So I've been meaning to write this post for a while. I went on my Yunnan trip for 10 days and came back to a week of projects, tests, and a new roommate. I also have taken a few field trips for classes this past week that were pretty interesting. I'll try my best not to leave anything about my Yunnan trip out and I apologize if this goes off on tangents but it's all in the effort to give you a better understanding of some aspect of China that you may be unfamiliar with. Here it goes...
We took a very early flight from Beijing to Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. Yunnan is in southwest China and borders Tibet, Vietnam, Laos, and Myanmar. My group's trip stayed more in the southern region of Yunnan closer to Vietnam so it was warm weather from the moment we landed in Kunming.
Kunming is a rapidly growing international city. The government is really trying to speed up development because of its advantageous location in Southeast Asia. We only got to have lunch in Kunming before we headed out to the more rural areas, but you could quickly tell how new and vibrant the city looked compared to Beijing.
The first city we stayed in was called JianShui but before we got there we stopped off at a cigarette factory to take a tour. It was definitely a random stop for us and it was by far the least interesting thing we did, but mentioning it gives me a chance to talk about smoking in China...
Smoking is HUGE in China and has become an integral part of the culture. A common proper way for men to meet and introduce themselves to each other is to offer each other a cigarette and to older people it is seen as impolite not to accept it. On the last day of our trip we stayed at a hotel in Kunming where a wedding was going to take place that night and so there were hospitality tables set up around the lobby. Every one of them were stacked high with cigarettes. Tobacco is also a major industry especially in the Yunnan province and brings a ton of tax revenue, which is the main reason why the government has done very little to curb smoking. In Yunnan a lot of people smoke cigarettes out of these huge bamboo water pipes because they say it keeps your teeth from turning yellow. Everywhere we went men were carrying this huge bamboo water pipes around with them. Compared to men, women smoke very little because its traditionally looked down upon for women to smoke.
So back to the factory...We didnt stay very long but while we were there we got to see the company golf course that had a massive shiny metal pipe in one of the putting greens and we watched a movie about the history and successes of the company (i.e. 30 minutes of standard Chinese propaganda).
JianShui is a very ancient city in Yunnan. The streets are all paved with stones and the architecture is very traditional. The first night we spent walking around the city and enjoying our first night of visible stars, fresh air, and perfect weather. As we walked around we definitely got the feeling that we were in ancient China. That night I also ran into a huge group of Israeli tourists whom I chatted with for a little bit.
The next day our guides took us around the city. We first went to the Zhu mansion from the Qing Dynasty where we got to learn a little bit about traditional architecture (huge emphasis on courtyards) and snap some pictures.
From there we walked through the morning meat market on our way to a tofu factory. I have to say I've never been stared at more by Chinese people than when all 20 of us Americans walked through the market with luggage in hand. There were chickens running around and unrefrigerated meat hanging everywhere along with fish swimming around in buckets. After getting out of the meat market we started walking through some very close stone alleyways around some very old homes before getting to a well. The well is where the neighborhood still gets their drinking water from. As an older woman and several older men filled up jugs of water to be sold around the neighborhood, we noticed that there were huge fish swimming around in the water. The woman told us that they put fish in the well to know if the water is sanitary (confused? so were we). It's very easy: if the fish die, they don't drink the water. Today the fish were alive but I can assure you we didn't drink the water.
The tofu factory was right around the corner and actually wasn't much of a "factory". It was really just a few dimly lit rooms with women sitting around completely focused on the buckets of tofu in front of them as they formed tofu squares at a lightning fast pace. Another women explained to us how they make tofu and gave us cups of a hot tofu milk (basically hot milky liquified tofu). Just outside the "factory" we saw some men dropping of heaps of soy beans and other men keeping an oven fire going to help cook the raw tofu. We looked down next to the old wood burning oven and saw a huge rusty metal box filled with raw tofu. I took a picture of the box and didn't ask to try any more tofu.
After the tofu factory we drove to a famous pottery workshop that seemed to be randomly placed in another very old, poor neighborhood. It was pretty cool to watch the artists at work. I got some great pictures and bought a cup from the shop.
On our way to our next town, Yuan Yong, we made a few stops. First we went to a cave situated in a historic nature reserve. The reserve had several Daoist and Buddhist statues and gates. When we got to the cave our guides explained that a certain bird builds its nests in the ceiling crevices of the cave. Since these nests are edible and considered a delicacy, people climb up to the ceilings of the caves a couple times a year to collect old nests. When we entered the cave we watched a few daoist guys climbing all around the cave walls and hanging on to the ceiling looking for nests without any shoes, harnesses, or ropes of any kind. It was impressive to say the least. We took a boat far into the cave and then spent the rest of the time walking through and looking at the different natural formations.
Yuan Yong was a couple hour drive from JianShui and in a much more rural area (each town/village on the trip seemed to get more and more remote). The drive to Yuan Yong along with every other bus ride we had was an experience in itself. If you weren't sleeping or reading it was easy to become glued to the windows of the bus, mouths agape staring at the unbelievable landscapes of Yunnan. I'd never seen anything like that anywhere; Huge mountains that barely touched the clouds, green valleys, and endless steppes where farmers were planting, harvesting, and driving yak-led plows. Our last stop before getting to Yuan Yong was this really famous overlook of these steppes. We got to the site right during sunset, which made it the perfect time to take pictures. The way the sun hits the steppes (which are filled with water) makes it look like the skin of a tiger. I'll post the picture I took there.
It was pretty late when we got to Yuan Yong so we checked in, walked around the town a little bit, and went to sleep.
The next morning most of the people went to another overlook at 5AM to watch the sunrise but my roommate and I decided to catch up on much needed sleep and didn't go. It ended up being a great decision because on the way back from the overlook, the bus hit a traffic jam and my roommate, 2 other people, and myself spent the day really getting to know the town. First we checked out this middle school behind our hotel. We looked over this gate and saw that the entire school was lined up outside according to grade. All of a sudden music started playing and all the kids started doing a synchronized dance. I guess they start out each day with a little dancing. I took a great video of it on my camera that I'll post ASAP. We decided to get off the beaten path and started heading down this dirt road to get a closer look at all the steppe terrace farms. On our way down we had some close encounters with some yaks and caught the attention of some local kids playing in the steppes. They saw us in the distance and told us to come down. We climbed down the steppes to where the kids were and chatted for a little bit before heading back to the hotel.
The next stop was Hong He University, the best university in the Yunnan province, where we did some cultural exchange activities with some of the students. We got paired with a student and walked all over the campus which was unbelievable. The campus had tons of brand new buildings, a lake on one side of campus surrounded by some academic buildings, a huge greenhouse, and tons of new athletic facilities. It was such a huge break from the rural towns we had been in before but there were still things that reminded us that we were definitely in a rural area. The two sides of campus are split up by one main road. On the road right through the middle of this modern campus you still see people driving rickety flat bed trucks with baskets of produce and men riding yak-driven wagons.
The student who gave me a tour of campus is an english major so she spoke perfect english but refused to use it with me because she wanted me to practice chinese. I then realized that I was at a really frustrating point in my Chinese ability. I start off the conversation easily and usually get told that my Chinese sounds good. As the conversation goes on though somewhere along the line I fall out of rhythm, forget basic words and crash. So while I sounded great at the beginning and did some coherent, fluid chatting with this girl, after about 15 minutes my chinese just fell apart. I spent the rest of the conversation sputtering along trying to make sense. It was kind of embarrassing but the girl I was with was pretty patient and helped me along. It was really frustrating at the time but definitely made me want to practice more and do a better job memorizing things I learn in class. I've made a lot of progress since then.
Something I forgot to mention earlier is that Yunnan is an extremely diverse province with lots of ethnic minorities. I'll get to most of my encounters and experiences with some ethnic minorities later but it was really interesting to talk to the student from Hong He about how she goes to school with a lot of people from small ethnic groups that have very different cultures. Hong He actually has several different cafeterias to deal with the dietary restrictions of some of these groups (for example, one ethnic group doesn't eat pork). It was really cool to see how the school caters to the various ethnic groups.
After touring around campus and trying to have a conversation with my partner, we met up at the university hotel and had dinner with everyone together. That night we walked around campus and hung out at an outdoor chuanr place.
So that brings me to the start of my first village homestay with a family from the Miao ethnic group. Its getting late here so I'm going to save the rest of the trip for tomorrow. I can only load a few pictures on my blog each time so I think I'm going to start an online photo gallery where I'll put all of my Yunnan and Beijing pictures.
I'm sorry it took me so long to give an update. Things were busy here last week. Also, I really appreciate the feedback I've been getting about the blog so if you have any questions or thoughts please email me/facebook post/skype me. I will definitely finish the Yunnan rundown tomorrow.
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