Kunming Pub Crawl

We had the luxury of a four-day weekend this week, not due to the Thanksgiving holiday as the Chinese obviously don’t celebrate this, but because of a university-wide sports competition. This is an event mostly for the freshmen and sophomores and was quite a big deal. The students had been practicing around campus for about a month. Thursday was the opening ceremonies and hundreds of students paraded in groups around the track, marching like soldiers in matching garb for each group or class of students. They also performed numerous dance routines and athletic performances. The foreign teachers were asked to participate in this ceremony and we formed a group with the Foreign Affairs Office faculty. We dressed in “formal” attire (as formal as our limited wardrobes allowed for), waved flags from our respective countries and marched around the track to the cheering and waving of hundreds of students. I felt like a celebrity! The following two days were filled with the sporting events including sprints, long jump, shot put, basketball, etc. Scott participated in the tug-of-war event where after a long effort of heaving and pulling, his team lost. Included are some pictures of the students and of us waiting our turns to enter the area for the opening ceremonies.



We were lucky enough to get invited to two Thanksgiving dinners. Last night, we were invited to Scott’s hockey teammate John’s house, along with the other players. I was struck with a nasty 24-hour flu and spent the day at home in bed. However, tonight we’re headed to the second of our Thanksgiving invitations with a group of friendly expats who we met on our first week in Kunming. I’m looking forward to some good, western food as after my bout with the flu, the sight, smell and even thought of Chinese food turns my stomach.

I am proud to report that we’ve had our first ever Chinese karaoke experience! Known here as KTV, karaoke is a popular Chinese pastime. However, karaoke here differs a bit from North America. Rather than getting up in front of an entire bar full of people, you rent private rooms and sing in the comfort of friends and acquaintances. Some KTV bars double as brothels, where prostitutes pay visits to the male patrons’ private rooms. Luckily, the KTV we visited was the PG version. We were invited by our Canadian friend Chris, his Chinese girlfriend Rose and several of her friends. It turns out that Rose is an amazing singer and belted out many classic Chinese tunes while we practiced reading the characters on screen. Of course the music bank included many western tunes and we took turns singing “Billy Jean”, “Summer Nights”, Doobie Brothers and several Beatles songs. Our Chinese hosts ordered us cans of Budweiser, which in China is a beer delicacy.

Last weekend, with our friend Gaetan, we decided to check out bars in Kunming’s western district and titled the night “Kunming Pub Crawl.” We started it off with dinner at Indian Kitchen, the most delicious Indian food I've ever tasted. Later, we met up with Tina (our new employer) and her friend and friend’s son, Harry. Included are some photos to document our evening.




































Tina, Gaetan and Scott





Harry

Some Chinese friends we made at the last pub of the crawl