What Bed am I Sleeping in Tonight?

No, this isn’t a post about sleeping around, although everyone knows how I’m all about that. Rather, it’s about a crazy turn of events that has led me all across China in just one week. Last night I slept in the same bed for more than one night for the first time this trip. In traveling order, I’ve been to Beijing, Benxi, Huanren, Shenyang, back to Beijing, then to Kunming. When I left off last, I was in Huanren making friends with the wrong people…

Well, the cultural camp that I was there to set up was cancelled by the government. It seems like the Chinese Communist government has become an energy vampire in the lead-up to the Olympics. They are being hyper-sensitive to any activities involving foreigners, as shown by extremely tight visa restrictions right now. In short, they are scared of terrorist attacks and protests, among other things. The Olympics were supposed to be China’s coming-out party—a showcase to the world. It seems that just when they should be opening the floodgates to visitors, they’re going Kim Jong-Il-style and locking the place down. I even read that bars and drinking in Beijing will be restricted, and parties will also have stipulations. Leave it to the Chinese government to suck the fun out of everything.

Anyway, the camp was cancelled. The only way to describe it is, “Well damn”. I had spent the last six months preparing for the camp: communicating with potential volunteers, editing documents for the camp, translating ideas sent to me by the camp leader who only spoke Chinese, and so on and so forth. I’d spent many hours, while in school, working on this. Even worse, my entire Ingram Scholars project was based around this—I couldn’t go to China and spend their $5,000 traveling (although that’d be nice). I think what hit me most was that I had volunteers coming to China on the basis of helping out with the camp. I felt I had let them down, even though I knew it was out of my control. Well I reasoned, it’s a sunk cost. There’s nothing I can do about those lost hours now and what has happened. Just make the best of what’s ahead.

And what was ahead turned about to be better. We were to go to Kunming for another camp. Michael arrived in Huanren the day after me, and was then told that we were going back the exact way he had just came (it’s not an easy journey). Via buses and trains, we went through Shenyang and Beijing, where we were put up in a nice hotel for the night. We didn’t eat dinner until midnight, but at that point it was just more of the same. A couple cold beers were in order to numb our frustration. We toasted to the past five days we had had, and I’m pretty sure he was also secretly toasting to his leaving the program. He jumped ship the next day—he had had enough, and wanted to go Shanghai instead of Kunming. I wasn’t going to try to drag someone along who didn’t want to be there.

We flew out on separate planes the next day (pictured), courtesy of EAFI. When I arrived in Kunming, I was received by one of the nicest ladies I’ve ever met. Mrs. Wang is the organizer for another camp put on by EAFI. This one had not been canceled and they needed me to help. It fit perfectly: the camp is from July 20-27, and until then I can do my research. Things were back on track. This was the bed I have now slept in for two nights, and many more nights look to be in order. (my place is pictured, outside and inside)