Just finished the Taigu Whole Day Triathlon. It does not take much training, but it is a blast. Here's what you do:
Hear knocking at your door at 8:30am in the morning on Saturday and pretend you are still sleepin because you know the only people knocking this early are your students or your housemates students. (You hope they are your housemate's.) Hear knocking at your door at 9:30am and pull on some pants over your boxers because you recognize the voices outside your door and they are definitely your students. Find out that they want to you to come with them on a trip to a nearby hill--they are going to leave in 10 minutes. You agree and throw on some real clothes. Bike, using a purple, rusty, single speed bike a little too small for you, through dry farm fields, dusty roads, country towns and past the occasional coal factory to get to a large hill. Climb the hill, with 14 grad students all carrying some barbecue ingredients including fresh meat, potatoes, green beans, steamed buns, a large Chinese knife, a cutting board, a nine pack of large bottles of beer (if you've seen Chinese beer bottles you know how big I mean), and of course, a mini grill and a lighter and some coal. And make sure to take the steepest path possible, preferably not very well worn, something that looks like what would be a deer path in the U.S, and once you get to the temples, take a picture of yourself and others about every 7 steps or so, or every time you think the view has changed. Once you finally make it to the top of the hill, eat a lot of barbecue and crackers and drink a bottle of beer. And make sure to take more pictures of this whole process. Spend a good amount of time at the top, spend some time playing cards on the cutting board afterward too. And on the way down, make sure to take a slightly wider path (because we do learn) but make sure it is still the kind of path that if you sat on your but you would slide all the way down. Then, ride your bike back to the campus with the large chaotic group, while forgetting turns along the way, and make sure to drop off your bottles at a grocery store to get the refund (yes, you did just bring them back down the mountain). Then, as soon as you go back, off to the school swimming pool, which should be a milky green color, because you have just been told that although it just opened there seem to be a lot of algae that they say are too hard to remove. Spend maybe one fourth of the time swimming laps and the other 2/3 of the time talking to people at either end. Then, take a massive shower with over 30 naked Chinese women (or men, if that's where you would go), get your body stared at and commented about as usual, and then put your clothes back on (which will also get stared at and commented about as usual because as usual, you wear a full layer less than everyone else, because, yes, it's warm outside and westerners don't wear long underwear in the spring, even if it is "spring" long underwear.) Then, wait an hour for friends, who you just saw at the swimming pool, to come to your house to go out to eat. And in the meantime prepare for a dance party. Go out to a nearby restaurant, eat a ton of delicious Chinese food, buy paper cups, run back to the house to meet people for the party. And then, put up the disco ball, set up the stereo, get together the music (probably get help from the other foreigners to do this, and most likely some of this is being done after the guests have arrived). Feel awkward for your students who have never been to your foreign parties before. Try despirately to make people feel comfortable by dancing like a fool. Then, try despirately to get your friends who you know can dance like fools too to dance. Then relax as you realize they are enjoying it, and dance crazily for the next two or three hours.
whew. I didn't plan for any of that to happen before hand except the party. But it was all really fun.
And now it's really time for bed.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Remembering February: A final encounter
I met a young man on the bus back to Guilin from Yangshuo. I found myself looking in his direction and smiling. He smiled back and I worried that he had taken my accidental smile the wrong way and perhaps thought I was another loose foreign woman. But I was wrong. The baby in the seat behind me started crying and he smiled at him too. In fact, he used this excuse as a nice way to move into the open aisle seat next to me and in front of the crying child. We started talking after it seemed that nothing could satisfy the little one.
He was from Yangshuo, grew up there, and graduated from elementary school--no more no less. His parents were poor farmers. He was just about my age. He was going into Guilin to have fun for a night and then look for a job the next day. He asked my plans--I told him I was leaving for Beijing in the morning, but tonight, I had no plans. He told me he could take me around to see things in Guilin. I figured, why not? As long as we walked and were near many people (which it was almost impossible not to do in China) I could always find my way back to the hostel.
He wondered at my independence and fearlessness in a strange place. He asked me, what would I do if I lost the way? I told him I would ask someone. He asked, aren't you afraid? I said no. He told me there were many bad people in these places, in the city. I told him I knew. (Meanwhile the baby behind us had quieted.)
So it was decided. He walked me to the hostel (although he seemed afraid to actually go inside--he waited for me at the bottom of the stairs) and I dropped of my stuff. And we started out up the street I had walked along by myself a number of days earlier.
Guilin is a much bigger city than I expected when hearing about the place. Foreigners hear all about the mountains surrounding the city, but when you get there, to the center of the city all you can see is the tips of the surrounding hills and the buildings and shopping centers and street vendors. It's a big city. At night, the touristy spots are lit up with bright almost christmas like lights (This is a common phenomenon in China at toursit sites...apparently it is in Korea too, cause I saw it there also.) The lights will outline the river edge, the trees, the fence, the bridges, the famous pagodas. There will be spotlights meanwhile lighting up the trees and various parts of the scenery. I suppose it is meant to be romantic, but it seems a little overdone to jadded American eyes. It's just a little too Disney.
We stopped at one spot and he asked if I wanted to take a picture of the lit-up pagodas, which represented the sun and moon in the middle of a small pond. I told him I had lost my camera. He exclaimed how horrible that was, being in all these beautiful sites. (Although I had been having my friends take pictures for me for all those days I was visiting with a Chinese friend in Nanning and with Beth in Yangshuo.) So I said, sort of joking, but I can draw them. I have my notebook. So he encouraged me. Sit and draw. Don't forget. So I sat there and tried to draw the pagodas with pen. Meanwhile a bunch of young Chinese tourists came up to me and started talking about me in Chinese. I replied to them when they asked each other what I was doing. They were surprised at my Mandarin and started asking me more questions. Soon I was nervous and couldn't get any drawing done with them continually watching me draw. So I asked my new friend if he was ready to go. They all exclaimed, "Can you speak the Guilin dialect too?" I said "no." He was from Yangshuo anyway, which probably had a different accent. And I had just spoken Mandarin to him.
So my new friend brought me to a quieter place but made me finish drawing the temples. He told me it would be a pity if I started and didn't finish. So I did. But I just finished one of the temples, before I got impatient and swore I would bring a camera in the future so I wouldn't have to prove I could use other, more tedious methods of recording places next time.
I asked the young man where he would stay the night. He said he would stay at an internet bar. It was cheaper that way, he explained. Plus he could play on the computer if he wanted or sleep if he wanted. (He said he couldn't write, but he could type with pinyin.)
We walked around a park I had been walking around for a while. I told him I had come to this park by myself on Valentines day. He asked if I had someone (I believe that was literally what he asked if there was a ren--a person). I told him no, a boyfriend of a long time and I had just recently broken up. I explained that the problem was distance. He said that he too had just recently broken up with a girl he had been with for a long time. I asked him why and he said, because his family was poor, he had no job and no money, and he was fat, so she and her family disapproved. I told him the fat part was not true (because it sure didn't seem to be--he was slender...although he still insisted on not eating dinner that night because he said he was on a diet), but I couldn't say anything about the other things. My reasons for ending a relationship were thousands of miles away from his reasons--in culture, in logic and in freedom. There was nothing I knew how to say to comfort. Sometimes things just are in China. 没办法。(there's no way) and as an ordinary Chinese, you just have to accept them. 将就，将就。
He left me at the hostel with his QQ number and his e-mail address and told me if I came back to Yangshuo and let him know. He would give me a real tour of the countryside. I wondered why I hadn't met him at the beginning of my time in Guilin and Yangshuo. But he left the hostel so quickly after leaving the numbers, I couldn't even think to wish him good luck. He seemed really out of place in that hostel of hip Chinese and foreigners.
He was from Yangshuo, grew up there, and graduated from elementary school--no more no less. His parents were poor farmers. He was just about my age. He was going into Guilin to have fun for a night and then look for a job the next day. He asked my plans--I told him I was leaving for Beijing in the morning, but tonight, I had no plans. He told me he could take me around to see things in Guilin. I figured, why not? As long as we walked and were near many people (which it was almost impossible not to do in China) I could always find my way back to the hostel.
He wondered at my independence and fearlessness in a strange place. He asked me, what would I do if I lost the way? I told him I would ask someone. He asked, aren't you afraid? I said no. He told me there were many bad people in these places, in the city. I told him I knew. (Meanwhile the baby behind us had quieted.)
So it was decided. He walked me to the hostel (although he seemed afraid to actually go inside--he waited for me at the bottom of the stairs) and I dropped of my stuff. And we started out up the street I had walked along by myself a number of days earlier.
Guilin is a much bigger city than I expected when hearing about the place. Foreigners hear all about the mountains surrounding the city, but when you get there, to the center of the city all you can see is the tips of the surrounding hills and the buildings and shopping centers and street vendors. It's a big city. At night, the touristy spots are lit up with bright almost christmas like lights (This is a common phenomenon in China at toursit sites...apparently it is in Korea too, cause I saw it there also.) The lights will outline the river edge, the trees, the fence, the bridges, the famous pagodas. There will be spotlights meanwhile lighting up the trees and various parts of the scenery. I suppose it is meant to be romantic, but it seems a little overdone to jadded American eyes. It's just a little too Disney.
We stopped at one spot and he asked if I wanted to take a picture of the lit-up pagodas, which represented the sun and moon in the middle of a small pond. I told him I had lost my camera. He exclaimed how horrible that was, being in all these beautiful sites. (Although I had been having my friends take pictures for me for all those days I was visiting with a Chinese friend in Nanning and with Beth in Yangshuo.) So I said, sort of joking, but I can draw them. I have my notebook. So he encouraged me. Sit and draw. Don't forget. So I sat there and tried to draw the pagodas with pen. Meanwhile a bunch of young Chinese tourists came up to me and started talking about me in Chinese. I replied to them when they asked each other what I was doing. They were surprised at my Mandarin and started asking me more questions. Soon I was nervous and couldn't get any drawing done with them continually watching me draw. So I asked my new friend if he was ready to go. They all exclaimed, "Can you speak the Guilin dialect too?" I said "no." He was from Yangshuo anyway, which probably had a different accent. And I had just spoken Mandarin to him.
So my new friend brought me to a quieter place but made me finish drawing the temples. He told me it would be a pity if I started and didn't finish. So I did. But I just finished one of the temples, before I got impatient and swore I would bring a camera in the future so I wouldn't have to prove I could use other, more tedious methods of recording places next time.
I asked the young man where he would stay the night. He said he would stay at an internet bar. It was cheaper that way, he explained. Plus he could play on the computer if he wanted or sleep if he wanted. (He said he couldn't write, but he could type with pinyin.)
We walked around a park I had been walking around for a while. I told him I had come to this park by myself on Valentines day. He asked if I had someone (I believe that was literally what he asked if there was a ren--a person). I told him no, a boyfriend of a long time and I had just recently broken up. I explained that the problem was distance. He said that he too had just recently broken up with a girl he had been with for a long time. I asked him why and he said, because his family was poor, he had no job and no money, and he was fat, so she and her family disapproved. I told him the fat part was not true (because it sure didn't seem to be--he was slender...although he still insisted on not eating dinner that night because he said he was on a diet), but I couldn't say anything about the other things. My reasons for ending a relationship were thousands of miles away from his reasons--in culture, in logic and in freedom. There was nothing I knew how to say to comfort. Sometimes things just are in China. 没办法。(there's no way) and as an ordinary Chinese, you just have to accept them. 将就，将就。
He left me at the hostel with his QQ number and his e-mail address and told me if I came back to Yangshuo and let him know. He would give me a real tour of the countryside. I wondered why I hadn't met him at the beginning of my time in Guilin and Yangshuo. But he left the hostel so quickly after leaving the numbers, I couldn't even think to wish him good luck. He seemed really out of place in that hostel of hip Chinese and foreigners.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Remembering February: starting to head back from Yangshuo
Leaving Yangshuo was a bit sad. Grey skies. And I knew I was leaving traveling for a while. So many people had been in and out of my life in the past couple days. Some I would never see again.
I would love to describe, to draw, to inscribe in stone each person I passed, but I could not replicate them. Like the way, waking up that morning and wondering if the young man in the bunk next to me from Australia (we saw from his suitcase tag) would resemble someone I knew, and when the slender figure woke, his narrow nose and face led me to think of a friend of mine who had died a year and a half ago. Like the cheerful, eager young man from Guandong who exchanged some reading lessons with me--we opened up the hostel's little book of notes from travelers, and I read Chinese to him, he the English to me, late into the night at the hostel. And his darker, deep-sweet-eyed, serious companion who he met as he met me--by chance of staying at the same hostel. And like the way the darker, older of the two seemed to speak excitedly and then sadly of his age, 28, and how he must enjoy this traveling while he is young, before he gets old and must think too much, must be overcome by thoughts. He told me he already cannot sleep without first drinking alcohol, because of his thoughts. Like a young man from Poland whose boyish face and mannerisms seemed familiar, and who, in the 20 minutes before had to go catch his train asked me what the Chinese think about their situation, because he cannot speak Chinese and he is awfully curious. And after 20 minutes of facinating conversation, he is gone to catch the train to Shanghai. And like Roary, the 6 foot tall, curly-red-haired, nice Irishman who I kept running into, on the tops of a mountain in a park, and then on the streets in Yangshuo with Beth. And the sweet couple from England and Wales traveling the world for a year who share with me a bit about their travels and made me late picking up Beth from the airport because I was so fascinated by them. Yes, most of the other travelers are young men or couples. I seemed to be one of the few single women traveling on my own. Even among the traveling community. But it didn't matter, people were kind to me, no body asked me why it was just me. Just too many faces going by...
And the countryside bike ride that morning that I left, amongst the strange green and rocky hills thrusting up from flat green and yellow farm fields with a clear river twisting downt he middle, was incredible. I can't even begin to do the place justice. It was too real and surreal to register how beautiful it really was. And while we were biking through majesty, we were also biking through poverty--isolated farming villages. But in such a beautiful place. Bikes pumping, skin hiving (for who knows what reason), toes numbing by the end--but lovely adventure, really interesting, beautiful place, fare enough away from people to feel it, with just enough to help find the way...
It was definitely sad to leave Yangshuo. And I wasn't at all ready or excited quite yet to get back to teaching.
I would love to describe, to draw, to inscribe in stone each person I passed, but I could not replicate them. Like the way, waking up that morning and wondering if the young man in the bunk next to me from Australia (we saw from his suitcase tag) would resemble someone I knew, and when the slender figure woke, his narrow nose and face led me to think of a friend of mine who had died a year and a half ago. Like the cheerful, eager young man from Guandong who exchanged some reading lessons with me--we opened up the hostel's little book of notes from travelers, and I read Chinese to him, he the English to me, late into the night at the hostel. And his darker, deep-sweet-eyed, serious companion who he met as he met me--by chance of staying at the same hostel. And like the way the darker, older of the two seemed to speak excitedly and then sadly of his age, 28, and how he must enjoy this traveling while he is young, before he gets old and must think too much, must be overcome by thoughts. He told me he already cannot sleep without first drinking alcohol, because of his thoughts. Like a young man from Poland whose boyish face and mannerisms seemed familiar, and who, in the 20 minutes before had to go catch his train asked me what the Chinese think about their situation, because he cannot speak Chinese and he is awfully curious. And after 20 minutes of facinating conversation, he is gone to catch the train to Shanghai. And like Roary, the 6 foot tall, curly-red-haired, nice Irishman who I kept running into, on the tops of a mountain in a park, and then on the streets in Yangshuo with Beth. And the sweet couple from England and Wales traveling the world for a year who share with me a bit about their travels and made me late picking up Beth from the airport because I was so fascinated by them. Yes, most of the other travelers are young men or couples. I seemed to be one of the few single women traveling on my own. Even among the traveling community. But it didn't matter, people were kind to me, no body asked me why it was just me. Just too many faces going by...
And the countryside bike ride that morning that I left, amongst the strange green and rocky hills thrusting up from flat green and yellow farm fields with a clear river twisting downt he middle, was incredible. I can't even begin to do the place justice. It was too real and surreal to register how beautiful it really was. And while we were biking through majesty, we were also biking through poverty--isolated farming villages. But in such a beautiful place. Bikes pumping, skin hiving (for who knows what reason), toes numbing by the end--but lovely adventure, really interesting, beautiful place, fare enough away from people to feel it, with just enough to help find the way...
It was definitely sad to leave Yangshuo. And I wasn't at all ready or excited quite yet to get back to teaching.
Remembering February: When I collide with 99 Qinghai Tibetans in Guizhou
"我们有缘分。" (We are fated to be brought together)
So says the Tibetan leader of the 99 touring Qinghai Tibetans I met on a train from Guilin to Nanning. I didn't know if it was yuanfen (fate) or not, but I was sure thankful for whatever strange forces had worked to make me take the same train as these lovely people.
I was going to Nanning to visit a friend I had made in Kunming. She was studying traditional medicine there, but her home was in Nanning. As I was waiting in the smoke-filled (the "smoking room" consisted of a hallway that connected to the main waiting rooms), hot trainstation, a large group of mostly older men began crowding the asiles by the gates that would open to let us to the platform. They were wearing thick layers of clothing and all of them were sweating profusely. Their skin was darker than other Chinese, and many of their eyes a light honey brown, and their hair slightly curly. A couple of older men caught my eye, realizing how I too didn't look like the rest of the people--mostly Han Chinese--in the waiting room, and smiled at me. I even got videotaped for a moment as one older man did a circular view of everyone crammed into the train station waiting room. Most of them were older men, so I offered my seat to one while we were waiting. He refused at first, but after much insistence on my part and encouragement by bystanders, he shyly and gratefully took my seat. The tour guide, a Han Chinese man, asked me where I was from and started up a conversation with me. He told me that the group were all Qinghai Tibetans on a tour outside of their village. Once I got my seat, he said, I should come find them. He told me there were 99 of them and these people loved 热闹（renao. Again, this Chinese word I can't translate that means something like: "bustling with noise and excitement"). He asked what car I was in so he could come find me once they were settled. I showed him my ticket, but I assumed he was joking, so I just smiled in response.
Soon, they were opening the gates to let us onto the platform and after the chaotic mass migration that always occurs before you get on a train in China, I found my respective seat and settled in. I sat next to some Guilin ladies who chattered away in their dialect while I slept through the next hour. But sure enough, after woke up from my nap, the tourguide came into my car. Okay, he said, follow me. I figured, why not, so I grabbed my stuff and followed him. I was so glad I did.
The guide sat me down next to the leader of the group who spoke to me in his strongly accented Mandarin (although his pronunciation was probably one of the best of the men in the group). Most of them were speaking Tibetan to eachother. The leader asked me how to say a few things in English (including his phrase about 缘分, or fate which I struggled to translate）and I in turn asked him how to say some things in Tibetan. Soon, he pointed to a young, pretty woman sitting across the asle. She should be your teacher, he said. And out of her mouth came the most perfect English I had heard out of anyone in China--Hello. How are you? I liked her right away.
She was an English teacher in their village, and with her almost flawless English she helped explain to me more about who this group was in ways I couldn't understand in 普通话 （standard Mandarin). She explained that the village had organized an outing for all the village leaders to go outside of Qinghai (for many their first time outside the province and first time on a train). So they had come from Xi'an and Guilin and now they were headed to Beihai (which they heartily encouraged me to come with them). And all of these older men were extremely, extremely excited (if a little shocked by the warmth--home was full of snow) about this trip and they loved seeing these places. Although she said that they had had some trouble with barganing, because, she explained, Tibetans are so trusting, that they assume that everything someone tells them is the truth. So when the vendors tell the older men that they absolutely must have these things and this absolutely is the best price you can find, the old men will believe them. And in spite of her and the other young people's protests that they should try to ask for a better price, they will buy the thing. (Some of the men ended up proving this phenomenon true at the end of the trip. As we were reaching our station, the workers on the train advertised a kind of flexible toothbrush in a two for one deal that almost all the older Tibetans immediately bought up. Although interestingly enough, on the way back from Nanning I found that a number of Han Chinese people also bought the same toothbrush. It made me feel better to know that it wasn't just us foreigners from outside of China who were tricked by "deals.")
They kept inviting me to go to their hometown. I kept saying how much I wanted to. Then, as I continued talking with the woman, a young man came up, and told her to introduce him as handsome, but say that he was shy around beautiful ladies. At which I of course laughed. They told me I was pretty, which seemed funny to me in my sweaty glasses, pigtails and plaid shirt. (I always wonder if people just say this in China because I am foreign and thus exotic, or just to be polite or nice to me.) The young people seemed to talk with bits of Mandarin and bits of Tibetan (and with these people, some English), while the older people predominantly spoke Tibetan, unless they were talking to me or the guide.
One of the older men started singing to me (after much joking and encouragement). My new friend explained that Tibetans love singing, and it was common for a man to sing to a woman, and her back to him. I don't know if you have ever heard Tibetan songs or a Tibetan sing before, but you should make sure it is something on your list of things to do before you die. His voice was clear, true and almost eirie in the way it sounded like it was echoing in the mountains. Our half of the car quieted down the moment he began. The teacher translated the song for me: the man was comparing me to the moon--so beautiful, but so far away and unreachable. It was really lovely sounding. And then he stopped singing, and she explained, they will not continue, unless I sing in reply. I looked to my new friend for suggestions, and she offered, "You are my sunshine" which I sang and which she then translated for them into Tibetan. They enjoyed that translation. After more encouragement "handsome" also sang a song for me. He too had a beautiful voice. I sang back 甜密密 , one of the few Chinese songs I can sing all the way through, and a well-known favorite in China. It was the best time I've ever had on a train.
I was so excited the entire time I spent with them on the train, I was enthralled by their excitement, their culture, their language, their songs, their warmth and automatic acceptance of me. And I got to talk with this one English teacher quite a bit. I learned things from her all sorts of things I didn't know about Tibetans, like how conservative their culture is in terms of marriage age. Or, more relevant to my own life, how one of her English teachers from University was sent back to the U.S. for teaching too many Tibetans. And how now her school has trouble getting enough foreign teachers because the government won't accept their VISAs. Of course, she explained this all in English. The leader of the Village later asked me if I wouldn't come and teach English in their village. I thought how amazing that would be--beautiful mountains, a new language to learn, a facinating culture to surround myself in--and then I remembered that I still have a year and a half of a fellowship to complete. Visiting is probably the best bet at this point. Although I was so tempted to just continue to follow them on their trip to Beihai.
There was another woman who sat next to me who was a divorcee, but rather young-looking. She was reading one of those older American "manners" books for "proper ladies" that had been re-published in a modern looking Chinese version. She asked me if I had read the book and told me I was the first foreigner she had ever met. Funny. So lovely.
I told them I would visit them this summer. I hope it works out. I would love to see where such lovely people call home.
So says the Tibetan leader of the 99 touring Qinghai Tibetans I met on a train from Guilin to Nanning. I didn't know if it was yuanfen (fate) or not, but I was sure thankful for whatever strange forces had worked to make me take the same train as these lovely people.
I was going to Nanning to visit a friend I had made in Kunming. She was studying traditional medicine there, but her home was in Nanning. As I was waiting in the smoke-filled (the "smoking room" consisted of a hallway that connected to the main waiting rooms), hot trainstation, a large group of mostly older men began crowding the asiles by the gates that would open to let us to the platform. They were wearing thick layers of clothing and all of them were sweating profusely. Their skin was darker than other Chinese, and many of their eyes a light honey brown, and their hair slightly curly. A couple of older men caught my eye, realizing how I too didn't look like the rest of the people--mostly Han Chinese--in the waiting room, and smiled at me. I even got videotaped for a moment as one older man did a circular view of everyone crammed into the train station waiting room. Most of them were older men, so I offered my seat to one while we were waiting. He refused at first, but after much insistence on my part and encouragement by bystanders, he shyly and gratefully took my seat. The tour guide, a Han Chinese man, asked me where I was from and started up a conversation with me. He told me that the group were all Qinghai Tibetans on a tour outside of their village. Once I got my seat, he said, I should come find them. He told me there were 99 of them and these people loved 热闹（renao. Again, this Chinese word I can't translate that means something like: "bustling with noise and excitement"). He asked what car I was in so he could come find me once they were settled. I showed him my ticket, but I assumed he was joking, so I just smiled in response.
Soon, they were opening the gates to let us onto the platform and after the chaotic mass migration that always occurs before you get on a train in China, I found my respective seat and settled in. I sat next to some Guilin ladies who chattered away in their dialect while I slept through the next hour. But sure enough, after woke up from my nap, the tourguide came into my car. Okay, he said, follow me. I figured, why not, so I grabbed my stuff and followed him. I was so glad I did.
The guide sat me down next to the leader of the group who spoke to me in his strongly accented Mandarin (although his pronunciation was probably one of the best of the men in the group). Most of them were speaking Tibetan to eachother. The leader asked me how to say a few things in English (including his phrase about 缘分, or fate which I struggled to translate）and I in turn asked him how to say some things in Tibetan. Soon, he pointed to a young, pretty woman sitting across the asle. She should be your teacher, he said. And out of her mouth came the most perfect English I had heard out of anyone in China--Hello. How are you? I liked her right away.
She was an English teacher in their village, and with her almost flawless English she helped explain to me more about who this group was in ways I couldn't understand in 普通话 （standard Mandarin). She explained that the village had organized an outing for all the village leaders to go outside of Qinghai (for many their first time outside the province and first time on a train). So they had come from Xi'an and Guilin and now they were headed to Beihai (which they heartily encouraged me to come with them). And all of these older men were extremely, extremely excited (if a little shocked by the warmth--home was full of snow) about this trip and they loved seeing these places. Although she said that they had had some trouble with barganing, because, she explained, Tibetans are so trusting, that they assume that everything someone tells them is the truth. So when the vendors tell the older men that they absolutely must have these things and this absolutely is the best price you can find, the old men will believe them. And in spite of her and the other young people's protests that they should try to ask for a better price, they will buy the thing. (Some of the men ended up proving this phenomenon true at the end of the trip. As we were reaching our station, the workers on the train advertised a kind of flexible toothbrush in a two for one deal that almost all the older Tibetans immediately bought up. Although interestingly enough, on the way back from Nanning I found that a number of Han Chinese people also bought the same toothbrush. It made me feel better to know that it wasn't just us foreigners from outside of China who were tricked by "deals.")
They kept inviting me to go to their hometown. I kept saying how much I wanted to. Then, as I continued talking with the woman, a young man came up, and told her to introduce him as handsome, but say that he was shy around beautiful ladies. At which I of course laughed. They told me I was pretty, which seemed funny to me in my sweaty glasses, pigtails and plaid shirt. (I always wonder if people just say this in China because I am foreign and thus exotic, or just to be polite or nice to me.) The young people seemed to talk with bits of Mandarin and bits of Tibetan (and with these people, some English), while the older people predominantly spoke Tibetan, unless they were talking to me or the guide.
One of the older men started singing to me (after much joking and encouragement). My new friend explained that Tibetans love singing, and it was common for a man to sing to a woman, and her back to him. I don't know if you have ever heard Tibetan songs or a Tibetan sing before, but you should make sure it is something on your list of things to do before you die. His voice was clear, true and almost eirie in the way it sounded like it was echoing in the mountains. Our half of the car quieted down the moment he began. The teacher translated the song for me: the man was comparing me to the moon--so beautiful, but so far away and unreachable. It was really lovely sounding. And then he stopped singing, and she explained, they will not continue, unless I sing in reply. I looked to my new friend for suggestions, and she offered, "You are my sunshine" which I sang and which she then translated for them into Tibetan. They enjoyed that translation. After more encouragement "handsome" also sang a song for me. He too had a beautiful voice. I sang back 甜密密 , one of the few Chinese songs I can sing all the way through, and a well-known favorite in China. It was the best time I've ever had on a train.
I was so excited the entire time I spent with them on the train, I was enthralled by their excitement, their culture, their language, their songs, their warmth and automatic acceptance of me. And I got to talk with this one English teacher quite a bit. I learned things from her all sorts of things I didn't know about Tibetans, like how conservative their culture is in terms of marriage age. Or, more relevant to my own life, how one of her English teachers from University was sent back to the U.S. for teaching too many Tibetans. And how now her school has trouble getting enough foreign teachers because the government won't accept their VISAs. Of course, she explained this all in English. The leader of the Village later asked me if I wouldn't come and teach English in their village. I thought how amazing that would be--beautiful mountains, a new language to learn, a facinating culture to surround myself in--and then I remembered that I still have a year and a half of a fellowship to complete. Visiting is probably the best bet at this point. Although I was so tempted to just continue to follow them on their trip to Beihai.
There was another woman who sat next to me who was a divorcee, but rather young-looking. She was reading one of those older American "manners" books for "proper ladies" that had been re-published in a modern looking Chinese version. She asked me if I had read the book and told me I was the first foreigner she had ever met. Funny. So lovely.
I told them I would visit them this summer. I hope it works out. I would love to see where such lovely people call home.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Remembering Chinese New Years: Second New Years, a Second Home
China, I think, grows on me after I return. At first, everytime I come back, there is a terror of throwing myself into a stifling culture with so many people and such a history. And then, with smiles, and curiosity and eagerness, the Chinese people win me over again. Koreans are shy but, generally friendly if you approach them. But they don't put in the effort to approach you the way that Chinese people do. I forgot about the people here who have their children say "Hello" to you and who sing English songs on the subway while casting glances in your direction, and who try out saying "foreigner" in all the different languages they know to see what kind of reaction they can get out of you--or maybe that is just Beijing. But I don't think so. Everywhere I will see young Chinese women who when we catch the other's eye, will smile symultaneously. But I find that it is usually I who is shy and will first turn my eyes away.
I think of the way Koreans celebrate their New Years and the way Chinese celebrate theirs. Korean New Years means that people go home and spend time quietly with their family--eat food together and pray and give offerings to their ancestors. Chinese people, however, love 热闹。 And I really wish there was a way to translate this word, because it is the essence of Chinese celebrations--warm, festive, loud, noisy, almost chaotic, but in a good way. And that is how they celebrate the New Years--explosions, the color red, money for children, lots of people all making dumplings together, parades, traditional dances--of course, they also mostly just spend time at home with family, but unlike neat and carefully organized Korea, they set off fireworks in the streets! And not just little sparklers--Beijing was absolutely brimming with crysanthamums of color bursting in every allyway, every courtyard, every street, raining down ash and bits of fiber on the happy observers below. The fireworks are set off to scare away the bad spirits of the past year and make room for the good, new ones. Apparently, it is thought that the more fireworks you set off, the more good luck you will have. So this year, because of the economic recession, tons of businessmen had boxes full of 20 or more fireworks (that I was told cost thousands of yuan) and set them off, greatly pleasing the rest of us passersby watching below.
I don't know what it is about China, but it is as close to a second home as I may ever find in another country. People are just so friendly. And it isn't just me, who speaks Chinese, who has found this. A number of foreign travelers who I met in Guilin also agreed. One young Irish man told me, he had been told ahead of time that Chinese people were really unfriendly. So he was completely shocked to find that wherever he went, inspite of his inability to speak, everyone offered to help him. They made do with hand gestures and making faces and him pointing to the Chinese on his tickets and them pointing to the place the tickets indicated. They would even walk him all the way to wherever he was supposed to go and then leave without asking for money or even his name. These strangers helped him on every leg of his journey. He says now he's decided that Chinese are the friendliest people he's ever met.
There's a way people look out for you here, so that you never quite feel completely lost. Just a little unsure of the exact place you are, not unsure that there will be friendly, helpful people there to guide you along the way.
I think of the way Koreans celebrate their New Years and the way Chinese celebrate theirs. Korean New Years means that people go home and spend time quietly with their family--eat food together and pray and give offerings to their ancestors. Chinese people, however, love 热闹。 And I really wish there was a way to translate this word, because it is the essence of Chinese celebrations--warm, festive, loud, noisy, almost chaotic, but in a good way. And that is how they celebrate the New Years--explosions, the color red, money for children, lots of people all making dumplings together, parades, traditional dances--of course, they also mostly just spend time at home with family, but unlike neat and carefully organized Korea, they set off fireworks in the streets! And not just little sparklers--Beijing was absolutely brimming with crysanthamums of color bursting in every allyway, every courtyard, every street, raining down ash and bits of fiber on the happy observers below. The fireworks are set off to scare away the bad spirits of the past year and make room for the good, new ones. Apparently, it is thought that the more fireworks you set off, the more good luck you will have. So this year, because of the economic recession, tons of businessmen had boxes full of 20 or more fireworks (that I was told cost thousands of yuan) and set them off, greatly pleasing the rest of us passersby watching below.
I don't know what it is about China, but it is as close to a second home as I may ever find in another country. People are just so friendly. And it isn't just me, who speaks Chinese, who has found this. A number of foreign travelers who I met in Guilin also agreed. One young Irish man told me, he had been told ahead of time that Chinese people were really unfriendly. So he was completely shocked to find that wherever he went, inspite of his inability to speak, everyone offered to help him. They made do with hand gestures and making faces and him pointing to the Chinese on his tickets and them pointing to the place the tickets indicated. They would even walk him all the way to wherever he was supposed to go and then leave without asking for money or even his name. These strangers helped him on every leg of his journey. He says now he's decided that Chinese are the friendliest people he's ever met.
There's a way people look out for you here, so that you never quite feel completely lost. Just a little unsure of the exact place you are, not unsure that there will be friendly, helpful people there to guide you along the way.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Remembering Travels from February: Mannequins
While I am walking through an underground market in Guilin, I suddenly realize that I am the only "white" face walking around in the sharp, unflattering, yellow light. Strangely enough, the only white face, but my language is written on all the T-shirts--English letters assembled in incomprehensible words that almost look like "America" or famous clothing brands, and strange words assembled in sentences that a native speaker wouldn't understand.
And then I see her--a woman with light, wavy, hair and big eyes--her facial features vaguely reflecting mine. And I see more of us--they are standing outside of every other store entrance--mannequins. Their frozen Caucasian features are the only ones in this place that echo mine. I realize my isolation--my tall stature, deep-set eyes, naturally lighter hair, large backpack, walking around slender, small, dark-haired Chinese young women and men who walk arm in arm slowly looking at clothing and shoes. My face blends only with the posters of models wearing the clothing being sold, and with those of the strange mannequins--frozen, prisoners of this underground market.
Completely creeped out, I walk quickly towards the exits surface again.
And then I see her--a woman with light, wavy, hair and big eyes--her facial features vaguely reflecting mine. And I see more of us--they are standing outside of every other store entrance--mannequins. Their frozen Caucasian features are the only ones in this place that echo mine. I realize my isolation--my tall stature, deep-set eyes, naturally lighter hair, large backpack, walking around slender, small, dark-haired Chinese young women and men who walk arm in arm slowly looking at clothing and shoes. My face blends only with the posters of models wearing the clothing being sold, and with those of the strange mannequins--frozen, prisoners of this underground market.
Completely creeped out, I walk quickly towards the exits surface again.
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