I am in Xishuangbanna, Yun Nan province. Banna for short. Banna is an autonoumous region inhabitated by many ethnic minorities, but mainly the Dai people. It is a subtropical region about a day's bus ride away from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province. Dai people outnumber Han people here. I arrived yesterday by plane - and have been exhausted these past few days, not to mention sick, but I have tried to put my body through playing a lot because I dont have a lot of time to spend here and there is so much to do!
I am going to try to remember what I did on each day since my last blog:
7/17 I had this crazy nightmare about being eaten by tigers, it was very frightening! I stayed home and slept all day. At night I got my hair washed at a haircuttery and got a massage - but massages always hurt! I think I should stop... My aunt's family and I went out to eat hot pot - which I always love! I'm getting a lot closer with my girl cousin, which is nice, but I still dont really know my two boy cousins well at all.
7/18 I had to wake up early today because there was a lot to do (which is very hard for me!) In the morning I was talking to my mom and she only JUST told me that my aunt manages a factory. I should've surveyed the workers there - sigh, and then she just yelled at me for not talking more to my aunt and my cousins. The good thing is, my Aunt said that she could survey the workers there and at other places as well for me and bring the survey results to Yunnan later to hand to me. Yay, my aunt is so capable, she was just like yeah I'll go to random places and make sure to finish these 40 surveys for you (her factory only has 6). She said when I get to Kunming, she will help me to finish more surveys there. I wish I could just do that, go to random workers and ask them to fill out a survey about sex. When I went to the copy store to print out the survey, the data was all corrupted! That stupid milk that leaked all over my luggage! And it was the ONLY copy I had - I'm so stupid. Fortunately I had a hard copy. Printing in Nanchang is so much cheaper than in Beijing. My business cards cost 80Y in Beijing (more than 10$) for 90, while in nanchang, it only cost 8!!
We went to TianXiangYuan, Sweet Sky Park, which is a migratory bird reserve. It was quite pretty, but we didnt get to see that many birds. My aunt said a few years ago when she came, the place was full of birds, looking at the treetops was like looking at a white layer of birds. Unfortunately, it's not like that anymore.
Getting money from the bank is kind of annoying in China. To get money from a different city than the one in which you opened an account, you have to pay 5Y per 1000Y. So I needed to get 20kY, which means I have to pay 100Y - or 15$. Also, there is a daily limit - so I would have to go back 10 times to get that much money.
Next I went shopping for a swim suit, but none of them really attracted me - until finally I found two that were way too expensive! However, my Aunt was still willing to buy them for me.. I also bought necklaces and other cute stuff :) Including a journal! Now I can write my innermost thoughts down and try to start some introspection! Which I am bad at. My girl cousin wrote in pretty letters in the cover page of the journal: Love, Sa Rang Hae, Li Meng Ting. Aww! That made me feel very good.
At night, my cousins took me roller skating at a nearby rink. Wow, the people there were so good. I haven't been roller skating since I was like 5 years old - I thought it would be easy, but no way! It's the kind with two rows of wheels, which sounds easier than blading but its not. I felt like I was ice skating for the first time. eventually I got the hang of it, and could even go backwards. Once I stopped thinking about what I was doing, it really did feel the same as ice skating (which I am pretty good at).
I suck at packing - I could not fit all my stuff into one suitcase - but my Aunt has an amazing ability to.
7/19 Arrived in Kunming in the morning - and then immediately went to go climb XiShan (Western Hills) - an ancient Taoist prayer mountain. There are many temples. Don't think when I say climb i mean hiking, it is really just walking on slanted pavement. Many people are wearing dresses and sandals to do it. On the way there, the weather was soo hot and the traffic was so congested. apparantly, that is an anomaly in Kunming, the weather is usually cool and the traffic not that bad on the weekends. The lake is full of some green algae - which smells SOOO BAD. China is sooo polluted. My mom's friend, Huan Xu, and her son Chenzichen, and his cousin, Gou Gou, picked me up from the airport. Huan Xu is my mom's high school best friend. Her son is fun enough, but Gou gou was so annoying, by the end of the two days I had spent with him, I was ready to leave just to get rid of him. We also met up with Guo Yang, the daughter of my mom's other friend - who is going to a university in Hong Kong starting this year. Her English is very good! And we both like Christina Aguilera.
At the top of Xishang is LongMeng, or dragon gate, which everyone said was supposed to be worthwile to see. So I paid 30Y to go in, and climbed these crazy stairs which go up and down and all around in circles leading no where. It was exhausting! When I finally got to Longmeng, i was like what?! this is IT?! It was so tiny, and not really any different than any of the other temples we had seen along the way. However, the view from the top was pretty - you could see the whole city scape of Kunming. The plants there are different as well.
At Guo Yang's house, she owns a professional karaoke set and we sang Britney Spears and Christina. Her family is quite rich, so she owns a big house. That is where I stayed, only the bedroom was so full of dust that I couldnt breathe. I asked if I could switch rooms the next night.
7/20 I woke up this morning and had a bad cold. The worst thing was that I had a cold AND a sunburn. LoL.
We took the bus to GuoJiBoShiYuan - international horticulture garden. We tried to buy student tickets, but they wouldnt give it to us because we didnt carry our student ids! Sigh - don't we look like students? There were people selling cheaper tickets at the front, but we were afraid that those could be fakes. I wonder - I dont think so though, I think they buy packs of tickets and sell them. In the garden, we ran into someone who offered to be our tourguide - not the official ones hired by the park, but a guy doing it on his own - we agreed to let him for 30Y, which is really cheap. It was a pretty good decision - not only could he take pictures for us (otherwise we would have to keep asking strangers to do it) he suggested very good picture angles and poses! We had a pretty short time to spend in the park, so he was able to tell us which places were more worthwhile to see than others. And he explained things to us as we went along, which made things much more interesting. Finally, he had a great, jovial character, and I enjoyed talking to him a lot. To make things even better, he was a migrant worker! One of the first I had talked to - and here was my chance - basically I paid him to talk to me! I asked him about his life, how much money he made, how he made ends meet, interests, life in Heilongjiang before migrating, family, etc etc. That was the most worthwhile part of my trip so far. Because in my research, I only ask them to do surveys, I don't get to learn about people. I had intended to talk more to the maid at Guo Yangs house, who is also a migrant worker, but didnt get time. I did ask Guo Yang a bit about her though. Even though the tour guide didnt make much, he seemed very happy with his life - and even has photography as a hobby! I was so satisfied with his service that I gave him 50Y (20 extra - and he seemed very happy).
In the afternoon we went to Da Guan Yuan, an old temple in Kunming. It was under construction, so we couldnt actually see the temple, which was pretty lame, but the park surrounding it was ok. There were a lot of old Kunming people playing Mahjiong and traditional instruments there. It was cool to just walk around and see what people in Kunming do. GuoYang kept buying me traditional Yunnan/Kunming food! Like in the Horticulture Park she bought me MiXian (rice noodles) - which was very similar to hot pot. In Daguanyuan, she bought me candy art (use candy to draw a picture of a dragon - it was so cool I'll upload a picture later), Mu Gua drink, Lotus Root Pudding.
At night we chatted about eachothers lives, showed her pictures and music that I like, and finally I slept in a non-dusty room aka her room. In the middle of the night, her mom came home froma business trip and came into the room thinking I was her. It was pretty funny.
7/21 In the morning I took a plane to XiShuangBanna. The flight was less than an hour and cost me about 50$. I had wanted to go to Shangrila, but we dont have family there so I came here instead. So far, it's not THAT tropical a paradise - and I think shangrila would've been better - but I came here to see family, not to play. My mom's father's sister and her children/grandchildren live here. I've never seen them before. She has two granddaughters, 14 and 16 years old, and the youngest one doesnt really enjoy talking to me. Oh well, I can talk to the older one. Their language here is kind of hard to understand, but easier than Nanchang hua. My great-aunt does look a lot like my grandfather.
We went to Dai Ethnicity Village, which is a park in which we can experience the life of the Dai People. First I watched the Water splashing festival. My aunt wanted me to participate but I refused, using my cold as an excuse. Po Shui Jie is a festival of the Dai New year, in which they splash water on eachother. The story goes that before there was a devil who wreaked havoc among the people, slaughtering people randomly. He had seven daughters, who realized the evil of the Devil. Putting righteousness about family, the worked together to kill their father. Afterwards, they splashed eachother with water to wash away remaining evil. The Dai splash water to commemorate the 7 sisters and to wash away the bad things of the past and bring good fortune with the new year. The Dai also worship the Peacock and the elephant, well I shouldn't say worship, because they are Thai Buddhists, but those animals are very highly regarded and appear in architecutre, art, fahsion, dance, music, etc.
Have you heard of the Mekong river in vietnam? Here it is called the Lancang river - first time i heard it, i thought they said Nanchang - so I said, does it flow through Nanchang? We drove along it to get to the park, and with the mountains in the background it is quite beautiful.
At night I watched a very exotic dance performance about the ethnic minorities in China. The danncing is really awesome - it mimics a peacock. The costumes are colorful and beautiful. The Dai language itself is interesting to listen to. It's written on everything here, but I cant read it at all - it looks more like arabic than Chinese.
There were two buses in Kunming that exploded today - Luckily i had just left and no one I know was affected. Still, its scary to think what might happen when i ride the bus in china...
7/22 Xishuangbanna (today) - I went to another Park about the Dai People - It was kind of boring. Basically I climbed a mountain and every 500 m or so there was a performance. It started with an animal performance - dogs, bears, and tigers doing tricks. It was kind of cruel and I couldn't really stand to watch it. Following that were various minority dances, costumes, and songs, but really once you watch that many, they all start to seem the same. That might sound kind of insensitive... There was a cool thing where they let the peacock all fly down from the mountain at the same time! Never seen so many peacocks together before. There are so many interesting plants and beautiful butterflies here. I also saw hummingbirds in the wild for the first time in my life! They are so small, I almost mistook one for a bee and almost killed it!
Now I am hanging out at my cousins house using their internet. Tonight I will go swimming and tomorrow I will go see monkeys and flowers! These few days have been productive both in having fun and research! I hope the rest of my trip is as productive and fun. I hope that during my stay in Yunnan, I can get to know my mom's side of the family better, because I have never seen most of them or am not that close with them. I really like Yunnan, the weather is much nicer than in Hubei or in Jiangxi and Beijing. Also there is a high prevalence of AIDS. I should come here more often!
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