Tuesday, September 13, 2005
TEACHING ENGLISH, TENGCHONG & A FUNERAL FEAST
You know how people joke about being hungry 30 minutes after eating Chinese food? Well it's true. I've been eating a ton and am still always hungry. The overnight bus to Tengchong (30 miles from the Burmese border) was rather terrifying - winding mountain roads, high speed and such - but we arrived at 7 am yesterday. The guest house was closed so we wandered around town for a bit before finding a school.
I wanted to see if we could teach English and the schoolmaster welcomed us. After teaching a classroom of 9-year-olds for an hour - which I think helped my Chinese more than their English - I put on a show for them with my juggling. I had 100 little kids diving for the ball every time I dropped one.
That afternoon we went to a Han (ethnic Chinese) village near Tengchong. Megan, Dean and I wandered as far uphill as we could and stumbled upon a Taoist shrine and graves amidst the cornfields. The view was spectacular and we really considered ditching the group and hiking to Burma. When we arrived back at the village gates for dinner we set of wandering through town in search of a restaurant. As we entered what appeared to be a restaurant, we quickly realized it was a family's house. They were preparing food for 40+ people as a funeral feats in honor of a grandmother that had just died. We were invited to stay, given the main table and served copious amounts of beef, pork, chicken, duck, lamb, fat, soup, dumplings and other foods which kept coming even after none of us could eat anything more. All they wanted in return was for us to send them a picture of their group plus ours - though we're stopping back today to give them some local rice wine, a pack of Marlboros and some other things in appreciation.
Today we went to a volcano about an hour west of Tengchong. Its amazing, the path and steps (615 each way) up to the volcano were built to accomidate massive amounts of tourists yet in 5 days here, the only other foreigner I've seen in China has been a single German backpacker. Post-volcano we stopped for lunch at this little spot where, for the first time since I've been here someone tried to rip us off - overcharging us 300% for a dish we didn't even order. We then wandered along this river running aside where we ate lunch. We walked past this cave and decided to explore. Led by Chay - our Australian leader, who climbs 20ft. walls in sandals - we descended through the cave, saw some bats and climbed out a narrow exit into the woods by the trail. 5 minutes later we came to a river with clean looking water and went for a swim/bath. It was fun but we'll see if there was anything in that water that will hurry the approach of my viking funeral.
Chinese Tongue Twister (said with varying tones)
Si Shi Si; Shi Shi Shi; Shi Si Shi Shi Si; Si Shi Shi Si Shi (4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40)
You know how people joke about being hungry 30 minutes after eating Chinese food? Well it's true. I've been eating a ton and am still always hungry. The overnight bus to Tengchong (30 miles from the Burmese border) was rather terrifying - winding mountain roads, high speed and such - but we arrived at 7 am yesterday. The guest house was closed so we wandered around town for a bit before finding a school.
I wanted to see if we could teach English and the schoolmaster welcomed us. After teaching a classroom of 9-year-olds for an hour - which I think helped my Chinese more than their English - I put on a show for them with my juggling. I had 100 little kids diving for the ball every time I dropped one.
That afternoon we went to a Han (ethnic Chinese) village near Tengchong. Megan, Dean and I wandered as far uphill as we could and stumbled upon a Taoist shrine and graves amidst the cornfields. The view was spectacular and we really considered ditching the group and hiking to Burma. When we arrived back at the village gates for dinner we set of wandering through town in search of a restaurant. As we entered what appeared to be a restaurant, we quickly realized it was a family's house. They were preparing food for 40+ people as a funeral feats in honor of a grandmother that had just died. We were invited to stay, given the main table and served copious amounts of beef, pork, chicken, duck, lamb, fat, soup, dumplings and other foods which kept coming even after none of us could eat anything more. All they wanted in return was for us to send them a picture of their group plus ours - though we're stopping back today to give them some local rice wine, a pack of Marlboros and some other things in appreciation.
Today we went to a volcano about an hour west of Tengchong. Its amazing, the path and steps (615 each way) up to the volcano were built to accomidate massive amounts of tourists yet in 5 days here, the only other foreigner I've seen in China has been a single German backpacker. Post-volcano we stopped for lunch at this little spot where, for the first time since I've been here someone tried to rip us off - overcharging us 300% for a dish we didn't even order. We then wandered along this river running aside where we ate lunch. We walked past this cave and decided to explore. Led by Chay - our Australian leader, who climbs 20ft. walls in sandals - we descended through the cave, saw some bats and climbed out a narrow exit into the woods by the trail. 5 minutes later we came to a river with clean looking water and went for a swim/bath. It was fun but we'll see if there was anything in that water that will hurry the approach of my viking funeral.
Chinese Tongue Twister (said with varying tones)
Si Shi Si; Shi Shi Shi; Shi Si Shi Shi Si; Si Shi Shi Si Shi (4 is 4, 10 is 10, 14 is 14, 40 is 40)
