I left my readers hanging, with the tempting prospect of hearing about the summer camps The FS group would be running. Though it is now a month later, and those camps seem eons away, I feel I ought to continue in chronological order so as not to confuse my loyal readers.
The First summer camp was also in Guangxi, in Daxin county. Daxin snuggles up next to Vietnam, which meant we were in one of the southernmost parts of China. We arrived late at night, after the marvelous sunset on the road had already passed. Though we were exhausted and would begin teaching class bright and early the next morning, my roommate, Linsen, and I decided to strike off in search of some food to sate our hungry bellies. Along the way, we could explore a tiny bit our new surroundings.
Heading off in a arbitrary direction, we found ourselves first in a barren wasteland of fashion-clothing shops, with nary a food stand in sight. After making some inquiries from a couple bored-looking (and uncharacteristically unhelpful) Chinese guys, we quickly found ourselves in a surreal landscape that bore resemblance to nothing other than a Tim Burton-created suburbia with Chinese characteristics. I had never before and never since seen anything like it in China. All the buildings and objects were pastel-rainbow shades of lime green, powder pink, baby blue, and more. The architecture was an attempt at European imitation, and the roads were wide, the store entrances bright and open, and the place nearly empty. Gone were the bold and gaudy colors that all Chinese love, even the reds and golds that define the Chinese life were nary to be seen. And yet, it was nothing that could ever exist in America or Europe. I felt like I had stepped into some eerie and disquieting landscape best never unearthed. Lin sen at first was confused at my discomfort, but gradually he too admitted that this was no China that he had ever seen before, and that it was freaky. There were nice looking cars parked on both sides of the street, for crying out loud!
After a time, we managed to find a grill that was still open, and ordered a medley of meet and vegetables on skewers to satisfy our hunger. We sat in on lime green chairs and looked at unnaturally chipper pastel pictures of fruit on the wall. Moving on, we found another place that sold stirfried rice noodles, and that solved our problem. We quickly returned to our hotel, where I found myself still ruminating over my experience. I realized that my disquietude stemmed not from the place being weird, but that I could not find a way to explain it in the context of the rest of my experiences in China. It just didn’t fit, and that was upsetting.
The next morning as we walked over to the Elementary school, we passed through that same neighborhood. It turns out that we had dined only a couple hundred feet away from the school! Over the next few days, I would still be perplexed by that part of town (especially because none of the Chinese people, whether locals or Fan Laosh, seemed to find it strange), but gradually came to an uneasy tolerance of it. I would discover later that it was not only external architecture that had been altered, but interior decorating as well: Linsen and I ate dinner with the family of one of our students. They were well off, and their kitchen-dining-living room were all the same white-and-pastel theme. I never found an answer to it; I can only imagine that some enterprising designer was good friends with an urban developer, and the locals caught on to the fad.
The first day of classes began a little late. I discovered about half an hour before-hand that I was supposed to co-represent ACC and say a few words of introduction. I hadn’t really prepared, and so I scratched out a few platitudes with the other student who was speaking, and together we didn’t embarrass ourselves, but didn’t do ourselves proud either. Unfortunately, we were shown up by the great speech by a ten year-old girl.
I was a bit nervous at beginning to teach class “for real”. I knew that I didn’t have any problems, having already taught my material many times back in Chengdu, but it had been a while since I last looked at my materials, and who knew what these kids might bring? As it turns out, they brought no new troubles or surprises. The first day of teaching was a success.
That evening, we were invited to dinner with the local lingdaos. The term lingdao is usually translated as “officials” in English, but I think that “bigwig” is just as good and accurate a translation. These are people who have authority and power, though where or how exactly, no one knows. One of my greatest frustrations during FS was not knowing who was controlling what, and why. The explanation, when given, was that it was something the lingdao had decided (and to make this lack of information even less informative, lingdao can be singular or plural). In our case, the lingdaos were almost always associated with education in some way. I think.
Another aspect of lingdaos in China is that they act very much like local strongmen, or maybe like gang leaders. They may not have a lot of power in the big scheme, but they rule their tiny fiefdoms without question. This peculiarity of Chinese culture (especially rural culture) would become relevant to us all too soon. But first, we had dinner with some of them.
As mentioned earlier, Zhuang people are the specialty of Guangxi province. Some of our lingdaos were Zhuang people, and so they took it upon themselves to introduce to us some aspects of Zhuang culture, particularly the ceremony of alcohol-drinking between host and guest. The host brings a bowl of rice wine (approximately 40 proof; a nice mid-level alcohol in Chinese livers) and spoon-feeds two generous sips of wine to the guest; the guest then takes the second ladle and does the same for his host. This is above and beyond the regular free flow of beer that naturally must accompany a formal dinner. We had been warned that an abundance of alcohol was one of the challenges we would face in our field studies, so I was excited at the event, even though I find little pleasure in the bottle.
As the dinner progressed, I realized that I had already gone beyond my previous alcohol record (set at 3 large bottles of beer while in Chengdu), but that I would be fine – I’m rather conservative, but I can manage when I need to. It was at that point, however, when the biggest lingdao rose from his chair and made an offer for anyone who was interested to go to his house (to continue drinking, of course). It was then I had a choice: to stay behind, get to bed early, and not have any negative effects from our evening, or to go into the wild beyond, suffer harms, but perhaps obtain knowledge and understanding by my efforts. There were five of us who went with him.
Chinese men can drink, and I am no match for them. I knew that if I went, I would get drunk, throw up, and be absolutely miserable the next morning. Yet I went – because it was the only way I could see the way this part of Chinese culture works; I could never get this window traveling on my own. Furthermore, I reasoned, should down the road I find myself in a situation requiring me to do the same, perhaps to seal some important business decision, or to get some American citizens freed from jail or what have you, I would be better off to figure out what goes on now, when I’m a nobody student and the negative results would not have any long-term or important impact.
It turns out that we went to the fellow’s brother’s apartment, where there was a table completely covered in food and surrounded by doughty men in their mid-fourties or so. We were offered samples of the food, including what we later discovered was almost certainly an endangered snake, and the obligatory many cheers of rice wine (as an aside, at least this rice wine, unlike the clear fire-water they call baijiu, didn’t taste like industrial cleaner mixed with chemical waste). Having gained entrance, I spent most of the rest of the evening camped out in the corner trying to be inconspicuous to avoid too many cheers of alcohol, and focusing on keeping my head as clear as possible. Eventually the festivities ended, we had one last cheer (which I, realizing I was quite beyond any reasonable consumption limit, spat out once we got politely out of the building), and made ourr wending way back to the hotel, where I proceeded to spend the entire night throwing up anything that was in my stomach, or even had the intention of going into my stomach.
At 7 in the morning I was still throwing up. At 8, I girded up my loins and ventured out into the street to teach my five classes of eager elementary school kids. It was hit-or-miss for a while, I kept a solid eye on the waste bin location in each classroom, and I didn’t eat a bite of food until dinner, but I made it through the day. One girl even came up and told me that all the other classes had felt like an eternity, but my class went so well it only felt like ten minutes! After a good nap I felt much refreshed, but the final test was dinner.
We student-teachers had been divided into roommate pairs and were sent off to local family’s homes to have dinner with them. It was a way for them to show hospitality, and we got to chat with the local families in their own homes. A local teacher accompanied each pair to make sure things all worked out well. Fan Laoshi had already spread the word that we had gotten a little tipsy the night before, and me particular – which I felt was a little unfair, as I drank as responsibly as possible, weigh approximately nothing, and still clear-headed enough to dig out our schedule and correctly set my alarm clock the night before. Never-the-less, the positive result of this was that the good intentions of the family host, manifested in the jug of rice wine sitting close at hand, had to transpose themselves onto a moderate single bottle of beer each for Linsen and me. I entertained well enough, if I say so myself, and our evening went pleasantly.
That was the end of my first and only experience with being drunk. I don’t regret it, because I got to experience a taste (or more than just a taste…) of Chinese culture, but why anyone would ever subject themselves to that voluntarily boggles my mind. The process of getting drunk isn’t fun anyway, and the resulting incapacitation is miserable. Long live teetotalers!
Alcohol, however, can be even worse when mixed with some bad cultural trends. Later that night, when Linsen and I were considering calling it a (long) day and hitting the sack, we got a call from Fan Laoshi, telling us to head to her room, pronto, for an emergency meeting. It turns out that while I was trying to teach class without throwing up, a couple other teachers were having trouble teaching class as well: the principal of the school, who was not among the host of lingdaos whom we had met already, suddenly made a drunker appearance, and made some inappropriate moves on several of our female program members – while they were teaching class!
To make matters much, much worse, he ended up going to the same house for dinner as two of the girls. The accompanying teacher for some reason didn’t stay, so they had an extremely uncomfortable time dealing with the still-drunk principal. Eventually our general liason got wind of what was going on, and gave Fan Laoshi a phone call, telling her, “I think you might want to go to that house.” – Chinese indirectness at its best. Fan Laoshi went over figured out what was going on, and waited for another half an hour for the accompanying teacher to show up (“to give him face,” she explained), and then hoofed it with the girls. Afterwards, she called the principal and let loose with all the expletives that Chinese can offer, and all the anger that this peace-loving people suppress most of the time, threatening to make this an international incident, among other more colorful suggestions.
The meeting Linsen and I were called to was to explain these events (of which we had been completely ignorant), and detain our battle plan for the next (and our final) day of teaching. Should the principal make an appearance, we were to instantly stop teaching, tell the students that because their principal was an alcoholic scoundrel we were leaving, and then proceed to leave. We were to keep an ear out for the loudspeaker, because Fan Laoshi would announce if we were going to walk out. It was a very intense experience.
That meeting also revealed other things I had not noticed earlier; first, that we had been watched by a secret policeman for the entirety of our stay; second, that our rooms had microphones in them. This all became even more prevalent the next day, however, when we found ourselves being tailed by a half-dozen men whenever we wandered, and where uniformed policemen guarded the school (and they later formed an 8-man escort for Tang Laoshi when she had to go back to the hotel to get something). All of this was to make sure that we saw neither hide nor hair of the principal that day. And so we didn’t. I still have never seen him.
This whole event was perhaps the single most insightful experience I have had in China. From seeing the way all the players reacted over the course of those 24 hours, I learned much about China’s culture; how even though the principal was a drunkard and a scoundrel, no one had dared to try to oust him – because he had connections and was a lingdao. It was only until another matter of face intervened (namely, foreign teachers) that folks were willing to (or felt they were able to) act. The police were unable or unwilling to, say, take him into custody, but they were willing to form a guard battalion. And Fan Laoshi’s reaction, unlike the American knee-jerk response, was also to consider the “face” of other people involved. To further emphasize cultural differences, the good lingdaos apologized profusely to us all (they brought baskets of the local “dragon eye” fruit for us), and offered to take us out to dinner to indicate their apology. The Americans, just wanting to put the issue behind them, felt that an “apology dinner” would be awkward and undesirable. It was a terrible experience, but from it, I gained a deep understanding of underlying currents in Chinese culture.
Due to rain, the closing ceremony at the school was truncated and broadcast via loudspeaker. We sang our signature Chinese song, “invisible wings” and said a few words about how great our experience had been.
After that, we began our “Guangxi cultural tour” which was code for “sightseeing trip”.
The pride of Daxin is the Detian International Waterfall. Thus area for a long time was effectively inaccessible because it had been a favorite planting ground for land mines during the Chinese-Vietnam war (I didn’t know there had been a war either). Eventually relations warmed between the two countries, China decided it needed another tourist spot, and a Cantonese business consortium decided it wanted to develop the waterrfall: these factors resulted in the land minds being cleared away, and a quite pleasant tourist spot being set up. It was only minimally kitschy, and the waterfall was quite beautiful. There are some big claims about this waterfall, something about it’s great height spread over multiple cascades; I think this mostly is the Chinese way of saying, “we have a pretty modest waterfall here that instead of having one cool big fall, has a lot of little ones, because the slope isn’t that steep.” But We enjoyed it anyway, and the scenery was stunning.
Key highlights of the waterfall included the purchase of a British African Explorer hat, something I have long desired, for about $1.30. It was universally acclaimed as fitting me perfectly. Two other students, including Yanxiang (who will feature prominently in later blog postings) also purchased hats that fit their personalities quite well.
A second highlight included an unexpected trip to Vietnam. China and Vietnam’s border is defined by a river (which explains why the waterfall is international), and the road we took follows the river. Consequently, we were tantalized by the view of Vietnam a five minute swim (or, in some cases, a five minute wade) across the way. It’s green hills and unguarded forests beckoned. Of course, we speculated that should we actually make a break for it and cross the river, hidden soldiers in bamboo hats would spring up and gun us down.
As a matter of fact, we were greeted not by soldier, but by children hawking caramel candy. At the top of the waterfall, some rocks and dirt had been strewn over the river to make a land bridge over the river, and we, tittering like small children sneaking into the forbidden parlor, slipped over the border to Vietnam. Vietnam, to conclude from my entire experience in that country, is comprised primarily of people with Vietnamese, Guangxi dialect, standard Mandarin, Zhuang, and English language abilities. They seem pretty happy and friendly, and their kids can drive a hard bargain. We all concluded that it was much better to be a Vietnamese kid than a Chinese kid; they only have to go to school for a half day, and their summer break is a month longer!
Our second trip was also to a waterfall. It was even grander and more exciting than Detian’s. The waterfall was really something out of a book. Nestled back in a remote valley, we traveled down flights of steps as spray sprinkled down on us, we wandered through the jungle-like undergrowth at the bottom, eventually arriving at a massive fall streaming over downy emerald peaks. I stopped and simply stared for five minutes. It was an earthly paradise, but one that was real. Our path didn’t end. We snaked down under the cliffs, ducking along the carved out path to find the second half of the waterfall – a rushing, rocky, torrential cave fall, light with red and orange lights.
Completely satisfied, and running behind schedule, we pushed on. I figured we had already seen the cool stuff, and the rest would be half-baked. No! Breakthrough another cave path, we popped out to see another paradise splayed out before us, with a river running down toward and under our path, and an arching stone hallow behind. From there, we followed the path on, and found ourselves pressing through a fantastical subterranean world, one that reminded more than one of us of the underground city of C.S. Lewis’s The Silver Chair. There was a dark river, strange rock formations, and other things that in our rush to return on time to our bus, we could only glance at. The marvels were grand, and we eventually emerged again into the sun in a wild mountain grassland, with the river (or another river? The magical place revealed no secrets) transformed into a burbling little stream. A wooden cabin across the stream was inhabited by a beautiful girl in traditional dress who sang folk songs, while a trio of Chinese girl tourists in modern jeans sang popular songs back at her. Eventually the path wound up at a small gravel parking lot, and we hopped in, having spent a day in a secret world.