Slice of Life: Adventures in Brisbane 1

In my array of travels, some trips end up being about places--enjoying architecture, exploring neighborhoods, seeing what there is to see -- and some trips end up being about people. For me, Brisbane was very much about people. I got to see a chunk of the city, but my time in Brisbane was enjoyable and, even more, important to me, because of the people I met and the parts of their lives I got to experience.

I stayed for five days in a beautiful, rambling house in Sherwood (which is funny because the place I stayed in near Sydney was called Burwood) with Karl, his younger brother Sven, and their friend Ed, three guys roughly my age. The house belonged to Karl and Sven's parents, who moved to Singapore a few years ago and left the house for their sons to inhabit. Evidence of the family that once lived here was everywhere, in the high shine of the floors, the decorating choices (very much an Asian theme), the photos of younger days. Sometimes it was evidence in absence--the lovely pool was pretty much unswimmable, as no one "could be arsed" (as they say in Australia) to keep it clean. I don't mean to say that it was a messy house. In fact, it was much cleaner than I would expect from three guys ages 19-21.

Besides the highly-polished floors, the E boys' house featured a great open balcony/porch, a large, very fat cat called Attie, two turtles, and a small white mouse called Octavius. I later learned that this mouse once belonged to a fourth roommate, who tragically died of a brain hemorrhage about a month before I arrived, while Karl and Sven were in Singapore visiting their parents. As it turned out, the room I stayed in was once the roommate's. This was a little weird/creepy, but not as much as I was expecting, maybe because Sven didn't mention it until a few days into my visit.

Top: The living room and my host; you can also see out to the porch.
Below: A "family" dinner. From right Karl, Sven, one of their friends (reaching), and Ed (face partly blocked)

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I took the commuter train from the Gold Coast to the city, an unremarkable ride except for one stop, Olmeau, which sounded like "Almost" when paired with the announced "Olmeau Station." Maybe you have to be an English nerd to appreciate that.

When I arrived in Brisbane it was mid-afternoon, and Karl was busy at a first-aid seminar he was required to complete before he began medical school in half a week. So my first impression of the city was a very brief meet up with girl from Canberra (pronounced CAN-bra) and a local named Adrian. Adrian had seen a post I'd made on the local couch surfing group saying I'd be coming into town, and cruised up randomly on his bike, giving us a spin around the center of the city nearest to the train station, including a cool but touristy walking area called Queen Street Mall.

The Casino, a fancy building near Queen Street


Adrian left fairly soon after, and I had a coffee and enjoyed a copy of the local newspaper. Again, Bill Bryson puts the joy of Australian newspapers wonderfully:

"It always amazes me how seldom visitors bother with local papers," he says. "Personally, I can think of nothing more exciting-- certainly nothing you could do in a public place with a cup of coffee-- than to read newspapers from a part of the world you know almost nothing about. What a comfort it is to find a nation preoccupied by matters of no possible consequence to oneself. I love reading about scandals involving ministers of whom I have never heard, murder hunts in communities whose names sound dusty and remote, features on revered artists and thinkers whose achievements have never reach my ears, whose talents I must take on faith.
I love above all to venture into the colour supplements and see what’s fashionable for the beach in this part of the world, what’s new for the kitchen, what I might get for my money if I had A$400,000 to spare and a reason to live in Dubbo or Woolloomooloo... Where else can you get this much pleasure for a trifling handful of coins?"

In any case, it was a great way to pass the time before I met Karl at the train station and wandered off into suburban Brisbane and a fantastic stretch of days.

I arrived at the house and immediately felt that I had met some of my tribe, as they say. Sven, tall and striking, was into death metal and rock climbing. Ed loved similar music but preferred to hang about the house drinking beer and making droll comments. That first evening was spent eating spaghetti, drinking wine, listening to music, and playing Jenga and Guess Who?, two board games I hadn't thought about in years. A few of Karl's friends came around to visit after awhile--he had just gotten back from a six month jaunt in eastern Europe and so his presence back at home was a matter of some excitement.

In the course of the evening Ed, Karl, and I walked down to the "bottle-O" (that's what they call liquor shop) and I learned that Australia has, wait for it, drive-through liquor stores. Also I saw some possums (we know them as flying foxes.) Double plus bonus. The rest of the night was equally silly, fun, and low-key: it felt like a day at home with my friends. Except that every few minutes, as another song I loved came on Karl's iPod, I would pull out my mental map and remember exactly where I was. That made it all the more miraculous.

Quite a bit later, after an interesting conversation about gay rights in Australia vs. the US with a friend of Karl's called Woody, I ventured into the realm of Vegemite. Making me Vegemite on toast was a huge deal, apparently, and Karl and Woody made much of the right amount of butter and spread that was applied to the bread. I didn't hate it as much as I thought I would, but the salt was intense and built with each bite.

I snuck it into the waste basket after a few tries as we chatted about this and that, and Woody grinned, "I saw that." I shrugged, admitting it.
"That's okay," he said, "We'll ease you into it."

I spent the next several days alternately exploring the city and environs with Karl and hanging out with him and his friends. Karl told me that his favorite hosts on his trip in eastern Europe had been those who took time to explore with him and really introduced him to their world. His approach was the same, and the effect was great. We pushed through the considerable humidity and heat of mid-January Brisbane to walk the Botanical Gardens, take the City Cat (the commuter ferry that runs on the river) to South Bank to wander, and look through used bookstores and great coffee shops in West End, including one called The Three Monkeys with fabulous ambiance and great chai.

One morning I had the chance to experience Australian bureaucracy, which gives the American version a run for its mony, at a central office similar to the DMV, where Karl had to drop some papers. Another afternoon we gave ourselves up to the heat and sat on the false beach by South Bank, eating ice cream from Cold Rock (I guess they can't call it "Coldstone" down under) and watching small children flounder in chest-high water. In the background an enormous TV screen played "I Come From the Land Down Under" by Men At Work (I mentioned my surprise that Australians love the song) over the tumult of shrieks and splashes.

Brisbane skyline from the City Cat


Path through the Botanic Gardens

Bridge from the Botanic Gardens to South Bank


Chai and record shop in the West End

Nights were busy as well, fat with humidity and friends to see. Once we ventured into an area known as "The Valley" (proper name Fortitude Valley) near Brisbane, a warren of clubs and bars, to see The Travelling So and So's, a band made of up several of Karl's friends. We had drinks before on the street, revelers streaming past us on the way to another alcohol soaked night (have I imentioned that Australians drink a LOT?) The Traveling So and So's played in a dive called The Globe, which spotted an odd but cool characteristic: a dance floor tilted at 50 degrees. The So and So's music was heavy on the saxophone, and their singer sounded like Gwen Stefani: I felt pretty good about them as they tossed party noisemakers and plastic mini tambourines into the crowd (I still have mine), although not totally excited.

The lack of excitement was partially because I was having a realization. As I listened to the show, I watched the people I'd gotten to know over the past week enjoy themselves, dance, lean against each other laughing. I remembered, although the days before and after made me forget, that I was only a brief blip on their screens. Couch surfing affords incredible experiences and allows you to meet wonderful people. But put appropriate emphasis on "meet," because to dig deeper to the connection I generally prefer, well, that's not so simple, especially when your window of opportunity is only five days.

Even if you're staying with a person all the time, there are still walls that stay up, and I wanted them down. This made Brisbane both a wonderful experience and quite painful. The painful part came first as I watched the concert, then again later as I realized I was leaving and the walls I wanted down weren't there yet. Give me more time, I thought. We can make this work. The potential is huge. I just need more time. But there was a whole world waiting.

Adventures in Lanping

I don't know what it is with me lately, I'm never in the mood to blog. I guess I just seem to be suffering from a powerful burnout (which is improved by the bright spots that are anthropological field work but is still mightily present) that touches everything from my work motivation to my blog (which, at least theoretically, I'm doing for fun and posterity, right?) In any case I'll make an effort.

So back to Lanping (which is now between a week and a half and three weeks in the past.) The trip from Lijiang to Lanping was supposed to take 4 hours, but about half an hour in we came upon what turned out to be a minor accident (and by accident I mean a single truck with one wheel off the road). But that single renegade wheel meant wall-to-wall traffic for at least 3 miles around. Our bus was stopped in a fairly idyllic stretch of farmland, surrounded by rolling mountains, for more than a full hour, possibly closer to an hour-and-a-half. That's what you get when you try to fit three lanes of traffic in one to one-and-a-half lanes of space, though. China, when will you learn?

Tania and I initially had planned to stay with our friend Jackson (Chinese name: Chun Yong) in Lanping, but May 1st is a major holiday in China (they call it Wu Yi Jie, literally "Five One holiday") and like everyone else in the country his family had friends coming in. Jackson, who is a truly good person and a fantastically loyal friend but who is a smidge overprotective, was convinced that if we were to live in a hotel by ourselves we would be harassed by the police or worse. Things got worse when we went to a multicultural performance celebrating the Wu Yi holiday --complete with lots of different dancing minorities (Bai, Pumi, and Lisu namely) as well as a bad skit by some high school students and a FANTASTIC breakdancing act with teenage Chinese boys in white suits. Walking in, we drew a lot of attention, which made us feel strange but wasn't anything we hadn't experienced before. We were ushered to the second row, behind all the important Communist politicians, but Jackson told us we should leave before the last act because "maybe some people will touch you or say bad things to you." As if we hadn't ever been in an audience with Chinese people before... Tania got pretty annoyed by the end of the first couple days, but I had a nice talk with him and he lightened up eventually. And it was certainly only because he wanted to look after us well.

Chinese people, though... really. It's all very well intentioned, but the constant worrying and the absolute positivity that, given that one is a foreigner, one can therefore do nothing on one's own, it can really get infuriating. Also, Chinese people and food are very odd. The entire nation is obsessed with thinness, almost worse than the US (because so many Chinese people are naturally thin anyway.) And yet, it's considered bad form if the host doesn't continually put food in his guests' bowl, and it's even worse not to clean one's own bowl completely. This means, usually, stuffing oneself inordinately in order not to offend anyone. I think the first Jewish mother took lessons from a Chinese person.

(Incidentally, while we're on the subject of Wu Yi Jie, I forgot to mention in my Lijiang entry that the last night before I left there was a huge pop concert outside my hotel. I was walking home from an internet cafe and came upon it, a big stage set up in a plaza in front of an enormous statue of Chairman Mao. The statue was all crazy and backlit, and there was some famous popstar performing, with a throng of shrieking fans around it. I stood in the throng for awhile soaking it in, but I had come at the end of the concert so really I just got a little microcosm of Chinese popular culture.)

Anyway. Lanping. Right.

I spent a little more than a week in Lanping altogether. Tania and I lived together in a government-run hotel, really too expensive for its own good but the only one where Jackson felt we were safe. During the days we went around and did interviews, often with Jackson's Christian friends (Tania's ISP topic is Christianity and Jackson is a Christian himself.) I hadn't really established a topic and was trying desperately to find a translator to take with me elsewhere in Nujiang Valley, so I tagged along. It was all quite interesting, as we interviewed people of Bai and Lisu nationality who had recently converted. The line between religion and culture and the subsequent ways many of them left their former identities behind was fascinating. I did what I could with the opportunity, framing the information for myself in terms of stories, the one thing I did know I wanted to study.

We met a few friends through these interviews-- Julie and Linda (both their English names) were about our age, maybe a few years older, had graduated from college and recently converted. They were both very sweet and could speak some English. Jackson also introduced us to his own friends, who took to us quite strongly. Before the week was out we had a legitimate group of Chinese friends who would call us to go have dinner, come for a visit, go for a walk, or go to tea houses after dinner. It was a really cool experience to see what that might be like, living in a place with a group of friends just like America.

We attracted friends on the street, too, just by virtue of being there. One woman we interviewed quoted a statistic that said that between 2001 and 2007 4,000 foreigners came to Lanping. Although Liuku dwarfs this number in terms of the rarity of foreigners, we were still something of a curiousity in Lanping. Once, while trying to find a highlighter for Tania, the stationary store shopkeeper struck up a conversation with us, and we ended up going to her family's restaurant in a village outside Lanping for dinner one night. Another time, a man driving a serious, serious SUV (this SUV would beat you up as soon as look at you) stopped and asked in accented but flawless English, "Excuse me, but where are you from? I haven't seen foreigners here in many years."

His name was Adam and he was what they call a "hua yi" here-- an emmigrant to the US. He had lived in California for 8 years in Silicon Valley making a living before returning to Lanping to get into the zinc mining business, which is one of the best in the world. He told us that he plans to work in Nujiang for several more years and then go back to the US to retire. We ended up going out to dinner with him one night, which was really interesting. He had all sorts of things to say about the Chinese upper crust and China in comparison to America ("Americans are much more straightforward and honest," for example.) It was also, in a way, a little bit like having dinner with a Mafia Don. For those of you out there who hate networking, never come to China: the principle of "guanxi" (literally "relationships") is the only way to get anything done here. You get jobs through guanxi, make friends, get around beauracracy, meet potential mates, get yourself out of trouble with the law, do well in the stock market, get good health care. It's all about cultivating relationships. And Adam was pretty much the ultimate source of it: he offered to find me a Pumi translator (an offer I didn't end up taking him up on, although I may this summer), told us he'd love to introduce us to his friends, and told Tania that she shouldn't worry about the police in Lanping because he was "good friends" with them and if we ever found trouble we should just call him. (Christianity is a hotbutton issue, as prosletyzing, or however you spell that, is illegal and they assume any Westerners talking about Christianity are trying to convert people.)

Lanping itself was quite beautiful. The city is nestled amid hills that hump higher and higher into peaks and eventually climb southward to merge with the Nujiang area mountains. It's not even really in a valley, per se, just kind of plopped on a couple of big slopes. There's a park in the middle, quite pleasant, with a little pond, several fountains, and a row of tea houses in the interior. We spent a lot of time there relaxing and talking to our new friends, asking them questions, watching the townspeople dance in the square in the evening-- everyone seemed to know the traditional dances. On days when we weren't interviewing, we went on adventures. One day we went to an ancient temple outside of town; another day, we took a 2-hour ride south to Yingpan, a dusty town by the Lancang (also known as Mekong) River. It was really interesting to see the river approximately 24 hours by bus away from the place I saw it last: in Xishuangbanna with Diana. Rivers are amazing that way-- simple but profound. Our trip to Yingpan was infuriating in a way, because the computer teacher we had befriended in Lanping was decidedly un-Chinese in his insistence that we first go to a water power project he had invested in some 45 minutes outside town. But in the end I got a few connections out of it and some information about Lisu culture. Plus, the town was just interesting to look at.

Another day, Tania, Jackson, and I, along with our new Lanping friends Julie and Linda, decided to go on a picnic. We bought an enormous amount of junk food and took a taxi to a park they new, but the park had changed and where there had once been a lake there was a mossy, smelly expanse. Instead, we redirected the taxi to the nearby river/stream, and located a likely-looking site across it. We proceeded to strip to our barefeet and make our way across the river. At first it looked like we could go from rock to rock, but the current proved a little treacherous and we had to make a few watery detours. Our picnic was great, very peaceful in a little clearing with the sound of water not far off. We played a few Chinese card games (one simple one is called "shei she xiaotou" or "Who is the thief?") and ate plentiful junk food, and then Linda and Julie went off to collect the plentiful wild vegetable that grew around. Chinese people are like that. On the way back, we had an equally tricky time getting across the river and I actually slipped on a mossy rock and fell in, saving my camera but soaking my pants from the butt down. We all thought it was quite hilarious, and now I can say I've fallen in a Chinese river. Hopefully I won't get water worms or anything like that.

On the last night before I left for Liuku, all of our new friends gathered in a teahouse near the park, drank juice, tea and beer; ate watermelon and sunflower seeds; and played cards, as Bai custom dictates. Tania and I taught our friends the American card game known as "B.S." (with a not so nice actual name,) which was neatly translated as "bu shi" ("not so.") We had a great time playing and screwing around until late at night. It was a lovely way to see me off into the next part of my adventure: Liuku.

Next time: The unexpected roommate and the unicorn.

Ring Around the Province, Part 4: The Fat of the Land

So. Finally an update.
When we left off, I was having flaming alcohol rubbed on my ankle. Life in Shaxi (we were there about 4 or 5 days) didn't get much more exciting than that, but it was very interesting. As mentioned, I stayed in a really nice inn, the guest of the inn proprieters, two retired Bai people. My Bai host dad used to be a doctor, trained in both Western and Traditional Chinese medicine, and he looks very much the man's man, with one day-post shave stubble, strong chin, constant cigarette smoking, and obsession with the NBA (everyone loves to watch American basketball here. I expected that when I said I was from Boston people would connect that with Harvard, but it's mostly been with the Celtics. They're so jealous when I tell them my dad used to take me to Celtics games.) My Bai host mom was tall and solidly build, with a deep and vital voice and the longest hair I've ever seen (I only saw it when she brushed it out, she usually kept it in a bun.) Apparently it's a Bai tradition for women not to cut their hair. They both spoke with strong accents, but we managed to communicate. I didn't develop a super close relationship with them as some other people did with their families, but we had a nice relationship, and at the end the woman insisted on giving me a pair of embroidered shoes. Apparently it's a tradition to send off a guest with a gift.

My Bai host mom also took pleasure in pointing out how "pang" (basically "fat") I was in various places (she liked my butt especially). In fact, in Sideng almost everyone I encountered enjoyed discussing my largess. It was hard to stomach, certainly, but those sorts of comments do not have the same connotations as they do in the US. They can be compliments (with the meaning of "your parents sure take care of you") or even just greetings. Being of different stature than almost everyone in China has not been easy, but in Sideng it was the most difficult for me, because I was constantly meeting new people whose first words were about my size. Regardless of their positive or negative intent, it was something I had to get used to.

We spent our time in Shaxi exploring, learning about the Tea and Horse Caravan, which came through Sideng for hundreds of years. One morning we were supposed to help out in the fields, but my family was too rich to have fields. Instead, I went with John's host father. He taught us how to hoe the clods of earth, but after fifteen minutes and plenty of picture taking he informed us that we were finished. We were puzzled because we both could have gone for longer, but John's host father seemed set, so instead we went to his son's house. We derived endless humor from our 15 minutes of farmwork, punning on the word "hoe" and discussing our rippling muscles (well, mostly it was just John talking about his own rippling muscles.) At the son's house, we drank some strange tofu soup, and played with the son's adorable 4-year-old daughter. And John convinced her that Americans don't have butts ("pigu") and refused to turn away from her to let her see his. Later, when she saw that both he and Mike did, in fact, have behinds, he told her that they had bought them at the market.

Sideng life is very traditional. Besides lectures about the history of the Caravan, visits to a small museum, an ancient bridge, and the local god's temple, we did a lot of walking and research-- we were each assigned an aspect of Sideng life to research, with an oral presentation at the end of our stay. At night we gathered a few times at the only tea house in town, drinking beer or tea and shooting the breeze, as they say. There wasn't anything else to do. I also spent some time at John/Mike's homestay, which was in a gorgeous traditional compound with beautiful courtyards and carvings on the house itself. It was a very strange living situation, however: John's homestay father and his brother (homestay uncle?) had always lived together in the house, but once attention started coming to Sideng for its historical value, they started fighting about who owned the house. Now they both live there, but they're not on speaking terms. Mike lived with the brother and we would talk to each other across the main courtyard, but the brothers acted like no one else was living there.

On the Friday before we were left, Sideng had its weekly market. Almost all of China works on the market system, with the main economic power in an area (and often that's not saying much) setting up all along the streets and people come from all around to buy or sell produce, pigs alive and dead, fish, chickens alive and dead, cloth, flashlights, batteries, Mao-style hats, cookware, farming equipment, and a myriad of other things. Just as I love diners in the US, I am definitely a Chinese market person. This market attracted all sorts-- my favorite was the Yi (another minority) women, who come down to markets from the mountains where they live pretty much in solitude. The unmarried girls wear beautiful skirts and sometimes head pieces that look kind of like cloth tiaras. The married women wear even more colorful skirts, vests embroidered with spirals, and these strange, huge octoganal headdresses covered in black velvet. I started taking pictures and couldn't stop, even though I knew it was sometime inappropriate (see the Argus column I posted a week or so ago.) I got some fantastic shots.

We were super lucky because that particular day a Public Health commission from the government had arrived in town to do a sort of Meals-On-Wheels type program but with information about AIDS/HIV prevention, environmental protection, and general sanitation. It was really interesting to see how such a program worked and even more interesting to see how interested all the townspeople were in getting the pamphlets and posters, in lining up to speak with the doctors about AIDS (although no testing was happening that day.) The festivites extended to a presentation for the school children about drinking clean water and not eating raw vegetables (which can get even Chinese stomachs in trouble here) and performances of Bai traditional dancing and music. When I went back to the Inn for lunch before our oral presentations, I was gradually surrounded by adorable children (girls and one boy)of indeterminate minority-- they didn't speak Mandarin, but they thoroughly enjoyed my taking pictures of them and then showing them the result.

Next time: The beginning of the Tibetan world

A Day in the Life

The past several entries have been devoted to my (considerable) adventures in Xishuangbanna but I've now been back in Kunming for about a week and a half and am settled in nicely to a modest homestay about 3 minutes' walk from campus. Very convenient. I thought I would talk a little bit more about my day to day life here instead of the Extraordinary Adventures (although I have my share of adventures just here.)

I'm living with a little old lady (well, she's actually not really old, only 59, but she very much exudes an aura of little-old-ladyness) and her 24 year old daughter in a little apartment with a nice park in the middle of the complex. The daughter, whose name is Su, recently graduated from the University where I take classes and is looking without success for a job. That's a fairly common issue among educated young people here.

I wake up every morning at 7 AM to get to class by 8. There isn't really a sink in the bathroom (which has, glory be, a Western toilet) so I brush my teeth in the sink overlooking the little park. I get dressed and my Ayi (that's the word for "Auntie") insists on making me breakfast. On the first day she made me rice noodles, but although I was polite about it I think she could tell I wasn't a big fan. Since then she's made me oatmeal and, on alternating days, this odd bread stuff and cakes stuffed with red bean paste. I like the paste, but the bread is laced through with this weird fuzzy brown stuff that tastes terrible. I tend to spread lots of honey on it and then eat lots of oatmeal. Lately she's also made me these strange gnocci-type dumplings stuffed with coarsed brown sugar and soaked in something sweet, with what she says are flowers floating around. Every day is a culinary adventure in that house, and I've (of course) never eaten so much homemade Chinese food. They've finally come out and admitted that they're trying to make me as many different foods as possible so that I get to experience all China has to offer. We also eat a lot of homemade fried rice, which is delicious. On the first night, they teased me because I hold my chopsticks wrong, but I've been getting better.

My relationship with my Ayi is very cute. She always has a smile on her face when she sees me (I wonder if I amuse her somehow) and we've gotten a nice little routine down. When I come out of my room (which is modest but comfortable with a biggish bed, a desk, and a closet) in the morning she says "So you got up?" to which of course I say yes. Then she asks me how I slept and what time I got home last night-- when I want to go out with my friends at night to do fun things or homework at a cafe, I take the keys with me because Ayi goes to sleep before 10 and Su, although part of the family really, has her own apartment in the building next to ours. During breakfast I usually (for lack of better topics) ask Ayi what she's doing today-- she's retired and so usually the answer is "not much." She cleans the house, watches TV (Su and Ayi LOVE to watch TV, especially this one American Idol type show where Westerners sing Chinese songs), goes to the vegetable market next door to buy produce, and has lately been travelling to the other side of Kunming to help her younger sister move. When I'm full she'll tell me to eat more until I have assured her that I'm really done, and then she'll usually tell me that I should be wearing more clothes because it's cold out (regardless of the fact that usually it's 65 degrees outside. Actually, the past several days it's been pretty cold and rainy, but that's beside the point.)

I walk to morning classes through our apartment complex, passing people doing morning exercises outside and sometimes an en masse English class (Teacher: "Repeat after me: do you have any cigarettes?" What sounds like 80 People: "Du yu have an-ee cig-rets.") I come back and have lunch with Ayi and Su, which is always homecooked and a great majority of the time is delicious. I've been lucky, because other people's host families have made them very spicy food (it's the local palate here) but they've been very understanding and only chided me gently when I say something is too spicy-- most of the time it's delicious. With every new food they ask me "Can you eat this?" and I finally figured out that that really means "Do you like this?" but that it's not polite to say you don't like something someone else has made for you. Mostly I've been able to remain flexible. They haven't cooked me cow stomach or whole frogs like Tania's family has.

I've been really interested in the cultural differences and similarities I've found while living in my homestay. Some things are very much the same-- Ayi says "Su! Dinner!" and Su responds "Coming!"... only to be repeated thirty seconds later. And Ayi follows me around turning off the lights I forget and leave on, just as my mother does at home. I've explained that it's a bad habit and that I'm not forgetting on purpose, but I still feel bad about it. And then again, the differences are also pretty very significant. For one thing, there's the issue of slippers. One doesn't wear shoes in the house, something I knew before I came. However, one also doesn't wear slippers in one's room but leaves them outside the door. So I've gotten very good at taking my shoes on and off quickly. I've also gotten really good at stairs-- we live on the third floor and that's actually pretty easy in comparison to John's enormous 4-floors and Tania's 5-floors. Glutes get quite a workout here. When I come home at night all the lights are sound and motion sensitive so I have to clap my way up the stairs.

Dinners are interesting in my homestay, too, because we often get into cultural exchange discussions. One night I ended up explaining the racial relations situation (in simple terms, of course, my Chinese isn't that great) in the US. Another night I spent the meal assuring Su and Ayi that Americans don't eat chicken feet, pig ears, tails, or stomachs. "But that's the best part! What a waste!" they kept saying. Su speaks some English, which I thought was going to be a problem because I want to practice my Chinese as much as possible but as it turns out it's just been a boon because she can translate when I don't understand something. I teach her new vocabulary, too, as our conversation transitions from English to Chinese and back, and Ayi often repeats the words too. Her accent, as condescending as it is to say, is adorable. Having the first thing I say when I get up in the morning be Chinese has been an interesting experience, and I've started dreaming in Chinese sometimes, which feels pretty cool.

I've had some adventures in Kunming without the aid of exciting travel. One weekend Tania's host family drove us to a hot springs in the countryside of Kunming, a beautiful and relaxing getaway. Another day they took us to the bird and flower market which actually is mostly animals and plants. That was kind of depressing because they had so many really beautiful dogs that we were not allowed to cuddle. John's family, however, has obtained an adorable seeing eye puppy, so we met our animal cuddling needs there. John's family also has an automated majiang table, and one night his mom schooled us in the art of majiang (I needed a refresher.) I think I can actually play, although I'm fuzzy on a few of the rules.

Last weekend I also had adventures-- on Sunday morning I did aerobics/dance with my two Chinese teachers who are 27 and 28 respectively but with whom I've made friends. I thought it was going to be terrible and conspicuous but it was actually a lot of fun and the gym was way nicer than the one I use at home. It had a juice bar and internet cafe inside! Later that day John, Kailey, and I went and taught English for two hours to 12-15 year olds. We taught them simple games like Telephone and Simon Says and got paid Y150 for it. Great fun.

We're leaving tomorrow for a huge adventure around the province. I feel sad (I'm leaving my teachers and Diana behind) and anxious and excited. The next time I write will be from the road.

The last 48 hours, in more ways than one

Here I present to you: a description of my last few days in Ireland. Afterwards will come pictures of Ireland aplenty. All the while I am frantically packing. I leave on my flight for LA at 11:30 Friday morning. My itinerary looks like this: Boston --> San Francisco --> LA --> Hong Kong --> Kunming. It is going to be a LONG trip.

So: after staying up way, way late with Ollie talking about all manner of interesting things and looking at an old book all about little towns in Ireland, I curled up with the dogs in their bedroom (yes, the dogs have a bedroom) and slept well. In the morning, I had a simple breakfast and then Brenda and I went to Graignamaugh, which sounds kind of like Grandma when you say it but not quite. The drive to Graignamaugh was just as magical as the town itself, more of the Irish Countryside You Thought Didn't Actually Exist, with incredibly green, rolling hills, shetland ponies, dilapidated barns, old farmhouses whose roofs are no covered in ivy and leaves from the trees growing in/through/around them. In Graignamaugh, Brenda took me to a very old Abbey which has been reconstructed as it was in 1000something AD. It was almost completely empty and had beautiful glass windows and a diorama of what the full abbey complex (which is no longer standing) would have looked like. Afterwards we took a walk along the Barrow, which is another little river, like the Nore in Inistioge, that divides up the countryside. We saw all sorts of painted barges on the river, from Travellers (that's the word these days for gypsies) who come through.

I had to catch the bus back to Dublin in time to see "Shirley Valentine," the play Emily set designed for, so Brenda drove me back into Thomastown, but not before Ollie had written down a list of typically Irish snacks that I should buy for the trip. I settled on Mariettas, a sweet, sort of vanilla-flavored biscuit. The ride back was quite wonderful, we went through a few towns we had skipped on the way down including a charming small city call Naas, but I actually fell asleep for most of it. Not before I spotted the partial rainbow as the clouds parted, though. No pot of gold that I could see-- alas.

Managed to meet up with Katrina and Emmalee and we again traipsed the city looking for a suitable restaurant, before deciding on fast food kebabs at a chain called Abrakebabra (harhar.) We were part of a ten-person audience at "Shirley Valentine," which was a one woman play, all monologue, but quite good and the set was excellent. Emily found out later that night that the play was selected to go to a national drama festival in North Ireland during St. Patrick's weekend-- very exciting. Post-play, we trooped over to Temple Bar again to discover Half Moon, a late night crepery with OBSCENELY delicious crepes. Colm, Emily's Irish kinda-boyfriend, came with us, and there we discovered another random cultural difference. Picture the scene:

Emily: [picks at her crepe, which has marshmallows and nutella in it] Why is the inside pink, do you think?
Colm: Well obviously. Marshmallows only come in pink and white, do the math.
Us: [staring at him] Noooo... marshmallows only come in white.

Turns out that in Ireland you can only buy marshmallows in mixed bags of pink and white. Another random cultural difference (also, Irish paperclips are gold.)

My final day in Ireland was the most touristy, mostly because it suddenly dawned on me that I was leaving the next day and I lost the tourist shame that kept me from taking too many pictures (how could I not take pictures of Brenda and Ollie? Honestly.) Emily and I had a leisurely breakfast and then she got me into the Book of Kells exhibit at Trinity for free. The Book of Kells is said to be one of the most richly decorated ancient books in the world (It was made in approx. 800 AD). There was a really interesting exhibit about how the ancient books were made-- binding, calligraphy, grinding the inks, etc-- and the book itself was really gorgeous. We also stopped by the Long Room at Trinity Library, which is basically this heart-stoppingly enormous hall filled to the brim with a copy of basically every book published in Ireland since the mid 1600s. The ceiling is enormously high, two stories, and every wall is filled with books. It was definitely a sight to see, but they sadly didn't allow photography. Emmalee and I waited for Emily while she went and did an errand, watching a Trinity a capella group perform on the steps of the Examination Hall, and then we went off to Bewley's Oriental Cafe, where we had fancy coffee drinks and scones and were generally touristy and caffeinated.

Next stop: St. Stephen's Green, an enormous landscaped park in the heart of Dublin. It was quite a lovely day, sunny and everything, and we had fun watching the ducks and admiring the greenery. Emily split off from us then, and Emmalee and I spent the rest of the day exploring North and then Medieval Dublin. Walking around North Dublin (the "sketchy side" of Dublin) was interesting because it was, indeed a little more dilapidated, but mostly just very different in atmosphere from the rest of the city. I think it gets a bad rap, though. It was still charming. Emmalee and I got special student tickets to go up the Chimney, a converted industrial chimney with an observation deck on the top. It felt like the excellent way to round out my trip-- the 360 degree view of the entire city felt like a perfect sum-up of the whole thing. Add to that that we had probably the best half an hour of light all day, and you have a magical trip-ending experience for E3.50. We had seen a really old-looking church from the top of the Chimney, and so Emmalee and I went to explore to find it. It didn't have a name, but the plaque outside told us that it was established in 988 AD. As we wandered across the Liffey into real Medeival Dublin, that number started to seem like the norm. Old Cathedrals, the oldest Pub in Ireland (established 1098 AD), a chunk of the original city walls. It was wonderful to think about these structures withstanding the forces of time as the city grew, morphed, changed around them. Another excellent way to finish my trip.

For dinner, we met Katrina at a Nepalese retaurant I'd read about in my book, which was quite delicious, followed by gellato at a hip store down the street in Temple Bar. The night was very relaxed, we bought jewelry, met up with Emily and Colm at the Palace Pub, where I tried Bailey's Irish Cream (it only seemed right), and decided ultimately not to go out dancing because it was late, Katrina wasn't feeling well, and the place we wanted to go cost more than we had thought. It was a fantastic last night, however, drinking in the city as much as possible, trying to remember the ambiance, the lights on the old buildings, the accents drifting from people around me. Enough to satisfy me and get me through the long trip home.

Yes, "Dear"-- Days 2 and 3

I'm back in the states now, but I don't want to forget to write about all the wonderful things I did after my first day in Ireland. I'll write it all down, slowly but surely. There will be a picture post coming soon, as well.

Irish Extravaganza, Day 2
Come to find out, my travel alarm clock fails at its major duty (namely waking me up.) Katrina and Emmalee showed up at 11 am, and I was so dead asleep that I didn't recognize them for a full 45 seconds. We eventually navigated to Pearse Station, where we purchased E7.20 day passes to aid in our adventurousness. Unfortunately, the DART line south all the way to Bray and Greystones in County Wicklow was out of order, so we could only ride down to Dalkey, the furthest south portion of Dublin (just two more locations to put on my "wish I could have gone to" list, which also includes Galway, the Ring of Kerry, and... yeah, just most of the West coast). Luckily, Dalkey was quite charming, with little windy roads and a couple "castles" (old fortified houses) plopped down in the middle. We explored quite a bit, had some coffee, and found our way down past a working Abbey to the Irish Sea. The sun proceded to come out for the first time (What? I have a shadow?) After our adventure to Dalkey, we returned to Dun Laoghaire, another stop on the DART, where there is a 2 km-long wharf out into the bay. We took our time taking pictures of the boats, the waterfront, the lighthouses. It was quite lovely in the setting sun. For dinner, our Adventure Policy (stop wherever we want and see what happens) went a little awry, as we ended up in an Industrial Park. So we went back to Dublin City Proper, to the super-chic Temple Bar area. There, our waiter made fun of Katrina for getting a hamburger.


Irish Extravaganza, Day 3.
Emily woke me before her Monday class with the idea that I would shower and meet her for breakfast near Trinity before heading to the bus station. She told her roommate I was coming up and left. However, by the time I was ready to go upstairs, I had encountered two problems:

1) When the girls living in the basement, where I slept, left, they locked the door. Thus, I learned important Lesson #2-- Irish doors lock from the inside.
2) When I used Emily's cell phone, which she had left with me, to call her roommate, the roommate had left as well, and locked the door to her room (with the shower and all my clothes in it) behind her.

I considered the situation and concluded that I was trapped in an Irish basement (a good basis for the sequel to "Trapped in the Closet"? I think so.) After freaking out for 15 minutes, I discovered a side door which was mercifully unlocked and planned to meet Emily in my pajamas and explain the situation. Luckily, she came home early, so I was able to shower quickly, dress, and even get to the bus station on the other side of the Liffey (the river that runs through Dublin) in time to catch the bus to Thomastown.

I purchased my ticket and resolved to look out the window during the 2.5 hour ride, but encountered culture difference again. In the states, the best place for window-looking is the right side of the bus. Not so, of course, in Ireland. I felt quite silly once I realized my mistake. Luckily, once we got out into the country the roads were narrow enough that it didn't matter. I spent the ride feeling totally enchanted-- the view of verdant fields, sheep, little sleepy towns with ruined castles or abbeys in them, white churches against the hills. As we passed through Carlow, two boys in school uniforms motioned to the busdriver to honk his horn. He did, and the excitement on their faces made me smile, too. A village called Castledermot, left me sorely tempted to get off and just wander along its winding alleys. Every corner looked like a postcard. Another force attempting to convince me off track: the guy sitting in front of me on the bus. He introduced himself to me as Ben and proceded to attempt to convince me, in a strange Irish/Spanish accent, to forget my friends in Thomastown and to go on to Waterford with him, which he assured me is "very quiet and beautiful, not dear like Dublin" (Lesson 2.5: "Dear" is Irish slang for "expensive.") I managed to rebuff his advances, but he did tell me when we stopped at Thomastown (Lesson 3: Unlike in the States, Irish public busdrivers do not announce stop names as the bus pulls in, meaning that if you've never been to a place before you're a little screwed.)

Given this fact, when Brenda (the woman I was to stay with) didn't immediately meet me as I got off the bus, the first thing I did was to make sure I was actually in Thomastown. Some of the small downtown's signs indicated that I was, and so I was set to do a little bit of problem solving. I reminded myself that I was not, in fact, stranded in the middle of the Irish countryside (albeit in a very charming town in the middle of said countryside) and went into a bank to ask for help. The woman promptly called Brenda, and Ollie (Brenda's son, who is 27) came to pick me up. He drove me about 7 km back to Capagh, a tiny enclave outside a still-tiny (population in the hundreds) village called Inistioge (pronounced Inis-TEEG). We zipped through increasingly narrow and windy roads, the Rone river silver in the valley below, before turning down a lane so stereotypically charming that I actually thought, "You're fucking kidding me." Brenda lives in a little wooden cottage in the back of the house she lived in most of her life but which she recently sold. There is a vegetable garden, a fantastic bird feeder filled with strangely colored birds (blue and yellow finches, pink robins), and a stream running through the yard. It was so picturesque I could barely breathe. For the moment, Brenda shares the house with Ollie (who is back home after breaking up with a longtime girlfriend) and three dogs-- Fiann, Jessie, and Sasha (but I think it has a more complicated Gaelic spelling.) The dogs were unendingly adorable. Jessie gives hugs (she gets up on your lap and puts her arms around your waist), and they've all figured out how to open the door from both sides, and come and go as they please. Brenda took me up to Woodstock, an old noble estate that the family in power in the area recently donated to the Inistioge villagers. They've started to manicure the place as it would have been a long time ago, although all the structures are ruins that were burnt out in "The Troubles" (what Irish people call the past history of civil unrest). She knew incredible amounts about botany, and was able to point out any number of species of trees as we passed. It was a very pretty walk, but really I could have just driven around all afternoon. That Irish countryside had its hooks in me. I was just hungry for the view.

Ollie made us dinner in the house's little kitchen, and we commenced a night of talking. About so much-- politics, culture, differences between Ireland and the US, funny stories, serious stories. I had assumed that because Ollie sort of drifts around and doesn't do a whole lot that he wasn't particularly sharp (which is admittedly elitist of me), but he had just as large a knowledge base as his mother, and our discussions lasted through visits to two pubs in tiny Inistioge center. The pubs were even more of "what pubs should be" than even the Stag's Head, mostly because they were in the middle of the Irish Countryside. All the locals knew each other, the bartender greeted Brenda and knew what to make her. An old, drunk Irishman came up and put his arm around me and slurred at me in Gaelic. The only part I caught was "Milanna," which Brenda told me means "pet" or "sweetheart" in Traveller tongue. The man is an Inistioge councilman who, in Brenda's words, "gets paid to start drinking at 11 AM, and a right good job he does." We drove home at breakneck pace from the pubs, narrowly avoiding the police lorry (issues of drunk driving run rampant,) and proceeded to stay up until almost 3 AM continuing our discussion of the realities of Ireland, politics. I explained the SATs and a testing society to Ollie, and he explained Ireland's system, in turn. He and Brenda told me, repeatedly, that I was "very well-informed for an American." I chose to take this as a compliment.

A 30 hour day

I made it to the airport, miraculously (I'm typing from a strange pay-as-you-go internet station, I used up all my small Euro change.) Got up at 5 AM GMT which isn't morning or even late at night EST. I'm going to be awake for more than 24 hours before the day is through, and I only slept about 2 hours last night. I'm proud of myself for getting here, though, I trekked through sleeping Dublin to the AirCoach stop, only having to ask for directions once, I thought I managed to lose my iPod headphones (but didn't), and I successfully e-checked in, although I will have to recheck in (?) in Paris. I have about E5 left to buy coffee in Charles De Gaulle.
Home again, home again, jiggity jig.

P.S. European keyboards are very strange! I didn't think there was anything different until I went to type symbols and found them all in different places (to make room for the dollar and Euro sign, presumably.) Odd!