Dali

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On Sunday I took a night train to Dali. I shared a hard class sleeper cabin with a group of three Chinese teenagers who were very friendly, and were too eager to teach me Chinese card games to allow me to sleep much. The Chinese course I took must have done me good, because we were able to talk quite a bit, albeit about simple things. One girl was particularly talkitive, and spent much of the time trying to create a travel route for me, based on the places in China that "all foriegners like". The fact that I managed to create such interest is a testement to just how boring train rides are for everyone.

I got to the train station closest to Dali in one piece, and a taxi driver brought me into the town itself, and dropped me off somewhere very far from my hostel. Of course, I didn't have any clue where I was. After I'd wandered for awhile, a guy on a motorbike offered to take me to the hostel for ten yuan. It was terrifying, but he got me to the right place.

It's possible to book a tour driver through the hostel, for 130 yuan for four hours. The price is the same, no matter how many people go on the tour. A girl from Italy wanted to rent a driver, but she didn't know anyone. I was eating breakfast with a French couple I'd met, and the hostel staff approached us and asked us to go on the tour, in order to save the girl money. We agreed. We went to a market just outside of the town, which is held every Monday. The rest of the tour was strange. Our guide took to bringing us into the houses of local people, who looked at us as if we had three heads, as we walked confusedly through their courtyards. Every so often he dropped us off in pretty places for a minute or two, and instructed us to take pictures.

I spent today wandering around old Dali, taking photos, and buying... stuff. I've bought so many gifts for people this vacation that I think now would be a convenient time to start the Christmas season all over again. I also tried the Bai three course tea. The Bai people are an ethnic minority that live in this part of China. Their popularity here is equal to that of lobsters in Maine. The first course of the tea was bitter (and I know the word for bitter in Chinese now, by the way), the second sweet (I know that word too! The sweet tea was a chunky mixture of water, goat cheese, nuts, and other stuff.), and I have no clue what the third was, but it smelled lovely.

Around lunch time I met an old lady, and we started talking. She invited me to her house for noodles. I spent an hour talking with her and her friend (in Chinese!). They were very sweet. China is an excellent language learning enviroment, because Chinese people are always so kind and encouraging of even the most feeble attempt at speaking their language. The lady and her friend asked me a lot of questions about America, why I was in China, what I thought of Bush/Obama/Chinese food/chopsticks/my students, how much many I made at my job, how long I'd be in China, my family, etc. In particular they asked me a lot of questions about my sister, and what she was studying at University, and if she sold the pictures she takes (she's a photography major) for lots of money, etc. The old lady gave me a leather keychain before I left. This marks the first substantial conversation I've had in Chinese.

Chinese isn't the only language I've been able to practice. The rooms at the hostel each consist of four beds. Two of the girls sharing a room with me are German, and the other is Austrian. So, whenever we're in the room together, we speak in German. I don't know where and how I've managed to improve my German, but conversing in German is more easy than I ever remember it being. My biggest problem is that I keep accidently mixing in Chinese words.

Although I almost never meet a foriegner who is not my co-worker while I'm in Wuhan, I've been meeting lots of foriegners living in Wuhan since I came to Yunnan provence. At my language school I met a guy who teaches at a University in Hankou (the other side of Wuhan). He came up to me saying he'd seen me before, but I'd never seen him. Then, yesterday I kept crossing paths with these two Russian girls. After running into the more than four times, we decided that we ought to go out for coffee together. It turns out that one of the girls is a university student in Wuhan, and her school is even very close to mine. She was an incredibly nice girl, so we exchanged contact information. One of the German girls that I'm rooming with also lives very close to Wuhan, and wants to visit the city in the spring.

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Comments

[Bruce Jones]

It sounds like you are having the GREATEST time!!! It is just boring old winter here in Maine.....Miss ya' and wish you well......cc to Betty and Carole