Dehang 德巷 Miao Minority Village, 100 Years, I love China, I hate China

Tallest Waterfall in China (according to the sign)

I am very very far behind, I blame the tightening of internet security which made accessing this blog nearly impossible.  So while I was offline....

I went to a magical place called Dehang.  It was out by Fenghuang.  It was beautiful, it is a village populated by the Miao minority.  It is in the middle of a park you have to pay to get into, 60 yuan for regular people.  30 for me with my old student id, thank god for small undeveloped sights in China.  They never check your cards too closely.  It was in the middle of misty mountains, and you can see construction everywhere, where they are threatening to build up yet another eyesore like Fenghuang.  A place built to see tons of people, at least Dehang is smaller and isn't there yet.  The women and men were pleasant and there weren't many people there as the weather was fairly miserable.  We took a walk to the tallest waterfall in China.  And did a treacherous climb up another waterfall, it was beautiful and interesting.  The best part was discovering a kindred spirit in my site mate!  We travel so similarly.  It was nice to see green, and smell fresher air!  I tasted and bought some local alcohol, and watched them picking bee larvae out of a bee's nest to cook their specialty.  I was not even tempted to try eating bees or their larvae.
Then Halloween,  Which was awesome!  I made a haphazard costume of a devil.  I was a 洋鬼子, which is an old impolite term for Foreigners.  The English translation is "Foreign Devil."  I went out and partied with an interesting mix of foreigners and Chinese people.  It is interesting to see Chinese people celebrating American holidays, they seem to really enjoy Halloween.  But only feel comfortable celebrating it in the company of Foreigners.

Then comes the thing I really want to talk about.  The 100 year anniversary of Yi Zhong.  This was an amazing thing to witness.  They spent a week decorating the campus, building a giant stage on the football field.  They built amazing towers of walls of flowers that spelled messages of Yi Zhong's greatness.  They built a new statue and had it covered with a sheet awaiting the unveiling.  The schedule that weekend was amazing!  Saturday Morning there was the unveiling of the new Mao statue.  That night was a huge show, complete with a play about Mao's time at Yi Zhong, Communist dances about the revolution, and student's and teachers dancing.  My favorite was the Wushu demonstration!  It was amazing.  We also had a famous comedian Dabing (who is on a bottle of baijiu), and is coincidently an Yi Zhong alumnus, give a show!  It was really interesting.  It was impressive, I didn't understand any of the talking, but it was big.  The next day the clubs gave a presentation, then there were boring speeches, and then a huge lunch!  Which was delicious!  Finally that night, another show.  Somethings were the same, some were different.  My dear site mate rapped about Yi Zhong with a student, it was quite adorable.  Heart full of love for China I went to my Chinese Lesson.

Now to what I hate about China.  My Chinese teacher has to change houses, because her house is on the property of the Provincial Museum which is going to expand.  She tells me calmly, "I don't mind leaving, it is troublesome but I don't mind.  But they won't give us a proper amount of money for our house."  So now these people have resorted to bullying her and her family.  They threatened to take away her husband's job, and then took him out for dinner and tried to give him very expensive perfume.    She is strong, and will not leave until they give her the proper amount.  But the fact that they are bullying people into leaving with not enough money to buy a place of equal value, makes me see red!!!

More to come!