Summary

There is nothing strikingly interesting about my last month in Kunming, but if you want to read about my day to day experiences, read on. If you do not have much time, just check out the pictures.

My Chinese

Tough Language

Various people say Chinese is the toughest languages to learn. That got me thinking that maybe the Chinese spend too much time studying their own language. For example, I know Chinese children spend a lot of time memorizing, writing characters over and over again, and studying Chinese proverbs. I wonder, for the Chinese, if simplifying their language would be more efficient? Does the complexity of their language take too much away from other learning? I think the time could be better spent. In any case, I enjoy the challenging and difficult aspects of the language, even those aspects that require memorization. 

Tingxie

What is tingxie (TING SHE-EH)?

Just as Chinese children must memorize characters, so must foreigners, if we do not want to be illiterate in Chinese. A common method used to force memorization is "tingxie," which, directly translated, means, "listen, write." It is often dreaded, but its value is clear. The teacher says words or sentences and we transcribe them. We had such quizzes every other day.

Who is not afraid of it?

At the start of class one day, right before giving us the quiz, my teacher asked, "Who in our class is not afraid of tingxie?" After several incorrect guesses and some class discussion, the teachers said it was me that was not afraid!

Western students

The teacher went on to talk about western students and tingxie. He first said one in a hundred are resemble in that they are not afraid of tingxie ! He made me blush.

I want 100% on the tingxie quiz!

Normally, when the teacher would say "tingxie tomorrow," or, "tingxie," meaning time for the quiz, various students would grunt, sigh and express discontent in their own ways. But I looked forward to the quizzes as I knew they help me. I studied hard for them and appreciated the teacher being strict about giving them. As the term went on, I got more and more motivated about doing well on the quizzes, and decided that before the term was over I wanted to get 100% on one of them, which I had yet to achieve. Very few people got 100%, though it was doable since we knew beforehand what to memorize. In addition to studying the night before the quizzes, I often also studied the mornings of the quizzes, waking up early. I wound up getting 100% a few times.

Details

December 1 - 7

McDonalds service

After working out Tuesday night, Daxiong and I went to McDonalds, at my request. Daxiong is not a big fan of Mickey D's. I ordered for the two of us, and asked that our sandwiches be made without sauce. After ten minutes, a lady brought us our food. I noticed that the sauce had simply been wiped off my sandwich, a big no no.

I pointed this out and she took the sandwich back, bringing me a new one five minutes later. This time, there was mayo on the outside of my bun. I said I was OK with this, not wanting to wait even longer, but the lady was insistent, and finally brought me one with no mayo whatsoever on the bun.

Daxiong did not like the grilled chicken sandwiches we each had and asked me to get him a Big Mac. I again asked for no sauce and they got it right, but after Daxiong bit into the Big Mac, he said it had no taste. He asked, what was I thinking having them not put the sauce on the Big Mac, that's what gives it its special taste. Embarrassed, I asked them to bring out the Big Mac's sauce on the side. After putting the sauce on, Daxiong said it was still the worst Big Mac he had ever had.

Pizza Hut

Another eating experience, and Daxiong deviating from his misanthropic tendencies

Friday evening, after working out, Daxiong and I had dinner for the first time at the newly opened Pizza Hut, right across the street from our gym. While waiting for a table, Daxiong struck up a conversation with a Chinese boy. Daxiong sometimes claims to be anti-social, a misanthrope, but often enough is just the opposite. Later, he asked the waiter who was walking by what was the fancy drink he was carrying. The waiter answered, "Cappuccino!" Seconds later, the waiter dropped the tray and the glass broke, making a huge noise. Later, as the waiter walked by with a new drink, Daxiong called out, "Cappuccino!"

It was a great dinner, the best pizza I'd had in months. Daxiong wanted to relax and talk after we finished eating and though I had plans, I let them slide. We talked about our families, being abroad, love, relationships and marriage. It was one of those rare times that guys chat about these things. We shared a taxi from Pizza Hut. After dropping Daxiong off, the taxi continued to a  bar where my friend was singing in a band. While in the cab, Marsha called me. I just happened to be passing by the spot where she was calling from, so I had the cab stop as she ran over and hopped in.

At the bar, Marsha chatted with some friends of hers and I chatted with some friends of mine at a different table. Marsha had not eaten dinner, so I brought her some leftovers from Pizza hut. I tried to hide it as I went through the bar crowd, not wanting anyone to see it because I did not have enough to go around and wanted Marsha to have it. Marsha had previously said she did not like pizza.

I did not tell her what she was eating, and she did not question it. She liked it, a lot! I probed, saying that if she did not really like it, she shouldn't eat it, but she really did like it, and wanted to finish the rest of the leftovers. In fact, she wondered what it was. I then told her it was Pizza!

Boxing

On Saturday afternoon, after our workout, Daxiong taught me some boxing. He showed me how to jab and cross with the big punching stand at the gym. Earlier at the gym, I was impressed when I saw a guy hit the punching stand and almost knock it down. After some practice, I was able to knock it down with a solid kick at just the right spot. All Daxiong had to do was push it with a couple of fingers! He did say it would be about impossible to actually punch down, but for whatever reason it was a cinch with a push (at least for him).

Spanish Restaurant

There was a very nice looking Spanish restaurant literally next to Daxiong's apartment building. We had never gone there. Daxiong had heard it was expensive and not that good. We finally tried it. It was excellent and reasonable, with good service, a rarity in Kunming. A couple of days later we tried another restaurant right by his house, and Daxiong loved the lasagna. Daxiong joked that just as we were leaving, we were finding the best restaurants. If only we'd known earlier, maybe I would not have decided to leave.

Dec 8 - 14

Daxiong cancels work out

On Tuesday, for the first time since we had started Daxiong's intense workout program, he cancelled, but said we would make it up on our scheduled off-day, Thursday. This was the start of a new trend, and our workout program abruptly came to an end as Daxiong had had enough.

Torturous lunch, anti-American comment

On Tuesday afternoon, at an Internet cafe by school, a man next to me looked over my shoulder as I looked at a website that had pictures from my high-school's ten-year reunion, which I had just missed. One thing led to another and I had lunch with him the next day, where we were, to my surprise, joined by two people he was thinking of doing business with. I spent the next two hours listening to them speak, understanding about 20 percent, and trying not to fall asleep. When we finally left, one of the men made a comment implying how they did not have the stupid American custom of dividing the bill. Instead, I thought in my head, they have the custom of fighting to pay the bill.

Sunday afternoon with Marsha

Mahjong

My second to last weekend in Kunming, I reserved Sunday to spend with Marsha. Around lunchtime, she took me to a small park she used to go to after work.In the park, as we lay in the grass, Marsha started talking about different subjects. As happens sometimes with Marsha, she randomly started talking about very important, emotional and personal subjects. She talked about why she does not like her dad very much. I had never known this before, but he had played mahjong for years. She said it started when one of her aunts was sick, and her family did not have enough money for her to go to the hospital. Her father played mahjong and won enough money to help her. He thus concluded that this was an easy way to make money.

Then, to his surprise, he lost more and more money and had to borrow from many people. While her father's peers became successful in business, Marsha's family remained poor, due to her father wasting days away playing mahjong. It also hurt the family that he was not around to help with the farm work as, according to Marsha, there is certain work that a man is much better fit for. Either a man, or an animal.

His mahjong problem reached the point that when Marsha or her sisters would say their names near their town, it would be an embarrassment. Everyone knew her father because of his Mahjong problem. His problem lasted for years and Marsha said it had prevented her two sisters from finding husbands. Marsha's mom was known as an especially strong woman, which is important, but her father's problems outweighed this.

One of her sisters ended up selling herself, as a bride. Marsha did not know the details but told me what she did know. She said there was a town outside Shanghai, where there were more men than woman, and it is hard to find wives. Her sister made an arrangement where someone brought her to the town, and in exchange for taking her away, she would marry someone there.

Marsha letting a man know what it meant to be her boyfriend - hardship!

Marsha said that, during high school, many guys wanted to be her boyfriend and she did not know why. Marsha later told me there were also a few people who wanted to marry her, because she was strong and worked hard on the land (farm work), but that she was not interested as she wanted to study. When she started studying at the university in Kunming, one of her neighbors said he wanted to be her boyfriend.  The way it works here, Marsha explained to me, the boyfriend has to pay for everything for the girl. So she told him that being her boyfriend would not be easy, because she was poor, among other things. It would be, "bitter," as the Chinese put it. Nonetheless, he wanted her.

They were happy, but she never loved him. As she did not think it was fair for her to remain with him, she broke things off, even though he said it was OK that she did not love him, that she would eventually love him, and that he could wait. I found the story sad, but liked that Marsha held out for love.

After a long conversation, with Marsha doing most of the talking, we went on a boat ride. It was very pretty and as I was relaxed, I closed my eyes. Marsha thought the boat ride was very romantic but that I did not like it because my eyes were often closed.

December 15 - 24

Marsha off to Xian

A married couple, who Marsha tutors, purchased a ticket for her to meet up with them in Xian, a famous tourist destination in China, where the terracotta soldiers are. She would meet them there, and I took her to the airport. She had never been on a plane before. Before she went through security she said she did not want to go anymore. But I encouraged her to go! It was not that she was afraid, I think she just did not feel like going. 

That night, she called me and told me all about her first trip on the airplane. She was excited about it. It is neat talking to a twenty-five-year-old with the excitement of a five-year-old in her voice. When she came back, a week later, she said she did not find the return flight interesting.

Hockey with Rob and Angela

On Monday, Daxiong took the option I gave him to play squash instead of working out at the gym.

Tuesday I played hockey with Daxiong. This was my second time ever playing hockey. Rob and his wife, Angela, came along. Angela did not put skates on, and Rob had a tough time, so he did not play in the game. The equipment was not quite his size, which exacerbated his problems! I, on the other hand, scored a goal!

On Wednesday Daxiong sent me an SMS (text message via cell phone) that we were here to learn Chinese, and not to work out, and he wanted the day off. By this point, he had lost all his enthusiasm for working out, and so ended our workout routine. In reality, it had already ended over a week earlier.

Last night in Kunming

On my last night in Kunming, Christmas Eve, Daxiong and I went to Rob's house, where Rob cooked a curry and we watched a taped football game. I had been talking about seeing a Lebron James (NBA basketball) game, but he said that there had been no games on the last week for him to tape. The evening was very nice. We stayed for awhile, but I did not want to stay too late as I also wanted to see Marsha. Everyone gave me a hard time about leaving early, but it wasn't so early!

I had already let Marsha know that I would meet her at her apartment that night, where she was teaching English. She wanted me to make one more guest appearance. She said she would be teaching until 9:30 and I said I would try very hard to get there by then, but at worst I would be only a little bit late. She had recently moved, again, and did not yet have a phone.

I asked the taxi to take me to her apartment. In the cab, Marsha called me. It turned out that no one came to class because it was Christmas Eve (though the Chinese don't really celebrate it). She realized this when no one showed up at her place. Thus, she went out, and presently was not at home. I was angry inside because I could easily have taken a taxi to her place earlier and found no one there. She should have called me a couple hours ago.

Something was not right. She was out, and I redirected the cab so that I could pick her up. She was late showing up where I had asked her to meet me, so I had to leave the cab and stand waiting in the cold. When I met her I realized she had been drinking, and she never drinks.

It turns out she was trying to do whatever she could to upset me on this night. She said that when people are dying, they become mean, so that people don't miss them afterwards. This way, I would not miss her. I could say that only Marsha would think up something crazy like that, but that would not be true. I then asked her why she showed up at all? She said she had wanted to see me. The remainder of the night was not fun but I could not be upset at her because I knew she did what she did because of her strong feelings and because my leaving was going to be difficult.

She also told me that she lost her phone book that night, and did this because she thought it would annoy me. I do not know if that was true!

Last day in Kunming

My last day in Kunming, I attended class. Many students were already gone, and it was more conversations than following the textbook.

In my first class, my teacher talked about a Chinese minority whose members would kill themselves if they were accused of stealing, even if they were not guilty.

In my second class, there was a Japanese student who did terribly on his test. I think he really has some mental problem. After getting his result, he started saying out loud how terrible his Chinese was. The teacher did not soothe him, saying that his test results were far below everyone else's. After he went on about how terrible he had done, she finally said that it had to do with his concentration, not with his Chinese skills. When he speaks in class, his comments are usually irrelevant. He then said he was working on this aspect of his personality, and that he had more friends now than he did before. 

We then shared Christmas stories. Mr. Complex Sentence talked about Santa coming to his school and giving everyone a candy during naptime. He was the only person awake and asked Santa if he could have a different candy.

The Japanese student, the crazy one I just referred to, said that his dad dressed up as Santa each Christmas. He said this made him work hard, never wanting to disappoint his parents. No one understood the connection.

Daxiong and I had lunch and said good-bye. He planned to study in Harbin the following term, and me in Qingdao.

Marsha took the bus with me to the airport and waited with me until I went through customs. She watched me as I waited in the customs line, until the very last moment. When I used to leave her apartment, she would stick her head out of her window and watch me bike away, silently. My eyes watered up, though the emotional moment was interrupted when  I explained to the man who was cutting the line to make his flight that we were all on the same flight.

And so my Indian adventure started.

People

Daxiong

• One day we played basketball and afterwards had some fruit yogurt drinks. At the shop, Daxiong looked for his little case, which contained his cell phone and money, but could not find it. I ran to the basketball court, but his case was nowhere to be found. Daxiong is often very careless and nonchalant, and it was only a matter of time before he had something stolen from him. He always says he can't wait for someone to take his stuff, because he'll get them so bad, but the thing is, if they do it in a sneaky way, he would never find out who did it. Side note: I spoke to Daxiong recently, and asked him why his cell phone number was not working. His phone was stolen again, for the second time in a few months!

Marsha

• She told me she not only got used to the breakfasts I made but started to really like them. I would often give her yogurt with granola or fruit, and occasionally grilled cheeses. She also said I got her to start liking green beans.
• One morning Marsha ordered rice noodles for breakfast, at a small shop typical of China, where you sit outdoors. The waitress brought over the wrong kind of rice noodles. There are different varieties of rice noodles, including one that is extremely fine, one that is slightly thicker than spaghetti, and a thick one, like the chow fun we get in the US. She mentioned it to the waitress , who simply did not respond to her. Marsha tried to eat the noodles, not wanting to make a big deal about it. They were not the ones that she had grown up eating and she did not like them, so much so that she couldn't eat them! Soon the waitress squatted behind her, as the Chinese people often squat, and whispered, "eat up." Marsha tried again but couldn't, so she insisted that the waitress bring her the noodles she had originally ordered, that is, the correct order. The poor waitress, probably working for ten cents an hour, was likely to get in trouble, Marsha told me, which is why she had tried so hard to eat the noodles.

Misc.

• I was going to jog to Marsha's one night. I had just finished dinner at my teacher Zhang's house and when she realized I was going to jog she told me I had better not. She explained that I could get appendicitis if I ran after eating. I took her advice and took a taxi instead. The Chinese have all sorts of funny thoughts on foods and their effects.
• I know a lot of people talk about how different the Chinese food is here versus the US, but I started thinking about it. Restaurants here have kongpao chicken, chicken with cashew nuts, fried rice, fried noodles, sweet and sour pork, broccoli with garlic sauce. They like to use MSG (which I know from watching them cook, and from various conversations I've had about it). It is not THAT different. The dishes are greasier here in China, and if a dish is made with oil, the cook will dump the oil that they had cooked the food in on top of the dish so that it is practically dripping. But there is plenty of overlap between the Chinese food her and that in the US. I can say the Chinese do have different eating habits. They eat a lot of white rice, more vegetable than in the US (because they are cheaper), often steam their noodles, and rarely eat desert.
• If I put on a seatbelt in a taxi, the driver almost always says, no, it's not necessary, after which I explain I wear it for my own safety. It's hard for them to understand that if it's not the law, I may still want to wear my seatbelt.
• In listening class, our teacher told us about a time she went to a horror movie and an older person in the theater died of a heart attack during the movie. This was before there were many horror movies in Chinese theaters.
• In the cafeteria one day, I did not finish my white rice, and both a teacher and the Korean lady who used to give me food scolded me and gave me disapproving looks.

Food

• Barbequed corn - I love the barbequed corn here. The cook puts the raw corn on the grill. When the kernels are blackened and hard, it is ready. Marsha told me she had to stop eating it because her mouth hurt from chewing the hard kernels.