Monday, January 30, 2006

Best of times, worst of times

Well, we're back from our jaunt to Thailand. It was fun, but stressful as well. A definite business trip rather than a vacation. I hope to get around to writing about it over the next few days, but right now it's back to school, ten days' worth of laundry, cleaning up the accumulated dust and answering my Christmas mail. (We finally received a nice bunch of Christmas cards.) Of course, the likelihood of my actually writing as much as I've planned is slim. Life will go on and I'll end up giving a truncated report in order to comment on the latest events. I've been here before. This time, however, you can get another account of things from the child.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

This isn't like America

So sayeth Siu Wan. She and Yau Neih were walking through the basketball courts, which were dark and deserted. On two sides of the courts are some dorms, in a building six stories high. The light from the dorm windows illuminates the courts. But since most folks have left campus, the dorms and courts are dark. In America, of course, there would be separate lights for the basketball players--a luxury the folks here haven't decided to invest in. I'm tempted to say that I prefer Chinese frugality to American opulence. But then, I don't play basketball.

The occasion for the ladies' stroll was coming home from English corner. Since we were going to be in town, we thought we'd offer a little chat time to whichever students show up. Both this week and last we had three students show up--five total. (Emily is the one with perfect attendance.) The small group has been a nice change of pace. It has allowed us to go a bit in depth in the conversation and has been stretching the kids' language ability. Last week, instead of simply asking where folks would like to visit, we asked why they wanted to go where there. This led us to talk a bit about what being a "developed" country means. This week we talked about favorite dishes and tried to get the students to describe how to make them. Fortunately, I had eaten before English corner, because two of the dishes sounded pretty good. (Lionel described something that sounded like boiled flower blossoms. It didn't sound good, necessarily, but intriguing.)

I suppose I should attempt some grand, unifying paragraph to tie in deserted basketball courts and micro-English corners, but that's too much work. It's an interesting interlude in our journey, this holiday break. A time of quiet and solitude. (Well, until Saturday when we head to Kunming and then Thailand and will be busybusybusy.) I wonder, should we be allowed a second year here if we'll again choose to stay on campus over the break or will follow the crowd and do some traveling. Guess we'll have to see how it all plays out.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Walking past the graveyard


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Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.
This must have been "Weekend de los muertos" or something. Everywhere we turned we saw tombstones. Or I suppose they might be called sepulchres. I don't know. I'm too lazy to do a google search. Anyway, one thing we discovered on our hikes is that there are plenty of tombs on the local hills. Rather large granite things, about six foot high, maybe three feet wide and.... oh, I don't know how long. Five, six feet, maybe? The things are on a hillside and I've never been inclined to walk around one. The fronts generally have a little alcove in which is placed a plaque with Chinese characters. All I've been able to decipher are dates. Anyway, I think I've read that cremation is the preferred form of disposal around here, so I'm guessing that behind the plaque (or the bricks, as shown in the photo) are the ashes of the dearly departed. The things looked vaguely familiar, even though I've never seen their like in a U.S. cemetery. It finally occurred to me that they resemble my old Apple monitor that I had bought with my Mac IIci. When I had this epiphany, I immediately instructed my family that should I die here, I want them to get me one of these Chinese tombs and have a little Apple logo carved into the corner.

Now, we've passed by a few graves on some of our mountain hikes here. It might be one or two, or even a dozen. Just a handful of graves clumped together. There didn't seem to be much organization to it. Apparently, folks just buy a bit of the mountain from the government and set up their grave. So, this weekend, with everybody out of town, we did a family hike and decided to explore a new trail. We headed up Ba Shan and after a few dead ends, started heading up the hill. Well, soon we came up to a grave, and then there was another... and another. It seemed like everybody and his brother were planted here. We discovered, we thought, the popular burial site. But the views were pretty good, so there was no cause to complain.

The next day, Yau Neih and I set out for our Sunday "exploring". We've fallen into the habit of investigating some of the sections of town we don't frequent. I decided that I wanted to follow a particular road that had some sort of landmark at the end. You see, we have a map of the city and I've deciphered some of the symbols. I can tell where the church, shrines and temples are located (the mosque didn't make it onto the map for some reason), but there was one symbol--a little rectangle on a base--that I couldn't place. I was thinking it was some monument or something. So anyway, we went off to investigate. It was a pleasant walk, albeit uphill for a good part of the way. Eventually we came across a place where folks were carving away at granite blocks. An interesting sight. We walked a bit further and found a couple more "granite shops". There was also a tomb being assembled. We thought we must have found the carver section of town. Then we circled a corner and could see a little pagoda peeking over a stone wall. I figured that this was our destination. As we got closer, it turned out that the top of the hill was essentially the city graveyard. The road curved around the walled off area. (We didn't try to enter, but the few glimpses we got looked nice) On the other side of the road were all sorts of tombs interspersed with trees. It was like all these stone structures hiding amongst the forest. There was also a section behind a chain link fence that had more Western-style tombstones. We reached the end of the pavement and were treated to a beautiful view of a valley and distant hills. To the west, the neighboring hill was covered with tombs like an Eastside housing development. There was quite a strange beauty to it all. And of course, it was something that I was unable to capture on film. (Or pixels, as the case may be.)

After that we turned back and headed home, another mystery solved and another place that invited further investigation.

Sunday, January 15, 2006

Dancing 'neath the milky moon

Another week, another change. They packed up "Tent Mall" this week. They started vacating on Monday, and despite some stubborn ones eking out an extra day or two of sales, were completely gone by Thursday morning. (Well, they did leave some trash behind.) So all that day, we were wondering if the street dancers would return to their usual spot. Like I mentioned just after Christmas, they had continued to dance (and block traffic) while Tent Mall was setting up. But once the stalls opened for business, there was no dancing to be seen. Unfortunately, that didn't change Thursday evening, leaving the street seem more deserted than ever.

So Friday night, Yau Neih decided a quest was in order. In times past, the dancers had gathered nightly save for nights when it was raining. On one such night, though, we had heard some of their regular tunes wafting over the rice paddies. Yau Neih thought this indicated that they had some alternate dancing spot. She had often talked about trying to track that place down, but it wasn't until now that she managed to do so. After supper and dishes we ventured forth and headed north, from where we kind of, sort of heard the music coming that one night weeks before. The neighborhood seemed quite dead, especially for a Friday night. Of course, I had to remind myself that it was the middle of January and most of the folks here were not raised in cold, northern lands. Anyway, that neighborhood proved to be a bust, so next we thought to head to a city park that had just opened up a couple of weeks ago.

When we arrived there, sure enough, there were people dancing. Of course, being removed from their usual setting, it was difficult to tell if they were "our" dancers or some other group. We didn't recognize the song, which was being led by some guy waving little pink pom-poms. It was a smaller group than had been showing up at the intersection. Also, many of the people were wearing some sort of ID badge--like all of the airport employees had just got off of work and started getting down in the park. It seemed different enough that we hung back and stood and watched for a while. The first thing we realized was that the song and dance that they were performing was a new one. We had witnessed the teaching of a new dance before. They play the song over and over in an attempt to get it right. So we listened to this disco-y style tune play over and over again. Rather tedious, but we were busy looking for familiar faces rather than watching the performance.

Bit by bit we started to recognize folks, and finally we saw the two ladies who had taken Yau Neih under their wing. One was in the crowd of dancers, the other--who speaks a little English and will smack you one if you're out of step--was off to the side with a handful of people who were doing a ballroom style dance. She soon caught sight of us and came over to greet us. She, too, had an ID tag. I couldn't read any of it, of course, but it included a picture of a group of dancers. An official dancers I.D. Yau Neih tried to ask our friend about it, but she just acknowledged its existence and dropped the subject. She then hurried back to her waiting partner and we stayed and watched the circle. Finally, they stopped running the new song and started up with some more familiar tunes. Our friend then went back to the circle and motioned us over. We weren't sure if untagged people were allowed, but figured we'd trust her invitation. At one point our friend broke ranks and pointed us out to one of the dudes in the middle of the circle. I suspect it was to grant us special dispensation or something. Anyway, the guy smiled and nodded to us, and our friend rejoined the circle. At nine, when the dancing ended, we asked again if we needed an ID. Our other friend seemed to hesitate, but the first said that we didn't need one. (Sometimes it's good to be the foreigner.) We also confirmed that the park was the new dance hall for our group.

On the way back, Yau Neih and I tried to sort things out. I speculated that maybe the dancers had offended the powers that be by blocking traffic when Tent Mall started. Maybe that's why they had to move and now need permits. Or maybe it's just that the local authorities have finally cracked down on what had been an unregulated gathering. We had no way of knowing. We did finally decide that we'd visit the group again, but be certain to be carrying our passports and some cash in case we suddenly have to get our own "dance tickets". In a way, it's kind of depressing. It was delightful to discover a group of folks who, to our eyes, had just decided to take over a section of little used street and have some fun. So much different from Seattle where they'd probably have to have a permit,insurance, environmental studies, public hearings and stuff like that. But now it's more "developed" and suddenly not as fun. Ah, well, it's better than nothing.

Thursday, January 12, 2006

A twisted alleyway


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Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.
This is an impulse post. I was posting some of my older pix to Flickr. When it occurred to me one little, unimportant lesson living here has taught me. There have been many times when I've been reading some historical fiction or sword-and-sorcery tale and the characters get lost in "the twisting alleyways" of some ancient city. I never got it. I grew up in Chicagoland--a modern metropolis built on flat ground and having a regular grid of wide streets. I thought it ludicrous that someone could get lost like that. Even in Seattle, where streetgrids are more likely to yield to hills and waterways, it's pretty easy to keep your bearings. But here, in this ancient land, I finally understand. I've finally had an opportunity to traverse a narrow street, closely lined with buildings. I've had that street subtly turn direction and have found myself completely clueless as to which way I was going. If I was running from city guards or murderous assassins, I would have been in big trouble.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

I feel the earth...

Either my cold is getting quite worse, or I just felt an earth tremor. I'm hoping that it's local and not the tremor of some larger quake many miles away. In the States I'd be turning on the TV and flicking through channels to see if there's any news about it. Here... I guess I may never know.
Afternoon Update: guess it wasn't me. Here's the news report. Nice to know that nobody was hurt.

Dry season

Y'know, if we were hunter-gatherers, we'd be packin' up and following the herd. It's getting to be that a soul can't find anything to eat around here.

We've developed a routine here, as far as our dining habits are concerned. In the morning, everybody grabs what they want for breakfast, as we have no set wake-up time. We usually make up some oatmeal, grab a hunk of bread or, if we have it, pour out a bowl of cold cereal. Since my in-laws' visit, we've also started patronizing some of the food vendors set up just outside of campus. From them we can get a pancake, hash browns or a flat pork dumpling for about 12 US cents. For lunch, we'll eat up leftovers or, more likely, head over to the cafeteria. Then finally, we make a nice dinner for ourselves in the evening. ("We" being defined as usually Yau Neih.)

Unfortunately, this whole Spring Festival thing has been threatening our livelihood. Or at least our routine. First off, we're running out of pig bread. Okay, that really can't be blamed on the Spring Festival. But for some unknown reason, the bakery on campus, who had baked up our most recent batch, has closed its doors. I suppose they could just be taking a long vacation while the students are gone, but there's newspaper taped over all the windows. That seems like a somewhat permanent condition to me. We tried to go to our second most recent bread supplier, but they said they were too busy to bake us some bread. "Maybe in March," they said.

Now the bread thing isn't so bad, breakfast-wise, if you can go out and get yourself a nice, inexpensive meal from the International Cart of Pancakes. The problem is, the day before yesterday, when I wanted to get Ga Dai a buckwheat cake, the pancake lady wasn't there. In fact, a couple of vendors seemed to have been missing from the college "food court". Then this morning, as we went out shopping late in the morning, the pork and taters cart was missing as well. This puts a serious damper on my morning.

But the worst blow came at lunch time. We ventured over to the cafeteria, lunch pails in hand, and found the place closed up with the chairs on the tables and a big sign on the door saying... Okay, I don't know what it was saying, I can't read Chinese. But whether it said "Aw, to heck with it, we're going on holiday, too," or "All our employees have keeled over dead with bird flu," it means that we need to scrounge for leftovers.

Actually, I shouldn't whine too loudly. We've got plenty of pre-packaged foodstuffs from the States for Christmas, so we have no need to go hungry. Plus we can always do more cooking at home. Or, if we're really determined to eat someone else's cooking, we can emulate the hunter-gatherers and travel a bit afield for our hit of Yunnan cuisine. I suppose I should be thankful for the excuse to get out and about.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Bored


100_0356
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.
Ah, what to write, what to write? I seem to be in the doldrums here, creatively and emotionally. The other day I ended up poring over my iPhoto library to find all the shots that I might want to put up on Flickr, but haven't yet. (I posted this one here because I can and I haven't had a picture here in a while.) While I was going through orientation they mentioned that the best time to take pictures is when you first get here, since everything is new and exciting. I think I've definitely passed that stage. We went "exploring" today and I didn't take out the camera once. Ah, well.

I think another factor in all this is that school is out. For the past few months, campus life is practically all we know. Now comes the semester break and everybody takes off for somewhere else. Now what do we do?... Ha! Listen to me. "We." My students are still here. So are the dishes and the laundry. I shouldn't be bored. But my social life is essentially the weekly English corners, so I guess that explains it. Anyway, I suppose if we want to interact with folks, we'll have to leave this little bubble we call campus and maybe meet some of the other folks in this town. But that might actually take some effort.

Ah, enough rambling. I should go to bed. I've got to interact with a bank teller and ticket agent tomorrow.

Enough already!

Well, I am pleased to announce that I have allowed Ga Dai to have her own blog. It is my hope that she will expend most of her energy and creativity in Help, I'm a Bug! rather than the comments of this blog. And if she doesn't, well, I've made sure that she's enabled comments on her blog.

It was a bit of a challenge finding a proper blogspot name for her. She didn't want Ga Dai, of course. She tried "CelticGirl" but that was taken. Then she tried "CelticLass". Ditto. I suggested "CelticBrat" or "CelticKraut", but instead she tried "ScotsLass". Still no luck. Finally she chose "LoneValley", which managed to stick. However, she signed her first real blog entry "Saro". I don't understand but, hey, it's her blog.

Update: Hmm, it appears that she did not take my suggestion for naming her blog. Kids....

Friday, January 06, 2006

You want fires with that?

Well, the culture shock appears to be more like back-to-school blues. But life here in Yunnan continues to be one of learning and adjusting. Last night's example was dining out. Now in the U.S., we understand dining out quite well. There are two restaurant kingdoms: fast food and sit-down. And each kingdom has its own subdivisions. For example, sit-down joints range from family diners to the expensive restaurants that we avoid. (Except for Georgia's, when Balkanarama is playing there.) Now, Chinese restaurants are still a bit of a mystery. While we've figured out a few guidelines--pushcart food is cheap but tasty, a place with an English menu will cost you more--we still have a lot to learn.

Last night we went to a restaurant that we called a barbeque joint. The kitchen, an open-air grill, sits in front of the restaurant proper. We had gone there back in November, when some of our colleagues were visiting. The food was delicious and we decided to try it again. Of course our colleagues are fluent in Mandarin and have years of experience living in China. But, hey, you can't learn anything by sitting at home, right? Ordering was a breeze, since all the foodstuffs are sitting out on a big table next to the kitchen. We got a couple of pork skewers and chicken skewers, and then we saw some skewers that appeared to be beef. What a novelty! (If you had told me last year that I would be living without beef I would never have believed you.) At this point we became aware that we were building an Atkins dinner for ourselves. We tried to remember what we had eaten last time, but all I could remember was the meat, the eggplant (which was way too spicy) and the little buns (which weren't on the table). But Yau Neih was up to the task and found a plate of potatoes and was also able to order us a vegetable soup. So having ordered, we were escorted way to the back of the restaurant to await our dinner.

Our meat courses arrived first. I dug into the beef and enjoyed the grilled flavor. Then I went to the pork and chicken and discovered one unknown fact: our friends had ordered things without peppers. Help, I'm a bug! Still, they were little pieces of meat and still good, so I chocked them down. While we were considering the spicy meat, however, our memories of our last visit began to return. This was an establishment that did not serve rice with the meal. Now I have come to rely on bland rice to cut the taste of anything my toungue considers unpleasant. Thankfully, the soup quickly arrived and the damp greens served to ease my burning toungue. The meat and the soup were soon gobbled up. Yau Neih and Siu Wan went back out front to order more beef and to see if the restaurant had added any buns to the menu yet. About that time the potatoes arrived. They had been sliced and roasted over the grill. Delicious! But--gau ming aa!--covered with peppers. I was at war with myself. How many of those could I eat before my tongue burst into flame? Anyway, we managed to down the plateful and I swore that the next time I would bring my own rice. Or bread. Or ice cream. Something to cut the spice.

Anyway, in the end we polished off the beef, paid our bill and left. We were still not reconciled to the lack of buns, though. Fortunately, this particular restaurant was at the end of a bazaar that was lined with barbeque shops--all having their pantries open for inspection. We strolled along and about halfway down the row we spotted a shop with buns. We went over and ordered two skewers worth. The folks there immediately motioned for us to go into the dining room and have a seat. We declined and by saying the Chinese word for "bag" and using my fingers to sign "walking", we communicated that we wanted our order "to go." They accepted that, but could not quite grasp the concept of American fast food. Instead of letting us stand there to wait for our food, they brought stools out for us to sit upon and a pot of tea for us to drink. It was quite embarassing to have all that fuss for eight lousy buns. Anyway, about the same time I thought that I might have a photo-op, the buns were ready. We paid and then headed home, savoring our toasted bread. Next time we'll check for buns before we order.

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Culture shock!

Or is it just post-holiday doldrums? Or maybe the back-to-school blues? Whatever it is, the mood around here is rather depressed. Siu Wan seems to be having the worst of it, but we all seem a bit down and cranky.

Now back home, I might not have even taken notice of this, but living overseas, every emotional change is cause for contemplation. In training we were warned about the dreaded culture shock. Or culture fatigue, as some prefer to call it. It's that point in one's foreign relocation where the excitement of a the new experience has worn off and the daily effort of trying to function in an alien milieu becomes too much. They said it should hit around the six month mark--February 14th for us--but of course, that's only just a guideline. So you just sort of live your life, peeking into every shadow to look for the boogie man. It would be a lot easier if it was like jury duty or something: You'd get your notice that it was your turn for culture shock, you'd have your emotional breakdown, you'd get your official culture shock certificate and then you could get back to work. Oh, well. If wishes were fishes, we would all cast nets. Best thing to do is to try and be up and helpful and make it through the day.

Monday, January 02, 2006

Should auld aquaintance be forgot?

New Year's Eve was rather uneventful. This is the first year in a while in which I haven't been working. But except for English corner, there wasn't any party to attend. I did stay up until midnight, however. I heard lots of firecrackers outside and people yelling. If I remember correctly, that's all that happens in my neighborhood back in the States, too. Yawn! Maybe I should revive the New Year's tradition I had in high school--watching whatever Marx Brothers movie WGN screened at 3 am. (I think I stayed up to watch it two years in a row and then the third time I got smart and set my alarm clock.)

Sunday was spent doing chores and today was the first day of school. It was a long one. Part of it was due to slightly ill and lethargic children, the other part was that we're starting a new school year/level of curriculum. (I know, that's weird. But since the kids' birthdays fall in December and January, we figured we'd adjust the school year to match.) When I took over teaching this past September, I slavishly followed Yau Neih's schedule. That worked well, but now I'm feeling confident enough to start tweaking things on my own. Actually, the Sonlight curriculum we use for Ga Dai is pretty tightly structured. It's Siu Wan's Oak Meadow curriculum that requires some effort to schedule. Just like any aspect in life: the more freedom you have, the hder you have to work. Oh, well. At least it's useful work.