Well, I’ve passed through my first Christmas away from home and my first New Year out of the country. Monday began our week and three days of review, which will be followed by finals, followed by a bus ride to Kunming and a plane ride to Bangkok. Chinese semesters are long (we started class August 29th, I believe), and it hasn’t sunk in that I only have a week with my kids before not seeing them for over a month, but I’m really looking forward to the break.
Story Time:
Christmas Apples (or, Give your Teachers Elaborately Wrapped Fruit Week)Yunnan celebrates Christmas in its own way. Jesus has nothing to do with it, but there’s a general feeling that late December is a time to be happy and give gifts. Two weeks ago, on a venture into town, I saw a four or five-foot-tall Santa Claus figurine, in front of which were laid out many apples, ribbons, and plastic wrapping paper of various prints. This was my introduction to “Christmas Apples,” three of which showed up on my desk over the following week. Apparently, these apples are not meant to be eaten, but I thought they were tasty. Well, I thought the one I ate was tasty. Two of them are still in their wrappings, serving as coffee table centerpieces. Gift giving centers far more around Chinese New Year than it does on Christmas here, so it was sweet of my kids to share with me.
A Very Dali ChristmasEarly on Christmas Eve morning, the five Heqing American fellows set off for Dali, intending to renew our visas on the way. Unfortunately, it turned out the procedure for getting visas had changed, and thus we spent an hour or so hanging around the lobby of the Dali police bureau, watching as about 30-40 Nepalese folks (we eventually caught a look at one of their passports) tried to get their visas straightened out. It was really quite exciting. Also chilly. Marble floors are not much more conducive to warmth than my concrete one. After settling into our hostel (The Hump-- the same one where we had the Thanksgiving meal), we set off for an afternoon of yummy food and coffee, chatting, and waiting for the rest of the kids to arrive. While the Heqing crowd, including our lovely Chinese fellows, had been planning on Christmas in Dali since November, it was lovely indeed to find out that we’d be joined by a large number of the Lincang folks!
Later in the afternoon, as a bunch of us sat in the hostel’s courtyard, a man in a Santa suit came running in and exclaimed that it was time for the gingerbread decorating contest. Obviously, we didn’t take much convincing, and so we made our way up the stairs to a table laden with pre-assembled but homemade gingerbread houses, icing of various colors, and fun toppings. So we spooned icing all over roofs and walls, as more and more CEI fellows trickled in. Eventually the Heqingers split off for dinner and Secret Santa gift exchanges, followed by impromptu caroling.
Then it was time to go out. Little did we realize we’d be entering a spray foam Warzone.
So there’s this stuff in China called “Flying Snow” and the best way I can think to describe it is projectile, foamy shaving cream. It comes in aerosol cans, but it squirts out like silly string and can get a lot of distance. We saw people selling it in the street upon our arrival, but none of us thought much of it until the battle erupted after dark. Nobody was safe, and no part of anybody was safe. The unspoken embargo on shooting things at one’s face and in one’s eyes usually honored during most activities of this sort was rather…not in place, nor was the notion of “unarmed combatants” being granted safe passage. It was chaos and made every one of us want to spend as little time outside as possible.
Christmas itself was lovely, beginning with French Toast at one of the cafes in town and continuing with some nice strolling and shopping, a 3 minute phone call from my parents, bike riding through villages, a buffet dinner at the hostel with rebaked potatoes and HUMMUS (among other treats), hot chocolate with Bailey’s, and a hilarious white elephant gift exchange. Each fellow was allowed to spend 15 kuai (about $2.50) and gifts included a snickers bar from the states, a slingshot, a crossbow complete with rubber-tipped arrows, a half eaten package of peeps, and....a live trout—quickly named Sullivan, and then, well, barbequed. I did not partake.
Sunday was marked by more delicious food (this time courtesy of the German bakery), a Walmart run mostly in order to stock up on peanut butter and grab some free weights, and a pleasant enough trip home. It wasn’t American Christmas, but, still, no complaints.
Pig KillingsIt’s杀猪season in Heqing. In other words, this is the time of year when lots of nice plump pigs meet their doom and are made into sausage and organ sauce and all number of other…delectable…entities. Apparently, the tradition is to have dried pig’s meat for Chinese New Year’s, which necessitates killing the pigs right around now. Of course, when families kill their swine, there must be parties. Last Tuesday I was coerced into attending my first. When Yiming and I arrived at elementary school, the principal informed us that there was to be a pig killing right after class and that we were both invited. I wasn’t really sure what to expect and was a bit nervous that an about-to-no-longer-be-alive pig would greet me, but as it turned out the pig was 24 hours dead and the party was much like most others I’ve attended here: meat-heavy dishes, drinking men, and chatting. So far I’ve not been invited to any more pig killings, but some fellows have attended quite a number, so who knows?
Walking back from the Pig Killing to school, Yiming and I took the route by the lake and rice paddies (now largely a mix of shallow pools and grazing ground). I hadn’t been out that way for awhile and was really struck by its beauty. Even in what’s probably the least green part of the year, there’s so much to admire. Skies are incredibly blue, seemingly untouched by China’s pollution. The mountains capture sunlight dawn to dusk, time told by the earth’s tone shifting from black to brown to gold and black once more. I know I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I feel so privileged to experience and live this place so many will never see.
New Years Eve, American Style (sorta) Over the last month or so, we Heqing fellows have been trying to hang out more on the weekends. We’re all close enough to one another that we really have no excuse (aside from straight up laziness). Thus, last Friday, Hallie and Arianne came up here for a New Year’s Eve party of sorts. I’d made peppermint brownies—among my more successful rice cooker endeavors—and we hung out and chatted with YiMing and Malijun while I put together snack foods Western and not in the form of scallion pancakes and chocolate chip pancakes (with Ghirardelli double chocolate chips courtesy of Hallie’s mom. Most excellent). As eleven o’clock neared, Malijun and Yiming both announced their intention to sleep, but we would have none of it.
“In America it’s a tradition to stay up until midnight,” we explained, and, with enough badgering, we got the two to stick it out.
A few minutes before midnight, all six of us stole from our rooms to the school gate and into the street. We could hear echoes and see flashes from fireworks in Heqing, but mostly it was quiet and still—a moonless night that painted stars all the brighter.
Together, we lay on our backs by the statue in front of the lake, chilly but not cold cement tingling beneath us. After five years in Minneapolis, and three within range of New York City lights before that, I’d almost forgotten what it is to have stars—many of them—be a constant part of the night. Here, you see not only the brightest spots in the sky but under layers, stretching back into depths of darkest blue.
It was a calm New Year’s. No champagne, no poppers, not even any screaming or cheering. Just sky gazing side by side, catching a glimpse of a shooting star once or twice, marveling at the world.
