WARNING!! This is going to be a long post... And I'll do it in two parts as it's about two different places and experiences, so here goes Part 1:

Before I go back in time, let me start by telling where I'm now. I'm sitting in a web cafe in a city called ShaoXing in Zhejiang Province (which is where i was headed anyway, not Jiangsu as I think I wrote before...). I definitely wasn't planning on coming here but that's what I want it all to be about now, not planning and just letting this country HAPPEN to me.

This place is lovely, though, it's a kind of an "unimportant" city (only 4,3 million people anyway!! Chinese scale again...), I'd certainly never heard of it before. But today, I arrived in Hangzhou (I'll get to how that happened in Part 2...) planning on staying there for a couple of days, but found out that all the hotels were really expensive and foreigners were not allowed to stay in the cheaper rooms. And it's not that great a place anyway, it really has a feel of a tourist city, and a hihg-class and expensive one at that. So, I jumped on the train and an hour later I was here in Shaoxing, which I find is a great place, it's clean, freen, pretty and peaceful (for a city of 4,3 million that's pretty good!!!), a nice combination of old and new. It's partly that China that we know from those films about old China, it's what they here call a 'water town', meaning that it's full of little canals, lined by beautiful old houses. And parks :) and even the new parts look nice, and not tacky like in the north... Me like it!!

But let's go back in time...

So, from Baoding I took a bus to go with Alan (Wang Zhi Yong) to his village in the Yi County of the Baoding area. On the bus we met a woman who turned out to be the head mistress of a kindergarten in Yi Xian. She asked us to go visit the kindergarten, just quickly, after which she'd give us a lift to the Dong Liu Quan village. Though Alan was a little reluctant, it was difficult to say no to a 20-minute visit and a ride that would get us to our destination probably a lot quicker than having to wait for the next bus.

And so we went. I was expencting a bunch of happy little kids (as i've seen before!!), laughing their 'hellos'
or 'ni hais'. But to my surpirese what I found were masses of sullen-looking children, no smiles, no laughter, no curiosity -- like someone had turned their spirits off! I still don't get whty there were like that, the place seemed ok, they had their classrooms and dorms and games and playground... Was it because their parents didn't have the time to be with them? Or the fact that they actually had to go to classes at 3 to 5 years old? I really don't know but it just felt weird and a little creepy.

And they were smelly. The classrooms smelled of them too, a kinda stuffy sour-milky something. Ugh. I tried to make contact with some of them, but most of them just didn't care. Soi different from the kids i've seen before!I did manage to get a couple of smiles, but that was all. I went into a couple of classes they were having and had to do English teaching shows, though they kids looked like they couldn't have cared less. But they got their pictures and video film (of course they called the cameramen to come wittness the occasion!). It wasn't that bad (maybe I'm axaggerating), but it definitely was weird. Anyway, the woman was really nice and we finally drove to the village together.

I spent one night in the village with Alan's family. This time his dad was home, too. And his little brother, for whom it was the first day to go to his new boarding school in Yi Xian, so we took him there in the afternoon. It was kinda sad, as he's only 12 and didn't really want to go, but there is no middle school in the village and he is good enough a student to get into this school which is the best in the county, and you have to live in the dorms... no going home at night even if you live close by. So we left him there, with his new glasses that we went to buy first and his bag of instant noodles. All the other boys in his dorm room (there are 12 in one room!) are a lot bigger and rougher, I think, he is like this little smart and sensitive kid, a really nice and sweet boy. But it's going to be a little tough for him to make it in the new place. Smart and sensitive kids aren't exactly the ones that get to be 'on top' in that kind of environments.

The next morning, he already called home, which made the mum cry, she really feels for him but what can you do. And while on the phone she was being very brave and happy, trying to encourage him. My heart really goes out for him...

It was funny that being in the village, most people didn't pay too much attention to me. In the towns and cities I'm so used to being the object of everyone's attention thyat it was a big change to be treated without any special curiosity. Not in the emply way of the kindergarten kinds, but just naturally, as just a *person* among others. Although I did have someone come and touch my hair...

Alan's mum is such a sweetie, she made her best dishes for me and would have had me stay for a lot longer. And she was making me swear to come back, for Spring Festival if possible. We'll see. In any case, it was nice being there, sitting outside in the courtyard at night, watching the fireflies and listening to the distant sounds from other homes, and otherwise enjoying the darkness and the silence.