Kunming

KUNMING (PART I):

Well…I got what I wanted. I wanted to be scared and completely out of my element and that is exactly what happened.

So…much…Chinese! The language I mean. You know how when you’re driving and you’re about to go on the highway and when you merge into the highway lane you have to speed up to match the speed of the cars going by? I don’t know if it makes any sense, but that’s kind of how I feel right now. I feel like I just stepped on to a really fast conveyor belt or something. My dad and I left for Kunming at about 11:45 this morning. The plane ride was very nice, and there was even a Chinese movie on…with subtitles, luckily. But as soon as we got off the plane and into the airport, things got crazy. The ride that was supposed to bring us to the university didn’t come because they apparently never got my flight information (gasp). No matter…just shake it off and move on. No blame game. Even though it was disappointing and not exactly what I needed after a 3 ½ hour long flight, I was quite confident in my ability to get us a cab.

There were a few “cab drivers” that tried to make us pay 100 RMB to get to the school (the teachers had told us it was no more than 35 RMB), and to be perfectly honest, I was so tired and eager to get away from the airport that I would have done it if it weren’t for my dad. He’s been to China a lot more than I have and (I hope you’re reading this Daddy because I’m admitting it to everyone) though I know more Chinese, HE IS WAY BETTER AT BEING STREET SMART. I’m not going to lie, I’m very trusting of people. Guess I’ll have to work on that. Anyway, so instead of going with those “cab drivers” (I put quotes because they may not have actually been licensed drivers), we waited in a long line with everyone else. The line went fairly fast, and I was able to quite easily communicate with the cab driver about taking us to the university. The total price was 28 RMB, in fact. Win.

From trying to unsuccessfully bargain with expensive “cab drivers” and then getting a REAL cab, once I reached Yunnan Normal University I had to communicate with like five or six different people about how I could register and set up my room.  All in Chinese- this is where the conveyor belt reference comes in. They were speaking so fast, and though I understood a great deal of it, enough to actually maintain the conversation, lately I’ve had a tendency to get down on myself when I don’t understand everything someone’s saying. I’m hard on myself when I have to ask someone to repeat themselves, even harder when I have to ask them again. But one thing I’ve learned in my studies of Chinese and my study of language learning is that the person that is less afraid to make mistakes is the person who is more likely to improve at a faster rate. I will work on this.

Then…because the lady that was in charge of registering and setting up the scholarship students into the school had went home (it was about 5:30 at the time), I had to get set up in a temporary dorm room. After I got set up, I called my pen-pal Shujuan, who I’ve been emailing back and forth for about a month now. Because Shujuan wasn’t very comfortable with communicating in English, I was very nervous about the pen-pal thing. But it really wasn’t that bad, and I got used to emailing her back and forth. But talking to her is a different matter. She was going to help me find a SIM card for my phone, so she called me to figure out where to meet up. She is such a sweet girl, and I can’t wait to meet her, but 1. the phone reception was a little fuzzy and 2. she speaks fluent Chinese, so she speaks fast. Both combined together, I had to ask her a few times what she was saying. As I said before, I’m working on not getting discouraged when I don’t know everything. It’s a process, and I know that by the end of my five months in Kunming, I’ll be SOOO much better. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

So…all in all…today was a tiring day. I’m a little frazzled by the speed of events, how much I overly trust people (“cab drivers”), and how I went from no Chinese at all to Chinese all the time. This first day, I have found Kunming to be quite scary and I would very much like to find an obscure corner and crawl into a little ball. HOWEVER…as I said before, I WOULD NOT HAVE IT ANY OTHER WAY. I LOVE the fact that I’m not completely comfortable here because it means I’m in for a challenge and an adventure. I love the fact that there is so much I don’t know…about Chinese and about Kunming…because it means I have a million opportunities to find out! And once the jet lag and the travel weariness wears off, once I’m all set up in my proper room and have met some of the students and have started my classes, I think I’m REALLY going to love it here. (Oh and P.S. it totally looks like the picture I showed in my last post…pink flowers and all!)

Shanghai

SHANGHAI:

I snapped this one from the window of my hotel. It looked cooler in real life. The buildings are like looming over you and disappear in the sky. It was pretty cool.

I was really happy to be back in Shanghai. Unfortunately, it was foggy all night and the next day up until I left, but still it all seemed familiar again. I was actually really surprised at how familiar it was to me. I remember when I first went to Shanghai in the summer of 2010, and it was a completely different feeling. I was scared and excited, but mostly scared because my Chinese at the time was…um…not good. You know how when you’re studying a language, even if you’ve studied it for years, you still have to get past a specific stage in which you find the confidence to actually use the language?  It’s a necessary stage that can only be passed through immersion…actually USING the language in conversation. Well, I hadn’t gotten past that stage yet, so I wasn’t able to speak. But ANYWAY…being in Shanghai at the time helped me get past that stage and speaking is no problem for me anymore. The problem I generally have now is what to say and how to say it (new vocabulary and grammar).

So knowing that I was pretty comfortable with my Chinese enough to get around Shanghai, I wasn’t really that scared anymore. In addition, during that summer in Shanghai, I went with friends to so many different places, inside Shanghai and right outside the city, had so many experiences, tried so many things, and so I was pretty aware of the general structure of the city and the culture. SHANGHAI = CONQUERED. J

(In fact, it’s one of the reasons why I chose Kunming…for me, Shanghai I believe would have been too easy. It’s too easy to be a foreigner in Shanghai than in Kunming…you can use English and pretty much be totally fine. I believe the same would go for a big city like Beijing as well. I want to feel the same way I did when I first went to Shanghai…scared, challenged, completely out of my element, because it will be that much more awesome when I do get over my fears and conquer the challenges.)

That night we got off the plane, we met up with two of my dad’s co-workers who lived in China (they were Chinese, of course). I had met each of them once before with their families, and I just loved being around them because they’re about the sweetest people you’ll ever meet. So happy and so hospitable! But then again, most of the people I’ve met that are Chinese natives (or Chinese Americans in touch with their heritage) have always been very hospitable, because it is important to their culture. It always encourages me to be more hospitable myself. But most of all, I love the sense of mutual respect that is between them and my dad. It reminds me that even though people come from different cultures, they can always get along if there is a mutual respect and appreciation for each other’s culture. In this case, it would be the co-workers’ Chinese culture and my dad’s Jamaican culture.

So anyway, they took us out to dinner at a really nice Chinese restaurant, and they ordered many traditional dishes. I LOVE IT when people do that because when I go to another country or place with a different culture, I want to get the experience of what it is like to live as a person from that country or culture. In my mind, the experience wouldn’t be real if I simply did the things I was used to in such a situation. One time, my senior year in high school, I went with my science class on a spring break trip to the Peruvian Amazon to study the plants and animals. The first thing I did when I got off the plane was try to find Peruvian food. The first thing that a few of my classmates did was find the nearby McDonalds. Um…I mean, I know Peru is different from America, but I’m thinking at least get in touch with SOME of the culture before you go to a McDonalds (of all places, it doesn’t get much more American than that). Buy a souvenir, talk in Spanish, eat Peruvian ice cream, something! Hahaha…but to each his/her own. It really depends on what type of experience you would like to have, and some people don’t really want the full experience. No problem.

Now what I’m going to say right now is mainly for the people who ever plan on studying abroad in the future. It’s the best advice I can give. YOU’RE EXPERIENCE WILL ALWAYS BE WHAT YOU MAKE IT. Only you can decide what you want to gain from studying abroad…or traveling in general. When I was in Shanghai, the vast majority of my classmates tried their best to gain the best Shanghai experience they could…they were an AMAZING group of people…but there were definitely people at both ends of the scale: there were some that literally threw themselves into trying to learn Chinese, searching for Chinese friends and constantly trying to practice what they learned with everyone they met. Some of them were at a lower class level than me at the start, but I think I could say they were much better in their communication than me in the end. (I promise I was practicing A LOT, it’s just that they did even MORE and I have a lot of respect for them because of it.) But ON THE OTHER HAND, there were some that did virtually nothing to improve their Chinese or gain a Shanghai experience. Often, they remained in their rooms and didn’t see things or meet people. It was because they were scared and in a situation they weren’t used to, and it seemed very much like they were counting down the days until they could get back to America. Unfortunately for them, their Chinese did not improve much at all. I can say this very same story for pretty much every travel experience with a group I’ve ever had, spring break in Peru, 3 weeks in the sheer wilderness in a program called Outward Bound, and I’m sure there will be international students in Kunming who cover both sides of the spectrum as well. But for me, that’s the motto I’m bringing with me to Kunming. I know it can be scary and uncomfortable, but in the long run (unless you really don’t care about learning about other people’s cultures, which is something you’re completely entitled to feeling) I’m sure you won’t regret taking the risk and daring to do what you’re not used to.

I rant A LOT. You’ll be seeing lots of rants in my posts…just as a warning, haha. But anyway, back to the main point: Shanghai. Because of the experiences I had the last time in Shanghai, good and bad, when I returned this time I was not afraid in the least. Win.

For your entertainment, here’s a picture of me in front of Costa Coffee (before boarding the plane to Kunming)…it’s not EXACTLY my last name, but it’s good enough. (It’s also a really good thing you can’t see my eyes too well, because they’re a bit sore from traveling on the plane and therefore not looking too good.)

U.S.

Hello again!  I am here in Kunming and have been for about three days now (since the time I'm writing this).  Sorry it's taken over a week, but it took some time to get settled in and get my Internet set up in my Kunming dorm.  It was pretty complicated.  Anyways...I write a lot.  So...I'm going to put these out in a few different posts, which I will send whenever I have time.  Before I begin, I would like to thank my sister Bernie (it's short for Bernadette...people tend to wonder) for posting these on my blog, seeing as I cannot at this time get at it myself.  These few posts are about my trip all the way to Kunming and then getting set up.  If all goes according to plan, you should see one post a day...I have a lot of posts backed up because I had no Internet.  And since it's the beginning, so many things are happening all at once right now.  Don't worry, things will definitely slow down. Eventually.

US:
I think that for me this was kind of like the kick out of the bird's nest.  I was pretty excited to go, but kind of sad and slightly fearful of leaving home.  I don't know if that's how everyone feels when they go someplace, but that's generally the case with me...even if I'm like going back to college or something.  But very soon (like within a couple minutes) it goes away.  I got the sad/fearful feeling at 4 am when I hopped into the car to go to the airport, watching my house disappear in the distance.  I got the feeling when the airplane took off in Philadelphia and I watched the area where I pretty much grew up disappear in the distance.  Funny thing...the song "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston had been playing in my mind all week, and so it didn't help things when that was the song playing in my head as I left.
BUT ANYWAY...all those feelings went away quite fast and gave way to some other feelings.
Immediately, I started having these conflicting thoughts pop into my mind: "OMG, WHY IN THE WORLD DID I JUST SIGN UP TO GO ALL THE WAY TO KUNMING?" and then, "OMG, THIS IS SO COOL!  I'M GOING ALL THE WAY TO KUNMING!" If you've ever watched the movie Tangled, it was pretty much exactly like what happened when Rapunzel left her house for the first time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh54kvLALhA

(Now everyone, go on Youtube and watch that scene, haha. Youtube in China).

But those feelings soon went away as well, and I feel asleep. That was pretty much the ride to the San Francisco airport.  Not much happened at the airport (that I can remember), and after a little over an hour my dad and I got on the plane to Shanghai.  Now nothing too important happened on this tedious 13 hour (maybe more) trip to Shanghai...we flew north over Alaska and over Siberia and THEN down to Shanghai...I wonder why they do that...why not just fly straight across the Pacific to Shanghai? BUT THEN AGAIN, I'm not an airplane pilot so I'm sure they have a good reason.  But I have two things that I would like to record that were fairly interesting to me.  One: the lady that I was sitting next to happened to know the entire family of the first roommate I had in college. (I don't know how blogs and names work, so I'm going to keep names to a minimum because I can't afford to have any extra problems while I'm in China...but 1st roommate, I hope you're reading this)!  This lady happened to be a fourth-grade teacher at Concordia, a well-known international school in Shanghai.  Had I not known my first roommate, we definitely wouldn't have been able to connect half as much...we talked for a great deal of the flight (when we weren't sleeping, of course) and it was really nice.
Second thing I want to note: I'm slightly scared of heights...I have been for as long as I can remember. I have taken great pains in my lifetime to conquer this fear, but it's very much like exercising to lose weight: you have to work on it regularly, or else it will come back.  So...I didn't mind the taking off too much...it was a little scary, but no problem.  HOWEVER...it was the TURBULENCE on the plane that nearly made me die of fright!  A few hours into the flight, the plane started rumbling and vibrating and shaking.  Ok.  No problem. The rumbling and vibrating kept on for five minutes.  Ooo, not so good.  The plane started rumbling even more.  The overhead said: "Please all passengers and flight attendants return to your seats."  I clutched both handles of the seat, closed my eyes, and began singing hymns, thinking I was gonna die!  Hahahaha.  I could feel my heart about to pump right out of my chest.  As all this was happening, I opened my eyes and looked around.  Can you believe it?  There's people chilling out, watching their movies on the screens in front of them, feeding their babies, and SLEEPING.  I'm there thinking, HOW IN THE WORLD ARE YOU PEOPLE CALM????? The one thing on my mind during the rumbling was 36,000 METERS ABOVE GROUND. 
But with time, I came to realize that rumbling happens from time to time, and when it does, it doesn't mean we're all going to die. Win.
Other than that, it was a nice smooth flight to Shanghai...and my one night in Shanghai I will write about in the next post.

Introduction Before I Leave

Hey everybody! So it looks like I have acquired quite an audience for the stories of my many travels, haha. For this reason mainly, and because it looks like this will be the easiest way to make my posts (I can add pictures and stuff, yay!), I have decided to put my entries on a blog. Warning to the people I have sent this link to before I have left for China (aka- if you're reading this before the 20th of February): I am not completely certain whether this site is accepted in China. Sometimes they block certain American social media websites (Facebook and Youtube are the two big ones I know of). So just as a warning, if you don't see a post within the next two weeks, it will be because I can't get on to this website. During that time, if this be the case, I will try to find a blog site that works in China and then send the link to everyone. And if that doesn't work....I'll  just email the posts to everyone manually. But until then, I'm trying something new by setting up this blog and really hoping that it will work out.

SOOOO...before I go, here is a quick overview about the situation. I will be going to a fascinating city in China called Kunming. It is located in the Yunnan Province, which borders countries like Vietnam, Myanmar, and Laos. I've got a map here of Yunnan Province and a map of Kunming.


Kunming is also known as the Spring City (or City of Eternal Spring) because its temperature remains very moderate throughout the entire year, and its vegetation (especially its flowers) remains fresh all year. Someone once told me that in Kunming, the flowers don't ever wilt! Well, I can't wait to find out!

Another thing about Kunming is that it has a bunch of ethnic minority groups, at least twenty. Many of the groups in fact wear their traditional outfits as a part of regular, every day life. These are the types of outfits I've only seen in movies, and I'm going to be able to see them for myself! (chills)

Though I'll be living in Kunming, one thing that I will certainly have to do while there is go and see the many different places outside of Kunming that Yunnan Province has to offer. One is the town of Lijiang, which has history going back to over 800 years! Another is the famous Shilin, or Stone Forest, where there are so many extremely tall and sometimes narrow rocks all together that it looks very much like a forest! To the left is a picture of Shilin from Google just to show you, but I hope that during the time I'll be able to take some pictures of my own.


I will spend a little over four months in Kunming, and then I will head over to Beijing, have a three week break between programs, and then I will begin my second program at Beijing Language and Culture University for a month. I'll be back in late August, about three or four days before school starts up again at Carnegie Mellon! Can you believe it? But hey, that's adventure for you...and to be perfectly honest I wouldn't have it any other way.

So...why Kunming? Well, I could just say I closed my eyes and pointed to a place on the map and that's where I ended up...but that's not exactly what happened. While I was going through the process of choosing a university, I can't really say I knew a whole lot about all of the different choices...I have to thank my Chinese teacher/advisor for help with that. What I did know was that I wanted to go to a place that tourists didn't go to as much.  So places like Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and Taiwan were out of the question for me. I could go to those places anytime. But I wanted to go to a place that scared me. I wanted to go to a place that would challenge me the most. I wanted to go to a place with really nice scenery, the Chinese scenery I always hear about. And most importantly, I wanted to go to a place where I would see a different side of China...a side of China that is completely different from what one normally can find on television or in movies, but is still no less Chinese than any of the places that are most well-known to the world. That is why I chose Kunming, so that I could obtain the maximum experience where I could learn things about China that I couldn't simply Google or look up on Wikipedia, and where I could improve myself by learning about different cultures and how to respect them.

I would not have been able to do any of this had I not received a huge scholarship called the Chinese Government Scholarship. I got the full scholarship, so it covers pretty much everything except food and plane tickets...I even get a bit of living allowance. I'm still surprised about it all. It's pretty awesome. My university of choice is Yunnan Normal University (Yunnan Shifan Daxue...I'll probably refer to it as ShiDa from now on, because that's what everyone there calls it). From the pictures and clips on Youtube that I've seen, it looks like a great school. And I believe I will have a great learning experience there because it's a school that (from what I've read) has a focus on teaching Chinese language and culture to foreigners. I read that it has programs that teach the teachers about how to teach Chinese to foreigners, so I'm pretty excited about what I'll find. I've studied Mandarin Chinese for almost six years now and spent two months in China before...and though I've gotten a lot better with my Chinese (I can pretty much get around and say necessary things...I just can't talk in paragraphs and talk about really deep and profound stuff), I still have some ways to go. I'm hoping that being in Kunming (where I expect it'll be tough to find too many English-speakers) will help me get to the place where I can truly say I'm pretty fluent...at least I want to be able to watch Chinese movies without help from the subtitles anymore, haha.

Well, I can't think of anything else right now. So next time you'll hear from me, I'll be in China!

P.S.- Take a look at this picture I found of Yunnan Normal University. I NEARLY DIED. Sooooo pretty! Oh, the pictures I take will be many.