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.

Last Friday I was invited to a retreat for the first-year graduate students (or as they are called in China, post-graduates). They are from all over China so this is an opportunity for them to get to know each other, as well as teachers and administrators. So I was happy to go. I've been here for about eight weeks now and I can usually sniff out a good time.

The class monitor (sort of like the class president/secretary/liaison) had reserved a microbus and we all piled in. I was offered the front seat since I am a teacher and also taller than everyone else. We drove about 30 minutes out into the countryside to a beautiful hotel resort on the side of a forest-covered mountain. We played some Chinese card games (I was awful), air hockey, and ping pong under a red hammer & sickle. After that, a few of us went for a hike to take in the beautiful views of the mountains surrounding Kunming. This was the first day that it hadn't rained for three weeks, the sun was out, and China was glorious. We found a massive bridge being constructed, about 200 feet up, linking two mountain peaks, threading its way through a gorge, six lanes, but not quite yet ready for traffic. We were able to walk part of it. It was a long way down.

We arrived just in time for supper. We were led to some thatched-roof cabins where some farmers had prepared a banquet for us. Spread on a grill in the middle of the table was a whole sheep cooking over embers. A hotpot was boiling in another corner of the spread. Boxes of local beer piled up seemingly to the ceiling. We quickly dug in. Soon two of my students came up behind me and toasted me. They also toasted another teacher in the grad school. "Mr. Barnes! To a great year!" Two more students came and toasted me. Then two more. Then three. The three said, "Mr. Ryan. We are from Dongbei (Manchuria/northeastern China, near Siberia), and drinking for us is a piece of cake. So...ganbei!"

Now in English, we have "Cheers!" which precedes taking a sip. In China, they have "ganbei" which more closely resembles "bottoms up" (it literally means "dry glass"). Of course, I was not expected to drain my glass each time my students saluted me, but these people where from the Dongbei. These Manchus are different from the rest of the Chinese: very tall, well-built, accustomed to Iowa-like winters, and they drink like Russian sailors. They would not take my sips as veritable toasts. No, I had to down three glasses, one for each of them. No problem, I am from Iowa, but things got hazier after that.

I made up for my dizzy head with eating more, and sipping less and less at each toast. But at the end of the meal, I met Director Lou, the dean of the grad school. And his rambunctious wife. She shouted encouraging but somewhat heated things at me in Chinese. They each demanded a toast. Then it was time for fire dancing.

We were led to another area of the resort, with some girls in traditional costumes leading a dance around a bonfire. We all held hands in a large circle and danced to Chinese disco music. Occasionally, a man in an army uniform would throw gasoline on the fire and everyone would shout in wonder at the enraged flames. There also was a little slow-dancing and Mrs. Lou pulled me out of the crowd for a number. Then it kicked back into disco and she kicked into high gear. I've never seen someone with so much energy.

After the dancing, we went into the hotel, upstairs to the karaoke lounge. People in China love to sing. You always hear it on the street and almost daily I am asked to sing a song. "No" is not an acceptable answer. I looked through the short list of strange English songs and finally decided on "Hotel California." Fortunately, I was a long way down on the list, and was hoping that people would forget about it by then or it would be time to sleep. But Director Lou intervened. He used his influence to put me next on the list. So there I was, singing the Eagles in rural Yunnan Province, SW China.

Eventually, they put me in my own hotel room and I quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning, I woke up freezing. Apparently the window had been wide open and I had neglected to check that when I came into the room. It was a nice room, just like any American hotel, although I could have done without the unflushed toilet. I mean, come on, that's the most obvious thing.

I went down for breakfast--rice noodles and a hard boiled egg, and was ready to go back home and get some work done. I was told I would have to wait a little bit before we went back. No problem. I went up and played some ping pong (getting better all the time) and air hockey. Watched some students fish. Killed time before lunch. We went down to the restaurant and I took a seat with some of my students. But soon, the monitor came and said, "No, you must move. It's too crowded for you at this table." I was tired, and a little grumpy. I said, "I'm ok. I don't want to move. I'll stay here." He then grabbed my arm and forcibly drug me to a separate room and brought in a few students.

This is where I first experienced China-weariness. The lunch was splendid enough, but the conversation was an exercise in sheer tedium. I had earlier been told that we were going back in the morning. I didn't expect to be staying out here so long. I wanted to go home. I wanted to take a long nap, and get to work on grading papers. Most of all, I wanted to be alone. I didn't feel like talking, just sleeping. Instead, I was bombarded with questions:

"Hey Ruyan!...How long have you been in China?" --Seven weeks.
"Hey Reiuyn!...What sports do you like?" --basketball's ok, i guess.
"Hey Ruan!...Do you know Yao Ming?" --yup.
"Hey Lyan!...How long have you been in China?" --didn't you just hear me answer that question???
"Hey Ryan!...Do you know [some Chinese celebrity]?" --nope.

There were copious toasts and drinking, but I preferred to keep to the tea. Soon stumbling, red-faced students emerged from the larger dining area. Each time they seemed like they carried urgent news:

"Ryan! Ganbei!! Ryan!...Do you like China?" --not at the moment
"Ryan!...How long have you been China?" --...
"Have you been to Beijing/Shanghai/Xiamen

/Tianjin/etc.?" --I've only been here for seven weeks.

I love my students. I really do. But at this moment in time, I could have done without human interaction. Instead, the lunch dragged on. After we finished eating, we just sat there, in that little room, for another hour or two. The questions never ceased and never varied. Finally it was time to leave.

As an aside, my classes really picked up this week with groups 7 & 8. The students were much more eager to participate and much more relaxed. We now know each other and are capable of great things. I am thankful for this trip. I have been invited to another one tomorrow night with my other two classes, and am looking forward to it. I am beginning to understand that having good relations is an important thing in China. However, this time I am bringing a change of clothes, a guitar, and homework to grade.

Later that day, I biked downtown with Lester to the Prague Cafe. There we met up with a n American named Will who had a great story about the Czech jazz keyboardist Joe Zawinul stepping off an elevator in Detroit and bumping into Van Cliburn himself. Said Zawinul: "I'm better than you!"

Will lived on San Juan Island in the Pugent Sound for 30 years. Very interesting guy. He's also lived in S. Korea and been to Japan. As to why he moved to Asia: "I just bailed." I also met a man that Lester keeps telling me about: John Thorne. He received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Hong Kong University and is writing a book about the earliest Western travelers in Yunnan. Very interesting guy. Marietta and Janet were there too, so it was great company. We went to eat at a Sichuanese restaurant and talk at Chapter One, an expat hangout/English book bar. I listened to Lester and John go off, everything about the history of the sugar trade in China, how the Mekong divides rather than unites, the arrogant G.E. Morrison, etc. Really, it was fascinating, although I had a hard time keeping up. By now I was pretty tired.

The next morning, I woke up early and went to the provincial-wide CCTV Cup English speaking competition. It was held at Yunnan Agricultural University here in Kunming, and I went along with some students to support Kaylen, the champion of our school's competition that I had previously judged. In this competition, Marietta was a judge, along with some other Americans from various universities in Yunnan and assorted Chinese faculty. There were 24 contestants and around 21 superb speeches. The top two move on to the national competition. Fortunately, I was just a spectator.

After the four hour competition, we all went out to eat at a fine restaurant, and then I took a long nap. That evening, my boss Mr. Li met us foreign teachers at the gate of the living compound with some sleek, black hired cars. We went out with the president of the college and some other officials to the nicest restaurant I've ever been to in my life. In the middle of the floor, barely visible between beads of crystal draped from the ceiling, was a banquet table on a raised glass platform.

However, this was not for us. Instead, we went to a slightly less opulent private dining room and were served course after course of delicacies. On the wall was flat-paneled TV screen, presumably for karaoke. At my table was the director of a nature reserve in Xishangbanna (one of Yuannan Province's four key nature reserves), the dean of the Science department, a Japanese teacher from Osaka, and Gary from Idaho. He is the college's resident foreign expert and the director of the forestry museum on campus. He had some interesting stories about refugee work Somalia, Cambodia, and being hit by a car in front of the US Embassy in Bangkok (he caused more damage to the car than the car did to him). Apparently Coca-Cola owns massive shrimp farms off the coast of California.

We went for a stroll after supper, stepping into a B&Q, which is much like a Home Depot. It was interesting checking out a high-end Chinese home improvement store, seeing the fancy toilets, bathtubs, and fixtures that the newly rich Chinese are putting in their homes. The staff were in orange uniforms and black aprons. Their nametags had both Chinese and English names. Cheesy muzak played overhead, exactly the same soft rock shlock I remember from my days at Staples.

After that, I indulged myself in a 45 minute massage on a street corner near my living compound. Some older blind people set up shop in the early evening and give a full body massage for 10 kuai, about $1.25. I joked around with my masseuse, reciting all the Kunming dialect I could remember. All my sore muscles from hiking in the mountains two days previous suddenly were pacified. I went home and fell into a deep sleep.

This week I went out with Lester for some Dongbei food (the closest thing I've had to Iowa cuisine since I've been here--I especially enjoyed the sweet potatoes in caramelized sugar) and some Xinjiang cuisine. There is a sizable Xinjiang community in this part of Kunming, and eating at this restaurant is always an exotic experience. Xinjiang (Sinkiang) is the Wild West of China, bordering the nations of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan. The people are of Turkic descent and use the Arabic script for their Uighur language. They are Muslims and look like any other Central Asian. Bollywood rock music played on the TV, and herb-infused naan bread and kebabs made our mouths water. Yes, this too is China.

Today I played volleyball with the foreign languages department, which was great fun. It was my first chance to hang out with some fellow teachers (besides the wedding). Most of them are in their late 20s or early 30s, so it should be a great time getting to know them better. Next Thursday is more volleyball. Soon we will be taking on other departments at the college.

Please cheer for my comrades and me.

Last week was China's October National Holiday. October 1st was National Day, commemorating the 57th birthday of the People's Republic of China. To celebrate, I went with some students to climb Xi Shan, the western mountains of Kunming. We left very early in the day, and it was a little rainy (it's rained for the past two weeks straight...I feel like I'm back in Oregon again) but well worth the great views and clean air. We ascended through some forests, past the tomb of Nie Er (the composer of China's national anthem), past ancient Taoist and Buddhist temples, past a 600 year-old gingko tree planted by a Ming Dynasty emperor, and finally we took a break in a small village toward the top. Up in these mountains farmers will invite travelers to their small courtyards for home-cooked meals. There we ate vegetables, tofu, rice with potatoes, cabbage, pumpkin, pickled garlic & ginger, watermelon, and fresh apples...all for 7 yuan each, less than $1. If we finished a certain plate, they would bring more of it until we were full. One student brought his guitar and we took turns playing some American and Chinese rock songs, much to the delight of the local teenagers.

After the lunch, we climbed through "Little Stone Forest," an outcropping of bizarre karst topography. Apparently in China, or at least here in Yunnan, when you reach a significant peak in your climb, you must shout and scream until others on different significant peaks shout and scream back. Also, as always, if you see a foreigner you must shout, "Hallloooooo!!" A Chinese girl once told me that the reason China is so loud is because, being such a mountainous country, people had to shout across the valleys to communicate with each other.

We finally arrived at a pavilion at the top of the stone forest, at the top of the Western Hills. Below was the massive Lake Dian-chi and dancing inside the pavilion were some people of the Yi nationality in colorful traditional clothing. One of my students asked one of them if they normally dressed that way, and the boy replied, "Of course! We're Yi!" After that, we descended the slopes and arrived back in Kunming very late, and incredibly exhausted.

The next day, I got on a train to Guiyang, capital of neighboring Guizhou Province. I was feeling adventurous, and taking the advice of a friend, opted for a "hard seat"/3rd class on the 12 hour night train. When I showed my ticket to the conductors, no one could believe I would travel this way. "Don't you want a sleeper?" they asked me in Chinese. When I stepped onto the car, I was met with many confused stares. This is how "real" China travels. People were friendly, offering me sundry fruits and sweets: shíliù (pomegranate), yòuzi (a pomelo, like a huge grapefruit but sweeter and more fragrant), yuèbĭng (mooncakes). After all, it is October Holiday. Soon a guard came by and asked to see my ticket. He read it, checked my seat, and checked the ticket again. He shook his head and walked away. A few minutes later, another guard came by and asked me to move to the dining car. He said it was more comfortable. So I went to the dining car. That's my hard seat experience, all 45 minutes of it.

In the dining car, I met two young Chinese women, one who works for Hainan Airlines and the other who is a doctor. It was interesting talking to them about Chinese literature and learning some expressions in local Kunming dialect, which is very different from the standard Mandarin taught in schools. I soon fell asleep at my table and woke up to the Dr. Seuss-like landscape of Guizhou Province and the rail staff goofing around in the dining car.

Guiyang is different from Kunming. There are hardly any foreigners, there are not nearly as many cars and bicycles on the road, and the girls have paler skin. The city is famous for bathhouses and mahjong (Chinese dominoes). It is said that on an airplane you know you're flying over Guiyang when you hear the mahjong tiles clicking. I met my Chinese friend Jennie at the station who had invited me to stay at her family's house. They took me out for breakfast at a traditional Guiyang rice-noodle restaurant (I passed on the blood broth and intestines). After that, we walked through the flower and bird market, full of animals, strange Oriental antiques, and samurai swords left over from the Japanese occupation. We met up with more people from the extended family and drove out into the countryside. Soon, we arrived at a small village of about 100 people on the other side of the mountain from Guiyang. We were met with a large spread of food in a room that looked like a garage, complete with the overhead door. There was a gas can full of baijiu, the infamous Chinese firewater, but I passed on that too. Save it to fuel the cars.


This town was interesting because the farmers are erecting buildings on their land which are intended to be houses, only no one has ever lived there. Guiyang is expanding so rapidly that soon it will encroach on this village. Instead of the developers or the government buying the cheap farmland, they will have to pay for the living units as well. However, the town was poor. Poorer than anything I ever saw. This is how many people in China live, in a small one-room house, a pig in the next room, a rooster out front, electricity but no indoor plumbing. There are outhouses around and a cesspool directly behind it which drains into the fields as fertilizer. I was careful where I stepped. Some people were fishing in a dirty cement pond.

Jennie and I went climbing around the neighboring mountains and stumbled into an old cemetery where some people were lighting off fireworks at their ancestors’ tomb. Each tomb had a small stone table where the family could eat a meal after the ceremony. Life (and death) in Chinese revolves around eating. After our return to the village, we went to a building which served as a sort of community center. The second floor had recently been completed and a throng of elementary-aged girls surrounded me. I was the first foreigner to ever visit this village. Even visits from the city folk are rare. We were invited to a banquet downstairs which celebrated the completion of the second floor (only the week previous) and the visit of the guests. I couldn’t believe the food! It was a full banquet, four-star restaurant quality (did I mention that Chinese people can cook?!?), lots of fresh vegetables, meats, and seafood. Where did all this come from? One city person in our party politely suggested that we go easy on the meat and the seafood because, “the fresh vegetables are what we come out to the countryside for.” In truth, the village people were waiting for us to eat first and would have the leftovers later. This is hospitality.

I left full, happy, a local celebrity, and with many new friends from this mysterious village in the Guizhou mountains.

The next day, Jennie, her Vietnamese boyfriend Le, and I went to the huge Qianling Park, hired a rowboat and took a tour of the lake. We saw one man and his restaurant on the opposite shore and invited him on board. He brought his “restaurant,” which was a charcoal grill and some “stinky tofu.” He cooked this in front of us while we rowed our way across the lake. Many people in other boats shouted “laowai!” (老外/honorable foreigner!), to which I was told to reply, “laozhong!” (老中/honorable Chinese person!).

On our way out of the park, we were assaulted by monkeys. People were throwing food to them; one was drinking water out of a plastic Pepsi bottle. One had landed on a man’s head (have pictures of this). A person discreetly asked my friend Le if he wanted to buy a monkey for himself.

The next day, we rode a bone-jarring bus out to the countryside again, this time to a park that I regretfully forgot the name of. It was full of waterfalls, caves, old-fashioned Chinese bamboo waterwheels, and people whizzing by on a zip cord overhead, screaming for dear life. We took a boat tour of a water cave, but this is like no cave you see in America. No, here in China, in this cave at least, there is flashing neon and Christmas lights strung around formations of interest. After the cave, we transferred into another boat (a motor boat this time). At a small waterfall, we ascended some steps and boarded another motorboat for a fast cruise down a lazy river, past a farmer and his ox, through the “Little Three Gorges” of Guizhou. In all, we cruised in five boats. After the voyage, we went on a tour of a dry cave which was interesting for its stalactites and stalagmites, new vocabulary for my English major friend Jennie. At the end of the cave was a long carved tunnel with swirling, flashing lights, like a Dr. Who wormhole. I felt the overwhelming urge to dash through this and scream. Kids followed suit. It seemed the appropriate thing to do.

That night we went out to eat hotpot, an entertaining meal. There is a hole carved into the table where a large pot filled with broth is placed above a hot flame. You order your own ingredients to be cooked in front of you. Le ordered pig brains to add to the mix, but I passed on that. After supper we took a taxi downtown, past a huge glistening white statue of Mao. He is holding up five fingers, which happen to be directly above an underground Wal-Mart. Guiyang people joke that Chairman Mao is saying, “If you play mahjong, only bet five kuai!”

The other thing Guiyang that makes famous is (legitimate) bathhouses. We tried out the Bangkok Paradise. We were greeted in opulent Thai-themed surroundings, leaving our shoes at the door. Le & I were whisked into the men’s bathing quarters, given a locker and a white towel, and then sent to the bathing room, which is a huge pool full of hot water. Very relaxing after a long day’s hike. Of course the TV was going. Can’t pass that up in China. After a relaxing soak, we were given some pajamas to wear and were escorted upstairs to the sleeping lounge. This is an open room of about 100 reclining single beds with a large TV and a pair of headphones for each bed. Many people spend the night here, even families (of course there are private rooms as well but I wouldn’t know anything about that!!!). There also was a bar and plenty of staff roaming around with food and expensive cigarettes. All three of us were given 40 minute full-body massages. I even got my feet washed and massaged! All this comfort put me to sleep immediately. The next morning, I had a quick dip in the hot pool again, and checked out, getting my freshly polished shoes back. The total price for three people: 150 yuan, about $19.

The next day was Mid-Autumn Festival, or what I call Chinese Thanksgiving. Jennie’s father owns restaurants in Beijing and Shanghai, so I was excited to have a great family meal. We went to the grandparents’ house and were greeted by all the extended family. Everyone was so dressed-up. Grandfather was in a suit and tie. After some serious picture taking, we got down to some serious eating. Ah, the food. Wood ears and mushrooms in garlic sauce, Beijing duck, prawns, fish soup, spicy cucumber, tender roasted chestnuts, homemade wine…I only wish I had a bottomless stomach, or at least two.

Finally, sadly, it was time to leave. Le and I took the overnight train back to Kunming, this time opting for a hard-sleeper. This is a car with separate compartments of six open (but soft) bunks. It is a fine way to meet people, and I had many interesting conversations with my neighbors until late in the night. One man told a children’s story about the famous Stone Forest. Even a railway conductor came and sat with us and chatted until the next stop.

Saturday was the first time I attended a Chinese wedding. One of my colleagues, a woman from the foreign languages department (yes, English is a foreign language), was to be married. A chartered bus was waiting at the apartments where we teachers live. Mood music was pumping again, this time Enya. I heard some beautiful Chinese songs on the drive there, and wished I too could know the words and the melody. They also played The Eagles’ “Hotel California.”

The ceremony was in the banquet room of a fancy downtown hotel called the Golden Dragon. The tradition is to greet the bride and groom at the door and give them a red envelope full of money. A girl whom I assumed to be a bridesmaid was welcoming guests with a bowl of treats, full of chocolate, sweets, peanuts, and loose cigarettes.

Upstairs was the banquet room. It was packed. Dishes were brought out one after the other, beef, spare ribs, shrimp, braised bean cake, etc. When the bride and groom finally entered, everyone stood up and applauded. The newlyweds took a seat on the stage and were introduced by an MC, who served as the evening’s entertainment. There were a lot of speeches and laughter, but I was in the back and don’t speak much Chinese.

There were also inevitable toasts of baijiu with my colleagues. I sat next to an eccentric Chinese man named Mark Browning (“He was a great poet!”). I think many of the foreign language staff liked to see him drunk so there were always excuses to toast. It became quite silly after a while, and it was fun listening to the staff speak, because this time everything was in English, so I could get their jokes and fully jump into the Chinese experience.

The past three days have been teaching. Back to work. I am suddenly inundated with hundreds of assignments from my English writing classes. It reminds me of a photo I once saw of a hapless judge in India, completely surrounded by backlogged cases, literally floor to ceiling, grimacing between stacks of papers on her desk two meters high. Well, maybe it’s not that bad.

Today a student gave me a beautiful framed specimen of a butterfly (Cerhosia Cyana) and I met a meteorologist who just got back from Chicago. He is also the college’s Director of Propaganda. Just now a person came to my door to invite me to host the inaugural party of Southwest Forestry College’s Culture Committee on Sunday…I said yes but not really sure what it’s about. Should be interesting, as always.

One month already

It has been about two weeks since last I wrote, and books worth of experiences have transpired. So I need to be more frequent in my writings otherwise it will be very, very difficult to describe anything in detail. I will do my best.

I got a 45 minute massage from a blind woman for 10 kuai, about $1.25. Never slept so well in my life. It was after a day of sightseeing, jumping on buses and seeing where they went, getting strange stares, and finding my way back. It's a hit-or-miss way of sightseeing, but nevertheless interesting. One thing I saw that day was a group of children crowded around a woman pouring globs of honey on a hotplate. Next to the hotplate, there was a wooden spinner with pictures of animals. The kids would spin the dial, indicating the design of whatever animal it landed on. The lady put a bamboo stick in the mess of honey, and the honey slowly liquified and became the animal shape. It would cool and harden, leaving an animal-shaped honey popsickle. Fantastic.

Last Saturday I went to the nearby ancient city of Guandu. I had to take two buses to get there, and we ended up bouncing down a dirt road past cement factories and ubiquitous black-smoke belching blue construction trucks hurling to the next massive Chinese construction site. People were staring at me, asking me where I was going, if I was ok, but I was confident in my advice to check out "old Kunming"...which later turned out to be Guandu.

When I stepped of the bus, it was into a different world. The city "buses" here were horses pulling carriages lined with padded benches. I don't think it was for the tourists, either. The people looked like locals. I was very hungry by that time, and ordered some Chinese bread from a street vendor. Obviously not many foreigners come to this place. The girl working starting laughing so hard when I asked her the price that she nearly knocked over the money bucket. Her mother had to come out and help me.

After that, stumbling through the construction sites, I found the city. A few nice temples, ancient pagodas, tea houses. They were shooting a movie when I walked on the scence. Women were in traditional minority dress drinking tea underneath a 1000 year old pagoda. I also saw (not in the movie) a Taoist fortune teller (on the street) and a parked bicycle with a pigeon in a cage strapped to the back (got a picture of that). I explored some temples and ended up talking to some Chinese kids. Suddenly a great crowd of people were surrounding me, maybe 100 souls, watching me interact with the children. I felt socially unprepared in this situation...unsure if I should give a speech, offer some kind of message of peace, or tell a joke. Eventually I waved goodbye to the kids and parted the crowd and disappeared into another temple.

This was my first real week of teaching. The students are from all over China including Tibet, Xinjiang, Guanxi, and Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regions. They are all graduate students, mostly city planning, landscaping, and horticulture majors. Their English ability varies greatly. I teach four groups two sessions each: oral English and written English. In my written English class, I had them write about an early experience in their life that impacted their development. I got some incredible results. Some have come so far...I will never complain about being "poor" in America again. One thing I really want to do with the writing classes is create an online magazine with polished works, as there are some true gems. Many Chinese are eager to share their culture and experiences with the outside world and I think the world is always developing more and more curiosity about this glorious, ancient civilization.

The students often choose English names, just as I have a Chinese name (Lai-An). Some names are Sellina, Andrew, David, Tom, Harly, Koby, Abu, Fly, Jojo, Mellon, Spider, Marble, Eleven, Duck, Volleyball, Tirumisum, and Carton.

They are highly motivated and often I see students coming to different sessions the same week, or students showing up that aren't even in my classes. People here really want to learn English, although it is difficult to get them talking. There is the Confucian respect for the teacher, and a reluctance to speak up in class. As my girlfriend taught me, in Asia the "banking system" of education is strongly established, where the teacher "deposits" the knowledge in the students' mind. In the West, I grew up in a much more decentralized educational experience that encouraged more interaction and experiential learning. So, as I always am trying to do in China, I must find a happy comprimise.

This coming week is Mid-Autumn Festival, or October National Holiday, celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of China on 1 Oct 1949. The holiday goes further back though, and I've gotten about ten pounds of mooncakes from students and colleagues. Mooncakes are delicious soft cakes usually filled with sweet bean paste. The box I got from the Foreign Affairs Office is over the top, however, in packaging and delectability.

I have a week vacation for this Holiday so I am going to Xishan (Western Hills of Kunming) for Oct. 1 National Day, and then Guiyang to stay at a friend's house. During this trip I also hope to see China's largest waterfall.

Last night was a welcome celebration for the college freshmen. I expected to see a little music, and maybe some dancing, so I wandered up there by myself. It was a little dark when I got there (about 7 p.m.) and I encountered a man in a suit and tie at the entrance. I thought he was going to stop me since I didn't have an invitation or anything. Instead, he shook my hand, got on the walkie-talkie, led me down a red carpet to another man in a suit who led me to a seat in the second row, directly behind the "leader of the college." There were bowls of fruit and bottled water all around. The performance was over the top.

There were fireworks, ethnic dancing, a fashion show, a Cinderella play (in English), a Romance of the Three Kingdoms performance, a wedding cake (I got a piece, garnished with fruit and a cherry tomato), and celebrity performers. One performer jumped on stage, seemingly straight from the mountains, bearskin-clad, pierced ear, shaved head, bawling away in a tribal chant. One man brought down the house with his performance of "Labalabalaba" (don't know the real title but it's a raucous Xinjiang love song that I've heard many times here...heard it translates "pretty girls, come here, follow me"). I didn't catch his name but he seems to be known all throughout China (he won a national competition for the best young male singer). He ran down into the crowd during his performance and shouted, "Hello!" at me in the middle of his song. All in all, the gala lasted about four hours.

If this happens in obscure Bailong Village in Kunming, it gives me chills to think what they will pull off for the opening ceremonies of the Beijing Olympic Games.

This week I also helped judge the schoolwide English speaking competition. Once again, there were hostesses in red dresses, bottled water, and tons of flowers. This is part of the 2006 CCTV Cup English Speaking Contest (the biggest TV channel in China). The winner goes on to the provincial level, and then to the national level. The championships are broadcast worldwide. The auditorium was packed and enthusiastic, and the mood music was pumping. There were some fine speeches. The topic was "Unity and Diversity." I was especially impressed with the non-English majors for their ability to work on both their English and their majors. At the beginning, I was asked to give a speech at the end while the votes were tallied, so I furiously scribbled a speech between my judging responsibilities.

I talked about American music and the institution of the House of Blues (located in 17 cities across the US and Canada). The mission of the House of Blues is "Unity in Diversity"--preserving the great traditions of American music while fostering new sounds as well. I remarked I that I hoped the same thing for my country. I also talked about the unity of excellence and the diverse paths to get there, and the excellent speeches we heard tonight.

Oh, let me tell you about Chairman Mao, but please don't read on if you are easily offended. This is not the Chairman Mao that you see on the 100 yuan bill. No, this is a teacher at my college named Mr. Mao, from Vietnam Forestry College. He's a small man, about 65 years of age. He is deemed "Chairman" because of his prodigious drinking abilities. I briefly met him once, but didn't have much of an introduction (or warning). I saw him the other day walking, and he invited me to lunch, and to drink a "little wine." I thought he meant red wine, but when Vietnamese people say "wine," they mean "baijiu," Chinese firewater.

Soon there was a bottle of baijiu on the table. He poured generous teacups full of the stuff (this is 50% stuff) and started telling stories of living in Leningrad and Beijing (he speaks English, Chinese, Russian, and Vietnamese). Soon a couple other Vietnamese students showed up just as the first bottle was being polished off. "Chuc mun!" Another bottle appeared and then disappeared. I had to duck out. This man was half my size, three times my age, and five times my drinking ability. I saw him later that day, and was invited to supper, but told him I couldn't drink any more baijiu. I got off drinking a small glass of beer, but he was still going. No problem.

Long Live Chairman Mao!

This morning at about 10:00 a.m., air raid sirens started wailing. I was on campus at Southwest Forestry University, and all around me the Chinese students were carrying on in their normal ways, so I didn't worry too much about it. In the meantime I went to my basic Chinese speaking class on the 6th floor of my Classroom Building A--known on campus as "Potala Palace"--and the siren was wailing from directly overhead. It had to be have been 20 minutes. It was eerie. No conversation could take place, nothing could be heard except for the screaming lament. This was deafening. I mean louder than China normally is. The teacher looked annoyed.

Later I found out that today is the 75th anniversary of the Manchurian Incident, or known in China as the September 18th Incident. On 18 September 1931, around 10:20 p.m., a mysterious explosion was heard on the railroad track near Mukden (today's Shenyang). The explosion, nothing major, only damaged about 1.5 meters of track. However, this 1.5m led to a massive Japanese invasion and the almost immediate fall of Manchuria. Over the next 14 years, millions upon millions of Chinese would die brutal deaths in total war, including six weeks of hell on earth in Nanking. That's all I have to say about that.

I have also been here for the 30th anniversary of Mao's death, but that was pretty low-key. I did see his portrait hanging in a bar above two long-haired Chinese guys in AC-DC T-shirts playing Nirvana songs on amplified guitars. A sudden banquet ensued, which I was invited to, and laughing and merriment lasted well into the night. My ability to speak Mandarin greatly improved, so it seemed, if only for a night.

Today was my first day of teaching, in my life! It was pouring rain all day. Remember, this is the tropics, and the end of monsoon season. There are palm trees around. On my door this morning I received a note from my colleague Marietta, wishing me a "Happy 'first' day of teaching. Glad you are in Kunming." I dressed up in my Sunday best, and was prepared to take on 39 graduate students for an English Writing class. I got there and the door was locked to my classroom. I went down to the Foreign Languages Department and someone showed up eventually to let me in. At long last, 10 minutes after the class was to begin, about four students trickled in. Then, about 45 minutes into the class, four more appeared. That was it. Eight out of 40 and one girl wasn't even supposed to be in the class (what was she doing there? I never figured it out). Halfway through, I was told that the central government had just decided this morning to postpone graduate courses by another week. Welcome to China!

Overheard at an English department meeting:
Chinese professor: "...And that's the ridiculous part of China."
Another professor: "Oh, you found that part?!?"

Most of my friends here are around 60 years old. It seems that expat life is very cross-generational. On Saturday I went out to eat lunch with three women of that age group. We must look very strange to the Chinese! One was Marietta, one was named Nora (she's a Catholic nun from Cork, Ireland), and the other was a former school superintendent from Vermont named Janet. I got to hear a unique perspective on the recent history of the city. It is amazing to think that 10 years ago, the tallest building in the city was the Yunnan University Hotel (seven stories). Now there are skyscrapers everywhere. My neighborhood is undergoing a serious bout of hyper-construction. There is an endless parade of blue cement trucks and donkey carts pulling building materials, cranes, jackhammers, dust. In fact, I will be moving to a new building in October...as soon as it's completed. I've never seen buildings go up and down so quickly (I've only been here three weeks).

Janet is a very interesting, focused person. Her husband passed away about six years ago, and she came to China on a conference, and never left, except for brief visits. Now she teaches at Yunnan Normal University, a teacher training college. She has given seminars all over the country and does a bit of scholarly writing. I received a top-notch intensive course on the art of teaching English to the Chinese ("take it easy!") and she lent me a couple of books, including a collection of short stories by the Chinese writer Ha Jin (the book's called Under the Red Flag, stellar, bizarre).

Today being my first class, I asked the students (who were actually there) what they wanted to learn. This is a very different approach from the traditional "banking system" of education prevalent in Asia. I had some really interesting results. These students are college graduates from all over the country, very highly motivated, although having greatly varied abilities in the English language (their majors are horticulture, environmental engineering, forestry and such). From the small sample I had, they mainly want to write English research papers and scientific articles and then continue their studies in the U.S. Many of course want to know about life in the US, who my favorite pop stars are ("Michael Jackson?" "Whitney Houston?" "Michael Bolton?"). It seems to be a very rewarding and interesting semester...as soon as it begins and people start showing up. I am definitely excited.

Last Friday, I walked into an English speaking competition for the Foreign Languages Department and found out that I was to be a judge. I had no idea. I was also told to ask questions based on the speeches (which I have never heard before), and that the Q&A section was 30% of the score. The three winners would advance to a school-wide competition, then provincial, then national. Sometime next year the winners will be shown on CCTV International. The topic was "Unity and Diversity." Tough. The speeches were very good, except for one person I couldn't understand and another who read off a sheet of paper (they were supposed to memorize the speeches). I was amazed at the language ability of some of these students, who have probably never left China, who have probably never have known a native speaker. This is their one big shot to show the world who they are. This eagerness I find in China (along with the wildness) is one thing I really like about here. I have a feeling that the Beijing Olympics are going to be incredible.

Now I am past that initial three week shock. Now things are beginning to make sense and I am able to use my rudimentary Mandarin skills somewhat effectively. I also want to talk about other things in the past week: my new Vietnamese friends I'm taking the Chinese classes with, getting a bike (no comment on my first experience riding downtown...whoa...), recording a promotional video, the eating at a packed Brothers Jiang restaurant and sharing the table with a startled family, but I must stop here. I need to sleep once in a while.

Our tale continues; it is of what befell under the People's Republic of China, in the era of Chairman Hu Jintao: in that period of the 11th Five Year Plan known as "Peaceful Development." In that time, in the province of Yunnan, in the district of Panlong-qu, in the neighborhood of Bailong-si, which is part of the juridiction of Kunming-shi, your humble narrator experienced his second week in China.

First of all I really want to thank everyone for their kind thoughts and emails. Homesickness is not an accute affliction for me, but neither am I immune. Hearing from my friends and family, however near or far away certainly makes my day. I have been filling my days getting oriented with the city, riding the crowded buses downtown. It is not impolite to push your way onto the bus and there's no such thing as a linear line to embark. The bus's intercom system blares with announcements of the next stop and all nearby points of interest. Once in a while, I catch something in English but it jumps back mid-sentence into Mandarin. The screen at the front of the bus scrolls across the stops in red heiroglyphs and the LCD TV on the bus blasts, at full volume, public service announcements and entertainment programming. Usually these screens are visible because most people stand chin-height to me. The bus driver frequently honks at obstacles, perceived and real, and often I'll see a large potted plant and a jar of tea beside him. The ride is jarring and slow, but great fun. It costs 1 yuan to ride, less than 13 cents.

The Chinese are in fact very good drivers, although I would not feel comfortable driving here. It takes great courage to even cross the street. The one rule about China is that one does not travel in a straight line. The lane markers on the road are guidelines, not law-enforcebale forcefields like in the US. It is not unusual to see a traffic jam of 12 different types of wheeled vehicles, aimed in 12 different directions. But somehow, some way, it works.

I went to a English teachers' meeting, which was completely in Chinese. The upswing of it was being invited to a teachers' function, the first of the year, to see Dynamic Yunnan, "A Grand Primitive Song & Dance Medley." This group performs internationally (known overseas as "Looking for Shangri-La") and is known throughout China. It is correographed by China's most famous dancer (Yang Li Ping), and features performers who were formerly peasant farmers in rural Yunnan. It highlights the various costumes, songs, and dances of the minority groups of the province, but is also distinctly modern. The performance was flawless, and best put in the New York Times (5 March 2005) as " staging ritualistic folk dances, beating drums, stomping, singing and floating elegantly across the stage like butterflies." Powerful.

I went to Daguan Park, on the shore of one of China's largest freshwater lakes, Dian Chi. This park, like many places here, predates the Pilgrims' landing at Plymouth Rock. Arched bridges, Buddhist pavilions, water lillies, bumper cars, a brand-new sculpture garden, a bonzai exhibit, traditional music, a man practicing gongfu (Kung Fu), the stuff I really enjoy about China.

What I don't enjoy about China is all the noise, the black clouds belching from the endless parade of construction vehicles, the incessant "Hellooooo" from passersby, the intestinal symptom the Chinese euphamistically call "spicy stomach," mosquitos, not being able to read very much or understand people's words no matter how many times they repeat themselves. I still want to tell them that I thank them greatly for their patience. Soon I will be able to that: my Chinese classes begin tomorrow. I will be taking them with a recently-arrived colleague from South Philly named Marietta, an energetic woman forged by 1960's whom I already know will be great fun getting to know. My other classmates will be the Vietnamese students here on a language program, like me, true beginners. Wo bu hui shuo Zhongwen.

Tonight, my colleague/neighbors Marietta, Lester, and I went out for Western food at Wei's Pizzeria. It is owned by a Dutchman and his Chinese wife. The pizza was great (ovens are very rare in China, and this one was brick) and a welcome break from noodle joints with undecipherable menus. I'm comforted in having fellow countrymen as neighbors, and although they're from my parents' generation and hold advanced degrees and have years of international teaching experience (which I don't), none of that matters. Context counts here: They are going through the same things I'm going through.

I have just received a phone call from my boss, Mr. Li, inviting me to do a voice-over tomorrow for the college's promotional video. He promised me that I will be heard "all over the world." Apparently, people already know me at the college, even though I don't start teaching until next week. Marietta told me today that her students are calling me "Golden Boy" on account of my hair. I like that!!

There are homeless people in China, although I haven't seen nearly as many as in the US. There are destitute beggars with physical deformities and orphans on the street. This is sad and troubling, not only because it's in China but worldwide. I did see one remarkable thing, however. A man with one arm, on the ground, painting page after page of beautiful Chinese calligraphy. Only he wasn't using his hand to draw: the brush was in his mouth, from whence each graceful stroke emerged.

My first week in China.

Imagine being in a place where everyone is surprised to see you. Not in a familiar or negative way, just genuine curiosity. To that mix add a difficult writing system which for the most part I cannot comprehend, a language that leaves me baffled, and a culture that only causes me to laugh. My first day in China was in Guangzhou, playing ping pong, and my opponent told me, "Take it easy." I will heed that advice during my time here.

To get here, to the place the Chinese call their country, "The Central Country," I traveled half the circumference of the globe: 12,000 miles: tears of parting in Eugene, Oregon; sleeping in my car while traversing 2000 miles cross country on the longest highway in America (US 20) to Iowa; raucous nights in Sioux City; delays and cancellations in Cedar Rapids; a broken down car and a tow truck ride to an auto body shop in Denver; Holiday Inn in L.A.; Narita Airport in Tokyo; Chunking Mansions in Hong Kong; walking across the Chinese border at Lo Wu; tears of joy and anticipation in Shenzhen; ping pong in Guangzhou; arriving to a new moon in Kunming (population 3.5 million, a medium-sized Chinese city).

I am currently in a "surf-bar," a cybercafe in my neighborhood, Bailong, otherwise known as White Dragon Village. It costs 2 yuan per hour to use the Internet here, about 25 cents. Across the street, if the cartoonish illustrations in the window are any guide, you can order chicken, fish, dog, and Felix the Cat. In the street there is an endless promenade of pedestrians, bicycles, horse and donkey carts, tractor-like contraptions, goat herds, electric scooters, motorcycle taxis, cars, cement trucks, buses. Everything is honking because China has to be that loud. After all, it's China.

My life in China is hard to put in words because there is an other-worldly feel to it. One of my first nights in Kunming, the college president Mr. Liu of Xinanlinxueyuen (the place of my employment, ..>..>a.k.a , Southwest of China Forestry University) took us three foreign teachers and the Foreign Affairs staff out to eat mushroom hotpot. There was also a fellow American, a foreign expert studying beetles here. Yunnan Province (of which Kunming is the capital) is a hotspot for tiger beetles, of which there 145 species, 78 living in Yunnan. The larvae live in tobacco plants and prey on harmful insects to this valuable cash crop. Consequently the college receives virtually unlimited funding from the Chinese government (after all, tobacco is by far the People's Republic of China's biggest source of income). There have been two new species they've discovered. We had at least seven different mushrooms cooked in a boiling broth, along with various vegetables and turtle, and a side of click beetles (bamboo worms) and dragonfly larvae. This was all washed down with copious toasts and shots of maitai baijiu (106 proof Chinese whiskey). It was an excellent feast.

I mustered up the courage one night to play some Chinese students in a game of outdoor pool (very cheap here). One guy's name was Johnny and the other calls himself Berry (because he likes berries). The next morning they met me at my apartment and took me to a place called Golden Temple. This was the summer residence of one Mr. Wu Sangui, a Qing dynasty general whom the emperor sent to repress the Southwest and, well, Mr. Wu ended up setting up a rebel kingdom in Yunnan. He built a 250-ton Taoist temple completely out of bronze in 1602, the largest work of bronze architecture in China. This is on top of Mingfeng Mountain. There is also a 44 pound broadsword on site.

After the temple, one of my newfound friends, Xiao Chien ("small Chien"), took us to her tea school. There was a classroom full of students learning the ceremonial art of pouring tea, including who just might be the most beautiful girl in China as well as a student still in his army uniform! The head teacher of the school ended up serving us five some of Yunnan's most famous tea, Pu'er. It was of golden color, sweet in taste, and aged over ten years. Unfortunately, she only spoke Mandarin, so I missed out on the interesting history of tea in Yunnan province, the most appropriate temperature of the tea (and the glass), and how to correctly wash the tea. For maximum effect, one must drink at least 10 glasses (we had at least 20); we quickly entered a world of great relaxation. Supposedly this brick of tea we were drinking from costs 2800 yuan, about $350 US. This was all free, and we were invited back for more any time. ..>..>

I have seen a 1200 year-old Zen temple (monks and chanting and a great big Buddha donated by the king of Thailand), twin 13-story pagodas built between 824 and 859, and received a massage from a blind man downtown for 40 yuan/$5 . I also went to a large park and listened to some women singing and dancing to a song about Shangri-La (which does exist, and is in Yunnan). Marvelous. This was all today.

On 30 September, I went down to Green Lake Park. There were some older people playing a two-stringed instrument (erhu) that sounds like a violin, and one older gentleman in a Mao suit let me play a three stringed instrument that sounds like a banjo. At first, I couldn't figure out why there were so many middle-aged people there talking and so much music, but soon I found out why....

On the 10th, 20th, 30th and every Saturday morning, parents of marriage-aged children meet in this park to hopefully make a match! They bring pictures of their child and even resumes. Since I was the only young person, and a foreigner, you can guess that I was very popular! People crowded around me and asked me many questions. They were really friendly though, and some spoke English and explained it all to me. One lady had her baby touch my hairy arms!

My apartment is provided by my school, as is its electricity, water, gas, and cleaning lady. I have two comfortable bedrooms, 75 channels of cable TV (only one is in English, a boring CCTV news channel), and a large balcony where I can reach out and touch a bamboo tree and admire bonzai trees in my park-like middle-class neighborhood. I get paid tomorrow for the month and don't even start teaching for two more weeks.

This is my first week in China. In one word: Fascinating.

By the way, the food here is nothing like Chinese food in America, babies don't wear diapers in China, Tom & Jerry and Doraimon are all the rage, a good cold beer costs about 20 cents for a 24 oz. bottle, Wikipedia and the BBC are blocked on the Internet here, I have a neighbor from Japan and a colleague from Iowa, etc., etc.

Rest in Peace, Steve Irwin.

_________________________

My first week in China.

Imagine being in a place where everyone is surprised to see you. Not in a familiar or negative way, just genuine curiosity. To that mix add a difficult writing system which for the most part I cannot comprehend, a language that leaves me baffled, and a culture that only causes me to laugh. My first day in China was in Guangzhou, playing ping pong, and my opponent told me, "Take it easy." I will heed that advice during my time here.

To get here, to the place the Chinese call their country, "The Central Country," I traveled half the circumference of the globe: 12,000 miles: tears of parting in Eugene, Oregon; sleeping in my car while traversing 2000 miles cross country on the longest highway in America (US 20) to Iowa; raucous nights in Sioux City; delays and cancellations in Cedar Rapids; a broken down car and a tow truck ride to an auto body shop in Denver; Holiday Inn in L.A.; Narita Airport in Tokyo; Chunking Mansions in Hong Kong; walking across the Chinese border at Lo Wu; tears of joy and anticipation in Shenzhen; ping pong in Guangzhou; arriving to a new moon in Kunming (population 3.5 million, a medium-sized Chinese city).

I am currently in a "surf-bar," a cybercafe in my neighborhood, Bailong, otherwise known as White Dragon Village. It costs 2 yuan per hour to use the Internet here, about 25 cents. Across the street, if the cartoonish illustrations in the window are any guide, you can order chicken, fish, dog, and Felix the Cat. In the street there is an endless promenade of pedestrians, bicycles, horse and donkey carts, tractor-like contraptions, goat herds, electric scooters, motorcycle taxis, cars, cement trucks, buses. Everything is honking because China has to be that loud. After all, it's China.

My life in China is hard to put in words because there is an other-worldly feel to it. One of my first nights in Kunming, the college president Mr. Liu of Xinanlinxueyuen (the place of my employment, a.k.a, Southwest of China Forestry University) took us three foreign teachers and the Foreign Affairs staff out to eat mushroom hotpot. There was also a fellow American, a foreign expert studying beetles here. Yunnan Province (of which Kunming is the capital) is a hotspot for tiger beetles, of which there 145 species, 78 living in Yunnan. The larvae live in tobacco plants and prey on harmful insects to this valuable cash crop. Consequently the college receives virtually unlimited funding from the Chinese government (after all, tobacco is by far the People's Republic of China's biggest source of income). There have been two new species they've discovered. We had at least seven different mushrooms cooked in a boiling broth, along with various vegetables and turtle, and a side of click beetles (bamboo worms) and dragonfly larvae. This was all washed down with copious toasts and shots of maitai baijiu (106 proof Chinese whiskey). It was an excellent feast.

I mustered up the courage one night to play some Chinese students in a game of outdoor pool (very cheap here). One guy's name was Johnny and the other calls himself Berry (because he likes berries). The next morning they met me at my apartment and took me to a place called Golden Temple. This was the summer residence of one Mr. Wu Sangui, a Qing dynasty general whom the emperor sent to repress the Southwest and, well, Mr. Wu ended up setting up a rebel kingdom in Yunnan. He built a 250-ton Taoist temple completely out of bronze in 1602, the largest work of bronze architecture in China. This is on top of Mingfeng Mountain. There is also a 44 pound broadsword on site.

After the temple, one of my newfound friends, Xiao Chien ("small Chien"), took us to her tea school. There was a classroom full of students learning the ceremonial art of pouring tea, including who just might be the most beautiful girl in China as well as a student still in his army uniform! The head teacher of the school ended up serving us five some of Yunnan's most famous tea, Pu'er. It was of golden color, sweet in taste, and aged over ten years. Unfortunately, she only spoke Mandarin, so I missed out on the interesting history of tea in Yunnan province, the most appropriate temperature of the tea (and the glass), and how to correctly wash the tea. For maximum effect, one must drink at least 10 glasses (we had at least 20); we quickly entered a world of great relaxation. Supposedly this brick of tea we were drinking from costs 2800 yuan, about $350 US. This was all free, and we were invited back for more any time.

I have seen a 1200 year-old Zen temple (monks and chanting and a great big Buddha donated by the king of Thailand), twin 13-story pagodas built between 824 and 859, and received a massage from a blind man downtown for 40 yuan/$5 . I also went to a large park and listened to some women singing and dancing to a song about Shangri-La (which does exist, and is in Yunnan). Marvelous. This was all today.

On 30 September, I went down to Green Lake Park. There were some older people playing a two-stringed instrument (erhu) that sounds like a violin, and one older gentleman in a Mao suit let me play a three stringed instrument that sounds like a banjo. At first, I couldn't figure out why there were so many middle-aged people there talking and so much music, but soon I found out why....

On the 10th, 20th, 30th and every Saturday morning, parents of marriage-aged children meet in this park to hopefully make a match! They bring pictures of their child and even resumes. Since I was the only young person, and a foreigner, you can guess that I was very popular! People crowded around me and asked me many questions. They were really friendly though, and some spoke English and explained it all to me. One lady had her baby touch my hairy arms!

My apartment is provided by my school, as is its electricity, water, gas, and cleaning lady. I have two comfortable bedrooms, 75 channels of cable TV (only one is in English, a boring CCTV news channel), and a large balcony where I can reach out and touch a bamboo tree and admire bonzai trees in my park-like middle-class neighborhood. I get paid tomorrow for the month and don't even start teaching for two more weeks.

This is my first week in China. In one word: Fascinating.

By the way, the food here is nothing like Chinese food in America, babies don't wear diapers in China, many people smoke cigarettes from water bongs, Tom & Jerry and Doraimon are all the rage, a good cold beer costs about 20 cents for a 24 oz. bottle, Wikipedia and the BBC are blocked on the Internet here, I have a neighbor from Japan and a colleague from Iowa, etc., etc.

Hi, John,

I arrived in Kunming about 48 hours ago. It is quite the place. I just got back from a meal with the president of SWFC, Mr. Li, Zhan Hui, an elder Japanese man, and the two other teachers here. There also was a foreign expert there named Gary from Idaho who studies beetles here. Yunnan is a hotspot for tiger beetles, of which there 145 species, 78 living in Yunnan. The larvae live in tobacco plants and prey on harmful insects to this valuable cash crop. Consequently they receive virtually unlimited funding from the government. There have been two new species they've discovered. He's been here for four years; possibly you've met him. We went out for mushroom hotpot and drank plenty of moutai--especially Yoshizawa-sama. Forgive my tipsy fingers if there are typos. The president happens to speak Japanese (as do I somewhat) and there were quite a number of toasts. I ate click beatles (bamboo worms) and dragonfly larvae. It was an excellent feast.

I am impressed with the college. We had a tour yesterday of the campus and met some students conducting some plant research. There is cooperation going on between SWFC and the Field Museum of Chicago and the Nature Conservancy (Mr. Li is fond of wearing a jacket from that institution). I met the province's foremost authority on GIS (geographic information systems), and an insect expert who had quite a collection of bugs.

People stare a lot at me here. At the same time, I feel like I have a lot of privilege. It's not like being a foreigner in the US, that's for sure. I can pretty much go where I want and do what I want and people are pretty accommodating. Language is a problem however, but that will improve as I learn more Mandarin. It is amazing seeing people practicing taichi in the morning (I'm going to try to join them in the morning), retired people playing "mangjiu" (?) Chinese croquet. One lady said that she is my "nupengyou" which means girlfriend, hehe. That's all I could understand.

There are so many different types of vehicles on the road--electric scooters, bicycles, horsecarts, tractors-like contraptions, three-wheeled bike taxis. General madness and sensual overload, but that's what I was seeking. My apartment is a welcome sanctuary at the end of the day.

This is all in two days. This excludes the Orwellian medical exam which is a chapter in itself, especially the ultrasound organ exam; the paperwork at the PSB; the market (!!!). Exhausting but fascinating. A fellow teacher, also a fellow Iowan, is a funny guy. He sent some of the "hell money" that people burn for their ancestors here in China to his congressman and to Pat Robertson. It actually says "Bank of Hell" on it. Hehehe.

School starts next week. There is a lot of development on and around campus, including new apartments for the faculty where we will be moving in October. Looks good. I'll let you know how that all goes. We should be meeting the English dept. faculty soon.

This is less than 48 hours in Kunming.

Ryan

Dear Zhan Hui and Mr. Li,

I am currently en route to China. Yesterday morning at 4:00, I was supposed to fly from Cedar Rapids to Chicago and then from Chicago directly to Hong Kong, but my first flight out of Cedar Rapids was cancelled because of bad weather. So they put me on another plane to Denver, and from Denver to Los Angeles and from Los Angeles to Hong Kong.

When I arrived in Denver, the flight was delayed by two hours so I missed my connection in Los Angeles. I arrived in LA at 2:00 this morning and stayed at a hotel near the airport, and that is where I am right now. Today they've got me on a new flight from LA to Tokyo and from Tokyo to Hong Kong. I think I should arrive in Hong Kong on Saturday evening.

When I arrive in Hong Kong, I will take the train to Guangzhou and go to the CITS office next to the train station. I'm having problems buying a plane ticket from Guangzhou to Kunming because Dragonair's website doesn't book flights before Aug 31, China Southern's English website is down, and China Southwest Airline's website doesn't even work.

Flying is my preference, but I may have to take the train. I'll call you when I arrive in Guangzhou with more information about my arrival. It seems that every step of this trip is fraught with obstacles, but overcoming obstacles make us greater people.

Even if I have to swim, I will make it to China.

Ryan

P.S., When I was in Denver, I had a eight hour stopover, so I called a friend. He picked me up from the airport so we could go out to eat. We never made it to a restaurant because his car broke down on the highway, and his girlfriend had to give me a ride back to the airport.

Near Macs Inn, Idaho.

I awoke to a cold morning and immediately ventured out, into Mountain Time, through Stinkingwater Pass, the Great Basin, across the state line, into Idaho. Through the encroaching suburbia of Boise, across the scrubland and ubiquitous brown mountains that define southern Idaho's landscape. Upon arrival in the county town of Fairfield (pop. 394), I got directions to Worswick Hot Springs. It was about a 20 mile venture into wildnerness, up and down the V-shaped mountains that give name to the Sawtooth National Forest. With some helpful maps, I finally came upon the springs. And there were real live cowboys there! Border collies, horses, hats and moustaches. I found the source and found it to be much too hot. In frustration, I followed the stream down a little, and there it was. Paradise. Hot bubbling water from the Middle Earth. I drank it, swam in it, absorbed and utterly alone (cowboys were long gone).

I continued down Highway 20 through the Craters of the Moon National Monument, complete wasteland and then into the wasteland of the Idaho National Laboratory where the sun was obscrued by a strange haze. In the middle of the Lab is the world's first nuclear reactor EBR-1 and some machinery destined to create a nuclear powered plane (Kennedy shut it down). I was utterly alone there as well and ate lunch in this ominous environment. I was hungry anyway.

Now I am parked in a gas station parking lot about 15 miles from West Yellowstone, Montana. A sound of a helicopter distracted me for a moment until I saw it lifting off immediately before me, and an ambulance pull away, and a lone car circle the lot after that in awkward loops. It just sat there with its lights on.

27 mi West of Burns, Oregon

A journey of 11,000 miles began today. I left Eugene with a tear in my eye and headed eastward, up through the Cascades where a forest fire impeded my march, made my eyes burn, and the air hazy and smelling of campfires. On through Sisters, Oregon and Brothers, Oregon and into the high desert, scrubland, wide open spaces and Highway 20 unfurling before me, the longest road in America.

This is the way to China. Tonight I am holed up in my car in a rest stop outside Burns, Oregon and the Burns Indian Reservation.

There's a wagon train of long haul semis around me, one carrying bales of hay whose fragrance add character to the starry night. A lonely streetlamp provides what little light I have to scribble this on a notepad. Not much to report on this lonely night, a deep swaying feeling in my soul to suddenly be so far awway from Yuka (and getting farther). Two hundred fifty miles down, 1750 to go.

It was one year ago today that I made a remark about going West. I made it out to Oregon, and in fact, a week ago today, I was on that edge of North America, where Lewis and Clark saw the mighty Columbia River surge into the great Pacific Ocean. With my good friend Jason Walker , we traveled on Highway 101, from Astoria to Newport, Oregon. We camped in Cannon Beach, watched over by the rock from the Goonies. Enough said. Pictures soon, and we'll get into Mt. St. Helen's as we were there too.

It was one year ago today that I said I might take this project worldwide, and now I am. In two weeks I will be on an airplane to Hong Kong. I have my Work Visa and Work Permit, am authorized entry and have a job at Southwest Forestry College. This, too, involves going west, so far west that it becomes East, and then I shall continue going west, always West, across Hong Kong to into the Mainland via Guangzhou and finally Kunming, Yunnan Province, People's Republic of China.

Right now I am in Eugene, Oregon...hobo jungle. Great place, a number of great people I have met, including a good Bhutanese friend named Pema Chhophyd who's been to Amish Iowa and a guitarist Nick Moore from my 7000 inhabitant hometown of Washington, Iowa (who'd guess?!?). He played at Washington Sesquicentennial back in '89. More about that later. If you can't wait, check out Nick & me, along with the great master of drumming Kenny Reed (he once played on Monk's piano) at Papa's Soul Food Kitchen (it's at the bottom of the page if you're following the link) on Friday night 11 August in Eugene. If you can't make it, keep your ears out for the music.

In order to get to China, I'm going to drive my car back to Iowa via the great and historic coast-to-coast US Highway 20. I'll join the road in Corvallis, Oregon (whose Beavers are erstwhile champions of college baseball), cutting through Yellowstone to Sioux City, Iowa (to visit Tommy Bolin's grave and Al Capone's house), and fly out from Cedar Rapids. The driving part will happen next week. The town where the Wright Bros. once had a bicycle shop will be my airbourne departure.

The flying part will take place after a few stops in Omaha & Iowa City to see Andrew Michael Jackson and Nima "The Muslim" Sahbet, Mo-T of Khartoum, and Volkmann, who once stared down a drunken Morroccan on top of a hotel in the Rif Mountains, Chefchaouen, Morrocco.

Many thanks to everyone's support and excitement. As always, Yuka, you're #1! My light, my love, and my important person. Mom & Dad & family. Then the list gets long. I pray to repay my debt of gratitute to these people (and twice as many as what's listed because I'll forget): Adrian of Donegal, Deeznuts, Elodie from the Alps (my hero!), Jet-C, Jim & Chieko, Kenny R., Mark & Mika & Sen, Mathilde, Maxime de bourgeouis Portiers, Dr. Meyer, Nick Moore, Nakazono-sama, Pu Li, Mr. Shufro my mentor, Suresh the Brahmin, SWFC alums who've paved the way: John & Leigh & Zhan Hui, Tomo-chan, Wingert, Yancy, Ziols...there are more of you out there, don't worry.

It's been almost seven months. What's going on out there? A sudden crisis in Israel over an abducted soldier. I read some quotes by the international community. This one caught my attention:

Mikhail Kamynin, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson

The right and duty of the government of Israel to defend the lives and security of its citizens are beyond doubt.

But this should not be done at the cost of the lives of many lives and many Palestinian civilians, by massive military strikes with heavy consequences for the civilian population.

Sioux City, IA

In my pockets.

A TriMet ticket from Old Town, Portland, Oregon, Dec 20, 2005, 2:17 p.m. Postcards from the Cheese House in Kalona, Iowa. A fake carnation from my sister's wedding last March. A copy of Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia. Right now in the book he's on the beach in San Julián, Santa Cruz, Argentina, contemplating a dinner party in Sir Francis Drake's cabin.

As a bookmark, pp. 102-3 from the Boeing 767's Component Locator Guide, originally from a stack of papers used as firestarter for a woodstove near Tonganoxie, Kansas on New Year's morning 2006. The pages show the component location for the landing gear. Buddhist prayer beads and gongyo book from Sakae-ku, Nagoya-shi, Aichi-ken, Japan. Two Rolling Rock bottlecaps from Zach Harris's apartment in Iowa City and some Sacagawea dollar coins from Chinatown in Portland. On May 12, 2001 I rode the train from Ormskirk, Lancashire to Liverpool. I paid £1.85. Métro pass from Montréal, lundi 27 déc 2004 au dimanche 2 jan 2005. 18$ Canadian.

Alas, no mobile phone. Forgot my cellphone at the Bellevue this morning. I want to be in Yunnan in three months. Dreams of Xishuangbanna. Don't even know how I'll make the 100 miles to Omaha tomorrow. I'll be playing my double bass there, at Sean O'Casey's, 10:30 p.m. The Saturday Sound.

Two days ago was Black Friday. It is consumer madness, retail hell. I was at Office Depot as of 4 a.m.; doors opened at 6 a.m. I did this last year at Staples in Sioux City, and what never ceases to amuse me is the first people in the door. Running. To shop. People all over the world are lined up outside places for bread, for water, for medicine. It's like that here in the United States, only people need that $350 laptop and it's a nationwide epidemic rather than a local problem.

Sure, there are plenty of things that are ridiculously cheap, but exactly how many of those things is a retail going to sell at a loss on the biggest shopping day of the year? In the fine print of the ads, you would read things like "store has a minimum of 10" laptops, cameras, flatscreen TVs, etc. Replace "minimum" with "maximum" and that's a little closer to the truth.
Also notice the can of chewing tobacco in the gentleman's back pocket.

For Thanksgiving, Yuka & I went to some friends' house and had an excellent vegetarian Thanksgiving, complete with some homemade 2002 and 2003 homemade pinot gris, grown south of Eugene, aged in Serbian oak barrels. Some of the best wine I've ever tasted.

I heard back from a school in Kunming, China. Southwest Forestry College is interested in hiring me and will soon be conducting a phone interview. More to follow.

From what I've researched, bringing a double bass on an airplane is quite a hassle. I don't want to put it in cargo (hell no!) so I'm going to bring it aboard. I even bought a seat for it, one way from Omaha to Portland, via Denver.

My dad was going to ship the bass to me via FedEx Freight, but that's a lot to worry about. A lot of things can happen between Iowa and Oregon. Just read my earlier posts on this weblog. A lot of things did happen between Iowa and here.

I am flying to Iowa for the holidays, so I had the idea of bringing the bass back with me. At least it would always be by my side.

So I tried calling United to request an extra seat. I ended up getting a call center in India, thanks to Globalization & Outsourcing-R-Us.

Call Center Rep: You want an extra seat for a double bass?

Ryan: Yes, it's like a cello, only much larger.

CCR: Let me put you on hold while I research this. (Five minutes later.) Sir? Is that instrument like a guitar? You should put that in cargo. ...Oh? You want to buy a ticket for it?

And around and around we went. I ended up calling back the next day and getting an American call center with a customer service rep whose expertise in this matter is only due to the fact that she's "been doing this for too long," which is precisely the kind of person you want to talk to on the phone when dealing with these matters. By the end of it, we got everything set.

Now I've got a ticket for Mr. Instrument (first name Double Bass). He'll be traveling with me on 7 Jan. I can't wait to hear the jokes from the other passengers: "Hey, I don't think that's going to fit in the overhead!" "Can I have his peanuts?" Etc.

RDRR

I'll be in Sioux City on December 21. Apparently many people from outside of Sioux City are making it a sort of homecoming. So I guess I'll go too. So to all the non-Sioux Cityans who are in that town and then quickly leaving thereafter: See you there, Tavia, Sarah, Nima, Mr. Green, Mariko, Yoko, Kana, Nami, Wataru(?), Himi(?), maybe even Haithem. To all the other Sioux Cityans who will be there, sometimes it seems like for all eternity: See you there, Wingert, Darijia, Ilisja.

And then there's Washington (Iowa that is), the great city who is planning to tear down the nation's first county tax-supported hospital in favor of progress, and Washington County, who is opening the Washington County Casino Resort in Riverside, the future birthplace of Captain Kirk.

Also I'll be seeing my old college roommate (thereby a future political appointee) Walker who is apparently not that far from Kentucky. Hey, all you need is cornmeal, water, sugar, salt, yeast, and malt!

I ride the bus a lot. I've got a bus pass, and public transportation is really good, plus there are great bike paths (and I've got a bike), so I don't drive a whole lot. Anyway, coming home from work, I met a guy on the bus named Daniel.

Daniel: I hitchhiked here from Indiana. Hitchhiking's not like what it was in the 80s. You gotta be crazy to do it now.
Ryan: How long did it take you to get here?
D: Two weeks. I got stuck in Harlem, Illinois for a day. No one would pick me up because there's a mental institution there. I almost got arrested.
R: Why did you come to Eugene?
D: I thought this would be a nice place, since I'm an artist, a drummer, and a peace activist. I tell you what. I was living at the mission just to get off the street. Now I'm living in a quad at West University. The guy tried to get me to bribe him just to shampoo the carpets. I couldn't even walk barefoot there! I went down to Rainbow [drum circle and free potluck held each Sunday before the full moon] yesterday--they had was organic food. I realized that I haven't eaten real food all my life; I've been eating chemicals. They said next time if I come down early, I can hand out ribbons.
I'm thinking about getting into goldsmithing or silversmithing.

I'll be back in Iowa from 20 December to 8 January.