Old things are New

I have put all my emails to family and friends which this blog should replace below, so if you were one of the privileged few who actually received my emails, only read the stuff below if you feel an intense need to re-read some the things you have already squandered your time on.
Hopefully though I'll be able to put up some new stuff and not clutter people's inboxes anymore. Phil.

St. Paddy's Day

Yesterday, as you may all be aware was St. Paddy's day here in China. It was not however in America, this I feel is your loss. In honor of the day, I donned my cloverleaf underthings and tried to speak to everyone with an Irish accent. Not only am I very bad at Irish accents, but in Chinese this accent sounds particularly out of place. I don't know if I did it correctly.

I believed the best way to celebrate the day was to go to a Chinese market and then look at some big rocks--I don't think either of these things are particularly Irish, but they are the things which I did, so will have to suffice.
The market was in a small town about 70 miles east of Kunming, dominated by the Sani minority people. I found that these people were incredibly friendly and much nicer than the city dwellers of Kunming. I don't know if this is because the Sani people wore bright colors or if they were genuinely nice. It has always been my rule of thumb in life to like those things which were brightly colored--my ice cream choosing methods, my book and movie choices are often decided by that which is most brightly colored. The Sani people dress very brightly. The woman mostly wear a sort of bright aqua blue head cloth or sometimes the more ornately colored headdress of their people which looks like a nun's wimple if the nun's clothing designer were to be from Las Vegas. Many of the women also wore their traditional clothing: brightly colored pants and shirt with all kinds of sashes and fringes. The men didn't dress near so flashily, but almost all of them wore floppy straw hats like you might expect a middle aged American woman to wear on her gardening day.
A man I had met the a few days earlier told me that the people in this are of Yunnan were "innocent." I think the gist of what he meant got mixed up somewhere between his mandarin and my english, but I found out yesterday. Sani people were incredibly nice, almost always smiling broadly--not in the manner many chinese smile which tends to be a little more a smile of the teeth. The Sani smiled with their eyes (I don't like using such a sappy expression, but like most cliches there is truth to it). They often pointed at us and laughed but I would like to believe this was what people tell me is "laughing with you" rather than "at you."
The best aspect of these people though were their children. China seems to be full of far more children than America, despite the one child policy. This may be because in China their kids are far cooler than kids in America. Here, I often see little children (no more than three or four) playing in the streets with others or by themselves, and it doesn't seem that their parents are anywhere in sight. Either the kids are a commodity people can afford to lose, or one which they are not terribly worried about. Of course, these kids also often have toys which, in my own humble opinion, make anything you might see at Toys R Us look like child's play. The kids here get to play with matches, fire, large knives, and all manner of bugs and or other small rodents. Any self-respecting American parent would not allow his or her child to even learn that such things exist, and so we are a national of little wimps. Chinese children on the other hand...
But still, despite all their incredible play-things, the children here are capable of being caught off their guards. Which brings me back to the Sani children who were especially so. We were walking along a sidewalk when this little guy, maybe three years old, came running out from an alley. He caught one glance of us and it seemed like he was blown backwards--he almost fell over. He made this wooshing sound which I took to be the Chinese equivalent of WOW! He stood there, paralyzed with shock, for several minutes, before finally turning tail and running away. Apparently he had never seen the White Devil before, much less one with such a horrible haircut. I realize by now I have said almost nothing about the market, so I'll try and make it quick so as not to abuse your patience much more nor make this letter worthy of being a two-parter.
The market was your typical Chinese non-tourist market: which means they sold mostly food and some products which were meant for living, not for tourist consumption. I found out that you could buy any one of the numerous cow-heads for something less than $15, and the half dog carcass was going for even less, but I think this was because it was the back half and not the front. The vegetables looked much the same as those which you might find in the states, with the exception of the lotus root and some of the other more exotic type deals (although I assure you, their names are the only exotic part about them). There were parts of the market which sold less common things (at least to my ignorant self) such as pig tails and some other like-looking thing which I will not hazard to name. I almost tried these foodstuffs, but thought better of it. Everybody else seemed to be partaking with gusto though.
Nobody in the market was wearing anything green (blue seemed to be the dominant color) so I thought about laying to with the pinches, but judging from how well they could butcher a cow's carcass I thought it better to leave the status quo than introduce a new custom. The Sani have plenty of customs, I do not believe my pinching will add much to their culture anyhow.
As for the night life: I went to a bar to partake of an Irish coffee or something which would bring a tear to me Irish eye. Most of the late-night places were overrun with foreigners who were making merry and spilling their drinks (at one point I believe the first floor experienced a distinct sensation that it was raining beer, mainly because some people from Denmark decided to see how well the second floor planking could strain their beers. Apparently a holiday centered around alcohol is something which every culture can adopt.
I wish all of you a happy St. Paddy's day, and hope that you do not attempt to strain any sort of drink through the floors of buildings.
Phil.

Indoctrination by Underwear

At last, I believe I have succeeded in striking a blow for capitalism in Red China! This morning I was doing my laundry--a process here which is somewhat less appealing than I had hoped--and hit upon a plan for single handedly breaking communist rule in China. As far as laundry goes, I do it in the bathtub. Before you accuse me of being a tightwad and unwilling to sped a trifling sum on laundry service, please take note of this: first of all, the laundry service which I found here does not do underwear and socks (the main things which need washing), second of all, it costs money. I found I can get detergent at the local store for less than 25 cents while the laundry service costs more than 2 dollars, this savings, when converted to Chinese currency is massive.
So I do my laundry in the bathtub. Afterwards I hang it up out the window. Now it just happens that I live on the third floor of a building on a major street, so I was proudly displaying my hula girl underwear to the entire population of Kunming. If this does not make them convert to Capitalism, perhaps my clover leaf boxers will do the trick, and if (God forbid) even they fail, I can still pull out my ace on them--my male chauvinist pig underwear! I think you all may safely depend on the fall of the Chinese communist regime within a week or two at the most.
In other news, I am beginning to acclimate quite well to life here in China. Today I was even able to attend to a church service downtown. I can say without doubt it was not what I expected. This was the only licensed foreigner church in Kunming. There is an interesting (annoying, bad?) law in China which says that Chinese citizens cannot attend a foreign service, nor have any sort of support from foreign organizations when it comes to religion. Because of this, they had guards stationed at the doors to this service which checked your ID to make sure you were not a citizen.
The service itself was like any other nondenominational service you might go to in the States, but the entire time I found myself unable to get over the idea that Chinese were not allowed in. If in America citizens are intended to be the privileged, in it seems that the foreigners are those who are privileged. Not only are foreigners given far more free reign than citizens, but those foreigners who are unfortunate enough to be mistaken for citizens can some times find themselves in dire straits. I have heard some stories of Chinese Americans here getting beat up.
I'm hoping next week to go to another Chinese service (foreigners are free to attend local services, only they cannot support or help out in any way), but since my language skills still are on the preschool level, I don't expect to understand a whole lot. It's safe to say though, that while there is far more religious freedom than I expected to find in China, there are also ways in which they curtail freedom which I would never have thought of.
Enjoy yourselves and your freedoms,
Phil.

The Faculty Outing

China has kept up its end of the bargain and has been nothing but excitement. Today for instance, we were invited by the faculty to go on their annual outing, which consists of them trucking up to some mountain and testing their might against Nature's. An interesting prospect. Kunming, despite its tropical advertisements is much more like Beijing--very dry and often dusty. They tell me that the rainy season comes in June, so perhaps by then I shall have other weather news to report. But thus far, dry and warm. So when we set out, i was clothed in my traditional shorts and short sleeved shirt. The teachers however were dressed a bit nicer than myself: most of them were wearing dress slacks and some sort of nice shirt, some even had suits. The hike up the mountain proved to be more formidable than I had imagined, but for reasons other than you might suppose. At first we did fine, following a beaten dirt trail up a moderately steep hill. I should perhaps tell you that the faculty consisted of some forty or fifty persons varying in age from late twenties to early seventies. About half way up the mountain, the trail decided that the whole business was a little tiresome and up and quit on us. This led to some confusion, with the few aspiring souls deciding to forge their way on through the underbrush. When I say underbrush, I of course mean incredibly dry and dusty brambles and small trees about head high. The brush had the density of western Washington and the character of eastern Washington.
If you can, picture these respectable teachers in their respectable clothing slowly clawing their way up the hill (it got much steeper at this point), sometimes even hanging from the underbrush lest they fall off the mountain. These variety of brush they have here in Kunming is not broad--most of it consists of branches with thorns, although sometimes this is varied by your traditional version of wild grass. There were also quite a few stunted pine trees with sharp needles. These were incredibly good at blocking your view.
Most of the faculty were turned back by this formidable wall of brush, but a few intrepid souls and myself forged on, beating a path through the wilderness. We did at last reach the top of the mountain, only to realize that everything was socked in by a dense brown haze. I could be poetic and call it fog, I could lie and call it clouds, but being the lover of truth I am: it was smog.
On the way back into the city we made a slight detour to the new campus under construction. In the only finished building of this campus it chanced that they were having a large presentation about the soon to be wonders of the coming construction. After listing to this and smiling at their computer generated images of how beautiful their new campus would be, I began to suspect that the invitation to climb the mountain might have merely been a crude trick to get us students to give them a chance to brag about their school. I smiled and nodded a lot.
At the risk of trying your patience, I think I should also tell you about our history teacher here. He is supposedly quite a famous fellow who has been coming or living in Kunming now for twenty years. They say he was one of the first white people to live here. Unfortunately he is also more senile than not. He is never seen without his jungle exploration hat (the one like Gilligan wears) and even wears it under his bicycle helmet--a sight to behold, let me tell you! The fellow speaks Chinese in a booming voice and by the winces of the locals, with quite an accent. Of course I--who inspire laughter wherever i speak--am no one to speak.
What is interesting though is that this teacher of ours, though you would never suspect it from how he looks, is an avid biker. He took three of my fellow students for a ride up a mountain the first weekend and they (my classmates) came back white of face, exhausted, and one with a broken toe. Apparently, our teacher has a love of danger.
There is much more to say about this guy, but I won't waste more of your time. Enjoy whatever time of day it happens to be where you are,
Phil.

Lantern Festival

As some of you who aspire to more culture than can ever attain may know, this last Sunday was the Lantern Festival here in China, being the last day of the new year. I myself was unaware of this information myself, however my roommate and I became aware of its existence some time on Sunday evening. We both had been succumbing to vicious cases of homework and so were staring at the dorm room wall with glazed over eyes, expecting the night to bring only misery and memorization. We began to suspect something big was up however when the street outside our window blew up.
You may dismiss this as an exaggeration or figure of speech, but when Chinese kids get their hands on the massive quantities of gunpowder they did, mere streets are to be considered common collateral damages. The natives worry about their cities in general, lest they too should be engulfed in the general state of incineration.
Anyhow, after our hearing returned and our windows stopped vibrating, we--my roommate and I--decided that whatever was going on outside was more interesting than what was going on inside. This proved to be true since our conversation took place in what you might call a lull. Acting on an idea from my roommate (who is far more savvy than myself) and using the internet we established that the day was indeed the famous, though little known, Chinese Lantern Festival. For us it was the work of half a moment to abandon all hopes at doing homework and run out into the city to find the supposed lanterns of the Lantern festival.
I say supposed lanterns because after several hours of charging up one alley and down another, into one square and along a canal, we finally established that there were approximately three lanterns in the whole of Kunming, only two of which were actually lit. While this was somewhat of a disappointment, our sadness was assuaged by the spectacle of young Chinese children playing the arson's role. If in America they publish warnings on fireworks and are saddened when a child burns his hand on the fourth of July, i have heard that in Beijing on the new year, more than a hundred and fifty people engulfed themselves accidentally with their perhaps overzealous firework displays. In Kunming, it is mainly the young who partake in this dangerous affair--all those old enough to be called not young, having never liked the fireworks anyways (which explains their lengthy lifespans).
I established at a later date that Kunming is one of the cities which, though it does celebrate the lantern festival, abstains from including anything so cliche as lanterns in their festivities.
Sad, yes...but a learning experience, no?
My roommate and I however, have heard that their is another festival coming soon. Supposedly this "water-splashing festival" is supposed to surpass even the lantern festival in rabid enjoyment of the festivities by all involved. I am planning on purchasing a large super-soaker to partake myself. I teach these pyromaniac little children who rules the world of water-fights!
I unfortunately do not have more exciting experiences and news to relate from China, so will not continue to abuse your time.
Hopefully you are all well and enjoying the sanitary conditions of your bathrooms. Do not take this for granted.
Phil.

Land of the Cheap

If America is the "land of the free," China is certainly the "land of the cheap." I actually found the major market of Kunming yesterday--twice. And in the process i learned i am not the wiz with directions i once fancied myself. The Bird and Flower, as this market is called, is badly named. Before any of you caution me about the dangers of bird flu, i should tell you that there are no flowers and fewer birds in this market. Apparently the is poetic or something.
They did have, however, everything else you could possibly think of. They had dried grubs, dried lizards on a stick, animal furs, they even had the carcasses of these animals which i guess you are supposed to stew or something.
But what was really neat about this market was that i was the only white person within ten miles. I'm sure there were other whities, but the market covered ten or twelve city blocks and all the alley ways in between so the chance for seeing another foreigner was rare. For a moment i almost felt like i didn't stick out like a sore thumb, but unfortunately i turned around and realized that at least several thousand people were staring at me. It's enough to make you think something's wrong with you. I went to church today and when i was walking back from communion, i do not lie when i say that every person in church was looking at me.
But back to the market. I have not had much chance to bargain yet, perhaps because i am too cheap to buy anything, but also because the few things i have purchased have had such a low price, i simply did not have the heart to argue about cents. The market reminded me though of a combination of the home and garden show (there were people demonstrating the quality of mops everywhere) and a thrift store which had been moved into the street and the proprietorship divvied up between a thousand or so vendors. Strangely enough though, for all the many many millions of little booths, most of them sold the same stuff. Everybody had their own selection of lighters, flashlights, and fake jade bracelets--all of which were exactly the same as the booth next door. There were a few odd booths which stuck out as unique, particularly the military gear and the animal horn booths--few vendors could match them.
i am thinking i should take some pictures of the stuff they sell and create a catalog. I know i would have plenty of buyers back in the states.
Hopefully all of you are in the pink,
Phil.

Chinese Recycling

It seems there is always a new discovery for me to make here in China. For instance this last evening, my roommate and i were talking about the cheapness of bottled water in China (liter and a half for 10 cents) and we noticed there was something a little suspicious about the bottles. Normally, bottled water bottles tend to be clear and unscathed so as to make the water appear all the more clean, yet many Chinese bottles look like they have been getting quite a wearing in their travels from bottling plant to store. We began to connect this information with the all-to-common sight of poor people pillaging garbage cans for bottles...
it seems that in China, the water bottles (and probably ever other bottle) is recycled. I do not mean this in the simple American term which implies melting down and reforming, but more like "reused." Of course my roommate and i assume that the bottles are cleaned at some point--or at least rinsed. Apparently they already have nation-wide free recycling in China.
I've also been experiencing a little of the foreigner culture here in Kunming. There is a good sized district in Kunming where the foreigners, often styling themselves as ex-patriots, congregate. Yesterday for instance, i ate dinner at a spanish restaurant and overheard an American speaking Japanese. While i do like a lot of this sort of culture, i can't help but notice it's a leaves an odd taste in the mouth. In their zeal for being multicultural many of the foreigners tend to embrace a kingly lifestyle (something which China makes incredibly easy). Often i see these foreigners demanding immediate service because they can pay for it. I'm not so much criticizing these foreigners, because well, i am one of them, but there seems to be as big a disparity between their supposed outlooks on life and reality as there is between their's and the Chinese's lifestyles.
As far as living like a king goes though, let me tell you, it is easy. I would say i spend about $5 American per day and this usually buys me some bread for breakfast, a nice coffee with some cookies, a solid lunch of Chinese food, and a large dinner with drink. All of these, except perhaps lunch, come from what are considered expensive restaurants and come with waiters who fill your tea up every time they pass. And since i often eat with a group of people, we usually have five or six dishes to choose from.
I will not waste any more of your time today,
Phil.

Despite Communist Government’s Best Efforts…

I have made it to Kunming.

And now that i am here, i am doing my best to stick it back to them by eating all the food i can get my hands on. I think i should be able to put most of the country into a state of famine by later this week.

Despite what i had hoped, i do in fact have classes to attend while i am here, which consist of three straight hours of chinese, followed by another 22 (we are not allowed to speak english at all). Of course we could, as a group of troubled american students, choose to ignore this idea, but the Chinese have outsmarted me this once and enlisted only vile scum who refuse to speak english as my compatriots in the program. And they speak about chinese human rights violations without mentioning this one!

Anyhow, to date the best thing i have to report would be the weather...not really, i actually found the food here to be the best food on earth. For instance they do this coconut milk desert called Grass Milk (having nothing to do with marijuana) which is incredibly rich. I cannot describe how creamy it was, and at the bottom were jello cubes made of herbs of some sort, which gave a wonderful flavor. For breakfast i have also been having baozi which are small dumplings filled with any number of mystery meats. And for lunch today i got a huge bowl of beef noodles with spices for less than 70 cents american.

I think i could go on and on about the food for hours, so i won't. My digs are somewhat less than as amazing as the food. In fact i would describe my room which i share with another guy in the program as a dilapidated version of a poor motel six which was built in the 70s and featured prominently in any number of the drug movies of that era.

other than these boring details, i have little to report. I have met several other foreigners but have yet to make my first genuine Chinese friend. An australian i met has informed me that if i travel to Cambodia i can shoot a rocket launcher at a cow for under 300 dollars, this is opposed to the higher Burmese price although there are rumors that the burmese give you a bigger cow. i doubted the australian's state of sobriety, but have since met other travelers who say the same thing. I do not think, however, that i shall be making a trip to Cambodia in the near future for this purpose.

Having thus exhausted your patience i shall bid you a good day.

Phil.