detarame-na shishuu

This morning was a lecture on Taoism, that ends up having a few heated discussions mid-class that surprise me. I just roll my eyes and wait it out. I’m sure our professor is being driven batty by it all, since the normal mode in a Chinese lecture course is to ask no questions until after class on one’s own time, and certainly not to get into heated discussions in the middle of class.

After lunch is another painting class. A few were asked to host a Q-A for an econ class, and I wish I was there instead, but so it goes. Several people go out to see the new John Woo flick about the Three Kingdoms period, his lifetime ambition. I decide I’ll catch it stateside, even though it has english subtitles. I hammer out a lesson plan instead and drink some white cloud.

Tomorrow is an early start. Check out for the weekend to spend the weekend on a boat going up the Yangtze to see the Three Gorges and do some museum hoof-work. I’m told it will be an unusually high level of boring, so I stash a couple of bottles of high quality, Hunan province white cloud in my weekend bag along with a couple changes of clothes. Think I’ll try to hook up with a different roommate for the weekend, I need a break from this one. Thank God for the iPod.

This morning we went to a Wuhan High School, which is in summer session right now. Took a brief tour of the campus, followed by a question and answer period. I had a trio of girls as my guides, and I gave out pencils to everyone, including some of the teachers and headmaster. They looked about 14, but were in fact only a year or so away from graduation. Good kids, they cheer me up, at least for as long as I’m the school. They were doubly a joy to sit with during the Q-A portion, as they were pretty frank with their commentary to their headmaster’s answers. (Ie: He is describing the requirement that every student get an hour to rest after lunch, and one of the girls leans over and says “we never get that!”) I’m glad they’re there, and I agree when another leans over and says “we shouldn’t have sat in the front, this is boring” My impression of the place is that it’s probably the best school in the province. During the question and answer period, we come across a humorous paradigm wall. It went something like this:

Q: How do you handle discipline in your classrooms,  like when a student is disruptive or misbehaves?
A: We tell them to stop.
Q: And what if they don’t stop?
A: I don’t understand.

On the way back, I was looking through my photos with William, one of our hangers on from the university. I get to the photo of myself with my guides, and he gets this miffed look on his face. “Why do you get three?! I got NONE! I got QUINTON!”

After lunch, we go to Chinese painting class which, in my already sour mood, I get frustrated and angry with the difficulty of it. The laughter of the professor and assistance is probably good natured, but no less obnoxious. I paint one thing, which I abandon to the classroom when we are finished. Tonight we are going to a fan dance: demonstration, not class, thank god. I don’t know that I could handle another class I suck at today.

People, myself included, are starting to get cranky and irritable. A month is starting to seem like an awfully long time, and I just hope no one tries to push anyone else off the boat on the way to Three Gorges, two days with nothing to do is going to be an ordeal. I don’t have quite the spirit of wanderlust I did in my youth.

Our language tutor is still doing poorly, so we’ve had to make some changes to the schedule. This morning we did some Chinese song lessons, then went to the provencial museum, followed by a trip to one of the lakes here in Wuhan. Can’t remember if it was East or West. Afterwards, we were left to our own devices, so I think I’m going to go to McDonald’s.

First half of class was about Chinese music. I want to buy a Chinese zither, since it’s impossible to make anything but beautiful music, even if you don’t know what you’re doing. But, of course, I wouldn’t be able to tune the fucker. Booger. But, I did find out there’s a bluegrass group in Memphis that will teach me my banjo for free. Just got to get it fixed. Actually doing some good networking here - got an in to Bridge Builders, as well, which I’ve been trying to get into for some time, since it was such a great part of my high school experience. (One of the few, actually.)  Second class was a lecture about Confucianism.

The CCTV Olympic channel is showing fencing tonight. Fuck yeah!

Today’s two classes - both before and after lunch - continued the lectures on Chinese culture and history, followed by a question and answer period.

Routine here consists of two three-hour classes a day.

First Class: Chinese History and Culture, part one.
Second Class: Spoken Chinese Language, part one.

The language class, like every language class I’ve ever taken, is enormously frustrating.

After dinner, many of us go out on the town again. Robert and Co. take us to the bar they were talking about, which as it turns out, it’s on a relatively tame mercantile side street. Before we arrive, however, one of our number, who I’m pretty sure has been drinking since lunchtime, buys a god damn rabbit from a street vendor. They cook up some two very spicy, very tasty meals for us, and we drink about two dozen beers and get a bottle of “White Cloud,” a local liquor.  I make faces with a little Chinese boy behind a glass door, and we make a new friend : Rick, a student at a different local university majoring in navigation. I do believe he has more fun than anyone.
Since the avenue was not up to my levels of seediness, the two of us from last night escort everyone down to Whorehouse & Billiards Alley. I don’t notice, but someone else informs me when we pass a building where one of the ladies is lying on a couch, sans panties, stroking herself with a rather bored expression. It’s funny, I always  associate whores with looking sort of rough and used up, instead of simply beautiful and world weary. Not really sure which is worse, actually.

Get home about 10, which is my earliest night in a long time, and crash out. Sweat like crazy all night, at least until I get up at three am or so for a potty break to the spice burn out of my insides. The alarm clock wakes me up the next morning, and my roommate informs me he will take care of my laundry service bill. He’s a good guy, actually.

Wake up at seven. Still tired. Take a shower, only to discover I have something about the size of a dish towel to dry off with. I end up having to use the hair dryer attached to the wall to blow myself dry. Late for breakfast, eat the scraps left behind by others. Dr. K. informs the group that I will be happy to set up everyone’s internet, since IP addresses and such are not automatically assigned. Go back to my room. My new roommate – whose personality does not exactly mesh with mine - comes up to berate me for keeping everyone waiting – I’m late again. I get down, and the good doctor tears into me in front of everyone for holding up the show. It’s a pretty demoralizing first day, but oddly enough it seems to make several of the people who are sort of distant more fond of me. It’s a running joke through the day, but a good natured one, so it makes it a little easier to handle. I think I’m going to be a little on edge for my stay here. So it goes.
When we finally set off, we get to the library and enter a conference room. It’s actually pretty intimidating, a seriously cold-war arms summit sort of furnishing scheme. Two parallel conference tables with mics, name plaque in front of each seat, with a second row of chairs behind those at the table. We file in, I take a seat at the conference table. The university president, vice president, international studies coordinator, and about a half dozen faculty are there. Behind them are our guides – about ten adorable Chinese college students majoring in things like English, translation, or tour guiding. All girls, in bright yellow shirts with HUBEI UNIVERSITY on them.
Speeches are given. Introductions are made. Gifts are exchanged. It’s actually a little bit intimidating, at least to start with, and I use my new Social Studies Department Chair title for the first time in my introduction. There’s only one other department chair with us, and I’m sure as fuck not going to let him show me up.
Afterwards, the Girl Squadron takes us for a tour of the university museum. As I’m going through, I learn that each is a semi-specialist in a single section of the museum. There is a coin girl, a calligraphy girl, a bug girl, and so forth. (China has some monstrously enormous bugs, as it turns out.) The coins are especially interesting to me, since they have something like a 10,000 piece collection. A single American coin is there : a rusty nickel, Monticello side up.
Like most university museums, it’s pretty small, so the tour does not take long. Long enough for me to trip over a display cabinet that’s only about 18 inches off the ground, though. My shins are having a rough time of it around here.
Lunch is a pretty serious affair. I mean, I guess we’re all wearing ties for a reason. We sit six to a table, and to each table is added two guides and a member of faculty, except for the table of big-wigs: the good doctor, Robert, our state rep, and the University brass. I end up the only guy at my table. Red wine flows freely, a new and greatly popular drink among the Chinese nouveaux riche. Our language teacher, a beautiful newlywed in a traditional Chinese dress sits next to me. She’s a good conversationalist and I manage to turn on my schmooze engine. I’m not normally a conversationalist, because I generally don’t like talking to people, but when backed into a corner I can usually conjure up some sort of charm. Toasts are made. As a group. Individually. As smaller groups. Everyone goes to the president to toast one on one. All of my classy toasts long ago fell down the memory hole, so I concoct something trite on the spot, but it goes over well enough. It’s a fun dinner, a true communion, and everyone leaves smiling but a little tired. We go back to our rooms.
At lunch, on several occasions, the good doctor asks me to come to his room to fix his internet. I’ve already set it up on a few computers, so the joke is out that I’m the Fulbright IT Department. While working on his computer, I realize he has followed the directions properly and the connection goes off without a hitch. While it’s nice to get credit and kudos for zero effort, but for the first time I step back and realize We Have A Problem.
In a nutshell, it goes something like this. The network in our dorm/hotel does not automatically assign IPs, so the university has printed out copies of instructions for manually setting up IP, Subnet, Gateway, and DNS. Now, this may not sound like a problem, but let’s focus on the word “Copies.” As in, they have all 20 or so of us all manually configuring our computers with the same damn IP address. So, the first person to log on to the internet gets along just fine, and everyone else runs into a brick wall of Your IP Has Already Been Assigned.
So, it’s not a joke anymore. I sigh, and begin doing odious IT work. I make a list of people with computers. I collect room numbers. I assign each a unique IP address, and track it all on an ad-hoc database on the back of a sheet of paper to make sure there are no conflicts or problems. It also means going back to the other computers I’ve set up with the same IP address and fixing them. I then have to go from room to room to manually set up connectivity, sometimes on Macs, sometime on PCs (both Vista and XP). No one has Linux, of course, otherwise they’d be doing all of this shit instead of me. Still, it’s nice to feel like a critical part of the team.
Of course, while I’m fucking with IT, everyone else is napping, so when we go to our first lecture – about the history of Wuhan, Hubei University, and Hubei Province, I have trouble staying awake, at least until we break and I make some instant coffee. (as an aside, it is actually damn good coffee, which comes as a pleasant surprise. Ever since Bonnaroo, I expect instant coffee to taste like the asshole of a diahrretic mule.) After the break, alert and responsive, I take mad notes and worry that I’ve left the electric kettle plugged in back in the room. (not drinking tap water is a tough habit for me to get into.)
We are dismissed, and the young ladies take us on a tour of the campus. It was founded in, I think, 1931, and it’s a pretty interesting looking place. Dilapidated, Stalinist-era dorms and building sit beside new construction and modernist architecture. The library is beautiful, for example, but I pass some dorms that look pretty damn rough. Unlike earlier this morning, the campus is flooded with people. It’s nice to see the place vibrant and alive.
More tech support, followed by dinner, which is a less formal but no less convivial. Local liquor is drank, great food is eaten, and people let loose. An absolute joy of a meal, though by the end of it I’m even more exhausted. Go to the supermarket, then return home for more tech support. About ready to pass out, but instead I wander with a new friend down some back allies the good doctor would probably not approve of us being down, but we wanted to get some of the authentic China that Snow would never have taken us to, besides the fact that I think those kind of Chinese back alleys have been scrubbed clean from Beijing and the other showcase cities. It’s a pretty amazing sight, dirty and pulsing with activity. It’s all garbage piles, Mahjong, billiards, and ladies of the night. The store remind me more of storage lockers than retail establishments: short, shallow, and concrete, complete open to the street. When we return, we’re both drenched in sweat. We run into Robert, out rep and his wife, and a couple of others who apparently went the other way down the same alley and hung out in one of the prostitute cubbies, where they enjoyed some interesting conversation and a hell of a good deal on beer. I imagine an even larger group will go tomorrow.
I peel off my clothes and take a long shower. Now that I’m in one place for a good while, I can’t help but be a two showers a day man.

Today we are allowed to sleep in, somewhat, but I still wake up at 7:00a or so balls ass tired. Amble downstairs. Eat. In the morning, the smog has returned in full force.
First we tour the city wall. Well, some of it. I mean, it is something like nine miles long, you know. Everyone pairs up and gets a rickshaw bike, I end up with Robert in what appears to be the most rickety one in the fleet. The driver seems occasionally careens pretty alarmingly to the left, toward fixed benches or wall itself. The drivers are actually really amiable and good natured, stopping at various points along the battlements to take our pictures in front of various things. I’m riding with Robert, who takes a turn peddling the bike. Apparently, it handles about like a warthog, and when it begins to go wildly out of control, the rickshaw driver hits the break and gets back to work. Oh, did I mention that Robert is something of an expert biker, as in biked across the US with his son? Yeah, apparently those rickshaw bikes, at least ours, need some tune up work done. A fun ride all around, and it’s nice to be moving along. Did I mention how nice it is to move along a wall that is flat instead of being at a 45 degree angle? Yeah, I probably don’t need to. Afterward, I climb up to the second storey of the tower/gift shop and get a nice if murky view of the city proper, both inside and outside the wall. Afterward, we load up the bus and head to a lacquer factory.
It’s expensive as all hell, but once the guide explains the obscene amount of work that goes into making even the smallest bit of ware-ware, it begins to make sense, and even seems a little cheap. Not so cheap that I consider buying anything, of course, but plenty of people do. We head down the street to a little gallery of Chinese peasant art. I fall in love with one piece, but the background of it is sort of pukey green, and I’m still having some money anxiety, so I don’t feel like laying down 400 RMB on a watercolor, no matter how sweet. (~7 RMB = 1 USD). No photos of that place, of course, as pictures were disallowed.
Lunch is at a hotel buffet and is acceptably nourishing if not quite delicious and not worth further comment.
After lunch we go to a museum that covers the Pre-Zhou through Tang dynasties, mostly. 5 exhibit halls, heavy on artifacts, light on context. Which is fine by me, since the few long descriptions are entirely in Chinese. The ratio of reproductions to originals is something like 1 to 1 in the Pre-Zhou area, and almost totally authentic everywhere else. Since I’m starting to suffer some sensory overload from being around people all day, every day, so the museum seems like a good moment to do some solitary wandering. It’s actually my preferred method of tackling museums: I broke from Burd almost immediately when we went to the Louvre. I’m particularly interested in the non-Chinese coinage and the exhibition on ancient sport (in anticipation of the Olympics, natch).
Next comes what I believe is the first Buddhist pagoda built in China. I continue on my own : It’s tough to be a loner in a group of 25 sometimes, but this is a natural place for it, and I wander the whole grounds. My camera dies about 2/3s of the way in, since it did such heavy lifting at the hotel, so I miss some nice shots, but whatever. The place is beautiful, but hot like the devil’s asshole. Lots of shade, though. I consider praying in the shrine, but opt out in my mind due to tackiness, even though I could probably handle the forms. (Very much like the Islamic pray form:  kneeling and bowing.) Since my camera is dead, I make better time than everyone else, and even hit parts that I think most people didn’t bother with : the kennels, for example, or the trash pile out back. The dogs are huge, but don’t seem alarmed by me. Probably too hot for them to get worked up over very much, actually. I finish my circuit before everyone but Robert and Jim, who I have a beer with while discussing stateside education. It’s a topic that comes up a lot among educators. Go figure.
Hit the airport for the flight to Wuhan afterward. It’s getting late, and the group and Snow part ways, at least for awhile. When we land, we’ll be in the care of Hubei University. . . but lets not get ahead of ourselves.
So, airport security is pretty tight because they’re gearing up for the Olympics. I get that. Still, the lack of Snow to wheedle, threaten, and cajole is seriously felt as we go through security. Thorough does not even begin to describe. X-rays, unpacking bag, explanations, disagreements, arguments. They confiscate random shit that got through a couple of previous airports without question. One of our number is reduced to tears of frustration as the guards try to prevent her from taking some of her prescription eye drops and contact solution. For my part, the only trouble comes from the inhaler. I discharge a dose into the air, since that’s what they wanted me to do in Beijing, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for her. She pantomimes taking a hit and gives it to me. Now, since it’s like 8:30 at night, I’m exhausted, and the emergency inhaler makes me twitch like a junkie, I’m not keen to follow her suggestion. I point to the inhaler and forcefully say “Emergency,” then point to myself and say “Not Emergency,” then discharge another shot into the air. I stick to my guns, and after a brief conference with what I assume is her manager, I’m clear to go. I suppose it’s a lot easier to be pushy and shitty to a 5’ woman than it is a 6’ man around here.
The airport has some wildly inconsistent prices, so I find an acceptably cheap bottle of water and sit by the gate and read. The flight is turbulent, with downright frightening banking angles, to say nothing of the near 45 degree angles of ascent and descent. We arrive in Wuhan at 10:30pm, and it’s a balmy 80-something degrees. I guess they don’t call this place one of the “Furnaces of China” for nothing.
On the way to the university we cross the Yangtze River. It’s wide. It’s hard to judge, it’s our crossing point is anywhere between 50% to 100% longer than the crossing from Memphis into Arkansas.
The hotel is not exactly 4 stars, as I think it’s mostly for visiting students and others with low expectations. Agendas and nametags are given, and we are informed that we are not expected anywhere until 9am, which is a relief.
I still wake up exhausted the next morning.

Wake up call was unusually early :  5 am. “Too damn early,” as my roommate says. I agree. Still, we had to catch the flight from Beijing to Xi’an, so there it is. The Beijing and Xi’an airports are both much closer to what I’m used to. Lots of ads all over, many for actual products besides the Olympic Games. Buy the official English language newspaper. Moderately informative, but I’m always entertained by the, ah, deliberate choice of wording in articles, and the comically strident tone of the editorials. Food is served on the plane, none of which I eat. Flight takes about an hour and a half or so, during which time I begin reading How To Read Like An English Professor.
As an aside, books about literary criticism and/or writing theory always make me want to start doing fiction again. Think next I’ll read the Japanese novel a friend recommended. The author was a friend of Mishima’s, so I expect the novel will be brilliant or boring. Possibly both, now that I think about it. Either result will dissuade me from picking up the pen.
Flight lands in Xi’an. Grab a handful of lighters at the door. Apparently in China, confiscated lighters are just put in a big pot at the front of the airport like a highly volatile Give-A-Penny/Take-A-Penny jar. Some of them even work. The bus is significantly smaller than previous vehicles, which is sort of a let down. I’m so used to being able to sprawl.
Xi’an has the cleanest air to date, and blue sky and clouds are even visible for much of the later afternoon. Even the morning smog is not nearly so thick, and I can see much further than I’ve grown used to. The city lacks the polish of Beijing and, at a scant seven million people, has none of the bustle of Shanghai. There’s a great deal of agricultural land around the city, and the city itself has a sort of dingy, sprawling aspect to it. So, in reminds me of Memphis that way.
There’s a pretty impressive wall here, though. Apparently the only totally intact city wall in China. It’s a pretty cool image actually, this 9 square mile wall carving the city into inner and outer areas. Tomorrow we go up there. Tonight it is lit, but the lights are too dim to get a photograph worth a damn, which is a shame, because it’s a mighty fine sight.
We go through the city, and end up back in the sticks, on our way to the Terra Cotta Warriors. Makes sense it’s in the middle of nowhere, actually, as they were actually discovered by a farmer digging a well. Incidentally, the farmer is still alive. He’s about 300, and sits at a table with a prominent NO PICTURES sign, and will unhappily sign the coffee table book one can buy from the table next to him. Apparently, he’s a little miffed that the museum would not give his son a job or something. He could always go back to digging wells, I suppose.
Anyway, the warriors are pretty amazing, despite the very tourist trap feel of a lot of the place. That feel is reinforced when about six different official vendors come by our table trying to sell us crap while we’re eating lunch. Since the guides usually don’t even give us time to pick our noses, none of us are terribly interested in dealing with the hard sell in the brief moments we have to eat out lunch. Well, to be fair, I do buy the snake-wine, which – as far as I can tell – is just a huge jar of boring old rice wine with an enormous snake inside. Takes like sake, not like snake.
See the remaining exhibits and head back to town where, miracle of miracles, we actually have about an hour at the hotel before dinner. I take a quick shower, check email, and change clothes for dinner.
It is a dumpling dinner at a Chinese opera house. It is nice, but nothing compared to the show itself. Fantastic. Beautiful. Celestial, even. Traditional Chinese dancing and music from different eras. I am pretty tired, but a hit of snuff - which I’ve been going at occasionally since yesterday - keeps me awake. I spend a lot of time fighting with my dinky, battery devouring hand camcorder, but still enjoy the show. Behind me, several of the group are amused by my constant swapping out of batteries. 25 minute clip. 20 minute clip. 5 minute clip. 3 minute clip. By the time I switch to straight up photos, I’m lucky to get a 35 second clip before the battery goes toes. I decide to offer one of the Student Ambassador kids (who we saw earlier at the museum) 50 RMB for her batteries, but just as I lean up to make the offer, the show is ends. Good deal.
Drive back to the hotel, where we are informed of the good news : baggage collection is not until 8 am. Fuck yeah!  Tomorrow we will walk the city walls, then take a flight to Wuhan. We are all looking forward to finally getting to the university. The sightseeing portion of the tour has been unreal, but hectic and exhausting. The schedule at Hubei U. will be much more relaxed, and we’re all looking forward to having time to think, journal, and other various and sundry things.
Like writing lesson plans and figuring out how to get these photos uploaded

One thing about moving at an exhausting pace, it means never having trouble falling asleep. After all the swank accommodations, the breakfast did not disappoint. The weather was cooperative. Everything was hazy as hell still, but that’s just the way of it here.
We stop at a jade factory on the way to the Ming Tombs. It’s pretty amazing, but most of the interesting stuff is done behind closed doors. Money is spent, tea is drank. And so on.
The Ming Tombs are pretty impressive, but we only have time to see the main one. It’s no forbidden city, but it’s not bad. The girls in traditional dress will not let you photograph them. Lots of priceless stuff under glass.
Some of us opt to go see the walkway and stone animals. Costs 30 RMB, even though it’s raining pretty heavy by this time. Begin to negotiate in earnest, and even to enjoy it. Get a Red Army hat that I cannot put in my bag without crushing it. It reminds me of Preston’s, though to be fair, his might have been East German.
The rain gives the gardens a lonely mood that I find appealing. Long brick walkways, huge stone animals, a mile long stand of trees, and the occasional lonely person or pair walking along in the rain. Have a good conversation with one of the Kansas City folk about the Cold War. Stand up guy, hopefully we’ll keep in touch.
Lunch is in a cloisonné factory/restaurant. The guide talks way too fast, so some of us wander off to take my own pictures until we get chastised. Drink some 120ish proof sorghum whiskey and a couple of beers. Good stuff, really. Manage not to buy anything because, frankly, I can’t imagine anyone I know wanting a cloisonné figurine or whatever. Besides, it’s huge like a box store and no one will bargain.
After comes the great wall. The rain has stopped, but luckily my fears are not realized. Instead of becoming a miserable sauna, the temperature cools and the breeze picks up as we go into the mountains, which are covered in a thick fog. It almost feels like fall. It’s beautiful, but it doesn’t do much for out photos. Snow indicates that there are two ways to walk the wall : “the hard way” and “the harder way.” Most of us take the latter. It’s steep as shit, alternating between 30-45 degree inclines and horribly uneven steps. Still, most of us make it to the highest tower possible before buying a bunch of little “I Climbed the Great Wall!” copper plaques with our names in them. On the way down, I chat with the girls from Nashville and we are occasionally accosted to have our photos taken. (That’s the way of things here, though some get more attention than others. We call it the “Rock Star Treatment) The walk down is less grueling, but more exacting. At the bottom I buy a hat for my step dad and a beer, which might as well be ambrosia, as much as I enjoy it. Discuss politics and satire some with the state congressman who is on the trip.  I’m pretty sure our philosophies are diametrically opposed, but I’d still consider voting for him if he was in my district. Hell, the state legislature needs more teachers in there regardless of philosophy. As all politics is local, it’s not long before we start going into the highly dysfunctional and almost comedic Lakeland political culture. He knows a lot of them. No surprise there, I guess.
Dinner is at a restaurant that goes back to the 1860s. Peking Duck. It is fantastic, and the dinner is even more convivial. A few of us even get a not-half-bad pun chain going, much to the groans of others. Nothing like the old days with Travis or the antics of the MeFight Chatroom, of course but a good effort nonetheless. I always enjoy word play.
We are informed on the bus ride over that we must wake up at 5a to catch out plane at 7a to go to our next city.  It means we will not be enjoying the amazing breakfast buffet, which disappoints many. Some form of breakfast is promised. Pack up bags for tomorrow. Shower. Sleep.