I was so excited to see a vendor in a bus station in Phnom Penh selling print copies of The Cambodia Daily--an English and Khmer-language paper containing local and international articles taken from popular media sources.

Though there are several sources for English language news in China, including the China Daily, uncensored world and popular news is hard to come by.  For that reason, I've become partial to Google's FastFlip, which allows you to "flip" through images of different news articles and blogs, browsing the news almost like you'd tend to do with a newspaper.  You can browse different topic-themed "sections" or just read the popular news (which tends to be slightly tech oriented due to the types of people who probably know about and use the service).

Even if you're not as remote or starved for news as I am, FastFlip is still an innovative and effective way to absorb the news.  It's certainly worth a look!

[In other news, I'll be heading up to Luquan County, north of Kunming, this week to continue my research with the second target dialect of Yi.  I'll try to write a post when I get back about my trip and what my research entails.]

How I'm Flying Home For Next-to-Nothing (and you can too!)

[Updates in brown]

I recently booked my ticket back to the States for this upcoming September, and after chatting with several friends here in China, I was shocked to hear that none of them are members of any airline frequent flyer programs.  So, this post is a short description of how to take advantage of frequent flyer programs to get cheap or free flights, and why you should!

First of all, let me say that my understanding of the frequent flyer programs is fairly rudimentary, and the advice I'm giving here is basic-nothing a seasoned frequent flyer will find all that groundbreaking.  If you want to learn to really take advantage of the system, check out Chris Guillebeau's Blog "The Art of Non-Conformity.  (Thanks to Francine for referring me to his site!)  He goes into great detail about what he terms "travel hacking", and sells several eBooks on the topic.  His blog, however, contains plenty of free advice, including this article on frequent flyer miles.

Most people, it seems, are averse to the idea of frequent flyer miles because of legendary flight restrictions, difficulties earning and redeeming miles, and most of all ignorance.  It is not as difficult as one might think to earn and redeem miles.  You can sign up for most airlines' programs online for free.  Some airlines even give you free miles just for joining.  Below are several links to the various airlines' signup pages:

• American


• Alaska


• Continental


• Delta


• United


• U.S. Airways


• Virgin Atlantic


• British Airways


• Southwest


• JetBlue

(links compiled by The Art of Non-Conformity)

Once you've signed up, it's only a matter of reporting your account number when flying.  If you forget to report your account number before flying, it's no big deal.  You can report usually for up to a year after the fact online or by phone.

Since my experience has most recently been with United, a member of the Star Alliance, I'll use that as a reference.  Other airlines might vary in rules and rates.  My one-way ticket from Beijing back to Philadelphia in September was priced at around $1,200.  Instead of forking out the cash, I started investigating how to use the 23,000 miles I'd earned on United to fly home.  Using their website's "Redeem Miles" search feature, I found that a one-way flight home would run 32,500 miles.  Still 10,000 miles short, I referred to my Continental One-Pass account, and saw that I'd saved 9,000 miles with Continental.  Although both of these airlines are members of the Star Alliance, and they've now announced their merger, after consulting with both of them on the phone, it became clear that while I could use my miles from one airline on one or the other airline, I couldn't combine the two.

[While United and Continental have as of yet not announced the details of how their Frequent Flyer programs will be combined, we can make some assumptions based on the past merger of Delta and Northwestern.  It's likely that after the two airlines have officially completed their merger (probably sometime in 2011), that miles from the two airlines will then be combine-able.  Until then, it's either convert, use one airline's miles, or forget it.]

I considered converting my Continental miles to United miles (yes! it is possible), but I didn't feel like waiting and dealing with the resulting loss in mileage.  Most mileage and point programs can be converted through a sometimes circuitous process of first converting to a middle-man program like Amtrak or HiltonHonors.  The process often results in 10,000 miles from one account being converted to 4,000 miles in another account, just hypothetically speaking.  For details, check out WebFlyer.

So, I was in need of another 9,500 miles.  My parents offered to transfer me some of their miles, but the airlines discourage this by charging a transfer fee and a per mile charge.  Instead, I learned that I could make up the difference by purchasing miles from the airline.  Miles may be purchased by 1,000 mile increment, and rates start at around $50 for 1,000 miles.  I purchased 10,000 miles for $357.  With taxes and fees added in, I spent only $390 on my airfare, saving over $800.  What's more, if I had had time to wait (I was a bit anxious about the available dates running out), I could have flown for nothing!

In my research, I discovered that United has a program called "United College Plus", which offers students 10,000 free miles just for graduating college.  I signed up (in under 5 minutes), had my university send them a copy of my transcript for verification purposes, and within two weeks, they credited my account with an additional 10,000 free miles.  I should mention that in the fine print, it specifies that you have to join the College Plus program before graduating (which I don't believe I had), and must report your transcript within a year of graduating (which I may or may not have just managed to do).

Furthermore, I realized that I've flown several times on Air China in the past year, and didn't earn any miles for those flights.  Since Air China and United are both part of the same alliance, I reported the flights to United, giving them my ticket numbers, dates of travel, etc. and earning myself an extra 5,000 miles.

There are plenty of other ways to earn miles without flying, however.  Exploring each airline's Frequent Flyer website will tell you that you can earn miles by showing your Frequent Flyer card while staying in hotels, renting cars, shopping online, and even eating out at restaurants!

What's more, one of the most efficient ways to earn miles is by signing up for an airline's credit card.  It may sound risky or scary, but after reading the fine print thoroughly, it might not be as risky as you think.  United is currently offering their Chase Bank Visa Platinum card with a bonus of 30,000 miles online.  What I've taken from the fine print:

• there is a $69 annual fee


• that fee is waived for the first year


• you earn 30,000 miles only after spending $250


• it may take 4-6 weeks after spending the minimum to earn those miles


• you can only use those 30,000 miles if your account remains active until after you've used them


• that means that you can cancel your credit card after using the points, but only after you've redeemed the miles and flown with them

After calling home today, I found out I'd received another mailing from United offering the same card with a bonus of 50,000 miles instead of 30k.  An additional 50,000 miles on top of the 15,000 I earned by sending my college transcript and reporting my flights on their partner airline would give me 65,000 miles-enough to fly roundtrip anywhere in the world OR to fly roundtrip in the United States 2.5 times.  A free flight anywhere in the world, combined with some CouchSurfing (check out couchsurfing.org) or a visit to an international friend could mean an amazing adventure for next to nothing!  (Taxes, fees, and food not included.)

What are the risks of signing up for a credit card deal like this?

Every time your credit report is checked, your score goes down slightly, but once will not hurt significantly.  Just ask Chris Guillebeau who signed up for 13 (!) airline credit cards, earning 300,000 miles and various other bonuses, and only saw his credit score go down by 4% (after 13 credit cards, 4% is not bad)!!!

[If you're concerned about your credit history (and even if you're not), you should know that the US government allows you to check your credit report for FREE once each year.  To access your truly free credit report, go to AnnualCreditReport.com.  This website will allow you to access your credit report with each of the big credit reporting agencies:  Equifax, TransUnion, and Experian.  You can even dispute negative claims easily online, talking your way out of any major blemishes.  Just realize that these reports don't give you your credit score, just a listing of all positive and negative marks on your account.]

Annual fees!  While some credit cards offer $0 in annual fees,. the United card I'm looking at charges $69.  While this may seem like a lot, for a free roundtrip flight, the fee is worth it (especially if you plan on canceling your card in the first year).  Furthermore, United is currently offering to waive the first year's fee, which means that as long as I get the card, earn the points, redeem the points, fly with those points, and remember to cancel the card all in the first year, I'll be earning 50,000 miles for free!

Privacy:  Some of my friends have told me they've heard stories about signing up for credit cards like this and having their private information sold to third party companies.  Whether this is true or not, I don't know.  My advice:  read the fine print thoroughly.  Most airline credit cards are sponsored through major banks, and specify how secure your information is.  A good rule of thumb, if you've read through the fine print and it doesn't seem legit, it probably isn't.  That doesn't mean there isn't plenty of secure free mileage to be had.

If you choose to keep your airline credit card, using it to book additional flights with that airline will earn you even more miles.  I, on the other hand, am a proponent of bank reward credit cards, through which you can diversify your points and miles.

Well, that's a basic overview of how to finagle some free travel or travel hack.  If you're trying to travel quickly, it might not be the best option, but if you fly anywhere, anytime it is extremely worth it to sign up for the airline's Frequent Flyer program, and start saving your miles!

If you want to learn more, I do suggest you check out Chris Guillebeau's blog, which I referenced and cited several times in this entry, or just do some web surfing and googling of your own!

[I'll write again soon about my upcoming plans and recent exploits.  I'm having some summer clothes copied from major clothing brands' websites and custom made by my tailor, and I'm continually fighting a losing battle against being a night owl.  The weather has been unflinchingly sunny and warm as always, and I'm up to the usual.]

Cycling Around Lake Dian: The Roads Around Kunming's Polluted Heart

Two weekends ago was 5/1 (May Day), or International Workers' Day, and I had my plan in order:  sleep, watch some movies, enjoy the sunshine, and maybe get some work done.  That was until Friday evening when my friend Abby asked me if I wanted to spend the weekend with her and my other friend Lisa  cycling around Lake Dian (滇池), south of Kunming.  A little hesitant at first, she talked me into it, and I woke up early Saturday morning to go rent a bike.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="361" caption="{Photo of Lake Dian taken from XiShan (I didn't take this photo)}"][/caption]

Lake Dian, a highland freshwater lake, is the largest lake in Yunnan Province, and the eighth largest in China.  It was the model for the much smaller, man-made Lake Kunming at the Summer Palace in Beijing.  It is truly spectacular that such a vast lake is so close to Kunming City, and only makes it all the more depressing that the water is EXTREMELY polluted.  We're not talking just "don't drink the water" polluted.  We're talking "do not touch the water" polluted.  (I was even a little afraid to look at it.)   The water in Lake Dian has been classified Type V (the worst possible rating), meaning the water is unfit for agricultural and industrial uses.  The reason:  prior to the first wastewater treatment plant being constructed in Kunming in 1990, all of the city's bacteria- and disease-ridden wastewater was dumped untreated directly into the lake.  The factories and farms crowding the lake's eastern shore no doubt do not help the matter, and despite billions of dollars being spent to clean up the water, it's been estimated that over 55% of the lake's fish population has died.  It is even more worrisome to see locals out fishing in its depths.

Despite the pollution, I had yet to go down to the lake, and decided a weekend out exercising with friends was better than a weekend spent sleeping and being unproductive.  So, Saturday morning, we got a quick  breakfast at Salvador's, and then set out south down through the city by the canal, passing roadside tattoo artists, coca-cola sponsored police tents, and endless honking cars.  We made it past the airport, heading east (clockwise around the lake), and keeping to local roads.  The city quickly turned into farms and smaller towns, extensions of the city.  After a while, we stopped to ask directions from a few PSB officers, who pointed us towards Chenggong-the main extension zone for Kunming city and home to the new campuses of all the major universities in Kunming.

Past the town, construction was strewn in all directions, new high-rises stood looming over the surrounding agriculture, and the roads were covered with rocks and dirt.  Massive diesel trucks roared by us, sounding their loud air-horns obnoxiously as if their engines weren't enough warning of their approach.  They kicked up the dust in clouds, making it difficult to breathe, and knocking debris flying into the air at us.  When we eventually stopped for lunch, our faces were brown with sunglasses-shaped patches of skin, and our eyebrows were white with dust.  We rode out towards villages,  under bridges, and through the black smoke of slashed-and-burnt fields.  More than once, the trucks were backed up honking at each other, and we did our best to weave in and out between them, dismounting when necessary.  It was a rough ride, if only for the traffic and dust, and I huffed and puffed, climbing up the final set of hills for the day, thankful to be that much closer to our first night's destination.  We zoomed at top speed down towards the southernmost point of the lake, the town of Kunyang (昆阳), over 70 km around the lake from our starting point.

We rode into town, found a hotel, and washed the dirt off our faces.  Every part of me was sore, and it was difficult to walk through the town.  We found a public square honoring Zheng He (郑和)-the famed early 15^th century Hui mariner and explorer from this small corner of Yunnan, who commanded fleets of ships sailing as far as East Africa.  The square was alive with local families and old men flying kites, vendors grilling chuanr, and children delightedly bouncing up and down on small inflatable carnival rides.  Later, we returned to our hotel and played cribbage before calling it a night.  I was exhausted, and my arms had apparently been sunburnt during the ride.  Moreover, with all my muscles aching, I hastily decided to apply tiger balm to my legs, back, and shoulders, falling asleep at around 11pm.  Two hours later, I awoke in a cold sweat, my sheets soaked through, and a text message on my phone.  One of my friends in the adjacent room was very nauseous, and wanted to know if I had any medicine.  I gave her something, took a shower, and went back to sleep, noticing briefly that it was pouring outside.  The next day's ride wasn't looking too promising.

Fortunately, the morning brought a sufficient lack of rain, renewed energy, and easiness in my friend's stomach.  So, we settled our bill with the hotel, strapped our packs to our bike racks, and left the town of Kunyang heading Northwest back around the lake.  The roads around the lake are all under construction-part of Kunming City's 12 year plan to expand and increase transportation routes-and the start of the second day's ride was beginning to seem like a repeat of day 1.  Fortunately, the western edge of the lake is less developed and much more scenic, and the road quickly flattened and became paved.  Just before Haikou on the southwest corner of the lake, we had a choice to make:  stay on the local roads, climbing up into the mountains and around, or sneak onto the expressway, cutting straight across flat roads and the new bridge into town.  We snuck past the toll, a little wary we were going to get chased or yelled at, but we were clear.  We saw the green, polluted waters below us as we crossed the bridge, and made it into Haikou.  We switched to local roads, and we passed donkey-drawn carriages, construction men yelling "Hello! How are you?" in English, local restaurants selling fresh-caught fish from the lake (!), and scenic "tourist" spots with mediocre views.  We made it to XiShan (the western hills), where the impressive cliffs towered above us on our left, a few stray sheep bleating somewhere up above us, invisible.

We stopped for a snack in a small village towards the north of the lake, watching the local stray dogs interact, sniffing each other and lying in the middle of the road, obstructing local traffic.  Asking for directions, we found a main road back into Kunming proper, and rode through town until we were back on familiar turf.  We pushed the last leg up towards WenHua Xiang, and locked our bikes up outside Salvador's (where we'd started nearly 140km ago the previous day) for lunch.

Since this was primary a cycling trip, I didn't take many photos, but I'll throw some up when I get the chance.

Over Land From Hong Kong Back to Kunming:"The Finest Mountains and Waters Under Heaven"

Well, this post is a bit overdue, but I wanted to at least give a brief retelling of my trip through Southern China, from Hong Kong back to Kunming by land.  After the Fulbright Conference ended in mid-march, my friend Laura and I set out back into mainland China by bus, traveling from Hong Kong directly to Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province.  While the primary language in Guangdong is Cantonese, we didn't have any trouble getting by with our standard Mandarin.  The bus let us off after dark in downtown Guangzhou by a Hilton.  We checked the price, but it was far out of our budget.  So, we called around, and it seemed that most places were steeply priced compared to what we were used to in other Chinese cities (possibly due to the high volume of international business and trade conferences in the area).  We finally found a "cheaper" hostel south of the river, and cabbed it down there.

The next morning, we went to the bus station to buy overnight bus tickets to Guilin, a fabled city in Guangxi, Guangdong's provincial neighbor to the west.  We had the day to play, and we walked around a bit, met up with a friend of mine who was also staying in the area, got dim sum for lunch, and visited some sites.  Guangzhou was not exceptionally interesting, and we were glad we'd opted to only stay for one day.  That night, we returned to the bus station, and boarded a sleeper bus, traveling west into Guangxi Province.  The driver told us we would arrive in Guilin around 6:30am, and we tried to get some sleep on the narrow beds.

Around 6am, the bus stopped and everyone shuffled out.  We were told we'd arrived in Yangshuo, an hour or so south of Guilin, and where we'd intended to go after Guilin.  So, we discussed it, and decided to switch our itinerary around a bit, first spending time in Yangshuo.  We checked into a cheap hotel, and rested a bit more till the sun came up.  After a light breakfast of buns and dumplings, we rented bikes and set out into the countryside.  Yangshuo is known for its astounding karst scenery (much like the scenery I encountered in Laos), split picturesquely by the peaceful Li River.  Telling many Chinese people that you're traveling to Guilin and Yangshuo elicits an envious reply.  In fact, there's a Chinese saying: "桂林山水甲天下，阳朔山水甲桂林。"（Guilin's mountains and waters are the finest under heaven, but Yangshuo's mountains and waters top Guilin's）.  China's 20 yuan bill even depicts a scene of the Li River in Yangshuo.

We rode out around the area taking photos, visiting sites, climbing Moon Hill (known for its moon-shaped hole), and riding some more.  With no real map or idea of where we were going, we kept asking locals for directions, and got lost a couple times.  The weather was slightly overcast, and not the ideal for a visit to Yangshuo, but it was still quite an enjoyable day.  Flat roads by tourist attractions gave way to winding roads through vast open spaces between imposing karst cliffs, and then the Li River.  Flat bamboo rafts floated by carrying fishermen, cows grazed the fields, and everything seemed picture-worthy.  We stopped by a chicken farm, and the owner came out to ask us how many chickens we wanted to buy.  (We refrained.)  At one point, the road led right to the edge of the river, continuing on the opposite side, and a local helped us cross and bring our bikes across by raft.

By the time we made it back into town we'd ridden about 40km, and were fairly tired.  We walked around a bit, had dinner, and went to bed, catching a bus north to Guilin the next morning.  Guilin is an interesting city, but not necessarily deserving the above Chinese saying.  We explored, had some snacks, visited a number of different sites, including twin pagodas, one made of copper, the tallest copper building in the world.  For dinner, we had Guilin snails (a traditional dish).  The first one I went for turned out to be pregnant with lots of gritty little baby snails.  After that, Laura refused to eat any more than the foot of each snail.  We finished most of them, and explored some more.  The next day we visited the Longsheng (Dragon's Backbone) Rice Terraces.  I'd visited the Yuanyang rice terraces in southern Yunnan with Ariane, but it had been extremely foggy, and the views had been limited.  Fortunately, our day in Longsheng was a sun-filled one, and we climbed through the terraced hills above the quaint villages, feeling like we'd somehow stumbled out of our world and into the Shire of Hobbit acclaim.

After our day in Longsheng, we returned to Guilin and arranged train tickets back to Kunming.  Lonely Planet listed the travel time as 8 hours, and the ticket salesman told us the train departed at 4:30pm and arrived around 11:30.  We bought hard seat tickets, figuring 7 or 8 hours was not too bad a trip.  Later, however, after some online research, I realized that the train did indeed arrive around 11:30... the next morning!  The 8 hours that Lonely Planet listed had been a typo, and should have actually said "18 hours".  I was a bit concerned, and almost didn't even tell Laura about my realization.  Finally, however, I decided I had to, and with a couple hours left till our train was scheduled to depart, we headed to the station to try to switch our tickets to hard sleepers.  They were sold out.

A man approached us and offered us hard tickets, but we were very skeptical.  A bit desperate, however, we followed him to his tourist office, and made him sign a contract saying the tickets were real.  We didn't have a problem, and made it on the train, 18 hours back to Kunming.

I've left out a lot of details for the sake of brevity, but I've also posted photos.  I also be following this post up with some more recent events.

A Beautiful Day in Kunming

Today is one of those beautiful Kunming days.  It's 75°F and beaming with sunlight.  I made my usual way up YuanXi Lu and across Yunnan University's campus towards WenHua Xiang.  Women are out toting their parasols above their heads to keep their skin as white as possible, and there's the most refreshing of breezes passing through the shade, carrying a strong scent of flowers (which somehow doesn't cause my allergies to explode).  You could take me from anywhere on the globe and drop me in Kunming on a day like today, and I'd know where I was.  Sometimes I wish I carried my camera with me all the time.  But honestly, if I did, I'd never get where I was going.

I've passed the 5-month mark in my Fulbright grant, which means I have less than five months left till I return to the US.  I met with one of my professors here this week to discuss my research, and devise a plan for the next few months.  At the beginning of May, he's going to help me settle into a village in Luquan County, north of Kunming to continue with my linguistic documentation.  At the same time, I've been continuing the sociolinguistic portion of my project, speaking with Yi people in and around Kunming.  Over the next few months, I'll be visiting villages in every direction around the city, trying to get a better understanding of the changing linguistic environment.

I've been struggling with my apparently natural sleeping cycle, which would be more appropriate for Eastern Europe or Turkey than China (6 hours or so behind), but hopefully I've fixed it by getting so little sleep last night.  Going to the gym has become my daily goal, and it's been giving me a bit of structure in my otherwise unstructured life.

I'm sitting at Salvador's Cafe, which is indeed more of a social scene than a quiet study spot, exemplified by the fact that I've run into 7 of my friends since I walked in.  I'll try to get some work done anyway.  At some I'm going to write another post this week about my recent trip through Southern China soon and post some more photos as well.

Hong Kong & Macau: A View from the Top (and the Bottom)

Earlier this month, I attended the annual Fulbright China Research Form, held for a week in Hong Kong and Macau with Fulbright Fellows from China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan in attendance.  I flew into Shenzhen, the  largely uninteresting but prosperous Special Economic Zone in Guangdong Province (Canton), across the river from Hong Kong.  I immediately hopped a bus to go through customs and enter Hong Kong.

International borders have become a routine for me over the past months-exit form: filled out next to my passport photo page, paper clip on my Chinese visa, waiting in line.  China makes you patient.  The woman's eyes darted between my passport photo and my face at least 7 times before she let me pass-a testament to how much I've changed.

Back on the bus, we crossed a bridge and rounded jagged hills climbing out of the sea.  A few floating villages hid themselves in poverty by the border.  Around one hill, and a wall of identical high-rise apartment buildings stood against our approach in the distance-my first view of Hong Kong, and an impressive one at that.  I was beginning to feel the excitement of exploring a new place.

The bus let me off in the middle of Kowloon (pronounced Gaolong), the highly developed peninsula pointing south to Hong Kong Island.  It was dark already, hot-the straps on my pack pressed the humidity hard against my back.  The conference would begin the next day, and in the meantime I had no plans and nowhere to sleep.

I have traveled all over Europe, North America, and Asia, spent long periods of time alone backpacking, navigated countless cities, but never have I been so overwhelmed by a place as I was upon first arriving in Hong Kong.  I walked to an intersection, pulled out a map, and tried to get my bearings.  Everywhere around me were people, lights, cars, smells.  Within 20 minutes or so, I'd made my way on foot south towards the tip of the peninsula, arriving at the infamous Chungking Mansions, a decrepit tenement of low-budget rooms, teeming with African and Indian immigrants.  It was hot, and there was a definite odor throughout the building.  I decided to try a place on the 7^th floor that had received alright reviews.  The line for the elevator pulled away from its door and around the corner, sweating en masse.  I asked for the stairs, and was told to just wait in line.  So, I did.

Thirty minutes later, I'd made it to the front of the line, when an Indian man approached me and asked if I was going to the Pay-Less Guesthouse, presenting me with a business card.  Indeed I was.  I was a little skeptical, but he asked me to follow him-I thought that there might have been a better way to get there than this elevator (the building is separated into a labyrinthine set of blocks), so I followed him, only to arrive at the back of the adjacent elevator line.    He told me we were going to the 8^th floor.  He let out a slight grin to another man, and I realized what was going on.  I told him that the sign had said it was on the 7^th floor.  He told me it was a typo.  I asked to see his card again.  It said "7/F".  I told him I was going to the 7^th floor.  He finally realized his ruse was up, and demanded that I go with him, that the 7^th floor was fully booked.  I politely declined.  I'd lost my place in line, and waited again to avoid any conflicts.

The elevator he'd switched me into only went to even numbered floors, so I took the stairs down a level.  He hadn't lied.  Pay-Less Guesthouse was fully booked.  I spent an hour climbing the stairs up and down, floor by floor, checking each lodging.  This one was full, that one wouldn't go any less than 300 HKD-I was not happy.  I finally found a place with a free room, and managed to haggle with the manager until I was satisfied, paying more than I had originally intended.  He told me I couldn't check in for an hour, so I left my bags with him (locked), and went to get water and find an internet café.  Somewhere in the maze of Middle Eastern, African, and South Asian stores and restaurants jammed within the first few floors of the building, I found an internet café, and joined the multi-ethnic group of customers.  In the corner, an African man was using VoIP to call his home country, almost in tears that they wouldn't send him payment for the 4 out of 14 crates of some unnamed product he'd brought with him and managed to sell.  An Indian woman next to me was tending to her "Happy Farm" on Facebook.  I checked my e-mail, and looked up a place to get food.

After checking in to my room, I went for a walk.  Down Nathan Road, past the grandiose Peninsula Hotel, and to the Harbor at the tip of the peninsula, facing the stunning nightscape of Hong Kong Island.  The stress of the previous hours melted away, and I remembered why I love traveling.  I spent some time sitting, taking in arguably the best and most breathtaking skyline in the world, and then continued my walk.

I am very thankful that I have the opportunity to travel now.  Not necessarily because I don't think I'll have the opportunity again later in my life, but because I have a suspicion (and I say this as humbly as possible) that in the not too distant future I will have too much money, too many responsibilities, and too little patience to effectively experience the underbelly of a city; to arrive with no accommodations or plans, and to wander aimlessly through back alleys for hours.  For Hong Kong, these alleys, the decrepit and infested chambers of Chungking Mansions are as much a part of the city as the extravagant shopping plazas and world-class hotels, the trade conferences and business meetings.

The next morning, I made my way to the Grand Hyatt Hotel to check in for the Research Forum, and had apparently gone from rags to riches in the period of a night.  My room had a great view, and a waterfall shower, which made me quickly forget the heat and humidity of the previous night.  I went downstairs and lay in the hot tub for a bit before hitting the steam room, and then adorning my suit for the opening dinner.  The conference was a place for us all to discuss our difficulties and frustrations in performing our research, to learn from each other's experiences, and to see China and the Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and Macau in a new light.

On the second day we were joined by respected Hong Kong journalists and political analysts Willy Lam, Frank Ching, and Mark Sheldon to help us better understand Hong Kong's past, present, and future.  That night, we were invited to a reception at the US Consular General of Hong Kong's residence on the peak of Hong Kong Island.  There was good food, interesting conversations, and some great views.  On the third day, we had lunch with some leaders of groups invested in Hong Kong's development, and then made our way to the ferry port for a jet-foil to Macau.

Macau is a cultural anomaly.  Once a small fishing island, Macau was colonized by the Portuguese in the 16^th century, giving modern Macau interesting melds of languages, architecture, cuisines, and people.  The political clashes between the Portuguese and the Macanese were more violent than many Macau officials would like to admit, and the Portuguese tried to give Macau back to the Chinese during the 1970s.  The Chinese politely refused, fearing how it would affect people's impressions of China's intentions for still British-controlled Hong Kong, and the Portuguese remained in control of the island until the Chinese regained control of both regions in the historical 1997 handover.  In 1962, promising to promote tourism, Stanley Ho, a Hong Kong entrepreneur who'd fled from the Japanese to Macau during WWII gained an official government-sanctioned monopoly over the gambling industry in Macau.  He established several casinos, and maintained his control until 2002, when many Vegas casino entrepreneurs joined in the fun.  The result has been a massive boom in tourism and gambling, bringing in revenues that topple those of Las Vegas.  The casinos overshadow the Portuguese-influenced lanes and alleys throughout the island, and it seems that there's only more growth in sight, with some developers discussing filling in the water between the island and mainland China with land in an attempt to increase tourism and provide more land for casinos.

After sightseeing and listening to presentations during the day, a few friends and I met up with one of my friends' friends, a card shark who's currently living in Macau.  He took us around to several of the free shows in the casinos, and then to a quite infamous room in the Grand Lisboa, one of the older casinos.  As I'd heard previously, the circular room promises one-stop shopping for Chinese prostitutes.  You walk into the room, and the prostitutes strut around the circular wall, waiting to be picked out.  (We, of course, were only curious--not in the market.)  Unfortunately, upon our arrival the girls were lined up outside the room in a shakedown by Macanese police.  We took a few glances before being waved away, and heading over to the Venetian, one of the largest buildings (by floor space) in the entire world.  What better place than one of the biggest buildings in the world to build the Guinness Record-winning world's largest house of cards.  We wandered around for a bit, and then bid farewell to our card shark guide at his office, the high stakes poker area, for another night at work.

Back to Hong Kong the next day by jet-foil, I said goodbye to many of my friends and contacts, and got ready for my over-land trip back to Kunming.  I've posted photos from Hong Kong and Macau, and I'll write more about the rest of my trip and post more photos soon!