We walked up to a large building, and at around 20 stories, it is the second largest building in the city. Outside the lobby was an aerial picture of a pool table. I started to get excited; I had never played pool in China before. We stepped into the elevator and pressed "6." When the doors opened, we walked onto a floor filled with private Karaoke (KTV) rooms. My heart sank. I hate singing anywhere outside the shower. We sat in the room and I declined to sing, song after song. One of my students asked me what was wrong as others sang along to S.H.E. and Beyond, their happiness apparent. "Well, I really don't like to sing - I don't like KTV," I explained matter-of-factly. I might as well have been a pilot who said, "I don't like to fly." She just couldn't register how a human wouldn't like singing. Every single person in China liked to sing, so why not me? I made the small compromise of staying with them for several hours. I picked some English songs and told the students to download them later. I played the drums on the tabletop and cheered them on. Then I left. One of my students walked me out of the room, down the elevator, out of the building, and to the bus stop. This is a gesture of courtesy, and it seems the closer I get to my students, the more they offer formalities. It's the exact opposite of America, where formalities are barriers to true friendship that are removed as the relationship becomes closer. PictureLater I reflected on their misunderstanding - How could they not know I hated to sing? I realized that the misunderstanding wasn't related to basic likes and dislikes. They treated me to the most expensive KTV bar in the city - this kind of formality and respect in Chinese culture should call for a thankful attitude. And my response was to tell them I didn't like KTV. I am still too American for my own good, being honest with my friends when it's not the time nor the place for such frankness.
China Peace Corps Volunteer Dustin Ooley writes: A Day with my Students
A Day with my Students
PictureYesterday was July 1st and the second anniversary of my Peace Corps service in China. My time in China as a Peace Corps Volunteer is almost complete, and I find my last-minute list overflowing with things I will never do. As a coincidental celebration, some of my students took me to a park in the countryside.
In a back alley downtown, we found the bus we needed to take. I stood in the road and took a picture of the bus tucked in the back alley. A car honked behind me. It honked again. One of my students yelled, "There's a car!" It was only then that I realized and retrospectively heard the two honks. I am so desensitized to the constant noise that I didn't hear a car honking at me in the middle of the road.
These buses are pretty common in Anshun. The main bus station takes people to other cities, but parked in random places throughout the city are buses that will take you to the countryside. I've been on these buses before. The most vivid memory was a trip that included one peasant farmer loading several geese in bags designed for goose transport (there were holes for their heads). Making improvised geese-carrying bags is just one of the many ingenious skills of the Chinese peasants, their innovations developing out of poverty and need.
Our trip didn't include geese this time, but there was an honorable mention: a sound of mewing - the source never accurately determined. The sound was coming from somewhere between a small basket of tools and a bag whose contents could only be inferred from the pig hoof that was sticking out, either waving or making one last stretch for freedom. The bus stopped so many times along the road to pick up new passengers that there were plenty of opportunities to see new animals. I had my fingers crossed for some chickens (I was sorely disappointed).
I'm no expert on cat language, but my best guess on a translation: "Why am I in this bag?" I wanted to respond, "You are going to catch rats in the countryside," but I couldn't speak this cat's dialect.
The views in the countryside make the bus ride worth the money. Getting on a bus in Anshun in the summertime is always a visual treat. Rice is strong enough to be transplanted and spread more evenly, and tall green stalks rise from the water to blanket the farmland. In a deeper Communist system, one might suspect the farmers of working their fields in an effort to make the countryside beautiful solely for my arrival. Karst limestone hills surround these plots of land, cutting peasants off from one another.
When I wasn't caught up in the flora and fauna, I worked with a student at translating the advertisements on the bus seat covers. It's really amazing what they'll write on those things (see this post).
The bus stopped next to a sloping gravel side road, and the driver said that we had arrived. It's common to feel completely lost in the countryside. I felt like I had just hitchhiked with my friends, saw an interesting place to stop, and decided to get out in order to explore.
PictureWe arrived in the park for our picnic and paid the entrance fee. The gravel road led us through some kind of coniferous forest (my knowledge of trees is abominable), the likes of which I haven't seen since being in America. We passed horses along the way, signs that warned against riding them, and people who tried to convince us to ride (for a small fee). We encountered small wet mushrooms, miniature frogs, cloudy lakes, more rice paddies, giant leaves that could be used as makeshift umbrellas, and finally we passed through two walls of trees to a lake where we fought ants and spiders for a decent share of our own picnic food. A small restaurant served us cold noodles, which we then used as the filling for our sandwiches. We ate spicy noodle sandwiches and nearly every kind of Chinese junk food. The closest thing to fruit was either the sunflower seeds or the strawberry fruit flavored fig-newton twinkie-esque snacks. Delicious.
We left the park listening to the new S.H.E. song ("I Love You") on a student's speakerphone. I fell into thought about these students and how much they have done for me. They have treated me better than just about anyone here in China; they are people who I can trust completely. This, I think, is a rare thing when living in a country where language barrier is so much more complicated due to linguistic, cultural, historical, religious, and political barriers. I reflected on the odd pretexts for this unlikely group of friends. Time is the answer to friendship in China. Just spending time with students is a big part of building a friendship - the other stuff comes later, like struggling to maintain a friendship that is satisfactory to them.
We went back to the park entrance, crossed the road, and waited under a canopy of trees for a bus to pass us on this country road. We sat on a long bend in the road, looking down a large, bright tunnel of trees while we listened for the sound of distant engines. Behind us passed two farmers with small whips and large water buffaloes. I sat, Chinese-crouch style and took in the last few minutes of my trip to the countryside. I realized that there was something else that made this place feel uniquely American: silence. It wasn't overflowing with tourists or people in general. It was far from the anxious streets of Anshun and the never-ending youthful gossip of the college where I work.
We rode the bus back in the early afternoon and I was awoken when we hit a pothole that lifted me off the seat. "We are going someplace else now," one of my students said with a mischievous smile. For the rest of the ride I fished for hints but only got a limited amount of information: I was going to have a good time - they were certain of it.
We walked up to a large building, and at around 20 stories, it is the second largest building in the city. Outside the lobby was an aerial picture of a pool table. I started to get excited; I had never played pool in China before. We stepped into the elevator and pressed "6." When the doors opened, we walked onto a floor filled with private Karaoke (KTV) rooms. My heart sank. I hate singing anywhere outside the shower. We sat in the room and I declined to sing, song after song. One of my students asked me what was wrong as others sang along to S.H.E. and Beyond, their happiness apparent. "Well, I really don't like to sing - I don't like KTV," I explained matter-of-factly. I might as well have been a pilot who said, "I don't like to fly." She just couldn't register how a human wouldn't like singing. Every single person in China liked to sing, so why not me? I made the small compromise of staying with them for several hours. I picked some English songs and told the students to download them later. I played the drums on the tabletop and cheered them on. Then I left.
One of my students walked me out of the room, down the elevator, out of the building, and to the bus stop. This is a gesture of courtesy, and it seems the closer I get to my students, the more they offer formalities. It's the exact opposite of America, where formalities are barriers to true friendship that are removed as the relationship becomes closer.
PictureLater I reflected on their misunderstanding - How could they not know I hated to sing? I realized that the misunderstanding wasn't related to basic likes and dislikes. They treated me to the most expensive KTV bar in the city - this kind of formality and respect in Chinese culture should call for a thankful attitude. And my response was to tell them I didn't like KTV. I am still too American for my own good, being honest with my friends when it's not the time nor the place for such frankness.
This was one of my best days in China. Perhaps later I will look back on this day as the one when I waved goodbye to my countryside adventures and a pig hoof sticking out of a bag.
Posted by at July 1, 2009 8:20 p.m.
