Passed Around Like a Cheap...

So I realize it's been a while since I last posted. I've been busy...busy getting passed around. Tuesday through Friday I went to a nearby town called Jinning, which is kind of like a suburb of Kunming, to tour schools for my research. For each school I was hosted by a different group of teachers and administrators. I came back on Friday afternoon, caught my breath, and then started Saturday with another couple groups of Chinese families that were hosting one of the volunteers I recruited. So basically, Tuesday morning through Sunday night, with the exception of Friday night/Saturday morning I was accompanied by someone all day.

Now, having a host is all good and nice, but having 25-30 hosts in one week is quite a different story. Each host wants to take you out to eat three meals a day, order the food they think you should try (or are the "specialties" of this area), ask you the same questions about your background you've been asked repeatedly, and won't let YOU rest until you've experienced the China they think you should. Never mind them coming with you the entire time...they'll just pass you off to someone else.

For example, at meals, they'll order an excessive amount of food, as is custom when you have a visitor (especially foriegn), and then basically force feed you until you explode. You definitely get to try some good food (see me eating yellow watermelon, which is extra sweet), but then you also have your questionable ones: just in the last week I've eaten eel, snake skin, rabbit, and pig's ear. I went along with this jig early on, but now I just put my foot down and tell them I'm full. I know there's more food coming soon...when they run out of things to do with you they just have you eat, so sometimes you'd be eating dinner at absurd times, like 4:30.

And at meals it's custom to drink "baijiu", which is 50% alcohol...kind of like a strong vodka. And it's required that you toast to someone or everyone each time you take a drink (see the pic). I finally traded in for beer, but man.

Trying this food and doing these toast traditions is cool with me, and these people had no problem with it, but that's probably because they were only experiencing it for one day (I tend to believe that they don't have all this extravagance when it's just their family), where as I was pretty much doing it for 5-6 days straight. You start to get worn out, especially when everyone's speaking Chinese and you're struggling to follow the conversation...working your brain that much can get exhausting, if you've ever experienced with foreign languages.

However, the trip was productive—the research was good, and I saw some interesting stuff, like the paintings on the sides of the houses that were being done in a local Yi minority village. The local government was paying $30,000 (yes, American dollars) to paint the sides of all the houses along the street in this village. They were all depicting the spring festival. It was a pretty incredible undertaking, as there were a lot of houses--it reminded me of building the homecoming float, and how over the top we went.

Another plus, I made a couple new friends: Rex and Yang Zhan (Yang is with me in the close up...how cute). When they were together, Rex was the talkative one, as he was an English teacher with pretty decent English. He would speak in English and I would answer back in Chinese. He was a little extreme with his hospitality—everything from giving up his chair for me at the dinner table to making sure I had plenty of bottled water at all times. When we finally pulled up to my hotel on the day I was with him, he said he would come with me to help me get to my room (I had been living there for two days). When I politely replied that I thought I could handle it, he said, "Well, just deal with it." I think some of the meaning/intention got lost in translation, but I was still taken aback a bit. I told him that I was not his girlfriend, and that he didn't need to walk me.

A similar situation happened the next day when, after asking to have a break a take a nap before dinner, we pulled up to the hotel again. This time Rex wasn't there. When I got out the driver/host asked, "Does your room have one or two beds?" I gave a confused reply: "Two." "Well, then Yang Zhan should come sleep with you and keep you company." Now they'd stepped over the line. I told him that all I'd be doing is sleeping...nothing too exciting. Yang Zhan, who ended up being a really good friend (soon to be a senior in H.S.) and who gave me some red tea as a parting gift, could take a hint and refused to come up to my room.

I'm sorry to sound so negative—I really appreciate them taking me in. But at some point, hospitality becomes excessive, and actually defeats its purpose. It becomes pushy. I think a few of my hosts this past week touched this point. Tomorrow I head back to the countryside for three days. Wish me luck.