Kunming Part 10: Ju Yuan Lang Wedding Company (part III)

Finally, the day came for the anniversary party. I left immediately after classes were over and headed over to the hotel room where the event was being held. My goodness, you should have seen the room! It was gorgeous; I had never seen that many flowers altogether in my life! That’s no exaggeration. There were these huge bouquets of flowers that were about the size of a small oven, and there were maybe ten of them on each long table, and there were like maybe 10 or more tables that were lined next to each other across the room. And then there were flowers that hung across the back of the seats, and there was purple lighting that illuminated the different shades of purple flowers that were in the bouquets and the pinks of the roses. There were white candles in silver stands, and blue lights on the table that looked like ice.

And ultimately the fact that they wanted to dress me up as this pretty angel made sense. As I said before, I was with four or five other people (the rest Chinese, haha) dressed as angels and we were to greet the guests coming in. It really gave the environment an angelic heavenly-ish feel, haha. Ultimately, it was just this really lovely sight and I am so glad I had the opportunity to be a part of it.

The performance went on, and I did what I was supposed to do, leading the speakers up to the podium and then finally performing the dance with Min Dan. And when it was over, we got to all sit down and eat the yummy Chinese catering they had at the event. It was really good.

Ultimately, as we were all sitting together, Min Dan had everyone give me a round of applause fr helping them out, which was cute, and by the end of the program I had just made a bunch of new friends. And here’s one moment that I will just never forget. As I was sitting and talking with one of the friends I had made, he turned and said to me (in Chinese of course), “Thank you for appreciating and respecting China. Thank you for appreciating Chinese people.” And when that happened, it made me think: There it is. That’s what my coming here to China, to Kunming, was all about. I mean, ever since I stepped on to Kunming ground, I realized that I represent all the communities that I am part of. For example, women, black people, or Americans. There’s many more, but those are just three. I’d say my main community though, the one that Chinese people are going to remember the most, is black people. And so everything I’ve done is so that people would be left with a good impression of my communities. If I so much as did something rude or disrespectful, it could change their opinion of my communities for the worse, and they would tell their friends and family about how they met a (insert community here) girl, and this is what she did. (Insert community here) people aren’t nice at all! Stay away from them. OR if I did something really great, it could change their opinion for the better, and they would tell the people they meet that they met a (insert community here) girl and this is what she did. She was a great person! I came here not only to learn from Chinese people, but also through my actions and just being who I am and being respectful, have them learn from me. And I believe in all my time in Kunming, from end of February to mid-July, I have accomplished that.

At the end, when I was getting ready to leave with Min Dan, we had become good friends at this point, Min Dan gives me a huge, long hug, saying, “Thank you, Kexin, you helped me out a lot!”

So…though the way I stumbled on the Ju Yuan Lang wedding company may have been strange and RARE (I won’t be doing it again), but I obtained a rare and wonderful experience of meeting Chinese people…not just Chinese students, but rather Chinese people who were living in the city with different stories and different backgrounds and different incomes. It was an experience I was extremely lucky to have, a once in a lifetime experience.

Here are some pictures of the flowers...I took a bouquet home and took pictures of it...sorry I have none of the actual place...maybe I'll get some later from my friends. If I do, I'll put them up.

These next two pictures were from some extra orchids they gave me.

I actually really like this one picture below, it's kind of deep, hehe.

Of course, the bouquet got smaller after some of the flowers died. And it got smaller and smaller until it was gone. :( But hey, you can't take it with you.

Kunming Part 9: Ju Yuan Lang Wedding Company (part II)

The next time I meet Min Dan is on that weekend. At the KTV place, she had told me that she would like to meet me on the weekend in order to try on dresses. I really had no idea what that meant, except that it had something to do with what I was going to be doing at the anniversary party. But I just went with it and met her at the company’s small store on the weekend. As soon as I step in, she happily greets me and leads me upstairs to their dressing area. I still have no idea what’s going on as they try dress after dress on me, not big old wedding dresses mind you, but short above-the-knee dresses that could very well have been bridesmaid dresses…but I don’t know for sure because I admit I’m not as acquainted with Chinese wedding ceremonies as I feel I should be. What I do know is that they are not the same as American weddings. They still maintain a sense of Chinese tradition to them, but year after year they become more and more modern. For example, before the traditional wedding dress color was red…but now people wear both red and white as well.

Ultimately, the found a dress which they liked on me, a white dress that had these crimped edges but swayed when I spun around. Now, it was a very beautiful dress and I didn’t look bad in it, but I really didn’t like it. I like looking good, but I don’t like looking frumpy and HYPER-feminine. Ugh! Haha, I’m sorry…I’m an athlete and a bit of a tomboy (just a bit), and things like lace and ruffles and flowers usually don’t sit too well with me in general. I’d never wear them of my own accord because I personally wanted to. But I accepted this, even though I was reminded of the chant I and my soccer teammates used to chant when we were young girls (we were about my two little sisters’ ages, actually): “We don’t play with Barbie dolls, we go kicking soccer balls, Sound off! One two!”

So ultimately they decided that this was the best dress to wear…I am just so sorry I don’t have pictures…my camera was out of commission (broken). I will have to ask my friend to send me some pictures, because the pictures from this entire event were amazing. Anyway, they chose this dress, and THEN they proceeded to put WINGS on me…and a TIARA! Whoa-ho-ho…this is far more than I bargained for, but still I went with it just to see how the entire thing would play out. I did feel at times like none of this made sense and I really shouldn’t be agreeing to this, but I just couldn’t let it go. Something just continued to keep me from dropping this thing altogether.

So costume was all figured out, and then my purpose was explained to me. I was to be a kind of “usher/greeter” person. I, with actually four other angels as I found out (darn, I really wish I had pictures of this all), was to stand at the doorway of the event and say “Welcome to Ju Yuan Lang’s (that’s the name of the company) 10^th Year Anniversary Party! Please come in.” In Chinese, of course. Let’s not forget that all these stories have all occurred in Chinese…and I’m proud to say it. All my life I’ve wished to be bilingual…it’s been a secret wish of mine, and now if I’m not completely bilingual, I’m pretty darn close to getting there. But being able to have all these adventures in a completely different language is overwhelming and humbling. I’m really happy.

Anyway, afterwards, during the actual event, a few special persons were to be commended and were going to make speeches. I was to lead some of them up to the stage and then back to their seats. Pretty simple. But that was the end of that next day. But before I left, Min Dan decided she would ask me if I was willing to participate in a dance performance.

Okay, now I’ve seen amateur dance performances in my lifetime, and I don’t like being a part of them…I’m not talking about amateur dance performances choreographed by dancers, I’m talking amateur performances choreographed by people who can’t dance. And though I’m not the best dancer, I’m still alright. Though Carnegie Mellon’s dance performances aren’t at the professional level, they are still quite good (I have danced in a few of them) and so that’s where I set my boundary for good dancing. And I just wasn’t sure if Min Dan was actually a dancer or not. All in all, I did NOT want to do this dance. I told her I was busy and didn’t have the time to rehearse it, which was true…because we had like a week until the performance and I’m thinking she’s going to want to practice like five times this week and so I’m thinking, “No, that’s not what’s going to happen.” But she sighed and said, “Okay, I guess I’ll just perform the dance all by myself.” Now I’m just like my mom in the sense that at times I can be persuaded into things out of pity, and that got me. Darn you, empathy!

So I agreed to meet a little later that week to practice the dance with her. We didn’t meet five times a week like I thought was going to happen; we actually only met twice, on a Thursday and the Saturday. The dance was a simple/easy-to-learn dance, in fact it was the dance to Shakira’s “Waka-waka” from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. And it was quite cute, and I had a fun time learning it. And ultimately, why I had accepted was because Min Dan had done nothing but treat me like a friend the entire time. She took responsibility for me and made sure that I was perfectly comfortable with everything going on. So I took a risk and trusted her, something that I don’t do for strangers at all. This was most certainly an unlikely circumstance that I believe I won’t attempt again…I was simply lucky this time, extremely lucky because it ultimately turned out to be more wonderful than I could have imagined it would be.

We rehearsed the Saturday before the performance (it was on a Tuesday), and then she rented our costumes (two hula grass skirts with leis and a bikini top sort of thing), and then she treated me to dinner. The food was absolutely amazing, but spicy…I would come to find out later that pretty much all Min Dan eats is spicy food, haha. She loves that stuff, hehehehe. And then the big day quickly approached. More next post.

Kunming Part 8: Ju Yuan Lang Wedding Company (part I)

So I apologize again for the delay, there was a bit of confusion over posting the many pictures that were in the last post. However, a change in situation has occurred and I am now happily able to post my own posts. The reason is because I am now in Beijing and the Internet is either a lot better such that I can now get on this website now problem, or the Guesthouse place is using a sort of VPN. But I don't think it's a VPN, because I still can't get on to Facebook. But anyways, yay for being able to post my own posts now! HOWEVER, even though I am in Beijing right now, you won't be hearing about this experience until I'm done posting my Kunming stories. That doesn't mean I'm not writing my Beijing posts...because I am. I'm just keeping them pending until I tell you all my Kunming stories. I believe the posts I post now won't make sense without knowing the back story. So here are my continued Kunming posts:

This story is rather a curious one, because the source of how these events came to unfold is rather peculiar and not something I do often.

Now not long after the Hanyu Qiao Competition reached its end, this event happened. I think what was really cool about it was that it happened before I could even stop and think, “Okay, the competition’s over, now what? I guess life’s going to be back to the normal slow-paced life again.” It may have only been just a few days after the competition was over, and I had just gotten a few moments to breathe. To be perfectly honest, that week (maybe even those couple weeks) were not very nice for me. I had been dealing with a few not-so-nice Chinese people and that very day when I had gone to lunch, the entire time these two Chinese boys decided to “practice their English” and say provoking remarks to me, some of which I won’t actually mention in this blog. Yes indeed, because this type of situation had happened quite often that week, I was not having a very good opinion of Chinese people. And that lunch encounter may very well have been the straw that broke the camel’s back had not something happened when I went to dinner that same day.

I went to Salvador’s, the local Mexican restaurant, for dinner that day. I went by myself because I wanted to eat alone. I didn’t want to talk to anybody, and I was upset. But as I’m sitting there waiting for my food, I see this one Chinese girl walk up the stairs and look around, and the quickly walk back down. But I didn’t think much of it and ultimately went back to minding my own business, whatever I was doing. Next thing I know, not long after my food arrives, the girl is back with another boy and they come up to me and ask if they could sit down. So I’m just there thinking they just want to share the table because there were no other spots (I don’t know why I thought that, people don’t do that…it was an individual table, not one of those long tables where you could possibly fit more than one party at). So I say, “Yeah, okay.” So with big smiles on their faces, they start making small talk with me and I’m like answering their questions and thinking in my mind, “I just want to eat dinner alone.”

Then the girl tells me that the boy is her co-worker and that they work for a company which arranges weddings, sets up the itineraries, buys the flowers, decorates the rooms, arranges catering, sells wedding dresses, etc. The girl’s name was Min Dan and the boy’s name was Xiao Zhi, she was 23 years old and he was 21. And she tells me that their company is having their 10^th anniversary party in a couple of weeks and she asks if I would show up. So I’m like confused, and so I ask her what I have to do. She says I just have to greet people and say welcome to the party. This didn’t seem difficult to me, and even though they were strangers, it really is a regular thing (at least in Kunming) for Chinese to be asking foreigners to help them out with something or teach English, or appear at something. So…I said, okay. She then to thank me she invited me that night to go to KTV with the rest of her co-workers to meet them all. I was a little hesitant about this, but I kind of just held my breath and went, hoping for the best.

Going over to the KTV place, I got to meet all of her co-workers. I was really surprised because they were all really nice, not like the sketchy people I’d meet on the street sometimes, and certainly not like the people I had been encountering those past couple weeks. They acknowledged that I was a foreigner, but they didn’t use stereotypes of foreigners and stuff, which was really nice. They treated me like a friend, not like a stranger, which was exactly what I needed right then. And ultimately, through talking back and forth with the people there, they gained my respect and I gained theirs. It was the first time I had been the only foreigner in a group of Chinese people who didn’t speak English (except for a few sentences and phrases). That made me slightly nervous, but soon enough I gained more confidence. But I really see that night as a triumph on my part, because it was the first time I was able to break through the invisible wall (the wall that divides Chinese and foreigners) into the Chinese community.

Considering those first two months, I thought breaking that wall was impossible. Both sides of the wall are very busy and so if you want to break through you have to REALLY want it. In addition, if you’re going to cross over, whether you’re on one side or the other, your foreign language skills has to be adequate, in my opinion. If you’re not able to communicate the general idea of what you want to say in the other language, you won’t be able to cross over because most people on the other side will not be able to meet you half-way. Some can, most can’t. So I was lucky to have finally reached that level of speaking Chinese. When I went to Shanghai, I hadn’t reached that level, and it was a problem…because even there I was lucky to meet foreign students and even some Chinese students, but wasn’t able to become good friends with those who didn’t speak a good amount of English because I couldn’t meet them half-way and vice-versa. It’s too bad, because they really were some great people.

But now I can. Now I have good friends here, some who don’t speak a word of English and others who speak very little (not enough to communicate) on, and we have still become good friends because FINALLY I can communicate much of what I want to say, and if I can’t communicate it in the right words or grammar, I can use other words that I know to explain what I mean. In fact, I learned this in school last term at CMU, it is actually a very good and beneficial language skill (actually I’d say it was a necessary language skill) to be able to find a way to communicate your message through other means if you don’t know how to actually SAY it correctly. For example, I don’t know how to say “President” (I need to look that up now, actually)...but I do know how to say “the person who leads a country, who has the most power.” So when I say that to my friends, they can understand.

But anyway, I eventually left the KTV place and as I was leaving I even got a hug from one of Min Dan’s co-workers. Min Dan then asked me to come over to their wedding company on the weekend so I could get prepared for the anniversary party. But I will explain all of that in the next entry.

Kunming Part 7: Hanyu Qiao Bisai (cont'd)

Hanyu Qiao Bisai (Part II):

The Hanyu Qiao Competition consists of 4 parts: group presentation, introduction, talent, and then questions and answers. The group presentation is performed at a separate time from the other 3 parts, which are all performed during the individual contestant’s presentation slot. So there would be a group presentation, then like five people doing their individual portion, and then another group presentation, and then another five, and so on. I wasn’t actually worried about the group presentation, the introduction, or the talent sections. I knew that as long as I memorized my skit lines for the group presentation and my script for my introduction (talking about myself for 1 minute), I would be able to speak the Chinese pretty well. And I’m a decent singer and guitar player (my talent was to sing a Chinese song and play the guitar), so if I just practiced that a bit there would be no problem. It was the QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS that I was worried about. I didn’t want much…I just wanted to be able to understand what was asked so that I could come up with some sort of answer and not embarrass myself.

Up until the night before the presentation, I was nervous like crazy. I felt like my hair was going to turn white from being so scared, haha. But the night of the competition, I felt strangely at peace. It was really weird; I just felt like it was all going to be okay. So, I was waiting outside the doors to enter the room and get on the stage, and though everyone was flying around frantically trying to make sure everything was set up properly, I shut all that out and just took a few deep breaths. Then I went on the stage, smiled at the audience, and did my thing. It was nice, my voice didn’t shake, I was at ease, and it just kind of felt like an out of body experience (but then again, it always feels like that when I’m on the stage, because being outgoing and having everyone stare at me is not something I particularly like in my normal nature…I’m kind of shy-ish when not doing some sort of performance). I said my 1-minute introduction, performed my song, and then…THE QUESTIONS. Each person received 2 questions. Everybody, native Chinese and foreigners alike, said the questions were hard and they were right. They were about Chinese culture, geography, tradition, society, and sayings. Most people did not get any of their answers correct, very few got only 1 right, and only one person got both answers right. I got one of the answers right, though I didn’t know it while on the stage. From what they were saying, I thought I got both of them wrong, but then when I got off the stage my teacher came over to me congratulating me because I got one of them right. I was like, wow, I got one right! Yay!

Anyway, the competition continued on, but I didn’t see most of it because I was backstage. Most of the people afterwards just went home, but I was like, “Well, I want to stay to see who wins!” So I stayed until the end of the competition, which was a few hours later, and then the results were announced. In all honesty, most of the results I didn’t understand at all. I understood who got best group performance and such, but then a bunch of individual awards were announced which I didn’t understand at all. I did, however, understand who got first place. I didn’t even need to speak Chinese to understand it, because the reaction of the people around me and the winner was crystal clear. It was this guy from Pakistan who was definitely a shoo-in to win. He was the best out there and it was he who got both questions right.

But I continued to watch the results from “backstage” and…what do you think? The next thing I know is I’m hearing my Chinese name being called up alongside this other guy from Thailand who also was VERY good. His talent was one of the best and his Chinese was amazing...and I knew my talent performance wasn’t bad as well…so I thought maybe I was getting called up for best talent performance. I looked around at everyone and they were like, “Get on up there!” I was there thinking, “well, at least I won something…that’s nice.” And then some people standing up there gave us our prizes, and then some teacher came up and stood in the middle of us and we posed for a few pictures. I was nervous and a little confused as to why I was up there, so I’m pretty sure I gave a half-smile for the pictures. But you know, I was happy to at least have one something. Okay…not going to lie, I was a little disappointed about getting “best talent” because I could have done that with my eyes closed. I have a lot of singing experience already and I felt like it wasn’t something I had to work hard towards and earn. So I was kind of like, “Ugh, don’t take pictures of me…I’m not a winner, I didn’t work hard to get this. This hardly has anything to do with speaking Chinese…” (even though the song was in Chinese).

I got off the stage and people kept saying “congratulations!!” and I’m there giving them a polite smile saying, “Thank you! Thank you!” but deep down inside feeling like, “Ugh, don’t say congratulations, I didn’t DO anything to deserve this. This competition is about my skill in speaking Chinese not in singing songs.” So even though it was nice to get my name called up and to get a nice prize, to me it felt a little embarrassing as well…and all in all I really wasn’t quite certain what it was that I won…the talent thing was only a guess.

So I walked back from the performance building with Linda, my Jamaican Chinese friend, and she said to me “Congratulations!” And then I confessed to her, “Thank you, but I don’t even know what I’ve won!” She said, “You took second place.” I didn’t understand and I said, “Second place what?” I thought maybe she was talking about second place in terms of talent, which made sense to me. She said, “Second place overall.” I was like, “Um, no I didn’t….seriously?” She was like, “Yeah! You tied with the Thai guy. He’s actually the student leader of my class! Congratulations!” I didn’t believe it. I seriously didn’t believe it. No I mean LITERALLY didn’t believe it. I thought maybe there was a mistake, that she heard wrong. But how could she have heard wrong? This girl has lived in China for two years, she was a graduate student at the college, writing 30 page essays in Chinese and other tough stuff. She wouldn’t have just heard wrong. But still I didn’t believe her. Why? Because most of the people in the competition were students at her level of Chinese: graduate students or students of the highest level of undergraduate Chinese. These people had been in China for a few years. I couldn’t understand half of what they were saying. And Linda was trying to tell me that I beat all of these students, including her, except for two of them, one of which I tied with? Not possible. Of course I didn’t believe her. In fact, I didn’t believe it until I looked for the teacher running the competition when she was available two days later. She showed me the results and bam, there was my name at the second slot of the list in line with the kid from Thailand. I was like, whoa. I freaking won.

The competition had a second round to it, which was broadcasted by CCTV (China Central Television). I don’t know who it broadcasted to, but I just hope it didn’t broadcast to all of China. I’m thinking it was a local CCTV version, so only Kunming could see it. But nonetheless, I was on TV. In China. I’d never even been on TV in America. This competition was slightly different, kind of like those America’s Got Talent/Britain’s Got Talent shows were there were three judges, and if they liked us, they each gave us stars. If you got three stars you won for sure. If you got two stars, you moved on to a final round. If you got one star or less, you were done. I do believe that this show was more like a TV show, because it did seem a bit biased. Even the guy from Pakistan who won last time did not win again, and I think many agreed that he deserved to win. But hey, that’s TV for you, no matter what country you’re in…it’s all for ratings. I didn’t win this competition, of course, but I was one of the few to make to the final round though, and I can say that I’m satisfied with that. I wouldn’t have wanted to go to Beijing…these competitions had been going on (meetings, rehearsals, etc.) for over a month, maybe two, and it was draining the energy from me. And I remember one day being called over for a brief rehearsal, but arriving only to find a big CCTV camera there ready to record us performing songs and giving us interviews. It was frightening and embarrassing, but though I’m glad it’s over, to be perfectly honest I’m so glad it happened.

These are things I’d never dreamed I’d be saying I’d accomplished. And I have something to bring back to America to show for it, something more than a souvenir. I’ve got a certificate for my second place, a reminder and a representation of hard work and determination, not just a certificate representing a talent. Every time I look at it, I still think “Wow. I can’t believe that just happened.” It’s amazing, the idea that I didn’t just study in China, I accomplished something in China, I’ve left a sort of impact, putting my name in the records of people who won this competition, at least one of them. Wow. SMH.

But that was only the beginning.

Pics (sorry for the blurriness, a friend was talking the pictures and was not used to the camera):

These are the two hosts of the competition, the girl is Chinese, the guy is British. I believe they are announcing me on to the stage in this picture.

Ooo, yeah, this is tough to see I know. I’m saying my introduction here.

A wider view, with the audience in sight.

 

Getting set up for my talent performance. That pink thing in my hair is the flower my little sister Beverley gave me for Christmas…Beverley, I hope you’re reading this!

It took a moment to get set up. But that gave me some time to calm my nerves and get my head ready for my talent performance.

 

There I be singing. The song was called “随梦而飞” (sui meng er fei), which means “Flying along with the Dream”. It was the theme song from the Chinese movie “江山美人”or in English “An Empress and the Warriors”.

 

Questions and Answers…that’s my “I don’t know what I’m talking about, but I’m gonna say something anyway” face.

 

Questions and Answers…that’s my “hahaha, can I please get off the stage now and quietly slip away?” face.

 

Just got off the stage. Can you guess what face this is?

 

Here with my fellow contestant, Zhaoxuan, from Korea. We spent a lot of time being scared together.

Kunming Part 6

So, I apologize a ton right now to all the people have been like, “What? Where’s Krissy? Have I missed the blogs or something?” Soooo sorry, but I really have been soooo ridiculously busy to the point where my energy has been slowly draining away…it was like, if I added one more thing to my schedule (like writing this blog) it would have been like putting one more marble into a bag, making the bag rip open and all the contents spill out on to the ground. What was I busy doing? Well, in a series of blog posts (which I hope to get out before I leave Kunming) I will be explaining just what exactly I have been doing. But suffice it to say, I think I can safely say I have conquered this city. What I mean is, I no longer have fears in this place, but rather through my experiences that I’ll write about in these weeks, I have come to really feel like I have made a place for myself in the city and with many of its people.

So anyways, because my time is winding to an end and all I have left is my finals week, I have a smidge of time between studying and keeping myself together for writing in this blog. So without further ado, I would like to write about my first big adventure (since the others that I have told you about). It was this particular adventure that for some reason seemed to be the kick start to a completely different Kunming experience. Life after that was no longer slow moving, but rather fast-paced and the adventures kept coming and coming and coming. Here was my experience of the Chinese Bridge Competition (in Chinese, the Hanyu Qiao Bisai).

One day, early in the term, my teacher suddenly asked the class, “So, every year the school has a competition for foreigners speaking Mandarin Chinese…so who wants to volunteer?” We really didn’t get much more information than that, which made me hesitant. I was like, “Dude, my Chinese isn’t good enough to be competing with other people, let alone to be competing IN CHINESE!!” So I didn’t want to do it. But then it occurred to me that I haven’t really done anything exceptionally interesting quite yet, and that it would be wise to jump on every opportunity that I received. So, after a moment’s pause, my hand went up to volunteer, along with another friend of mine from the class. The teacher was delighted and made the class clap for us, which made me even more nervous. I really had absolutely no idea what I had signed up for and what I was getting myself into. NO IDEA. Actually at the time, I felt like my hand was not connected to my brain when it went up, and to be honest for quite a while afterwards when I was doing competition-related stuff I definitely felt like my actions weren’t connected to my brain, like I was just aimlessly doing things, the entire time thinking, “Oh my gosh, I can NOT believe I am doing this.”

We didn’t get much information about the competition for a couple weeks and then the teacher tells us there will be a meeting for the contestants in a few days. At that meeting…I didn’t understand A LOT of what was said…at the time, my listening skills were HORRIBLE. Yes, it was all in Chinese. I was lucky to have my friend translate it for me…gosh, I was lucky. But anyway, we went through a series of meetings which ultimately explained the object of the competition, the content, advice on what to do, and then they had us for groups of 3 to 6 people in which we would ourselves find a skit in Chinese, memorize it, practice it, and then perform it for the performance. Throughout that time, MANY people up and left the competition…they either were busy or just overwhelmed by the stress of the competition and ultimately my friend from my class also left. But I met another girl who helped me translate what was said as well (but at this point I didn’t need it too much because my listening was getting better).

This girl was actually a Jamaican Chinese girl, and I had never met one of those before! I’d only heard about them, and known that they were actually quite a decent-sized population in Jamaica. It’s funny, because I found that even though she was Chinese and I was black, she was just as Jamaican as I was! Her parents both grew up in Jamaica and moved to (well…the Jamaicans reading this can easily guess I’m sure) FLORIDA, haha. So she was an American citizen like me. It was so strange being able to talk to her about ackee and saltfish, patty and bun and cheese, or about my personal favorite, JERK CHICKEN. She was also acquainted with the Jamaican terms just as much as I was, hahaha. I remember one time we were talking in Chinese about the Chinese culture, and she threw out the Jamaican term “duppy”, HAHA! (For those who don’t know, duppy means “ghost”. We had been talking about ghosts.)

Anyway, back to the competition. To be perfectly honest, the REASON why my listening got better was because this competition SCARED ME TO DEATH. It was not on my mind to WIN this competition, or to even place. I was not even concerned about that. It would’ve been nice, but trust me, if you had seen the competitors, you would have done what I did and put that thought out of your head IMMEDIATELY. Of the levels participating in this competition, I was in the second lowest, and from my level of Chinese I had the least experience and the worst listening skills. There was only one girl from the level lower than mine. So basically that made me the second worst contestant in the entire competition…and not even that, because the girl from the lower level had already been there for half a year, I had only been there for two months at the time. I was by far the least experienced with communicating Chinese at the time, knowing that I did not practice speaking very much in America at CMU.

Now if you had seen these contestants and had been at the level I was (which was VERY low), you would have been shaking in your shoes. These contestants were speaking with long sentences and words I didn’t even know. They were not stumbling over their words or pausing to figure out how to say something. Apart from their accents, they sounded almost fluent. They were talking with the teacher and laughing at the jokes she made and making jokes themselves. At the time, I didn’t understand any of it. I just sat there trying to keep my poker face on, but I definitely think the fear may have shown through the poker face. I was terrified.

So ultimately, as I said before, winning was not even a consideration. My goal was to NOT EMBARRASS MYSELF on that stage in front of all those people. I was so scared that I was going to be standing there, the judge would ask me a question that I couldn’t understand (as I said before, IT’S ALL IN CHINESE), and then I would stand there babbling like a fool or just having a blank face in front of all those people. That would be embarrassing. So I threw myself into studying and watching Chinese movies, TV shows, interviews, and just random clips in Chinese. At the time, I had also just began my Kung-fu classes, and so that gave me some extra practice with my Chinese speaking and listening skills as well. I threw myself into it like no other, fueled by probably the most effective motivation a person could have: fueled by fear. I studied, studied, studied yes because I wanted to become fluent in Chinese, but more strongly because I was terrified of not being able to effectively participate in the competition because I couldn’t understand what was being said.

And in the end, I am happy to say that my studying was able to get me where I needed to be. My listening wasn’t as good as the other people’s, but it was enough I guess. And I was lucky to receive some valuable information about Chinese culture from a Chinese co-worker of my dad’s. And then…the competition day arrived.

More next post.

Kunming Part 5

Wow, I’ve been ridiculously busy these past few weeks…sorry I haven’t gotten around to
posting lately.

So what has been up? Well…I recently found some kung-fu classes. Well, actually they’re not
REAL kung-fu classes. Not the ones with swords and flying kicks in the air…sort of. It’s called
散打(san da), if you want to Google it, it’s on Wikipedia under “Sanshou”. San-da/San-

shou is a version of martial arts that was created in the late 20th century for fighters so
that they could still fight aggressively but there were rules preventing them from actually killing
their opponents. At a first glance, it looks more like boxing…except you can use kicks and stuff,
rather than just punches. And you don’t use boxing gloves.

At first, I was a little disappointed that it wasn’t actual kung-fu…but the fact is that kung-fu is
very unpopular in Kunming because (from what they say) they’re not really into that level of
high exercise. So, it’s just about impossible to find it here. But the more I’m getting into this
San-da, I really like it. I’m definitely getting my fitness back, and the muscles that I haven’t seen
since the soccer days. Yay!

Also, you still have to be super flexible too. My coach (he’s like 27 or 28 years old, so he’s not
like an old man, haha) can do a split both sideways and in the center. I’ve tried to do a center
split for maybe six years and I’m still not completely there yet. Ugh. But I’m definitely getting a
lot more chances to stretch, so I’m getting more and more flexible each time.

Just the other day, the coach showed me how he could do one of those forward flips with no
hands. It’s like a cartwheel without any hands. It was pretty awesome. He tried to show me how
to do it too, but at the time I wasn’t ready to be that brave, haha. Next time. Maybe before I leave
Kunming, I’ll be able to do one of those no-hand flips. That would be cool.

My san-da classes are pretty intense too. We meet every day except Mondays for an hour and a
half at night (7:30 to 9 pm). But even though it’s a lot of work, I love it. I’ve missed the feeling
of being tired after a really good workout. There’s another girl there too. It turns out she was
also looking for kung-fu classes and couldn’t find any, so she ended up at this place. She’s
German and doesn’t speak English, so we have to communicate in Chinese. Every time I’m
there there’s absolutely no English. So I definitely get a lot more practice in my Chinese. I really
like it, I’ve definitely think it’s helped my Chinese get better, and definitely motivates me to
work harder. AND…my coach speaks Chinese with an accent I’ve NEVER heard before…I can
tell it’s definitely a more rural accent. But even though he’s speaking “Putonghua”, I still can’t
understand his pronunciation at times. It takes getting used to.

Putonghua is the standard Mandarin…the one I’m studying. Most people in Kunming
speak “Kunminghua”, which is still Mandarin but I can’t understand it. Best way I can describe
it is if you heard an Irish person saying “top of the morning to you”…it’s English, but it’s

not standard English so if you only knew standard English (and you didn’t know commonly
used cultural terms/phrases) you wouldn’t be able to understand. America actually has a lot of
these. “Sup?”, the word “like” as a sentence filler (I like got to the store and like saw a really
cute pair of shoes), LOL, toodle-oo, and like a million more. (These weren’t the best examples,
but I can’t think of the good ones at the moment.) They are English words but not proper English
grammar, they’re slang that you tend to not use in writing papers and stuff. Kunminghua is like
that, I guess.

Anyway, even though my coach is speaking in the Putonghua, I still can’t understand him a lot.
So I’ve been studying new words and exercise vocabulary so that I can better understand him.
It’s definitely incentive to work harder with my Chinese. So that’s good.

More next time.

Kunming Part 4

3/21/12

            Okay, so it seems that my audience has increased by quite a substantial amount. This post is going to be particularly directed towards my new audience: the teammates and classmates of my two little sisters (who are 10 and 8 years old). Hey guys! I think it’s totally awesome that you guys are reading my blog now! I really hope you like it.

So…I don’t believe I’ve done this in my previous posts, but what I would like to do right now is give a better idea of what my life’s like here in Kunming. In order to do this, I’m going to describe one of my typical days in Kunming.

I wake up around 8 or 9 each day and get ready for class. Sometimes in the morning, they play traditional Chinese music at the nearby basketball fields…it’s really loud so I can hear it from my room and I love waking up to it. When I head to class, in the grass nearby there usually are students sitting around, families playing with their little kids, young couples sitting on benches, and people feeding the fish that are in the pond. For now, the weather is cooler in the mornings and evenings, but it gets really hot in the middle of the day. I pass the basketball fields every day to get to class, and there are always people playing basketball. Sometimes they play volleyball, and sometimes they play a little soccer (when the basketball courts have less people). And a few times I saw some guys practicing Chinese kung-fu WITH SWORDS! It was pretty awesome.

Here are the basketball fields:

                                              

I used to get a lot more stares on campus before, but now I think people are getting used to me, haha. It’s more when I walk outside the campus now that I get stares…and mostly from younger children. It’s hilarious when I hear people talking about me in Chinese, and they think I can’t understand them. One time I was walking with friends, and a group of Chinese teenagers took their camera out and tried to sneakily take a picture of us. That was…interesting. But I’m a lot more used to it now. More than anything, I just feel like a movie star walking down the streets.

At lunchtime and dinnertime, I either go to the school’s cafeteria or to a nearby restaurant. If I go to the cafeteria, I fight my way through the crowds of students trying to get food...no lines. I’ve learned in China that you have to learn to push your way through people to get what you want. It’s not that it’s impolite or anything, it’s just how things are done. In America, in a situation it may be more polite to wait your turn, where in China the same situation requires you to push your way to the front or else people will just walk around you. (For example, when ordering food at a popular smaller restaurant or trying to catch a public bus, you HAVE to push your way through or else you’ll never be able to order or you’ll never catch a bus.) That’s something I need to work on. Anyway, if I go to a nearby restaurant, it’s an opportunity to practice my Chinese even more. Sometimes the way they place orders gets complicated and it took me a while to figure out some of the methods, but now I’ve gotten pretty confident. In addition, a lot of the menus are completely in 汉字 (Chinese characters), so the entire menu is covered with characters. It looks like this: 中国饭馆的菜单都有汉字，没有英文字…except there’s a lot more. Unfortunately, unlike English, you can’t just read the characters and know how to pronounce them. You’d have to look them up in an electronic dictionary. (I carry mine everywhere, it helps a LOT.) But now I know more Chinese food names, so I don’t need my dictionary as often. It’s so much fun to order when you actually know how to say the names of the foods. Haha.

Here’s a picture of one of the restaurants serving food. They’re making noodles; this is a picture of the ingredients. (Kunming natives LOVE noodles, I hardly see them eating anything else.)

In the middle of the next picture is a bowl of noodles…a typical noodle dish is a lot of noodles, with some vegetables or meat thrown in, and all mixed into a kind of soup. It’s not bad.

When walking down the street in Kunming, there are a lot of interesting things to see. But don’t get too distracted because there are 小偷 (xiao tou= thieves) everywhere. I’ll write about them in another post. On the street there are two different lanes: one for the cars and buses, and another for bicycles and motorbikes. Bikes and motorbikes are a very common form of transportation in China…they’re fairly affordable, and they take you where you need to go much faster than walking. Sometimes the motorbikes even ride along the sidewalk (where people are walking)…that scared me a few times and I spent much of the time walking with my head looking backwards for fear one would hit me. But I got a hang of what people do here fairly quickly…if you’re in their way, they’ll honk at you and you just walk to the side, no need to be constantly looking backward.

On the side of the street there are a gajillion vendors. People are constantly selling things. There are people selling food they make (grilled meat, grilled vegetables and fruit, and a LOT of fresh pineapple slices on a stick), clothes, cell phone SIM cards, DVDs (but not so much anymore), books, OH AND ANIMALS. The other day, I saw about five or six baskets filled with the cutest little puppies I’ve ever seen. Oh, if only dogs were allowed in the dormitory…I very well may have bought one. (No, I wouldn’t have.) But they really were adorable and they were doing the cute little yipping thing and they had THE SWEETEST LITTLE PUPPY EYES EVER! There was this one fluffy brown one trying to get out of the basket, and I almost died- it was SO CUTE! There are not too many cats around (there are some, just not a lot)…people tell me that the Chinese don’t like cats that much, but they really like dogs. Well, dogs are man’s best friend, so I guess it makes sense.

Lining the roads, there are little stores that sell clothes, shoes, meals, soda, ice cream, smoothies, fruit, breads and cookies, sushi, and sometimes pizza (but that’s really rare…I’ve only found one good pizza store nearby the school so far).

After class, I’ll do the tons of homework that I get (it’s not really that bad), and I’ll grab dinner sometime in the middle of all that. By the time my homework’s done, it’s usually around 8 or 9, and then I get a break. Sometimes I’ll hang out with friends, but most of the time I find a Chinese movie to watch that has no English subtitles (only Chinese subtitles) and then I’ll study some of the words I don’t know. And there are honestly a lot. When I think I know it all, there’s always SO MANY MORE WORDS that I don’t know. If you’re learning a new language, the best thing to do is to not get discouraged. Don’t think about how much you DON’T know…think about how much you DO know. That’s what keeps me from giving up.

Actually, I’ve signed up to do this program where I’m helping high school students learn English. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to talk to Chinese people more (they’re everywhere, but it’s tough to make friends or talk to them because they are busy and have their own schedules…I don’t even get to talk to Shujuan as much as before). I really want to be someone that Chinese people don’t just see walking down the side of the street, but rather at least SOME of them know. I’m very interested in pursuing a career that is heavily based in Chinese relations (what that career is, I’m still deciding), and I think that right now is a great opportunity to get a head start in my personal Chinese relations. What can I say? It can’t hurt, it can only help with my career…and who knows? I may end up meeting someone who I can network with in the future. That would be cool.

But anyway, that’s all for now, another post will be coming up soon. Very soon.