Recruiting Duty
The first week of July I agreed to help Teresa with a couple of recruiting trips in order to try to get more students for summer school. The first weekend trip took us to the edge of Yunnan province to a small town whose name I don’t recall now. While this only gave me a glimpse of Yunnan, I will say it was an amazingly beautiful area and it left me longing to see more. We extended the two day trip to take a train out into the deep country for another day of recruiting. For me this involved just smiling and looking non-Chinese, both areas I excel in. The small appearing community we landed in was crammed into a steep valley with towering peaks. It was a very vertical town that took no more space than Santai but contains nearly four times the population at about 400K.
I awoke a bit before the group, (along with Teresa and I had come her assistant and two male friends), and went for a walk before rejoining them at the hotel. It was a great walk that let me check out only two streets and a bridge due to the layout and the time constraint. Like so many places in China I was met with friendly smiles, invites to converse and the sniping ‘hello’s’ as I walked by. The Hello Sniping is an interesting phenomenon in China that involves both adults and students that are too shy to get caught in a conversation but still want to show off their English skills to their friends by hollering ‘hello’ as you have already passed them. If you turn towards them at all they will usually giggle and shrink away although sometimes they will relish the opportunity to engage in a conversation. No matter how long you are in China it is not uncommon when you meet someone for them to say, ‘Welcome to China! Happy every day!’.
The day started out very low key as we played duodizhou, (a pretty cool three-player card game that is extremely popular in China. I am passable at this game and getting better. Evan, having played a Vietnamese version has a much better handle on it), until we were met by a potential recruits mother and whisked away to lunch. More local cuisine. The fish tanks, (you know the kind, you’ve seen them at Chinese restaurants where the ‘catch of the day’ is kept fresh until it is ordered), contained almost exclusively plecostomus. These are the fish that are used in aquariums to keep them clean. In America anyway. Here, well, they are fish. Most disturbing was the number of dead ones. Dead ones that weren’t floating anymore. The meal was pretty great but like so many meals with fish dishes they were served with heads intact and it was expected that you eat them. Essentially you suck on the heads and whatever will come loose/out is the edible portion. I remarked to Teresa that I hoped the tanks downstairs would still be populated. They weren’t. The dead ones were gone as well. If it doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger, eh? Or sick.
With lunch wrapped up we took a rented van about 15 kilometers out of town along the river to a small community that is the stepping off point for an incredible temple built into a cliff side cave. It was multi leveled and much more temperate than the heat outside. An hour was spent here as we kow towed, (knelt in prayer), made donations and generally cooled off. It wasn’t long before a game of sorts was revealed that involved kow towing in front of a certain deity with a container of sticks, (looked like chopsticks to me), that you would shake until one popped out. The monk would then read the symbol off of the stick and give you a fortune or something. The hostesses were quite taken by this opportunity, for another small donation they could go again until arriving at the outcome they desired. I declined to play both out of respect and low interest.
Along the way back we had pointed out to us a local curiosity that was without explanation. The sheer rock cliff opposite us had a large crevasse that if you looked closer contained coffins. It is unknown, (or unexplained, it really is the same, eh?), how they were placed there since it was a good five to seven stories above the river below. It looked like more than nine coffins and really was striking. They have been there for enough years that there wasn’t local legend or a passed down story of their origins. Ooh, spooky.
We made our way back to town and caught the train back to some roads where Teresa’s car awaited. We were out one the many railroad spurs that serve rural areas. It was a train that doesn’t go through but instead comes and goes. As such it was pretty packed with all passengers confined to just three or four of the six cars. Fortunately for Teresa she had a lao wai with her and shortly after we got underway we were taken to an empty car where we could stretch out and relax for the hour ride back. We then hit the road for the nearly six hour return drive to Chengdu.
Next weekend we were off again. Back to Yunnan. This was a one town stop but we would be traveling further. We went to Panzhihua by train where we were met by a friend of a friend who drove us to the main part of town. Another great Yunnan mountain town with beautiful clear skies. We had arrived just in time for lunch and were treated to some local specialties. As we approached the restaurant there was a large tank on the sidewalk where an employee was transferring tiny shrimp. We were nowhere near the ocean. So naturally these showed up in the meal. In a clear casserole dish in a red sauce. Still jumping. They were still alive. It was Klingon food, I swear. I couldn’t decide if it was better to eat a fresh still hopping one or a dead one as neither would really be cooked. I tried both.
The afternoon was spent in a hotel where Teresa had booked a conference room that was publicized with an ad in the paper. It was mostly a group of 10-12 year olds that wanted to come see the lao wai. We wrapped up with no apparent sign-ups and Teresa and Lily heading to the train station. I had decided to stay and use my remaining five days before summer school to travel to Lijiang and Kunming before rushing back to Santai and then Chengdu for camp.
