October Fading

This morning, I spent two hours 监考ing (proctoring) as my students sat for their English mid-term. This is the reason I haven’t really posted for the last two weeks, that I’ve not replied to as many emails as I ought to have, that I’ve been even more of a sugar fiend than usual. Two weeks ago was when we found out about this thing. We knew there'd be a mid-term, but we didn't know when. Thus, instead of teaching class at a normal pace, Mark and I spent two weeks absolutely scrambling to cram four lessons into a very, very short time. It was tense and annoying and meant extra classes (sometimes twice a day). My exam papers are currently sitting on my desk, awaiting my red pen, and I’m scared to even begin to look. The crowning jewel of this whole situation? Wednesday night, as I was running an extra class before our two-hour evening study, Mark walked into my classroom and informed me that he’d just been told the mid-term only covered lessons 1-4—not, as we’d thought, 1-6. At least it was before class, so I could plan an on-the-spot review session instead of shoveling more of lesson six down my students’ throats.

I’ve proctored my students’ 40-45 minute tests a few times since the beginning of the year, but this is the first time I’ve been in an all-day testing zone since last year. Elizabeth Hall International Elementary takes state testing very, very seriously. It’s a Title I school, and there’s always concern about not making AYP. Last spring, I spent four mornings sitting in the hallway outside the 3^rd-5^th grade hallway, listening to the eerie sound of silence (believe me, if you spent any time in this school you’d understand) and reading a book. I’d traded my normal tutor/mentor hat for that of monitor, assisting any teacher who opened his or her classroom door with a question or request. On the last of these four mornings, I noticed that I had a missed call and voicemail from a number that was in a really weird format. Figuring it wouldn’t hurt, I listened to the message, and uttered a miniscule squeak as I heard my CEI admissions offer. My co-worker, another hall monitor who’d been downstairs for a minute, came back up, and I hissed “I got it!” at him. Then I proceeded to bounce in my seat until such time as it was permissible to go back into the office and squeak for real.

Anyway, things have continued to be much better around here than they were before. Although I know it could always come back, I’d say that I’m officially out of my funk, which is a relief. I’ve still got life issues (like the sugar thing…. I’m pretty sure I’ve gained some weight and so I need to seriously cut back) and classroom issues (like constant chatter and my three kids who haven’t turned in homework since I can remember) and homesick issues (man, Minnesota autumn, how I miss you), but ultimately I feel more settled here and more content.

Now I have a few stories to share:

Learning How to Take a Compliment

So, this Monday all the seventh graders had to take an English test. I did not write this test, nor was I able to see a copy prior to the administering of the test, so I really didn’t know what to expect. After the test was over, the seventh grade English teachers all sat down to grade. There were several excellent questions, but this one definitely takes the cake. Mark and I were cracking up (probably not very nice, since the other teachers were there, but seriously….)

“Your watch is very nice.” A) No, it isn’t. B) Yes. C) Thank you.

No, no, China. Thank you. And thank you local teachers for not running the questions by, y’know, the native speakers in your midst.

Giving Locals a Taste of Their Own Medicine

I’m normally very nice about people staring at me and saying hello, but a couple weeks ago I was in the city, having embarked upon a wild goose chase to collect my parents’ package from the states. I had to find two post offices and try to explain my situation, and ultimately it wasn’t at either of them. (It’s arrived since—more on that in a bit.) As I was walking back across town to catch the bus home, I saw a group of what looked to be high school students clumped on the sidewalk ahead of me. As expected, they stared and giggled and a few pointed. I expected the customary “Hello” followed by even more giggles, but instead what I got was “Oh, 老外！老外！”

Laowai, or “old outsider,” is a very common term for foreigners in China, and I hear it a lot. Usually I don’t pay it much notice beyond, perhaps, a small smile, but these kids kept saying it over and over, whispering at first among themselves and then repeating more loudly as I grew closer. Finally I’d had it, and I replied. “老外？啊，中国人！怎么办？！？”(“Foreigner? Oh, Chinese people! What am I going to do?”) They just kinda stared in shock after that, and I continued along my way.

Now, like I said, I normally don’t get annoyed with locals’ fascination with me, but I guess I get annoyed when people assume I don’t understand anything that’s being said. I might not be able to follow a whole conversation, especially when said conversation is conducted in a dialogue other than Mandarin (an extremely common occurrence, here in the Bai region), but I understand key words. If I didn’t have at least some knowledge of how to speak Chinese, there’s really no way I could survive here. I’d be fine in Beijing or Shanghai, or even in Dali or Lijiang, probably, but you can’t live three kilometers from Heqing and expect to be able to do things like eat and get in and out of town without a half-decent Chinese level.

A Taste of Home

The elusive aforementioned package, when it eventually arrived, came not to the post office but to the school itself. This was very exciting, because it meant I didn’t have to carry it from town back home. Packages from the States are freakin’ expensive. My parents filled one of those large flat rate boxes, and it was fifty-five bucks. Needless to say, I don’t expect too many to come my way. Not wanting this to be a Christmas Morning-like experience of bunches of new stuff all at once followed by the “Oh, there’s nothing left under the tree” moment, I decided to make this package last. Hence, I’ve been taking out one goodie a day, and, since most of said goodies are relatively small, I’ve been able to do this for over two weeks. I have three things left, and I’m pretty sure they’re oregano, a book, and a box of tea. But we shall see.

So far I’ve taken out a book, a cami, a sweater, a pair of socks, vanilla extract, ground cinnamon, TWO containers of dried basil, cocoa powder (powdered gold, more like), stain stick, pictures I forgot to pack when I left, a CD from a dear friend that I can’t listen to ‘til December because it’s Christmas music, a card from my Mom that now lives on the ledge beside my bed, two boxes of Yogi tea, and some Shabbat candles along with my candlesticks. I got a little teary when I pulled those out. I’d missed my candlesticks, but I didn’t think to ask for them when I made my list. They live under my coffee table now, except on Friday nights (like this one), when they live on top of my coffee table and, burning brightly, remind me of people and places that I love.

I also got my first written correspondence—a postcard from the Grand Canyon, via Richmond, VA. It lives on my bedside table and makes me very happy indeed. Now that I know where both the Heqing post offices are, I need to write about a half dozen letters. Email’s awesome, and I honestly don’t know how I’d deal without it, but seeing people’s handwriting is awfully amazing.

A Halloween Huodong (Activity)

So every month the Heqing fellows get a 600 kuai budget for a fellow-organized activity. A different school’s in charge each month, and this one’s ours. Due to the fact that this gathering will be occurring tomorrow, we decided to go with a Halloween-like theme. I am quite excited indeed. Fellows from the other two schools will arrive in the mid-Afternoon and we’ll go on a walk or something around the area. Then we’re going to eat dinner, and then we’re going to have some excellent hangout time. This hangout time will include much chocolate cake, made by me tomorrow morning. This is great, because it lets me bake without feeling guilty for a) eating way too much, or b) spending money on baking supplies and then giving away everything I bake to other people. Right now, I’ve got like 60-70 kuai’s worth of Dove bars sitting in my kitchen. I’m going to try a chocolate layer cake with some sort of chocolate icing/glaze, made with neither butter nor powdered sugar. We'll see how it goes I’m also going to do an apple crisp demonstration/class after dinner tomorrow, so that other fellows might learn how to make this very easy stove-top dish in the comfort of their own homes. And YiMing, who’s currently in Dali, is buying candy so we can sorta go trick-or-treating. It should be fun for Chinese and American fellows alike. Now I just need a costume….

Social Times

YiMing’s birthday was on the 21^st. He’s 27 now, making him almost four years older than me and ten years and a day older than my youngest sister. We took him out for dinner, and then later that night I made a cinnamon apple cake and we threw him a quasi-surprise party. This party resulted in all four Pengtun fellows sitting in Ma LiJun’s room, attacking my cake with a spoon, since we didn’t have proper plates, drinking relatively icky red wine that Ma LiJun enjoys, and just…chilling. The next night, we did the same thing (minus the cake and wine and plus tea). The second night, Yi Ming and Mark played chess while Ma LiJun looked at a book and I knit, all four of us chatting a bit, when suddenly we heard giggles and turned to see students peaking in through the slightly ajar door. Clearly they wanted to know all about the scandalous Friday night activities of these four young teachers, but somehow I doubt they came away with much of a story. Anyway, I wouldn’t go so far as to call our hangout a breakthrough, since it’s not like we’ve done this a thousand times since, but it was definitely a start, and I’m grateful.

Pengtun Cooking- Chocolate Zucchini Cake with Clementine-Honey Glaze

It’s been awhile without a post, I know, but things have gotten suddenly super busy around here. This is one of the few lulls I’ve had for awhile. I do intend to write about my day-to-day stuff soon, but for now I’m just sharing this, since I started it a week ago and only need to finish it up.

It occurs to me that, as much as I’ve alluded to my various cooking adventures, I have yet to actually do any sort of cooking/baking-focused posts. When I got here, I spent a lot of time googling all things rice cooker baking-related. I didn’t find a ton. I haven’t found much info in general that connects to foodie cooking in limited kitchens. However, I’ve experimented, and while some experiments have been less than successful, others have been glorious. Thus, I’m beginning today the dissemination of said successes. Granted, I have neither measuring cups nor temperatures nor actual baking/cooking times, so everything is very approximate, but perhaps these recipes will serve as inspiration for others in my shoes. Rice cooker baking is possible, it’s not a disaster to experiment with, and sometimes it turns out quite well indeed.

I begin with this cake because it was, aside from banana bread, perhaps my most successful rice cooker endeavor yet.

Chocolate-Zucchini Cake with Clementine-Honey Glaze

• Half a large zucchini (about 1 cup), grated
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1/3 cup white sugar
• 1 egg
• ¼ cup milk (I used whole, ‘cause it’s what’s here, but I bet other types would work too)
• 2-3 TBS vegetable oil, plus more to grease the rice cooker (Note: I realize that this is very little oil, and if I were baking in a traditional oven I would likely increase it, but the steaming process doesn’t require as much. Plus, milk here is all whole milk, so there’s additional fat content there)
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• a scant ¼ cup cocoa powder
• dash cinnamon
• about 1-1 ½ cups flour. How much will depend. You want a thick but easily pourable batter.
• about 1 large chocolate bar (3-4 oz, maybe?) chopped. Or you could use ½-3/4 cups chocolate chips, if you’re in a place with such things

Quick breads and cakes are things you’re supposed to be careful with. You’re supposed to mix the wets and dries separately, combining swiftly so as to keep the baking soda from reacting before getting into the oven. I have never been so precise, but especially since entering my new abode all such procedure has gone out the window.

I usually start with the egg, because that way I can beat it before adding anything else. Then I throw in the sugars and oil and milk and mix. I would also have added vanilla extract if I had it at the time, but I didn’t. After that, it’s time for the dries. You can mix them separately, which makes incorporating the cocoa powder a bit easier, or just throw the dries into the big bowl one by one.

Finally, mix in the grated zucchini and the chocolate chips/chunks. You should have a thick but pourable batter. If it's too watery, add more flour. If too thick, add milk or oil. Transfer to your greased rice cooker (or, y’know, a loaf pan, if you are in possession of an oven), spreading to even out the batter if necessary, and start the cook cycle.

I usually end up doing two cook cycles, with period of maybe 15 minutes in between while the cooker cools down. Every rice cooker is different though; some even have cake cycles. Sometimes my cakes don’t cook through before the bottom burns, but I’ve found that flipping the cake, while yielding a more evenly-cooked baked good, is usually less than conducive to keeping said cake in one piece. Depending on whether the cake is one to be shared or to be gobbled in private the “to flip or not to flip” debate can lead to different conclusions. However, this cake cooked through so well that flipping was unnecessary. Luck, perhaps, or maybe it was just the zucchini thanking me for using it in such an utterly unexpected way (as far as Chinese born-and-raised zucchini are concerned).

Once the cake is done, flip it onto a plate. I usually do this by using the rice server to loosen the cake as much as possible, very quickly flipping removing the rice pan and turning it upside-down, praying all the while that the cake drops out.

Glaze:

• One small Clementine (or perhaps ¼ of a typical orange), juiced, peel reserved
• 2-3 TBS sugar
• 2-3 TBS water
• 3-4 TBS milk
• 1 TBS honey
• dash cinnamon

Combine the sugar, water, Clementine peel, and juice in a saucepan (or skillet, since that’s what I had) and simmer, adding the milk after the sugar is mostly melted. Watch it carefully, stirring to keep from burning (quite a feat, on a hot plate), and add more milk or sugar as necessary to reach a thin syrupy texture.

Use a toothpick to poke holes all over the top of the cake, then spoon the glaze on. Eat and be blissful.

So there you have it. If anybody out there is another budding rice cooker baker, I’d love to hear about it. We can swap horror/success stories. And hopefully the next time some poor displaced American foodie googles rice cooker baking, he/she’ll have a few more options.

A New Day

After my last post, people really stepped up to offer comfort. So thank you for the comments, for the emails (of which I still have half a dozen lacking replies), for the e-hugs. It’s amazing to remember just how much I’m loved.

Just over three months ago—July 15^th—I stepped off of a plane in Beijing. Since then there have been a good number of moments where I wanted nothing more than to step back on. That’s to be expected, but, frankly, I think I need to be done with that stage. I need to choose between feeling sorry for myself and feeling committed to Pengtun, between resentment towards the relative ease of my family and friends’ lives in the States and acceptance of the simple knowledge that for the next two years life is going to be harder than what I’m used to.

Every day, I need to remember that I’m here. I’m here for reasons that I chose and for the possibility of reasons that would reveal themselves to me only after arrival.

I’m here to teach, not only expanding my students’ knowledge of English but opening their eyes to a part of the world they might otherwise never encounter. I’m only one American, it’s true, but that’s one more than most if not all of my kids have met before, and it’s one more than they might ever have met depending on where their lives take them. The same is true for some of the teachers, and for many of the farmers and other workers in Pengtun. Barely a day goes by when I don’t encounter curiosity or confusion from locals. Elderly women in traditional Bai clothing smile and shoot me thumbs up as I jog by the lake. Construction workers call out “Hello!” on my way to (and back from) the shower. Small children standing on the back of their parents’ and grandparents’ motorcycles stare and whisper. I educate by my mere presence. As the only non-Chinese woman in a very Chinese place, locals’ opinions and views of the Western world, and the women who call it home, are affected by their interactions with me.

I’m here to teach the teachers, too. I can’t change the system of Chinese testing that’s meant to lure top kids to the surface and leave the rest drudging along lake bottom. I can’t fix the local English teachers’ pronunciation if they aren’t interested in practicing, and I can’t improve their classroom technique unless they want to make changes. However, I can show them that there’s more than one way to run a classroom—that, even while preparing students for their tests, you have the option to prize independent thinking and understanding over rote memorization. I can show that I don’t tolerate cheating and that I won’t accept the notion of my lowest ten or twenty kids just not being able to learn. I can express my discomfort with the use of corporal punishment and affirm that I will neither hit my kids nor send them to be disciplined by another teacher who will.

I’m also here to learn. I’m here to acquire Mandarin proficiency and to figure out how to interact in a place where I can’t communicate fluently or even consistently conversationally. I’m learning about how to be an effective teacher, and every day I’m learning more about just how crazy my native tongue is. I’m seeing how most of the world lives. I will never be Chinese, and despite the adjustments I’ve had to make in my life I will never experience the same kind of existence as most people in this place, but I do get a taste of it. I’m learning to make due, not necessarily with less, but with different. One really can get almost anything in the States, and in rural Yunnan there are many products that aren’t available—hence care packages containing cocoa powder and dried basil, and baking adventures replaced with rice cooker adventures. Ultimately, most of what I’m learning I’m probably still not aware of myself. I imagine it’ll take some time after I return home to process, sorta like I processed Mac last year.

I’m here to explore my own limits—to see how far I can and want to push my comfort zone. Never in my life have I been so consistently surrounded with situations that make me uncomfortable. I’m shy with people I don’t know well under the best of circumstances, so the fact that here I not only spend much of my social time with people I don’t know well but with people I don’t know well and with whom I have trouble communicating is terrifying indeed. Whenever I want anything, be it directions, advice, or a price; I have to ask with a language that doesn’t come naturally to me. At this point, I don’t have the vocab to order my usual small skim lite-whip mocha at a coffee shop. That’s fine, as there are obviously no coffee shops around here, but it’s just an example of how a simple interaction—something I never, ever have to think about in the States—transforms into a task that I would have to plan for in advance or use an obscene amount of gesturing and explaining to accomplish. I’ve lost my Stateside anonymity: the ability to be out and about without the eyes of others focused upon me. I am, in a very real way, a Pengtun celebrity. While from a young age I sought the spotlight (acting, anyone?), as a young adult I’ve loved situations where I can just be. I can do that here, but knowing that while I’m being me I’m being watched takes some adjusting to.

I’m here for awhile but not forever. That’s a big one. I’m here for two years—a long time, perhaps, considering that I’m all of 23, but not a lifetime. I’m not an immigrant, seeking better than the place I left, knowing that a return to familiar surroundings is almost certainly out of the cards. Ultimately, I’ll be going home, back to the States, back to comfort and ease and all of the things I’m missing now.

Of course, it won’t all be comfort and ease; in fact, if things go as planned I’ll be hitting the books once again, in one field or another. Life there will have its challenges and its shortcomings too, and I expect there will be moments, many of them, when I want nothing more than to step back on the plane again. But I’ll deal with that when I get to it.

Saturday Night on my Couch

It’s 9:01 PM, and I’m scrounging around for something—anything, really—to do. Today was our “Friday,” and thus my day began with a test for my kids and a bunch of grading for me. They did much, much better on this one than the last one; I wish I could believe it was all because of my teaching and their studying, but I suspect there’s cheating involved. I only caught one today, after all, and I normally get three or four. Anyway, that, and a meeting I marginally understood concerning teaching English at the elementary school, comprised my morning. For lunch, I had four more of my students to my room. This was the second group I tried, and, man, they were worse than the first. Getting them to talk was painfully awkward in every imaginable way. Longest forty-five minutes ever. I’m still glad I’m doing this, just so my kids can see me out of the classroom and look at random pictures of my family and stuff, but I need to get them to respond to my questions with more than the bare minimum.

The afternoon was also mostly class prep. Grading tests for me means doing a fair amount of data analysis. I always want to know how my kids are doing, as individuals and as a class, compared to their last test. Plus I’m trying to get their overall grades to date figured out, which means accounting for missing assignments and whatnot. Excel and I are becoming pals.

Anyway, since my four students left after lunch, the most exciting thing I’ve done is make chocolate chunk zucchini bread for dinner. Now, don’t get me wrong—chocolate chunk zucchini bread is exciting, especially when it comes out of the rice cooker in one relatively-attractive-looking round instead of in delicious but messy chunks—but it just feels like something’s missing here. I spend a whole lotta time alone, and I am getting lonelier day by day.

I really am an introvert/extrovert cusp. It’s easy for me to be overwhelmed by social situations, but I also notice their absence in a major way. During the STP, I sometimes found myself wanting nothing more than to have a few hours to myself, but now I’ve been pushed to the opposite extreme. I spend most of my time here alone. I teach with my kids, of course, and I attend faculty meetings on Mondays. I usually speak with my CEI coworkers at least once a day, and we go out for dinner a couple times a week. Mark and I have nice post-night class conversations on a regular basis. My coworkers really are very good coworkers. They’re all three of them responsible, smart people. However, we’re still working on the “friend” side of things. And that’s the problem.

I need friends. Going from Minneapolis, where I lived with two of my best friends from college (one being my boyfriend) and had a number of others within close reach, to rural China is, well, a bit of a shock to my social system. I assumed, naively I suppose, that a magical bond would form between me and my three fellow CEI folks and that we would find ourselves hanging out and tackling this world together. However, my coworkers keep to themselves quite a bit. I don’t blame them—to each his own—but it means that I don’t feel entirely comfortable going and knocking on their doors every time I’m bored. We have had a lot of fun times together, and I am trying to entice them into group activities that don’t just involve food, but it’s definitely a process.

So what about getting closer to the local teachers? Well, two issues there. One, of course, is language. When it comes to my Chinese, I get awfully frustrated awfully easily, and spending extended periods of time attempting to communicate with somebody I can’t understand at all is just not my idea of fun. In fact, it usually makes me want to cry. I’m quite friendly with the teachers, but our relationships at this point largely consist of such heartfelt conversations as “Are you going to teach?” “Yes, I am. Did you just teach?” “Yes, I did.” Add a shower of smiles and nodding and you get the idea. I expect that as the year continues, and I start to break through the cipher that is the Heqing accent, I will have better conversations, but for now it’s slow-going. Even when communication is no longer as grave an issue, however, I anticipate trouble connecting. The fact is, I’m an American. I’m the first American girl most of them have probably spent any amount of significant time with, and, as such, I am the stereotype and the oddball at once. I’m on the lookout for ways in which we can relate and connect, and talking about our students and about teaching strategies is a nice opener, but that won’t cut it in the long term.

So I’m alone a lot, and I’m lonely a lot. I knew to expect some loneliness when I came out here, but expecting and experiencing are two entirely different things. I have more time than I can comfortably fill with my hobbies of journaling, blogging, and cooking (and my not hobbies but still time-sinks of “The West Wing” and Chinese-dubbed Disney movies). I’m trying to make myself study Chinese more, but a lot of the time I’m so sick of language struggles out there that I don’t want to make them the center of my attention in here. Yes, I realize I need to get over that if I’m ever going to improve, but what can I say? My will power isn’t the best these days. I’m looking for a new hobby—something unconnected to Chinese, and preferably the computer—that I can turn to when I need to combat unhappy, alone feelings. I do a lot of nonfiction writing, but fiction writing has been mostly eluding me since my arrival, so that’s one thing I’m working to pick back up. Beyond that, I’m open to suggestions. Also, mail! Packages would, naturally, be amazing, but from what I understand they’re also relatively expensive. Letters, however, are not! Here is my address:

欧阳旭／Emily Cohen,

中国云南省大理州鹤庆县

彭屯中学／草海中学 （671500)

P.R. China

I promise replies to any and all communication received, however long it might take to get here and back again.

Hopefully, these lonely feelings are just part of my overall “slump” that I will, again, hopefully, be coming out of before long. I’m just shy of three months in China now—about a month and half of which have been here—so a “leveling out” period can’t be too much farther away. Right? Encouragement/advice, anyone?

Back to the Grind

Well, it’s been a lovely week, but now it’s Thursday, which means we start classes again tonight. Today is, in effect, Wednesday, with tomorrow becoming Thursday and Saturday filling Friday’s shoes. At least we still get Sunday off. There’s an interesting article in the NY Times this week about how China’s handling the holiday schedule in general; in effect, we aren’t the only ones who are confused.

Adventures were nice. We first went to Shaxi Old Town, busing along mountain paths, competing for space with huge trucks and little motorcycles. I fell asleep as we were leaving Heqing and woke to a crazy sharp turn, at which point I giggled sleepily and pointed out to Mark and Ma Lijun that we were all going to die. No idea if I said this in English or Chinese. That’s been happening a fair amount lately—of course I’m always speaking Chinese to the local teachers/people in town, but when I’m talking to my CEI coworkers I’m managing to have whole conversations where afterwards I can’t remember the language I used. The same thing used to happen when I was studying abroad in Beijing. I’m guessing this is a good thing?

Shaxi is pretty and quiet, with far fewer tourists than I’d imagine most places had for National Day. That being said, I was shocked to spy not one or two but a good dozen Westerners wandering about, and some of said Westerners were children! I’ve seen many 20-somethings and retirees in Lijiang and Dali, but Shaxi was the first place where I’d seen young families. We think the most likely explanation is that these are families living in China who wanted a quiet place to go with their kids during the holiday. Shaxi’s good for hiking, and there’s a nice river right outside the old walls, with a few pretty bridges and farmland views. If Lijiang is the Disneyland version of a “Chinese Old Town” and Dali is the Cool Big Brother, Shaxi is the closest I’ve seen to the real deal. It still has the tourist trappings of handmade shoes labeled with American sizes, as well as its fair share of inns, but ultimately it seems as though a lot of the people there are just the people there. I liked that.

We stayed not in a traditional inn but rather in a house with a separate building containing three guest bedrooms. It was perfectly comfortable and in a nice location, with a pomegranate tree and a bunch of other plants in the courtyard. Plus a hot shower! Actually, interesting moment. Shower aside, the bathroom was an outhouse much like the one at my school—the only notable differences being the lack of a door and the fact that it was for one person rather than a dozen. If I’d encountered such a bathroom more than two months ago I would have had to pee like crazy to even consider using it. As it was, I didn’t blink.

Our time in Shaxi was spent wandering stone-paved streets…and hiding from the rain. Yes, rain. Rain that started the morning after we arrived and made mountain climbing, along with most other outdoor exploration, less than enjoyable. After spending an hour escaping a downpour by drinking tea in a nice little shop with an equally nice but not so little german shepherd, we decided it was probably best to move on. So where to go in the rain? What’s in Yunnan that doesn’t require good weather? Dali!

So the three of us piled into a van and then later onto a bus, and although we didn’t save any time by leaving from Shaxi instead of from Heqing, we knew we were headed to a good place. Of course, the holiday meant major traffic, but we still got there without too much trouble. Then there was the issue of finding a hotel. Because our bus was delayed, and the holiday week was only half over, we ended up with no choice but to share a relatively pricey room—at least compared to what we’re used to paying. Still, it was nowhere near expensive by American standards, and we had a place to dump our stuff. We introduced Ma LiJun to Indian food (not very good Indian food, unfortunately) and wandered around. Dali is just a very open, very free-feeling space. I really can’t get over how grateful I am to have it close. During our wanderings, I bought a purple hanging that is currently masking some of the white space that is my room. It’s quite pretty, with flowers and butterflies tye-dyed onto it, and it makes me happy (happier than is probably reasonable) to see it on my wall.

The next morning marked the closest experience I’ve had to a “coffee shop chill time” since getting here. We ate breakfast at the German bakery, and then we just hung out. I didn’t actually have any coffee (I haven’t, in fact, since getting to China), but I sipped on tea and we chatted and I did a little writing while Mark was responsibly lesson planning and Ma LiJun went to the bank. It was just quite lovely in every way. Then the day got even lovelier when we met up with May! She’s one of this year’s American fellows, but her family and she have lived in Dali since she was twelve, so she was home visiting. We went out to lunch together, and then May took us back to her house where we drank more tea, chatted about our schools, and met her parents and adorable seven-year-old brother. It was a really nice feeling to be in a house, to chat with some new people, and to hear more about Dali from someone who knows it well.

Because we all had colds (I’m only just now getting over mine—slept twelve hours straight a few nights ago, which I never do), we decided to head back home. Ma LiJun stayed the night in XiaGuan, the modern city right next to Dali, but Mark and I took a bus back up to Heqing. We left at five with plans to get into town at eight, but instead we didn’t make it back until after ten, because our bus stopped for about 45 minutes—twice. It was quite wretched, really, and made all the worse when the driver decided the best way to improve upon the situation would be to blast Chinese pop. I have a rule of thumb regarding my iPod that if I ever have to turn it way up to block out other sound, it’s not worth it. That ride was an exception. Upon arrival in Heqing, Mark and I discovered, much to our surprise, that our humble little city possesses a red light district. We had the pleasure of walking right by it on the way to find a cab. Luckily, nobody came out of the buildings, so there was no need for me to pretend to be Mark’s wife or something.

The last two days have mostly been about recovering from my cold, getting laundry done, and trying to think through the next couple weeks of class…which start in ten minutes. Guess I better get over there, huh? Ah well. Vacation was nice while it lasted.

Happy 61st, China!

Yesterday was National Day, and thus we get time off. A whole week, as it turns out. Of course, our week off started yesterday, and we didn’t find out for sure we were getting a week until Wednesday, which made planning difficult. As it stands, Mark and Ma LiJun and I are leaving this afternoon for a village about 3 hours away and then deciding after a day or two there whether to venture elsewhere. I’m really excited. I’ve never done this sort of “follow the wind” travel before, but it should be fun. And Yunnan is so beautiful that I don’t doubt we’ll find cool things to see.

Yesterday, my first day off, I kept it local—doing a major room cleanup in the morning and then strolling out into the villages behind the school in the afternoon. My original plan was to find a back path to Heqing that I could walk along without fear of being hit by a tour bus or a tractor, but before long I stopped paying too much attention to where I was, rather just wandering indiscriminately. It’s worth noting that, when wandering rural China, you never really know where you’re going to end up or what you’re going to end up trekking upon. Yesterday’s walk encompassed nice, concrete, sidewalk-like roads; packed down dirt (and sometimes mud) paths; skinny, almost-dumping-me-into-the-rice-paddies trails; and straight up bush wacking. My tiva’d feet got a taste of the local stream, my bag picked up many friends in the form of burrs and needles, and I terrified/herded about 100 ducks before warranting the attention (and mercy) of a local farmer, who allowed me to cut through his courtyard to get back to the main road. It was, all in all, a quite lovely afternoon, despite the embarrassment and need for extreme foot washing. There are new pictures of my wanderings, as well as Lijiang and Dali, at http://anamericaninheqing.blogspot.com.

Today marks 11 weeks since my arrival in Yunnan. I wonder how long it’ll take the weeks to add up enough that I stop counting and default to months. I have been teaching for a month now, officially. In some ways it feels longer, but I still have quite a lot I need to improve upon. The kids will have their first “Monthly Test” shortly after the break. These tests are modeled off of the prefecture and regional tests students are subjected to on a quarterly basis, and they are really, really dumb. So far, my students have learned the alphabet, a few simple greetings, ways to introduce themselves and others, and a few scattered colors and nouns. Everything I’ve taught them (with a few exceptions for classroom commands like “stand up”) is in their textbook. There are other things in the book like acronyms (because BBC and UFO are really terms that first year English students need to know), and I’ve been putting those things aside in the interest of teaching them, y’know, practical English. Unfortunately, China and I do not see eye to eye on what constitutes practical English. Thus, if I want my kids to pass their test, after the break I will need to spend significant time teaching them things that absolutely are not important to first year English study. It’s quite frustrating, but everything from here builds to the end-of-ninth-grade Zhong Kao. If they don’t pass that, they don’t go to high school, so I have no choice but to bite the bullet as far as content and test prep are concerned.

I’ve been in a slump since getting back from Dali—more homesick and less motivated than usual. I’m really hoping this is just a short thing that I’ll snap out of soon, but I don’t know.

Last night, I watched “Beauty and the Beast” in Chinese. It was glorious—classic Disney fun with the added benefit of me being able to write down some vocab words. I intend to do quite a bit of Chinese Disney watching in the future.

Anyway, that’s all for now, folks. I’ll post about my 2-5 day adventures upon my return.