Shaogaoshan

We climbed a mountain near the school yesterday. By we, I mean myself, Ms. Fu, some guy whose name I can't remember, and a guy named Zhang. Zhang appears to be Ms. Fu's main squeeze. We walked to the mountain and I was glad to learn that there actually was a decent sized climbing mountain within walking distance.

By the way, my Chinese name is Yangshan. The name was given to me by Henry, of all people. We had been having lunch with the Yang family who kindly lent me the use of their last name. Then Henry told them about how much I love to talk about the mountains near Kaili. The word for mountain is, shan. So: Yangshan. Yang Mountain, that's my name.

The mountain we climbed yesterday was called Shaogaoshan, Little High Mountain. It's a decent size and I've been mentally referring to it as the Kaili version of Mount Monadnock. But sometimes I think that if China were a pitcher it would throw nothing but curveballs. I knew something would be off when we climbed the mountain, I just didn't know what it would be. I get that feeling a lot over here. That feeling that tells me,  "Things are not going to turn out the way you would usually think they would, Rob. There will be something strange or skewed about what happens." Shaogaoshan was yet another mountain with a stone staircase going all the way up and down it. It's a gorgeous place, but where I come from MOUNTAINS DON'T HAVE STAIRS!

Anyway, it was a pretty climb as well as pretty foggy climb. There was a restaraunt about one third of the way up and I tried some Chinese porridge, basically chicken and rice soup. After a while, we returned to climbing and I started to worry about Ms. Fu. She hadn't eaten anything, hadn't drunk any water, and really did not seem to be in climbing shape. It was almost like being back in my Environmental Education job again. I would offer her water, she's say no. I'd ask her if she wanted to rest, and of course, she'd say no. Maybe she was embarassed, but mountains have a way of kicking peoples' asses when their unprepared so I kept my eye on her. It was a little bit being back in Nature's Classroom or W. Alton Jones, but with a significantly older student.

I took some photos on the way back down, the fog had finally lifted. There hadn't really been a view on top, just a television station tower and some funny ladies dancing. On the way down, we ran into one of Zhang's friends who happenned to know about a Miao village that was on the mountain. We decided to eat lunch there.

Picture this: a small Asian village right out of a post card, but don't forget about the big basket ball court that's smack in the middle of it. We entered the village and walked into a small room that seemed like it was a room in someone's house. We met two more people there. One of them was a random man who was never introduced to me and I didn't bother to introduce myself because that would've required going within 5 feet of him. He smelled like a mix of hot tar, fish, and 10,000 year old sweat. Best description I can give. The other person was a Miao woman who was clearly the cook.

Now I find myself in a room full of people that I have difficulty communicating and some who really don't seem to want to communicatewith me. I'm told that I was an important guest there and yet I kind of got the feeling that it leaned toward sideshow freak at some times and not so much important guest. Everybody's chatting away in speedy Chinese and it dawned on me that even though this was an interesting experience, I didn't really care for the people around me. Other than Ms. Fu, I really had no interest in knowing these loud people were mispronouncing my name (either Robaht or Roberta) in their sentences and then not bothering to tell me what they were saying about me. Ms. Fu translated once in a while and I appreciated that, but I mentally tuned myself out after a little while. I started thinking, "I could've gone back to the university today. Could've had lunch with Tan Yen and met some more college kids." But, I was in a Miao village and that was pretty cool, so I tried to dwell on that thought.

I spent most of my time there watching the two funny dogs that kept wandering in and out of the house. I liked the dogs more than the majority of the people there. We were eating in the common public Chinese style, which puts everybody circled around one table with a bunch of different dishes on it. You reach onto the table with your chopsticks and grab what you want. I've always had very unsteady hands, so this kind of eating makes my hand tremor very obvious when I have to reach for my food. It's usually not a big deal. I'm fully capable of using chopsticks, it's just not pretty when I do. But sometimes, I think it gives people an impression of weakness or nervousness and when you can't communicate with the people around you how do you tell them what the situation really is?

Hospitality in China is funny to me. At the dinner table, I mean. It's very common for a person to pick up food from the serving bowl and drop into my bowl, whether I ask for it or not. This is a way of treating me like a guest and introducing me to new foods, I understand that. But, I'm a temperamental American and sometimes I can't help but thinking things like, "Get your damn chopsticks away from bowl." Or ,"Did you think I was lying when I said I wasn't hungry anymore? Stop giving me food that I never asked for!" And of course, Dum Dum Dum, baiju. It's the most revolting form of rice wine I've ever had and I'm a man who has experienced Sake in Japan (ok) and Souju in South Korea (yuck). People shove baiju at me every time there's some kind of public meal. I hate the stuff, but of course, the important guest/ sideshow freak has to drink it. To refuse is to insult to person in their home. I drank this crap until I discovered that the house also had beer. I've on decent terms with Chinese beer so I opted for that instead. But this particular brew was, seriously, a lot closer to seltzer water than anything I'd call beer. It was still better than the baiju, but yuck.

So  now I'm in a situation in which people keep toasting, over and over again. I've got one drink that sucks and one that sucks even more. Sudennly Ms. Fu translates for me that the men are worried that I will not be able to finish my bottle of beer. I'm not sure, but I've gotten the impression that you're somehow considered unmanly here if you don't finish your whole beer. How do explain that the reason you haven't fisnihed the entire bottle has nothing to do with your worth as a man and only the fact that the beer is awful? Fortunately, I didn't give a rat's ass what these men considered manly, so I called it quits on both the beer and the baiju.

We left the village and it was beautiful and sunny outside. I took a few photos and promised myself that I'd return to Shaogaoshan, alone. We caught a bus and while we were on it Ms. Fu told me that she was getting off at a market and Zhang would go with me. It wasn't until after she left the bus that I realized what this meant. This guy Zhang was supposed to babysit the helpless American who couldn't possibly find his way around this tiny city without a chaperone. I had had enough bullshit for one day, so I slipped off of the bus at an easily recognizable landmark and decided to walk home. The plan was to slip out when Zhang was trapped in the throng of people on the bus. I didn't really care for the guy anyway, so there was no guilt when I just hopped off the bus without saying goodbye.

Since coming to China, there have been two times when I'd say that I have officially lost my temper. One of them was in my fourth week here. The other was yesterday.
One day Henry took myself, Dave, and Lucia to buy bikes. This man just complicates everything and what should have been a one hour excursion of choose your bike and ride it home turned into a three hour ordeal of ,"Yes, Rucia. This is same bike you want." Lucia: "No, Henry. Look at the picture. It's not even the same model." Henry: "But Rucia..." You get the picture. So by the time we returned to the school I was in no mood to put up with any bullshit. I went to lock up my bike. I remembered that I used to  lock up my old bike with a chain lock that would weave through the bike's frame as well as the tire, so I tried to do that. The chain lock was very short so it proved to be a hassle. Without a word, Henry reaches over and grabs the chain lock out of my hand. I couldn't of stopped myself if I'd tried. I said, "Let go!" In a voice that told Henry I was in the mood to tear out his throat. He backed off, looking like a deer in headlights. That made some sadistic part of my mind very happy.

Yesterday, I left the bus to escape my unecessary and unwanted babysitter, Zhang. I went walking down a road I knew and turned right to check out an interesting place called, The Miao Theme Hotel. It was nice. Lots of great carvings. I was admiring the artwork, when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I knew who it was before I turned. There was Zhang. Immediately, I knew what had happenned after I left the bus. This son of a bitch had pushed his way out of the crowded bus, onto the sidewalk, and chased me down, because his hubby Ms. Fu thought I needed a babysitter. Never mind that the fact that I've been here 3 months and this is a small city. Never mind the fact that I'm a 33 year old man. Never mind the fact that I have already done a significant amount of traveling on my own. Zhang asked me, "What are you doing?" I launched a therapeautic, "I'M WALKING!" at him and walked away at a pace that obviously said, 'Don't follow me.'

I suppose I've been dwelling quite a bit on the negative in this blog, but this is the stuff I needed to write, if only for my own peace of mind. The good and bad really come entwined over here and I have no idea how to seperate them.

Nanchang & Stuff

I recently had 9 days off, so naturally I wasted two of those days doing absolutely nothing, then I went to see my friend in Nanchang. I saw my friend Amanda at her teaching post, Jiangxi Normal University. If there's an "Abnormal" university then I have no idea where it is. Anyways, I spent about three days there and it was pretty cool.
It was a big university, well outside of the main city. I often commented to people there that the entire downtown area of Kaili could fit into the university campus and that was not an exaggeration. This school was kind of like a town all its own. There were many other foreign teachers over there and it was great to have some other, not-so-Chinese, folks to hang out with. But my favorite thing about my trip was simply having the chance to hang out with the college kids. My middle school students are great, but there was a fun dynamic with the Jiangxi University kids that just isn't present with the younger kids. And plus, you can't drink with middle school kids. Speaking of drinking, hehehe, yeah. It happenned. Somebody managed to find Johnnie Walker in China and we downed about 5,000 bottles of it in a Nanchang bar. I met my future wife there. In other words, a very very inebriated college girl surprise-attack kissed me. It was nice, just a bit shocking.  And I can't forget about the next day when we got pizza. That's right, I ate pizza! Very small pizza, but it qualified. The first thing I told Amanda when I arrived in Nanchang was, "You're not in China. You're in Chinatown." I said that because I'd been amazed by all the McDonalds and KFCs and WalMarts, and all the western things I'd seen on my way there. Kaili has none of that stuff. But Nanchang had Pizza Hut. Gotta love the Hut.
Murphy's Law was waiting for me as soon as I had the silly idea of returning to Kaili. I had problems with the bus, problems with the plane, problems with the other bus. If I could kill the Nanchang-Guiyang public transportation system, I would stab it and then twist the knife, but only after I doused the blade with rat poison.

Since my return, things have been pretty smooth here in Kaili. The big issue right now is heat. These apartments are not only completely lacking heat, they actually seem to trap cold within their walls. It's often warmer outside than inside my apartment. It's good to be a New Hampshire boy on cold nights here, because I'm naturally built for the cold, but I did get myself a little room heater to help out. I've mentioned to my boss that I need a "real" heater, because I only expect it to get colder as winter comes in. Let's see how many months it takes my boss get to moving on that. I'll probably have to blatantly "remind" her, but if I do I think I'll actually get the heater. My coworker, Dave (the Irishman), is skinny as a rail and has already gotten very sick from the cold apartments here. I've been ok so far, but I don't plan to take any chances.

I came back from Nanchang with two specific goals in  mind. 1. Make friends with university students. 2. Explore the nearby city of Guiyang and try to find some other foreigners there. Before my trip to Nanchang, I had just discovered the Kaili University. It's a nice school, if a bit small. I went there today and made myself  two new friends within five minutes. Not bad, eh. So, the college friend buddy making plan is in effect right now and I'll put the foreigner finding plan into action as soon as I have an idea about where to look for round-eyes in Guiyang.

Today was kind of a crazy day. I got a call last night from a man named Mr. Yang. Yang is like Smith over. Everybody and their mother is named Yang. In other words, I had no idea who this guy was. He invited me a nearby city and did not tell me why. I said no while I wondered how the hell he got my number. I told him that I was going to the university today. He asked me who I was going with. I said ,"Tan Yen." Then he told me he would call, Tan Yen. Either he didn't understand what I'd said or he was outright ignoring it. Again, I said that I was going to university and told him that was no reason for him to bother Tan Yen. He sounded dissappointed and hung. I wondered what the fuck had just happenned. Later, Tan Yen called me and said that this mysterious Mr. Yang had called her and asked her to cancel her university trip with me. She asked me if I wanted to go with Mr. Yang instead, but I told her that I didn't even know the guy. Mr. Yang called me again this morning, right after I woke up. He asked to change my plans today. I said ,"No" as solidly as I could without putting any vehemence in it. I eventually found out that the mysterious Mr. Yang was one of the English teachers here at the school and that I'd given him my number at a teacher's dinner last month. The word "friend" gets tossed around a lot over here. I met this man once for a short period of time, was stupid enough to give him my phone number and now he thinks that we're such great "friends" that I couldn't possibly want to do anything other than go to some random town with him. Sometimes I get extremely fed up with people trying to make my weekend schedule for me without even considering the possibility that I might NOT want to do what they have in mind.

Around 5 today, I got a call from a person I actually did know. Ms. Cheng. Most of the time, she's just kind of a funny little chatterbox, but this phone call was just crazy: "Robert, are you home? We go to dinner now."
Me: "I'm not hungry. I just ate."
Cheng: "Ok. We go. I meet you at the school gate."
Me: "No, Miss Cheng, I'm not hungry. I already ate dinner."
Cheng: "Yes. Now. Now. Now."
Me: "Ms. Cheng." (starting to boil)
Cheng: "Oh. You ate...." (it finally dawns on her.)

This is another example of the way in which people around here sometimes try to shove their events in my face without even considering the possibility of my saying  no. They simply don't offer a choice, so I interject my own. There's a big difference between being flexible and open to culture and letting people boss you around and walk all over you. Guess what Ms. Cheng, if the American doesn't want to go to dinner with you and your friends ,"Now. Now. Now." he's not going to fucking go! Crazy!

Ms. Fu said that she's going to take me to a mountain to go climbing tomorrow. I'm somewhat excited, but my expectations are not high. The last "mountain" that my friends took me to "climb" around here had stairs all the way up and down. I expect to see a great view on the summit tomorrow but I also expect to be somehow unsatisfied by the climb. I've been spoiled by the Appalachians. We're leaving early tomorrow, which may be a good sign or may be no sign at all, so I'm going to bed. Good night.