Adventures in Kunming and Beyond

Yes, it has been one month since I haphazardly arrived in China. That’s a big deal. I think I’ve made some progress adjusting to life here. I would also say that our quality of life here has improved, primarily through the weather. It was like we woke up one day last week after weeks of rain, and it was sunny. Since then, it has been sunny and upper 60s to low 70s. Not too bad. Kunming looks much better sans rain. I’m told it won’t rain again until the Spring, although the temperature will drop. You’d be surprised at how much better a person can feel with a change in weather.

Anyway, so about slacking off on the posts. Well, things have really picked up with school. Classes are in full swing (8 regular ones a week) and my students enjoy pushing me to the limits some days. For the most part it’s good. I’ve also had some other additions to my teaching schedule/social life. Tuesday nights I’m now a part of English Corner. For those of you unfamiliar with this ritual, it entails the Chinese students finding as many foreign volunteers as they can and then for two hours bombarding them with English conversation. Not difficult, but after you’ve introduced yourself about 50 times and explained your hometown and what you like about China, it gets a little old. The point is for students to practice English outside of class, so the concept is good. And, because we went once, we are now part of the group.

Last Thursday I started my three-week speech seminar, which is probably my favorite class. It’s basically a prep course for the big CCTV speech contest taking place over the next few weeks, but it’s nice because all of the students are there voluntarily and I found that I enjoy helping them with speeches (hmm…maybe rhetoric in grad school?). We have two more sessions of that to go, but we’re actually choosing the students that will advance to the next round (only five from our department) this week. Speech season runs my life right now. I am judging a division of the contest on Wednesday night, so that will be a new experience. I am also making my celebrity debut in China on Friday night as I was asked to hostess another university’s preliminary division. All of these speech events are for the big CCTV one that’s in Beijing, if the students make it that far, so there are a lot of official rules and guidelines that CCTV enforces to any group holding a preliminary contest. I actually have a prescribed order/script that I have to follow for Friday night’s event. (On a sidenote, the instructions are all currently in Chinese, so it will be a bonus when I find out what I’m supposed to be saying in English.) Anyway, I have to attend a rehearsal for it this week. The rules also state that as the hostess, I must dress “formally.” That means my other cultural adventure for the week will be tackling Chinese fashion and shopping. So this week is insanely crazy with all of the speech things I’ve been recruited for. It’s also an extra long week because next week is a holiday. However, to get the full week of holiday, we have to make up two days of classes for next week this weekend. Not cool. The holiday is actually tomorrow (Tuesday), and it entails eating a special dessert called Moon Cakes. The premise of the holiday (Mid-Autumn Festival) is to be with your family and friends and eat these cakes or something. Anyway, so everyone’s been running around handing out Moon Cakes and they’re all planning parties for tomorrow, so I have a list of appearances to make.

Other than that, we’ve vetoed any glamorous plans for the week of break. Unfortunately EVERYBODY in China has time off, so it’s supposed to be pandemonium and chaos. That and the fact that we haven’t gotten paid, and the university is going to take half of my check for my plane ticket means that funding is low. The plan is to hit up some local sights and make the best of it. Perhaps I’ll perfect my badminton game, since I’ve been getting recruited lately (p.s. Chinese alcohol does not improve your game at all) by students. I guess I look athletic? HAAA!

Well, what have I been up to the last few days? For the most part, I tried to survive another week of classes, including my two new freshmen classes. A note about that: I now teach two freshmen writing classes of 50 students each, in a crammed room with only a chalkboard. My creativity will be pushed to the limits.

Outside of being a working girl, Havvah and I had a few interesting cultural experiences. Wednesday night we decided to walk around and see what was going on. Our first encounter was some sort of dance squad/cheerleaders/aerobics class performance taking place in the gym. We were never really sure what to make of it, but it was pretty entertaining, and tame, if these were the school’s version of cheerleaders. Anyway, a mildly amusing event. But the real excitement came when we nearly found ourselves in the middle of a confrontation between a restaurant owner and some pretty intimidating looking guys who were attacking with broken bottles. Not the place you want to find yourself or see that happening right outside campus gates. About two steps later there was another incident that had resulted in injuries so it was mayhem with paramedics, ambulances and onlookers. Anyway, we practically ran back through the gates, and ran into Mr. Wong who was returning from a cigarette run. Of course, that made for an awkward walk back as he would say something in Chinese and we’d be like, ummm, English? Oh, well. To make up for it, and to try to get in good with the people that control our quality of living, we decided to share some of the brownies Ryan had sent with them. That was certainly interesting, and I’m still waiting to get my plate back with some sort of Chinese equivalent (fish heads, maybe?).

Thursday was the climax of an ongoing situation between myself and our contact at the foreign office. Basically, all foreigners need to get extensive medical check ups, even if you had it all done in the States. Every time this person at the foreign office gave us a few hours notice that she was taking us (which happened on three occasions), I had a class conflict. Other particulars aside, it was getting old, and without the medical thing, I couldn’t get my residency permit, which takes two weeks to process. The problem there is that the October break is quickly approaching, and I didn’t want to find myself without a passport and be stuck in Kunming. To attempt to resolve this, I offered to go to the clinic by myself (meaning on my own time, without the foreign office, but with Havvah). Well, after bringing this up, I was told I needed to go immediately. Ok, but Havvah had a conflict. Well, after explaining several times that I was willing to go without the foreign office, but not without someone who had already been to the place, I was given an ultimatum: go today and get your passport in time for break, or wait and don’t have it. You might think I was being a baby, but I promise, I wasn’t. The clinic was on the opposite side of town and took me an hour to get there. Armed only with the characters for the clinic and directions to hand to the staff, I set out to get the damn thing taken care of. Again, an hour in a taxi only psychs you out more for something of this caliber. So we pull up to this building, which definitely didn’t look like a medical facility, and the fun began. Let me say that there was no English the entire time. The process included lots of tests, like an ultrasound, x-rays, an EKG and bloodwork. They were definitely not the friendliest people…I’m quite certain that bedside manner is not a concept here. I got yelled at so many times, and the thing is, this is the clinic that all non-Chinese people have to go to in order to get their permits so perhaps they would not be new to the idea that most of their patients are not Chinese speakers. Well, I survived, and took a LONG shower afterward. And we celebrated with a trip to Salvador’s for supper. So, hopefully my results don’t come back with any reasons why my health prohibits issuing me a permit. And, my next task is fighting for reimbursement of it. Just for your amusement, the total cost of the exam, with all tests, was $50 USD.

Anyway, Friday was a Metro trip. Nothing too exciting. Saturday I tackled the mound of laundry taking over. I also put my new Lysol with bleach (courtesy of Ryan) to use. It was beautiful. Saturday night we got out to sample some more of China’s nightlife. Last weekend we went to a British-type bar (Chapter One), which was ok for hanging out, but probably more of a sports bar atmosphere. So, the selection for this week was Speakeasy. It turned out to be a very eclectic underground bar with lots of Chinese and foreigners. Havvah drank cheap beer, but I was determined to find anything but beer. Unfortunately, that comes with a price, so I think I’m just going to have to suck it up and learn to drink beer Oh, well. We met some guys from the Netherlands who were in Kunming doing some kind of tulip bulb research for their job. They were a lot of fun to hang out with. However, my small Dutch town origins did come back to haunt me. One of the guys was actually from the real Friesland in Holland, so I was telling him about Friesland in Wisconsin. How ironic. Anyway, it was fun to meet new people and just chill.

And, of course, that brings us to Sunday, which is still synonymous with homework and lesson planning. It would have also meant sleeping in, but some sort of convention/assembly/pep rally has been going on all day, all weekend at the auditorium right outside my window. That would really sucked to be woken up by it if I had had more than my one rum and coke last night. Oh, well. We are also planning to hit up a fine American delicacy in the form of McDonald’s today, too. Beautiful greasy goodness

Oh, and did I mention that I also got myself accidentally signed up for teaching a Saturday morning class??? Yeah, never assume that weekends aren’t an option. So, next Saturday morning I begin the first of three Saturday, two hours classes where my task is to teach global citizenship and speech writing to prepare these students for a contest in October. Yes, basically six hours total to teach them something, how to write a speech about it and then make sure they have a final award-winning product for the last session. I mostly just feel bad that these students’ fate rests in my hands…a lot of pressure…and why didn’t I ever take any of those global citizenship classes Drake offers?? Ah, regrets.

It was a hectic day. Let’s start with class. Well, my third session of viewing, listening and speaking (vls) for the week got a little hostile. This particular group is one of my quieter ones, so I was figuring that this meant the material was over their heads, and was really dreading teaching them academic writing on Thursday (I teach vls to four groups of juniors, and two of those groups are also my academic writing classes later in the week). Not so. Our topic du jour was social life. Start with the basics I figured, until they were willing to open up. About an hour into the class and during a dialogue discussion, two girls ended up having a showdown about how the class sucked, while the other defended me. Although I was a little offended, it finally came out that some of the class felt the topic was elementary and already knew all of the vocabulary, etc since all of their previous foreign teachers covered this. First, I don’t know what the other teachers taught them. Second, I spent half of the first class session engaging each class in a discussion about what would be meaningful for them to learn about. Third, if you’ve already heard this material a zillion times, then why can’t you speak/use it??? So I challenged them with that point and said that they needed to demonstrate to me that they could do it. Yeah. Besides, ESL is a continuous process. You don’t just learn stuff and forget it, you have to keep using it in different situations. Anyway, while frustrating, I was actually quite pleased that I had gotten a reaction and an opinion out of someone. So, not a total loss.

Well, on my way back from class, Mr. Wong (one of the building managers) was waiting for me out by the road. Neither Mr. Wong, Mr. Li or Mr. Wong’s wife (all of the people that manage/watch our building) speak any English, so I had no idea what message was being conveyed. Turns out, my gargantuan 52 lb box from Ryan had arrived!! Poor Mr. Wong wouldn’t let me carry it up the three flights of steps. I was so happy for the box’s arrival, but clearly did not know how to convey this in Mandarin, so I just kept saying thank you and decided I should shake his hand (my first reaction was to hug him, but I figured this could be a a little strange). I’ve never been so happy to see chips and salsa, oatmeal packets and trashy celebrity magazines in my life. Ryan is pretty much amazing. Also, just for your entertainment, there was a bit of a communication error, so for some reason Ryan thought I had asked for the Hanson “Mmmbop” CD. So, however strange the request, he sent it (yes, I do own it), so the first thing I see when I open this box is a Hanson CD. Oh well, it’s the thought that counts, and now it’s pretty funny to think about receiving a Hanson CD in China In the midst of my glee, however, Havvah informed me that our favorite (major sarcasm) foreign office person had called and decided we were going for our medical tests in three hours and we also needed to obtain 8 pictures of ourselves to have this done. This is the second time the assumption has been made that we’re sitting around waiting for plans. And, for the second time, I had a scheduling conflict. Grrr.

My scheduling conflict certainly wasn’t more glamorous. In fact, I was scared to death to give my presentation to the English department/foreign language department. In the end, I survived, although it was a little weird. While it was also an approval of my lesson plans, I guess the presentation was also intended as a seminar for the faculty. Yeah, at 22, I really don’t feel like I have a lot to bring to people with Ph.Ds. But, they didn’t fire me, and the dean was nice to me. The meeting ended with the promise of more “seminars” to come (oh, dear).

Anyway, I was exhausted, but told Havvah I would go to English corner with her. We decided to be lazy and hit up the Western restaurant prior to it. This is only remotely interesting because the music they play there tends to resemble a “Greatest Romance Movie Soundtracks” of all time. On more than one occasion we’ve heard “My Heart Will Go On” and other songs that you once sang to that you wish remained lost. In the end, we never found the English corner. Oh well. I was happy to get back and delve through my box some more instead of tackling a lesson plan for tomorrow.

A few days without posts…I regret to say nothing truly enthralling happened. Thursday ended my week of teaching, since my freshmen classes don’t start until this week. Although I was relieved to have survived my first week of teaching, Thursday was a low point in my adventures thus far. I hit a point where I had had enough extreme changes and missed the comforts of life terribly. This is definitely not something I’m proud of, but I feel like sharing it is important because of the stress that a change like this can put on a person. Such little things can build up and I feel like I had handled them quite well up until then. The breaking point? Something probably quite trivial, but I think for everyone there is a point that crosses the line. Mine was the malfunctioning of my iTunes. Fortunately, I can use it, I just cannot download anything, for whatever reason. Again, trivial, but there are just some things that get you through, and music is my thing. I will survive, but it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. I had enough, which wasn’t the worst part– that was feeling extremely guilty for wanting some of the luxuries I was used to, when clearly I am in a country where people live without these frivolous things every day and survive. Well, in the end, I just needed to have a good cry (a realllly good cry) and have some sense talked into me from Mom and Ryan, although it did consist of many “But, you just don’t understands” on my part.

I think another huge part of this meltdown was the extreme changes to my identity here, which I think is true about anywhere you travel. Although I don’t feel defined by vanity, adjusting to some of the lack of routine (not straightening my hair, no dryer, wearing jeans and tennis shoes a lot) was huge. Superficial, but true. Also the change to being a minority, both in looks and language can wear on you. Although it is amusing to have Chinese people stare and often scrutinize (such as the contents of your grocery cart), after a while, I found it hard not to want to just be “regular” and blend in. Anyway, take all of my cultural adjustments as you will, but until you’ve uprooted your entire way of life, please just take these as a person trying to find their place in new surroundings and not just as someone who is spoiled by American life.

Well, on Friday I was determined to survive China. So, a trip to Carrefour and some more life necessities spruced up the apartment a little more, particularly improving my bedroom. The quest for a mop was also successful, and even included a very impressive demonstration of how the mop was truly the best of the best. Unfortunately, the Ferrari of mops turned out to be a mess to assemble (yes, assemble) and resulted in me wearing more of the dirt and probably the longest string of profanities in China to date. All in all, a productive day.

Saturday we (David, Rachelle, Havvah and I) had a date to partake in one of the other Western restaurants and brainstorm lesson plans. For a change the weather was super-nice, so I think that helped improve morale. The French onion soup and onion and cheese bread I had probably also helped. Saturday night we decided to venture out and see how the local bars measured up. We ended up at a foreigners’ bar, which was pretty interesting, and resembled home in the way of a dive bar. I don’t drink beer, but tonight called for one, and for the price (8 kuai, so just a little over $1 for a liter of beer), I dealt with it. Unfortunately, beer tends to make you hungry for lots of salty, greasy things…I never wanted Perkins so bad in my life (disgusting, I know).

Sunday I knew I needed to work on my presentation for the English department hardcore. I was also starving for a wholesome meal. I had limited resources, but figured I could give my pancake mix a shot. It never stood a chance. My American cooking skills are not stellar, so combine that with a hotplate in another language and that spells disaster, or in my case, pancake batter burned to the bottom of my $1 frying pan. I’m sure my poor quality pan didn’t help either. Oh well. Luckily, Rachelle returned and I was able to borrow her can opener. Let me tell you that spaghetti and canned corn never tasted so good in my life! Also, foreign microwaves are a little less intimidating, as well. Yeah, so then on to tackle the presentation of my classes that takes place Tuesday…blah, what a challenge. You try making academic writing exciting and meaningful for classes where the majority of my students don’t actually want to be English majors, but aren’t allowed to change. Oh well, I guess we’ll get through it together. Hopefully my other class will go well.

Monday was two classes, bright and early in the rain. I’ve also become one of those teachers who is covered in chalkdust…and I don’t even care, because I’m just happy to have something to write on. Anyway, we ate supper at a great Korean restaurant, and they actually had fried rice, so that was heavenly.

So, moral of the story? I guess just taking one day at a time, and some days might be pretty bleak, but there’s always a new one to give it a shot again.

As you can imagine, every day in China has potential for being lost in translation. Today was a prime example. By “lost in translation” I don’t necessarily mean in terms of the language, although that is a regular issue. I’m also talking cuturally.

First, the day started off with two classes. I was pretty happy to finish up the fourth session of the “listening, viewing and speaking” class, and figured my writing class would be simple enough, since it was the first day. Wrong. The students that showed up for academic writing were definitely ones I had already taught “viewing, listening and speaking” to. Within five minutes, my lesson plan was shot, since the already knew me and had done my generic first week lesson plan. Excellent. Plan B included talking about writing in English…and the discovery that these students have a lot of animosity toward writing in English and are confused by all of the types of writing you can do in English. I’m not sure I’m the right person to conquer English writing for them. Yikes.

Anyway, fast forward to after classes. I was supposed to meet Havvah, David and Rachelle for a search for some our teaching buildings, lunch and a shopping expedition. Well, our campus tour turned into circling all around amidst hordes of students moving into their dorms. As much as we tried, we just couldn’t seem to get the answers we needed regarding the correct buildings for our Int’l Business School classes.

Lunch was also a fiasco at a local place. It consisted of being informed that they didn’t have what we wanted to order, and the rest of the time just not getting the food we ordered. Oh China. Over an hour later, we walked out. The Bank of China was next on the agenda. Havvah and I were going to change some cash, and the downtown bank is the only one that does it. Our total visit included waiting in several lines, being redirected and given numerous pitiful excuses for these ridiculous conditions. There is definitely a lack of efficiency here. After barely surviving, it was off to Metro, a German superstore chain, to scope things out. Some good progress was made here, namely in the way of Bisquik pancake mix, canned veggies and spaghetti sauce. Lovely imports! Our afternoon adventures took so long, that by the time we got back, it was supper time. Having full faith in the Western restaurant, I set out to try ordering fried rice again. We also begin with a divine plate of french fries. Good thing, because my fried rice turned out to be a chili pepper infused stir fry…after much confusion on my part because it clearly didn’t look like fried rice. At that point I gave up and decided I was better off if I avoided the outside world on this culturally-challenging day. So, Havvah and I decided to bond with the Chinese washing machines. My laundry is now happily hanging up drying and smells good, so hopefully that’s a sign I did everything right. So yeah, if anyone has suggestions for quickly drying jeans, pass them along. I’m sure the best response would be a dryer…oh, such luxuries.

For the third day in a row, it was cold and rainy. Here are two immediate problems with that: wet pants, particularly jeans, are very difficult to dry quickly when you don’t have a dryer. Also, rainy weather is very conducive to napping, even in China. So, after returning from teaching another section of the viewing, listening and speaking class, which did not go as well as yesterday, it was time for Skype and a nap. Beautiful. Anyway, so after a sufficient nap, my hope was to successfully obtain a cafeteria card. Nope, the office wasn’t open again today. So, David, Havvah and I decided to venture out around some of the area around campus. We walked for a few miles and pretty much saw a lot of the same things: random convenience stores, hole-in-the-wall restaurants and other odd businesses. Yesterday we finally saw signs of other foreigners, but the majority of Kunming is made up of locals. Such was the case where we walked. It was definitely true China. I will say that sometimes this is not very appealing. For example, small children wearing split pants instead of diapers, in addition to many other sanitation issues makes a clean freak like myself absolutely neurotic and spastic. But, that’s just me. For all of the things that make me cringe in China, I try to be open to them and hold hope that there will always be one awesome moment in the day, either meeting someone new, positively interacting with locals or even seeing something beautiful, that will make up for the not-so-good things. My goal is not to love China, but have an appreciation for it.

In our trek out, we decided to have supper at a place that David tried on the weekend. I will say that this was an amusing dinner as it included the Chinese version of mashed potatoes (mashed, then fried in oil), zucchini fries, Pabst Blue Ribbon and watching American cartoons dubbed into Chinese. Just another day in China

Today I taught my first two classes. They were both the same subject (Advanced Viewing, Listening and Speaking), and went fairly well, I think. My students didn’t have looks of pure hatred on their faces, so I took that as a good sign. I pretty much spent both classes having my students introduce themselves and they had questions about everything you can imagine, in addition to a marriage proposal (flattering and disturbing at the same time).
Some highlights:
-What do Americans look like? (Um, me?)
-Do Americans like China? (As far as I know…)
-What’s the most important thing for women to know? (Talk about opening a feminist can of worms on day 1)
-Are you looking for a husband in China? (Yeah, Ryan loved this one)
-Are you going to live in China permanently some day (Um, unlikely…)
-What’s the solution to the U.S. and China’s economy issues (Uhhh…there’s issues? Perhaps I need to brush up on my economic stuff)
-Are you from Texas? (…NO)

For the most part though, these two classes seemed fine. I was just amused by their questions and unsolicited advice (that I should wear sunscreen or carry an umbrella so I don’t get any darker and that I should appreciate the fish heads I had floating in hotpot yesterday because I could use some fish protein).

Anyway, after teaching, Rachelle (another teacher who was here last semester) took Havvah and I to an amazing restaurant. There were wonderful things like ketchup, bagels and real cheese! Pathetic, I know, but you’d be amazed at the things you miss when you can’t have them. Plus, we figured after our “authentic” Chinese meal yesterday we deserved a treat. After that, we headed to an impromptu (that pretty much describes everything in China) meeting for the International Business School. Thankfully, they only assigned me two more classes (freshmen writing), because the English department already has me doing six others. I also came out pretty good because my additions were only Thursday and Friday mornings…most of the other teachers have been stuck with night classes (Friday nights, too). These classes don’t start for another week (freshmen have mandatory military training for two weeks) so I don’t have to worry about them yet. It’s been pouring the rest of the day, which it randomly does, so I’ll probably find ways to put off doing lesson plans and tackling the bedroom with the Ming dynasty relic bed (sweet, I know). Happy Labor Day.

Yup, a new blog. I quickly discovered (after I logged into my contraband Internet) that many blog sites are not accessible in China. In my case, I could access it, but it was in Mandarin. Hopefully this one will work.

So, China. Well, the journey that began about a week ago got off to a very rough start. From the beginning, my first flight was cancelled due to mechanical problems, so instead of going from Minneapolis to Chicago to Shanghai to Kunming, I went from Minneapolis to Denver to San Francisco to Shanghai, spent a night in Shanghai and flew to Kunming, sans luggage. When I finally got here, I was pretty much dropped off and left with my non-English speaking building manager who I desperately tried to tell that if nothing else, I needed the Internet to survive in this place. No success. The next 24 hours were pretty harsh. I couldn’t really settle in to my apartment, which I liken to dorm life and camping, without my luggage, not to mention wanting my few allowable cleaning supplies before touching anything. Thankfully, the next afternoon brought my first Chinese meal (their take on spaghetti, which was heavenly), the other girl from Drake and my luggage. What I ‘m quickly learning is that China doesn’t bring fast results. For example, the required Internet equipment was promised Wednesday and showed up today. No promised cafeteria cards yet. Not complaining, but just pointing out that little things do eventually build and become a major source of frustration.

Well, once my bags showed up, Pine-sol flowed freely and I attempted to make the best of my arrangements. Bear in mind that this is my first apartment on my own and the first time I haven’t had roommates. In the way of space, I’ve got more than I’m used to. Basically my apartment has three main rooms: a bedroom, living room and kitchen/bathroom. I have a toilet (yes, a real Western-style toilet, complete with corduroy toilet seat) in a tiny closet and some sort of extra room that appears to be where I hang my laundry to dry. Right now it currently houses one of my four desks. Yes, four desks. Impressively, I also have a shower, although it does resemble some sort of time travel capsule and it is next to my hot plate, microwave and fridge. It’s still better than a spout out of the wall. Figuring out the hot water machine was a bit of a challenge, but several cold showers have led to the right combination finally. Other than that, the place needs some love and adjusting to.

In terms of teaching, I found out I teach four sections of “Advanced Viewing, Listening and Speaking” and two sections of “Academic Writing” for the foreign language department. My schedule was looking pretty sweet until I was informed tonight that I need to go meet with the International Business School tomorrow (another section of Yunnan University) to find out about the classes I teach for them. Mind you, school starts tomorrow, however, no one teaching for the Int’l Business School knew anything about their schedules until tonight…why couldn’t the foreign language department just find more classes for me?? Anyway, so my first two classes are at 8:00 and 9:50 tomorrow morning, and on one hand I have a little anxiety and on the other, I’m like “whatever.” I just want to get settled into a routine.