Day 2: Chinese New Year Celebration in Weishan

The next morning, the family woke us up at seven in the morning. It was a rough night, since it was very cold and we had no heater in the room. We had further challenges with the bathroom - There was no warm water in the morning. Now we understand, what they were trying to explain us yesterday and why everybody was taking a shower in the afternoon: The warm water is produced through solar panels and there is apparently no warm water in the morning, nor in the evening - We will definitely remember it for the next time.- Ai (the mother of the family) was so kind to prepare some breakfast for us -spicy noodle soup with fried egg. Wow, this is another dimension of "spicy". We rather take some "duzi tong" (Stomach ache) medicine afterwards.

- It is time to leave - We are going by car, Shu Shu is proud of his American Chevron. However, I assume, the cars here are built for Chinese heights - Bastian at least cannot sit straight in the car and that for four hours!

- Did we mention that during the whole ride, they left the windows wide open? While Shu Shu is wearing gloves, we are totally freezing with a temperature of less than 5 degrees outside.

- The more we drive, the more rural the area and the people are getting.Lots of animals, stunning scenery, people on horsewagon, minority tribes, etc. Thinking of the restrooms in those huts, we have the feeling that we will very soon be looking forward to our "quality hole" in Kunming.



- We are stopping somewhere in the mountains at a hut that belongs to a friend of Shu Shu. People here are living very simple, as you can see on the picture above, which shows the living room. There is no electricity and the kitchen only has a simple fireplace. - Nevertheless, the family is very friendly and we are well treated with some local food for lunch.

- Bastian definitely seems to be a bit more sceptical about the food :O)

- A picture with Ai, our host mother.

- After lunch, we moved on to Shu Shu's parents place, a typical houtong about five kilometres away from Weishan.

- Since most of these homes do not have any living room or kitchen, the courtyard is the center of the action, where the family cooks, eats and gathers around...

... or simply plays majong. We were lucky that we learned how to play the game before we left for China. This way, we were easily integrated into the family. More and more people joined throughout the day, after a while we were over 20 people sitting in the courtyard.

- At some point in time, we needed a break. So we went for a short walk with the youngsters of the family, who were able to speak a little bit of English.

- The neighbourhood area

- The houses are not constructed in a way that we are used from the Western part of the world.

Garbage dump just infront of the people's homes.

- As soon as we came back from our walk, Ai was calling us and said that we will go for dinner with some of their friends and families. We were actually feeling a bit uncomfortable, since we were surrounded by so many foreigners, who were not speaking English at all.

- But as it turned out, soon the language barrier was not a problem anymore, as the people were actually drinking (Mau Tai liquor consisting of 58% alcohol) more than they were eating - typical during the Chinese New Year festivities. Every five minutes, a different person stood up and said "gan bei", which basically meant we had to ex a glass full of liquor.

- Well, you can imagine, where the story ends. After less than an hour with a half full stomach, everybody was totally wasted - and it was not 8pm yet. Unbelievable! I wanted to take a picture of this excessive drinking, but was told not to do so, as a police officer was sitting with us at a table.

- To get sober again, the family suggested to take a walk in the Old Town of Weishan. Though, we could not see a lot, we felt that this place is somehow special and decided to come back the next day. We stopped at one stand, where Chinese-horoscope formed candies were made.

Kunming February 2011- First Day: Our adventure begins

Bastian and I will be in China for the next couple of weeks and will be staying in Kunming with a Chinese family. During the week, we will have four hours Chinese lesson a day, but we have planned many exciting trips for the weekends including Guiling, Dali and Shangri La. We are feeling like little students again, but at the same time are totally excited about this adventure ahead of us.

Time to say goodbye to Singapore

- The first day, we wake up at 5.30am, pack the rest of the luggage (Bastian of course forgot half of the stuff). We are starting to get nervous - we only know the family does not speak english at all and works in the hospital.

- In the plane - we have a crash course in Chinese and are trying to learn as much as possible before we arrive in China. Bastian is the only "waiguoren" (foreigner) in the plane - we are getting even more nervous now.
- At the airport we encounter the first challenge - the visa officer asked me in chinese where in Kunming I will be staying and why I do not have a chinese name (???).
- We are picked up by Fei Fei from the Yunan university - she speaks good english and we do not have any communication problems with her.
- On the way to our family, the taxi driver does not find the place. We are stopping infront of a very nice apartemnt (according to Bastian). There is the risk that the next one is not as good as this one, but I am anxious to see a better one.
- Unfortunately we are stopping at a side road, let's call it middle class housing - at least for Chinese standards in second/ third tier cities.
- We are nicely welcomed with oranges and green tea by the host father - from now on also called our ShuShu. Yes, he cannot speak a word english, we try our best to communicate with him. But his daughter Dandi speaks a bit english and is a great helper in translating.

- Evelyn has already the feeling that the toilet might be noting more than what our chinese teacher described as "dunde cesuo"- aka a hole. And oh my god, she is right, there is nothing more than a hole in the ground and a shower on top.

Otherwise the apartment is spacious and we have our own "little" room.

Our room

- Went to the Park nearby their home,everybody looked at the waiguoren aka Bastian.

- We then had some quick food at KFC. Not allowed to eat more, since we will have dinner with the whole family. Nevertheless, we had the very strange feeling, that we may become a very regular customer here.

- Went home, the mother came back from work. She is very nice and chatty, but talks way too fast and sometimes with a weird dialect. We all went for dinner to eat the traditional Guojiiao Mixiang. Back home, the Shu Shu seemed to have promoted us into the family already, as he left the door open,when he did his business in the hole.

- Overall, we had to overcome our first challenges here, especially the culturual difference is extreme.
- Once we closed the door to our room, both of us had to start laughing, a mixture of being shocked and exhausted- and we are just at the beginning of our journey.

- Tomorrow we are leaving for Chinese New Year celebration to the host family in Weishan, a city which is even more rural and remote than Kunming.

Ali and Ma visit in January 2011

Christmas and New Year 2010