Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Lonely hearts

I was chatting with a student the other week and he brought the topic around to girls. All his roommates have girlfriends and he doesn't. He's really hoping to get a good job because, of course, women only want men with lots of money. I, of course, warned him about golddiggers and encouraged him to wait for the girl who would be interested in him, not just his bank account.

Think he heard me? Nah, I don't think so either. But then, in one sense, I really didn't have a whole lot to say to him. I mean, I could try to offer him solace and encourage him to wait a few years until Ms. Right comes along. But I'm sure that back when I was twenty, it would not have been a comfort if someone told me that I'd have to wait five years before I was married. I may not have even believed it, preferring instead to live in hope of something happening sooner.

Oh, well. Many a lonely soul has survived the wait. Guess he'll have to do the same.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Cooking lesson


100_4986.JPG
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.
While life in China has been rather routine this second year, occasionally we do have a new experience. Last Sunday we learned how to cook tan yuan. Tan yuan is a peanut/sugar combination packed into a rice flour dough, boiled and served in a broth. It's rather tasty.

Our teacher for this lesson was Gail, an incredibly helpful student who was one of our travel agent/tour guides for our Dali excursion. Apparently not one to rest on her laurels, she has now decided to show us lao wai how to cook. the first I had heard about it was Saturday evening. Gail had gone to the community English Corner and I had a brief chance to chat with her on the way back to campus. She suddenly asked if we had any sugar at home. I thought it an odd question, but I replied that we did have sugar, both granulated and powdered. She then said something about that she needed it for the dish she was going to cook for us. On Sunday, she said. I just mumbled something about that being nice. I always try to be non-committal about social engagements, since Yau Neih always handles the social calendar. As soon as I got home I asked Yau Neih about this whole cooking concept. She confirmed that Gail had said that she wanted to "cook for us". Yau Neih hadn't realized how serious she was about it, but it looked to be an interesting, if not tasty, experience. We all had fond memories of the fine dining we enjoyed on our Dali trip.

After lunch on Sunday, Gail accompanied us as we made our daily shopping run. She gathered all the ingredients that we needed, including the sugar. Apparently tan yuan uses some sort of brown sugar that comes in big blocks. Later that afternoon, Gail came over to our flat to begin the lesson. The recipe is as follows:

Ingredients
  • a mess o' peanuts
  • a packet of sesame seeds
  • a block of that brownish sugar
  • a bag of rice flour
  • peanut oil
  • water
Mix the water and rice flour to make a nice dough. Lightly fry the peanuts in the skillet. Crush or finely chop most of the peanuts, leaving the rest for people to nosh on. Grate the brown sugar. Mix the crushed peanuts, grated sugar and sesame seeds in a bowl. Form the dough into small, flat pancakes, about one to two inches in diameter. Cup the pancake to make a bowl-like shape. Put a spoonful of the mixture into dough bowl and add a dollop of peanut oil. Close the dough in on itself to make a little dumpling. Drop the dumpling into boiling water. Serve two or three dumplings in a bowl with broth and a sprinkling of the leftover peanut mix. Serves five with two leftover meals.

(I should confess that I really didn't take part in the lesson, so the recipe may be somewhat, er, inaccurate. Our kitchen is rather small and since both girls were interested in the lesson, I chose to limit my involvement to snapping a few photos and sampling the final goods.)

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Please don't respond to this e-mail

(Here's the more musing on my TurboTax troubles that I had threatened.)
When I was combing the TurboTax message boards for solutions to my various problems, I encountered a few irate customers. Me, I never got angry with Intuit over my own difficulties, though I could appreciate folks' frustration. They vented about waiting on hold forever, not getting the help they needed and in general not feeling like they were receiving the service due them as customers. I never waited on hold myself, since I avoided calling the help line. When the web site said that there was a 30-minute wait to talk to a representative, I was willing to bet that the actual wait would be longer. So, I didn't bother to spend my (wife's) hard-earned shekels on an overseas phone call. Of course, that meant that I frustrated Intuit's attempt to solve my problem to my satisfaction. I basically gave away my right to complain.

It was the third issue I mentioned--not receiving the service due a customer--that really got me ruminating, though. I couldn't call Intuit's customer service bad. All of the customer service people were very prompt, polite and helpful. But the whole experience seemed to be lacking something. Perhaps it was a personal connection. I never felt like the customer service reps were truly helping me. I sent five e-mails to the company and received responses from five different people. All of them responded using forms that said, "Please do not reply to this message." I felt like I was just the next face in line for a system that is set up to get rid of me as quickly as possible while requiring the least amount of human interaction.

I couldn't get angry about it because it seems like that's the status quo these days. Sometimes I think we've sold our collective soul for machine-like efficiency in business. When I have to contact a company seeking help with a problem, I expect to spend at least the first few minutes listening to recordings and pushing buttons, or on the web, navigating through page after page before finding a way to contact a human being. I can understand the logic behind it--one less employee mean one less salary to pay, which means savings that can be passed on to the customer. But I also mourn the loss of... I don't know what. Community? Personal attention? Compassion? Whatever it is, it makes it hard to feel satisfied.

The problem goes both ways, too. Back when I was working, I know that having met some customers personally gave me more incentive to work harder on their jobs. If the job was for some faceless corporation, or some name on an e-mail containing a cookie cutter, corporate tagline, then I would be less inclined to bend over backwards. In both cases there were real people needing my help to finish their task, but it's hard to truly care about someone hidden away on the other side of the firewall.

Anyway, that's my ramble. Since I'm still musing about the problem, I have no clue as how to fix it. Maybe a smile for those service folks I see in person and a :) for those I only contact through the web? Ah, well, it couldn't hurt....

Saturday, March 17, 2007

Global economy

Yesterday, in an effort to avoid doing some actual schoolwork, Siu Wan started going through my closet, checking the labels on my shirts. According to her findings, I own shirts made in:
  • China
  • El Salvador (2)
  • Honduras
  • Hong Kong (3)
  • Hungary
  • India
  • Korea (2)
  • Lesotho
  • Taiwan
  • Ukraine
  • USA (who let them in here?)
  • Vietnam

There's also the shirt made by Siu Wan (and her Auntie) in Tacoma using material from Thailand. It's not the best geography lesson I've ever had, but it certainly was the most unusual.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Taxation, frustration

Well, since I'm done recounting last month's vacation, I suppose I should blog about something more recent. Of course, life has become a bit more routine, without much to blog about. The only major endeavor I've undertaken these past few weeks is to file my income tax returns.

I briefly mentioned last year some of the challenges of filing ones taxes while living overseas. All my tax info gets sent to my sister-in-law, so she has to e-mail the info so I can plug it into the form. Actually, that part of the job went quite smoothly. We had less sources of income than last year, when I had quit my job mid-year and Yau Neih had some business income. I also had a better idea as to what info I needed. So I was able to gather the info within three mailings.

The challenges this year were all software related. Last year I had a wonderful experience with TurboTax, and was seriously considering using it once I returned stateside. This year, I also was going along fine until I had a couple of hiccups. First, by entering various sources of foreign income, I had somehow triggered the software to include a form for an exemption of foreign income. The problem is, to claim this exemption, one has to have spent almost the whole year out of the U.S. We fell a bit short of that time limit. (We have colleagues who purposely spend some vacation time in Thailand so as to claim this exemption.) Finding the exemption form was a tough nut to crack, requiring some searching in the help files and running through the interview process a few times, but finally I managed to find the right button to click. I was ready to file my Federal taxes.

The state taxes, however, had problems of its own. Washington doesn't have a state income tax, but since we get a stipend from our agency in Missouri, we have to file Missouri state taxes. Last year, I had no problem with the Missouri forms. In 2006, however, we had made some estimated tax payments and when I went through the forms, I couldn't find a way to enter that information in the returns. I searched the help pages again, but without success. It was very frustrating, as I knew which line to fill in on the actual tax form, but the software wouldn't allow me to fill it in. (I did learn from a message board user that such a feature is available in the desktop version of the software.) I finally resorted to e-mailing for assistance. The response for the first query wasn't helpful, as they thought I was looking for information as to how to navigate the interview process. That was a process with which I was quite familiar. My second query, however, garnered the information I needed. In TurboTax, the process for filing the state tax forms pulls a lot of information from the federal returns. I needed to add the estimated tax payments there in order for it to get to the state form.

So once the obstacle to finishing my state taxes was overcome, I ran straight into an obstacle that was keeping me from filing the state return. (I did file the Federal return--a somewhat foolish action since it meant my credit card was charged for both returns.) When I ran an error check on my state taxes, the program said that it was not possible to file the MO-TC form electronically. This was quite frustrating, not only because of my previous problems, but also because the feature of electronic filing was the main reason I chose to use the service. I once again searched the help section of the site and repeated the interview process. I couldn't find any significant reference to the form. Then I checked the forms that TurboTax would be sending and couldn't even find the flurshugginer form. I shot off an e-mail to support and received a response telling me to contact them via phone. Now my status as an expatriate came into play. 800 numbers have been a great advancement in the field of telecommunication, improving the quality of life for many. They don't work overseas, however. If you try to call an 800 number from, say, China, you'll get a message saying that they will be sticking you with the phone bill. With no chance for using a discount calling service, either.

I sent off another mail telling them of my dilemma and asking if they could either call me or communicate via e-mail. The response explained a bit more about the situation (they were going to give me a free download of the desktop software so they can try and figure out the problem), but said that the phone line was my only option. I accepted that, and asked them if they had a normal phone number available that I could call using Call2 discount rates. They shot back stating that the number provided was my only option, though perhaps I could try using live chat. I gave the chat a try, but gave up after waiting for 45 minutes. I briefly considered filing for an extension and then resolving the issue when I return stateside. The problem there was that filing for a state extension wasn't an option. Finally, in frustration, I just printed out the forms, signed them and mailed them to Missouri via China Post. I didn't feel like I got my money's worth, but at least the work is done.

More musing on this later....

Monday, March 12, 2007

Then I'm going home

And so our vacation ended. We packed our bags, boarded the bus and headed home. Oh, wait. That was our plan. The reality was slightly different.

Our town is closer to Jinghong than Kunming, so we figured that rather than flying to Kunming and then taking a long bus ride home, we'd just take a slightly shorter bus ride directly to our town. The catch is, that one can't go buying bus tickets online or in any old ticket office. To take a bus out of Jinghong, we'd need to buy our tickets in Jinghong. Usually that's no problem, so despite the slight inconvenience of having to take a side trip to the bus station, it was a good plan.

What we lao wai didn't consider is the effect Spring Festival has on the travel industry in China. Traveling back to spend Spring Festival with your family is essential, so the bus and train lines are packed. When we tried to arrange a bus trip home, less than a week before Spring Festival, we were told that there were no tickets available. The best they could offer was passage to the next major city, but there was no guarantee that we could score further passage onward. If we could speak Chinese, we might have considered risking it, but given our poor language ability, it was not a good option.

Our next step was to hire a private car and driver to take us home. It was an expensive option, but certainly cheaper than flying or spending an extra week in Jinghong. Our "boss"--I should mention that our boss was the one handling all the arrangements--asked the hotel concierge to help set this up. Well, he tried, but the only drivers he could round up weren't licensed to leave the prefecture. Again we'd be stuck going part way.

Our next option was to fly back to Kunming and then fly home. Again, it was an option that was cheaper than paying for hotel rooms. (If only we had brought Gail and Whitney with us! They could have found us cheap rates.) Purchasing plane tickets, oddly enough, was no problem. We all trooped down to the Hotel's business center and they got us set. When departure day arrived, instead of saying goodbye to the team, we all headed to the airport together.

Upon our arrival in Kunming, we then said our goodbyes. We checked in for our next flight and went in search for a place to eat. Unfortunately, time was tight and we started looking on the wrong side of the airport. We chose a restaurant that turned out to be quite pricey. Partly because of the cost and partly because of the time crunch, we just ordered up some fried rice. Foolishly, we ordered four plates of the stuff. Two would have sufficed for the lot of us. Especially since the stuff wasn't all that great. But we choked it down, the stress of the moment bearing down upon us.

After lunch we headed to the gate and settled down for a short wait. The short wait turned long as there turned out to be mechanical problems with the plane. Fortunately we had things to read, so we waited with some patience. An hour or two after our scheduled departure they finally announced that we were heading out on a different plane. We happily walked down to the bus which shuttled us over to our waiting plane. Without much fuss we took off and were heading westward.

The flight is short and after about twenty minutes we were told to put up our tray tables and all that. The sky was overcast (or should I say undercast, since we were above cloud level?), so we couldn't see the land below us. We started our descent and we could feel the bumps of turbulence. Suddenly there was a big BUMP! and we were tossed up. There were a couple of shrieks, followed by some nervous laughter. I thought it was a fun ride, myself. Then there was another BUMP! followed by the same shrieks and chuckles. I noticed that the turbulence was quite heavy and we were not only being bumped, but the plane was rocking a bit. When the third BUMP came, I started thinking about how one of my teammates was talking about the flight to Jinghong and how she had been contemplating how far up we had been. I began to seriously wonder if my fun little roller coaster ride had not turned into a one way trip to the Pearly Gates.

There were a bit more bumps and swaying and then the pilot gunned the engines. I could feel the plane rising and turning, and took comfort that the turbulence was smoothing out. Then I noticed that the sun was starting to shine from behind the plane. My suspicions were confirmed when the pilot made an announcement and I heard the collective groan of the other passengers. The English version of the announcement followed, "Because of the rough weather, we are returning to Kunming." I had at least hoped they'd divert to Dali or something. Ah, well. Better a later flight than an early crash. Of course, I seemed to recall something about our airport not being set up to handle nighttime flights....

When we got back to Kunming we got the scoop: The airline would put us up for the night and then send us back out the next day. Since we weren't quite sure what was happening we hung back and so missed the first bus out to the hotel. Then it turned out that the other bus was broken. So the China Eastern folks started hailing cabs. Because of reticence, we were one of the last parties to get sent off. But the airline dude gave complete instructions to our cabbie and we drove off into the night.

Our cab hopped on the expressway and started heading west. I had no clue at the time where the hotel was located, but I was surprised that it wasn't close to the airport. Our driver was friendly enough, but of course, we couldn't engage in small talk. He switched on either a CD or radio station that featured English songs. Unfortunately, I don't care for most of the English songs that are popular out here. But hey, it's the thought that counts. After a bit, our cabbie slowed down for a traffic tie up. There were a number of cars that had stopped and were trying to turn around and head down an entrance ramp. Our cabbie made a brief attempt to do this, too, but the traffic was so hectic that he finally gave up and sped off down the now clear roadway. I should mention that the main road heading west out of Kunming seems to be in a continual state of construction. We drove for an awful long while and I started seeing signs pointing to the distant cities we had just passed through a half week before. I briefly wondered how much the cab driver would want to drive us all the way home.

About the time I thought that maybe the cabbie was kidnapping us, he managed to exit the expressway and get us onto the surface road below the viaduct. That particular stretch of road was about as smooth as our attempted landing, but at least we were headed back into the city. After another long stretch, he made a right and I started recognizing some landmarks. We finally pulled up in front of a nice big hotel. We had no bags, but our cabbie graciously escorted us to the front desk and made sure that we were in the right place. We exchanged our boarding passes for a couple room keys and were quickly ushered into the restaurant for supper. There were a few cooks and servers having their dinner, a sure sign that we were late. After our disappointing lunch, I had been looking forward to a Western-ish dinner at Dico's. But hunger is the best sauce, so I was able to enjoy the provided meal.

After supper we headed back to the desk and were quickly intercepted by the clerk. We were told that our rooms were in a different building, across the way. We headed over there and found our rooms. Apparently we were in some sort of training hotel. The rooms we had were somewhat spartan, without room heat or hot showers. With resignation we climbed into bed and looked forward to the morning, when we could have another try at getting home.

And we did. Our new flight departed a bit after lunch, which gave me a chance to run to the downtown Carrefore's and buy some cookies. And you know, any vacation that ends with cookies can't be all bad...

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Welcome to the Jungle

The rest of my vacation is a bit lacking in blog material. By the time we got down to Jinghong, we had been sated with sightseeing and were ready to kick back and relax. This was a company retreat, so we were kind of required to go on outings, not to mention having meetings and all that. Of course, it's a lot better when other folks are doing the planning and all that.

Jinghong is down in the southernmost prefecture of Yunnan, Xishuangbanna. It's at a lower elevation than most of the province, so it had the tropical temperature that is common in this latitude. The warmth was a welcome change from climate of Kunming and Dali. Just as in Dali everything is Bai, so in Jinghong, everything bears the touch of the Dai minority. Women were wearing the long, colorful dresses and the street signs all had Thai subtitles. Even the taxi drivers were more apt to soak us for a trip from the airport.

We spent the morning of our first day catching up with our fellow workers and generally taking care of company business. As noon approached, we then hopped aboard a chartered bus and headed north to the Wild Elephant Valley park. It was a nice little tourist spot where supposedly one can see wild elephants. Of course, elephants don't tend to be active in the heat of the day, so we didn't see any. We did enjoy a cable car ride over the jungle and then a walk along a paved trail back. We also got to watch a show featuring trained elephants. (I even took part in a tug of war between an elephant and about twelve other guys.) (The elephant won.)

Day two was all talking and down time. Like us, another couple on our team is planning on returning to America at the end of the term. So we talked a lot about reverse culture shock and resuming life in the States. Hopefully, the rest of our teammates didn't get bored. After lunch, the wife and kids headed back to the hotel to swim. I strolled along the river and then wandered about the city a bit. I didn't find too much that was real interesting. I think part of me was looking for a Burger King. Anyway, my Jinghong road map and the stylized map on the back of my hotel business card didn't jibe, so I ended up grabbing a taxi back. It was a pleasant walk, even if I didn't take many pictures.

Day three featured another outing, this time down to a Dai "Culture Park" near the town of Ganlanba. Basically you have a Dai village that turned it's town into a theme park. Folks take turns turning their houses into an exhibit where visitors can see an authentic Dai home and learn about their culture. Like any tourist spot, it was filled with gift and snack stands. But it also had a bit of authenticity with people passing by truly going about their daily business.

And that was that. The next morning we packed up and headed home. Like I said, from a blogging perspective, the journey was lacking. But we had a great time relaxing and visiting. Isn't that what a vacation should be all about?

Friday, March 09, 2007

Bending an ear

We had a unique experience in the Kunming airport while we were waiting with our friends for our flight to Xishuangbanna. We were all sitting down, talking amongst ourselves when an American woman approached those of us sitting at the end of the row. She was very friendly and eager to talk. This was kind of weird, since the status quo in most airports seems to be "mind your own business". Seeing a white face out here is a bit of a novelty, but usually we follow the crowd and try to play it cool. This woman, however, was acting like we best buddies or something just because we were fellow foreigners. (Of course, I wonder if maybe that isn't the way we should act.)

Anyway, the reason for her enthusiasm was that she was not a jaded expatriate. Rather she was on the way home from a wedding. Her brother-in-law had just married a Jingpo woman and the lady and her husband had flown over from Boston to attend the wedding out in the wilds of Yunnan. She was brimming over with details about their adventure and soon her husband joined in. Ga Dai, myself and another one of our colleagues listened as the recounted the entire event. It wasn't a burden, really, though sometimes we were nodding our heads and saying to ourselves, "Yeah, that's the way life is like here."

As we talked about it later, we recognized that the main reason we listened was not that we're kind, tolerant people, (well, I hope we are somewhat) but rather that we share that woman's need to tell about our experiences. We'd love to ramble on for hours about what we've lived here in China, but most folks are probably only interested in the first fifteen minutes. Of course, I suppose that would hold true for most people in any part of the world. We all have our passions in life, but not everyone is going to share those with us. We can talk, but who is going to listen? Ah, well, that's why God created blogs....

Thursday, March 08, 2007

Downtown

We had scheduled one day in Kunming during our vacation. There really is nothing to report on it, as it was a typical Kunming kind of day. What does that mean, you ask? Well, I guess it's a small town kind of experience. When I was growing up in the Windy Suburbs, we got our daily needs--groceries, gasoline, etc.--met in our hometown. Sometimes, if we needed something special, we'd travel out to the appropriate store. I remember making post-Christmas forays to the city of Elgin to get our new outfits altered to fit properly. If you needed something really exotic, or wanted to visit a museum or catch a ball game, you'd need to head downtown to Chicago. That was something we rarely did, and it was always a big event. That is, until I grew up and became a honest to Ghandi urban dweller.

At this time in life, I've taken a bit of a step back. Our day to day needs are met just fine. But if we need to head "downtown", then we go to Kunming. There are three main things we seek out in Kunming. The first is transportation. It's the hub for the airport and buses, so if we do any traveling, we pass through Kunming. The second is our company. Since Kunming is the center of the province, and the location of our local office, we gather there every three months or so to meet with our colleagues and take care of any business that we have. The third need we fill in Kunming is for the exotic. Of course, in this case, exotic is things like hamburgers and spaghetti noodles. In our town we can get fried chicken or Snickers bars, but we can't find cocoa or corn flakes. So just about every time we visit Kunming, we have to visit Carrefour's, Metro, or Paul's Shop just to get a bag or two of Western groceries. (Though actually, we've been pretty much stocked up at home since getting a couple of care packages around Christmastime.)

So, this time through we had a typical visit: arrive in town, head over to the hotel and check in, grab dinner at a Western restaurant, do a bit of grocery shopping, and schmooze with our teammates. The only drawback was that I didn't get the hamburger I was craving. The barbecue chicken sandwich at Salvadore's made for a good second best, though.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

If I had a boat

After our outing at the Butterfly Spring Park, we grabbed lunch from a noodle vendor and then headed down to the lakefront. We were going to take a boat down Erhai Lake to Xiaguan. This was a nice little tourist ride, featuring a show of Bai music and dance, along with the "Three Tea Ceremony". I don't know what we were looking forward to more, the show or a nice cruise. The only drawback to the whole plan was that we had to schlep our suitcases along. Ever since the first day in old Dali, our student tour guides had found ways to have our suitcases hauled from place to place with us having to do as little lugging as possible. This time, however, we had no choice but to lug. The first order of business, of course, was to find a place to stow the bags. While we didn't have to pay for the boat ride (connections again), we did get the "cheap seats" on the outside deck. Obviously we wanted to keep the bags a bit farther from the railing than that. The place we found--up against the wall in the gift shop--was unusual for us Americans. Back home I might be worried about someone walking off with them, or the shop would be concerned about them being in a customer's way. Here at China, it was just a practical place to stow them. Any local who would try to take such a big honking suitcase would be conspicuous. As for the suitcases being in the way, well, folks can always walk around them. Why can't we mei guo ren be so practical?

Anyway, the boat sailed and pretty soon they announced that the show was starting. We went down to the first level of the boat, where there was a nice sized dance floor with seating on three sides of it. There were about a dozen performers, all in the traditional dress. The first dance number was performed to live music, but the rest used pre-recorded songs. The tea ceremony was interesting, though a bit less exotic than I would have imagined. Each course was simply served up in paper cups between musical numbers. There were three flavors of tea: the first was bitter, to represent the hard work of youth. The second was sweet and contained wafer-thin slices of cheese and walnuts. It was supposed to symbolize the sweetness of middle age. The last cup was spicy, to evoke the spicy memories of the aged. ("In spite of it all, I'm able to grin, and think of the places my get-up has been.")

About two-thirds of the way through the show, I could feel the engines reversing. I was surprised that the trip went so quickly and briefly wondered what how we'd spend the rest of the afternoon in Xiaguan. (A nap would have been welcomed.) By the time the show was over we had definitely docked. However, when we stepped out of the room we learned that the boat had a scheduled stop at an island off the east shore of the lake. It was called Nanzhou Style Island on my tourist map. There were a number of sculptures and fountains on the island, along with gift and snack shops. We had dined well, so we didn't indulge in any food. Rather we just strolled around and then headed back to the boat.

Eventually the boat took off and we slowly made our way south. Other performances were announced, but of course, we had already seen our assigned performance. The trip was rather quiet, with minimal conversation. I don't know if we were all tired from our touring or if the students and the foreigners had just run out of things to say to each other. As we sailed on, the clouds struggled to overtake us. On the island, we had seen a large cloud bank making its way over the wall of mountains that border Dali to the west. It cut down on our sunlight and at one point, after it had overtaken us, it drizzled a bit on our heads. Despite that, it was an enjoyable ride. But at the end we were quite ready for dinner and a warm hotel room.

After the boat docked, we grabbed a couple of taxis and headed towards the bus station. Gail and Whitney told us to wait on the street corner while they rustled us up some hotel rooms. The secret for getting good rates, you see, is not to let the folks know that you're seeking accommodations for rich foreigners. While they were gone, Yau Neih announced that she really wanted a heated room that night. When the girls came back, it turned out that the place they found didn't have heated rooms. They offered to check another place, across the street, which we agreed was a good idea. That one didn't fill the bill either, as they soon emerged and headed down the street. Now we felt bad, because we hadn't meant for them to search far and wide for an ideal place. About fifteen minutes later, they came back. They had found a place, but it was expensive. Of course, for us that was no big deal since we had budgeted for four nights at rates that were higher than the "expensive" hotel was asking. The girls might have thought we were crazy, but we splurged on the fancier hotel.

We offered to get them a room there as well, but they said they had already booked their own room at the first hotel. We didn't argue. I don't know if changing plans would have caused a loss of face somewhere or if they were trying to save us money. They did however, let us treat them to dinner. We dined at a hot pot restaurant in our hotel. If you haven't experienced it, hot pot is where they have a kettle of boiling water in the middle of the table and you order a bunch of uncooked meats and veggies to toss in there and cook for yourself. I've never encountered such a place in America, but then, my culinary adventures in America were quite limited. The food was pretty good, what with Gail and Whitney ordering and all, but not quite as tasty as the hole-in-the-wall Hui restaurant we patronized in Dali. After dinner, we said goodnight to the girls and headed up to our decadent, heated hotel room.

The next morning was almost uneventful. We checked out, bought our bus tickets to Kunming and then went foot shopping. Siu Wan's shoes were literally falling apart, so buying her a new pair was a necessity. I also needed a new shoelace and Ga Dai wanted a new pair of socks. So we strolled along Xiaguan's pedestrian mall and found all that we needed. We then stopped at an internet cafe to check our e-mail, went to lunch at a noodle restaurant and finally bid goodbye to our hosts. Our visit to Dali was complete, but our vacation was only half over. Now it was on to Kunming to meet up with our co-workers and head down to Xishuangbanna.

Saturday, March 03, 2007

Playing dress up


100_4847
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.
Thursday afternoon we headed up to Whitney's hometown, Hudiequan. That translates to "Butterfly Spring", a famous spring that's up the hill from the town. We had another family dinner planned and were again given way too many hors d'oeuvres. But hey, that's a good problem to have. Whitney's family home was about the same size as Gail's, though she did not have a business on the ground level. Hudiequan, or at least the part we saw, was much quieter than Hongyuan.

We had arrived at mid-afternoon, so had a lot of time to kill. We were again treated to the family albums. Once finished with that, Whitney decided to take us on an excursion to a neighboring village. This village was an authentic Bai village with authentic Bai people living there. In one sense it was much the same as any village we've passed through in this part of China, with grocery and hardware stores and a farmer's market. There were plenty of folk in the traditional outfits, of course. While there was nothing overtly photogenic about the place (except for a big ol' tree in a public plaza, which, alas wasn't properly captured by my malfunctioning camera) it was a bit of a trip to just walk through town. As we wandered through town, we were accosted by an employee of a textile factory and saw some folks working on traditional dyed fabrics. The tour ended in the gift shop, of course, and it was a real temptation to keep from buying only a couple of things. (Part of me is tempted to just cut loose here and buy a whole new ethnic wardrobe before I leave. Fortunately for my budget, most of the interesting outfits are for women.)

We took a horse cart to and from the Bai village. We had seen horse carts in heavy use on our way to Gail's village and had told her we wanted to ride on one. We didn't have the time for it in Hongyuan, but managed to get a ride now. Our students, of course, thought we were a bit odd that we'd want to ride such an old form of transport. But such is the problem with entertaining foreigners.

Dinner at Whitney's house was delicious, of course. Where dinner with Gail's family was a small, cozy affair, dinner at Whitney's was a two table banquet, with a handful of relatives in attendance. Whitney's father was quite gregarious and offered me some of his bai jyu--what they call White Lightnin' in the States. (I think somebody said it was home brewed. Now I had been warned before we left that folks would want to drink toasts with the foreigner and some might even try to get me drunk. That problem had never really materialized, so I had got a bit lax about accepting an alcoholic drink. Fortunately I exaggerated my reaction to the bai jyu a bit to get a laugh, so after the first toast, they switched me over to wine. Still we had plenty of toasts and I ended up drinking a bit more than I'm accustomed to.

We spent the night at the local hotel--another free night's accommodation. (Did I mention that both students' fathers picked up the hotel tab for our stays in their respective cities? Both had connections with the owners.) In the morning we headed to the Butterfly Spring park, which we again got into free due to family connections. We had a specific mission in mind--Whitney's mom is somehow involved in the tourist trade and had some Bai outfits for us to try on. So we all got decked out in traditional clothes and had our photos taken by the Butterfly Spring.

Afterwards we walked through the park and enjoyed the exhibits. It wasn't the proper season, so the only butterflies we saw were either in the greenhouse or pinned in a display case. It was a nice park in which to stroll regardless. We picked up a few more souvenirs, including a new wedding ring for me. (I lost the previous one a few weeks back.) We finally left the park and headed through the plaza out front.

Whitney's mom waylayed us by one of the vendor's tables (her own, perhaps?) and ordered us to pick out gifts. The girls picked out a couple of silver bracelets and Yau Neih picked up a jade pendant carved in the shape of a bamboo. (Whitney's mom had originally offered her a Buddha, an offer which Whitney declined before Yau Neih could say anything. Part of the entertainment in Hudiequan was seeing Whitney get embarrassed by her parents' behavior. She needn't have worried--we thought they were wonderful folks.) I had a bit of a dilemma, since I had just bought a new wedding ring and didn't need any other jewelry. There were some other nice pieces of carved marble on the table, but I wanted to find the smallest and cheapest thing I could. I finally settled on a stone toothpick holder. I apparently succeeded in picking something inexpensive, since Whitney's mom insisted on giving me two of them. Sometimes the generosity of the folks here is just overwhelming.