"And I ate It Cause I'm so at It"

One day last year at Brighton Center's notorious Dragon Chef I received a fortune that read "Write the events of your life in a journal." I've never kept a regular journal in my life and I didn't take this to heart at the time but for some reason I've been compelled to write daily while I've been in China. It feels like a good thing to do and I think in retrospect I was just being lazy. Paradoxically, the daily dose of writing I get has made me less disposed to additionally sweat out a blog post in one of these packed, tea soaked internet cafes. But here I am and I'm just going to pop off some recent events and impressions kicking around my mind. (Also I apologize for any repetition as I can't read my previous posts, China has banned blog READING but evidently not blog writing.)

The day after I flew into Kunming we took a 2-day field trip to the smaller southern city of Tonghai. On our first full day there we visited a small village where old women with traditional bound feet performed a dance for us. I've seen pictures and read about foot-binding but to see these women in person--and to see them move so gracefully--was an intriguing and slightly repuslive experience. To think that these women endured such pain for the pleasure of their future husbands made me wonder if it hurt them still to dance in old age. But they seemed happy and represent the last vestiges of a culture where having 3-inch "golden lotus blossoms" (the traditional euphemism for expressing ideal foot size) is still a matter of great pride.

It was also in Tonghai that I climbed my first temple-filled mountain (see above). China is packed full of these. Being an fan of mountains, Buddhism, and exercise I'm very into these excursions. I went to a site in Kunming called "Golden Temple Scenic Spot" that was heavily touristed and so less appealing, but most of the temples are sparsely populated, serene, and mist-shrouded like exoticized accounts would lead you to believe. I've never been a practicing Buddhist so I wouldn't say I've been properly meditating but certainly walking around in such places has put me into a meditative state. Also the healthy amount of walking and fresh air (Yunnan is extremely underpolluted as China goes) I've been getting has facilitated a lot of introspection that spills over into writing and of course meandering blog posts.

Anyway another random highlight: we had dinner with some state officials in Tonghai and they encouraged (rather, enforced) us to drink with them, handing us shots of baijiu (rice liquor) and yelling "Gan bei!" which literally means "empty the glass" but in practice means "We're going to keep this up til you pass out." After a few gan beis I steeled myself up sufficiently to eat one of the sauteed wasps that had been passed around on a barely touched plate all night. Of course I'm vegan and wasp doesn't exactly meet the criteria for what I usually choose to eat but in the heat of the moment I decided that since I've been stung by one wasp I can eat one wasp. Kind of a selfish rule but now I think if I come across any fried scorpions four of them will go too. Otherwise I've found it very easy to avoid meat, dairy, and eggs. I've learned how to say "I don't eat meat, I eat vegetables" in Mandarin but I've yet to finesse "does this suspicious broth by chance come from mutton"? The food is great and very inexpensive (as are the 23 cent fake Nike socks with reverse swoops I'm wearing as I write this, incidentally), lots of fresh vegetables, leafy greens, tofu and bean-paste cakes. I haven't yet entered my homestay so I've been moderate my own food intake; I may need to stretch my stomach in preparation for the stubborn hospitality I've been told to expect.

The other day we received a lecture from Mr. Huang Cheng, an 88-year-old man from Kunming. This actually isn't the first lecture we've received from an octagenarian and like the venerable Professor Guo who lectured on Taiji, Mr. Cheng's English was perfect and his anecdotes confusing. He was to give us an oral history of his life, an interesting one as he was born the son of a powerful general and came of age at the beginning of the Mao era. He served as a translator for G.I.s in Japan during WWII and so valued the opportunity to "practice my English with young Americans once again." He was a jovial and humorous man, and he spent most of his lecture telling us stories that seemed only tangentially related to his own life. It was only after some direct questioning that we found out he was imprisoned for 19 years during the cultural revolution. This was because of his American affiliations and because he suggested openly that China should "pay more attention to technology." Some of our questions about his time in prison didn't translate well. He answered us by saying that we're too young to understand the desparation of China at this time. Perhaps this is true; I'm not in a position to question a man who was in prison for nearly as long as I've been alive on this point. But Mr. Cheng's talk reinforced the impression I've been getting of the incredible resilience of the Chinese spirit. I'm almost desensitized to the atrocities committed during the last 50 years in this country after reading and hearing about them so much but still the people seem indomitable, industrious, and content. How much of this is an inherent cultural characteristic and how much is the result of a seasoned state propaganda machine I have yet to discern. (Not likely to any time soon.)

That was all over the place, I'll try to make my next post more organized and interesting. I don't have the patience to put pictures here but I've managed to upload some onto my Flickr account, username is End Times. Hope you're all well and enjoying the Fall... I've been good about responding to email so don't hesitate to write if you have a minute.


-Josh