Through the Wilderness

For you observant types, you may have noticed that I have not posted in quite some time. Actually, looking back at things here, it appears to have been over a month! I actually had a post for 20 April 2005 as a Columbine Memorial as well as short discussion on hate (in China at that time relations with Japan were at an all time low and it was showing), but due to technical difficulties, it never made it up. Maybe it’s for the better.

But that was still almost a full month ago!! Where have I been, you ask? Idly lazing by the pool sipping margaritas of course…er, or so I wish. Actually, it’s been an extremely busy month of flying all around tarnation (which is a word, right?). It all started on the 21st when I flew to Shanghai (we’re keeping in mind that the distance from Kunming to Shanghai is roughly that of San Francisco to at least Chicago if not Cleveland). I spent a few days there making final preparations for the Foreign Service Written Exam before actually taking it on Saturday morning, April 21st. The test went well enough, though I’m not really expecting anything. When it came down to choosing the mission statement of the World Bank in one section only to find another question asking me to identify the mission statement of the IMF later, I just couldn’t help thinking if there wasn’t something else I could be doing with my time.

After that, it was time to check in to a new hotel, then head out to the international airport in Shanghai to pick up my mother who has been visiting for the last three weeks or so (she’s back home now :o( ). In brief, we picked up one of her friends arriving from Taiwan the next day, then visited Hangzhou (known for its beautiful West Lake), Suzhou (has famous gardens. My mom bought embroidery), and Zhouzhuang (a little canal town just outside of Shanghai), before returning to Shanghai to visit the tailor. Then it was off to the Yunnan Province to see Kunming, Dali (home of the Bai ethnic minority. There’s a big lake there. And a mountain. And marble. And we bought some), Lijiang (home of the Naxi ethnic minority, who has a fairly famous orchestra who has preserved ancient Han music of all things), and Zhongdian (AKA Shangri-la, where I got the rockingest cowboy hat in the West…of China), not to mention Kunming. It was really good to see both my mom and her friends that came to visit, but it was lots of coordination, bargaining, and translating for one month, so I’m kind of glad to have a small chance to rest now.

After my mom left, and one trip back to Shanghai to see her off later, I came back to Kunming to do a demonstration class for a school at which I am applying for a job next year. Don’t know if I really need the job due to several reasons, but it meant that I could have fun with the demonstration. To me, that meant that I dressed up as a cowboy, à la Simpsons, and got to try the Mr. Goldstein (or whatever his name was) routine. I had a really good time, and I look hot in a cowboy hat. Who knew?!

It also helped me establish an interesting Chinese fact: after class I was walking down the street in complete cowboy attire (we’re talking hat, shirt, jeans, and boots), and I noticed something. Not only were people not staring at me any more than normal (which for Kunming is still an “important” number of people to use a French word), but I actually got less attention dressed as ostentatiously as I was. Do the Chinese just expect Americans to dress like cowboys and when we’re wearing normal clothing it freaks them out? I honestly cannot tell, but I think I’m going out dressed as a cowboy more often just to see if it’s true, even if it’s something I’d never do in the US. In social research it’s what we would call a breeching experiment (which is to say experiments wherein standard social norms are broken and/or taken to the extreme), but like I said before, maybe this is what is expected of me so I’m not breeching squat. We shall see. We shall see.

Anyway, the next day was the HSK (Chinese Level Exam), which I somehow managed to survive, though I’m sure I did not do well on it. I don’t think there was a single question on it where I was like, “oh duh, clearly it’s this one.” It didn’t help that the reading comprehension was bout Toni Morrison and texts that are just better left in English…at least I could figure out who “Tuo ni * mo li sen” was!

But now I am free at last, free at last! And that means that I get to sleep for a change. For example, on Monday I fell asleep at around 2:30PM after class, and didn’t get up until almost 7PM! Boy was that a little disorienting. But at least I had an interesting dream!