Anybody home?
Maybe you've wondered what happened to me. (Or maybe you just shrugged and clicked the "Next Blog" button.) I don't know. I've been
meaning to write but, well, life just was busy and I was just lazy.
Kunming was fun, albeit a whirlwind trip. The bus arrived an hour late, about 8:00 am, which left us an hour and a half before we had to be at our first meeting. We got to the hotel, checked in and headed straight to the breakfast buffet. Mmmm, those noodles have never tasted better. One of our colleagues also came down for breakfast, so we were able to touch base with her. After breakfast, we headed upstairs and were able to put down our suitcases and brush our teeth before the meeting.
The rest of the weekend was nice but unremarkable: a couple of meetings, a handful of meals together and a bit of shopping. We did have a corporate outing to a new zoo in town. But that's tomorrow's post. Sunday evening we headed back to the bus station for a sleeper bus ride home. That bus left two hours late, yet we managed to get home only an hour after we were supposed to. (Or maybe the travel time officially changed from 12 to 13 hours? I don't know, I'm illiterate here.) We got home, Yau Neih hit the shower (she had a ten o'clock class), and I hit the food vendors. My buckwheat pancake tasted even better than the noodles. But then, it's pretty hard to top the Pancake Lady.
Travelin' blues
I'm rather lethargic today--really don't feel like writing. We're spending the weekend in Kunming, meeting with our colleagues and all that. That means we have to head out to the bus station at 6:15 or so to catch the 7:00 pm sleeper bus. Anyway, there was no school today, as we took a week off for the trip. But it didn't really feel like a day off. I didn't feel like doing anything significant, lest I not be able to wrap it up by this evening. I didn't really enjoy being idle, either. Oh, well. I did tie up a few odds and ends. Maybe my mood will pick up on the bus.
Chance of showers
Well, the water splashing festival has come and gone. It lasted three days around here, Saturday through Monday. We didn't quite get into the thick of things. On Saturday we had a little Easter party for the students--basically eggs and crayons and a few munchies--so we spent all morning in the apartment getting ready. Afterwards, Yau Neih and I ventured down to the store for groceries. We saw some people walking around with water basins, but only one seemed inclined to water the foreigners and that was with a brief sprinkling. From what the students told us, the big action seemed to be happening down at the park. Oh, well. It would have been nice to have checked it out, but there was dinner and English corner to tend to.
On Sunday, we went to the big Easter service, but we avoided the Easter finery lest we get splashed. I wasn't expecting much, however. We had been told that each day of the festival had a different focus. Saturday was for splashes of happiness, Sunday was for love and Monday was for splashing enemies. (I neglected to ask if this was a malicious splashing or a kind of "love your enemies" thing.) I figured that as a middle aged
lao wai, I was safe. As we rode along on the bus, we could see that some people were out splashing. It occurred to me that the well wishes might be more general and not limited to one's true love. As we headed away from downtown, the splashing seemed to increase. A couple of people even splashed our bus! (One group seemed to be a bunch of restaurant employees. When we got off the bus we started heading down the road to the church. Suddenly we heard shouts and saw a gang of young men running towards us. We had got off the bus with a few young ladies and, well, I figured the boys weren't interested in me. Sure enough, the girls scattered--screaming--and the gang hunted them down. No light sprinkles here, the bucketfuls of water went flying. Actually, I should mention that my family scattered, too. Yau Neih and Siu Wan hurried down the road. I kept my pace and Ga Dai, alas, went running with the girls and got splooshed. She took it rather well, as did the other girls. I pulled out my handkerchief and held it out to my daughter so that she could wipe off her glasses. At that point, some young punk, who obviously had not read the memo about Sunday being "love" day, broadsided me with a bucketful. Fortunately he missed my spectacles, since my hankie got decidedly wet and useless.
After that, the festival was back to boring. We got some sprinkles on the way back from church. A delivery van from a local bakery was spritzing folks with a squirt gun as it rolled down the street. But it was nothing to write home about. On Monday we again went shopping. This time there were more folks out and a couple of people did take shots at the middle aged
lao wai. By then I had figured out that no matter the roots of the holiday, most of the participants were splashing for the fun of it. So I didn't take any splashes as a declaration of enmity. Quite the opposite--it was so hot out that I could truthfully smile and say "
xie xie." This would be a nice holiday to import to the States--though the northern states would want to wait a couple months to observe it.
Ooh, I've got the fever
One thing I had heard about living overseas is that expatriates tend to get sick a lot. Whether this has any truth to it or not, I don't know. All I know is that I, thankfully, haven't been unduly afflicted... until now. Yesterday I was running a slight fever and after English corner, I came home and collapsed, essentially staying in bed until noon or so. The rest of the day I felt better, though I've avoided attempting to stand for long periods. Siu Wan, who's similarly afflicted, and I dragged our way through school.
This all got me to thinking--it was a lot more fun to get sick when I was a kid. Back then when I got sick I could stay home from school, sit on the couch and watch TV all day or sit up and read in bed. (I read through
Tom Sawyer that way.) Now that I'm grown up, if I feel well enough to sit up I'm usually well enough to do something productive--like giving lessons. And even if there's nothing that needs doing, TV is really lousy these days. All informercials and talk shows. The good 60s reruns have been sold to cable. It makes one want to stay well, it's so bad.
Forewarned is forearmed
We've been given a heads up regarding a potentially troublesome event this weekend. Apparently this weekend is the
Water Splashing Festival for the Dai people. Traditionally it is a blessing to get splashed with water during this festival and many people are eager to bless those around them. Some of the old hands here have told us about being given plastic baggies at Dai restaurants in order to protect their cell phones and other non-immersibles. Another tale they tell is of an ex-pat who had some business in a Dai town. While waiting an an intersection he actually had some pedestrian open his car door and douse him with a bucket of water. While our town is not quite so bad, we are supposedly located in a place with many Dai folk. The local supermarket/department stores seem to be stocked up on water guns. (the serious multi-gallon variety) One store has been even lugging their stock out to the sidewalk for those impulse sales.
The question is, how to prepare? Leaving the camera at home is a no-brainer, though I do wish I had known before I left the States to buy one of those underwater disposable cameras. (Do they still make those?) Likewise, I know not to wear something I don't want dampened. I will attempt to go out and live as normal a life as possible. What I'm still debating is whether I should arm myself the next time I'm grocery shopping. I mean, I don't want to give the impression that I buy all the stuff about blessing people via water alone. But I do enjoy hurling water at willing folks, be it packaged in balloons or snowballs. Using buckets would be a novel experience, but hey, I can adapt. Then again, maybe that's just one cultural experience to leave for the faithful. Stay tuned....
What could be worse...
...than discovering that you now have pink underwear? (Thanks to a new red towel that bled in the wash.) Having to hang the laundry outside so that all the passers-by can see that you now have pink underwear. Just a little reminder that I'm still a novice at this house-husband thing.
Stupid Babel!
We try to do our job to share our language and culture with the students as best we can. But sometimes you get a reminder of the immensity of what those two little words--"language" and "culture"--actually represent. Take last Saturday. We went to the neighborhood English corner. The format of the corner has changed over the months. Right now the format is that Marty, the leader, reads a fairy tale through twice, and then the students pair off and try to tell the tale to each other. Marty does his best to speak slowly and simplify the tale, explaining those terms that are essential to the tale. (like "chinny-chin-chin") After the students retell the story, Marty gives the kids a chance to tell one of their own fairy tales (in English) and then, if there's time left, he does something to fill the time. It could be yet another retelling of the main tale or going on to a different story.
Anyway, last Saturday he told the tale of
Br'er Rabbit and the Tar Baby. He did quite a good job of it, pantomiming some actions and all that. As the hour wore on, we reached the point where we had some time to kill. So Marty had decided to tell the tale again, but this time he wasn't going to clean up the dialect. There is some value to this. Basically we are out in the sticks and many people do not speak Mandarin, or
Putonghua the same way they do in Beijing. (One fellow expatriate actually wondered how valuable it was for us to even study proper
Putonghua, living where we are.) So Marty thought that telling the tale in it's original
Dixie-hua might illustrate how English, too, has its different dialects. Well, Mr. Marty sure painted a pretty picture. He's from Atlanta and his retelling of
Br'er Rabbit was a wonder to behold. He cut loose and gave a retelling that flowed from the heart. It was also pretty much incomprehensible to the students there.
The reality is, what we share with the folks here is fraught with limitations. There are barriers of language, cultural knowledge, life experience. We can share the plotline of a basic folk tale, for example, but even then you have to strip out the little nuances of culture and language which makes the story come to life. Of course, that goes both ways. Even if we learn enough Chinese to carry on a simple conversation, I doubt we will ever be able to sit back and truly appreciate a Chinese folk tale as would a native speaker. At most we'll probably only get a glimpse of the people amongst whom we're living. ... sigh. Oh, well. I guess even a glimpse is better than nothing.
You know you're an expat when...
...you're served sloppy joes for dinner and you feel like it's the most delicious meal you've had all year.
The Street Fair Returns!
Last year, there was a street fair just outside of campus around Christmastime. They stayed awhile, then left.
It was actually quite a nice fair. Thad told us that last year they came in May, but then it was so hot that they moved up the time to December. There were quite a few people from Pakistan or India or one of those places, selling jade. Yau Neih tried to find out one of the prices and ended up with a "hard sell" approach.
Anyway, the street fair returned a few days ago. Actually, I shouldn't say "returned", because this was a different fair, from a European country. Why they were in Southern Yunnan I'll never know, but they were definitely European, speaking fluent Chinese and English as well as their native tongue.
Anyway, Ian, a new
lao wai whom I haven't mentioned before, happened to know somebody at the fair. At least I think he did. He came up to us as we were going to one of the "Well Markets", and asked us if we were happening to head to the street fair.
We said we were, as it was on the way home. He asked us if we would do him a favor, kind of like
guang xi, and, since we're going to be Chinese about this, and he recently took us out to dinner, we said, "sure".
He told us that his ex-girlfriend was one of the street fair people. She sold spices. They were still kind of edgy with each other, so this request was twofold. First of all, he needed us to get some parsley for his garlic salad, some sage for his stuffing (he eats turkey on Easter), some rosemary for his depression, and some thyme for his asthma. We said we'd get them all.
The next part of the task, he said, was to explain that he was ready to patch things up, if she'd do some stuff for him. What was it, we asked, and he told us, that first, he really needed a cambric shirt, but seams really bothered him. So, the first thing was that she had to make a cambric shirt without any seam or needlework.
The next thing was that he needed the shirt washed. Unfortunately, water really irritates him, so she had to do it in a dry well. We know of one on campus, and we agreed to assist her in finding it. She had to dry the shirt on a dry thorn. Ga Dai spoke up and said she'd found a cactus with a bunch of thorns. That was exactly what Ian wanted, because, see, cactus juice makes him feel really chipper.
Now, he had a real task. If they were to patch things up, they might get married and his apartment's really teeny. So, he wanted her to get him an acre of land. Now, he likes the beach so much, but he hates sand. So this had to be between the sand and the ocean, so he could have his beach and his house, sand-free.
He wanted a head start on crops, too. So he wanted her to plow it, but with a ram's horn to save time and economize. Also to economize, he needed her to sow it all over with one peppercorn. Those are easy to obtain, and one big pack will last you a lifetime if you sow like that. He also had some leather running around; he wanted her to reap it with that. Peacock's feathers look really pretty binding up pepper plants, so he wanted her to bind it up with one.
Anyway, so he wanted her to do those things, and we agreed to help her. So we went to the fair and quickly located the spice seller. We bought parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme and then told her about the tasks. She made a funny face and said "No!"
So we gave the herbs to Ian and informed him that he'd have to find another girlfriend. It was a weird day.
