Kunming Part 12: Chinese Friends

This’ll be a short one. So after the Ju Yuan Lang anniversary party, Min Dan and I continued hanging out a lot. When I didn’t have san-da (martial arts), Min Dan invited me over to her house for dinner a few times. We’d go to the store and pick up some stuff and then we’d go to her house and I’d help her make the food. She’s a really good cook, and she taught herself how to cook. That’s pretty awesome. I’m really good at making breakfast foods. Bacon, eggs, that kind of stuff. But dinner is not something I can just improvise. I can’t just throw some random meat, vegetables, and spices together and it taste awesome. Min Dan can. And according to Chinese style dinners, she makes quite a few different dishes to eat altogether. Like four or five. Her dinners are ALWAYS ridiculously spicy, but they are so ridiculously good. Man, I’m going to miss those dinners.

Sometimes our other friends (friends she introduced me too who became my own friends) would come to the house and eat dinner and we’d chat (in Chinese) about stuff and they’d help me with my Chinese and they’d tell me about the culture. And then we’d sit in front of her TV and watch some of the many Chinese TV shows that are on TV. I’m definitely getting better at understanding them. I’ve come to the point where I can understand the general story of Chinese movies and TV shows, some better than others, but at times the small details still escape me. So I’ve come pretty darn far. Yay me!

So rather than a long post, here's a compilation of pictures of me and my friends from China (not just Chinese friends, but mostly)...from the beginning of my time in Kunming to the end.

This is my roommate Youya, she's Korean.

That's my Daddy, for those who don't know.

The girl in the middle is Shujuan, my pen-pal. A friend from CMU introduced us and we'd been emailing each other from before I got to Kunming. She was so great while I was there, and if I ever needed any help, she'd always help me out. In fact, she lent me her guitar for my school performances.

This is Tanya, my Canadian friend. We go to class together.

This is Nadja, from Switzerland. (And Dorian, who isn't looking.)

Dorian is looking now, hehe. He's also Swiss. Helen, from Holland, is in the corner on the left. Zhaoxuan, Korean, is in the yellow shirt.

This is me and my head teacher, Zeng Laoshi. She was really sweet and always looking out for her students. Hehe, we always used to tease her about how short she was! Aww, I'm going to miss her. Also, there was a lot of wind in this photo...my hair's not that crazy all by itself, haha.

Me and Youya again

Okay so here's a bunch of photos from KTV with the martial arts gang!

Here's Xiao Xi-xi, Dan-dan, and Dan-Dan's boyfriend. Dan-dan's boyfriend is a taekwondo coach, and the other two are also taekwondo students.

These three are from my San-da class. Lao Zhao, Lao Li, and Tangmi. Tangmi is my girl from Germany. We became pretty much inseparable by the time the end came.

The girl on the left is Qianying, she studies Tai-chi and sometimes she practices with a sword. It's fake, of course, but still cool. We also became good friends.

Now this here was the best shot I could get of my coach and another one of our friends. Our coach, Hou Zhenfang is the guy in the white shirt closest to the camera (second to the left). The one on the far left is Li Wenhao, who sometimes practices taekwondo, sometimes practices san-da. I don't think he's decided which one he wants to learn, hehe. He's a jokester and is always making everyone laugh, but when it comes to pictures, I guess he'll have none of it. Same with coach, but I think he's more just shy. Awww. Yep, DEFINITELY going to miss those two.

These next two pictures are of girls that came in maybe a couple weeks before me and Tangmi left. Jiaolian (coach) pretty much made us their mentors during that time. They were really sweet, and I don't think they always believed they were capable of being strong and powerful...so I definitely think me and Tangmi helped them out in that way by showing them that they could. Definitely gonna miss this crew as well.

There are a few other people from martial arts that I didn't get pictures of, and it's really too bad. But maybe I can steal some from Tangmi. If I do, I'll put them up.

Here's another picture of me and Tangmi, wearing dresses (gasp!). But we thought we'd look nice towards the end of our time at martial arts.

This group of people I met through a friend of a friend who ultimately became my friend, haha. They were on a program that took them around the world to different places. Pretty cool. But all the Asians in this picture are Chinese that live in Kunming. They also became good friends that I had met through other friends. I have just been so lucky to meet so many people from so many different backgrounds and with different stories.

And finally, can't believe I almost forgot, here's Min Dan! This lady to the left is Min Dan's mother, and she looks like ridiculously young for her age. I thought she was our age the first time I saw her.

This is Min Dan's little brother, Wuyi.

Well that's all the pictures I have of my various friends...hopefully later on I can get some more from other friends that show you some of the other friends I met.