Where else would the English teachers drink?
The Pause That Refreshes
July 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment
School Dinner & KTV
July 22, 2013 by 6 Comments
Shane English Yuxi held a dinner last night to welcome me to the faculty.
We gathered at a large restaurant complex of several stories and many rooms. Remember the Shanghai nightclub scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where Indy is seated at a revolving table? Our room had something like that, only much larger. All thirty of us were seated at a round table, the perimeter of which was fixed and the interior of which revolved. The waitstaff brought out all kinds of dishes and places them on the revolving portion so that different foods were always passing in front of me.
After the banquet, about half of us went next door to a large karaoke club, known as a KTV. The chief difference between KTV and American karaoke is that KTV is more private. A KTV club has many rooms that are rented out groups of various sizes; you go to a room with your group and you stay there. Perhaps the idea is that this way, you only embarrass yourself in front of your friends, and not in front of strangers.
The entrance resembled a garish hotel lobby. Our group paid to secure a room and went up a flight of stairs into another lobby. There was a bouncer there who was dressed for riot control: steel helmet, olive drab uniform, flak jacket, combat boots. Corridors branched off this lobby, each of which had dozens of doors leading to the private rooms.
Our room had a large U-shaped sofa, two large video monitors surrounded by an ornate gold-colored frame, two small monitors built into the wall behind the sofa, a boomin’ sound system, a touchscreen music selection computer, several wireless mics, a mic on a metal stand, and a private bathroom. A waiter brought in snacks and an alarming number of beer bottles and we were off to the races.
The female Chinese staff chose syrupy Asian love songs and a depressing number of tunes by Westlife and sung them seriously. The male western faculty chose easily-parodied classic pop oldies and mocked them painfully. I’m not sure which was worse. I’m listening to a rock and blues playlist this morning to wash the aural dirt out of my ears.
I took a taxi home and was proud of myself for being able to give my cab driver directions to my apartment in Chinese. Of course, after the excesses of the evening, it’s quite possible that I only thought I was speaking Chinese.
Yuxi Scenes
July 20, 2013 by 2 Comments
I looked at this photo a half dozen times before I saw the hand.
A private moment in a public park.
You can buy almost anything in the street markets here.
A mid-morning rest.
Colorful pagoda on a grey day.
There was beer at the end of the tunnel.
Flooding in Kunming
July 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment
I was in Kunming on Monday and today the city is underwater. This photo from a series by a local news agency shows what it looks like now.
It rained most of the day here in Yuxi, but so far we have not had any flooding. However, as noted earlier, the forecast is for rain every day for quite a while.
My Neighborhood After Dark
July 18, 2013 by 1 Comment
Not four weeks past the summer solstice and we’re already heading into the tunnel. I walked out of my apartment tonight at 8:15 and it was almost dark. Maybe a third of the small shops in my neighborhood were shuttered against the night, but passing the open ones was like walking through a museum gallery: one painting, then some blank wall, then a sculpture, a wall, another painting . . . or perhaps like viewing a rapid-fire slide show. I walked at speed by dozens of little streetfront stores no bigger than an American child’s bedroom and glimpsed each scene for less than a second.
There was a hairstylist sitting in her own barber chair watching cartoons; an old man contentedly sucking on a three-foot bong; the perpetual card game by the locksmith’s shop; a young man shucking oysters on the sidewalk; massage girls sitting bored on sofas looking hopefully out at the passers-by; a nail tech examining a customer’s fingers under a microscope; a mototaxi driver recumbent on his Honda awaiting a fare; a mah jong game underway in a Mongolian restaurant; a street vendor cooking skewers of uncertain meat on a homemade charcoal grill; a water deliveryman lashing tomorrow morning’s bottles to the back of his motorcycle; three-year-olds cavorting on a construction sand pile; a tired young woman rolling down the security gate to her small store; a tall thin man washing dishes with a garden hose out in front of a restaurant; female pharmacy clerks in their white coats glowing blue-green under fluorescent tubes; guys sitting slack-jawed in the comfy but threadbare chairs of an Internet cafe playing video games; a family of three sitting on the floor of a plumbing supply shop enjoying some late noodles; a game of pool played on a table someone had lumped out to the sidewalk.
Strangely, I felt related to everyone I saw.
Yuxi Alleys
July 17, 2013 by 1 Comment
I have rarely been disappointed by turning off the main streets and exploring the alleyways of Yuxi.
Three-Wheeled Addendum
July 16, 2013 by 1 Comment
When I was describing the three-wheeled vehicles of Yuxi recently, I forgot about this beauty:
Daytrip to Kunming
July 15, 2013 by 3 Comments
I spent Monday in Kunming, the city of 6.5 million people that lies about an hour north of Yuxi. I’d been there twice before, once when I first flew to China and again when I had my visa physical, but I’d never even started to explore the city. I wanted to do that–and to buy coffee.
Coffee is not popular in Yuxi. The local stores stock Nescafé instant, but buying either whole-bean or ground coffee is very difficult. I’d been drinking Yunnan Arabica, a very nice brew indeed, but the store I bought it from when I first moved here no longer stocks it. When I ran out on Sunday morning, I knew desperate measures were called for. Hence Kunming.
I rendezvoused with Owen and Matt, two of my new colleagues, at 9:00 in the morning and together we walked to the Yuxi bus station. There we arranged to take what is essentially an intercity taxi to Kunming for ¥55 (about $8.80) each.
The first order of business when we got there was to go to Salvador’s Coffee House, a well-known establishment in a part of town where there are many stores that cater to backpackers, college students, and Kunming’s expat population. We were here:
Salvador’s turned out to be a charming place that serves Mexican and American food, has a small lending library of English books, and sells its own coffee (which they ground for me on the spot). It also has sketchy plumbing, but Mr. T is there in the bathroom to help out.
We had lunch up in the loft, overlooking the front door.
I had spaghetti with meat sauce, my first American meal in almost four weeks. It was comforting to hear the burble of American-accented English again. Much as I didn’t come to China to hang out with expats, it seemed like an incredible luxury to be eating my native food in a familiar environment in the presence of other Americans.
After lunch, we went back to the center of Kunming so Matt and Owens could do some shopping. All three of us stand 6’1″ or taller and the stores in Yuxi simply don’t stock clothes that large. I sat down to rest while Matt went to the ATM.
Owen and Matt did find clothes that fit, though prices at the foreign stores they patronized were no lower than they would have been in the US or the UK.
Kunming is not a beautiful city, nor an easy one go get around in. There are throngs of people everywhere and transportation is hampered by a massive subway construction project that has much of the central city walled off, dug up, and rerouted. Many of the streets are closed to both automobiles and pedestrians on one side, which funnels both motorized and foot traffic into half the space the roads usually provide. It’s going to be great when you can zip around the city underground, but right now it is just chaos. With nowhere else to go, scooters, bicycles and motorcycles take to the sidewalks, further adding to the stress of simply walking down the street. Fortunately, I found respite in a nice shady pedestrian mall in the middle of the city, which was undoubtedly the prettiest part of town I saw.
Near this was an enormous residential and retail complex, a multi-level indoor/outdoor mall connected by multiple walkways to three 30-story apartment buildings. The mix of indoor and outdoor spaces was nice, though again the architecture and construction left me cold.
We all gorged ourselves with dinner at Papa John’s. This was the first pizza–in fact, it was the first cheese of any kind–I had eaten in almost four weeks. As Willy says, “The art of our necessities is strange / That can make vile things precious.” I’d have to review the text, but I’m not sure Lear had pizza in mind when he made that remark.
Pushing through the thousands of people going home at evening rush hour and stepping over open manholes, piles of sidewalk pavers, and construction debris, we made our way back to the bus station to catch an intercity taxi back to Yuxi. These cars hold a driver and four passengers and they don’t go unless they are full. The three of us got in and waited for a fourth passenger. A Chinese woman came up to the car and put her luggage in the trunk. Then she walked around the side of the car to get in, but changed her mind. Another Chinese woman approached and the same thing happened. The driver later told us that neither woman wanted to ride with three foreigners, though whether out of fear or embarrassment I could not tell. Finally a young Chinese man got in with us and off we went. We arrived back in Yuxi twelve hours after we’d left.
And this morning, I was once again able to enjoy my two morning cups of joe.
