I'll try to be more concise than usual.
A cold spell a couple weeks back has ended and Kunming has been experiencing beautiful weather, blue skies, and sunshine.
I started performing music again after a several-year dry spell. Sean asked me to join him at a couple recent open-mic nights in Kunming, him on his guitar and me on my clarinet.
I had my first couchsurfing hosting experience a couple days ago. Didn't actually host anyone on my couch, but met up with a Japanese American girl from New Jersey traveling through Yunnan to give her advice. I enjoy playing the part of the Yunnan expert.
TOMB SWEEPING DAY
A couple weeks ago was 清明节 (Qingming Festival), also known as "Tomb Sweeping Festival". On this day, Chinese visit their family graves in droves. It was my first time experiencing Qingming Festival. My friend Joyce invited me to join her family members in the annual hike up the mountain to the grave. If it sounds like a very somber event, its actually not. The scene is rowdy, with thousands upon thousands of people converging on the same mountainsides flung on the outskirts of Kunming. Joyce's family's are located at the edge of the northern suburbs. We took a bus, but the bus got stopped by the totally deadlocked traffic. We got out of the bus and walked the remaining kilometers, while frustrated drivers in private automobiles sat unmoving.
I'd been to this particular mountain hiking once before, and it was nothing like the scene on Qingming Day. The hillside is covered in tombs quite distinct from the style of tombs found in America. Each family's tomb is identical and shape and appearance. Round, made of stone or cement, more than ten feet in diameter and five feet in height. (note: I didn't take any pictures because I worried that would be considered taboo in such a place)
The eponymous "sweeping" portion (by brooms improvised by pine needles) was just one of a handful of rituals. Others included setting out a feast of food carried up the mountain on the grave altar. Bread crumbs were scattered around the grave. Little colored paper flags were assembled and inserted into the earthen roof of the grave. Each family member knelt and kowtowed before the grave. I learned that the Mandarin Chinese word for kowtow (磕头, ketou) is pretty close to the English version, which I am assuming is based on the Cantonese.
I thought the food on the altar was going to be left there for the ancestors' spirits to "eat". But actually we got to enjoy it ourselves, a delicious graveyard picnic. There was even wine and beer! Not a somber occasion at all, really, Joyce's family was in a good spirits. This day was just another opportunity for a family get together.
A little while later, at the temple, we burned incense and burned paper money.
That first grave was Joyce's maternal grave. On a nearby mountain was Joyce's paternal grave. Joyce's maternal relatives parted, and Joyce and I continued on our own to the second mountain to visit the grave (Joyce's paternal relatives would do the rituals themselves the following day). The environment on this mountain was quite different. While the maternal grave was located amongst many others on a barren, trodden hillside, the paternal grave was hidden in a dense pine forest with few people around. That's because it's within the confines of 黑龙潭公园 (Black Dragon Pool Park), which charges a hefty 20 RMB ($3+) entrance fee (Joyce says it used to be 5 RMB. Inflation has been severe of late).
Joyce had trouble finding the grave at first. She remembered that it was near the water tower. The tower we found, but it took half and hour of wandering up and down the pine-strewn hillside before we finally pinpointed the grave.
Same rituals. Then checked out the Black Dragon Pool. Not very impressive. The last of Kunming's parks to be checked off my list. That evening, another family dinner at Joyce's uncle's house, followed by several rounds of 斗地主 (Screw the Landlord), one of the most popular card games in China, and one that I only recently picked up.
MAHJONG
Speaking of Chinese games, I finally learned how to play 麻将 (mahjong) a couple weeks ago. I'd been meaning to pick up this, the quintessential Chinese game, for ages, but I always assumed it was really complicated. My friend 毕春燕 (Bi Chun Yan) finally convinced me that it wasn't complicated, and sure enough, I picked it up in about 30 minutes. Not to say that I'm anywhere near being able to win (most Chinese gamble for money when they play, but we just played for fun). That takes years. But now at least, when Chinese friends invite me to play, I don't have to sit on the sidelines anymore.
VISIT TO HUIZE VILLAGE
Last major item in this blog entry. Last week I went to a new place, 曲靖市会泽县新街乡 (Xinjie Village, which is located in Huize County, Qujing Prefecture), about 3 hours northeast of Kunming.
My previous travels in Yunnan Province have been in the Western, Southwestern, and Southern directions from Kunming. I had never traveled to the Northeastern part of the province before. This region is not known for any tourist destinations. Yunnan is mostly famous for its minority cultures, which are mostly found along the borders with Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam. Yunnan's northeast, on the other hand, borders the Chinese provinces of Sichuan, Chongqing, and Guizhou. Minorities are few. This part of Yunnan is more like the rest of China than it is like the rest of Yunnan.
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| The dark grey arrows illustrate the directions from which I've most often traveled from Kunming.The light grey arrow, on the other hand, illustrates how my trip to Huize was my very first in the northeasterly direction |
Whenever a friend invited me to visit his or her hometown I see it as an opportunity not to be passed up. I've been to about 10 or so hometowns during my close to two years in Yunnan. It's an opportunity to go to a place I otherwise wouldn't have gone to, and to see and appreciate everyday life in a small town or village close up, literally staying in the homes of village farmers, sharing their meals, bathing with buckets, just as they do.
This particular friend, Sha Sha, I'd met a long time ago when I first moved to Kunming. She'd since moved to Chengdu and I hadn't seen her in over a year. When she suddenly contacted me and invited me to her village, I was a little surprised, but but not too surprised. Chinese people are known for their hospitality, and I was certainly treated to lots of it during my visit.
As far as my Chinese friends go, Sha Sha is from the lower economic rung. Her parents divorced when she was 3, and her mother had no part in raising her. She grew up with her father in a farmhouse made of mud bricks. After graduating from middle school at 16 she went out to 打工, or "dagong", the term used when young people from the countryside go to the city to work. Dagong for men often means manual labor or construction work. For women it usually means low-paying service sector jobs. In Sha Sha's case, she variously worked in restaurants, bars, and clothing stores.
When I talked to her about her experience in Chengdu, she seemed a bit jaded. She doesn't enjoy her work, and the salary isn't particularly great (1000 RMB, or $150, a month), but it beats staying in the village. There are no jobs in the village other than growing potatoes and corn. But she still likes her village, and the natural environment around it. And so did I. Xinjie Village in Huize County was gorgeous. Pine-covered mountains, blanketed by purple wildflowers. Brown and green checkered fields dotted with traditional, tile-roofed farmhouses. Imposing, green-domed mosques, since this township is largely 回族 (Huizu, one of the Muslim ethnic groups in China).
The "town" so to speak of, a short distance from Sha Sha's village, was pretty sleepy when I was there. The market only comes to town once a week, and I missed it by a day. The main street is lined with a few general merchandise stores, a couple barber shops, some shops selling farm machinery and animal feed, a few government buildings, a health clinic, a China Mobile office, a primary school, and a middle school. As we walked down the street, Sha Sha's father introduced me to every person we came across as his 美国朋友 (American friend). At the risk of sounding somewhat arrogant, I think its safe to say that hosting an American was a pretty big honor for the man, or as the Chinese say, he gained a lot of face. Although I harbored my doubts, Sha Sha insisted that I was the first foreigner ever to visit their township. Apart from the pilot of the American warplane that crashed over their village during World War II, that is.
There wasn't a whole lot to do during my three day stay in Huize. Not that I was expecting much to do. Did some hiking in the hills, and general wandering around the villages. Visited some relatives in an even smaller, remoter village an hour up into the mountains. Went to Sha Sha's old middle school, where the students were terribly excited to see a foreigner, and pulled me into their classrooms one after another to introduce myself. The school principal, a man with decaying black teeth but car keys to an imported car, gave me a tour of the school and thanked me for coming. The school's English teacher made an effort to engage me in conversation in English. Later visited a cousin who had just given birth to her fifth child, a boy. Her first four children were girls. You may be thinking "I thought China had a one-child policy". That's for urban residents, only. Farmers are legally permitted to have two. But they routinely have more without facing very stiff penalties, especially if they're still gunning for a male heir.
The food during my stay was quite good. I was treated to delicacies like 腊肉 ("larou", or preserved pork, which hangs, dried and salted, in the attic of every farmhouse). I also unknowingly ate pig feet for the first time. I thought it was just boney, gristly pork. I picked through to find the meat. Pork in China always comes in hunks of flesh and hunks of fat. Chinese people love to eat the chunks of pure fat. I don't know how they do this and remain so skinny. I always separate the fat and just eat the flesh.
Sha Sha claimed that her father is a "doctor". I never saw him practice any medicine. I think his brand of medicine is more in the realm of traditional Chinese astrology and superstition. He had a collection of amulets of which he was extremely proud. One, a glow-in-the-dark bird, he claimed possessed magical properties. He said it was excavated from the mountain behind his house, and was hundreds of years old. I'm pretty sure it was a plastic toy manufactured in a factory. He liked to drink, too. His drink of choice was 药酒, "yaojiu", which is Chinese 100 proof baijiu grain alcohol steeped with traditional Chinese medicine. Luckily, he didn't force me to drink the stuff, and bought beer especially for me instead. Since he lives alone, he does all his own cooking. He doesn't do much housework though. The house was pretty filthy. But they did give me a comfy bed to sleep in.
The mud brick house where Sha Sha grew up still stands, but next to it stands a more modern structure, made from concrete bricks. She said this building was built in the last five years. Both buildings are enclosed within a walled compound. There were two dogs, several chickens, and two cats. No pigs, goats, or cows, but neighbors had plenty. Inside the home the appliances consisted of a TV set, an electromagnetic cooktop, an electric rice cooker, and electric lights.
The night that we traveled from Kunming to Huize, we took a minivan that picked us up at Sha Sha's accommodation in Kunming and drove us straight to Sha Sha's farmhouse. This is not part of the regular passenger bus system. It's more of a private jitney car service. The driver a native of the village, of course. It sounds like a great service. Except for the fact that before actually leaving Kunming, it has to pick up a dozen passengers in every far-flung corner of Kunming. This literally took hours. The original scheduled departure time of 6 pm was pushed back to 10 pm. When we were finally picked up, there were several more passengers still needing to be picked up. We didn't actually leave Kunming until after midnight, arriving in Huize around 4 am. These Huize people needing pick up tended to live in the most remote suburbs of Kunming. I cannot fathom the economics of such a service, how spending 6 hours driving hundreds of kilometers back and forth across Kunming and the gasoline needed to do so could possibly be covered by the incredibly cheap fare of just 80 RMB.
TRENDS
There's a lot more I'd like to write about the crackdown happening right now in China, but I'm going to have to save that for another entry. I only know about the crackdown by reading about it in the foreign press. From my view on the ground, 99.99% of Chinese know nothing about it, nor are they affected. Well, I am affected in one regard - the internet. It's been getting harder and harder to access foreign websites on the internet. Gmail has been very slow. The VPN service I bought a couple months ago is not working very well. Frustrating to say the least.
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