Southeast Asia Trip Part II: The Many Sides of Laos

Time for part two.  When I left off with the previous post, Ariane and I had just spent a ridiculously long day crossing from China into Laos, and finally after 20-some hours, making it to our first international destination of Luang Prabang in Laos.

We awoke the next day in our guesthouse to find that it was situated quite nicely right along the Mekong River.  The Old Quarter of Luang Prabang, where we were staying, is settled on a peninsula between the Mekong and Nam Khan Rivers.  The small streets are lined with guesthouses, French-influenced cafes, bakeries, creperies and fruit shake stands, nice clothes and gift stores, and a few fairly impressive temples.  The town it seems is fairly laid back, with a great balance between the comforts of a somewhat touristy “resort”-like village and the allure of a French-colonial Lao town.  An 11:30pm curfew has kept the bars and clubs to a minimum, and explains why everything was closed upon our late-night arrival.  Luang Prabang is far enough afield that it has avoided corner mini-golf and other kitschy attractions, but still panders to adventurous Western travelers in need of a break from their adventures.

Still a bit cramped from the previous day, we spent the morning enjoying an extended Luang Prabang-style brunch outside by the river.  It was prix fixe, and included dried riverweed, fried to a crisp with sesame seeds, a delightful chili paste to spread on top, buffalo sausage, a stew of pork and greens vegetables, salad, onion soup, steamed sticky rice, a fruit plate, and black Lao coffee.  While the majority of coffee coming out of Vietnam is  Robusta, Lao coffee seemed to be mostly Arabica or a mix of the two.  Usually served with a heaping serving of condensed milk, it was a constant challenge to get my coffee actually black.  Still, the condensed milk at the bottom of Ariane’s coffee made a delicious dip for the bananas in the fruit plate, and we got a second helping of both.

When the sun sets in Luang Prabang, the main streets of the Old Quarter are transformed into a night market of ethnic handicrafts, Lao-style clothes, knick-knacks, and delicious snacks.  We spent some time looking at clothes: a sarong for Ariane and Lao pants and a shirt for me.  The market, while quite enjoyable and laid back (in typical Lao style), has suffered the influence of thick foreign wallets with little regard for or knowledge of how to haggle properly.  This influence made it difficult to haggle for good prices, but we tried anyway.  A “trick”, which the locals have quite intelligently taken advantage of, is to ask prices in US dollars rather than the local currency, Kip.  This held true in Cambodia as well—it’s easier to ask for $2USD than 17,000 Kip, and harder for the customer to haggle the price down.  The question then is for only $2USD, why bother haggling at all?  Well, that depends on what you’re haggling for, and how much it “should” cost.

In any case, we enjoyed the night market, did a bit of shopping, and really enjoyed the street food.  We shared a Lao sandwich, some grilled spring rolls, pork sausage, and a delectable lemongrass-stuffed fish, grilled on a bamboo kebab.

After Luang Prabang, it was time for a change of pace.  We hopped a mini-bus south to Vang Vieng.  We’d heard some rumors about Vang Vieng, but weren’t entirely sure what to make of them.  The first rumor involved Vang Vieng being a vacation paradise for Australian college kids on break.  The second rumor involved some sort of phenomenon regarding the TV show Friends, which we didn’t really understand.  And, the third rumor was that Vang Vieng was surrounded by truly spectacular natural beauty.  The mini-bus ride confirmed the first rumor quite well.  We shared the “van” with three college kids from Melbourne, who were very excited to take advantage of Vang Vieng’s primary attraction: a several hour tubing ride down the Nam Song—a true lazy river, with makeshift bars all along the way.  Lonely Planet warns, “People have died on this trip, so don’t go too stupid with the drink and drugs.”

With little time and little interest in Australian “Spring Break”, we opted to take advantage of one of Vang Vieng’s other draws: caving in the great karst cliffs around the town.  Ariane had been bugging me for days to agree to rent motorbikes or a car to do some of the travel on our own.  With the sun quickly setting, it seemed like the ideal opportunity to give in to her wishes.  Motor bikes seemed like a great way to get out to the caves and back before the sun went down.  So, we walked around the town and haggled with a couple places for rentals, deciding between manuals and automatics (quickly realizing we should probably ride automatics).  We ended up with two motorbikes/mopeds, and headed out across the airstrip to a Shell station to fill each bike up with 3 liters each.  After complaining about wanting to ride motorbikes for so long, it seems that Ariane wasn’t exactly a natural.  She had trouble starting, couldn’t turn, got scared, and couldn’t brake either. (Sorry, Ariane!)  After a little bit of practice on the airstrip, and switching bikes, we headed out towards the karst hills beyond the river.  We stopped at a bridge to pay a toll, and I started heading over towards the other side.  When I heard a sudden vroom, followed by a bang, the frightened cursing of a Lao man, and laughter, I turned around only to realize that Ariane had started her bike up right towards a squatting Lao man, who, shocked that he was about to be killed by this small foreign girl on a moped, had leapt up and out of the way.  His buddies found the incident a bit more amusing than did he.  Across the bridge, we agreed to keep going and try again.

Ariane a little shaken up, we took it slow (actually passed by a few bicycles), and made it to our destination just as the sun was beginning to set.  We parked our bikes, accompanied by a small Lao boy, and followed him up a steep ascent to a cave.  As we approached the entrance to the cave, we realized that both of us (like idiots) had gone caving without flashlights!  Fortunately, our Indiana Jones-style kid guide (like Short Round from the Temple of Doom) led and lit the way, and showed us some cool rock formations that made noises like a xylophone when struck.  Back out of the cave, the kid asked for money.  I looked at Ariane to see how much I should give him, “1,000 Kip?” I asked.  Ariane replied, “eh, give him 2,000,” thinking we were being quite generous.  I handed it to the kid, who looked a little disappointed, asked for more, and upon my refusal, rushed back down the mountain, leaving us to make our own way as the sun went down.  It was only later that we realized that 2,000 Kip is only about 23 cents (oops).  Back down by our bikes, we heard a thunderous boom in the distance.  Not sure exactly what it was, we waited cautiously until we heard it again.  The thunderous boom turned out to be… thunder.  So, we quickly got back on our bikes and started heading back towards town in dusk.  The way was a bit rocky with puddles of mud, lots of bugs in the air, and fading light.  So, I can maybe possibly understand how a motorbike coming the other way (though not too close) caused Ariane to lose control of her bike and crash into a big puddle of mud—maybe.  I stopped, and went back to help her up.  Fortunately, she was already being assisted by a group of local boys (one of whom was very naked), pointing at the mud on her bike to let her know that it was dirty.  She knew.  We cleaned off the seat and handle bars, and started going again.  Like I said, I can maybe understand how this incident happened.  BUT, I’m not entirely sure how she ploughed into a bush on the side of the road a few moments later.  :)

Anyway, we eventually made it back to town in the dark, took showers, changed, and cleaned the bikes up.  A little concerned about further incidents, I returned both bikes one at a time, and then met Ariane for dinner.  After dinner, we walked around for a bit.  The town of Vang Vieng is literally an Australian “spring break” paradise.  Each street had tens of internet cafes, bars, and gift shops selling t-shirts proudly announcing to the world that the wearer had weathered the hardships of the Vang Vieng drunken tubing experience.  (Everywhere we went in Southeast Asia, we saw Australian college kids sporting these shirts.)  As for the Friends phenomenon I mentioned above, it is absolutely, 100%, shockingly true.  Every corner in the town boasts open-air cafes and restaurants showing reruns of Friends.  A few cafes had decided to break away from the norm, and were rebelliously showing reruns of Family Guy.  How did such a phenomenon begin?  I have absolutely no idea.  What’s more surprising, however, is that wherever there is a TV showing these reruns, there are several to many foreigners sitting their glued to the screens.  My only guess is that a nice helping of happy pizza, followed down by a happy shake, and a joint on the side, merrily caps off a hard day of getting high and drinking in a tube floating down a river, AND necessitates an episode of Friends.

We found a place called the Organic Mulberry Farm Café (linked with an actual organic mulberry farm just outside of town), and enjoyed a mulberry shake and an apple-mint shake, before indulging in some of the delicious snacks around the town (probably available to cure severe cases of the munchies after watching Friends).  Our pleasure was a “crepe”  filled with Milo (a chocolate substance made by Nestle), honey, bananas, milk, coconut powder, chocolate syrup, drenched in butter, and topped with a sinful drizzling of condensed milk.

The next day we had another mini-bus south to Vientiane, the capital of Laos.  The city was not as clean as I’d expected, but still quite interesting.  By the river, there are (like in Luang Prabang, but not quite as quaint) French bakeries, shops, restaurants, etc.  We walked around a bit, did some shopping, visited the patuxai, a Lao version of l’Arc de Triomphe (in Paris), which ironically signifies the Lao struggle for independence from France, and which was built using cement donated by the US to build an airport, giving it its nickname: “the vertical runway”.

From Vientiane, we had planned to go directly to Bangkok.  Trouble booking a train, left us with tickets for an overnight bus.  When we realized we had a bit more time than we’d thought till the bus departed, we decided to go get massages.  We found a reputable-looking place and looked through their “menu”.  Ariane opted for a Lao Foot Massage and I went for the Traditional Lao Massage.  They began by soaking our feet, then continued with Ariane, while they sent me upstairs to change into Lao garb in a private room.  The masseuse was a young Lao lady, who tried to speak with me, but I didn’t really understand her broken English.  She started on my feet and calves, with me lying on my back.  Working my legs up my inner thighs, she came up between my legs and stopped, putting pressure on both legs with her hands just below my waist.  I waited, not entirely sure what a Lao massage entailed, and not wanting to insult her.  Seeing my non-response, she continued down my legs, massaging each thigh, one at a time.  As she came up my thigh, getting closer and closer to my genitals, it became clear what she was getting at.  Unsure of how or when to tell her that I did not want sex, just a massage, I waited and she, seeing that I was not excited, continued on the other thigh.  Unfortunately, some things are unavoidable, and when she did the same on the other thigh, and did notice a response, she proceeded to grab it and ask, “massage?” to which I responded, “no”, and she replied, “yes?”, “no”.  All in all, the massage was not bad—40,000Kip (about $5USD) for an hour, full body, and no happy ending.  This was my first massage experience, and I don’t think she used enough force for me.  Next time I’ll have to have a big Swedish or Russian guy do it—at least that way I won’t have to worry about getting offered sex (I hope).

Well, that’s all for now.  More to come, I promise.

Southeast Asia Trip Part I: Over Land from China into Laos

It’s been over a month since my last post, and my what a month it’s been.  I spent the end of December in Beijing dealing with some research leads and spending time with friends.  My friend Ben flew in from New York, and I played tour guide in my free time (along with his uncle, who also lives in Beijing), taking him around to most of the major sites.  It was cold, and our trip out to the Great Wall was very brief due to the bitter cold biting winds.  On Christmas, I went out for brunch at a western restaurant with friends, and then spent time with my friend Ariane, planning our trip to Southeast Asia.  With so much to see, and a limited period of time for our out-of-country leave, we needed to set our priorities and make a temporary itinerary.

In January, we flew down to Kunming, and made the final arrangements for our trip.  We would head south over land from Kunming to [[Xishuangbanna]], from there cross the border into Laos, then down to Bangkok and southern Thailand, followed by a trip to see the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, and finally up to Hanoi and Halong Bay in Vietnam, before crossing the border back into China.  We would take a few flights to fit it all in, and leave plenty for the next time around.

With all of the recent construction and development in Kunming, things in the city have been moving around a great deal.  After a bit of hassle, we realized that the bus station that we needed was a ways out of town.  We had a sleeper bus down to Jinghong, the capital city of [[Xishuangbanna]] (the southernmost prefecture of Yunnan), and upon arrival immediately made our eventual arrangements for the trip to the border town of Mohan to cross into Laos.

In the meantime, we explored Jinghong and rented bicycles to travel out to some nearby villages.  Xishuangbanna is a [[Dai people|Dai]] autonomous prefecture, and Dai food, language, and culture abound in the city of Jinghong and the surrounding region.  With our road bikes strapped up and a very basic map in hand, we rode through the city towards the [[Mekong River]].  The new bridge, however, it seemed was closed for construction, so we asked a group of school kids how to cross the river.  They pointed us upriver, and we rode back through the city until we saw a line of truck and moto traffic, which was clearly heading towards a bridge.  We crossed the river, and started heading southwest towards the village of Menghan or Ganlanba, stopping several times in the city for directions from resting motorcycle riders.  What should probably have been a two or three hour ride took us around four hours on our fixed-speed bikes, including a significant amount of time stopping to take photos.

The highlight of Ganlanba is a section of town, traditionally inhabited by Dai people, which has been turned into a sort of tourist park.  After paying the student rate for entrance tickets (which we managed to pull off without student IDs), we got a mediocre Dai lunch, walked around, and then found a Dai family to house us for the night.  The room was very simple with thin bamboo walls and a surprisingly comfortable mat on the floor in place of a bed.  As it began to get dark, we rode our bikes back out of the park to explore the town.  Despite what we’d read, the town was not overly interesting at night.  A few KTV places, open-door rose-lit brothels, and a smattering of fruit and juice stands seemed to occupy the large percentage of the nightlife.  I spotted a fireworks store, and bought a couple boxes, which we lit off right in the street, the locals encouraging us to buy more.

We headed back towards the Dai park in pitch black darkness, which despite making it very difficult to find our way and see where we were going, provided a spectacular opportunity to see the stars.  I had to tell Ariane several times to look where she was going rather than up at the sky.  The Dai park, in darkness, was unexpectedly large and labyrinthine, and it took some intuition, guessing, and probably dumb luck to find our way back to the particular Dai home where we were staying.  (All the homes there look alike, the people all dress alike, and the family portraits on the walls are all eerily similar—maybe there should be a Desperate Dai Housewives.)  All the Dai homes are elevated, with living quarters on the second floor.  We parked our bikes under the house, waking the dog up in the process, and then went back out to look at the truly amazing array of stars.

The next morning, we started back towards Jinghong on our bikes, not overly enthusiastic about the long ride ahead of us.  To make matters worse, the chain on Ariane’s bike popped off.  We fixed it, and kept going, but it popped off every five minutes or so.  After about the tenth time, we decided enough was enough.  I flagged down a truck, and the driver agreed to take us back to Jinghong.  We threw the bikes in the back on top of sacks of some sort of mineral or fertilizer, and joined the driver in the cab for a relatively short ride back to town.  When we got to town, I offered him money, which he refused.  (Payment is often expected for hitchhiking in China, but many people are too proud or overall too kindhearted to accept it.)  I put the money in his cup holder, and he didn’t complain.  We rode back through the town, and to our hostel, where we negotiated down the rental on the bikes.

We had an early bus the next day to the border of Laos, where we intended to go through the visa procedures and find a bus to [[Luang Prabang]], a town in Northern Laos.  At the second stop in Jinghong, an middle-aged American couple got on.  They were fairly loud and obnoxious, especially at such an early hour, and the bus got on its way.  On the bus, it became clear that it was heading into Laos, beyond the border, to a town called [[Louang Namtha|Luang Nam Tha]].  We discussed our options, and decided to ride with the bus, past the border to Luang Nam Tha.  After Mohan, the bus stopped at the China-Laos border, and we all got off to go through Chinese exit procedures and Lao entry procedures.  Ariane, myself, and a Danish girl named Eva, were the last three to go through, and it took us a significantly longer time than the rest of the bus.  Encouraged by the rest of the bus, all waiting for us, the middle-aged American couple ran back, not to tell us to do our best to get through as quickly as possible, but to warn us rather obnoxiously that if we didn’t get there NOW that they’d all leave without us.  We got through as quickly as we could, a bit miffed, and literally ran down to the bus, which proceeded to drive 5 minutes down a hill and then stop for lunch.

A few notes on [[Laos]]:  The name of the country is pronounced Lao, rhyming with ‘how now brown cow,’ without an ‘s’ at the end—the French added the silent ‘s’ to denote that the country had been made up of several kingdoms.  The adjectival form of Laos is not ‘Laotian’; rather, there are Lao people, a Lao language and culture, Lao development, and a Lao economy, etc.  The Lao people are, on the whole, fairly laid back, although with a quick view into Lao history or a visit to the Laos National Museum, it quickly becomes evident that there is still a bit of anti-colonial and anti-American sentiment.

Upon our arrival in Luang Nam Tha, it seemed that we might get stuck there overnight.  Two [[tuk-tuk]] drivers told us the next bus to Luang Prabang was on the following day.  We approached the ticket window, attempting to buy our tickets.  It was an odd feeling to have to communicate in broken English to get what we wanted, so used to being able to communicate in Chinese.  After a few frustrating moments (for me at least—Ariane claims to have understood fine), it became clear that there was a bus leaving right that very moment to Luang Prabang.  Amazed at our luck, and how smoothly things were going thus far, we quickly got our tickets, threw our things on the bus, and grabbed two seats in the back row.  Outside, a man was curled over vomiting on the ground.  He and his friend boarded the bus, and tried to sit next to us, but we directed them to the seats in front of them instead (a little afraid he might have to vomit again).  His eye was bandaged heavily, some lacerations on his face, and we suspected he’d recently been in some sort of accident, fight, or undergone some sort of operation.  In any case, he was shaking from the pain.  So, we offered him some Ibuprofen and a bottle of water, both of which he immediately grabbed and consumed without the slightest hesitation.

The bus ride was long, hot, crowded, and bumpy.  Picking two seats in the back row proved to have been a horrible decision as the bus hurled around curves in the darkness.  The bus had filled up, and sacks of rice and luggage piled the aisle.  In the five-seat back row, one seemingly well-dressed young Lao guy spread his legs and slept in two seats, leaving two older Lao men squished into the one center seat, pushing right up against me.  With all of the bumps and the heat, having another man’s leg pushed right up against mine, sweating, was just one more factor of my overall discomfort.  Ariane didn’t have it much better, and we were both fairly irritated.  Out the window, it seemed as if jungle went on in every direction, as endless as the bus ride itself.  At every stop, we asked “Luang Prabang?”, to which the Lao men gave us a sign of affirmation.  We stupidly grabbed our bags and lugged them over the rice sacks off the bus, asking the driver, “Luang Prabang?”, to which we got an initial sign of affirmation, then a hand waving ahead down the road, signifying that “yes, we are indeed on the way to Luang Prabang,” but that this was not it.  We got back on the bus, and after several more hours of the hellish ride and several more false alarms, finally began to  see colonial-looking houses, and realized we were actually getting close.

The bus stopped at 2:30am and emptied into the station, which it turned out was in fact Luang Prabang.  We had been on a bus nearly nonstop since 6:30am the previous day, 20 hours prior.  We were tired, hot, sore, and, on the whole, irritated.  A man approached us, offering a tuk-tuk.  I was at first a bit hesitant, as one should be when offered a taxi or other local transport in a station, but our options seemed limited.  We got on his tuk-tuk, and told him the name of a hotel.  He said we had to pay 100,000 Kip upfront.  Unfamiliar with the currency, I still knew that we were probably getting ripped off.  I started to haggle with him, and completely tired and irritated, Ariane gave me a look, and said “is it really the time to haggle?”  So, we paid the man, and went on our way, not realizing at the time how much we were actually getting ripped off.

The tuk-tuk dropped us off at the guesthouse, which it seemed was closed.  As a matter of fact, it seemed that everything in town was closed.  We knocked on the door, but no one answered.  A little confused as to what to do, we looked back at our tuk-tuk, which immediately took off, leaving us at the closed guesthouse, strapped with all of our luggage and backpacking gear.  So, we walked through the town, stopping at each guesthouse, each which seemed to be closed.  Down an alley, we found one guesthouse with a sign that read, “closed door at midnight, customers inquire at door to the left with reception.”  To the left, we found no reception, but tried the door anyway, which was locked (and turned out was a guest’s room).  By that door, however, there was another sign, which read, “please knock on door to the left with window-Thank you”, to which I responded, “It’s a riddle!”  Ariane, looking around, spotted a door with a cloth flap-covered window.  We approached it, and I said, “here?”  Looking up, we saw another sign that said “HERE”.  Then, in true Wizard of Oz style, a tired Lao man popped is head through the window and said, “helloooo…”.  Ariane asked if they had any rooms, and he responded, “ohh…  no, we full…”.  We looked at each other, and then asked if there were any other places around there, and he said he’d call his friend, which he did.  Unfortunately, his friend did not answer, but he gave us directions anyway.  We got to his friend’s guesthouse, knocked on the door, and another tired Lao man answered.  It looked like a nice place, but we agreed that after such a long, uncomfortable day, and with few or no other options, we deserved it.  The room, as it turned out, was only slightly more expensive than our overpriced tuk-tuk ride, and we showered and went to bed.

[Since this is only the very first part of our trip, and I’ve already written far too much, I’ll call it quits for now, for your sake and for mine.  The next segment will come later.  I’ve already posted photos, and by the time I finish writing about this trip, I’m sure there will be something new to write about!]

Seagulls, Hiphop, and Latkes

All last week the weather was beautiful, which meant that I went for some nice walks.  It also meant that the Siberian Black-headed gulls chose last week to reach the Green Lake Park on their annual migration route south, just in time for me to happen upon them.  What were always considered a nuisance visiting the Jersey shore while growing up, in Kunming seagulls receive a grand welcome.  Their North American cousins may have to swoop down to snatch that piece of Mack’s pizza or Steel’s fudge right out of your hands on the boardwalk, but the seagulls here are hailed by Chinese locals and tourists as honored guests.  Local vendors set up shop right in the park, selling pieces of bread, which locals toss up into the air and onto the water for the gulls to feast upon.  No wonder they still include the relatively small Green Lake on their migration route.  What’s more, statues around the park honor the seagulls—a year-round reminder that they’ll be back each winter.  One statue even depicts an old man covered with the birds and a plaque below, which explains how he came to wait for the birds each year till he died, spent a good deal of his lifesavings buying bread to feed them, and became their lifelong friend.  “They would even come to him when he called them,” it says.  It goes to show you, one country’s lonely crazy person is another country’s local hero.  What can I say?

Last week was also Hanukkah.  The package from my parents significantly delayed by the incompetent Chinese UPS system, I fashioned myself a menorah out of tin foil on a metal tray.  I bought red candles by the Buddhist temple, cut them in half, and lit them each night.  I also hosted a Hanukkah dinner party last Thursday night, and invited 8 friends.  For my first dinner party, I think it went well, although the preparation (and cleanup) was certainly work-intensive.  The menu included a Curried Sweet Potato Soup, Stuffed Mushrooms, Bruschetta, Braised Eggplant (红烧茄子), potato latkes accompanied by homemade applesauce, and a rotisserie chicken.  For dessert, I bought jelly doughnuts and gelt-like chocolates.  The chicken was certainly the most labor-intensive menu item.  I bought a small electric oven last week, and realized that it had a rotisserie built in, inspiring me to give it a shot.  I picked up a chicken at Carrefour, made a spice rub, and let it marinate overnight.  While in the States, the chickens come ready to stick in the oven, this one was far from it.  It included the head, feet, and all the internal organs.  I googled “how to butcher a chicken” (http://butcherachicken.blogspot.com/ if you’re interested), and went at it.  In any case, almost everything came out delicious.  The latkes, which I made the night before, were expectedly a little soggy and the eggplant was too salty, but other than that it was great.  My friends brought some pasta, tofu, and a couple bottles of wine, and it was a good night.

On Saturday, I went to a local hiphop concert with a friend.  The band, called the Yaco Music Union, is composed of a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist, 5 rappers, and a synth/keyboard player.  Most of their songs are in the local dialect (昆明话), and I didn’t understand a lot of it, but it was still an interesting experience.  A large portion of the crowd in the bar was high school students.  At a break in the performance, my friend and I ‘snuck’ (really openly walked) backstage, which turned out to be the inside of a shopping mall.  When they were done their set, we sat and talked with them for a couple hours.  They’re all college students around my age, and a few of them also collaborate on a band called PirateRadio (they were a bit upset about the recent movie of the same name).  They said that Yaco had only been together since June, and they’ve written over 50 songs since then.  Some of the songs are interesting fusions of traditional local and ethnic music with American-inspired rap.  They said they were thinking about writing songs in English, because that seems to be the popular thing to do.  I went on a rant about how with all the up-and-coming Chinese musicians today, and the huge Chinese audience, they should write the music that comes naturally to them in Chinese, eventually defining their own genres as modern Chinese music, instead of merely American-inspired music.

I’m going to Beijing this Wednesday to follow up on some research leads, and to spend Christmas and New Years with friends.  My friend Ben is also flying in from New York City, and I’m sure it will be fun exposing him to China for the first time.  I’m having a few pairs of jeans tailored and my shoes repaired, and can’t wait to have clothes that fit well again.  After Beijing, I’ll be flying back down to Kunming with a friend, and then she and I will spend spend a couple weeks traveling from Kunming south into Laos by land and down into Cambodia, crossing into Thailand, and probably finishing up somewhere in Vietnam before crossing back into China.  I’m excited to travel again and to see friends, and I’ll try to post when I get the opportunity!

[I’ve posted photos from last week, and also a photo tour of my house.]

Dealing With Bureaucracy & Stomach Bugs: My First Field Research Trip

After my trip to EShan (峨山), my research was starting to look a lot more promising.  I was invited to a Yi Ten-Month New Year Festival on Saturday night, and then my professor and I planned on going to Xundian (寻甸) for me to do field research.  Per my advisor’s instructions, I submitted a short report to the FAO (Foreign Affairs Office) at my university, letting them know where I intended to go, when, why, and with whom.  They glanced over the letter, and swiftly replied that it was very unlikely they’d approve my application to do field research, but that they would work with me to revise my project.  I explained how as a linguistic analysis, my project relies on field research, and without it, I wouldn’t have anything to analyze.  They told me they’d consider it, and let me know.  A few days later, they told me they’d approved my application on the condition that Professor Zhang goes with me, but told me to be very careful.  They were apparently very worried about my safety since the area is a Yi and Hui Autonomous County, which has supposedly had some problems with Hui riots (not entirely sure about this).

Saturday night, December 5th, I met my professor and a few graduate students from the Yunnan Nationalities University at a hotel not too far from the campus.  The Ethnic Cultures department was hosting a celebration for the Yi New Year.  There were a few hundred people at the event, eating dinner together and watching a performance.  My professor and I sat in a side room with some of his old friends, so I didn’t get to see the performance, but the singer came in later, toasted us and sang for us as well.  I was served the head of the fish (apparently an honor), and I reluctantly accepted and picked at it.  A couple hours, and many glasses of baijiu, later, I headed home to start getting ready for my field research trip on Monday.

On Sunday, while packing for my trip to Xundian, I got a phone call from my advisor.  He told me that I should meet him at his office the next day to discuss my trip.  I told him we’d planned to leave that morning, but he said we’d have to leave on Tuesday instead.  Apparently, while I had gotten both his approval and the approval of the FAO for my field research trip, the FAO had not personally contacted him or provided him with a letter expressing their approval.  He said that since they were from two different work units, it was important that everyone was on the same page, and he’d rather push it back a day than risk getting on the FAO’s bad side.  So, I stopped packing.

I got phone calls from three different people on Monday afternoon:  my advisor, the FAO, and the professor who was to accompany me to Xundian, all asking me to meet in different places at the same time.  I decided to meet my advisor first, and showed up at his office only to find him not there.  I waited a few minutes, and received a phone call from the FAO, telling me that they were all downstairs waiting for me.  So, I headed downstairs, and we shook hands, exchanged papers, and stamped things for several minutes until it was agreed that I could go, but would have to pay a research affiliation fee.  Bureaucracy is always fun, even more so when it involves Chinese danwei’s (单位—work units).

Since the fan in my computer had been making noise, I’d called Lenovo, and asked them what I could do to get it fixed in China.  They activated my International Warranty Service, and gave me the address of a repair center.  In the morning, before heading to the bus station for my trip to Xundian, I walked my computer over.  The address turned out to be 5 minutes from my apartment, and I figured they could work on my computer while I was gone.  The place was a Lenovo Service Center—the barcode on the bottom of my computer to get the warranty info, and I explained the problem.  Within 5 minutes, one of the techs had taken the computer apart in front of me, removed the fan and confirmed that it was broken and needed to be replaced.  He told me to come back in an hour.  A little surprised by such fast service, I asked him if I could instead come back later that week.  This is the first time I’ve ever had to tell a computer company to take their time fixing my computer, and it was actually quite refreshing to have something here go smoothly for once.

After dropping off my computer, I ran around buying small gifts to give to people for helping me with my research—Marlboro cigarettes for the men and Dove chocolate for children.  Since apparently all of the men down here smoke, it seemed like a good idea.  What’s more, as mentioned in my last post, men often rip off the filters and smoke the tobacco straight through a large bong, which nicer restaurants have on hand.

I don’t know what it is that I ate that day, but on the hour and a half bus ride north to the capital of Xundian, I began to feel very nauseous—not a good thing at the beginning of a research trip.  When we got to the bus station at the capital of Xundian, two of my professor’s old friends (meaning both ‘old friends’ and ‘OLD' friends—they were both very short older men in their late 70s) were there waiting for us.  They said we’d first go to the government offices to introduce ourselves, and then the local government would drive us out to the village.  It’s always interesting walking in smaller cities in China—partly because they’re not as modern as larger cities, and partly because the people there have had very little contact with Caucasians.  Many people do a double-take when they see me, surprised at the presence of a white person in their cities (perhaps they’ve never even seen a white person before), but I think possibly the best reaction I’ve ever seen was that of the little girl who looked straight at me, and then dropped her jaw and widened her eyes so much they seemed like they’d pop right out of her head.

At the government offices, we sat.  And sat.  Drank tea.  And sat.  My professor talked all about his work, and then we drank more tea, and sat some more.  The government official we were meeting with kept bringing in people for us to shake hands with, and presented us each with a thick book all about Xundian County.  Apparently, the car they’d arranged for us to take was having problems.  So, we sat, and after a couple hours, the car was finally fixed, and we were ready to be on our way.  Somehow I got stuck in the back seat between the two old Yi men, unable to take photos out the window.  What I was hoping would be a quick ride out to the villages (I was still fairly nauseous), turned out to be another two hour car ride, past coal power plants, vegetable fields, up hills, and around winding curves.  Outside the city, locals were riding in donkey carts, children were carrying vegetables from the fields back home, and dogs and chickens were rushing out of the way of our SUV.  At one point, a chicken decided to pass right in front of our car, only to let out its final BUKKKAAAAAAAA under our tire, squawking into death.  This raises the question, why did the chicken cross the road (right as we were driving by)?!?!? (sorry)

Our destination turned out to be more of a small town than a village. We were driven right into the government offices there, where we again sat and drank tea.  I told myself that this was all part of the necessary bureaucratic process of doing field research in China, but I was starting to get impatient and a little disheartened that such a large chunk of my short trip was being spent in offices.  I tried to keep up with the conversation, but it was in the local dialect of Chinese, mixed with a spattering of Yi, and I wasn’t having much luck comprehending.  It did seem, however, that the local official did not approve of my being there to do research.  He said we could stay in the apartments attached to the government building, have dinner there, and then have a tour of the area the next morning, but that I couldn’t interview any of the minorities in the area.  My professor and his friends had some words with him, and I sat back and hoped for the best.  They did tell me at one point, to be cautious taking photos.  They said in Chinese, “you can take photos, but this is a poor area—you should only take photos of the good things, not the bad.”  I agreed, thinking I could probably sneak a few shots of something if it was very interesting.

Still not feeling well, I tried to avoid alcohol at dinner, and failed.  Drinking here is a matter of trust and respect; besides, they want to see how well the large American can hold his alcohol.  I finally agreed to drink “a little”, which turned into a full glass of baijiu, and another after that (probably more as well, but I don't remember).  My stomach was not happy, and I was feeling fairly buzzed, and pretty tired.  So, you can imagine my excitement, when after dinner my professor informed me that I would now have three hours to conduct my interviews.  They’d found two speakers of the local dialect to help me go through word lists.  They put me in a small office and let me be with my two language consultants.  I handed them a pack of cigarettes to smoke, set up my recording equipment, and began.  I had done some prep work for the dialect that I wanted to research.  There had been some data collected there in the 80s, and I was hoping to create updated phonemic and tonal illustrations, and to analyze the differences.  I quickly realized, however, that this was not the dialect I had prepared for.  In fact, this was not even the village I had been told I’d be going to.  I continued with the interviews for another couple hours, and they eventually degraded when more people came in to help.  I appreciated the fact that so many people were interested in helping, but it’s difficult to do recordings and differentiate phonemes when there are five people yelling them at you.

That night I was led to the apartments attached to the police offices.  The bathroom had a dirty squatter toilet next to a bathtub covered in hair.  The light was flickering, and the place felt like it might have been used for torture at some point in the recent past.  (I say this jokingly, but you never know.)  It was cold, and I used my sleeping bag on top of the bed to stay warm.  I woke up that night shaking with a fever, and realized my nausea was probably being caused by a bacteria or virus of some sort.

The second day was a bit more interesting.  They took us on a tour of the surrounding villages.  My Yi companions were all intrigued by the large bulls, which evidently cost the equivalent of several thousand US dollars, and are used for bull fights.  The area was poor, but not impoverished.  We walked into the courtyards of some local homes and my professor talked with the local Yi, amused by the differences and similarities in their dialects.  In one home, there was an old dog tied up by a pile of hay.  It had sores all over its body, apparently from gnawing at itself, and was shaking from the pain.  It was a bit sad, and I couldn’t help staring at him for a while.  The Yi owner told me not to go near him.  I thought about animal rights in the States and veterinary care, and it made me realize that our concept of dogs as pets is really very modern.  For thousands of years, and still in villages like these, dogs have been raised for functional purposes—to scare off intruders, herd other animals, and in some cases, for food.

Later that day, we visited a Yi-Chinese Bilingual school.  The kids were all very giggly upon seeing me, and stopped playing basketball to point curiously.  The headmaster of the school showed us artwork done by the children.  They were being taught to make thread out of local plants (possibly cotton?), and then use that thread to sew traditional patterns.  Also, they were given assignments to write in both traditional Yi characters and Chinese characters.  Some of the girls, embarrassed, were forced to dance for us their traditional dances, and we walked around looking in classrooms.  It is encouraging to see a school like this one.  We often hear stories of forced cultural assimilation and language abandonment, but then there are also schools like this one that encourage children to learn Chinese, while maintaining their traditional language and ways of life.

After the school, we headed back to the county capital and went to dinner with a bunch of local officials and professors.  I made some contacts, managed to refuse alcohol, and stayed that night in a real hotel.  Before heading home on the following day, I was introduced to a 50 year old Yi doctor from the capital, who speaks the dialect I am currently investigating.  We talked, and he agreed to help me with my research.  I may go back up to the area and meet with him, or may call him and invite him down to Kunming to help.  The trip ended up being a bit shorter than I had hoped, but it was a good start.  I got a good context to begin my research, made some good contacts, and got several hours of recordings, which will take me quite some time to analyze (there’s a linguists' maxim that says it takes one hour to analyze one minute of recordings).

The weather has been beautiful since I got back.  Seventy and sunny each afternoon.  For all of you stuck in wintery chaos, feel jealous.  (Actually, I miss snow, and I’m a bit jealous, but I’ll be in Beijing for the holidays, and I’m sure I’ll get at least my share of cold temperatures.)  Happy Hanukkah to all!  Also, photos are up.

Yi Festival in EShan (峨山): Dancing, Bongs, & Bees

I went to class for the first time last week—a graduate class titled “Linguistic Field Research Analysis”.  I showed up 10 minutes early just to be safe, and found the class mostly filled, from the third row on back.  I took a seat in the front row all the way on the side by the window so the professor would know that I was there but I wouldn’t be in the center.  By the time the class was about to start, there were only three people in the front two rows:  me and two girls who had come in too late to get seats farther back (they sat behind me in the second row).  I turned around to talk to the girls, but they were intensely preparing for class.

The professor was 10 minutes late, and everyone continued talking while he began.  This class, as it turns out, is a first year graduate class of about 40 students.  Since it is mid-semester already, I expected some interesting discussions about field research or some case studies or something along those lines.  Instead, the professor spent the first hour and a half of the two-hour course individually quizzing each of the students on the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet)—a set of symbols and characters used by linguists to represent every phonetic sound and variation in all natural languages—and then he went into a brief discussion about linguistic tones.  While I found the discussion on tones at least somewhat useful, I was still bored throughout the entire class.  What’s more, every time a student made a mistake on the IPA, all of the students laughed, and the professor looked over at me nervously as if he had to prove himself and his class in my presence.  To be perfectly honest, I was more nervous that he was going to ask me to recite the IPA as well!  After class, I chatted with some of the graduate students and then went with the professor to his office.  There, he introduced me to a retired professor Zhang ChunDe (张纯德), who is a Yi member and an expert in the field of Yi studies.  (He has 7 or 8 books published on various aspects of Yi, including their culture, history, religion, writing, and language).

We had brief introductions, and Zhang ChunDe explained that he had been invited by the government of EShan (峨山—the first autonomous county of the Yi People in China) located in YuXi, about two hours south of Kunming, to the first annual Yi Ancestral Cultural Festival starting the next day, Wednesday, 11/25 and going through Friday, 11/27.  He said he’d asked, and I was allowed to join him.  It kind of threw me off at first, since Thursday was Thanksgiving and I had plans, and it was so soon, and I almost said no.  But, I realized after a moment that this type of event is why I’m here, and it was a good opportunity to make contacts and get involved in Yi society, which I shouldn’t pass up.  I thanked him and agreed to go.

He called me the next morning to tell me that we had tickets for a 1:30pm bus, and would meet at the bus station at 1.  I spent a little time packing, arguing with myself about how much clothes to bring for the three day trip, and eventually weeding down my extra bag, deciding I didn’t need to bring my computer and could manage with one pair of pants and a few t-shirts to wear under .  I arrived a little bit early, and waited.   By 1:20, I was starting to get a little bit nervous that I might be in the wrong place.  I called him, and he didn’t pick up.  Fortunately, at 1:28, he came hustling up to the station.  I grabbed his bag for him, and we ran through the station to find the bus.  (I also want to note that despite the fact that I was so proud of myself for bringing so little, he had with him even less, only a small bag, which it turns out was filled with books to give as gifts—no change of clothes.)

We found the bus, and he said that two other professors were supposed to be joining us.  I waited for him on the bus while he ran around looking for them and calling them.  Finally, the other people on the bus and the driver were getting impatient and threatened to leave without him, so I signaled him back, and we figured that they’d have to take the next bus.  A short two hours later, the bus stopped on the side of the highway and informed us that we’d reached our destination.  We got out and found no way to actually get off the highway (if it were just me, I would have just hopped the fence, but he didn’t seem like he had the interest or ability).  So, we walked a ways till we got to the off-ramp, and down around till we came to a toll booth where a line of girls dressed in traditional Yi costume were waiting to welcome guests attending the conference.  A man with a clipboard came up, and there was some handshaking and acknowledgments that we were there for the conference.  He ushered us into a nice SUV and drove us to another location to register.  There, we presented ourselves to another welcoming committee, who looked for our names in a registration book.  At this point, I realized that this festival/conference was much bigger and more serious than I had expected it to be.  Along with about 800 other professors, bureaucrats, and other individuals with interest in Yi studies, my name was also officially listed in the guest book as an “American Visiting Researcher”.  (It also said that I had a PhD—I didn’t correct them.)

They took us to a village about 10 minutes from the center of EShan, because they said the town was too crowded.  The hotel was nice enough.  I got my own room, and the village is known for its hot springs, so the shower water was naturally hot.  This festival, I spent a little time looking through the gift bag.  It contained a nicely sized wheel of Puer tea, a 120 page hardbound photo It was a bit awkward at first, but people were nice enough and seemed curious about my presence there.  Zhang Laoshi introduced me to everyone, and it turned out that he really knew EVERYONE; or, at least everyone knew him.  I was talking to two professors from Beijing on my own, when Zhang Laoshi came over, and they said they had his book on their desk back in Beijing.

Dinner was interesting.  I was very gracious, (though a bit out of my element) and I admit that I still don’t fully understand Chinese toasting culture.  I had never been at an event or dinner like this before, and at first it took me by surprise.  During dinner, people would get up with a bottle of BaiJiu and their glass, and walk around individually toasting specific people, then refilling both glasses in preparation for a later toast.  Making it worse, everyone was speaking very quickly in either really heavily accented Southwest Mandarin or in Yi.  Having communication difficulties and not really knowing my place, I stayed quiet.

After dinner they took us to a sort of opening ceremony.  The term opening ceremony may even be quite appropriate since they stole some of the music from the Olympics, and the event was held in a large outdoor stadium, with over 2 million USD in lighting, sound, fireworks, and other theatrics invested in it.

The next day we got up early for the unveiling of a large statue of Abudumu (阿普笃慕), the ancestor of the Yi people.  Abudumu apparently lived about 2200 years ago, and had 6 sons with 3 wives.  This festival was dedicated to him.  The large statue of him, along with statues of his 6 sons, was built in April or May of this year, but this was the official unveiling.  It was an interesting ceremony.  The Yi people have a rich culture and writing system, which comes from their shamanistic religion, Bimo.  A group of shamans were on hand to “bless” the statues.  There were also horn players, drummers, firecrackers, and a lot of people.

Later in the day we took part in the Yi Cultural and Economic Social Development Conference.  The first speaker was a Yi woman named Wu Xia.  She had obtained a PhD from a university in Hong Kong, and a second PhD from the University of Michigan.  Her presentation was on comparisons between the Yi people and native peoples of North and South America, with a focus on sun calendars.  (The Yi people use a 10-month sun calendar.)  Her talk was very interesting, and one of the only ones that I really understood, since she spoke in fairly clear Putonghua.  Everyone else was speaking with strong accents.

Later that night, we went to the finals of the Yi Flower Drum Dance (花鼓舞) competition.  The Flower Drum Dance is a famous dance of the Yi people, which includes (you guessed it) flowers and drums.  Often, the men dance with flowers while the women dance and play drums, but there are variations.  The competition included 11 teams, a singing performance, and a Guzheng (Chinese harp) performance by 4 young girls.  The dances were interesting and very enjoyable—a few of the teams included fusions between the traditional dance and modern dances such as hip hop and break dancing, but on the whole, I liked the more traditional dances a lot more.

We were originally supposed to go home the next morning, but the event coordinators offered to give us a VIP tour of the region, so we agreed.  They first took us to the YuanTian Bio-energy Development Company, where the president of the company gave us a tour of the hills growing the plants they use to produce bio-diesel and other oils.  It was very foggy out early in the morning, and there wasn’t much to see.  Later, we visited the Yu Lin Quan BaiJiu (Chinese alcohol) factory/brewery (?).  The company has been around for hundreds of years, and it was interesting to tour the facilities.  I was talking with the Vice President of the company, and he offered to let us all taste one of their very high quality baijius, which had been sitting for 20 years.  They poured it right out of the jugs, and it was very strong.  A bit spicy on the tongue with a strong warming feeling—it burned for a few minutes.

Next, we visited a tea mountain famous in the region for its Puer, green, and oolong teas.  We had lunch there, during which there was much drinking and more toasting.  It seems that the Yi tradition is to sing to each other when making a toast.  I was asked to sing an English song, and couldn’t think of anything appropriate, so I sang a song in Hebrew.  Afterwards, went on a tour of the mountain and tea gardens, and then got to taste three of their teas:  a green tea, a roasted green tea, and a Puer tea.  Normally each glass can cost up to $20 USD, but since we were VIP guests, it was of course on the house.  We all drank a lot, and they kept filling up our glasses.

While tasting the teas, the offered me a bong.  In Yunnan, it is customary to smoke a cigarette or straight tobacco through a large bong.  You can see it all over Yunnan, and it really is quite remarkable the first few times you see it.  I politely declined.

Dinner that night was interesting.  I really regret that I didn’t bring my camera.  On the table, there was a dog meat stew, a bowl of chicken heads, and a plate of fried bees.  I have seen bee larvae served in China before, but this was new to me.  It was literally a plate piled high with bees.  They had apparently been lightly breaded and fried quickly.  Many of them were bread-less.  After a bit of encouragement, I stuck a couple in my mouth.  They were fairly crispy, and not bad.  I was told that it’s an expensive dish.  Based on the trouble it must take to get the bees, I’m not surprised.  After eating a few, someone asked me, “you’re not allergic to bees, are you?”.  I said, “hmm… I really hope not!”

Since we’d stayed the extra day, it was decided that we’d go home the next morning.  All in all, it was an amazing trip.  I met a lot of people, learned a lot about the Yi, got VIP treatment, and had a good time.

On Sunday, I went for lunch at Zhang ChunDe’s house.  I showed up at 9am, and we spent three hours in his study reading books and discussing my research.  He lives with his wife, his daughter, and her husband and son.  His other daughter and her family, and two other couples and their children also came for lunch.  I must say, the boys who were around 7 or 8 were quite the小皇帝(litte emperors—spolied).  They wanted what they wanted and wouldn’t listen to their parents or grandparents without a big effort.  In any case, their parents made them perform their English, which they’re studying in school, in front of me, and then perform the piano.  I also played for them for a moment or so, and one of the boys played the accordion really quite well.  Zhang ChunDe invited me to the Yi Ten-Month Festival this upcoming Saturday, and also offered to take me to a village next week to begin my field research.  We are planning to go out to the village on Monday.  He said he’d go with me, find me a translator, a place to stay, make my arrangements and then leave me up there for the week.  I’m very grateful that he’s been so much help to me.  He’s a great contact to have made.

So, things are getting going.  I have already posted photos from last week, and I have a lot of videos which I will upload at some point.

New Video Gallery, Settling In, & Banana Smoothies!

**Before I begin, please notice that there is a new link above called “Video Gallery”, where I have posted and will continue to post videos from my trips.   (Also, I’ve posted a bunch of new photos in the “Photo Gallery” section.)**

I woke up this morning to the sound of elephants, followed by a lion roaring in the distance.  Despite the fact that I’m in Southwest China, there are no jungles within earshot; rather, it’s my proximity to the zoo that woke me.  It’s not always that loud, but every now and then a lion or elephant can be heard mildly in the distance.

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The night I moved in (last Wednesday), I met the agent and his coworker, the landlord and her parents at the apartment.  They treated me as a guest in what would soon be my home—asked me to have a seat, handed me a glass of water.  The father of the landlord, a very cute old Chinese man, then proceeded to take me through the apartment, showing me every knob and contraption as if I were an alien.  I let him have his fun.  “These are the light switches,” he said, flicking them on and off to make sure I knew that they controlled the light.  “This is the toilet.”  He flushed it.  “And this,” he began with an excited tone, “this is the television.”  I went to press the button on the TV to turn it on, showing him that I knew what was what.  “No!  You don’t need to do that.  You can use this!”  He was holding the remote.  He then sat down on the couch, and motioned for me to sit next to him, which I did.  He showed me that pressing the right arrow would make the channels go up, and pressing the left arrow would make the channels go down.  And then the whole system could be shut down like that, with the press of a button.  Truly amazing!

I signed another contract, noting all of the furniture in the place and specifying that I was responsible for paying what utilities I used.  I thanked them all, and then they left.  I was alone.  I have traveled on my own.  I’ve been by myself for long periods of time.  But I’ve never lived on my own before.  It’s a scary feeling to suddenly realize that you are alone in a place.  I immediately went to work putting out some of my own stuff, trying to make it feel like it was mine.  The next day I did some shopping, had the internet set up, and so on.  I spent the rest of the week getting used to my new apartment, cleaning, shopping, and consulting with experts in my research field, trying to more specifically plan my research project.

On Friday, I went to a pickup game of ultimate Frisbee at the Yunnan Nationalities University.  The game is organized by a group of expats—students and English teachers—who get together three times a week to play.  It was really nice to be around people, and get some exercise.  Though, it reiterated that I’m still very out of shape.  Interestingly, three of the people who play are friends of one of my friends from Harbin, and one of the girls is from my hometown, Cherry Hill.  It is truly a small world.  When it got too dark to play, we all headed out for dinner at a Muslim restaurant on WenLin Jie (the main expat street).  It really was a good feeling to not be eating dinner alone, and I think that I’ll probably go play ultimate with them at least once a week.

Today, I slept in, and then decided to go to the Second Hand Market to look for a bike and an electric oven.  It seems that the majority of the second hand markets in the city have already been closed down and demolished.  The only one that I could tell for sure was still standing was one by the airport.  I hopped on a bus, and headed for the market, forgetting that the street approaching the airport is currently under construction.  After being at a standstill in traffic for quite some time, I finally made it to my destination.  The Second Hand Market was not quite what I had expected.  There were rows and rows of crap:  cheap crap, broken crap, fake crap, stolen crap, old crap, and pornographic crap.  I tried to haggle for a bike, but the prices they were asking were ridiculous, and they looked at me like I was crazy when I told them what I was willing to pay.  What’s more, there were no ovens in sight.  (Chinese people are not too big on the whole baking thing, and microwaves seem to have filled their heating of food needs.)  So, I left slightly defeated, and pushed my way onto another bus to wait in traffic.

After getting home, I had a banana smoothie across the street from my apartment.  The good news is that they deliver.  So, if I am in desperate need of a banana smoothie, and I’m too lazy to walk downstairs and directly across the street, they will come to me!  I plan to start attending a class or two this week, as well as posting ads for a language consultant to help me begin my research.  I’m slowly getting used to life here, and I’m also planning some trips (research-related, of course).  As I mentioned above, I have posted a bunch of photos and videos—look for the new “Video Gallery” link on the interface above, or click “Videos” on the sidebar!

Snow in Beijing(?!?) & Coming to Kunming

My week in Beijing was spent with friends—drinking, eating, exploring.  We went to the Olympic area to take photos of the Bird’s Nest and the Water Cube.  I met a friend’s friend’s friend there, a Chinese guy named Jack, who had volunteered during the Olympics.  He said that his job had been to explain to people how to use a western-style toilet (not the most glamorous of jobs).  In WuDaoKou (a popular expat area near the Universities), what had once been carts selling pirated DVDs, were now carts selling pirated books!  They’re probably onto something.  Nowadays, movies can easily be downloaded for free.  No need to spend Y5-10 on a disk that might not even work.  Books on the other hand!...  Who wants to sit in front of their computer and read a book?  Besides, DVDs are all equally priced, but it seems perfectly logical to pay more for a larger book (even though they probably pay an even cost).  Their selection wasn’t bad at all, actually.  Copies of Dan Brown’s newest novel, along with actually good and interesting books filled the carts.  I bought copies of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger, and Lolita by Nabokov for a total of Y40 (about $6 USD)—not sure if I overpaid.  I would have bought even more had I had more room in my luggage.

Halloween was fun but not so Halloween-y.  I went out with some friends for drinks and then to KTV (karaoke).  Every expat club and bar in the city seemed to be having a Halloween party, and flocks of people crowded the streets dressed in the typical costumes—fake blood, lots of makeup, sexy goth for many of the girls, and so on.  In my friend’s apartment complex, many of the Chinese children were enjoying the Western holiday as well, storming through the halls trick or treating.

It was a rainy, cold night.  My last night in Beijing.  I woke up the next morning to a blanket of snow covering the rooftops of the city.  Snow in Beijing?!?  On Halloween?!?  Something didn’t seem right.  As far as I knew, it hadn’t even really snowed in Harbin yet.  Well, as it turns out, something wasn’t right.  The Chinese government had been seeding clouds (making it rain) since just prior to the Olympics, in the hopes of clearing out some of the pollution then, and ending droughts.  Beijing had recently been seeing a dry spell, and the government meteorologists saw fit to take action.  Unfortunately, someone forgot to check the temperature.  What they hoped would be rain, changed overnight to snow.  Check out this article for more details.  (And just in case you’re wondering, despite the pollution, the snow still falls white.)

While I normally enjoy snow, the timing wasn’t very good, as my flight to Kunming was scheduled to leave at 2pm.  After some goodbyes and a two-hour delay, during which time I got to reading my new books, I was on my way to Kunming, with no place to stay, and very little concept of the city.  We landed at around 7:30pm.  And I shuffled out of the airport to find a taxi.  The Lonely Planet guide came in handy, and I found a hotel just by the Green Lake Park (a nice park in the center of the city right near the universities).  It seemed like an ideal place to start out.

The next morning I went to my school to report my arrival and begin my registration.  I had a government-mandated medical exam on Tuesday.  It cost around Y320, and I’d heard that it can be a long process.  Fortunately, I had the luck to arrive a half-an-hour prior to lunch.  Everyone, therefore, seemed to be rushing me through.  They gave me a form to carry around, and I went room by room until there weren’t any more blanks to be filled in.  They began by checking my blood pressure, then down the hall for an EKG (they put metal clamps on my ankles and wrists, and a bunch of squeeze-suction sensors on my chest—I felt like I was about to be tortured).  Next door, they instructed me to take off my shirt for an UltraSound—she squeezed the gel all around my abdomen and quickly checked all sides of me. I asked her if I was pregnant, to which she responded with a perfectly serious face that men could not be pregnant and that my uterus wouldn’t be in that place anyway.  Across the hall, I had a chest X-Ray, then upstairs for a urine test.  A flimsy clear plastic Dixie-like cup with no cover was provided, which I then had to fill up on the next floor up and carry back downstairs (I did my best not to spill).  Finally, a blood test—5 vials and no Band-Aid.  Overall, it took 20 minutes and gave me an interesting view of medical exams in China.

The rest of my week was spent eating and apartment hunting.  This week I’ve had Indian food, Thai food, Yunnan-style hotpot, some traditional Kunming noodles, Hui muslim cuisine, pizza, and so on.  Apartment hunting has not been a fun process.  I think that I’ve looked at about 20 apartments.  I wanted to be relatively close to the center of the city, near some expats, and someplace with at least one separate bedroom (preferably two).  I looked at a number of places to the northeast of the city center, which I later deemed to be too new and too far.  Then, I found a complex just to the west of the city center called ThinkUK, with a good balance of expats and well-to-do Chinese families, some restaurants, a café, and plenty of security.  It seemed like a good bet, but the only suitable place I could find was on the first floor, and it didn’t seem that safe.

I also looked around the Green Lake area (closer to the universities), and saw a lot of old, Chinese-style apartments, many with only squatter toilets.  Finally, yesterday, after consulting about 8 agents and being ready to settle for the first-floor place in ThinkUK, I got a phone call from an agent about a place near the universities.  I told him I didn’t want to meet, because I was too busy, and he guilted me into it by explaining how hard he’d worked to find this place for me.  (In China, agents only make money if they find you a suitable apartment, in which case you pay them one month’s worth of rent.)  I agreed to look at it, even though I wasn’t expecting much.

It was off of YuanXi Road, a crowded food street right by the east (?) gate of YunDa (Yunnan University) and right up the road from Yunnan Minzu Daxue (Yunnan Nationalities University—where I’m affiliated).  The building was set back from the main road, and was actually fairly quiet.  It backed up to a tree- and flower-covered hill, which I believe (on the other side), is home to a temple and a zoo.  The apartment was on the 5th floor with no elevator, and I was beginning to regret meeting the agent.  When we arrived, however, it was actually quite nice.  Spacious and comfortable, three bedrooms and a bathroom with a western toilet.  The kitchen seemed old but usable, and it had a brand new washing machine and refrigerator.  The back windows look out onto the hill, covered in trees and flowers, but still letting in some light.  They quoted me a monthly price, and I left and considered it for a while.  I called the agent a few hours later, and offered him a monthly price Y500 lower than their quoted price.  He consulted with the landlord, called me back and told me it was too low.  So, I raised my offer by Y100.  He said they’d talk it over and let me know in the morning.

This morning, I called him and he said they didn’t want to rent it to me anymore.  My offer was too low, and I wasn’t staying for long enough time to make it worth it.  I told him to raise my offer by another Y100, and then ask the landlord again.  A few hours later, I still hadn’t heard back.  I texted the agent and told him to let me know as soon as possible, because I was going to make an offer on another place.  (Negotiation games are frustrating.)

Meanwhile, I went to a Bird & Flower Market in ‘Old’ Kunming, filled with caged birds, cats, and dogs.  Some of the animals seemed very scared and it was kind of sad.  Oddly, I failed to locate any flowers.  A man on the street told me the market was much smaller now than it had once been.  A bit later I found a piano hall, and practiced for a little while.  I was beginning to lose hope.  About halfway through the third movement of moonlight sonata, however, I got a call from my agent, and he told me that if I agreed to pay all ten months upfront they’d rent it to me.  I told him that wasn’t possible, but that I’d like to meet with him in his office to discuss it.  I cut my practice session short and headed back to his office by Green Lake Park.  After a bit of waiting, negotiating, mutual lying, and explaining how I didn’t have so much money because of the distribution of my scholarship, we agreed on 3 months upfront, I put down a security deposit and scheduled another meeting for the following morning to sign a contract.  This is the first time that I’ve looked for an apartment, and it didn’t help that the whole process was carried out in Chinese in an unfamiliar city.  All in all, it’s been a frustrating week, and the sooner I can move out of this hotel and into an apartment, the better.

(I owe photos and more interesting descriptions/stories.  I’ll find time after I move in on Monday or Tuesday.)

P.S.  The weather here is amazing!!!  Blue skies (mostly), mild temperatures, and lots of sunshine.  I really enjoy this city, and once I settle into my apartment and finish registering, I’m sure I’ll have a chance to explore it and really enjoy my time here.