Ok, so Canisius decided to change the format of the student journals. Now it's a blog-style like this blog. Here's the address... note how I'm currently the "featured blogger." Ha ha ha.
http://canweblog.canisiuscampus.net/canweblog/?cat=9
Friday, February 29, 2008
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Yunnan: Dai Village
Yunnan Trip
DAY 7 (Thursday, February 8th, 2008): Mannuandong Village – Dai People
Today we went to the jungle, well, kind of. We went to a botanical garden and hiked in the woods a bit. On the road we kept passing signs that said that wild elephants lived in the area… that’s wild. We then travelled to the Dai village and met our host families. In this village, they live in houses on stilts… I LOVE these houses because they’re just so neat, the way they’re set up. Underneath the house is open space, except for the stilts, and many villagers parked their cars, tractors, bikes, etc under the house, and had also established homes for their various animals under there. We met our host family and they offered us many fruits (they grow A LOT of fruit) and showed us where we’d be sleeping. They had arranged beds on the floor out of cushy mats and there was a mosquito net draped down over all the ‘beds’ because the Dai village is in a tropical environment, after all. It was hot and humid outside, but inside the house it was cool and comfy. Most families appeared to have many modern conveniences like ‘indoor’ plumbing, TVs, cars, etc. Our family had a refrigerator and what appeared to be some sort of stereo. When I say ‘indoor’ plumbing I mean that they had separate plumbing for each house… the bathrooms were on the second floor with the rest of the house, but you had to go outside to get to it. See the photo album labeled “Dai Village” in Photobucket for a clear picture of what I’m talking about. As I said before, under our stilt house was a (nice) car, 2 motorcycles, chickens, a cow, and a man sitting there, weaving baskets. This man was very friendly and showed us his basket-weaving technique as he worked. Lauren fell in love with the family’s cow – it appeared to be quite young and it was afraid of us, but she managed to get a few pictures of herself and the little cow.
My favorite part of this village stay was hands-down, the family’s 3-month-old baby girl. Once I got to hold her, she was MINE for the time I was there. Literally, I didn’t want to put her down, I felt lonely when I wasn’t holding her, she was just so cute. She had the typical Chinese baby pants on, you know, the kind with a hole in the “underparts”… but they did put a diaper on her sometimes. She was so quiet and cute and smiley, and she even smelled like every other baby smells which leads me to believe that the ‘baby smell’ truly is universal. Even the food was wonderful – we had roasted peanuts, a savory corn dish with lots of herbs, spicy noodles, spicy ‘hash brown’ like potatoes (SO DELICIOUS), and a lot of fruit. We ate dinner with the men of the house, and they kept trying to get us to drink more beer. Chinese beer is not that great to begin with, but it was warm and they kept toasting every 5 minutes… I am being literal when I say every 5 minutes. This family LOVED to toast. It was fun, apart from trying to avoid consuming mass quantities of Chinese beer, and we ate well in the Dai village. There was of course a party with the villagers after we had all eaten with our families, and we all met on the village basketball court… I know that’s a funny concept, but they had one. A bunch of the guys from TBC performed the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want it That Way” for the villagers, and we all laughed so hard because they really got into it. Then they entertained us even more with a medley of dances, from the cha cha and the salsa to step dancing and hip hop moves. I slept well that night until the roosters kept crowing randomly right under the house (‘cause that’s where they live, after all). Before we left after breakfast, the old man of the house tied a string around each of my wrists, and did the same for every other person, and said something in what we presumed was a Dai dialect. Apparently this gesture was meant for good luck, among other things, from what the Chinese people told us.
After a tasty breakfast, we said our goodbyes and left for the village temple. The Dai people are followers of Hinayana Buddhism and many young boys go to live in the temple until they are young men, and then they must choose whether they wish to remain at the temple for life, or return to village life and presumably marry and have a family. Most males choose the latter, and we saw only young monks at the temple. We talked to them through a translator about their lives and then they ‘blessed’ us. As our bus left the village, I got to try a locally grown banana and it was fantastic. Our bus took us back to Jinghong for the afternoon and we were reunited with the other group, Group B, which had done the itinerary in the reverse order that we had. We went to a jade market and I found a rice paddy hat, finally, and had lunch in town. All the men at the market would say “hello” and such and try to talk to us in English, presumably to get us to buy their wares. One of them did ask Lauren for her phone number… she told them she didn’t have a phone.
Then it was off to the Xishuangbanna airport in Jinghong to board the plane to Lijiang in northern Yunnan. I am not lying when I say that this airport was smaller than small. At least, the first part where you check-in was tiny. After you get past security, if you can call it that, then it was bigger, but still, it was a very small airport. Note: carrying around a rice paddy hat all day, including through airport security, is very awkward… people look at you funny because it’s not a normal thing to just be carrying around. In China I should add that for departing flights, you have to wait at the gate and then get on a bus which takes you to the plane, which is parked somewhere on the tarmac. You get off the bus and get in line at the portable stairs that they have wheeled over to the plane parked in the middle of nowhere. It’s kind of funny to me: I don’t know if they do this kind of thing in any other countries? Our plane ride was a bit rough, shall we say, but that’s to be expected…the Chinese are awesome at some things, but flying is not one of them.
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Yunnan: Xishuangbanna - Jinghong, Day 2
DAY 6 (Thursday, February 7th, 2008): Xishuangbanna – Jinghong, Day 2
First let me explain the Xishuangbanna Autonomous Region: PARADISE. It’s right near the Chinese southern border and it’s within the Tropic of Cancer, so the weather was spectacular – we wore sandals and short-sleeves and it was glorious. We visited Manting Temple and Park – it was an absolutely gorgeous place and we rode a Dai bamboo boat on the lake. It was a lot more difficult that it looked, that’s for certain! We met Megan and Tracy for a birthday dinner at Mekong Café in Jinghong, and that made me feel a bit better. This café was super cute – the tables were very low and we took off our shoes and sat on floor pillows. It was open air and the summer-like air felt so great. The food took forever to arrive, but it was good when it did. We then raced back to the hotel to catch the bus to see the Dai song and dance show. The show was one of the best performances I’ve ever seen – it was simply spectacular. The costumes, scenery, music, and dance, all in the traditional style of the Dai people, were gorgeous. There was a part during the show when we all got soaked because it was a song from the Dai Water Splashing Festival, and so they gave us all water to splash each other with. It was a blast (there’s an after-photo on Photobucket). Afterwards I found an Internet café and I read all of my wonderful birthday messages, which made me feel a lot better. I then took a taxi back to the hotel and packed for the next homestay. The taxis in all of Yunnan are SO MUCH CHEAPER than in Beijing, I was in shock. There were fireworks going off literally everywhere, it was like a battlefield in the streets. Everybody had some kind of firework in their hands, even little babies. And they’d throw them right near other people – it was terrifying.
Yunnan - Xishuangbanna: Jinghong
DAY 5 (Wednesday, February 6th, 2008): Jinghong - Chinese New Year’s Eve, My 21st Birthday
My birthday/Chinese New Year’s was awful. First I was sick, then lonely. We got into Jinghong, the capital of Xishuangbanna, at night and did laundry in the shower. Lauren and I stood in the shower in our dirty clothes and soaped them up with our Tide detergent bar and then scrubbed them with a laundry scrub brush. It was a challenging task, messy and time-consuming, and the results weren’t even that great. After that we went out in search of food but everything was closed because of the holiday and we ended up eating in a random hotel’s lobby, ordering off the room service menu. How wonderful. After that I was left all alone and I sat all alone on the dark patio of the fourth floor of the hotel and watched the fireworks, but I couldn’t enjoy it or anything because I still remembered that it was my birthday and that I was alone and sad. My friends knew it was my birthday, they just chose to make their own separate plans, but oh well. I couldn’t find a phone to call home so I finally called Kevin on my cell phone so that I could talk to at least one person who cared about me and my birthday. It was one of the most lonely days of my life – there I was in beautiful Xishuangbanna, during the biggest holiday in China, my 21st birthday, and I was by myself. I was miles and miles away from everybody that actually cares about me and it hurt. I kept thinking about what I would have been doing for my birthday had I been at home. Not sitting by myself, sobbing on the phone to my boyfriend who was thousands of miles away, that’s for sure.
It was the worst birthday ever, as you can imagine. My story gets better from there, though.
Yunnan - Hani People
DAY 4 (Tuesday, February 5th, 2008): Nanuo Village – The Hani People
On the road from Jianshui to Nanuo, we stopped at a nice town called Yuanjiang and we drove over the world’s highest bridge. The bus ride up into the mountains was both frightening and nauseating because of all the sharp turns, bumps, and close-calls with oncoming traffic on the narrow mountain road. Once we arrived in Nanuo, we immediately dropped off our stuff at our appointed guesthouses. We stayed in guesthouses here because the Hani houses are very small, and I mean SMALL, and therefore the families could not accommodate us. The guesthouse I was assigned to was nice – it had three floors, electricity, a TV, and a bathroom INSIDE and on the 3rd floor!
After dropping off our stuff, we had to meet the entire group to hike the rice terraces – this task only sounds nice. It’s actually quite dangerous considering the terrain we were treading was so rocky, uneven, and unstable – you really have to watch every step or you could easily break your ankle. I think I almost did many times. And you have to walk dangerously fast to keep up with the guides, so we were practically running on this unsafe ground so that we didn’t get lost. I will have to get some pictures from somebody else because I didn’t have the chance to stop and take any, it was that rushed. We hiked until we came to a small village in the middle of nowhere (unless you count mountains and rice terraces) and had a break for tea and some strange fruits. We then ‘hiked’ back a different way up a mountain – it was kind of like déjà vu for me. I kept getting sicker and sicker the more we hiked and the higher we got. It was very physically demanding, and I finally kind of just fell-over into the dirt. The two TBC guys in charge of staying at the back to make sure everybody kept going had already been waiting for me because until this point I had been walking very slowly because my legs felt like lead and it was hard to breathe or to walk. I walked in a weird crooked line, and I suppose it looked like I was drunk, but I fell over and started shaking and shivering and retching. I have this weird blood-sugar thing like hypoglycemia, in which my blood-sugar will without warning plummet and I get really sick like this. Of course this had to happen on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. The two guys had two lollipops so I had those but I was really bad. Luckily a vehicle happened to come up the road and they stopped the driver and asked him in Chinese to send someone to come get me because I was really sick and could not walk any further. In a few minutes a man on a motorcycle came to get me. It was frightening, riding on a motorcycle on a narrow winding mountain road while being that sick. He took me to a small group of TBC kids who were waiting for the bus to come get us, and a nice girl gave me a granola bar. I thought I would be fine after resting for awhile… so the bus finally took us back to the village and we were able to go to the guesthouse and get ready for dinner and the village party. I tried eating an orange because orange juice is really good for low blood-sugar, but I bit into the orange and it tasted like bitter-sour poison. Lauren tried some of it and said it tasted fine to her, but I just brushed that off.
The whole group met and we began the ascent up the steps that scaled the side of a large hill. I made it about 2/3 of the way up before I fully passed-out. I remember feeling sick while I climbed and I remember grabbing onto somebody and falling over. How embarrassing. I remember somebody grabbing my purse from me while a bunch of people laid me down on the steps. I remember Peg asking what happened but I couldn’t talk… that’s happened before and it’s not cool. Some Hani people came down to see what was going on and one of the ladies kept asking if she could carry me the rest of the way up. Let’s be honest here, no tiny little Chinese lady could ever carry me. After that people kept talking at me but everything was spinning. I must have looked REAL great - I remember shaking, shivering, babbling nonsense sounds, and dry-heaving and people forcing things into my mouth. Everything tasted awful, even, gasp, chocolate. Nothing tasted sweet at all, even the highly potent sugar water they gave me. They said there was a ton of sugar in it, but it tasted like salty corn water to me…I remember slowly feeling a bit better and regaining my speech, which lord knows I hate not having. I hate getting that much attention, it’s embarrassing, but there I was in the Hani village with my own entourage of TBC staff and Hani villagers. They eventually got me up and with one person on each side of me, including front and back, they made me walk down all the stairs again. Peg made me stay in the TBC staff guesthouse, which of course was the nicest one of all. They put me into a bed and left to get food. Peg made me drink Coke, which I hate, but it didn’t taste like Coke normally does so it was okay. I basically sat there for a couple hours with Peg and Jia and ate candy and crackers and we talked. Jia has a Master’s in anthropology and she used to work for National Geographic, so naturally I loved talking to her. Some Hani lady brought me rice and this spicy meat that was just like beef jerky – it was really good. Then everybody left and I tried to sleep but it was really cold there and I woke up shaking a lot and feeling sick like before, so I shoved a Snickers into my mouth and lay down until I felt better.
The next morning was my birthday…wonderful. The sunrise was awesome though, because being so high up in the mountains, we were above the clouds and it was one of the most beautiful sights you could ever imagine.I found out that I was lucky to not have been at the Hani party at the top of the hill. Apparently once you reached the top, there were people waiting there who tipped your head back and poured bijou into your mouth, whether you wanted it or not. Bijou is like sake, but apparently a lot more potent and a lot more foul tasting. I hear the food was even worse than the Yi village as well.
We boarded the bus and I got about halfway down the mountain road before I started dry-heaving. They made me sit in the front seat and eat stuff, but I felt like puking. When the bus stopped for everyone to take a little break on the side of the road, I just got out and found a spot to kneel and attempt to puke. No luck. Somehow I managed to fall asleep and we stopped again in Yuanjiang for breakfast. They let me stay on the bus to rest, and I ended up going on an adventure with the bus driver; we drove all over town looking for the stranded Bus #2. We then had to wait around in Yuanjiang for a few hours, and I was fine with that – the fresh air was a nice change from the bus. After that I was okay, well, not sick anymore, anyways.
On the road from Jianshui to Nanuo, we stopped at a nice town called Yuanjiang and we drove over the world’s highest bridge. The bus ride up into the mountains was both frightening and nauseating because of all the sharp turns, bumps, and close-calls with oncoming traffic on the narrow mountain road. Once we arrived in Nanuo, we immediately dropped off our stuff at our appointed guesthouses. We stayed in guesthouses here because the Hani houses are very small, and I mean SMALL, and therefore the families could not accommodate us. The guesthouse I was assigned to was nice – it had three floors, electricity, a TV, and a bathroom INSIDE and on the 3rd floor!
After dropping off our stuff, we had to meet the entire group to hike the rice terraces – this task only sounds nice. It’s actually quite dangerous considering the terrain we were treading was so rocky, uneven, and unstable – you really have to watch every step or you could easily break your ankle. I think I almost did many times. And you have to walk dangerously fast to keep up with the guides, so we were practically running on this unsafe ground so that we didn’t get lost. I will have to get some pictures from somebody else because I didn’t have the chance to stop and take any, it was that rushed. We hiked until we came to a small village in the middle of nowhere (unless you count mountains and rice terraces) and had a break for tea and some strange fruits. We then ‘hiked’ back a different way up a mountain – it was kind of like déjà vu for me. I kept getting sicker and sicker the more we hiked and the higher we got. It was very physically demanding, and I finally kind of just fell-over into the dirt. The two TBC guys in charge of staying at the back to make sure everybody kept going had already been waiting for me because until this point I had been walking very slowly because my legs felt like lead and it was hard to breathe or to walk. I walked in a weird crooked line, and I suppose it looked like I was drunk, but I fell over and started shaking and shivering and retching. I have this weird blood-sugar thing like hypoglycemia, in which my blood-sugar will without warning plummet and I get really sick like this. Of course this had to happen on the side of a mountain in the middle of nowhere. The two guys had two lollipops so I had those but I was really bad. Luckily a vehicle happened to come up the road and they stopped the driver and asked him in Chinese to send someone to come get me because I was really sick and could not walk any further. In a few minutes a man on a motorcycle came to get me. It was frightening, riding on a motorcycle on a narrow winding mountain road while being that sick. He took me to a small group of TBC kids who were waiting for the bus to come get us, and a nice girl gave me a granola bar. I thought I would be fine after resting for awhile… so the bus finally took us back to the village and we were able to go to the guesthouse and get ready for dinner and the village party. I tried eating an orange because orange juice is really good for low blood-sugar, but I bit into the orange and it tasted like bitter-sour poison. Lauren tried some of it and said it tasted fine to her, but I just brushed that off.
The whole group met and we began the ascent up the steps that scaled the side of a large hill. I made it about 2/3 of the way up before I fully passed-out. I remember feeling sick while I climbed and I remember grabbing onto somebody and falling over. How embarrassing. I remember somebody grabbing my purse from me while a bunch of people laid me down on the steps. I remember Peg asking what happened but I couldn’t talk… that’s happened before and it’s not cool. Some Hani people came down to see what was going on and one of the ladies kept asking if she could carry me the rest of the way up. Let’s be honest here, no tiny little Chinese lady could ever carry me. After that people kept talking at me but everything was spinning. I must have looked REAL great - I remember shaking, shivering, babbling nonsense sounds, and dry-heaving and people forcing things into my mouth. Everything tasted awful, even, gasp, chocolate. Nothing tasted sweet at all, even the highly potent sugar water they gave me. They said there was a ton of sugar in it, but it tasted like salty corn water to me…I remember slowly feeling a bit better and regaining my speech, which lord knows I hate not having. I hate getting that much attention, it’s embarrassing, but there I was in the Hani village with my own entourage of TBC staff and Hani villagers. They eventually got me up and with one person on each side of me, including front and back, they made me walk down all the stairs again. Peg made me stay in the TBC staff guesthouse, which of course was the nicest one of all. They put me into a bed and left to get food. Peg made me drink Coke, which I hate, but it didn’t taste like Coke normally does so it was okay. I basically sat there for a couple hours with Peg and Jia and ate candy and crackers and we talked. Jia has a Master’s in anthropology and she used to work for National Geographic, so naturally I loved talking to her. Some Hani lady brought me rice and this spicy meat that was just like beef jerky – it was really good. Then everybody left and I tried to sleep but it was really cold there and I woke up shaking a lot and feeling sick like before, so I shoved a Snickers into my mouth and lay down until I felt better.
The next morning was my birthday…wonderful. The sunrise was awesome though, because being so high up in the mountains, we were above the clouds and it was one of the most beautiful sights you could ever imagine.I found out that I was lucky to not have been at the Hani party at the top of the hill. Apparently once you reached the top, there were people waiting there who tipped your head back and poured bijou into your mouth, whether you wanted it or not. Bijou is like sake, but apparently a lot more potent and a lot more foul tasting. I hear the food was even worse than the Yi village as well.
We boarded the bus and I got about halfway down the mountain road before I started dry-heaving. They made me sit in the front seat and eat stuff, but I felt like puking. When the bus stopped for everyone to take a little break on the side of the road, I just got out and found a spot to kneel and attempt to puke. No luck. Somehow I managed to fall asleep and we stopped again in Yuanjiang for breakfast. They let me stay on the bus to rest, and I ended up going on an adventure with the bus driver; we drove all over town looking for the stranded Bus #2. We then had to wait around in Yuanjiang for a few hours, and I was fine with that – the fresh air was a nice change from the bus. After that I was okay, well, not sick anymore, anyways.
Yunnan - Jianshui
Yunnan Trip
DAY 3 (Monday, February 4th, 2008): Jianshui
Jianshui is a lovely place. Our hotel was a former temple converted into a hotel, if you can imagine that, and the town itself is quaint, with cobblestone streets and decorative archways at the end of each side street – a picturesque Chinese town. We walked around and people shamelessly stared at us, as per usual, but here I could understand why – this place is truly Chinese in character, not a bit of touristy feel to it. We searched for food for what seemed like forever and ended up at the 2nd largest Confucius temple in China – it was quite the sight to behold. After photographing the temple and its surroundings, we continued our wanderings until we finally found a restaurant on a side street, and low and behold, other TBC people were there as well. It must have been one of the only restaurants around, or perhaps one of the only ones open at that time. See, in China, restaurants close between meals oftentimes, and you can’t even tell what places are restaurants because they pull down those metal security things that look like garage doors or the things they use to close mall stores at the end of the day. Fortunately, the restaurant strangely had an English menu, and we got to sit outside on the balcony and watch the people walking in the street below. It was like a brisk summer night, and it felt good to be outside in the fresh air in considerably warmer weather. I got some chao mian and gongbao jiding because I hadn’t eaten in a long time and it was great. I love gongbao jiding, except they put cardamom in it and when it touches your tongue it gives a bad taste and a numbing feeling. I’ve learned to pick it out of the food because trust me, you don’t want that in your mouth. I eat a lot of gongbao jiding here in China – it’s chicken with these little dried red peppers that are super hot, peanuts, onions, and some others spices in a sauce, and yucky cardamom. I love it over mi fan (rice), but it can’t be too sweet, or else it tastes like maple syrup or something… I’ve had both great and awful gongbao jiding, but in Jianshui it was AWESOME. Speaking of awesomeness, we tried hami melon ice cream – I’m in love. It’s pale green and tastes like an unidentifiable tropical fruit (hami melon, obviously), and it’s basically the best fruity ice cream flavor. Period.
Yunnan - Yi Village
DAY 2 (Sunday, February 3rd, 2008): Shaochong Mushan Village – The Yi People
The bus ride from Kunming to the village was BUMPY. When I say bumpy, I mean it – it was like a carnival ride that wouldn’t end and I think we all kind of wanted to barf after being on that bus ride. It was impossible to read/write/sleep, etc and you pretty much had to just sit there and try not to puke. The mountain roads were dangerously winding and narrow for a big bus, especially considering that there was often opposing traffic. We passed a market and village on the way and everyone outside was in complete awe of the three huge buses carrying loads of ‘white people.’ They all stopped what they were doing and watched intently, so we waved as we passed. When we arrived at the village they welcomed us with a traditional song and a dragon dance: two Yi ‘specialties.’ As soon as we got off the bus we realized: We’re not in Beijing anymore. The skies were bluer than blue and the air was clean and fresh. The land was green and lush, and the sun was bright and warm… like I said, NOT in Beijing anymore. The Yi people fed us lunch – not so good. Then we met our host families and they took us to the houses we’d be staying in for the night. The house I stayed in was nice; it had an open courtyard in the middle, which appeared to be the typical style of Yi homes. The rooms were nice, but the straw mattresses did a number on my back, that’s for sure. After stopping in at our host homes, we all ‘hiked’ up a huge mountain – which literally destroyed me. It was a very steep climb and I felt dizzy and ready to pass out and vomit for the entire ascent (You’ll see why later…). When we finally reached the top, we saw a huge lake, by which we camped for the afternoon. The Yi women from the village performed songs and dances for us, and I took videos that I will post. Yi women sing in very high voices, but I think it sounds pretty. They then taught us their Dragon Dance routine – these girls are the national Dragon Dance champions, by the way. We were fed dinner up on the mountain, which turned out to be leftovers from lunch. Let’s just say I didn’t eat any but some Ritz crackers that day…I have pictures of the food if you don’t believe me when I say it wasn’t edible. There were many times during the Yunnan trip where once you saw the food, you weren’t hungry anymore. Your stomach learns not to expect food anymore after a few days in villages, and you lose interest in food. The village ‘party’ was okay, except it dragged on forever and as soon as the sun went down, it was freezing cold there. We were all frozen as we walked back to our host homes in the pitch-black darkness. Going to the bathroom in one of the community outhouse squatters was bad enough during the day (trust me, it’s BAD), but going at night is just a bad idea altogether… you can’t see anything and you really need to watch where you step. Sleeping was a challenge, between the most painful sleeping surface in the world and being frozen. We had no electricity in our room for the night, so a lady from the house lit a candle and allowed some of the wax to melt on the wooden dresser before standing up the same lit candle in the puddle of wax. Fire hazard if I ever saw one. Two people had to share one bed and the lady was laughing at us because we were all ‘so huge’ to her… She was about the size of grade-schooler in the US.
The villagers slaughtered a pig right in front of us right after we had finished eating. Not cool. The poor animal was squealing in agony as it was tied down and brutally murdered. I didn’t watch, but apparently they just shoved a knife into its neck and let it slowly bleed to death. It was the most awful sounds ever - I covered my ears and felt sick. It took forever for the poor animal to die, and I was so angry because so many people raced over with cameras to watch the entire slaughter process. There are so many pictures and videos of that poor pig’s death circulating around TBC now… I don’t agree with that. I don’t think it’s right to photograph something being tortured and dying in agony, but I guess a lot of people find that entertaining and photo-worthy. I eat meat, I just don’t want it to be tortured and its suffering made a spectacle.
But back to my stories. Sleeping was difficult if not impossible, and we awoke for breakfast sore in places we had never felt before. We then waited around the village for awhile because there was to be a wedding ceremony later and we were waiting to witness the groom coming from another village to get his new bride. We had seen the bride at the party the night before, and she had looked MISERABLE. Poor thing – I wonder if she had ever met her groom before the wedding day? While we waited, we climbed up on the rooftops of the Yi houses; you can walk from house to house because the Yi build their houses close together and kind of like steps (there are pictures on Photobucket). After that, we finally left because there was no sign of the groom and he was already very late. We then rode the bus down yet another winding bumpy mountain road, of to our next destination, Jianshui.
Yunnan - Kunming
Ok, I am finally typing out my journal entries from Yunnan, now that I feel better. Here is the first of MANY.
YUNNAN TRIP
Day 1 (Saturday, February 2nd, 2008): Kunming
Today we flew from Beijing to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. We flew via AirChina, and this domestic flight was WAY nicer than those in the US. There was constant drink service and breakfast… and the flight was only 3 hours. The only thing that was worse than US flights seems to be the take-off and landing portions of the flight because they ascent and descent are SO STEEP. You feel like you’re in an awful carnival ride. There was a lot of wild turbulence, too. When we arrived in Kunming, we were pleasantly surprised by the beautiful sunny warm weather. Lauren and I explored Kunming for the entire afternoon. Literally everybody stared at us… much moreso than any staring we encounter in Beijing. Kunming doesn’t seem very cosmopolitan, like Beijing, so I think they don’t see nearly as many Westerners there. Many people blatantly pointed, gestured, and whispered to their friends. There is huge park and lake in Kunming that we had fun getting lost in. There’s an ‘island’ part in the middle connected by walkways, and we went over there and observed various song and dance performances – many of the performers belonged to ethnic minority groups. Yunnan province is the home of over 26 ethnic minorities in China, which is why we traveled to Yunnan in the first place. There were tons of old men gathered around tables playing Chinese Checkers and Mah Jong – you see this a lot in Yunnan.
The sad part of our stroll through Kunming was all of the (presumably) homeless invalids and persons with physical deformities, and often times these people were missing arms or legs or suffered from other physically debilitating conditions. Many of these people were on little boards that had wheels on them, like a skateboard, and that was their source of mobility. It breaks my heart to see how these people are treated by society – discarded like trash, forced to survive on their own by begging or “performing” on the streets, like the man who could paint beautiful calligraphy with a paintbrush in his mouth – he had no arms. These people have become a spectacle and are pointed at, photographed, and ostracized. I know this may sound naïve and mean, but I’m glad I haven’t seen anybody in Beijing like that… it’s so heartbreaking and I always wonder about these people, like where they came from, who they are, how they came to be here, on the streets of Kunming. I doubt Beijing takes that much better care of its invalids, I just think they’re hidden more in Beijing because of the Olympics frenzy and China’s efforts to make sure that Beijing presents the best possible image of China because it’s in the world spotlight.
On with my thoughts, though. The hotel we stayed at was nice by anyone’s standards…it had twenty-some floors, which makes it the biggest hotel I’ve ever stayed at. There was a huge beauty salon and spa, two restaurants, a nightclub, and more, all within this hotel. In the rooms it was funny to see all of the amenities that are not complimentary, like special creams and ‘washes’ as well as you guessed It, Chinese condoms. Apparently there is a prostitution problem in China, and you can tell in Yunnan. There’s always expensive condoms in every room and all kinds of antiseptic ‘washes’ labeled “for women” and “for men” and if you read the back, it will tell you of the rather personal nature of these products… plus you get random phone calls in your room, and once you answer, the person hangs up. I’m told that these are prostitutes calling the rooms, and if a female voice answers, they hang up. You’ll notice that many of the hotels have “hourly” rates prominently listed in the hotel book… right near the notices that say no gambling or prostitution, among other illegal activities, in the rooms. The Chinese make me laugh sometimes with these kinds of funny contradictions; they don’t want you inviting prostitutes into their hotels, but they provide you with all kinds of amenities in the likely event that you do have a ‘guest.’
I think I’ve disturbed you enough with that information, let’s talk about Kunming. Kunming does have some Western conveniences, like Diet Coke (haha, that’s all that really matters to me…). Lauren and I ate at this lovely café with armchairs and couches as the seats around the tables. It was so comfortable and the food was cheap and Western and tasty. I got spaghetti and they provided me with my beloved Kraft Parmesan Cheese! I didn’t want to leave because this was the first time I had ever sat in a comfortable chair in all of China. Lauren and I shared a parfait that was good, but different, considering the presence of a crunchy layer of cereal. Apparently cereal is a big ice cream topping here in China, as it seems to inevitably appear in any ‘sundae.’ Later that night, TBC took us all to see “Dynamic Yunnan,” a theater performance featuring music, costumes, and dancing from some of Yunnan’s many ethnic minority cultures. I fell in love with Yunnan then and there… it’s enchanting and magical, kind of unreal and quaint, like something out of an old book. After the show we found a café and bar that was open late near our hotel and we had the BEST TACOS in all of China. Then it was back to the hotel to pack for our first village stay; this was a difficult task as I hardly knew how to properly prepare myself for a village stay, having never done one before. The beds in the hotel were rock-hard, as usual, and I found myself missing my “Beijing bed” because I bought mattress pads at Wu Mei, which softens it a bit. I got to take a REAL shower, not like the ones in my room at Beijing where I have to hold the showerhead and ‘hose’ myself off in sections (Rinse. Shampoo hair. Rinse. Condition hair and wash body. Rinse. It’s a task, for sure.). Breakfast at the hotel was not-so-good: it was an odd blend of bad Chinese food and even worse attempts at Western foods. Then it was onto the bus for a 5-hour bus-ride to the Yi Village…
fireworks
Ok so due to the holiday, there have been fireworks going off all day, non-stop. When I say non-stop, I MEAN IT. It sounds like a Civil War battlefield outside or something. Bang Bang Boom Boom Bang Boom. It might sound like gunshots, but I need to remind myself I'm not in America anymore. Chinese people aren't gun-obsessed. They're fireworks obsessed. I'm not joking at all or making light of the problem...while Americans have a gun problem I assert that the Chinese have a firework problem. First of all, they set off fireworks all the time here, most of the time with no apparent reason. I'm not lying when I say a day hasn't gone by when I haven't heard a firework. Secondly, they let anybody purchase fireworks and use them. Anybody includes toddlers. I have seen so many kids way younger than Jake playing with fireworks and related products. In the villages in Yunnan, the kids would THROW the fireworks at us and laugh. Scary. Fire in general seems to be "not a big deal" because I see kids with lighters and matches everywhere. You can buy fireworks anywhere here, too. I bet the Chinese just put "fireworks"on the grocery shopping list like milk or bread because they use them so much and you could buy them at the same place.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Happy Lantern Festival!
Today is a holiday called "Lantern Festival" - it marks the end of Spring festival and usually, during this time family members in China will get together. They eat a special food named “Yuan Xiao” – a ball-shaped, sweet-tasting food with sesame powder inside. After dinner, people try to solve the puzzles on the lanterns. TBC informed us of this holiday today, and if you want to know more, here's some websites:
http://www.chinesesavvy.com/savvy/subjects/186.html
an unexpected "adventure"
So last night I journeyed to a hospital, of all places. I've been sick ever since I got back from Yunnan, and I thought I was slowly getting better, but I started feeling really 'off' last night so I gave up. Nobody speaks English to help me or give me Western medicine, so I went to a Western hospital in Beijing and let me say this, I have never been to the emergency room in and out so quickly. They have us beat in efficiency, that's for sure. So I meet the doctor and he listens to my lungs and says that I have "almost pneumonia," if you will. Wonderful. He gave me a ton of prescriptions, which I promptly received at the hospital, with ENGLISH instructions. I was so happy to finally get some help. The only thing is you have to pay up front, but HTH Insurance will reimburse me because that's their preferred hospital in Beijing. The price was reasonable for all of the medicines I received. And I'm glad I went when I did because if I had waited a few more days, I might have had to be admitted and I can't even imagine how much that would cost...So that's my story and I would HIGHLY recommend the more than competent staff at United Family Hospital in Beijing to any person in need of medical attention in Beijing. I hear SOS International is completely incompetent and awful here, and the wait is notoriously long. Just for future reference.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
pics are up
I'm FINALLY done editing my Yunnan pictures. Here's the Yunnan collection, use the side menu on the left to view sub-folders of the different cities and places.
http://s275.photobucket.com/albums/jj296/katieinbeijing/Yunnan/
http://s275.photobucket.com/albums/jj296/katieinbeijing/Yunnan/
Monday, February 18, 2008
sorry for the delays
I know you are all dying to hear about the Yunnan trip, but I've been so sick I haven't found the time or energy to type up the saga that is the Yunnan adventure. Give me a few days to sleep this off, and I promise to deliver a detailed account of my journeys. Until then, I'm going back to bed...
Saturday, February 16, 2008
i got a HAT!!!
Here is a funny picture from Yunnan. I am still drafting the novella that is my entry about Yunnan. Enjoy and stay tuned.
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