I've been here long enough that life is starting to eek out some sort of pattern. So I'll try to elaborate the best I can on daily life in my home, Bailong Village.

1. Midnight.

Chinese people typically go to bed early and get up early. After 11 or so, the bustling street that runs past my house is dead. Maybe you can see one or two people going home, and a guy selling barbecue under a red lamp, lit by a car battery under his grill. By now the bars are closed, the street vendors are packing up, and most people are asleep. Up and down my street there are about 20 hotels with flickering neon signs; many students live here illegally instead of in the dorms. Bailong Village isn't really a tourist destination. However, a little outside my village, on the main road connecting Bailong Village and downtown Kunming, I do still hear the big blue construction trucks blaring their air horns up and down the street 24 hours a day. The mosquitoes are a nuisance year round.

2. Morning.

I usually wake up between 5:30 and 6 a.m. I go to the kitchen, turn on the propane-fueled hot water heater, and hop into the shower. Chinese bathrooms of the middle-class lifestyle typically have a sink, a western-style toilet, and a very, very small bathtub. There is no shower curtain, so water sprays everywhere. Apparently, you can buy a shower curtain & rod (very rare items) at one of the Wal-Marts downtown, but I don't go to Wal-Mart, not even in China. The sink has two faucets, but no hot water comes from them. On top of most of the apartment buildings here are giant solar panels that heat tanks of water. Most people get their hot shower water this way, and don't have water heaters. You can't flush toilet paper down the toilet as the sewers can't handle it.

One superior form of Chinese engineering is the thermos. You will see these thermoses everywhere. The thermos is huge, holding about 2L of water, and keeping it hot for *days.* I boil a kettle of water a few times a week so I can enjoy a cup of Nescafé instant coffee or a glass of water in the morning. (Coffee and chocolate are very hard to find here, especially those of decent quality. There are a few coffeeshops downtown, but it's expensive.) Also, you can't drink the tap water, so the water must be boiled or bottled.

Each morning at about 6:30, I hear a person dribbling a basketball down to the apartment complex's court. At about 7:30, young children start swarming the preschool next door to my apartment. Around 8:00, senior citizens congregate on the basketball court to practice tai chi, tai chi with fake swords, tai chi with folding fans, traditional dancing, balancing a tennis ball on a racket while moving around, basketball, anything. Senior citizens in China lead very active lives. There is a bus from my apartment complex up the big hill to the college. I live away from campus, a good 20 minute hike up a steep hill. So the college bought a bus to ferry the teachers up and down a few times a day. It's pretty crowded in the morning as most teachers have class at 8:00. Many things here are pretty crowded.

I put on my jacket and usually have breakfast at the open market; a big bowl of freshly made rice or wheat noodles, mint, cilantro, pickled vegetables, and chili pepper set me back 2.5 yuan, about 30 cents. I see people brushing their teeth and women washing their hair in the street. Cleaning ladies are sweeping all the garbage and other debris up. There are a lot of stray dogs, but all of them are very small. I am told that owning a dog is forbidden in Kunming, but it hasn't stopped anyone. At the open market, you can get dogmeat noodles, so I am told.

Alternately for breakfast, I'll buy a piece of pocket bread stuffed with grilled tofu and other mixed vegetables and spices for 1 yuan, about 12.5 cents. It is unbelievably delicious. The owners make everything from scratch and cook it up on the back of their bicycle. You'd be surprised at how much goes on and comes off of bikes here. Sometimes I ride my bicycle up to school instead of taking the bus.

It is also convenient to take the sanlunche (三轮车), one of the splendors of the Orient. This is a three-wheeled vehicle; the front half resembles a motorcycle, and the back half is an enclosed square box with two padded benches and curtains for privacy or warmth. It's usually powered by a motorcycle--some call it an auto rickshaw, but sometimes it's powered by foot. It's very important to negotiate the price before getting in! The driver wears a thin red plastic helmet.

I teach in the main teaching building, a seven story contraption that many people here call "Budala-gong" (布达拉宫) because of its resemblance to Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. Chinese buildings six stories or less do not typically have elevators. Almost everyone, including myself, lives in six-story concrete buildings that bear a striking resemblance to one another. Almost every building here is made of concrete and covered with white bathroom tile. I walk down the dark hallway to my class. The hallways are usually unlit. No buildings in Kunming have central heating. I have about 35 students in each class, a blackboard, and chalk. There are no computers, overhead projectors, or texts in my classes. Each class lasts two hours with a ten minute break halfway through. I also take Chinese classes in this building. The bathrooms in the building are somewhat clean, although a bit smelly. The men's restroom is indicated with a "男" and the women's with a "女." The toilets are the typical squat toilets and there is usually water all over the floor. When you use a squat toilet, your back faces the wall. Toilet paper and hand towels are almost never provided in Chinese restrooms, so remember to bring your own. Also, did you remember not to throw the toilet paper in the toilet?

Afternoon.

I usually eat lunch with my students or with my Vietnamese classmates from my Chinese class. It is very rare to eat alone in China. My college has two main dining halls (very crowded at meal time), a Muslim restaurant (my favorite place to eat, although it's usually a 10 minute wait to get in the door), and a third small dining hall. Near the Muslim restaurant there is a long line of students filling their thermoses up with hot water. I often see my students lugging their thermoses to class. The metal school-lunch tray comes with a large serving of rice (0.7 yuan, about 9 cents), then a variety of fixin's in the buffet line, ranging in price from 0.6 yuan to 2.5 yuan per item. Chinese students often complain about the quality of cafeteria food--I assume this is the case of students anywhere--and I assure you that Chinese cafeteria food is much better than the cafeteria food I ate in the US & England. Also there are a few a-la-carte options such as noodles cooked in a clay pot, fried rice, Chinese burritos, bread, sweets. There is an attached convenience store where it's even possible to buy beer. It's not too bad eating there, although I pass on the ever-popular "Coffee Cola."

Most people have a two or three hour siesta after lunch. I have a three hour break and usually come home after lunch, check my email, and chat with Yuka whenever she's online. I am constantly reminded that it's important to take a nap, so I try to do that, but it's very strange for me to sleep during the daytime. I head back up the hill for my afternoon class, and have supper around 5 p.m. with my students. I often eat with Koby, the basketball superstar who knows everyone in Bailong Village. He tirelessly recruits other students to come with us, and usually tries to invite pretty girls he doesn't even know (it hasn't worked yet). He is the kind of student who learns more outside of class than inside, so it is a great opportunity for him to improve his English (and he is undoubtedly improving).

In the late afternoon, the street fills up with fruit vendors selling apples, oranges, pomegranates, pomelos, durians, bananas, pineapples, grapes off the back of bicycles. Also there are a few larger horse-drawn carts selling watermelons. There are many people selling snacks from their stalls. This chaos is set in the middle of the street, with all the vehicles, bicycles and pedestrians, and the shepherd boys bringing their flocks home from a day at the pasture. Each day it's a sight to behold and a chance to pinch myself and remind me that I'm in China. Wow.

Evenings.

After supper, I usually return home again. This is one thing I like about China: not so many cars, so people are always out walking around; it's inevitable that you will run into people you know, especially if you're a foreigner. It is a good time to make plans for the evening. Around dusk, all the barbecue people set up their red canopies and knee-high tables and ankle-high stools for a night of some serious grilling. Next to my apartment complex there is a restaurant of some repute. People go here for birthdays, celebrations, and occasionally weddings. It is a rowdy restaurant. Public vomiting is not really frowned upon here like it is in the US, and more often than not, you must watch your step in front of this restaurant, if you know what I mean. My colleague & friend Marietta said, "It must say something about the food there."

At the entrance of my compound, a guy on a motorcycle brings a daily big barrel of milk and people line up with their pots to fill up. Milk is popular here, but scarce. It usually comes from Inner Mongolia. I say, if you want to make money in China, sell milk. I've often been given a packet of milk as a treat, although I'm not a big fan of milk, I must be polite as it's relatively expensive. It is a person of status who is a milk drinker.

At my apartment complex in the evenings, the center of everything is the basketball court. The activity lasts from about 8 p.m. until 11 p.m. There are kids running around with toy battle axes, games of soft-volleyball with serious officials and whistles and cheers and flipping scores; old men standing around, smoking, and shooting hoops (simultaneously).

This is a bare-bones view of what goes on in Bailong Village daily life. There is plenty more that adds color and confusion and joy to my experience, and I'll get to that next time.