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As made evident by the entry title, I'll be writing about what I consider an extraordinary experience: living with Laotian people and receiving a common Laotian salary ( perhaps less) in Vientiane, Laos. Before I continue, I believe my readers should know what to expect: observation into the lifestyle, beliefs, and practices of the Laos people; details as to my living conditions, wages, and work responsibilities;a report of the Laos New Year celebration; reports on what I saw of the countryside and other Laos cities that I had visited, and the occasional personal commentary. This is all dervied from the nearly two months I spent in Laos. Dates, as well as names and detailed descriptions of people, will be omitted unless they merit such a thing. Enjoy =].
-ON MY ARRIVAL AND STAY IN NANJING AND KUNMING, CHINA.
You should know what prompted me to go to Laos, and how I got there. The decision came to me as I was working as an English teacher in Zhenjiang, Jiangsu province, China. It was a terribly inefficient and shady private school, whose students were nearly all children. Upon realizing that my dissatisifaction with my job would
continue to grow, I decided it was time to leave. But where was I to go? I thought about another Chinese city but then I recalled some facts. In China, more private schools ( they're really after-school programs) tend to hire Western teachers than government (public) schools, and most parents tend to enroll their children into private schools at an early age and remove them when they're eligible for middle school. Some Westerners do work at middle schools, but it's difficult to get that sort of job; especially for me, since I didn't have a university degree. Those realizations convinced me that where ever I went in China, I'd end up with the same sort of job. Upon the advice of a special person, I decided to try my luck in Laos, as I thought the hiring standards were low and thus middle schools would be more accessible to me over there. My company withheld all foreign passports to prevent their teachers from leaving without notice ( that wasn't in the contract!), but since they knew I often sent money overseas on pay day and gave them no clue as to my discontent, I got my passport on that pretext
and left for nearby Nanjing ( if you knew how shady they were, you would not pity them). I had bought a plane ticket to Kunming in advance, and because I had an extra two days and had to depart from Nanjing anyway, I stayed with a friend who lived there.
This was my third time visiting Nanjing, and I'd seen nearly all that interested me, so I merely walked around until my friend returned home from some family gathering. When he did, we ate out, talked, laughed, and went to a really cool bar to party. It was a fun night, although I woke up with a hangover =/. I finally got on a plane and after six hours arrived at Kunming, Yunnan. After getting a little lost, I finally arrived at The Hump Hostel. From there, I bought the cheapest bus ticket possible and at the earliest possible time. The results were thus: a 30 hour bus ride from Kunming to Luang Prabang, Laos. It cost me about 430 Yuan. It was said that it'd have a bed for each passenger and was scheduled to leave at 18:00 ( 6:00 p:m) the following day. For
those who are wondering why I decided not to explore Yunnan province, the reason is that I wasn't sure about how quickly I'd find a job and thus thought it best to use as much money as I could to travel around Laos and survive until I could find work. I explored the city; it's like other big, modern Chinese cities, but with it's own charms. I saw people getting massages from apparently trained people wearing white coats. I had my shoe shined by a shoe shiner, and although it only cost 3 yuan, I gave the woman 10 for a job well done and out of pity. Kunming has, in my opinion, some of the prettiest women I've seen in China, coming second to Hangzhou. Some of the younger girls seem to have a sense of fashion- some nice, while others are a bit weird.
I decided to spend my night where, apparently, no foreigners care to venture: the roller skating arena! The Hump Hostel is practically adjacent to the bar areas but if one ventures out from the entrance path, one could go down an escalator, which leads to a roller skating arena and a
pool haul, if I recall correctly. It was a lot of fun. I'd like to describe the environment. One must purchase roller skates from the clerk for about 10 yuan and must walk though the skating area to the adjacent locker room in order to put on one's skates and secure one's shoes. Nearly all the locks were broken; I'm lucky that my shoes weren't stolen. The skates looked very old fashioned. Some were skating outside of the arena, while most were skating inside. The area was average sized; it was illuminated only by multi-colored lights coming from a big glass, disco-type glass ball, as well as the outdoor street lights. Some Chinese songs and many American songs had been played. There were many people there, and half of them could skate backwards, forward and side ways, jump a few inches, while some could skate on this small wooden ramp in one corner of the area. In a slightly elevated circular platform at the center, enclosed by steel bars, right beneath the illuminated ball, the more skilled skaters would take turns by taking a partner ( usually male-female) grabbed him/her by the hips (obviously most of the boys would do
this to the girls), lifted her up in the air, and spun her both around skillfully, without any injury. I was deeply impressed. Here's what didn't impress me about the night: the fact that I could only skate forward! It was hard to adjust. The fact that the skilled skaters kept speeding by people and causing some to crash didn't help matters, but to be fair, I enjoyed the activity. Once I adjusted ( which didn't take long), I decided to pick up my speed and avoided 95% of all the potential accidents that came close to harming me ( which I can't say for the other amateurs that night); needless to say, I have quite the potential for this =]. I met two Chinese girls who wanted to practice their English, and we ended up talking, skating together and playing pool later on. Unlike skating, I have virtually no potential for pool =/. The girl I played was quite good and beat me everytime.
I then decided to go back to the hostel to have a few beers and then went to sleep after mentally preparing my self for a long journey the following day. The next
day, I had trouble exchanging my Yuan for U.S. dollars because I didn't have a bank account, so I ended up having to go with a hostel staff worker from the hostel to get it done; apparently, a Chinese national being present is necessary in order to ensure said transaction under such circumstances. I'm not sure as to why. It's a good thing that I decided to do it early in the morning. Later in the day, a small minivan picked me up, took me to an unkempt bus station, and after a short wait, I boarded my bus, going to Luang Prabang.
To be continued.....
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