Today marks two months in China, from when I first walked across that small bridge linking Hong Kong and Shenzhen. So I thought I had it all figured out. I was invited to another student retreat out in the countryside, and I thought I would be prepared this time. For once, I thought I had the upper hand and would be able to anticipate what China was going to throw at me. Boy, was I wrong.

Once again, on Friday, we clambered into buses and headed out past the northeastern limits of Kunming. But this time, we kept going and didn't stop until we reached a completely different resort called the Double Dragon Fishing Village (no, I am not making this up). I roomed with Lester, a fellow American teacher whose students also came along. We were the only teachers this time. A game of basketball unfolded. Being taller than everyone else playing, I staked out a position in the post where rebounding, blocking, and lay-ups were no problem. Our team also had some great perimeter shooters and ball handlers so we did quite well.

The food was completely different this time as well, served in even more rustic surroundings. I had corn on the cob, fried potatoes, spicy cucumber, and some rice noodles (can't get away from that in this part of the country). There were fewer "ganbei's" this time, and the beer consumption abruptly stopped at the conclusion of the banquet. After eating, we congregated in the main hall of the resort which is reserved for the holy act of karaoke. Chinese people love to sing. It is a rare day when I am not asked to sing a song. And once you are asked to sing, there is no escape. The only excuse that suffices is sudden death. You must sing. So I sang a quick verse of "You Are My Sunshine" for my students and Lester did a rendition of "Lord of the Dance." The karaoke continued through the night and all day the next day. From what I have heard coming from the KTV (karaoke) rooms in my two months here, most Chinese people are tone-deaf. I didn't sleep much that night because of Lester's incessant, thunderous snoring, which matched the room's resonant frequency and shook my bones down to the marrow. At two separate times in the middle of the night, we received a knock at the door. The second time Lester got up and answered it. There were two sheepish-looking, intoxicated male students from another college looking for some girls and presumably what Garcia Marquez calls "emergency love."

The next morning we had a couple bowls of spicy rice noodles and some Maxwell House instant orange-flavored coffee. Not recommended. Then we took off for a hike in the hills. When Chinese students go on these retreats, they pack very lightly, meaning they bring nothing. The hotel provides a toothbrush (but no towels). The same clothes are worn the next day. So you can imagine a long line of about 40 students dashing through the thick undergrowth of rural Yunnan, some in stiletto heels, abruptly pausing to look at an interesting plant or leaf or mushroom (they are mostly horticulture majors), thus backing up everyone else in the hike. Our fearless leader got us completely lost in a thorny patch where we had to get on our hands and knees to get out of. Most of the hike was a mad dash, which was great exercise, but I often wondered why we ventured off the path and into impenetrable thickets of vines, branches, and shrubs.

I spent the rest of the morning reading and removing burrs from my clothes, taking obligatory photos with students of other colleges, and talking with one of my most well-informed students about Miller's Crossing, Aphex Twin, and On the Road. When we returned in the afternoon, I kept an earlier promise by attending a Cultural Communication Club meeting in one of the auditoriums at my college. There was a calligraphy demonstration, a German singing a traditional Chinese song, a Thai playing a wood flute, and two kung fu guys twirling nunchucks ( 雙節棍) to heavy metal music. One of them was so good that he dissected a cucumber into thin slices and took the lid off a water bottle.

Strangely, after this performance at my far-away campus, I met a Ukrainian named Andrey who has hitchhiked all the way to Kunming from his hometown of Kharkiv, across Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. He was on his way to Laos, Thailand, and India. He made me want to visit Uzbekistan. Apparently, in the western Xinjiang and Sichuan provinces of China, many towns are closed to foreigners. He would get dropped off at these places in the middle of nowhere only to be run out by the police. In Chongqing, he was held by the police by the side of the road for a few hours, until a higher official came. Then he was told to start walking. "Where?"

The police said, "It doesn't matter." So he started walking. Soon a van showed up with a video camera sticking out the passenger-side window, filming his long march. It was a local news crew. "What are you doing?" they asked. "I'm hitching to Kunming." He was broadcast all over the news. They did buy him a bus ticket to Kunming.

We talked for a long time over some beers at my local pub, generally about literature, specifically about Jack Kerouac. He had read On the Road many times in Russian, and had much to say about the "lost generation" of the beatniks, and how this lost generation was surfacing again in the post-Soviet states. He had some great stories about hitching in Uzbekistan, where there is never a problem finding a place to sleep or a ride. All of this while listening to the pub's great selection of music: Bob Marley, the Eagles, some Arabic music, and Chinese rock. I ended up giving him my copy of Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat.

On Monday, I really pushed myself. I taught two hours of English writing, then took two hours of Chinese speaking. After lunch, I taught two hours of English speaking, then went to a two hour Japanese class. This was a total mind-bending experience, not unlike the state my brain entered the first time I heard Phillip Glass.

Although I have been not-so-steadily learning Japanese for the past three and a half years, this was the very first time that I set foot into a Japanese class. I am applying for the 2007-2008 JET Program (teaching English in Japan), so I am trying to brush up on the language in any possible way. The teacher was Chinese, but she spoke Japanese very well. It was her major in college, and she has spent some time in Japan. I recently found out about this class, so I joined it eight weeks into the semester.

The (Chinese) students were performing their oral examinations. This is where my mind started becoming twisted. The class is taught in Chinese with the students reciting in Japanese. I was picking up words and phrases in both languages, and started to notice I was no longer able to distinguish what I was hearing. Other than the writing system and a few borrowed words, Chinese and Japanese are completely unrelated languages. The grammar is totally different, Japanese has a near absence of tones (unlike Chinese where each syllable is one of four [some say five] tones), etc., etc. It was also very strange to see Chinese students acting like Japanese people, constantly bowing, being polite to an almost comical level, and using honorifics in their speech. Some students sang Japanese pop songs. One student, in a restaurant scene, ordered "washoku" and was given the food prop, a box of chalk. I felt like I had entered a parallel universe. A girl I was sitting next to wrote me a note in English that simply said, "You are a dream runner." I told my soul, I like that!

Yesterday, I returned to the Japanese class, after teaching two English writing classes and attending a Chinese writing class. I witnessed more mind-bending Sino-Japanese oral recitations of fear-stricken undergraduates...twitching facial muscles, trembling hands, and rapidly blinking eyelids. Unfortunately, this was the conclusion of this year's Japanese class. My teacher told me, "Owarimashita," and it took me a few moments to put this familiar-sounding word into cognitive context. "The class is finished." She did offer one-on-one lessons, which I really appreciate and will try to take up.

I struggled to respond with my ever-small Japanese mind, holding back my tiny Chinese mind, and yearning to use my well-worn English mind, but alas, she doesn't speak much English. Occasionally fragments of Spanish crept in, but that's less of a problem nowadays. The last time I used Spanish was with Jason Walker in Eugene, Oregon at Max's Tavern (supposedly the basis for Moe's Tavern of the Simpsons), late, late in the evening, speaking with some Mexicans in cowboy hats from Michouacan, with our heavy gringo accents.

Another linguistic adventure is learning some basic phrases in Kunming-hua (the local dialect which is unintelligible to most Chinese). I always get a smile from the locals when this foreigner utters "tei ban zha la" (how great!) or "ni you ke-na die ke?" (where are you going?) or the greeting "wo qin ni shui fan ke?" (have you eaten?). Chinese people are always asking me, "Have you eaten?" which is a standard greeting here like "what's up?" At first I thought that was a strange way to say hello. Perhaps it has to do with the national obsession of food. Perhaps it has to do with famine, which is clearly in living memory for many, if not most, older adults.

Tonight I played some more "soft" volleyball with the Chinese staff of the Foreign Language Department. The volleyball court is very small, so a plastic inflatable volleyball is used, not unlike a beach ball. When struck with any amount of force, it zips and zigzags along in unpredictable paths. After each good play, I heard a hearty "hao qiu!" which I believe to mean "好球/nice shot." After a really good shot, I heard "piaoliang!/漂亮" which means "Beautiful!"

Tomorrow I will attend the college's English Corner. I have made it this long without going, but it's time to pay my dues. From my understanding, it's a huge group of people getting together to practice their English, with native English speakers completely overwhelmed and outnumbered. They are barraged with the standard questions, "How long have you been in China/Do you know Yao Ming/What sports do you like/How long have you been in China/What sports do you like/etc.?"

But you can never guess what will happen while in China.