Red is the colour

According to the Chinese calendar and horoscope, every 12 years each of us is faced with a year of his/her own animal. I used to think (assume) that this would be a good thing, being a horse it sure would be nice if it was the year of the horse. My year! Everything would go my way!

But no, as I have been informed, the year of your own animal is actually everything but smooth sailing. This is a time for extra caution, or you will have to face tough times.

But no worries, as usual, there is a way to counter the bad luck. And the answer simply is: Red. The daughter of my Chinese family therefore, being a rooster, was well prepared on new year's eve with a stack of brand new red underwear to take her through the year. Not forgetting a pair of red trainers. And a jade buddha pendant on a red string around her neck.

For her sake, let's all hope it works!!

Cherry blossoms

Ahhh, Kunming!!
The city of flowers and sunshine...dum-di-dum...
Or so goes the eternal chant of the tourism office. But, believe or not, for once it's all true!
Kunming is called the 'spring city' of China, as all year round the weather is like in the spring. And the 'city of flowers', for obvious reasons. Despite being a big Chinese city with all the usual ugly buildings covered in bathroom-like tiles, Kunming has some beautiful parks, full of green and flowers. On one side, the city is bordered by a big, big lake, reaching over 40 km in length. Right now, it's the time for the cherry blossoms to be at their finest, covering the city in pretty, pink flower clouds.

And the sunshine. :) :) Since my arrival here, i've seen two or three cloudy days, and for the rest of the time it's sunny sunny sunny. And one of the first things I noticed here when I first got here in November was the bright blue sky. What a difference from the smoke and haze-covered skies of so many Chinese cities.

So, as cities go, not a bad place to be at all.

...But the real beauty lies in the province all around Kunming -- Yunnan. So far i have only been to a few places in person, but I've seen lots and lots of pictures and heard many stories. And everything suggests that Yunnan is one of the most beautiful places i have ever seen in the world. From the snowy mountains to volcanoes to the south, where the weather and culture are like those of South-East Asia. The 26 different ethnic groups bring their different flavours to the life and culture of the province, although some of it annoyingly employed by the tourism industry (of course).

Lots to see, and to do, over time.

But right now, I've had enough of travelling and seeing new places, I'm quite happy to get down to my studies on monday. This said, I've just spent a wonderful day with a buddhist monk and some other people from the Kunming Buddhist Seminary, with whom i might yet be doing some projects. We'll see what will happen with all that.

Will post some pictures soon, I think. :)

Face and money

The day before yesterday I had a little bit of a face-loosing moment at home with the dad of the family. I had asked Yin Jia about how much I should pay them every month for staying there and she told me her mum had suggested 600 yuan (60 euro), which i thought was great, seeing that it includes absolutely everything, not least the great food every day :) And being able to live with the family, which i'm truly enjoying.

So, as the mum is away for a week (she works at the tax department and is working on some confidential documents, so she is away in the countryside with her colleagues, in an isolated environment...funny that), I took the money to the dad as he was watching TV in the living room. And as soon as he saw the money, his face went all funny and he got very, very embarrassed. I explained that it was the sum the mum had suggested and that I thought it was very little, that i was a little embarrassed to be giving so little for all they are giving me. (As they have already given me much more than a 600 yuan worth, they've even given me money and bought all kinds of things...). But he was there with tears in his eyes, saying how embarrassing it was to accept money from me, how he thought i was a guest and how he had told his wife that they should not ask me for any money. So there we were, with the stack of notes on the table, both embarrassed. But I tried to explain how i'd feel bad not paying, how i'd pay a lot more if i lived on my own like other students, and how lucky i felt being able to live there. So, in the end, he started getting all kinds of food and snacks and piling it in front of me, saying that I have to make sure that i eat everything i find in the house, that i feel free to use everything they have, to completely be at home. So there I was, eating peanuts with him, hoping it would be ok.

And it is :)

As for the family, the grandfather is not too well, nothing serious but he hasn't been eating well, stomach problems and such, so he is now in the hospital for a few days, getting some extra care. And someone from the big family is there with him all the time, which is nice.

And the grandmother that lives in the house, as i have found out, is actually the younger sister of the father's mother. As she has been deaf almost all her life, as a result of an illness she had when she was three, her sister took her with her when she moved to Kunming from the village in Jiangsu province.

It's great seeing the way they treat the old people. Someone is always taking care of them, someone will give the grandpa a massage every night while he is wathing TV for example.

And another thing that is great, and different from what i have seen in other Chinese families, is how the housework is divided equally among the parents. The dad is cleaning and cooking as much or maybe even more than the mum.

This for now, more about my new home city soon :)

Mother's brother's wife's cousin's son

Happy new year to everyone! The monkey has gone and the rooster has entered :)

And my new Chinese family life is going well, in the whirpool of cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmas and countless others who even my 'sister' can't always name. It has been a wonderful few days, being drawn into the noisy, lively family celebration, going out to see places around Kunming, playing tennis, eating together, and just hanging out with the family. Not that I understand a whole lot of what's going on or what's being said, as everybody speaks the local dialect of Kunming, which is often very very different from the 'standard' Mandarin Chinese, or Putonghua as it's called in China. But no matter, i just tag along and smile at people and hit the tennis ball when it's my turn!

The day before the actual new year's day, the dad called me into the kitchen to learn how to cook some Chinese dishes, as I had asked him to teach me some time. And you can imagine how I felt, as a vegetarian moreover, as I realised the what was going to be cooked was a big huge pile of Pig hooves and a live turtle, wriggling in a plastic bag. So i stood there, nodding and trying to seem interested and dodging the flying splinters of bone and flesh as the dad was whacking at the pig legs with a huge axe. I was dreading that he would ask me to help, but thank god he never did. The point where I had to admit that it was too much for me and left the kitchen was when the turtle was pulled out of the bag to be killed. I came back briefly to see the guts in a big bowl and the skin being pulled off the lifeless head but that then was the final end to my cooking lesson. Oh well... :)

The people in the family have been absolutely fantastic anyway, I was given a little 'red envelope' with money inside by the parents, they have gone out of their way to cook veggie dishes (they even had me teach them how to make salad!!) and so on and so forth. It seems now that I was really lucky to come across the chance to come live here.

A million stories to tell of our new year and the big family, but i'll continue next time, as I must be getting back home.

First remove the squid

Yesterday I moved into my new home, in the north of the Kunming city. The area itself is not particularly nice, and a stuffy 30-minute busride away from the central places. Old concrete buildings and dusty streets. But the building where I'm staying is a fairly fancy one, and the flat is probably the biggest I have seen so far in China. My room, on the other hand, is a tiny little box with just enough space for a bed, a little desk, and a bookshelf. But that's all i need :) The best thing is that it's *my* room, a place where I can take a break from the outside world. On the downside, just outside my bedroom window roars a huge 2-level road, so instead of the ideal waking up to birds singing, i get to wake up to honk honk wroooooom.

Other occupants of the flat include the parents, a 20-something girl called Yin Jia, a half-deaf grandpa into whose ear you need to shout in order to communicate and a grandma who has been deaf all her life and is spoken to with hand signs (which really works, into an extent, as I found myself having a conversation with her this morning about how annoying the big road is, being noisy and dirty, so they have to clean the windows a lot).

In addition, there are a couple of chickens living in a cardboard box, whom I suspect may be invited to Spring Festival dinner in a special dress, as well as a big bucket of dead squid in the bathroom just under the shower. Made me giggle yesterday when the dad was explaining to me how the shower works, as he began by "first move out the smelly squid". This should possibly be included in the user's manual.

Understandably, I still feel like a guest and kind of tiptoe around, not quite knowing what i should or shouldn't do. But all in all it all seems very nice. Just a couple of more days to go until Spring Festival....!!!

Test

Just a test post to see if this works.

Back in the Middle Kingdom

Nihao everyone!

Here is the grand launch of the Stage II of the Chinese blog. After a luverly European holiday, I am back in the land of 'HHHeeaallos', stares, spit and endless attempts to rip off the laowai. China! :)

This time, i move away from my glorious career as an educator of the masses, and get back to the other side of the classroom myself. Here in my new home city, Kunming, I have already registered with the provincial Yunnan University for 6 months of studying Chinese. The classes will start on February 22 (I think... these things are never certain in China). Before that, we still need to get trough the last days of the year of the monkey and move on to the year of the rooster.

As I went to the university to register, I was immediately taken under the wing of two ladies, who practically arranged my life for me, and then took my out for a good lunch. Hehe. So, instead of sharing a flat with other students, I am going to live with a Chinese family. To start with, at least, we'll see how it goes. But in any case, I am sure it will be an experience to share my life with three generations of Chinese under the same roof.

So, keep on eye on updates and look out for stories of Chinese family life. However, I have to warn that my blog really seems to to work, I can access the page but cannot seem to post normally. But I'll try to do it through a combination of emailing the blog and manually updating it. See if it works :)
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