Twas the night before Christmas...

As I write this, the night of Christmas Eve, it feels just like any other Monday night. Scott is at hockey practice and I just finished making the final exam for my English Writing class at the university. It’s not too difficult, they just have to identify the parts of speech, put vocabulary words into sentences and write one of two essays:




What has been your experience learning English? Why is English important to you and what do you plan to do with your English skills in the future?

In your lifetime, how has China changed over the years? Have all the changes been good? What will the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games mean for China’s future?

The sound of fireworks is ringing in my ears as someone is lighting some off just outside my window.


Possibly a celebration for Christmas, this too could happen any old Monday night, as fireworks are a common occurrence around here. The Chinese, inventors of this celebratory display of flashy explosives, are crazy about fireworks and light them off frequently for no apparent reason.

Many friends from home have asked – do they celebrate Christmas in China? As a Communist country, China’s official religion is Atheism. However, most Chinese practice religion, whether it’s Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism, Islam or just ancient superstitions. Only about 3% of the population is Christian, so the observance of Christmas is not widespread.
However, China seems to have grasped the commercial concept of Christmas and the holiday has become trendy is China’s big cities. Sounds of English Christmas carols have been blasting from every department store and supermarket in Kunming since the beginning of December. Many shops display a Christmas tree outside their door or paint a season’s greeting across their windows. Just like Americans, while the Chinese know that Christmas is a holiday to celebrate Jesus, it’s more fun and profitable to focus on the commercial aspects.

Scott has to work Christmas morning. He’ll be hosting a Christmas party for kindergarten children. Ho ho ho! But when he gets back, we’ll exchange presents and then head over to some a friend’s house for a western Christmas dinner.

This past week also happened to be my birthday, so I got to celebrate my 27 years on this planet both western style and then Chinese style. Thursday night Scott planned an early birthday celebration for me in Kunming as we would be in Dongchuan for the actual day. We had a pre-party at our neighbor’s apartment with special treats like pistachios, M&Ms and red wine – both Californian and Chinese. As most people drink either baijiu or beer here, wine is a special treat and rather expensive in comparison – especially the imported bottles. Surprisingly, China makes a decent wine. While there are wineries across the country, Yunnan is especially known for its wine. With its close proximity to Vietnam and it’s location along both the Burma and Silk Roads, Yunnan has hosted a number of French missionaries who introduced vine clippings for their communion needs. After the pre-party, we went for dinner at Indian Kitchen, my favorite restaurant. Scott did quite well in the present department. He got me 25 long-stemmed stargazer lilies, a flowering plant, a bus pass good for 50 rides and a beautiful jade necklace. The jade is carved into bamboo with a bat along the edge. The bamboo symbolizes un-breaking strength and the bat symbolizes good fortune.

In Dongchuan, we had a traditional Chinese dinner. It’s the custom for the person whose birthday it is to toast everyone at the table numerous times with a little speech of gratitude. Afterwards, we headed to a KTV for some late-night karaoke. We had some Party members with us, who sang some historical propaganda tunes and I belted a few Madonna numbers. Tina brought a big cake and smeared the frosting all over my face, which is also a Chinese birthday tradition. All in all, it was a good birthday.

For a little cross-religious celebration, we visited Dongchuan's Buddhist temple on Saturday. It appears to be newly constructed as some parts are still underway. For such a small town, the temple is quite impressive and it's location in the mountains puts it higher on my temple list than Kunming's. I've included some pictures of the site.





It is always difficult this time of year to be away from my family. I wish that I could be at Aunt Mary and Uncle Lars’ home for Christmas this year. However, I am grateful for the experience that this year teaching abroad has afforded me, especially when I compare the mercury levels in the thermometer between Kunming and Fairbanks.


MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!






Birthday presents



A chicken dish at my birthday dinner in Dongchuan. Our little 10-year-old friend Harry eat the entire head.


Karaoke!

China's rich vs. poor

Last week was a real eye opener in comparing China's wealth distribution. You've already read about my humbling experience with the peasant farmers near Dongchuan. From what I've heard, 900 million people in China live a similar lifestyle. That's 70 percent of China's 1.3 billion population.

Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to see how the top 1 percent live. It was Scott's hockey teammate Evan's 20th birthday. Evan comes from a wealthy family in the furniture business. Their house is in the southern part of Kunming, near Dian Chi Lake, and is truly a house. Kunming is filled with thousands of high-rise apartment buildings, but this is the first house I have seen in the city. It's four stories, all marble inside and filled with beautiful, modern furniture from their shop. He took us on a tour that was reminiscent of MTV's "Cribs". The maid served us a delicious dinner and Evan pulled out several bottles of top shelf imported cognac and red wine. Modesty is not a concern with wealthy Chinese.

Later in the evening, we went to downtown Kunming's club scene. The area is called Kun Dun and is filled with flashy clubs blasting techno and rap music. The club we went to is called the "Bee Hive" as it was designed to look like exactly that. However, this bee hive was filled with round, plush leather booths, crystal chandeliers and flashing lights galore. China's club scene culture differs dramatically from any other I've experienced in the US, South America or Europe. Rather that a large, open dance floor, the clubs are crowded with circular booths and private rooms. Our party occupied several of these circular booths on the edge. Rather than going to the bar and ordering drinks individually, the host of the group (birthday boy in this case) orders everyone beers and cognac, which are brought to the table, along with a large pitcher, bowls of chopped fruit, peanuts and pickled cabbage. The waiter pours about 16 oz of cognac into the pitcher and then fills the rest with water. Everyone gets a small glass to fill with the cognac/water and continuously refill after draining the contents with each "Ganbei" (bottom's up) that is proposed.

Rather than dancing in a group of people, club goers dance alone at their table, making large swinging motions with their arms. Group dancing consists of playing drinking games. One game I can only describe as "Rochambeau-a-go-go", where players roll their arms around, put them over their head, to the left, to the right and then flash a rock, paper or scissors sign. The losers drink. Another game I would describe as "Pulp Fiction number off" where you glide your fingers across your eyes like Uma Thurman and John Travolta in Pulp Fiction, but instead of just two fingers, you choose a random number and somehow these numbers relate to the other players. There are also cups of dice at each table, allowing for dice drinking games. The club was packed even on this ordinary Wednesday night and the patrons dressed in lavish, revealing clothes. As Chinese women tend to be quite conservative dressers, rarely revealing a bust line that plunges past their collarbones, I was surprised to see these scantly clad party girls.

Going from the peasant countryside to the Kunming club scene in one week, I felt I had gone through more culture shock in these two combined experiences than from any of my previous world travels. This weekend we journeyed back to Dongchuan for another weekend of teaching. This time they were a bit more organized and split the classes up according to age. I teach age 3-5, Gaetan is teaching 6-8, while Scott teaches both 9-10 and 11-13. I like teaching the little kids as they are really excited to learn and we just sing songs, bop around and do word repetition. Though, with this age there are some behavior issues and they have a hard time paying attention for 45 minutes, some kids cry and others are violent. But luckily we have either Jordan or Sally in the classroom to help control them, as there are about 25 kids in each class. As I didn't bring my camera to the birthday party, I have included a few random shots from the countryside.

Weekend moonlighting in Dongchuan

This weekend was not only the start to our new teaching jobs, but also our first time leaving Kunming since we arrived over two months ago. Leaving the city limits was exhilarating as we drove to Dongchuan on Friday. I had been anxious to see something more of this immense nation or even province. The school sent a driver for us and we squished into the backseat for the 2.5 hour drive north. We left at about 8:30 pm, so it wasn’t possible to view the scenery, but the farther we got from the city, the more crowded the sky became with stars and the hills turned into mountains.

Dongchuan is a small city (population 300,000) northeast of Kunming on the edge of Sichuan’s mountains. The city’s main industry is mining – both copper and gold. Dongchuan was once part of the Kunming prefecture, but recently cut its ties and now governs itself. We were told that this has greatly increased the quality of living in Dongchuan as once high taxes went to public services in Kunming, and now they enjoy the benefits of their own productivity. Apparently taxes are almost nonexistent and most public works are supported by generous donations from wealthy citizens. This has enticed many companies to begin constructing factories within the city.

When we arrived in Dongchuan, Tina and her friends met us at a hotel where we would be staying for the weekend. We are supposed to have an apartment, but it’s not quite ready or something, so for the meantime they will put us up in a hotel every weekend. Later, she took us out for a late welcome dinner. We ate at a very Chinese restaurant, the sort that I hadn’t had the opportunity to experience yet. The tables were all very low to the ground with mini stools (the cow milking variety) for seats. In the center of the table is a large hole where a huge coal briquette sits, which is then lit and the hole is covered with a large pan. You are then presented with a cup of oil and a brush to grease the pan, and an assortment of raw ingredients to grill like potatoes, lamb strips, beef strips and something called “er kuai” which is like rice dough. The principle of the school and other administration joined us. It was apparent that they’d been doing some heavy drinking previously and continued the party with us as they continually made toasts and refilled our glasses with beer until 1:00 am. From this moment, I could tell that our weekends in Dongchuan were going to make for a more genuine portal into Chinese culture than Kunming had thus far provided us. We’re told that we are the first westerners that Dongchuan has really experienced. Everywhere we went in the city, we were with surprised looks, followed by smiles and shouts of “Hello” or “Ni Hao!”

The next morning, we were taken to eat at 7:30 am. This was also my first time eating a traditional Chinese breakfast. Noodles! A big bowl of noodles, meat and broth is not exactly my idea of breakfast food, but it sure warms the belly. When we arrived at the school and entered the first classroom, it was hard to miss the gigantic poster with our photograph. As Scott is making a goofy face and I am sporting a double chin, it wouldn’t have been my choice for blowing up to 3 ft x 5 ft, but it’s a little late for personal opinions as copies are hung in at least fives locations throughout the school. Yikes.

This weekend was meant to be a presentation for the parents, to show them what we could offer their children for English education. I was a little disappointed in the lack of planning on their part as we were handed lesson plans that morning, one hour before show time. The thing with children though is that if you act goofy and get them to jump around, they are bound to have a good time. Singing “heads, shoulders, knees and toes” is a good way to do that. About 100 students showed up, aged three to twelve (mostly younger) and we split them up to teach them different things. Despite the complete chaotic nature of the day and one child leaving in tears after he was pushed down by a bigger kid, the day was a success and at least 50 signed up to begin next week. The more kids that sign up, the more classes we can teach and the more money we can make.

The rest of the day we were taken around Dongchuan for some sightseeing and lunch at a beautiful restaurant in traditional Chinese architecture with intricate wall frescoes. Local Party officials joined us for a tasty meal at this premier five-star restaurant. Later, they took us on a scenic drive through the surrounding countryside to an ethnic minority village. When we arrived at the village we found that it is not a working village, but more of a mock village for Chinese tourists to learn about the Yi people, have dinner and relax in the many gardens, playing cards or mahjong. After a while, the cheesiness began to set in and we craved a more genuine experience so Scott, Gaetan, Jordan and I set off to explore what lay on the other side of the highway.

The countryside there is stunning, with the farm terraces, the red-clay earth and the mountainous backdrop. We stumbled upon a real village, though not of an ethnic minority. The habitants appeared to be corn farmers as the surrounding plots were filled with mounds of the harvested corn crops and their concrete houses were laden with dried cobs of corn. A small, elderly man with a Mao-style hat stepped out of his house and smiled at us – most likely the only foreigners to have stepped foot in this village. Jordan asked him where we could find some water and he invited us to have tea with him. We entered his house and the first thing to catch my eye was a large poster of Chairman Mao on the wall, the only decoration in this sparse little home. The way Chinese maintain this loyal sentiment towards their deceased, ruthless leader is bewildering. He poured us some tea and we sat, absorbing the gentle character of this peasant man while Jordan translated their conversation. Soon, two little boys ran inside – his grandsons, and an older, blind granddaughter. The man explained that farming here is difficult due to the heavy summer rains that cause massive landslides and decrease his farmland each year. Also, local government officials hoard social benefits from the peasants and fail to distribute the provincial and federal aid. The very people who we had dined with just a few hours prior, where depriving these hard-working farmers of a better life. As his farming yields little, they simply live off what they grow and have no real income. He also explained that there is no water in the village, so they must collect rainwater during the rainy season to supply them for the year, as the nearest water source is 100 km away. After hearing this, I looked down at my tea and realized how precious their water is and how incredibly generous this man was to offer us, complete strangers, a portion of his store.

The little boys were shy, but asked Jordan where we came from and said they were learning some English at their school. There is only a primary school in the village, so these boys walk to the next village every Sunday night and return Friday afternoon. It takes them four hours to walk each way. Later, the old man’s wife came into the house to say hello and she invited us to stay for dinner. There is no way we could accept their offer, so we thanked them and got up to leave. As we walked further down the road, the two boys followed us and asked if we might come to their home for a brief visit. The boys live in a house beside their grandfather’s that is about twice the size. There we met their mother and her father, as well as their little sister. I guess the one-child policy does not apply to everyone. In the boys’ home we watched part of the Curious George movie on the TV and were invited to stay for dinner as well. I was a bit shocked to see that at both homes, a large TV sat in the main room. If they have no income, how can they afford such a luxury? Gaetan explained that most peasants have a television, even if they barely have enough food to eat. The government supplies everyone with TVs to encourage the learning of standard Mandarin and spread messages of propaganda.

Our visit to this small village and meeting its genuine and generous habitants is an experience I will not soon forget. These peasants have nothing, yet they offered everything to us obviously well off strangers and wanted nothing but friendship in return. While I have experienced and valued the generosity of the Chinese we have met in Kunming, this really drove home the nation’s culture of hospitality on a new level. That evening, we met up with our friends from the school back at the Yi village and feasted on local dishes and rice wine. The following day we taught another class each, had a nice lunch and loaded back up in the car for our return trip to Kunming. While it was nice to leave the city and experience the Yunnan countryside, it was also nice to get back. And we will do it all again on Friday!

A stroll through the park

Not quite Central Park, but Kunming’s Cuihu or Green Lake Park reveals the true spirit of China’s senior citizens. Only my second time to the park, I came to see the famed annual migration of the black-headed gulls. The park was swarming with the birds as thousands flocked in sweeping patterns over the lake and through the sky. I could have sat for hours, mesmerized by their flight. However, my ears were enticed by the faint melodies that called from within the parks’ many hidden nooks and pathways. In one corner, women with drums tied across their torsos were dancing to their own rhythmic beats. In another, an orchestra of traditional Chinese instruments was playing to the delight of an elderly crowd. Watching these weathered musicians and hearing their music made me wonder what their lives had been like throughout this country’s recent and complicated history. And is this traditional music dying as China’s youth of today is mostly occupied with shopping for the latest Korean fashions, as they’re climbing the corporate ladder? As I pondered this and wandered the park, I continued to stumble upon these informal and spontaneous-seeming folk ensembles. In the center of the park, there was a large group of elderly people singing. At least 100 of them were gathered around, singing tunes they were reading from books of sheet music. These same books popped up all over the park and I finally understood when I saw a street vendor hawking pages of the sheet music. On a pavilion, stretching out over an area of the lake, women were dancing with the long, white sleeves of Chinese opera characters. Beneath a pagoda-style gate, other women were dancing with large, red fans to the feminine high-pitched, nasal singing voice that is so characteristically Chinese.

What a wonderful culture where the senior population can re-live their cultural heritage daily, through this artistic expression of communal music and dancing. And though I felt quite alien amidst this culture, the people of Kunming allow me to feel at home with their smiles or complete indifference to my strikingly different appearance. Speaking with seasoned foreigners who have spent time in other Chinese cities, I have learned that Kunming is fairly unique in this regard. I’ve been told that in other cities, the locals stare, gawk and even shout “lowai” (foreigner). I wonder if Kunming’s lack of gawking is due to its rich cultural makeup. As there are over 25 ethnic minorities living together under one skyline, faces aren’t as similar as perhaps in a dominantly Han Chinese community. The Han ethnicity accounts for 94% of China’s population. Throughout history, the Yunnan province has been both a refuge for minorities fleeing persecution and a dumping ground for political “undesirables”. With these factors and more importantly, Yunnan’s geographic location, the province enjoys a mingling of Chinese, Tibetan, Thai, Burmese, Muslim and numerous other ethnic affiliations. I am anxious to begin exploring the other regions of Yunnan, where villages are traditional and these various cultures are more obvious.