A Short Letter Home

The heat you come home to

2007-09-20T20:07:00.001-07:00

I had a strange re-entry experience yesterday. As I turned off the shower, I heard a rumbling sound coming from the basement. I stepped out of the tub and felt a draft of warm air blowing out of the vent. Central heating! Something I haven't experienced for over two years. Of course, I found it to be a mixed blessing, as it reminded me that we needed central heating. Apparently I adapted to the Yunnan climate real well, as I find myself irked that I need to wear a jacket in September. I wonder if I would be reacting the same way if I was back in my native Chicago?

Life in the fast lane

2007-09-11T21:04:00.000-07:00

Yau Neih commented the other day that she can "feel the wheels speeding up." Our summer "vacation" is over and we're heading back into school and the fall activities as if the past two years never happened. Okay, that's a lie. On one level we're going back to the pre-2005 status quo. It's a lifestyle that is less laid back and busier than life in China. But we're also dealing with the consequences of the past two years, from trying to whip the yard into shape after two years of neglect to trying to squeeze elements of our Yunnan lifestyle into our old one.

That plays out a bit differently for each of us. For me, I want to keep up the higher level of exercise I used to have and to keep dancing now and then. The former brings with it a struggle to make time for walking and a slight friction between family members with different schedules. As a rule, we'd all prefer to walk together. The problem is, I get up early and head off to work. When I get home, the ladies are all involved with school. That leaves the time after dinner, the time when Ga Dai and I start winding down. Oh, well. So far that hasn't been a major hassle, though I suspect that as we start rediscovering evening activities, the situation will change.

Incorporating dancing is proving to be a bit harder. Yau Neih and I finally made a date last Friday to check out the Greenlake Folk Dancers up by Green Lake. It was a pretty good time, but not the delight we enjoyed dancing in Cang Jiang Park. For one thing, it's like becoming an apprentice all over again. We had learnt a lot of basic moves to the Chinese dancing that were often incorporated in new dances. With the Balkan stuff, we've got to learn the basics all over again. Another difficulty is that going dancing brings to mind that we've really left China and probably won't be dancing in the park to Tibetan music ever again. A depressing thought.

And then there's the opposite of trying to bring Yunnan back to America. There's also the temptation to go overboard in enjoying the manifold blessings of our native land. Specifically, I succumbed to the temptation of the printed page. I'm currently in the middle of five books: A fantasy novel that I read over lunch, a commentary on Joshua, a biography to sooth my history itch, a computer book and a Calvin and Hobbes collection which I can easily read over breakfast. Who would have thought that a library card could have been so dangerous?

Anyway, while fall has traditionally been my happiest season, I think this year it might be a bit more of a burden. When we were leaving for China, I felt a sense of control, as we headed out to achieve our dream. Coming back, I feel like life is threatening to swallow me up* and I have to keep constant watch to avoid it.

_____________________
*Don't do it life! I'll give you gas!

A place for my stuff

2007-08-19T22:45:00.000-07:00

A few of the students who said they'd keep in touch as we were leaving have actually done so. (I suspect we may see an increase in e-mail once the new school term starts and students return to the internet cafes around campus.) So far it's been easy to offer quick responses, but the last couple I've received have offered a challenge. The problem is that the big focus of my life these past few weeks have been unpacking and buying a car. Neither of these things are something that the kids back in Yunnan can relate to. I mean, sure, many of them probably dream of owning a car someday, but I never saw a lot of old cars driving about in China. How can you explain about balancing the price of a used car vs. its mileage, or trying to see through the snow job offered by car salesmen? It seems too... American. And then there's the unpacking. It's a mini-culture shock to look at all the STUFF we have to fit into our house. (A house that has a lot more room than our campus apartment.) When I'm writing to those kids back in China, I'm too embarrassed to even joke about all the unpacking we have to do. I think I might have started to forget what a different world we really came from.

August Webloggers Meetup Report

2007-08-16T21:39:00.000-07:00

Well, technically we are settled. I got a job, we moved back into our house and on Tuesday we bought a car. No other major task remains before us, so last night, despite the numerous little tasks remaining, I took a break. I ventured over to Ralph's Grocery and Deli to attend the Seattle Webloggers' Meetup. It was my first social outing since returning from Chicago. (Well, I did go to the movies last week Monday, but I don't count that. I didn't socialize with anyone and besides, my main reason for going was that my house had no chairs and the movie theater had them in abundance.)(By the by, I never mentioned that movies in Yunnan are just as sparsely attended as here in Seattle. Or at least dubbed James Bond movies are.)

It was fun. I'd be hard pressed to give a full report of the event, as discussions tended to flow from topic to topic. I met a chap who had also lived overseas, and we compared notes a bit. He also gave a report on Gnomedex--something which I knew nothing about, though I had heard the name before. Jack let me play with his iPhone a bit. It was way-cool. I felt like Mr. Spock had let me hold his tricorder. Maybe in ten years or so I'll buy a used one. I need to get an iPod first, though.

The big challenge of the evening was trying to explain my blog. We went around the table and gave a short explanation of our respective blogs. I realized that I'm no longer describing Yunnan to the world. Instead, on those rare occasions I post, I'm left with describing myself to the world. What's it like, being an ex-foreigner? Unfortunately, I'm not much for doing serious soul searching online. And if I don't delve too deeply into the topic, I fear the transition back to America makes for boring reading. Ah, well. Maybe I can rent out the blog for infomercials.

Batteries not included

2007-08-07T22:05:00.000-07:00

Yowzah! I'm writing this blog entry sitting at a table in my own home. Not so much earlier I cooked a TV dinner in my own oven while one of my own CDs played in the background. Today was moving day, the day when our worldly goods were finally released from their storage crates and restored to our own dear home. It was like Christmas. I went off to work and when I came home, there was some of my stuff, peeking out of the window. Of course, there are limits to the magic. Our things weren't so much restored to our home as they were dumped there. Now we have to unpack everything. It's kind of like a Christmas where you get a cool toy, but then have to wait a day or two before your Dad can assemble it for you. But, hey, it's still a happy day.

Home again

2007-08-05T22:18:00.000-07:00

Things have a way of circling about. Many, many months ago, I sat blogging in my empty house, with little more than a bedroll and a laptop. Tonight, I'm doing it again, but since I'm moving in instead of out, I have a few more groceries on hand. This week has been a killer as the storm of resettling hit full force.

Sunday was a breeze. Of course, we essentially spent the day in Chicago, enjoying the last day of our vacation with my folks. We caught an evening flight back to Seattle, returning to my mother-in-law's house just after midnight. The entire trip back has to have been one of the smoothest flights we've had in a long time.

On Monday morning I called a man about a job. Before we left for Chicago, I had applied and interviewed for a position at a printing company in Seattle. I basically called in to see how the interviews were going, fully expecting that the job had gone to someone else. Instead I was invited to come up for a second interview. I buzzed up to Seattle, answered two questions and was offered the position. Remember how earlier I said that I had gone against conventional wisdom and had gotten two of my jobs via the want ads? Well, make that three.

Also Monday, I discovered that we had screwed our move. We had hoped to get our stuff delivered on Thursday. I had forgotten that the paperwork clearly states that they need 15 days notice to deliver our crates. Oops. We eventually worked it out so that we can move in on Tuesday, but we'll be paying for it. After that crisis, we went out to look for a car. We found one we liked and arranged to pick it up the next morning to have our mechanic look it over. Before I went to bed, I cheerfully transferred the required money over to our checking account.

On Tuesday, while Yau Neih and I took care of business in Seattle, our friendly neighborhood mechanic looked over the car and pronounced it unworthy. (He also scolded us for not contacting him a month earlier so he could have set us up with a decent vehicle.) We took it back to the dealer and put car shopping back on our to-do list.

Wednesday was my first day of work. It was enjoyable. The work was a bit simplistic, but I was indeed rusty after two years away. While I was laboring, Yau Neih and the girls ventured over to our newly vacated home to have a walk through with our rental agent. I came over after work to change the locks. My first impression was that plants can really grow in two years. It looked like our renters hated yard work even more than I do.

Thursday I had my second day of work and my first company barbecue. I think I will really like this job. Afterwards I returned to the house to finish the lock changing. (I had bought the cheapest locks at Home Depot and they only fit some of my doors.) Yau Neih and attempted to do a bit more car shopping, but we were too frazzled to approach it with any sort of intelligence. We decided to skip shopping until after the move.

On Friday, Yau Neih stayed at the house to do some painting and greet the various repair guys who she had scheduled to visit. (Our renters didn't really damage the house too much, but some things needed fixing and others need an estimate.)

On Saturday we once again ventured northward. Yau Neih finished her painting and I laid some carpeting in Ga Dai's room. I also completed a handful of other repairs.

Which brings us to Sunday, our day of rest. Except for the shopping I had to do, and the unpacking. Six days of commuting from Tacoma to Seattle was enough to convince me to move back into my house without the furniture. And so I settle down to sleep, missing my family and grumbling that Siu Wan's room now smells of dog....

My kind of town

2007-07-27T09:31:00.000-07:00

I've spent the last week in my ancestral lands, visiting my family and Chicagoland friends. Except for periodic moments of gluttony, it's been a relaxing experience. I've been so relaxed that the thought of blogging really hasn't appealed to me. Maybe that's what vacation should be.

I've had a hankering to visit Chicago throughout our China venture. For the past decade or so we've been blessed with the means to visit my hometown at least once a year. In 2005, our finances and schedule required us to forgo the trip home. The situation in 2006 was the same, if not worse. Fortunately, my folks and siblings managed to head out to Seattle to visit us each year. As this summer rolled around, it looked like we'd have to skip a Chicago trip once again. While we had a month to kill before we could move back into our house, we didn't really have the finances. We were heading into unemployment and a big chunk of our bank account was destined to be sunk into a car. (Note to self: remember we have to buy a car one of these days.) As things stood in May, it would have been foolish to pay for a vacation to the windy suburbs.

Thankfully, things didn't stand still. First off, I had miscalculated our finances. Yau Neih's salary from the college was stretched out over the year, so we had two month's pay above what I had calculated. Then we were gifted with some money towards buying a car. The influx of cash convinced us to go ahead and make some last minute travel plans. We were still taking a risk that we were spending money we'd be needing in the months to come, but we figured it would be worth it.

At this point I can say it was. We've all been having a good time, but I've really felt a sense of peace and comfort here that I haven't felt in awhile. I've been away too long. It's also been a bit jarring, too. I don't know if it's been the three year stretch since my last visit or my time in China, but I've really been noticing how much Chicagoland has changed in the last twenty years. There's more childhood haunts that I can't point out to the kids than those I can. Still, there's an aura, a spirit of...Chicago-ness that hasn't gone away. I'm thankful I can soak it in before I return to Seattle and try to make a new life there.

Deep travel

2007-07-11T14:18:00.000-07:00

Now that we're home we have a lot of sorting ahead of us. Not only do we need to arrange all our stuff back into our house (in August, when we can get back into our house), but we also have to do some mental rearranging as we figure out where to go from here. I'm thinking that I might bring this blog, which is focused on a "hapless husband living overseas", to a close rather than try and repackage it. I'll probably end it once we get settled and have finished with the repercussions of the venture. (Whether I attempt to start another blog or not will depend on how life goes.) But for now I'm still committed to documenting the end of our China venture as well as posting a few flashbacks that I never got around to writing up.

Today's post falls in the latter category. Our train ride to Maoming afforded a lot of writing time and I filled up many pages in my steno book. Most of it is not worth posting online at this late date, but there was one bit of musing I did want to share:

I had a thought last night about traveling. It seems to me that one has a choice when traveling. (Assuming one can afford choices, that is.) One can travel quickly or slowly. You can take a plane or a train across country, a taxi or a bus across town. For the right fee you can spend less time traveling and more time at your destination.

But I think there is another dimension to travel. Slow travel also lets one travel more deeply. For example, our trip to Kunming takes 35 minutes by plane or 12 hours by bus. That's over eleven hours that I could be spending at home or in Kunming. But it's also eleven hours I could be spending in contemplation, discussion or just watching the scenery go by. (I can't spend it reading because reading on the bus gives me a headache.) Even when I'm just looking out the window, I get a much greater feel for the countryside through which I'm passing. I can slowly note the contours of the land, watch the people going on with their daily lives and simply ruminate over the panorama passing before me.

In part, our China venture is another example of traveling deeply. We're visitors here, not immigrants, but we've signed on for the long tour--two years rather than two weeks. I've gotten plenty of pictures and plenty of stories out of the trip. But I've also received the experience of living in a place that's beyond my ability to describe. It'll be interesting to see how these past two years will fit into my life.

Of course, when you think about it, life is the longest and deepest journey of all....

Brother can you spare a job?

2007-07-10T00:00:00.000-07:00

The haze of jet-lag has faded and a new week has started. Time to work. I made my first attempt at finding employment today, namely calling my old boss. Actually, I should be honest. I tried to call him last Thursday, but was informed that he was out until today. Today he was in the office, but not at his phone. I left a voice mail and then hung around the house avoiding using the phone line so I could be ready to answer the phone if he called back. As of 5 pm, he hasn't. I tried calling twice more during the day, but got the same voice mail message. sigh. I hate job searching. No matter how many times I read about being proactive and using good sales techniques to sell myself I feel like a nuisance. Maybe that's why I've gotten the two major jobs of my career through the want ads. Ah, well. At least I had time to tweak the resume and do some budgeting. Now I know how small a salary I can accept when I get desperate.

Swamped

2007-07-05T23:55:00.001-07:00

Where has the time gone? I've been back in America for three days now, our China venture finished, and nary a blog post. Not one word about Yau Neih attending the dance show and being drafted into performing with our dance group. No detailed account of our luggage hassles. No mention of being in Hong Kong for the 10th anniversary of the handover. No musings on reverse culture shock. Just silence.

Hey, what can I say? Life is busy and I'm jet lagged. I suppose I could go back and write all those posts retroactively, but judging from past experience, that ain't gonna happen. I wonder if Wil Wheaton has this problem?

Slowing down

2007-06-25T08:02:00.001-07:00

The cleaning, the packing, the farewells continue. Today, for the first time, I felt an eagerness to leave. I don't know if it's because we've said most of our farewells or I just want to get the cleaning over with. Or maybe it's because we've been able to arrange a trip back home to Chicagoland in July. It's probably a combination of all three.

Emotionally, this past weekend was the farewell weekend. Actually, it was the last weekend we'll be here, as we fly out of town on Saturday morning. We were kept busy all weekend from the regular Saturday morning hike (which I opted out of to hose down the living room) all the way to a visit with a couple of students on Sunday evening. (We gave them a big pile of stuff we didn't want anymore--mostly the various magazines and brochures we had sitting under our coffee table.)(American junk mail is gold to a rural English student.) In between were a few photo sessions with various students and two delicious meals--one at a restaurant and one given by more students. If this feasting keeps up I'll gain back all the weight I lost here. It was fun but tiring.

Unfortunately, relaxing is not on the schedule. As usual, the various tasks before me--which look so easy on paper--seem to expand to fill the available time. I suppose I can still hold out hope that I'll have a good day tomorrow which will free up the rest of the weeks. I just won't hold my breath....

Ruts

2007-06-22T17:07:00.001-07:00

100_5658
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn

One thing about living here--I've gained a new appreciation for pavement and proper drainage on the roadways. Not that I've ever had to drive on any of these dirt roads, mind you. I'm thinking that it would be a worse hassle than walking on them. Sort of like having to drive in snow all year long.

Anyway, I probably shouldn't complain too loudly. About 90% of the roads I use are paved. Unfortunately, that remaining 10% includes the driveway from campus to the rest of the world--a road I have to use every day. The road's in a temporary status at this point. The college is putting in a new gate/entrance, so traffic is diverted around the main roadway. The alternate route is a real mud pit this time of year and with all the big trucks passing through on the way to construction sites, the mud gets spread all down the road. I've given up on washing my shoes for the duration. Maybe I spring for a shoe shine at the airport on my way out.

I should point out that the picture above is not the campus roadway. It's a country road that Yau Neih and I explored last Wednesday. It was a spousal hike that we scheduled to take advantage of us both having a "day off". (Technically, since my primary function has switched from home teacher to home packer and cleaner, I did have work to do. But I'm also my own boss in this... or at least as own boss as any husband can be. ;-) ) We packed a lunch and decided to follow a road we had discovered over the winter break. 'Twas a pleasant road, winding it's way up into the mountains to the south of town. There's a constant temptation on such roads to see what's around the next bend.

Of course, after a few "next bends" after our previous stopping point we came to what looked like the end of the road. There was a gateway over the road and a big building next to it. It looked like private property, though upon reflection I suppose it could have been the entrance to a village. (I still don't know how everything works here.) Not wanting to trespass, we doubled back and took the first side road we met. This ran up the mountain and quickly shrunk down to footpath status. We intrepidly followed and were treated to some great views of some local farms. One small valley had been transformed into a cascade of green rice paddies.

We quickly got lost as the path wound it's way higher and higher. Not lost in the sense of needing to be rescued, but rather in the sense that our only chance to find our way home would be to retrace our steps. After an hour, hour and a half, I really felt like we had penetrated unknown territory. The illusion was shattered about then when we reached a lookout point and could clearly see the campus in the distance. About a half hour later, we discovered a side path that took us to a trail which we had hiked before. Oh, well. It might have been backyard discoveries that we were making, but we enjoyed them nonetheless.

It appears that this jaunt was my last China hike. With one week left, I opted to stay home and clean rather than go on the last Saturday morning hike. With some regret I'll be washing off my hiking boots and try not to think of all the trails here that I haven't tried. But I'll also have fond memories for all the trails that I did get to discover. Kind of an apt metaphor for our whole life here, really.

The long goodbye

2007-06-20T02:01:00.001-07:00

Gak! Two-thirds of the month of June has passed! Ten days left to pack, clean and say farewell. Of course, I make it sound like a big deal, but really the packing and cleaning is proving to be relatively easy. Unlike, say, Sherri who has to clean and pack a whole big house, we only have have to deal with a two bedroom apartment and two years of accumulated clutter. It will still be a challenge to pack it all into eight suitcases, but accomplishing the task will be a rather quick process.

Meanwhile, while the girls and I are cleaning, Yau Neih has been teaching her final classes and administering tests. It's been a surprisingly emotional experience. Not so much for us--we're of fine German stock and so sublimate our emotional extremes into headaches and ulcers and all that. No, it's the students who are shedding the tears. In each of the four classes that Yau Neih teaches, her last class has been a "bawl fest". (Of course, I think she shares part of the blame as she decided to sing a farewell song to them. Songs always tend to make folks emotional.) It's weird, you wouldn't think that she's had that big of an effect on the kids.

So anyway, we've got ten more days to take those last photos, swap e-mail addresses and shed a tear or two. It'll be interesting to see who stays in touch and who will drift away. In a amazing role switch, Yau Neih's been treating all the goodbyes as final ones while I tend to hold onto the optimistic maybe. She's quick to admit that "no, we won't be seeing you again." Me, I'll say that maybe we'll be back again someday. Intellectually, I know it would be a miracle if we even see two or three of these folks again. But then, ten years ago I was skeptical we'd ever be living in China.

School's out

2007-06-18T08:45:00.000-07:00

This past Friday, my career as a home school teacher ended--not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with an order to my older daughter to put some figures on her timeline. It's certainly been a learning experience for me. Back in the day, I thought myself a pretty good teacher, having helped train a number of people in using a variety of software and equipment. I discovered that training adults is not the same as educating children. In my previous forays into training, I had simply offered the information I had, guiding the trainees when needed and answering any questions I could. If the person being trained didn't care to learn or use whatever technique I was demonstrating, it was no big deal. Either they had the smarts to find their own way or they could wallow in their ignorance. As long as I fulfilled my part of the bargain, I was satisfied.

Teaching my kids, however, turned out to be a whole 'nother ball game. Much as I would have loved to throw up my hands and walk away when Siu Wan was being cranky about doing math, I didn't dare. Not learning basic arithmetic was not an option. And while I could be serene about a co-worker doing slipshod work, seeing a sloppy lab write up from Ga Dai made me grit my teeth. I cared about their performance and I couldn't calmly accept poor performance.

The problem was, I discovered that a big part of education is management and I'm a lousy manager. I'm a good self-starter and a hard worker and all that, but I'm nigh clueless as to motivating someone else to do a good job. When it came to working with my kids, I had a hard time figuring when to offer words of patient encouragement and when to apply a proverbial kick in the pants. Looking back, I think we all muddled through, but I think that the kids would have done better had my wife had been in the driver seat.

Anyway, this fall they can return to life in Seattle and hopefully Yau Neih can mend whatever damage I inflicted on the kids' education. After two years of handling the homeschooling, I would still recommend it as a superior alternative to public schools, but I also have a greater respect for and understanding of those parents who say that they couldn't handle it.

The week that was

2007-06-12T08:09:00.001-07:00

I suppose while I have a moment I should make a posting. Just to clean up a few odds and ends. Blogging is a lower priority these days, of course, but I still should make an effort to continue this chronicle to the end. When that end will be, I don't know. I figure that my theme should be valid for a few months as we settle back into life in America. After then, who knows? Maybe another blog with a different name. Maybe I'll have time for something completely different. A mimeographed fanzine would be nice....

***

Anyway, I posted before about farewell dinners and the like. The dinner with the dancers was pretty much as expected--a lot of smiling and eating and posing for pictures, but little conversation. Oh, and we did some dancing, too. I think I might have been wishing for a bit too much regarding socialization with the folks. We made a deeper connection, but it was on an emotional level rather than an intellectual one. It wasn't all I had hoped for, but it was fun. (I also burned my lips off when I had some chicken feet at dinner. Apparently those folks prefer their food, like their music, to be hot and spicy.)

***

We had our second banquet on Saturday when the graduating five-year class invited us for dinner. It was literally the most last minute invitation we have ever received. We were planning on going out to dinner that evening and we were putting on our shoes to go when there was a knock. One of Yau Neih's colleagues was at the door and he informed us that we were invited to the party and the cabs were waiting downstairs. Yau Neih commented later that, two years ago, she would have been angry over such a last minute proposition. After two years in China, however, she was able to accept the invite in stride. Will we ever be able to adapt back to American ways? Do we want to?

***

Oh, there was another feast in between the aforementioned parties. Yau Neih celebrated a birthday last week and four of her students treated her (and her lucky family) to a homemade dinner. I was amazed that such good Chinese food could come out of our little kitchen. (Don't get me wrong, Yau Neih is a great cook, but she doesn't do real Chinese cuisine.) I was even more amazed that four people could work in our little kitchen. What can I say? These are some amazing ladies.

***

In a bit of synchronicity, we received word yesterday that the water heater in our house went kaput. At the same time, our campus is lacking hot water. We're supplied here from a hot spring, and I guess the water level is too low to provide us with a good supply. Or so I'm told. I don't fully understand the mechanics behind it. All I know is that the Seattle water heater is a whole lot easier to fix.

Here comes da judge

2007-06-10T09:05:00.000-07:00

Well, the venture is winding down, but there's still time for new experiences. Tonight I got to be a judge for the Foreign Language Department's speaking competition. This is one of those "honors" that our co-workers had warned us about, along with things like being asked to perform at talent shows and being offered bai jiu toasts at banquets. Unlike the other honors, however, we had never been asked to judge anything until this past month. There were two preliminary rounds of speeches and Yau Neih got tagged to judge both. Me, I had to miss the previous bouts and I think the only reason I was asked this time was that the other foreign teachers had said that they were unavailable. Ah, well. I had plenty of experience being a second (or was that third?) stringer back in junior high basketball, so I was glad to serve. Glad and slightly nervous.

I have never been a judge of anything before, but I figured I could do a passable job of it. On one hand I can be incredibly nitpicky, so I was sure I could critique the speeches and speakers. On the other hand, I realized that the primary goal was to encourage language learning, so I could keep my inner critic on a leash and not be too harsh. Besides, the other judges could always balance me out. What I didn't realize was that this was a realtime event. I had try to listen to the speeches, make my evaluation and scribble it down by the time the next speech started. There was no time to reflect on it all, much less rewind the speech to catch a segment again. If I failed to catch something, it was gone.

Unfortunately, it took me time to adjust to the process, as well as to get a feel for the point system. Theoretically, the point spread went from zero to 1.0. In actuality, the scores centered around .8 or so. In my case, I started with .6 being the basic assigned score for passable work, and tried to judge speeches along a 4 point spread. After the confusion of the first few speeches, however, I fell back to more of a three point system and the low number crept up to .7 by the end. I wished I could have went back and re-evaluated the initial contestants, but of course, I couldn't. Unfortunately, the first speeches were all given by non-English majors, who all got lower scores. Hopefully they took it in stride and haven't developed a loathing for the snooty Foreign Language Department.

Another surprise was my attempt to be impartial. I figured that I could be objective and all that, but I discovered that it took some effort. "Love covers a multitude of sins," as the saying goes and I was really tempted to cut my favorite students some slack. Well, really, I wanted to cut all of the students some slack. But then for fear of partiality, I'd be tempted to start getting critical. In the end I wished I could have just skipped the whole judging thing and taken all the students out for ice cream or something. Ah, well, at least it's unlikely that I'll have to do that ever again.

Shake, shake, shake

2007-06-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

I didn't get a good night's sleep on Saturday. Not because I was nervous about hanging with the dancers, but rather that we had an earthquake at 5:30 in the morning and I couldn't get back to sleep. You might have heard about it, it made the international news. Oddly enough we got e-mails of concern from Illinois before we got phone calls from the company office in Hong Kong. But for us, it wasn't that big of a deal. We were about 200 km (120 miles) from the epicenter, so while we got shaken, there was no damage.

As a native of a flat, stable land, I took the earthquake quite calmly. Of course, I was sound asleep when it hit. By the time I was awake enough to think about my safety, the quake was over. I then waited for any cries from the children, and when there were none, I rolled over and thought about going back to sleep. The thought of buildings collapsing crossed my mind, and I said a quick prayer for those folks who might be living in older or poorer buildings. It never really occurred to me that we might be residing in an unsafe building. (I heard later that at least some of the students were hustled out of bed and ended up having to stand outside for a half hour.) Why wouldn't Yunnan have the same strict building codes as Seattle? I actually don't know how safe this building is or not. I suppose that's just one of the hallmarks of being a foreigner--you assume things are just like home until you learn otherwise.

Anyway, things look fine for us. The folks over in Pu'er City, however, are still suffering from the aftereffects.

Bashful

2007-06-01T08:03:00.001-07:00

One month to go--the countdown begins. Okay, in one sense, we already did. I didn't notice when exactly, but a while back when something annoying happened, we started muttering, "Just x more weeks." But that doesn't strike me as a proper countdown. A proper countdown, in this situation, would be in days. But we haven't started counting days at all. We're not eager to leave by any means.

But leave we must, and this is the month of farewell. If last year was any indication, it means a number of graduation parties or farewell dinners. The first one will be this Sunday and it's one I approach with a bit of trepidation. It will be the first time that we actually socialize with the street dancers.

I've mentioned the dancers before, the guys who danced on the street corner, back in the day, and eventually moved operations over to a local park. They bestowed membership tags upon us and we eventually settled into having a dance night once a week. Well, that's been about the extent of our relationship with them. Last year, we did try to trck down some of the music to which we danced and so brought some students along to talk to the dance leader. She gave us a list of song titles and also mentioned something about inviting us to dinner or a picnic or something. Nothing materialized, but that was okay. They continued to let us massacre their dances, and that was enough.

Time passed, new songs were added to the repertoire, so this year we again hired Gail to be our translator and asked for more song titles. This time we mentioned that we were heading back to the States for good and the dance leader definitely wanted to have a get together. Her exact idea was a bit unclear. She apparently wanted to have us get together with a small number of "good dancers", so we could dance and they could videotape the whole thing. What was unclear was whether the vid was for us to remember them by or for them to use to promote the group. It seems that our being regular participants in their dance circle has given them some face or something. When we pinned down the details, we discovered that there would be dancing and dinner.

So now we have a dinner party awaiting us and I'm nervous. I mean, I always have a great time dancing and I'm fascinated by this group. I have a zillion questions I'd love to ask them. But at the same time I know that when I sit down with one of them, I won't be able to articulate a single one of them. I don't want to come across as a fool to these folks I admire. (I had the same problem when I had an opportunity to chat with Eva Moon of Balkanarama. Once I got beyond "you guys are great," I didn't know what to say.) Of course, one of the advantages of being a lao wai is that people might think your foolishness is just a cultural difference. So maybe I might be able to pop out a question or two. We'll have to see what kind of nerve I can work up.

So far from my home

2007-05-28T01:36:00.000-07:00

Ah, Memorial Day Weekend. The second time around for us to miss the Northwest Folklife Festival. Last year, I didn't notice it so much. This year, it's kind of sad to think about. I wonder if it's a short-timer thing. Maybe my subconscious is saying, "We're so close to going back to the States, if only they could have waited a month and a half." Or maybe it's just the inevitable turning of the thoughts toward our once and future home. Oh, well....

Shattered

2007-05-21T19:38:00.000-07:00

How do I write this? How can I describe this loss? Is this something I even want to write? After almost eighteen years of marriage, I'm.... well, let's just say it's gone. Shattered. Irreparably broken.

What? My marriage? Oh, no that's fine. Well, as well as can be expected under the circumstances. No, what I'm talking about is my wedding ring. My fifth wedding ring to be exact. You see, back in 1989 we were young, in love and went to some store or another to buy me a wedding ring. I think we went to Service Merchandise, or some such department store. We found a plain, gold wedding band for about $100. I think. My memory is quite unreliable, I'm afraid. I do know that it was gold, however, and I do remember that it was a bit loose. At the time I thought loose was good. I planned on wearing that thing for many years and I figured my fingers would get fatter. Buying for the future, I was.

Well, the future didn't quite worked out the way I planned. Loose meant that the ring had a tendency to slip off. Most of the time I caught it, but there were a few times I didn't. Like the time I was swimming in the hotel pool in St. Louis, and had to dive to the bottom to retrieve it. Or the winter day I was taking out the garbage to the dumpster behind our apartment in Chicago. I had to run up down the stairs with a teapot full of hot water to melt the snow so I could find my band of gold. And then there was the day we were snowshoeing up at Mt. Rainier and I swung my arm a bit too briskly. The ring flew off my hand and landed in the snow. 27 feet of snow. No teapot was going to save the day that time. We filed a lost and found claim with the park rangers, but we also stopped at a store on the way home and bought a replacement ring.

My second ring was silver, with a cross engraved in it. I think I had the idea of some sort of Celtic design in mind, but this was more simple and cheaper. Maybe we spent $50 for it? Anyway, having learned my lesson, I made sure it had a nice snug fit. I was quite happy with the design, but I soon discovered that for some reason it would irritate the skin on my finger, especially if I got my hands wet. So I got into the habit of removing the ring anytime I got my hand wet. It was a dangerous habit, but I only had one close call with losing it in all the years I owned it. (I had been changing a diaper--a definite wet hands situation--and left the ring sitting on a shelf in a public restroom. That ring did make it to the lost and found and I retrieved it the next day.)

But despite many years of hanging onto the ring, I did manage to lose that one as well. One day we were heading to Chicago and as we headed towards airport security I frantically divested myself of anything that might remotely trigger the metal detector. (This was pre 9-11 when passing through security could be quick.) I stuffed all my loose possessions into the exterior pockets of the diaper bag and somewhere in the process the ring must have tumbled out. All I know is that when I recombobulated myself, I was ringless. As penance, I spent the whole vacation ringless. Afterward, however, Yau Neih had pity on me and gave me my third wedding ring. This one was my favorite. She crocheted it herself out of string. I proudly wore it, though still removing it to wash my hands and such. It wore out after many months, but Yau Neih could crochet a new one to replace it.

Of course, that was boring for her, so after about a year of having a string ring, she bought me another silver ring for Christmas. I had been hoping for a CD, but that's not important here. It was a thin band, with the word "love" engraved upon it. I wistfully put my string ring aside and began to wear my fourth ring. This also survived for a while, much like my second. It's loss, however, was quite undramatic. One day, around the beginning of this year, I had slipped it off for some reason or another and had put it in my pocket. Somehow, somewhere it must have slipped out. I sadly confessed my loss. Yau Neih, at this point, took it very well. Obviously my inability to hang onto wedding rings is just one of those irritating, unchangeable habits that spouses learn to deal with.

So anyway, we come to my current ring... well, formerly current, I guess. Back on our Dali trip we were turning the park at Butterfly Spring. We were wandering through a gift shop and saw a bunch of jade thingies on sale, including a little bin of rings. I was taken up with the idea of getting a jade ring and Yau Neih agreed. Especially since the rings were only 10 kuai each. So we bought one--a kind of a brown, green and white mixture. (I'm sure the original stone had beautiful bands of color, but when you cut it down to ring size, you kind of lose the magic.) It fit well and I quite liked it. Though I guess my fingers were kind of fat that day, because in the weeks since I've had moments when the ring would threaten to slip off. Another plus was that it didn't irritate my skin. So I took Yau Neih's suggestion that I take to wearing the ring all of the time. I think her rationale was that if I always wore the ring, I'd be less likely to misplace it. Sound reasoning. But when I followed her advice, I lacked one vital bit of information.

On Sunday night, after tearing myself away from a very addicting book, I headed to the shower. I was washing my hair, scrubbing away, when I felt the ring slip off of my finger. I could feel it bounce off my shoulder and heard a little ding! as it hit the floor. Concerned that it might be swept down the drain, I immediately cut the water and wiped the soapy water from my eyes. There I saw my current wedding ring had been transformed into my current wedding curved fragments. Nobody told me that jade would break if you dropped it from a sufficient height. I sadly gathered up the three pieces and wondered if it would be worth trying to repair.

The next morning I broke (no pun intended) the news to Yau Neih. I also determined that any attempts to superglue the ring together would probably be futile. So now the question is what shall I get for my next ring? There are still many materials that I haven't tried--wood, copper, brass, plastic. I suppose I could just apply a line of super-glue around my ring finger and dip my hand into a pile of glitter. Nah, that would be too gaudy. Ah, well. If anyone has a suggestion, feel free to send it my way. Even if I buy my sixth ring in the meantime, I can file ideas away for the seventh.

Return to sender

2007-05-17T08:11:00.000-07:00

Yau Neih and were given a culture lesson yesterday--a course in addressing envelopes. Did you know that, in China, they write the main address in the upper left quadrant of the envelope and the return address in the lower right corner? We didn't, until yesterday. Actually, I had suspected as much, having seen an envelope with our colleges name and postal code preprinted in the lower right corner. But since China Post always accepts our letters to America, which are addressed in American fashion, I went ahead and addressed my letter to Maoming as I always have. "Maybe the preprinted envelopes were business reply envelopes," I rationalized.

I should have recalled that they don't do checks here. Bills are paid by walking down to whatever office is involved and giving the clerk cold, hard cash. When we took our letters--the first in-country letters we've tried to mail ourselves--down to the post office, they gave us a scolding. And two new envelopes. We got out of line and transferred the contents of our old envelopes to the new ones. 'Twas a pity, because instead of being addressed by Ga Dai's elegant hand, our letters now bore my crooked, chicken-scratch characters. We were a bit intimidated by the whole deal and didn't try to write the return address. That was a mistake, because when we tried to submit the letters again, we got another scolding. So we got out of line again and finished addressing our letters properly. At least I hope it was properly. The clerk accepted our envelopes on the third try, at any rate. And, hey, that was one better than our ticket purchase in Maoming.

(Oh, yeah, I didn't write about the ticket purchase in Maoming yet. I really should do that soon....)

Keep out

2007-05-13T07:50:00.001-07:00

100_5168rl
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

This is as close as we got. I mentioned before how we wanted to visit the town and orphanage from where we got my younger daughter. Well, it didn't quite work out as planned. The rule is that all orphanage visits must be arranged through an agency called Bridge of Love. We contacted them and got the whole paperwork thing going. But somewhere along the way we hit a snag. I won't go into details, but basically we heard less than two weeks before our trip that we'd have to travel to Guangzhou to pay a service fee. This was a step that would probably be no problem for a family visiting from the States, who'd most likely be traveling through the city anyway. But for us, traveling by train from Yunnan, it was quite a pain--one that would undoubtedly require an overnight stay in Guangzhou. We decided at that point, quite crankily, to forgo the orphanage visit. We shot off an e-mail saying that we couldn't afford this new development and cancelled our request. A few days later, I started having second thoughts, realizing that I should be willing to spend whatever time and money required for my daughter to get the visit that she needed. When Yau Neih and I discussed it with Siu Wan, however, it turns out that she didn't need the visit that bad. She said that she was a bit disappointed, but that we were more upset about this than she was. Smart kid. So we bailed on the orphanage visit, settling for a walk past the facility. (Okay, three walks past, actually. Two with the kid.) And if a few years down the road Siu Wan decides that she really needs to make that orphanage visit, well, we can start saving our shekels and try to make that happen.

Bleah

2007-05-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

I suppose I should start posting about our trip over this past week's May holiday. But I need to find time to type. There have many tasks that have clamored for my attention this week. Alas, I fear such will be my life for the next seven weeks. (Seven weeks! Ah, the time is flying...) Emotionally, the biggest task is starting the job search. I was quite aware going in that I would need to find work fast once we returned. But knowing what's ahead and actually sitting down to write that resume are two different experiences. I really dislike the whole self promotion thing, so I end up writing resumes and cover letters with gritted teeth. Ofttimes I end up writing two or three parodies of the thing before I hammer out the final version. (Hmmm, maybe I should post them here.)(Hmmmm, maybe I should do nothing of the sort until I'm safely secure in a job.)

Anyway, I seem to be running out of steam on this blog. (I know, I have a great talent for stating the obvious.)(Either that or I have picked up the Chinese habit of stating the obvious as a greeting.) I suppose I could blame the fact that this China venture is winding down. Of necessity, my thoughts are turning homeward. What do we need to do when we get back to America? What preparations can we make while we're still here? Are there any loose ends in our life here that we need to tie up? (Besides giving away my Mandarin copy of Batman Begins.)(Did I ever mention that? I bought a VCD of Batman Begins only to discover that it had no English soundtrack or subtitles.)(I watched it anyway and knew enough of the Batman legend that I had little problems following the plot.) It's nothing new and exciting, nothing that invites deep or even humorous contemplation. Perhaps my blog addiction is going the way of my message board addiction? Or maybe two years is the time for a blog's mid-life crisis? So many questions, so few answers.
***
(P.S. I should mention here that I cleared up the PayPal thing. Now can I not only get another year as a Flickr pro but I can also go buy things on eBay... not that I really have a desire to at present.)

On the road again

2007-05-01T07:39:00.001-07:00

I'm posting mid-holiday from the Guangdong province. There's a lot to tell about, some of which may actually be interesting. However, I really don't feel motivated to type much right now. I have been able to use the ol' Bic in the last few days, so at least I can post it someday.

I will state right now, for the record, that knowing a little bit of Cantonese and a little bit of Mandarin is really not all that helpful in a place where folks may be speaking one or the other. I try to use some of my dimly remembered Cantonese, and then switch over to one of my stock Mandarin phrases. Ah, well. We can usually, eventually, get what we want. Plus we have amused a few of the locals by speaking some guang dong wa. Sometimes I think that's my current purpose in life--to bring brief moments of amusement to the lives of others. Ah, well...

Back to the minors

2007-04-25T08:14:00.000-07:00

This is weird. I just received a notice that my Flickr pro account is expiring. I tried to renew, but PayPal refuses to process my payment. It says that since it has my credit card number in its system, I have to log in. When I try to log in, it says my account is "permanently locked".* Now, I've never been fond of PayPal, only using it when necessary. I dimly recall having some problem with it a while back, but given my status as a part-time resident of China and all that, I just ignored it. Now it looks like PayPal may be ignoring me. That would be ironic. Anyway, if you want to look at any of my old photos, you better do it before May 9th.

*For the record, on the off chance a future lender might be reading this, my finances are truly in order and, while I have made late payments a handful of times in my life, I do pay my bills.

Watered

2007-04-19T07:40:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the Dai Water Splashing Festival. This year we were in Kunming for two of the three days. We returned home on Monday morning to discover that classes had been cancelled for the day. That didn't affect me, so we just unpacked and began to go through our day. We decided to go get some noodles for lunch, so we strolled over to our favorite noodle restaurant. Earlier in the day, I noticed that there wasn't much splashing activities. On the way back from the restaurant, we noticed that a few "bucket brigades" were strolling about, just like last year. We kept alert as we walked home, mostly looking for boys heading Ga Dai's direction. They left us alone, though one group of kids gave us a sprinkle as we walked past.

About halfway home, however, our luck changed. We met a group of Yau Neih's students, who were headed towards the park to indulge in aquatic mischief. They had no compunctions about "watering" us and gave us a few good splashes. I had a bottle of water with me, so I sacrificed some to give a few sprinkles back. The students didn't get us too wet, however, and it felt kind of nice in the hot, noontime sun. We crossed Qishan Road and headed down the street stretch to the campus gate--a splash-free zone. Along that stretch, we encountered another group of people who weren't afraid to splash foreigners. Three kids about five years old or so were squirting passers by with super soakers. They saw us and gave us a shot as well. Joining in the spirit of the day, I tried to retaliate with my water bottle. This was quite amusing to my assailants, and they attacked in earnest. The little girl wearing the raincoat (cheater!) was especially vicious. By the time I made it to the campus gate, I was rather wet.

On the campus driveway we encountered many students heading off campus, buckets in hand. I discovered, to my dismay, that the "no splashing" rules had been rescinded since last year. Or maybe they just weren't enforcing them. Whatever the case, my dampened state was interpreted by some to indicate that I needed more splashing. A group of guys--total strangers to me--really soaked me. One even dumping a half liter or so down my back. I made a few feeble attempts to empty my bottle, but it was obvious that I was outclassed. I sloshed into my apartment, regretting that I still had an afternoon of lessons to teach. Hopefully someone at the park was able to wreak vengeance on my behalf.

Personal space

2007-04-09T18:40:00.000-07:00

We had a bit of a surprise on Sunday. We had been out to a nice Easter dinner and had just hustled through a rain shower to get home. (Like an idiot I forgot to pack the umbrellas.) I walked into our bedroom to put away my backpack and there, on our balcony, was a man. He was bent over the railing, with his back to me, and working on a sign. Our building, like many in China, has space for little shops on the ground level. They recently opened a clothing shop directly under our neighbor's flat and apparently they had decided to add a sign above their establishment. Since our second floor balcony is right next to the space where they had affixed the sign, the guy had set up his ladder and climbed up to get a perch from which to work.

After the initial surprise, I had mixed feelings about the whole affair. On one hand, I recognized the situation and did not begrudge the worker a place to stand and do his job. On the other hand, I did feel a slight resentment that this guy just climbed up on our balcony without asking any sort of permission. It was an unreasonable resentment, I know, bred from my American upbringing. We weren't home to grant any sort of permission, and truly, it isn't our property. In America, work might have been delayed until we had given our consent, or even just had a warning of what was going to happen. Of course, this isn't America. The concept of trespassing/personal property is different here. It seems like if people need to use your space, they'll go ahead and do it. Mountain paths wind past people's homes, fields, and even graves. People cut through and it's no big deal. I've done so myself, many a time. So it's ironic that when its my turn to give a bit of personal space, I have a slight gut reaction against it. Ah, well, even I am not innocent of having double standards.

Of course, the real offense is not that the worker happened to use my balcony for a half hour or so. What really bugs me is that, months ago, I was smirking at some of the other foreigners on our floor who had a grating/cage installed around their balcony. I thought they were being a bit paranoid, that no one was going to go climbing up onto their balcony. I guess they were right after all.

I'll fly away

2007-04-05T08:46:00.000-07:00

We took a trip out to the airport last Saturday. No, we didn't grab a flight to anywhere. We just went to the airport. You see, there's this freshman student named Jack who's become one of our "teacher's pets". (I know, teachers are supposed to be fair and even handed and all that. Well, when it comes to teaching, Yau Neih is all that. But there are certain students with whom you tend to develop a bit of a friendship.) He's a bold kid, and from the start of the year he's made it a point to talk with us. That chutzpah was evident the other week when he said that he wanted to go to the airport with us the next time we went. He had never seen an airport before and wanted to check it out. (No doubt in preparation for the time when he becomes a successful entrepreneur and starts accumulating frequent flyer miles.) I chuckled and said that we might arrange something. I didn't muse too much on the idea until a few days later when he asked me if we were going to the airport that coming weekend. It then became obvious that he was dead serious, so I told him that I would definitely take him to the airport one day soon. In truth, I had warmed to the idea myself. It brought back memories of my childhood when we had pulled to the shoulder along Irving Park Road and watched the planes come in for a landing at O'Hare field.

Anyway, I finally picked last Saturday as the date to make a field trip to the airport. I checked it out with Jack and he was agreeable. It promised to be a nice, relaxed Saturday outing. Of course, this is China, where situations have a tendency to change. About the same time I was making plans with Jack, one of the classes on campus was inviting us to come along on a class picnic. Since we usually hike on Saturday morning, it wasn't a big problem. We would probably be out longer than normal, but if we watched the clock, we could easily get back to town in time to catch the 3 o'clock airport bus. Then, on Thursday, came another complication. There's a group of Americans doing agricultural development work outside of town. They invited us to come out to the farm on Saturday evening for one of their regular dinner parties. Logistically, it could fit in with our plans. The farm is only four kilometers from the airport, so we could simply watch the afternoon plane arrive and then walk over to the party. The question was, do we just dump Jack on the bus back to town, or do we try and finagle an invitation for him as well? We chose the latter, naturally, and the folks at the farm we quite agreeable to him coming. The schedule was a busy one, but quite workable.

So Saturday came and the morning went just as planned. We got home in plenty of time to change our clothes and pack up some cookies to take to the party. About twenty after two we called Jack and asked if he was ready. We also asked him if he wanted to come along to the party. Surprisingly, he declined the party idea, but said he was coming over to our building to meet up with us. As we headed downstairs, we decided that we'd ask him again and make sure he wasn't just being overly polite. Soon Jack arrived and asked if it was okay if he "brought some girls" along. It was a bit of a surprise, but I supposed adding a couple of friends could hurt too much. (I had been planning to pick up the bus fare, of course, but even though the outing had expanded from me and Jack to me, the whole family, Jack and Jack's friends, it was still within budget.) Jack ran off toward the dorms, to hurry his friends along.

A couple of minutes later I could see Jack heading back towards us along the landscaped walkway. I could see a couple of umbrellas following him. The funny thing was, it looked like quite a number of umbrellas following him, but of course, that was probably just a few girls walking in the same direction as him. Jack quickly reached us and introduced us to his sister. And her friends. All seven of her friends. Yau Neih greeted them all while I was busy doing math in my head. Eight girls, one Jack, four lao wai that's thirteen people at 8 kuai a head... yeah, I think I could afford bus fare for everyone. I decided that I would wait for them to ask, though, before offering to pay. So off we all went on our grand adventure.

The trip itself turned out to be quite amusing. We reached the bank from where the bus departs. All thirteen of us piled aboard, pretty much taking up the extra seats. Two guys actually got on after us and then turned around and hailed a cab. I felt a bit guilty, though I would have gladly offered them my seat if given the chance. When we arrived at the airport, I tried to give the students the nickel tour. Of course, all of the girls were math majors and most of them didn't speak much English. Jack wasn't really interested in the airport itself. He just wanted to see the plane and take pictures. The students scouted around a bit and decided to snap a picture with the family in front of a banyan tree at the edge of the parking lot. Yau Neih and the girls then elected to rest in the shade, having been sapped by the sweltering bus. I stuck with the students as we headed out the gate to the sign out front. They decided this was a prime photo location and started taking everyone's picture, both individually and with the lao wai. (I'm starting to marvel just how many people are going to have my ugly mug in their photo albums by the time I leave here. I wish I could hear them try to explain it to their kids years down the road.)

After we exhausted the photographic potential of the sign, we headed further down the hill to some big sculpture set amidst some small trees in front of the airport. As the kids started snapping more pictures, it struck me that it was very Western--some fancy landscaping designed to be admired from a distance. The status quo here seems to be that any swath of greenery becomes a mini-park. As I was musing on how I preferred the Yunnan way, we heard the sound of jet engines. I had been keeping an eye to the north, the direction from which the plane usually comes. Of course, the wind was blowing from the north, so the plane naturally approached from the south. I don't know what I was thinking. The kids immediately cancelled the photo session and hustled back to the terminal.

I have a sneaking hunch that Jack, at least, was expecting to be able to get his photo taken right next to the plane. Of course, even in laid back Yunnan, one doesn't get that close without a ticket. Fortunately, the plane was parked only a hundred yards from the security fence, so the kids at least got a bit of a photo-op. Once again everybody got their picture taken, both individually and as a group.

By this time, we had to get going. I was again afflicted with feelings of guilt, this time by abandoning my young charges so I could head off to the party. (Jack definitely had not been interested in coming with us. I mean, if you had to choose between hanging with your teacher or with seven members of the opposite sex, which would you choose?) Like a worried mother, I warned them not to miss the bus and then we headed off down the highway. It was a pleasant, downhill walk and an even more enjoyable party. I felt like collapsing when I got home, of course, but it was definitely worth the effort.

Change

2007-04-02T20:33:00.000-07:00

My first encounter with Chinese money occurred, naturally enough, on my first trip to China in 1997. The basic units in the currency is the yuan and the jiao, with one yuan equalling ten jiao. I thought it was kind of cool, as far as money goes. Each note was a different color, rather than the drab uniformity we must endure in the U.S. Instead of dead presidents, all of the Chinese currency had pictures of different ethnic groups or working classes. (The exception being the 100 yuan bill.) One oddity I discovered, once I got in country, was that not only did China issue jiao coins, but they also used jiao bills as well. I found this out the hard way, as I mistook the five jiao note for an older version of the five yuan one. The vendor to whom I was trying to give the bill wouldn't accept it. Fortunately I had a translator on hand who could give me a quick explanation.

Anyway, fast forward to 2005. I return to China and am slightly disappointed that while Chinese currency retains its nice colors, the face of the notes now uniformly depict Mao Zedong. ("If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao...") Ah, well, what can you do? There was also a redesign of the jiao coins. However, once I got out here to the Yunnan hinterlands, I discovered that the jiao notes are still alive and well. In fact, I end up saving all my coins For trips to Kunming. I was mildly surprised to see that it was fairly easy to adapt to using bills rather than coins. (Of course, I was also adapting to not using my credit card, which was a bigger adjustment.)

So life went on, month after month. Then, back in December or so, I read an article about the change in China's currency. The article said that on April 1st, the jiao notes would be completely replaced with the coins. 'Twas an end of an era. I lamented the loss of the little bills, and stashed away a souvenir set for my scrapbook. As far as taking my old jiao notes to the bank to exchange for coins, I figured I'd just try to get rid of as many jiao notes as possible at the end of March and keep the remaining few as bookmarks.

Of course, the folks here are not cooperating. At the beginning of the year, I started seeing more coins in the tills of the local supermarkets, but that sort of petered out. Even the big new Tian Shun supermarket, which was using coins exclusively when it first opened, seemed to switch over to the bills. And it didn't change as April approached. Everybody was going along, using jiao notes as if nothing was happening. April 1st came and Yau Neih went out to the vendors to get breakfast. As I was starting to suspect, the pork and taters lady handed her a five jiao note in change. The bus driver accepted jiao notes as fare and even the grocery store still had the notes in the till. Ah, well. Maybe back in Beijing they've got rid of the paper, but here it's business as usual. It'll be interesting to see when the change actually takes place, assuming it does before we leave. Either way I'm prepared, with a stack of bills in my wallet and coins in my pocket.

Lonely hearts

2007-03-27T07:09:00.000-07:00

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.

Cooking lesson

2007-03-21T18:39:00.001-07:00

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.)

Please don't respond to this e-mail

2007-03-18T07:31:00.000-07:00

(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....

Global economy

2007-03-17T07:15:00.000-07:00

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.

Taxation, frustration

2007-03-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

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....

Then I'm going home

2007-03-12T23:28:00.000-07:00

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...

Welcome to the Jungle

2007-03-11T00:47:00.000-08:00

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?

Bending an ear

2007-03-09T23:56:00.000-08:00

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....

Downtown

2007-03-08T06:42:00.000-08:00

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.

If I had a boat

2007-03-06T05:29:00.000-08:00

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.

Playing dress up

2007-03-03T22:11:00.001-08:00

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.

Feeling good in Jamaica

2007-02-27T18:11:00.000-08:00

Actually, we've never been to Jamaica--it's the only tourism related tagline I could recall. (And it's what? over 20 years old?) If there are any taglines to entice folks to visit Dali, I don't know them. But that's what we did. Visit Dali, I mean.

I suppose I should clarify something upfront. Dali is the name of both a city and the prefecture it's in. In the past, when students (such as Gail and Whitney) said they were from Dali, we assumed they came from the city. It turns out that the old city of Dali itself is somewhat small and neither of our hosts live within its walls. Ah, well, live and learn.

Gail's hometown of Hongyuan, which I've mentioned previously, is south of Dali proper. The next morning we hired a mien bao che--small van to you non-Chinese speakers--to take us up to Xiaguan. Now when you take a bus to Dali from other parts of Yunnan, odds are you'll end up in Xiaguan. It's the big city with the bus and train stations, all the tall buildings and what not. It was there we hooked up with our other student, Whitney. We saw a couple sights in Xiaguan, including a structure I've taken to call the Pinball Palace. Mostly Xiaguan struck me as a smaller and cleaner version of Kunming. Lots of buildings, lots of traffic and big city buses for getting around.

After lunch, which by the way was at KFC--probably the worst meal of the whole trip--not that it was bad, it was just that the other meals were so good. Anyway, after lunch we hopped a city bus up to Dali proper. It was a nice twenty minute ride up the coast of Erhai lake. The ancient city of Dali is actually a walled city--something that still impresses this not-so-traveled Americano. It has a distinct style of architecture. The buildings seem to be predominantly made of grey stone with tile roofs that have the curved corners. The upper portions of the walls are more often than not illustrated with pictures or designs. (The best picture I have of it is actually from the Ethnic Minorities villages in Kunming.) We call the style Bai, though I'm not sure if it is actually comes from that people group. (Fine travel writer I'm turning out to be!) The city itself, or at least the part we saw, is quite clean and well maintained.

That makes sense, since the ancient city of Dali is a definite tourist trap. Lots of things to see, lots of places to shop and lots of places to obtain Bai clothing. Dali, of course, is the homeland of the Bai ethnic minority. How many Bai actually live there, however, I have to wonder. (the only Bai student I've met actually lives here in our town--her great-grandfather moved here from Dali and registered as a Han person.) It seems that half the women there wear at least part of the traditional costume. I have three theories as to why that is. The first is that they are actually Bai and proud of their heritage and all that. The second is that the tourists come to Dali expecting to see Bai people so the shopkeepers and other residents dress that way to make the visitors happy. The third is that there are so many Bai costumes manufactured for sale to the tourists that buying one second hand is incredibly cheap. Whatever the reason, the outfits are quite nice to look at.

We spent the night in Dali and then in the morning headed outside of town for a cable car ride up Cang mountain. There are some maintained trails up there and we spent the morning having a look around and dodging snowballs thrown by my daughters. (I refrained from retaliation. Not that I am such a man of peace but rather that the stuff on the ground was old snow. Snowball fights are a lot more fun when the snow is fresh.) After a quick lunch back in the old town, we grabbed another mien bao che up north to the town of Hudiequan--Butterfly Spring.

When darkness falls

2007-02-25T21:57:00.000-08:00

Oh, one more thing about our night in Hongyuan. Our hosts dropped us off for the night and we started getting ready for bed. Suddenly, the lights went out! We peeked outside and saw that the whole building was out, not just our room. A minute later, a hotel employee showed up with a couple of candles. We thought about just brushing our teeth and jumping into bed when Gail and her father showed up. I might have misunderstood them, but it sounded like this was a regular occurrence, that the whole town is blacked out at 9:00 pm or so. Indeed, when I went out onto the balcony and looked out, the whole town was dark. If I understood correctly and the whole town was regularly blacked out, I am amazed that such a thing could occur. Back in the States, I have a tendency to think of electricity as a right. having my power withheld for whatever reason would take some adjustment. On the other hand, it would make for good stargazing. The sky overhead that night was gorgeous. Unfortunately, the folks at the hotel soon cranked up a generator and the view was lost in the courtyard lights.

Sleep tight

2007-02-25T21:47:00.000-08:00

In many ways, our trip around Yunnan was a first for us. One of those firsts was our first real encounter with a Yunnan winter. The rule here in China is that south of the Yellow River, buildings do not have central heating. If we were living in Hong Kong or Guangzhou, we probably wouldn't have minded that at all. But living up in the heights of Yunnan, weather gets a bit chilly. We've never really dealt with it the way a typical resident would have, though. Our apartment came with a space heater, and over the months we've managed to acquire a couple more. Naturally, we use them a lot. While it doesn't quite make our apartment balmy, it does take the edge off the chill as well as give us a warm place to stand when we get dressed or get out of the shower. When we've traveled, we've also been spared the winter chill as we've always been booked into hotels with room heaters.

Well, this trip was different. When our students planned our trip, they were smart. They found inexpensive hotels that met our requirements--Western toilets and hot water. We had never asked for heated rooms, however, as we had never thought that the rooms wouldn't be heated. The first night, when we returned to our hotel room after dinner at Gail's house, we realized that we were in for a chilly night. The temptation was to skip showering and jump right under the covers. But the hot water in this hotel was available at night, so despite the cold tile floors, we all did our showering. While it was unpleasant, I should point out that the experience wasn't bad. Like most Chinese hotels, management provided a big thermos of hot water. I always thought that the practice was due to the fact that Chinese folks like to drink tea. That may be the case, but in the winter time, hot water is a good way to keep warm. The blankets on the bed were also well suited to the environment. After a few minutes under the covers I was as comfortable as I have ever been back home.

On our second night, we stayed in a guesthouse in the old city of Dali. The situation was the same, hot water but no heater. Actually, there were heating pads on the beds. By turning those on and letting them bake a bit under the warm blankets, we were treated to beds that were nice and toasty. I even took off a layer after trying to sleep under those warm covers. If I had read about these accommodations before coming to China, I would have probably have avoided the place. But having experienced it firsthand (And having been charged only 40 kuai/$5 US per room) I think it's a pretty good deal. And it's really just the way folks live around here. When we visited the homes of our students, the heating situation was the same. We all wore our coats inside the same as we did outside.

I suppose it's all just a matter of how one attempts to keep warm. Back in America we attempt to master our environments, ensuring our homes can be set to the proper temperature despite the weather outside. In China, folks just dress for the weather, indoors or out. The thought of coming into a warm, cozy house is really a cultural expectation. On our trip, cozy meant gathering with others around a cup of tea and a good meal (or two). I have to admire the gestalt of it all, and feel a bit guilty about my own way of life. Of course, I'm not about to get rid of my furnace back home. Even if the rest of the family would accept it, I am a product of my own culture. But I can't help but think that maybe the customs here aren't worth considering.

Welcome to Hongyuan

2007-02-24T04:16:00.000-08:00

Visiting Gail's hometown was quite a lesson in hospitality. As I mentioned before, we had declined an offer to stay in her home, citing the need for Western-style toilets. She had mentioned that she could arrange a hotel for us, but when we got to Hongyuan, I wondered if the town was even big enough for a hotel. It turns out that the town did have a hotel--sort of. Apparently one of Gail's relatives had recently bought a building and were in the process of converting it into a hotel. It wasn't open to the public yet, but we got a chance to stay there anyway. Gail's father met us right away and helped take our suitcases up to the room. We didn't spend too much time there, but rather headed over to their house.

Both Gail's house and the hotel were in the busy part of town. (I suppose I should 'fess up and mention that this was the only part of Hongyuan we got a chance to see. But looking over the rooftops, the town didn't appear to be all that large, so I'm assuming we were in the busy part.) Commerce was in full swing as we walked down the few blocks. The buildings in Hongyuan looked older than those in our city, giving the place a sense of history. It's kind of like comparing the main streets of a 50 year old town to a 100 year old town back in the States. Gail's father had his own business, what looked like a feed supply company. There was a "storefront" on the main level, behind which was a typical Chinese courtyard and then the kitchen. On the next level were the living room and bedrooms. The third floor was vacant, set up as a guest suite. I suppose it could be a potential "mother-in-law apartment". Up above that was a small room in the "attic". Gail said that her Dad was thinking about turning it into a computer room for her once she graduated.

To start, we sat down in the storefront. We met Gail's mom and had some tea and sunflower seeds. Due to the language barrier, idle chit-chat was not really an option. When you can't converse, the next best option for sociability is to eat. So despite the fact that we were noshing on sunflower seeds and the family was preparing a meal for us, Gail's father went to a vendor across the street and ordered bowls of dumplings for everyone. Now either service in Hongyuan is among the best in the world or Gail's family has pretty good connections in the hood since the vendor actually delivered the dumplings to us. The food, of course, was delicious.

After a bit, Gail took us upstairs and gave us a tour of her home. We then settled down in the living room and got a chance to peruse her family photographs. It was kind of interesting that despite our different cultures and ages, that our family albums were a lot alike. Like me, she had old black and white photos of her Dad's army days. Then the variety of photos of family and friends on different trips and at different holidays. The one big difference that we noted is that the trips were taken with coworkers rather than with family. We had shots of Gail's mom in Beijing and her Dad in Hainan, but not a big selection of family vacations.

Finally it was time for dinner, so we were ushered down to the kitchen. In a classical Chinese home, the dining room is removed from the kitchen. In the case of Gail's family, they only have a dining nook which seats three comfortably. Gail apologized for having to host us in the kitchen, but it actually felt much more homelike to us mei guo ren. Of course, once we started eating, where we were eating really didn't matter. In previous conversations, Gail had claimed that her father was a good cook. This proved to be quite true. (Assuming, of course, that he did the cooking. We weren't privy to the preparations.) Dinner was delicious and I almost regretted having eaten the dumplings earlier. If this was what it was like to visit a student at home, maybe we should just stay in Yunnan in the summer and go visiting.

Travelogue

2007-02-21T06:32:00.000-08:00

Okay, we took this big ol' trip--okay, maybe it's not so big. But it doesn't seem small either. Okay, let's say we took this trip of subjective size. And now I'm back home and I think I should be blogging about it but I've got writer's block. I do have some notes in my steno book that I wrote on the trip, along with a lengthy account of my search for a taxi at 6:00 am on the day of our departure. The problem is that, upon further reflection, I doubt if anyone really wants to read about my quest. And then if I reflect further, I have to wonder if anyone really wants to hear about my trip. And, of course, that leads to the speculation as to whether anyone wants to read this blog. ... Ah, well, that never stopped me before.

Anyway, the trip. Like I said, we started out by looking for a taxi. The shortened version of that tale is that there are very few taxis roaming our part of town at 6:00 am. The plan was for me to go out, hail a taxi and bring it back home to fetch the wife, kids and luggage. I ended up walking halfway to the bus station before I found one. But found one I did and we got to the station a half hour before our scheduled time of departure. That's a ridiculously early time to arrive for a bus in Yunnan, but I wanted to make sure I scored some space to stow our bloated suitcases. It also gave us time to touch base with our driver. I showed him two notes provided to us by our students. The first told him to let us off at the No. 1 Middle School in Midu. The second told him to call one of the students, Gail, and discuss our travel needs with her. He ignored the second note, which seemed okay with me. In our experience, bus drivers have been quite solicitous for our welfare and I had no doubt that he would make sure that we got off at the right spot.

This initial bus trip was quite pleasant. We were treated to a Jackie Chan movie at the start, and by the time it was over the sun had risen and there were better sights to watch. We passed by some gorgeous scenery as the bus snaked up and down the mountain roads. We have traveled this road a number of times, but this was the first time we did it when it wasn't dark. (We did try a daytime trip back in October of '05, but, well, you can read how that turned out.) I regretted letting the children have the window seats, but then, the pictures probably wouldn't have turned out well anyway. Because of a late start and some slick conditions, we were a bit late stopping for lunch. We had a decent meal in a little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. As I expected, the driver took good care of us. As we were finishing our meal, he signaled us that he was ready to leave. I was again impressed with the courtesy expressed in this country. Five minutes later, however, I realized we were getting special foreigner treatment. He had driven off without a couple of passengers, who had to grab a three wheel taxi and chase down the bus before he hit the open road.

As we headed for Midu, I was keeping a close eye on the road signs and the map. I still expected the driver to let us off at the right place but just in case I wanted to be ready. It was good practice for my recognition of Chinese characters (I don't know if you could call it "reading"), but it was, in the end unnecessary. As we ventured through Midu he suddenly came to a stop and motioned us to get off. Gail was waiting for us and led us to a local bus that took us to Hongyuan, her hometown. It was a pleasant ride through farming country and soon we were at our hotel. The first leg of our journey was successfully completed.

Oink

2007-02-18T07:01:00.000-08:00

(We interrupt the vacation reminiscing for this late breaking post.)

Okay, we've spent our second Spring Festival/Chinese New Year in China and I think we've got it all figured out. To celebrate properly, you need to a) buy some fireworks, b) set some off at random intervals throughout Spring Festival Eve, c) set off the rest of your stash at midnight, and/or d) if you fell asleep before midnight, set off the rest of your stash when you get up in the morning.

Anyway, that's what Spring festival sounded like from the confines of our apartment. We never actually ventured outside or attended any celebrations or anything. In all seriousness, I should probably declare that we are still ignorant lao wai when it comes to Spring Festival. We can only guess at what this all means for the Chinese people. The closest we came to celebrating was to tune in the big holiday extravaganza that plays on CCTV. Or should I say we tried to tune it in. We didn't know exactly which CCTV channel was playing the show, so when we turned on the tube last night we just flipped channels looking for it. There were a couple of shows that looked like a big holiday extravaganza, so we picked the one that looked the most extravaganzish. At about the second commercial break (alas, Chinese TV is also plagued with commercials), I flipped channels again and discovered that about four or five of the CCTVs were playing the same variety show. Oops. Looks like we had been watching some show geared toward military folks. (Over half the audience were in uniform, as were many of the performers.) Ah, well. We stuck with the show we had started watching 'til it was over, then the kids watched about a half hour of the real show. (By that time, I had moved over to the computer as I had all sorts of computery things I wanted to do.)

Today we also didn't celebrate Spring Festival. We did get to see folks having fun when we went out and about this morning. There's one old main street through town--the street that has many of the older shops and buildings. The normal buses weren't running down the road, so we walked that stretch instead. There were quite a number of people walking along the road as well. It wasn't all that much more than a typical weekend afternoon crowd, though it did have more of a festival flavor. One thing I did notice is that while that many shops and restaurants were closed up this weekend, the smaller shops along old main street seemed to be open, for the most part. I don't know if they just can't afford the day off or if they're taking advantage of the crowd. I suppose the real test will be to see if they are open tomorrow or if they close down like all the bakeries did after the Mid-autumn Festival.

We're travelin'

2007-02-17T06:57:00.000-08:00

Well, we did it. It's taken a year and a half, but we've finally done what all the other expatriates have advised us to do--venture out of our comfy little town and visited some other parts of Yunnan. (Besides Kunming, that is. Kunming doesn't count because everybody travelling to Yunnan will probably pass through Kunming.)

The genesis of our trip occurred last year. The stage was set by the aforementioned friends who advised us to visit around. Then a couple of Yau Neih's students, Gail and Whitney, asked her to visit their hometown of Dali. That in and of itself wasn't unusual. Every student (and a teacher or two) invites us to visit their hometown. The phrase, "Welcome to my hometown," must be in one of the early English lessons. So Yau Neih got the old, "Welcome to Dali." What made this invitation different was that the girls kept asking. Another factor is that both girls have been very helpful and friendly. We started to feel like rats for not visiting. By the time the end of last school year rolled around, we started thinking how we might arrange an excursion to Dali. It never really worked out until we decided to pack it in during the winter break. We already had a "business" trip scheduled to Xishuangbanna, the prefecture in the south of the province, so we figured we could just pack some extra underwear and add Dali as well.

Planning the trip turned out to be incredibly easy--the students took care of all of the details. We had to get the bus tickets ourselves, as the girls had already gone home for break, but even then Gail provided us with a bilingual note we could hand to the ticket vendor. It was part of the packet of information they gave us before they headed home. We even had a hand written itinerary for our five days in Dali.

Of course, the situation wasn't perfect. We had to make some adjustments, the first one being our lodging. The girls had generously offered to put the four of us up at their homes for a few nights of the trip. With some embarrassment Yau Neih pointed out that we really needed to have Western style toilets wherever we were staying. We can only manage the squatty potties with great difficulty. So we made that specific request in our accommodations. I had a slight worry that they might start remodeling their bathrooms, but apparently there was some limit to their hospitality. Not much though, as it turned out.

But that, since I can milk this trip for a number of blog entries, is a story for another time.

Situation normal

2007-02-02T06:41:00.000-08:00

Well, the Internet is fixed. So now I can do my taxes and blog about it. The blogging part didn't go quite so smoothly, though. My attempts to log in and create posts were
dreadfully slow. (I was able to find out what my post by e-mail address was, so the next time an earthquake busts the cable, I'll be able to post without having to post an inappropriate photo.) I finally asked Ga Dai to log in to her blog--as she had already switched over to the new Blogger--and she had no problems. So I finally broke down and converted. It only took me two tries. I don't know where the problem lay. Did Blogger move all of their old Blogger pages to an old Quadra they pulled out of the closet to use as a server? Or was my problems with old Blogger due to one of those little glitches that China Telcom was still working on? I'll probably never know. Ah, well. This new Blogger looks nifty enough. And now perhaps I can get caught up with my book review backlog.

So, um, now I've got to write about something. ... Uhhhhhh, let me get back to you on that.

Recipe from the east

2007-01-28T00:59:00.000-08:00

100_4610
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

Here's the recipe for making expatriate homeschooler's hard tack:

* 1/2 cup flour
* 3/8 teaspoon salt
* Enough water to make thick dough

Mix ingredients in a small bowl. Coat one small plate with a bit of vegetable oil. Form dough into two small cakes on the plate. Put plate into microwave oven. Set the temperature to high and the timer for ten minutes to attempt to mimic the results of slow baking in a conventional oven. Go into the next room and start another lesson. Come running back into the kitchen after 7-8 minutes when you notice the clouds of smoke pouring from the microwave. Open the windows, turn on the vent fan and remove plate from the microwave.

Serves 2. (If they don't mind eating the few bits around the edges that haven't been turned to charcoal.)

Recovering from the cure

2007-01-25T00:07:00.000-08:00

100_4612
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

We went to bed Sunday night with a water heater that was spewing propane fumes into the bathroom and was tapping into the supply line of our toilet tank. If you kept the water on to fill the tank, you were also running the shower. Turn off the shower, and you have a one flush toilet. So we had some repair work to get done.

Monday morning saw us up bright and early. We had invited some friends over for dinner (before we knew we'd be having bathroom woes) and we wanted to get our grocery shopping done early. Yau Neih had to give a piano lesson after lunch and I had our regular school load to do. We had left the bathroom door open and had the fan running all night. The air in the bathroom seemed breathable, so I shut off the fan and shut the door. After breakfast, I went back into the bathroom and smelled the propane again. Sigh. I once again wished we had stuck with sponge baths in the wash basin. But we hadn't, so I had to make a decision. Do we risk throwing a dinner party while workmen are clanking about in the bathroom? Or do we hold off on the repairs and subject our guests to a half repaired, potentially dangerous bathroom? If this were America, I would without hesitation opt for the former. But we were in China, entertaining folks who do development work in villages where everyone uses a potentially dangerous bathroom. Flushing with a bucket wouldn't have phased them in the least. Of course, neither would the workmen. It would have just been another anecdote to tell the folks back home.

By the time we returned from our grocery shopping, I had the foolish notion that perhaps we could get the ductwork done today and call the plumbers in tomorrow. It might have made sense were I able to make the arrangements myself, but of course, I don't have the language for that. And Suburban Service doesn't make service calls this far out. But I wasn't really thinking. So I called Gordon, a teacher who was dubbed our deputy wai bon since Thad was going to be out of town for the week. He was busy and couldn't come over right away, but he said he would drop by when he could. He eventually arrived about noon, and with the unit as a visual aid, I was able to explain the exhaust problem. In the process, however, I had another one of those guilty rich foreigner moments. Such moments are when it's revealed that you are used to a much higher standard of living than your neighbor. In this case, Gordon was a bit surprised by the whole concept of a water heater. I explained how it heated the water on demand and that we "needed" it because the regular hot water wasn't flowing. Gordon agreed that getting hot water was a problem during the holidays. Of course, he also pointed out that he and others occasionally go somewhere off campus to have a hot shower.

Anyway, all the bad feelings were mine. Gordon didn't seem to be jealous or anything. He made a call to the repair dude, but the dude wasn't answering his cell phone. We waited for a couple of minutes, hoping he would call back. It was a bit awkward just standing around, so in an attempt to make small talk, I mentioned the problem with the water connection. I tried to tell Gordon that we had dinner guests coming and would rather have the water fixed on Tuesday, but all Gordon heard was the water problem. He eventually called a different handyman and they agreed to come over to the flat after rest time, around 2:00 pm.

Gordon and the repair dude did show up after rest time, and as I feared, they started looking at both the vent and the water valve. I figured I'd just accept my fate and let the expert do his job. I once again went back to my schooling duties while the handyman went clunking in my bathroom. It was a minor source of anxiety as the day wore on and he had to run out for this part or that. Our guests had been invited to arrive at 4:30 and as that appointed time neared, I started wondering if it would be good manners to invite the handyman to join our dinner party. But my worries and wonderings were unfounded. Our handyman left, work completed, at 4:30, and our guests were fashionably late enough to allow us the chance to wipe the dirty footprints off the bathroom floor with a damp mop. Our guests need never know what had occurred in our apartment in the hours before their arrival.

Well, except for the fact that we told them everything that happened. I mean, we foreigners love swapping anecdotes for the folks back home....

Less than perfect

2007-01-23T17:15:00.000-08:00

Last time we left John, he was riding home in a pickup with two installers, who were going to install the newly purchased water heater in his bathroom.

The installer dudes and I arrived at my building and we headed up the stairs. I ushered them into the apartment and let them get to work. As a precaution, I rang up Thad, who came over and touched base with the men. He also called the gas company, to order the canister of propane we needed to run the water heater. The gas dude said he was busy and couldn't show up for an hour, but that was just fine because there was as yet no place to which he might hook up the gas. In his final act of assistance, Thad gave me my reimbursement for what I paid for the heater not an hour before. Thad is a wonderful human being. I'd name my first born after him, but she's already told me that she doesn't want to be renamed like that.

So Thad left and the workmen worked. The gas dude came and went and came again. Nobody told him that it was a new installation, so he had to go out and fetch some piping to connect things up. While this was going on, I returned to my postponed school lessons. I occasionally peeked in on the workers, but they seemed to be doing just fine without my supervision. After more than an hour, they finished. They tried to explain the intricacies of the mechanism, but, of course, they were up against the wall of ignorance. They did manage to show me how the water and gas turned on and off. So they left, leaving behind a grateful family. Ga Dai was especially grateful since she had to go to the bathroom the worst. It was soon after that that we discovered that we weren't finished yet.

The workmen did a fine job of installing the water heater, but apparently their responsibility ended about six feet off the floor. On the top of the unit is a nice little exhaust opening. The idea, of course, is to add a duct to carry the exhaust fumes outside. For whatever reason, they didn't attach one. We turned on our bathroom fan in hopes that it would clear the smell and planned to get a duct in the next day or so. It turned out that it really needed to be a higher priority, since our bathroom fan is not up to the task of clearing the air. The other problem was less dire. The unit was set up so that once you turn on the water, the heater kicks in and you have a hot shower. Unfortunately, the workers connected the unit to the nearest water supply--the pipe that runs into our toilet tank. So we were forced to choose between letting the shower run while we refill the toilet tank or turning the shower off and finding another way to flush. For the time being, we chose the latter, keeping a bucket of water on hand for our flushing needs. It had been a long weekend and we were content to live with the shortcomings for a night or two.

In search of...

2007-01-22T16:54:00.000-08:00

To recap the previous post: Our natural source of hot water was no longer available, so I was sent on a quest to purchase a hot water heater. Some neighbors, "the Jodies", had provided me with some vague directions and some information regarding the item for which I was shopping. So I bravely--or is that foolishly?--set off with my wallet and my phrase book to buy a heater.

I hopped a bus downtown and got off near the Tien Shun department store. As I surmised, the only place that fit the guys' description of the appliance store was next to the supermarket we call the Well Market. I entered the appliance store, a grand place filled with TVs, washers and refrigerators. They had mentioned something about "upstairs", so I walked up the flight of stairs and started poking around. Just like in the States, an appliance store is home to some of the most aggressive sales clerks. A young man quickly approached me and asked me... well, I don't know what he asked me. I'm assuming it was something along the lines of, "Can I help you?" Anyway, I exhausted my language ability by explaining that I didn't understand Chinese and I was looking for hot water. By using the phrase book, I was able to explain that I wanted it for a shower, not drinking. The helpful sales dude ushered me back downstairs and handed me off to the appropriate sales person. She showed me a nice selection of heaters, all priced way above what the Jodies told me they had paid. I would have been willing to bite the bullet, of course, but I also noticed that all the heaters were electric. I had seen how a gas set-up would have worked, but I didn't know how feasible it would have been to run wiring into our bathroom. I managed to ask if they had a gas heater, but they didn't. So I decided to leave. They called in a couple of extra sales people to try to talk to me, but since none of them spoke English, they were unable to solve my dilemma. There was a smaller appliance store next door, so I thought I'd try my luck there. If that failed, I would have to decide whether to wander about town on a quest for hot water or just swallow my pride and call Thad.

That was a choice that I didn't have to make. I entered the second store and again began browsing. Again, a sales person was quick to inquire after my intentions. I again deftly explained my language handicap and demonstrated my ability to say "hot water". The sales clerk showed me their selection and I was able to tell her that I wanted a gas heater. This store had one! I was quite pleased, though I was troubled that, unlike the other store, the heaters weren't adorned with price tags. "Duo shou chien?"--"How much money?"--is one of my best spoken phrases, however. She went off to ask and quickly returned with a figure of 920 yuan, a price towards the high end of the expected range. I am nigh incapable of bargaining, so I took it. She took me over to the payment desk where another clerk wrote out my receipt and took my money. He wrote down 900 yuan. Why the price dropped 20 kuai in the space of a couple minutes, I don't know. He probably just didn't want to make change. Anyway, they took my cash, handed me the receipt and then produced a chair which made an impromptu waiting room in the middle of the sales floor. I felt like a buffoon, but in this town folks like you to sit when you cool your heels, so I sat. They were kind enough to seat me facing their display of TCL high definition televisions. Unfortunately, all they were playing was a demonstration vid, which was just a series of slow shots featuring glass and models and colorful, exotic birds. It was beautiful imagery, but boring as all get out. I tried to peer around the corner at a wide-screen TV that was showing a movie, but I couldn't follow it very well. Probably because it was at its end, as the credits started rolling a minute or so after I sat down.

About ten minutes and one cup of tea later, (I should have said that folks like you to sit and drink tea) a lady walked past carrying a box with the same brand name as my heater. I had wondered what was taking them so long. I suspected that they had searched the warehouse for the model I had purchased and now were reduced to taking the sale model. I started making plans for getting the box home and making my phone calls. A minute later, my sales clerk came to fetch me. She took me to the front of the store where my box was handed to a young man. He started walking out of the store and I followed, beginning to wonder if maybe the delay was in rounding up a delivery man. We walked to the curb, where he put the box in the back of a pickup. He said something to another man, who headed around to the driver's side of the vehicle, and then grabbed a handful of tools. I guess the delay was in rounding up a delivery man and and installation service. Sweet. So we all piled into the truck and headed back to the flat. Our problems were solved... or were they? Tune in tomorrow: same bat time, same bat channel.

A chilling tale

2007-01-21T18:55:00.000-08:00

Ah, how can I describe yesterday? After months of predictable routine, we had an adventure! You know what an adventure is, don't you? It's a really bad day that you manage to survive. And since it's the next day and I'm still here, it must have been an adventure.

The day didn't start out as adventurous, just annoying. We've been living under two burdens this past weekend. The first is that, due to our upcoming trip to Dali and Jinghong, we need to squeeze in an extra week of school into our weekends. The second is that we have no hot water. The situation here on campus is kind of interesting. Our hot water, so I'm told, is piped directly from a hot spring. For some reason, however, it doesn't seem to arrive here until the evening. I mean, the water gets here all right, but if it's been sitting in the pipe for a while, it cools down. So the water doesn't get truly hot until evening, when a lot of people on campus start taking showers and stuff. (Someday I'd like to meet the folks who habitually use the water first--I'd like to express my gratitude.) Well, the winter break is here and for the last few weeks people have been leaving campus. So, our hot water has been arriving later and later. Finally this past week we reached the point where we started the water running at 10:00 pm and let it run for two hours before giving up and going to bed. It never got that bad last year, but that was last year and who knows what might have changed since then?

Anyway, yesterday afternoon we called the ever helpful Thad and told him our woes. We hated to bother him, of course, especially since we've heard that he's rather busy these days. But since it's part of his job to deal with whiny foreigners, we called him anyway. He confirmed our worst fears--it was nothing that a plumber could come and fix. It was simply a matter of not enough people using the hot water. I suppose we could have tried to use as much water as the hundreds of students who are here during the term, but Thad had a better idea. An American family who is here this year to study Chinese had purchased and installed their own water heaters, so Thad told me to ask them where they got their heater, go and buy one for our flat and he would reimburse us the cost. I was in the middle of the lessons for "Tuesday", but this was important enough that I could juggle the schedule a bit and make an appliance run.

My first step was to consult with the "Jodies". Jody wasn't home, but his two sons were. They showed me their heater and sort of explained where they got it. (Remind me to muse sometime on the subject of giving directions out here.) The heater was a little wall unit, powered by a propane tank. It was obvious that once I bought a heater (assuming I'd find one) I would be making more phone calls. I had this vision of campus handymen tromping in and out of my flat for the next couple of days, trying to get everything installed and operational. Ah, well, what can you do? The boys offered to go with me to the store when they had some free time, but I wanted to get the ball rolling sooner, so I figured I'd risk it on my own. I thanked the boys and ran home to get some money and my phrase book.

More tomorrow...

Low tech

2007-01-20T05:28:00.000-08:00

100_1849
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

Technology doesn't like me today. Not only is the internet still sluggish, but today when we went hiking I forgot to bring my digital camera. Through a strange coincidence, however, I did bring along my other camera--a completely manual 35mm Retina. It was a gift from my father, a replacement for the first Retina he gave me which was ripped off a few years back. (The previous camera was one he had bought back in the 50s. Of all the things we lost in that burglary, the Retina was the one I missed the most.) So I was able to snap a few shots as we walked along the irrigation ditch south of town. It was kind of weird. The old camera is heavier and I had to remember to adjust my F-stops for each shot. Fortunately I was snapping landscapes, so I didn't have to set the focus. I think it's been over five years since I switched my primary camera over to a point and shoot model. (Of course, being here across the seas and taking more than pictures of my kids, I've been longing for my old Nikon.) Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how the shots I took today compare to the digital shots I snapped along this route last year. (Such as today's featured photo.) Of course, first I have to finish the roll and get the film processed. Sigh. I've gotten so spoiled....

Ho ho ho

2007-01-15T06:38:00.000-08:00

100_4444
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

We had a chance to play Santa Claus a bit before Christmas. We tagged along on another trip to the school at Nanxin. There we delivered to all the kids some hard boiled eggs, cookies and little gift packages including stocking hats and toothbrushes. Before that we gathered the kids outside and sang some Christmas carols. The big finale was when we taught them the chorus of "We Wish You a Merry Christmas". Funny thing was, our song leader used the same technique that our Chinese teacher uses when teaching us sentences: We say each word individually, then start joining words together until we make the entire sentence. Hopefully the kids learned the song better than I've been learning puotonghua. (Oh, and you see that basket of eggs in the picture? I had to hold that thing on my lap all the way up the winding, bumpy road. All together I had about a dozen eggs roll out of the basket. Thankfully I caught all but two of them.)

Paperwork?

2007-01-12T01:32:00.000-08:00

100_0603
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

Well, it appears we acclimated to China better than we thought. We've been hoping to travel to the orphanage from where we got our younger daughter, Siu Wan. We had planned to go there over the winter break, during the first full week of February. We had contacted our old adoption agency, Americans Adopting Orphans, to aid us in the process. They started the process in their usual helpful manner, but then we got concerned when we didn't hear from them for a while. They finally e-mailed us back the other day, to let us know that they had run into a roadblock. The orphanage wanted our visit to be all official and such--no showing up on the doorstep one day and asking if we could peek around. That was fine with us, of course, and we were letting AAO handle the details. Well, it turned out that the orphanage director insisted that we use a China based agency, Bridge of Love, to handle the details of our visit. Again, no problem. AAO sent us the contact information and we sent off an e-mail request to get the ball rolling. The response was prompt, but what they told us was simply shocking. We needed to contact them three months before our planned visit. Three months! For the past year and a half we've been living in a land where things happen at the last minute. A place where you buy your plane tickets a week in advance (to get the lower fare), where you can't buy bus tickets more than three days in advance, and where you send out the invitations to your wedding two days in advance. We had to pinch ourselves to make sure we weren't dreaming. But then we started to recall, vaguely, a former life in a distant land, where people actually had to plan so far in advance. Slowly we were able to recall those old skills and adjusted our plans. So now we'll try to visit at the end of April, during our May Day holiday week. Oh, well. I guess those folks in Beijing do things a bit different than us folks in Yunnan.
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P.S. I know the bus doesn't have anything to do with this post. I'm still blogging via Flickr, so I needed to use a photo from my photostream. It kind of fits, I mean, interrupted travel and all.... okay, I'm reaching.

Happy holidays

2007-01-08T06:11:00.000-08:00

100_1394
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

So onto the late reports: Christmas is over. We had a nice one and hope everyone had the same. There's not much new and exotic to report about ours. My in-laws were in town again and over the weekend we were treated to dinner out, a Christmas show, and caroling students--just like last year. One thing that I did notice however, was the difference between Christmas in the States, where the day is a community holiday as well as a religious one, and Christmas here in China, where it's essentially a foreign holiday.

I have a tendancy to try and catalog the things in my life. When it comes to holidays, I've divided them into major holidays, like Christmas or the Fourth of July, and minor days, like Presidents' Day or Veteran's Day. The main criteria for each is if the malls are closed or not. (at least when I was younger. For all I know, the malls have taken to staying open all year 'round.) If it's a major holiday, most people get a day off of work. If it's a minor one, only the schoolkids, government workers and bankers get the day off. There are also religious holidays, like Epiphany or Yom Kippur, which doesn't get a body off of work, but is a time of celebration/commemoration for those who follow the particular religion. And then there are the foreign holidays. These are those holidays that are of significance to a particular ethnic group but really don't register with the rest of us. Those are holidays like Cinco de Mayo, Oktoberfest, or St. Patrick's Day. One trend I noticed in the past number of years is that these are starting to be advertised as excuses to hit the bars and celebrate with your friends.

Anyway, this year here in Yunnan, I caught a glimpse of Christmas as a foreign holiday. My in-laws were staying at a hotel at the edge of campus and every evening I would escort them "home" from our apartment. Right next to the hotel is a bar. I've never had the opportunity or desire to observe the bar's traffic patterns, but on Christmas Eve, it was really hoppin'. There were a number of folks walking in and out and at least three doormen dressed in Santa Claus suits. It was quite weird. I have nothing against folks going out to a tavern with their friends and having a good time, but Christmas Eve is one of the last nights I would be inclined to do so. I've spent too many years thinking of it as the "Silent Night". Christmas Day also served up a slice of culture shock, but in a different way. For us it was a holy day and we went off to church as is our custom. But for most folks in town, it was just Monday morning. The construction workers were banging away at the new apartments out back and all the kids were trudging off to school. All day was like being in the Twilight Zone. Step into the apartment and it's Christmas, with music and decorations and all the trappings. Step outside and it's just another December day, with everybody going about their business.

When folks talk about holidays and traditions, the discussion ofttimes dwells on the core meaning of the celebrations and how sometimes people lose sight of it in all the trappings. I would agree with those who say that if you lose the original meaning, you've essentially have created a different holiday. (Like Labor Day being more about the last weekend of summer thank about honoring any workers.) But I think that the traditions and customs we build onto our holidays are more than just window dressing. I think they also serve to connect our thoughts and emotions to the day, to the core meaning of the celebration. It's been interesting to spend some holidays out here on the other side of the world. While we may return to our old customs next year, I don't think I'll ever take them for granted again.

Blocked

2007-01-07T18:36:00.000-08:00

100_2071
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

It may have been a blip in your newspaper, but internet access here in China has been limping along ever since the earthquake in Taiwan severed some undersea cables. Actually, I should clarify that. Accessing sites in China has been no problem. It's getting to the sites located overseas that's been problematic. Of course, that hits this poor, ignorant foreigner right where he lives. For the first few days it was annoying, because it hampered our e-mailing. Ironically enough, we were able to make do with an older e-mail account that is nowhere near as sophisticated as Yahoo. But that's old news. Our access to Yahoo improved after about a week, so e-mailing is back to normal. Other sites, however, such as Blogger, are still misbehaving. Up until now, that's only been a minor nuisance. I really haven't felt like writing much. Now, however, it's getting old. Foolishly, I don't have the address I need to post via e-mail. I had it written down in my calendar, but I lost that on my journey back to China. So my only alternative to waiting is this attempt to post via Flickr, which is working for me. If you're reading this, it means that it works.

The world of tomorrow

2006-12-22T07:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday morning, I read an interesting blog post on Antigravitas about a concept which Jack called "neuva-vu": "The sudden knowledge that you are somewhere doing something you have never done before, but that you will continue to do until it becomes an everyday experience and you stop noticing." As a child of the twentieth century, I could relate to the concept, though as a cheapskate, my moments of neuva-vu tend to happen much later than the common herd. Anyway, I enjoyed the post and tucked the concept back in the recesses of my brain. Then, in a strange coincidence, we ended up having a neuva-vu moment that very evening.

This is how it came about. Yau Neih's mother and sister are in town, visiting us for Christmas. The other day, as I was reading the Seattle Times online, I saw an article about Yau Neih's childhood (and my adulthood) hero, J. P. Patches. The article said that there was going to be a Christmas special featuring J. P. airing on The Seattle Channel. Yau Neih and her sister were quite disappointed as they were not in Seattle and the show wasn't scheduled to play on The Yunnan Channel. Well, the article listed a URL for The Seattle Channel, so I loaded it into the browser and discovered that the show was available for viewing online. I mentioned this to the ladies and the result is that we decided to hook the laptop up to the TV set and watch the program, even though we might lose the internet connection in mid program.

So last night we took the plunge and watched our first program delivered online rather than being broadcast or played off of tape or disc. A true neuva-vu moment. Of course, I don't know about other folks, but my neuva-vu moments don't always turn out to be golden. While we were able to watch the entire program, we could only watch the in small increments. The computer would download about 30-50 seconds of video, play it, and then pause while it downloaded the next chunk. It was a trifle annoying limitation, but we adapted. (Actually, the breaks added a few unintentional laughs, like the time someone onscreen said, "Wait a minute," and the video stopped.) Conversation was limited to the download breaks and we managed to follow the show despite the delays.

Afterwards, I was considering this neuva-vu event and realized that it proved the old adage, "the more things change, the more they stay the same." This was the first time I have watched a whole program streamed online, but it was hardly the first time I enjoyed a television program that was handicapped by technological shortcomings. I've watched TV with bad reception. I've watched color programs on a black and white set. I've watched airline movies without sound. I've even set the alarm to wake me up so I could watch a movie airing at 3 a.m. (I'm really dating myself with all these revelations.) So catching a show in 45 second chunks is just a new way to watch the tube under less than optimal conditions. Still, I have to agree with Jack, it is "a bit of a thrill". It's good to be living in the future.

Deck the walls

2006-12-18T22:05:00.000-08:00

Of course, maybe encouraging the child to decorate was not the best idea in the world. I mean, we're not picky with our decor. Never have been. We started out decorating our home with an Early American Dorm motif. As we got older, we then left such childish tastes behind and moved up to more of a Colonial Thrift Store style of decor. We certainly appreciate a home that's artistically decorated, but we're too cheap to do likewise. Besides, if someone gives us a wall hanging or knickknack, we want to hang it up. Anyway, home decor took a hit when we came to China. The kids brought a few pictures, but most of our stuff stayed behind. This bothered Ga Dai, the artist, somewhat. She found the bare white walls depressing. So when she asked to add some color, we acquiesced. She painted a few pictures and taped them to the walls. When the year ended, she cut apart the old calendars and taped those pictures to the wall also. The Dorm motif returned. We got into the spirit as well, adding a few local wall hangings and taping some snapshots to the door. (I also really regressed and taped up a few funny drink coasters we picked up in a restaurant in Thailand.)

So now Christmas comes, and Ga Dai has injected our decor with new life. Mostly that's been good. I especially like her Wa Nativity Scene:

But some of the other decorations are not so delightful. I know it's my fault that I let her tape up the Death Star "costume" she had made for Halloween, but I wasn't expecting it to get into the Christmas spirit:

And I certainly wasn't expecting Darth Santa, led by Rudolph, the Red-Nosed TIE Fighter:

Ah, well, Christmas only comes once a year... thank goodness.

Silver and gold

2006-12-17T00:10:00.000-08:00


Christmas 2005	Christmas 2006

We got a good lesson in the importance of procrastination last week. (Though I doubt my wife paid heed to it.) The occasion was my daughter's birthday. For many months now, maybe even since last Christmas, she's been dropping big hints that she'd like an artificial Christmas tree for her birthday.

Now, maybe it's because of her birth month or something, but the child has always loved Christmas. Coming to China posed a hardship for her, as we were not going to shlepp an extra suitcase full of tinsel. But, creative child that she is, Ga Dai managed to start amassing craft materials and cobbled together a nice bunch of decorations, including a Christmas tree made of posterboard. We were delighted with it, but the child wasn't satisfied. In her opinion, it looked too much like Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Hence the desire for a "real" fake tree for this year.

Well, loving parents that we are, we both decided that we would get her a Christmas tree. Fortunately we still communicate with each other after many years of marriage, so we didn't get two trees. Yau Neih opted to get the tree, I decided to spring for the decorations. Like I mentioned last year, the Christmas shopping season comes a bit later to this part of the world, but we had a vague recollection that we had seen some holiday decor for sale around this time last year. Of course, something happening last year doesn't always guarantee a repeat performance. We kept an eye out for the first signs of Christmas, but they weren't coming. Our regular supermarket, which had decked the halls last year, wasn't showing any holiday cheer. They were, however, rearranging all the shelves and adding new infrastructure, so we figured that maybe they were just to busy to haul out the tinsel.

So as the final week before B-day approached, we made it a point to extend our regular grocery runs to visit other supermarkets and stroll down different streets, all in hopes of finding a place selling Christmas decorations. Alas, day after day, like Yukon Cornelius, we came up with nuthin'. It was very discouraging. We had a dim hope that there would eventually be some decorations on sale somewhere, so Yau Neih decided to wrap up an I.O.U., and I planned to purchase the camera I had promised the child along with a mess of film. So, the day before Ga Dai's birthday, we headed towards the camera store. We strolled up the hill, past the pharmacy, the little grocers and the gift store, and there in an office supply/toy shop--behold!--we saw a rope of tinsel. Upon investigation, we found a nice little stash of Christmas decorations. With eager delight we pulled out the phrase book and asked if they had any trees. May yo--no. But they pointed down a cross street, indicating that we try there. We hurried up the street and, sure enough, we saw the store. The shopkeeper was setting up a bunch of trees out front. We made our selection and happily headed on to the supermarket, tree in hand. (Well, actually it was in a box, but you know what I mean.) On the way we passed three other stores setting out there Christmas decorations. For once, it seemed, waiting until the last minute paid off.

Defend Federation Space

2006-12-16T00:37:00.000-08:00

I know I've not been faithful in posting, but I have a good excuse. You see, our internet connection has been funky these past few weeks. You log on and are surfing away and bam! suddenly your browser is not connecting to anything. I don't know if it's a network problem or a firewall problem or what. What I do know is if I'm looking to relax and the internet is not working, I can always start up Escape Velocity Nova and make a few deliveries in my spaceship. The problem is, once I start playing EV Nova, I tend not to check when internet access gets restored. So I find myself neglecting such online recreational tasks such as blogging, visiting message boards and paying my credit card bill. (Just kidding on the last one.)

Believe what you read

2006-12-08T03:38:00.000-08:00

One of the oddities of life here in China is the attempts at bilingual packaging and signage. There are many times when we see English words here. Sometimes it is a genuine attempt to offer a bilingual package. Other times it seems to be more of a fashion statement. In either case, the quality of the English used is... well, unique. I mean, it may not necessarily be inaccurate, it's just definitely not something written by a native speaker. One recent example is a menu we were using in Kunming the other week. Our group went to a place called Stone House Restaurant. (Good place. Beijing Lu, No. 427, in case you're interested.) The treat was that they offered Italian food. It wasn't an Italian restaurant--they had just bought the recipes from one--but, hey, in these parts you learn to appreciate "close enough". Not being a pizza person, nor in the mood for a mound of spaghetti, I was trying to decide between some chicken dish or Italian sausage. I was leaning toward the sausage, but the menu said that it came with "potato salad". Not what I'd choose for a side, if I had a choice. In the end, I figured to go ahead and order it. We were ordering some bread and salads for the entire group and I figured I could always fill up on those. Anyway, I did, and when my dinner arrived, I was surprised to see on my plate sausage, french fried potatoes and a salad. Potato. Salad. What a difference a comma would have made. (Well, actually not, I guess, since I ordered it anyway.)

It's this lack of accuracy (and illiteracy in Chinese) that leads us to trust our instincts more than what's written here. Of course, sometimes our instincts let us down. Earlier this week we were in the supermarket looking for some chicken. The place we usually patronize used to carry frozen chicken bits as a staple, but within the last few weeks they haven't had any. We were at a different store and were perusing their freezers to see if they had any. We didn't find the chicken legs for which we were searching, but we did find a package that had the English words "chicken breast skin" on it. We thought, "hey, breast fillets with the skins attached" and bought it. Surprise! A couple of days later, when Yau Neih was starting to make dinner, we discovered that we had purchased exactly what was advertised: a pack of chicken skin. sigh. Sometimes you really should take people at their word.

Breaking news

2006-12-07T01:00:00.000-08:00

As I write this, there is a science class being held outside our apartment window. We first heard the sound of people gathered when we were having our own school lessons. When I peeked out, I saw groups of people gathered around tables and a woman in a lab coat. Mobile medical clinics are a common sight around here, so I thought it was one of those. The next time I looked, however, it didn't seem like the kids were being checked or treated or anything. I watched for a moment and saw that the students around the closest table were cutting into something with white fur. Ulp! Who needs a laboratory when you've got a big open field outside of campus?

Give thanks

2006-12-06T06:36:00.000-08:00

Sheesh, almost a week into December and I still haven't blogged about Thanksgiving? How lame. But then again, there's not much to report. On Thursday we went to "The Farm"--a little place that's about 18 km outside of town. It's a place that does agricultural development, so they have all sorts of test plots and things like that. There are a few foreign families and a bunch of local folks who live there and they always throw a good party. There were a number of us "city folks" invited. There was our family, our neighbors Joan and Michael, the lady who runs the neighborhood English corner, a couple of students who help out in the aforementioned corner, and another foreign teacher in town named Emily. The English corner folks traveled separately, so us foreigners coordinated efforts so we could take a mien bao che--one of those little vans that look like a loaf of bread. Actually, Michael stayed home since he felt obliged to offer the regular Thursday night English corner on campus.

As is typical, the folks at the farm had quite a spread. There were the typical turkey, stuffing and sweet potato dishes, as well as a few unusual offerings such as pumpkin with curry and lumpia made with sweet potato. As we were eating, Emily and I tried to explain what constitutes a "typical" Thanksgiving dinner to Joan, who's British. It was a difficult task, as one thing we've learned out here is that different regions of the U.S. have different staples in their meals. It seemed quite odd to me that we weren't serving mashed potatoes with our turkey, for example, while our Southern hosts served up heaping helping of sweet potato. After discussing some of the regional variants, Emily finally distilled the typical Thanksgiving dinner to turkey, accompanied by dishes that are pretty much bland and sweet. With a football game playing afterward.

So dinner was nice and tasty. Afterwards, we all gathered around and had the obligatory "say what you're thankful for" session. I was mostly thankful for all the nice folks we had met out here. It seemed odd that I was in a room full of people, most of whom I had known less than a year, yet felt right at home among good friends. I think there's something about being a stranger in a strange land that helps one make connections quicker. Or maybe I was just blessed to fall in with the right group of people. I don't know. Anyway, about a third of us voiced our thanksgivings, and then, all too quickly, it was over. Since we weren't in America, most folks had to get back to work. I suppose it was just as well. We would have had to wait until the middle of the night for the football games.

Bleh

2006-12-02T06:03:00.000-08:00

Warning: The following post contains brief descriptions of minor gastro-intestinal disorders. I tried to think of a pleasant way to report this, but given the nature of the ailments, the post would have been reduced to the sentence, "I was sick." This would have been unacceptable to my natural verbosity, so I chose to write a more detailed description with this warning attached. So you have now been warned and may quit reading if you don't want to read about my health issues. Thank you.
P.S. I have been requested by family members to refrain from mentioning their participation in this epidemic, so all the names have been omitted to protect the innocent. Thank you again.

I would've written more this week, but I've been in the middle of a epidemic. We spent the weekend in Kunming, returning home on the sleeper bus. That left us spending Monday feeling lethargic. I think the first digestive problems were felt by the family by Monday evening. Early on Tuesday morn, I was awakened by the sounds of someone varfing. Later in the morning, I was feeling nauseous and, despite my efforts to resist it, by the evening it was my turn to retch. I really hate doing that. Anyway, three of the four of us were declaring ourselves to be ill. It was a minor illness, however, for we all seemed to be on the road to recovery on Wednesday. We felt bleh, but were able to function. On Thursday, I either had a relapse or a new ailment. Whichever it was, it struck lower in the digestive system. Friday, saw me with a tender gut, but able to get through the day without excessive trips to the bathroom. Today I felt fine, albeit a little more tired than usual after hiking.

Add to the above discomfort a cold apartment and the hot water going out for two days and I was longing for home. But I suppose I could take some comfort in knowing that I wasn't alone. Not only was my family stricken, but a number of folks on campus have reported that they had their own bouts of sickness this week. At least that rules out something we ate in Kunming as the cause. We had a delicious time and I'd hate to think I'd have to avoid such cuisine in the future.

Going to the chapel

2006-11-28T01:56:00.000-08:00

It happened almost a week ago, but I did want to write about the wedding we attended last Wednesday. The story is like this:

One of Yau Neih's colleagues, Della, was getting married and, as is the custom, invited all her co-workers to the celebration. It was quite an unusual situation--we had a week and a half notice. A couple of the students had been told to escort us and one of them spread the word. The official invitation arrived two days before the wedding, but by then we had already put it on the calendar.

Actually, I should clarify here. We were invited to a wedding banquet, not any sort of ceremony. From what we've been told, there is no ceremony as we have in the States, where vows are exchanged or stuff like that. Instead there is a whole day of events. The "wedding" starts off early, with events involving the bride's family at their home. What events actually occurred last Wednesday, I don't know. From what I've heard about other Chinese weddings, the mood seems to be quite light hearted. By the early afternoon, the couple head over to the groom's family home for more of the same. Late afternoon--suppertime in these parts-- is the time for the banquet, when all the friends and family are invited. This is where we came in.

A bit before four in the afternoon, we got all gussied up for the feast. We had asked our student informant about the dress code, and she said that we could dress up if we wanted to. I should have taken that "wanted to" to heart. We erred on the side of American culture. The ladies put on dresses and I dusted off my sport jacket and tie. We headed down to the entrance of our building and were soon met by our student escorts. They were dressed in their everyday classroom garb. At first I was mortified. But then I figured, hey, I'm an old geezer now, I should dress a bit classier than the students. Of course, when some of the other faculty members stopped and offered us a ride, none of them were wearing ties, either. So once we were safely seated in the car, I removed my tie and stuffed it in my pocket. I am such a conformist.

The driver left us off at the hotel and we started towards what we thought was the entrance. We were a bit hesitant, because from a distance, Della didn't look like Della. I mean usually she wears her glasses and doesn't wear a white wedding gown. Fortunately one of Yau Neih's other colleagues came up behind us and helped us to get where we needed to go. (I should mention that in the process of hitching rides, we got separated from our student guides.) The happy couple and significant family members flanked the entrance, offering greetings, candy, peanuts and sunflower seeds. There was a lot of candy, peanuts and seeds offered that evening. It makes me wonder a bit, because one of our regular hikers always brings peanuts and sunflower seeds on our hikes. Is she eager to get married or something? But I digress. Once past the welcoming committee, we entered the restaurant. The place was packed, with people dining away. I wondered if maybe the relatives got invited to an earlier seating than the rest of us. I never found out. We were escorted up stairs where there were another two dining rooms awaiting us. If I threw a party this size in the states, I think I might have to sell off the house to pay for it. For all I know, maybe the parents did do just that. Anyway, there were about a dozen or more dishes, along with a few beverages. Everyone ate their fill and then, without ceremony, got up and left. Well, at one point the bridal couple did come up and offered a toast to the entire dining room. But otherwise it was just eat and run. Very strange to us Westerners, where we expect to at least see a kiss or two.

Anyway, we ate and we ran. One of our students had skeedaddled back to campus, the other accompanied us and another teacher to the couple's apartment. Whereas in the States we would hold the entertainment portion of the celebration in the banquet room, here in China the couple takes everybody back home. Well, actually, not everybody, just those hearty souls who want to scope out the couple's wedding gifts and watch them make fools of themselves. You see, as the night wears on, the couple are expected to perform for their guests. It's kind of like "Truth or Dare" without the truth option. Failure to perform to the crowd's satisfaction usually involves a penalty of drinking a shot of alcohol. We had to wit an hour or so before the silliness began. We arrived at the apartment and were greeted with hot tea, candy, etc. We were able to check out the furnishings and look at their wedding album. Again, I was impressed. The apartment was somewhat small but they had some real nice stuff. And a gorgeous view of Qi Shan from their living room window. I would have been jealous, but I knew that in a few years they would be having a kid who would destroy all of it. (Well, maybe not the view...)

Eventually, however, the fun and games began. One of the teachers assumed the role of emcee and the couple amused us by trying to bite into an apple without using their hands and trying to pick up an ice cube with one chopstick apiece. The best schtick, however, was when Mr. Della (I never did learn the guy's name--remind me to blog sometime about how names get used here.) put on part of Della's wedding dress and Della put on his jacket and tie. (Guess I wouldn't have been the only guy wearing a tie...) Thus attired they attempted to recreate for us their first meeting, their first date and the proposal. Mr. Della, especially, hammed it up. Even though I couldn't understand a word that was said, I had a good laugh with the rest of them.

It was about nine o'clock when the first round of games ended. We decided to leave, having got our cultural fill for the evening. A great time was had by all and hopefully it was the first of many happy days for the happy couple.

Rewrite

2006-11-22T20:03:00.000-08:00

We were privy to a limited dramatic spectacle the other day. A few weeks back, a student of Yau Neih's had said that she and her classmates wanted to give a little performance--in English--for the upcoming Christmas show and asked if Yau Neih could provide a little Christmas skit for them to perform. Yau Neih brought the problem home and we kicked the idea around over lunch. Yau Neih finally settled on a basic plot and we all contributed some of the gags. Our premise was this: It's Christmas Eve and two children are waiting for Santa Claus. Although they've been told that nobody ever sees Santa Claus, they hope that by perseverance and clever concealment, they can not only catch a glimpse of, but also welcome their hero. Of course, it seems as everybody but Santa decides to visit the home that evening. First a neighbor comes by with a gift basket. The neighbor is startled when the children burst out of hiding, shouting, "Santa Claus!" The next person to walk through the door is the children's older sister. She creeps into the quiet house with her boyfriend, hoping to share a quiet moment together. The sudden, exuberant appearance of her siblings scare off the boyfriend and spoil the whole mood. The final visitor is a burglar, who starts helping herself to some stocking stuffers. The children unknowingly frighten off this scoundrel as well. But finally, excitement takes its toll. The children drift off to sleep, and only then does Santa appear, leaving them their presents for Christmas.

Yau Neih wrote up a script for this and gave it to the student. The first progress report we got on their preparations was a bit later when the student asked if Yau Neih could show some of her classmates how to do the dance to "Edelweiss", a dance Yau Neih had taught at the English corner. Since we had never scripted a dance number into the skit, we new that somebody had been doing some rewriting. It seems the students had decided to tack on a dream sequence, where Santa and the evening's visitors danced in front of the Christmas tree. Yau Neih agreed to help out again, of course, and told them to come to the next English corner where she would teach that dance. She would also do another run through with them after the corner. So Tuesday arrived and when the dancing arrived, Yau Neih taught the "Edelweiss" dance, right after doing "La Raspa" aka "The Mexican Hat Dance". Once the dancing was over, Yau Neih and the bulk of the attendees went back to singing. The budding thespians, however, stayed on the other side of the room and practiced Edelweissing. For a moment, anyway. A minute or two later, I glanced over again and saw that they were La Raspa-ing instead. Sure enough, after the corner was over and I had taken the chairs back to their storage place I found out that a script rewrite had been made and that now the dream sequence would feature Santa and the cast getting down to Mexican music. As one partially of Austrian heritage, I suppose I should feel slighted, but truth to tell, I prefer "La Raspa" myself.

Anyway, this long winded narrative concludes with the performance a couple of days ago. We were invited to see a dress rehearsal of the skit and we were all eager to see the production of our little play. (I should mention as an aside that it will not be part of the Christmas show. They were told that they missed the application deadline or some such. But they put on the performance for us anyway, sweet kids that they are.) It was interesting to see just how our script was interpreted. For starters, we had envisioned a story with seven characters, told mostly in pantomime. The students had expanded the cast to twelve. There were the seven on stage performers, but there was also a narrator and four others who would actually recite the dialogue. The seven on stage would simply lip synch (or not, depending on their ability) to the script. It seemed a bit odd, but I have to admit it's a clever way to ensure good dialogue from a bunch of performers who are speaking a foreign language. The script itself seemed to have been expanded, with the voice actors explaining more of the action. The mimers' performance, in turn, was far more subdued than I had envisioned. Of course, my contributions were written with the vision of Loony Tunes and Buster Keaton in my mind's eye. I'm pretty sure that the kids didn't have those influences when growing up, so I couldn't expect them to evoke that same spirit in their performance. The next notable departure was the appearance of ol' Saint Nick. Again, what was envisioned while writing didn't match what appeared on stage. We had pictured Santa quietly and gently sneaking into the room to leave behind his presents for the children. The guy who played Santa, however, strode boldly on stage, pumping his fists into the air as if he was making a victory lap. It was an odd touch, but strangely enough, it worked.

I guess that would be my capsule summary of the performance: it worked. The secret, I've found, to enjoying disparate productions like a local talent show is to put aside my own expectations and enjoy what's being offered. The performance of our script had a flavor, a subtle humor that was mildly unsettling, but still enjoyable. It's a pity that they can't play to a wider audience, but I suppose that any performer that's truly eager for the footlights will find a way to get on stage.

I can't thank you enough

2006-11-20T00:20:00.000-08:00

In the United States, many people are looking forward to a four day weekend. For my family here in China, we've got a five day one. Or a two day, depending on how you're defining weekend. We all have to work from Monday through Friday, but starting on Wednesday evening, the week is filled with fun and festivities.

For Wednesday, we've been invited to a wedding banquet. One of Yau Neih's colleagues is getting married and is including all the lao wai on campus in her celebration. It'll be our first wedding banquet here in China, so we're all looking forward to it, even if I do have to wear a tie. (Another China first!) On Thursday, life in China is business as usual, but we American expatriates are making the effort to celebrate Thanksgiving Day. We received two invitations to join with our countrymen in a turkey feast--one from the group in town and another from folks on a farm south of here. The farmers asked first, so that's where we're headed. On Friday afternoon we fly out to Kunming to meet with the fellow teachers in our agency. We generally have a Autumn retreat and they're scheduling it for Thanksgiving weekend. Friday night will just be dinner out, which, of course, is a treat. Saturday will require some meetings, of course, but the evening promises another Thanksgiving feast. Whether it's turkey or not, I don't know. On Sunday we'll have some more schmoozing and eating before we take a sleeper bus back home. We probably won't have the traditional leftovers, but we will try to squeeze in some traditional shopping. (Got to pick up those Western essentials when we can.)

Come Monday, we'll undoubtedly be looking forward to a good nap. (unless they managed to smooth and straighten all the roads in the past six months) If I'm lucky, something blogworthy will have happened. If not, I may have to start doing reruns.

Fifteen minutes

2006-11-16T06:42:00.000-08:00

Y'know, since I posted pictures of celebrities in my last post, maybe I should talk about my own turn as a celebrity. Well, maybe I shouldn't, but I can't think of anything else to write, so you're stuck with it. Anyway, last Saturday we did the regular hike thing. The only unusual thing about it was that some of us decided to climb all the way to the top of Qi Shan. Unlike my last conquest of Qi Shan, there were plenty of other folks up there to share in the glory--a couple dozen at least. Anyway, while our group was sitting and enjoying some snacks, another group came over and asked to have their photo taken with me. It was a group of students from a local school for traditional Chinese medicine. Even though I had already posed for the regular group shots with our own group, I was glad to pose with these other folks, too. It only took a couple of minutes to pose and schmooze, mostly because our limited ability in each others' languages limited the schmoozing. They asked the typical questions: Where are you from? How long have you been in China? Can you speak Chinese? It was all a bit fun, but hardly novel.

Jump ahead to Saturday evening. I ventured over to the neighborhood English corner for the regular Saturday night session. The neighborhood corner is doing quite well this year. Either word has gotten around to the high school kids or their teachers are really pushing them to go. Whatever the cause, the place was packed and there were about a dozen of us who had spilled out onto the sidewalk. The topic was "weather". When the time came for everybody to converse with the people at their table, we formed a group right there outside. I had met a couple of the kids before and there was one student from the college, but the majority of the group were new to me. As was I to them. We did manage to discuss the topic for a little bit, but then someone asked, "Where are you from?" I answered, of course, not being a stickler for staying on topic. The discussion slowly eroded from there as we started talking less and less about weather and more and more about the foreigner in their midst. Soon, however, the corner was over and we all went our separate ways.

On the way back to campus I chatted a bit with Sherry, the lone college student in our group. She mentioned something along the lines that the middle school students enjoyed the chance to talk with a foreigner. I replied that I was glad I could oblige them. She then said that she had noticed that we tend to get asked the same questions again and again. I was tempted to reply, "Welcome to my world." But since she probably wouldn't have understood the metaphor, I simply agreed. Her comment did get me thinking, though. I imagine that our life here in the sticks of Yunnan is a bit like that of a celebrity. We don't make the big bucks, of course. (though Yau Neih's salary is quite good compared to local standards) Nor have we received any offers to appear on a game show or The Love Boat. (This shows how out of it I am. Where do celebrities with fading careers end up these days?) But we do get noticed. I've had people come up out of the blue and say that they heard we shopped at such and such store or mention that they saw us dancing in the park. We also have a steady supply of people who want to talk to us, or at least get our photo.

The girls really don't care for it all. Me, I vacillate between enjoying the attention and wishing I could just become invisible. It's nice when people are genuinely happy to see you. But it's the most superficial of relationships. I get a sense that I'm performing, giving people a glimpse of that exotic land called America. It's a privilege to be able to do so, but it's nowhere near as satisfying as a real friendship. Thankfully we do have both. And by the end of next year it'll be over. After a brief stint of being the exotic world travelers offering a glimpse of China, we will once again become mundane.

Maybe we're related?

2006-11-13T08:01:00.000-08:00

Whilst browsing I discovered a site that will match your face to a celebrity. (Thanks, Joel, for the link!) I have to say, that I did not expect these results:

The big pic is me. The little guys, left to right, top to bottom are: Bill Gates, Ricky Ponting, John Williams, John Denver, Linus Torvalds, Eugene Levy, William Rehnquist, and Kim Jong Il. (Missing from the list is Dalida, who ranks after John Denver, and Francesco Cura, who came after Linus Torvalds. I omitted them so I could include Rehnquist and Kim Jong Il, who are much funnier matches, in my opinion.)

Homeless, homeless are we

2006-11-10T02:45:00.000-08:00

This past election got me to thinking about our home. Now, I know that one of our guidelines for internet use is to avoid controversial topics like politics, but since this is about not voting, I think I'm okay. You see, despite many years of being a faithful voter, I decided that my participation in the electoral process was something that I was going to leave back in the States. I know that I can cast my vote via absentee ballot, but I didn't know how well I could stay informed on the candidates and issues here in China. An even bigger reason is that it would mean cutting another tie with our home.

We're in an odd situation, living here in China. From the beginning we decided that our time here was going to be limited to two years. We wanted the experience, but we didn't feel a calling to spend a bigger chunk of our lives here. The problem is, one just can't put one's life on pause and slip out to live a different one. I suppose we could have let our house sit furnished and vacant, and continued to pay for things that we weren't using, like utilities and auto insurance. But we didn't have the kind of money to do that. So we ended up vacating our house and renting it out. Of course, given our desire to return to our old way of life in two years, we ended up moving in body, but not in spirit. Our mail was now going to my sister-in-law's place in Renton, but we still thought of ourselves as residents of Seattle. Soon after moving out, we settled down in our apartment here in China. Now we had three homes: the place we were actually staying, the place our mail was going to, and the blue house in Seattle. At times it was a bit confusing. (And then, of course, there was this summer that we spent in Tacoma. When asked where we were from, we didn't know if we should answer Seattle, Renton, China or Tacoma.)

The question is, does having three homes make us very rooted, or do they all cancel each other out and make us homeless? I mean, I take less interest in our Seattle neighborhood (and local politics) since I'm not there to deal with them. I also have a more detached attitude here in China, because I'm just a guest. When the bill comes due for the new stadium in town, I'll be back in the States. There are times when the concerns of one place or another tug at me--it's human nature to want to settle down, after all--but I can't really get caught up in it. I suppose the answer will come at the end of next summer when we return to the blue house. Will we feel that we've truly come home? Or will we find that we've left a part of ourselves back here and that are transplanted roots can't quite sink down to the depth they had before we left? I'm in no hurry to find out, but sometimes I wonder.

Transit rules

2006-11-05T06:34:00.000-08:00

One thing I have to say about living in China--it is a learning experience. Not only do I discover facets of life here that I could never pick up from a book, but I also get new insights into life back home. Take this afternoon, for instance. Yau Neih and I were riding a bus to the north side of town. Soon after we got on, the bus stopped to pick up another rider. With some effort, an old lady climbed aboard. Right after her, a mid sized dog hopped on. The lady sat down, towards the front, the dog just stood in the aisle in the middle of the bus. I didn't know if the dog belonged to the woman or just decided to go for a ride. Either way, it seemed odd to me, since in Seattle animals must either be leashed or caged to ride the bus. Of course, I had to question that policy as we rolled onward. The dog stood quite placidly as we traveled, like any other commuter. But then the rationale behind Metro's policy became clear. On one of the stops the bus made, the dog got off. (The bus had stopped to let off some other passengers. The dog itself didn't signal for a stop.) The bus started off but then a cry went up from the old woman. The bus stopped again and she started yelling at the dog. The dog looked at her politely enough, but didn't return to the bus. So the poor woman had to get off the bus and herd the dog back on. This time she made the dog stand closer to her. So I then realized why leashes and stuff are required in Seattle--you just can't trust a dog to get off at the right stop.

(Oh, and another discovery was made while i was writing this post. Did you know that Metro Transit only has two Frequently Asked Questions? I know riding the bus is hardly rocket science, but you'd thing people would have more curiosity than that.)

(Of course, that leads to a whole new speculation as to what standards are used to determine Frequently Asked Questions. I mean, if I got a bunch of friends to start barraging Metro with phone calls asking why they don't have inflight movies, would they update their website? Or would they just say that it's a dumb question and ignore us?)

Nothing to write about

2006-11-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

There seemed to be a hiccup with Blogger for a couple of days last week and then right after that we had network problems that lasted a day and a half. So that's my excuse for not posting. Of course, even if everything had been working hunky-dory, I would not have anything to write about. Life has become incredibly routine. I can't say that it's boring, really, but it's nothing to write about. I mean, buying pig-bread is no longer an adventure. We haven't had any strange fellow following us. We haven't eaten anything exotic or discovered any new quirk about life in China. It's just a matter of going through the daily routines, chatting with folks, discovering a little thing here or there. Almost like life in the States. Probably the biggest challenge we faced this week (besides not getting blown up in EV Nova) was getting Ga Dai's violin repaired. We discovered that the bridge was a bit off, so first we checked the web for more info. The page we found recommended letting an expert fix it. So on Thursday afternoon, we were able to ask one of the English teachers here if they could put us in touch with one of the music teachers on campus. Tonight she called us back, and the music teacher was able to readjust the bridge and swap a defective tuner from the E to the G string. All for the cost of a postcard from Tacoma. Boring. If my laptop had audio inputs, I could at least post an MP3 of the retuned violin in action. But it doesn't, so I didn't. Oh, well. I suppose I should enjoy the quiet while it lasts.

High cost of dieing

2006-10-28T07:56:00.000-07:00

100_0761
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

One of the neat little things I like about living here is the tombs. I know, I'm weird. Be that as it may, the burial situation here is quite different from back home. Back home if you want to get buried, you have to buy a plot at one of the local graveyards. Here, it seems that any bit of vacant land is open for negotiation. I first discovered this on our fourth or fifth hike. We were headed up the mountain and all of a sudden I see these marble things. Upon closer inspection, I discovered that they were tombs. Since then I've found that the hillsides here are dotted with these things. (I've also ran across a trio situated in someone's backyard, but I think that's the exception.) I don't know if people are actually buried within them or they only house people's ashes. Anyway, like I said, I think they're neat. Whether it's because they tend to be shaped like the monitor I bought with my Mac ci, or just the random nature of their placement, I don't know.

One thing I never considered, however, is how the things get there. Back home, graves are nicely arranged in rows with roadways built through the memorial park. Here, although there is one hill that seems to be dedicated to tombs, graves tend to be scattered about, with foot trails being one's only access to the site. The full implications of that were revealed to me on this morning's hike. We ventured up Man Jiao Hou mountain, making our way through Man Jiao village. (The translation of the mountain's name is "behind Man Jiao mountain".) As we stepped onto the trail we had to walk around a number of slabs of granite. Graves in the making, I noticed. I didn't think much about it until a couple of minutes later when we saw one of those pieces going up the hill. Well, the piece itself wasn't ambulating. It was being carried by six or so guys. Each pair had a length of thick bamboo across their shoulders with the stone suspended from it by chains. We changed our hike to avoid them, and when we came back down, the guys were still at work. We had to jump up onto a rice paddy to give them the right of way. The guys on the left side were walking along the narrow path, the poor guys on the right had to slog through the drainage ditch alongside. When I considered how high up i've found tombstones, I had to marvel at how dedicated some folks are to their dearly departed. I mean, I've read about venerating the ancestors and all that, but I had to see these guys breaking their backs to haul hundreds of pounds of granite up the hill in order for it to become real to my American mind.

Anyway, I have at times thought how nice it would be to be buried up in one of the pine groves in one of those fancy Chinese tombs. (Not that I will actually care, once my time comes.) But after seeing what a burden it would be for the living, I think I may just go back to my original plan of hiding my corpse in the yard waste bin.

Cross with the light

2006-10-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

One aspect we ex-pats joke about here in China is the traffic. To my American eyes, the driving here is very libertarian. The rules of the road are useful guidelines, but always seem to take second place to the cardinal law: Get where you want to go with minimal delay. In order to achieve that aim I've seen drivers pass other cars on the right, left, or whatever space seems available. I've seen cars driving on the "wrong" side of the road, barreling through red lights and have even seen a couple of drivers make a left hand turn using the cross street's right turn lane. The miracle of it all is that in my year and a bit here, I have yet to see one accident.... well, up until last weekend, that is.

On Sunday afternoon, Yau Neih and I were taking a bus ride. We recently noticed that the city had added a few bus routes in our section of town and we decided to investigate them. We had run a couple of errands and had ended up at the new grocery store in town. (We had to stock up on our chocolate cereal, don't you know.) We managed to catch a bus on one of the new routes and rode about town, intentionally taking the long way home. (The bus routes here are all circular.) We were riding through the north end of town, the bus driving along at a rather leisurely pace. The busses here don't adhere to a strict schedule or limit themselves to specific bus stops, so the drivers usually gauge their speed by how much room they have in their bus. An empty bus promises for a slower ride as the driver keeps a lookout for new fares.

At this point both Yau Neih and I were idly looking out the side windows, watching the people, shops or new construction that passed by. Suddenly the driver slammed on his brakes. I tried to maintain my balance but tumbled forward, bumping into a lady seated in front of us across the aisle. As I fell I could hear the crunch of an accident. My first thought was to apologize to the lady I hit, and to ask if she was okay. Of course, in such an emergency situation, my limited Chinese vocabulary was quite lost in the recesses of my brain. I ended up just picking myself up and dusting myself off. She seemed to be unharmed, so I just left it at that. She was, of course, excited about the whole accident. Turning my attention to that, I looked out the front window, but couldn't see anything. From the sound of crunching metal, I was expecting to see a car or something. The driver had immediately left the bus and the passengers were following suit. We followed along and as we got closer to the front, I could see the driver kneeling over someone else, just a few feet in front of the bus.

As we stepped out into the road we could finally see what happened. A bicycle sat crumpled under the bus' front wheel. About six feet in front of the bus, the driver was trying to pick up the rider, a boy about eight or nine years old. That was contrary to what I had learned in high school first aid, but there was no way I could have communicated that. It was one of those situations where I just had to sit back and trust other people to know what they were doing. The injured boy was crying, but didn't seem to be screaming in agony or anything. There were a few other kids hanging around--I'm guessing friends of the injured boy. A lady appeared to be scolding them. Whether she was lecturing them on traffic safety or telling them to run home and get help, I don't know. Once the driver had picked up a boy, folks started trying to flag down a passing car. It took a few minutes until an empty taxi passed by. In that space of time, a man in a wheelchair came over, who at first impression seemed to be related to the boy. However, once we flagged down the taxi, that man stayed behind while the driver climbed in with the boy and the taxi drove off. At this point Yau Neih and I figured that we really couldn't do anything to help. So I put our bus fare on the driver's seat and we walked home. We figured if we were required to fill out any witness forms or something, it would have been pretty easy for the police to find us.

Once we got home, we peeked into one of our "foreigner's guides". It had a little section on accidents and we found out that what we had witnessed was pretty much standard operating procedure. In the case of an injury accident, the driver at fault will usually accompany the injured party to the hospital. At that point the driver would probably have to arrange to settle up accounts, making arrangements to pay the costs involved. (And while to American thinking, the boy might have been at fault, here the responsibility falls on the driver of larger vehicle.) So our bus route research was cut short by an experience of a different kind.

Ironically, the bus driver was driving quite safely, even by American standards. There was no libertarian driving involved. Like I said, this is the first accident I have witnessed here. Hopefully it will be the last.

One!

2006-10-22T01:27:00.000-07:00

Well, we have finally reached a milestone in our language studies. Last night I was able to play Uno entirely in putonghua. In an effort to promote cultural diversity and understanding, I am presenting a guide so that you, too, can play Uno in Chinese. Have fun!

Chinese phrase	English equivalent	When used
hong se	red	when playing a wild card
huang se	yellow	when playing a wild card
lue se	green	when playing a wild card
lan se	blue	when playing a wild card
dui bu qi	sorry	when playing a skip card or worse
xie xie	thank you	when someone plays just the right card
uno	uno	(some words are universal)

Going to the show

2006-10-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

100_4014
Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

I had a rock 'n' roll flashback this weekend. On Saturday, we discovered that people were putting up a stage just outside of campus. There's this road, Shiji Lu, which ends at our campus gate. It's a big honkin' six lane boulevard--they were obviously building for the future here. Anyway, the last leg of the road is on a downward slope, so it made for a pretty good spot for an impromptu outdoor theater. We didn't know why they were building this stage, of course. We joked about it being for a revival meeting on Sunday morning, but really I figured it might have been some college thing. The only problem with that theory was that when they build stages for the college shows they usually commandeer the basketball courts.

Later that evening I found out that the stage was for a civic performance. Apparently there is or was some nation-wide talent contest on CCTV. (I'm a real old fogey when it comes to local pop culture, so don't ask me to supply details.) The fourth place winner was from our town here. She was coming home in triumph to give a concert for the folks. True, she only made fourth place, but that detail's unimportant when the competitor's from your home town. We decided that it would be worth checking out, just because it would be different, if nothing else.

So Sunday night rolls along and I found out that it really wasn't that different. We met up with some students and headed off to the stage. The show was festival seating and the street was packed with people. I switched my wallet to my front pocket and squeezed my way through the crowd. I had definite flashbacks to Chicagofest, 1981, where my friends and I waited in line to see Cheap Trick. The only big difference was that the haze of smoke above the crowd here was made from tobacco. (Well, that and I could see over almost everybody's head.) We tried to make our way to the seating area--a few hundred plastic stools--but then decided to head back uphill to the SRO section. The one student, Gail, who was hanging out with us said we could see more from back there. So we stood and waited as the crowd became thicker and thicker around us. The crowd seemed to be mostly younger, say age 30 and under. There were a few older folks, mostly escorting kids. It could be that the elders had already scored seats down front. Or maybe they just stayed home to watch it on TV. The local television station had set up its cameras. At one point a group of soldiers in dress uniform came marching up. It was obvious that they weren't there for security or as some sort of honor guard. They were just some guys coming to catch the show.

Finally about 7:30--a half hour after the announced starting time--the show began. (Hey, just like the States.) My exposure to Chinese performances has been limited, but it seems to be the practice that the emcees are an integral part of the show. The emcees took the stage here and spent a number of minutes welcoming all the visiting dignitaries. They then yielded the stage to a dance troupe who performed a big flowing dance number. I mentioned to Yau Neih that if they ever broadcast the show on TV, we'd have to try and watch it so that we could see the routine close up. After the dancers, the emcees came back and presented the girl of the hour. (I suppose if I had any shred of journalistic ability I would ask somebody what her name was.) She sang a couple of tunes--pop numbers, nothing that really grabbed me. Then the dancers returned, this time dressed in Dai minority costumes for another dance. This pattern continued with a couple of songs then a dance number (From the Wa minority this time) then a few more songs. This was peppered with a couple of presentations by some dignitary or another. Then, by 9:00, everybody got on stage and the emcees started droning on while confetti was shot into the air. The show was over and it was time to go home.

The next morning, the stage and all the equipment were gone, as if it was all a dream. Well, except for a bit of confetti scattered about on the ground...

I don't get it

2006-10-16T20:13:00.000-07:00

We went dancing in the park last night, Monday being our "dance night" for this semester. Like many an urban park, there is plenty of activity going on 'round about. As we came into a park, there was a woman handing out some sort of advertising flyers. About half the time we encounter folks like this in the street, they ignore us. (A wise move, since we're illiterate and can't read the ads anyway.) This lady, however, was not one of those. She definitely stepped into our path and thrust her ads upon us. (Well, me, anyway. Yau Neih makes herself less of a target in these situations.) It turns out she was passing out coupons for Dico's, our town's only western style fast food outlet. I put the flyers in my breast pocket and went on to dance.

Later on in the evening, as we were in the dance circle, the lady next to me reached over and grabbed the papers out of my pocket. She and the lady next to her looked at the flyers and began to laugh quite loudly. She then stuffed the papers back in my pocket, leaving me wondering what was so darn funny.

Rough week

2006-10-15T01:58:00.000-07:00

Ah, it's the weekend! That's something I haven't appreciated for a while. I mean, we have had weekends in China, but I never used to greet it with the same sense of relief that I did back when I was in the States and working a full time job. This year, it seems different. Actually the whole thing seems different. Everything seems to be taking extra effort--homeschooling, getting the shopping done, getting into English corner, starting up our Chinese lessons, hiking, dancing, blogging--everything. I don't know. Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm just in a mood or something. Ah, well. Life goes on....

Sshhhhh!

2006-10-11T19:39:00.000-07:00

This year I've volunteered to help out with the English library here on campus. The library, or resource room as it's called, isn't an official college library, but something set up by the previous set of foreign English teachers. It's been a bit slow in starting up this year, as the building it was in had been converted to dorms this past summer and the whole thing needed to be set up again. Anyway I went to a meeting about it last night, hoping to figure out why they always want some foreigner to be on hand when it's open. I think the original idea was that the foreigner--usually a teacher--would be on hand to supervise things. Of course, I have no experience in running the resource room, nor any sort of experience in library management. (Unless you count playing with LibraryThing.) Of course, I have been using libraries longer than any of these college kids have been alive, so maybe that qualifies me. We'll see. I think my real function will end up chatting with anyone who wants to talk to a foreigner.

Warning! Warning!

2006-10-11T19:30:00.000-07:00

In an ironic note, coming off this bird flu scare, we got an e-mail from the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu. It was an e-mail about the nuclear test in North Korea, basically stating that there was no apparent threat to Americans here in China. Furthur into the mail was the line, "As a standing policy, the Embassy urges Americans residing anywhere overseas to always be prepared for the possibility of an emergency." Good advice. But in this case, I think that the prudent response would be to stay put rather than go to a place where the missles might be pointed.

Going home

2006-10-10T01:43:00.000-07:00

Flashback: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2006
Tuesday arrived and we all got up bright and early. After a relatively quick breakfast, the girls and I started school and Yau Neih started packing. I don't know what it was about our time in Kunming, but school was done with an efficiency we can't seem to manage back home. Anyway, we were done and ready to check out a bit after 11:00. Since nobody back in the States doubted our assessment of the situation, our boss came by to handle the check out and pay the bill and all that. We went to lunch, after arguing a bit about it. (I suppose we needed to vent the frustrations of the week somewhere.) We went back to the place we had dinner on Saturday night. They served up a very tasty chicken and cashew dish. (They apparently had a good cucumber dish, too, according to my daughter. I didn't care for it.) After that we killed time in the company office and then left for the airport.

Kunming traffic in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon is remarkably light. We got to the airport with plenty of time to spare and checked in quickly. While I prepared myself for the security check--emptying my pockets and dumping the contents into my carry-on--the ladies took a peek in the gift shop in search of the elusive Wa minority doll. In all our browsing at the Bird & Flower Market, Ga Dai had not managed to see a doll representing the Wa and had suddenly developed a hankering for one. (Having been a collector of various things over the years, I know the feeling.) Thankfully, they did manage to find one and quickly snatched it up. It was a pleasant end to our exile.

The flight home was routine. Once landed, we grabbed our bags and hopped aboard the bus into town. I suppose I should have felt good as we rode back into town, but instead I felt a twinge of guilt. Like a rat returning to a ship that never quite sunk. I suppose if I had my way, I'd have toughed it out and then if the threat had been real, I could have patted myself on the back for being a good martyr while I lay sick in bed. Anyway, despite my own mental state, it was a pleasure to get home, even if the week turned out to be rather dull. Be it ever so humble...

One more day

2006-10-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

Flashback: Monday, October 2nd, 2006
(You may suspect that I'm milking this trip for all it's worth. That I could have easily summed this up in one post instead of three.)(You're right. Deal with it.) On Monday, we had a chance to look forward to some socialization. Some co-workers who are teaching in Macau were coming up to Yunnan for the holiday. They were going to arrive early in the afternoon and spend the day in Kunming. Our boss was planning to show them the Bird and Flower Market and then take them to dinner, and we were invited to tag along. Ga Dai had wanted to hit the B&FM anyway, to buy a wall scroll, so we agreed.

We finished school in the morning (oh, that we had such motivation every day!), had lunch and then headed on down to the market. We weren't there for more than a half an hour before we met our compatriots. We exchanged greetings and browsed around a bit. The Macau crew were planning on heading to Lijiang on Wednesday, so they didn't go too hog wild in buying souvenirs. They soon saw everything they wanted to see in the market building and wanted to roam the area a bit. Ga Dai had her heart set on seeing more of the indoor market, so we split up and planned to rendezvous for supper later.

After Ga Dai got in her shopping fix, we headed northward, strolling through what I'm told is the oldest section of Kunming. It had a number of old buildings, complete with grass growing tile roofs and, incongruously, a large variety of shops devoted to video game equipment. Now that the family agenda had been fulfilled, I was looking to do my own shopping. In my haste to pack, I had neglected to include the USB cable I needed to transfer pix from my camera to my laptop. Since the date of our return was still up in the air and my camera was filling up, I figured it might be prudent to at least price the cost of another cable. The one drawback was that the family was getting tired and wasn't up to spending the next hour or so walking around on a quest. Fortunately we were coming up to Renmin Lu and a big plaza with plenty of planters to sit upon. I bade farewell to my dear wife and children and went out in quest of the technology I needed.

The quest failed, alas. Or maybe that's a good thing, since I didn't really need the cable. Either way, I had stopped in a computer store, appliance store and camera store. None of them had any sort of cables or even all those little attachments and doodads that seem quite abundant in the States. My guess is that since all these consumer goods are a relatively new phenomenon here, the market is really looking for brand new systems, not replacement parts for their existing systems. Anyway, my search took about 45 minutes to an hour. I then hooked up with my clan and we hopped a taxi to the neighborhood where we planned to dine.

We met up with our compatriots and discovered that there was no seats available in the restaurant. (I bet somebody had the audacity to get married that day.) Our boss then opted for another place, a mere two blocks from where we had been previously. Ah, well. Apparently the place was rather unique thing in Kunming--a building that was over a hundred years old! There were signs forbidding photography and everything. We had a nice dinner, comparing notes with the Macau crew and all that. (Turns out that they've never eaten bugs. And here I thought Macau was so cosmopolitan.) After dinner we strolled a bit in Green Lake Park. Finally, we all headed "home"--the Macau crew to rest and us to check the e-mail and make a decision about ending our sojourn.

We got back to the office and checked our e-mail. No word from any of our friends. Either this bird flu thing was really a non-event or they were all deathly ill and couldn't e-mail. We assumed the former and checked with a co-worker in Hong Kong. She had conferred with a friend in the prefecture and, in her opinion, returning to our city was not a risky venture. She did advise us to avoid un- or under-cooked poultry, though. So, even though we had had a nice evening out, we decided that barring an order to stay put from the States, we would head back the following afternoon. The wait was all but over.

Still waiting

2006-10-08T01:06:00.000-07:00

Flashback: Sunday, October 1st, 2006
Sunday, National Day here in China, was a non-event for us. We spent the bulk of the day doing school, finally getting caught up, then just hung around the hotel. Oh, I should have mentioned that when we came back on Saturday night, we were locked out of our hotel room! We didn't know how long we were to stay, of course, so our agency had only put down a deposit for two nights. The hotel uses electronic cards as keys, so when we tried to use them the locks just beeped at us and stayed closed. Yau Neih went to the front desk and while she couldn't communicate our overall situation to the clerk, the clerk was able to let us know that she wanted some cash. That was an easily solved problem, but a tad annoying. Anyway, it ensured that we would see our boss at least once a day as he came by to pay our deposit for another night. So we did see him on Sunday, but there was no news to report. It seemed that it would be okay to head back home, but we all thought it would be wise to wait for one more report from sources back home. Yau Neih also wanted to get confirmation with the folks back in the States that it would be okay with them if we went back. It meant cooling our heels at least until Tuesday (since we had to wait until Monday morning stateside) but it's better to make sure everything was all right. Besides, I was enjoying those breakfast burritos that Yau Neih had discovered.

It's a small world...

2006-10-06T19:58:00.000-07:00

Flashback: Saturday, September 30th, 2006
Today we made some lemonade. Kunming is, or at least has been, our city of retreat. We have gone there to meet with our colleagues, get some Western food and generally have a good time. So we've started to take notice of potentially interesting things to see and do in town. One of the things we had slated to do this year is visit theYunnan Nationalities Villages park. Well, we really weren't in town to relax or have a good time, but we were in town after all. So Yau Neih suggested that we should take advantage of the opportunity, postpone school (which had been already postponed from Thursday) and make the time to check out the park.

We figured out the bus connections and headed out after breakfast. The park is located on the south end of the city, on the shores of Lake Dianchi. We were at a slight disadvantage being illiterate. We had to keep one eye on the map and the other on whatever landmarks we could make out. We managed to make our connection all right, but ended up overshooting the park entrance. Fortunately the end of the bus line was not too far from the entrance and we got off there and walked back.

I probably should comment here on the minority phenomenon. Unlike the U.S., where we often make note of where our ancestors have hailed from, the majority of Chinese are a single ethnicity, the Han. There are minority ethnic groups, usually living on the edges of the country. A large number of them live in Yunnan, mostly having been pushed there over the centuries as the Han have prospered and expanded. The nearest U.S. analogy of which I can think is that of our relationship with the various Native American nations. Anyway, in Yunnan, the ethnic minorities seem to be the province's claim to fame. There are coffee table books in the bookstores and little minority dolls in all the gift shops. Having a minority theme park in the provincial capital makes perfect sense. To me, anyway.

So, we arrived at the park. From what the brochures said, this land has been set aside and members of each participating group have built homes, temples and the like to showcase their culture. Many of the groups offered regular demonstrations of their music and dance. It seemed like every group also offered a gift shop. Though I've never been to any of the Disneylands in the world, I get the impression that each village is like that Main Street U.S.A. exhibit.

I won't give an itinerary of our tour, but I will say that we enjoyed ourselves. (When I get around to it, I'll post some pix over at Flickr.) The varieties of architecture were quite interesting, though I think that some of the buildings we peeked into were actually dorms for the workers. For lunch we headed over to the "The Flavor City" dining area. I was hoping for a big variety of ethnic fare, but, of course, I can't read Chinese. If the restaurant did label ethnic specialties, I had no clue as to which was which. That wasn't too disappointing, though, since we've got ethnic restaurants in town. I contented myself with a bowl of noodles, which burned my lips off. (I ended up eating only half of it and then helping myself to the rest of the family's blander leftover lunches.)

Anyway, we spent almost the whole day at the park, leaving just before suppertime when they seemed to be closing up. Our trip back to the hotel was a bit more eventful than the one down. This being rush hour, I was unable to push my way off the first bus before it left our stop and my family watched me drive away to the next one. Our second bus reached the end of its route before I thought it would, so we spent a good fifteen minutes wandering around trying to figure out exactly where we were. But in the end, we went out, had a nice day and got "home" safely. For what more could we ask?

Rumors

2006-10-05T18:37:00.000-07:00

Flashback: Friday, September 29th, 2006
My exilic ruminations didn't last all that long. On Friday afternoon, we checked our e-mail to hear the latest word from our town. There was no new news, only confirmation of what they had discovered earlier--a limited infection that was quickly cleaned up. We consulted with our co-workers in Kunming and got a clearer picture of what had happened to bring us to the city. Our agency does development work, English teaching being only part of the package. A week ago, they had hosted a group of high school kids who had ventured to our neck of the province on a service project in a village. The group returned last Tuesday and then on Wednesday our agency was told about the diseased birds. They made some calls and that's where they heard about the closed airport. That's when they decided to pull us out. Anyway, subsequent inquiries had gotten somewhat conflicting information, though everything seemed to point to the situation as being under control and not at all dangerous. Still, the prudent course seemed to be to wait out the weekend, especially since the coming week was the October holiday with no classes being held.

We spent the bulk of the afternoon rather lazily. The girls read and I spent an hour or so exploring the neighborhood. We also talked with the Hong Kong office. They were very solicitous for our welfare, even offering to relocate us if we were uncomfortable with returning to our rural city! We assured them that such a thing was furthest from our mind and that we were quite eager to return. But of course, that wouldn't be for a couple of days and we had a whole weekend ahead of us.

Don't have to live like a refugee

2006-10-04T19:46:00.000-07:00

Flashback: Friday, September 29th, 2006
Friday was our first full day in exile in Kunming. We had stayed at our hotel before back in... well, I guess that was in the beginning of September. So anyway, having just stayed there a few weeks ago, we knew that there were street vendors around the corner so we could have a cheap and tasty breakfast. We didn't find a Kunming counterpart to our beloved pancake lady, but there was a vendor selling the pork filled pastries. There was also this guy who sold egg, onion and shredded potato scrambled together and sealed in a crepe like wrapping. Delicious! Yau Neih tried it that first morning and the rest of us joined in after that. After breakfast we returned to the hotel and started school. On a normal day, Siu Wan and I are lucky to get started before lunchtime. Here, without the usual distractions, we were able to finish everything in the morning.

It was during that time, as Siu Wan was doing some writing and I was twiddling my thumbs, that I started thinking "refugee thoughts." I looked out the window and saw the apartments across the street, some with laundry hanging out to dry. I thought about my own laundry sitting in the hamper back home, and that became kind of a metaphor for all the unfinished tasks we had left behind. We had the schooling to keep us occupied, but otherwise we had a potentially long stretch of time of sitting and waiting for some news. Not a pleasant way to spend some time. It reminded me of news stories that I had read about refugee camps and such. We certainly weren't suffering physical deprivation, what with sleeping in a hotel and dining at restaurants and all. But I could feel a connection with the anxiety and depression that folks fleeing from real disasters must feel. Their life, their homes are all out of reach. Day drags into day as someone else somewhere decides what their future will be.

Leaving on a jet plane

2006-10-03T16:24:00.000-07:00

What a long strange trip this has been! Okay, there have been longer and stranger journeys, but this was certainly an unusual one for us. We're back from a trip to Kunming--a totally unplanned and unwanted vacation. It wasn't horrible, it wasn't great, it was just...well, a journey is the best way to describe it. The best way I can think of, anyway. I'm still trying to process it all.

Flashback: Thursday, September 28th, 2006
The "holiday" started on Thursday morning, about 10:30. The kids were up and doing their morning things. I was on the computer, reading my news or some trivial thing. The phone rang and I answered it. It was our "boss" in Kunming. They had got word that there was an outbreak of bird flu in our prefecture, and that they had even closed the local airport in response. He had consulted with folks in Hong Kong and the States and they were of the opinion that we should head out to Kunming "as soon as possible." Heavy. I told him that I would get right on it and get us sleeper bus tickets and all that. I hung up and told the girls. Typically, Siu Wan was quiet and Ga Dai was not. They didn't want to leave for some indefinite time. Plus they were frightened. That makes sense, since we've never experienced such a thing before. Besides, Ga Dai is in the middle of a book that's set in London right after the plague. It's no wonder that talk of quarantine and evacuation should trouble her.

As for me, I didn't want to go to Kunming, either. I wasn't all that frightened--just annoyed. We had just decided not to try to travel over the October break since our finances are a bit tight this year. Now we had to head to Kunming and I was just sure that the expenses would come out of our funding somehow. (An illogical thought, once you think about it, but I didn't have time for contemplation.) Anyway, in a somewhat negative mood, I decided to head over to Yau Neih's classroom and try to catch her over the break. I started planning who to inform and what tasks we'd need to accomplish. Ga Dai came with me and we got to the classroom about five minutes before the break. (Siu Wan was finishing breakfast.) Either Ga Dai looked especially forlorn or Yau Neih was curious, since she excused herself and came out into the hallway. I broke the news and we discussed what needed to be doing while mother comforted daughter. (There's a big scientific explanation about how women have two lobes in the brain so they can multitask like that. I won't go into it now since I only have one lobe and want to talk about last Thursday.) We were pretty much in agreement on everything except that Yau Neih wanted me to at least look into flying instead of taking the bus. Usually my wife is pretty frugal, but she's quite willing to go the extra kwai when it comes to avoiding the sleeper bus. She also pointed out that, since we were trying to avoid an infectious disease, a half hour plane ride made a lot more sense than being cooped up in a bus for 12 hours. Common sense trumped stinginess.

I went back to the apartment, telling our neighbors that we wouldn't be available for English corner that evening. (grumble, grumble) They showed concern and understanding, though they didn't seem to be rushing for the airport themselves. I think that's when my irritation over being inconvenienced started sharing room with feelings of guilt. Why should I leave while other folks are staying? Anyway, I didn't have time for those contemplations, either. I went back to the flat and did some quick web searches on airfares. I had to go fetch some money first, after all. I also did a bit of poking to see if there was any news about airport closures. There wasn't, but then again, in this part of China, one would not expect to get any sort of real time information about local conditions. I trudged over to the bank and withdrew some money without much hassle. When I got to the airline ticket office, I sat down and tried to use my phrase book to put together a query about whether the airport was open or not. In the time that it took me to do that, a number of people came in and everything seemed to be business as usual. So I changed my tactics and filled out a ticket form for an afternoon flight. I figured that if no flights were leaving, they'd let me know soon enough. As I waited for my turn at the counter, I tried to peek at what the other folks were purchasing. I saw at least one other person had purchased a ticket for that afternoon. When my turn came, sure enough, they sold me the tickets with nary a problem.

I returned home and grabbed a quick bite. Yau Neih had contacted the dean and a couple of other ex-pats around town. Nobody had head anything, but they started asking around. After a couple of hours, word started filtering back. Various folks had been told that there were a few chickens found to have the disease, but they had been "killed, incinerated and buried deep underground". Nobody had heard about possible human infections or about airport closings. And even our group had called back saying that the airport thing couldn't be confirmed. Even so, they wanted us to head out to Kunming as a precaution. (They have to pay the insurance premiums, after all.) We agreed, though I was starting to feel a bit like Chicken Little. So we finished packing up our school books and headed out to the airport.

The trip was uneventful, hardly what you'd expect in an evacuation. Of course, we were the only ones being evacuated. For everyone else, it was business as usual. Our boss picked us up at the airport, took us to dinner at Salvador's and then dropped us off at the hotel. We dropped off wondering what the heck was going on and if there was any purpose to our long weekend.

Wake up call

2006-09-25T21:03:00.000-07:00

There are many little differences between life here and the States about which I rarely think, much less blog. One of those is the way folks tell time. In these parts, the time is written using a twenty-four hour clock, or military time, as it's called back home. So four pm is written 16:00 and ten-thirty in the evening is written 22:30. Having filled out timesheets on second shift for years, I'm quite used to writing in that format. When I talk, however, I still use the (U.S.) standard, so I say I used to start work at three and end at eleven-thirty.

Anyway, what brought this all to mind is a phone call received this morning. About quarter to seven--06:45--the phone started ringing, waking 3/4 of the household. (Siu Wan can sleep through anything.) I stumbled out of bed to answer it. A female voice asked for Yau Neih. I said I would see if she could come to the phone, then the girl asked me where English corner was being held at. I said it was going to be at six-thirty and started to give the location when she thanked me and hung up. As she did so I could hear her start to talk with some other voices. It then dawned on me that at least a couple of students had been hanging around waiting for English corner to start, wondering where their teacher was. All because we said six-thirty rather than 18:30. It's always the little things that get you....

Bug Fu

2006-09-24T02:43:00.000-07:00

Classes did start Wednesday and it was sand that was dumped to make a path through the mud, not gravel. The sand worked just find to preserve everyone's shoes, though I think half of it ended up on the brand new floors and stairs of the classroom building. (My sympathies goes out to the custodians.)
***
In nature news, we dodged the bug bullet Friday night. As longtime readers may recall, we had suffered two bug invasions last year--one in the fall and one in the spring. (I never blogged about the spring invasion, as it wasn't exciting, just annoying.) Well, this semiannual event was far from our minds on Friday evening. Instead we were thinking about karate. You see, when we came back to town, our girls were invited to join in with the other expatriate kids in town for some extra curricular activities. (I know, I know. We just spent the summer telling folks that one of the things we were lacking were extracurriculars for the kids. Just goes to show that the good Lord provides...) Ga Dai is joining in on some drawing lessons from one of the college art teachers and Siu Wan is starting to take karate lessons. What does this have to do with bugs? Well, let me tell you.

Siu Wan's first class was Friday evening over at a nearby primary school. We all tagged along to observe and discuss business with the instructor. You see, the other kids have sessions on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. We weren't looking for that much of a commitment, so we wanted to see if the instructor would be willing to teach her if she only came to one session a week. So it was around sunset when we arrived at the school and went into the studio. (I'm tempted to call it a dance studio, since it's a big room with mirrors and bars along the wall, but for all I know, martial arts studios are built that way, too.) Like most places around here, the doors and windows are left wide open. We were watching the kids practice, when suddenly I noticed a bug flying around the room. It wasn't the most graceful thing. Suddenly it dawned on me that it looked like one of those bugs--about a half inch long with a dual pair of long wings. I watched it for a while and then one of the other spectators--a little girl--excitedly pointed it out. The instructor walked over and stamped on it. (It was crawling on the floor at that point. I don't want to give the impression that we were treated to some amazing kung fu bug removal or anything.) A moment later, another bug fluttered in. I pointed out to Yau Neih that it was bug invasion time again. We figured it wasn't worth running home to start closing windows. So we finished watching the class, accompanied by the antics of the 5 or 6 little critters that happened to make their way into the room.

At the end of the session we made our negotiations. We signed up for fifty sessions, with Siu Wan coming in for two hours over the weekend. We have the option to cut back to one hour, but since she's just starting out, we figured two lessons a week might be better for her. We then headed home. Once we got to the apartment, we left the lights off and quickly closed the windows. We then lit up the house and discovered that the bugs had passed us by. Either they were attracted by the light during the last two invasions or the recent construction has removed the bug breeding grounds from outside our window. Either way, we were pleasantly surprised.

Still waiting

2006-09-19T02:53:00.000-07:00

Well, Tuesday is here but freshman classes haven't commenced. It makes no difference to Yau Neih, since she doesn't have any classes scheduled on Tuesday. ('Tis a nice thing, in and of itself, but she pays for it on Thursday when she has six hours in the classroom plus English corner in the evening.) Our neighbor Michael, on the other hand, got a day off. Well, almost. It seems nobody send him the proverbial memo, so he traipsed out to the building and discovered (along with one or two students who were likewise uninformed) that classes had been cancelled. When he told us that it looked like the powers that be had dumped some gravel between the bridge and the building. An improvement over the mud field, I suppose, but given all the rain we've been having, I don't know how much of one. So now the question is, will we have classes tomorrow?

A hard road

2006-09-17T06:45:00.000-07:00

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Originally uploaded by Yuek Hahn.

I've probably mentioned all the construction going on in this town. I might have even mentioned that some of it has been going on here at the college. Well, that construction has hit a bit closer to home. I'm not talking about the noise. That started last year and we quickly learned to tune that out. (After all, both Yau Neih and I grew up on the flight paths to major airports--McChord AFB and O'Hare Airport, respectively--so we're used to background noise.) No, I'm talking about this brand spanking new classroom building pictured at left. It's "grand opening" is Tuesday, though I suspect no bigwigs will be in attendance.

This classroom building has been called "the freshman building", since all the freshman classes are purported to be held there. So far none have, since the freshmen have been doing their military training. Anyway, we were surprised to see the building looking so nice when we returned from the States and one night a week or so ago the family ventured out to take a peek at it. Foolishly we waited until after sunset and we were gingerly stepping in the darkness, trying not to plant a foot into a mud puddle. The girls and I eventually gave in while Yau Neih stubbornly ventured forward and eventually found a path to the building. It was still very much under construction, she reported, with almost all of the rooms lacking desks or even chalkboards. We figured that the story that we heard about freshman classes being held there must have been in error. Well, no, Yau Neih's boss kept confirming that her classes would indeed be held in that building. Anyway, this Saturday, our neighbor and fellow teacher, Michael, said that he wanted to walk over to the new classroom building. Since it was daylight, we all volunteered to tag along.

Once again we sauntered along a gravel path to the big dirt road out back. The road was a tad muddy, but in the daylight avoiding the puddles was no problem at all. It was a bit of an adventure, walking past all the construction tents and equipment lying about. A handful of workers were up ahead, tending to a new section of bridge that would carry traffic over the river. We stuck to the other side of the bridge and headed across... only to discover the end of the road:

The picture here, looking from the building, shows you the lack of roadway, but it can't really give the feeling of looking out from the end of the bridge and seeing a vista of mud. We took a few tentative steps into the field, but soon stopped, fearing for life and limb... okay, maybe just relatively clean shoes. We were all in various stages of outrage, thinking that the powers that be expected us and the students to traverse such muck in the course of our daily routine. (Okay, the kids and I didn't have to make the trip, but we felt outraged anyway for the sake of solidarity.) We searched about trying to figure out just how people were expected to reach their classrooms. Michael asked a couple of the workers who happened to be nearby and they pointed out a sort of path that snaked along the mudfield. Michael was game to try that, but then he had worn his hiking boots. The rest of us were hesitant to risk our normal shoes. Then we noticed a path through the rice paddy to the left of the building. It would involve backtracking across the river and detouring to the footbridge a bit upstream, but it seemed overall a far cleaner route. So Michael went his way and we went ours. It entailed a walk atop the retaining wall and a nice stroll along the rice fields, which put us in a better mood. Eventually we arrived and met up with Michael, who was watching some farmers winnowing rice. (Michael enjoys watching the farmers at work. I have to admit that they seem to know their craft.) Together we ventured into the new building.

The tale gets (more) boring from this point on. The new building looked nice, though with the telltale signs of still being under construction. We peeked into the assigned classrooms and all of Yau Neih's rooms seemed to have been equipped with desks and chalkboards. We speculated a bit about what was really going to happen come Tuesday morning. Yau Neih suspected that classes would be shuffled over into the new building. I ventured a guess that they might bring in a bulldozer on Monday to level off a makeshift roadway. Both Yau Neih and Michael couldn't believe that the college would let things stand as is and expect people to slog through the mud to get to class. I didn't say anything myself, but I had my doubts. The folks here in this part of China put up with a lot of things that us middle class Americans would find unacceptable. And my doubts seem to be confirmed. We mentioned the lack of roadway to some students today and they told us that the official word was, "bring two pairs of shoes." Maybe that's just a rumor, maybe it's the truth, I don't know. I do know that we have a whole day left before freshman classes start. In China, who knows what can happen in that time?

Away for the holidays

2006-09-14T17:22:00.000-07:00

Perhaps one of the hardest things about living overseas is being away from your loved ones on the holidays. Take today, for example, September 15th, National Donut Day. Where are our dear little round loved ones? Well, there were donut shops in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and there are plenty of bakeries back home, but here--nothing. So we spend another donut day without donuts. It's sad, but that's the price you pay. Part of me wants to get some other treat so we can sort of celebrate. But what to get? The supermarket carries little muffins, which are vaguely like donuts. I suppose we could poke a hole in them and pretend or something. Or maybe I could just buy some Oreos. They're round, you know, and that might be enough to evoke the donutal spirit. Guess I'll have to poll the family and see what they think.

Practical math

2006-09-14T02:07:00.000-07:00

We had a real difficult lesson in homeschooling yesterday. For this week in math, Siu Wan is practicing calculating with money. One of the aids we use in this are take out menus from various restaurants. We learned three things. One is that our workbook is out of date. One problem from this book from 2000 states that you have $12 to take your cousin and little brother out for lunch. The little brother is included to give the student practice in saving money from the children's menu. Fortunately, Siu Wan is also young enough to order from the children's menu. Even by upping the limit to $18, she had to borrow 77 cents from her cousin to pay for the proverbial lunch. Of course, they went to Applebee's instead of Herfy's Hamburgers, which makes a difference. She was able to order a meal for herself for under $5 at Herfy's. That was the second lesson. The more fancy the take out menu, the more pricey the meals. The third lesson is that nobody except Herfy's lists the costs of sodas on their menu. Is that because, as my wife says, most people ordering out already have drinks at home? Or is it that they assume that since people have the big bucks for this haute cuisine, they don't even need to consider the costs of the drinks? Beats me. At least I know my daughter's getting a good education. Though it was painful to have to be reminded of chocolate shakes.

Yi, Er, San, Si

2006-09-12T02:07:00.000-07:00

I saw a soldier with flowery socks yesterday. The freshmen are all undergoing military training this week. As I was walking up a stairwell, I noticed a young lady a number of steps above me. She was dressed in camouflaged fatigues and flowered socks. It didn't quite fit in with my stereotype of a soldier. I think of soldiers wearing nothing but government issue clothing, right down to their skivvies. The freshmen drilling on campus, however are not so fully equipped. Besides the aforementioned socks, I've often seen kids "off duty" revealing commercial T-shirts under their uniform shirts.

Anyway, seeing the mass of kids drilling on campus is, like many things, not so exotic this year. Last year I was slightly intimidated, wondering how exactly I should behave as I was passing a group having their drills. This year I don't give it a second thought. They are the newbies. I belong here. (Or so my thought processes run.) Of course, having gotten to know last year's recruits, I don't see soldiers so much as new students in uniform. That view was helped this past Saturday as I returned from our weekly hike. Usually we have to circle halfway around the campus to go through the main entrance. This week someone left a gate open so we could cut across campus. I said goodbye to my fellow hikers (my family was elsewhere) at their dorm and headed down a roadway. On both sides of me were a few hundred soldiers, resting in their squads. I got a number of stares, which I returned with a smile. Then a couple kids got brave enough to say, "Hello." I said hello back, and that emboldened a few others to call out. It started a ripple effect and I ended up waving and nodding to each group, like some shmoe in a parade. I wish I would have had some candy to throw. I'll be glad as the year progresses and I can fade back into the woodwork.

Say ahhhh

2006-09-10T05:29:00.000-07:00

Well, we've been back almost a week and there's not been much about which to write. I've been busy cleaning, unpacking, getting settled and organized for school--all under the haze of jet-lag. Essential stuff, but boring. I have a suspicion that finding things to blog about will be a bit more challenging this year. I may have to start posting cheesy book reviews of my kids' schoolbooks.

Anyway, one thing I suppose I could do is give a brief review about is our medical exams. This is one of those things that I failed to mention last year. Basically, to get a resident's permit, we foreigners have to get a medical exam from a local clinic. Our team got ours in Kunming--whether it's because that's the official clinic or if it's just for the convenience since we're all passing through, I don't know. It makes for a good bonding experience either way. The clinic is close to the airport, on the south end of town. You go to one window to get your paperwork, then you go to another to pay your fee. After that it's a free for all as you go to various rooms for this or that procedure. Both this year and last I relied heavily on my other team members to find where to go next. They require you to get measured and weighed, submit to an x-ray, EKG, ultrasound and eye exam, and provide some bodily fluids for testing. Last year it was a trifle chaotic, as we had arrived very close to the cut-off point and we were hustled through so that all the medical techs could go to lunch. The memorable event is when they checked my blood pressure and it was incredibly high. I had just come off a month of frantic packing and cleaning and a trip across the ocean. I was not at all surprised about the reading, though the techs seemed a bit concerned. Not concerned enough to kick me out, though. This year my blood pressure was fine and the process was much calmer. There was a backup at the eye exam station, so I did end up getting through the x-ray and ultrasound at the last minute. (The ultrasound was particularly difficult as I was supposed to hold my breath even though the procedure tickled.) Then the desire to hustle was our own, as we tried to get back to the hotel to check out and have lunch before our afternoon flight. Not the most pleasant way to spend time in Kunming, but at least we weren't bored.

Free at last!

2006-09-05T23:31:00.000-07:00

Hey, I just realized today that blogspot is now unblocked in the People's Republic of China. What a treat! (Of course, it's probably been unblocked for months now....) A billion more potential readers... if you count all the people here who don't have computers or understand English, that is.)

Gee, it's good to be back home

2006-09-05T23:25:00.000-07:00

Sigh. My blogging has been abysmal this summer, even more so these past couple of weeks. Perhaps now that I'm back across the waters, my output will improve. Time will tell.

Our journey west was slow, but pretty much hassle free. I didn't even get delayed at the ticket counter, like I did the past two trips. (Some scoundrel on "the list" has the same first and last name as myself, which has caused me an extra five minutes or so at North American check-ins.) We flew out to Hong Kong via Vancouver, arriving in the evening. I felt a bit of a rush landing there, almost like a homecoming. We spent the night there and then headed to Kunming for another overnighter. Each step closer was, well, refreshing, as I caught sights and sounds (and tastes) that were unique to that particular part of the world. It felt like I was returning to a place that was mine.

I guess that should be kind of scary, that I feel so happy to be back. It even felt a bit better than coming home to Seattle. (I should add upfront that Seattle still is home. We have no intention of going beyond this second year in China.) I suppose it makes a bit of sense. Though I've lived in Seattle for fourteen years, I'm still a Chicago lad, born and bred. I haven't lived at home for a long time. As I suspected after I moved to the Emerald City, the roots I planted there aren't all that deep. I've missed people, but visiting the familiar places really didn't touch my heart. Oh, well. Though my link to the region is tenuous, my attachment to my wife--who is deeply rooted in the northwest--is solid. So I guess whether I love Seattle or not is immaterial. There are always worse places to live.

And then there were eight

2006-08-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

Well, what do you know? The majority of astronomers agreed with me. Pluto has been demoted. Of course, not everybody is happy with this development. My daughter, in fact, laments the loss of the ninth planet and is singing the blues over it. Well, not actually the blues, but you get the idea. Of course, it all makes me wonder. Just who are these astronomers who can just casually toss out a planet? Who elected them? Why didn't I get a voter's pamphlet? Shouldn't this be like countries recognizing other countries, where each planet decides if they recognize the other or not? Anyway, it's nice to have such trivialities to occupy me.