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!

Food Poisoning

I was very lucky, minus a small stint of food poisoning in Laos.  Last year I experienced no major food catastrophes.  This year I was lucky enough to experience 'pharohing'.  If you don't know what this is, imagine the "walk like an egyptian dance" and food poisoning and that should describe it to you.

I ate some lunch that day, and I went to the gym.  Then went and ate a huge meal of dumplings.  About a half an hour later, I had to kick people out of my house so I could get sick in peace.  I spent one whole night 'pharohing'.  Luckily I didn't have class the next morning.  So I slept in and then went to class in the afternoon.

But this made me reflect.  Developing countries and developed countries are not so different.  You can get food poisoning in both, though people in developed countries like to pretend their food safety is much better.  You are more likely to get food poisoning in a developing country, but if you are careful you should be fine.

Mid-Autumn Festival, Meishan Longgong

Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th Day of the 8th lunar month.  China's national day is October 1st, it makes sense that the two might overlap every once in a while!  This year, they did with a vengeance. September 30th was the Mid-Autumn Festival, a festival where everyone gives moon cakes wrapped in beautiful boxes!  The boxes are beautiful, but most people are not fans of moon cakes.  Moon cakes are similar to fruit cakes, everyone once in a while you can get a good one but it is rare and most people would rather just move on!

Well, for my Mid-Autumn Festival I was delighted to be invited to join an ex-student and his family for dinner in a restaurant.  They came to pick me up, as I slide into the back seat with my ex-student I couldn't help noticing the military style hat on the dashboard.  The hat with the pin of the CPC proudly displayed on it.  Richard then smiled and said "Let me introduce you to my parents.  My father works high up in the government, I don't know how to say it.  My mother works at Yuelu Mountain, if you ever want a tour let me know."  I think I gulped really loudly at this point, but no one seemed to notice. We went to a dinner and I have to say, this was the smoothest dinner I have ever been to.  Richard translated almost everything to the best of his ability, I toasted people and impressed them with my ability to drink red wine.  Which to those of you who know me from home know my tolerance is not particularly impressive.  But it turns out Richard's godfather is a high up from Guizhou Provence and they have invited me to visit them in Guizhou Provence and I think I will take them up on it.  Here is the part of the evening where I realized just how important Richard's father was.  Richard had to crop his dad out of all my photos from the evening!

 So national day I took it easy and prepped for a week of my friend Andy.  But once he was here it was a week of eating, games, and visiting Changsha. My favorite excursion and possibly the most difficult was the trip to Meishan Longgong, Something Mountain Dragon Palace.  It was beautiful.  It took 6 hours to get it and was the most draining trip I have been on in a while.

Here was our transportation for the day:
1. Taxi to the Train Station only to find out there were no tickets to Xinhua.
2. Taxi to the West Bus Station.
3. Bus to Xinhua (5.5 hours)
4. Bus to Meishan Longgong Parking lot
5. Ferry Boat
6. Bus to the Cave
7. Boat ride in the cave.  (Watch your head!)
8. Bus back to boat
9. Boat back to parking lot
10.  Bus back to Xinhua.

11.  Bus from Xinhua East Bus Station to the regular Bus Station
12. Bus from Xinhua Reg. Bus Station to Changsha South Bus Station.
13.  Taxi home!

For one hour at a cave it was a bit much.  But the cave was awesome!  It was lit up on the inside with tons of colored lights.  Some of the other tourists (We were the only foreigners) were grating on us a bit, they were smoking, touching the walls that said "Don't Touch", and of course climbing over railings to take pictures.

So we walked and commented but did little else about it.  It was an enjoyable cave, but the trip down was terrible.  The trip back was almost worst, because there were no movies only Chinese KTV.  The weather was bad, but it was important to see the countryside I think.  Seeing green things growing is so healing for me.  Also remembering that not all of China is flashing lights and big cities full of money.  There is a lot of poverty in the countryside and a lot of places that look like they can't even dream of what and Ipad, let alone ever dream of leaving the country.

Sports Day: No class

Schools in China are notorious for forcing their students to study and be in class for extremely long time periods.  When they get a day off, it usually  means they have to have class on Saturday or Sunday to make up for the day off.  So this friday we didn't have class, but only because we had made it up two weeks ago on the saturday of all the protests.  Instead we had a giant sports meeting for the kids.  This is a time for the students to relax, cheer on their classmates and cut loose a bit.  It is really nice to see, all these smiling faces that are normally fighting to stay awake in class, or studying furiously in a classroom.

Friday morning I woke up to them testing the P.A. system, playing patriotic music over and over trying to practice some of their last minute marching.  As you may recall from my blog last year, sports day involves an opening ceremony where all the classes march past the stage by class, they are graded on how in synch they are, how original their chant is, and I am sure other things.  Last year I watched from the sidelines.  This time however, Chris and I were invited up on stage to sit with the principal and other office members.  So we stood and clapped for every class that went by.  There are 24 classes of Senior 1s (sophomores), 21 classes of Senior 2s (juniors) and I think 22 classes of Senior 3's (Seniors).  So by the time they finished we were all super sweaty and dying, sitting in the direct morning sun!  But then we had the best view for the full demonstration of in synch morning exercises done by the Senior 1s.Watch it Here

Then we were asked to run with the teachers, 800m.  I hate running, but was talked into it by Chris.  So  I reluctantly was lead to the starting line which was surrounded by students.  They were all like "Patty, you are going to run?"  I reluctantly nodded, and the shot was fired and we all ran part way around the track, through the school and then back on to the track.  My students were cheering for me, it was fantastic, thrilling, and completely mortifying!  Odd how often those three happen to me in China!  After I ran I walked around to talk to my students and was able to see some of the other events.  High jump, long jump, running, an obstacle course relay and more.  My favorite to watch was the obstacle course relay, it was intensely amusing.  The students had to run and crawl under those three bars, jump over a desk,

run across a balance beam go around a post and run back jumping over two green squares.  Some of the people would run and try to slide across the astroturf and slip under the bars.  I only saw one successful attempt at this, the rest just looked really painful.  I was a little sad to leave sports day, but enjoyed the rest of the afternoon working on my apartment and listening to the cheers from afar.  I have to admit, seeing my students this happy makes me happy.  This also inspires me to try and make my classes a little more challenging and a little more fun!  My students are intelligent, creative young adults in their own right, and days like friday just serve to remind me of how awesome they are, and why I do what I do!

Friendship Award, KTV

This week has been extremely busy for me!  I love being busy.  It is my favorite.  I would rather be super busy than bored!  Feel free to remind me of this later in life when I am complaining about lack of free time.

Place setting at the honoree table!

On Tuesday we were invited to a fancy lunch, and informed it was formal.  So we went, having no idea what to expect.  Well what it was, was a big lunch for foreigners honoring some winners of the Hunan Friendship Award!  It was amazing to see so many foreigners and to see how fancy the main table was!  Geoff, Becky, Chris and I were all invited by Yi Zhong.  We attended with Estelle (the french teacher at Yi Zhong), Damien and Khan (teachers from the international department), Claire (a senior 2 teacher who is Chinese but now holds a German Passport), and Sunny (our liaison).  We all got so dressed up, but in true Chinese style many of the Chinese attendees who were not sitting on at the honoree table were wearing jeans and polos!

Me, Sunny and Estelle

So there were speeches, awards given and then dancing.  Of course most of it was minority dances, China loves to reveal in their diversity.  But more on that later...  Anyways, so there were many speeches given.  A speaker was introduced, turns out he was the governor of Hunan province!  So we waited for a lull in lunch, and asked him for a toast and a picture!

Me, Geoff, Becky, The Governor!!, Chris, Claire and Estelle

That was fun and it was even more fun teaching my next two classes in that ensemble!  (Not)

Then that Wednesday was my friend Liao's birthday.  I had invited him to dinner earlier and he had responded with an invite to his birthday dinner.  Because I was unable to attend, I decided to go to KTV with them after my dinner.  It was hilarious!  The teachers of the international department were wasted, singing and eventually throwing cake at each other!  That was when I left.  But props for me, I got an entire KTV room to do the conga with my rendition of Waka waka!

Yueyang

This weekend my friends and I traveled up to Yueyang, Hunan.  This town is about 1hour and 40 minutes away by train.  The train ride was easy, nothing too difficult.  There was a little child on the train who became a bit notorious.  He was such a little emperor.  If you don't know what that is, google it.  It is a growing problem in China, and we all wanted to smack him.  We arrived, dropped our stuff off and headed to see the sights.  We were up there partially to see our friend, partially to visit the town.  Our friend was busy until about 6.  So we headed to Yueyang Tower.  It is supposed to be one of the most beautiful pagoda's in southern China.  It has been burnt down a ton of times, and now is a rather nice park.  Not worth the 80 yuan they charged us.  They wouldn't give us a student discount.  Disappointing really.  Every person in Hunan talks about Zhangjiajie, Fenghuang, and Yueyang tower as the 3 main things to see in Hunan.  Now I have done all them!  It was a little surprising how anti-japan Yueyang was.  Little signs were all over the stores and every single Japanese car had either Chinese flags all over it, or anti-Japanese signs or both.

It was very odd to see.  And we were all made a little uncomfortable by it.  It is odd to be in a country where they feel really strongly against a country.  To wonder what exactly is going to happen between these two countries and these islands.  Especially when you think about the situation with Tibet.  If you don't know much about the Diaoyu islands and how they might possibly have something to do with Tibet.  Here is an interesting article I read on Shanghaiist.

http://shanghaiist.com/2012/09/22/tibet-ccp-sovereignty-legal-argument.php

Anyways, so the sights of Yueyang.  The tower was pretty cool.

And the weather was awesome!  The pollution was pretty bad, it was almost impossible to see the lake. Dongting lake, which is the 2nd largest freshwater lake in China!  The 1st is Qinghai lake.  This pagoda is the Yueyang Tower, it is not worth 80 yuan.  But beautiful.  Junshan island was amazing, the bus was a mere 5 yuan,  and drove us the long way around.  We started out being the only people on the bust, we were in the back.  The bus filled up, but no one noticed us.  Estelle and I were the only white people on the bus, obviously.  But at one point there was a bug next to us, a really big terrifying bug.  So we screamed and slid really far away, every single person on the bus turned and stared at us.  Then continued staring because we were foreigners.

But at one point we were driving on a road that should have been a one way, but they were driving both ways.  The road was a raised cement road that had water on both sides, the bus was swerving around fishermen and other cars.  But we arrived finally, and slipped in on a student fare.  30 yuan.  It was nice.  It was beautiful and quiet.  There were tons of temples, and statues and gardens.  Then we all met up, ate a fabulous yueyang dinner, sang KTV and danced the night away.
Which involved being groped by a drunk girl.. but I will talk about that more later.

LongXia (Cray fish in spicy sauce)

Opinions, Creeps, Strange Students

As I have been speaking to more and more Chinese people about the protests.  I am realizing that the average Chinese person doesn't think much of the protests.  They think it is a bunch of unemployed people causing trouble.  They know that these protests don't actually mean a whole lot.  One of my friends had their Japanese car destroyed.  Who does that hurt? Not the Japanese, but the poor person who owns the car.  Some of my friends are even embarrassed, thinking that this reflects poorly on Chinese people.  Granted most of my friends are graduated from university.

So moving on from that, I love China.  I love the fact that most guys are far too shy to approach me.  I don't get hassled almost ever, if I do it is someone saying "hello" then giggling incredulously with his friends that I said "hello" back.  Very non-threatening, almost amusing some days.  Other days I pretend not to hear, or not to speak English.  There is a young man named Tommy who lives near Yi Zhong, I guess he thinks he knows me well enough to step up his creepy.  Tommy is the young man who last year told me he doesn't like Chinese girls because they only care about money.  Michaela bless her heart piped up with "American girls are the same, we only like money."  At first I thought it was funny and a little rude.  Now I wish I had been a little less nice.  He cornered me in a store and asked me,

"We are friends, why I don't have your phone number?  why I don't have your qq?  Why you and me no go clubby drinky."  As I squirmed uncomfortably looking for my usual American standard blow off.  "you are my girlfriend.. friend."

"NO, I am not your girlfriend.  I have a boyfriend."  I said defensively, "I don't like clubby drinky. I have to go."  I ran off to the restaurant where I was meeting friends a few store fronts down.  I order and sit, who walks up... Tommy.  To harrass me once more.  To tell me I must like hamburgers, because I am fat.  And tell me he doesn't like his mom because she doesn't give him money.  "Get a job"  I respond.  He doesn't get it, luckily Geoff shows up.  And the situation melts into the background.

Then I forgot about my troubles as I saw my students playing the most bizarre game that involved making people kiss.  As far as I could tell it was elimination rock-paper-scissors.  If you lose you go on to the next round, if you lose all the rounds then you have to kiss someone.  I fled the room laughing about how crazy my students are.

That night my dear friend Lee called me.  He had had a rough day, and was telling me about how he wants to go to America.  How he hates his school, and how he thinks they have lied to him.  But when he asked about me, I asked him gently.  "What do you say to a guy who won't leave you alone?"
He paused.  "You tell him to Fuck off.  You are too nice, you don't need to be nice to everyone."

This is very true, I wonder if I can be strong enough to say it.