Summary
I now live in a two-bedroom apartment that my friends, a married couple, previously lived in and passed on to me. It is situated on a street known as "student street," is very loud and a ten minute walk to school.
My routine this term is as follows: each week I have eighteen hours of class, four hours of tutoring with Zhang, and five weight-lifting sessions with Daxiong. Daxiong suggested the rigorous workout routine because he is preparing for a hockey tournament in Thailand in November. In the rest of my free time, when not studying Chinese, I hang with Chinese friends. I have made three new friends worth mentioning.
Fangfang is a girl I met this summer. I cannot understand her Chinese very well, but somehow I still like to hang out with her. It is funny how that can be.
Xiao taught my speaking and listening last semester, and this summer we started doing language exchange. We usually study at my apartment. We often talk and gossip and sometimes review my class work. We both like to learn slang. Her English is much better than my Chinese, but we speak Chinese the vast majority of the time.
I spend less time with Daxiong and Shelly than I did last semester. Daxiong and I mainly go to the gym and have lunch afterwards. He no longer attends school but has private tutors instead. I have cut squash and basketball out of my routine because I already spend too much time working out. Daxiong decided that we would only speak Chinese, and we stick to that most of the time. I think it will help our Chinese, but one side effect is that hanging out is not as fun.
My Chinese
I can tell that my Chinese is improving. The progress is not so slow that I do not notice. I spend more and more time with Chinese people and less and less with foreigners. Being fluent is still a long ways away.
My Plans
I have been enjoying my time in China so much since returning in August that I am thinking of spending more time here than I had originally planned. Learning the language is the challenge I thought it would be, and is also as interesting as I thought it would be. I now have no idea when I will leave China and no idea when I will come back to the US for good.
I do not plan to travel at all this semester. I like studying better than traveling. At the end of the December, when the semester ends, I may meet a friend in India for a couple weeks. In late January, I plan to come home for a visit and then return to China, but not necessarily to Kunming. I am considering studying and possibly working in Beijing.
Details
July 30-August 4
There are a couple of tidbits I forgot to include in my last update regarding my adventure with Marsha and her family in early August.
Tidbit 1:
Marsha is not a careful person in general, as far as things like watching where she is going. I often worry about her and I think it is justified, as evidenced by her July bike accident. I asked her sister whether their mom had taught them to be careful and she said she had. The very next day, I happened to be standing behind their mom as she walked down the cement steps in her daughter's house. The steps in much of China are not even like they are in the US, so one needs to be extra careful. Suddenly, I saw her take a fall and she went down a couple of steps, bouncing on her behind! It looked painful. I once fell down steps in such a manner before and had trouble walking for a week. Her mom, fifty-years-old, carried on like nothing had happened. She just got up, kept going down the steps, and did not mention the fall to anyone. I learned a valuable lesson - that no matter what you teach, the example you set is what matters.
Tidbit 2:
On the 40-hour train ride from Shanghai to Kunming, Marsha's behavior was special and impressed me. It was an uncomfortable situation and Marsha did more than was necessary to make the rest of us comfortable when there were not enough seats, often insisting on sitting on a luggage bag on the floor instead of a seat so that one of us could sit more comfortably.
The second night on the train there were enough seats for all of us. In the middle of the night, Marsha was laying across a couple of seats sleeping, while I happened to be reading in the seats directly opposite her. I noticed Marsha near the edge and seconds later she began to fall off the seat and onto the ground. I quickly moved to saved her from the fall, putting my arms under her and catching her in the nick of time. Instead of falling on the floor she fell into my arms. I was glad to be of help to her after all she had sacrificed during the trip.
Days later we recounted the story and Marsha's mom, who was out of view and sleeping at the time, said she had heard the whole incident. It was not a new story to her. I found it strange that she never mentioned it or laughed about it. I found the incident remarkable.
August 11-17
Tape recordings
During the summer Zhang asked me to record some English tapes for her. This is not the type of work I like to spend my time on but as Zhang does so much for me, I would do just about anything for her. The cassettes associated with a set of books she had purchased to study English were recorded by a person with a mediocre Chinese-English accent and she wanted to record right over the original tapes, as they were useless. Much of the books contained dialogs and I did the recordings with another student of Zhang's, Jintian. The highlight of the recording sessions was the time that Jintian read the word "colicky" as "cock licky." (Colicky, I learned, means suffering from sever pain in the abdomen)
Zhang's punctuality
Zhang and I arranged to meet daily at school at 8:30 AM for my tutoring sessions. She would teach Jintian at 10 AM. Every day for two weeks straight, without exception, she was late, despite days where she made a particular effort to be on time. Once she was an hour late, arriving at 9:30. Interestingly, Jintian never noticed a problem with her punctuality. Zhang almost always had an excuse and an interesting one was when the woman who looked after the bike room at her building complex decided to leave for breakfast at just the time when people go to work, leaving the bike room locked. A lot of people joke that you cannot apply logic to anything in China.
Though late, Zhang never failed to bring me a cucumber and a tomato for breakfast. I once unthinkingly put the cucumber between my legs, while I put some books in my bag, and was surprised that Zhang laughed, thus admitting to what it made her think of.
First session with Xiao
For our first language exchange session Xiao prepared a few questions for me. One was how the English word handsome could be used. Xiao had had a test where she was asked to give three different uses of the word. She wrote: 1. handsome man 2. handsome horse, and 3. handsome woman. Another native English speaker she had asked had told her that she could not say "handsome woman," but I confidently concluded he was wrong after consulting my dictionary. After this first session she was convinced I was the one she wanted to study English with.
Why Marsha so sad?
When Marsha showed up at my apartment Saturday afternoon, I had never seen her so sad. She had been offered the job she had wanted, but the salary would only be 500 RMB a month ($60), not even enough for her monthly payment to the bank (600 RMB) for a school loan she took. She let them know she would not accept the offer. It was the first time I had seen her so down.
August 18-24
Meeting Fangfang for the first time
Fangfang had first caught my eye on the previous Friday night at Camel bar, but we did not talk. I really liked her style of dancing. This weekend I ran into her again. It took her a while, but after enough compliments she warmed up to me. The two of us, along with some other random people, hung out until 7 AM.
Marsha and her swim
On Sunday Marsha had been planning for us to go for a swim, though she did not have a particular place in mind. It was not something I was looking forward to, because I had heard the water in the pools in Kunming is very cold. Coincidentally, that same morning I got an email from my friend Jenny in Beijing, saying she had just gotten sick from swimming in a cold pool. I then decided I would not go, and Marsha got upset.
Marsha chose to use this time to get upset with me about other things as well. She did not like that fact that earlier this week I did not want her to meet me to go shopping. At the time I had thought it would be a hassle to meet up. I did not know that was her idea of a good time. I explained how she got to eat all the good food I bought. But she successfully countered me, saying how buying food is even more fun than eating it. I agreed with her, because I happen to think going to the supermarket is a lot of fun. She often makes good points like that and I cannot help but agree.
August 25-31
School starts
My classes at Yunnan University, commonly referred to as Yunda, started on August 25. I registered to take both the comprehensive class (8-10 daily) and the listening and speaking class (10-12 every day but Wednesday), for a total of eighteen hours of class time a week.
The two most interesting of my classmates are from Thailand. One has a voice like Mike Tyson's and the other loves complex sentences, using them whenever he can. Often, his grammar or usage is wrong, but he is testing his limits and the fact that he is often wrong does not reflect on his intelligence. At first both of these people got on my nerves but I got over it and now appreciate both of them for what they have to offer. Tyson possibly speaks Chinese better than anyone in the class, and I often learn from Mr. Complex Sentence's attempts.
I am the only American in my class and am joined by one man from England. The remainder are from Vietnam, Korea, Japan and Indonesia.
The first day of class, our listening and speaking teacher asked us how we would like her to teach, as if it was something we had discussed together before class started. I found the question strange. She got no response from the class besides blank stares. She is an annoying teacher even this day, but I do find her class useful. She often misunderstands students, which is very frustrating. For example, I may understand what someone says while she doesn't. She also occasionally mistakes one question for a different simpler question, as if the person asking is an idiot.
On the other hand I love the teacher for my comprehensive class. He often jokes and talks about love and relationships. I sit in the front row and participate a lot. I think he often says things to me because he knows I am less likely to be offended, because I am a Westerner.
Marsha's house guest
On Wednesday I went over to Marsha's for lunch. She told me on the phone she had a guest over. When I arrived I met him - a cute little dog. Once the cute little dog stopped bothering me, I slept until mid-afternoon, exhausted from a frustrating morning where I was given misinformation by the school's office that handles visas. An office worker told me I would need to go get a health check-up near the airport to get my visa extended. My tutor Zhang found this strange and went with me to clarify. It turned out they were wrong, I did not need to make this trip.
I find that people here in particular give simple answers to questions that are often incorrect, even though it is their job to help you. They just do not want to bother. On the other hand, people on the street will often go way out of their way to help you, much more so than at home in the US.
When I woke up from my nap we went out to get lunch. Marsha took the dog and insisted on carrying him because she had just given him a shower. We bought a bag of spicy deep-fried potatoes chunks. We debated buying a corn-on-the-cob but bypassed it because Marsha thought it did not look good. I felt so bad for the old guy selling it on the street. Sometimes my heart goes out to people for no reason. I thought he would be there for hours trying to sell five pieces of corn, none of which looked good.
Ice-cream stand
I had been looking forward to getting my favorite watermelon icy drink, but when we arrived at the stand, they did not have any. The saleswoman let me taste everything else they had, as I tried to decide what to get instead. She dipped the same spoon I used for the first taste into all the other ice-cream containers. Maybe I should not have handed the spoon back to her. We finally ordered. It took her five minutes to fill the little cup, since she used a spoon not especially made for scooping. As we strolled, I fed Marsha the ice-cream (since she was holding the dog).
Haircut
She took me for a haircut and for the first twenty minutes I got a head massage from a woman, who I thought was the hair-dresser, while Marsha stood beside us and chatted. Then to my surprise I was sent to another chair, and a man gave me a haircut. At this place, only men cut hair. He gave me a stylish haircut and when we left Marsha thought I looked very handsome. While getting a haircut, it had started pouring outside and did not stop, so we had to walk home in the rain.
Time for dinner
On the way, we bought food to cook for dinner. I insisted on buying one of the bigger fish, which Marsha cooked fish. It was the first time in her life cooking fish, but that did not make her hesitant. It turned out delicious.
Marsha gave some of the leftovers to the dog, who inconsiderately decided to eat it like a slob. Food ended up all over the room. I decided I was not going to sleep over with the dog keeping us company, and did not even want to sleep over period because of the mess he had made. Her room was less than a hundred square feet. We left for my apartment. I first descended the steps upon leave her apartment and noticed it was wet from the rain, so I said to be careful. Really, this instruction should be given liberally with Marsha, not only under dangerous circumstances. Despite my warning, and not surprisingly, she slipped and almost fell.
Daxiong returns
On Friday Daxiong returned to Kunming. He stayed at my place for a few nights before moving into an apartment nearby. That evening we played badminton with Rob and his wife, Angela, and had dinner afterward. We ordered two Pizza's. I said I would not be eating, but I ended up eating the equivalent of an entire Pizza since no one else would. Rob and Daxiong, two men well over 200 pounds, are always encouraging me to eat and I often end up eating more than they do when we go out together. That night, Rob and Daxiong discussed bullshit business ideas non-stop and I was looking forward to getting home.
Soon after getting home I headed out again. At the bar, a girl just said to me, "I like you" and I did not know what to say. I couldn't say the same as I did not even know her. Though it was flattering, it was also awkward, since she did not even know me. Fangfang showed up around 1 AM and we hung out for most of the night. She gave me her phone number and since that night we have been friends. Unfortunately, she is moving to Shanghai very soon.
Marsha's clothes
On Saturday Marsha came over in the afternoon and brought some clothes she had made from scratch. There were two outfits, one male (my size) and one female (for her). This was the first time she had ever made clothes and she did it by looking at other clothes as examples. Both tops had thread inscriptions that said, "I am crazy about you" on them. We took a bunch of pictures. I thought the clothes came out well. We wore them outside together for a little while. They get mixed reviews from others people. One friend of mine who does not know Marsha and I are close said he thought she was a weirdo. I asked why and he said because he saw her in this outfit.
September 1-7
On Monday Daxiong moved into his new place and on Wednesday he asked me to help him move some of this things from his old apartment. I hate moving things that are heavy and would not do it for myself, but since Daxiong does so much for me, I helped him, to show my appreciation for what he does. I moved a mattress down some steps all by myself and carried a heavy box of DVDs in the street for ten minutes while he walked next to me. Marsha walked with us as I carried the heavy box, and did not understand why I was carrying it all by myself, so I explained.
Daxiong and the quest for a long-haired dictionary
Since coming back to Kunming, Daxiong decided a "long-haired dictionary" would be good for his Chinese. I don't know if he comes up with these terms himself. What he meant by this was that he thought a Chinese girl living with him would help his Chinese. He asked Marsha to help in recruiting. I thought she would find the task exciting but she didn't. In any case, she did search and found a girl, and we had a double-date at my place to meet her. I fixed dinner - I bought chicken and tofu, and boiled some vegetables. The girl was not that pretty or interesting. At the end of the night Daxiong asked her for some help with some Chinese index cards he was working on and she did well enough, so they did meet again for language exchange but have since stopped. Daxiong has found many woman to help him study, but has had a change of heart about having someone move in with him. He has recently mentioned that he is having difficulty keeping track of who is who.
Fish To Go
Friday evening was Yunda's (Yunda is my school) welcoming dinner. I was among the last few people to leave the dining hall after dinner. It was delicious, yet many people did not touch their sweet and sour fish, so I gladly finished off one table's fish after another. An old classmate of mine asked the staff to pack some of the other fishes to go for us, and they gave each of us two leftover fishes, in plastic bags.
Saturday night Marsha came over. As we were about to fall asleep at 11:30 PM, it popped into my mind that Marsha's bike was parked outside in front of my building, not a safe place to leave a bike overnight. If left overnight it would surely be stolen. We both got up and went downstairs, and I was relieved the bike was not yet stolen. We parked it safely and then walked down the hill for some fresh corn-on-the-cob, as long as we were up and about.
September 8-14
Daxiong and Xiao
Daxiong tried Xiao as a tutor, at my request, and after the first session was thrilled. He jokingly asked me why I had not mentioned her to him before. The previous term I practically begged him to just try my class for a day, but he refused, for no logical reason.
Mid-Autumn festival
Wednesday was a special holiday, called the mid-autumn festival, where everyone eats moon cake. The cake tastes horrible - even many Chinese people feel that way. It is round and signifies the family being together.
Xiao had invited Daxiong and I for dinner at her friends place. There were five of us in total and two fish. I ate almost all of the fish, and Daxiong was the only other person to touch them. I think they did not eat it because they knew I liked it and were being polite. I insisted they have some but they refused and I was forced to eat the deliciously spiced fish myself.
The conversation was lacking and the night on the whole uneventful.
Why is everyone laughing at me?
I had recently noticed my classmates laughing when I would ask questions, so I asked Mr. Complex Sentence, who I am friendly with, why they were laughing. He immediately knew why - it was because I often asked questions that had just been answered. The problem was that I often tried to write what the teacher said or wrote right away, and in the process of writing missed some of what she said afterward. He suggested that I wait until she finishes speaking. Since then I have taken his advice and have not been laughed at.
Negative view on Communism
On Saturday, after working out with Daxiong, I went to a nice park by the Kunming lake with Daxiong, Rob, his wife and a friend of theirs, an old man. The old man had long ago worked for the government, translating Karl Marx's work to Chinese. He said it was a waste of time. I said that it probably seemed interesting at the time, but he said no, it was not, rather, it was a complete waste of time.
I have noticed a large number of Chinese are very negative on the Communist times and particularly when speaking of the times of the Cultural Revolution. They are also not afraid to say it.
Green beans
When I got home from the park, Fangfang and her sister cooked me dinner. One of the dishes at dinner was stir-fried green beans with peppers, and it was amazing how good the beans tasted. In America I do not like green beans one bit, but here I love them, even when just boiled. They have a nice crisp and flavor.
September 15-21
Marsha's laugh
On Wednesday Marsha came over and watched the show Friends (which I have on DVD) as I studied. I love listening to her laugh. She laughs easily and it is a sincere laugh.
Eating like a savage
On Thursday for lunch I bought a chicken and ate it like a savage, with my bare hands, as I walked through Yunda's campus. I ran into my teacher from the previous term and two old classmates (Big Head and her husband) walking with her. They were not disgusted by my eating manner, and, to my surprise, my teacher accepted when I asked if she would like some chicken. She thought it looked delicious. I ripped the piece off with my hand and she started eating it instantly. She liked it, and I offered some more. She said she liked the wing the best, and as that is my least favorite part (as it has too much skin) I searched for the other wing to give her, but I couldn't find it, so I ended up giving her another piece (The wing was hidden behind the head, I found out when I got home).
Street foods on the way home from the gym
On Friday afternoon, on the way home from the gym (3 PM), I had my dinner. It started with a street-baked sweet potato. Then I stopped by the supermarket and got some raw tofu. The supermarket also had some delicious steamed buns and I had to have one. Right by my house there is a fruit ices store and I could not to resist the urge to have some since it was such a nice sunny day, perfect for eating ices outside. They serve fresh fruit on top of shredded ice and some sweet sauce.
When they brought me an ices with orange melon on tip, I told them their translation was wrong, but that it was not a problem since I liked what they had brought. It turned out I had misread the menu - I thought it said "honey-dew", but, in fact, it said "honey melon." Their translation was fine after all, I found out when I looked up the Chinese word. If directly translated, the name of the melon has the word "honey" in it. I apologized.
Mid-way through eating it the waitress offered me extra sweet sauce. After my eating spree, it was almost 4 PM. I felt gross and went for a jog.
Marsha's Birthday
Marsha had told me on the phone on Friday that she had plans for Saturday, but that she would not telling me them since she thought I would not find them interesting. I did not push her for the plans. On Saturday morning she called and said it was her birthday. She had planned to spend it alone. That was the plans she had that she did not want to tell me. She had thought I was not interested because I did not want to celebrate my birthday back in April. In the morning, she changed her mind about spending it alone and wanted to come over and spend it with me. I said sure.
I thought we would go the park and have a nice dinner, but it was not nice out so we stayed in and just relaxed. Suddenly it was late and as we had plans to go to a party later at night, we went for a quick dinner at KFC - she had been asking me to take her. It was her first time ever. She thought their fried chicken tasted like McDonalds (McDonalds here has fried chicken wings, which she had tried).
Pigs blood
On Sunday evening I had dinner with Xiao, Xiao's younger sister and her younger sister's husband. We had hot pot at a bustling restaurant. One of the items we cooked in the hot pot was pig's blood. It tasted like Tofu to me and also had the same consistency. I asked and Xiao said it was healthy, so I started eating even more of it. Later I asked if the blood was fattening and she said yes. It seems the Chinese do not consider fattening foods unhealthy. For example, they will say it is healthy to eat chicken skin because it is good for your skin. They do not think of it as a fattening food, and do not say fattening foods are unhealthy.
Beating Fangfang at Go
After dinner, I met Fangfang and her sister at a restaurant and we played a game where you try to get five pieces in a row with your color without being blocked (one player is black, one white). I don't know if it is called Connect Five, or if this is the game called Go. It was my first time playing and I beat her every time, which was a lot of fun. I kept laughing. I do not normally like games, but I liked this one and was in a good mood the rest of the night after beating her so badly.
September 22-28
Trip to the Hai Geng Park
On Wednesday Marsha and I went to the park on Kunming Lake that I had planned to take her to for her birthday. I had been once before earlier in the month, and it was beautiful. We met by Wal-Mart and went shopping for picnic food - it took us over an hour. Our most interesting purchase was a bottle of imported wine. She had never had wine before.
When we got to the park we tried to throw a saucer we had just purchased around, but it did not work as well as a frisbee, as I had feared. Marsha had been wanting a nap so we gave up on the saucer and lay down. Before sleeping we had some sushi. We lay around and snacked until the evening. My eyes started to itch and it grew worse. I just figured it was allergies, not a big deal. At 6 we started on the wine and finished it by 8. I did not expect Marsha to like the wine since it was her first time drinking it, but she liked it fine. We sat on the sheet, right by the lake, and talked as the night went on. There were few people around and we listened to the small waves crash. We then went for a walk. There were two nice restaurants in the park that I wanted to sit in, just because of the atmosphere, but we were not hungry and, I think because of the wine, Marsha wanted to go home. We caught a cab.
My eyes
At this point my eyes were really itching, and I kept scratching one of them in particular. I was also sneezing. When we got to her room, I looked in the mirror and saw that my left eye was swollen and red. It looked horrible, like I had just been in a bad fight. I was concerned, but at the same time nonchalant. I thought it would get better but when I woke up in the middle of the night I looked in the mirror, and was very disappointed. It looked worse, and the itching did not let up. Marsha got up to treat it with some concoction she made with eye medicine (I think hot water and eye drops), and told me to stop touching it with my hand.
Thursday morning we went to a nearby hospital. A nice thing about China is that it is easy to see a doctor on short notice. That's how it is done in general, as far as I can tell. You just walk into a hospital. We gave the cashier the equivalent of fifty cents and she gave us a receipt to see the eye doctor.
The doctor said it was pink-eye. Marsha said to the doctor that she was embarrassed to say it, but that the doctor looked very young, and maybe had not seen this much before, so she wanted someone else to take a look. He said sure, and then an older doctor across the hall examined my eyes and concurred. We bought the medicines they suggested in the hospital lobby. Marsha wanted to take care of me for the day, but I said I would not let her as it was contagious. I went home, missing school for the first time this term.
Zhang brings me dinner and has her own diagnosis
At 8:30 PM Zhang called me. She knew I was sick and asked if I had eaten yet, the typical Chinese greeting around meal time. I said I had. All day I had snacked, and I told her. I had had yogurt, banana, pear, and cucumber. But when the Chinese ask if you have eaten, they ask if you have eaten "fan," which means a meal, consisting of rice. Since I had not really "eaten," she said she had some tofu she could bring over. I said I did not want to trouble her, but accepted without much of resistance. When she saw my eye, she thought it was a bad allergy and that I had just scratched my eye too much, which was consistent with my thought but not with what the two doctors said. The next day my eye was much better but it has been itching somewhat even to this day, particularly my left eye. Maybe that means the doctors were right.
Weekend classes
On this weekend, I had classes. Since the school adjusted our vacation so that we would have five consecutive school days off instead of three, they would have classes on Saturday and Sunday to make up for the two extra days. I did not mind at all, since I do not view class as a chore.
Late Sunday morning, as our weekend of classes came to an end, Mr. Complex Sentence was worn out, and was half sleeping in listening class, yet answering all of the teachers questions. He was not speaking clearly since his eyes were closed and his head down, and was not raising his hand, but the teacher conducts the class like this, having students call out answers. He is a very good student, and answered correctly.
Since he answered so well, the teacher falsely concluded the material was not difficult. She often does not make sure participation is balanced, yet if one person answers all the questions, she will say we all understand the material.
The Chinese education system
During Sunday's class Chun, my teacher, talked for 30 minutes about how he did not like the education system in China. From an early age, kids work extremely hard and have no time for anything but homework. They take a very quick break for dinner, often not eating enough because they need to get back to their work. There is no time for sports or musical instruments. He noted that 60% of the Chinese have glasses. The pressure on the kids is too much and their lifestyle depressing. When walking his kids to school, they are often so tired they do not say a word. Suicide is more and more common. Parents will do anything for their kids, as long as they do well in school. Often, what the students study is not relevant or useful to them in the future. They take in way more than they can remember. At the end of high school, students take a test that determines if they can go to university and what university they can go to. Teachers are evaluated based on their student's test scores so even if a teacher disagrees with the workload, it is unlikely that teacher will let up. It frustrates him that it is so difficult to change the system.
He mentioned a ridiculous saying by Confucius, that nothing matters more than studying.
One thing that particularly irks Chun is that, when the kids learn English, they are not told the meanings of words and are forced to spend minutes looking each word up, instead of being told the meaning in seconds, wasting hours of time.
Chun spent a year in the US working at a university. He thinks the system we have is much healthier and productive. He said American kids have very happy childhoods, often playing sports, not being overwhelmed with homework and not doing much homework on the weekends. The Chinese cannot consider playing sports and expect to finish their workloads.
He did note that Americans work very hard once they get to university, often pulling all-nighters, but by this point they are adults and it is not the same, not crazy.
Chun is very open-minded and logical, and I find what he says extremely interesting and objective.
Correcting students pronunciation / tones
In class, Chun asked why Tyson was singing when reading the text. Tones are important but Tyson was using them where they did not belong. Chun decided on this particular day to give people a hard time about their bad pronunciation. I felt bad for Tyson. If you saw him, you would understand. He is a tiny man, about thirty years old, and quite studious. A picture and, even more so, an accompanying audio clip would be convincing. I will work on that.
Sunday night conversation with Marsh
I met Marsha for lunch on Sunday and she mentioned that she wanted to borrow some VCDs from my apartment. I called her that evening to come pick them up, and besides I wanted to talk with her. She biked over, and instead of doing anything productive, we lay around listening to music for two hours. Relaxing like this is a rarity for me. I was tired and tried to go to bed relatively early, but Marsha and I started talking. When Marsha gets started, I do not know what I am going to get. I learned some amazing things about her life. She said how she had almost died three times! I said I knew about one time, but that was it.
She then told me about a bike accident she had a year ago, where she was in the hills, biking downhill very fast. A horse cart cut her off. She took a big fall. She said it was not as bad as the one she had with me, and she did not have to go to the hospital, but she could not see for a few minutes. She was lucky because of the way she fell. Soon after, she was back biking in the hills, not taking it easy. She is not easily intimidated. This was not one of the three times she almost died, though.
The first time was when she almost drowned. When she was a kid, she tried to go swimming in a place in her hometown where people wash their clothes and bathe. She cannot swim. She was in the water and started sinking, and to this day does not know how she survived. If she could not swim, I asked, why was she going in the water where she was required to swim? She said because it was a lot of fun. She said many kids die at this particular location. I asked why parents let their kids go if it is unsafe, and she said they cannot stop them from going. It is not that they let them go. Two of Marsha's cousins have died from drowning, though both times involved boats.
The third time she almost died was in the accident she had with me, which I wrote about previously.
The second time was the scariest. She was walking home a few years ago in Kunming and was entering the gate to her building complex. A man said someone was going to beat him up, and asked if she could let him in. She said he looked scared and she believed him, so she let him in. She thought he would leave in a few minutes but seconds later he was standing right next to her, and she said it was clear what he wanted, to rape her. She said she did not acquiesce, and screamed, but immediately he put his hand to her throat to choke her. He started to suffocate her. She said she tried to fight back but his arms were longer than hers. She started to lose her breath and said she was close to dying. She asked if I wanted to know what she thought during that time, what a person feels like near death, and I said yes. She said it was peaceful. She was not scared. She thought about her family, how much they had put into her, and all the people that did so much for her, and what would they do? If she got out of this, she would try to treat them even better than she already did. She said all she saw was yellow or white light and she could not hear anything. If he had choked her for thirty more seconds she would have died, but someone else luckily walked in the gate and he ran off when he heard the door opening. The person looked at Marsha but did not ask anything. Marsha could not speak after being choked. She said for two weeks she wanted to kill that person, but that now she did not think she should hate anyone, life is too short. I tried to understand from her why the man did not use force with her and she said that the men here are not like me or Westerners, they are not as strong. This man in particular was very skinny and in afterthought, she thought maybe he was a drug user.
After we talked I could not sleep. She was going to go home, but after hearing this story I did not want her to. I understood better now why earlier in the month she got jealous that I walked my teacher Xiao home, but do not walk her home. I encouraged her to stay the night and she did. Then we went to move her bike and just like earlier in the month, got some corn-on-the-cob, green beans and some minced meat on a English-muffin-type bread. She did not like the green beans until we started having them together, but now she likes them more and more. She often says food is tastier when eating with someone, but would like the green beans even if eating them alone.
New People
Xiao
When I first met Xiao at the beginning of last term in March, when she was my teacher, I thought she was full of herself, so I was not that friendly. As it seems is more and more usual, my first impression was wrong. She is stand-offish at first and confident, but not arrogant.
In August I started meeting with Xiao for language exchange, and we are now good friends. We usually meet with the excuse of studying together, but it is fun.
She is bad at using chopsticks. She cannot see well, and just got laser surgery. She cannot ride a bike. She told me about her swimming class in school. The class took place outside of the pool, not in it, so she still cannot swim, even though she studied it for an entire term.
She is my age and it seems we are on the same wavelength. She majored in history and often has interesting things to say when teaching Chinese, about both the culture and the language. She is very honest.
Jintian (& Nicky)
I have been friends with Jintian, also a twin (fraternal), since the first day we met. Her Chinese name means "gold field." Her English name is Aurelia. Jintian can be very crude, making her a lot of fun to joke around with. She has a valley girl accent and when I met her I thought for a moment that she was joking when she talked.
She is one of those people that likes to give friendly punches so that she can get cheap feels, and once she punched my belly and then said I had a six-pack. I thought it was funny because I had eaten so much that day and felt like my stomach was quite big at the time. I then mentioned her comment to Daxiong, who told me to look around the locker room. He said I would realize that I did have a six-pack! But I still do not understand. Even if most people do not have nice abdominal muscles, that does not mean I have a six-pack. Jintian also complimented my calves in front of her non-athletic boyfriend Nicky.
Two particularly crazy comments she made one night as we were having dinner was that she did not like lively teachers, and that teachers do not make a difference in learning. Me and Nicky were like, "what!?"
Fangfang
I met Fangfang out one night and her dancing caught me my attention. Here are two clips I took at my house.
Her parents divorced long ago, and she and her siblings grew up living in a house all by themselves, very near to their grandmother and in between her mother's house and father's house, both short rides away. At 16, she had her own business, traveling and selling clothes. She will soon go to Shanghai and save up some money so she can open her own bar in Kunming and maybe buy a car. Her Chinese is difficult to understand, but she speaks very animatedly, which is entertaining. She does not seem to have the ability to speak slowly.
People
Daxiong
This semester Daxiong has spent a lot more time with different Chinese women, who are tutoring him . He does not go to my school anymore either, so usually I just see him for working out and lunch afterward, which still ends up being a fair amount since we work out almost every day.
Marsha
I have written a lot about her, but I am continuously learning new things about her. Marsha speaks better than it first appears. I think it is amazing how much she can say considering that she grew up in the countryside. I asked her how she can speak English and she explained. She could not speak at all a couple of years ago, but then she met a Korean girl who could not speak any Chinese and became friends with her. That is how she started speaking some English. She mentioned how would be exhausted after speaking with this friend.
One night recently she was sitting at a table and she heard someone refer to the guy she was talking to, in English, as "going fishing," meaning he was hitting on her. I am sure it never even crossed their mind that she might catch and understand that comment.
You can hear Marsha's English and see the clothes she made if you download a movie clip I took of her. I taught her the words fabulous, marvelous, fantabulous, and she is good at using them now. Marsha is ambitious. She wants to go abroad, and wants to eventually open schools in the countryside and/or have her own business.
Misc.