bad man!

So today is the day we send our magazine to the publisher. Before it can be published however, we have to take it to a government censor, where they read through and check the content. Despite our best attempts at self censorship, we still had ran into a little problem. In our review page, we reviewed a Qingdao rapper, Sha Zhou. It turns out that he is a "bad man" who uses swear words and denigrates the countryside. Nevermind that we gave him a negative review,even the mention of him is too much in our magazine. Luckily we had a backup review, but still, welcome to the world of publishing in China.

yunnan!

Dan and I are back in Beijing from our trip in Yunnan. We had a great time seeing an area of China completely different from the one we live in. For a quick recap, we flew into Kunming, the capital,and then spent a day in the surrounding area. We then took a night train to Dali, several 100 km north in the foothills of some mountains (which I think of as the Himalayas, but which are technically probably not.) We spent 2 and a half days here,and then took a bus to Lijiang, about 3 hours north, and also up in the mountains. From Lijiang, we flew to Kunming and then from Kunming back to Qingdao. We spent a total of 8 days there, though two were travel days. Ultimately, 6 days was not enough time to spend in this amazing region, in the future I would like to go back and spend a month or so bumming around the province. Yunnan, for those who don't know, is in SW China and borders a bunch of countries including Laos, Myanmar, Thailand (I think) as well as Tibet (which to be clear, I am not listing as a separate country). Southern Yunnan, where we didn't go, is very much like SE Asia (or so I've been told), with lots of SE Asian ethnic minorities. Northern Yunnan is much more Tibetan culturally, and there are many Tibetan-related minority groups living there, including the Bai and the Naxi (pronounced Na-shee in Chinese and Na-hee in Naxi, with a gutteral h).
Dali, the 2nd city (or town) we went to, is a Bai minority town, though in truth it is probably more culturally hippie, as it is jam packed full of small shops selling hemp draw string pants, tie-dyed jackets and bongs. Also, the number of dreadlocked/crunchy/hiking booted backpackers almost equaled the number of Chinese inhabitants of the city. Although slightly irritating (it felt like a Tibetan-themed Oregon State Fair), it did mean that we could indulge in guilty pleasures like the "Dali Lama's grand slam breakfast" of pancakes, eggs, and yak bacon, or muesli and yogurt, and of course, cheap fruit smoothies and coffee. While in Dali we went on a boat cruise and saw a temple and an incredibly touristy Bai village, where we were served "the Bai traditional three tea service," one tea being a bean tea with bits of Cheese floating on top, which does actually taste better than it sounds. The highlight of our time there was a hike we took up a mountain to this Buddhist temple. The hike was a steep hour-long scramble through old cemeteries and a beautiful forest, which reminded me a little bit of the Pacific NW with evergreen trees and wild flowers.
Lijiang is the largest city of the Naxi people, who unlike the Bai have retained much more of their cultural distinctiveness from Han chinese people, including their own written language and religion. As such, their tourist racket was also more highly organized, and the entire traditional city of Lijiang felt like some place in the Epcot center run by a cartel of grandmothers (the Naxi are matriarchal). Tourists in Lijiang tended to be Chinese, which is probably worse in my mind than hippies, because it meant the entire town was full of cheap trinkets and people in costumes harrassing you on the street trying to get you to buy something/ride a yak/take a picture with them, all things that Chinese tourists seem to enjoy but hippies tend to shy away from. Interestingly, most of the non-Chinese tourists seemed to be older Westerners or Japanese back-packers.
In Lijiang, the highlight of the trip was definitely meeting our shaman friend, who offered us an apprenticeship. Switching into anthropological mode,I asked him all about the Naxi religion, which is called Dongba (the word also means shaman, as in our friend is a Dongba). I am not totally clear, but basically the Naxi worship nature, and believe that everyone has a totem, which is determined based on astrological signs. There are deities, but they exist more as spirits than as omnipitent gods. Becoming a shaman is hereditary, our friend is a 18th generation shaman, but also depends on your own astrology, for example, out of all his brothers and sisters, he was the only one trained as a shaman because he was the one with the gift. As a shaman, you must master five fields of learning: astronomy, geography, art, law, and philosophy, as well as writing. Naxi is the last hieroglyphic language in use, and it was interesting to meet someone for whom it was their only written language. The dongba was illiterate in Chinese, so he would write things either in Naxi or using hieroglyphs as a phonetic transliteration of Chinese sounds. After training, a dongba must build up a following of people who want him to perform religious ceremonies for them, and as such, along with taking us around,our dongba spent much of the time we were with him networking with the random locals we met along the way (though most already seemed to know him). He would always introduce us as his apprentices, and then offer us and any various other people around, usually waitstaff or an idle tourguide, a lesson on reading Naxi. Most Naxi are illiterate in their own language, writing the hieroglyphs is a sign of prestige and high learning. It was interesting to see the combination of incredibly traditional (a shaman chanting hieroglyphs to uneducated laymen) and modern (the dongba was constantly on his cell phone, and collecting numbers, which he wrote in hieroglyphs in his little note book.) He made me teach him how to say, "I'd like some wine please" in English, and then transliterated it into Naxi. Besides teaching Naxi, copying ceremonial texts and performing ceremonies, his other source of income is from artwork, which he makes himself and sells. His ultimate goal is to start a school where Naxi traditional culture is passed on to the younger generation. He sells paintings on which he carves/paints traditional images and hieroglyphs for 180 yuan, or about $23. (I agreed to be his agent in Qingdao and America. If anyone is interested, e-mail me at ingebretson@gmail.com or dongba18@hotmail.com)

Besides befriending a shaman, we also went on another hike, this objectively one less strenuous, although the altitude, above 12,000 feet (4050 m) above sea level, made even a simple walk quite difficult. We went to Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, a mountain of about 17,000 feet (it's 5500 meters) above sea level. We took a chairlift to a meadow, with stunning views of snow capped peaks clouded in mist, although the experience was considerably marred by people in native costumes hawking photos, horse rides, trinkets, etc. There was a wooden board trail meant in a loop where we were supposed to 'hike,' although we stepped off for a picnic lunch and also as a little detour, where we found an amazing trail with utterly stunning views. Unfortunately with the altitude began to do us in, and we were so tired and lightheaded we weren't able to do much more than just walk around the board.
On the whole, Yunnan was a gorgeous place, I can't wait to go back and do more serious hiking, as well as see more of the SE area.

guest blogger

So as you may or may not know, I, Sarah Cohodes, have been traveling with the illustrious Britta and Dan throughout Yunnan after spending a few days in Qingdao. We've moved on from Dali, and are now in Lijiang, which contains fewer loopy crunchy white tourists and many Chinese tourists. But the city is really cool with cobblestone roads and canals. Of course, maybe it was all "reconstructed" in 1996, but we're still enjoying it. We capitalized on Britta's penchant for meeting and chatting up random people and ended up hanging out with a Naxi (the local minority) shaman for most of yesterday. He reads and writes Naxi, the last hieroglyphic language still in use, but not a bit of Chinese. Britta seemed to understand his Mandarin very well, however. Anyway, he invited me to come back to Lijiang and be an apprentice in his shop and said he'd find me a Naxi husband. As tempting as it is to make books and live in China, I think I'm going to pass up on the offer -- he's a total chainsmoker.

Off to Beijing tomorrow (for me, B and D are going home). We'll see how I manage with my beyond rudimentary Chinese.

EDIT: This is Britta here, Sarah asked me to add her highlight of the trip, which in her sleep-deprived state she forgot to include. Sarah went to the family of the boy I tutor for dinner one night. The grandmother was concerned that Sarah, a newly-arrived American, wouldn't get enough to eat, so during the meal, she kept force-feeding Sarah lettuce dipped in sauce (the grandma's favorite dish). If she caught Sarah not personally stuffing lettuce in her face, she would grab a piece and stick in in Sarah's mouth.

yunnan

So, as I write this, I am sitting in a tibetan-themed hostel in Dali, a small town in the foothills of the Himalayas. We left Kunming last night on an overnight train, and arrived here early this morning. After some taxi haggling and random wandering, we finally found this hostel. The best part of this place is that it serves large, western-style breakfasts, complete with yak bacon. So far, our trip has been good, although not without small mixups (somehow, we found ourselves wandering around a small random village an hour outside of Kunming yesterday, instead of going to 1)the stone forest, or 2)this village with many ethnic minorities, our original two choices. But anyways, it was still very interesting.) We also met an elderly woman who was part of the "barefoot doctor" program, in which young doctors from large cities were sent into the countryside to serve rural communities. This woman was originally from Shanghai, and because her father and brother had studied in America, and she herself had gone to a mission school, she found herself sent to the remote regions of Yunnan. She said that living with ethnic minorities and teaching them medicine, Chinese, and 'culture' was one of the best experiences of her life. (She bestowed lavish praise on chairman Mao because of it.) Even after she was allowed back to Shanghai, she chose to come back and work in Yunnan. It's interesting to hear different points of view on the cultural revolution, especially after reading Anchee Min's "Becoming Madame Mao," our book club book. It's a semi-fictional biography about Mao's final wife, and I would definitely recommend it.
It's amazing how different Yunnan is from Shandong, or really anywhere else I've been in China (except maybe Chengdu). The climate, the architecture, and the people are all so different, it really doesn't feel like the same country. It was a huge shock to see palm trees. It's also taking a while to get used to "Yunanese," so far, it seems like most people I talk to can understand me perfectly, but I can barely understand them.

Food!

Dan and I are still recovering from last weekend in terms of food and alcohol. First, Sunday lunch we were invited to the house of a student I tutor. The family is a large close-knit peasant family who've worked themselves up through the communist bureaucracy into the upper middle class. However, they live in a large crowded apartment where there are old towels on the sofa, egg crates in the corner and random relatives running around. Nominally, I am there to tutor a 12 year old boy for his up-coming middle school entrance exam. However, whenever I come over (on the weekends), three cousins or so, several of his aunts, and his grandmother all mysteriously show up for the English lessons. And also like the typical extended Chinese family, they are ridiculously hospitable. From the minute I walk in the door, they stuff me with food to eat. On Saturday, they fed me a special sort of doughnut, strawberries, a tomato, a sweet potato, and then a 6 course dinner (not including rice and steamed bread). The next day, they invited me and Dan back for lunch. They are incredibly fastinated by Dan, especially because he is Jewish (they call him "Sylvester Stallone the Jew" but that's another story.), anyways, whenever I come over, they always ask why I don't bring my boyfriend along. For lunch, they went all out, preparing among other things a whole wild chicken, a fish, donkey meat, and something that might have been a bladder with black paste and rice inside. As the guest of honor, they made Dan eat a chicken foot, and also the chicken head. They also made us drink several glasses of beer (in Dan's cases it was several cans of beer). After we couldn't possibly eat any more, I gave the family an English lesson, and then we had to eat more sweet potato and water melon. After about 5 hours, we finally left the house in a food induced stupor. On our way home, a good friend called us up and asked if we could come to her birthday party that evening. So only about an hour and a half later, we found ourselves around the table at a fancy Chinese restaurant. There we had another banquet, this time with birthday cake (Qingdao's finest) and much more copious quantities of beer. The point of a Chinese host is to make the guests eat and drink as much as possible, and the more the host likes you, the more they make you eat and drink. All the dishes were incredibly delicious, and we ate for three more hours, all the while toasting eachother. On top of the other food, my friend also ate birthday noodles, because traditionally the noodles signified long life. Finally around 10:30, Dan and I finally went home, incredibly stuffed and bloated.

mullet X2

On Saturday, Dan decided to get his haircut, and I went along to help with translation. However, after getting to the hair dresser, I decided I would also get a trim while we were there. Before I sat down to get my hair cut, I told Dan's hair cutter to cut shorter in the back but leave it longer on the sides and front. Then, I told my hair cutter that I just wanted to keep my hair long, no layers, and to just cut a little bit. For clarity, I showed him about how much hair I wanted cut off the bottom (about half and inch). However, it seems that: no layers, just a trim must also have the meaning: I want a mullet, and could you make it feathered, please. (For those that don't know what a mullet is, it's one of those short in the front, long in the back haircuts.) On that day I didn't wear my contacts, so after I removed my glasses I really had no clue what he was doing. However, when I put my glasses back on, I saw that not only had he cut the front really short and then feathered it, with multiple cascading layers in the back, but that the two sides were completely uneven. I had one lock of hair at my chin, a good two inches shorter than the rest of my hair, and in the back he had cut a shortish top layer leaving the bottom layer almost untouched. As a recoiled in horror, he went about my head with texturizing scissors, continuing his feathering work. I had to tell him about 3 times stop, (the first two times he ignored, like basically everything else I had told him), and finally I jumped out of the chair. "I'm not done" he protested, but I told him it was fine and ran out the door. Dan also found, after putting on his glasses that the man must have thought it opposite day, because he cut it short on the sides and front and long in the back. After we went home (me muttering furiously the whole way), I had Dan cut off the back and attempt to make my haircut look somewhat normal. He was pretty successful (though I still have a hunk of hair in the front about two inches shorter than the rest). I also tried to fix the back of Dan's hair, with a bit less success (though the bald patches aren't really that noticeable from a distance). All in all though, it cements the fact that I'm not going to get another haircut in China again.

what ever happened to...

Quick update, to all those people who think we've fallen in a pit/moved to Korea, we are back alive and kicking in Qingdao. I am currently writing/editing a bit for an expat magazine in Qingdao, and I am also tutoring the son of a friend of our roommate, which really deserves it's own blog post. Dan is doing nothing (he'll probably object to that). Actually though, we are also both studying 2 hours a day at the same school we were at before. We are enjoying being back in Qingdao, especially now that we can relax, and we don't have visa/teaching at Lee-wen to worry about.

visas

We got back from Korea on Friday night, making our trip a total of 8 days in Korea, a day longer than we were planning. On the whole our trip was good, though getting our visas changed did take longer than we expected (hence the extra day). We went to the Chinese embassy on Monday morning, which turned out to be in the middle of nowhere in Seoul. After walking from the subway stop for about 15 minutes, we arrived at the embassy and saw a big gate. Realizing that we weren't going to be able to waltz in, we went to the side where a guard was stationed. Unfortunately, the guard didn't speak any Chinese or English, but luckily he did understand visa. After we said visa, he said something that sounded vaguely like "Pisa? No no" this was a little alarming, but then he pointed to my map, and somehow communicated that we needed to go somewhere else to get our visa changed. Finally after a subway ride and some wandering around (though surprisingly little wandering around, given that we didn't really know where we were going), we found the Chinese consulate (well, first we found a visa service, where we submitted Dan's visa). They weren't able to change my visa, because I wanted a business visa. At the Chinese consulate you really could just walk in, and so I went in to change my visa. I applied for a business visa, but it turns out the business visa would require me to leave the country every month, which was exactly I was trying to avoid. Instead, I ended up getting a three month tourist visa, which is basically what I wanted. I picked my visa up with no problem, but when we went on Wednesday to get Dan's visa, there was no new visa in it. Finally, it turns out they couldn't give Dan a new visa because he had no pages in his passport. A visa has to be placed on a new page, and when we entered korea, they stamped on his last page. Luckily, the people at the consulate were quite friendly, and they gave us the number of the American embassy and told us to go there and add pages. We called the embassy, but by some weird twist of bad luck, it turns out the American embassy is closed on Wednesdays (we started to think poorly of American bureaucracy). At that point we decided that there would be no way to add pages to Dan's passport and get a new visa all on thursday before 2 pm, so we got our plane tickets changed until Friday. Thursday morning, we went to the American embassy, which also had a big enormous gate with barbed wire. It also had a squad of riot police standing at attention. (Well, half of them were standing at attention, the other half were shivering and looking really bored. I guess the American embassy in South Korea is not a hotbed of excitement). We had to wait in a long ling outside, as the police let us in in groups of fives. After proving we were American citizens, we had to go through a security search, and put all electronic devices into a little locker. Finally, we could go into the consulate itself. There we gave the passport to the woman, and she told us to come back at 11:30 (it was about 9:20 am). We told her we had to be at the Chinese consulate by 11, and she told us to wait. Amazingly, by 10 his passport was ready (we began to think more highly of American bureaucracy). We went back to the Chinese consulate, and the next day we picked up Dan's passport with visa.