I am learning that in China schmoozing comes before successful research. So I thought I would post a few pictures of our schmoozing before I tell of any of our adventures up in the alpine meadows with the Tibetan Yak herders.
Chinese social events are very very heavy on the obligatory eating and/or drinking. As you are eating or talking or doing karaoke (yep, I’ve had to do karaoke and it is a good story that I will save for another day), you are constantly approached by someone toasting you. When someone toasts you, you clink glasses with him/her and nod and smile and act really formal. Then it is necessary to drink every drop in your glass. And somehow your glass is never empty (who keeps filling that d**n thing?).
It is never ok to decline a toast. And just as important, it is always necessary to return the toast at some point in the evening. There is even this rule that when you are clinking the glasses, that you must make sure that the rim of your glass hits the other person’s glass below its rim, because this is showing that you esteem that person more highly than yourself. How do you keep all these rules straight? Especially when you’ve had too much to drink (whether you wanted to or not)? When it’s not really an alcohol social event, obligatory eating is substituted. Food and tea are urged upon you to the point that it is rude to refuse. Obligatory drinking and eating is not my thing, but its hard to get too grumpy, because these Chinese people are just so darn nice and generous, that I just can’t offend them by refusing.
Yummy traditional dishes in a fancy Kunming restaurant.
Dr. Fang, the director of the Shangri-la botanical garden invited us to spend the "Moon Festival Day", the Chinese equivalent of Thanksgiving, with his friends and family.
Eat more, I insist!
Well, OK. If you insist. (We had been eating for about 4 hours straight by this time.)
Well, I haven’t blogged in a long while, because my life suddenly changed from a relatively mellow exploration of Kunming, to a whirlwind of travel and research in my study area. That is because a fellow student, Michelle, returned to Kunming, and we started our research schmoozing and adventures (it turns out schmoozing is a huge part of being able to do successful research here, and Michelle is the queen of schmooze. more details later on). Michelle has been great - She’s lived in China for 2 or 3 years, off and on, and so speaks and reads the language fluently. She is very social, and so has built up an amazing network of Chinese friends and contacts, who just love her because she’s blond, cute, and friendly. She has been to most of our study area already, so is very savvy on how to get around. Even though we are so different, we've gotten along great Probably because she’s very patient and willing to lead me around and explain everything to me and translate for me -- and I'm willing to do whatever she says. It works out good so far.
So anyways, a couple of weeks ago we hopped on a bus to go north to our study area, Northwest Yunnan. NW Yunnan is part of the Himalayan mountain range, bordering Tibet. The region is amazing in terms of its ethnic diversity (Tibetan, Bai, Lisu, and several other ethnic groups) as well as its biodiversity. It has subtropical, temperate and alpine ecosystems, all within a relatively small area, due to the great topographic relief. It is the northern range for southern species, and the southern range for northern species, and then has a ton of its own endemic species. So it has been designated as a “biodiversity hotspot” by conservation organizations worldwide.
Northwest Yunnan, until very recently, has been pretty much ignored by China. Its very rugged topography, and the idea that it is inhabited by “barbarians” (definitely some racism here), made it a very inaccessible and undeveloped region. However, recently China has recognized the potential for tourism and exploitation of natural resources, including hydropower from several major rivers in the region. So it has recently opened up in terms of road and infrastructure development, economic investment, as well as permission to foreign tourists and scientists to visit and work here.
So we made the long trip up from Kunming, a 12 hour bus ride, and landed in Zhongdian, aka Shangri-la, the largest city in the region, and the home base of our research program. The place has two names (actually three, if you include the traditional Tibetan name for the town) because several years ago Zhongdian was renamed Shangri-la as a means to develop tourism for the whole region. Although I have been staring at maps and satellite images of the landscape of Shangri-la for the past year, I hadn’t really researched what the city itself was like. I hadn’t even read the tour books. So I was pretty surprised at what I found. A pretty small, typical, dirty, developing city in some areas, but with a large part of town, including a maze of old streets called Old Town, completely devoted to tourism. In Old Town, there are still the narrow cobblestone streets, with no cars allowed, and lined by big Tibetan houses, but with the street-fronts of the houses all shops, hostels, restaurants, and bars for tourists. OldTown is not very big, maybe 10 x5 blocks, but set out like a maze. It seems to me the ratio of tourist businesses to tourists is not really on the side of the tourist businesses. But….I guess it works ok. Anyways it seems like it will be a fun place to hang out and recuperate from our research treks out in the hinterlands. There are even several places selling real coffee (aahhhhh). And the pizza is not bad either! Also there is a really neat Buddhist temple in the middle of old town is lit up and visible day and night.
Streets of Old Town
Countryside around Shangri-la, with Tibetan agricultural landscapes and Napa-hai, a huge wetland that is the wintering grounds for a flock of endangered black-necked cranes (can't wait to see them when they arrive in November!)
Sacred Yak
Hungry for lunch?
Buddhist temple in Old Town
Overlooking Old Town at the surrounding mountains.
Jamon picked me up at the airport in Kunming at 1 pm on Wednesday,and was leaving for Tokyo at 8 am on Thursday. Another student, Michelle, is also out of town, in Sichuan doing fieldwork. So before Jamon left I had to learn all I needed to know to survive for a week in Kunming by myself. Luckily, we have a lovely apartment that we are subletting from some friends of Michelle’s. The apartment is in a luxury apartment complex that takes up a whole block in the far west side of the city. It is very comfortable, safe, and quiet, and has definitely been a great place to get over jetlag and get a break from the noise and chaos of this huge city.
Views from apartment - yes that's our complex's pool.
After Jamon’s crash survival course, he took off, and I have to say I was a little bit uneasy about finding my way around. Although people can mostly understand what I am trying to say if I repeat it a few times, I am really not able to understand hardly anything that anyone says to me, no matter how many times they repeat it. Just the very very basics. So, I can ask for directions, but I can’t understand when they tell them to me. I can’t read anything at all, including street signs or menus. Pretty crazy. But armed with a piece of paper with the apartment’s exact address printed out on it in Chinese characters, and a big wad of cash (money talks!), every day I head out into the world. And I have to say, the past few days of doing this I’ve really had a blast! True, I haven’t accomplished much in terms of “work”. It took me two entire mornings just to find the University and register for Chinese tutoring. But I’m learning my way around, getting a little better at the basic communication, trying lots of tasty new foods that, if I was able to order what I wanted, I would never have tried. For example, here is how I got lunch yesterday:
Me: Do you have eggplant?
Waitress: what?
Me: Eggplant.
Waitress: oh, do you mean eggplant?
Me: Yes, eggplant.
Waitress: babble babble babble babble babble babble (I think she is probably asking me which eggplant dish I want)
Me: I want a delicious eggplant dish.
Waitress: babble babble babble babble babble babble (I think she probably still wants to know which eggplant dish I want to order).
Me:I don’t understand you, but I want a delicious eggplant dish. Please.
Waitress stares at me, and then goes over to another waiter and says something to him and points at me. New waiter comes over to me.
Waiter: What do you want?
Me: Do you have eggplant?
Waiter: What?
Me:Eggplant.
Waiter: oh, do you mean eggplant?
Me: Yes, eggplant. Do you have eggplant?
Waiter: Yes, we have eggplant.
Waiter hands me a menu full of Chinese characters
Me: I’m very sorry, but I can’t read Chinese. I want a delicious eggplant dish.
Me: I don’t understand you, but I want a delicious eggplant dish.
Waiter: OK
So guess what I got? Yes, a delicious eggplant dish. It was sliced eggplant and garlic sautéed in who knows what kind of spices and sauce, over white rice. It was yummy. After eating, I asked the waiter what it is called, so that I can order it again someday. He told me shao cao qie zi, which according to my dictionary translates to “Fuck Less Eggplant”. Do you think he was playing a trick on me? Maybe I didn’t really hear him right. Well, I guess I’ll find out next time I order it.
China definitely is its own place, with its own culture and norms and habits and routines. One great place I’ve hung out in my first couple of afternoons is GreenLake park, a big park with ponds and marshes in the middle of the city. At all times of the day there are tons of people there, couples strolling about, old folks playing serious games of croquet and mah-jong, and always there are amateur musicians – regular people who bring their instruments (many traditional instruments I’d never seen before) to the park and with their friends play and sing Chinese music. Very fun to just walk around there – the people watching is endless.
View of pond in Green Lake park with downtown in background.
serious croquet at green lake park.
Yesterday was a Saturday, and my main goal was to ride the public bus to downtown. Until then, I have relied on taxis to bring me from the far west where the apartment is into the downtown/University area (about $3/way), and then I walk and wander all over from there, and then I take a taxi home. (The piece of paper with my address printed on it really comes in handy). But I wanted to see if I could do it by bus (two different buses, 1 transfer). The bus ride went fine, and so my second goal of the day was to find the Yuantong Zen Buddhist temple. It is in the city, over 1200 years old, and one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in this region. When I finally found it, I was so glad I had! A huge complex, 2-3 blocks big, with several different temples, elaborate stone and wood statues, vendors selling super-cheesy kitsch, funny Chinglish signs, beautiful brass Buddhas, burning incense, colorful pagodas, fountains spouting greenish water, chanting monks, and an endless stream of normal everyday people bowing to the Buddhas. There was definitely a certain happy, serious-but-not-somber, energy there that I definitely could appreciate. I spent a good two hours there just taking it all in.
This is my first blog from China. So, first I will start with a map that shows where I am, in Yunnan Province. Yunnan is in the southwest corner of China, in the eastern range of the Himalayan mountainsIt is bordered by Sichuan province, famous for its Giant Pandas and bamboo forests, to the east. It is also bordered by Tibet, famous for its Dalai Lama and its political situation, to the northwest. Yunnan is also famous, although not as much so as Sichuan and Tibet. Yunnan is mostly known for its great range of topographical, ecological, and ethnic diversity.
On Wednesday, I arrived in Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan, after many many hours of travel. I was met at the airport by another student in my program, Jamon. I was very thankful he was to meet me at the airport, because even though I've been studying mandarin chinese for almost a year now, I was warned by others that upon arriving in Kunming, I wouldn't be able to understand anything anyone says. This is because although Mandarin is the official language of China, Yunnan has its own regional dialect that is very distinct. Although the educated people can speak Mandarin, it is not spoken in the street. And those that are less educated are not very able or willing to speak it. In addition, Kunming, although a small city by China's standards, is a huge city to me. I've been told it is about the size of Chicago. Since I still get lost even in Madison, I was kind of scared of Kunming. So.....I was very relieved that Jamon was picking me up from the airport. The next picture is of the downtown area of Kunming (which I got off the internet) to give you an idea of what it looks like.
Countryside around Shangri-la, with Tibetan agricultural landscapes and Napa-hai, a huge wetland that is the wintering grounds for a flock of endangered black-necked cranes (can't wait to see them when they arrive in November!)
Hungry for lunch?
Overlooking Old Town at the surrounding mountains.
Looks like a good place for dinner.
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