Thursday, October 27, 2005
CIGARETTE FACTORY, HOT SPRINGS, NEW TEACHERS AND LUCKY THE PUPPY
Well, Ivan, our language teacher left for graduate school in Holland leaving us with a new teacher. She had lots of experience teaching but was lacking in one important aspect - a command of the English language. Not only did she not speak English she felt that by repeating herself 10 times in Chinese - each as fast as the previous time - we would be able to understand her better. Sorry teach, do not pass go, do not collect 200RMB. After 3 painful lessons we made a group decision to get a new teacher. This one speaks English and starts tomorrow.
I went with my homestay family to the bird and flower market to buy a puppy. After looking through about a dozen cardboard boxes of puppies we found one we liked, a small white dog about 1 month old. The family asked me to name it. I chose Lucky. They thought it was great since Lucky is also the nickname of the daughter. Yeah, that's nice but I was going more along the lines of the dog is lucky for not being eaten. We had Lucky for 2 days. I returned home to have the father tell me 'Lucky is not so lucky.' Apparently, 1 month is too young to be feeding a dog rice...welcome to China, where everyone and everything eats rice. However, 2 days was not enough time to get really attached and we're trying again, this time getting a 1 year-old dog.
Yesterday we went to a 'hot springs' on the edge of Kunming. Chinese attitudes towards nudity and modesty were sharply contrasted by what we saw there. The first thing we saw as we stepped into the men's locker room was a giant statue which for all intents and purposes we will just consider to be an 8ft tall mushroom; with a lot of veins. There were more locker room attendants than people at the hot springs and apparently it is their job to stand next to you and watch you change. That was the wierdest it got for me...I passed on the being toweled down when stepping out of the shower, having them put on my underwear or getting a naked massage from a Chinese businessman but the businessmen seemed to be enjoyinbg all these 'services.' I hear the womens side had 'flavored' swimming pools - strawberry, lemon, milk, alcohol. That might have been preferable.
This morning we went to the Kunming Cigarette Factory [http:www.kmcf.com] We were shown the commune on which its 3000 workers live and were told about production there. KMCF is a small factory here, making 10 billion cigarettes per year. This may seem like a lot until you realize there are 400 million smokers in the country. Assuming the average citizen smokes 10 cigarettes per day that is 1.5 trillion ciarettes per year consumed in this country. They took us to the room with 30 German machines each producing 7000 cigarettes per minute. I had no idea how cigarettes were made but the process is really cool. We then got about 10 'free samples' and a free zippo lighter each. Even the nonsmokers in the group had one, an amusing sight. My Marlboros came in handy and made a great gift.
Well, Ivan, our language teacher left for graduate school in Holland leaving us with a new teacher. She had lots of experience teaching but was lacking in one important aspect - a command of the English language. Not only did she not speak English she felt that by repeating herself 10 times in Chinese - each as fast as the previous time - we would be able to understand her better. Sorry teach, do not pass go, do not collect 200RMB. After 3 painful lessons we made a group decision to get a new teacher. This one speaks English and starts tomorrow.
I went with my homestay family to the bird and flower market to buy a puppy. After looking through about a dozen cardboard boxes of puppies we found one we liked, a small white dog about 1 month old. The family asked me to name it. I chose Lucky. They thought it was great since Lucky is also the nickname of the daughter. Yeah, that's nice but I was going more along the lines of the dog is lucky for not being eaten. We had Lucky for 2 days. I returned home to have the father tell me 'Lucky is not so lucky.' Apparently, 1 month is too young to be feeding a dog rice...welcome to China, where everyone and everything eats rice. However, 2 days was not enough time to get really attached and we're trying again, this time getting a 1 year-old dog.
Yesterday we went to a 'hot springs' on the edge of Kunming. Chinese attitudes towards nudity and modesty were sharply contrasted by what we saw there. The first thing we saw as we stepped into the men's locker room was a giant statue which for all intents and purposes we will just consider to be an 8ft tall mushroom; with a lot of veins. There were more locker room attendants than people at the hot springs and apparently it is their job to stand next to you and watch you change. That was the wierdest it got for me...I passed on the being toweled down when stepping out of the shower, having them put on my underwear or getting a naked massage from a Chinese businessman but the businessmen seemed to be enjoyinbg all these 'services.' I hear the womens side had 'flavored' swimming pools - strawberry, lemon, milk, alcohol. That might have been preferable.
This morning we went to the Kunming Cigarette Factory [http:www.kmcf.com] We were shown the commune on which its 3000 workers live and were told about production there. KMCF is a small factory here, making 10 billion cigarettes per year. This may seem like a lot until you realize there are 400 million smokers in the country. Assuming the average citizen smokes 10 cigarettes per day that is 1.5 trillion ciarettes per year consumed in this country. They took us to the room with 30 German machines each producing 7000 cigarettes per minute. I had no idea how cigarettes were made but the process is really cool. We then got about 10 'free samples' and a free zippo lighter each. Even the nonsmokers in the group had one, an amusing sight. My Marlboros came in handy and made a great gift.
