Kunming Part 11: New Experiences

The Ju Yuan Lang experience was wonderful, and at the time it got me thinking that maybe I should be opening my mind to actually talking to the strangers that come my way. So I started to actually talk to some of them. But MY GOODNESS, there are so many sketchy people out there in the world who don’t care about you but rather about themselves. And I found myself asking myself, “Why exactly am I talking to these people?” To make friends? I like friends, but I’m not THAT interested in making friends. These people, mainly guys…well actually ONLY guys…would always be trying to ask me out on a date or to go to a club or something. If people ask you that, unless you’re the club type of person, don’t go with them. These people are creepers. I’ve heard many stories of people giving the creepers their number, and then the creepers keep on calling them constantly or sending them strange texts. It’s really not cool.

So why else? To gain a Chinese experience? I realized that as much as I want to obtain as many experiences as possible here in Kunming, I’m not THAT desperate to gain an experience. And I certainly don’t want an experience of THAT sort. So…ultimately I decided I would no longer talk to anymore strangers after Min Dan. Min Dan was a lucky break, but that type of stuff just doesn’t happen. If you want something, there is always a way of getting it without making you uncomfortable or making you do something you don’t want to do…or else it’s just not worth getting. So that’s what I did.

Funny thing was I got lucky again. I got a call from one of the teachers at my school. She was the same teacher who organized the Hanyu Qiao competition. She told me that I sang really well at the Hanyu Qiao competition, and so she wanted me to perform again at one of the school’s graduation events, along with a few other people (Chinese and foreigner alike) who would also be performing. I thought immediately, “This is exactly what I want. If I want an experience, I can get in a way that wasn’t risky.” And this certainly wasn’t risky, it being a school performance. So of course I agreed to do it.

After about a month, we had the performance. It was actually pretty straightforward, nothing extremely special happened. And it wasn’t as fantastic as the other events I’ve participated in, but I’m glad I did it. I did mess up a bit with my song (I forgot a few lines at the end of it…I just repeated the first lines of the chorus again…hopefully it wasn’t too bad). But ultimately, it just gave me a bit more experience of working with Chinese people and how Chinese events are carried out. And I did notice something rather interesting. A lot of the girls, mostly Chinese and one foreign girl, were wearing my hairstyle. I tend to pretty much every day have my hair up in cornrow braids going across my head, and a lot of girls were now doing the same thing. Whether it had anything to do with me or whether they just decided to do it themselves, hehehehe…we’ll let the reader decide, but I’m sure you all know what I like to believe. J

Here's a picture of some of the kids from my class. From left to right, here are their nationalities: Thai, Swiss, German, Swiss, and Canadian. (I'm the only American in my class)