Buddhas big, Buddhas small, Buddhas big and Buddhas tall, you want Buddhas we've got them all
at the Longmen caves!


Although the Longmen caves were not my only stop during my week in Henan province, this thought has certainly crossed my mind in view of many places I visited there. The Longmen caves (of which you can see a small section above), Shaolin temple, Zhongyue temple, Kaifeng with its silk road and imperial history...well, maybe not Nanjiecun where I started my week in Henan. Said to be the last Maoist collective in China the images decorating the streets and the parks are those celebrating the working man, Mao, Marx, Engels, Stalin, and Lenin. It was very quiet and clean. And very empty when I wandered through. There's a guided tour but it's all in Chinese and I don't think my Chinese is good enough to justify an 80 yuan tour I can't completely understand. After nearly 2 hours I made my way to the bus station to get to Zhengzhou.

​Henan was relatively easy to get around by bus so that's largely how I got around with the exception of getting lost on the edge of Zhengzhou after (I think) I got on a bus from Nanjiecun going in the right direction but at the wrong time so it didn't go to the city center. After one anxiety-ridden black cab ride I didn't really want to take but kind of got hustled into while trying to find my way to the main bus station, some misunderstandings and crying, I arrived in Kaifeng 500 yuan lighter than I had planned for. I still hate myself for that. There was one point in the trip where we had to stop for gas and he said "Ni jia you wo" (Roughly, "You add gas for me") and I got ticked off because I thought he was demanding I get out and gas his car for him after I already gave him hundreds. I told I him "I already gave you money" and then he made the comment repeatedly that "Ni gei wo qian. yi bai..." and I started to get really angry and anxious. I didn't hear him add a "le" that would have told me he was saying I gave him money and that he used 100 to gas up, so I thought he was speaking in the present tense. I got pretty pissed off that this guy would just keep asking me for money after asking me for so much when I was stuck and I screamed in English "Fine! I'll go!" and began plotting when the best time to open the door and run out would be. Then I screamed "Wo gei le si bai!" (I gave you 400!) and started crying instead. Then he sounded upset as he said "Ni bu dong wo de yisi!" (You don't understand my meaning) and proceeded to tell me off for being a 24 year old woman and crying. It turns out he was just saying that the money I gave him was going to pay for his gas but between my mediocre Chinese and his accent I interpreted wrongly. He kept telling me there was no need to cry and I flat out refused to answer or respond and told him I didn't want any tissues thank you very much. After over an hour of playing out all the ways this kind of thing goes wrong in my head, Kaifeng greeted us with some fake towers. He pulled over to the side of the road, called me a cab, gave the driver 20 yuan to help me find my way and said goodbye. I felt bad, because I cried and had been rude and he had turned out to be honest and got me to Kaifeng. Then I realized if he was actually honest, he would have returned the money I had used when trying to get on a bus back in Zhengzhou that was supposed to go to city center and would have let me pay 25 yuan for a bus ticket instead of taking 500 and looking at me in disbelief when I said I didn't have that much cash in my wallet (and of course, this argument taking place on the side of a freeway). I didn't feel as bad when I realized that I was just fast money to some guy with long nails and too many questions on the edge of Zhengzhou. Then it got funny because either he had to leave me with a taxi because he didn't know Kaifeng well or I scared him pretty bad by screaming and crying. I don't think he understood that I didn't understand everything he was saying until that outburst. So there I was anxious for over an hour while this guy probably didn't know what to do with some wailing laowai in the passenger's seat. I still feel kind of bad about that...

After that madness, Kaifeng was probably my favorite out of the places I went too. I was a little outside of the city walls, which was inconvenient only because I insisted on going everywhere by foot. The walk itself wasn't bad, but the heat was and I've come back from Henan noticeably tanner from being out in the sun so much. The main street, Gulou jie, was very pretty at night and it was hard to walk with all the street food booths and tables out at night.

Kaifeng was actually my main motivation in coming out to Henan. First as the capital of the Northern Song dynasty but in flipping through a guidebook I'd also seen a note about a Jewish community that established itself in Kaifeng reaching back to the silk road. Though there's not much of a strong community today after China's changing winds, intermarriage, and as with many, incentive to go to bigger wealthier cities has dispersed China's Jewish people. Some families didn't tell their children or openly practice either so it's likely a number of people don't know if they have Jewish ancestry. I did find that there was one family still living near the site of where the synagogue used to be located and that there was a guide who spoke English and could provide information about the Kaifeng Jews. In walking down Gulou jie and walking onto Shudian Lu before making my way towards the hutongs and the former site of the synagogue, it became clear that Kaifeng didn't have money to go around quite like Beijing, Shanghai, or even Xi'An where people go to see the terra cotta warriors. The bright lights, modern shopping malls, lines of food carts, underground walkways gave way to pavement and stores more geared to necessities than brand names or slick posters. I did see a few things under construction and in progress while wandering, but the money and lights seemed pretty heavily concentrated into one space.

I arrived early to meet my guide and wandered around her neighborhood for a bit. All throughout the city, there are signs advertising halal food and it seems that the Muslim community is still pretty sizeable. One door surprised me by having a red paper square turned on its point and except for the Arabic writing, looking like any other kind of new year decoration. In a nod to the no longer standing synagogue, alleys have names like "Teaching the Torah Alley". Crawling around "Teaching the Torah Alley" brought me to a mosque that looked more like it was used for living than prayers, though one room was free of laundry or furniture which lead me to believe it was still in use. The hutongs were of course narrow, the living space looked a little tight, it was a bit dusty and dirty and I saw a few woks and pots set on what looked like old brick or mud stoves. When I passed some of the hutongs I was startled to find a big white Catholic church that looked rather pristine and recent. It was certainly a neighborhood with character and I liked it a lot, but that's easy for me to say as a traveler. I hesitate to romanticize when I sense that it wasn't the poorest part of town (no one was starving or begging or struck me as desperate), but neither was it the wealthiest. My guide later told me that part of the mix I saw was because the foreigners from the silk road lived together in one part of the city and that a Catholic group in communication with the Jewish community had built the church. I can honestly say I've never been to a corner of China quite like it. I made my way back downtown where I visited Da Xiang Guo Si, a large Buddhist temple. I normally really enjoy temples and taking time to study all the different details but this time I just kind of wandered and didn't really look. I saw nothing of the big thousand armed Guanyin so I missed out big time or timed things badly. But in the following days I'd make up for it in sheer number of Buddhas seen in the course of a day at the Longmen caves.

After Kaifeng, I made my way to Luoyang. Luoyang is also a key city in Chinese history but it hasn't retained much of its imperial structures (though the city museum has some really cool things). I should have taken the time to see more, but most of my time was spent at the Longmen caves. I had my fill of Buddhist art, paid a visit to the poet Bai Juyi, and then began to make the trip towards Dengfeng where I planned to stay for three nights and explore the area after seeing Shaolin temple.

 I had something of a strange greeting at Dengfeng and the hostel overall seemed safe and the staff was friendly, but it was sort of weird too. I had a moment at the bus station where I was trying to convey where I was a going and a man told me it was going to cost 30 yuan for a ride. I'd read that it should only cost 7 yuan, so I kept insisting otherwise but he seemed firm. I started going with him, worried that after working so hard to convey what I wanted it would be rude to step out of things. Then I heard one of the other guys laughing and I turned around and glared. He waved and told me to go. I began to realize that if someone is ripping you off, you actually may not owe them anything and wound up leaving him and asking one of the cab drivers. The driver wouldn't turn on the meter and charged me 15. Not 7, but not 30 either. (30 is the flat rate that all drivers charge for going to Shaolin temple from Dengfeng, but I was trying to find my room in Dengfeng and felt it was ridiculous to get the same rate I would have for going out of town.) Losing that 500 yuan on the way to Kaifeng really hurt and made me realize I waste too much energy believing that people will compromise and respond well to politeness. There's nothing wrong with saying "That's not what I want" and walking the other way or not responding at all. I've been kicking myself lately for all the times I've struggled to say "no" to people who honestly don't deserve any other response (ie, some guy touching me in a Swiss train station talking about how much he misses his good obedient Japanese girlfriend and asking about my virginity, I'm getting frustrated with how I'm running out of ways to politely suggest I'm not interested when I should really be screaming "NO"). It's not selfish or rude. It's assertiveness and looking after myself. I can't believe I still have to work at fighting off that part of myself. I have to admit, one of the joys of learning tai chi this year has been tui shou. For an hour or two, my teacher gives me permission to and asks me to push him or throw him. It's better than being passive aggressive, it's really fun, and I guess it's one way I've begun to quietly assert myself.

As someone who's spent some time nerding out over the philosophical side of China's martial arts, I was excited to finally be at Shaolin temple as not only a sightseer, but as someone who now had some experience in a martial art. I wanted to see what I'd pick up on in Shaolin that differed from what I learned with tai chi. I also really love images of Bodhidharma/Damo, the monk said to have meditated in a cave above Shaolin for 9 years and have developed exercises for the Shaolin monks who were a little out of shape after largely focusing on spiritual matters. He came to China from India as a result, has a very distinct visage as tends to happen with foreigners in Chinese art. You'll find him around Chan/Zen temples throughout China.

The crowds weren't as bad as I thought they would be, though there were a number of tour groups coming through, easy to see with their yellow flags and headsets which ensured everyone could hear what the guide was saying. It tended to be most packed directly in front of the temple, everything else was pretty mellow. I was surprised when I was able to walk right up to the pagoda forest and take pictures until I realized I was standing out in the sun and that all the other Chinese tourists were nearby under the trees. Pale skin is the ideal here, so most likely people were trying to avoid getting a tan (which I didn't bother thinking about while wandering around and as a result, am now in two tones, might have the second sunburn of my life, and came back to people practicing the words "Do you use sunscreen?" when they saw my face). So I had a big sunny patch all to myself to look around and take photos before moving on to some of the other sights around Songshan.

I kept looking up at a big statue of Bodhidharma a few kilometers up the hill behind Shaolin temple.  I kind of wanted to see it, but I wasn't sure what would really be waiting for me at the top other than a cave. After lunch, I decided to go for it and buy a few bottles of water for the walk up. I think the hardest part was when I got really close and asked a nun who was selling a variety of goods if I could sit for a bit and she just repeated "Wu fen zhong"(In 5 minutes) while pointing up the mountain. So I made my way up sweating and tanning as people stared and commented on the state of my face. When I did get to the cave, there wasn't much but there was a sense of peace not found below at the temple. A few of us sat down in the shade just outside of the cave and two men sat inside the dimly lit cave meditating as Bodhidharma supposedly sat there staring at a wall for 9 years. (One story has it that his eyes closed for a long period of time and to ensure that it never happened again while he was sitting there, he cut off his eyelids and they became tea leaves. The tea was useful for keeping monks awake and focused.) I took a peek inside at the pink and green lotus shaped lights and as my eyes adjusted, I was able to make out Bodhidarma's facial features rising out of the shiny yellow robe covering the rest of him. As someone who doesn't really identify with any religion, I didn't feel right stepping into the middle of the meditating men and poking around too much so I just went outside, bought another bottle of water and rested. I gave up on going all the way to the statue since the cave was my primary interest and I didn't want anymore stairs. It's been a while since I've gone on a hike. It felt really good and being surrounded by trees, rocks, and bugs was kind of like home though the obvious lack of oak trees and douglas firs combined with the humidity reminded me I was in China. When I got to the bottom, I rested some and grabbed a few things to eat. People kept asking if I was a wushu student. Maybe it's because I was a sweaty mess. There were students of all ages and all nationalities who would pop up around the area. I was surprised when I ran into a whole American family wearing the loose grey pants worn by all the monks and again when I saw two tall Americans holding weapons and posing with tourists (it looked like they lived at the temple and had been asked to do this). The idea of coming back as a student rather than a sightseer is tempting. I made my way out and picked up a few souvenirs before heading down into Dengfeng and making my way to the hostel. I wasn't sure if I'd have energy for the next day, but I figured out the buses and made my way to Zhongyue Temple and Songyan Academy (Songshan, where Shaolin is located, is actually a really important Taoist mountain and it seemed right to visit both the famous Chan/Zen temple and the Taoist temple).

Zhongyue was also a tourist site, but much less so. It was very empty, more a place of worship than a place for sightseeing but I did see a tour group on my way out and had to pay about 30 yuan for admission. People saw me alone and I felt bad turning them away when they told me I could get a tour for 20 yuan since I was alone but then I remembered that it's kind of ok to say you don't want the things you don't want. I felt a little shy about going inside the halls since people kept calling me in to pray and I don't really identify strongly with anything, so it seemed kind of wrong for me to come in and start posing (though I know China is a sort of fluid place when it comes to religion). After quietly slipping in and out and trying to politely step away from women calling me to kowtow, I went to the hall of 60 gods where people find the god of their birth year and pay their respects. A woman working there followed me in, told me to get down and pay my respects to Buddha and the god for 1991 (and other years, the traditional Chinese calendar has 12 animals for each year as many know and in addition to this, there are 5 elements, so 60 years makes a full cycle and that's why they had 60 instead of 12 gods). I had to pay 10 yuan for a charm that I put in my wallet too. I walked away trying to figure out if it was super disrespectful for me to not pay my respects to all the other main gods or wrong for me go through these rites without any claim to Taoism aside from practicing Tai Chi. I finally decided that the temple probably needed the money to support itself and if nothing else, I was helping the temple with my small contribution. It was a really nice temple, older than many I had seen and I studied the peeling paint and designs that told me they either didn't have the money to restore or had managed to preserve a lot. In one hall, there were 4 impressive figures, all carved out of wood and elegantly dressed. One was an emperor, as indicated by his bright robes, one was a concubine (and she had a beautiful headdress with wooden pearls hanging in front of her face), and there was an elegantly dressed girl on either side of the pair. They were smaller, so my guess is they were serving the much larger two in the middle. In the courtyard, there were some metal soldiers dating to the Song dynasty. Aside from visitors, guides (most of whom were sitting and talking without much to do), and myself, there were men with top knots quietly watching over the halls, altars, and the fires that burned for offerings. It was quite a contrast to the crowds and shops at Shaolin.

I made my way back to Zhengzhou to catch the train to Zhuzhou with my charm from Zhongyue in my wallet and another charm from Shaolin, feeling confident that I'd make my way home without issue (and except for the train running an hour late, I did). It's not really my style to speed through a place, but in order to get a little sightseeing in this summer after waiting for my visa and still squeeze in time to go home before school starts again I didn't have much of a choice. Thanks for sticking it out with me this far into a long post. This week was a little wild at times, but it taught me something important about asserting myself and saying "no" in between letting my nerd self indulge in old capitals and temples and learning about Henan's unique place in Chinese culture. And at the other end of things, Nanjiecun's focus on the working man over gods. It was a satisfying week and now I'm happily looking forward to two weeks back in the mountains where I grew up before getting into another school year and more China adventures. Till next post!

Hello! I've been away for a bit with school and all but I haven't forgotten this blog. Spring has come to Zhuzhou, things are in bloom and it's beginning to get warm. The countdown to the zhongkao has begun and there are signs everywhere telling students how long they have until the big high school entrance/placement exam. In the meantime, I've been fighting off the urge to dream about other things and other places as I figure out where to go from here and remember I have a job to do. I saw something listed for an English and Spanish teacher in Foshan, and I have to keep asking myself if I'd be in China to teach again or if it's less about teaching than it is about travel. I'm thinking of going to western Hunan for the next break I have and seeing Fenghuang and Zhangjiajie. On a more extended break, I might be interested in Henan province and checking out one of the tai chi schools where you can stay and train for a month. But back to spring festival:

Hanoi surprised me. I realize that since I was only in Hanoi when I was in Vietnam my observations are limited but I wasn't expecting it to be as open as it was. One of my guidebooks told me to get a VPN for things like facebook, but no one needed it and facebook wasn't blocked at all. I ran into a number of tourists from America and Europe as well as backpackers with dreads. Aside from pho and banh mi, I honestly didn't know much about Vietnam but listening to some of the people around I sensed that I wasn't alone. When I visited Hoa Lo prison, it was pretty empty throughout. The exhibits related to when it was a French prison holding Vietnamese prisoners were quiet. There was a middle aged American couple ahead of me in one room filled with shackled mannequins and I was surprised and kind of embarrassed when they stopped for a photo with all the fake prisoners. I was completely alone in another exhibit with sensors so that patriotic music followed me everywhere as I read about independence. When I got towards the end where they had things about war with America and John McCain's flight suit on display, I was surprised to suddenly find myself surrounded by people. A video played in one room, with footage very purposefully put together as it alternated between destroyed cities and hungry children and American prisoners smoking and playing cards. In the subtitles, it referred to the prison as "Hanoi Hilton 'Hoa Lo'" with quotation marks as if it were actually the Hilton and "prison" was just a nickname for a comfortable war time stay. The parting words were "Goodbye, uninvited guests. How lucky you were to be in a Vietnamese prison." Those are strange words to leave with as a tourist in a former prison. Aside from that, I never faced any issues related to my being American. If anything, my being American caused people to tell me prices in dollars even when I paid in Vietnamese dong. When I paid for my visa, I also had to come to the airport prepared with USD. When I flew out through airport at the end of my trip, the prices were all listed in USD and I struggled to work through the math so that I could spend the last of my dong.

Having read enough about Vietnam to know about its relation to China (and enough Chinese to see the connection between "YueNan", Vietnam, and "NanYue", an old kingdom that spanned parts of Southern China and Vietnam) I was kind of excited to explore connections and traditions that still seemed strong down south. I also had the great opportunity to see how they do the lunar new year in Hanoi so I got to see the city done up in lights, the flower markets, the fruit trees strapped to the backs of bikes, women and children in bright clothes and ao dai, people paying visits to different temples and the smell of diesel as people poured in (or out) to see family.

​After over 20 hours of being squished into a seat going from Xi'An to Zhuzhou, I finally came back to my apartment. I thought I'd have more time to ask questions and get work done before class on Monday but before I knew it, I'd passed out at around 4 or 5PM and woke up thinking it must be late since it was dark out and kind of quiet. My tablet said it was 6AM the next day. Whoops. I've got my gas started up again and Zhuzhou was dry for a while but now it's good and wet again. I've been lazy, kept some frozen buns and dumplings in the freezer to make sure I had something to eat whenever I got back so I've been making that for my meals. I also decided to message my liaison to see if I had class tomorrow. The answer is yes, 4 of them, and do you have the textbook? So I need to make a lesson plan and figure out what 4 classes I'm going to tomorrow. Ugh. I need another day to recover from that train ride. I don't quite understand why people go up and down the cars trying to sell stuff to people who paid for the cheapest tickets. In one memorable demonstration, a man in a railway workers uniform looped a belt around the luggage rack and stood on the little table in front of me while tugging and leaning back to prove how strong the belt was. The hard seat slow train experience is frequently not recommended for long trips, but I've done it about 4 times by now anyway, passing the time with people laughing at you or shouting "kan bu dong!" as you fill out 20 pages in your notebook, read a book, or try to talk to the people you will be close to for hours. On the bright side, this seems to get easier every time. Time seemed to fly by, but I was also better prepared than previous times.

Now that I'm back and in a better position to reflect on the past month, I decided to write about Beijing. Actually, part of why I've never been is because I was always kind of worried I'd just feel lost in a big city. I knew the Forbidden City was there, I knew the Great Wall was up there...but for some reason, it just never appealed as much as some of the other parts of China. It was a pleasant surprise to find that it wasn't as horribly overwhelming as I assumed it would be. It helped that I spent 5 days out there with a list of major things to do and remembered that when I went to London, I had to break things down by picking a neighborhood or a monument to explore from each day. I was surprised when some people told me 5 days was a lot. A man from Bordeaux told me he came for a weekend to see the Great Wall and the Forbidden City, then came back because the Forbidden City was closed. I guess for some, that's essentially Beijing.

Being in a part of China that receives more travelers from abroad was in some ways, pleasant and in other ways a little frustrating. More people spoke English and switched when I struggled (though they would ask questions or mention in passing that I looked Asian and the most tactful tended to say "But your hair is black"). I was a little less of a mystery. At times, people would hear me speak English and ask me to translate as when I went to an hour-long opera show that was clearly made to introduce people to the different roles in traditional opera rather than run through an entire show. At the venue, you paid different prices for a ticket which determined the kind of seat you got. When you went inside to sit, someone would look at your ticket and how much you paid and direct you to a seat where you could enjoy a pot of tea and some snacks. I paid the cheapest (180 RMB) and was directed towards a seat in the back where I watched as others came in and tea was brought out. One woman kept moving around after one of the staff showed her to her seat and saying "I want to be here...no...maybe here...no..."and the other woman working there followed her and spoke in Chinese, telling her that she couldn't just sit anywhere. They came towards me as I was reading, and the woman who kept moving around asked if I was alone, if she could sit, here, here, or here, and because I was speaking in English the other woman who had repeatedly told her what seats she could and could not sit in simply pointed and said "Ni shuo yingyu" ("You, speak Chinese"). To be honest, I repeated what the woman selling tickets had told me, watched her body language, and the only words I knew for sure were "280 yuan" and "180 yuan". I felt terrible because I know a real interpreter would be careful to fully translate but I wasn't a real interpreter and it seemed simpler than watching them run all over the theater. She finally sat down next to me and I got to hear about her travel plans for two weeks. It was fun to talk to her at first, then tiring as I listened to her itinerary and her thoughts on what I was and wasn't doing ("You're not going to do kung fu? You're not going to do taichi? You're not going...?"). She was going to see and do everything, and I had to admire that and it made sense for someone who only had two weeks. I shamelessly bought an Irish coffee at a Beijing opera venue because I'd been standing out in the cold beforehand and didn't enjoy such things in Zhuzhou. At the end of the performance, I left and she was still busily going over her map plotting out how to cover as much ground as possible in Beijing.

In a lot of ways, I enjoy talking to other people who choose to come to China. They are often other young people on their way to something or trying something out here. I like to think it takes an interesting person to choose teaching here, given all the ideas people can have about China. But over my travels, there were times I got tired. People who would say it was a shame that my parents didn't teach me Chinese, people who hoped I could help them translate something, and people who didn't quite grasp what I was doing in China or what my situation was like often made me want the relief that came with disappearing into a crowd of other dark-haired people. My anonymity here is one of the things I love and the better I become at Chinese, the better I disappear into the crowds here (most of the time). People thought I worked way out in the countryside surrounded by rice paddies and when I said that I worked in a city people asked me about factories and I would mention that it was industrial and that we had "foggy" days but since I taught at a private school where students pay 5,600 each term to attend this wasn't a part of the city as immediately familiar to me. Then they would ask about parents and look confused when I told them I didn't know any more than one parent who worked for the city. Even in speaking with others who taught or worked in China, it became quite clear that the life I lived was very different from the lives of those who worked in Guangzhou, Beijing, or Shanghai. I've always sensed that, but I only realized that fully when I spoke to others whose experience of China was limited to big cities such as these and who had no idea what pleco was (an app that works as a dictionary) and didn't discover that they couldn't use Google translate in China until it was too late.

Anyway, when people weren't looking to me for translation or to tell me it's a pity I couldn't speak Chinese I found I really liked Beijing. (I've been trying to remember if I ever pulled aside a white American while I was in Europe and told him his parents should have taught him Gaelic/French/Spanish/German/Romansh/etc. It's possible I have?) I stayed around Xinjiekou in a hostel down a hutong and it was fascinating to see the different buildings as I went around the city. But I also couldn't help wondering what it's like to live in one, what plumbing and electricity must be like. I remember how in Italy, people would sometimes talk about wanting to remodel or do something to their homes and all plans would be stalled or completely canceled upon discovering some ruins or medieval structure or something. China has a lot of history, but that story isn't quite so common as buildings go down and come up quite often. I can't help thinking of Okakura Kazuko's The Book of Tea when he talks about impermanence and wooden buildings and one particular building that must be rebuilt every twenty years. After 4 years in Europe and being asked to "read" monuments and spaces, China has kind of challenged me because it doesn't always fit so neatly into what I learned after going through so many museums, past so many fountains, restored churches, and murals. At times, it's more the idea than the actual building. When I went to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall, I knew it had a lot of restoration work (the toboggan ride didn't strike me as a Ming dynasty), but I knew there was a wall there with a history and a purpose. It'd be cool to go out to other sections or "wild wall" where restoration work hasn't been carried out. I finished all of Peter Hessler's books during my travels and couldn't help thinking of "Country Driving" as I wandered around. There weren't many tourists, and it was icy which was beautiful but a little dangerous at times as patches in shadow wouldn't melt away.


I found myself surrounded by an interesting group as I went up with people from America, Brazil, and Amsterdam. I listened to a father and son speak to each other in Dutch and Mandarin and thought of all the times I accidentally stumbled into a Chinese community in Europe and the silent exchange that would go on, the studying of faces, the unasked questions, the careful dialogue in Spanish or Italian, the recognition, and confusion that took place. On my way down, I spoke with a woman who had been doing graduate work on education and gender and teaching in Foshan. We traded WeChat/Weixin info and tried to meet at the Summer Palace the next day but we entered from different sides and wound up exploring alone but communicating off and on so that we finally met at the Fragrant Buddha Temple in the middle before she had to leave for a late night flight. The Summer Palace was beautiful, unlike most of what you will find written of Empress Dowager Cixi who in the 19th century used funds that were supposed to go towards the navy in order to restore the Summer Palace. Once on TV, they had a special thing about tofu and how Cixi supposedly liked the tofu for her stinky tofu to be really fresh and the host cracked some joke about "national stink". There is one boat on Kunming lake, but it doesn't seem terribly seaworthy and a lot of guides (such as Lonely Planet) make some comment on Cixi's one naval contribution.

Aside from the stops everyone makes in Beijing (the Forbidden City/Palace Museum, which is only more amazing when you realize how much is closed off to the public) I also enjoyed the Yonghegong Lama Temple and Nanluoguxiang, a great neighborhood for hutongs, souvenir shopping, and getting something to eat or drink. I went back twice for a "Hutong Pizza" and I wonder how many other women show up alone to eat a 10" pizza. The first time was no big deal, the second time, I got an appetizer and a pizza and the man kept coming back and asking if it was delicious, if I was OK, and if I was going to finish it. He should have seen me eat a duck after I skipped lunch and went to the Great Wall. I'm amazed no one said anything to me then, but I wonder what they were thinking.

Oh, and the food. Some people have told me they're glad the Cantonese came and influenced Chinese food in America but as I travel around China I've really come to enjoy all the things I never got much exposure to both in America and as someone with roots down south. Last year, it was crossing the bridge noodles in Yunnan and this time it seemed to be Beijing's "baodu", a tripe dish in broth which was perfect for walking out in the cold at night. I knew the prices would probably go up in Beijing and Shanghai as compared to Zhuzhou, but I was still surprised by the cost of food at times. I had a great time on Wangfujing food street where I enjoyed a hot bowl of baodu, some lamb skewers, and fried ice cream. Vendors would sometimes pick up on my accent and just switch into English. Occasionally, they mentioned that I looked kind of Asian or that I had black hair. There was something comforting in realizing that even though my foreignness didn't throw people off as badly as in some places I've been, people still had questions and I still had well-rehearsed answers. I didn't have any good answers for the man who sold me lamb and told me that the grilled scorpion was also very good. I admit, they looked very crispy but they were also over 20 RMB per skewer. There were lots of things on sticks I'd never seen grilled on sticks before down Wangfujing street, it was obviously a kind of novelty food place as well as a place for traditional foods so there were souvenir shops and lots of people but it was kind of fun. At one stall, a man would ask what you wanted and the other man would prepare it while singing your order which made a lot of people stop and laugh. When I realized this was at the other end of the street where they had a large foreign language bookstore, I was kind of in heaven. It'd been a long time since I had any access to so many print books in English, but I held off on buying any since I was traveling out of one backpack and would still be traveling for a while. You think hard about what you're willing to carry for weeks at a time when you live out of a single bag. It's also the reason I skipped out on a qipao in Shanghai, with the hopes of possibly getting something cheaper in Zhuzhou.

To make a long post short, Beijing seemed to have everything: all kinds of food, all kinds of architecture, books...but is it so surprising that it should have all that as the capital? Despite my initial thoughts about just feeling lost in some big city like the first time I went to Paris or London, it didn't seem to take me long to latch onto some places and find my way around them, especially as I got more familiar with the subway system. I love subway systems, especially after taking a good look at the intersection near my hostel and seeing the left turn lane all the way over on the far right lane. But really, it grew on me. There were a lot of times when I would go see a temple or something and just drop all my other plans to go for a walk and study all the buildings until I started feeling tired enough to want a coffee or something. Which is something of a prelude to how I spent my time in Vietnam, which is incredible for its coffee culture. When I had my fill of tripe, duck, and buildings, I made my way to the airport and met a woman catching a flight to San Jose. I wish my Chinese had been good enough to hold a conversation, but all I got was that her son worked in Silicon Valley and stupidly all I could really say was that there were a lot of Chinese people there (but it's true...). We wished each other well when we parted ways and I went to Hanoi thinking of home and how many times I'd known people on the other side of that story, people who had left home or people whose parents had left and the classmates I had who identified themselves in different ways. I couldn't help thinking too about how proud she must be to have a son who made it through the system here in China and found work in another country. Not because America is perfect, but for all the success it represents to have made it so far. I hope she had a happy new year.

The first of two new year's is here and right now Xinhua West Road is an interesting mix of sparkly eyed Santas that with their big blue eyes, small flowers, and lots of red manage to fit in with the red decorations coming up for Spring Festival. He makes quite a pair with the god of wealth, Cai Shen, who's been making an appearance in shops here with his black beard and mustache, bearing a gold ingot and surrounded by all kinds of symbols of prosperity and fortune.

 Well, hey. It feels like forever since I last wrote something. I've been feeling a bit brighter recently. Remembering that I chose to come back because one of the things I enjoyed was how much more my students would say each week and all we'd get to talk about, getting a little more, and the approaching Spring Festival have probably all helped.

Since the last time I wrote, I've enjoyed the Sheraton Thanksgiving buffet over in Changsha, visited a youth correctional facility, gone to an amusement park, finished all of Jessica Jones and Master of None, heard the investigation on my bank account was completed (charges confirmed to not be mine, as anyone who knows me would probably think it's a little out of character to spend hundreds on shapewear), finished giving out my second formal exam (which went well, no tears or alcohol), and recovered from some nasty cold which had me badly congested. There were times I knew someone had farted in the back of the classroom but couldn't really smell it, I just watched everyone go "ugh!" and make faces as I circulated. I was thrilled when I cleared up enough to smell my site mate's orange.

So I guess I'll step back to Thanksgiving week. On Thursday, I got to enjoy the Thanksgiving buffet at the Sheraton and I took the day off so I just relaxed and wandered a bit. There's a small coffee/tea shop called "Seven Teas" across from the middle school where WorldTeach holds orientation and it's a popular spot to grab something to drink while adjusting to the humidity. I paid the woman who works there a visit and she was happy to speak with me in Chinese for a while and even pulled out some green tea mixed with peanuts from her hometown and sat with me for a while before I left. Dinner was a whole 302 yuan this year, but I was looking forward to something other than steamed eggs, a stir-fried vegetable, and some rice (a standard dinner for me, and pretty cheap since an eggplant can easily feed me for two meals). I wound up staying the whole time from 5:30 until about 10PM with WorldTeach friends and caught a really late train back to Zhuzhou. I don't think I slept until 2AM and then I had to get up again for the school trip which was leaving school sometime before 7. Actually, I had been asked to go the day before (when most of the English teachers were going with the first group of students) but I was a little annoyed about asking for Thanksgiving off and facing the idea that I would have to change my plans at the last minute. I heard I would go with class 1416, but my liaison told me to go with 1411 because they heard I was going with 1416 and got jealous. Then an English teacher appeared on the track where we had lined up before getting on the bus and said her boss told her to look out for me so I could please come with class 1415 instead. My helpers in class 1411 started whimpering so she let me stay but did come back a few more times to see if she could convince me to come with her because her group leader was insisting that I be with an English teacher.

I had a lot of people saying they would help me to understand what was going during the trip since we were going to a correctional facility to hear some young boys talk about what got them into the facility. However, when we got there and were seated in the auditorium (back in Changsha again) both my students assistants looked surprised when I asked them what the boys were saying. Only two came out and spoke, each with a shaved head and a grey uniform on. Both talked about getting into trouble with gangs and killing a boy. One told students to love their families. Another spoke about how the grandparents of the boy he killed came to visit him and see how he was doing in the facility. Then it changed to performances by the boys.

The first was a short skit. A boy gets into an argument with his dad and rips up his homework (I think) and runs out into the streets. He bumps into a group of boys who surround him and start pushing him. It finally builds into one of the group getting stabbed after which red and blue lights flash all over the stage with the sound of sirens playing as the boy makes a run for it but ultimately gets caught. From there, it went into a dance and some singing. ( A song called "Dad I love you", I think.) After that, they cleared off the stage and brought out a keyboard and we were treated to a performance. And it ended with a popular song I've heard on the radio here before we were told to move out a class at a time.

I sorted out some of my feelings and thoughts. When I heard we were going to the correctional facility, I assumed it would be a pretty stripped down thing. A plain room, maybe a mic, just young boys taking turns talking about what they'd done. I wasn't really expecting a warm auditorium, bottled water, dancing and pop songs. My first reaction when they started the skit was that it seemed interesting, unexpected. From there, I couldn't help thinking the pop songs were kind of weird, but maybe it was nice to see them doing things my students do at school even if I couldn't help noticing all the shaven heads, grey uniforms, and similarly stoic faces. I thought this must be a nice break for them since I imagined their lives to be pretty regimented. Maybe it was important to not only talk about what they'd done but to remember other things about, things that made them more human. But on my way out, I saw how many buses full of students were waiting for their turn to come in and see what we had. I began to wonder how many times a day or how many times in a year they do this presentation among other questions.

After the correctional facility, we went out for lunch and headed to an amusement park. It felt like a strange thing to follow the correctional facility. Oh, and since I didn't get much sleep I wasn't feeling great, I ran out of tissues and the other teachers said I needed to wear as many layers as they did or I'd get a cold (but it already seemed to have me). It was fun, it's been a long time since I rode a roller coaster or swings, but I was also afraid some ill-timed sneeze would leave me with a face full of mucus on a cold day. We spent the rest of the day out there before going back to school and the teachers all headed out together to get dinner at the Huatian Hotel, which I guess the school paid for as a kind of gift for the teachers taking charge of the students that day. The other teachers went out of their way to find something Cantonese for me, which I thought was both funny and sweet.  It was a pretty good start to my weekend, but I was really excited to go home and pass out. The cold was pretty bad on that following Tuesday, when I had only morning classes so I went home and played dead after lunch. What was supposed to be a short nap turned into me waking up past 7PM, running out to get dinner, and going back to bed for another 8 hours. I must have really needed rest and water.

Now that my head feels much clearer, I'm looking forward to Spring Festival. I'm looking at going to Vietnam, Shanghai, and possibly Osaka to see an old friend who is also teaching. I wanted to do Xian, but the train tickets going to Xian are already gone. The only ones available are the trains that are leaving. I really wanted to go to Yunnan again,but I have this list and it's taking me towards the East rather than the West side of China. The ice festival in Harbin sounded really cool, but I think I've had enough of cold and wet already and the idea of going all the way up to Heilongjiang isn't super appealing (though it looks pretty). I've been powering through test corrections, watching Netflix, feeding my tea habit (at the moment, I've been drinking a lot of Zheng Shan Xiao Zhong/Lapsang Souchong because they smoke the leaves during processing and it's great on cold rainy days), and reading a ton of books. Huan Hsu's "Porcelain Thief", Sherry Turkle's "Alone Together", "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (last 500 pages and pretty much all the major characters are dead now), and "Successful Classroom Management". I've also caught up on the China History Podcast while correcting, which has been great. I'm sorry to say I still haven't put in a ton of time on improving my Chinese but I do notice my conversations are getting a little longer and a little more sophisticated. It's certainly a step up from my first few weeks last year as I tried to remember my high school Chinese and pointed at things while saying "Zhege" ("this") and rubbed my fingers together to ask how much it cost.

Again, I'm sorry for the long space between updates. My original intent with this blog was to do something each week within 500 words or less but I haven't been very good at that. I don't even write in my pen and paper diary as much as I used to though I feel better in general when I take my thoughts and put them in there at the end of the day. Sleep better when my head isn't full of things, all electronics have been shut off for the night, and it's just me writing for myself. You know, write out questions or ideas without worrying about what others might say like I would have to when I post things online, remember mundane things without filling someone's feed and all that. For a while, I guess I forgot that my tendency to reflect is one of my strengths. In the future, I'll do a little better to keep posts coming, especially over Spring Festival. For now, I will leave you with the Christmas tree that's been set up across the street:

So last post was pretty much about how frustrated I was with not catching a bus on time for my room reservation and missing out on half my reservation (my numbers were off and I realized later that I had two nights). I have to admit, for a while I looked at the 7 hour sleeper bus ride it was going to take, the time it would take to get back, and the time I had in Yuanyang and asked myself if it was all worth it. I'm happy say it was:

Initially, these rice terraces formed by the Hani over 1000(?) years ago were the only thing that I knew about, the only big draw I'd heard of, and the only thing I found in a guidebook while wondering if there was something special going on in winter that I should check out. But since I stayed at Sunny Guesthouse in Pugaolao Village and pretty much slept next to the terraces, I found the whole area to be extremely pleasant. Given the nature of the terraces, they can't really industrialize how the red rice is grown and harvested here. I've read travel websites and guidebooks that talk about how great it is that this place is relatively untouched by tourism, but I don't know if it's entirely true when they've built viewing platforms you need to pay to enter. It's true though that since it's not the easiest place to get to, it's not really got a lot of other things going on for tourists. I would totally go back here, maybe even in its off season when the terraces aren't full of water since I really enjoyed my neighbors, a bunch of little girls who were always playing and singing together at all times of the day. One of them showed me to the guesthouse and I wound up giving her both the cakes I had in my bag in exchange for her help and she always smiled at me whenever I walked past.

Maybe I should go back to that first day of arriving. It was the 18th, New Year's Eve. After resting on the bus as best as I could, a man came on with a flashlight asking if anyone was going to DuoYiShu and I said yes. So I walked out at (6? 7?) some dark hour of the morning, loaded up into a minibus with one woman and two men and we set off for DuoYiShu. When we arrived at the viewing area, I asked if he could tell me where the parking lot of Pugaolao Village was. The other man siting up front heard me struggling with my Chinese and he spoke to me in English. We all got out at Pugaolao and they seemed bothered by me traveling alone so they walked with me down a to convenience store that a local man had set up in his house. The man called a friend who spoke English and had me talk to him, the woman who traveled with us stared and said "You don't understand?" as she tried to work out my nationality and my appearance. So the man who ran the shop walked me partway before asking a woman with a big-eyed baby to help me out, she walked me partway then asked a little girl to help me out and she got me to the guesthouse. Dante had Virgil and Beatrice, but I got 4 guides on my journey through what felt like paradise despite how tired I was. Cool, clean morning air, sun already risen over the terraces, roads with water running down the gutters everywhere and taking advantage of the mountain that this village is built on, little girls in traditional Hani tunics, blue sky, and all of it more than welcome after the time I've spent in cold and wet Hunan. The change in the air was the first thing I noticed as the bus came up the mountain since I couldn't see much outside my window at night.

So here I am taking stock of my things and food should I find that it's difficult to make my way to a store that's open during the holidays. I've noticed that the noodle shop I really liked my first night here has been closed since last night and I think some of the smaller shops are closing up as people leave for the holidays. Places like Wal-Mart and Carrefour have become difficult to navigate (at least compared to Zhuzhou) as people stock up decorations and gifts. I imagine bigger places like them will be open during the new year period.

So I never made it out to the bamboo temple (takes a bit of work changing buses and ultimately takes at least 40 minutes if not an whole hour to get out there). So no surfing arhats.But the city itself has been really pleasant and I'd be happy just staying and wandering here. I've come to know a few people who are living at the hostel too and they've been really nice. Traveled a lot too so we've talked about our different impressions of different countries.

Speaking of impressions, I can't help noticing how there are police everywhere and now there's a truck stationed nearby the market I've been walking through frequently. I asked some of the others who are staying here if there's always been a lot of police and they said that it's been that way since they got here. Little police pods watching traffic all the time throughout the city. But I know about some of the terrible events that took place last year and I'm leaving from the very train station where they took place. I also received an email saying to remain aware of my surroundings in case anything happens during the new year period so that may contribute somewhat to my sensitivity to all the police. But I've felt very safe here and see why so many think they'd like to come back and work here in Kunming. Just as in Cuernavaca, "City of Eternal Spring" and my first chance to go abroad in high school, the sun is out and the flowers are blooming in February. It's beautiful, the air is pretty clear, the sky is blue, the streets are pretty clean...every now and again you run into a kid peeing on the street but I don't feel like I've had to look behind myself for advancing motor scooters quite as often as I do in Zhuzhou. I walked out to find Tian Fu Famous Teas and went along Dongfeng and Nanping Jie and found it to be a very different world from the relatively quiet Zhuan Tang park. Zhuan Tang has people dancing, fishing, sitting on couches by the lake, cleaning ears, and getting a shave. Nanping Jie feels more like a busy modern city with tall buildings, international supermarkets and fast food chains, brand name stores, and kids in teeny paddle boats in shallow pools where they're parents can observe them while grabbing a snack. You can find people participating in all kinds of activities in Green Lake (Cui Hu) park as well but there's more touristy merchandise and candy. And people selling bread for the birds.

So I'm leaving the Cantonese speaking part of China and though I didn't get to everything, I did knock quite a bit off my list. I'm now moving on to Yunnan province, to the capital city of Kunming after a boat ride to the Shenzhen airport. I meant to catch a slow train but every single train for the date I wanted was full. Maybe I could have asked for standing room but that would have been 24 hours of standing with my stuff (or bringing my own seat). So flying it is. While it is sad to leave some of the conveniences of having more available in English and I feel like I've just begun to really enjoy Macau, I have been looking forward to seeing the surfing arhats and in particular, to going out to DuoYiShu for a few days. The terraces look gorgeous and the there's a large Hani community there as well so I have an opportunity to learn a little about one of China's many minority groups. In fact, the Hani made the rice terraces that so many come to see filled with water and colors in the winter. And though I'm missing out on the things going on in big cities for the new year, I've also heard that more rural areas tend to use more firecrackers in their new year celebrations...I guess it'll be like trying to sleep when they have big events or a new business opening up in Zhuzhou.

Since I'm leaving Guangdong and the SARs behind, I'll give some very quick information about Yunnan province. Yunnan borders 3 different countries and is home to about 25-28 different ethnic minorities (nearly half of China's 56 recognized ethnic groups). As a result of this, the food has a lot of different  influences and I was surprised to learn that cheese makes up part of the culinary traditions here. So of course, I'm looking forward to trying everything. I'm already happy to report that I've found massive bowls of noodles for 8 yuan across the street and that the streets around my hostel are full of eating options.

I can't say I've really got a lot on my list here. I've already mentioned the Bamboo temple a few times but it looks like a few days of just wandering and eating. Which is more than fine by me! I'm thinking of finding a cake of pu'er (bo lay) tea while I'm here as well. I think I'll need it by the time I've eaten my way across Kunming. I hear that they do roast duck with honey here and my nose is on the lookout...

So after an hour long boat ride that I pretty much slept through, I arrived in Macau from Hong Kong. I changed my money (but I've seen found that it's not unusual to find places that take Hong Kong dollars or list prices in two currencies) and caught a taxi down to the hotel. I thought about walking and for a while was looking at buses on the map I picked up but ultimately decided that I should just find someone who knew the way since I'd get a sense of the place in a few days anyway. And it hasn't been too hard though it's somewhat startling to find a bus ride costs 3.20 Macau pataca when a bus ride in Zhuzhou costs 1 yuan. It's also annoying that 10 cent coins here are teeny little things so finding that 20 cents has been a little tough and at times I've had to just drop in a 5 pataca coin and get on. My head's still a little funny, but the sun's come out in Macau and that's been nice.

Though I've never been to Portugal, it has been kind of nice to be somewhere with a more European influence. On my first night here, I bought a package of presunto (cured ham) and a cider to enjoy. Weirdly, imported beer here seems to be a little cheaper but soda is more expensive (5 pataca for a sprite as opposed to 2.5 yuan). The tiles along the streets and some of the arcades remind me at times of wandering through Italy too. I've come to like it here since it's got a lot of things available but the parts I've been through don't feel as overwhelming as Hong Kong. There are signs of the coming new year everywhere. I passed by a spot where they're setting up a flower fair (which sadly, as I chose to go to little DuoYiShu for new year's week I'm missing the flower festivals and big events going on down here), there are lights and zodiac animals (sheep especially) everywhere, and signs are posted for the firecrackers and festivities that are coming later this month.

Aside from wandering, I've made it out to one casino/hotel, walked to Jardim Lou Lim Leoc (Lou Lim Leoc Garden), seen the ruins of St. Paul's, and have been eating all kinds of junk. One of my favorite places to wander through is a market near the hotel where I've been able to pick up all kinds of lai see, eat cheaply, and stare hungrily at the roast meat carts. It's also where I've been getting a simple but filling chicken soup quite cheaply and I feel pretty good every time I grab a cup.

Macau has also been my opportunity to connect with distant (in just about every sense of the word) family. I tried to call my distant cousin before leaving on break but either I forget the code I needed, was told that all Macau numbers needed another 6 digits, or when I finally got through, was unable to communicate and was simply told "BYE BYE" when I spoke English. I had an address, but I wasn't sure if I would need to find out the address in both Chinese and Portuguese or not in order to send a card. I decided not to take chances and was told that the address I had was for his office so I made up my mind to take a day to go find the office and ask about my cousin. The first day I went out there was the weekend, so though I discovered that the place was a 7 minute walk from my hotel, everything was dark and shuttered. So I tried again on Monday, found the lights were on but no one was there so I decided to eat a late lunch and come back. I found a woman and a man at work and said "Hello" and asked about Hin but they didn't look to sure about what I wanted until I showed the card I wrote to the man who asked if I wanted him to give that to my cousin. Not being totally sure what else I should say or do, I said yes and thank you. So if nothing else, he has a "gong hay fat choy", a cell number, and a mailing address from me. And he'll also know that I'm on the mainland until June. Maybe I could have done this better to communicate my presence, but I wasn't sure. I really wanted to say something to him earlier but this works as well. But for knowing next to nothing about Macau, I have to say that finding a hotel a short walk away is pretty good.

I tried to make it out to Foshan the day after coming back from Zhongshan, but as I mentioned before I struggled a little. And I found out that the GuangFo metro line wasn't under construction after all so I didn't need the bus. Three metro stops from where I was staying and I was at the end of metro line 1 and the beginning of the GuangFo line that took me to Zu Miao. My only real concrete plans were to go to the Nan Feng dragon kiln (there are three left in China and Foshan has the oldest one, it's over 500 years old) and possibly catch an opera performance at 2pm at Zu Miao temple.Since it was still pretty early, I wandered a bit to find my bus and head out to the kiln first. It took a while for it to register just how big the twin kilns were (30 meters). It's still in use too. Anyway, since traveling to Cortona I seem to have made a habit of picking up a ceramic item wherever I go and the area around the kiln was definitely the place to do that. I resisted for a while and found myself back at the window of one particular shop eyeing the zodiac teapots. So I am now the proud owner of a small sheep teapot. It's been my one big purchase thus far aside from getting a violin in ZhuZhou. I'd have loved to stay longer but I also get the feeling that I could have spent a lot of time just staring at tea cups so I took one last walk around the kiln and the surrounding area and caught the bus back to Zu Miao.

Zu Miao temple was a bit of a strange place for me. It was kind of an all in one culture and heritage site where you could light incense to Bei Di (the north god), watch some Cantonese opera, check out tributes to Ip Man and Wong Fei Huang, see some dancing and kung fu demonstrations, look at woodcarvings, visit a Confucian temple, look at an old boat, and buy Foshan's famous paper art. It was fun and Cantonese opera actually wasn't quite as unbearable as I wondered about (to my ears anyway). It definitely drew an older crowd. I've been told that interest in Chinese opera has been fading, and that the experience of going to Chinese opera is quite different from what we'd expect during a Western opera. People who go to such shows are usually familiar with the work and the stories so they just kind of wander out for a smoke and come back for their favorite parts. But it was a good way for me see it at a relatively cheap price without having to pay for a whole show in the opera house (and possibly find that the highly stylized movements, singing, and face makeup was hard for me to take).