Tibetan Horse Races and Suckling Pig Roasts

Part 1: Racing Horses

Considering the fact that my last post contained no real or substantial information about the things that I have been doing lately, I figured I would update once more before I take off for Hangzhou and Shanghai tomorrow.
The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy because it is crunch time for summer program preparations. This means that I have been going on fun homestay family visiting marathons all over Kunming (4 families in 36 hours) and then sitting inside staring at my computer and practicing my copying, pasting, and resizing skills (slightly less fun.)
Still, I would not even try to pretend that my life is all work and no play. Not even close. A few weekends ago, during Dragon Boat Festival (for which we get time off from school and work), I went with a few friends up to Shangrila (aka Zhongdian...the Chinese government changed the name to attract tourist, and it worked.) for a few days to watch the Tibetan Horse Racing Festival that takes place there every year. After a 12 hour overnight bus ride, of which I probably slept about 11 hours, I arrived in cloudy and rainy Zhongdian, not really knowing what to expect. Was the festival going to be touristy and gross and make me uncomfortable with its flashiness and fakeness? I mean, in the states I am not a huge horse racing fan, and China isn't really known for being so nice to animals (or Tibetans, for that matter.)
I ended up being pleasantly surprised by the whole experience. To get to the stadium you had to walk along a road filled with all sorts of interesting vendors and carnival games. However, carnival games in China are a bit different than in the states, meaning they include such games as "ring around the cigarettes" (guess what you win!) and the "chuck-the-ball-at-bottle-of-beer-and-knock-it-over" game, as well as a good old fashion one liter bottle of beer chugging contest (which my male companions participated in at the bright and early time of 11am). Once we finally got to the stadium, the horse races had already started. The stadium itself was huge and I am told that it was built exclusively for the purpose of hosting this festival, and that during the rest of the year it sits empty or people learning to drive go there to practice. The crowd around us was mostly Tibetans and some Han Chinese tourists. The first couple races were pretty ordinary horse races. We entertained ourselves by places bets, more for pride or bragging rights than anything else, since the winner only got 1 kuai (about 15 cents). It is possible that this was culturally inappropriate, but when the Tibetans started playing our game with us, it made me feel like it was alright.
The coolest event that we witnessed (we missed the crossbow events that took place at 8am) involving 20 colored ribbons being laid out on either side of the track, and then the rider, going at top speed, leaning off of the side of his horse and trying to pick up as many ribbons as he could off of the ground. This is not as easy as it sounds. Basically, these guys would have one leg on the horse and the rest on their body hanging completely over the side while they rode at break neck speed. Another fun part was that the horses were all pretty wild, they did not really do what they were supposed to do all of the time. There was an announcer of the loud speaker that I really enjoyed listening to because they said funny things like, "The person must control the horse, the horse should not control the person." And, when one guy completely fell off of his horse, did a few rolls on the ground, and then did not succeed in picking up any ribbons the announcer said, "This guy is kind of old. But he's got personality." When another rider was pissed because his horse swerved away from the ribbons at the last minute and started punching his horse in the face, the announcer said, "There is no need to hit the horse."
It rained the whole time that I was in Zhongdian. Therefore, I was left no choice but to spend my time playing cards, eating obscene amounts of Yak meat dumplings and Yak milk yogurt, and lounging in outdoor hot springs under a crazy limestone bridge rock formation. Not a bad way to spend Dragon Boat Festival.

Part 2: Roasting Pigs
(disclaimer: for all vegetarian, vegan, and vegetarian friendly people who are reading this, I would like to say: I am sorry.)

Yesterday, around noon, I got a call from my friend Jono saying that they were planning to go to a restaurant where you could order an entire roast pig for dinner and asking if I would like to come. I said yes.
It is interesting because before I came to China I had not eaten Beef or Pork in years. I was even a bit uncomfortable with eating things that had bones in them (chicken, fish, etc) and I drank soy milk and ate few dairy products or eggs. Last semester, when all of my friends would complain about the lack of cheese in China, I would feel pretty apathetic. I definitely wasn't vegetarian, but I wasn't an avid meat eater either. I think that if you have asked me a year ago to attend a pig roast, I would have politely declined.
But now I am in China, where you see meat carcasses hanging from store windows (my mother did not like this) and where just about everything has meat added (for flavor, ofcourse.) I am also obsessed with Chinese yogurt, and have come to appreciate how delicious fresh fish can taste, so good that it is worth the hassle of navigating around the bones.
I am not sure what all of this will translate into when I get back to the states, but for now, I pretty much will eat whatever is put in front of me, including a roasted suckling pig.
As we drove out to the restaurant, it became increasing clear to me that I was about to take part in a weird sort of male bonding ritual involving the sacrifice and tearing to pieces of a dead animal with your own two hands. When the pig was actually placed in front of us, all pink and glazed and covered with spices, everyone's first comment was "that's not a very big pig," followed by "if it is too big than it is not as tasty." Hmmmm. Interesting.
As soon as everyone arrived, the feasting began. We were given packages of plastic gloves to put on, (so we weren't actually tearing it apart with our bear hands) and some people also chose to use their chopsticks to break off pieces of meat, so as to be more civilized. It was already pretty late by the time we started eating, and everyone was pretty hungry, and so the pig that had been sat in front of us all disappeared at a somewhat alarming rate. It was delicious, and I feel also somewhat educational. We all learned, for example, that pig ears are not very tasty, pig faces are somewhat fatty, and baby pigs in general do not have much meat on their bones.
It was probably only about a half an hour from the time the pig was sat down in front of us until all that was in front of us was a pile of bones.
Afterward, we sat around drinking beer and having guy conversation, leading me to comment that "It is not a big roast until you start talking about prostitutes." We also had some excitement when my friend Stew decided that it would be a good idea to mess with the course of nature and see what would happen if the giant moth on the wall of our room faced off with the Giant Spider on the web above us. Well, what happened was that the moth hit the web, the spider lunged toward the moth, but finding him to be twice his size, ending up losing and taking a near fatal fall into my lap. Or at least the space where my lap would have been if my survival instincts had no kicked in, causing me to dive into the lap of the person next to me.