Language, Food, Friends, Absurdity

Once again, it has been awhile. But it takes a very specific mood to write a good blog, and I do not like to attempt it unless I am in that mood (or it is very late at night), because otherwise I am left feeling unsatisfied. Which probably means that my loyal readers are also unsatisfied. And that is not what I want.

I have also been busy with seemingly endless social engagements. People to see, things to eat. I continue to visit Chinese families. As much as I complain about it when it is 7 o'clock and I have to leave my friends (and whatever delicious thing that I may be eating) and get on a bus to visit a family of strangers in an unknown part of town, I actually love it. This is mostly because of how much they instantaneously love me. (in the very unlikely chance that they do not love me from the first moment, I can always pull out the 'I'm a Jew' card which makes them tell me that all Jews are extremely smart and incredibly rich, which I of course deny. But I know that I have won them over.)

This country and its people seem to like me a lot. Some would call that a lack of judgment on their part. Others would say that they only love me because I am white (ironic since they never believe I am American because I do not have blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin). But I think they love me most because I confuse them. They look at me, and are completely flabbergasted when I can convey somewhat coherent thoughts to them in their language. They say, you are so young, and they laugh at my improving comedic timing and at the inevitable moments when my thoughts get ahead of my language skills and I end up mumbling something incoherent, taking a big gulp of tea, and trying to start over.

I was nervous when I started visiting families because I thought that they would judge me, misunderstand me, and that it would just plain be uncomfortable. I have not had a single meeting like this. It was also hard at first because I wasn't really given a criteria for what makes a good family. I was told, you know, they are nice, they want cultural and language exchange, they don't live too far away, they don't do or say anything weird or uncomfortable, and they don't use our program as their own personal English teacher service. But mostly, I was told, it is more of a feeling.

My bar at this point has pretty much become, if I would feel comfortable living with this family (based on all of my deeply rooted snap judgments that I make within the 1 and a half to two hours that I spend with them) then I would feel comfortable putting a student with them. Not a perfect system, but not completely flawed either.

It is also very interesting because the majority of the families that I have visited are EXTREMELY wealthy. It is pretty out of control. For example, today while visiting a family, I was shown the room that the student could live in, and I said to the mother that the room was probably nicer than the student's room in America. She thought I was just being polite. I was being serious.

Today was also interesting because I went to visit this family with my boss because they are an important family that will hopefully help us set up an internship for one of our summer students. I was giving my talk [side note:I just looked at on an online yiddish dictionary for the way to spell the word that means talk and would finish the following sentence :to give a (shpeel?schbeel?shpiel?) and I could not find it. The first person who can give me a spelling that seems reasonable gets a prize] and my boss had basically told me to do my introductory thing that I can pretty much do in my sleep at this point, and then afterward if she had something to add or some comments to make about my performance she would chime in. About 10 minutes in she was just kind of like...your Chinese has gotten a lot better. To which I pretty much replied, you have never heard me speak Chinese before. Which is kind of absurd. When they hired me, I assumed that there would be some sort of basic language requirement. Yet, it seems that I have gone for 3 months in Kunming without ever speaking Chinese to or in front of my boss. It's just weird. As we were leaving the visit she corrected herself and said that my Chinese was better than she thought. I wonder how bad she assumed it was.

Other recent events in my life besides visiting homestays include going shopping with the 40-60year old ladies from my Chinese class, attending various and sundry going away, birthday, and normal parties, having interesting conversations with taxi drivers who try to convince me to marry and settle down in Kunming, and shocking Chinese friends with my knowledge of random words such as "cheerleader" "fate" and "camel." Learning language is so fun.

I am also excited because this summer I will be mostly hanging out in a rural and beautiful village called Lashihai, that is up in the north of Yunnan. Multiple dragons groups spend time up there and I will basically get to go up early, scout it out, make lots of friends, set up homestays, eat delicious and fresh food, wander in the woods, and maybe even study some of the minority language:Naxi. Yes, my job is the best.

In other news, I am going to Beijing on Thursday and I am slightly embarrassed to admit that the main reason for going is to play in the 3rd annual China Nationals Ultimate Frisbee Tournament that is taking place this weekend. It should be a lot of fun. Many of my friends from Kunming are going and many of the friends that I made at the Kunming tournament in February should also be there.

As soon as I get back to Yunnan I will be moving houses (down the street) because the lease is up on dragons current apartment that I am living in, which is absurdly and unreasonable beautiful and equally as expensive. The place that I am moving into is also beautiful, but much cheaper and in a nicer area that still feel like China, instead of feeling like a country club.

I am also beginning to think about the fact that I will be back in the states in a matter of months (assuming Swine Flu has not caused colossal human destruction by then). Don't worry, I will bring lots of gifts to bribe you all into being my friends again, but I will only give them to you after you listen to me talk for hours about my crazy experiences in the middle kingdom, and after you allow me to teach you at least one useful Chinese word.