David's Big Adventure in China

I actually teach for 2 different schools even though I collect my pay from just one of them. Half my classes are YUFE (Yunnan University of Finance and Economics) classes and the other half are IBS (International Business School) classes. IBS is a special school set up under YUFE for Chinese students whose test scores were not high enough to get into YUFE and for foreign students. There are about 30 French students here under the IBS program and I sit in with some of them in their Chinese class. They are juniors or seniors but they did not study Chinese before coming here. The French students are incredibly lazy. Most classes only about half to 2/3 of them show up and most of the ones that do show up arrive late. It seems they study very little outside of class and don’t work too hard in class either.

The IBS students that I teach are for the most part pretty lazy compared to the YUFE students. The longer students here have been at the university the more lazy they become. In grade school, middle school and high school they were pushed hard by their teachers and parents and constantly monitored. Now that they are in university they are not being pushed or monitored as much and for the first time in their lives they have to employ self discipline and self motivation. They also figure out that the school goes to great lengths to keep them from failing. I failed a couple kids last semester and the school asked me a couple weeks ago if I would give them another chance at the final exam to see if they could pass the class. I said I wouldn’t do that because the class was easy enough to pass and these 2 kids gave very little effort and missed many classes. They will probably find someone else to give them some easy test so they can pass the class. Cheating on exams is also very common. The first written exam I gave last semester I had 2 different answer sheets using the same questions but had the answers in different order. When I did the grading I found a few students that had obviously been looking at their neighbor’s paper for the answers. They actually would have done much better had they used their own best guess at the answer. I put a note on their exams asking did they get their answers from their neighbor’s paper. None of them came to see me to dispute it. Sometimes my principals go against the Chinese way…..lol.

About 3 weeks ago I found that there were 12 more signatures on the attendance sheet than students in the room for my IBS sophomore writing class so I took role and kept the sheet and corrected it before turning it in. One of the students is normally responsible for turning it in to the office. The next week I told them that was not acceptable and that the sheet should only reflect the students present. I also gave them an assignment to write a paper titled “Does corruption start with falsifying attendance sheets?”. The following week a student handed me the attendance sheet to sign and I found that there were 4 more signatures on the sheet than students in the room. I became very angry and I tore up the sheet, threw in on the floor and yelled “do it again!”. It was a rare moment of quiet in the room as the students are normally constantly talking. This week when I was given the sheet it was right. I spent about 10 minutes of the class talking about integrity and honesty. They actually listened but who knows how much impact I have had.

Students here spend about 20 hours a week in classes vs. 12 to 15 hours for U.S. students but do less study on their own than American students. Less than 5% of my students have ever had a part time job. Jobs are scarce and with the demands of school before they reach university working is just not a real option for them. Since most of them are an only child their parents focus on getting them a good education so they will be successful and able to support the parents when they are old. Most of them don’t really get much career counseling before they go to university and once they enter university they are basically stuck in their major as it is almost impossible for them to change. For most of them their major is decided by their parents.

Last weekend the school took some of the foreign teachers and the Chinese teachers that teach the foreign students on a trip to a city about 60 miles from here. It took us (26 in all) over 3 hours to get their on Friday afternoon because the roads were so bad and the shocks on the bus were seemingly nonexistent so we had to go very slow. We stayed at a “resort” on a mountain where we had dinner and then danced around the fire with the local minority people. The rooms of the resort were basic with Chinese style toilet and shower. On Saturday morning we visited the park on the mountain where the overthrown Emperor from the Ming dynasty is said to have gone into hiding. He planted some peony flowers there in memory of a lady and the mountain is famous for the flowers (see pics). We left the mountain at 11:30 then stopped in the town nearby for mushroom hotpot for lunch. They cook many delicious mushrooms (my province is famous for its mushrooms) in a broth in a pot that’s in a hole in the table and then add other items such as chicken, pork, and other vegetables. We then serve ourselves from the pot. It was quite delicious! We arrived back at the school about 4:30. Well that’s it for now……..take care!

School is back in full swing now and I have 17 hours of classes this semester vs. 16 last semester. I have 6 oral English classes and 2 writing classes. One writing class is with freshmen and 1 is with sophomores so I have to prepare different lessons for them. Considering that most of them have been studying English for 6 to 9 years their writing skill levels are pretty low. I have a total of about 315 students this semester vs. about 200 last semester. The evening oral classes are supposed to be limited to 20 to 30 students to give them good practice. Last semester the school limited the enrollment to 20 and I had additional students show up and ask to be added. This time they didn’t limit the enrollment and to my shock I had over 60 kids show up to my Monday night class. The next day I found out that 74 kids had signed up for that class and that on average my evening classes had twice as many students as the other foreign teachers. I haven’t yet determined the reason for my popularity.

This past week was a bit of a struggle for me as I developed a very bad sore throat that made teaching a challenge and took away a lot of my energy. Monday, when my throat was at it worst, I had 6 hours of classroom time. Then on Wednesday my classes were on the 6^th floor (in different buildings of course) so I climbed 6 flights 3 times which really wore me out considering that we are at almost 6000 feet elevation and my congestion due to my sore throat and related symptoms. I didn’t go to the doctor but a friend helped me buy an antibiotic at a local pharmacy (cost was less than $2 for a 6 day supply). I’m now almost back to normal.

Recently on my official government English tv channel they have been talking a lot about the 30^th anniversary of China’s opening up. Reforms began slowly in 1978 shortly after the end of the Cultural Revolution but have accelerated rapidly in the past 15 years. Before the reforms began social order was maintained by forced employment, forced permanent residence in the same place and of course media control. Travel outside the city where you were registered was basically forbidden for all except a privileged few. With the opening up reforms and the improving economy there is huge pent up demand for travel. Listed below are some facts that I have gathered from some reading that I have been doing recently that will help put this and the magnitude of recent changes here into perspective:

– # of tourists visiting Lijiang 1991 – 200,000 2001 – 3.3 million

– average annual income of Lijiang residents 1991 – $60 2001 – $650

– # of visitors to Beijing in 2006 132 million people (equal to about 44% of U.S. population)

– Expressways (like U.S. Interstate roads) none in 1988, now 228,000 miles and growing by about 3000 per year for last 4 years. Now 2^nd in the world behind only U.S.

During my travels in rural areas of China I have been surprised to see how much farming is still done by hand in small plots. In 2006 China had one farmhand for every acre compared to one farmhand for every 140 acres in the U.S. As you can see, there is room for tremendous change in this area. As farming productivity improves there will be many people looking to move to the cities to find jobs. There is already a large “migrant worker” population in the cities that have come from the countryside. The old permanent residence system is still in effect in some ways and makes it difficult for these migrant workers to receive some government services and often makes it easy for companies to take advantage of them. They often have difficulty collecting their wages. The government is talking about reforms that will help them.

China is changing rapidly and sometimes in my travels to out of the way places I can get a glimpse of the old China. If you want to see “old China” you will need to come quick and get off the beaten path!

    On Saturday, February 23, a couple Chinese friends and I took an overnight sleeper bus to Lijiang in NW Yunnan province.  Lijiang is a popular tourist destination and the population is primarily Naxi minority people.   It used to be a major trading stop on the southern Silk Road and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It is famous for the cobbled streets and gushing canals of the ancient part of the city and for the Naxi people.  It is located not far from the edge of Tibet.  The Naxi descended from Tibetan tribes and in the past lived in families dominated by the mothers and often the women did not marry but allowed their lover to come spend the night then return to live and work at his mother’s house during the day.  The Naxi created a written language over 1000 years ago using pictographs and it is the only hieroglyphic language still in use.  Lijiang and nearby areas were exposed to the world in National Geographic articles in the 1920’s by Austrian/American Joseph Rock.  He lived in NW Yunnan for 27 years and wrote about the local cultures and sent over 80,000 plant specimens, 1600 birds, and 60 mammals back to America for study.  It was pretty cold in Lijiang and it was not tourist season so the hotel prices were low and there weren’t too many tourists.  Our hotel rooms cost about $7 per night.  The rooms were nice but they did not have heat and the temperature outside was in the low 30’s at night and in the 50’s during the day.  The rooms did have heated pads on the mattresses and hot water 24 hours so it was not too bad.      

    The first place we went to visit was the home where Rock lived and served as the headquarters for his expeditions around the area.  We then went to near the top of Jade Dragon Snow Mountain on horseback (see pic’s – remember to find the pic’s go to the right side of the blog and under “my links” click “pictures”).  The base of the mountain where we began is at about 10,000 feet elevation.  We went up to about 14,000 feet and the top of the mountain is at about 16,500 feet.  The rest of our time in Lijiang was spent walking around the ancient city and visiting a local park.  We left on Tuesday morning with a tour group of about 30 people headed to Lugu Lake where I was hoping to “get married”!  I was the only foreigner in the group and the tour guide spoke only Chinese and his local language but I was fortunate to have my friends translate the important stuff for me.  It’s great to travel with locals as it makes everything so much easier.  I pretty much just go along with whatever they want to do.  I much prefer being the only foreigner in the group rather than being in a group of nothing but foreigners.  It seems to be a better way to experience the local culture.  If you’d like to read more about Lijiang here is a link to a recent Budget Travel magazine article Forgotten Kingdom: Lijiang .    

    Lugu Hu (Lake) is about a 6 hour bus ride on a winding, treacherous mountain road northwest of Lijiang.  The area is pretty remote and seems to be only accessible by this road.  It was opened up to tourism in the 1980’s but has really started getting lots of tourists in the past 5 years and you can really see the dramatic effect that tourism is having on the area with construction going on everywhere.  The scenery and sights along the way were great with the mountains and the small villages we passed through.  It was difficult to take pictures from the moving bus but there were so many things I saw that would make great pictures such as the local people and their faces and clothes as they went about their daily routines.  Lugu Hu is famous for the Mosu people which are supposedly the last matriarchal society in the world.  They are famous for their “walking marriages”.  The women never really marry or cohabitate but instead have as many lovers as they like and the lovers visit at night and return home in the morning to the home of their mother.  They didn’t say how many of the ladies are monogamous vs. how many have multiple walking marriages.  A man or woman can suggest a “walking marriage” by rubbing the palm of the other 3 times and if it is reciprocated then it is agreed.  We were told that a man needs 3 things to be able to have a walking marriage; some meat (to give to the dog so it doesn’t bark), a long knife (to slide through the back door to lift the latch), and a hat (to hang on the door to let others know the lady is busy).  Children become adults at the age of 13 and the girls then can move into their own bedroom and out of the communal area.  Children belong to the mothers and the mother’s brother is responsible for filling the father role.  Shortly after a child is born if a man wants it known that he is the father then there is an acknowledgement party and he can then enter the woman’s home through the front door from that point forward.  The grandmothers are responsible for keeping the fire burning in the main room of the house.  The houses there look like what I think houses were like in the American west in the 1700’s and 1800’s except that they do have electricity.  Heat is provided by an open fire in the main living area.      

    We went to a dance party where the locals demonstrated their local dancing and allowed us to participate.  They also sang some songs and then asked one of tourists to sing.  Being the only foreigner there they asked me to sing so I did a really bad rendition of “Blue Suede Shoes”.  The lake itself was beautiful (see pics) but the weather was very cold.  At night it got down to the 20’s or low 30’s and warmed up a bit during the day.  My hotel room was 48 according to my thermometer but did have a heated mattress pad and hot water for a shower.  I slept in some clothes and survived but it was still too damn cold for me!   As I mentioned earlier, I was hoping to “get married” by having a walking marriage there but sadly none of the ladies rubbed the palm of my hand…..lol.  The tour guide (a Mosu person) was trying to have a “walking marriage” with some of the ladies in our tour group.  After several of us came back from having some drinks and snacks he knocked on the door of my friends and they opened the door for him.  He walked into their room and pushed one of them out telling her that I was looking for her and that he had no place to sleep and wanted to stay in their room (both of which were lies).  He then told the other lady that he wanted to have a walking marriage with her.  She said no and when he wouldn’t leave both ladies came to my room and asked me to change rooms with them and sleep in their room with the guide.  I couldn’t believe that they didn’t throw him out of the room.  I think it is partly due to their Chinese culture and partly due to their wanting to respect local customs.  I went into their room and threw his sorry butt out!     

    I’m now safely back in Kunming and classes started today, Monday, March 3.  We had a couple inches of snow on the ground here a couple days ago but it has warmed up a bit since then.          

I arrived in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) on Friday, February 1 after flying from Kunming to Hong Kong then on to Saigon. In Hong Kong they didn’t want me to get on the plane since I didn’t have a return ticket. They tried to make me buy a return ticket which would be refundable (minus a service fee of course). I showed them my documents that I would be traveling to Hanoi and then return to China by bus from there. I finally got them to relent but only if I agreed to sign a document taking responsibility if they would not allow me entry into the country. Then when I arrived and tried to go through immigration they said my visa was invalid since it was in an expired passport (I got a new passport after I got my visa so the visa was in the old one). So I had to go to a different window and get a new visa for which they charged me $10 (the amount seemed to be arbitrarily determined). I had booked a 2 week tour with Intrepid Travel and they call it their “Basic” level tour which means the price includes hotels, a guide and transportation and that’s about it. Everything else is a la carte and the hotels (with room sharing) and transport are basic economy. Our group included 6 guys and 8 ladies, 7 Australians, 5 Brits, 1 Canadian and me. All but 3 were young 20’s with the rest of us being in our 50’s or 60’s. I’m amazed that so many young people find a way to have the time and money to travel like this and most of them were traveling for 60 to 120 days.

I have found the Vietnamese people to be a bit kinder and gentler than the Chinese. I have seen a lot less begging and aggressive selling here. I have been amazed at how many foreign tourists there are here. The only western food chain I have seen is KFC but there is western food everywhere. The roads aren’t very good, even the main north south roads. The main form of transport here is the motorbike and you can see entire families on them. I haven’t seen too many local buses (lots of tourist buses though) or trucks for delivering goods. The infrastructure in general seems to be in need of much improvement. There is trash and pollution most everywhere and I saw many people washing their clothes in the river with water that doesn’t look very clean to me. The currency in Viet Nam is called dong and the conversion rate is about 15,500 to $1 so when I exchanged $100 I became an instant millionaire there. About the lowest price you see for anything is 1000 dong. U.S. dollars are happily accepted everywhere.

On Saturday we went to visit the Cu Chi tunnels about a 90 minute drive from central Saigon. These tunnels were used quite effectively against the Americans during the war. They started building them in the 1940’s during the war with France and when completed over 20 years later consisted of over 120 miles of tunnels and included rooms for living, meetings, etc. The tunnel portions were only about 3 feet tall and were quite a challenge to walk through (see pic). The presentation talked with pride about some of the soldiers’ skill in killing Americans and how many they had killed. They apparently were quite adept at gathering unexploded bombs and using them against the Americans. They also displayed several kinds of traps that soldiers would fall into and be killed if not careful. The Vietnamese people remember the war for its devastation to their country but it is just one of many wars they have experienced including a war with China after the war with America. Later in the day we took a Mekong River tour starting on a good sized motorboat then switching later to small canoes (see pics). Then we visited a coconut candy factory which would never pass western food safety criteria with the dog running around and the 10 year old girl working on the wrapping (she was on school break). The factory was an open air factory. The cost of this 7 hour long tour which included a nice lunch was $25. Sunday we got on the bus for a long ride to Nha Trang. On Monday we took a boat trip to a small village and we used “basket boats” (see pic) to ferry us to shore. Tuesday was for relaxing with most of the day spent under an umbrella at the beach reading a book and studying my Chinese. Tuesday late afternoon we boarded a bus for an overnight ride to Hoi An. It was not a sleeper bus so it was a long ride with fitful sleep.

After our early morning arrival in Hoi An we spent some time exploring the old town and some of the group had some clothes tailored as it is quite cheap here. While walking around the city I ran into one of the other teachers at my school……quite a coincidence! In the evening we had a New Year’s Eve (Chinese New Year which is also celebrated here in a big way and called Tet) banquet at a restaurant by the river which consisted of barbequed fish, squid, shrimp, beef, pork and assorted vegetables. Later some of us went to watch the singing and dancing performances and then the fireworks. Thursday we went to visit My Son (Cham towers which was the center of a local kingdom with buildings built from the 9th to the 13th centuries using a construction method that is still not understood today. This area was mostly destroyed by U.S. bombs during the war. On Friday I rented a bicycle ($1.30 for all day) and rode to the beach and then around the surrounding countryside. On Saturday we took a bus to Hue and went through Da Nang on the way and could see an old U.S. army base not far off the road. That evening we enjoyed a nice dinner with some local musicians providing the atmosphere.

On Sunday we jumped on the back of motorbikes for a tour that lasted about 7 hours and cost $10 excluding lunch. We visited a small local market in the countryside, the Royal Tombs for the Emperors that lived here, a temple, and had a nice vegetarian lunch at a nunnery. We also visited a stadium where they used to train elephants to fight in war by pitting them against tigers (see pic). In the evening we went to a restaurant for a “Royal Dinner” where we dressed in royal garb, were entertained by a 6 piece band in a private room and had a delicious dinner for $11 to $14 depending on how much you had to drink. On Monday morning I visited the Citadel which is where the Kings from the Nguyen dynasty lived until the French took over in the 1940’s. It is similar to the Forbidden City in Beijing in size and scope but it was mostly destroyed in the American war and has not been very well maintained or restored.

We arrived in Hanoi early morning Tuesday after an all night train ride. We had sleeper cabins so it wasn’t too bad although the train was not as nice as the trains in China. Our first site to visit was the Ho Chi Minh museum where we saw his body carefully preserved and very well protected by the many guards. It would be impossible to tell if that was really his body or a wax figure since it has been preserved since 1969. The Vietnamese people really love and revere him. In the afternoon we went to a minority culture museum to view displays on many of the roughly 56 minorities that live in Viet Nam. In the evening we went to a water puppet show that was very entertaining. Wednesday and Thursday were spent in and around Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island and getting back and forth to Hanoi. The bay has many small mountains (karst formations) that pop up out of the bay making for some great scenery. It was cold and gray and out of season when we were there so it was pretty quiet. While there I saw a couple of big caves one of which served as a hospital during wartime. I also did a strenuous hike to one of the mountain tops.

On Friday morning I boarded a bus back to China. It took less than 4 hours to get to the border with most of the road being 2 lanes and in need of some repair. The immigration building on the Viet Nam side was old and small. When I walked over to the China side the immigration building was new and large and very nice. I then boarded a bus that was much nicer than the bus from Hanoi and rode 3 hours on a nice 4 lane road with little traffic to Nanning. I spent a few days relaxing in Nanning before taking an overnight train back to Kunming. I’m now back in Kunming for a few days before going to visit some places here in Yunnan Province.

I’m in the U.S. now and a few folks have asked me about how I get paid in China. The school pays me in cash and there are no withholdings. I make less than the threshold amount for paying taxes. There are no sales taxes in China and no tipping so it’s nice that the price you see listed is the price you pay unless you negotiate a lower price. The day before I left I participated in interviewing students that want to spend their senior year studying in France as part of an exchange program with a university there. They will study French while there but except for their French language class all their classes will be in English. The main focus of the interviews was to assess their English proficiency and I was the only native English speaker on the interview team. There were 5 of us on the interview team and the others’ English skills ranged from poor to not bad. Most of the students didn’t speak very well so they will really be challenged to have their classes taught in English.

It’s interesting coming back to the U.S. after being away for so long. The first surprise I got was the soft bed at my parents’ house. I’ve gotten used to the hard beds in China but it really felt nice to crawl into a soft bed. The other thing I noticed is how annoying the media is. I can’t believe how much the media reports on things like Britney Spears and other stupid things being done by stupid people. I also found that I have enjoyed not having to hear much about the presidential race and all the charges and counter charges being made by the candidates. Sunday, January 13 was Thanksgiving Day at my parents home as my mother granted my request and made a traditional turkey dinner for the entire family to enjoy.

After a little more than a week with my family in Indiana I went to Reno to check on my property there and also went through the things I have in a storage unit there. I selected about 8 boxes of things to keep and one of my tenants helped me move them into his basement for storage. The rest of the things in the storage will be donated. I am now down to about 15 boxes of worldly possessions scattered among 3 locations (Reno, Indiana, and China). I left Reno and went to Atlanta. I landed in Atlanta late Thursday night, stayed at a hotel near the airport and then on Friday morning took a train from the airport to NE Atlanta. A friend from Edy’s picked me up at the train station, we had a nice southern barbeque lunch, then he took me to my hotel near the Chateau Elan winery NE of Atlanta (thanks Rich!). Friday afternoon/evening I met up with my old Coca-Cola friends (old meaning I have known them a long time and also that most of them are old..lol). This was our 18th annual reunion and Nita did her usual fabulous job as host. We enjoyed seeing a rare Atlanta snowfall, temperatures in the teens (Fahrenheit), the usual jokes and insults, a wonderful cooking class, the Atlanta Aquarium and lots of good food.

Before leaving Atlanta on Monday (the 21st) I also got to visit with some other old friends from Edy’s (Bob and Cindy). Then I rode in a car back to Tampa with Dan and Corinne (sorry, if I spelled it wrong) and used their home as a base for visiting many of my good friends and some family in Tampa. It was great to see everyone and I also got a tour of the new Edy’s palace….I mean office. On Thursday I flew back to Indiana to spend a few more days with family. My mother had her gall bladder removed on this day and she was already at home and feeling pretty good by the time I got there. They did the procedure outpatient and she was only at the hospital for 4 or 5 hours. She has almost fully recovered already which is quite amazing and quite a relief for all of us in the family. On Saturday night a friend from China and her husband arrived at my parents’ home and on Sunday morning we had a big breakfast with the whole family. Lilly helped me when I first went to China with things like getting a phone, opening a bank account and storing a couple of my bags for me while I travelled. I met her over 3 years ago when I went to Hong Kong on vacation. She came to America in August to get married after waiting about 9 months for her fiancé visa. She and her husband live in Illinois and were kind enough to drive to Indiana for a visit.

Tomorrow is Tuesday the 29th and I will leave early in the morning to return to China. I will arrive in Kunming late Wednesday if all goes well and then on Friday will go to Saigon, Viet Nam for the start of 2 weeks of travel. I have posted some pics of my time here in the U.S. It may be a while before I post again since I’m not taking my pc with me to Viet Nam.

Well, it has finally happened. I wondered when the day would come. At this point I still refuse to believe it…..I keep telling myself it was just a fluke. I refuse to accept it as truth until I get confirmation by a second occurrence. There I was, minding my own business on the bus when a young lady looked at me from her seat, smiled, stood up and then……………offered me her seat! Maybe she knew I am a teacher and wanted to show respect. At least that’s what I’m assuming until it happens again and until then I’ll still think of myself as young.

I’d like to add some further comments on why the people here like Americans. It’s true that the old people like us because we helped them in the war. There were American aircraft and soldiers here in Yunnan during the war. The young people like us because they like our culture, our freedoms, our technology, and they think all of us are rich. The ones that have had more exposure to our culture really like the idea of the American dream and being able to succeed based on your abilities and efforts rather than your guanxi. (your connections).

I recently went to an old temple just outside the edge of town (that is where the Emperor David pic was taken) that is built on a hill with very pretty natural surroundings in a park like area. There were trees that were blooming already. Spring has arrived! I have mentioned before that they call Kunming the “Spring City” so I guess it’s true that we do have spring almost year round since we had blooms before the winter solstice. At least it was spring like for a while. It has turned cold and the high for December 31 was 41. Incredibly, some of the students still have their windows open. I’m pretty sure they don’t have heat. Even with both heaters on high the warmest I can get my apartment is 65 in the living room and 60 in the kitchen/bathroom area. I went to a Brazilian BBQ restaurant with some friends recently on a Saturday night. That had a little show as we were eating. They had some Chinese ladies dressed in Brazilian costumes dancing to some music and one of the songs they danced to was “Cotton Eyed Joe”. For those of you not familiar with this song is a country dance song very popular in Texas. I had to laugh seeing Chinese ladies in Brazilian costumes dancing to American country music.

Since I have lost weight I had a couple pairs of pants that were too big so I took them to have the waist taken in. It cost me 10 yuan ($1.35) for each pair. The lady uses an old manual foot pump machine and works by the sidewalk just outside the school entrance. Sometimes I eat some of the local street food. I don’t know what it is called but they fry some dough into a size and shape of pita bread and while they are frying it they break an egg on it to fry with it. Then they fry some meat (I was told it was pork but it tastes more like lamb) and then put the meat, some secret sauce, spices and lettuce on top then fold it over and wrap a small plastic bag around it. It can serve as a meal for me and it costs 2.5 yuan ($.35). It’s a big greasy but pretty tasty. I recently tried a new way to enjoy Coca-Cola. Since it has been so cold I didn’t want a cold drink but I really wanted a Coke so I decided to nuke a glass of Coke and try drinking it hot. The microwaves made it taste a bit stale but overall it wasn’t bad. Maybe my Coke friends have a suggestion for me on how best to enjoy Coke hot?

New Year’s Eve here was a non-event. I was on my way home a few minutes after midnight and the streets were quiet and mostly empty except for the occasional firecracker. Chinese New Year is when they really celebrate the new year. Well I have only 2 more classes to finish before turning in the final grades and heading off for 7 weeks of vacation and travel. I will leave here for USA on Sunday the 6th and hopefully after about 30 hours of travel will arrive at my parents home in Indiana.

December 24, 2007
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from China! I went to a Christmas party hosted by the school on Saturday night for all the foreign students and foreign teachers. In all there were about 10 countries represented including Viet Nam, Laos, China, Thailand, France, Canada, USA, Australia, and Switzerland. There was singing and performances in English, French, Chinese, Vietnamese, Laos and maybe one or two more that I missed. Some of the performances would have had Simon from Idol rolling his eyes and lofting zingers but there were a couple that were quite good. There was a Vietnamese kid that could dance like Michael Jackson and some of the Vietnamese girls did an Indian dance (yes, India, the neighboring country to China). On Sunday night I went to a Christmas party hosted by some of my students and they also had some performances but only Chinese and English were used. One of my students gave me a can of beer shortly after I arrived and of course we toasted with the words “gan bei” which means bottoms up. There is no minimum drinking age here so the kids can drink whenever and wherever they want. They even sell beer in one of the school cafeterias.

Tonight is Christmas Eve here and I had my normal classes today (see the pic – click on “pictures” under “my links” on the right side). For my class this evening I treated them to some typical American food and sang them a couple Christmas songs (White Christmas and Rudolph). We had PB&J sandwiches (creamy Skippy), Pringles, peanut M&M’s, chocolate chip cookies, Cheerios, Coke and Sprite. They seemed to really enjoy it. I don’t have any classes on Tuesdays so I won’t have to go to class on Christmas day but I’ll be busy preparing a final lesson and preparing a final exam. Last week in my classes I read the poem “Twas the Night Before Christmas” and explained all the parts that were difficult for them.

Well that’s it for this abbreviated Christmas edition. “Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night!”

Well here in China “it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas”. There are Christmas decorations and trees in many places, parties being planned and Christmas songs in English being played in the stores. The only things missing are days off and religious symbols. Fortunately the weather has not been Christmas like. It has been very nice the past week with highs in the low 70’s and low’s in the low 40’s. It was colder a couple weeks ago with lows in the upper 30’s and highs in the upper 50’s. Even when it gets down to the low 40’s many students leave their windows open. Sometimes the classroom windows are left open and one morning I was teaching in a classroom that was 55 degrees. I had on several layers of clothes, my jacket and by the end of the class I was wearing my gloves. I have now experienced a 40 degree variance in classroom temps from the sweltering 95 degree room in Zhuhai in June to the chilly 55 here.

Here are some odds and ends about living here. There are a lot of good local fresh fruits here and they are pretty cheap. The other day I bought 3 oranges, an apple and 3 bananas for about $.65. The oranges here are especially delicious and I eat fresh fruit pretty much every day. I went to a restaurant with some Chinese friends the other day and we had donkey meat which is apparently a local specialty. I don’t recommend it….lol……the taste was not particularly enticing. One thing that seems a bit strange is that license plates on cars have English letters and numbers except for the first character which is a Chinese character that designates the province. I heard on the news the other day that the price for getting a license plate for a new vehicle in Shanghai has reached the price of $7400! Yes, that’s right 7400 U.S. dollars for the privilege of driving a car in Shanghai. They are limiting the number of new plates issued and auction the new plates. It’s the only city in China that does that. I decided to give the local dental care a try and went to get my teeth cleaned recently. It cost me about $18 for the cleaning and I haven’t had any problems. I really can’t tell how good a job they did but it didn’t seem as thorough as what you get in the states.

It’s nice to be in a country where the people really like Americans and respect our political system. There were a couple recent occasions where an old man on the bus started a conversation with me (mostly in Chinese but they did speak a bit of English). They were very friendly towards me and appreciate the things America has done to help China. The biggest thing they appreciate is that we kicked Japan’s butt and helped get the Japanese out of China after they had invaded China during WWII. Most Chinese people hate the Japanese. Last week was the 70th anniversary of something known as the “Nanking Massacre” or “Rape of Nanking”. The Japanese invaded what was then the capital of Northern China (now known as Nanjing) and after overwhelming the Chinese army proceeded to rape tens of thousands of women and children and killed at least 150,000 civilians. Japan has continued to dispute these facts and has never apologized for any brutality. There was a commemorative display in the lobby of the main classroom building on the day of the anniversary with pictures of mass graves, etc.

Well the semester is winding down and I’m busy getting ready for final exams. My last class is on January 4 then after I turn in grades I’ll be on break for almost 7 weeks! I have been having some fun on the weekends and seeing some sights. I have posted some new pics for your enjoyment showing how I spend some of my free time. I will probably get one more post in before I go home for a visit. My schedule for my visit home is January 11-14 in Indiana, 15-17 in Reno, 18-21 in Atlanta, 22-24 in Tampa, and 25-28 in Indiana.

The school had a big Olympic style sports meeting last week from Thursday through Saturday. This is something they do every year. I got a call about a week before asking me to come to the office to get measured for a sports suit (running pants and jacket) then the next day I got a message saying they changed their mind and were going to give us money to go buy our own sports suits. The next day I went and collected the money and went shopping over the weekend and found a nice sports suit for less than the money they gave me. On Tuesday I received a memo saying to attend a practice meeting on Wednesday wearing a business suit. Then on Wednesday morning I got a text message saying the practice was cancelled and just show up on Thursday for the opening ceremony. Originally they told us all classes were cancelled for Thursday and Friday then at some point changed their mind and decided to cancel classes on Thursday afternoon and Friday. They failed to notify us of this change and thus students showed up for class on Thursday morning with no teachers present. I don’t have any classes on Thursday mornings so it was not a problem for me but some of the other teachers were upset when they got calls Thursday morning asking why they weren’t in class. This level of disorganization and lack of clear communication is quite common here and from what I’ve heard not unique to this school.

Since I didn’t have classes Thursday night or Friday I took the opportunity to get out of town for the weekend and headed south to Jinghong. I left Thursday (Thanksgiving) night after having dinner at an Italian restaurant with some of the other teachers. I took an overnight sleeper bus that cost me 200 yuan (about $27) for a 10 hour trip. The road on parts of the trip was quite rough so I didn’t sleep too much. I noticed along the way that there were many trucks and busses lined up waiting for fuel at the service stations on the highway. At one of them I counted 130 vehicles sitting on the road parked waiting for fuel. It didn’t appear the line was moving at all so the station must have been waiting on a delivery. There were service stations on both sides of the road and the station on the other side of the road must have had many more than 200 vehicles waiting. I can only surmise that there must be a serious diesel fuel shortage here.

Jinghong is the center of an area called Xishuangbanna (pronounced She shwang banna) and is located on the Mekong River near the borders of Myanmar and Laos and also near to Thailand. There are many minority people in this area and the weather there is sub tropical. Some of the minority men wear skirt like wraps instead of pants. Jinghong is a city but not a big city (I didn’t see any McDonalds’, KFC’s or Wal-Marts) and there is not that much to see in Jinghong itself. It serves more as a starting point for visiting the areas around it. I visited the Tropical Flower and Plant Garden and a local park (see pic’s). At the local park many people bring their birds in their cages to visit with the other birds (their must have been about 40 cages). I also went to the Banna Wild Elephant Valley that is part of the Sanchahe Nature Reserve. They have a small zoo there and an elephant show. I didn’t see any wild animals during my 2 hour hike through the park except for a quick glimpse of some monkeys playing in a tree. Many people use Jinghong as the starting or ending point for a multi-day trek through the countryside and forest areas. The local people are very friendly and invite trekkers into their homes for meals or to sleep for the night. Some request a small payment but many do not. If I go back to this area I would like to do a 3 or 4 day trek.

The building I live in is next to the auditorium/theatre. They started a couple weeks ago tearing that building down and it has been interesting to watch them. They are basically removing and apparently recycling almost everything from the building. They removed the roof one board at a time then knocked the walls down. The walls are brick with stucco exterior and there are several women working to remove any stucco or masonry from the bricks before throwing them in a pile. The piles are then neatly stacked in a truck for removal. Well that’s about all for now. I’ll be visiting the states in January and am looking forward to some good home cookin’ and seeing many of you!

I recently went to the Stone Forest (Shilin) which is a little over 2 hours south of Kunming by bus. It was a bit expensive to get in at 140 yuan (about $19) but it was worth seeing (see pic’s). The limestone pillars are quite impressive and they have made some very interesting paths under, around and over them…….one false step and you would be seriously injured! Yesterday I went to the Minority Village (like a small theme park) here in Kunming. It was interesting but probably not worth a second visit. China has about 56 recognized minorities and Yunnan province has about half of them within it. I really enjoy seeing the colorful clothing of the minorities. Perhaps next time I’ll post some pic’s from the Minority Village.

Last week I started teaching accounting to my Listening class students. They were much more interested in the accounting than they have been in the other lessons. One of the students had a copy of the textbook (240 pages) made for me at a cost of 16 yuan (about $2.15). Paper and copy services here are very cheap. The university does not provide me an office and I don’t have access to a printer or copier so I copy files onto my USB drive and take it to one of the local shops where I can print and have copies made.

It’s time for me to get my teeth cleaned and I’ve been asking around about dental care here. None of the foreigners I have asked have had any dental care here…..they are afraid to get it here and prefer to wait until they visit home. The locals that I have talked to tell me that they only go to the dentist when they have a problem. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll give the local care a try or wait until I’m back in the U.S. I’m about out of the floss that I brought with me from home so I tried to buy some while shopping and found that very few places carry it and it’s very expensive when I do find it. It costs about $3 for a small package of it. Even with minimal dental care and not using floss it seems most of the locals have decent teeth. I do so many people with badly stained teeth and that seems to be mostly from tobacco and poor water.

I have learned that apartments here in Kunming can be rented for $100 to $300 per month and can be purchased for $30,000 to $90,000. Kunming is still pretty cheap compared to the big east coast cities. Anybody want me to shop for one for you?? Well that’s it for now.