Fairy Hill

 

Judge for yourself--Xian Nu Shan has been dubbed Fairy Hill National Park, the "Switzerland of the East," with snow-capped peaks ringing around grasslands and green forests. This was the destination last weekend for a baker's dozen of us "waiguoren," or foreigners, all of whom teach at Southwest University in Beibei. "Frank," our watchful and helpful university "waiban," cooked up the plan, made the arrangements, and plied us with one Chinese feast after another. I understand that it is possible to sit in front of a huge lazy Susan laden with ten or fifteen Chinese dishes and not eat five times more than necessary, but I haven't any earthly idea how to do it.

Over half of our crew are twenty-somethings with ties to St. Johns University, a liberal arts college in Minnesota and also a sister school with our Chinese university in Beibei, Southwest. The rest of us are no longer twenty-something and hail from such places as Belgium, Russia, Bosnia--and my Missouri corner of the USA.

As different as my Missouri hometown is in most respects from Xian Nu Shan, my hometown  happens to be situated in a belt of karst limestone, full of caves and crevices and natural bridges. In Xian Nu, a limestone bluff here, a natural bridge there would remind me of home.

As pleasant as the scenery was, other things often caught my attention, including the very short skirts and very high heels of many of the female hikers. How can they walk? How long will their shoes last? What will their backs be like in a few years? It's all a mystery to me. The people who had difficulty weren't usually those wearing high heels--they tended to be older and took rides in little chairs carried by human porters.

Among the things we could buy along the way was meat--think whole animal, everything but the fur. If a dog or a cat, you could make out the skull, the body, the tail, everything.

Also interesting was the bus ride from this southeastern part of Chongqing back home across the Yangtze River (Chang Jiang) to our college town in northern Chongqing. A traffic accident on a mountain road backed up mountain traffic for ages, it seemed.

 Eventually, we rolled on, through green terraced countryside that occasionally erupted with new building projects on a massive scale. We rolled past Fuling, the town where Peter Hessler (author of River Town and former resident of Columbia, Missouri) lived while serving in the Peace Corps.  

 . . .and finally home to our own mountain city, Beibei, not pictured here.

Have a date with you?

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English is so hard! The student who emailed this request (Have a date with you?) was not entertaining any strange ideas. We met and had a delightful conversation, part of which focused on the difference between asking to “have a date” and “make an appointment.”

My seniors are wicked smart and can follow complex discussions in English about theory, language, and literature.  Their vocabularies are astounding, even if their phrasing is occasionally amusing. My sophomores, too, are smart, but radically innocent and sweet. Following are some of their comments. I have hundreds more. 

“I’m a sunshine and open-minded girl”

A Mongolian student writes, “In a nutshell, the first impression of English is amazing. It is much better than Chinese calligraphy writing. Pronunciation also very beautiful. It toned ups and downs, not like Chinese each sentence is flat. I find it very interesting. So in the new semester I’ll work harder to recover the time wasted.”

"Liu and Jiao chemistried with each other at first sight"

"Niulang crushed on the pretty girl when he first saw her."

"One day, Jerusha was told a piece of shocked news that she had a chance to go to college."

“Since then, a lot of kinds of books have been read by me. I like reading some stories and novels most, which are very interesting, aren’t they?”

“I am an outgoing boy! In my free time, I’d like to travel some places and playing with my friends. I think it is very interesting.”

“As you all known, through those books [Rebecca and Proud and Prejudice], I’m not only gained so much knowledge, but also wide my eyesight of the whole world.”

“It spend my many years learn well Chinese, when graduated from primary school.”

“She was envied of the beauty of Snow White and tried her best to kill her.  So one day, the queen just employed a person to kill Snow White in the woods and took her cardiac to the queen.”

“Xi Xian and Bai Suzhen fall in love at their first sight experienced 81 difficulties.”

“In front of his house standed two big mountains blocked traffic badly and brought much inconvenience for his family.”

"Ruoul wasn't sort of people who was behaved."

"When Zhu heard this news, she choose to suicide"

But guess what—their English is fabulous compared to my Putonghua. In fact, there’s no comparison.

Journey to JinDao Gorge

Where might I go that would combine some of my favorite memories of home (Rock Bridge Park and the spectacular limestone caves and crevices there), the New Zealand Hollyford trek (with waterfalls sprouting out everywhere through lush mountainside vegetation), and even the Khumbu valley in the shadow of Mount Everest (where mountainside dwellings have some similar architecture and sherpas carry heavily laden baskets on their backs)? Maybe the JinDao Gorge, also cutting deeply and spectacularly through karst landforms, only a two hour bus ride away from Beibei. My photographs simply do not do justice to the scale or to the colors. Last Sunday, my Peace Corps Volunteer friend Martha joined me on the trek, where we met up with several Chinese students from a university in Chongqing who decided to be our guides.

Alternative Dream - Big Time

I don’t always agree with NYT columnist Thomas Friedman, but something he said about dreams a few days ago resonated with me. He speculated that the “American Dream” would not make a smooth jump across the Pacific to China—the dream of a big house, two cars, and more. Friedman was sort of wagging his finger, warning China that its emerging materialism and rising consumption of valuable resources, including water, could be disastrous, not only for China, but also for the rest of the world. 

Now, I am a baby boomer who would be exceedingly hypocritical if I didn't admit that I have benefited from material well-being and many other aspects of "the American dream," and I have no ground to point fingers. Still, that doesn't stop me from warming to Friedman's argument.

Friedman cites Peggy Liu, who says that China recognizes the problems stemming from an unbridled pursuit of "the American dream" and has an alternative, sustainable dream, one that, as Friedman paraphrases Liu, "merges traditional Chinese values, like balance, respect and flow, with its modern urban reality."

If so, scale may be both the problem and solution. Obviously, China is not the only country with mounting consumption—of water, gas, other resources--but it may be the only country entertaining this consumption on such a grand scale. It’s hard for me to get a grip on the magnitude of just about everything in this huge and ancient country that is home to more than one in five people on the planet. So, again, the scale that characterizes China's problems may be the scale that characterizes its dreams and potential solutions.  

I find it exciting to contemplate that China's alternative dream might include some elements of a market economy without sacrificing all protections of the common good and without sacrificing such healthy habits as walking to work, buying vegetables from vendors on the street, eating slowly, putting on another sweater rather than turning up the heat, and carrying your own bags.

I find it exciting to contemplate that this sustainable alternative dream, one that balances the public good with a market economy, could come to fruition on a gigantic scale.

It's an alternative dream that not only has political and environmental consequences, but also has, to my way of thinking, sensory and aesthetic consequences. I, for one, simply enjoy the richness of what I see, hear, and smell when I live as lightly as I can upon the earth, wherever I am--here, home, wherever. 

Without as many cars per capita, we live more closely together, which, for me, means that I can hear the splat of diced vegetables hitting the oil in woks in several adjacent buildings. We can smell each other's onions and lajiao. The windows and balcony doors are open--we see each other's hand-washed laundry hanging well above our potted plants to dry. I hear the man on the fourth floor across the way vigorously chopping his ingredients. Someone is learning to play the trombone and isn't terribly good yet, but there are several exceptionally good pianists nearby. A woman with a basket on her back strolls the walkways, chinking together two pieces of metal to announce that she is there, should anyone need to recycle anything. Another peddler outfitted with a basket on his back calls out over and over, as if he is trying to find someone, but he is simply advertising his goods. Music drifts up from a small park below where the ladies are doing Tai Chi--and there are trees and benches there and everywhere because people need these small parks when they turn out of their apartments to play mahjong or dance or talk or wait to pick up little schoolchildren. The parks and public squares are used, all the time by people of all ages. Without as many cars per capita, people must share the common spaces and do--there is community.

Without as many cars per capita, we walk more places, which, for me, means that I can see the moss covering the high stone wall along the path, I can see the azalea blooming in a neighbor's porcelain pot, I can see the gray trousers being pushed through the tailor's sewing machine and I can see the red high heeled shoe that the curbside cobbler is mending. I can see floating leaves interrupting the reflection of the willows around the little pond by the physics building. 

Sleeping is good, usually, because of all this. I've typically walked many, many miles by the end of the day, and nights are now quite cool. Most people's windows are still open, although I have closed my little balcony doors now that it is dropping down to almost 50 degrees F at night. And, because so many of us live so close together, there is only so much space. With only so much space, I don't have more material goods than I can use. I don't buy much, and I don't throw away much.

If there were even more cars, there would need to be more ugly parking spaces, and the buildings would be spread out. Instead of taking five minutes to get to scores of closely-packed shops and  noodle places, it'd take much longer. The umbrella covered vegetable stands on every corner would have to go. Nobody would stop me on the street to speak to me.

Again, this alternative dream of living lightly on the earth while enjoying some of the benefits of a market economy is not a new dream, not at all--and many have written more eloquently than I have here  about it. The thing that has come home to me, though, while reflecting on Friedman's piece is that China not only has a history rich with sustainable practices well worth keeping, but also has the potential to shape our planet's dreams. If China pursues this alternative dream, it will be big time.

Jasmine Bracelets and Moon Cakes

Mid-Autumn Festival celebrates the harvest; the ancient legend of Houyi, Feng Meng, and Chang'e (the Moon Goddess); and, most importantly, the ongoing significance of family and reuniting with loved ones. Chinese trains and buses were teeming with people headed home to share the holiday with family this past week. Of course, nobody will take the place of my sons and sibs, but my extended Chinese family has been unbelievably hospitable and generous.
Adam Jones photograph.

Moon cakes, dense and delicious, are shared with family and friends. Special thanks to my waiban, to Li Ling and her family, to Li Ying and Peng Laoshi, to Mrs. Liu and Mr. Mou, and to many students for lavish gifts and good wishes. Thanks to Zuo Jia who first bestowed her jasmine "bracelet" upon me  (she threaded around my wrist sweet-smelling flowers from her roof-top garden) after striking up a conversation at a lecture and then invited me to a holiday luncheon. www.mrbigben.com image.

Big feet

This entry will be very short, but the topic is very big: my feet. So big are my feet that I would have to go barefoot if I hadn't brought several pairs of shoes and boots with me to China. The entry is very short because, well, I had another problem with translation, leaving me with little spare time tonight.

(The translation problem: I clearly understood the message from university officials saying that there would  be a make up day tomorrow, Saturday, for one of the days that would otherwise be missed because of our upcoming holidays. I didn’t realize, however, that the make up class applied to the Friday morning class I had just I taught, a three-hour seminar. But I now realize that I'm expected to teach another three-hour seminar to the very same students tomorrow. Ouch! I will be up late tonight! After class tomorrow, students will disperse to far flung corners of China for several days of holidays: National Day celebrating the 63^rd anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, immediately followed by Mid-Autumn Festival, one of the most important Chinese holidays. This is the holiday for eating moon cakes.)

But my big feet: Although nobody makes shoes my size, my favorite cobbler is happy to fix my well-worn Ecco shoes for the equivalent of 50 cents. These are shoes that should have been retired years ago and are totally unlike any of the spike heels that most college women seem to wear anywhere and everywhere—to class, to the grocery store, to JinYun Mountain.

 You can’t tell in the picture below that I’m standing in the doorway of one of the many shops lining a big city street or that the shops make an elbow, leaving just enough room for a tree from which the cobbler hangs his umbrella like a porch roof, a little stool about six inches high, a little post with a metal platform on which to place an upside down shoe, a little iron contraption, and assorted pouches with needles, thread, hammer, nails, pliers, superglue and the like. The cobbler is never out of work for long, and as you can see in this photo, half a dozen women have recently dropped off plastic bags full of things for him to repair. You’ll occasionally see some Deedle Deedle Dumpling perched on the step, one shoe on, one shoe off, conversing with the cobbler while the cobbler mends the shoes.

Noise

I might not live through another night of this noise, and now I'm given to understand that there will be two more long days and nights of it.

True, this noise isn't the very loudest noise I've heard since being in China. The loudest noise happened to erupt at Sichuan Shifan Daxue during language class one day last summer, when suddenly my Chinese teacher stopped talking about measure words for "piao" and "ke" and the four of us seated in a U-shape around him were frozen by a piercing scream. The single scream escalated and more voices joined in. We just couldn't imagine who or what was being dismembered next door. Nothing on a maternity award or a psych ward or any such place could match this screaming as far as I knew, and it kept escalating. We, of course, shot into the hall to investigate, only to bump into a dozen other anxious Peace Corps volunteers and the three screamers, who just happened to be the other three teachers.

These three teachers are exceedingly intelligent women, kind, too, but they apparently don't like little things that move and there apparently was just such a little thing moving under one of their desks. In the hall, they held hands, as is common for Chinese women of any age to do, and started backing toward the stairs.

Ever curious, several of us got down on our hands and knees, eager to get a glimpse of the wayward mouse or beetle or whatever it was. We spotted the suspect under a table leg, and I finally cupped it in my hand and stepped outside, only to trigger another round of screams from the women who had not yet reached the stairs. The cute but anticlimactic answer to the day's mystery was just a tiny green gecko.

But no gecko could account for the explosion I heard yesterday morning. I was talking to Christopher, who heard it from his couch in St. Louis, and thought it sounded like a truck dumping a load of gravel on my balcony. I thought it sounded like an explosion of guns. Unlikely though it would be, could it be something to do with the thousands of freshmen donned in brown shirts, red ties and military caps, flanked in formations across the soccer fields for a month of compulsory military training? No, they wouldn't have guns, and this noise was close, on this side of the big city avenue. Fireworks? But on a Saturday morning? National Day (think Fourth of July) isn't until October! But then, Missouri has firework stands going up two weeks before the Fourth--maybe the firework sales were underway?

Every ten or fifteen minutes, I'd hear another round of earsplitting racket. So, I trotted up the hill to find my landlady Mrs. Niu to make enquiries but found only a note on her door with a telephone number. Not long after, though, when I was headed to market, she stepped out from behind a sewing machine at the tailor's to shout out a greeting. I stopped, glad to see her. My Chinese served me well enough to ask her what the loud racket was but didn't serve me well enough to understand her impassioned answer. That it had nothing to do with the university students I did understand, but nothing else.

For the rest of the day I tried to ignore the periodic bursts of sound, but by nightfall irritated cats and babies were joining the ruckus and, spliced in between what could only be fireworks, were other unhallowed noises and unmusical instruments, some screeching and eerie, all loud and persistent.

Way below the road to the foreign teachers' apartments is the park where ladies do Tai Chi most nights, and there I saw a huge white tent with tables under the bamboo. Again, maybe they were selling fireworks early before National Day, but why blast off the goods all day and night? Thousands of kuai must have gone up in smoke already. Why all night? Why so much?

At three on Sunday afternoon my beloved tutor showed up, one of the ex-screamers from summer training (who happens to be a grad student in linguistics here at Xi Nan Daxue during the school year and who happens to still be my tutor). And, finally, from her, Xiaodan, I learned all about Chinese funerals, which typically last three days and are as elaborate and often as expensive as Chinese weddings. (If you have a noisy child, you might consider a future for him or her as a professional noisemaker to be hired out at Chinese funerals.) Between dialogues focused on tones, we talked about the history of Chinese funerals, some of which have the spirit of an Irish wake.

I got little sleep last night and am unlikely to get much tonight or tomorrow, but the noise irritates me much less now that I know what it's for. I can imagine how the constant ripping off of firecrackers and other noisemakers for days could be comforting to the bereaved. It's a madness that makes sense to me, an intensity and drama that must be cathartic. So I probably won't rest well tonight, but I will wonder about the one who just died, and I will wonder about the mourners under the tent who are trying to get a grip on life without their newly lost one.