I’m here in Kunming for a ten-day language “camp” at Yunnan
Normal University, along with four other Peace Corps volunteers and various
other “laowai” who have chosen to end a long winter holiday studying the aspect
particle “le,” complements of result, complements of duration and other such
things—with and without labels.
What I didn’t expect was a laidback southwestern town,
ringed by mountains, as dry as Boulder in Colorado, a town where Chinese
drivers stop for pedestrians (sometimes) and honor red lights, a town with
stunning culinary delights—including New Zealand pizza with feta cheese and
walnuts served by an expat from Christchurch, including bowls of Kunming’s
famous crossing-the-bridge noodles (Guoqiao Cheng), including a rich spectrum
of ethnic and minority foods, and, I’m embarrassed to admit, the incredible
Just Hot bakery, where we made up for six months of virtually no bread or baked
goods in one or two visits. I’ve so loved
the vegetable-rich Chinese cuisine elsewhere that I was totally caught off
guard by these temptations.
I may have read about but underestimated the humor in the
“luohan,” sculptures of monks and saints smiling wryly and sometimes mischievously from
various poses around the Bamboo Temple (Qiongzhu) up in the western mountains.
I knew about Lantern Festival concluding the two weeks of
Chinese New Year but had no idea what it would be like to experience the
Lantern Festival in Cuihu Park, a few blocks away from the International
Student dormitory. Really, the park is a lake with a series of interconnected
islands, a botanical wonderland even at night with a few brightly gilded
temples lit up and crowds mulling around, sampling street food, pausing to
listen to various minstrels, witnessing one ethnic dance after another, and
beholding a sky periodically exploding with fireworks.
I see why Foreigner Street is packed with expats who have
chosen to escape the intensity of China’s east coast. Far away from Beijing,
mainland authority is fainter here, possibly even more so when viewed from the
perspective of someone who might be Dai or Bai or Hui.
I had no idea what a hiker’s paradise Yunnan is, although my
spare time has been spent composing paragraphs with “jiran. . .na jiu . . .”
and “suiran. . .danshi. . .”, not lacing up hiking boots. One day I hope to
return to Yunnan, to Tiger Leaping Gorge in the far northwest.
What I really didn’t expect, though, was how poor I am at
being humble in a language class with three twenty-somethings and one forty-something. It’s not the class. Our
adorable teacher has surprised us with candid questions and personal
reflections and has kept the time flying during four-hour afternoon classes.
She is not to blame for my feeling pissy on those days when I just can’t catch
the question, let alone answer it. I can revel in writing little passages and
in memorizing them; I can delight in a growing vocabulary. I’m enough of a nerd to enjoy grammar. But
damn—I have as hard a time as ever discriminating between and among “mother,”
“horse,” “marijuana,” and “#$!!” (depending on tone) or between “this year” and
“which year” (again, depending on tone and context) or “buy” and “sell” (same
story)—all of which puts a damper on dialogue, on conversation, the heart of
learning a language. I’m tone deaf in the music room and, apparently, in some
places in China as well.
But – why not practice patience, humor, and letting the
pissy stuff go, here in Kunming as well as anywhere? I need to simply ting (listen)—and
not let this make me ting (stop).
Credits:
I'm still reading. Your blog is better than a movie.
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